recipe for stop motion

we recently set ourselves up a loose schedule in order to maximise our time while we are here. we’ve agreed to take on the job of photographing at least 6000 objects on the property before we leave, for a project in which people sponsor these objects (for others to use) and thereby show their support for PAF and contribute financially to the renovations of the building. these objects will be displayed on a website, catalogued according to taxonomical criteria and available for you to “adopt” soon! meanwhile, we’ve reached a particularly fun yet messy part of the video, article deadlines approacheth for hana, and we are going to switzerland in a couple of weeks for a short holiday with friends at lewis carrol’s former home (where we also plan to do some filming).

a miniscule fraction of photos from our first day on the job. would make beautiful wallpaper:

so in order to fill our quota and do all we need to do while we’re here, we’ve agreed to let an alarm clock into our lives and to follow this (flexible) routine.

8am wake up + stretch
9am breakfast
10am take at least 200 photos of objects
12pm lunch
1pm shoot
4pm (hana go write)
6pm dinner

despite this, every day is very different of course. so we decided that we’d start a daily report.

a sneaky still preview

19/6/09

• have photographed up to 2100 objects for PAF sponsorship project, a third of our goal.

• snail actor appeared shocked to find itself in a caserole dish of moss. found on the underside of glassy edge, it appeared to have excreted either an intestine or penis organ and somehow “wrapped it around its shell and gone to sleep.” upon further speculation, it’s also possible that this was some sort of egg sack surrendered when the snail thought it had reached the edge of the world.

• after thinking we had released all wildlife back to respective homes, a slug is spotted in the now slimy camera case

• men from the honey museum in nearby town came to install 10 bee hives!

• new bowl of cherries picked. many more to follow.

• at least 2 hours were spent fixing a tripod that was left here by someone who was glad not to have the damn thing.

• busted the male peacock sneaking outside of the gates. adrenalin from this small act of rebellion gave him the energy to come back and chase the peahens, very unsubtle indeed. took some eye witness images of the incident. put them to music. (turns out they do this every day)

—————-

Notes to Self:

+ The peacocks actually live very structured lives. The male makes a daily escape every afternoon, and at around 7pm they are always particularly lively.

+ The one rule here is”the doer decides.” Whoomp there it is. And if that’s the only ‘rule’ here, then the only guiding principle is “to make it possible for others.” There you have it, an ideal world that works.

+ L’Insurrection Qui Vient is an anonymous book (written by Comite Invisible and published by La Fabrique) that has become a bestseller in France as well as a real rabble rouser. Here is an excerpt from one of many interesting paragraphs:

“Who still grows up where they were born? Who lives where they grew up? Who works where they live? Who lives where their ancestors did? And to whom do the children of this era belong, to television or their parents? The truth is that we have been completely torn from any belonging, we are no longer from anywhere, and the result, in addition to a new disposition to tourism, is an undeniable suffering…The Frenchman, more than anyone else, is the embodiment of the dispossessed, the destitute. His hatred of foreigners is based on his hatred of himself as a foreigner. The mixture of jealousy and fear he feels toward the “cités“ expresses nothing but his resentment for all he has lost. He can’t help envying these so-called “problem” neighborhoods where there still persists a bit of communal life, a few links between beings, some solidarities not controlled by the state, an informal economy, an organization that is not yet detached from those who organize. We have arrived at a point of privation where the only way to feel French is to curse the immigrants and those who are more visibly foreign. In this country, the immigrants assume a curious position of sovereignty: if they weren’t here, the French might stop existing.”

You can read the full English translation here.

+ And last but not least, slugs can enlighten us on the act of love making.

free wheeling europe

So we made it! the spirit of Champ touring the New World guided us on a very charmed bike trip from Denmark to France, where we are now, getting straight to work on a hot new stop motion music video (!!!) for a hot new song on a hot new album. The video will be shot on location in the building below, the Performing Arts Forum, where we will be living and working for 2 months, so let your imaginations run wild!

The building used to be a convent school (perhaps once occupied by the Germans and then an apocolyptic cult) and is now an artist residence/workspace with 2 wings, 4 floors, more than 50 rooms, at least 4 pianos (1 grand), a chapel, peacocks and at the moment, 20 or so artists, mostly from the performing arts. It is in a tiny village that no French person I’ve ever met has ever heard of (unless they live here of course). It’s perfect. Parfait, formidable, incroyable.

our first day. we were so relieved.

it's hard to catch moments like these

not to mention moments like these

There are an endless amount of magical corners. Our world for now pretty much exists within the building, and time of day only because the bell strikes a certain number of times. Otherwise we barely know what day of the week it is. It’s completely immersive and defined by the people who are here at the time, who are here to work an all kinds of artistic endeavours, and who can schedule anything in the building, from yoga classes to performance showings to feedback sessions. Last night we had ourselves a wild impromptu dance party in the kitchen, in which every utensil was used to its fullest prop potential. When you have a group of dancers on the verge of burn out after days of rehearsing on various performances and just days before showing these at an international festival, there’s a lot of energy floating around, and the no-boundaries-group dynamic is magnetic. We will definitely miss these guys when they leave. Bless their souls. But to just think of all the other people who we will see come and go while we are here! Living in our mint green room by the chapel and dragging our crazy portable filming rig to and fro everywhere between the basement and the attic(s).

Since we didn’t get funding for the project as we hoped (and really really needed!) we’re seeking all avenues for patronship and recently got the idea to set up a handy dandy virtual donation box to go towards our residency fees and filming expenditures. But unless you’re Oprah, Bill Gates or listed in Wikipedia’s ‘List of Billionaires (2009)’, then know that we have no expectations from you! Money is not a measure of love. But for anyone feeling the extra weight of extra pennies in their pockets, or are at this moment considering spending big bucks on something you know will only make you feel beautiful for a day and then regret later, or if you actually wished that some of your tax dollars went to support the next Jacob Perkins & The Nobody stop motion animated video (due to be released with the new album, ‘Acts For the Frozen Sea’), then THANK YOU for choosing us. We can’t promise a trickle down effect, or better education, healthcare and justice for all. but we can promise it will be spent wisely, directly and with much gratitude.

by clicking on this button!

Otherwise, you could of course buy a CD! 11 bucks very well spent. That we can guarantee you.

CLICK HERE TO BUY THE CD

Meanwhile, a bit of a wrap up.

The show in Auckland with Teacups, Street Beat, The Ribbon and Surf City just before we left was a whopbanger! “5 bodacious bands, 1 bodacious night. shaa-wing!” thanks everybody!

apparently the film was stretched

really stretched

and the photographer didn't know which way was up

and then she dropped the camera

The bike trip was epic. A 70km day of going against unforgiving headwind will really take it out of you. But then you spot a herd (?) of baby goats (kids?) frolicking in spring time wildflowers and for a moment or two the double time and double work is all worthwhile. Not to mention the 86% cocoa solid ‘brut’ Belgian chocolate that sits conveniently in your basket. Or you roll up somewhere you’ve never been in your life to the familiar face of a good friend, and you forget that you just biked your sore ass to get there and so just let the games begin! Oh it’s so worth it.

touring the new world without gas guzzling

We started in Copenhagen, where our dear and trusty friends helped us score our dear and trusty steeds for the job, henceforth referred to as The Crescent (Hana’s cadillac with 3 gears and backpedals which we kept trying to get her to trade in) and The Flemming (Jake’s slick racer which was custom made for some pro biker nobody’s heard of). We spent a few days pimping them out (sort of – The Flemming got a back rack, and The Crescent’s basket got relocated to the right rear). Then pushed on south till the end of Denmark, hopping the train through the German corner to get to our friends in the Netherlands in time, along the Dutch coast, into Belgium, swerving between the sea and inland to get to France, which is now home to us for at least the next 2 months.

I could go into a detailed description of our trip but as they say, pictures are worth a thousand million bazillion words. And we have about a trillion pictures, not to mention the ones yet to be developed on the half-frame-double-for-your-money rolls of film. So if you want to see more and stay updated visually, you can also go here. There you will see celebratory occasions hither and thither with friends between London, Helsinki, Paris, Copenhagen, Arnhem, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bruges, and all the magic of the countryside in between!

A million thank yous to everybody for being there (here and there). As usual, we just couldn’t do it without you.

pep shadow

there were lots of dreamy places

biker stylez

and sometimes we slept in places that looked like this

free 4 ever ok

land of the long white cloud

hey dudes and dudettes,

in case you didn’t know, we’re back in New Zealand and very happy to be here. Please excuse the long pause, we’ve been revelling in the pacific ocean, old friends and creamed clover honey for the past few weeks. It’s been lovely. Forgot how bright the light in NZ is, like being in a commercial for coloursafe detergent where colours just pop and crackle. Moved  life down to Wellington last week on the train from Auckland and are now living in the most beautiful home that feels like a ship nestled high in the side of a hill and overlooks the bay/heart of town. It’s perrrrrfect. With a honky tonk piano and a friendly ghost that plays records.

Fell in love with this city as soon as we stepped into a house on Wilson st. in Newtown last weekend and the kitchen was crowded with people (including real-life Mexican mystics in ponchos) singing “Down to the River to Pray” acapella style (you know, the gospel song made popular-ish by O Bro Where Art Thou). The night quickly evolved into a dance/jam session akin to my wildest fantasies of parties that Herbie Hancock would stage in his own living room. Complete with a fender rhodes keyboard. It restored my faith in jam sessions I tell you. Can’t get much better than a room full of people GETTING DOWN to themselves and eachother. huh. To top it off we met some friends-for-lifers and destiny scored yet another point.

Jake played his first show in town at Happy, a little venue with a lotta love and with a very talented line up of local musicians: Seth Frightening, Ashes of August, Peneloping. For all you spirograph afficionadoes, check out the poster.

And just in time for a bit of promo, the Kitchen Sink (Wellington’ friendliest gig guide) published an interview:

“We wrote a song called “Gravy Train” which was absolutely terrible, and after bombing the end of year dance party with some prepubescent Jimi Hendrix covers and not getting any girls, we decided that we’d never be as good as Silverchair and the band broke up.”

James Beavis interviews Jacob Perkins:
Musician.
Fool for internet scams.
Space age gypsy.

READ MORE…

Meanwhile, plans are underway for a new stop motion short, which we’ll be working on from June to July in France at the Performing Arts Forum (PAF), an ex-convent just northeast of Paris in a very tiny village. It’ll be nice to crack down and crank out a visual extravaganza that explores and celebrates the idea of Home.

Speaking of visual extravaganza, here are some treats from New Zealand

a happy new yeeeeharrrr!

Here’s to one wonderful year after another!

We just returned from what I’m calling The Blitz Recap Tour, from Los Angeles to Bangkok to Angkor Wat. It was more like a recap of two different tours, the Champ tour and a bicycle tour around S.E.Asia that we did at the last turn of the years, but it made me realise that with all this Onward Ho! we’ve barely had a chance to pause and consider the outrageous feats that we pulled off this last year.

Like…scoring second-hand bikes in Bangkok and getting them tweaked to be roadworthy enough by all sorts of eccentric “mechanics” down alleyways on streets that I’m not sure I’d know how to find again, then bungee cording on our waterproof stuff sack thingies and a miniature guitar and heading north one busy friday night, not even stopping to verify the baby elephant on the sidewalk, going going going until we realise we just totally traversed Laos and are now crrrrruuuuuuising down a mountain just across the VietNam border when we take our eyes off the road to look at each other as if to say “WHOAH,” only just catching in our peripheral visions the massive black snake that we almost collided with had it not basically levitated itself into the bushes just in the nick of time. By the time we got to Siem Reap (yes home of what was once THE seat of the siam kingdom, with outrageous palace temples to prove it aka Angkor Wat) in Cambodia, I was on the look out for the next lucky recipient of my fluorescent pink-handled bike. I knew Ong was exactly who I was looking for as soon as we met him and when he basically completely ignored us other than a polite smile. No games, no motives, just a young boy orphaned by Pol Pot and in need of a steed. “This bike flew to Thailand from Tunisia, and then I rode it to Cambodia the long way around, via Laos and VietNam, especially to bring it to you, here’s the lock and the secret code.” I didn’t see Ong or the bike this time around, a year later, so I’m hoping it’s taking him places too.

As for Champ, we received word from Scott in Eugene while we were in L.A. Check it out, in hybernation. I like to imagine a family of bears asleep in there.

So while we were in L.A. a few weeks ago, and staying at my brother’s apartment, the gas station across the road was selling gas for $1.85/gallon. The VERY same gas station where we had filled our tank for $4.85/gallon just months before, on the morning where we hightailed it to make a show in Salt Lake City. And so it hit us, we could go THRICE the distance now on the same amount of cash we spent to get around the country just once this summer. THRICE! we could have gone to mexico, zig zagged through the interior, at least made it to the far northern corners like we wanted to.

But retrospect is sweeter than regret. Being back in L.A., and channelling what it felt like to be there last time with the additional layer of knowing now what the GREAT unknown we faced then was, is, whatever, the pavement itself took on a sparkly magical presence, and it felt really quite amazing to be a part of this life. With love and gratitude.

Now speaking of paths crossing, New Zealand latitudes here we come! And speaking of music, Jake is heading to Rooftop Sound this week to record three new songs. Still can’t unveil the secret animation projects, be patient and we’ll all be rewarded.

oh and

ps. for the motherlode of tour photos go here

pps. and now “The Birds & The Beasties” is available on iTunes! go check it out, download your favourite song, write a review, cmon cmon

ppps. some animation experiments, sketches and outtakes, “Vignettes”

pdx…oxo!

NB: This post was partially written a few weeks ago (egad! slacker), and I am now writing from Indonesia, where, in light of the beginning of a (hopefully) new America, kids from Obama’s old school in Jakarta say it all.

BOOYAH

Beloved Oregon. Since the next show was over a month away from when we first arrived to Portland, we had some time catch up on some of the luxuries of a stationary life. To supplement our stay in the city of roses,  Jacob Perkins and the Nobody branched out to the business of house sitting. And most people only need house sitters when they have pets, thus this enterprise lead us to pet sitting.

Our first client was Turtle the rescue dog with no front teeth. She lived in a wee little studio, loved to eat cat poop and walnuts, and hated being bored. Within half an hour of arriving in Oregon we were faced with Turtle alone in her apartment and she just stared at us and barked, howled, mooed even. We worried about the neighbours and took her on a night walk. Or she took us. We tried to take Turtle out as much as possible while we were staying with her: to Sauvie island where we picked blackberries and played with babies by the river, to pizza parties and barbeques, libraries, cafes, garage sales, college lawns and even the faraway lot where the van got towed to on one unfortunate night.

Meanwhile we basked in the glory that is summer in Portland. We biked familiar streets in the dark on balmy nights, found friends and friends of friends on all kinds of corners, and spent a shit ton of time putting together plans for the next album and accompanying animation. (watch this space)

While staying at Turtle’s house, and after a day trip to the coast, Jake made this short animation about crab love.

Soon enough it was time for Audiocinema’s annual AC/VC (Visual Collective), with over 50 of Portland’s bands and artists. Jake played on a stage 12 feet off the ground while people milled around below looking at various art-ifacts and the like, followed by a swim suit fashion show.

After Turtle’s owner came back from camping we moved out to the countryside to take care of Buddy the diabetic golden retriever who liked to eat berries and apples on the sly, play catch and keep away, and had the sweetest habit of grabbing the leash by his teeth at the slightest hint of running. We also had to keep two elderly sheep alive (we also fed them apples) and Sheba the tailless cat fed and watered.

During this time we were both working way on the other side of Portland, in two giant hangars where, incidentally, Magic Is Made in the form of giant animatronic puppets for the likes of Cirque du Soleil and Disney. Work started early in the morning so Buddy’s first walk entailed a run down a grass covered country road where, on days off we went to pick blackberries. Staying out here was diiiiivine. The gardens, orchards and bushes were so bountiful that we ate most of our meals straight off the plant. And when the berries got too much for smoothies and pies, we made jam. Buddy Jam.

We moved back into town to stay with Domino the jack russel terrier and Dexter the incredibly large and fluffy cat just in time to welcome all our incoming friends who were converging from near everywhere to celebrate the much anticipated wedding of T-REX. This blessed day marked the union of two brilliant friends with enough cunning to pul off a sixty deep bike parade – complete with synchronised boomboxes and sangria filled sports bottles – and a brilliant party starring the groom, the groom’s mother and Jacob Perkins & The Significant Others. So many familiar faces from past adventures and dancing as if we hadn’t stopped since we started about eight years ago.

spot the dog (amidst crafty frenzy)

summoning the rex

jp and the significant others

Pretty soon it was getting near time to leave Portland, and the U.S.A for that matter. Things were winding down, leaves were falling, fires were starting. Jake played a second last show with two great Portland bands The Ascetic Junkies and St. Frankie Lee. Then finished off the tour by playing with our favourite duo The Terrordactyls, on the first show of their tour (check them out, they make animations too!).

Since we were set to fly out of San Francisco we left Portland in Champ to head south yet again. We assured him though that this time we weren’t going all the way around the country and back.

On one sunny morning in Berkeley, our friend Scott jumped in the driver seat, took Champ round the corner and kept going all the way to Eugene, Oregon. So stay tuned for the new offshoot series: “Champ Moves to Eugene.”

In the meantime, it’s all GO here in Indo and the spirit of Champ promises to take us to newer worlds. We’ll keep you posted asap. New songs being recorded as we speak.

the parting shot

montucky

oh Montana, you tried to keep us as long as you could… Jake and I left North Dakota with semi-big plans to camp in Montana for the rest of our trip, but just approximately 2.5 miles before the continental divide, at about a million feet of altitude, Champ started to go very very slowly. We thought, let’s pull over and have a rest and collect some sage. So we did, and when we got back in we couldn’t get old champ to move at all. After a few tries we admitted defeat. We needed to hail someone down. And we thought we knew the universal signals for this; flail both arms in the air. That didn’t work and people seemed to look at us funny so Jake improvised one hand to ear like phone, the other hand beckoning, and me laughing at him. After a while this seemed to hit home for one giant 18 wheeler hauling a hell of a lot of bricks. This guy had chops that grew beyond his face and down to straggly ends. He had his 11 year old son with them. Yes, we got to ride a semi! It was like being in the cockpit of an aeroplane. And he even let us drink a mountain dew from the mini fridge.

sneaky shot with the phone

We had no idea what exactly our next steps would be and how far we were from the nearest town so we took the guitar and amp with us and our bag of nectarines and left Champ all alone as we cruised just as slow to the notorious town of Butte. Not butt, more like beaut. Sort of.

To cut a long and boring story about car mechanics short, we ended up staying in Butte for two days, holed up in Eddy’s motel feeling wacky from the high altitude, watching The Graduate and Showgirls and cooking on the camp stove. Butte is the only town in the U.S. where you can walk around drinking your beer (or whiskey) on the street ANYWHERE in the whole town. But this didn’t make it anywhere near as fun of a place to be in as New Orleans. Quite the contrary. The place was bizah. As soon as the new clutch was in we made tracks west, ready to go all the way back to OR in one shot.

mick's wrench house + eddy's motel = butte, MT

But no such luck, about 70 miles down the road, on our first gas stop, we noticed that transmission fluid was being splattered all over the underside of the van. There was a leak, and for those of you who don’t know, no transmission fluid means game over. At this point we were past Missoula and after a whole rigomarole of making collect calls and trying to figure out what the f we were going to do, we decided to backtrack to Missoula, locate a house known as The Laboratory and see if we could stay there for a night to get the transmission checked out the next morning.

impending storm

home chickens

hijacking the www

Luckily the kids at The Lab are great sports (and used to multiple guests out of the blue all the time) and we felt right at home. So we partook in a big pot of chili and I got to making vegan choc chip cranberry cookies with cayenne pepper.

cookies with a kick

Some other house guests were stopping through on a bike trip from WA on their way to the Democratic National Convention in CO. Meanwhile a heated discussion ensued in the living room, as I’m sure they often do, about the privilege of not-voting, parasites posing as anarchists, and community. Some of the concerned, passionate and complicated outbursts of conscientious young Americans today. Or it could have been the cayenne pepper. In the background, screams from the roller coaster rides at the Country Fair could be heard from across the street, and an incoming storm was blowing all the drying plants off the back porch. It was quite a turbulent scene and I’m glad we could partake.

"fuck this war"

We slept in Champ under the lightning that night and got stupendously lucky early the next morning. A nice mechanic hooked us up with what we needed and when he heard our story, took pity and gave us a discount and sent us on our way back to Oregon!!!! Where we lived happily ever after…(To Be Continued)

welcome back to oregon!

this is the face of gratitude

west of the midwest

True to its reputation, the midwest (more like the mid north) for us was all about unending hospitality. We left Chicago for Minneapolis with directions to Elise’s house, who all the way from Canada had so thoughtfully arranged for us to stay at her parent’s place during our overnight stop. When we got there we found the backdoor open and a note saying to make ourselves at home and that they’d see us in the morning. Jake and I were a little concerned that the house had been burgled so we peeked around until we saw that the computers were still there and proceeded to make ourselves a bit of dinner with some of the gigantic dino kale in the backyard.

behold!

The next morning we met Elise’s dad Michael, who had some oats soaking in a delicious milk and cream combo, waiting for us to wake up, add berries and peaches, and eat up! It was such a treat. We couldn’t believe our luck when he sent us on our way with a delicious pack lunch of chicken roast sandwiches and melon. People are amazing.

hay hay hay

sunflowers galore

love these guys

So off we went, hoping to make it to Bismarck, North Dakota in time to get to Jake’s show at the East 40 Chophouse and Saloon. I remember thinking on the way, (you get to thinking lots of strange trivial and not so trivial things after a few hours in a car with no music…oh yeah, the boombox set up stopped working, it was nice while it lasted), anyway, I remember thinking, “dot dot dot that would be like me moving to ND!” and then getting to Bismarck and saying “wait, i LOVE this place!” Another surprise favourite state.

east 40 chophouse

After a quick costume change and googlemaps check (read: wireless hijack) outside a local motel, we got to the venue right in the middle of Ben Suchy’s set, another host whom we had never met before and was cyber-introduced to us by dear Mayana, all the way from New Zealand. Ben Suchy is a gem, and comes from a family of musicians. His parents came for the show and were big fans of Jake’s music. We all sat around together eating buffalo chili and burgers and talking about grass fed cattle rearing. Ben’s dad, Chuck Suchy, used to play on the Prairie Home Companion radio show, something of a staple for some young Americans. The Bismarck crowd was one of the best, warm, attentive, generous. Apparently no one ever stops here on tour so they were honoured to think that we’d even come all the way from Oregon! So Bismarck, don’t bypass it or you’ll be missing out.

they even have diners there like in the movies

across the continent

chicago

moon roof

We got to chicago late on a saturday night and thanks to the unwavering hospitality of Michelle Menzies got right to setting up what was to be our double double bed of salvation in the front living room of her hyde park headquarters (yes, just around the corner from Obama’s house). After NYC, we were pooped and were happiest at our laziest. The next day Jake played his show at the Moon Roof (with Danny Malone, check him out, listen to “Baby Bleu,” this will probably be on the next mix I make for you), where we got our first glimpse of the famous chicago skyline. We roasted some weeners and corn on the roof, rendez voused with old Davey and my dear old friend Liz! bathed in the sun, felt like no time has passed since we last saw each other, it was peachy.

beets and beans

The Sadocks invited us over for a visit at their lake side highrise and checking out the lake on our way over I said “I wish we could go sailing!,” which the genie granted to us in the form of some very generous parents of a brother in law, a spiffy little seaworthy boat named Voila and some old friends who were happy to have our company out on the water. It was then that we realised, after a few months on “the mainland,” how much we missed the water!

so, voila!

don't give up the ship

Chicago is a city that Chicagans are proud of. It’s also a city that neither Jake or I knew anything about. Architecture, prairie school, what building? It’s always been a stretch for me to see beauty in skyscrapers. But skyline, that’s another thing I think. And I do remember the moment when I noticed how thoughtfully designed the chicago skyline is, driving along lake shore drive and seeing the river cut through buildings that looked like they had actually just been carefully put there by a giant hand. Good work. Not to mention all the good I heard about the city’s mayor. Anyone who can seamlessly incorporate bicycles and wildflowers into city planning deserves mad props.

the mayor loves wildflowers

the bean

the inevitable

bunny!

cupcakes with friends!

tell you all about it

It was in Chicago that Champ developed the need to be turned off in order to go into reverse. We allowed the poor vehicle this quirk after all the miles we had traveled and moseyed on our way to Minneapolis, and onward, where the quirk culminated in a little bit of an epic breakdown. So stay tuned amigos. And rest assured that as I write this we are in fact back in the pacific northwest, with a maxed out credit card yes, but still happy as clams and grateful as all get up.

philly

city hall?

Pennsylvania turned out to be one my favourite states. I think it’s because it was full of small and sweet surprises. We got to Philly from NY just an our before the Rosenbach Museum was closing. Jake dropped me off while he looked for a place to park and I threw on a dress over my shorts and tee shirt before walking in, so as to look respectable when I asked to speak with the head librarian and basically tell her that my MA thesis supervisor, who spent several weeks a year here poring over the museum’s collection of unpublished letters and manuscripts, “sends her love.” This earned Jake and I a personal tour of the museum which, to our utmost pleasant surprise, turns out to be a beautiful 1860s townhouse once home to the Rosenbach brothers, a couple of art and literature aficionados who lined their bookshelves with things like: the original Ulysses manuscript in Joyce’s slanted scribble, Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence, hundreds of Lewis Carroll’s letters (they sold the original Alice in Wonderland to the British Museum), original drafts of Don Quixote, Dracula, Where the Wild Things Are, and most importantly to me, Marianne Moore’s living room in it’s entirety. The whole place was just beautiful. It was a treat just to see the inside one of those townhouses let alone see Moore’s toys and trinkets and remember them in her poems.

philly has the most murals of any u.s. city

Then we get a message from Lafleur about how she’d feed us burgers and beers if we came to her ma’s house just outside of the city in Media. We tried to get there as quick as we could, but googlemaps sent us the extremely long way (as it likes to do), through the “bad neighbourhoods” where people seemed to be pretty into the idea of hanging out on the sidewalk in tight groups. Nevertheless, we got there just in time for a delicious bowl of chicken soup (with peas and carrots from the garden and chicken from the Amish farm down the road), acorn squash and maple syrup (tapped from the maple trees in the back yard!) and to be convinced that we needed to stay an extra day in PA. Lafleur’s ma Hazel has the best garden this side of the atlantic and she loved Jake’s music and plus, her home was sort of in the woods and we were happy to be there.

our guide on the ever elusive red trail at tyler's arboretum

We went on a long walk through a nearby arboretum and got lost without knowing it more than once, grazed all day long on berries like bears, chowed down on homemade burgers, and went in search of the neighbour’s life sized dinosaur collection (he made the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park). Nobody was there except the gardeners, so we had a quick look around and when we didn’t see anything, theorised that the dinosaurs must have been moved for the summer and even thought we saw the patches on the grass where they once were . (We’ve since been notified that we were at the wrong neighbour’s house!). So we went and played scrabble instead.

Turns out there was an open mic happening at the local coffee shop so Jake signed up for the last slot and we got to catch some interesting folks. One woman propped her doll, who looked and was dressed exactly like her, up on an arm chair to watch the show. A lot of other characters were kind of indescribable and interpretative and gave us the giggles.

yum!

have you ever seen a purple pepper? all in an afternoon's harvest

catching up

lafleur takes nice pictures

Miraculously, it was also in PA that we FINALLY got our boombox hookup working in the car! It was amazing (and very short lived, stay tuned). We hadn’t had any music on the road for over two months! and however many thousands of miles, so our drive to Chicago that day just flew by.