On Dreams

"A dream cuts and pastes your hopes and wishes so that you will be accustomed to them."


—AJ, about to turn 9

Father's Day Opus 40

A favorite Father's Day place: Opus 40, Saugerties, New York.

What is Opus 40?

"One of the largest and most beguiling works of art on the entire continent."
—Brendan Gill, Architectural Digest

The work is an immense composition of finely fitted stone, rising in ramps and swirling terraces around pools and trees and fountains out of the rock bed of an abandoned bluestone quarry. It spreads out over more than six acres.

It is the product of more thirty-seven years of a man's life. His name was Harvey Fite. He worked alone, using his hands and traditional quarryman's tools, to build his masterpiece.

You can also learn more by reading Tad's Opus 40 Blog, linked from the Hudson Valley Blogroll to the left of your screen.



When I am at Opus 40 I feel as if I am wandering in a dream, a dream landscape. I like to draw the shapes,



or sit and imagine placing and fitting the stones one by one.



My husband likes to draw or take photographs, like this one of our children shooting a movie called The Maze.



According to my daughter, The Maze is about a girl in a maze who meets a heart and a Tiepitum, which is a monster with many eyes.

Once we went to Opus 40 after a wedding had taken place there. There were leftover peonies and ferns in glass bowls waiting to be cleared away, and my daughter and I made fairy houses out of them among the rocks.

I like the title of Twyla Tharp's book, The Creative Habit. At Opus 40 you enter the creative habit even if you sometimes set it aside at home, to do the dishes...

Good Stuff Happening in + around Kingston, NY

The Cool Kingston Campaign, a project of Sustainable Hudson Valley, "is building momentum for a more bike-friendly city with expanded gardens, parks, and tree cover, and mobilizing citizens to engage local government in climate change response. With support from the Fund for the Environment and Urban Life and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), this initiative rallies the community to learn and act on climate change in ways that improve quality of life. Cool Kingston's major project is creating a Green Trail along the Broadway corridor by supporting energy improvements, plantings, public art and cyclist supports such as bike racks, bike route maps and driver education."

Can't wait for more bike racks around here, and a little road space would be nice, too.

The Kingston Victory Gardens Project aims to hook up local urban gardeners, promote fresh food and the donation of surplus to soup kitchens and the like, and begin to organize community gardens. Everyone without a sunny yard should have access to a community garden.

And the garden should be pesticide free. The Ban Pesticides in Ulster County Alliance is organizing in New Paltz, New York for pesticide-free lawns and farming to improve on a recently-passed neighbor notification law. See their link on the Hudson Valley blogroll to the left there.

Yesterday was a bike tour of Kingston, which seemed like a fun idea, but like last year, we thought it would rain. We arrived late and did the tour backwards, skipping most of it. Full info is at Tobacco Free Action Coalition of Ulster County.

I like biking (although I'll like it more when my town is more bike-friendly), but lately my favorite way to do errands within 5-8 blocks of my house is by Razor scooter borrowed from my kids. We got ours for $2 at a yard sale, and I never thought of using it for transportation until a couple of weeks ago. It's perfect for zipping up to my proofreading job three blocks north, picking up copy and zipping home. When people see how old I am they smile or laugh, and it pleases me to be a figure of fun. (PS: Don't ever go over a stick on a razor scooter though. I flew, rolled, and have a nasty painful shoulder that is taking more than a week to heal up.)

Back on topic. Kingston Citizens is a great website and collection of Yahoo groups designed to connect city residents with one another and with their alderpeople. Every locality should have something like that.

Bodily Sovereignty

I think the recent attempt to pass a bill in New York State requiring CDC-recommended vaccinations is an interesting landmark for the issue of bodily sovereignty. While abortion and same-sex marriage are beleaguered or struggling to establish themselves (two other issues that might be considered under the same category—the right to decide about one's own person), parent-activists in New York just defeated Assembly Bill 10942.

A new bill, Assembly Bill 10942A, would make a meningitis vaccine mandatory for seventh graders. After some days of protests over the lack of debate about this, this one is staying in assembly committee for now (according to State Speaker's office). A Senate bill apparently is still active, but they are getting a lot of calls opposed, so this particular organizing on behalf of bodily sovereignty seems to be very effective.

Best Ceramics Projects for Kids

My kids have taken a few ceramics classes, and we have shelves full of fired and glazed objects to prove it.

My son likes to do figurines, whether models of characters he has made up or his own versions of commercial faves like Shaggy and Scooby Doo, Lock, Shock, and Barrel, and Davy Jones. They're fun.

I also love bowls, because we really can't have too many bowls for putting out condiments, snacks, and so forth.

But what I really love are flat-slab sushi plates. Isn't this elegant? Try to get your kids to make you some when they're doing ceramics classes. They're handy, beautiful, and they make your food look like gourmet stuff.