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December 17, 2005
decorations
We put up our humble holiday decorations (at least in comparison) last night with the help of my old Oakland housemate Rachel. I had scored a small trash bag full of spruce branches from a greenery give-away that I ran across by chance on the Hopkins campus Friday morning. A funny christmas scene of momentary materialist weakness: university faculty and staff engaging in semi-serious elbowing matches to get at the few precious Magnolia boughs in the pile of holiday greenery that the school dumped in the middle of the quad. It looked as though they had just finished the late-fall trimming of evergreens around campus and were looking for an easy way to get rid of the unwanted greenery. And they succeeded.
I’ve spent the day cranking away on the last round of problem sets and take-home exams and essays. I’m five days from having the first term of grad school behind me. I’ll be glad when it’s done. It’s been fun. And really challenging. And I’ve learned a damn lot. Wikipedia has been my friend, clarifying most things when I get confused. Which has been often. It slowly comes into focus, and I have slowly learned how to attach my probability theory training wheels.
In one of my few study breaks today I walked north through Wyman Park, enjoying the bleach-y smell coming off of the unfrozen stream, the dogs walking their owners in the late-afternoon winter light, and some of the most intricate graffiti I’ve ever seen. Check out the scalloped circles around the edges and the cubist lite design of the letters. And the color!
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December 05, 2005
miracle on 34th street
I have been to America and back; walked into the sea of multicolored lightstrands, porchhanging icicles, waist-high candy canes lit up and planted in the ground like small totems, air-filled holiday icons (santa, rudolph, the grinch), and toy trains that patiently pirouette on on their wooden tracks; taken in the inflatable illuminated snow-globes complete with styrofoam snowstorm, santa and sleigh; seen the parade of cars a block long waiting without a hint of rushhour traffic impatience for a chance to steer their way onto the block, rubberneck from the confines of the vehicle (it’s cold outside, anyhow), and snap a picture with their downloadableprintableemailable digital camera; seen the (sweet) streetart of snowmen made out of old 28” rims, the christmas tree of hubcaps, the crab constructed of sautered shovel-head and garden trimmer blades.
Just one block away from my home, this is Hampden’s own most photographed barn in America. Where t-shirts are sold commemorating the event (“boh ho ho! Merry Christmas!”), people come to gawk because they’ve heard that’s what you’re supposed to do and we’re in the holiday spirit anyhow, and folks line up and file somberly past creshes as though at a viewing.
“What was 34th Street like before it was photographed?” I say. “What did it look like, how was it different from other blocks, how was it similar to other blocks? We can’t answer these questions because we’ve read the signs, seen the people snapping the pictures. We can’t get outside the aura. We’re part of the aura. We’re here, we’re now.”
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