The tunnel and Arvo Part's Te Deum. The latter on the stereo as we drove north, near New Haven. This was Sunday. No better junction of movement and sound: the mouth of the tunnel ahead of us, the speeding vehicles, the austere alleluias of the choir. The silence between the alleluias. I lifted my camera, switched it to video mode. The lights of the tunnel saturated the frame; all I could see was yellow then white, the cold, clean fire of sodium vapor filling the tunnel, and so certain was I that I'd made the beautiful movie of the end of the world, that I didn't even bother downloading it for two days. Of course the video turned out to be nothing like that. Too quick, too quiet, too much silence between the alleluias, so the description itself will have to suffice, oh well. It wouldn't have set the right tone for the week anyway, which has been much sweeter, more convivial, back to earth.
Hi from day five of the Juniper Institute at U Mass, Amherst, where we're working hard but having a wonderful week with colleagues and friends and visiting writers and students. The schedule is tight--hence fewer posts than usual on this end--but we did manage to spend yesterday's free afternoon at Herman Melville's house over the mountain in Lenox. No pictures allowed inside the house itself--I'd left my camera back on the dresser in our room, anyway--but Mark did manage to sneak a shot out the window of Herman's study, toward his beloved Mount Greylock, the view of which made the whole room vibrate. You could feel Herman's lust for that mountain still stirring that room. Maybe I'll remind Mark to pass that picture on to me. In the meantime, some other shots from the readings: Joy Williams, James Tate, Noy Holland, Mark--and Mark and me from behind.
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UPDATE, July 1: More photos. I don't have everyone, but here. in order, is Lisa Olstein, Michael Kimball, Matthew Zapruder, Leni Zumas, and Thomas Sayers Ellis
5 comments:
^^~~輕輕鬆鬆的逛部落格，多謝有您的分享哦~~~ .................................................................
It's great to hear about your travels, work and to share in those special moments.
How strange to stand in Herman Melville's house. To feel the vibrations of his ghostly fingers.
When you come over the hills and up onto the Berkshire plateau, you are coming into my home. I've sat on the porch where he wrote Piazza Tales, hiked his beloved Greylock (often), spent a lot of time on Monument Mtn., where Hawthorne and Melville broke bread together, and at the end of a long summer day, I've settled onto the Tanglewood lawn to hear magic made in the dusk air.
And I adore Arvo Part.
Glad you two are finding pleasure in WMa.
一個人的價值，應該看他貢獻了什麼，而不是他取得了什麼.................................................................
Thanks for note, Elisabeth. Sorry to take so long to acknowledge it--much much to take in in the last week. Hope you're well.
And thanks for your words, Leslie. Your delight in WMA is there in your list of descriptions. I love it too, and the way it keeps revealing itself over time. And Arvo Part, yes.
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