Decidedly visible means of support
Jan. 18th, 2011 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumYesterday I had a motorcycle crash. It was, when all is said and done, my fault. A number of contributing factors, but I was going a bit too fast into the offramp, didn't think I could safely lean the bike more, had room to straighten up, slow down and run out.
I might have been able to lean the bike, and keep the turn but I don't have as much confidence in my rear tire as I'd need to do that, and the offramp reverses (it was the southbound Shoreline exit off of 101), in an open chicane, and if something had gone wrong futher into the turn, it would have been really bad.
So I resigned myself to a probably dump and tried to ride it out. I was right, I fell. I might have been able to bring it to a stop, or slow it down enough to turn around and ride it back to the hardball, but I brushed a ceanothus bush, which wobbled the wheel, and dumped the bike. It also snagged my foot, which was pretty twisted.
I stood up, started to call Les (whom I was meeting to go to the de Young for an exhibit from the Musée d'Orsay on impressionists/post impressionists),had some people come over to help me right the bike, talked to less when she called back, rode to the CalTrain station, and she met me with Mike, Renee, and some ice packs and a bandage. I'd calledladymondegreen and was trying to decide if I was up to the museum. Both of us, at about the same time recalled they would have wheelchairs.
So I went and had a splendid time. Some really nice stuff, a couple of smaller Seurat, a Besnard which was wonderful (I liked it more than the similar sort of thing by Sargeant... I don't know if it was the way Besnard managed the light, or the sense of texture (they were both full length portraits of a woman in a dress) or that the Sargeant was without anything but the subject. The Renoirs were wonderful. Gaugin didn't impress me much, and I don't think this was the best selection of Cezanne (I like Cezanne, but these didn't move me much. Perhaps it was the pain in my ankle, or the quirks of being in a wheelchair).
Lautrec was, as usual, interesting, not so much because I like them (the bathing redhead was pleasant enough, but I think I'd rather have that subject as rendered by Degas), but because they are evocative of the place. "Woman adjusting her stocking" however made me think of Jack Nicholson in Batman, because the secondary subject... looked like the Joker.
There was a painting La Chevelure by Henri-Edmond Cross which reminded me ofladymondegreen. All in all, I really like the various pointillist works.
The centerpiece, of course, was the seven Van Gogh's, including Starry Night Over the Rhone. (which, as is so much the case with paintings, is so far from being reproducible on the web that I almost declined to link... but I like the commentary on that page). The bedroom at Arles is famous, and worth seeing. Gipsy Caravan was probably the most charming, and intimate of them. The portraits (one self, one of Eugène Boch, which caused one person to say I could have been the model) were intense.
I realise Van Gogh's genius is often taken as a given. I've seen a bit more than a dozen of his paintings now, and their is no way to explain them. Even the one's which don't really resonate, are magnificent.
The best thing I can say to explain how magnificent... just those seven paintings, justified everything else in the day.
The best moment of the day, perhaps one of the best moments of my life, was because of the Starry Night.
I was, you will recall, in a wheelchair. Being in a wheelchair is a strange experience. One becomes a bit other. For many people one becomes invisible. The world is larger (because one's eyes are lower). People look through you, ignore you, actively seem to snub you.
I have a hard enough time at museums when I'm not in a wheelchair, because I want to back up and see things at a good viewing distance. This meant a lot of time being patient, as people failed (or just refused) to notice me. Starry Night Over the Rhone needs distance. A lot more distance than anyone was willing to make, and I was short. There was a spot in the room which was perfect for seeing the Lautrec and the Van Gogh's (except for the bedroom, which was at a poor angle, and the Gipsy Caravan, which was smaller; they were both quite apprehensible, but not at their best distance).
But I did get to talk about art, and viewing distances, and the Lautrecs, etc. with a couple of people who did notice me (and there are people who will see one in a chair, and treat one as if there is nothing wrong, nor contagious, etc.), and we looked at the self-portrait (which, up close looks a bit like a poorly done paint-by-numbers, nothing but straightish lines radiating from the center, and resolves at distance to a really well done portrait, but I digress).
Eventually I gave up, and headed to the Cezanne. Which is when the wonder happened. One of the women I'd been talking with was heading back to the Van Goghs,and saw me. I, it turns out, was why she was heading back. It bothered her that I might not be able to get a good look at the painting, and so she wanted to take me back, and then clear a path so I could view it.
And she did, and I did, and it was a glory and a marvel. The inky depths, the gleaming water, the hint of the shore in the rills of the current, it's all in there.
After the rest of the exhibit (I don't get the Nabi movement, and Henri Rousseau feels contrived. The most interesting piece I saw, in the latter portion, was probably, "The Terrace" (not the Denis, which was there too). I don't recall the artist. It was a woman reclining, in a dress, in dappled light. It was a non-naturalist painting, very angular in ways (the dappling was stylised,and stilted) but it worked.
We took a look at the view from the tower, and some of the permanent exhibit. The "Church and Shrine of Santa Guerra was stunning, and my being in the wheelchair gave be a view into the statue which made it more plain to me than to others, who had to bend over to look inside (and I suspect a lot of people never do, since at least two of our party didn't think to do it without prompting).
Headed home,and then to bed. I slept on the couch, as being more comfortable (I could put my foot up on the back). I slept well enough. It wasn't a restless night, nor even a rough one, just a painful one, and I, it seems, got enough used to being in pain when the Reiter's was at it's peak, that I didn't really suffer from the lack of sleeping deeply.
This morning I mentioned to Les that I had thought of going to the ER (the aspirin with codeine didn't seem to be doing much). I don't recall if the portion of the evening which had me thinking about it was shortly after the cat stepped on my foot, or not, but there was a patch which hurt a lot.
Long story short, the x-ray shows a broken ankle. Tomorrow I have an app't with an orthopedist to see if I need to get it pinned or not. If it was a bit higher, no question. If it was a bit lower, no question (the former would require surgery, the latter wouldn't).
So I have crutches, which get one more respect than a chair. Everyone knows they are temporary, and they don't seem to be possessed of cooties. I have Vicodin, not my pal. Of the painkillers I've been prescribed, none of them have really been things I can see seeking out. Morphine doesn't take the pain away, I just sort of don't care that it hurts. Codeine makes me feel about three beats behind the music. Fentanyl is sort of psychedelic, then it stupifies me.
Vicodin seems to be all the downsides of being drunk, and not much of the fun parts.
Les has been a trouper, trying to arrange for my general well being (she is going to be out of town for the weekend) and enough offers of support have been forthcoming) that I shall be neither stircrazed, nor living on pizza.
It could be a lot worse.
I might have been able to lean the bike, and keep the turn but I don't have as much confidence in my rear tire as I'd need to do that, and the offramp reverses (it was the southbound Shoreline exit off of 101), in an open chicane, and if something had gone wrong futher into the turn, it would have been really bad.
So I resigned myself to a probably dump and tried to ride it out. I was right, I fell. I might have been able to bring it to a stop, or slow it down enough to turn around and ride it back to the hardball, but I brushed a ceanothus bush, which wobbled the wheel, and dumped the bike. It also snagged my foot, which was pretty twisted.
I stood up, started to call Les (whom I was meeting to go to the de Young for an exhibit from the Musée d'Orsay on impressionists/post impressionists),had some people come over to help me right the bike, talked to less when she called back, rode to the CalTrain station, and she met me with Mike, Renee, and some ice packs and a bandage. I'd called
ladymondegreen and was trying to decide if I was up to the museum. Both of us, at about the same time recalled they would have wheelchairs.So I went and had a splendid time. Some really nice stuff, a couple of smaller Seurat, a Besnard which was wonderful (I liked it more than the similar sort of thing by Sargeant... I don't know if it was the way Besnard managed the light, or the sense of texture (they were both full length portraits of a woman in a dress) or that the Sargeant was without anything but the subject. The Renoirs were wonderful. Gaugin didn't impress me much, and I don't think this was the best selection of Cezanne (I like Cezanne, but these didn't move me much. Perhaps it was the pain in my ankle, or the quirks of being in a wheelchair).
Lautrec was, as usual, interesting, not so much because I like them (the bathing redhead was pleasant enough, but I think I'd rather have that subject as rendered by Degas), but because they are evocative of the place. "Woman adjusting her stocking" however made me think of Jack Nicholson in Batman, because the secondary subject... looked like the Joker.
There was a painting La Chevelure by Henri-Edmond Cross which reminded me of
ladymondegreen. All in all, I really like the various pointillist works.The centerpiece, of course, was the seven Van Gogh's, including Starry Night Over the Rhone. (which, as is so much the case with paintings, is so far from being reproducible on the web that I almost declined to link... but I like the commentary on that page). The bedroom at Arles is famous, and worth seeing. Gipsy Caravan was probably the most charming, and intimate of them. The portraits (one self, one of Eugène Boch, which caused one person to say I could have been the model) were intense.
I realise Van Gogh's genius is often taken as a given. I've seen a bit more than a dozen of his paintings now, and their is no way to explain them. Even the one's which don't really resonate, are magnificent.
The best thing I can say to explain how magnificent... just those seven paintings, justified everything else in the day.
The best moment of the day, perhaps one of the best moments of my life, was because of the Starry Night.
I was, you will recall, in a wheelchair. Being in a wheelchair is a strange experience. One becomes a bit other. For many people one becomes invisible. The world is larger (because one's eyes are lower). People look through you, ignore you, actively seem to snub you.
I have a hard enough time at museums when I'm not in a wheelchair, because I want to back up and see things at a good viewing distance. This meant a lot of time being patient, as people failed (or just refused) to notice me. Starry Night Over the Rhone needs distance. A lot more distance than anyone was willing to make, and I was short. There was a spot in the room which was perfect for seeing the Lautrec and the Van Gogh's (except for the bedroom, which was at a poor angle, and the Gipsy Caravan, which was smaller; they were both quite apprehensible, but not at their best distance).
But I did get to talk about art, and viewing distances, and the Lautrecs, etc. with a couple of people who did notice me (and there are people who will see one in a chair, and treat one as if there is nothing wrong, nor contagious, etc.), and we looked at the self-portrait (which, up close looks a bit like a poorly done paint-by-numbers, nothing but straightish lines radiating from the center, and resolves at distance to a really well done portrait, but I digress).
Eventually I gave up, and headed to the Cezanne. Which is when the wonder happened. One of the women I'd been talking with was heading back to the Van Goghs,and saw me. I, it turns out, was why she was heading back. It bothered her that I might not be able to get a good look at the painting, and so she wanted to take me back, and then clear a path so I could view it.
And she did, and I did, and it was a glory and a marvel. The inky depths, the gleaming water, the hint of the shore in the rills of the current, it's all in there.
After the rest of the exhibit (I don't get the Nabi movement, and Henri Rousseau feels contrived. The most interesting piece I saw, in the latter portion, was probably, "The Terrace" (not the Denis, which was there too). I don't recall the artist. It was a woman reclining, in a dress, in dappled light. It was a non-naturalist painting, very angular in ways (the dappling was stylised,and stilted) but it worked.
We took a look at the view from the tower, and some of the permanent exhibit. The "Church and Shrine of Santa Guerra was stunning, and my being in the wheelchair gave be a view into the statue which made it more plain to me than to others, who had to bend over to look inside (and I suspect a lot of people never do, since at least two of our party didn't think to do it without prompting).
Headed home,and then to bed. I slept on the couch, as being more comfortable (I could put my foot up on the back). I slept well enough. It wasn't a restless night, nor even a rough one, just a painful one, and I, it seems, got enough used to being in pain when the Reiter's was at it's peak, that I didn't really suffer from the lack of sleeping deeply.
This morning I mentioned to Les that I had thought of going to the ER (the aspirin with codeine didn't seem to be doing much). I don't recall if the portion of the evening which had me thinking about it was shortly after the cat stepped on my foot, or not, but there was a patch which hurt a lot.
Long story short, the x-ray shows a broken ankle. Tomorrow I have an app't with an orthopedist to see if I need to get it pinned or not. If it was a bit higher, no question. If it was a bit lower, no question (the former would require surgery, the latter wouldn't).
So I have crutches, which get one more respect than a chair. Everyone knows they are temporary, and they don't seem to be possessed of cooties. I have Vicodin, not my pal. Of the painkillers I've been prescribed, none of them have really been things I can see seeking out. Morphine doesn't take the pain away, I just sort of don't care that it hurts. Codeine makes me feel about three beats behind the music. Fentanyl is sort of psychedelic, then it stupifies me.
Vicodin seems to be all the downsides of being drunk, and not much of the fun parts.
Les has been a trouper, trying to arrange for my general well being (she is going to be out of town for the weekend) and enough offers of support have been forthcoming) that I shall be neither stircrazed, nor living on pizza.
It could be a lot worse.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 05:09 pm (UTC)I so enjoyed your description of the paintings at the de Young that I've decided to go (last viewing of van Gogh was the last day of a major exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. I might as well have been riding the subway at rush hour) despite not much caring for the museum experience anymore.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-21 02:18 am (UTC)