Peter Behrens's Blog, page 501
November 8, 2013
Orgasmic Saskatchewan, Pontiacs, and Astronauts.
Alex Emond has been patina-hunting on the high plains of southern Saskatchewan. This is one of my favorite parts of the world. I love driving across the province on Hwy 13, which is south of the Transcanada Highway, and much less traveled. The country is open grassland and anything but flat. It rolls. The sky is huge. The wind goes through the grass with a sound like bedsheets tearing. Driving across south Saskatchewan is a bit like sailing: you get a heightened awareness of weather and wind, and of the way light works on wide open spaces. Wallace Stegner lived in Eastend, Sask. as a boy, and he left his wonderful memoir of the region, Wolf Willow.
I quote from AE: "Patina-Quest 2011 continues... this line-up of retired road warriors was in Climax, Saskatchewan. Climax is way down in the S.W. not super-far away from Big Beaver. I think those early pioneers were a little unsettled."
AE: "I now take you to Shackleton, Saskatchewan,where the streets are named after Antarctic explorers. Not a lot left but it is a very charming place. Here we have "ASSHOLE'S GARAGE " How lovely! In an adjacent yard is this sweet old grain truck."
AE: "Here's a fine old wagon that hasn't deteriorated too far. Rust has begun. Still, I like it. Not your typical Sask.vehicle. This was in Pennant, Saskatchewan. A Prairiesiene, no less.
It's a 1964 Pontiac Parisienne stationwagon. The Parisienne was a Canadian Pontiac, top of the full-size Canadian Pontiac lineup, which also had a Laurentian, and a Strato Chief. Canadian Pontiacs of this era were actually Chevrolets: they had Chevrolet engines and systems; everything but the sheet metal was Chevrolet.
In 1959 my father, HHB, had the only real honest-to-goodness Pontiac in Montreal: a 1959 Catalina. 1959 was the first year of the "wide-track" Pontiacs, in the US, anyway: the Canadian cars had the new wide track body on top of the skinny old Chevrolet frame. So they teetered, like boxcars, on wheels and tires that looked ridiculously inboard, as on this nice original Pontiac Laurentian, below.
I don't know how HHB got our Catalina, but it was an extraordinary-looking car.
My father did not drag-race our Catalina, however, though I would have encouraged him to had he shown the slightest interest. He was not a car guy. Zero interest. Drove 'em 3 years, traded them in, and bought another--after consulting me. I wonder how/why he got the only Catalina in Montreal? I was only 5 when he got it: it was the last family car decision I was not in on.
I admire Pontiac's ad layouts in this era. They made the wide-track cars even wider than they were, so the square-jawed men and elegant women seemed cool, but sort of tiny. The men all look like astronauts on holiday; though there wouldn't be any astronauts for a year or two. The women look like astronauts' wives, as they would be profiled in Life magazine, later in the Sixties.
BTW, I'm currently reading astronaut Michael Collins' memoir, Carrying the Fire. Collins was command module pilot on Apollo 11, the first mission to the moon. If you're weary of crybaby memoirs, this isn't one. Collins leaves out most of the personal stuff: he only hints at what a strain (or pain) it must have been to have an astronaut for a husband, or a daddy, during the Gemini and Apollo eras. But he writes well enough that his own personality does come through, and it's rare that we get a story so well told from the point of view of a pilot/astronaut/engineer. Collins comes through as a fighter-jock, a superb pilot, an engineer with a kind of modesty and charm that is the opposite of the way men are supposed to act these days. There is neither aw-shucks faux innocence nor swaggering bragadaccio, though he is a test pilot by profession, not a bunch known for either excellent prose or excess modesty. He's a methodical man and writes with a dextrous touch, like a good pilot flying one of the sensitive, supersonic T-38 jets the astronauts used as personal transportation. This book subverts the myth that the astronauts were a bunch of space bunnies along for the ride in machines devised and operated by genii at Mission Control. Au contraire. They were all extraordinarily accomplished high-flyers and NASA was wise enough to take full advantage of their skills and experience, in planning missions and flying them.
I enjoy looking for literature in unlikely places. Like astronaut memoirs. So much contemporary fiction feels like drizzle. Yes, drizzle. It's cold, wet, goes on far too long, and makes you long to be anyplace else. Novelists writing about....writing, more or less...gets tedious. Telephone-book sized opae packed with word games and collegiate American despair? I'll pass. I'd rather be in the simulator with Mike Collins.
I quote from AE: "Patina-Quest 2011 continues... this line-up of retired road warriors was in Climax, Saskatchewan. Climax is way down in the S.W. not super-far away from Big Beaver. I think those early pioneers were a little unsettled."
AE: "I now take you to Shackleton, Saskatchewan,where the streets are named after Antarctic explorers. Not a lot left but it is a very charming place. Here we have "ASSHOLE'S GARAGE " How lovely! In an adjacent yard is this sweet old grain truck."
AE: "Here's a fine old wagon that hasn't deteriorated too far. Rust has begun. Still, I like it. Not your typical Sask.vehicle. This was in Pennant, Saskatchewan. A Prairiesiene, no less.
It's a 1964 Pontiac Parisienne stationwagon. The Parisienne was a Canadian Pontiac, top of the full-size Canadian Pontiac lineup, which also had a Laurentian, and a Strato Chief. Canadian Pontiacs of this era were actually Chevrolets: they had Chevrolet engines and systems; everything but the sheet metal was Chevrolet. In 1959 my father, HHB, had the only real honest-to-goodness Pontiac in Montreal: a 1959 Catalina. 1959 was the first year of the "wide-track" Pontiacs, in the US, anyway: the Canadian cars had the new wide track body on top of the skinny old Chevrolet frame. So they teetered, like boxcars, on wheels and tires that looked ridiculously inboard, as on this nice original Pontiac Laurentian, below.
I don't know how HHB got our Catalina, but it was an extraordinary-looking car. 
My father did not drag-race our Catalina, however, though I would have encouraged him to had he shown the slightest interest. He was not a car guy. Zero interest. Drove 'em 3 years, traded them in, and bought another--after consulting me. I wonder how/why he got the only Catalina in Montreal? I was only 5 when he got it: it was the last family car decision I was not in on. I admire Pontiac's ad layouts in this era. They made the wide-track cars even wider than they were, so the square-jawed men and elegant women seemed cool, but sort of tiny. The men all look like astronauts on holiday; though there wouldn't be any astronauts for a year or two. The women look like astronauts' wives, as they would be profiled in Life magazine, later in the Sixties.
BTW, I'm currently reading astronaut Michael Collins' memoir, Carrying the Fire. Collins was command module pilot on Apollo 11, the first mission to the moon. If you're weary of crybaby memoirs, this isn't one. Collins leaves out most of the personal stuff: he only hints at what a strain (or pain) it must have been to have an astronaut for a husband, or a daddy, during the Gemini and Apollo eras. But he writes well enough that his own personality does come through, and it's rare that we get a story so well told from the point of view of a pilot/astronaut/engineer. Collins comes through as a fighter-jock, a superb pilot, an engineer with a kind of modesty and charm that is the opposite of the way men are supposed to act these days. There is neither aw-shucks faux innocence nor swaggering bragadaccio, though he is a test pilot by profession, not a bunch known for either excellent prose or excess modesty. He's a methodical man and writes with a dextrous touch, like a good pilot flying one of the sensitive, supersonic T-38 jets the astronauts used as personal transportation. This book subverts the myth that the astronauts were a bunch of space bunnies along for the ride in machines devised and operated by genii at Mission Control. Au contraire. They were all extraordinarily accomplished high-flyers and NASA was wise enough to take full advantage of their skills and experience, in planning missions and flying them. I enjoy looking for literature in unlikely places. Like astronaut memoirs. So much contemporary fiction feels like drizzle. Yes, drizzle. It's cold, wet, goes on far too long, and makes you long to be anyplace else. Novelists writing about....writing, more or less...gets tedious. Telephone-book sized opae packed with word games and collegiate American despair? I'll pass. I'd rather be in the simulator with Mike Collins.
November 7, 2013
November 6, 2013
My Brilliant Careerism: Law of Dreams & The O'Briens and Wichita
I'll be reading/talking at the Ulrich Museum of Art on the campus of Wichita State University on Thursday November 14th. Reception with vino and hors d'ouevres at 530pm; reading at 6pm. If you come to the reading I'll introduce you to some of the brilliant writers I have been working with here at WSU. An intriguing bunch. And I won't read too long, and won't talk too much, though you'll probably hear more than you need to about my Irish Canadian family, the O'Briens, including my mother, the legendary Frankie O'Brien (above), of Montreal. I think I'll read from 2 novels: one piece from The Law of Dreams, another from The O'Briens.
The Icon Chevrolet Thriftmaster
This was up on Uncrate.com:
"Call us high maintenance if you want, but we prefer our hotrods with a classically-minded exterior and a completely-modern everything else — a smooth ride, performant drivetrain, and reliable electronics. Similarly-minded ICON (who seem to be on quite the roll lately) just announced the Icon Thriftmaster Truck ($250,000), a Chevy 3100-based piece of lust-worthy automotive art. Powered by an available Magnuson supercharged 5.3-liter small block V8 producing 435 horsepower and 458 lb-ft of torque, with all-wheel ABS-equipped disc brakes, independent front suspension, a four-link solid rear axle, and a six-speed Tremec manual trans, this truck is made to move, handle, and stop. Add to that an all-LED lighting system, matted interior for a quieter ride, beautiful upholstery, a split bench seat, power windows and locks, as well as a touchscreen control panel, and you get a gorgeous vintage truck with all the advantages of a modern vehicle."
Or you could save $235,000, find an Advanced Design truck (like the beauty below), tweak it to something less than perfection, and make sure to carry a few tools at all times, an spare belt, and a quart of 15w oil. [Is performant (above) a word, a concept, or just a typo?] It's worth a lot of money to me not to have a touchscreen.
"Call us high maintenance if you want, but we prefer our hotrods with a classically-minded exterior and a completely-modern everything else — a smooth ride, performant drivetrain, and reliable electronics. Similarly-minded ICON (who seem to be on quite the roll lately) just announced the Icon Thriftmaster Truck ($250,000), a Chevy 3100-based piece of lust-worthy automotive art. Powered by an available Magnuson supercharged 5.3-liter small block V8 producing 435 horsepower and 458 lb-ft of torque, with all-wheel ABS-equipped disc brakes, independent front suspension, a four-link solid rear axle, and a six-speed Tremec manual trans, this truck is made to move, handle, and stop. Add to that an all-LED lighting system, matted interior for a quieter ride, beautiful upholstery, a split bench seat, power windows and locks, as well as a touchscreen control panel, and you get a gorgeous vintage truck with all the advantages of a modern vehicle."
Or you could save $235,000, find an Advanced Design truck (like the beauty below), tweak it to something less than perfection, and make sure to carry a few tools at all times, an spare belt, and a quart of 15w oil. [Is performant (above) a word, a concept, or just a typo?] It's worth a lot of money to me not to have a touchscreen.
Main Streets. (Council Grove, Kansas)
Small town Main Streets everywhere in the US and Canada are just dead, and have been for at least a generation. My experience of Kansas small towns is: emptiness. Big sky. emptiness. All the real commercial life of towns happens out on the highway strips on the fringes. This kills the towns as towns--as communities. I see the horror happening bit by bit in my hometown of Blue Hill, Maine. In that case, the pattern is another American standard: a "quaint" old town center is abandoned to seasonal, tourist-oriented businesses, which come and go every year, but the places that actually connect the community-- pharmacy, grocery store, etc.--sprout up on the highway where they are joined by the inevitable chains--Subway, Dunkin Donuts, etc., the last nail in the coffin being a Family Dollar store, full of cheap Chinese crap. Up until the mid=seventies a lot towns and small cities, for example Burlington, Vermont--had downtowns which were active commercial, social, interactive spaces, with lots going on. There are reasons democracy grew up in towns and not in the fundamentalist back roads. Towns are where people quickly figure out that it's plainly to everyone's advantage to rub shoulders and, somehow, get along. In the new America there's so much loneliness manufactured by market capitalism. We've left it to the real estate industry to decide upon and shape the physical pattern of how we live our lives, to determine the geography of daily life. Political and religious fundamentalism sprouts up in towns that have ceased being communities, or never were. The sprawls where people do their shopping in big chain stores fronted by enormous parking lots are the perfect medium for Know-Nothingisms like the Tea Party; in that landscape the only crowd to rub shoulders with is at the mega church where everyone looks, thinks and speaks the same. And we have these beautiful town centers as shells, dried-up husks, all over the country. Tarting them up as tourist centers is putting lipstick on a pig. In most areas it's too late, but laws, bylaws, and zoning to protect main streets and downtowns are the only way to preserve towns and cities as communities, as hotspots of democracy. In Western Europe, town centers are still alive, for everyone, mostly because the political will was there to protect them.
Citizens Bank of Kansas, Wichita
The best buildings in Kansas seem to have absorbed a lot of Frank L Wright influence, especially the way they use the local stone, which is think a limestone, often tawny-colored. There are many long lean prairie-style houses and commercial buildings dating I think from the 50s and 60s.This bank isn't exactly prairie-style, and its quite recent, but I think it's an admirable building. I like the use of neon, as well.
