Lightning Round!

A while back, I promised these upcoming stories for the blog:

Scotch and Cheese
On Godhood
Hobart
Canyonero
On Danger Signs and Beyond
and
The Tiffany Flytrap

I’m going to try to wrap up as many of them as I can here, since otherwise I’ll never get to them.

First of all, I covered “On Godhood” here. If you haven’t read it, feel free. This post ain’t goin’ anywhere. (Actually, the same could be said for pretty much ALL of my posts.)

So: Scotch and Cheese.
As adults, I think sometimes we forget how mysterious our world is to children. But at the same time, we also forget what open books we are to the little buggers. So when one of the kids on vacation told one of us that all we talked about when they weren’t around was scotch and cheese, our immediate reaction was, “That’s absurd! We talk about movies too!” But thinking it over: Yeah, she totally nailed us.

Hobart
Okay, I have hardly any idea what this is actually about. This paragraph will be refreshingly free of any definite facts. But one night at Fest, there was one set at a night concert played by somebody (what’d I tell you?) where the lead musician was going on and on about this guy named Hobart. (That’s the one concrete detail I can give you, and I gave it up in the title. Sheesh.) Apparently he was some big Hobart fan or something. Maybe it was a tribute concert; actually, whether it was billed as one or not, it certainly was one.

What happened is that I was asleep for the first five minutes of the concert. A little too much drinky, you ask? Could it have been fifteen-year-old scotch, or fifteen-year-old cheese? I couldn’t tell you. All I know is that I woke up, this guy was playing some instrument or other, talking about how Hobart would do this or that, or how Hobart preferred his fiddle strung (if Hobart played a fiddle; I don’t know). And I’m thinking, “Hobart who?” But that ship had sailed, and like a latecomer to an episode of Seinfeld, I was five steps behind the jokes. Except there weren’t any jokes. There was just this guy lecturing us about Hobart, and occasionally playing some music that Hobart either wrote, played, or liked. Or possibly all three. I have no idea. Maybe the songs were about Hobart.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one confused. That night, and for the rest of the weekend, you could hear folks in camp criticizing each other, saying “Hobart wouldn’t grill a burger that way,” or “Hobart would do a shot if he were here. Are you too good for Hobart?” The spectre of Hobart loomed large, even if no one was particularly sure who he was or what he did. Or maybe everyone knew, and was suitably impressed, and they all decided to keep it from me.

I bet that’s what Hobart would do.

Canyonero!
I wanted to say a bit more about the Toyota Tundra I borrowed for Fest. It made camp prep so much easier. In order to fit all our equipment in one of our cars, we have to playe this elaborate game of jenga in the backseat and trunk, using every last available micron of space. Witht he Canyonero (as we soon called it), we could fit it all in the front third of the bed...and still have room for our car. in the end, we decided to leave the car at our house and just take the truck.

On Danger Signs and Beyond
This needs visuals I don’t have with me, so I’ll have to postpone this one yet again.

The Tiffany Flytrap
There’s a chapel in Auburn, New York, that was entirely designed by Lewis “Comfort is my Middle Name” Tiffany. It’s a pretty cool place, even if throughout the decades since its design, a couple of the building’s caretakers have either removed fixtures or painted over the walls’ original color. But the windows and chandeliers are really impressive, using some interesting folded-glass techniques that look pretty neat from a distance, but up close simply amaze.

The tour staff was nice, but their information on the building was kind of hit-or-miss. One fun fact? To get the yellow used in the windows, Tiffany tinted the glass with uranium. My advice to you if you go is: Don’t lick the windows.

Our tour guide kept on talking about a video that we were supposed to see before the tour, but they were struggling with the VCR all day. We seemed to be doing all right without it, but just before we left, a staffer emerged from the office with the joyous news that the video was finally working again, and did we want to see it?

“No,” we answered, “Not on your life. Your entire day’s work has been for naught. You have completely wasted the last eight hours.”

Ah, if only. Instead, we said “Sure,” and filed into the office to see a fifteen minute video telling us the things we’d already been told, accompanied by photos that didn’t do the structure justice. Plus, it didn’t really seem to be made for visitors; instead, it seemed to be aimed at donors, and when its job was done on that level, someone got the idea to include it as part of the tour. Thereby leading to our inability to escape.

Let me give you a timeline: We arrived a little before three in the afternoon. The chapel itself wasn’t open except for tours, so we waited for the 3:30 tour, which started without announcement as we browsed their used books table. Then we walked around the chapel for a half hour or so, finding ourselves wowed by new little details, but finally preparing to leave. And then, on the brink of departure, we get sucked into the video. All told, we spent nearly two hours on a half-hour tour.

Even though it was located just around the corner, Harriet Tubman’s house will have to wait until next year.

Phew!

Rob