I troll the interwebs in the fishing and not the under-the-bridge sense: there’s a lot to read out there. Still, I’ve kept one eye on the feather-and-flower kerfluffle that erupted in certain circles this week, but have been much more interested in documentation of one kind and another.
Miss Vernon is really my favorite image of feathers on hats, and I wish I could say that a) I have replicated this fabulous creation or b) that I have seen such a thing, but alas! I have not.
Still, scouring sundry repositories for tayloring manuals (more on that another time), I found this delightful broadside. We can’t use 1782 to document 1780, and no means of using any of these items is mentioned or implied. Still, there they are, those inflammatory terms: Feathers, Flowers.
1782 Broadside. Early American Imprints, Series 1, no. 45771 (filmed)
Sometimes I feel like a third wheel at Rev War events. There is not always a lot for women to do besides chores, and the public often ignore us. Still, there is one maxim I know to be true: if you’re bored, work.
Thus, when I found myself drifting off Saturday, I started dinner. The best part was where I got to make dinner: in a chamber off the main room of the Temple at the New Windsor Cantonment. These two rooms were occupied by the 10th Mass this year. Last year, the unfinished room had been the scene of Dirt Stew.
Cutting vegetables on a table was a major upgrade; last year, I think I used the kettle lid, the floor being too gritty even for me.
It’s End of Stored Root Vegetable season here, so largish carrots and parsnips went into the pot, along with potatoes, onions, and a cooked chicken disjointed by hand (a task I have experience in).
This year, we brought the only iron we own, a small trivet-like stand to put the big kettle on; the little one went on bricks from the Temple’s other fireplace. Was that slim piece of iron wrong? Probably, but in a place where we can’t dig a kitchen or make a fire outdoors, we compromised in the name of keeping supper unspilled.
Why no fires outdoors? Red flag warnings, due to high winds and low RH. That all hobbies will be affected by climate change was clear on Saturday, as we discussed invasive species, transporting wood across state lines, and various site rules on using brush to build shelters. It’s not just about digging fire pits or kitchens and archaeology anymore.
The School of Instruction is always interesting, and this year was no exception. One of my favorite activities is walking with the troops (well, behind). The experience is usually surreal, and the walk we took behind Knox’s Headquarters met expectations.
Clash of the Time Periods
Knox’s Headquarters was a new location for us, with new activities: we played a Jingling Match, which resulted in as much giggling as jingling, and felt like the Walking Dead met the 18th Century.
Jingling without Giggling is the hard part
The game is pretty simple: mark out an area, blindfold as many as are willing to play, and set one without blindfold loose. The object is to touch the person ringing the bell, and it is a hilarious and merry game indeed, though I do agree with Mr McC that playing with a number of men full in their cups, or at certain sites (Stony Point comes to mind) would be too dangerous.
Still, it’s simple and fun, if a little Kubrickian when you first tie on the blindfold. The person who catches the jingler is the next one to taunt the blindfolded.
Next stop? Bell research, of course. I definitely want to play this in Newport later this summer.
Cats don’t like travel. You might, therefore, expect that Kitty Calash would prefer to stay home, but I’ve had a few travel adventures, and the hardest part is usually finding decent and strong coffee early in the morning, though sometimes dinner is a challenge: like my cats, I like my own bowl.
Happily, we’ll be cooking our meals for real tomorrow, boiling roots and meat and slabbing cheese on bread. Thank goodness for the 10th Massachusetts’s own John Buss and his love of cheese, but why did I forget the Massachusetts man who carried a pound of chocolate in his militia knapsack? We could have had drinking chocolate!
We’ll be at the New Windsor Cantonment tomorrow, but today, the last blustery snow-squally day of April School Vacation, we spent at Storm King.* The Young Mr enjoyed our visit last year, so we went back again.
Fun with framing
This year, we did another quarter or so of the park, mostly di Suveros but also Magdalena Abakanowicz and Andy Goldsworthy. It was an interesting exercise in scale, and specificity. I used to joke that the worst part about making sculpture was that once it was done, you’d have to dust it forever, but Storm King presents another issue: the sculpture that must be weeded.
In St. Louis, we experienced Mark di Suvero pieces at Laumeier Sculpture Park , but not on this scale. They’re more interesting together; as with so many things, mass makes a difference—though with di Suvero, acres of ‘gallery’ are required for mass.
Goldsworthy at Storm King
Goldsworthy has long been a favorite, the site-specific and temporal nature of the work appealing and similar to the kind of immersive, living history performance I prefer. Here, the wall wraps the trees and runs through the lake like a low, grey and solid version of Running Fence .
It’s a funny thing, walking the acres of art, and thinking about the kind of parkland gentlemen used to maintain—Pemberley and Stately Homes—and how yesterday’s folly is today’s site-specific sculpture.
Mozart’s Birthday: another di Suvero, with snow. Snow!
*Not for nothin’ is it called Storm King, as they would say in No’t Providence.
Kirsten Hammerstrom 
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