Sunset, Friday, 26 June 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

Today, the first ripe wild blackberry – and only one. A bit late.

I might have expected the first one I found to be a dewberry – a variant that grows close to the ground, with fruits a bit rounder and sweeter and slightly less complex-tasting – but in fact it was a straight-up non-garden-variety regular old blackberry. More in weeks to come on a special type I started finding around here a few years ago (special to me – may be old news to others) and on the makings of wild blackberry tart.

This was also the first time this year I’ve had to wield a long branch in front of me on the walk with Flint to intercept spider webs across the jeep trail and in the woods. (Also a bit late for this, I’m happier to say.) I don’t mind spiders in general, but getting fouled in an entire web, with spiders or their suspended meals falling down one’s neck, ain’t much fun.

Carrying the branch in front, I sometimes feel like I’m carrying a dowsing rod. A funny discovery I made last year was that if I carried the stick before me with my right hand, I felt out of sorts, as if my vision and perception were divided – but if I hold it in my left hand, I hardly notice. At first I assumed it was because of a difference in the position of the stick in my field of vision. But that difference is so small, I now wonder if it isn’t something to do with having the ‘foreign object’ in my nondominant (left) hand rather than the dominant one. I don’t know the answer, but I bet Vilayanur S. Ramachandran does. (Link is to a fantastic New Yorker article on scientific inquiry but also on possibilities of the mind.)

Of course, it could have something to do with weird vision – monovision (nearsighted in one eye, farsighted in the other), poor depth perception – problems alleged to help some people paint, because they already see things flat like a 2-D composition. Sometime when I have nothing better to do than subject you to All The Fascinating Things About Bill, we’ll explore how and maybe why my eyes have changed color a few times – No! – Wait! – Don’t leave yet!

On June 18th and 19th, we somehow got into the French Revolution, more or less. The talk about Abel Gance’s 1927 film Napoléon made me think later about a film I’ve long been crazy about, The Scarlet Pimpernel, the 1934 version with Leslie Howard in the title role.

What I want to know is, how can it not be that Ray Davies was inspired by Mr. Howard’s performance (or maybe, but not as likely, the Baroness Orczy book) when in “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” he wrote and sang:

They seek him here/ They seek him there/ In Regent Street/ And Leicester Square ...

Sink me ... Odd’s fish ... Begad and zooks ... I’ll be demmed but I believe the old boy is honor bound to confess!