Bastille Day Revolutions

Bastille Day is the finest international holiday, and the fact that we can turn it into pretty much whatever we want to exemplifies what we're celebrating—unbridled personal exuberance and creativity—while the holiday's French overtones insure that the end result is something a little more than just another lazy day at the beach.

Hilary and I had planned to play tennis and then watch the World Cup consolation match between England and Belgium, but it was a sparkling morning and by 7:30 we were on our bikes peddling downtown to wander the Walker's arty new sculpture garden.

There was dew on the wildflowers—bee balm, vervain, purple clover. It's only a mile or two from Cedar Lake to the sculpture garden, and soon enough we were wandering inside a brick tower dedicated to St. Lawrence, the patron saint of librarians. The Basilica of St. Mary loomed pleasantly in the distance, exuding a Franco-American Beaux Arts elegance that none of the sculptures in the garden possess. But why should they? Today we have a giant blue chicken and an even larger cherry on a spoon to draw inspiration from.

Be that as it may, the garden is a nice place to wander. But a trip across Hennepin Avenue to Loring Park returns us to a richer past. There's a lake, a bridge ... and the gardens have flowers. We biked our way around the park to the Dunn Brothers Coffee on the south side and picked out a chocolate-filled  pastry to eat on a bench with our take-out coffee au lait. It wasn't pain au chocolat but it was in the vicinity.  

Winding back through the central garden we came upon an old colleague, Lee Frelich, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Forest Ecology and Institute on the Environment. He lives nearby and is on the board of the Friends of Loring Park.

"The garden looks pretty good," I said.

"Yes, but there are two dead trees over there in the central hub." I hadn't noticed.

They were having an all-volunteer Saturday morning garden clean-up. (We would have volunteered ourselves, but we had other fish to fry.)

"You've got a Zen-like job for yourself," I said to one of the volunteers.

"Haven't I, though," he said, trying to crack a smile.

Then it was downtown to the Local to see how the match between Belgium and England was going. The English coach had been quoted as saying, "Who wants to play for third place?" But one thing about the athletes themselves is that they don't like to LOSE.

Considering that Nicollet Mall has been under construction for the past two years, it didn't look all that different to me.

We traversed the mall to Washington Avenue, then on to the Guthrie Theater on the spur of the moment to check out the prospects for rush seats to West Side Story.

I'm glad we headed down that way because, although the ticket prospects were nil, the Saturday Mill City Farmers' Market was in full swing right next door. I talked to the authors of a new book about mushrooms at their booth sponsored by the Minnesota Historical Society: "What about pheasant-back mushrooms?" I said.

"Delicious, and unmistakable," they replied.

At the booth next door I sampled some ginger-lime marmalade, and told the vendor I'd had some Smucker's Orange Marmalade on toast for breakfast, in honor of Bastille Day. He smiled, but I had the feeling he was not impressed. The marmalades he was offering were $12 a jar. But it's that kind of market. One woman was selling big bags of flax seed. We bought a few pastries at the Salty Tart booth and listened to a solo cellist trying to buck to animated conversations and the urban breezes.

Our ride back to Cedar Lake was uneventful. There were fewer cyclists, though they tended to pass in large groups--Saturday cycling clubs, no doubt.

We got home just in time to see the recap of Belgium's win over England. Then it was off again to St. Anthony Main to see a French film called Á Voix Haute. It's one of many films about disadvantaged kids being inspired by talented teachers to fulfill their potential, but in this case the kids are already in college, and the skills they're trying to develop are oratorical. One is from Syria, several are from Africa, one walks twelve miles a day from a small town to attend classes. The kids are diverse but uniformly earnest and likable. And there are lessons to be learned about what makes an argument sound or a word or a phrase effective. It choked me up on more than a few occasions.

But Bastille Day would not be complete without some food and wine. Nez Pas? On our way home from the theater we stopped at Surdyk's and picked up some Camembert, a slice of country paté, and a baguette, then sat on the deck with Ravel's piano music wafting out from the stereo through the screen door: Miroir, Le Tombeau de Couperin, Gaspar de la Nuit. I can no longer tell them apart.

I had opened a bottle of cheap white Burgundy, and a copy of Cubist Poets of Paris was sitting on the table beside us. 

The windows of my poetry are wide open
on the boulevards and in the shop windows
Shine     
The precious stones of light
Listen to the violins of the limousines and the
xylophones of the linotypes
The sketcher washes with the hand-towel of the sky
All is color spots
And the hats of the women passing by
are comets in the conflagration of the evening...