Showing posts with label road trips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label road trips. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The streets of Philadelphia

Joy and I just got back from an amazing weekend visit to Philadelphia, and I was blown away by the city. I have been to many cities around the world - and I have never loved one as much as I love this one. I feel like I could go on and on - from the amazing old architecture and rich history, to the great food, great people, green spaces, hot bikes, cool queers and fucking kick ass basketball....
But I was particularly struck by the city's Mural Arts Program. Just Since 1985 the city has commissioned over 3,000+ murals, many of which involve community collaborations. according to the site's history :

The Mural Arts Program began in 1984 as a component of the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network, an effort spearheaded by then Mayor Wilson Goode to eradicate the graffiti crisis plaguing the city. The Anti-Graffiti Network hired muralist Jane Golden to reach out to graffiti writers and to redirect their energies from destructive graffiti writing to constructive mural painting.
Jane Golden quickly befriended the graffiti writers and was impressed by their raw artistic talent and their self-taught knowledge of art history. She recognized the amazing creative force they represented, and she began to provide opportunities for them to channel their creative talent into mural-making. Mural painting also provided a support structure for these young men and women to refine their artistic skills, empowering them to take an active role in beautifying their own neighborhoods. The murals they created instantly added color, beauty, and life to an old, industrial city struggling with decades of economic distress and population loss. The results of the program were nothing less than magical. From the beginning, Golden witnessed how mural-making changed lives and how the murals themselves began to mend the aesthetic fabric of the city.
Since 1984 - over 3000 murals have been made and 10's of thousands of under-served youth and adults engaged with art education. You have to love a program whose mission includes a list of rationales, including my favorite  -the last one:
Yo, This is Fun!
We're from Philly. We're for Philly. And we're having a hell of a good time.

I am so FOR Philly.
I sought out a few galleries while I was in town, to see artists I love and admire – but it was on the streets walking around, that I was consistently and repeatedly awed by art. I was struck by how successfully the program infused visual art over the diverse city. The entire public accesses and engages with visual art every single day, in their own neighborhoods and across the city.

The program is based on a network of professional artists, community organizations and public and private funding partnerships. It was one of the best examples of public engagement with visual arts I have ever experienced.

In particular – I really enjoyed the “love letter for you” project by artist/designer Stephen Powers
I've also been listening to ?uestlove's (of the Roots) audio tour of the African American murals throughout the city. Well worth turning on and checking out. I've listened to a ton of audio guides in my day, and this one is really great.
 
If you haven't been to Philadelphia yet - GO. Plus it's about a month ahead of Ottawa in terms of weather, so while it's still grey and cold here - 8 hours away it's lush, hot and green.

And needless to say I've spent much of today trolling apartment and job listings...

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Californian Cowboys Part 4

Day 6 Death Valley
We spend two days in Death Valley.
We stop at a huge expanse of Sand dunes, pop a beer and lie in the hot mid day sun, in the sand. The sand is softer then anything I have ever experienced. Like silk. Like sinking your hands into a mound of sugar, but better. We drive down to Badwater, the lowest spot and the hottest. I'm starting to feel a bit over cooked. Once back in the van the hot sun on my arms as we drive feels amazing. Makes me feel like a warm and good. Since there are very few trees or bushes, the camping is just ok, not very private - but the bright sun peering over the mountains makes even a small RV park look beautiful. Our first night there, I pulled out my sleeping bag and had a 2 hour nap atop the aluminum picnic table, which is completely exposed to the entire park. I loved it. Outside naps are my favorite.
One the second day we leave the park by the south eastern exit - via Wild rose Road. It's a dirt road, much more rugged then the others. We have to go slow, and meander between sharply curving caverns for miles. On each side pink, red, green and yellow rounded stone walls tower over us.

Somewhere between Wild rose Rd. and Red Rock Canyon park, we stop at a used clothing store and I get a great plaid shirt and Hilary gets a blue polyester dress with tiny red polka dots. We also see the two hottest dykes of the entire trip. in this small town used clothing shop. We dissect what made one of them so unbelievably cream-your-pants hot, the rest of the drive. We both conclude it was attitude.

We pull into Red Rock Canyon park late afternoon. It will be our last night of camping. Our last night with Hale Pua. Our last night of cowboy. Red Rock canyon reminds me of the Flintstones. It's just like Bedrock. You can actually imagine that the Hanna-Barbera boys drove out here from Studio city for their motivation. It's a simple night, and we finish up our food, and call it a night early. We're both tired, and ready to get home.


Day 8 Bed Rock to LA
I wake up, and watch the sunrise for the last time through the van windows. My mind is already in Ottawa. I decide that I need to drive. that I want to drive through LA. Down Santa Monica blvd. Through Beverly hills. And I do. This was a rather huge defeat for me as I am quite nervous about city driving, especially driving a huge rental van through LA - city driving. I turn fear into excitement - and with the help of Paul Simon and Hilary on the Map - we do it. We even have time to stop in a Starbucks in the gaybourhood.
We bring Hale back to Bill and tell him our stories. He wanted to hear them all, which feels good because it's nice to remember them all too. He drives us to our hotel - and shows us on the map where we can go to get dinner. Our hotel - which is near the airport - yes - near the highway - yes and which shares a sign and a parking lot with the Hooters next door - yes. Oddly enough - they didn't mention that on the website.
This hotel experience was saved however by the hot tomboy receptionist, with beautiful hands and skin and eyes and shiny soft hair, who lets me flirt mercilessly with her while she checks us into our flights, since there is no computer available for guests. Which was a thankfully a long process because they were international flights and all.

Hilary and I shower and rummage up some clean clothes, go for dinner and call it a night.

Day 9 - John Wayne to O'Hare to MacDonald.
The flight home is beautiful as we fly under the clouds and I get to watch the states transform beneath me. The endless mountains and valleys sprawl from California to Utah, to Colorado and then it all turns flat over Missouri and Kansas. There the Farmer's Fields drape out over the landscape like a giant green quilt. We have a killer all-American meal at a diner at O'Hare - I don't think I have ever enjoyed a veggie burger, fries and a root beer so much. We buy trashy fashion magazines and go home.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Californian Cowboys Part 3

Day 5 Seeing is believing
We can't wait to get back to the desert. We head for Death Valley. We stop at Nevada Joe's - the pair of pink breast cancer ribbons entice us in. The large but empty store is filled with UFO and alien faced posters referring to Area 51. Throughout the trip we have had to bypass several fenced in military training facilities, which take over huge expanses of land - they are often bigger then national preserves. But the conspiracy theorists believe Area 51 is where all the freaky top secret X-files action happens. We buy more hot tamales cinnamon candies, and salty sunflower spits and keep driving. About an hour later Hilary sees UFOs, which I'm pretty sure are just fancy fighter jets.

We get to Scotty's junction - the most north eastern entrance of the park. Amazed at how much distance you can cover going at 100 km / hour, instead of the 50 we were used to taking back roads or going up mountains.
Here - we coast downwards... for hours. Death Valley is 85 m below sea level and we started out at around 3500 feet elevation. It's is the hottest place in North America, and folks round here don't even dare go in the scorching summer heat. In fact it was a clause in our rental agreement - NO TRAVEL TO DEATH VALLEY April - October.

Beautiful rolling slopping hills and trees are a welcome sight, but quickly transform into the rocks and dessert that we had grown to love. After about an hour we are surrounded again by dry arid land, bare desert, back roads and no one in sight.

Now it's my turn to see a UFO - an Unbelievable Flying Object.
"Hilary - what's that over there?" I say as I point to something small, and red floating in the huge expanse of beige rocky empty land.
"It's a red balloon"
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, it's far off, but I'm pretty sure."
"That's what I thought. pull over"

I try to take pictures.. but the digital zoom, and the bright dessert sunlight just make the balloon look like a misplaced pixel.
We had seen several giant red Cloudbusters on the trip - I pointed them out in Santa Ana, at the used car dealership next to the place where we picked up the Hale Pua from Bill. I felt like they were some kind of reminder. Reminder of why I was out here.
but this.
this little rogue red balloon, floating out into my periphery, as if it had followed me and had come out to play - in the middle of fucking nowhere - this was unbelievable

"What does that signify for you?"Hilary asked me after I got back in the van.
I couldn't even answer. I just sort of sat there dumbfounded.
But it was a reminder of my reality - a reality that I had finally fully accepted.
and felt, from the bottoms of my dusty salty boots, so very ready to move on from.

"let's just keep driving" I said to her, and we did.
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