Philly and Ann Arbor

A long weekend (last weekend), a couple of days in Philadelphia with Ian and Mandy, followed by a couple in Ann Arbor with Sarah.

It is such a delight to see our kids doing so well, and so excited about their lives. Ian's a good man -- doing well at a job that he'd prefer not to do, to provide support for the two of them. He was always a reliable, hard worker once he committed to a job. He's thinking hard about what he wants to do next, and where he'd like to go in the long run. He's gotten inspired about the possibility of historical restoration, which would combine his love of history with an artistic profession (architecture). Mandy's working her tail off at University of the Arts, loving every exhausting minute. Well, almost every one. And Sarah's thriving at the University of Michigan.

We arrived in Philly on the day that the student show went up -- Mandy's first exhibition at UA. She was done with the printing, but not with all the stitching that goes into her piece. It's a sweet graphic tale, and very nicely done to these non-expert eyes. But she got pretty badly beaten up at the critique the next day. She had to leave the room and go to her studio space for a good cry, and when Marie, Ian and I got to their apartment after our day at Penn's Landing, she was sound asleep, making up for the very long days she'd been working. It was really good that Marie could be there to provide her with some perspective on the process.

Even I tried to contribute something. I told her how we beat our graduate students up at their written and oral exams, particularly when they're defending their thesis proposals. It's painful, but an essential part of developing both a sharp set of self-critical skills, and a thick skin. Any creative person -- artist or scientist -- is putting himself out there in a very vulnerable place, and it can be pretty painful sometimes. You're so invested in what you've done -- your vision -- and your ego is on the line, too, in terms of the technical skills you have brought to the task of executing the work that shows your vision.

One big ego issue is intelligence. Although the intelligences of the artist and the scientist have different forms, we're all bright, or we wouldn't be in the art game or the science game. And many of us have had a lifetime of strokes from parents, teachers and peers, telling us how bright we are. So it's really painful when we fall short in others' eyes.

Sometimes rejection comes from people we know but don't really have a lot of respect for. That still hurts, because we know that there are others who do respect their opinions.  Sometimes rejection comes from people we don't know very well. That hurts even more, because we don't know enough about them to easily dismiss their criticisms. But what really hurts is when we get rejected by someone whose opinion we do value. After such occasions, how many times have I asked myself "Why do I do this to myself???"

Ian and Marie and I had a day of tourism together while Mandy was preparing for, and then enduring, the critique of her work. We started our morning with the Seaport Museum, which was pretty cool. But the best parts were lunch, and visiting two warships after lunch.

Lunch was at the City Tavern, a reproduction of the Inn where the founding fathers often ate and drank. Waiters in knee britches, etc. I expected it to be tacky and touristy, but since it was a slow day, it was actually really nice. I'd commented on the bus headed toward the waterfront that I hoped for sauerkraut and sausages for lunch. By coincidence, the chef at the City Tavern is German, and there were some great sausages and great sauerkraut. With a pint of I-forget-which of the colonial brews, I was one happy camper!

Then to the ships...

I really like museums that feature art, or history, or anything military, or stuff related to engineering/industrial prowess. So I'm a real sucker for warships that you can walk through, because they give three out of four. We visited two of those at Penn's Landing: the Olympia, Admiral Dewey's flagship in the Philippines and later one of TR's White Fleet, and the Becuna, a WWII sub. (The latter even included some cartoons and other graphic memoribilia from the men who served on her, so it was a four for four experience...

Fortunately, Ian gets off on this stuff, too. Marie tends to be put off by the ultimate purpose of these beasts, but she humored us and enjoyed the elegantly paneled officers' mess on board the Olympia, at least after her fashion, while Ian and I wandered around the rest of this rather sweet old lady of the sea. Marie did stay topside while Ian and I prowled through the Becuna, however. Between her abhorrence of war and a tendency to claustrophobia, this boat had no appeal for her.

Like most guys who walk through these things, I try to imagine what it must have been like. Forty or more men sharing a single toilet, one minute showers once per week, plus the constant stink of diesel fuel, oil and fumes. Days, weeks, perhaps months of sheer boredom, punctuated by hours of fear and tension, and sometimes of sheer terror. Although I never wanted to serve on a sub (although it did sound really cool!), I was, like most boys of my generation, seduced by the prospect of serving topside. Since I was raised in a time when the draft was still in full force, I always thought I'd have to serve. I was a patriot, even David looked good in dress whites, and the sea beckoned...  I thought that I would become a man the first time I landed a jet plane on the deck of an aircraft carrier. My last semester at Berkeley I took the exams for Navy OCS and passed everything that I needed for flight school. Except my sitting height, which would have precluded my flying one or two of the fighters.

Thank God I changed my mind at the last possible minute and didn't show up for induction in San Francisco in January 1963. I'd made every commitment except actually signing. When the Viet Nam war ended and the prisoners got off the transport planes at Subic Bay, the Navy pilots all looked just like me -- tall, skinny, crew cuts. Hell, I wanted to sail around the Mediterranean and flirt with Italian girls, not drop bombs on people with whom I had no quarrel.

I was a little embarrassed the first time I boarded the Alabama in Mobile, in my late thirties. The first thing I thought was, "Damn! There sure are a lot of guns!!" Then, when we went onto the armor deck, the one beneath 16 inches of steel, I couldn't help wondering what it must have been like down there when hit by a bomb, even one small enough that it didn't penetrate the armor. I say I was embarrassed, because it was as if I'd never really thought about the meaning of the damned ship.

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Our time with Sarah was very full - we walked all over campus (well, you can't really walk over all the Michigan campus, perhaps in this lifetime), and through much of Ann Arbor. Sarah's dorm, where we met her roommate and some friends, the arboretum (twice), the Union 

(I love Big Ten Unions from the 20's and 30's), the Natural Science Museum, an a capella concert by Amazing Blue, a compelling movie (The Class, based on the true story of the difficulties of an idealistic young teacher in a multiracial / multicultural school in a tough Parisian neighborhood, starring the actual teacher and his students), a great Japanese meal, an OK meal at Black Pearl ("seafood and martinis" should have been a warning)...  She's loving UM and doing really well, but like lots of students today, she is really stressed a lot of the time.