Sign on an abandoned business
Mark K June 27th, 2009
The business was called “Green Fusion” and used to sell eco-friendly products. Judging by the looks of the plants trapped inside, “Brown Fission” might be a more fitting name.
Have you ever seen anyone doing grafitti?
Mark K May 21st, 2009
You see grafitti everywhere – well, maybe not the spectacular mural pictured here, but you see the scribbling on a bathroom wall, the spraypainted tags on a bus shelter, or a political slogan on the side of a building. The strange thing, when I think about it, is that I’ve never really seen anyone creating the grafitti.
Maybe that’s not totally true – I’m pretty sure I’ve seen someone write something – a phone number, a joke, or a stick figure. The ones that amaze me are the huge murals that you see in cities. You’re driving down the freeway and there is a huge, multi-colored work of art – something that probably took hours to create with sophisticated equipment and perhaps a team of talented artists. They are often placed somewhere that seems almost impossible to reach – you would need a ladder, scaffolding, or mountain-climbing equipment. Beside that, you would have to remain perched, hanging over a freeway for hours. Surely, even in the middle of the night, someone would see you and the police would be notified. How is it possible for someone to remain in such a precarious position long enough to complete the task?
There are people who believe the lunar landing is a giant hoax, that NASA didn’t really send men to the moon, but rather created the illusion in some Hollywood studio. Do we really know that people create these masterpieces of street art? Is it possible that invisible aliens come in the dead of night and splash them on the wall with air brush light sabers in a instant when no cars are passing?
I wasn’t present on the moon in 1969, so I can’t say definitively whether or not the astronauts landed there. And to this day, I’ve never seen grafitti artists at work, so I don’t really know if there works are created by people.
But I’m still looking.
Is it possible to have too much empathy?
Mark K May 15th, 2009
Is it possible to have too much empathy?
Not long ago I ran into a woman walking down the street of my hometown, who I recognized from a local greeting card shop. She was dressed in black, as always, with layers of clothing from her extra-long sweater down to her peasant skirt and old-fashioned lace-up boots. She looked almost like a person in mourning, but more thoughtful than sad.
I remember once when I bought a sympathy card at the store where she worked. She looked at the card and then at me with an expression of grave concern and then told me that she was sorry about my loss. The card was for a friend of mine who had lost his father. I had never met the father, so even though I appreciated her concern, I felt that I wasn’t really a deserving recipient, being so far removed from the loss.
When I saw the woman in black walking down the street, it reminded me that I hadn’t seen her at the store for a long time. I wondered if perhaps she had such an abundance of empathy that she could no longer tolerate the extremes of emotion that she experienced as people purchased cards to celebrate, grieve or give thanks. Had someone complained that she was too personable, that she was too curious about why customers were buying cards?
I was reminded of the character from “The Secret Lives of Bees” who took on the sorrow of those around her. In order to cope with the pain, she build a miniature wailing wall in her back yard. Whenever she absorbed the sadness of those she loved, she would write about it and then rush outside where she folded the paper and stuffed into a crack between the rocks of her wall.
The card shop closed recently. Perhaps the lady in black has found another way to put her gift of empathy to use. Hopefully she has her own version of a wailing wall to protect her when the feelings get too intense.
Solo Flight
Mark K March 7th, 2009
My daughter had her first “solo” driving experience last night, although she got a little help from the control tower.
Talia passed her driving test last month, but still hadn’t driven anywhere alone. She called me while I was at a noisy restaurant and told me that she wanted to meet her friend at the movie theater. Could she drive there alone?
I told her that that was fine with me and she said that she was a little nervous about finding her way to the theater. Could she keep her phone on speakerphone and talk to me while she was driving?
Throughout the process of learning to drive, Talia has had an amusing habit of providing “play by play” commentary as she nervously encounters challenges: “Oh no, there’s a car coming, what do I do now?” She spits out the words rapid-fire, talking to herself as much as she’s asking me a question.
I agreed to be her co-pilot from a distance and quickly paid my bill and left the noisy restaurant. I started walking home, talking with her as I walked, and even saw her from a distance, taking her first wrong turn.
“Dad, what do I do now? I’m at that busy intersection and I think I just went the wrong way!”
One thing I’ve noticed as my children have grown up – for some reason kids don’t seem to be paying attention to where they’re going nowadays as their parents ferry them from place to place. Maybe it’s because they’re paying attention to their Gameboys and i-pods, maybe it’s because they rarely walk or ride their bikes anywhere. My son recently asked me for driving directions to another theater in our hometown. When I told him that it was on the corner of 4th and A Streets, he asked me where that was. When I responded that 4th St. is the main street of the town where he has lived his entire life, he said, “I didn’t know that was the name of that street!”
Talia wasn’t really that far off course – she was just taking an alternate route. She kept me informed of the landmarks that she was passing – “Redhill Shopping Center is on my right. Now I’m passing Drake High School.”
We lost our connection when she unsuccessfully attempted to merge and headed down a different road, out of cell phone range. She went around in a circle until she was back on course and then called me back.
“I’m passing the theater now. Where do I park?”
I guided her from one parking lot to a second one, but they were both full. The DMV no longer requires that you learn to parallel park in order to pass your driving test. I think she and I practiced parallel parking once – on a space that was long enough for three cars.
She drove around the streets near the theater – “There’s a space! No, it’s a loading zone. There’s another one! No, I would have to parallel park.”
She became exasperated when pedestrians had the audacity to cross the street in front of her – “Someone’s walking right in front of the car! I think he’s trying to get run over!”
Meanwhile I was nearing my house – we had traveled almost the same distance. It must have been a strange sight to see me laughing and shouting instructions into my phone as I walked down the sidewalk in the dark.
Finally she found a space large enough to park, but in front of a “dark and creepy park” far from the theater. She was already late for the movie, so this one would have to do. She parked the car and I heard the beeping sounds as she locked the door.
Safely on the tarmac, she said goodbye. I told her to call me if she needed help for the drive home.
She arrived home safely a couple of hours later. “Why didn’t you call? I asked.
“I know my way home, Dad,” she said.
I guess she was paying attention after all.
Writing in Paris
Mark K November 10th, 2008
When we traveled to France in October, I arrived a little early so that I could spend some time in Paris and take the opportunity to write about what I experienced. I spent my days alternating between being a tourist – trying to see as many sights as I could, and being a “flaneur” – someone who wanders without a plan, taking time to notice things along the way. When I returned to my apartment, I sat at my writer’s table and listened to the foot traffic outside my window while I gathered my thoughts.Paris is such a lively city with such a tradition of creativity – from artists to writers to philosophers – that I found plenty of inspiration for stories. I would usually go through the photos that I had taken that day and use that as a starting point.
I found that it was sometimes a struggle to listen for my own story – to read and listen to what others had to say about Paris, but to be open to my own interpretation of the experience, which often required me to pay more attention to my feelings and intuition, and less to analytical thought.
I think that’s why I enjoy the Impressionists so much – when you study their art, you might not know exactly what they were viewing, but you get an idea of how they saw it and how they felt about it. More importantly, it reminds me that there is not just one way to look at the world.
The Fauvists in Collioure
Mark K October 30th, 2008
“Working before a soul-stirring landscape, all I thought of was making my colors sing, without paying heed to rules and regulations.” – Henri Matisse
Today, you can visit the small village of Collioure on the Mediterranean coast of France and see how Matisse and his friend Andre Derain interpreted the inspiring landscapes that they encountered.
Mystery in Limoux
Mark K October 27th, 2008
I went for a walk on my first morning in Limoux, looking for the train station and a good cup of coffee. I came upon this wall, covered with peeling posters and wondered what it was all about.
It looked political, judging by all the French flags, and I recognized the date 1960 and the name of the town – Limoux. I saw something about Gaul or Gaulist and a drawing I couldn’t quite recognize. I had the feeling that it was expressing a nationalist – France should only be for the French – sentiment, but I can’t really tell you why.
Later, I looked I did some research on the Internet and asked my friend who lives here part of the year if she knew what it was about.
Then it occurred that unsolved mysteries are one of my favorite things about traveling. There are people who insist of explaining everything to you, as if their interpretation is the only one possible, analyzing everything with a rational mind, as if feelings, intuitions, fancy and metaphor have nothing to do with the traveling experience.
I was tempted to try to find the answer, but I think I’ll just notice something that caught my eye and speculate about what it might mean to me.
Chuck Yeager sighting in Toulouse
Mark K October 25th, 2008
By chance, Chuck Yeager happened to be staying in our hotel in Toulouse. He was in town as a guest of Airbus, the huge European aircraft manufacturer, which is located in Toulouse. Yeager is famous as a fighter pilot in World War II and as a pre-NASA test pilot, who was the first person to break the sound barrier. I asked him if he still flies and he said that as a matter of fact he had flown one of the largest Airbus jumbo jets just the day before. During World War II, he had been shot down nearby and had been rescued by the French resistance. They helped him make his way to Spain, where he was turned over to the Spanish. Later, he told me, he was traded to the Americans for some gasoline. During his flight with Airbus, he was able to view the area where he had parachuted after being shot down in 1944. I asked him if he had regretted not being part of the NASA space program. He said, no, that being a NASA astronaut was not really being a pilot and that it was a program filled with government bureaucracy – something that he wanted no part of. He was wearing a bright orange cap which, he explained to his interpreter, came in handy during hunting season back home.
