North Oaks, Mathilda and her exhaust manifold and oil leak, dog swims in Missippi

It was a fairly straight shot from Eau Claire to Saint Paul. The truck was surely looking worse for the wear – and so was I – so it made a certain amount of sense when, searching for my buddy’s house in the nicer and apparently private suburb of North Oaks, some young guy who looked like he had just finished basic training on a mountain bike gave me an unwelcoming glare. I glared right back – and continued to cruise the roads looking for the right number. Probably at about the speed a robber would use to case the joint. I pulled into a driveway to turn around and he rode in behind me, and knocked on the window.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Can I help you?” I asked back.

He paused and looked around, seemingly trying to keep his rage in check.

“You looking for something?” he asked.

“I am.”

He nodded.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re doing here, but this is actually private property in North Oaks, and you’re not supposed to be up here. There’s a cop who cruises around – and I can tell you right now he’s not going to like those in-transit plates.”

I really didn’t know where to go from there. It was nice, in a way, to have a neighborhood watch, I suppose. And I really didn’t want this guy to turn out to be great friends with Todd and his wife, and thusly be hugely embarrassed.

“I appreciate that. I’m really just looking for my friends’ house.”

He biked around, in fairness, and located the house for me, and went slightly sheepishly I though on his way. I should have been much more furious, but I really was just happy to see Todd and meet his wife Amy and children Theo and Sophie – how welcome a house and shower after the road! Mathilda was glad for the rest, and the dog immediately ran into the green, and made good friends with the cocker spaniel. I showered and shaved and took out the Woodford Reserve I had brought and Todd and I got to drinking, touring his writing space and tree-house, which he had expertly built. We discussed his plans to put in a zip line, then his genius project of Motionpoems, and his drive to get it funded, which you an check out at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/375616979/poems-on-the-big-screen-motionpoems.

We had dinner and spoke further, and his buddy Bill came over and we sat around speaking of Robert Bly and poetry and being honest in this life and getting drunk out of mason jars. It was a most enjoyable night- truly what alcohol was put on this earth for – and had echos of Plato’s Symposium, Socrates drinking unmixed wine and Alcibiades and others putting forth on the value and place of love on this earth.

Woke the following morning to a hangover and puddle of motor oil beneath Mathilda – and she had started to sound a bit rough. I knew the sound of an exhaust manifold leak, having driven with one across Ontario in my 86 Toyota Corolla, with the windows open in the middle of the winter so as not to get smoked out – and Mathilda sounded like she had one. Problem being to take off the exhaust manifold one was in danger of stripping the bolts, welded and corroded as they were over the course of almost twenty years to the actual manifold.

Anyways I tried to put it out of my head and spent the next couple days with Cal – who, in response to a few inquiries, also goes by the name of Dog, courtesy of my buddy Justin’s naming of him on a camping trip in New Hampshire – soaking up the fine weather of Minneapolis and St. Paul, driving into town, taking the bike off the roof, and cruising around. Checked out the Fitzgerald Theater, and took long bike rides by the Mississippi river.

At one point, due to high waters, the river had overcome the bike bath, and dandelion fluff sat in snowflakes on the surface. In the silence of the woods, so near a city, it was quite mystical. 

They say in the Twin Cities that Saint Paul is where the east ends and Minneapolis is where the west begins. Minneapolis more 0pen-minded, younger, less concerned with who you know or your history – essentially less European. I could feel this – and yet took comfort in the pocked and obvious industrial past of Saint Paul – its unloaders and grain silos and refinery stacks and wooden trestle railroad bridges. Dog took a dip in the Mississippi, baptized now in the great and overflowing waterway of our country. 

At Todd’s suggestion I checked out the tugboat where he and his wife Amy had their tenth anniversary – the Covington Inn Bed & Breakfast. I couldn’t get on to see the rooms – but what a cool idea!

Saving the best for last, I made it on a glorious Saturday to the Walker Art Museum, and watched for a couple minutes kids rolling down the sun-drenched grass in the large orange sleeves. Then went in and began to walk through “Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera Since 1870.” Quickly realized that I could not look at the photo of the execution Ruth Snyder captured by a hidden boot camera shaking as the lethal jolt hits her without something in my stomach – so exited again into the sunlight and had salad and a lemonade and heat-softened cookie.

Went back in and was much better – eery images of top-secret silo bases in South Dakota photographed from miles away – along with the prescient work of Brassai and the hard-nosed almost surprised at his own subject work of Walker Evans. Funny though how at a certain point photography begins to all look the same – even the shock-jock work of Mapplethorpe. Much more centering the exhibit of Joseph Cornell and his Midnight Party – what ballsy curating on the part of the Walker! Reminded me in a way of Barnes and his mercurial and far-fetched combinations of farm implements and impressionist work. Not to mention the layout of the Walker – almost mimicking the buttes and plateaus of the prairie surrounding the building.

At a certain point that inevitable Uffizzi syndrome kicked in and it was all I could do to make it to the top of the hill, take a photo, and pass out on the grass with my bag as a pillow.

I should mention that Todd and I, full of drink, had a late-night reading of Galway Kinnell’s “Pulling the Nail” which caused a swirl of alcohol-infused emotions rising from god knows what source. That’s the problem with drinking and reading that sort of work – you just feel it, but you don’t have the capacity to locate the origin. Like smelling bacon cooking on a city block and not knowing what rowhome kitchen it eminates from. Except these feeling elicited none so tasty as bacon.

Todd was kind enough to send me on the road with Galway’s collection, which I have been reading to the dog from. I’m not sure he entirely understands it – but he gets the gist, which is what is important. Todd and Amy couldn’t have been more gracious hosts – and it breaks my heart that I left Theo’s drawing of me back in Saint Paul – it was a good one.

Had breakfast at Mickey’s Diner in Saint Paul with Dog keeping watch from the truck, keeping a close eye on any weird Yankee fans passing by – I swear New York fans can smell a Philly fan, and look on suspiciously, as evidenced by the photo – and hit the road west for South Dakota.