Other states, other lives, other souls

BAIT I have not traveled solo very much except for times related to work: many times in Bangkok for the weekend before or after work in Cambodia; once for a week going to Dalat, Vietnam from Cambodia for a brief return stint; once going in and out of Sierra Leone for my Masters in Public Health field experience; and once going to stay in an ecolodge by bus from Phnom Penh in Koh Kong district on the western edge of Cambodia. Today I stumbled on this long final travel piece in the New York Times by Jada Yuan. She was commissioned by the paper to go to 52 recommended travel places in 12 months as a solo traveler.  It’s a terrific article, the kind of travel writing I aspire to.  It’s not about all the beautiful places she checked off on her bucket list. It’s about what she learned about humans around the world and how traveling alone can position you to have these soul-touching experiences. She also summarizes important lessons learned, like safety and handling and expecting the unexpected. I was tempted to quote Blanche DuBois here from Street Care Named Desire “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers”, but upon further inquiry, her statement is not at all what this piece is referencing!  Here is the link to her article. If you tap on her byline, up will come all the specific posts she wrote during the year.

SWITCH I have been on blog post vacation over the December holidays, visiting my sister and family in Brooklyn and soaking up some of the most amazing art exhibits and live performances offered by the Center of the Known Universe. Not the expensive Hamilton- type events that many people think of when they go to New York City, but the lesser known ones that take a little more digging and less cash.

We also tried to move our little north country Winter Solstice event to Brooklyn, with mixed results. In case you are living near or traveling to NYC in the next month, here are some recommendations of things to do.

1. Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again (through March 31)  This is at the new Whitney Museum. You can get there on the subway and you can walk as much of the High Line as you want nearby.  I was not a fan of Warhol’s most notorious pop art work, but seeing the work of his entire long career, first as a commercial artist and finally as an out gay man experimenting with all media in the 80’s. To quote him:  “Nobody really looks at anything; it’s too hard. I think someone should see my paintings in person before he says they’re vacuous.”
2. Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power at the Brooklyn Museum (through February 3)  I had no idea how ignorant I was of all the talented African-American artists and collaboratives doing work from 1963 to 1983.  There are some well-known poster art pieces from the Black Panther party newspaper which I knew because I lived in the Bay Area during that time. I even had a Huey P. Newton poster on my wall, to my parents’ chagrin. But so much more– some very reflective of the tragedy and militancy of the times and some just wonderful art.
3. Julia Bullock, young soprano in residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through May. I took my musician sister to see her in Nativity Reconsidered at the Cloisters just before Christmas. It was based on a shortened version of the oratorio El Niño by John Adams.  His opera Dr. Atomic, with Julia as Oppenheimer’s wife, has been nominated for a Grammy this year.  Fabulous acoustics in the small chapel, four exquisite soloists, and a small chamber orchestra made for a spine-tingling performance.  The next one is in mid-January, a tribute to Josephine Baker. It should be terrific.
4. The Jungle at the St. Ann’s Warehouse, just below the Brooklyn Bridge. (through Jan. 27)  The play seats the audience in a simple warehouse designed to make you feel like you are in the Afghan Café with the refugees at the now defunct sprawling refugee camp in Calais, a port town in France.  Many of the actors were former members of the camp, along with several well-known actors.  The unofficial camp was the result of the refugee flood into Europe in 2015 and 2016 from north Africa, Somalia and the middle east.  The play is an emotional one, with all the comedy, drama, conflict and reconciliation, and finally tragedy that took place in the life of the camp.  The complicated role of the European “helpers” is also given subtle life. It reminded me a little of the dust bowl refugee camp in California described in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, but with multiple ethnic groups, languages and horrible conditions added to forge a self-governing town out of.  Incidentally, the view at night below the bridge across to lower Manhattan is sensational.

Sometimes travel means going to somewhere great, over and over, and staying there long enough to imagine living there. I could.