beulahbondo's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Motherwell's pants and other treasures Back in Cambridge. My subletters left the place pretty clean and tidy, and even left me a little "Jesus Loves You" booklet and some very strange food items, such as shrink-wrapped packages labeled BEEF DINNER and APPLE JELLY portion and CRACKERS. Straight to the food pantry they go. My last 24 hours on the Cape were fantastic. Went to P-town for one night, and it was as crazy and coarse and hysterically funny as always. Not being as active a participant as Garloo, I felt a little odd and shy at first, like I always do, and crept around like a tall mouse until I got dinner at the nice lesbian vegan place, for nice lesbian vegans and the people who eat like them, where I always have to go to feel grounded. Tall, lean, muscular drag queens dressed as waitresses, meanwhile, roared up and down Commercial Street on roller skates yelling about something they, or someone, were performing in that night. I saw lesbian comedian Kate Clinton ride by on a bicycle, no doubt on the way to her performance. And Madonna's brother Christopher Ciccone was showing mediocre photographs of men's butts at a gallery, which led to rumors up and down Commercial Street that Madonna was in town. Indeed, I spotted Madge on the wharf, buying fudge and wearing a very tight t-shirt that said "I fantasize about the UPS man." Not really, but wouldn't it be great if I had? After my delicious tofu and arugula, I went to see the movie "Camp," which was great, and I quite swooned with the pleasure of it, even though the teacher of teenagers in me wanted to see more actual rehearsal scenes as well as some consequences for those kids who snuck out of dorms to go swimming. Then I went to an art auction at Fine Arts Work Center. Man, what's wrong with people? Specifically, what's wrong with chintzy New Englanders? It's a benefit, and they're totally cheesy with the bids. Even Robert Motherwell's painting pants got only three bids and went for $170. I made friends with the only other single woman in the place, and together we waved our paddles extravagantly and drove up the bidding as much as we could. I'm the worst bidder--I know you're supposed to be all deadpan and I always shoot my arm up and wave the paddle like a flag. And I've got long arms. I whistle and hoot and clap. But you know what, when I finally got the print I was hanging out for, the very nice man sitting next to me said, "I'm glad you like it," and he is the artist, and we know people in common, and now we're acquainted. I also bought a stunning painting, oil on wood, of some smeary charcoal-gray boats and tall sails against a yellow sky, and some little red daub people on the pier with hats, which leads me to speculate that they're Chinese and the boats are junks. All I know is the artist's initials are LSM and that it was entered in a Provincetown Art Association show in 1964. It's very sixties in its grooved wood frame and I adore it! At the silent auction I got a beautiful cloth and paper and crayon piece by an Ethiopian artist named Skunder, who it turns out just died this year and was a very influential African painter who taught at Howard University. So there was something crazy and magic about that last night on the Cape, including the moment on the side of the road when I changed from my bathing suit into something less salty and more glamorous. I looked down and saw that I was standing among two large piles of dog doo and the front cover of a Bible. It was a Flannery O'Connor moment, all right. So after all this I drove home in a monSOON and it was very scary, and finally got to Cambridge at 3 am and have been napping and carrying up stuff from the car and reading mail and interviewing for jobs and learning how to cook again ever since. 10:50 p.m. - 2003-08-18 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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