November has been so far the month of travel, first Austen, then Auburn, Alabama. (So A = travel?) Few, I imagine, go to Auburn, Alabama, if not for some sort of business or other, and in this case C and I fall into the majority (imagine that), and it was business for C that took him there, and I alongside because I thought: “Hey! I’ve never been!” and “If we drive, we can go through the Carolinas and see those for whom we pine.” And other things. Like what? Well, I kind of already missed the November southern weather and have a pair of sandals that I regretted having to retire for the year already. These sandals (Simple) are so comfortable, and they match the unusual, triangular tan lines burnished into the tops of my feet from all that daily walking of the streets of San Francisco last June-July. And it was C’s birthday, and why should he spend it alone, or at least without me, when my work can be done from anywhere? There’s more; I’m pretty good at convincing myself of a course of action once I’ve decided on it.
So on the way down here, we’ve read a good bit of Tree of Smoke. Impressions of that some later post, since I never did update on The Echo Maker (Richard Powers), finished some time ago, which, tangentially, we discussed, also tangentially, at the writers’ group meeting last month. Anyhow, Johnson’s book won the National Book Award, of course, you know that by now, and it also received a critique in The Atlantic Monthly (excerpt online only — email me for more, if you like) recently that, quite rightly, as painful as it is to admit (I’m one of those who reveres Jesus’ Son), suggested the book is not up to that. But hey, after The Echo Maker… I am reluctantly becoming one of those who finds the awards a less than reliable indicator of what’s been the most meritorious writing for the year. I mean, there’s so much good writing out there! So many excellent books! And most rarely hear of them.
But back to Auburn, Alabama. There’s a lot of orange there. A lot. It’s the school color. Orange and blue. This is a fact that was unavoidable. When we arrived at our B-and-B “studio’s” door, our first vision was a gigantic ribbon of these colors, though I mistook it at first. “I’m so sick of this patriotic crap,” I stated, as I waited for C to unlock the door. Travel weary though I was, I still meant it. (And I do mean it.) Filled with foreboding over what the opened door might reveal. However, “That’s orange, not red,” C advised, and I removed my sunglasses and found he was right. “The school’s colors,” he stated. And so they were. It was another school, like (S.C.) Clemson, of bright orange and tigers. Yippee. And everywhere people walked the streets in bright orange T-shirts. “This is the first place I’ve ever been where the students dress in their official colors,” C said.
So what else? There was a town called Loachapoka that had the Rattling Gourd Gallery, where I spent one fine afternoon. Two stories of local art, and arts & crafts kinds of things to buy, if you’re so inclined. The Victorian house converted to art gallery, though, is up for sale, and was offering its last show.
Collages, and pastel drawings of the collages! I liked the actual collages better, though certainly the pastels were very skillful. I think I should have liked the drawings themselves a great deal if I would have seen them alone without their models. Well, I just really like collage, a Romare Bearden exhibition I once saw many, many years ago has stayed with me through my life. The artist (Terry Rodriquez) said some very interesting things that struck a chord with me, about narration, about working with the elements to trust that the story, would reveal itself, the clarity would come. Which is like writing fiction, or poetry, for me. This is not exactly what she said, of course, but it is what I took away.
Her artist’s statement was engaging and included a Hawthorne quote:
Nathaniel Hawthorne said that when an artist succeeds she achieves “occasionally a lucky hint at truths of which every human soul is profoundly though unutterably conscious.”
And though Auburn is supposed to be a mecca of cyclists, I didn’t see a soul on a bike, not one; saw many, many trucks rather. Nice walking town until rush hour. Trains’ whistles blew regularly through the nights. I thought I would get a lot of writing done; I didn’t, just the usual scrawling of lines, impressions, notes, lists into a journal. Fodder, building, maybe.
Now it’s Cincinnati again, spinning leaves of the little scarlet red maple otherside of the dining room French doors.