Sunset, Sunday, 21 June 2009

Locust Dale, Madison County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Our destination (see previous post) offered an amazing vista, with Old Rag about smack in the center. This of course is a much longer view than the one in the painting from early afternoon – these mountains are around three times higher than those on our eastern horizon.

A friend I’d worked with in L.A. and then lost touch with decided to build a house in Virginia; I rediscovered him living one mile down the road from me. When he first got here he made a common westerner’s mistake and called the Blue Ridge mere “hills” – no doubt because, on the horizon, they bear a superficial resemblance to the Santa Monica Mountains, or, as they’re known in one section, the Hollywood Hills. 

Once you get up there, in the Blue Ridge, you realize you’re in a seriously massive territory all its own.

Twelve years ago, Laura and I traveled to the wonderful city of Montréal for our honeymoon. We had no idea that June 21st was also the anniversary of the hanging of Marie-Joseph Angélique, a Portuguese-born African slave convicted – on shaky evidence – of deliberately starting a fire that burned much of the city in 1734.

If you go to the linked article, I can save you a little time by noting that the research controversies mentioned at the beginning don’t have much to do with the major facts of the case. Also, I don’t always mean to refer people to Wikipedia, but sometimes that’s a natural place to start. Encyclopedia Britannica, for example, is available only by subscription – I subscribe for the sake of my research for editorial clients – and, in any case, seems too conservative or hidebound to include many subjects like the unfortunate Angélique.

Come to think of it, I have a literally hidebound set of Britannica on my shelf, and she’s not in there, either.