Saturday – Music in the Park – Welcome
Knee-high argyle compression socks beam like tubular spotlights below a band of bare skin, then black plaid shorts and a solid orange long-sleeved rugby shirt. The gray of his classic Manhattan Trilby Fedora is a near-match in color to the straps of his stretch-plastic sandals. He appears alone because no woman would willingly be seen with a man who dresses this way. He dresses this way because he has no woman to tell him to dress better. And he has no woman to tell him to dress better because his fashion style repels women like weasel-piss repels moles, voles and field mice. It’s a vicious circle away from which he steps this evening for a couple hours of music to be shared with fellow wandering souls, under a quieting dusk.
Nearby a shirtless boy with a baseball glove throws a ball upward into cooling air, snags it on its sharp return to earth. Higher and higher, his catches become more dramatic– like salving the savage jolts of his jag toward manhood. He relishes a glorious new arm strength, the feel of fluid grace fill his limbs, and a first glimmer of the liquid mix of music, hormones and wide-eyed rhythms of a sensual summer night.
Dogs in the crowd–Poms, Yorkies, Border Collies, Rottweiler blends. A woman with a mutt-mix Pit Bull apologizes a second time, then muscles her low growling companion toward a distant parking lot. Her sun dress hangs with heat across her notable torso. The dog volunteers no easy concession. Her forearms tighten. Tonight these two are like violins gone bad.
Amid a group of friends in lawn chairs, their arms floating to sounds of Foreigner and the Chili Peppers, she has her hair in a pony tail. First week the COVID curtain came down she refused to sell out the store’s replenished toilet paper supply to a knucklehead flashing a fist of 20's. She told him no–no way–everyone’s in this together–you get two rolls. Period. Dollar Store Hero. Tonight a face in the crowd.
Beneath an elm leaf canopy on the Arts Center lawn a succession of covers of Weezer, Smashing Pumpkins, and a couple encores of Van Halen. The doors of the Arts Center stay open through intermission. Inside–freshly cleaned bathrooms, and two weeks into an exhibit of paintings by inmates – pretty much everything the opposite of beige, block, tight, and regulated. Vast canvases of horses galloping without saddles, birds in vibrant circling flight, landscapes rolling skyward, unfettered–and lots of air and space to entice, colors to dazzle.
Across town drones the God and Country Festival. Not that I have anything against God. Or Country. Or drones.
~
Knee-high argyle compression socks beam like tubular spotlights below a band of bare skin, then black plaid shorts and a solid orange long-sleeved rugby shirt. The gray of his classic Manhattan Trilby Fedora is a near-match in color to the straps of his stretch-plastic sandals. He appears alone because no woman would willingly be seen with a man who dresses this way. He dresses this way because he has no woman to tell him to dress better. And he has no woman to tell him to dress better because his fashion style repels women like weasel-piss repels moles, voles and field mice. It’s a vicious circle away from which he steps this evening for a couple hours of music to be shared with fellow wandering souls, under a quieting dusk.
Nearby a shirtless boy with a baseball glove throws a ball upward into cooling air, snags it on its sharp return to earth. Higher and higher, his catches become more dramatic– like salving the savage jolts of his jag toward manhood. He relishes a glorious new arm strength, the feel of fluid grace fill his limbs, and a first glimmer of the liquid mix of music, hormones and wide-eyed rhythms of a sensual summer night.
Dogs in the crowd–Poms, Yorkies, Border Collies, Rottweiler blends. A woman with a mutt-mix Pit Bull apologizes a second time, then muscles her low growling companion toward a distant parking lot. Her sun dress hangs with heat across her notable torso. The dog volunteers no easy concession. Her forearms tighten. Tonight these two are like violins gone bad.
Amid a group of friends in lawn chairs, their arms floating to sounds of Foreigner and the Chili Peppers, she has her hair in a pony tail. First week the COVID curtain came down she refused to sell out the store’s replenished toilet paper supply to a knucklehead flashing a fist of 20's. She told him no–no way–everyone’s in this together–you get two rolls. Period. Dollar Store Hero. Tonight a face in the crowd.
Beneath an elm leaf canopy on the Arts Center lawn a succession of covers of Weezer, Smashing Pumpkins, and a couple encores of Van Halen. The doors of the Arts Center stay open through intermission. Inside–freshly cleaned bathrooms, and two weeks into an exhibit of paintings by inmates – pretty much everything the opposite of beige, block, tight, and regulated. Vast canvases of horses galloping without saddles, birds in vibrant circling flight, landscapes rolling skyward, unfettered–and lots of air and space to entice, colors to dazzle.
Across town drones the God and Country Festival. Not that I have anything against God. Or Country. Or drones.
~
