Month: July 2012

Bless This Mess

Bless this sweet beautiful mess of ours. Bless fields and breezes and fiddleheads. Bless Emmlyou and Bonnie and Willie Nelson and Otis Redding and Elvis. Bless ham biscuits and deviled eggs, lobster rolls and clam shacks, fresh corn and—the great equalizer— fried chicken. Bless lemonade and cold beer and the Shirley Temple. Bless sunsets in the west and sunrises in the east, bless south Texas and south-western Virginia, bless New York City and everything that is not New York, bless the wilds of Maine and the mossy coasts of Georgia, the bounding scrubs of Mississippi and the raucous lush of Louisiana, the eternal flat of Dakota and the abiding rise of the Rockies. And bless California, for foretelling the future and gilding the none-too-distant goldrush Kerouac past. Bless porch swings and hammocks. Bless banjos and fiddles and dive bars and honky tonks. Bless dance parties and side roads, the swimming hole and the alternate route. Bless our mess and forgive us our debts. Bless us, America, and have a happy 4th of July.

 

Oh, yes, and God bless Andy Griffith.

 

Images from the incredibly wonderful Lost in America.

Take Me Out…

Aaaaaaaaand PLAY BALL! After hearing about the vintage baseball league that plays by 1864 rules out on Governor’s Island (more info here), we simply had to go. On a most gorgeous summer Saturday, Meags and Sweetheart and I packed up the bare essentials (champagne, bread, cheese, sunscreen) and hopped on the free ferry to go see some baseball. In short: it was awesome. The New York Gothams wore navy pants, pillbox hats (you can see the lineage of those wonderful throwback Pirates hats) and white tunics emblazoned with a gothic “G”. What they didn’t wear? Gloves. Maybe gloves hadn’t been invented or maybe all leather was earmarked for Union cavalry saddlebags, but by the 1864 rules, the intrepid fielders go barehanded. The old rules are slightly different— you can’t overrun first base, the pitches are underhand, the strike zone is from the head to the ankles, and (most noted) the barehanded fielders can catch the soft rag ball on one bounce and the batter’s out—but the game is the same, the joyous, methodical, rhythmic American wonder reminds you why the game took hold of us in the first place. In typical American fashion, nicknames abound (Crash, Monk, Bugs) and, perhaps the most nostalgic element, even the heckling is genteel…Can you picture a Yankee fan telling at the Red Sox “That was UNMANLY!”? All of this, on a divine day, with the newly regenerating skyline of lower Manhattan in the background? Perfection.

 

top and third image by Hiroko Masuike from this NYT article (we were interviewed, but didn’t make the cut…).

Back and Gone to Seed

I got back to New York last night, cruising back up the Eastern Shore in the wake of an epic thunderstorm that left thousands without power, delayed my introduction to my P.N.F.B.* Miss Annabelle Mooney, and garnered the real-time headline: INCH LARGE HAIL BALL FOUND IN CHUCKATUCK. Man, oh, man. Upon my return the internet is out and the cilantro has bolted (see above), but— the flowers are lovely and small and delicate and make a perfect little cilantro-y nosegay. If she were here I’d give it to Miss Meags to celebrate her engagement! Lovelovelove.

Coming up this week I’ll have an all-you-can-eat buffet of American-ness for your reading pleasure: baseball, camping, adventures, fireworks, and, of course, a dog on a ferris wheel.

 

*potential new favorite baby