Part 14 - unemployment, Russian Tzars and grammar

Yo, Cee
So, today is my first official day of unemployment and it feels a bit odd. I've been working more than full-time for six years now, and, suddenly, here I am waking up to Regis and Kelly. Last time I watched this show there was a different woman on. Kind of sad to be reminded of passing time...cue the intro to Taxi or a Supertramp song.


Funny I just got a call from Caren, and thought "I can't believe this, my first day of unemployment, I'm looking for jobs and here's my old boss calling to resolve something I've put way behind me." It turns out that it was an accident; seems she and Peter are mountain biking or hiking somewhere. I could hear crunching rocks and her shouting directions.

The Tibetan museum would actually be a nice excursion. We should do it. Only problem is, I called the Dept. of Labor and asked them about what would happen if I were to sell any art while on unemployment. To my amazement, anything I sell that was made before unemployment doesn't affect my claim. However, any work I do in the studio counts as labor to be deducted from my check, as I would be working on "salable commodities." After I found this out, I asked the agent if I could make "practice work," to which he offered me a tentative "I don't think so."

"So what about a sketch book?"

"No."

"Can I imagine art?"

"Hmmmm?"

"Can I open my eyes in the morning or should I keep closed all day?"

"Sir?!"

"Can I make love, because post-coital relaxation is really the crucible for all good thought; it's honestly more important than studio time...."

"(silence)"

Point is, I may not be ALLOWED to go to the Tibetan Museum, as determined by the NY State Dept. of Labor, but let's throw caution to the wind and go next week...if I have to claim it as a day of employment, so be it.

So Reshevsky's on the prowl. You can definitely sense that he wants to pin Rowan to a tree even though those details have been stricken from the narrative record. Rowan agrees to hit Grant's Tomb and the Tibetan Museum with him the next day. Reshevsky finally feels gratified, but he obviously doesn't know about the secret meeting with Cater.

An aside here: two days ago Heidi came home and said she had words with her intern for making a bunch of grammatical mistakes on a really important grant application. Defensively, the young intern defended herself over the use of "Grants Tomb," without the possessive..and apparently they went to the mat over it. Heidi is very passive and congenial except for some reason when it comes to style and grammar..and then she's a bobcat. I had to send her a copy of the usage to show her intern. Funny, huh?
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html

On her way to breakfast, Rowan sees Mrs. Chow crying. She finds out from Lucy that this is because Ah Sing was fired. Lucy holds that he will be fine because of his pension and because "the Chinese are very big on family duty." Is this true my resident Chinese sociologist? Are you "big on family?" Or is it 'Orientals' in general??

Lucy says his removal was because he was beginning to "dodder." Lucy and Rowan then exchange glances before Rowan departs telling herself that she wishes the meeting with Cater would be over so she could make some decisions and go home.

Reshevsky and Rowan head into Manhattan, where he surprises her with a sidetrip to his bachelor pad at 111th and Riverside Drive. Rowan remarks that the digs are a little meager for a count. Interestingly, Reshevsky provides us with some personal history, which is initiated by Rowan's interest in a portrait of the Count's father.This historical sidebar is really coincidental because I woke up today and decided that I wanted to read more about the days leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution through the Stalinist blackout. This impulse came about after re-reading a Peter Schjeldahl review of the 2003 Malevich show at the Guggenheim and thought how amazing the fight for geometric abstraction has been through the years. For some it was a revolution; for others it signified bourgeois decadence. It's weird how they've been marshaled by various interests to fit their agendas.

So, it seems Reshevsky's parents were probably Tzarists from the old guard. His father was "eased from this world with the aid of several pounds of lead" in 1921. His mother died in 1917 when their estate was burned. After these details are revealed, Reshevsky goes into a short philosophical flourish which is actually quite well done.

Reshevsky says basically that he does not want pity and that deprivation and bereavement have made him less vulnerable. As a result he seeks pleasure and comfort only. Rowan protests claiming that, on the contrary, Reshevsky is not cold and uncaring, to which he responds "lack of pain, my dear girl, is not necessarily pleasure."

Well done! I do like Reshevsky's character. I think Ms. Lamb might have actually known a Reshevsky...or maybe he's based on some Noel Coward character. But, whatever, he's tighter than the rest.

Back atcha Cee,
Shane

Part 10 - Sparklers, Flying J truckstops and ominous conversations

Hey there, champion.

Third of July here...I guess it is there, too, but without the cultural significance of being the eve of your independence day. Does the patriotic American part of you light some sparklers in honor of our struggle?? I'm at work. I'm actually the ONLY one at work..the rest of my co-workers are at various local beaches and Heidi's in the north woods of Wisconsin on a pontoon boat. I was a little upset (read: bitter) earlier, but I'm hanging out on a rooftop with the boys later, so that'll save me from going stir-crazy.

I went to the poisonous plant show at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and was more than a little underwhelmed. What they advertised as a curated show was no more than the result of some volunteers walking around the grounds placing signs next to anything that could be construed as "dangerous." Not "poisonous," but dangerous. Cut grass and sugarcane were on the list; cut grass because it can slice you open and sugarcane because it can be distilled into "demon rum." Quite a stretch, I think...though maybe they saw me last week in Los Angeles and THEN made their decision to include it.

I was hoping to see some nasty-looking purple berries that would stop your heart in two minutes just from looking at them. I wanted to come face to face with plants that sprayed ricin out of their supersoaker-like flowers. I'm guessing there might have been some liability issues with my version of the show. My mind just drifted for a second and I thought how funny it was that I went to a poisonous plant show, because I'm reading this book about poisonous plants. I think I need some rum!

My section is ferociously marked up. It looks like the wall of a bathroom stall at a Flying J truckstop.Aside from being a very messy section, it is also a very intriguing section. Rowan's bitterness toward Cater is palpable. She admits to being resolved to let Reshevsky escort her through New York. Before heading upstairs, Rowan reflects about how her aunt's doting on Cater makes her seem like a fragile adolescent. After this thought Rowan heads upstairs to freshen up her clothes before her sojourn to the city. Looking for Millie the maid, Rowan happens to overhear a conversation between her aunt and James Kee in his office. James implores Aunt Lucy to "...get rid of her." We are to presume that "her" refers to Rowan.

A very interesting editor's note springs up in the margin, here. He or she wonders if the aunt is being sarcastic, believing that "disposing of her" is a bit drastic, even within the fantastical set of circumstances unfolding in "The Greenhouse."

The two go on to debate about how dangerous it is to keep Rowan around. Aunt Lucy wants to keep her, Kee wants her gone. Kee then instructs Lucy to "do as he says" demonstrating who is actually running things at Pleasant Plains Farm. Millie then discovers Rowan in the hall and the two skitter hushed into Rowan's room, agreeing each to keep whatever they hear a secret.

A few minutes after the terrifying event, Rowan's fears begin to fade, though in their place a "conviction" sets in that something is "seriously wrong" at Pleasant Plains Farm.

....like, no doi!!

The chapter breaks and the tone changes...like waves on a beach. Serene/Terror. Serene/Terror.

You know, Boz Scaggs's "Lido Shuffle" is a very underrated song...Caren's gone so I'm listening to music...low volume, though.


So the last page looks like one of my world history papers in 10th grade. It's got red lines and margin notes all over it. It's just missing the "C -." Only about twenty words survive. In the margin someone characterizes the drastic tonal shift between the end of the "get rid of her chapter" and a more positive interlude in the next with Reshevsky and Rowan running through New York like school girls (cue Diana Ross's "I"m Comin' Out.") The strange thing about the notes is that they appear to be written by Antonia; however, they are written as a third person: "An accident with overtones of murder and an ominous conversation have just occurred, building up an apprehensive mood. Now this mood is completely dispelled. The frightening events are forgotten with the lighthearted beginnings of this chapter."

Perhaps Ms. Lamb is just trying to keep the editor focused. I dunno.

That's all I got sistah.

You're up..oh one other thing that makes this whole operation so strange and serendipitous; the girl that replaced you, Phoebe, looks EXACTLY like Rowan on the book jacket. It's kind of freaky. Pictures are forthcoming - she wouldn't let me photograph her yesterday..said she wanted to get some sun at the beach first.

Ah, the beach.

Part 6 - Jean Tinguely, John Galt and an omelette

What's happening, kiddo??

Caren's coming back soon and it had me thinking about management strategies of all things. Sitting in my black Ergo chair, and ruminating about this very compromised situation, my focus ricochets from work duties to existential musings to menial tasks to asking myself why I do anything of it at all, given what I know is the fate of this place. Just as my turmoil hit a crescendo today, 6 PM came and I felt an immediate urge to finish my part of in our project. I thought how amazing it is that some people (ahem) spend every ounce of their will trying to bend the world to their liking...and because that world has a will of its own, it fights back. Yet, because of my general respect for this project, my contribution, your opinion, etc. etc., I would go to great lengths to make sure that none of it is ever compromised on my account. So much bending, so much exerted will, and sometimes all you have to do is stop trying and give in. "Who is JOHN GALT!!!"

Just a thought...I've had a lot of time to generate them.

Another unforeseen quality of this project has been how simultaneously stressful and beneficial the lack of direct contact has been. I feel much more fluid and inspired when I write because I don't exhaust all my thoughts in a wild verbal flourish from 10:41 AM to 11:14 AM. I think it says a lot for the value of restraint, time and routine....and probably, "silence," I hear you say!

So, about the Greenhouse...oh I forgot one thing from section 4. I neglected to mention that there was a Jean Tinguely contraption in the salon where Mr. Chao died. A little bit of familiar content creeping into things, huh?

The dramatic wavelength of this book seems to be about 7.5 pages long, making every othe section for us fall at either a crest or a trough of action. This time, mine was a trough, so your next section looks to be a doozer. Part 6 begins with Rowan trying to settle down to bed after the mayhem from the night before. She wakes up after a long sleep "like the proverbial log" at 11:30, and then heads downstairs to the dining room for breakfast (if this concept is unfamiliar, Caroline, "breakfast" is what we now refer to as "brunch" but without alcoholic beverages and hangovers.) The room is empty of life but for a placesetting and a note. It is written in her aunt's handwriting, handwriting that seems to slant in "several different directions at once" - I'm not Carl Jung or that doctor on HOUSE, but I'd say this description is suggestive. Rowan is instructed in the letter to head to the Greenhouse after eating and that James would give her directions. Mrs. Chow makes Rowan breakfast -- at this point, I too thought I had caught a typo: o-m-e-l-e-t, which I spell omelette; however it seems both are correct.

RATS! Ten dollars to the first person to catch a typo?? Would that be Hong Kong or American dollars??

Chow reveals that the previous night's death was deemed an accident by the police, as the balcony rail was loose. "Mis' Dickson, she always putting off fixing balcony rail. Now too late." Rowan offers her two-cents worth of forensics science, proposing that Chao would have known that the balcony was unstable since he'd been around for a while. But Mrs. Chow rebuts the suggestion by noting how big the house is and that the deceased was more of an outdoors guy.

Rowan finishes breakfast and goes to find James Kee, who is not in his office, and then determines that she should find her Aunt on her own....

Dum da dum dum
Dum da dum dum

Dum,