terre nuvien plus une fois

at the airport i notice that :
there is free wireless internet access all over – take that o’hare
the flight from newark that was to arrive a 10:30pm still hadn’t the arrival board had 1:30 am newark liberty delayed.
that the tim horton’s in open 24 hours a day.
after sending off the blog thought about spending the night in the airport. i could write e-mails and serve the web thanks to aliant – which swallowed up newtel while downing my double doubles and dutchies.
thought better of it and headed out into the night air.
the first thing that i noticed was the smell of pine.
walked the half mile to the airport in, checked in asked when check out time was and tried to fall asleep. difficult i wasn’t sleepy.

awaking the plan was to head over to the airport and check e-mail while downing a double double. walk in the other direction to tj and see if i can get a car then back in time to check out.

i was so glad to be back that i liked the houses by the airport. usually when i was in this area i was racing into and out of st. john’s and couldn’t really find a place to park the motor. this time being without one i was walking in the environs of the airport – small houses minor industries that were either closed or body shops. thought about trying to document the attempt at normality in the flight path – veg gardens, bad sculpture, inflatable swimming pools. again walking was perfect no need to find a place to put the car. what i found shocking was that i found these places not all that bad. i chalk this up to wanting to live here even if the view is of the wal-mart and my back garden is the trans canada.

down the torbay road to tjs where i ask about a car, can i drive a manual gearbox?
no.
ok do you care what the car looks like?
no
do you care if the locks work?
in st. john’s jim leaves his unlocked with change on the dash.

we went out in the junk yard and there was this nice little volvo station wagon one of the front turn signals was and there was a bit of rust but if it was ok with me he would check it out and have it ready by to-morrow . ring him this evening to find out.

the idea of triumphantly heading down prescott street and parking in front of wordplay was dashed. i walked back to the hotel to check out and see if i can get a lift.

the light in newfoundland is strange. the usual way of guessing exposure doesn’t work here – it could be that it is so far north. the day was a bit mauzy and i thought that my exposures seemed to be a bit off – it seemed that i was underexposing the film. kept thinking that this couldn’t be correct this exposure seems wrong, then i looked at the front of ubaldo and the metering window seemed not the way that i remembered it it seemed that i saw things behind the frosted glass that i didn’t remember.

panic.

here i was proud of my choices i was happy that i didn’t have to make decisions on what to take every time i left the house. things seemed to be falling into place but now the age of the cameras have come into question is ubaldo going to act up again?

returning from tj’s i remember that since i didn’t want to leave everything in the room, i had an external lightmeter. pull it out and i was right the two meters aren’t even close.

when i calm down i realise that i have only so far gone through two rolls of film and i am retracing my steps so that i can very easily make the images again. i will simply carry the meter with me at all times.

make another check – and now the meters are reading the same. a few minutes on make the third comparison reading and they are horribly off again. i think – see i don’t follow through on rational thought – that i can compensate for the difference by adjusting the film speed.

make a fourth check and they are off but by a different amount. i look at the hand held lightmeter and realise that it is set incorrectly. another reason why i didn’t get full professorship – couldn’t read a lightmeter.

i go through three rolls on the little outing , photographing signs, the bit of nature complete with culvert under portugal cove road with the airport heights subdivision in the background.

ring jim on his mobile and it cuts out ring again and cannot get him. take a taxi to wordplay.

everything seems normal, chat with the cabbie he tells me the history of the airport rates with certain taxis – it is double if you don’t know this – going into town. we are disgusted with the gasoline prices. we talk about the weather. i don’t remember if i make his photograph or not –i think not as my cameras were a mess in the bags.

jim follows me into wordplay with a carton of used books. he needs used books like i need plastic cameras. say hello to daniel who has devised a plan of wordplay – actually try to sell the books. there are more shelves the place is even more of a maze now you don’t have to go into the basement to have a shelf fall on you as it did with tania last year. they replaced here with a new tania. headed upstairs where angela lets out a few obscenities in seeing me and i retort on having fogo islanders about is newfoundland’s version of affirmative action.

the work is on the floor they finally open the cases and laid some of it out. there is more than enough room in the space. it looks like we can hang it in time for the opening friday. i meet undrea the new gallery director and put my foot in it as we are discussing art on the rock and i go into my tirade about a rock art star. she thinks the person is great.

i also know where everyone w ho goes to grenfell – the arts school of the province that in some bad joke was put in corner brook - end up. st. john’s working for jim.

paul kennedy comes in and i find that we will be roomies when his wife leaves this week-end allowing me to move out of the school and into martin and gabrielle’s.
i don’t want to put him out he says no problem he likes to work from midnight to dawn. i read from midnight and wake up at dawn.

the conversation comes around to pouch and i profess my preference for the pipe house as the sea is closer – with the windows open one can hear the sea while falling asleep. there is also a calming effect for me in seeing the car lights wind down the main road past the post office into town.

he uses the printer incurring angela’s wrath, shows his output and disappears into st.john’s

start pulling hangers off the wall when both jim and i realise that i have yet to go to the duke and it was already 1pm.

said hello to terry jim ate i simply had my two pints of smithwicks and chips to keep me sober someone came over and joined us. jim is heading to argentina in january so the argentina/brasil debate arose. caught up on the gossip in pouch cove. photographs made.

with no car came the negotiation of getting to pouch. undrea’s car was in pouch being worked on – well not really david had brought it in and was looking for her and a ride back out himself. while trying to decide i drove with him over to m francis kelly the art supply shop someplace of lemarchant road. he didn’t remember where it was i thought that i did and was nearly correct it is behind a hospital i just chose the wrong hospital.

chatted about toronto, how crappy chicago is. st. john’s how it is easier to work here how the days are longer creatively. he drives me by houses behind mile one that are single level on the street but in the back due to the hill have two levels below street level.

back in wordplay angela is ready to give me a lift with jason up to pouch – things are really getting back to normal now.

being a bayman it is impossible to shut angela up so we chat about the priors who lived by her sister in appleton, if i was going to pick blueberries – as soon as i get unpacked – the best places for them and why they are so big and tasteless below the 49th parallel. we talk briefly about central newfoundland while i am looking out the window and waiting for the final rise after the pouch cove pharmacy when all the town up to the cape opens up in front of you as you wind down to past the bark pot – horrible food, the post office, bruce’s and the pipe house.

here the shock of the new came in. angela was complaining about the few houses and failed subdivisions along route 20 between flatrock and pouch. i was shocked seeing vince’s place being resided – it was up for sale and this obviously meant that it was sold wondered if vince and lloyd’s wife were still there. – saw vince later. other shocks were decks on the fronts of houses. this is new. that everything was bought up. walking up the road to cape st. francis to pick blueberries in the cemetery found rehabs that would make inner cities proud. three houses for sale none with a view of the ocean. another five rolls wandering the dirt road to the cape. for some reason i forgot where the path to the cemetery was. i had taken a plastic bag with me for that was to be dinner. instead i relied on some cracked eggs from bruce’s along with big 8 mountain burst – nova scotia’s mountain dew.

met the people in the residency tom at the pipe house – eva and susan who are here in the school with jason - a livyer - who is in the kindergarden. they seem to know less about pouch then other former residence. there are mutual acquaintances with susan – people at the tute and nyc. jason and i had a talk about the essence of newfoundland art and who gets to define it. is his work about newfoundland even though there are no flakes, weather beaten saltboxes and a red truck? a discussion of theme park newfoundland and why it doesn’t change.

getting out to walk a bit ran into sharon – whose father died last week – have to remember not to ask how she is. she was over at the pipe house i was heading into bruce’s for something sweet. someone was out on the ocean checking their pots, there was a sign on the garage at the main road and noseworthy’s wishing --- mulley a happy 33rd birthday. headed over to the library via the spot where there used to be flowers for adam aj and jesse, only the marks left by the gaffer tape is left – to use the internet and asked if the sign was meant for diane’s daughter – married to a texan. walked back via the new park across from the town hall already filled with pouch’s youth.

they later gravitate over to the school and hang out below my window but right in front of the kindergarden window. again am glad that i chose an upper floor. reminded me of the corner brook studio where everyone hung out also. another chat with jason. the day marvellously normal cannot wait for another like one to-morrow.