My Name is John Tynan and I am a poet. I live in Tempe, Arizona with my beautiful wife and muse. I have a hammock, a home theater, a python code book, a piano and a bicycle.
Last night, I was taking photos from the passenger seat while Rene was driving into Tempe from Scottsdale. The camera shook and I thought, “Okay… Fun! I’ll paint with light.” Here are two of the pics that came out:
I believe this photo was taken in 2005, right after Rene and I took my parents down to the Paper Heart gallery to show them where we were going to get married. Afterward, we all went out to Rula Bulla’s on Mill Avenue where we enjoyed several pints of Smithwick’s (’smith-icks’), my mom’s favorite beer.
Below is a voicemail I’ve saved in my phone for the past year (it was so precious). It’s of my mom singing Happy Anniversary for our second year together. She certainly celebrated all the important things in life. Thank you mom! We love you.
I’ve wanted to try absinthe for a long time. Last night, the opportunity presented itself. And, while I would have been perfectly justified in not going out, I followed Rene’s lead and met Marcos and Darlene at Digestif in Scottsdale. The maître d’ was great! He had a passion for serving and appreciating absinthe. He had the presentation down, the history, the legend, the lifting of the recent legal ban. Earlier in the evening, I had surreptitiously passed him a T-shirt denouncing Scottsdale mayor Mary Manross that a local activist had handed me in the street. He was thankful for the shirt and came by several times to chat.
While we did not have any psychedelic experiences from the drink, its affects did add to the relaxed atmosphere. A parade of classic cocktails put Darlene at ease about a meeting she’ll be having today (good luck!). The drink emboldened me to offer carreer advice to Marcos as his new “life coach”. Evidently, it did not prevent Rene from revealing my scandalous “porn name” which, if divulged widely, I may never live down.
It’s kind of tough to allow myself some levity these past few days. But Rene’s been great; leading me around our own neighborhood and uncovering new tastes and sights among the familiar.
This past Sunday, upon leaving the hospital, my mom decided that she did not want to go back into the hospital again and that she would only accept hospice care. She said that she wanted to live out the end of her life at home with her family and friends around her in comfort and dignity.
Tuesday, my dad called me at work. He didn’t talk long but said, “John, your mother wants to see you.” It’s amazing the pull that those words can have over a person. I quickly dashed off a one sentence email and shut down my computer. I said to my boss, “I’m going to see my mother,” and within five minutes from picking up the receiver, I was turning onto the on-ramp to the interstate.
An hour later, I sat down next to Mom and started talking about how I sometimes think about her mom, about my Noni. I said, “Mom, sometimes I come home and talk to Gramma and I say, ‘You would have loved to see that’ or ‘You would love what Rene did today’. And my heart gets so welled up with positive emotion!” And my mom agreed, “Yes, and you will do that with me!” And I said, “I know.” And then I sobbed, the kind of sob that’s like an unformed word and caused my father to come in from the front yard and ask if anyone had called him.
Then I said, “but, you know how you sometimes have some lingering thoughts that keep coming back with people? How you wish you spent more time or talked about this or that?” And I told Mom I had one thought that I wanted to talk with her about, and that she could tell me how she felt about it and this way I wouldn’t spend my life second guessing it. I told her, “you know… we’ve had such a great life. How we never wanted for much and how you and Dad were always so giving. But I wonder, sometimes if I could have been more giving to you.”
She said, “John, John. You have been giving in all the ways a parent could ever expect. You all have, all you kids, have given me so much. You are all good people. You work hard and you are doing things that are interesting to you. You have good spouses and partners. And you are happy. And you are supportive of your brothers and sisters. And you all get along. And that is what any parent asks of their children.”
“John, let me tell you. You could have lived in a VW camper with your music. And you didn’t. Do you know how much heartache you could have given me? And you didn’t do that. So, please don’t worry. You have been giving back to your dad and me. And we are so proud of you, we are so proud of all of you.”
Before heading out to Marseille for the past two weeks, I got together with my friend Walt Lockley to make some music. While I was working on a mix of a different song, Walt wrote the lyrics to the song “Someday You’ll Find it Easy”.
This morning, during a cold-induced bout of insomnia I decided to put the words to music and record it. You may notice I’m using the same chords as “First Kiss”. Given this mother of all sore throats - and the meds I’m on to combat this thing - I kind of floated through this one.
The folks at NPR have just launched a site where people can upload their own audio and video. I’m home with a cold today, but I decided to give it a try anyway. Feel free to check it out:
Today Rene gets ready to interview the chef of Marseille’s newly recognized three star restaurant.
Coincidentally, Rene’s laptop arrives by courier just as she is getting ready to head out.
I hang around the house in my pajamas and start packing. I don’t know why, but I don’t like to take on this kind of task directly, so I take some time to go through a backlog of podcasts and write a few emails. I write to Jan and Stephanie in Bordeaux as well as to Robert the kind gentleman who allowed me to tour his apartment at Le Corbusier.
When Rene returns, I’m half packed, but still unshaved. She helps move things along by packing a suitcase of her things for me to take home while I jump into the shower and scrape the stubble off my face.
Afterward, we decide to go out for a walk. We wander to the Vieux Port and Rene decides to check out “the Mall of Marseille”. She’s wide eyed with excitement over all that we found. We meander awhile, then duck into France’s answer to Barnes and Noble. On the way out of the mall, we notice a back window by one of the escalators which looks out onto an ancient foundation, I’d like to think it was an old marketplace and that it’s original function is still being carried out millenniums forward into the future.
On the way home, we stop and chat about some business with Cati. I tell them that I would love to share a beer with them, since we are expecting guests later that evening, and I’m feeling a bit constrained on several sides about what I would love to do, considering the limited time I have left to do these things in. Cati and Rene exchange a knowing look and then put their fingers across their lips as if they were keeping a secret — and what a happy secret it is — tomorrow night will be a going away gathering… for me! We share a few quick drinks together and head upstairs to finish packing before we have to leave to pick up our guests.
We are late getting on the metro to pick up Sarah and Nissim - so Rene and I have to walk there at 10:00 at night. We walk up the high steps to the train station. Rene gets a strawberry flavored water and a candy on the platform. The train arrives and Rene tells me to look for a woman, about her height with Red hair. Shortly, out of the crowd, we see them. We shake hands and say hello. We head out of the station quickly and get a taxi before the line gets too long. On the way back to the apartment, Sarah gives Rene some muffins that she made herself.
Once back at the apartment, Rene makes tea for our guests. She and I have coffee. We all stay up and talk. They are a great inspiration, really. I find out that Sarah works for Radio France’s English service and that Nissim is a composer. They talk about their life in France. We talk about Radio Lab shows that we’ve liked. I mention that I like Arvo Part and ask if Nissim’s music is meditative. He tells me that it’s more dramatic, but that he wishes it had a bit more stillness to it. I think to myself, that it’s good to have something to strive for in your art. We listen to some music by Morton Feldman, a composer that Nissim recommends. But really, the conversation overtakes the act of listening which is no problem, but it makes me wish we had more time to work in a game of chess (or doing the dishes) or something where we could simply listen. Working against our desire to stay up talking, we get under the covers and call it a night.
I get up early at 8am. Everyone is sleeping. I head out and get the paper and some bread. Watching the crowds of Friday workers making their way on to the metro, or the parents pushing their strollers or holding the hands of their kids on their way to school, it occurs to me that the newspaper and the baguette are iconic items, emblematic of an urban life that is so foreign from ours that I want to take some photos of this as a kind of remembrance that yes, if only for a short while, we did live this life.
Out there with the camera, it’s so conspicuous, but here I go anyway looking for a wedge of sunlight which cuts through the rooftops to street level. I extend my arm out and point the camera back. It’s not that it’s vain, but that these are priceless, precious moments and so I give myself license to be as shamelessly self-posessed as it takes to saturate this instant into whatever collection of pixels I’m able to angle myself into.
After this public incident, I continue on with my intentions and duck into the grocery store to pick up a few things to fill Rene’s fridge. This time, I decide to try a different market because our usual one was out of strawberries, and in the process, I find the elusive spatula that we’ve been needing. It’s funny, how, here at edge of the continent, such a random, ordinary item turns out to be so elusive.
I tiptoe back up the stairs to the apartment, trying to give everyone an hour more of rest. Alfredo pokes his nose out from under the bed-covers and I scoop him up and swing him downstairs and down the street for his morning walk. Alfredo’s great. He’s been a real trooper through all this. These many weeks, living this itinerant, urban life must be such a change for him, so foreign and so constrained. I’m sure his familiar backyard will seem larger than the curvature of the earth once he’s set his paws back upon Arizona sand.
At the risk of pushing my luck, I drop Alfredo off at the apartment. No fool, he burrows back under the covers. Then, while the angle of the morning sun is still low, I head out again to scope out the the fish market.
It takes me a minute to get the exposure right.
But then, the shore is not short on characters.
Or slithery creatures to amaze the kids.
Or old timers with their morning’s catch.
Back on the outskirts of the market, I turn back to catch the moment that Rene talked so much about — the instant where the fishmonger whacks the mackerel onto the slab and comes down on it with the knife.
I grab a public bus back up the slope to our neighborhood and negotiate the niceties of ordering a cafe crem. I sit in the sun and reading through an Elizabeth Bishop poem that is appropriate on so many levels, a sestina whose subject includes waiting for a miracle in a drop of coffee and a hardened crumb. One particular segment of the poem seems, for me, its own miracle of language…
… My crumb
my mansion, made for me by a miracle,
through ages, by insects, birds, and the river
working the stone. Every day, in the sun
at breakfastime I sit on my balcony
with my feet up, and drink gallons of coffee,
The strange thing about this poem at this particular moment, is that it’ also a kind of a coincidence; since yesterday evening, after showing my manuscript to Sarah, we all discussed briefly the metrical rules of a sestina.
I spot Rene and Sarah and Nissim round the corner in the crowd. We all meet up at the bus stop and set out to explore the city. We head down around the restaurants the surround the port, then up past the movie theater and up into the middle eastern district. Sarah and I talk about how amazed people are when they find out how much production goes into five minutes of radio. Nissim tells me about his life in New York before living in Paris. How they had nurtured a great network of friends and how thankfully, that Paris (as opposed to New York) was a city that enticed their friends to visit. I mentioned my goal for helping to establish a podcast on writers and writing for the Piper Center. Nissim wondered if there was a similar podcast out there for composers of contemporary music and if not, mused that he should create one. On a side note, I mentioned how Coyle and Sharpe’s podcasts are distributed in an interesting way, and how they were plain hilarious on their own merits. I promised that, along with sending Sarah a few links to some poetry podcasts, that I would send Nissim the link to Coyle and Sharpe’s podcast as well.
Rene spots the stairwell that we used to wind around through the neighborhood to get to the old cathedral. She asks the group to make a choice, if we want to go up the steps where I remember Rene spotting the graffiti scrawled on the wall “Live your Dream, don’t dream your life” just a few days back. We decide to walk, instead up the long boulevard, past a long block of boarded up neo-classical tenements.
In a moment which turns out to have quite a fortunate impact on the day. Sarah exclaims, “Look, a passage! Let’s take it!” She talks about how the city of Paris has begun restoring old passages because people have found that folks seem to like them. We discuss this fact, and numerous other qualities of the enlightened city with each step. We find out about Nissim’s teaching assistantship, about the inexplicable social etiquette of obtaining working papers or gaining funding for arts projects in Paris. It’s inspiring to hear how the social structure in France affords them the ability to not just make their art — but to also travel — and to do it in a way that seems simply relaxed, inspired in an unforced, fun and friendly manner.
Not far along into the old, Panier neighborhood…
we find a small soap making operation. I’ve learned a great deal on this trip, enough to appreciate Marseille’s humble, handmade, olive oil based soap for numerous reasons.
Next up is a grand surprise and a real great outing to have saved for the end of the trip. We head over to the old Maison de Charite (poor house) which has been converted into several museums. Under the high, central dome, which I assume was once a chapel, we find a great glass sculpture exhibit with a notable set of slightly creepy but sonorous bells commanding the most attention. Also fun is the arts space itself, curved balconies, blind corners leading to a delightful installation. We couldn’t take pictures but some of the artwork that comes to mind was some found scraps of random ephemera, a foam chair, some spiked shoes, and a video of a “two person hat” which Rene commented reminded her of the Tooka (a two person musical instrument (think tandem slide whistle) the thought of which we found delightfully entertaining when we first started dating). We met one of the artists. He directed us to a video installation where a big, blue donkey (emblematic of creativity and art) is carried on a person’s back through the streets and placed in innumerable social settings and situations. Art projects ensue, learning happens.
Next, we take in the Egyptian art, which — next to our blissful strides through the previous museum — strikes me as stiffly, formal. Sarah comments that this kind of art is always presented a kind of ceremonial and historical context and wonders if that could be at fault.
Rene and I duck out of the Roman art museum to soak up some sun. On the way back, Sarah and Nissim do a two step down the corridor which is reminiscent of Rene’s and my indictment into the ministry of silly walks on the day of our engagement. I was so amused, I tried to snap a photo, but Sarah protested that “it was not to be chronicled.” Looking back, and in light of an upcoming conversation, this has me thinking.
We decide that our growing hunger trumps the need jump over from cultural epochs to the art of the North American and Asian continents that we cut our visit short.
We walk out into the adjoining square where we are lucky enough to discover a new salad which contained romaine lettuce, goat cheese, olives and, interestingly enough, the addition of a a fried, chickpea based fritter, the recipe of which was particular to Marseille. I get a Heineken and a four cheese crepe. We talk about life and family and working in Radio and about the tools for making radio and the tools for making music. Nissim is learning about two kinds of electronic music (? and ?) using the tools that folks like Jad Abumrad from Radio Lab use to press at the edges of radio effects. I mention how the addition of the BR-600 to my studio has turned my view of recording music on its head.
When the check comes, Rene and I realize that our appetite had overtaken our wallets, but our guests graciously agree to pick up the slack.
At one point in the conversation, I set the camera at plate-level on the table and attempt to photograph Rene and Sarah talking together. Somehow, the timing of it didn’t match up, and it seemed like it was being counterproductive to the conversation, so I put away the gadget. This helps to bring into focus a conversation that Sarah and I had later in the evening about taking your radio kit with you on vacation. Sarah hadn’t made up her mind about how she wanted to approach it, the idea of, when you your out and meeting interesting people, did you want to bring the microphone along… or would that prevent you from truly experiencing, or would you be thinking, “oh this is great, should I be getting this on tape.” And this touches on the conversation that I had with David Hunsaker, the photographer I met with two weeks prior to this trip, how he told me that he never photographed birthdays or other traditional events but that when he was hanging out or visiting, they they knew to expect him to be have his camera out. Sarah referred to this as “being on” and that for her, the verdict was still out. I replied that I could see what she was talking about, and that it was worth thinking about.
We find a secret staircase which leads to the shoreline. We find out about Nissim and Sarah’s trip to Croatia, and how it’s a very English speaking region, how they went to a movie screening and how everything, unexpectedly, was in English. We walk back, at sunset, around the entire Vieux Port.
After picking up two bottles of Fisher and some Pastis, we arrive back at the apartment just in time to start getting ready for the party! Rene went down to help Cati and Sarah and Nissim put together a peach and strawberry tart and warmed it in the oven.
Just as when I first arrived, we all sat out on the patio and talked. There were candles placed on tiny card tables and shelves. Beside them were potted plants or cut flowers in vases. There was Pastis; a traditional Marseille anise liquor that is mixed with water and lightly chilled with ice.
Cati cooked while Olivier chatted with Sarah and Nissim. Rene grabbed the camera and started taking pictures.
Alfredo was passed around.
Laurent came by with a surprise. He asked if I liked stinky cheese. I said, “Sure!” He came out with a contraption, a hand crank for fromage. We spun it once or twice around and shaved off a slice of cheese, like shavings would curl off a pencil as it was being sharpened.
The cheese was indeed stinky, but tasty and it went well with the Bordeaux wine.
We talked about how there needed to be a direct flight from Tempe to Marseille. I said how we would begin this flight so that the Tempe pétanque (bocce) team could play the team from Marseille. There was much talk about that, as our guests from the North also played Bolles, as it was called in Paris.
We all sat down to the table. It was a banquet of color as well as appetizers. They made me a sign that read, John Le Roi (John the King) I exclaimed back, “Ju sui, le whroi!” We all laughed. There was much conversation which started in English for a sentence or two (to keep me along) which then led to sweeping bouts of quickly spoken French between the other guests. I asked Olivier to explain how Marseillans had slightly different words for things down here, knowing that Sarah and Nissim would be interested in hearing about the linguistic differences. An animated discussion ensued.
We had red peppers with olive oil and garlic. Dinner was chicken in a curry and pepper sauce.
We took a group photo. After there was a short skirmish of pétanque using the colorful, foil wrapped chocolate eggs. As a gift, Cati and Olivier gave me two panoramic photos and a children’s book in French. After the wine bottles had been emptied, Cati explained, sadly in English, “the party is over.”
We said our goodbyes to all our fond, new friends and promised to see each other again.
After my morning’s walk, Rene and I head out again for another adventure. Rene takes me on a wild, circuitous path through the city retracing the steps that Cati had taken her on one of their infamous shopping trips. We go into the Arabic quarter, down narrow streets, past fruit stands and spice shops…
where finally, we arrive at Le Soleil D’Egypte, a stall which sells, “little Moroccan burritos” (as Rene likes to call them). Rene got boureke (something like a meat pie) and I got bastilla (a kind of curried egg dish).
Afterward, we duck into a cafe and grab a quick cup of coffee. Then it’s off to the metro to get Rene her 3 day metro pass as well.
Getting off the metro, we take a quick walk in the park. I was surprised to find this attendant’s motorcycle parked outside his kiddie ride.
We walked down a different stretch of the same Prado where I had been walking earlier today. We went past the soccer stadium, then finally we arrived at Le Corbusier, a early modern concrete high rise building with architectural significance.
Somehow, upon entering the building, I lose track of Rene, and at the same time, I’m invited up to view one of the apartments by one of the residents who is very proud to live in the building. I figure that, while I’m kind of nervous to head out apart from Rene, that this is a pretty cool opportunity that I don’t want to pass up.
I’m lead up to the second floor, where the doors have an alternating color scheme of greens and yellows and reds.
Upon entering his apartment, I find out in that his name is Robert. The apartment is well furnished and has a lot of character. I find out that he deals in antiques.
He shows me the kitchen.
He shows me the sitting room.
I follow him upstairs which reveals a surprisingly large apartment which extends from one side of the building all the way to the next, each direction with it’s own tall, wide windows and startling views of the city.
Robert shows me his work area and various other closets and features built into the living space by Corbusier himself. I’m quite impressed by the pride that he has in his apartment, and am grateful for his generosity but I lack the language to adequately express these thoughts. We shake hands and say our goodbyes. Then, I head down to the ground floor where I am reunited with Rene who has been looking all over for me all this time.
Once down to the ground floor, I get something of a playful scolding. I’m glad Rene knows me, and so she understands that these kinds of side adventures are just part of another day in the life of John Tynan.
We then decide to go to the ninth floor — to the top of the structure — as Walt Lockley, our good friend and architecture expert, had suggested. The roof has a ton of crazy structures. Like this:
and this:
and this:
and this:
We get a bit of vertigo being so high up. So we head back down to the third floor to check out the restaurant. The smell is a bit institutional and the halls are kind of claustrophobic, so we head out to the ground floor, and then outside.
Getting back on the bus, we ride in toward the Vieux Port and duck into some of the shops where Rene finds at the Virgin megastore, a book of photos about Marseille as a gift, and at a local Anthropologie-like clothing store, she finds a fun blue sweater with a flower running up one side. We head back to home, tired but appreciative of our little apartment.
Wednesday, the day’s adventures got off to a great start with my snapping a photo of a group of campaign workers illegally pasting up a blown up image of the politician Gurerini over posters for his competition, Gaudin.
After seeing me with the camera, one of the workers became concerned. He asked me in French if I was either a journalist or a policeman (I couldn’t tell what he was asking exactly), but I knew enough to reply “tourist!” and he smiled and went back to his work.
After asking at the news stand, then asking at the tabac shop, I was directed to a kiosk where I could purchase a 3 day metro pass. Armed with unlimited travel, I got on the first bus and took it, in whatever direction it was going, as far as I thought was comfortable.
At the top of a high hill, I got off at the Castellane stop where a tall monument and fountain mark the center of a busy turnabout.
Walking along the wide, Avenue du Prado, I noticed that, in the shadow of the Basilique du Sacre Coeur, there was a street bazaar where people have hauled out merchandise of all sorts out of the back of their vans and have laid them out in bins or on tables to be purchased by any of the many passers by along the crowded sidewalk.
Someone walking past you with a great smelling slice of pizza in their hand has to be some of the best marketing in the world. Additionally, I’ve wanted to stop an have a slice of pizza from one of the street vendors all week, but hadn’t really had a chance So, for me to grab a slice of pizza along today’s route was something of a minor victory.
Happy, the edge smoothed off my hunger, I crossed the street to find, at the entrance to a private catholic school, an interesting little cave with a cool monument rising up out of the overgrowth.
I was getting wistful today. Thinking about all the little details from these past two weeks in Marseille that I’ll miss. So…
I took a photo of one of the kiosks.
I took more photos of some of the wild architecture.
I took a photo of the fountain in the square where I walk Alfredo several times a day.
I took a photo of the Vival grocery store which has helped us to keep our fridge and cupboards stocked with this foreign line of generic grocery items called Casino brand. And the woman at the register who was patient with me as I fumbled through each transaction only knowing how to say thank you and good afternoon.
I also took a photo of Louis and Sarah who sold me Rene’s paper each day I was in Marseille. I would go there, sometime with Alfredo during his walk, and get a copy of La Marsellaise. Louis taught me a variation on bon jour which got a lot of mileage during my trip.
And photo of Lei Moulins, the restaurant in the middle of the block with the three windmills which I’ve used as a marker to find the door to Rene’s apartment.
First off, upon arriving at what Rene called the Champs-Élysées of southern France, we were hungry! We found a shop off the main drag which served lunch for a reasonable price. The waiter was pleasant. The beer just as expected. The sandwiches ample and tasty. But what was remarkable, was that the French fries were perfect! Really, these fries were what all fries should aspire to. Crisp, yet not burned. Light, but not dry, and not overly oily. And tasty!
I messed around, wanting to get Rene’s angle thing happening with a scene.
Looking across the street, I liked how the block-ish rooftops looked through the gnarled branches.
The storefronts were very pretty in Aux.
I added another photo to my moody cathedral collection.
The dragon in this sculpture creeped us out.
We ran around the streets taking snapshots. Here’s a photo of Rene taking a photo.
We walked down to the liberal studies building on the Aix en Provence University campus. It must have been spring break; because, aside from two students from South Korea, the place was deserted. In Rene’s words, “apocalpse empty”.
On the way back, we walked through a public park. We saw more displays of public passion than one might find appropriate. Plus, in a random cultural moment, we took a peek into a tiny circus tent to find a clown coaxing a dog up onto a stool while a ring of children and their parents watched. We also saw several bocce games going on (although, it’s called Boules in France).
Afterward, we found an American book shop. Rene discovered that, in addition to an array of ex-pat items (like English potato chips or Australia’s Vegemite) there, tucked into a corner of the fridge, was a rare and much coveted bottle of Dr. Pepper!
We explored around till nightfall, then boarded a bus back to Marseille. Rene commented that, for all it’s beauty, not knowing anyone in the city (like Rene has come to know Cati) made it all seem a bit hollow…
to futher impress this point, upon arriving back at our apartment Cati and Olivier called up the stairs to us. Olivier had uncorked a bottle of champagne to celebrate a new, wildly outrageous raise! We brought snacks down to help with the celebration and toasted to our friends’ success!
