My goal this entire summer was to get out of the city as often as possible. Suddenly, when the city comes to the country, a whole new animal is created. I went to the Wassaic annual art exhibition in Maxon Mills only to realize that this show is a dubious combination of vital contemporary art in an “idyllic” setting of perfect country sprawl.  It’s so perfect it’s almost ludicrous.  The Green Acres theme song keeps coming to mind. “….Land spreading out so far and wide. KEEP Manhattan just give me the countryside.”  Um, yeah.  Something is off.  Eva Gabore was a 5^th Avenue princess and she “gets allergic smelling hay.”  Herein lies the problem.  We can escape the city for contemplative nature but when you bring a lofty art show to the country, it just doesn’t jive.  Are people too distracted by the sun? The mountain view? The crawfish boil (go figure!) and fried catfish truck?

Perhaps the scary truth is that art does need to be contained? Maybe if it breathes or basks it’ll disintegrate.  Here, the art is in a structure so perfect, so “authentically rustic” that it comes dangerously close to a quaint curiosity, making it all too easily dismissible. Perhaps the controlled white walls of a big, sterile space direct the viewer into the exact right submission, one in which we succumb to the art because it guides us and forces us into compliance. I’m not saying art has one rigid way of being read, and it’s impossible in a new context.  I’m also not talking about the BBQ here or the country distractions – the wet dogs and toddlers.  I think art and its reception comes with tacit laws that provide the viewer and art object with a paradigm that makes the experience real.  Maybe the idyllic setting has no place for conceptual, free-thinking art because our minds wander? And so it hangs there, trapped by the beautiful wood boards of the hand-crafted barn walls.

I resign to forever admitting that I need a denatured, air-regulated box for a perfectly complete art world experience.



The town of Portland is small and wet.

It makes me wish I had a pet.

But then what if my pet will drown.

I’d need to quickly leave this town.

I think that Cali’s sun is brighter.

Ok, Willamette, check you later!



I recently did a chemistry problem that asked me to find the grams of fat in one avocado that is 405 Calories, 13 g of carbs and 5 g of protein, knowing that fat, carbs and protein emit 9, 4 and 4 calories per gram, respectively.  What I discovered in my prodigious work with the chemistry textbook are two things. The first is that chemistry really IS useful and the second is that the avocado has 37 grams of fat.  Shocking on both accounts, I know!  Well, needless to say I ate at least two avocados in guacamole form in Tulum daily, which brings me to my other Mexican confessions. 

1. After over sixteen years of not eating any red meat or pork (Oy Gevald!), sigh, I accidentally ate a pork taco.  Guess what? That’s right, it tasted like chicken.  Fooled me until I was informed of the truth. It was already too late to stick two trusty ones down the ol’ esophagus. 

2. The second, albeit less shocking and teshuvah-inducing, is another testament (ha cha cha cha!) to my apparently chemistry-inclined-and-not-much-else brain.  We stayed in a little tent made of sticks and leaves with no electricity. We had running water and a toilet, but when I went to turn the hot water on, one knob produced barely tepid water, while the other freezing cold water. I assumed the barely tepid was the hot and waited and waited and nothing. Since we hit a cold front, I couldn’t exacerbate my predicament and opted for not showering at all.  On day 5, with the help of Gustavo, I realized that the freezing cold knob was the hot water.  Oh well. The ocean was my giant bathtub (that one day that I went swimming).

I went upstate to visit my friend who left the art world to work on his father’s farm in Tivoli, NY. Upstate is glorious. Somewhere between the death of indie rock culture and the birth of massive addiction to instant gratification though, we plugged in and never unplugged. I’m guilty too. I guess if smoking was something I once did to pass the time but still have a purpose, now I text or email.  And then, the punk kids got older, music became less novel and the brilliance of original thought became, well, derivative. I figured out the age-old solution: nature. Sounds silly, I know, but guess what? It’s beautiful and bigger than I am, and it never changed. It never got old or boring; I never outgrew it; it never got stored on a shelf to collect dust or become a relic for nostalgic tears.  Young farmers are making rad things happen, and they are keeping us alive and satisfied all at the same time.  Their job matters. They don’t heal nor do they diagnose.  They create the basics. It’s radically amazing.

Things I fear about being a farmer:

1. Weird tan lines
2. Wrinkles
3. Boredom
4. Driving

Things I don’t fear:

1. Missing NYC
2. Wearing crappy clothes
3. Being cold
4. Relying on B to drive

My conclusion is that I’d rather have a small garden with a house.  I think I don’t need to be a farmer, although I’d like to eat what I grow and give the rest away.

pigs are cute. i like them. i don't like to eat them.

I’ve seen the stupid t-shirts. I get that it’s stunning.  And yet, I thought it was really more distant. We went to this town where farmers grow their own food and people live in hippie happiness pretty much all year round. Granted, the June visit was easy on the senses.  To make it warmer and fuzzier, my friend made poppy tea. Here’s how it works. You order poppy bulbs for planting, cut them, drain the seeds inside, and grind the hard bulb in a coffee grinder. Then you brew the tea, bringing the mash to almost a boiled and letting it soak for a good while. I suppose the chemistry of time and proportion comes with experience. 

life is good

Then you drink the tea. It’s dry, bitter and tastes like pressed hay blended with dirt and a touch of water. After you drink it, you walk around Ithaca’s gorges and Cornell’s campus. If you’re lucky, you stumble into a strawberry field and you eat as many strawberries as you can possibly stuff in your mouth. Then you just lie on the grass and let the sun hit your face. Another giant hug from the universe.