Thinking about today

In the upcoming reveal of the new 32-acre Depot Park, it is exciting to think of a public park that is large and will be a source of succor from the urban sprawl in Gainesville, Florida.  With this in mind, I'm reading the Wikipedia entry on Frederick Law Olmstead https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Law_Olmsted

Olmsted was a pretty decent Joe, reading his biography.  He believed in the egalitarian ideals of America, and also appreciated the lugubrious benefits of green space.  In fact, he was an early proponent of having green spaces within urban areas:

The design of Central Park embodies Olmsted's social consciousness and commitment to egalitarian ideals. Influenced by Downing and his own observations regarding social class in England, China, and the American South, Olmsted believed that the common green space must always be equally accessible to all citizens, and was to be defended against private encroachment. This principle is now fundamental to the idea of a "public park", but was not assumed as necessary then. Olmsted's tenure as park commissioner in New York was a long struggle to preserve that idea.^[11]

11.^ Melvin Kalfus, Frederick Law Olmsted: The Passion of a Public Artist, New York University Press 1991 p.308ff.

As we get closer to the opening of Depot Park, perhaps a closer look at Olmsted's aesthetics is warranted for a large planned park of this size and ambition.  But what is Depot Park going to be?

Here is an opportunity for city elders to shape a space for generations to come, and unless I'm mistaken, no one has truly identified Depot Park's purpose, except a place to give people in nearby apartment complexes springing up on Depot Road a place to jog and/or walk their dogs.

Let me go back to Olmstead for a moment.  To me, his greatest contribution to American society and culture was the instrumental role he played in the development and management of Central Park in the middle of Manhattan.  Like summers splashing in the Washington Square fountain with scores of other New Yorkers escaping the heat, I also grew up exploring Central Park and its various secret gardens and statuary (something Olmstead was opposed to having but relented to at the opening of the park; since then it has grown to include the Central Park Zoo); it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized the genius and beauty of Central Park in its careful planning.  The southern end of the park seems the most populated with people and attractions, lakes for canoeing and sailboat races in the summer, ice skating rink in the winter, and the Central Park Zoo with its magical clock at the entrance that chimes in each hour with a dance of animals with instruments. It is not only because this part of the park is actually in the most urban, populated part of the city so it makes sense to make the main entrance and attractions close to the subways, trolleys, buses.  But there was also another reason which many people may not realize, for making the southern part of the park more dense than any other; It wasn't so much that it was dense, but rather condensed for small legs.  The Zoo, the boat lake, XXXX meadow and countless other treasured memories of childhood were built specifically on a child's scale.  This is the genius of Central Park; it was truly a product of the times pre Civil-War, where the Industrial Revolution robbed workers of resources and their intrinsic connection to nature.  Many would argue that we are separate from nature, especially those who would deign to know how much strain one can put on earth's resources. Olmstead, in his dedication to developing and (and, later) administering Central Park, along with many other public projects around the United States, allowed to flourish the radical notion that urban city dwellers, maybe even more so than their rural counterparts, needed above all else a place to reconnect with themselves, their families, and their communities.  

The public park is by no means an American invention, but landscape architects like Olmstead were heavily influenced by their progenitors in Europe; The US has always had an insecurity complex about the new world they inhabit being too primitive, too savage and wild to be taken seriously by European designers who had over one thousand years of ancient parks and sacred sites under their belts, whereas America has only had its own parks department since barely the turn of the century. This is not to point out that, like the small speck of time humans have walked the earth

Parameters of this Blog

Yes, beginning yet another blog seems self-defeating, but this is specifically towards the performance work I do for my "alternative" dissertation, lamely named "Dissertation 2.0."  I talk about the characters I have developed or am thinking about, and how they relate to my other research in the areas of American Nihilism, Feminism, and approaching the crone stage of life.

For example, the most recent character was me-not-me as a Fairy Princess-In-Training; I decided because I had burned out of three careers in 10 years, I would look to the first thing I most wanted to be when I grew up, a Fairy Princess.  The sad news that there was actually a dearth of Fairy Princii in the 1970's led to my first compromise; if I could not be a Fairy Princess, I would then become a flight attendant.  Compromising has led me to choose careers that were in my wheelhouse, like librarianship, but were not the penultimate; Joseph Campbell's entreaty to "follow your bliss" has mostly been an abbreviated set of lowered expectations and settling.  Like, when I first joined the Catholic Church and decided I wanted to be a priest.  I was immediately corrected about that possibility, and thought that being a nun might not be as bad.  This is the second compromise I made. Luckily, I bombed out of school and the novitiate program because of being young, stupid, and largely without parental supervision after age 13.  I think there was also some kind of emotional disturbance, but it may have been more social anxiety and PTSD from being bullied constantly through grammar school. It freed me up though to learn more about the world before retreating to a celibate, cloistered life.

In retrospect, this is also where I began to manifest all the symptoms of ADHD that exist today for describing the inattentive type. Perhaps becoming a novitiate may have helped; the order of nuns I would have joined were a teaching order and the women who taught me through grammar school were world-traveled and just very grounded, lovely people. I think they would have given me more structure than I got at home, and I may have made it through high school at least.

Tabernacle July 25, 2016

The show was declared a complete mess and ended at midnight almost on the dot, something unheard of in one of the smallest performance venue in Gainesville, much less the southeast.  You can't have more than 5 people inside the Sidecar without feeling thronged by a mob, but last night the only visitor to the Tabernacle who remained for the whole show was Noah from Downtowngainesville.net, who was there to write about the host, Tom Miller, and his upcoming joint exhibition with Alan Bushnell of the Hardback Cafe, titled Sex, Religion, and Food.  This is happening during the July Artwalk, probably one of the three most miserable artwalks of the year because they become death marches as you trudge through the pudding of humidity and heat, even at night.  But I will be there, hopefully with my escort, Rocco, and a fifth of gin stashed in my bra (they only have beer and wine at the Hardback) to see the spectacle and soak up the local love. Free cheeseburgers, apparently, will be served.

For the Tabernacle performance I tried developing a new character, Service Human.  I'm me but not me, more of a victim than usual, I guess. I got on stage with my reflective safety vest that has "Service Human" in iron-on letters on the back, except I didn't have enough room on one side so the first word looks like "Serv-ice."  I like that the signs and props I make look like they've been thrown together in five minutes - mostly because they are, but also because it looks like something I would do, something absurd-looking and hard to read. I talked about how I began volunteering as a Service Human or, as I like to say, "Human, at your service."  The dog I serve, Kaya, wanted to be there but had a headache.  She sent a surrogate, which is a small stuffed dragon; my only comment is that it doesn't look like her. The narrative I'm pushing is that I am a helper for a self-centered dog who seems to ignore me most of the time, except when she wants to play fetch, which is all the time IRL lol.  In thinking about Service Human, it's a way of looking at how I have been a people pleaser in the past, and Service Human is a reflection of that servant, victim attitude.