November to remember
11/12/2009 5:03:00 PM
The Blue Dome district on a dark and stormy night. Mike Simons/Tulsa World |
October was cold and wet. We kept the windows closed. The heater came on more than a couple of times. The leaves turned and fell, dead.
But November, wow.
I walked to Dilly Deli today to meet a friend for lunch. Fourth and Main to Second and Elgin, but I could have walked forever. Warm, sunny, bright, happy days, this November.
October was a blur, full of defeat on the field and fury in the skies. But this, this I like.
Square deal
11/11/2009 4:17:56 PM
Bartlett Square fountain at Fifth and Main streets. Stephen Pingry/Tulsa World |
One thing about Bartlett winning the mayoral race ... how many will wonder if part of the victory spoils includes a square named in your honor? How many thought that about Bill LaFortune and the park at 61st and Yale?
When I fly into New York's Kennedy Airport, I have to remember, "Which one?" LaGuardia, that's a lot easier.
Big things named for corporations instead of people annoy me. Things named for people, you feel like there's somebody you can complain to.
I voted
11/10/2009 1:42:45 PM
Get it out: a lone voter at the Tulsa County Election Board votes last September. Stephen Pingry/Tulsa World |
So says the sticker flying on my sweater. I voted at New Haven UMC, where blocks away, a very dirty dredging of the trickling creek is underway, where for at least a day church and state sort of comingle. I voted in a jiffy and did not accept any of the payola - the Krispy Kremes, coffee and homemade (a colleague told me) pumpkin muffins. I saved those for you, as enticement, so you can also say, 'I voted.' If, of course, you haven't.
Closed call
11/3/2009 5:20:00 PM
This went up when Bourbon Street Cafe went down at Cherry Street in September. SHERRY BROWN/Tulsa World |
Dollar signs of the times ...
I ran into an old pal of mine who sells houses, when she sells them.
"My income's half what it's been," she said. "Good thing it was a hundred grand." I didn't envy her cash, or her commission-based reality.
Stuff's closing all around us, except houses, maybe. Last week, I saw a sign on the Boston Avenue branch of Dwelling Spaces, the downtown T-shirt, book and knick-knack shop. They'd pulled up stakes and taken everything back to the main shop at 2nd and Detroit, where things, hopefully, will pick up again now that Elliott Nelson has opened up Yokozuna.
Last month, the Avalon – once a late-night steak-out – closed its doors. New doors, too, barely two years old. A sign on the door blamed the economy.
I drive home holding my breath. Because of the traffic at 51st and Harvard - where our version of the Big Dig is underway - NYC Pizza is closed Sunday and Monday. Whew. The lights were out when I last drove by and I panicked.
Traffic. Like the economy hasn’t derailed us enough.
Creativity awaits
10/23/2009 5:43:10 PM
The Center for Creativity, Tulsa Community College, 9th Street and Boston Avenue. |
It's called the Center for Creativity, the newest improvement to Tulsa Community College's downtown campus. It is an architectural gem.
I work out at the TCC gym, so I get a nice glimpse of the building up close. It's tough to appreciate driving down Boston, dodging students and negotiating stop lights, so if you're down there and get a chance, pull over for a closer look.
The Center for Creativity, with a name like that, has its work cut out for it. But, if a building can incite students to contemplative action, the center is up to the task. The Swiss philosopher Alain de Botton, writing in "The Architecture of Happiness," equates a space with nothing less than a potential.
"An ugly room," he writes, "can coagulate any loose suspicions as to the incompleteness of life, while a sun-lit one set with honey-coloured limestone tiles can lend support to whatever is most hopeful within us."
Here's hoping all who enter the center find hope within its walls. They, and it, deserve nothing less.
The disconnect
10/21/2009 11:17:00 AM
Melky Cabrera did not connect with this pitch. But the rest of the Yanks did, all night long. AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi |
"Mr. Mark Brown - Feeling Disconnected?"
Good question, even from an innocuous e-mail.
I get too many e-mails a day, perhaps no more than most, but too many. After awhile, I WANT to feel disconnected. Unplugged.
I've been stealing moments of the American League Championship Series, adjusting the antenna when the flatscreen begins to pixelate. Because I have no cable television, I have missed all of the Phillies stomping of the Dodgers. I catch bits of it on ESPN's Gamecast - a silly way to watch a ballgame.
October, the fastest month, blazes on. I drive down Riverside to view the clump of trees near the Blair Mansion. Autumn does its best to distract me and I let it, knowing it is not August and will not muddle along. My eyes linger too long on the colors, but I pull myself out of it before the road bends beneath the pedestrian bridge.
I arrive, like A-Rod, safe at home.
Sky high
10/12/2009 1:34:20 PM
The blades of a Marine helicopter sit idly by while the kites take over at Saturday's KiteFest! |
Somebody said go fly a kite, so we did. Courtesy Tulsa Air and Space Museum, the first 500 kids to invade the soccer fields out near 41st and Garnett on Saturday got a free kite. Ours flew Toy Story and Spiderman. At one point, Buzz and Woody got loose and wound themselves around Spidey. Our two-kites-in-one reached dizzying, exponential heights. Over on the sidelines, a team from Star 103.3 played Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones and other high-strung classics. In a moist, green field in early October, who knew that Page and Plant riffing "Ramble On" would make great kite music? Flying a kite in a pasture – even if the pasture sits off of an eight-lane suburban arterial superhighway – creates an awesome feeling of, oh well and whatever. Get the kite up, let the wind takeover … it's like religion. At one point, some guy handed us HIS Spiderman and three kites proved one too many. Strings tangled, kites fell like archangels, kids looked at holes in the sky where kites once flew. KiteFest! – their exclamation point – was an hour well spent.
Blair blues
10/7/2009 12:14:05 PM
The Blair Estate: Tulsa's biggest front lawn? |
I'm kind of bummed about the weather forcing the River Rush event indoors, to the BOK Center. Nothing against the BOK Center. I was just looking forward to seeing something out on that big Blair lawn on Riverside. I mean, other than geese.
Decemberists in October
10/6/2009 2:09:50 PM
Colin Meloy and Becky Stark at the Austin City Limits Music Festival, a day before their Cain's Ballroom show. Jack Plunkett/Associated Press |
We were having an ale with Happy Hammerer Mickey Payne at the Soundpony Sunday when two guys walked by carrying puppetry. Mickey said something that I had a hard time hearing over Pavement's "Slanted and Enchanted," grinding timelessly in the background. Something in the air said, "Go next door."
We made it to the Cain's in time to see all of Laura Veirs' set - including a great harmonic outburst near the end of "I Can See Your Tracks," from her upcoming album, "July Flame." Then the main event, speaking of outbursts.
The Decemberists are on the last legs of a tour featuring their late rock opera, "The Hazards of Love," played in its entirety. Along for the ride: Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond and Becky Stark of Lavendar Diamond. The two Diamonds rocked, their voices multifaceted, sitting high and tight atop Colin Meloy's golden band.
Worden's voice comes from somewhere deep, China maybe, deeper than her five-feet or so should allow. During a break, we saw her hugging somebody over under the poster of Eddy Arnold. The Wordens, traveling minstrels, once lived in Oklahoma.
"... granddaughter of an Epiphone-playing traveling evangelist, fathered by a National Accordion Champion, and mothered by a classical organist," reads her bio on the Asthmatic Kitty Web site.
"The Hazards of Love" is a 17-track suite set in an enchanted, if ill-fated, forest. Worden sings the role of Queen of the Forest, Stark that of the luscious maiden who wonders into the woods and finds love in all its gnarly ends. A second set included other Decemberists faves and a blistering cover of Heart's "Crazy on You," with Worden and Stark howling at each other like bitches in a Jack London novel.
Back home
9/4/2009 4:02:58 PM
A view of Tulsa from Turkey Mountain, near 65th and Elwood (pre-BOK Center). Tom Gilbert/Tulsa World file |
Recently returned from a few days in Seattle, and I brought the weather back with me. Hope you're enjoying it.
Seattle is a city of hills busting up out of water - Capitol, Queen Anne, Magnolia, et al. - allegedly seven. Like Rome. Allegedly.
Relative to Oklahoma City, Tulsa has hills. Relative to Seattle, Tulsa has molehills. Houston Avenue at Riverside, for instance. Golfball Hill out south. Tulsa Hills is on a hill. North on Elwood takes you to Reservoir Hill. And downtown sits up. It's hillish.
I guess Turkey and Lookout mountains are more hills than anything. But, without Rainier, we can call them mountains.
Hear this
9/4/2009 2:07:14 PM
Anybody seen the ClearTone ad on TV, the one with the talking head standing in front of a volcano painting that's hanging on the office wall in the background? Some Etna, or something, blowing its top?
I don't need them yet but, when I do, I don't know if I want my hearing aids working THAT well.
"Honey ... Huhhh-neee ... HUUUNNNEEE!!!"
River ride
8/14/2009 1:20:05 PM
Lightning over the Arkansas. OK, it wasn't that bad, but still. Tulsa World file |
The first day I rode my bike to work, the heat index was 106. The second day, I got soaked in a deluge. What's that they say about exercise, about how you have to get into a routine?
I pulled over under the pedestrian bridge at 41st and Riverside, to wait out the wind and rain with nine others. It was the occasional lightning strike that drove me under. Visions of Lee Trevino and all that. We tucked ourselves under the area right by the trail, where sometime in the '70s somebody painted a very suave "bRRidge" in a yellow slant.
There was an Asian man wearing a red Manchester United polo shirt, hauling a bucket with two fishing rods in it. There was a running man and woman. There were four folks on bikes.
"I'm a block from the car," one said, about to bolt. The rain was coming down sideways.
A guy stopped his rig in the path to wipe his brow. Another guy in a helmet came rolling in. "Could I get you to move your bike?" he said, maneuvering past and on down the pedestrian bridge. "That's OK, don't mind me," he said, and away he went.
The guy with the rig shook his head. "Sheeze," he said, then eyeballed the sky. "I'm a mile from home ... thataway."
He pointed down the trail, now deserted. Two young women wearing running gear ran under the bridge up the stairs, giggling, soaking wet. Sweat and rain become one.
I took off at first light, the sun kind of creeping back through the thicket of clouds. In fact, we all sort of found courage about then. The whole, impromptu gathering dispersing in the cool, rainy wind.
The fountains at Zink Lake spewed their streams into the air, indifferent.
Show time
8/6/2009 3:37:59 PM
Folks going to the recent ZZ Top, Aerosmith show at the BOK
Center. STEPHEN HOLMAN/Tulsa World |
Saw a show at the BOK Center last week - took my Wiglets to the Wiggles. It was my first at the BOK since it opened nearly a year ago, and for this I have taken much heat.
I've been waiting for the right show, what can I say? I ignored the Eagles - twice - as much as I adored them in 1976. Springsteen, he was the exit I should have taken somewhere on the highway of life and just never did. I'm no Springsteen guy, but I give him and his fans a wide, respectful berth.
Metallica ... almost. More for the spectacle. I'm a heavy-metal lightweight, Nine Inch Nails, being about as close I get. Got.
When the lights went down on the Wiggles, and went up in the eyes of at least one of the Wiglets, not even the promise of cotton candy was I held to.
Nice place, the BOK. Not to get Ice Cubic on you, but I gotta say it was a good day.
Go figure
8/3/2009 3:57:31 PM
Figs resting against the proverbial fig leaf.
Tom Gilbert/Tulsa World |
I woke up with a gland issue around my left eye that had me seeing red. An online check showed that cucumbers were good as a poultice for such nonsense, so I went to the fridge to yank one out for slicing. It had shriveled a bit and, well, if I'm not going to eat it, I'm not slapping it on my eyelid.
The same site said figs were a good bet for reducing such inflammation. Figuring the figs were fresher, I sliced one in half, took my customary prone spot on the sofa, and garnished my eye with the juicy, red side. I listened to the rest of "Sid the Science Kid" blasting in the background.
I get my figs from a friend who lives on Frisco, south of the Broken Arrow Expressway, on a slope that spills toward the Arkansas. Her tree bursts with the fickle fruits in mid-summer, usually around the time exhibition football begins and school starts, so there's an autumnal feeling about it. Even as I sweat, reaching into the mass of branches for hidden gems.
Must be something about the Frisco hill that provides enough drainage to allow for a flourishing fig tree. You hardly find them in these parts, not counting Fig Newtons.
Goose chase
7/29/2009 11:49:20 AM
Canada geese in a Wal-Mart parking lot last spring.
Michael Wyke/Tulsa World |
A goose lay dead on the side of the road, belly up on the lawn of the Blair Mansion. It looked to have been clipped by a passing car.
In spite of the idyllic name, Riverside Drive can be a mean street. I recall a famous chase incident in the 90s, with speeds of 100-plus and lots of metal flying. Hasty-Bake inventor Grant Hastings once told me a story about his family getting hijacked on Riverside in the early 1900s. A car pulled alongside, a guy jumped out on the running board of the Hastings mobile, opened the door and pushed the young Grant aside and stuck a gun into his father's neck. His mother turned her wedding band diamond-side in, as if used to such antics. Grant was convinced the guy would steal the only nickel he had, tucked in his britches.
In our cars, we're like salmon, heading up Riverside to do our business, then swimming back home after the deed is done. We're not like salmon in that we make return trips. On yours – trips, I mean – mind the geese. They seem to have confused the river with Riverside.
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