why I’ve started a new diet. I can’t be doing magician imagery with a graying beard and have this corpulent parallel haunting me! 

Although I can work a caftan like no one else can…

I just got back from a fanatic and fantastic road trip across France and in and among all of the experiences, discoveries, traumas and triumphs there are three things I want to share about this transnational outing-

1. I can now add long, claustrophobic tunnels carved with a nature damning hubris through an unimaginable tonnage of mountain to my list of panic inducing, back soaked in sweat, breath gasping phobias.

Thanks Switzerland.

            Rushing across France to start my holiday in Verbier, Switzerland at the chalet of a very generous member of the school’s board, I noticed a subtle anxiety growing as I began to pass through a series of tunnels that were steadily increasing in length and, I swear, reducing in diameter. Deep perspective defining Tron like vectors of light pointing to an unseen, unattainable exit out of this angry mountain’s stent were broken only by a series of unintelligible, cryptic glyphs that I assumed were Swiss prayers to all of those who passed during this unholy transit. Add a suicidal wolf on a motorcycle cutting through and around our obedient, sheep-like herd trafficking to our demise and even my dark humored mantra of “I feel just like royalty, I feel just like royalty, I feel just like royalty…” couldn’t cut the fear.

2. European boys who are between the ages of 3 and 6 have better clothes than I have ever had or will have in my entire life.

            Absolutely.

These little dapper hommes were decked out in their tiny linen jackets with perfectly pressed, wee khaki trousers and impeccably crafted miniature Italian shoes. If there was an unseasonable chill in the air a silken spot of color would appear as a scarf jauntily knotted about their reedy necks. These little “Baby GQ” subscribers were also not blind to the necessity of a well-appointed accessory. Play date ensembles were smartly accented with sporty hand stitched suede side bags exquisitely proportioned to hold two snack-time ginger biscuits and a juice box. Add a perfectly coiffed tussle of “faux-hawk” hair and these little pre-pubescent Beckhams were ready for the runway.

            Little shits.

I might as well have been sporting a chili spattered tunic, picking at myself in urine stained sweatpants for the fashion sense I was comparatively proffering.

3. Wherever you go you must take yourself along…and that spoils everything.

            This little “bon mot” comes from an album my parents had on the farm when I was growing up. One of very few albums that we would play through our barge sized, oak laminate hi-fi console that offered radio (AM and FM), LP turntable and an 8-track deck. Three Statler Brothers selections, a Don Ho (Best of) and two to three dozen assorted Christmas albums rounded out the Eckard family playlist. The radio would be switched on around noon for farm reports or when severe weather threatened and in the afternoon when my mother would tune into “Kitchen Klutter” or “Klatter” (I can only believe it had to have been spelled with a K) for recipes, cooking and housekeeping tips. I can barely remember pants before shoes but can still pull that jangling theme song up from the limbic depths.

Anyway, this record was by Dr. Murray Banks, a psychologist, who did a therapy/psychology based stand-up routine. High schmaltz, saucy and very un-Midwestern, my father would insist on playing this for whoever showed up at the house whether it had been previously heard by them or not. We would sit around the console and if my father didn’t rush and blurt out the punchlines, we shared a very exotic excursion into “big city” intelligentsia and sophisticated humor.

I swear this album and the Dean Martin roasts are where I picked up my deep, disturbing affection for this type of shtick: Youngman, Dangerfield, etc.

When traveling, there is always the romantic expectation of re-invention, vigorous renewal, reckless abandon and unimagined transcendent moments and liaisons that can occur if you just let go and “wander without being lost” or  “embrace your bliss” and do all of the other VW bumper aphorisms I’m subjected to in the Pacific Northwest…

So, I’m traveling through France with a constant argumentative blather in my head (see “Sherrie Lewis” post coming soon) and the good doctor’s phrase keeps surfacing at each delayed dalliance, missed exit or bypassed and then regretted abbey, cathedral or moulin I failed to experience.

“Wander without being lost…”

…or have your French Atlas sweatily pinned to your steering wheel for fear of missing an exit or town that really had no more importance, familiarity or necessity than any of the other hundreds of villages and towns that really only needed to be west of where I currently was to be the “right” one.

To my credit, it only took two to three (or four) days to finally set the Atlas on the passenger seat next to me (still remaining open of course) and let a bit more wander enter into my travel. A general direction and town names that sounded close enough became my travel criteria. Suddenly the French countryside opened up and instead of feeling like a blunt wedge forcing its way through hard cheese, I was slipping gracefully through valleys and hamlets, stopping for that impulsive tarte citron and café and letting the unknown vista over the next horizon be my guide instead of the remorseful shadow of missed Michelin Guide three star attractions and “must do” moments I had plotted out weeks earlier in Pont-Aven when I was getting ready to “take myself along”.

But… was I really using my new video camera enough? I mean why did I bring it along if I wasn’t going to do work? Other artists would have certainly done six or seven projects by now. Who do you think is going to finish the ………

I entered the blogoshpere with a certain degree of hesitancy. Anxious Murmur indeed…

This hesitancy came from a reluctance to publicly wander through a loose chronicle of my daily actions, interests and activities for fear of adding another layer of self-indulgent gas to the digital atmosphere. Unfortunately, this pre-meditated, self-imposed stringency is hobbling a form of expression and exchange for me that I’ve barely begun to explore.

An ex of mine used to very patiently say to me, “David, who do you think is really keeping score?” when I was spiraling up or down a path of perceived appropriateness, grasping for markers of validation or sitting in the familiar position of having my life judged by a fictional jury of peerless members I fabricated, approved without question and had seemingly appointed for life.

It’s just a blog. Really.

So, I’m going to let the jury remain hung and get on with being real, unreal, surreal if necessary, dark, funny, apropos, inappropriate, poignant and pointless and save all of this exhausting existentialism for the French.

And speaking of France…

I completed another window drawing and shared /assaulted/teased the Pont-Avenians with my take on a local favorite: fruits de mer (fruits of the sea).

It’s a horrifying, visceral, straight from the “primordial ooze” culinary offering that had to have originated as a bet or a drunken dare. “Jean, I’ll give you five francs to eat whatever I scrape off this underwater rock…”

You’re presented with a huge mound of artfully arranged sea snails, shrimp, mussels, oysters and crab on a bed of seaweed. Next to your platter is a selection of wicked little hooks, pliers, dainty spoons and mallets that are used to liberate the briny, shapeless nuggets. People rip into, stroke, tear, split, suck and devour this “fruit” with an unrestrained, un-French, primal abandon that is embarrassing to witness. I blush and confront my crepe with the same “where do I look?” panic I experience when I see couples making out on the metro or when monkeys masturbate at the zoo.

All things underwater freak me out so to willingly eat what appear to be flawed, biological prototypes or prehistoric remnants pushes a gastronomical button or two.

It’s also really expensive.

To stay true to the character of the region, my platter is offered up by a beefy, tattooed sailor arm…

”Comment dit-on sublimate?”

CLICK TO ENLARGE AND SEE THE DETAILS…

cut out sections lit up at night

voila!

So after a rapid fire trip across the US of A (New York, Minneapolis, Spirit Lake, Minneapolis, Portland), I’m settling back into my little village of Pont-Aven. It was an exhilarating and exhausting kaleidoscope of business, friends and family. I’m glad I got to see a good amount of people and wish I could have seen more. Thanks to those who made my visit(s) so special!

I delicately cradled my new video camera all the way home like a fresh newborn…only to find out that my infant is in fact a yowling, greedy, demanding little bundle. Now I get to play the “chase my own tail” game of support/peripheral upgrade. Of course my old (three years) G4 iBook isn’t fast enough to really take advantage of the high definition abilities of the camera and if I’m to do this right, Final Cut Studio 2 needs to be installed and can I comfortably use the tripod I now have and come on, still wearing jeans? Maybe I should upgrade to trousers or at least slacks. You call that a haircut and what about those socks….

Damn. Can’t I have anything nice?

Hanging out with friends and family who in fact do have new(ish) infants and knowing that a family is not in my future, I realize that the work, the creative explorations and the experiences I can embrace or create for myself are the core components and markers in my life. If I want to up the ante, raise the bar, expand my horizons, exceed my limits and do all sorts of other cliché ridden improvements with my career I need to commit (“You Can’t Spell Commit Without IT”) to a bigger sense of what the work can and needs to be.

Embrace it, flaunt it, work it and like the couple on my plane back to Paris, don’t be overly concerned if my “baby” is disrupting or disturbing anyone else.

So, Apple Store, get ready to approve a payment plan so my lil’ Canon can have a few more siblings in the crib.

Hmmm, I wonder how much a digital au pair is……….? 

So, I think I’m going to buy a Sony HDR-FXI video camera when I’m in NY next week.

Any recommendations, warnings, suggestions about this particular model?

Strange, cryptic messages are unfolding across the studio wall…..

again, for the seventh season, playing old man “Tucker” in Turgid Gables Summer Theater’s production of “A Plowshare for the Admiral”…