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Motif #1
Rockport, Massachusetts
Starlings up at 5:00 AM again. Trilling and banging and scratching. Why on earth would they want to live in my air conditioner?
Lunch with JR at Papparazzi.
It was too nice a day to work on the virtual forest proposal so after lunch I played hooky and drove up the coast through Gloucester and Rockport. The sea was deep blue under the clear sky, so different from the slate gray I usually see. Bass Rocks looks exactly like the Winslow Homer painting of same. Bearskin Neck is even tackier than I remember its being 30 years ago. Shops selling junk and kitsch. Only a couple of real art galleries. Even the lobster traps stacked near Motif #1 looked like they were stacked there for effect. They were nowhere near any lobster boat.
Funny thing about Motif #1, it is so much identified with Rockport and Massachusetts that they went to great lengths to rebuild it after the Blizzard of '78 took it away. When Rockport was an art colony, the artists used to paint it as a typical fishing shack. Now tourists photograph it as one of those"been there done that" shots that prove they've been to the Massachusetts coast.
It was too beautiful a day for me to be depressed by the tackiness. I just drank in the sun and the breeze and the coffee from the one coffee shop that was open for the season. It's always kinda cool to visit a tourist trap just before the season starts because you can see everybody fixing up their shops: sawing, hammering, painting. Getting ready for the onslaught of the tourists come Memorial Day.
Today's starting pitcher: Brian Rose
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