dual personalities

Last Saturday, the DH and I attended the second annual Scottish Festival in Hammond, NY.

It was a blustery but sunny mid-70s day — just perfect for an outing. Those of you who know us will recognize the rarity of the occasion, as our long-standing habit is for the DH to spend Saturdays in the office while I stay home to work and putter.   Since our summer car trip proved so successful, we have vowed to do more, at least locally. The Hammond Scottish Festival marks our first, modest endeavor.

Hammond is a small, farming community a few miles inland from the St. Lawrence River. According to the town web site, it was founded officially in 1827, though the first recorded settler, William McNeill, already lived there in 1812. Soon after, a group of Scottish immigrants moved in and constructed most of the town’s lovely stone buildings. Hammond is named after the original landowner, Abijah Hammond, a New York City merchant who never even traveled to the area. At least he had the sense to sell his land to Scots. The Festival took place at the town museum.

This is the town museum. Photo from https://www.hammondmuseum.com/

We toured the stone house (pictured above on the left) that contains mostly 19th century furniture and artifacts from the area. I like that fireplace.

Photo from museum web site.

The other building houses the museum offices and additional exhibits. Behind the buildings we found a tent-covered stage. Although we missed the pipers, we did get to see this fiddling duo from Heuvelton,

and the Steel City Rovers, a celtic-style band from Hamilton, Ontario, as well as local children performing Scottish dancing.

We watched brawny men in kilts throw weights,

photo from museum web site.

and we even got to see one of our Tai Chi buddies give a blacksmith demonstration. It’s a small world, isn’t it?

Our friend is the one looking small in the background, standing well back from the kilted man.

We enjoyed a low-key afternoon of fresh air and Scottish music. Plenty of people attended but it wasn’t too crowded — the perfect event for two oldies looking for a little adventure. If we attend next year maybe I can get the DH to wear his kilt!

*Robert Burns

Well not quite.

Daughter #1 here. Long time, no see! Daughter #2 had a post she planned to write but then realized she and DN cut their internet pre-move. I also have no internet (don’t get me started) so I’m writing from the office (don’t tell).

I survived my move this weekend and made it to Jefferson City. I’m not settled yet, but getting there.

As with other members of my family, most of those boxes are books!

I’ve made serious progress unpacking (even if it doesn’t look like it) and even got the magnets up on my refrigerator.

My dear sister has the hard part ahead of her today–so keep Daughter #2 and DN in your prayers. Early reports indicate the movers have arrived…an hour late!

That’s like half of it. Woof.

The other night I watched Kurosawa’s 1950 masterpiece, Rashomon, for the first time (yes, I know that’s hard to believe but it’s true).

It did not disappoint! Rashomon inspired many deep thoughts (I promise) but in this post I’m going to discuss the fashion depicted — specifically, hikimayu, the odd Japanese practice of shaving women’s eyebrows off and replacing them with two, thick smudges higher on the forehead.

According to Wikipedia, hikimayu started in the 8th century and kept going until the practice was banned in 1870  along with ohaguro, blackening the teeth. Apparently, the government saw the ban as a way to force the modernization of Japan. 

Well, at least they didn’t bind anyone’s feet. It’s interesting how different cultures develop different beauty standards, some of which last for centuries. Certainly the west has had its share of uncomfortable fashion habits, the extremely restrictive corset being one. No wonder women needed fainting couches.

In the case of extreme women’s fashions, people often blame the patriarchy, but  it seems to me (and notwithstanding the government interference noted above) that the women themselves have always used fashion as a way to project class and rank and exclude those lacking the means to follow along.

Whether you see fashion as self-expression or a manifestation of the herd instinct, it’s here to stay — as powerful a status marker as ever.

In theory, it can also represent rebellion. Alas, tattoos and piercings, which seemed to start as a means to rebel against the norm, have now gone mainstream. You can even get your teeth tattooed.

Ye gods, what next?

This post has wandered from the sublime to the ridiculous, but that’s the way I’ve been operating lately — all over the place. Just bear with me.

Later this morning the DH and I are off to a Scottish Festival in Hammond, NY where we expect to encounter nothing stranger than men in kilts. I’ll report back on Wednesday. In the meantime, wear whatever you want and don’t do anything permanent to your body (no piercings or tattoos) until you’ve consulted your fashion advisor!

*Ecclesiastes 1:2 (KJV)

While this has been the summer of Melville celebrations, I am switching gears today. Last week, in the midst of a conversation about re-naming the honors program I’m now “managing,” I thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature. It is so, so good.

Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.

[…]

Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, — master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.

Personally, I thought we should name our program HONORS EYE-BALL. Do you think bright young freshmen would live up to the motto, “I am nothing; I see all”? And hello, we’d have a mascot ready to go!

Nineteenth-century illustration by Christopher Pearse Cranch

You can read (or skip around in) the complete Nature here.

Is it Wednesday already? Since my Saturday post, I haven’t done much unless seeing Hobbs and Shaw at the movies counts as an adventure — which it should. It’s a fun movie and a great antidote to the end-of-summer-the-world-is-crazy blahs. The film checks all the right boxes, but amusing banter and a good message are the only ones I care about. Physics defying action isn’t my thing,

though I do love a Samoan haka!

Interestingly, one of the main plot elements hinges on the fact that the villains have control of the media and consequently “control the narrative” to make our good guys appear to be bad guys.  Though a typical action movie plot device, it seemed pointedly to remind viewers not to take the news at face value. Everyone has an angle.

My solution? When you read/watch the news, always ask two vital questions: What do they want me to think? What are they leaving out? The second one is harder, but definitely worth the effort. Think about it.

Switching gears, I give you a happy reading newsflash: Amor Towles has published a new short story, The Line, at Granta.  The story offers a timely reminder of the irrepressible human spirit.  Towles always sees the best in his characters and pushes his readers to think. His innate optimism is contagious, and I don’t know about you, but I need that right now. Read the story, watch a fun movie, and question the news. (Better yet, ignore it!)

*Shaw (Jason Statham) to Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson).

Well, the party is over. DN and I have returned to the mid-Atlantic and daughter #1 to mid-MO. After ten days at home, it will probably be a real shock to my system to return to the salt mines! But we will all hang in there. Next weekend, daughters #1 AND #2 are both moving to new apartments, so this week will be spent packing boxes full of books and the like. Remember to lift with your legs!

In the meantime, tomorrow’s blog post will feature a full rundown of our Melville Bicentennial extravaganza. Stay tuned!

Today’s the big party, and though I’ll be toasting Herman Melville from the north country, I’ll be there in spirit.

The Essex and the Sperm Whale 

I hope someone will read this quote from Moby-Dick on my behalf.

“…and Heaven have mercy on us all – Presbyterians and Pagans alike – for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending.”

Though the passage is taken out of context, we can all relate to the sentiment (at least the cracked part), if not to one another.  Let us remember that we’re all in need of God’s mercy, and act accordingly!

*Saying inscribed on a scrimshaw. The whole thing reads, “Death to the living, long life to the killers, success to sailors’ wives, and greasy luck to whalers” (source: New England Today).