Glad to have you back, Cee Mak.
Sometimes when I say your name I add it to the end of a line in Billy Joel's "Movin' Out": he's-trading-in-his Chevy-for-a-Caroline Mak Mak Mak Mak. Your name pops up on my phone, and, blammo, I'm belting out Billy Joel. Don't think less of me, please...just thought you like to know.We sent the letter announcing the gallery closing last week. I'm sure you saw it. Kind of sad, huh? I couldn't help run a montage through my head of all the nonsense that took place over the past two years. It's strange about nostalgia; how you can't force the sentimental component to sink into your conscious in real time, it has to steep. When Caren told me we were hanging it up, I knew the presence of CGFA would germinate into some kind of profound feeling, but as hard as I tried I couldn't discern what shape it was going to take. Only now am I beginning to sense it. It's bittersweet and very defined by the first year, mostly, when the enterprise seemed the most real; art fairs and show changes, the storage facility. Steve Reynolds, somehow. Schwartzy. Drunk man. Xenia. Jeeez, so much stuff.
This month is going to be so strange.
But not as strange as Rowan's....how's that for a segue??
I believe my five pages mark somewhat of an impasse for Ms. Lamb. Though it's not Anna Karenina or Finnegan's Wake, I'd say the Greenhouse has thus far been well-paced and resolute in its modest mission. In this section, though, I sensed a bit of uncertainty and conflict in the author's voice, mainly through how Ms. Lamb is seen through Rowan's eyes. A preponderance of the description of Lucy is dedicated to telling us about her rather than indicating the same through actions. For instance, Rowan observes, "When there were no men around her, some of her bright aura seemed to diminish, the air of ageless loveliness faded, and she became suddenly older. Just more human, closer to the realities of life and death." We've heard this general description several times now, but it feels more clumsy in this section. Such passages add very little to Lucy's character for the purposes of the story, but Lamb keeps going back and gnawing on it again anyway. It seems to me that as the story advances, Lamb is redoubling her effort to build Lucy into a psychologically complex, conflicted and paradoxical character, though, no matter how much she tells us about all her facets, it always comes across as a Jekyll-and-Hyde contrivance.
I feel sympathy for her because, I sense a sincere desire to author a deeper and more meaningful character in Lucy, though the nature of the story holds her back. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the most convincing character so far is Reshevsky, and he's also the most absurd and cartoonish. This is obviously a story that is action and event heavy, and Reshevsky serves those events faithfully. The told-not-shown portions of Lucy's character are forced and repetitive; however, to me, they seem to reflect an attempt by Lamb to explore the more touching sides of the human condition than the goings-on at Pleasant Plains would allow. You know, can't we all sympathize with the notion of wanting our art to find purchase in a more relevant universe...doesn't every weatherman for a FOX affiliate in Lubbock, TX secretly aspire to being Walter Cronkite breaking into As the World Turns in 1963 to tell us the president has died? Doesn't every session drummer for Tom Petty wish he or she (probably he) had written "A Change is Gonna Come?"
Maybe that's too dramatic, but I think there's a part of all of us that happily geeks out with our art and ends up loving the details...hell, I get really into blowing ball-point pens onto 12-inch panels. I spend days on end scrutinizing the fine marks made by drizzled ballpoint pen ink. I even get excited to show my work to visitors to my studio, thinking there's a even a remote chance that I can convey or recreate in them the same enthusiasm I feel constantly. They usually enjoy the trip through my practice, but the iridescence of the pen, the fine lines, the bleed of the resin...that's my nerdy headspace, not theirs.
And even despite my overall contentment with what I do, I'd be lying if I said I never emerged from the intoxicating minutiae thinking about the possibility of taking one of those thousands of pens and instead of blowing the ink out of it, I could make it write something half as profound and timeless as the last few pages of the Great Gatsby. I think Antonia is getting the itch to create something more profound, too.Sigh.
My section is basically a pledge by Rowan to not sit idly while mayhem and mischief consume the farm. She balks at Reshevsky's offers to take her sightseeing, as well as Lucy's suggestions and urgings to cut her stay short. Rowan is going to figure it all out...if it kills her (my words not hers.)
Did you ever see that movie with Jennifer Lopez where she's some kind of karate chopping, spurned ex- wife or girlfriend and she goes out and basically kicks every man's ass in the world who doesn't treat a lady with respect?? I didn't either, but I saw the prieviews...and they're dancing through my head right now.
Kick some ass, Rowan!
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