if you didn't make me feel like I needed to go home.
"Are you gonna run again?"
"How did you know I ran?"
"I watch you from the window every time you leave. You look so cute bounding down the path."
"I didn't know you watched me." I was blushing.
"Why do you run, anyway?"
"I run to get a head start on the guy who's chasing me."
He laughed.
I laughed.
Then I ran.
It All Makes Sense
I was glad to get a good night's sleep because I was able to wake up early in the morning and go to the NEC AD museum to draw.
I planted myself in front of their biggest sculpture, Rodin's
Hand of God.
Not the original sculpture, but a plaster cast. I figured it would be a good hand study.
Apparently, I had good taste; a guy circled the piece slowly, followed by a girl in a Harvard sweatshirt. He wore thick black retro glasses and a soiled post office jacket.
"So profound," he mumbled.
"What?" she said.
"Sooooo profound," he answered, a few decibels louder.
"What do you mean?"
"This man," he said, pointing at the identification plaque, "was so brilliant. Sooooo brilliant."
She cocked her head sideways at the sculpture, then straightened it.
"In what way?" she asked.
"So there's this huge hand, right? And it's the hand of God, obviously, according to the title. So we know that's Adam and Eve he's scooping out of the clay, right?"
"Right," she said tentatively.
"But it doesn't end there. It's not
merely
the hand of God. That would be too simple. Do you see where I'm going with this?"
"Um, I think so," she said.
"Who else's hand is it?"
"The sculpture's?"
"Close." He laughed. "It's the hand of the sculptor. The artist. The artiste." He paused, absorbing the profundity of his last words. "While God is building his human creation out of clay, Rodin is building this sculpture out of the very same medium. He, in effect, has control over God's creation and God's hand. It's as if the artist is God, is more powerful than God."
"More powerful than God?" she interrupted.
"Well, superhuman, at least," he concluded, scratching his stubble.
"Wow," she said, "I never really
get
art when I look at it. But when someone explains it to me, it's like it all makes sense."
The Melinda Cassidy Problem
I was listening to Tchaikovsky's violin concerto when Nate knocked on my window. He was holding a big hardcover book.
When he came in he threw the book on my bed. Then he ran to the kitchen and grabbed the champagne bottle my dad had given me.
"We have reason to celebrate," he said, and pulled me by the hand out to the winding hallway, then through the rickety back door. He put the bottle on the ground and lifted me like I was a child and ran across slabs of slate to the center of the patio. He whirled me around before placing me in a long lawn chair. My body sunk into the plastic strips.
He got the bottle and shook it up and down.
"What's this all about?" I asked.
"The Melinda Cassidy Problem. I've found a solution." He unwrapped the bottle and popped the top, aiming it in the air so it sprayed us from above. We took turns drinking the remainder of the bottle's contents and went inside to rinse off.
This wasn't how I'd imagined my dad's champagne would be used. I thought it would be for the end of Wintersession, or the end of a long project. Not the Melinda Cassidy Problem.
In the steamy heat of the shower Nate told me his plan.
Instead of painting each girl in his class, he would continue to work only on Sloane Boocock. Would she be able to stand seeing three more Natesque paintings of herself without saying anything? Nate's guess was, Yes, she would put up with it. She was too much of a wimp to actually confront him. Meanwhile, he would enjoy watching her fume.
This week he'd paint her lying on a bed, in a style reminiscent of Manet's
Olympia.
Throw a little art history into the mix, he said. That's why he'd borrowed a Manet book from the library. He'd show me the picture when we got out of the shower.
"So what do you think?" he
"Are you gonna run again?"
"How did you know I ran?"
"I watch you from the window every time you leave. You look so cute bounding down the path."
"I didn't know you watched me." I was blushing.
"Why do you run, anyway?"
"I run to get a head start on the guy who's chasing me."
He laughed.
I laughed.
Then I ran.
It All Makes Sense
I was glad to get a good night's sleep because I was able to wake up early in the morning and go to the NEC AD museum to draw.
I planted myself in front of their biggest sculpture, Rodin's
Hand of God.
Not the original sculpture, but a plaster cast. I figured it would be a good hand study.
Apparently, I had good taste; a guy circled the piece slowly, followed by a girl in a Harvard sweatshirt. He wore thick black retro glasses and a soiled post office jacket.
"So profound," he mumbled.
"What?" she said.
"Sooooo profound," he answered, a few decibels louder.
"What do you mean?"
"This man," he said, pointing at the identification plaque, "was so brilliant. Sooooo brilliant."
She cocked her head sideways at the sculpture, then straightened it.
"In what way?" she asked.
"So there's this huge hand, right? And it's the hand of God, obviously, according to the title. So we know that's Adam and Eve he's scooping out of the clay, right?"
"Right," she said tentatively.
"But it doesn't end there. It's not
merely
the hand of God. That would be too simple. Do you see where I'm going with this?"
"Um, I think so," she said.
"Who else's hand is it?"
"The sculpture's?"
"Close." He laughed. "It's the hand of the sculptor. The artist. The artiste." He paused, absorbing the profundity of his last words. "While God is building his human creation out of clay, Rodin is building this sculpture out of the very same medium. He, in effect, has control over God's creation and God's hand. It's as if the artist is God, is more powerful than God."
"More powerful than God?" she interrupted.
"Well, superhuman, at least," he concluded, scratching his stubble.
"Wow," she said, "I never really
get
art when I look at it. But when someone explains it to me, it's like it all makes sense."
The Melinda Cassidy Problem
I was listening to Tchaikovsky's violin concerto when Nate knocked on my window. He was holding a big hardcover book.
When he came in he threw the book on my bed. Then he ran to the kitchen and grabbed the champagne bottle my dad had given me.
"We have reason to celebrate," he said, and pulled me by the hand out to the winding hallway, then through the rickety back door. He put the bottle on the ground and lifted me like I was a child and ran across slabs of slate to the center of the patio. He whirled me around before placing me in a long lawn chair. My body sunk into the plastic strips.
He got the bottle and shook it up and down.
"What's this all about?" I asked.
"The Melinda Cassidy Problem. I've found a solution." He unwrapped the bottle and popped the top, aiming it in the air so it sprayed us from above. We took turns drinking the remainder of the bottle's contents and went inside to rinse off.
This wasn't how I'd imagined my dad's champagne would be used. I thought it would be for the end of Wintersession, or the end of a long project. Not the Melinda Cassidy Problem.
In the steamy heat of the shower Nate told me his plan.
Instead of painting each girl in his class, he would continue to work only on Sloane Boocock. Would she be able to stand seeing three more Natesque paintings of herself without saying anything? Nate's guess was, Yes, she would put up with it. She was too much of a wimp to actually confront him. Meanwhile, he would enjoy watching her fume.
This week he'd paint her lying on a bed, in a style reminiscent of Manet's
Olympia.
Throw a little art history into the mix, he said. That's why he'd borrowed a Manet book from the library. He'd show me the picture when we got out of the shower.
"So what do you think?" he
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