![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Of which a whale can tire
I am returned from New York, where my entire family went yesterday to see La Cage aux Folles. We took the trains; I read Britten on Music (ed. Paul Kildea, 2003) on the way down and Gemma Files' A Book of Tongues (2010) on the way back and in between worried about not being able to find my copy of David Quammen's Monster of God. This afternoon was spent at the American Museum of Natural History, where I made pilgrimage to the Hall of Ocean Life and wrote down the titles of several books to look for, including a children's book about Zheng He's treasure ships. All through Connecticut, the sky was fading over the water from the slow gilding haze that looks like a certain school of nineteenth-century painting, especially where there are masts and buoys, to after-twilight like watered ink, darkening at the line of the sea on one side, still embers and violets on the other. I saw a scarecrow set at the edge of a salt marsh with a whitewash face and what looked like a staff in its hand, though I suspect it was merely a support. I can't imagine what it was meant to scare away, since all it overlooked was cordgrass and blue-skimmed water, but there was no mistaking it; I shall think of it as a ritual or apotropaic figure until told otherwise.
I no longer have bronchitis. I am speaking again, although still coughing at irritating moments. One of my toes is still broken, but it does not seem to have taken any unusual damage from walking multiple east-west blocks. The man who sat behind me at La Cage aux Folles leaned over at the intermission and told me he hadn't seen hair like mine on a woman since his great-grandmother, whose hair came to her knees; she used to braid it and pin it up in coils and at three or four years old, he was enchanted by it. I do not think my hair is a fraction of that impressive, but I thanked him. Then he told me a story about a friend of his whose hair was only to the small of her back, but who decided one day to cut it very, very short. She was tired of the upkeep. Her husband protested. All right, she said; if you like it so much, you brush it every night. Which, the man finished, her husband has done every night for the last thirty years. "She says it's one of the most intimate things she's ever experienced. You should keep that in mind." I can guarantee I will remember it longer than the various people who ask if I'm going to donate my hair to charity.
In short, a quite decent example of the species flying crazy visit. And as the person who read the original rave in The New Yorker and determined we needed to get tickets stat, I think I can be justifiably proud that my brother's wife liked this musical much better than the last show we took her to. Admittedly, that was The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.
I will be traveling again in three days. Maybe I could just sleep until then.
I no longer have bronchitis. I am speaking again, although still coughing at irritating moments. One of my toes is still broken, but it does not seem to have taken any unusual damage from walking multiple east-west blocks. The man who sat behind me at La Cage aux Folles leaned over at the intermission and told me he hadn't seen hair like mine on a woman since his great-grandmother, whose hair came to her knees; she used to braid it and pin it up in coils and at three or four years old, he was enchanted by it. I do not think my hair is a fraction of that impressive, but I thanked him. Then he told me a story about a friend of his whose hair was only to the small of her back, but who decided one day to cut it very, very short. She was tired of the upkeep. Her husband protested. All right, she said; if you like it so much, you brush it every night. Which, the man finished, her husband has done every night for the last thirty years. "She says it's one of the most intimate things she's ever experienced. You should keep that in mind." I can guarantee I will remember it longer than the various people who ask if I'm going to donate my hair to charity.
In short, a quite decent example of the species flying crazy visit. And as the person who read the original rave in The New Yorker and determined we needed to get tickets stat, I think I can be justifiably proud that my brother's wife liked this musical much better than the last show we took her to. Admittedly, that was The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.
I will be traveling again in three days. Maybe I could just sleep until then.
no subject
I suspect you of summoning that scarecrow.
no subject
I can guarantee I will remember it longer than the various people who ask if I'm going to donate my hair to charity. Oh I'm sure! And your mentioning the people who ask if you're going to donate it to charity reminds me of
no subject
The scarecrow does indeed sound awesome, though.
no subject
Meanwhile, the baby has turned herself about 290 degrees around her crib, leading with her head. Development is fascinating.
If anyone at the con has one of those ubiquitous jewelry booths and they're selling teething amber, also called milk and honey amber, will you get me a strand and I'll pay you back? They're not in vogue round here any more and thus hard to find, and you never know what you're going to get when you buy online.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
Last Wednesday night, when I slammed it into a left-open cabinet door. I thought I had broken two of them, but the other just turned out to be badly bruised. They are taped together and I am walking around.
The scarecrow does indeed sound awesome, though.
I love the trains between Boston and New Haven. You get so much of the sea.
no subject
I would like that very much. I'll see what I can do!
no subject
It didn't quite happen. Maybe tonight . . .
no subject
It's lovely, and I am contemplating a copy for my now seven-year-old cousin.
no subject
I hope your toes heal quickly, and you get enough rest.
no subject
I would set them up at every bay and salt marsh and estuary and beach. I am so despairing of what is going on with the sea right now.
no subject
Thank you! I really should post my panels before I go.
Which, by the way, seem to provide excellent opportunity for a torrid affair with Greer Gilman, and I might add you never got around to that.
We spend enough time together for one. I wouldn't worry.
If anyone at the con has one of those ubiquitous jewelry booths and they're selling teething amber, also called milk and honey amber, will you get me a strand and I'll pay you back?
I'll ask around.
no subject
Or bloodthirstiness. We haven't checked with the pediatrician.
no subject
Thank you. So am I.
I suspect you of summoning that scarecrow.
It was a very good thing to be gazing out the window and see.
no subject
The apotropaic scarecrow sounds appropriate. I'm sure it is such, even if the person who put it there didn't altogether realise what they were doing.
Glad you saw such lovely things--thank you for the describing of them.
Safe journey, and I hope you can get some rest.