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The Fall of '63
Sep. 4th, 2021 12:13 am When I returned to campus, in the fall of 1963, I'd already sold my Olds Studio trumpet for less than a quarter of what I'd paid for it and had taken an equally horrific hit to my GPA as I said goodbye to the music department and returned to school as a sophomore English major.
Because, while it was true that I hadn't lost any credits, a substantial number of them were in the former major that I'd performed poorly at. Including a couple of Cs and, the one that really hurt, a D in the 5-hour music theory class I'd been required to take. (Because, unlike my classmates, most of whom had attended high school in NY State, music theory had not been available to me in Erie PA.)
The upside, if there was one, was that at least some my music credits could be plugged in for electives which I now wouldn't have to take. Except for the one in art. Which was a problem because, unlike my mother and sisters, my attempts at anything representational looked like the stick figures in "Diary of a Wimpy Kid."
(It turns out that, later on, I discovered that I was pretty good at architectural drawing, but that was many years and several careers further down the road.)
Anyway, the answer to this dilemma, according to my guidance counselor, was for me to take an art history class, specifically "Art of the 19th Century." Which, it turns out, I actually loved, especially the French Impressionists.
Fast-forward to present day, and I had recently decided to attempt a breakout from my Covid-induced isolation to attend the in-person book club I'd once belonged to at the Liverpool Public Library.
At which, next month's reading is B.A. Shapiro's "The Art Forger," a fictional tale based on the unsolved theft, from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, of a number of priceless originals including one from Edgar Degas' "The Bathers" series. So, French Impressionism revisited. At least as the backdrop for Shapiro's fictional tale.
Having put this entry aside for a few days, I've since finished the book and have actually begun re-reading it. Not because it's that compelling, necessarily, although it is a decent read and I've been feeling the need, of late, to have a book more or less constantly in hand.
It's actually a couple of things. For one, I also have a compulsion to own the books I read and so ordered this one from Barnes & Noble. And, when it arrived, succumbed to the previously-mentioned compulsion by immediately unboxing and beginning to read it.
The problem with that being, as we're still 2-3 weeks out from the meeting where it's to be discussed, I won't remember a damn thing about it. (I'd throw in here that "the mind goes first," but we all know that that's not necessarily so.) Hence, Reason One for the re-read.
Reason Two is that I wanted to go back and re-examine what I, along with a couple of legit reviewers, have identified as some seeming loose ends in terms of plot lines, character development, etc. Which I think may yield some useful talking points in our upcoming discussion of the book.
That said, I have found the book engaging enough that I've also ordered Sue Roe's multibiography (Is that a made-up word?), "The Private Lives of the Impressionists." And am also considering one of the many books which survey the better-known works of the Impressionist era.
The other thing that I remember, about the Fall of '63, was walking across campus, in the semi-darkness of a late afternoon, following my "Art of the 19th Century" class and learning, from conversations overheard between other students, that President John F. Kennedy had been shot, earlier that day, in Dallas.
The date was November 22nd. So much for the dazzling use of light gifted us by the Impressionists and for the youthful hope and vitality of America's then-First Family...
LPK
Dreamwidth
9.4.2021
Because, while it was true that I hadn't lost any credits, a substantial number of them were in the former major that I'd performed poorly at. Including a couple of Cs and, the one that really hurt, a D in the 5-hour music theory class I'd been required to take. (Because, unlike my classmates, most of whom had attended high school in NY State, music theory had not been available to me in Erie PA.)
The upside, if there was one, was that at least some my music credits could be plugged in for electives which I now wouldn't have to take. Except for the one in art. Which was a problem because, unlike my mother and sisters, my attempts at anything representational looked like the stick figures in "Diary of a Wimpy Kid."
(It turns out that, later on, I discovered that I was pretty good at architectural drawing, but that was many years and several careers further down the road.)
Anyway, the answer to this dilemma, according to my guidance counselor, was for me to take an art history class, specifically "Art of the 19th Century." Which, it turns out, I actually loved, especially the French Impressionists.
Fast-forward to present day, and I had recently decided to attempt a breakout from my Covid-induced isolation to attend the in-person book club I'd once belonged to at the Liverpool Public Library.
At which, next month's reading is B.A. Shapiro's "The Art Forger," a fictional tale based on the unsolved theft, from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, of a number of priceless originals including one from Edgar Degas' "The Bathers" series. So, French Impressionism revisited. At least as the backdrop for Shapiro's fictional tale.
Having put this entry aside for a few days, I've since finished the book and have actually begun re-reading it. Not because it's that compelling, necessarily, although it is a decent read and I've been feeling the need, of late, to have a book more or less constantly in hand.
It's actually a couple of things. For one, I also have a compulsion to own the books I read and so ordered this one from Barnes & Noble. And, when it arrived, succumbed to the previously-mentioned compulsion by immediately unboxing and beginning to read it.
The problem with that being, as we're still 2-3 weeks out from the meeting where it's to be discussed, I won't remember a damn thing about it. (I'd throw in here that "the mind goes first," but we all know that that's not necessarily so.) Hence, Reason One for the re-read.
Reason Two is that I wanted to go back and re-examine what I, along with a couple of legit reviewers, have identified as some seeming loose ends in terms of plot lines, character development, etc. Which I think may yield some useful talking points in our upcoming discussion of the book.
That said, I have found the book engaging enough that I've also ordered Sue Roe's multibiography (Is that a made-up word?), "The Private Lives of the Impressionists." And am also considering one of the many books which survey the better-known works of the Impressionist era.
The other thing that I remember, about the Fall of '63, was walking across campus, in the semi-darkness of a late afternoon, following my "Art of the 19th Century" class and learning, from conversations overheard between other students, that President John F. Kennedy had been shot, earlier that day, in Dallas.
The date was November 22nd. So much for the dazzling use of light gifted us by the Impressionists and for the youthful hope and vitality of America's then-First Family...
LPK
Dreamwidth
9.4.2021
