WELCOME TO BIFOCAL FRIDAYS

I recently started a new job in a formal business setting after 20 years of working in a very independent environment. I absolutely love my new gig, but it does require a pretty unwavering commitment to a solid 9-5 schedule every day, with a generous but very structured vacation policy. I miss some of the flexibility I had before, to take a day or an afternoon or a few hours off at the drop of a hat.

So imagine my delight a few months into the job when I learned that we keep “Summer Hours” for the months of June, July and August. That means Friday afternoons entirely off. I felt like a kid in a candy store as I considered the unexpected gift of this special time suddenly available to me.

It reminded me of one of my favorite childhood books, The Saturdays, by Elizabeth Enright, which I have read countless times. In 1940s New York City, the four fictional Melendy children lament that their weekly allowance of 50 cents each isn’t enough to do anything really good with. So they decide to pool their money, and one child will have it all each week in turn, to do something special for a Saturday adventure.

Ten year-old Randy gets to go first, because it was her idea. As she luxuriates in considering her options, she thinks she mustn’t waste a minute or a penny of it. “It was like a door opening into an enchanted country which nobody had ever seen before; all her own to do with as she liked.” This is how I felt about the idea of my Summer Hours. While mine wasn’t an issue of limited spending money, the idea of not wasting a single minute of it was paramount. So I made the decision to approach my Friday afternoons very intentionally, committed to making each one count in a unique and meaningful way, all summer long.

As the Melendy’s father said when he granted approval to their scheme, “See that you do something you really want; something you’ll always remember. Don’t waste your Saturdays on unimportant things.” I wouldn’t waste my precious Friday afternoons. I would do something wonderful (or at least notable) every week, and write about it here so I’d be accountable to the commitment and fully mindful of the adventure.

Of course not every Friday will pan out as some big amazing thing. Maybe one afternoon I will simply clean my house and revel in the fact that I have this lovely home with a new love who has given me a new lease on life in my 50s. Maybe one day I will simply weed the garden and think about life. But there’s plenty to be gotten from that as well.

“We lead a humdrum life when I think about it. It’s funny how it doesn’t seem humdrum,” said Randy Melendy over tea with an old family friend. Mrs. Oliphant replied, “That’s because you have ‘eyes the better to see with, my dear’ and ‘ears the better to hear with.’ Nobody who has them and uses them is likely to find life humdrum very often. Even when they have to use bifocal lenses, like me.”

Join me on my “Summer Hours: Bifocal Fridays” adventures. Maybe you’ll find something new to do with your special time, or just a new way of looking at things.

Friday #8: July 22, 2016

I’m tired

Not of summer, nor certainly of my Bifocal Fridays. Just bone tired the last few weeks. Partly it’s getting to the age where an easy, solid night’s sleep begins to elude me more regularly than occasionally. Partly it’s the houseful of teenagers to simultaneously worry about and work for and enjoy. Partly it’s a rich social life that seeds my calendar with so many joyful outings and adventures, some of them more joyful and more late-night than I can sustain indefinitely. Partly – and in no small part – it’s the deep troubles in the world that seem to be washing up in a relentless rising tide that is making everyone scared and angry and tired. And this week, too, it was partly the heat – in the high 90s for many days running – that was weighing me down and making me sleepy.

So when Friday afternoon rolled around, I came home at noon, took off my damn bifocals, and promptly slept for a solid three hours. I didn’t regret a minute of it.

Seeing nature

Of course, an afternoon nap is doubly sweet when you have something fun to look forward to. And I was looking forward to going to the Minneapolis Institute of Art with Drew later in the afternoon to see the much-touted exhibition, Seeing Nature: Landscape Masterworks from the Paul G. Allen Family Collection.

It was a beautiful show that lived up to MIA’s promise (and it will be be on view until September 18 if you want to see for yourself):

“Spanning 400 years, this spectacular exhibition illuminates the rich and varied approaches in European and American art to the landscape genre. Featuring 39 landscape paintings drawn from the private collection of Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen, including masterworks by Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt, David Hockney, Edward Hopper, and Georgia O’Keeffe. Lovers of of French Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism will find these styles well represented.”
It’s hard to imagine one person actually owning all those paintings, and I’m struck by the “one-percenter” aspect of that – and Paul Allen is probably even in a much smaller fraction of a percent than that. With a net worth of $15.8 billion, the most recent Forbes 400 Rich List  puts him at the 26th wealthiest person in the United States. Whether you envy or despise or admire somebody with that kind of money -- or Paul Allen himself, specifically -- you have to admit that the guy (and undoubtedly his curator) has great taste in art. And if you’re anything like me, you probably have to feel some sense of gratefulness and joy that someone is able and willing to acquire and preserve and most importantly share this treasure with other people.

Two of my favorites: Klimt's White Birches and Monet's En Paysage dans L'ile Saint-Martin



Speaking of sharing art with the world

I have to back up a minute. On our way to the MIA, we stopped downtown to see a personal friend who has shared an incredible body of work with the world, though his means are much more modest.

Drew first introduced me to Daniel Corrigan when we had him over for dinner and a game night. We’re all avid Scrabble players, and we now play Scrabble online together regularly, and see each other occasionally at one event or another.

Corrigan is the longtime staff photographer for First Avenue, the iconic Minneapolis rock club. For decades he shot pretty much every act to come through the doors, including legendary local bands like Babes in Toyland, Husker Du, the Replacements, and none other than Prince himself. He captured them all with a style that is equal parts gritty, raw, and tender. In recent years, Dan has been the subject of a Pitchfork documentary, as well as the Minnesota Original series. His work will be highlighted in the book Heydey: 35 Years of Minneapolis Music, coming out this November from Minnesota Historical Society Press.

In recent years, Dan has morphed into a role maintaining the First Avenue facility, that deliciously dingy place we all love so much. He is still frequently found behind the camera, though. On this particular Friday, it was his birthday, and he was giving his friends a gift. He had extended an invitation for any of us to come down to First Avenue and have our picture taken. 

We parked downtown at the old Dayton’s ramp – I can’t think of it any other way – and stopped in at Candy Land to buy him a box of mixed treats for his birthday. Braving the hot-town-summer-in-the-city pavement temps, we  crossed Hennepin to meet Dan at the Depot Tavern. The Depot is next door to the First Avenue/7th Street Entry clubs, and owned by same. In its previous incarnation, First Avenue was an art deco style Greyhound Bus station built in 1937 and called The Depot.

Dan’s photos line the wall of the Depot, and we found him at one of the back booths, quietly welcoming us in his sweet, low-key way. He led us through the back storage room and into the service garage where he had a stool and a fan set up against the concrete walls. I could imagine the hubub of all the bands that had pulled into that space to unload their gear over the years since First Avenue opened in 1970.

But in fact, I didn’t have to imagine very hard, because all of a sudden a musician friend of ours came running up to give me a hug. Olivia Quintanilla is a super-talented young cellist who is currently playing with Useful Jenkins, a contemporary acoustic band with a bluegrass foundation. Tonight Olivia just happened to be making her debut appearance playing the First Avenue main room. That’s totally a bucket-list thing for any Minneapolis musician, as she reiterated to me with an excitement that was tinged with a little exhaustion, coming to the night as she and the band were from a long series of road gigs. Although we couldn’t make it back to the show that evening, it was sweet to see her and I know they rocked the house.

And of course, Dan rocked the photos.



Wrapping up the afternoon with Nighthawks

After our shoot with Dan and the MIA show, Drew and I stopped at Nighthawks Diner & Bar at Nicollet and 37th for a happy hour nosh. Among the many great places along "Eat Street," Nighthawks is one of the best lately. I had a crazy good chicken and pork belly slider, and Drew had this super amazing foot-long hot dog.


Back home for the rest of the evening, I may have even gotten a good night’s sleep.



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