September 2010
Into the yellow
It has always been interesting to me the effects that color have on people. I have been taught that certain colors have uniform human responses and connotations. For example, the color yellow is never to be used in restaurants because it enhances the anxiety level that people have. Secondly, yellow, in our vernacular, is a term that denotes cowardice. At the moment I am sitting outside a stable in Driggs, Idaho looking at the Aspen leaves turn yellow and having a sandwich. I don't feel anxious and certainly hope that I maintain the modicum of courage it takes to continue my dressage lesson. I do believe in the scientific studies that respect the stimulus that color imposes on people yet as with all things timing is everything. I find yellow beautiful and if you consider gold a yellow, it, as a color, is the backbone of all jewelry throughout time. I hope that everybody has had the opportunity to hold a gold coin in their hand. There is something very humanistic about gold and if history serves to educate, the pursuit of gold has been one of the most important pursuits that has ever existed. Platinum does not inspire the way gold does in chunk form. There is still a bit of gold mixed in with the deep butter yellow color of the Aspens. The trees remind me of Mali garnet (tsavorite from Mali) or very yellow chrysoberyl. They are both stones worth looking into as they are wonderful fall tones of yellow that work well with all the autumn colors. It is Indian summer in Idaho.
Posted by varney on 09/17/2010 in |
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Mixed Tapes
I had an ex-girlfriend send me a mixed tape this week. I loved it, yet have no idea what it is supposed to mean. Actually I have no idea what a mixed tape meant the many times I got them in high school or college. They, the tapes, could have referenced my love interests disdain for my taste in music. The tapes could represent things that women wanted to tell me but could not verbalize, or they could have been a simple, gracious way of giving a gift meant to please and educate. There is great mystery in a mixed tape, and I find them to be one of the best gifts one can receive, even if one hates the music. In that case, it can make for a duel meant for Carnegie Hall.
Last evening I went to Sonny Rollins' 80th birthday party at The Beacon Theater, with my friend Beth Anne. Her boyfriend is in the band and it was a marvelous concert and backstage party. I came to realize that the NYC jazz scene is very different then the NOLA one. Several of the performers (Roy Hargrove and Ornette Coleman) mentioned that they had not been invited to the Crescent City. I find that separate camp thing rather interesting. There is a distinctly different feel to jazz in New Orleans to that played in New York. If you go enough, it's very easy to tell. I have always chalked it up to the difference between the organic manner that people play down South, to the more straightforward thing going in New York. But there is more to it, I just don't know what it is. Do you think that Sonny Rollins made mixed tapes for the ladies? There is one mixed tape that I have and listen to all the time. It might be my favorite music, and it is the last vestige of a brief love affair that recalls the halcyon days of college and my late-twenties. I feel some guilt listening to it with women in my life to this day. It still speaks to me.
Posted by varney on 09/12/2010 in |
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The German Forest
The chainsaw I own has become a very important source of pleasure the last several days. The cedar trees that are giving my apple trees cedar blight have gone the way of the dodo. I do admit that they have a particular purple-rose tint in sections of the wood that I find especially interesting. A bit like a mortgage lifter tomato. The class I took on heirloom tomatoes at Blackberry Farm has my OCD working overtime. Anyway, as the trees came down the evening light started to hit the ground in the most beautiful stripes. The oaks starting to announce themselves more as statement trees rather than part of the forest. The whole thing is very rewarding. I plan to do a number of renderings tonight and stamp them Stanfordville. Back to basics.
Posted by varney on 09/04/2010 in |
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Strawberry Fields
Upon my return to New York City, from Blackberry Farm, I did what anyone who grew up in the city might do on a hot summer evening. I met a friend for dinner in Central Park. In order to continue the theme of going places named after berries and to the reverse the tenor of solitude, we chose the Imagine mosaic in Strawberry Fields. I arrived early, and had the great pleasure of sitting and watching all of humanity walk by and pose with the circular design that is embedded in the pavement. Some of the worlds biggest freaks came by to examine the scene; coming down from their high, smile with their girlfriends, or fall in love. I can't think of anything that would seem out of bounds at this little intersection just off 72nd Street and Central Park West. Strawberry Fields has long been a pilgrimage for Beatles fans eager to visit the place Lennon used to go in the mornings to write his music. He was later shot in front of his apartment building, The Dakota, across the street. That evening, however, one particular person caught my attention. It was a boy of about eleven-years-old. He looked like any eleven-year-old might, yet he and his family made quite a show of photographing him with the mosaic; the boy making dance gestures, holding his rocket pop and grinning ear to ear. It was very impressive to see this little showman run off all the freaks and tourists.Yet, there is a history and relevance to this place that belongs to a generation that this kid was not part of, and to some extent neither am I. (I do remember driving by The Dakota on the way to school and seeing all the photographers on the morning Lennon was shot, but was really unsure of who the man was) The boy has not yet had the life opportunity to hear the music and make his tribute something that comes from him.