Verlyn's Latest is a GEM......

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/opinion/18tue4.html



One Final Evening

By VERLYN KLINKENBORG

Nearby, I can hear the sound of the 10, a waterfall of asphalt and rubber. A helicopter putters past overhead, and there is the sudden, tubular flare of a motorcycle — a big one — climbing the on-ramp just a few blocks away. Mockingbirds swoop from fence to wire down the long line of backyards in this part of town, and the small, gray bird nesting in an angle of my porch-roof has bedded down with her eggs for the night. The twilight sky has reached the moment when, if I could, I would break a shard from it to light my way in the darkness.

Meanwhile, up in the village, every restaurant is full, every corner crowded. Claremont, Calif., is a college town, of course, and the parents have arrived for graduation. They have put their simulacra through college, and now they are all dining out in a haze of anticipatory nostalgia. I know the feeling. I graduated from this place — Pomona College — a long time ago, and I remember the eerie sensation of seeing so many adults who looked so surprisingly like their younger selves. I remember the nostalgia, too.

I have never had children, so, for me, there is something a little extra in coming to semester’s end with the students I’ve taught. Week by week, I watch their thoughts get clearer and clearer until, suddenly, my students are able to say things we can no longer quite account for. One by one, they come into focus, to me and to each other, in their writing. Just why this should be such a beautiful thing I have never figured out, unless perhaps it’s this. Even at their age, they carry such a weight of life. They are such experts in the particulars of their circumstances. They have the strange and impermanent gift of not knowing how much they know.

One by one, I’ve talked to my students about what comes next. There are plans, places. Beijing, France, Woods Hole, London. Schools of every kind, and every kind of service, as well. One by one, my students express their longing and their sense of loss as they get ready to leave this place. I tell them to keep in touch, to write and to send me what they’re writing. I am the constant one. I am now a voice in their heads, a voice that will sound surprisingly familiar to them the next time we talk. Yet only a few of them will keep up the uneven acquaintance of professor and student, which is just as it should be.

What I get in return is the knowledge of who they are at this very moment. I get to see, through the writing they’ve done for me, how life appears to them just now. And looking at my students, I can only wonder who I was all those years ago, on this same night, this one final evening. But I am long forgotten, even to myself. Tomorrow I leave this place like everyone else, and what I will think of is that nest in the porch-roof and how the last light shone through the leaves of the orange tree before I sat down to write.

Verlyn's Latest is a

1930s Ladies in Favorite Southwest Places.....

Colorado River....Grand Canyon.....I so want to go.....

http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/travel/16Colorado.html




Slide show: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/16/travel/20100516COLORADO.html




My fave pic: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/16/travel/20100516COLORADO-2.html

(talk about perspective.....)

Verlyn Klinkenborg's latest......Understanding LA is not worth it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/opinion/09sun4.html

Editorial Notebook

Haunting Los Angeles

By VERLYN KLINKENBORG

Published: May 8, 2010

Los Angeles

Something escapes me about Los Angeles. Wherever I go, I always imagine I’m finally going to grasp its essence. I try to feel its harmonics in my bones. I watch the edges of the freeway to see if there is a clue in the debris the traffic sweeps to the sides. I wonder if there would be room for all these cars if they decided to find parking spots at once.

The iconic glimpses don’t help me in my quest — not the sudden view of the Hollywood sign I get from the Hollywood Freeway, not the view of downtown almost floating in the sunset from Pasadena. Every now and then, I turn a corner and think that something essential is about to be revealed. The feeling intensifies all the way up Venice Boulevard into Culver City, and then I’m on National taking one of those curious hidden freeway entrances and suddenly the feeling vanishes.

To say that this is a city of extraordinary facades is not the same as saying it’s a superficial place. But there are days when it feels as though these are all false fronts, put up so the real business of living can go on in the back, out of sight. It makes no difference how blank or familiar the facade.

I walked into a restaurant — strip-mall Chinese — that looked, from the outside, like it had been built yesterday. It was a grotto inside, dark and ancient, as ancient as anything in a strip mall can be. There was a fountain in the takeout area, and by one of its miniature waterfalls stood a small Santa Claus, looking as if he’d been waiting decades to be rescued.

If I had an extra lifetime to live, I’d live it here. I don’t mean one lifetime lived, in the usual way. I mean a lifetime living within a block or two of the insurance shop on Venice Boulevard with the wrap-around neon facade. Another watching cars turn off National onto the 10. Another sitting by Santa, seeing who comes and goes. Perhaps then I could grasp what always escapes me here. Then I’d know whether it was worth looking for in the first place.

****************************************************


I lived in the LA area....three times over 20 years.

I still don't get LA and now don't feel like the Lone Ranger.

Unlike V.K. though, I would never, ever live a lifetime in any part of LA.

Concrete wasteland that it is, it's not worth it.

Now, visiting Anza Borrego State Park, Kernville, Mount Shasta and some other places far, far away from the madding crowds...well, there are beautiful places in California.

Just not in LA.

There are so many other places to visit/stay that are on my Bucket List. Why anyone would bother with understanding LA?

It takes all kinds to make a world.

Favorite Artwork today.....Cabin in the Sequoias!

http://www.etsy.com/listing/40315749/giant-sequoia-tiny-cabin-fine-art-photo

from a terrific Etsy Shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/photoamato



Ooh, what I wouldn't give for a few days and nights away from the madding crowd in a place of solitude like the cabin in the sequoias. I once lived in a cabin in the redwoods south of San Francisco for a year. I'm grateful for such peaceful memories of such a healing place and sometimes achingly miss the awesome quiet living so close to wildlife.

Anneli Rufus, one of my favorite authors, celebrates alone-ness in her genius work called "Party of One: A Loner's Manifesto". Brilliant group of extraordinary essays. Reading this book feels like coming home to me.

http://www.annelirufus.com/

Sunday May 9, 2010 Etsy Treasury by Boxerlovinglady

BIG SIGH:)

http://www.etsy.com/listing/40315749/giant-sequoia-tiny-cabin-fine-art-photo

http://www.etsy.com/listing/44621871/redwood-trees-forest-8x12-photo-print

http://www.etsy.com/listing/45557059/california-cliffs

http://www.etsy.com/listing/46462836/romero-trail-original

http://www.etsy.com/listing/46330518/life-on-the-north-umpqua-river

http://www.etsy.com/listing/46434995/farmers-market

http://www.etsy.com/listing/32724546/index-island

http://www.etsy.com/listing/46256956/colorado-river

http://www.etsy.com/listing/46329310/maryland-contemporary-original-daily-oil

http://www.etsy.com/listing/38042973/when-the-mists-rolled-back

http://www.etsy.com/listing/43847069/lindisfarne-priory-landscape-oil

http://www.etsy.com/listing/36819217/large-horseshoe-bend-ready-to-hang

Etsy East: Etsy Fine Art

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/c324b47b99cccf4b7840f300/favorite-etsy-fine-artistsa-few

Native American and Native Inspired Artwork on Etsy

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4bd2053d7fb16d917ec6d576/native-american-and-native-inspired

Can you CANOE? Etsy Treasury: Gorgeous River Landscapes....

http://www.etsy.com/listing/43382048/east-on-fourteen-11-x-20


http://www.etsy.com/listing/26312916/mountain-river-gatlinburg-tn-2009


http://www.etsy.com/listing/18543746/glenwood-canyon-colorado-a-special-place


http://www.etsy.com/listing/13568342/24x36inch-winnesquam-river-original-oil


http://www.etsy.com/listing/18054473/the-river-original-watercolor-18-x-24


http://www.etsy.com/listing/19781723/sussex-river


http://www.etsy.com/listing/25297499/clearwater-river


http://www.etsy.com/listing/37711683/overlooking-the-hudson


http://www.etsy.com/listing/29407256/franklin-island-on-the-missouri-river


http://www.etsy.com/listing/34456526/amber-afternoon-original-18x24-oil


http://www.etsy.com/listing/38375345/rudy-miller-original-painting-zion


http://www.etsy.com/listing/300211/walt-curlee-mountains-river-and-aspens



Honorable Mentions:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/43381599/highway-14-view-point-24-x-36
http://www.etsy.com/listing/44330139/mcdonald-creek-limited-print
http://www.etsy.com/listing/34912461/mountain-splendor-30x24-inch-deluxe
http://www.etsy.com/listing/22311046/savannah-wildlife-refuge-marsh-views