Of Mice, Men, and Moose

Last week I was in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area on a rare solo trip into the wilderness. I love going beautiful places with the people I love; I also find it necessary to get away by my self every now and again. This time it was a cold and rainy and wonderful canoe trip off the Gunflint Trail.
Solo trips are hard physically. They can be psychological difficult also. It is so easy to frighten yourself worrying about all the things that could go wrong out on the trail. The trick – the difficult balancing act- is to prepare for everything and worry about nothing. For me, the hardest part of this trip was the simple act of getting out of the car once I had reached the entry point.
It was hard because the early morning drive up the “flint” was dark, cold, and rainy. Since I had just left a warm motel room that looked out over the Grand Marais harbor [next to the Java Moose coffee house I might add] it was hard for me to remember just what is so compelling about the great outdoors. It took every ounce of willpower to not turn the car around and step out into the rain to begin the 160-rod portage to Ram Lake.
Fortunately, the reason I was there came back to me quickly. The smell of the wet fall woods released a years worth of endorphins. The absence of man-made noise was exactly what I had been craving. The sounds were of moose snapping large branches as they moved clumsily through the forest, a solitary loon amusing himself with song, and the damned ubiquitous rain. The striking beauty of Ram Lake even made me forget the threatening weather. The lake has a 300-foot cliff that was being raked by clouds. It’s face was layered with dark green cedars on the shore, gold and red September hues of birch and maple in the middle, and a soft, top course, of light green pines.
I especially love paying attention to the micro wilderness. My campsite for two days was set up on a spot that did not show much wear as a fall blanket of golden pine needles covered it. For protection against the rain, I put up a tarp over what turned out to be a labyrinth. As I sat underneath it, eating or reading, mice would poke their heads out of the ground all around me. Some of them were frighteningly healthy. One mouse was half the size of my fist. Another, with whom I became friends, was tiny. Her ear was the size of this printed “o”. I won her trust by leaving Brazil nuts that mimicked her shape and size near one of the many entrances to this subterranean village.
“Wanna jump up on my lap, Miss Mouse?" I asked. "I'll read to you."
“Whatca reading?” she wanted to know.
“Mary Gordon’s Pearl” I said.
“I’ll pass, thanks”
“Why? It is a fabulous novel dealing with all the important questions for humanity. What is worth living and dying for, maternal and filial love, forgiveness and the unforgivable, and all this set against a backdrop of Irish political history,” I argued.
“Gordon is a man hater,” said the mouse, dismissively. “I bet there isn’t a single sympathetic male in the book.”
“Well…?” and said, since I couldn’t take that bet, “Aren’t you a feminist?”
“You can be a feminist without thinking every living thing with a penis is deeply flawed. What else did you bring to read?”
“Louise Erdrich” I said proudly.
“All right! Now you’re talking… unless it is that book where she joins the cult of Ernest Oberholtzer”
“Perhaps we should just stick to talking about sports and weather”

Art and Geography

Last Friday, September 9th there was another wonderful art opening at Minnesota’s finest art gallery, Groveland . Now in the interest of journalistic ethics –and yes, yes I know this is a blog and there are no journalistic ethics- I must admit to a conflict of interest. Sally Johnson, the brilliant directory of the gallery, is my significant other.
In the current show two very different artists, styles and forms are being exhibited but it is not hard to find a unifying theme. Both artists have a well-developed sense of the earth’ features but opt for playing with and inventing their own geography. Jeanne McGee’s work, which is on display in the gallery’s annex, is strikingly original (one of my measures for genius) and it is stunningly beautiful. She has taken maps, shredded them, woven them back together, and painted imaginary geographic features on these now newly imaginary places. Mark Horton’s show, titled “Metropolis”, has a more traditional feel than McGee’s. His urban geography in oil is intended to evoke a feeling of place rather than document an actual city. His romantic renderings of downtown scenes makes you either proud to be a city dweller or wonder what you are missing that the artist is seeing (another sign of genius).
The show is up ‘til October 14th. Don’t miss it.
ps: I know what you were thinking when you saw the photo above. Yes it also reminded me of the classic novel "Grandpa and the Girls" by that great man of letters, Louis M. Heyward.

My assignment this week is to write about anything related to technology that currently interests me. At the risk of sounding even more the grumpy old fart that I am, let me choose cell phones as a topic.
I confess to being the last human in America who does not own a cell phone. In fact I don’t think having a phone attached to my kitchen wall is an especially good idea. Hell is a place where people can contact you whenever and wherever they choose. Having said that, I have committed to acquiring technological skills that may require acquisition of technology. Unfortunately.
So here is my whine du jour. I have been looking at newspaper advertisements for cell phones and “calling plans” and have concluded that they are intended to be as opaque as possible. I challenge anyone to look at any of those ads and tell me what the cost of their phone will be. It is ironic that companies proud of clarity that will let you "hear a pin drop" communicate so poorly in print that one couldn’t hear a metaphorical bowling pin drop. How about a little truth in advertising phone companies? Don’t make some bored legislator come to the rescue of the public and introduce a bill forcing you to clarify your pricing.

in the interest of "lifelong learning" i am attempting to understand and use the technology that has quickly passed me by. i am not confident that i can master this but with the help of the public library of charlotte and mecklenberg county i will give it a shot.