I wouldn't call it schadenfreude, exactly, but at this time of year I
feel an odd mixture of glee that I'm no longer a twenty-something
urbanite scrambling to have the perfect New Year's Eve and a slightly
amused empathy for anyone who is.
When I consider what Dec. 31sts used to be like during that phase of life, it all becomes one blur of so-so entertainment, insufferable crowds, mediocre food and, all too often, anti-climactic midnights.
There was the time my friends and I piled into someone's sprawling Cadillac and drove from San Francisco to Portland, Ore., to see The Pretenders, whose concert we'd just attended the night before, only to find a hand-scrawled note on the door of the auditorium saying the drummer had hurt his wrist and the show was canceled. When the clock struck midnight, instead of gyrating to "Brass In Pocket" and reveling in our collective cool under falling confetti and a spinning mirrored ball, we were drowning our sorrows in watery milkshakes at a low-lit diner.
One New Year's Eve I was scheduled to perform with my tap troupe in an opulent bar called Oz at the top of the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco. It was a well-paying gig and, as I was putting myself through college, I needed to put the budget before socializing
Peeking out from the dressing room, I could see that already most of the couples looked as if they were ready to change partners and groups of friends appeared bored witless by each other's company. Upon discovering that the marble stage area was slick as ice, we had to simplify the entire show just to avoid breaking a limb and our cocktail-infused, companion-maxed audience seemed about as enrapt as if we were delivering a lecture on the plight of the rare and endangered crested newt.
I recall another end-of-year disappointment when my friends and I got soaked as we waited in pelting rain to get into a new club to see a ska band from London. After being herded through the front doors, we were informed that the dance floor was beyond capacity. We therefore heard, but did not actually see the band from a sardine-tin lobby and ended up heading home where we rang in the new year with tea and toast (the bread, not bubbly, variety).
Probably the strangest New Year's Eve I ever had was in New York City, when my boyfriend and I decided to forego the club scene and have a quiet meal instead. He'd dumped me just before Thanksgiving and right after Christmas announced he could not live without me, pleading with me to go on a relationship-restoration jaunt to his hometown for some earnest wining and dining (no doubt in order to help me forget said dumpage).
The restaurant happened to be at West 72nd and Central Park West, right across from the Dakota apartments where John Lennon had been shot just a few years before. After dinner, we stopped and gazed at the arched entrance to the imposing, Germanic stone building, in a sort of delayed stupor at the gravity of the sorrowful event that had taken place there.
Suddenly, a couple came rushing out of the Dakota's inner courtyard, crossing the sidewalk and maneuvering through parked cars and into the street. The gentleman, dressed in a banana-yellow three-piece suit, with a mop of black ringlets covering most of his face, instantly began whistling for a cab. He flagged one down in short order and hurriedly escorted the women, who seemed flustered and none too happy, into the back seat. He did not join her, however, but instead said something to the driver, swung the door shut and gave a quick knock on the trunk.
As we stood observing this odd scene, the man in the yellow suit remained motionless, arms hanging at his sides, gazing at the tail lights of the cab as they rushed away. With a heavy sigh of what could only be interpreted as extreme relief, he walked over to our side of the street and hailed another cab for himself, heading in the other direction. It was at that moment we realized we'd been watching Tiny Tim, he of the tip-toeing through the tulips with a ukulele fame.
The mix of sadness with celebrity sighting made an already peculiar New Year's Eve yet more disquieting. Any thoughts of heading to Times Square to join the churning masses had somehow been duly squelched and we took the subway back over to Brooklyn Heights where we were staying. Midnight had me reflecting on the dumpage, the Dakota and the resigned expression on Tiny Tim's face. I could relate, somehow, and knew that would be the last New Year's Eve I'd spend with my beau who, I realized before the first sip of champagne, wasn't the one for me.
Thereafter, my only yearly resolution has been to celebrate at home with people I love. A lovely tradition along those lines continues tonight, when I'm having a few close friends over for a low-key evening of good conversation, laughter, munchies and music while the kids play board games and compare Christmas loot. The husbands of two friends who'll be here are musicians and both happen to be playing at pubs around the corner, so at some point my beau and I will sneak out to make an appearance and toast the New Year amid the pulsing throngs of our tiny Vermont village.
Cozy soirees notwithstanding, this area offers some marvelously en masse revelry for couples and families at various venues, the highlight being a remarkably innovative and inclusive event at Stratton Mountain Ski Resort in Bondville.
Adults can join in on a group snowshoe hike from the lower slopes up to the Mid-Mountain Lodge for cocktails and then watch two spectacles take place right there on the mountain, both of which can also be viewed from the base lodge: a torch-light parade, in which up to 100 top skiers and snowboarders wind their way down the mountain bearing blazing torches, followed by fireworks that reflect dramatically on all that white stuff. There are special family dinners and kids' parties as well, so it's a wonderful way for everyone to ring in the New Year in true Vermont style.
Happy 2009, everyone. I have a feeling it's going to be full of good change. As the lesser known chorus of "Auld Lang Syne" says, "walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart."
Online: stratton.com
Annie: annieguyoncommunications.com
As my kids fill the front window with ghoulish drawings in anticipation
of tomorrow night's sugary festivities, I find myself haunted by the
ghost of one particular Halloween past.
The United States was submerged in a costly, increasingly questionable war and there was a fierce presidential campaign under way that had become mired in nonstop volleys of divisive accusations and cookie-cutter rhetoric. Hmm ... sound familiar?
It was 1972 and as a budding political junkie, thanks to an activist older sister, even at age 10 I sensed that the escapist fun of Halloween was mightily diluted by what was happening on the political stage. Though parents probably assumed national politics didn't distract us kids from visions of bubble gum and mini Hershey bars, it managed to infiltrate even grade school psyches, casting an ominous cloud over the whimsical proceedings.
Conversations about costumes were peppered with discussions of whose parents were Nixon supporters and whose folks were voting for McGovern. I remember one little girl who proudly wore a Nixon button on her Cinderella outfit during the Halloween parade, telling me that my hippie costume and peace-sign necklace were stupid.
Thanks to a diplomatic and politically engaged teacher, we held mock debates during history class, though I wondered if anyone else had noticed the McGovern bumper sticker on her brown Pinto.
The beginning of that school year was steeped in heavy issues of the day and yet, as Hallow's Eve approached, most kids focused on the pumpkin-carving and sweet loot to come. I had my orange UNICEF boxes folded and at the ready, as well, anticipating plenty of coinage.
My 15-year-old sister, Dale, however, was a bit distracted from all the faux-suspense of Halloween by a very real sense of anticipation that held the nation in its grip. She and her best friend Karen had been volunteering in the McGovern-Shriver campaign and were planning to go out before sundown on Halloween to canvass the neighborhood. I remember thinking how unfair it was that I got to go out and collect candy and she had to pass out fliers and talk about politics. For some reason, I had it in my head that all teenagers had to go door-to-door before elections, the way young adults go to college and grownups go to work — just part of the job description.
At the end of a bountiful night, as I was examining my mountain of Charleston Chews and Sugar Babies — and while Mum confiscated any apples, which in those days were common but regarded as nefarious objects of suspicion, much to the delight of children everywhere — the political activists were sprawled on the couch, exhausted, brooding and seemingly oblivious to my treat-induced rapture.
A week later, while my candy supply prevailed, their hope for the future did not. Nixon won, by a landslide, and my sister was devastated. I remember thinking, as she cried in her room and the adults spoke in somber tones in the kitchen, that we probably wouldn't even have Halloween anymore, since everyone seemed so upset. If the whole family was this distraught, it must mean everything was going to change, as if something apocalyptic had happened that would alter life as I knew it.
But lo, Halloween arrived the next year as per usual and costumed kids went house-to-house with their sacks and flashlights collecting that autumnal windfall of individually wrapped goodies.
Years later, when I became a parent, I was reminded of the joys of this annual costume-candy cocktail, but it wasn't until we experienced Halloween in a tiny rural village that I learned for the first that it can actually be a galvanizing event in terms of community.
In the big city, Halloween is all too anonymous and laced with parental trepidation. Moms and Dads walk their kids right up to every door, later examining their spoils with a metal detector and a klieg light, and it's unheard of to accept anything homemade.
So on our first Halloween in Vermont, when my kids were 4 and 6 years old, it felt a bit like walking into a scene from "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," with its tacit atmosphere of safety and familiarity. In our little village, a sweet, informal parade forms in front of the elementary school and winds its way through a few streets before returning to the gym where the PTO puts on a supper of soup and sandwiches.
Afterwards, flocks of kids criss-cross roads that are blocked off from traffic, with parents strolling casually behind, chatting, or Moms convening on a front porch to give out candy while the Dads are out with the little ones before trading shifts.
When it's my turn to man the fort, I'm always amazed at how many kids I know personally, if I can recognize them behind their masks and make-up, that is.
There's one house up the road that always makes me pinch myself yet again that I am so fortunate to be raising my children in Vermont.
Instead of bearing a vat of store-bought candy, the woman of the house stands at the door holding a bowl brimming with warm, freshly made doughnut holes. It's the most popular stop in town and every year I joke that next time I'm bringing a Thermos of coffee to go with her scrumptious treats.
This year my Mum's cousin Dutchy will be here visiting from England and, as he usually makes his yearly sojourn during the summer, it'll be his first encounter with a proper Hallow's Eve. Some kids trick-or-treat in the UK but it's a very Americanesque holiday that went over on the Hallmark boat, no doubt. They might have their Guy Fawkes Day, with the bonfires and everyone running around saying "Penny for the guy," but there is nothing like an authentic American Halloween to make kids of any age appreciate the chill and expectancy of autumn, not to mention elections.
Dutchy had decided that this year he'd come over to finally experience not only New England foliage, but the American electoral process as well. Little did he know that about a week before the vote-counting, he'd be stationed on my porch handing out candies to 2-foot-high ghosts and diminutive fairies. He'll be equally amused by the big guys as well, since every Halloween at least one teenager seems to show up in one of those rubbery Nixon masks, though this year a few other visages might be in the mix.
And though I will not be taking down my daughter's colorful Obama sign that she made — of her own volition, I might add — that hangs in the window among cut-out pumpkins and squiggly spectres, I do plan to bring in my lawn signs tomorrow night.
Don't want the little tykes tripping over my political activism, no matter who their parents are supporting.
Tracing the origins of the noble Christmas tree is a bit like trying to
figure out who invented egg-nog. Nobody is really sure where the
tradition started but most of us are glad for it.
The Tannenbaum is thought to be an amalgam of cultures and faiths, including pagan sacrifices amid sacred, patron trees a millennium ago, saints investing cone-shaped evergreens with the import of the Holy Trinity in an attempt to convert said pagans and 16th-century guilds bringing their conifers indoors and decorating them with nuts and fruit for children to enjoy on the big day.
Queen Victoria is credited with embedding this element of her German heritage into British holiday festivities, making the Christmas tree a centerpiece of family celebrations in the U.K. and eventually elsewhere as well. Through the decades, various pop-culture trends and interior design aesthetics have spawned new interpretations of this old custom, adding stylized dimensions to the merriment though Queen Vic would not have been amused.
I remember, when I was a wee sprat, pleading with my folks to buy a shimmering, silvery Sempervirens aluminatum, complete with revolving colored strobe light, as so many of my lucky friends had in their homes, but it was to no avail. Even though ours came out of a box it was, alas, standard-issue forest green.
Nevertheless, I got my kitsch fix every Friday night in December during shopping sojourns to Sears & Roebuck when I'd blissfully lose myself in surreal aisles of candy-colored plastic varieties from the genus pom-pomitus species, dreaming of a blue, yellow and fuchsia Christmas.
Not surprisingly, one of my favorite holiday memories is the scene in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" when he and Linus are dispatched by Lucy to "Get the biggest aluminum tree you can find, Charlie Brown, maybe painted pink."
During the 1980s, there was the fad that went one step further, which had people hanging their Christmas trees — faux or fir — upside down from the ceiling. One restaurant I went to in New York City had a 15-foot petroleum beauty suspended in the center of the room. But it looked so precarious, nobody would sit underneath it. That year I tried it at home, with a small flocked spruce upturned and twisting on a rope in my living room, but nearly all its needles fell off because there was no way to water the thing. End of trend, needless to say.
Christmas or not, I have cherished trees in general ever since seventh-grade science class when Miss Gustafson let me write a report on them in lieu of frog dissection. Everything I learned about trees —from photosynthesis and the science of dendrochronology, or tree-ring dating, to the difference between xylem and phloem (both transport tissues with distinct functions) — rendered me yet more awestruck by these silent, towering, foliated sentries.
By the time I finished the report, I was convinced I'd be an arborist or tree expert in one form or another some day, but then I took art history the following year and that was that. Now, I'm just your average tree-hugging hiker who venerates forests and thinks trees are far more resilient and wise than we humans.
It's all too easy to anthropomorphize trees, with their statuesque form and outstretched limbs, but when one considers the age and attendant hardiness of certain specimens, there is a fortitude about them that's only amplified by the teeming backdrop of human history with its pestilence, turmoil and destruction.
Nowhere has this profound sense of arboreal awe washed over me as profoundly as during visits to Sequoia National Park in Central California, where massive elderly trees dwarf not just humans, but civilization itself.
At 2,200 years old, 274 feet high and 102 feet around at its base, General Sherman — the world's largest tree — is one of those natural phenomena that tends to put things in perspective. When one considers that it was but a sapling right about when the Romans were taking over the Mediterranean, well, it makes our life spans seem a tad insignificant in comparison.
The oldest tree in the world, known as Methuselah and estimated to be 4,700 years old, is a gracefully gnarled Great Basin bristlecone pine in the Inyo National Forest about 60 miles north of General Sherman, though its location is not made public in order to protect it. Then there's the Pygmy Forest near Mendocino, Calif., where mature cypress trees shorter than the average person are said to be nearly a thousand years old.
The town I grew up in was named after El Palo Alto, a 900-year-old coast redwood and a source of great pride as historical records show that explorer Gaspar de Portolà camped underneath it with his men in 1729, rendering it a landmark. For a time it became denuded of much of its foliage due to post-industrial revolution soot from a nearby train track. With its skinny trunk and scraggly branches, it always made me think of a wet cat, but today it's much healthier and is even taking on the shape of, dare I say it, a Christmas tree.
I guess I've done a good deal more conifer-worshipping than I'd realized. Needless to say, when the holidays come around, my favorite part is getting to have one right in my living room for an entire month. I absolutely savor the ritual of picking out the tree with my kids — I've changed my ersatz ways and do the farm thing now — watching it get cinched up in one of those giant mesh corsets, carrying it home on top of the car, then dragging it through the house and wrestling it into the stand.
Every night after the kids are abed, I turn all the other lights off and just gaze at it all aglow with five strands of miniature lights and laden with ornaments, candy canes and strands of German tinsel. Trust me, the folks who started the Christmas tree tradition make the best tinsel and it'll satisfy any latent urges for shimmering artificial boughs.
This season, Vermonters have even more reason to be proud of their Christmas trees because just last month a 60-foot gem was ceremoniously removed from the Green Mountain National Forest, strapped into a rather behemoth corset and transported down to D.C. on a flatbed truck to take its place of honor as this year's Capitol Christmas Tree. Now fully festooned with 3,500 ornaments made by local artisans — from miniature birch bark canoes and delicate star baskets to meticulously painted slate and hardwood maple snowflakes — it's a magnificent reminder that Vermont has more trees per capita than any other state.
Vermont's bustling art scene wasn't the only reason I moved here. And to think I first got the notion years ago, watching Bing Crosby in "White Christmas," gleefully head to picturesque but fictitious "Pinetree," Vt.
On that note, happy holidays — and solstice — to all!
Online: www.capitolchristmastree2007.org
The other day I brought home a photograph I'd had framed to give to a
friend for Christmas. Taken by Troy Paiva, a consummate night
photographer out west, it shows a rotund and immobile but poignantly
beautiful 1950s-era Cadillac surrounded by tumbleweeds in a high-desert
junkyard near Joshua Tree National Park, its outdated plates hanging on
by two bolts and unmistakable, one-of-a-kind detailing still distinct.
Admiring the finished piece before wrapping it, I was struck by the notion that when it comes to the ritual of gift-giving, original art is far more than simply a unique tchotchke. It's an unspoken way of honoring someone we care about. We're inspired by what we know to be true about a person, in this case, a passion for classic cars and a shared affinity for a particularly striking part of the country. It also connects diligent artist with devoted art patron, both of whom are unconventional guys who appreciate uncommon perspectives of the world around us.
Try finding all that on a shelf at Wal-Mart.
When I look on my own shelves and walls, I realize I'm fairly well surrounded by heartfelt gifts that came from people who obviously know me well or with whom I share a favorite interest or two.
There's the strange and wonderful small black box that sits atop my mantle and bears the words "Oblique Strategies" in gold along one side. An obtuse, limited-edition objet d'art co-created in 1975 by ambient music guru and producer Brian Eno, it contains a deck of 123 cards, each of which has an enigmatic phrase written on one side, the other being solid black.
Whenever I look through the cards, which say things like "Cut a vital connection" or "Trust in the you of now," half the fun is rereading the crinkly, inky letter I keep folded at the bottom of the box, which accompanied the deck when my Scottish friend Joe sent it a couple of decades ago. Seeing his return Edinburghian address is always a fringe benefit, as it transports me momentarily to one of my favorite cities on the planet and has me reflecting on how far we've come in our lives since then. An Eno disciple on the dole when I first met him, Joe's now a top music-industry exec in London who periodically sends e-mails letting me know that the Right and Honorable Mr. Eno came by his office again that week. So it's turned into a thoroughly groovy gift that keeps on giving, existentially and vicariously.
Likewise, a small, oval container — made of oxidized metal and housing a few ounces of lavender buds under its screened lid — sits on my bookshelf and has come to symbolize a cherished 25-year bond with my good friend Tamara, picture-framer to the stars of the San Francisco art world, who bought it from a local sculptor and gave it to me many moons ago. The powdery patina deepens each year and whenever I refill it with fresh lavender buds, I always think of her — diminutive and strong as steel — just like her cool gift. I've always loved art made with industrial materials and her consideration in combining that with my favorite flower was and still is extraordinarily meaningful to me.
Sitting on the same shelf is a hand-dipped candle given to me by my oldest friend Daphne, which, for the life of me, I cannot burn. It's got sage leaves somehow embedded into it, which is fitting as she's one of the wisest people I've ever known, whose counsel has been an anchor for me since we met in ninth grade 30 years ago. Maybe the next time she visits, we'll light it, but then I won't have it there to remind me of her, so … maybe not.
And then there are the handmade glass earrings that my dear friend Ann gave to me on my last birthday, which, goes without saying, make me think of her and our precious friendship whenever I wear them. No huge analogy there, beyond the fact that they're absolutely extraordinary, wonderfully luminous and positively incomparable, but I'm sure she wasn't thinking any of that when she bought them for me; she just thought they looked like my style and she was right.
The art on my walls pretty much tells my life story as well because of the generosity of various friends who've put great thought into personalized presents over the years.
An 1896 lithograph by William Bradley, depicting a Victorian woman riding on a sturdy, old-fashioned bicycle across a stylized field of poppies, was a thoughtful Mother's Day gift from my kids that was entirely orchestrated by their Dad, who knew it would remind me of my Mum, who'd just passed away. She never drove a car, but rode her trusty Raleigh every day to and from work through a 30-year career. Every time I look at that picture, I think of her, her tenacity, my kids and their terrific Dad.
Above a door in my kitchen is a black-and-white taken by Dirk Bleicker, a photographer friend in Berlin, Germany, who, during a trip to S.F. years ago, took an overhead close-up of the hands of my roommate Iris as they were cracking open an egg over her dress-covered lap and out-of-focus feet below. Her delicate fingers and the familiar pattern of our old kitchen floor beyond them trigger many fond memories of all the talks, soirees and fuzzy-headed breakfasts we shared in that kitchen. When Iris — who has remained a beloved and altogether down-to-earth friend — visited last year, "Das Kleid," or "The Dress," as Dirk chose to call it, made us laugh with all its dramatic eccentricity and it gives me a chuckle and a reminder of her sporting nature every day.
I suppose this is all a case in point that it's also the thought that counts: These folks could give me a bucket of dirt and I'd display it fondly.
Sometimes, though, gifts come from surprising quarters, often bringing unexpected insight into the giver.
Hanging prominently above my couch is a handsome, minimalist etching by eminent Bay Area painter Christopher Brown and its meaning to me is multi-faceted and substantial. A square of stacked, horizontal rows of individually-sketched cannon balls, entitled "60 Good Ways To End a Sentence," it is a perfect marriage of the two most important staples of my intellectual existence: art and writing about art. Brown was immersed in the Civil War when he made the piece nearly 20 years ago and the lines of grapeshot — in light of the literary title he gave it — have always been symbolically motivating to me as a writer, as if urging me to keep loading the cannon, to just keep writing.
The fact that this inspiring prized possession came from the imperious, acerbic gallery owner for whom I worked at the time — when I was fresh out of college and too broke to afford art — offers a lesson about life as well. I still scratch my head over how a person who was seemingly self-absorbed and dismissive could have understood me and my aspirations so acutely as to have bestowed this profoundly significant gift upon me. It's become emblematic of my professional journey and I'll always be grateful that she took the time and consideration to honor who I was and who I wanted to become.
Again, try finding any of that at your local "Tarjay."
With so much high-caliber art surrounding us right here in Southern Vermont, instead of doing the big-box thing this year, I encourage everyone to head to nearby galleries, museum gift shops, craft stores and artists' cooperatives instead, with all the unique traits, tastes and dreams of relatives and friends in mind.
Here are just a few options to get you started — now go forth and buy art!
Online
Sometimes the most delightful discoveries are those made out of
context, when one stumbles upon an unexpected goldmine of one sort or
another and it ends up usurping the original draw of a place or event.
It was just that type of serendipity that led me to one of the most
culturally fertile, intoxicatingly festive sounds known to mankind.
I first heard it one December, about 30 years ago, in the unlikeliest of places. My parents and I were strolling through the bough-bedecked halls of a full-on, Fezziwigged, chestnut-roasting, wine-mulling Dickens Christmas Faire, housed within a warehouse along the San Francisco Bay. I, the captive teenager, was finding it all positively soporific.
Trapped in an ersatz English village — comprising painted cobblestone lanes lined with overpriced boutiques selling corsets and bonnets, sweet shoppes offering "real scones" as dry as sheetrock and clusters of actors feigning social interaction by absolutely murdering Cockney rhyming slang — I'd come to feel that the entire experience demanded a suspension of disbelief not even Golden Gate Bridge engineers could have devised.
Rather than sugarplums dancing in my head, the visions I was having were more about going home and lounging on my shag rug with a pair of headphones and a bottle of Orange Crush. Then something completely out of place pleasantly infiltrated my stupor, an exhilarating mix of vibrant gypsy accordion, lilting clarinet, pounding feet and raucous applause, with a bit of puckish tuba thrown in and it was all refreshingly, unquestionably authentic: Klezmer music, wafting above "London's" rooftops ever so persuasively.
Having evolved in Eastern Europe before the Renaissance, klezmer is a Jewish musical tradition that integrates instruments, intonations and folklore from throughout the Diaspora. A derivation from "kley" which means vessel or instruments and "zemer," or song, klezmer is often sung in original Yiddish and, with themes drawing from centuries of perseverance amidst hardship, it is a joyous celebration of the indefatigable spirit and tenacity of Jewish culture.
Upon hearing this aural elixir, I darted toward it at a fast clip, swishing through a sea of elegant hoop skirts in the Victorian taffeta dress Mum had so patiently made for me. Rudely ditching her and Dad, I was on a mission to find the source of the enticingly rowdy sounds that seemed to be emanating from a dimly lit room at the far end of the "village." Though I love a pretty carol chirped sweetly by Dickensian street urchins as much as the next guy, I was ecstatic to have found something a bit more lively and engaging.
My dad was duly drawn in as well, hearing a constellation of his favorite instruments, including fiddle, flute, trombone and guitar, all of which were being deftly wielded by the boisterous members of The Flying Karamozov Brothers, a multitalented collective that, to this day, incorporates klezmer music into various other skills, such as juggling, folk dancing and slapstick skits.
The music was what mesmerized us, though, and it became a centerpiece of the faire for me and Dad thereafter. While Mum indulged in a time-warp amble down expat lane, he and I would sit enrapt by a feisty gaggle of musicians filling the faux 19th-century pub with rousing tunes whose origins lay along a broad geographic swath of rich Jewish culture from Munich to Morocco and Bulgaria to Bosnia.
The incongruity of hearing Jewish klezmer music in an environment that was as steeped in Christmas as plum pudding in brandy was as wonderfully absurdist as the sardonic sense of humor in the Karamozovs' snappy patter and lyrics.
Their inventive songs were cleverly crafted, with astute references to current events that were at once serious and silly. That dual message in klezmer music has intrigued me since and I've wondered how — considering the staggering adversity faced by Jews throughout history — could their lyrical themes be so full of life, merriment and wry wit.
I gained great insight recently when I spoke with consummate local klezmer authority, fiddler and singer-songwriter, Yosl Kurland, who leads The Wholesale Klezmer Band that will be performing at Congregation Beth El's community Hanukkah celebration in Bennington Friday night.
"There's an expression in Yiddish," he explained, "which is: 'To laugh with tears.' I think that for reasons that have to do with both history and religious outlook on life, laughing with tears is built into the culture."
Though many of the songs that The Wholesale Klezmer Band plays are old compositions from past centuries and distant lands, Kurland's own lyrics — often set against vintage melodies — continue this tradition of infusing hardship and sociopolitical strife with a charmingly droll humor, as in a song they performed last year during a fundraiser for an NPR radio station:
Do you want Scott Ritter to tell you the truth?
Learn how Diebold threatens your dear voting booth?
From Bartok to Chartok and all in between,
Reb Yidl give WAMC some more green.
Since its inception in 1982, The Wholesale Klezmer Band has performed everywhere from private functions and community events to Carnegie Hall, during its 100th Anniversary Celebration of Folk Music concert, and Bill Clinton's presidential inauguration.
With the next few weeks taking them to Hanukkah parties, nursing homes and café gigs, not to mention a benefit concert for a synagogue social action program, The Wholesale Klezmer Band shares its cross-cultural musical traditions with a decidedly diverse audience and to extremely positive ends.
No matter what the setting, it's all about honoring the bountiful heritage of Jewish culture.
"We teach people about the old customs," Kurland says. "One example is at weddings when there's the custom of breaking the glass. This is to remember that there are parts of the world still broken and that we must be mindful of that even at times of greatest joy.
"We rejoice at festivals — it doesn't matter if you're going through great troubles, you still have to rejoice and if you look at history, we've been through tremendous troubles and only humor has allowed us to survive."
It is this bittersweet element of levity prevailing despite sorrow that makes the symbolism of klezmer music resonate so powerfully for everyone, regardless of creed. With deep historical roots and an immensely inviting, invigorating sound, it is an ethnically diverse celebration of the human spirit that resonates globally, particularly at this time of year when, as Dickens put it, "Want is keenly felt and Abundance rejoices."
Part of that rejoicing is in the form of dance, which Kurland heartily encourages, stressing that there is no wrong way to move to klezmer music.
"We like to say that it doesn't matter if you're stepping onto your right or left foot, as long as you're not stepping on someone else's foot."
Join The Wholesale Klezmer Band tomorrow night in Bennington at 6 p.m., where everyone is welcome at Congregation Beth El's annual community Hanukkah party, vegetarian potluck and lighting of the menorah candles. And be sure to wear your dancing shoes!
Online
Annie: annieguyoncommunications.com
Tis better to shop Main Street: A holiday pitch for our local creative economy
In our current economic spiral and with the holidays upon us, it is human nature to gravitate toward the discounts, clearance sales and brand name bargains that populate the papers, airwaves and ether. Hip ads on TV, pithy jingles on the radio, coupons in the dailies and pulsating banner ads online all beckon us to save, save, save yet spend, spend, spend.
With the recent focus on big business blunders and Wall Street woes, however, I’ve begun to question just where our gelt is going and who, specifically, it supports. While I understand that the economy suffers when consumers stop consuming, I look around my own community and consider the plight of struggling sole proprietorships long before worrying about the big boys. I look at the painters, potters, poets, novelists, musicians, photographers, woodworkers, jewelers and other artisans who make a high-quality original works of art but who do not have massive marketing budgets to help sell their wares. I think of farmers who choose to keep their enterprises small and organic in support of the localvore philosophy.
I also marvel at the tenacity and spirit of these folks who could easily abandon their chilly studios for well-heated mega-stores, give up their understaffed shops and go work for a brand name competitor or trade their agricultural ideals for more lucrative crop management. That they choose to stay the course in the face of encroaching corporations is beyond commendable — it’s why we live here and why a day of supporting the economy in our historic downtowns is remarkably pleasant, pragmatic and community-building, if not soul-nourishing.
Still, I’m no saint. About once a year I give in to time and budgetary constraints and stock up on various staples in mass quantities at mega-retailers, all the while tsk-tsking my momentary failure to support small retailers the way I usually do. By the time I’ve made my purchase, whether it’s through an online purveyor of every houseware known to man or in a vast indoor city of avenues lined with oversized cleaning products gleaming beneath a fluorescent sky, I feel just a little bit unclean.
Commercial Goliaths are everywhere you look and, when it comes to warm and fuzzy packaging, it’s hard not to be intoxicated by the marketing machine and buy in, literally and figuratively, to well-crafted ad campaigns. The sorry truth of it is that, between economizing and our easily seduced psyches, at this time of year it’s hard not to get in the car or open a browser and head straight for the most obvious options.
Heck, every year I equip my kids for Vermont winters with “Made in Vietnam” outerwear, ordered from catalogue companies that have brilliantly managed to transform the cultural symbology of a down-home, homespun, rural lifestyle into multibillion dollar industries.
“Experience marketing,” as it’s known in the advertising world, has been part of the retail industry for a couple of decades now and it’s awfully hard to be impervious to its multisensorial charms. Coffee chains surround the customer with carefully chosen aesthetics, music and smells while clothing stores are furnished with enticing leather chairs, exotic plants and chic travel photography. It’s all beautifully staged and makes shopping slightly less tedious, I suppose, but the faux-congeniality that usually goes with the retail chain experience is what kills it for me.
Downtowns in New England offer something that no perfectly appointed brand boutique or bulk bargain mother ship can: a true feeling of participation, belonging and connection. When I head to Bellows Falls to do my errands — choose a bouquet at Halladay’s Florist, buy a new novel at Village Square Booksellers, stock up on light bulbs at J & H Hardware or pick up a CD at Bull’s Eye Music — merchants know me, they know my kids and they impart a feeling of comfort and familiarity that no amount of ersatz-atmosphere or über-selection can replace.
Sure, I could go to the nearby multinational warehouse store to pick up some pens and have a hundred choices but when I go to Snow & Lear office supply on the square, the value is more than just the pens. There’s Nancy, the ever-cheery clerk who will order anything I need and usually knows what it is before I do, most of the time the price is better than the competition and there’s parking right out front. Nothing can compete with that, nor the cute cartoons she clips and tapes to the counter or the paper clock hanging in the door that shows when she’ll be back from lunch.
Talk about experience marketing. This region has it oozing from every warmly lit storefront, jumbled window display and wry proprietor’s grin and it ain’t manufactured and it isn’t the result of millions of dollars of demographic research by suits in big offices. It’s just embedded in the character of the people who make our small towns and villages so unique.
At this time of year my gratitude for local merchants is especially great, whether it’s toy stores or galleries, bath shops or bakeries, and as I look at my list of holiday gifts to buy, I map out routes through nearby vintage downtowns, knowing that I’ll not only very likely find everything I need but I’ll be supporting the region as well.
My favorite thing to get for loved ones is, of course, art and Vermont is a goldmine of one-of-a-kind gifts that were made by hand by people who live and work in our communities. There are purveyors of locally made original items throughout the state, some focusing solely on Vermont artists, while others offer work by craftspeople from around New England.
One of my regular stops is Vermont Artisan Designs, in Brattleboro, where more than 6,000 square feet of space showcases paintings, glassware, jewelry, bowls, furniture and other assorted gifts, 75 percent of which are made in Vermont, with most of the remaining items from the surrounding region. Having opened 40 years ago, the store is testament to the vision and diligence of people like Suzy and Greg Worden, who have owned it for the past two decades and who are committed to supporting the work of high-caliber artists with the store, the fine art gallery upstairs and their online business, Buyvermontart.com.
Greg Worden reckons that, with prices starting at $5 and going into the thousands, it’s a great place for all holiday shoppers wanting to support their local craftspeople. “What we’re trying to do is maintain quality for the same price-point,” he explained recently, “so when you get something from here and see the paper it’s wrapped in, it’s something that everybody can feel good about.”
This type of one-stop shopping from an expansive collection of original works in a broad range of media also satisfies that urban/suburban experience that’s somewhat rare in rural areas. “It used to be a department store,” Worden attests, “so we’ve reclaimed that, in a way.”
There are numerous retail stores in the area offering a similarly pragmatic approach to supporting the creative economy, including Maplewing Artisans in Bellows Falls, the Jelly Bean Tree in Saxtons River, Frog Hollow Craft Center and the Artists Guild in Manchester, Gallery 103 in Chester and the Bennington Arts Guild, to name just a few. And don’t forget Vermont-grown, homemade foodstuffs that can’t be found anywhere else.
Give neighborhood arts and crafts merchants a look this year and ye shall come to holiday parties bearing beautiful gifts that will be loved by the receiver while simultaneously injecting much-needed fuel into our local creative economy. Be assured, too, that original art does not have to be expensive, as Worden will attest.
“Pewter pocket angels are the size of a quarter and they start at $5. You can even carry a pocket Buddha with you.”
Ah, the gift of serenity in the season of shopping. I’ll put that at the top of my list.
Annie: annieguyoncommunications.com
Posted at 11:07 AM in Art, Books, Culture, Holidays & Celebrations, Music, Personal Opinion, Social Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)