Choreographing a swallowtail ballet

Inspiration plus perspiration plus going where angels fear to tread into the thistle meadow in search of the dramatic black swallowtail photograph.  The butterfly always one more giant prickly weed beyond the range of the sun-dazed photographer with her tiny camera. Digital click click click zoom point zoom out of focus tangled on thorns wondering about snakes click click swing zoom. Percussion mostly.  Vertical stripes pink black glaring white yellow greens.  A Seventies disco floor flashing backdrop. Exaggerated prickly prancing silhouetted photographer sharp shadow dancing spiky.

Corps de ballet in pink tutus.  Male corp in shades of green-- vertically striped tights. Photographer frames shots larger and smaller circles. Lighting changes from soft to stark contrast.

Floor a glowing pink light projection.  Back a bokeh of greens and bright whites. Dancers in yellow leotards and tights with black markings, orange and blue spots on the floor.  Legs open close angle point pivot from floor. Small shifts to other pink circles of light.

Solo.  Black swallowtail prince.  Slightly battered.  Short movements between vertical green translucent banners.  Sense of confinement.  Needing nourishment.  Corps returns in front with windy shielding and frustrated photographer.

Sphinx moth interlude.  Low to floor. Two moths with three fading thistle flower dancers.  Hovering with strobe.  Rosy hues and browns.

Color invert dance.  Black light effect.  Sharp wire sculpture wings with pearls and jewels.  Neon edges glowing.  Sphinx moths, dragonflies, damselflies, hornworms, wheelbugs, tiger beetles, orb spiders, weevil, caterpillars, praying mantis.  Grand, triumphant, dark. Sousa meets Pink Floyd.

Brown.  Roly-polies.  Millipedes. Snails--how to leave a sparkling silver slime trail??  Worms slightly pink by comparison. Cicadas. Dark background and floor.

Grand finale starring fabulous black swallowtail male in dances with strong, leaping yellow swallowtail female.  Occasional entrances of small groups of female yellow swallowtails. Prolonged threesome frolic with black swallowtail and two yellows.  Exit into dark woods.

Finale--Black swallowtail emerges from shadows and flies weightlessly toward the glittering crystal sunlight on the creek.  Ode to Joy?

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Tdap dancing up the wall

I gladly clicked my heels and toes up to the Minute Clinic to get an adult tetanus/diptheria/pertussis (Tdap) shot so I can hold my grandbaby next week.  This adult booster vaccination became available in 2005.  Adults only need it once, although the regular Td is still needed every ten years.

Pertussis, aka whooping cough, is potentially fatal for infants. At your next annual exam ask your doctor if you are vaccinated.  Not just for your grandbaby, but for all grandbabies! That's the great thing about vaccines. When we are protecting the one we love, we are also loving and protecting the greater oneness of  our community.

Whooping cough is coming back with a vengeance. We thought it was eradicated, but it didn't stay that way when parents stopped vaccinating their children. Fears of vaccinations causing autism have been proven unfounded. But now there is an epidemic of parents who do not want to inconvenience or discomfort their children in any way for even the slightest moment, as that might be a tad inconvenient or uncomfortable for the adults. If you have not guessed, this makes CollageMama VERY, VERY CRABBY.




My shoulder was sore for three days, or my solder was shore. It was a short term sore shoulder for long term prevention. Whining of the individual weighed against a win for my community. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Every parent has to weigh for a moment the possibility that a shot might make a child uncomfortable for a couple days. Is it worth the immediate discomfort and inconvenience for the long-term protection of both the child and the larger community? Absolutely!


Whooping cough — known medically as pertussis — is a highly contagious respiratory tract infection. Although it initially resembles an ordinary cold, whooping cough may eventually turn more serious, particularly in infants. Whooping cough is most contagious before the coughing starts. The best way to prevent it is through vaccinations. The childhood vaccine is called DTaP. The whooping cough booster vaccine for adolescents and adults is called Tdap. Both protect against whooping cough, tetanus, and diphtheria.


© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Never before with a hellebore

[In a would-you-could-you-on-a-train manner this post will ride hell-bent for leather all over the place, so be forewarned.]

The Dallas Arboretum cured my madness. Walked all around this morning taking photos and working out the Tristan und Isolde kinks. I came under the spell of hellebore in beds both shady and sunny. 

hellebore 

late 14c., from O.Fr. ellebore, from L. elleborus, from Gk. helleboros, perhaps meaning "plant eaten by fawns," from Gk. ellos/hellos "fawn" + bora "food of beasts," from bibroskein "to eat," from PIE base *gwere-"to swallow." Among the ancients, the name given to various plants of both poisonous and medicinal qualities, reputed to cure madness.

Perhaps the plant was eaten by fauns, not fawns.  I never before saw a hellebore nor Nijinsky dancing to Debussy's "Afternoon of a Faun". Nor Nureyev neither, no matter how many negatives that is. I was as spellbound by the flowers as by the classic ballet film from one hundred years ago that beckoned me from my search.

Something about these plants feels very ancient even before I learn their name. Is it the dusty, slightly faded colors? The quality of porcelain? The chalky '68 rouge on the withered cheeks of the junior high art teacher two years shy of retirement telling eighth-graders how to carve plaster of Paris into della Robbia rondels?

Dallas Arboretum test garden

Hellebore plants are known as Lenten roses even though they are not part of the rose family.  

Hellebore for Lent....

Hellebore for lemons... also one lime, a clove of garlic, lite mayo, a red bell pepper, Tillamook pepper jack, today's newspaper, black olives... wait, wait, this is a grocery list!

Hellebore for leather? 

Hell-bent for leather. 

Hell-bent? Hell for leather? All in a lather? 

What do these mean? Am I stuck in a dream? Why are my former in-laws in this dream? Well, that last one would take many more blog posts and an interview with Isadora Duncan to explain!

• Hell-bent--with reckless determination; at full speed.
• Ride hell-for-leather--early use of this phrase by Kipling in 1888 to mean desperately and/or swiftly causing a horse's skin to lather.

Now I'm all in a dither about daffodils, narcissus, and jonquils. Every spring Dad and I used to wonder about the distinction. We could never remember from year to year.  This year Dad is beyond care, and I must dither on alone. 

The library regular wants to check out two DVDs from the NEW shelf, but the circulation system allowed only one. We josh around a bit, both of us having mellowed over the years. He semi-jokingly claims I put the kibosh on his movie plans. I tell him I researched "kibosh" once, but now I've forgotten its origins. The regular says if I researched it I should remember.Trouble is, I joshed, my memory was kiboshed and my brains are goulash.  

kibosh 

1836, kye-bosk, in slang phrase put the kibosh on, of unknown origin, despite intense speculation. 

goulash 

1866, from Hungarian gulyáshús, from gulyás "herdsman" + hús "meat." In Hungarian, "beef or lamb soup made by herdsmen while pasturing."

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

A Three Hour Tour

Darting away from school at three-thirty, I headed to the nature preserve for a walk in the woods.  Without the leaves I'm more aware of the land.  The trails on each side of the creek have seemed so far from the other.  Now I can see how close they are, and spot landmarks on the other side.

This has been a year for learning about decline and decay and approaching death.  Out of the loss I am trying to see the transformation of vital energy into a new form.  I can't express it very well, but in the forest for that hour it made sense.

This barely clothed leaf is a Venus de Milo.  How can humans transform stone into art of classic beauty?  Mushrooms descend a staircase like Duchamp's nude as they dance of the living out of the dead.

Transforming
Transitory
Ballet

Movement
Short trip

By six-thirty we had moved Dad into a shared room three doors down the hall.  I have upset his tiny island world again.  Gilligan and the Skipper will have to make him comfortable and secure again.

On a lighter note I offer these Tammy Faye mushrooms in the haunted Muppet forest.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Filberts frugging in an endless fog

Still in Willamette Mission State Park north of Salem, Oregon I had a Bob Fosse moment. Be glad you didn't see me attempting the "Rich Man's Frug" from "Sweet Charity". I was just angling for a better macro shot of the filbert catkins on the trail to the Willamette River's bank.

The Filbert Grove Day Use Area seemed like a nice place to picnic on a balmier day.  In a fog about filberts along the Willamette River.


Now, back in the real world of Google I find filberts are a type of hazelnut, and a cup of hazelnut coffee sure would be nice.  The Frug was a dance back in the Laugh-In era.  It is not an overpackaged squeezy fruit puree kiddie lunch product. Don't get me started on that!  Well, I'm already started.  We consume way too little fiber, and now our children are moving from an apple a day to a squeezable fruit puree that costs a buck a serving???

So, I wonder as I wander out under the filbert trees down toward the Willamette River what in the hey-ho is wrong with the world.









My sister and I have been on a collision course of wandering wondering about the Christmas LP recordings remembered from childhood.  She sent me a CD of this old Firestone album my dad probably got with a new set of studded snowtires:

If I had the energy to crawl into the far dark back of the bottom kitchen cabinet there might be an old tree trunk nut bowl and cracker.  Tonight I'll go nuts in other ways. Nighty-night.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Predictive text = more evidence of the apocalypse OR potatoes au gratin

My friend in the hospital after double bypass heart surgery is sending messages via some dumb smart electronic device.  The messages pop up in my Hotmail, and make very little sense.  When I write asking about french toast for breakfast, his reply is about irises.  When I mention those fetching backless hospital gowns, I get back "The gown and precipitous  are going home with me.."  What is going on?


Have Holmes and Moriarty wrestled on the brink of the Reichenbachless Hospital Gown Falls?  Shouldn't modern technology clarify communication?   My backless friend just wants to take his souvenir pee cup home from the hospital to have it bronzed, and he is willing to pay the out-of-network/out-of-pocket price for this relic.  Why is technology pushing him over the cliff?

Come on baby, do the disambiguation with me, but not in your hospital gown.





© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Cedar Brake Loop

"Cedar Brake Loop" suggests a modern dance creation for spring in North Texas. I wonder what became of my favorite choreographer, Bruce Wood. The Cedar Brake Loop trail at the Heard Nature Sanctuary near McKinney, TX calls for percussion musicians and a modern dance choreographer of Wood's abilities.


Any moment I expect Hansel and Gretel to tiptoe along the trail, scattering bread crumbs and imagining a witch's whispers as the cedar bark rustles.



It is cool and shadowy down in the Cedar Brake area of the nature preserve. The trail is primitive compared to the Eagle Scouts' swamp boardwalk project on the Wood Duck Trail. I can't advance far on the mud trail, but it is a sufficient distance to be caught in the wind-blown sounds of stick rattling against stick.


Hansel and Gretel can't get very lost. They are more likely to leave the plastic wrap from their juice box straws on the trail than bread crumbs. Even the most jaded child would have a few moments of Grimm anxiety in the Cedar Brake darkness.

Far overhead the cedars are green. Sunlight quickly reaches my squinted eyes. Down here on the trail it's removed to a black and white woods with tiny hints of spring green.

The branches rattle and clack in waves of percussion. I can't wait to go back!



© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Thanks be to Bakers Coconut

The choreographer found it first. "Oh, my gosh! I've got to have this!," she said.



We were going through Mom's cookbook cabinet. The cover of the pamphlet pulled at something deep inside me, but I shrugged and said, "I don't like coconut."

Turns out, my choreographer sister doesn't eat coconut, either. We were remembering instead our fascination when Mom cut and formed a sheet cake or round layer cakes into birthday party works of art. Mom could spin a whole party theme from a few cuts and manipulations of Duncan Hines.



Transforming a sheet of paper or lump of clay with simple cuts and manipulations to create an artwork is the core of my work as an artist and teacher. Taking shapes and angles and moving them through three dimensions to fit a piece of music is my sister's work. Building on a subject theme fires our creative burners.



This evening I'm sad for kids with bouncy house/Chuckie Cheese birthday parties. Where is the creativity in that?


Seafoam punch was served at the fish party. Lime sherbet and ginger ale, with maybe a bit of pineapple juice...

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Sarkozy envy

There are many reasons why John McCain picked the young former beauty queen governor of Alaska to be his running mate. My theory is that the presumptive GOP nominee didn't want to be bested by that Frenchee Nicolas Sarkozy on "Dancing with the Stars". Cyd, Leslie, Adele, Gwen, and Ginger weren't available.

Tonight I'm wishing Ann Richards was still around just to hear her dancing convention thoughts: Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels. I think Ann would be reminding us look past the purdy smiles, tap shoes, and cummerbunds to figure out which candidates can go past dancing up the walls of the box to thinking outside it.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Credit Crunch Charleston

As we cut up our credit cards in this economic downturn/identity theft era, imagine what fabulous outfits we could create for dancing. Much better than sequins and fringe when twirling!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Not your middle-aged Olympic torch relay

If I were the Statue of Liberty, Tom Bodett would have to leave the light on for me. Having a terrible time turning twist-knob switches at the bottom of lamps lately.

I've given up a few times and just crawled under my desk to unplug or plug in the lamp cord. That limbo-limbo solution may be temporary. So far, I can still twist knobs at the tops of lamps, but my professional underhand pitching career is probably over for good.

"The first things to go are the_____." We've heard that phrase since Phidippides ran the first Marathon in 490 B.C. Fill in the aging blank with knees, eyes, hearing, memory, neck, sex drive, stomach muscles, shoulders, or ankles. For me the answer seems to be "wrists". Did this ever happen to Chubby Checker? Come on baby, let's use that wrist:

Come on baby let's do the twist
Come on baby let's do the twist
Take me by my little hand and go like this
Ee-oh twist baby baby twist
Oooh-yeah just like this
Come on little miss and do the twist

Actually, this is my third thing to go. First I lost my ability to thread needles. Then I lost all interest in ...


...


...


...


...


dusting!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Your supermarket checkout tabloids

Celebrity Worm Week paid Verm-Gelina a ridiculous sum of money for the exclusive rights to publish the first baby photos from the worm bin. This tiny fellow, barely a half-inch long, is one of several crawling on the wall of the worm bin tonight. He was a little fussy when the paparazzi aimed their cameras at him, so it's not the clearest photo.

Like tabloid cutest couples, compost bin redworms are hermaphroditic. Their names are shortened and hyphenated, but they have both male and female sex equipment. Still, it takes two redworms to tango.

So, I'll just have to surmise that those weekend assemblies up in the bin handles were really tango lessons. If you've never seen a worm clench a long-stemmed rose in its teeth while clicking castenets, you've just never truly composted!



© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Worry worms and worry warts

I didn't fret much about leaving my worms in charge of the condo over Spring Break. Didn't figure they would serve liquor to minors or host loud toga parties while I was gone. I was pretty sure they couldn't use the phone to order late night pizza deliveries, and that they couldn't escape from their Rubbermaid home to play Twister in the living room.



Our weather has been so crazy I didn't know whether to set the thermostat on heat to come on at sixty degrees, or to air condition if the indoor temp rose above eighty. After some two a.m. pondering, I decided to program the furnace. Worms can't wear hoodies*.

Since worms will eat and re-eat their available kitchen waste several times, I was sure they had plenty of goodies to get them through a week. It was all healthy and organic--no Slim Jims, Twinkies, or Doritos. They would probably love the dark peace and quiet, since I wouldn't be popping the top off the worm bin twice a day to see if they were behaving themselves! Maybe they would chant "Om".

So before leaving I just popped the top of the worm bin one extra time to holler, "Keep the home fires burning," and "hold the fort!" Then I hit the open road and forgot all about my little vermi pets.

After a week, I found the red wigglers all down in the bottom half inch of bedding. None of them were up in the trendy penthouse bar. I was so proud of them! They deserved a reward, so I added a bit of watermelon rind, a dead houseplant, a rotten piece of red pepper, and all the inedible parts of a fresh pineapple from Kroger to the worm bin. Too, too, too much! Little worms who had been wearing saffron robes and carrying begging bowls were suddenly in Las Vegas. Now I had created a situation requiring worry!

Each time I opened the bin, a small flying insect zipped out. I could smell the contents from a foot or two away, which isn't a big deal, but still a sign of imbalance. So the worms are on a new diet this week. Read my lips, as Bush The First said--No new fruit. Just egg shells, coffee grounds, and cardboard for awhile, guys.

Worry warts are a different animal than worry worms. Being a nerdy little kid back in sixth grade P.E., I had to be square dance partner to the kid with warts all over his hand. His name was Brent. I bet nobody names their baby boy Brent nowadays, since it's an acknowledged pre-existing indicator for warts.

Do you want to do-si-do and Allemande Left with the wart boy?? There are many reasons why I haven't done much dating since my divorce. Fear of wart square dancing is a major one!*

But what about warts? They don't come from toads. According to MotherNature.com,


...warts are benign skin tumors that can occur singly or in large packs on just about any part of the body. And while each type carries its own special name, all are caused by various trains of the fiendish papilloma virus. It masterfully tricks the body into providing it with free room and board in a sheltered "house" that is know medically as the wart proper...


Medical treatments don't seem to be any more effective than old-timey remedies. Some people rub warts with a raw potato. In my family, we sold our warts to my Granddad for a dollar. He got the wart. We got the buck. The wart went away eventually, and we bought Tootsie Rolls or malted milk balls with our dollar. The power of suggestion, removal of stress, and strong belief in a cure can knock out many warts. Which reminds me, worms can't wear boxing gloves.

*Worms can't wear petticoats!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Cross-Dressing Ostrich Does Charleston

If you look awhile at the little students' art you begin to see a storyline for the ostriches. The birds start off cautiously, and one surreptitiously hikes up his sagging pantyhose.


They settle into the march, ready to go a long distance over the parched grassland of Africa.


Some are afraid of their shadows. Others are more bold and confident.


Getting up to full stride, one runs like crazy. Others do chest bumps, endzone victory displays, and the knee-swapping move of the Charleston.

Male ostriches have black and white feathers. Females have brown and gray. All of them have fabulous long eyelashes.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

You make me feel like dancing

Forget dancing with stars, and go to dancing with leaves!





© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

You dance funny!

That's what the three-year old told me this morning. "You dance funny, Miss Nancy. You dance with your body instead of your hair!"

So that's what I was doing wrong.

A Congregational Celebration of Complementary Colors

Although it might be bad luck to proclaim it, autumn seems to have finally arrived in North Texas. True, we can wear sandals and capri pants for another month or so (as long as they aren't white). Maybe, though, just please-please-PLEASE, we won't need air-conditioning.

I love fall. It has always been my favorite season. I love the contrasts, the tang and tartness, and relish the increase in my energy. More than spring, autumn is a time of promise. Maybe it's the gratitude factor. I'm so diggity-dog filled with joy and thankfulness each six a.m. when I walk out the front door into the crisp air to find my newspaper that my whole day is colored with optimism. Between classes I step outside to watch the lopedy-dopedy-dope flight of thousands of Monarch butterflies headed to Mexico in no particular hurry, and thank heaven for forces and patterns way beyond my understanding.

I strain my eyes to spot the highest orange butterflies against the piercing blue sky. The energy is in the vibrating boundaries between intense opposites. I admit to teaching about complementary colors through experience, not through science or theory. I want kids to have their very own Oh, Wow! moment when they paint with orange and blue. There's all that energy created by completing the whole in a composition of opposites. I love showing them that artists modulate the values and the dominance of the opposing forces to create extremely satisfying works of art. I love showing photos of landscapes with Nature's own color lessons. I pray that my students occasionally look away from the obnoxious animated farting warthogs and belching squirrels on PG-rated dvds playing above the back seats of their SUVs, and turn their gaze out the window to a bright cobalt sky, pale peach ripples on water, or shadows of darkest violet.

Fall is all about the vibrating boundaries between the catsup and mustard on the steamed hot dog from the chilly football concession stand manned by those long-suffering band booster parents. It's the bee-busy mauve blooms against the 15" tall light green leaves of Sedum spectabile. Five more weeks, and autumn will be shiny wet cadmium yellow leaves against pale lavender drizzle. Then it will be time for hooded sweatshirts, plaid flannel, and corduroy.
Glory hallelujah!



To everything there is a season... This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it:

Let our hearts lift up like hot air balloons at dawn and float over the early youth soccer games played on the chilly, dewy city parks & rec fields. Let our spirits alight between sweet-smelling hay bales next to impressive sun-warmed pumpkins for sale in the parking lots of suburban mega-churches.

Let us call up our maturing sons on their cell phones or Skype and feel humbled in conversations with self-sufficient young adults. Allow us to cherish the knowledge that each son belongs to something far greater than their parents' clueless efforts.

Let our souls rest and replenish on river sandbars with 4-H recipe oatmeal cookies and the college football game on a transistor radio. May each of us be fed by the memory of church youth group road trips in rusty pale blue hot rods to Waubonsie State Park across the Missouri River in Iowa.

May we leap and dance with Frisbees and tamborines. Let us be jubilant with vibrating color boundaries and homecoming mums. Aunts Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy will remind us to buy a half-gallon of icy Nebraska City apple cider and a jar of clover honey on the way home!

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

I danced in the morning when the world was begun
I danced in the Moon & the Stars & the Sun
I came down from Heaven & I danced on Earth
At Bethlehem I had my birth:
Dance then, wherever you may be
I am the Lord of the Dance, said He!
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said He.

"Follow Me"

The motto of the United States Army Infantry is also the title of Bruce Wood's ballet about the service, sacrifice, interdependence, and brotherhood of infantry soldiers performed Wednesday evening at Bass Performance Hall by his Bruce Wood Dance Company. In just eighteen minutes of dance, I received a transfusion of understanding about my father's long reluctance to talk about his WWII experiences, the life of friends' sons and son's friends currently serving in the armed forces, and even the army play of my young sons.

Wood is a Fort Worth choreographer of great originality and very professional production standards. The dance's physical power, intense repressed emotion, and symbolism are still with me. I wonder if Mr. Wood created an eighteen minute dance because so many army recruits are just eighteen years old.

Mr. Wood and I are about the same age--Sixties kids too young to have been in Viet Nam but too old not to have been impacted by it. At or about age fifty, we are both grieving over the deceased hope that our generation would bring about peace, justice, and tolerance in the world.

There were many children in the audience, and they were all enthralled and marvelously well-behaved. A nice couple with two fifth-grade boys were seated ahead of me. The boys had an animated discussion after the first piece on the program, the world premiere of Wood's "Dust, Texas," mainly about the small, quirky movements of the barn dance section, the actions that resembled windmills and farm machinery, and the athletic feats of the dancers.

After "Follow Me" I asked what the fifth-graders what they thought about it. They informed me that the ballet was set to music from "Band of Brothers". They told me they really liked WWII history, but they had some trouble finding the word they wanted to describe "Follow Me". The father helped them by suggesting "solemn". The boys reminded me so much of my own sons at that age. We chatted a bit more about how to build a theater like the beautiful Bass Hall out of Legos, then laughed at the idea of little Lego people as ballet dancers.

I really regret not taking my sons to modern dance or ballet performances! We try so hard as parents to expose our children to all the fabulous opportunities. Those efforts are not wasted. Every outing or event opens a window for new ideas and appreciation. We all need the arts. They are carefully planted seeds, crisp spring breezes and cooling summer rains for our brains.

Before the final work on the program the young family had to weigh whether to stay up late just this one evening. So many students seem to not get enough sleep on a regular basis. I really respected the couple's concern that the boys be well-rested for school the next morning, but I did hope they would stay for Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." I just knew Bruce Wood's choreography of that favorite would be fabulous. I was wishing that my mother could have been with me, and also my sister and niece. Fritzi would have loved the dancers in their blue satin, and the playful leap-frogging to Gershwin's rhythms. And I would have cried if the fifth-graders had missed the literally glittery finale and final slide through the sparkles.

The story of Wood's "Follow Me" commission and the creative process it involved is intriguing reading. There are also some photos of the dance on the web at http://www.popphoto.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=47834. For additional fun, watch the video clips.

Rite of Spring Weekend

Taxes and cleaning made up most of my weekend, and I had that splendid sense of accomplishment and relief I get when I've finally behaved like a grown-up and bit the bullet. Today was a time for rewarding myself with artistic refueling.

As I performed my solo piece, "Interpretive Dance with Swiffer Duster," through the condo in my spring green leotard and tights* Saturday I decided I needed musical accompaniment to cover the sounds of creaking knees and scare the spiders away before I whacked the cobwebs. Ah, yes. Stravinsky. Pagan frenzy with new furnace filter and vacuum cleaner bag!

A few years back I read Howard Gardner's book, Creating Minds, about Stravinsky, Einstein, Freud, Martha Graham, Picasso, Eliot, and Gandhi. The seven subjects illustrate Gardner's theory of seven types of intelligence, as well as his pondering of the sources and price for creative genius. I do not think any of these people followed instructions for fluffing their Swiffer Duster "like it's never been fluffed".

So, what Stravinsky should I hear? Was there one cd I could buy with my gift certificate that would do the cleaning frenzy and educate me about this genius? I put the question to my panel of experts--family and friends on my email list. I put weird questions to them all the time, so this is nothing new. When I asked for input about Igor they probably thought I meant I-gor from "Young Frankenstein". Anyway, they sent wonderful responses. Perhaps my panel of experts would rather write their thoughts and memories about Stravinsky than participate in those other rites of spring--cleaning and taxes.

And yes, I spent the gift certificate on a double cd of the London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado conducting.

*Okay, this part is fiction. You can relax and erase that scary mental image.

Training Wheels

Spent time recently teaching an art project about bandannas. The kids became a bandanna, lining up on the edges, sharing the corners, and filling the middle. In a moment of inspiration I had them sit facing out from the middle of the rug, shoulder to shoulder, and do some goofy positions of the legs and wiggles of their feet, ala the June Taylor dancers on the Jackie Gleason Show.



My dearly demented friend brought up the subject of bicycles recently. Remember how grown-up and powerful you felt when you first got to ride your bike around the neighborhood, as long as you didn't cross any major streets? Have you ever felt that free and in control of your own destiny since? That might have been the pinnacle! Riding my bike to the swimming pool for an afternoon of swimming, diving off the board, and lying on the hot concrete was about as splendid as it gets!



Now we are considering Franz Marc and the Blue Rider painters. My used Schwinn bike was blue, but it had book baskets on either side of the rear wheel. Convinced some of my students that those gymnastic stunts are called "Car Twheels," because they are intended to be performed in their mothers' cars, not in my art class where other kids could be kicked.



I taut I taw a twaining wheel!