Chapter Two: Exercises
Item #2:
it's on a hillside, the grassy meadow. and i lie in the tall grass in the dappled shade of a large old oak. it's always either october or early june, because although the sun is warm, the air is cool. the air is moving, not a wind, only a gentle breeze that fans the grass and deliciously, gently kisses my face and stirs the hair on my forearms. puffs of cloud dot the azure sky, and sometimes the twittering of birds sounds lightly in the oak.
i could lie here forever, and maybe someday i will. only the essence of me would soon be infused into the grass, and carried to the very top of the tree, among the birds, with a beautiful view of the valley beyond...
Item #3:
…in the rain
The boy walked hurriedly down the street, as the sprinkling rain began to come down harder. His windbreaker was already beginning to show the dark speckles where drops were soaking into the fabric. He glanced over his shoulder at the rapidly approaching clouds -- dark thunderheads massing into the sky -- and picked up his pace. Before he had made many more steps, the sky opened with a crash of lightning and the rain began to come down in sheets, blown by the wind. The rain was driving directly into his face now, his hair hanging over his forehead in wet strings, his wet socks drooping over the tops of his black Converses. He pulled off his backpack and, in a fruitless gesture, held it on top of his head with both hands. In desperation, he glanced in every direction for any possible shelter. Spotting the old house with a big front porch, he vaulted over the hedge, sprinted across the yard and up the steps, the soaked windbreaker flapping wetly around him. With a sigh of relief, he took the backpack off of his head, and pulled at the clothing clinging to his body. A quizzical look began to cross his face as he looked slowly upward at the rain that had continued to drench him – although he was on a porch, surrounded by columns and railings, the derelict old house’s porch was only the remnant of a porch, the roof being long gone. He was standing under the same open sky he had been under while in the middle of the road. With a look of blended chagrin and disgust, the boy slowly stumbled down the steps and slogged across the oozing grass, the useless book bag drooping at his side.
petting the cat...
hello little buddy…so afraid…so curious…can I touch you?…no way?…he wants to be petted, but he’s afraid…just like some people…afraid of what he wants…hop up here…no? ok, just take your time…maybe a little ignoring will help you decide…the sky is pretty today, so blue…aha just the tiniest pantleg brush…i can’t touch you, but you can touch me…i’m going to just hang this hand down there, you can touch it if you want…I knew you couldn’t resist that…now that’s rubbing, not touching…I thought you’d like that…listen to your motor running…odd hearing him purr and feeling it at the same time… onomatopoeia…no, not union of sound and concept…tactile sensation and concept as the same thing…wonder if there’s a word for that… helenkellermatopoeia?…that’s not funny …hey! who’s petting who…whom…you're pushing as hard as I am…women do that sometimes…wonder if petting my hand with your head feels as good to you as petting your head with my hand feels to me? …little bud, we’re in perfect isostasis…equal forces in direct opposition…you're pushing just hard enough so I don’t move your head down but you don't lift my hand up either…you really got this thing figured out…as the good book says, one hand washes the other...shakespeare?…oh, so now you decide to hop up here…too bad. you were too cautious for too long…now i have to go, little buddy. the bench is all yours…
grumpy wake-up...
Item #4:
As one approaches the Guibord-Valle house, it's 18th century Creole origins are immediately apparent. The long dimension of the house facing the street -- and nearly on the line of the street at that -- the enclosed garden to the rear, and the open gallery across the front all give evidence that this house is not akin to its later Victorian neighbors. The most telling sign of all is the broken slope of the roof; steep at the ridge, then flattening out to extend over the gallery.
Viewing the house from the street, one wonders if the gallerie once extended around all four sides in the earliest French tradition. At present, the roof lacks the distinctive "witches hat" sillouette that would have been the inevitable result of hipping the roof in four directions to cover a porch surrounding the house on all sides. Only a thorough inspection of the attic will tell us if the roof was later extended on each end to cover new rooms made by enclosing the galleries; or whether the house was built originally as we see it today.
In any case, the house with its white clapboards; grey, textured wooden shingled roof; and boxes of blooming flowers hanging on the gallery railings present a pretty picture of early Ste. Genevieve transported somehow to our own time.
We can be certain that the clapboards are covering an unusual feature of Creole construction. Although each board has a bead along its lower edge -- applied by hand with a beading plane -- that indicates an early fabrication date, these boards are sheltering from the weather an even earlier and more interesting feature. The earliest houses in Ste. Genevieve were constructed of hewn logs, but in a manner not common in Anglo settlements. Instead of being stacked horizontally, Creole log houses have the logs set vertically. In the earliest French houses, the ends of the logs are buried in a trench in the ground, called logically, poteaux en terre. Later and more sophisticated houses had their vertical logs mortised into a sill log, a style known as poteaux sur sole. We know that this house we are looking at is of the "sole" variety because we can see the limestone foundation the sole plate sits upon, well above ground level.
Entering the house, our vertical log hypothesis is confirmed by an opening created in the wall plaster that reveals the logs in the interior of the wall. The interior is unexpectedly modern; never restored to its period of construction, the house sheltered many generations of the Valle family, each one updating it to the period of their own use. As a result, the interior is vaguely "modern," reflecting the tastes of its last owner -- the plain white walls and painted ceilings could date from nearly any time in the mid-20th century. Jules Valle, the last of the family to live in the house was a world traveler of varied interests, and the furnishings and decorations demonstrate his ecleticism -- trinkets and souvenirs from countries around the globe, photographs of family ancient and contemporary, odds and ends of theatrical ephemera, and furniture that in large measure almost any of us might have in our own home.
It is not until we venture up the steep attic stairs that we truly come within the 18th century in our exploration of this house. We stand in awe at the massive trusses that support the roof. Put together from a forest of hewn timbers, each perhaps 6 inches by 8 inches in cross section, there is enough lumber in this support system to build a whole small house of today. This support system is difficult to unravel visually, the gloomy attic lighting not assisting the process. After study we see that it is composed of a series of large timber frames resembling capital "A"s that run across the house the short way. And linking the "A"s tightly together the long way down the length of the roof are timber units that somewhat resemble "W"s -- that is, each of the "A" frames are braced against the spine of the house by timbers on each side tying it to the main beam at 45 degree angles.
We needn't be an engineer to appreciate the massive strength of this support system, easily strong enough to carry the weight of this roof many times over. We glow with self appreciation when we finally deduce that we are seeing the architectural equivalent of the human appendix -- a system that had outlived its function. This idea of roof construction was brought by immigrants from Normandy, through Quebec and into Missouri -- they built what they knew, a system devised in medieval France to support the tons and tons of weight embodied in a thatched roof, nevermind that in the new world no such massive trusses were actually needed to hold up strongly the light wooden shingled roofs they would learn to make from the local forests.
Reluctantly leaving the attic, we return to the main floor, and out the back door onto the rear gallery. From this rear porch we take a stroll through the pretty, walled flower garden, noting the interesting blacksmith-made iron cross on the garden shed wall. The thing that may interest us the most here, is the stepping stones in the garden path -- the tombstones of a generation of Valles brought from the local cemetery. It would seem that the eclectic collector, Jules Valle, had accquired the toute ensemble for this one collection; the very beginnings of the house are visible in its walls and attic, and we feel the end of our visit is somewhat oddly evidenced by the tombstones of the people who built it.
it's on a hillside, the grassy meadow. and i lie in the tall grass in the dappled shade of a large old oak. it's always either october or early june, because although the sun is warm, the air is cool. the air is moving, not a wind, only a gentle breeze that fans the grass and deliciously, gently kisses my face and stirs the hair on my forearms. puffs of cloud dot the azure sky, and sometimes the twittering of birds sounds lightly in the oak.
i could lie here forever, and maybe someday i will. only the essence of me would soon be infused into the grass, and carried to the very top of the tree, among the birds, with a beautiful view of the valley beyond...
Item #3:
…in the rain
The boy walked hurriedly down the street, as the sprinkling rain began to come down harder. His windbreaker was already beginning to show the dark speckles where drops were soaking into the fabric. He glanced over his shoulder at the rapidly approaching clouds -- dark thunderheads massing into the sky -- and picked up his pace. Before he had made many more steps, the sky opened with a crash of lightning and the rain began to come down in sheets, blown by the wind. The rain was driving directly into his face now, his hair hanging over his forehead in wet strings, his wet socks drooping over the tops of his black Converses. He pulled off his backpack and, in a fruitless gesture, held it on top of his head with both hands. In desperation, he glanced in every direction for any possible shelter. Spotting the old house with a big front porch, he vaulted over the hedge, sprinted across the yard and up the steps, the soaked windbreaker flapping wetly around him. With a sigh of relief, he took the backpack off of his head, and pulled at the clothing clinging to his body. A quizzical look began to cross his face as he looked slowly upward at the rain that had continued to drench him – although he was on a porch, surrounded by columns and railings, the derelict old house’s porch was only the remnant of a porch, the roof being long gone. He was standing under the same open sky he had been under while in the middle of the road. With a look of blended chagrin and disgust, the boy slowly stumbled down the steps and slogged across the oozing grass, the useless book bag drooping at his side.
petting the cat...
hello little buddy…so afraid…so curious…can I touch you?…no way?…he wants to be petted, but he’s afraid…just like some people…afraid of what he wants…hop up here…no? ok, just take your time…maybe a little ignoring will help you decide…the sky is pretty today, so blue…aha just the tiniest pantleg brush…i can’t touch you, but you can touch me…i’m going to just hang this hand down there, you can touch it if you want…I knew you couldn’t resist that…now that’s rubbing, not touching…I thought you’d like that…listen to your motor running…odd hearing him purr and feeling it at the same time… onomatopoeia…no, not union of sound and concept…tactile sensation and concept as the same thing…wonder if there’s a word for that… helenkellermatopoeia?…that’s not funny …hey! who’s petting who…whom…you're pushing as hard as I am…women do that sometimes…wonder if petting my hand with your head feels as good to you as petting your head with my hand feels to me? …little bud, we’re in perfect isostasis…equal forces in direct opposition…you're pushing just hard enough so I don’t move your head down but you don't lift my hand up either…you really got this thing figured out…as the good book says, one hand washes the other...shakespeare?…oh, so now you decide to hop up here…too bad. you were too cautious for too long…now i have to go, little buddy. the bench is all yours…
grumpy wake-up...
not again!…who in the hell decided to call that ‘snooze’?…seven fucking minutes isn’t a snooze…it’s hardly worth pushing the button…seven cheesy minutes, and ... there it goes again…jesus christ! that was seven minutes?…give me a break…a snooze is fifteen minutes or its nothing…i’ve pushed that thing four times already and still haven’t gotten enough sleep to … damnit!
Item #4:
As one approaches the Guibord-Valle house, it's 18th century Creole origins are immediately apparent. The long dimension of the house facing the street -- and nearly on the line of the street at that -- the enclosed garden to the rear, and the open gallery across the front all give evidence that this house is not akin to its later Victorian neighbors. The most telling sign of all is the broken slope of the roof; steep at the ridge, then flattening out to extend over the gallery.
Viewing the house from the street, one wonders if the gallerie once extended around all four sides in the earliest French tradition. At present, the roof lacks the distinctive "witches hat" sillouette that would have been the inevitable result of hipping the roof in four directions to cover a porch surrounding the house on all sides. Only a thorough inspection of the attic will tell us if the roof was later extended on each end to cover new rooms made by enclosing the galleries; or whether the house was built originally as we see it today.
In any case, the house with its white clapboards; grey, textured wooden shingled roof; and boxes of blooming flowers hanging on the gallery railings present a pretty picture of early Ste. Genevieve transported somehow to our own time.
We can be certain that the clapboards are covering an unusual feature of Creole construction. Although each board has a bead along its lower edge -- applied by hand with a beading plane -- that indicates an early fabrication date, these boards are sheltering from the weather an even earlier and more interesting feature. The earliest houses in Ste. Genevieve were constructed of hewn logs, but in a manner not common in Anglo settlements. Instead of being stacked horizontally, Creole log houses have the logs set vertically. In the earliest French houses, the ends of the logs are buried in a trench in the ground, called logically, poteaux en terre. Later and more sophisticated houses had their vertical logs mortised into a sill log, a style known as poteaux sur sole. We know that this house we are looking at is of the "sole" variety because we can see the limestone foundation the sole plate sits upon, well above ground level.
Entering the house, our vertical log hypothesis is confirmed by an opening created in the wall plaster that reveals the logs in the interior of the wall. The interior is unexpectedly modern; never restored to its period of construction, the house sheltered many generations of the Valle family, each one updating it to the period of their own use. As a result, the interior is vaguely "modern," reflecting the tastes of its last owner -- the plain white walls and painted ceilings could date from nearly any time in the mid-20th century. Jules Valle, the last of the family to live in the house was a world traveler of varied interests, and the furnishings and decorations demonstrate his ecleticism -- trinkets and souvenirs from countries around the globe, photographs of family ancient and contemporary, odds and ends of theatrical ephemera, and furniture that in large measure almost any of us might have in our own home.
It is not until we venture up the steep attic stairs that we truly come within the 18th century in our exploration of this house. We stand in awe at the massive trusses that support the roof. Put together from a forest of hewn timbers, each perhaps 6 inches by 8 inches in cross section, there is enough lumber in this support system to build a whole small house of today. This support system is difficult to unravel visually, the gloomy attic lighting not assisting the process. After study we see that it is composed of a series of large timber frames resembling capital "A"s that run across the house the short way. And linking the "A"s tightly together the long way down the length of the roof are timber units that somewhat resemble "W"s -- that is, each of the "A" frames are braced against the spine of the house by timbers on each side tying it to the main beam at 45 degree angles.
We needn't be an engineer to appreciate the massive strength of this support system, easily strong enough to carry the weight of this roof many times over. We glow with self appreciation when we finally deduce that we are seeing the architectural equivalent of the human appendix -- a system that had outlived its function. This idea of roof construction was brought by immigrants from Normandy, through Quebec and into Missouri -- they built what they knew, a system devised in medieval France to support the tons and tons of weight embodied in a thatched roof, nevermind that in the new world no such massive trusses were actually needed to hold up strongly the light wooden shingled roofs they would learn to make from the local forests.
Reluctantly leaving the attic, we return to the main floor, and out the back door onto the rear gallery. From this rear porch we take a stroll through the pretty, walled flower garden, noting the interesting blacksmith-made iron cross on the garden shed wall. The thing that may interest us the most here, is the stepping stones in the garden path -- the tombstones of a generation of Valles brought from the local cemetery. It would seem that the eclectic collector, Jules Valle, had accquired the toute ensemble for this one collection; the very beginnings of the house are visible in its walls and attic, and we feel the end of our visit is somewhat oddly evidenced by the tombstones of the people who built it.
posted by taotianone at 8:10 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home