Carpenter's Gothic (Updated from 2/23/2015)

 

“The house is not essential for domestic abuse, but hell, it helps: a private space where private dramas are enacted behind, as the cliché goes, closed doors; but also windows sealed against the sound, drawn curtains, silent phones. A house is never apolitical. It is conceived, constructed, occupied, and policed by people with power, needs, and fears. Windex is political. So is the incense you burn to hide the smell of sex, or a fight.”

-- Carmen Maria Machado

Carpenter's Gothic, the architectural style of the house in the background of the famous 1930 painting, American Gothic, by Grant Wood.  The painting is shown here (above) with the models, his sister, Nan, and his dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby.  I only element I see that makes this house "gothic" would be the pointed-arch window.  In all the years I have known the name of this painting, I never knew why the artist named it so.  You learn something every day, and I have been reminded that things aren't always what they seem.  Then, I went for a walk.


As I walked down FEMA's multimillion-dollar breakwater surrounding the new harbor for the fishing fleet, I glanced at the shoreline and spied the twenty-foot-high stainless steel cross that made it through Hurricane Katrina.  I thought about Jesus on his last day and how he must have also thought that things aren't always as they seem.  Things can be what we expect, yet not be as we expect.  Jesus surely knew the ultimate outcome of the day, but the pain of torture must have come as a shock.  It was kind of like this new harbor, in that the city got their hands on federal disaster relief and spent it on a poorly utilized harbor instead of revitalizing the community with quaint shops, and beautiful streets.  Most of the town imagined an ultimate outcome but didn't seem to realize how slow and painful it would be to get there, if ever. We finally did and the harbor went through some needed changes along the way.

I usually find that taking a walk clears my mind and helps me focus on the post I'm working on.  Normally this includes running into situations, or people, that bear out the message in my post.  Today was no different.  I wandered from the harbor to Bacchus, the restaurant overlooking the shrimping fleet and the gulf.  I sat outside on the deck, fully intending to have a tall iced tea.  Bacchus has a selection of beers and a well-drink "happy hour" that used to start at 2:00 p.m. and lasted for eight hours.  Needless to say, they shortened the "happy hour" but it's still one of my favorite haunts.

Anyway, I was tapping my steno pad with the pen when a couple of geriatric biker babes came outside, from the main restaurant, and asked if I was watching the television over the bar.  I said no and they disappeared back inside.  Minutes later another woman and three elderly men accompanied the first two women back outside to take up seats at my right.  Seeing this motley crew, my first thought was the reality show, Swamp People, except these folks were all decked out in Harley Davidson tee-shits, riding glasses propped rakishly on their heads over colorful bandanas and caps covering their greying hair.

One of the gentlemen asked, again, if they could change the station to NASCAR.  I reiterated "be my guest" and he insisted on buying me a beer; redneck geriatric bikers and NASCAR, who would have thought? Well, who am I to refuse a free beer?  Against my feeble protestations, they bought me a round for letting them change the channel on a television that wasn't mine that I wasn't even watching.

I've never been able to wrap my mind around soccer or NASCAR; both, for me, are like watching a freshly varnished board dry on the humid Mississippi coast.  In soccer you hope, in two excruciating hours, someone will eventually make at least one point before you go comatose.  NASCAR seems to be what Southerners consider a similar "sport," as the obvious game plan is to make continual left turns, as fast you can, for an hour or more, without crashing, burning to death, or killing anyone else including the scantily clad spectators pounding down dogs and beer.  The drivers do all of this in a hot, humid, vehicle while wearing fire retardant jumpsuits, sucking exhaust, wishing they'd peed before starting, and all the while trying to cross the finish line first.  But then, things aren't always what they seem.  I will have to have a NASCAR groupie clue me in on the finer points, one day.

These folks, and this whole situation, were another example God throws out there for me when I'm looking for inspiration.  They were rife with possible preconceptions other people would make about them, and they turned out to be kind, personable, grandparents and seemingly loaded with disposable income.  They were also driving cars and not motorcycles, a fact that really threw me off.  Though liberally sprinkled with "colorful" language, their conversation traveled from merlot and pinot noir to the tasty menu, motorcycles, and NASCAR.  At the end of it all I had to shake my head and thank God for the inspiration, and the reminder - you can't judge a book by its cover.  And, like their conversation that went from Merlot to NASCAR, I have managed to trip my way from Merlot through American Gothic to find myself at that same destination.

American Gothic; a statement on architecture, the Bible belt, or American culture of the day?  I wonder, maybe it doesn't have to speak to us at all.  Maybe it's just a nice painting.  By the same token, maybe what we see of other people doesn't need to speak to us either.  Maybe they're just nice people, and things aren't always what they seem.  For instance, you can just look at Nan and Dr. McKeeby and tell right off that neither of their cars came in first.

I still don't know who won the race.