More PTown Photos

Local Color














Is This How It Ends?














Love the Rocks














Waves














Beach Rose














More Splash














September is the Best of Summer














On the Bike Trail

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Sunday - went to breakfast at Cafe Edwidge. It was very good. Leon had the Goddess Omelet with artichoke, spinach, asparagus and scallion; I had the fruit crepes. We had them served "staggered" and shared each dish. A good strategy.

Just a few more pics














Leon after Breakfast at Edwidge














Bungalow














On the Hindu














Another sailboat

Art Class

Wednesday, September 16

Sitting at the boat launch area on the East End where five artists are at work capturing the land/seascape. I am seated on a bench overlooking their canvases and papiers. I thought, just like in grade school, the teacher would go around and comment on all the attempts at art by the fifth-graders. Inevitably some would, even at that age, be blessed with a talent for color and keeping within the lines. Some would be more creative, some would be neat, but others would just make a big mess and wonder why their pictures did not look like the teacher's.

To my surprise, one of the artists, the one working with oils stopped what he was doing and began to make the rounds. The art instructor. His real talent is coming up with positive comments so as not to discourage his students. The poor woman in front of me, using pastels, had made quite a mess, blending the colors of sky and water and sand into mud. But I overheard the teacher say something to the effect that, "You may become quite an artist...yet." Diplomacy at work.

Tuesday, I Think - They All Start Feeling The Same

Lone Ship, Probably the Hindu










Sunset Last Evening















Sunset on the Wharf














Today was quiet and peaceful. The weather was clear, sunny, dry, warm, and with just the right breeze. A 10. I went to the far side of Herring Cove, near Hatches Harbor. It was virtually deserted.

I had myPod and chose to listen to Italian music all day. It made me think of my dad who loved to listen to Italian records, especially all the Neapolitan songs. It would make him happy to sing along although he never spoke Italian.

What struck me most, and with some sadness, is the fact of his absence and with it any memory of what he had lived and experienced...the fact that that history is gone forever. But his love of Italian music lives on in me..."Volare, Oh, Oh, Cantare, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh..."

Today at Herring Cove/Hatches' Harbor






























My 30 minute meal tonight (Rachel Ray, I'll take you on anytime) was Pan Seared Tuna with a Bread Crumb Crust, Braised Fennel with Olive Oil, Garlic, Dry Vermouth and Lemon, White Rice, and a glass of Dry Vermouth on the Rocks with a Twist. In town, maybe $40, plus tax and tip. Home made, about $7. I was too hungry to take pictures.

Old Cemetery PTown

Some early Halloween humor. When I was a kid, I always said "horse" instead of "hearse". Just thik of it as a horse-drawn hearse:

Did you ever see a horse (sic) go by, and think that someday you would die?















They'd cover you in a long white sheet,
And then they'd bury you six feet deep.















The worm crawl in, the worms crawl out,
The ants play pinochle on your snout.















Your chest caves in your teeth decay,
Your eyeballs pop and roll away. . .

Friday Morning on Commercial Street

Another nice day here, partly cloudy, breezy, cool.















Reflections on a town














Province Town. A place of contrasts. It is a town where some feel the need to display what they consider their best features: a chiseled face, muscular arms, hairy chests, a boyish look, stylish clothes. The women, I think are less self-conscious. Many here, both men and women, strive only to be themselves. Sometimes it is overstated or phony or desperate or funny or sad.

One would think that the pretty boys and muscle men try to impress, but really they are as much trapped in their own skin as the rest of us: the old, the fat and the ugly. We all carry around a history embedded in flesh: our personal experience is lived through only that one body and no other. And that body to some degree determines what we experience, how we relate to others, how they relate to us and even sometimes what road we travel. Those with that universal quality of attractiveness, those who exude sexuality, don't always carry it well. What a pity.

What the pretty boys and the muscle guys do have is an element of distraction - a way of diverting our attention from their flaws. The rest of us have flaws diverting attention away from our beauty. (I'm trying desperately here in PTown, to believe that.)

See the Spiritus Web Cam; or the Commercial Street Web Cam.

Landscapes























Biking





































My Dinner Last Night: Blackened Center Cut Pork Chop, Rice Cooked with Sauteed Onion, Garlic and Baby Bella Mushrooms, Steamed Broccoli. Glass of Merlot. Approximate cost: $4. In town: $65.

Here and there in PTown

Lobster Fest, compliments of Eddie.














Eddie, seated and Steven are all "bibbed-up" and ready.














Leon looks glazed from too much sun.














The Nudie Gestapo looking for exposed skin on the beach and planning their strategy for a stealth attack.














Along the Wharf














Ruins after the big fire from some years ago.















Tall Ships in Port for the Regatta

































Bruno would love it too

Provincetown Reflections

Monday, September 7, Labor Day

My first full day on my own in PTown. Leon is home, gone back to work for a couple of weeks. I’m here with only my bicycle and two legs for transportation. I expect that a good number of the campers here in the campground will pull out this afternoon or tomorrow. Today’s agenda: finish up a grant and email it to my employer; maybe bike/hike out to the beach. The weather has been just about perfect. Probably the best of the entire summer.
















Beach Art














Tuesday, September 8th.

A funky day. Had plans to get an early start but didn't. Took care of some phone calls, getting the holding tank pumped, checking email in town, getting a haircut, biking through town and to the beach. Biking through town is a challenge for us 60 somethings. Trying to squeeze through the traffic and the pedestrians...the guy in that SUV is just standing there, creating an impassable space, "Come on, come on. What's your problem?" my inside voice comes through. "I'm turning, what's your problem" I get in response. (My inside voice thinks, "People like you" but I peddle on with an uneasy feeling.)

There is that familiar feeling of not belonging. There are PTown townies, PTown seasonals, PTown regulars, PTown tourists. I guess we are "regulars", but even that doesn't quite fit. It is different when you are with people you know as opposed to being anonymous in a crowd. As if being invisible until our or another's personal space is invaded.

Beauty and Wealth

Some Pictures, PTown, First Week


































































































































































As much as I love PTown, the salt air, sand dunes and the ocean views, the obtrusive reminders of class, ostentatious wealth and privilege are inescapable. In the sixties and seventies the town was much more down to earth, with artists, hippies, and average tourists among the fishermen and townies. College kids worked in ice cream shops and changed sheets in the B&Bs. Now, foreigners from Eastern Europe and Jamaica buss tables, do maid service and sous-chef at restaurants where appetizers go for $23 and dinner would cost them a day’s pay.

The homes and condos that have been built here, just in the past ten to fifteen years range from seasonal, converted tool sheds going for $130,000 to luxury homes priced in the millions of dollars. So-called modest homes have landscaping that probably cost what we paid for our house in Smalltown; here, monthly landscaping services and maintenance could easily equal the yearly income of many Americans.

Even at the campground the rigs get bigger and bigger. While our camper is not tiny by any means, it is also not luxurious. Our current neighbor is a $500,000, 44-foot motor home which the owner’s informed us, they keep garaged in the winter when they’re not in Florida. Our house is 44 feet by 22 feet, which means their garage is probably bigger than our house.

The thing that irks me is the sense of entitlement that some wealthy folks exude like an obnoxious body odor. They pretend to be unawares as they impose their physical and ecological footprint onto the personal space of others – whether by parking their oversized motor home in a space meant for a camper half the size, or using a small town’s worth of fuel to transport their yacht to and from the Caribbean complete with a motorcycle, helicopter and 40-foot lifeboat.

I could go on…but suffice it to say that I do not envy their wealth and position, I only resent their sense of entitlement.