Ships & Cocktails...Size Matters

When I saw the television news reports (and the YouTube video) of the arrival of the Oasis of the Seas into its home port in Florida I pretty much reacted typically. That is, I scoffed and questioned just who the hell would want to actually cruise on a ship of that size? As humans we certainly have a herd instinct but thankfully most people value their individuality too, and most of us land somewhere in between. The Oasis is the world’s largest cruise ship ever. It is 1,187 feet long, has 16 decks and is capable of stuffing seven or eight thousand people (counting crew) into its innards, presumably in some comfort. So, in my smugness, I felt vindicated about not even considering drawing on my ever-diminishing cache of discretionary income to indulge in such folly.

But, then, hey…it dawned on me that while watching that video and marveling at the sheer size of the ship I was envying those tiny people lining the railings, looking back at me. They were the participatory voyagers in the cat-bird seat and I was just an umpteenth-removed voyeur back in my little apartment amid the equally swarming streets of New York City. So, now, who wants to be on that ship?

I do.

On Dec. 5 the Oasis will embark on its maiden voyage, making the usual stops in the Caribbean--I guess St. Thomas, et al. But the ports of call are irrelevant. The ship itself is the cake, icing and all. If the weather is really fine I can envision spending three or four days just lolling and lounging around her many venues while berthed at Port Everglades, Fla. Or, failing that, rudderless roving on the open seas to catch the sun and fresh breezes to go along with the poolside SPF 30 and the tall, frosted, fruity cocktails-with-umbrellas that are a natural craving while tropically cruising. A Friend of Bill I’m not and even though I pretty much loathe pina coladas, they just seem so right during Bingo.

Spartans! Tonight we dine in...uh

In January of 2006 I started Peebstuff, the blog, and this is the 300th entry. I didn’t bother whipping out the calculator so the math is probably a little faulty but this means that I have published in the neighborhood of 80 per year, which works out to about 1.2 a week. Of course entries are not on any sort of schedule but are based solely on any given daily or weekly inspiration and everyone knows that inspiration doesn’t grow on trees. Or, for that matter, fall off of trees this time of year, even though I’ve decided to forego the annual autumnal paean to the beauty of dying leaves, gasping for life as they flutter to earth; doomed to useless mulch on the paved pathways of Prospect Park. Heh heh.

To be sure, 300 is a minor landmark and patting myself on the back I’m not. It’s just a nice, round number with a couple of zeroes and nothing to be smug about. It’s not a great number; but not shameful either…maybe somewhere in between, and it continues to be a nice outlet for my restless brain, ego be damned. We’ll see how I feel when the next double-zero heaves into view.

The Soul and Wit of Sol LeWitt

I got a rather pleasant visual jolt today while transferring subway lines at the 59th Street-Columbus Circle station. On a wall facing a double-wide stairway and landing at 60th Street that leads from the mezzanine to the A, B, C, D and 1 trains, is a brand new, giant, tiled wall of jewel-toned loops and curves. The colors are pretty eye-popping and the sucker is monumental in size so you can be forgiven for falling down the stairs if you’re not careful. The mural is nothing if not bold.

It looked kind of familiar but I didn’t get the connection until I read the accompanying information. It is one of the last commissions by the “Conceptual” artist Sol LeWitt and its title is “Whirls and Twirls (MTA)” which rang a bell with me. It took some plain and fancy research to make the right connection but, with the right kick in the shins from Google, I remembered seeing a show of LeWitt’s on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art four or five years ago. At that time the most intriguing works were sort-of eruptions of material; painted resin in mountainous shapes and in extravagant colors. But along one side was a very large mural, in acrylics, also named Whirls and Twirls.

This “MTA” version looks to me to be almost a replica, with one important difference. The mural at the Met was a painting; the mural in the MTA is an incredible amalgam of porcelain tiles in deeply saturated tones of blue, green, yellow, orange, red and purple and it is 53 feet wide and 11 feet high. It is a most impressive, monumental work of art and the largest art project ever sponsored by the MTA. It’s almost too bad it’s underground because I can imagine how those colors would pop in natural sunlight.

It was another nice, and sudden, surprise from a city full of them. Sometimes it pays to just wander around with no particular goal. Ya never know; ya know?

Where the Wild Things Aren't

Maurice Sendak’s children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are” is a major work of art. However, despite my fond memories of it, I now realize there are very few children who have the background and life experiences to actually appreciate it. My sister told me she asked her grown son what his memories were of the book and he answered (I’m paraphrasing here) “Well, the grown-ups liked it.”

And there you have it in a nutshell. Where the Wild Things Are is an absolutely great children’s book in the eyes of the adults who buy it for them. Real, living, breathing children much prefer purple Barney in all his blobby stupidity and we have to sigh and admit that’s the norm.

Wild Things was published in 1963 and it was a sensation and garnered a fortune for Mr. Sendak and his publishers. During the subsequent decades I understand many overtures were made by a variety of talents to obtain movie rights but all offers were shunned as not worthy. But, somehow, Sendak (and his publishers) decided the time is right (and possibly the profit-sharing) and Where the Wild Things Are, the movie, was released a couple/three weeks ago amid much hoopla and, yes, admiration by most of the critics. The grown-up ones.

Spike Jonze’s movie is no more a children’s movie than the book is and, frankly, I’m on the fence about it. First, I was very disappointed that it’s not the great movie I wanted it to be, so I guess the fault lies within my own expectations. Secondly, it’s a good movie with a lot of the elements of the book remaining (or suggested), but I thought Mr. Jonze pretty much messed it up.

There are undoubtedly some beautiful images (it was filmed in Australia) but that’s not enough for me. I wanted love and only got like. Of course I’m dealing from my own nostalgia but even though the film seems to be making money, it’s not the definitive version it should have been. Mr. Sendak (and his publishers) should have left it alone…they certainly don’t need the bucks but, hey, we live in an age where maximizing profits is the norm.

Oh, well; the book will live on as the classic it is. But the ordinary movie made from it will not.

Another Wreck Collection

This moment of nostalgia is brought to you by the simple act of opening a box I’ve had stored in my basement in Brooklyn since 1993. This would be the box containing my collection of seashells that I think I’ve blogged about before. In the on-going purge of the detritus in the basement I’ve finally worked my way forward to the shelves holding stuff of a more recent nature; that is, only 16 years ago as opposed to the heretofore 40-50 years of stuff hoarded away.

The influence of my grandmother’s seashell collection on me was long lasting, if not infinite. When I was growing up I was crazy about my grandmother. My grandfather passed away when I was a single-digit tot so she became this goddess of small-town pleasures to her grandchildren; all 21 of us. I would like to say that I was her favorite but that might not be exactly true since I think she was terrific to the whole crowd. I had the advantage of living in the same town and an easy bike ride to/from her home and until I went off to college I was over there all the time, mowing her lawn and eating her food and, finally after a couple of years of trying, beating her at Scrabble.

Her house and garage were a treasure trove of old stuff. Antique dealers today would have heart attacks. But like most of us nowadays those treasures were unrecognized at the time and when grandma wore out and “something” had to be done; her children took the necessary steps to have her cared for and she faded from cognizance, forever out of the ken of her “favorite” grandchildren.

In a formal, glass-fronted cabinet with, I think, three shelves (maybe two) in her living room my grandmother had a seashell collection that had been in her family for a long time. The shells were precisely numbered on little white squares of paper glued to their bottoms and she kept a small journal that listed corresponding references as to their precise scientific names, along with the more mundane common usages. This collection was out-of-bounds to all small hands and could only be viewed through the glass and I spent a lot of time just staring in there; sort of like an unmoving television sitcom with alien creatures wielding weapons set on stun. Many years passed before I was deemed responsible enough to actually breach the boundaries of this cabinet-of-curiosities and was allowed to actually pick up individual shells; fondle their rough and smooth shapes and marvel at the colors and variety.

These seashells, individually, were the finest specimens and I’m sure their value was, even at the time, immense. And there’s the rub. Even my own mother was unable to tell me what became of this collection. It vanished into thin air like a ghost bicycle and the culprit who made off with it (it had to be a relative) never ‘fessed up. It was quite a tempest-in-a-teapot scandal in my family and my overactive brain still thinks the collection still exists somewhere. Maybe still in the same cabinet with the same little, numbered, white squares of paper attached.