Cleon Throckmorton, Scenic Designer and Reverse Psychologist

While reading the May 31, 1930 issue of The New Yorker I ran across this advertisement, tucked into the corner of page 46. It was so small that I had to zoom in to read it.


What kind of guy relies on such a self-defeating advertisement, which doesn't even mention what he's advertising FOR?

An eccentric fellow with a high degree of name recognition, that's who. In this case it's Cleon Throckmorton, architect, set designer, and bohemian painter of spunky dancing girls. If you really want an eyeful, check out Erica De Mane's photographs of some of his works at Ristorante Volare.

Meanwhile, over at Shorpy you can also find this amazing 1921 photograph of "Throck" at work (go there for a larger version), along with additional information from amateur sleuths in the comments. Apparently that's his wife puffing on a stogie while modeling.

The Voyage of HMCS Thumpy (Preview)

Some time ago I realized that even though social media networks provide a useful tool for spreading news around, very few people these days will actually click on an audio link. They'll click on an embedded YouTube clip, but hardly anybody bothers to listen to a linked audio file anymore.

Because I want people to listen to (and hopefully buy) my music, I decided to make videos for some of my songs. Unfortunately I suck at building sets and lighting them, and I don't have the money or organizational ability to make such things look good, and I prefer to do everything myself to avoid worries about compensation, vision, and shuffling everybody's timetables.

So I bought Anime Studio Pro 6.1. I figured I could make simple animations to illustrate my music, and for a starter I've been working on a new song called "The Voyage of HMCS Thumpy." Here's an early version of part two of the five-part project, made entirely with the cheaper "Debut" version of the product. Warning: turn down your speakers, it's loud.



One thing that I've learned is that I'm a more visually-creative person than I've given myself credit for. However terrible I was in my highschool art class, I have a pretty good sense of style and proportion once I've grasped my tools. You'll see that more when I've finished the full version.

Which brings me to another thing I've learned about animation: IT TAKES A LOT OF WORK. Having a sophisticated tool like Anime Studio is only a small part of what animation seems to be about: design decisions, subtle tricks, and endless tweaking of the smallest parts of your project. I thought this would be easy, and I was wrong; witness the extended blog silence. Every day and every night I'm working.

Regarding the tool itself, Anime Studio is brilliant. Its interface is annoying and it has some very frustrating bugs, but once you've mastered half of it your options are pretty much unlimited. The little video above barely scrapes the surface. Wait until you've animated a CHARACTER.

Ah yes, the third thing I've learned about animation is that there are certain tasks that everybody dreads, and the biggie is "The Walk Cycle." I've just implemented my first one and I think it's pretty damn good, but I still have a lot to learn.

Anyway, I hope you like the video, and maybe you'll choose to become an animation hobbyist. Maybe I will too. But just remember that even a mediocre result takes a lot of effort and creativity no matter how many spiffy tools you have.

Scrutable Poetry Corner: "Guestroom Books" by Newman Levy

"Guestroom Books" by Newman Levy (The New Yorker, April 12, 1930).

Beside my chaste and downy cot
There stands a goodly number
Of stately tomes of prose and pomes
To lull the guest to slumber.

The verse of T. S. Eliot,
A copy of "Ulysses,"
As though to say "No place you'll stay
So cultured is as this is."

The works (in French) of Baudelaire,
And Keats "Epipsychidion"
And next to it The Holy Writ
Purloined, I fear, from Gideon.

A goodly and narcotic list
Of literary glories,
While down below my host, I know,
Is reading Snappy Stories.

The New Yorker's Shy Date with Modern Dance, 1930

Unless in reference to the latest hotcha dancefloor moves or the hottest entertainers at nightclubs, The New Yorker didn't say anything about dance. The closest they ever got was a somewhat irreverent look at Isadora Duncan's achievements...after she'd died.

So imagine my surprise to find, after all my recent modern dance bloviating, a tiny article called "On With the Dancers" tucked into the January 18, 1930 issue.

Our dancers of today are notable for the minimum of dancing in which they indulge. Their performances have become attempts at drama-in-petto, with almost no display of terpsichorean virtuosity. Dancing that is dancing does not really exist on the stage that devotes itself to the incohate form known as "the dance." (This is to be pronounced as if it were a sacred matter, or at least one not totally intelligible to the laity.)

It's sort of amusing to have The New Yorker accuse somebody ELSE of being snooty, especially in the same paragraph as the word "terpsichorean," but it's interesting (if not surprising) to read somebody from almost eighty years ago saying the same sort of thing that I've been saying all month, only shorter and with even less tolerance for the art.

The pseudonymous author divides 1930s dance performances into four categories. The first are the people who star in musical shows (Jack Donahue, Bill Robinson, the Astaires), "and consequently have no aesthetic status whatsoever." The second is exemplified by Anga Enters, who apparently acted out musical scenes in a form of pantomime.

The final categories are the type of modern dance we're accustomed to. The third is allegorical, modernistic, and intended to evoke a state of mind using "poses, of which there is not, apparently, an unlimited variety." The author is particularly critical of Martha Graham's use of "uplifted eyes to complete her pictures." Today's equivalent, I suspect, is the yearning reach-and-grasp.

The fourth category is the athletic "neo-ballet" school, which uses some traditional "moves" but still tries to escape convention. The author mentions Helen Tamiris (simply "Tamiris" back then).

And what was the author's conclusion, way back then?

If you happen not to be in sympathy with the bodily expression of moods, music, or dramatic concepts, it all will seem like a lot of fussiness in which music is supplemented by something extraneous and dancing is reduced to posturing. If the form interests you, you will discover in the activities of the Dance Repertory Theatre, and those who are going in the same direction, a sincere endeavor to make of "the dance" an entity capable of standing on its own legs--and what legs some of them are!

Ahem.

The Girls Want to Be With the Metaphorically-Antlered Girls, or, My Second Shy Date with Modern Dance

After last month's soul-searching experience with Dancemakers, I was curious about tonight's performance by Winnipeg's Contemporary Dancers. I was especially curious when Brent Lott -- WCD's artistic director -- candidly stated that it wouldn't be the sort of program that people make fun of when they think of contemporary dance.

As much as I enjoyed the show, I beg to differ. Honestly, realistically, it WAS the sort of program that people (me?) make fun of. I'm thinking mainly of the piece called "In Silence," which had all the sorts of thrashing, reaching, rolling, hair-in-the-face, shouting, and Standard Drag Queen acting-out of old timey poetry (including fingers-down-cheeks for "tears" and pointing-at-audience for "thee," and I really mean "thee"). Plus more reaching.

I'm not mocking "In Silence." Okay, I admit it, I AM mocking "In Silence," because it reminded me of a version of The Go! Team without the fun. Watch this video and imagine that, instead of saying "We came here to rock the microphone," they're saying "In secret we met / in silence I grieve / that thy heart could forget / thy spirit deceive."



Before I tell you what I LOVED about the Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers, let me tell you one reason why I think modern dance sometimes comes across as more-pretentious-even-than-Lord-bloody-Byron. Perhaps through no fault of its own, contemporary dance seems (to me, in my limited experience) to be best suited to extreme emotions: unrequited love unto death, crushing agony unto death, the joy of REQUITED love unto joyous eventual off-stage death.

Maybe a primarily nonverbal, physical representation of a theme must forsake the lesser, everyday experiences and simply dive into the furthest swings of the emotional pendulum. Maybe choreographers and dancers find it more suitable to tackle "the agony of the claw-rent soul" than "the long day at work followed by an unsatisfying meal and the broken water heater...again."

This, perhaps, is where contemporary dance tends to leave me cold...I prefer more emotional subtlety to my experiences. When I start to read a Lord Byron poem, my eyes start at the top line and then suddenly hit the last line, without anything between making any sort of impression. I don't like a strong diet of extreme emotion.

Tonight's show was a pretty strong diet: pure love, pure lust, pure joy, pure anguish. Eyes by turns enraptured-wide and agony-squinted. The slow, burning glance over the shoulder. The yearning, the yearning, the yearning.

I loved the premiere of "First Walk to Available Sky," which I would subtitle "Sex-Bombs of the Pantomime Horse." I was even more in love with "Between the Sycamore," which exuded such a palpable energy and simple joy that it transcended everything: the space, the audience, the dancers...it was absolutely, beautifully superb.

All four dancers were in unbelievable sync, seemingly without need of any cues or external stimulus. Grace and strength, clearly-telegraphed emotion, flawless in every way. If there had been a "Music From Sex-Bombs of the Pantomime Horse and Other Pieces" for sale in the lobby, I would have bought it in a second: the music, particularly in the first half of the show, was striking and perfectly suited to the performances.

But oh, the yearning, the reaching! "Reaching-out-but-not-grasping" does seem to be a ubiquitous element of modern dance, one akin to the villain-with-the-black-moustache in silent pictures: perhaps an effective (even essential) storytelling technique, but everytime I see it I go "Oh, yearning, villain, black moustache."

Remember, I'm the endless rationalizer, the constant analyzer. Other people can lose themselves in moments that I simply cannot. Maybe this is why I'm such a cold fish in relationships, because when I need to express "yearning" I simply do not, for fear of committing a fiendish cliche.

Even so, I DID enjoy the performance. I'm sure that it's expected, in a repertory selection, that you'll sometimes say "Huh," sometimes say "Bah," and sometimes scream "LOVE!" I said all three things during the show and I say now unto the world: tonight I saw some of the most wonderful dance I've ever seen.

MY FAVOURITE ANECDOTE WHICH I CAN'T FIND ANY WAY TO WORK INTO THE COGENT PARTS OF THIS POST:

The fourth piece -- "Mouvement" -- featured dancer Kristin Haight doing a great deal of running and thrashing. At first the point escaped me, but gradually I formed the image of a Doberman Pinscher being euthanized at the vet's office. I am not being facetious, this was actually a very powerful impression of a creature in pain...but somehow a dog. Being put down. By a veterinarian.

When the piece was over and the lights came up I felt a little guilty, thinking surely that was not the impression that the choreographer wanted to make.

Then the woman in front of me turned to her friends and said "Did you hear about that dog, that wild dog, that was running around?"

"Ooooh," said her friends.

"They caught it and they TAZED it," said the woman with some satisfaction, and they all stared intently at each other.

My Shy Date With Modern Dance

On Thursday night I watched the rehearsal for "60 Dances in 60 Minutes," which will be performed at The Registry Theatre on November 4th. I'd hoped to learn what contemporary dance is all about and -- more importantly -- what makes it entertaining, enlightening, or (God forbid) insufferable to the modern layperson audience-member.

Can I explain the secrets of dance after a mere four hours of exposure? I only saw one single company performing one single piece and I didn't even get to see the end. There are many different approaches to dance, and every audience member is an individual, so I can't just say "This is what it's all about" (as much as that would save me some heavy pondering and how-do-I-express-this anxiety).

Seeing the rehearsal -- and enjoying some whispered chats with Jacob Zimmer, the dramaturge -- hasn't left me with many answers and it hasn't turned me into an instant fan. I learned a few more things about my personal hangups and how they relate to my entertainment choices...at the very least it was a good private therapy session.

But I'm not here to tell you about my childhood trauma; that's what the REST of this blog is about. I'm assuming instead that some of my insights may be interesting to you, whether you loathe modern dance or you think it's the absolute cat's meow.

WARMING UP

"60 Dances in 60 Minutes" was first performed in February by the five principle dancers of the Dancemakers company. For the show in Kitchener they'd chosen to add five local dancers to the performance, and they thought it would be interesting to have me -- the clueless, curious, neurotic-but-eloquent spectator -- sit in during one of their rehearsals.

I was nervous. As is always the case with events where audience-appreciation is not tied to long-standing rules of etiquette and judgment, my first concern was how much reverence I was expected to have for their work. How serious must I be? Dost I dare to make jokes about thee art, especially being the only person in the audience and surrounded by its performers and creators, all of whom are extremely fit? I can't speak for other shows, but I can say this for sure: if you don't laugh a bit during "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" then you probably have a really crappy sense of humour.

But the question remains: what should the audience get out of this particular performance? The more abstract a piece of entertainment is -- the more distant it is from convention, the fewer obvious cues transmitted by the performers, the more flexible its parameters -- the greater the potential for hostility, boredom, confusion, or feelings of boorish inadequacy. Nobody likes to feel stupid, especially not those of us who consider ourselves open-minded and experienced enough to be able to "get it."

Most forms of contemporary dance do not, in my experience, present themselves in traditional or unambiguous ways. If the audience doesn't "get" the performance, is that a failure of us or the dance company? Is that even a failure at all?

THE EXPERIMENT

The title "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" gives you an idea of what this performance is about, but here's a more explicit precis: the dancers, singly or in groups, will perform various tasks during a certain time period. How will ten dancers (and the audience) perceive the performance of these tasks in relation to the passage of time?

We have all benefited from (and been victimized by) time's subjectivity. Two hours spent at a good party can feel like ten fleeting minutes, while a ten-minute drive home with a full bladder simply never ends.

"60 Dances in 60 Minutes" is -- in its most obvious interpretation -- about the subjectivity of time. Even if you miss the somewhat hasty and informal explanation at the beginning of the performance, you will eventually notice that the dancers are attempting to synchronize their tasks -- like counting silently in their heads -- but they never finish together despite all their highly-polished dancerly-discipline.

Why can't they sync with each other? Because the passage of time, in the absence of coordinated cues like the a visible clock, is a subjective and ever-changing thing. None of us have quartz crystals in our heads. We rely on metabolism and breathing, stride-length and thought-passage to inform us of how quickly the rest of the world is moving in relation to us. When all the dancers close their eyes simultaneously and start counting silently, and then each of them raises a hand when they have reached the agreed-upon number, the dancer who ate a cheeseburger may finish faster than the one with a painful blister on her heel. This is a bizarre and entertaining way of expressing what we deal with every day: there is no way for people to synchronize with each other without external time cues.

To look at it in one way, "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" is a series of experiments to demonstrate how individual people perceive time. Sometimes the time intervals are short and sometimes they're excruciatingly long, and due to this occasional excruciating nature, the AUDIENCE is ALSO confronted with their individual time-perceptions: three minutes staring at a motionless line of dancers evokes all sorts of feelings, but one of them is how long three minutes can be when not a heck of a lot is going on.

THE AUDIENCE AND THE NARRATIVE.

Back to the rehearsal and my impressions of it. Early on I noticed that the director and the performers were using evocative words to describe the sixty different sections of the performance.

One section was called "witnessing," for example, and another was "the how-to's." There were movements called "abbreviations" and "acronyms," and there were also "koala" and "suicide."

These words were a convenient shorthand for the dancers, of course, but I was fascinated by the fact that the audience would never hear those words (unless they looked at the rundown which was provided at the end of the show). When I saw one dancer carrying another, belly-to-belly, in a tight and motionless embrace, my perception of the act changed as soon as I found out -- thanks to my privileged position as silent rehearsal voyeur -- that they referred to this action as "koala." If they'd called it "frog" or "Kali" then I probably would have viewed it differently.

Why do I bring this up? Because our perception of PLOT is just as subjective as our perception of TIME. "Hamlet" would give a very different impression to a 17th century barmaid, a bored highschool student, and a queer theorist respectively. No plot can contain one single, universal impression for everybody. You can say this about books or movies or any other type of public art you can think of.

Contemporary dance rarely telegraphs its narrative as clearly as a Hemmingway novel, and even if it DID there'd be the same issues of interpretation. When we see one woman suspending and holding another woman closely, what does that mean to us? Is it love? Is it trust? Is it fear or hope or disability? Hemmingway would tell us which it was -- and he'd probably wrestle both dancers to the ground as well -- but would we agree with his assertion? And would our perception of the act be richened -- or cheapened -- if we found it was called "koala?"

Contemporary dance, to me, seems largely ambiguous. The thematic clues given to the audience in "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" are not presented like they would be in an Agatha Christie novel...

...but the point of "60 Dances" is not to discover whodunnit before the pompous detective does. I suspect that the dance company would agree with me that they do not expect everybody in the audience to absorb the information provided in exactly the same way; in fact, the company might HATE that possibility. I suspect that they -- and perhaps most artists who work in relatively non-traditional ways -- want the audience members to make up their own minds.

But here's the thing: I'm not part of the dance company, I'm an audience member, so how many clues to the narrative should I be given? How much of it should be explained, and how clearly? Should there be identifiable characters in the performance with individual motivations, or are they all just "dancers," lab rats in a time experiment...a time experiment which I may not even understand is going on? While watching the rehearsal I found myself fixating on the words "koala" and "the how-to's" and "witnessing" because I CRAVED a plot. I clung to one reoccurring figure -- a girl in a parka with a subtly funny walk -- because she provided me with a sense of character that I find satisfying and fulfilling.

"What is the narrative of a symphony?" Jacob asked when we talked about this, and he's correct. And keep in mind that I was also watching the rehearsal of a performance that was yet to be completed, and watching it in the artificial environment of a closed theatre, without an audience, under bright lights, with a full bladder.

But I think this comes to the root of my general wariness about contemporary dance. I am not familiar with the concepts and history of the artform so I can't construct even a tenuous narrative like "I don't understand the literal soup cans but at least I understand pop art." I am also not privy to the thoughts of the dramaturge or the director or the performers, because they choose to remain silent or (more likely) because I hate reading the tiny print on theatre brochures.

Without knowing the concepts that the company is trying to express, I can't compare them with my own impressions. I don't know whether they've succeeded in getting their ideas across. And if my impression is the opposite of what they intended to convey, has the performance been a failure? Is there such a thing as failure in contemporary dance? Or in an abstract painting? In a symphony?

PS: I am generally confused by the symphonies as well. Sorry.

AESTHETICS VERSUS THEME

Back to the rehearsal. "60 Dances in 60 Minutes" is not just an experiment in subjective time; if it were then it would be best inflicted on a bunch of undergrads in a controlled manner (hopefully with electric shocks), and not performed on a stage.

No, the AESTHETICS of this performance are important as well. It's as though the success of the aforementioned experiment depends partly on whether the experimenter is wearing footwear which compliments the style of the electroencephalogram.

During the rehearsal there were constant negotiations between the artistic director, the associate director, and all ten dancers about the smallest details of the piece. This process was collaborative and everybody offered suggestions, and while some were practical -- dealing with safety, for instance -- and some related to theme, most of them were based on simple aesthetic considerations.

The discussions about the look and feel of the piece were the only extended and difficult ones I witnessed; should the dancers who perform the "knee burn" be hesitating before they slide, or should they dive right in? When two dancers do an impromptu translation from French to English, should they do it cautiously or should they just shout over each other? And how noisy should each of them be when they all count out loud?

A lot of discussion went into what one particular dancer should do during a three-minute segment. When somebody suggested that she should run to the back wall and press herself against it, associate director Bonnie Kim said "That's great. I love the wall." And everybody agreed.

"Loving the wall" has nothing to do with the theme of "60 Dances in 60 Minutes." There is no thematic reason why that dancer, at that time, should do that particular action. It's not a plot thing, it's not a character thing. It just seemed good.

In another one of our whispered conferences, Jacob agreeed that aesthetic decisions are pervasive and important to him, and they provide another aspect of what the audience may take away from the show: does it feel right? Is it well-paced? Is there enough variety?

Some modern works are composed entirely within rigid initial constraints, which is why they may come across as dry, pedantic, and mechanical. There must always be the consideration of how much one should deviate from (or add to) the central conceit in order to appeal to form and feeling, those most subjective of audience impressions. Does it look or sound good? Does it resonate nicely? Does it move so far from the theme that the point is lost and the audience is distracted?

Sometimes yes, if you're as literal-minded as I am. When the dancers jog or slide or tickle each other, a somewhat grumpy part of my brain wants to know "why are they sliding?" because I can't relate those things to my everyday life. When a stranger walks up to me on the street and spends three minutes explaining to me how to bake a Shepherd's pie, I think he's insane and he probably wants to put me IN the pie, which is not pleasing at all. It's kooky.

Jacob whispers to me about furnishing a room: there are basic rules regarding size and clearance, but there are also aesthetic considerations. It's not generally desirable to eliminate either consideration: you end up with a fully rule-based composition (like a boiler room) or one that looks great but your friends avoid, because the couch is too far away from the coffee table, and you can't see the TV properly, and when you touch the wall it collapses.

If modern dance doesn't appeal to the eye, has it failed? Conversely, if it ONLY appeals to the eye, is it nothing more than an awkward Hokey-Pokey that you're not allowed to join?

THE PERFORMANCE

Why all this speculation? Why didn't I ask Jacob or director Michael Trent what THEY felt the audience would perceive?

I'm not lazy, honest! I wanted to develop my own ideas about the piece, and I also wanted to glean -- non-verbally, instinctively -- what they subconsciously hoped for and expected. What would be a success for them? What would failure be? Did success or failure even matter?

The primary impression I got was that they enjoy what they do, they are intensely interested in their audience, and they are confident that people WILL appreciate and understand it. During the four hours I was there I didn't actually see them debate their methods of communicating their ideas, but those discussions probably happened long ago, during the initial planning stages, before the February shows ever happened.

And me? My original plan was to go to several rehearsals and try to see the process from different angles, but I don't think I would have learned anything more than I already did, and besides I'd need a lot more exposure in order to make this really be about THEM or YOU instead of ME.

All I REALLY know is that, despite all of my kvetching and analyzing and quizzing, I'm impressed with what they're doing and I can't wait to see the show. I'm sure I'll enjoy it. I won't know why, thank goodness. I think I just will.

But I'll have to take all other performances as they come, much as I would a book, or a film...or even a symphony.

The Strangeness of Art

I'm awake at 7am on a Saturday because my living room chairs are being delivered "bright and early," on the heels of my coffee table, end tables, and cute mini-dining room set. After these chairs arrive I will have acquired all essential furniture. Then I can start on phase two: storage of books and DVDs.

But during phase two I'll be considering...artwork. What to hang on my huge bare walls? I don't want to go and buy anonymous mass-produced prints simply because they're the right size and colour. I want to have things that MEAN something to me.

I'm looking forward to this puzzle, actually, because having something to hang above my couch isn't essential to my happiness, so it could take YEARS for me to find the right thing. Years of finally having a reason to buy the pieces produced by artist friends, I hope.

Oh, so many options!

For Munch Enjoyment

I apologize for this sudden glut of New Yorker advertisements. I try to engineer this blog so that there are no "runs" of similar content -- personal anecdotes, pictures, videos, book reviews, etc. -- but I'm reading an AWFUL lot of The New Yorker recently, and I'm discovering SO many things that I simply can't resist posting. If I don't post them now I never will.

Hence:
It's Clara Bow having her daily nibble!

What's most striking about this advertisement is its mix of '20s and '30s styles. The art nouveau graphics -- dots, pyramids, choppy picture cut-out -- are sheer '20s, as are most of the typefaces and Clara Bow's top. But her skirt, plus the audacious tone and the style of the "Chock Full O' Nuts" logo and "munch enjoyment" subheading are unlike anything I've seen previously in the magazine.

A change is afoot, I can practically smell it. This is good because -- between you and me -- I've never much liked the look of the '20s.

(The New Yorker, January 26, 1929, p.62)

Johan Bull

From the beginning, Johan Bull has been providing illustrations for The New Yorker. As far as I can gather he started out doing one-panel cartoons, graduated to the "Talk of the Town" pages (drawing tiny icons that didn't do his style justice), and is now (as of January 1928) doing the sports pages. The man can really draw a horse, but he obviously revels in drawing women with long legs who wear sporty hats.

Pardon me for saying this, but I really mean it: I don't know much about art but I know what I like. While his early work mostly consisted of simplified and stylized line drawings, in 1928 he's whole-heartedly doing this negative-highlight watercolour technique which surely has a name.

I can find very little out about Mr. Bull, other than he only seemed to work for The New Yorker and that he (probably) lived from 1893-1945.

Big City Muffy in Minneapolis (May 18)

This entry is for Friday! To view the previous five days, see May 13th, May 14th, May 15th, May 16th, and May 17th.

I warn you...this was a long and busy day!

My big fear about this trip was that I'd get so intimidated by the environment that I'd huddle away in my hotel room, reading books and watching TV, fearful of going outside and actually EXPERIENCING things. Fortunately that wasn't happening, and Friday especially was scheduled as a "do stuff day."

Breakfast at Hell's Kitchen again, but this time I tagged along with Joshua and Cindi. It turns out that Cindi actually has a well-worn list of funny things about Canadians, one of which was simply the word "hoser." I'd like to point out that the legacy of Bob and Doug MacKenzie got more mileage in the USA than it ever did in Canada, as evidenced by this band poster that I snapped later on in the day.

Other than the "pop vs. soda" and "pencil crayon vs. coloured pencils" thing, we also went over the well-travelled "about / ahbaht / awboot" territory. During this trip I finally got REAL opinions about what my "about" SOUNDS like: "sort of British," apparently, which is good because I'd thought I sounded either silly or like a bumpkin.

Joshua and Cindi had a playful debate about the role of St. Paul in all this. Cindi described Minneapolis as the good-time girl that never sleeps and St. Paul as the stoic career woman you end up marrying. Joshua didn't object to this but he stuck up for poor St. Paul, partly because he lived there.

South, south, south I travelled. I wanted to find the "cool shopping street" that Jamie and "Cleo" had pointed out to me the day before. Determined to explore, I took a new route to Uptown and got gradually more lost. I couldn't find the street they'd recommended, and I REALLY couldn't find Vera's Cafe again. I had broken all the rules and done what I'd been told NOT to do: I'd gone past K-Mart. Twice.

Walking along, looking in shop windows, I grew more and more aware of the "gun ban" signs. Tim had first pointed them out to me in downtown Minneapolis, but none of us had gotten around to actually asking anybody about them. You shouldn't trust anything a native says anyway, because they sometimes make sport of tourists by telling them -- for instance -- that all the stores are legally required to close when the temperature hits 20 degrees. The Lone Writer from Salt Lake City believed this story and told us all about it on Tuesday night. He'll never be allowed to forget it.

Anyway, The Mind Wobbles DID ask a concierge about those signs, and he said that such businesses were opting out of Minneapolis' concealed weapons laws. Did he offer any insight into the famous "20 degree" prohibition? We'll never know.

A schoolteacher carrying a potted plant finally directed me to Vera's Cafe, where I realized that I was sweaty and sunburned. Minneapolis had been sunny and hot almost the entire week, and even though I'd been changing my socks regularly...well, I only had one pair of shoes, and let's just say I didn't want anybody to get too close to my feet. I could feel a puffy burning in my face and that strange lethargy that comes from too much sun.

So I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, where I'd still need to walk (a lot) but at least I'd get out of the sun...and it was free! Their statue of A Lady Who Stands on Wolves Before Slaying Them seemed a bit barbaric, though.

I'm not much of a museum-goer, I guess because I'm not a very visual person. I am awed by the STORIES behind artifacts but I'm rarely impressed simply by LOOKING at them.

But maybe I just hadn't spent enough time trying? I tested this hypothesis by walking -- gently, deliberately, slowly -- through random exhibits on the first floor. I enjoyed their collection of 19th century pencil crayon sketches by Native Americans, depicting historical battles in a traditional style. The fabrics left me flat. I was impressed by the breasts and hips of the Hindu goddess. I saw no mummified cats.

Their exhibition of Minnesota artists was interesting and I wish I'd taken a program...one room was devoted to selections by a "painting-a-day" artist who had a scrambled-eggs sort of style and a good sense of humour.

I was also able to get some context out of the pop artists. The psychedelic posters made me a little bit queasy, but for whatever reason the name "Country Joe and the Fish" has always annoyed me on a basic, primal level.

I was most impressed with Ruth Orkin's "American Girl in Italy." I find out now that it was part of a series called "Don't Be Afraid to Travel Alone." Significant indeed.

With swollen feet I returned to the hotel to prepare for another complicated night out!

10:30 pm - "Ground Zero." I deliberately extended my stay until Friday so I'd have a chance to see Ground Zero, which seemed to be right up my alley. I crossed the Mississippi for the first time and entered the bar, looking forward to dancing to SOME kind of music that I liked.

The bartender wasn't friendly. The small groups of people weren't friendly either, gathered in little pockets and looking furtively around. The music was dull and repetative...not even Fellini's "Satyricon" showing on the big screen could save the atmosphere. I decided to make a request, so I walked over to the stairway that lead to the DJ booth...only to see that the stairway was ROPED OFF. A little pad of paper was there for writing down requests. Well, screw that...if the DJ can't even be SPOKEN to, I'm gone.

Fortunately I'd run into Paul, who also wasn't having any fun. He assured me that "The Saloon" was the place to go. As anxious as I was to avoid ANY place called "The Saloon" I agreed that Paul knew more about it than I did, and I made him the designated leader of our little expedition.

But there was a problem: Paul had a bicycle with him. After wandering away from Ground Zero and waiting for a bus that never came, Paul pointed me to a cab and rode away, promising to meet me at The Saloon. When the cab drove right past me and left me on a deserted street all by myself, I got a little nervous.

Along came "Zippy" (for lack of a better name). He also had a bicycle, and looked exactly like Paul Bartel, except for the tiny shirt that couldn't stretch over his hairy belly. He wasn't wearing shoes. "A boy's just been raped and I think we should help him," he said. He couldn't pinpoint exactly HOW he knew the boy had been raped, except that he saw a kind of "look" on the boy's face.

I explained to Zippy that I'd be happy to help out if something definite was going on, but after the craziness of Wednesday night I was a bit wary about going on a wild goose chase based solely on somebody's unqualified hunch. I said I wanted to go to The Saloon, and Zippy said he'd show me a good place to get a cab.

So we started walking. It became obvious that Zippy was a little slow in the head. We passed the suspected rape victim on our way -- just a teenager sitting on a bench and waiting for a bus, as far as I could tell -- and before long we were crossing the Mississippi on a long, terrifying bridge with a tremendous wind blowing us around.

I was getting a little fed up with Zippy but I DID want a picture of myself on the bridge, so I asked him to immortalize the moment for me. I had that look on my face because Zippy had trouble figuring out my camera, and the wind was getting awfully scary, and my sunburn was starting to hurt.

"I hate this bridge," said Zippy as we continued walking. "I saw a guy fall off it, and another guy in the river who tried to get down the falls and fell out of his boat..."

Back on dry land we finally spotted a cab...a VAN, in fact! The driver was sure that we could fit the bike inside, but he hadn't figured on Zippy's limited spatial abilities. I had a terrible feeling of deja vu: I was frustrating a cab driver by trying to accomodate a difficult person. I pictured myself paying for torn upholstery. I convinced Zippy to drive his bike to The Saloon and meet me there. Sound familiar?

12:30 - The Saloon. Finally at the rendezvous and Paul was nowhere to be seen. The bar was certainly NOT a place where you expect to see a drag queen...it was very much a boy pickup bar. Twisty corridors with multiple smoking areas. Another guy wearing a diaper* in a cage. Boys on the make, everywhere, everywhere. And then me.

So I found myself a quiet corner and moped a bit. I practiced my "happy face." The Amazing Dancing Bartender cheered me up, and then two sweet guys (whose names I tragically forget!) hung out with me and made fun of my accent. The Amazing Dancing Bartender took this picture, and I look deshevelled because I had just walked across the Mississippi River in a gale-force wind. And I felt an enormous heat in my face.

After some much-needed down-time -- and a tearful reunion with Paul -- I decided to end the night at:

1:30 am - The Brass Rail, which was once again the PERFECT place to be. A fabulous DJ (who you could TALK to, by the way!) and bar-bouncer "Cleo" (that's us on the right), a bunch of people from Copenhagen (one of whom was named Helga), a request for Parliament fulfilled, and a big "Price Is Right" wheel that you could spin if you wanted to but you probably shouldn't.

A sweet, up-and-coming bar dancer offered to walk me home after the bar closed. We walked down Hennepin arm-in-arm, the night beautiful and warm, the people staring at us. My trip was wonderful. It was ALL WORTH IT.

* I'm just kidding about the diapers. These go-go dancers wore white underwear but were so endowed that they LOOKED like they were wearing diapers.