When I lived in Memphis and took long walks along the Mississippi, I had a lot of time to think. On a good day, I would get in two walks – one in the morning and one just around sunset. The morning ones were long and contemplative – the best of those being times when I was fully present on my walk (not listening to music or checking my phone). The evening walks were mostly about catching the sunset – my phone is full of sunset pictures.
I haven’t been able to have that type of time here in the middle of Pennsylvania. I live in a house in a neighborhood just off of a busy street. The houses in the neighborhood are short and modest with modestly sized yards. For the most part it’s quiet – though the sound of the breeze through the trees is sometimes interrupted by the roaring whine of a leaf blower. It’s pretty much typical suburbia. There’s a charm to it in the fall, but walking past the same houses has a redundancy that walking through the city streets never had.
I haven’t done many walks here. There aren’t a lot of places to go. That said, two weeks ago, my friend Stacy was visiting from Memphis and we went exploring. We made our way over to the Arboretum on the northern tip of the Penn State campus. I had passed by the place countless times walking to and from football games. I had never stopped to check it out. It was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. It’s a great outdoor space with views of the mountains, interesting plants and trees, benches and winding paths, and a really cool movable kaleidoscope that focuses on some bright plants (mums, and I think a colorful cabbage). It’s been a while since I’ve posted any pictures here – these don’t do the space justice (and I didn’t take very many).
Flowers seen through a kaleidoscope 
Flowers seen through a kaleidoscope 
Not sure what we were laughing at
About a week before I left Memphis, Stacy and I joined two of her friends (the couple who had taken me in on Thanksgiving) for an immersive art experience. Stacy had already gone once and was telling me how awesome it was. She described crawling around on the floor and sliding down a slide – all of which sounded awful to me. I don’t want the comedian to single me out, I don’t want to be part of the hypnotist’s act, I had no interest in a participatory art project. I had assumed we would be put in a room and given virtual reality headsets and would then wander around, arms out like Frankenstein, groping the air as we looked at whatever images were projected at us. Thankfully I was wrong. There was crawling around on the floor and there was a slide, but everything was real and visual and tactile. The best way I can describe it was a futuristic steam punk meets trippy garden type of setting. There was a story line to the art piece which was almost like a choose your own adventure. All total, there were three or four rooms to visit, and a few “tunnels” and corridors. Again, the pictures don’t do it justice.
Entrance to the Multiverse 
A Multiverse Gardenscape 
Abandoned Spaceship 
Inside the Spaceship
Multiverse Volcano 
Inside the Volcano
The pictures don’t quite show the scope of things. The entrance to the space is a large portal that you can walk through with a cool futuristic black industrial ring made of either iron or some other metal. The entire space is filled with ambient music and the sheer number of objects and lights and colors can be overwhelming. I talked with the artist a bit – it took him a year to put it all together. He hopes to expand the space and add a VR component as well as expand the story line to give participants more pathways around. I kept thinking about all of the details in the place and how it is so radically different than say a Hard Rock Cafe or chain restaurant with all of their “flair.” This was so vibrant and thoughtfully done – I felt like I was in an amazingly unique world – lush, futuristic, and otherworldly.
My intention with this post, as with a few others I’ve written was simply to share some experiences – perhaps a welcome break from lamentations on loss, politics, and the difficulties of living in the spaces in between. As the title might indicate, I’ve also been digging on some new-to-me music – songs that I need to download so that I can put them in heavy rotation. Stacy introduced me to Paolo Nutini and a band called Pimps of Joytime. I like both and really like Nutini. It’s not often that someone shows me a new artist that I get hooked on. I think the last time it happened was when I was introduced to Glass Animals. Nutini has a great voice and soulful, funky sound. By listening to him, I then followed some of the YouTube algorithm’s recommendations and came across Jonathan Roy. I used to spend hours following bread crumbs from artist to artist in search of new songs. As we head in to winter and deeper sequestration, I suspect I’ll be doing a bit more musical exploration. If you have the time (and liked any of the other music I’ve embedded in previous posts), give these a listen.