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The Write Side of 59

~ This is What Happens When You Begin to Age Out of Middle Age

The Write Side of 59

Tag Archives: The Write Side of 50

One Timpano, Two Timpano, Three Timpano …

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by Lois DeSocio in Food

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

BIg Night, Lois DeSocio, Melissa Clark, The New York Times, The Write Side of 50, Timpano

Timpano

BY LOIS DESOCIO

… Score!

After three attempts, in as many years, I believe I have conquered timpano — that barrel-shaped feast of encased noodles, salami, cheese, pork, beef, ragu, hard-boiled eggs, and star of the 1996 movie “Big Night.”

I wrote about my second attempt in 2012. (The first attempt was not worthy of documentation.)

So when I read New York Times food writer, Melissa Clark’s tweaked timpano recipe from December 11 (see below), I was inspired to go for a third round over the holidays. Clark mixed and nixed, modernized and molded an easier, less labor-intensive timpano.

But I was torn. Making timpano is a feat you don’t mess with. I have learned from first-hand experience and as is evident in the movie, it is an event that is supposed to be nothing short of a mix of religious exultation and traumatic sweat — a recipe for stress and science as you chop, slice, toss, stir, wrap and bake with a bow to the ingenuity of the ingredients and salutation to the artistry of the finished product.

There’s the mess on the counter. Arithmetic is called for. You salivate as you combine a bunch of things that you may never have thought could be combined into what becomes an unwieldy mound that then has to be wrapped in dough and baked and ultimately burnt at least two times before you get it right.

But I’m a fan of Clark’s. And a failure at timpano, so …

… I tweaked Clark’s tweak. And because of the merging of her talent and deft with my reckless abandon in the kitchen (because I’ll eat anything) — I finally nailed that drum.

Clark substituted savory roasted butternut squash for the hot hard boiled eggs from the original. I followed her lead, but I wish I had used both. (The addition of roasted squash, though, was sublime.) Also, instead of wrapping it all in dough, she used fresh pasta sheets, which makes for a gigantic, layer-free lasagne, as opposed to an upside-down (not pie-shaped) over-stuffed pizza. In retrospect — give me pizza.

I used broccoli and garlic instead of her broccoli rabe (no strings attached), I substituted honey for nutmeg, and I shoved some mini meatballs in there along with three kinds of homemade (from the local pork store) sausage. (You must never, ever eliminate meatballs. Never.)

And instead of salami OR prociutto, as Clark suggested, I went with salami AND prociutto. Clark took out the pecorino romano — I kept it in.

The one mess-up is that my recent triumph at timpano will for the most part remain in limbo, mainly because I didn’t write anything down, and couldn’t read a good portion of what I did write down. Most of what I’ve written here came from memory after drinking wine and eating timpano.

Here’s the original Big Night Timpano recipe, which takes a labor-intensive five hours to make.
Here’s Clark’s, which she professes to be a “faster and easier” four hours.

I can’t calculate how long it took me, but “faster and easier” and me and timpano didn’t mix (partly because of the frantic Christmas Eve-morning search for fresh pasta sheets). But I do believe my third try gave a nod to Clark’s modernity and a bow to the integrity of the original. And props to me for messing with the pros while maintaining palatability. And I didn’t burn it.

Timpano eaten

My timpano, 24 hours in.

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Who is Clueless: Me? The Press? Or the NFL?

20 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by Lois DeSocio in Confessional

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

2015 NFL Walkup songs, Roger Goodell, The Write Side of 50

“Conduct by anyone in the league that is illegal, violent, dangerous, or irresponsible puts innocent victims at risk, damages the reputation of others in the game, and undercuts public respect and support for the NFL. We must endeavor at all times to be people of high character; we must show respect for others inside and outside our workplace; and we must strive to conduct ourselves in ways that favorably reflect on ourselves, our teams, the communities we represent, and the NFL.”

Excerpt from NFL Personal Conduct Policy, courtesy of NFL.com, December 2014.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

I have a scoop. I’m confident that no one else has written about it. I think very few people even know about it. For almost a year now, I have been pitching this opinion piece: The NFL published and promoted the walk-up songs chosen by the 2014 and 2015 draftees on its website, NFL.com. Songs that “are rife with misogynistic, hip-hop diatribes such as “hoes,” bitches,” and a slew of other highly offensive words and phrases that pump up violence against women, give props to drinking, dealing (and doing) drugs, and having enough NFL “paper” (money) to splurge on all of the above.”

I’ve pitched to mega media outlets, magazines, and online news blogs and websites. No one wants it.

I’ve been handed rejection after rejection. The rejections ranged from silence, to “Nice piece!”, to “… the makings of a good piece …”, to “Maybe”. And ultimately from all: “Sorry, but not for us.”

The vibe seems to be that my scoop is actually a “non-issue.” Much ado about nothing. Some young adult men that I know have hinted that this old(er) woman is a bit out of touch with the times.

Enough said. Read for yourself. Here’s the piece. Please chime in. Comment. I’m curious. Am I out of touch? Is this a non-issue?:

The May 2015 arrest of defensive end Ray McDonald on domestic violence charges (his third accusation of violence against women), and the subsequent decision by the Chicago Bears, who signed him in March of this year, to cut McDonald from the team, puts the spotlight back on the NFL and its culture of violence against women.

A big move in the right direction by the Bears? Is cutting McDonald a sign that the NFL is putting some muscle behind its ongoing campaign to change its misogynistic culture?

Let’s dig deeper. We don’t have to look much further than NFL.com. Plug in a search for “2015 Walk-up songs.” This is the second year that the draftees were asked to pick a song that would be played as each player walked across the stage at the NFL Draft. (This year it was at the Auditorium Theater of Roosevelt University in Chicago on April 30 through May 2.)

And it’s the second year that NFL.com lists those songs, with links to the accompanying videos. Songs that are rife with misogynistic, hip-hop diatribes such as “hoes,” bitches,” and a slew of other highly offensive words and phrases that pump up violence against women, give props to drinking, dealing (and doing) drugs, and having enough NFL “paper” (money) to splurge on all of the above.

Is my jaw the only one dropping?

For it was less than a year ago that commissioner Roger Goodell, in a 2014 September press conference after his end run around former Baltimore Raven Ray Rice’s elevator-punch that knocked his then-fiancee, Janay Palmer unconscious, pledged that when it comes to violence against women, the NFL was going to get “our house in order.” That the NFL will “get it right.”

I listened to all 25, 2015 walk-up songs, and all 26 from 2014 (which are still on the website). And watched every single video.(In 2014, the website gave links to the videos. This year, the videos themselves were embedded.) In more than half, women were “bitches.” In some they were “strippers” or “hoes.” Some like “popping mollys” or “x” in their mouths … among other things.

I do get that each song choice means something to each draftee, and I understand that a song choice for a pivotal life-moment may not necessarily reflect personal attitudes towards women. And to be honest, I’ve been known to dance to Drake. That is not the issue.

The issue is that this list does not belong on NFL.com.

And that the NFL thinks it does, sings of hypocrisy; dismissiveness — a chorus of NFL cluelessness at best; a strain of ingrained, absolute misogyny at worst. And I see a public song and dance by Mr. Goodell and all the NFL higher-ups.

Because, by all appearances, no one in the organization got it. Apparently, there was no “Oops!” moment; no motion, in a year’s time, to at least take those songs off the website. No, instead, they did it again this year — so we can add songs such as Rich Homie Quan’s, “Flex (Ooh, Ooh, Ooh)(“… Give that ho some x, she gone wanna sex every nigga in the set/ And now she screamin’ like oh, ooh, ooh …” ) to the list.

Equally disturbing is that, as of this writing, I have yet to find any commentary or press on the mixed message sent by the promotion of these songs. I see no signs of indignation, no visceral reaction either at the water cooler at work, or in print, about the publishing on NFL.com of racist, sexist, curse-filled content. Maybe some ESPN or NFL Network analysis? Some collective cringes to accompany the content of some of the videos? Nothing.

And what happened to that revised Personal Conduct Policy, which is not even a year old yet, that states, “We must endeavor at all times to be people of high character; we must show respect for others inside and outside our workplace; and we must strive to conduct ourselves in ways that favorably reflect on ourselves, our teams, the communities we represent, and the NFL …”?

Surely, a walk-up song, or 20, that repeatedly describe women as “strippers,” “bitches,” “hoes,” “pussy” — or my favorite: “an ass so fat” — would raise an eyebrow. Blink an eye? Hang a head? Apparently not.

So, please face the music, Mr. Goodell.

Does it make sense to post songs on NFL.com by artists who are talking up what they did with their “hoes” given that Hall-of-Famer Warren Sapp was arrested in Phoenix in 2014 for allegedly soliciting a prostitute and assaulting two women?

Is it furthering the mission to “clean house” to have lyrics and videos on NFL.com that lionize “smoking weed in my Mercedes,” and proclaim that “the dope I sell is the purest,” when former safety, Darren Sharper, recently made headlines because of a plea deal surrounding the allegations that he drugged and raped at least nine women in four states?

And what about that 12-year-old boy who may idolize newly-drafted New York Jet Leonard Williams? He can log on to NFL.com to get Williams’ stats, along with hearing his song choice (video included): Dom Kennedy’s “We Ball,” which proudly hails that: “We ball, we drink /F*** hoes, rock mink /New watch, gold links/ She going down, no teeth/And I don’t like your legs ‘less they at the roof/Pedicure toward the ceiling, mollys in the cabinet too/Pop, pop, pop, popping pussy … ”

This one line, “I didn’t wanna f*** the bitch, the molly made me f*** her even though she average…” from the song, “March Madness,” by Future, kind of goes against the “Like a Girl” campaign to empower women that the NFL champions through public service messages and commercials, doesn’t it? Think about what that line can do for a young girl’s budding body image.

The NFL dropped the ball. NFL.com is one room that should have been tidied up by now. The walk-up song page has been dirty for over a year now. It they can’t get this “right,” how can they possibly get a whole “house” in order?

And here is the most recent NFL response to domestic violence and sexual assault, updated on August 12, 2015 and also posted on NFL.com.

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The Write Side of 50 59

15 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by Lois DeSocio in Confessional

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

confessional, The Write Side of 50, The Write Side of 59

Laurie Lois 2

Divorced and smiling.

julie-bride

Married and smiling.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

Julie and I have moved the name of the blog ahead a few years in order to catch up with us. We feel we are beyond The Write Side of 50 because we are now pushing 60. (I’ve already crossed the line.)

Indications are that we are aging out of the “middle” and are now on the precipice of “old.” So we’ve moved the start line up to 59, hence, “The Write Side of 59.” Fifty nine — an age that you may not give a hoot about nor have thought much about until it’s behind you.

Many view 60 as the beginning of “Chapter Three” in the trilogy of life. The last chapter. The end of this chapter is The End. I know I’m certainly humbled by what sociologist and psychotherapist, Lillian B. Rubin, who died last year at the age of 90, had written for Salon:

“Sure, aging is different than it was a generation or two ago and there are more possibilities now than ever before, if only because we live so much longer. It just seems to me that, whether at 60 or 80, the good news is only half the story. For it’s also true that old age — even now when old age often isn’t what it used to be — is a time of loss, decline and stigma.”

“… loss, decline and stigma.” Realities that I try to tuck away in the far reaches of my consciousness, but are certainly part of my life. Yes, bad personal news is becoming as fickle as weather — guaranteed, but only so predictable. Some bad things will not get better. A lot of good things are no longer going to happen. Illness and death are plucking people from my life.

I could go on and on with the usual platitudes that play with our heads and tell us that we can stay “young” forever — that cultural bombardment of how to defy age. You can fight your gray hairs, your wrinkles, and the desire to go to bed at 8:30. You stay physically active, and you seek out stimulation and passion.

But any routine and repose will no doubt be interrupted by bad news. Wounds — both emotional and physical — seem to cut deeper, take longer to heal and often whittle away at that blissful sense of control and immortality that the younger years allowed. There’s a new balance between: “I can handle anything,” and “Haven’t I had enough?”

But!

If “the good news is only half the story,” that means there is a good half. If anything, aging into the 60s, 70s, and 80s will be unpredictable. And studies show that there is an “upswing” in satisfaction and happiness throughout the 60s and 70s.

And I’m guessing there will be fodder for adventurous storytelling unlike any we’ve ever had. Julie and I are among the lucky ones who have our health, our independence, our jobs. We laugh a lot. And we’re both on brand new (and different) post-59 paths.

At 59, Julie married for the first time.

At 59, I divorced after a 30-year marriage.

Julie’s parents are both alive and healthy, as are all of her siblings. She has a big extended family.

My dad died years ago, my mom has been taken away by severe dementia, and I lost a brother. I have almost no family left.

As a newly married woman, Julie has lately been living the life of a newlywed with a sense of calm and a sense of safety that comes with being a newlywed. She has a husband, Steve. She’s happily navigating being part of a married couple and all that comes with it — commitment, laying roots, love …

As a somewhat newly divorced woman (one year), I have been living in a constant state of gusto — full of risks, perils, thrills, and curiosity. I have dates. I’m happily navigating being single and all that comes with it — variety, enchantment, lovers, (danger!) …

I’m thinking the right side of 59 can be a captivating time in a devil-may-care way. Be foolhardy. Be wise. Take those risks. Look where you’re going. Mourn those losses. Salute your survival. Jump in with eyes wide open. Cry your eyes out when you feel sorry for yourself.

And try your best to stay “alive” until the day you die.

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Dictionary Day: Can We Have a Word with You?

25 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by WS50 in Words

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

The Write Side of 50

Words that strike us.

mooncalf

Sounds lyrical; means doltish.

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I Slid Down Something

17 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by WS50 in Confessional

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

confessional, The Write Side of 50

tubing

I slid into (and down) something more comfortable.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

For years now, I have been known to wax poetic about how much I love and miss playing in the snow — specifically skiing in it. Last year I publicly pleaded for comrades to “slide down something!” with me.

So when a good friend invited Julie and me to spend the long Presidents’ Day weekend at his sister’s house on the mountain in Killington, Vermont, we were in. And for the first time in my life that I can recall, I was afraid to have fun. I was afraid to ski.

For Julie it was a “no-brainer.” She’s never skied, and in her words, “has no balance of power,” and “has been known to topple simply standing on skis.” She’d be happy to “head for in for a bloody.”

For me, I’ve been a skier for most of my life (often with a bloody before, during and after).

But I haven’t skied in eight years. And the last time I slid (and ran through, and jumped into, and rolled around in mud) , my madcap self was shut down by a back injury that incapacitated me for almost three months. And my eyes were opened by a recovery period that humbled me for the rest of my life.

This weekend was the first test of my mettle. Therefore, I wanted to forget all that I learned and wrote about — the wisdom that sprouts during the recovery from a devastating injury. That “intellectual renewal” that can emerge from “physical pain.” I was contemplating ignoring “the gift of aging,” including the pronouncement that “fear can serve to gather perspective – quickly.” It can offer “…levelheadedness … a re-routing … a savvier path.”

Instead, I wanted to pretend that careening down a wind-swept, icy incline while buckled into two laminated slats would not be foolish for a 60 year old with an iffy back who hasn’t slid down anything snowy in eight years. I wanted the older me to be the old me — sometimes cautious, sometimes reckless, but always game.

The deadline-driven decision as to whether or not I should hit the slopes locked me into a tortuous head game for days. (As my friend noted — women forced to make a major life decision such as whether or not to have a child, probably spend less time deciding than I did on whether or not I should ski.)

If I skied and fell, re-injury was a possibility. If I skied and didn’t fall, redemption was a possibility. If I didn’t ski, and ultimately didn’t fall, a snowball effect was certain: “the gift of aging … intellectual renewal … perspective … levelheadedness … a re-routing.”

So, I opted out. And, along with my good friends, slid down a “savvier path.”

We went tubing. In record-cold wind chills and wind. Two 50-somethings, and one 60 year old careening and twirling down the hill amidst teenagers and youngsters (some with parents younger than us who simply pushed their kids down).

So — trading an icy ski slope for an icy tube hill? Smarter. Levelheaded. Older and wiser. So much fun! And brave.

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On Pins and With Dr. ‘Needleman’

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by WS50 in Confessional, Men

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Acupuncture, hip pain, osteoarthritis, The Write Side of 50

 

P1290924
BY BOB SMITH

I’ve got osteoarthritis in my right hip, and when I mentioned to my older brother Jim that surgery was an option if pain management didn’t work, he started raving about acupuncture. Apparently he’d woken up with a sore hip a year ago, and limped in to see an acupuncturist who fixed it in one visit. He walked out the same day, pain free.

This was high praise, particularly since I knew that, as a boy, Jim would break into cold sweats and/or faint dead away whenever he got an inoculation. I didn’t like getting shots, either, but if I looked away and didn’t dwell on the fact that a pointy piece of steel had been stabbed into my flesh, it was no more painful than a mild bee sting. So I decided to give it a try.

I made an appointment with a local acupuncturist of Chinese descent who’s certified by what appears to be a reputable national organization. His office, reassuringly, was in a standard brick professional building, and Doctor Needleman (my pseudonym), was about my height and dressed in a casual shirt and khaki pants. He looked at my tongue, felt around my lower back, and pronounced that my kidney qi (“chee”) was low.

I’d been there all of two minutes.

It reminded me of the joke about the guy who goes to the doctor to find out why he’s feeling poorly. He’s got carrots sticking out of his ears, and stringbeans and French fries jammed up his nose, and the doctor says “I can tell just by looking at you — you’re not eating right.” How could Needleman tell anything from such a cursory examination?

“Got low energy? Pee a lot?”

No to the first, and yes to the second, but the need to pee isn’t qi, it’s my 60-year-old prostate. He nodded knowingly.

“You get cold easily?”

“Only in New Jersey in January, which is why I’m in Florida, Doc,” I answered flippantly.

He told me to remove my shirt, socks, and shoes, and lie face down on the table with my hands relaxed on a chair positioned under the headrest. On the chair was one of those bells you see on a hotel front desk, which seemed random. Then the sticking began.

First Needleman palpated both sides of my spine, apparently identifying choice spots. Next I felt pressure and a hot jab of pain about midway down my back, punctuated by what felt like two gentle taps as he inserted the first needle. The pain subsided within two seconds.

He inserted at least twelve more needles going down both sides of my spine, and even a few into my left ankle and calf. Because I’d mentioned the arthritis in my left thumb, he put three there for good measure. I peeked and saw one hair-thin needle dangling from the meaty flesh at the base of my thumb, and closed my eyes again.

Except for the first needle, I felt no more than a mild pinch and slight pressure as he pushed them in. Then he spritzed my back with a cool liquid and swung a goosenecked heat lamp over the table.

“Okay, nap time,” he said cheerfully as he closed the door. “Thirty minutes. Just relax. Don’t move. Ring the bell if you need help.”

That wasn’t reassuring, although I couldn’t imagine what exactly might go wrong. He’d turned on a loud kitchen timer in harsh counterpoint to the piped-in flute and sitar meditation music that flowed into the room. As I began to feel the warmth of the heatlamp spreading across my back, I had the queasy sensation that something was going on in my body.

Needleman would say my qi was moving, but it’s just as likely I was overcome by the strangeness of lying there like a chubby white porcupine, waiting to see if panic would overtake me and make me ring the bell. But then, maybe 10 minutes later, I drifted into a deep calm. I no longer cared about the nest of needles sprouting from my skin, or my forced paralysis for a half hour, or even the timer’s relentless ticking — it all faded away. I was in a trance (or sleeping), dreaming about swimming with dolphins or how it would feel to be a loaf of freshly-baked bread.

Then Needleman was back, breezily plucking the metal pinpricks from my back. He asked how I felt, and I considered telling him I felt “perforated,” but that wasn’t true. My hip and thumb still hurt, but I felt better somehow. Was it all imaginary?

Have the Chinese been practicing acupuncture for millennia merely for its placebo effect? Could that many people be consistently fooled into believing they’re being helped when nothing is happening at all?

I’ve scheduled three more human pincushion sessions with Dr. Needleman to find out. I’ll keep you posted.

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Dictionary Day: Can We Have a Word With You?

09 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by WS50 in Words

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

The Write Side of 50, Words

Words that strike us.

Immolate

Immolate (Immolation)

Beautiful in sound; the ugliest in definition.

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The Saturday Blog: Baskets

07 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by WS50 in Art

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Art, The Saturday Blog, The Write Side of 50

Kwetsani Camp. Botswana.

Kwetsani Camp. Botswana.

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When My Words Collided With Björk’s

06 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by WS50 in Confessional

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Björk, BuzzFeed, confessional, Journal.ie, Lois DeSocio, New York Times, The Write Side of 50, Vulnicura

I cry to my left; I dance to my right

“I Cry to My Left; I Dance to My Right.” Watercolor by Julie Seyler.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

Björk and me. As polar-opposite as Iceland and New Jersey. She’s a brilliant musician. I’m a brilliant … hmm. (I can’t recall being called “brilliant.”) She’s an international “queen.”

I’m a “Jersey Girl.”

She can write music like nobody else.

I listen to music — like everybody else.

She can sing.

I carry a tune by plugging myself into my phone and toting the music in me along with me, through dancing, from room to room.

But we do have a parallel. We both recently wrote about betrayal and a breakup. And in keeping with the disparity in our places in the universe — I wrote an essay. She wrote a best-selling, breakthrough album, out of which a MoMA exhibit will spring.

We are dead-on, though, with our innate use of a creative outlet to mine through life events that are coated with agony. Agony that words can’t recount. Until you find the words. We both found the words. We both wrote the words. And, in her big way, and in my little way, our written words hit a collective nerve.

A few days after Julie told me I had to read The New York Times’ article by Jon Pareles, “Sometimes Heartbreak Takes a Hostage,” a review of Björk’s “complete heartbreak” album “Vulnicura,” another friend sent me a link to the Web site Journal.ie, which ranked my BuzzFeed essay as last week’s number-three best read on the Web.

Number one was an interview with Björk about “Vulnicura.”

Cool. So I threw myself into everything Björk. I read what I could find. I bought and repeatedly listened to “Vulnicura.”

I feel her words — both in her music and in her interviews about her album and the process of creating it. The words were mine, but hers. For both of us, moving through betrayal and “the death of the family,” was for me, as was for her “the toughest thing I’ve ever done.”

For both of us it took years to write about it and muster the nerve to put it out in the world. We both wrapped our articulation around the arc of a timeline. We both had a run-in with the magic of karma. And we both came through liberated.

I relate to her metaphors: “You feel like you’re having open-heart surgery, with knives sticking in, so everything is out, and you have this urgency and immediacy. It has to happen right now, that you have to express yourself.”

And her letting-go: “She hopped out of the D.J. booth to dance on the pool table, rolling across it like something in a vintage MTV video. Around midnight, she led her flock to Prikid, a packed hip-hop club, where she danced nonstop, sang along and downed shots of birch schnapps until nearly 4 a.m,” wrote Pareles. (I would have been there, on the pool table, had I been there.)

When I write, I listen to music. I have a stable of songs that I draw from. They range from opera to ’60s pop melodies. I pick the song that moves me along with my writing. I click “repeat” and it plays over and over and over for hours. I blast it. It takes over my head and let’s nothing in but me. Rarely, do the words come to mind without music in my ears.

Sometimes I need violins. Sometimes I need a rousing choir. Sometimes I need Roy Orbison. Sometimes a voice hits me out of nowhere. (B.J. Thomas!?)

But for this piece, I needed Björk and “Vulnicura.” Specifically “Black Lake.”

So while I was formerly more in awe of pieces of Björk (yes, her swan dress, her avant-garde-ness), I am now a forever-fan of all of her. I hear her now.

Me and Björk. We were on the same page. The Icelandic queen and the Jersey girl — scribes of the separation; chroniclers of catharsis. All-consuming, heart-breaking, gut-purging, pool-table-dancing, shot-drinking reclaimers of us.

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A Church-Loving Tourist: This Time in Paris

05 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by WS50 in Art, Travel

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Art, churches, Notre Dame, Paris, Ste. Germain des Pres, Ste. Suplice, The Write Side of 50, Travel

North facade of Notre Dame Cathedral. Late afternoon .

North facade of Notre Dame Cathedral. Late afternoon.

BY JULIE SEYLER

Wherever I go, churches are on the top of my to-see list. They offer up beauty (free), in peaceful and spirital surroundings. Usually there is silence.

Eglise de Sainte-Germaine des Pres.

Eglise de Sainte-Germaine des Pres.

I am not incognizant that these temples to God were built by the David Kochs of the medieval world on the backs of the anguished. But the politics and sociology must be weighed alongside the art.

Yes, the subject matter is one note: the life of Jesus Christ, his journey from birth to death, his apostles and the prophets, sinners and saints that bring life to the Old and New Testaments. But they have been painted and sculpted by the greatest artists of all time — Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Donatello. And they are in situ, placed in niches and on walls in the exact same space and place as when made and hung.

Statue of the Virgin, 13th c. Ste. Germaine des Pres

Statue of the Virgin, 13th c. Ste. Germaine des Pres.

Churches are also more than repositories of religious history. The floors, the pews. The altars and flying buttresses. The steeples. The stained glass windows. The gargoyles tell us what the world used to be like; what people used to believe. And hat they were afraid of, what they strived for, and it’s not far from what we seek today.

The Church was also the social media center from let’s say the 13th century through to the 19th century. Whatever. There is always somehting to look at, and always more to see. These are some of the churches I visited when I was in Paris last October:

Ste. Suplice Church on Rue Ste. Surplice, 6th arrondisement.

Admiring the view

Admiring the view.

Noticing the mid-afternoon light.

Noticing the mid-afternoon light.

The windows are huge.

The windows are huge.

What the windows look outside. Exterior of Saint Germain des Pres.

What the windows look outside. Exterior of Saint Germain des Pres.

Ste. Etienne-du-Mont.

Check out the detail on the staircase.

Check out the detail on the mahogany staircase.

Statue and window.

Statue and window.

Notre Dame

Stained glass window,

Stained glass window,

Gargoyles

Gargoyles

Montmarte

Looking up at Montmartre.

Looking up at Montmartre.

Looking at Montmartre from the Musee D'Orsay.

Looking at Montmartre from the Musee D’Orsay.

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