How I Spent My Summer (2017)

Raising Cairn
Celeste Roberge, 2000
Portland Museum of Art

As summers go, this past was not as historic, nor as creatively productive. We won no basketball championships, directed no productions of Shakespeare, attended no theater festivals, nor were we present for the nomination of a tyrant.

I wrote no new plays.

But summers are important, they always have been and for different reasons. I still work, to be sure, but this is when vacations are had, and my wife and I do strive to make the most of those brief moments as we can. Once it was because our children needed attention and occupation, and now it is becoming increasingly apparent our summers with them as children are running out.

And she wonders why I am depressed this week.

Humming
Jaume Plensa, 2011
deCordova Scultpure Garden

The first major journey was to attend, and in my case, to officiate, a wedding for my wife’s cousin and his beautiful bride. Perhaps you didn’t know I am an ordained minister, but seriously, who isn’t these days? I needed to register with the state to conduct ceremonies in Ohio, in Illinois they don’t ask. Are you in good standing with your church? Well, you better be, that’s the only thing they have to say about it.

We turned this delightful event, held in Aurora, into an extended stay in the Chicagoland. Funny, I set one of my recent works in suburban Chicago, though I’d never really spent any time there. Just research. Passing through and investigating those sites I thought appropriate, I was not disappointed. I tried to imagine my characters there. They must have been happy once.

The weather in Chicago was perfect, we did the architecture tour, saw the Neo-Futurists, spent a whole day at the Museum of Science and Industry. I had my own memories of that place from when I was a kid, I was probably there more for myself them for them.

A Sunday Afternoon On
the Island of La Grande Jette
Georges Seurat, 1886
Chicago Institute of Art

In July, I bought a new car.

Our schedule fell out so that we needed to be in town by August 1 for my daughter to begin soccer practice, so we barely got Boy Camp in before it was time to leave for the east coast, this year spending several days in Salem, MA before continuing on to Friendship.

Between the Art Institute back in Chicago and the deCordova and Peabody Essex in Massachusetts, we spent much leisurely time at art museums, both indoor and out. Our time in Maine, however, was brief. Before long we were heading back, a stop in Concord to meet friends and check out the grave sites of famous authors before making our way back home.

Throughout the summer there were macaroni and cheese topped burgers at the Speedtrap Diner, deep dish at Navy Pier, drop-dead ramen at Kokeshi, and our favorite waiter at Congress Bar & Grill. Also, I developed a strange obsession with Oh Hello, On Broadway on Netflix, which I watched at least three times.

Real Estate Goldmine
Joshua Starcher, 2017
Rooms To Let

After Maine, we still had all of August, which ended up being something of a blur, driving back and forth across the state. The truth is, a cloud has been hanging over us since the very beginning of the season, on what may have been the first unofficial day of this summer. It was a Saturday in late May, the kids were on a year-end, school-related Cedar Point trip, the wife and I had the day to ourselves and witnessed Rooms to Let in Slavic Village, the first of our many art-related summer explorations. It was while waiting for the kids to return on the bus that we received the call.

It’s personal. It’s family-related. I don’t want to go into it right now. It is enough for now to say I have been looking at things more closely at things this summer, and finding them horribly beautiful.

Salem Witch Dungeon Museum

Salem Witch Museum (2017)

Twenty-one years ago, my then-girlfriend and I were concluding her first week in Friendship, ME when my cousin asked if we had ever been to Salem. She’s just past through and was delighted by the honky-tonk; the wax museums and so-called “museums” which commemorate one of the most-shameful (perhaps only one of the first most-shameful?) moments in American history, the Salem Witch Trials.

In particular, she told us we must check out the Salem Witch Museum or the Salem Witch Dungeon -- we assumed there was only one institution called the “Witch Museum.” Not two, or as is the case today, three. Or four.

My girlfriend found a wonderful B&B and when we arrived our host was only to happy to recommend the Peabody Essex Museum, and some fine restaurants by the waterfront. When we asked about the Witch Museum her face fell with something like disgust or disappointment.

“Oh, you’re here about the witches,” she said under her breath before politely directing us toward that part of town.

In fact, it seemed back in 1996 that Salem had not truly embraced its designation as “Witch City” at least not the manner that it does today. The TV Land statue of the character Samantha from the TV program “Bewitched” was not unveiled until 2005.

But then, even the Peabody Essex, founded at the very end of the eighteenth century was much homelier than it is today, receiving a massive renovation in the early 21st century. Like a lot of cities, including ours, Salem seems to be enjoying a tourism boom.

"Bewitched" (2013)

The Salem Witch Museum is the more stately of the two tourist traps we visited two decades ago. Located right off Salem Common, the exterior is extremely visible and striking, formerly an actual church. It also has the benefit of having a large statue of the city’s founder, Roger Conant, standing high in the middle of a three-way intersection. He is dressed appropriately in the puritan fashion of his time, but his great cloak and tall hat do make him look like a witch himself.

However, the attraction itself is not particularly interesting, though it looks sharp. Crowds are ushered into the center of a large room, where a booming recorded voice complete with sound effects describes the events of 1692 while life-size, stationary panoramas depict the terrifying history. Then you exit through the largest gift shop in Salem -- and that’s saying something.

No, the big fun is to be had at the Salem Witch Dungeon Museum, which is distinctive in that it features an actual historic artifact, a single beam of wood from the actual building where members of the accused were actually imprisoned during the witch scare of 1692.

Down the less-traveled Lynde Street, the Dungeon Museum is also a former religious space, a chapel built in the late 1800s. It was to this site I imagined one day taking my children, to share with them mine and my wife’s love of bizarre roadside attractions, though the prospect did not leave me without a little hesitation.

We have passed through Salem a few times in the past several years, visiting our friend Kim, having lunch at Gulu-Gulu, and sharing with them the more respectable sites of the Peabody Essex and, this summer, the House of Seven Gables. But they’re still young and each of them have expressed a disinterest in anything approaching scary.

At least, that was until last year when the girl asked if we could go on the Spook-A-Rama at Coney Island, which she claimed to have hated having decided to do immediately upon exiting, though comments she has made during the year since have suggested otherwise.

You see, when my wife and I went to the Witch Dungeon Museum in 1996, we had a slightly different experience than what is offered today. After paying admission, we entered the chapel, where there was a theater curtain hiding the chancel. Without any fanfare, the curtain opened and the half dozen or so in attendance with us watched as two women performed a scene adapted from original court transcripts in which young Mary Warren accuses the elderly Elizabeth Procter of witchcraft.

Salem Witch Dungeon Museum (1996)
"More weight."

The first thing we really noticed was how the judge, bailiff and court spectators on stage were all ancient mannequins, posed rigid and awkwardly in their seats. They did not move nor comment throughout the proceeding.

Following the performance, the younger of the two actors stepped forward, and led us into the basement, which resembled a prison. We were informed about the historic importance of the wooden beam, and our attention was directed to various cells where we could see even more mannequins being horribly mistreated.

Then she instructed us to head down a short hallway, to take our time, and she would meet us at the other end. She then disappeared through a doorway and we were left on our own. I volunteered to go first down the hallway, peering into cell doors and windows and sure enough, at the far end of the hall, one of the mannequins wasn’t a mannequin at all, but our tour guide who suddenly put out her hands and yelled BLEAGGHH!!!

Not exactly Spook-A-Rama, but high cheese. I did wonder whether or not the girl would get a kick out of it.

What I did not expect was the very pleasant surprise that the Salem Witch Dungeon Museum has during the past generation in fact stepped up its game! There were not two, but three performers on hand, the third what you might actually consider a docent. Also dressed in period costume, she provided narration and context prior to the performance (it was the exact same amateur performance) and led us all the way through the basement “dungeon” giving an entirely respectable historical overview of the events and the persons involved.

The prison cells are still occupied by the exact same dummies we had seen in the 90s, I believe the lights have been lowered to hide the aged plaster and papier-mâché. But we received a proper if brief education in mass-hysteria, and no poor college intern popped out from anywhere to say BOO!

Cleveland Public Theatre presents THE WITCHES as part of Test Flight, a showcase of new works, March 3, 4 & 5, 2022.

Salem, MA

Driving home from our vacation in Maine, the family stopped in to see my wife’s colleague Kim in Salem, MA. They had met at Goddard College, and Kim even moved to Cleveland for all of 2012 to work as my wife’s associate before getting a plum job as a creative writing instructor much closer to her hometown of Boston.

We have been to Salem before but once, long before the kids were born, back in 1996. That was a brief excursion, arriving in the mid-afternoon and only just hitting a few tourist attractions before evening. Like most people, we were there for the witches, but didn’t really explore the town very much before bedding down after dinner and leaving early.

Today we had even less time available, as we wanted to make Utica by dinner, but this time had a guide. I knew there was some serious witch-inspired honky tonk to be seen, but I had no idea how much. Fun’s fun, but it is clear that Salem may be the second-worst American city to enjoy Halloween.

Sometimes I work a little too hard to provide context to my children … I am only trying to help. My own parents would take me historical places without really explaining their significance or what I was doing there. Places like like Canterbury Cathedral, Versailles, or my grandparents’ house.

Paranorman was a good jumping off point -- my daughter liked that move a lot, it just scared the boy, but when I told them Salem is basically the inspiration for the witch-attraction-based economy town in that movie, it made both the movie and where we were make a lot more sense.

This is not actually a picture of our house.

Kim explained the basics of the witch trial over lunch at Gulu-Gulu, and then we walked down the main promenade, taking in an amazing bookstore (see photo above) and Wyknott’s (Harry Potter-licensed) Wands. The girl was in Hogwarts heaven. If the man were not out of the Hermione model, she would have one in her truss right now.

Our last stop was at the Salem Witch Trial Memorial. Some other year, when the kids are older and have a bit more perspective we may take in the “witch dungeons” and wax museums. For me it was enough to rediscover one of the few spaces of quiet and respect in the midst of all the historical reenactors, and Nosferatu buskers.

Seventeen years ago we approached at twilight. Here in broad daylight it was still silent, there were few tothers around, but they did not speak. The boy and I went around, and he read all of the names, to himself. It is a troubling space, accusatory in its design. Others sat on the stones, two or three, but they all sat to one end, not in the middle, certainly not on the names.

And when you stand, on the path, these present figures in these emtpy seats, they look to you. You may not forget.

It were a fearsome man.

On Fear

A spider. How "Bourgeois".

When I was a child, our house had a crawlspace in the basement. It was behind a door with a simple lock, built up about three feet off the floor. There was a single bulb, the floor was rough concrete. When I was six I would hide in there, draw pictures of monsters and tack them to the beams. A gallery of monsters.

When I was around seven, my family went to a haunted house. It may have been in Avon Lake or something, like a “Haunted Fire Station” to raise money for charity.

Berea ... is so ... SCARAY ...

It was traumatizing. As is her wont, my mother to this day expresses deep, lasting regret for the decision to take me. “I guess I figured if you were too scared you could cover your eyes,” she says. Of course, hearing what you cannot see if much more terrifiying.

The pictures in the crawlspace came down, and I never went in there again, unless I had company.

Children need fear. They need to learn to enjoy chills and suspense, and to know the difference between what is fantastic and what are real life dangers to be avoided. This is why belief in the supernatural, especially mainstream beliefs such as Christianity and Islam, lead to uncertainty, confusion and life-threatening neuroses.

Your odds are not good.

The 21st century has brought with it an interesting revival in monsters. The work of Tim Burton doesn’t seem odd anymore, to anyone. The bizarre, edgy, creepy-funny Beetlejuice has evolved into the much-hated, yawn-fest Dark Shadows.

The World Famous.

The human skull is (or was) the new smiley face. My daughter has pink pj bottoms featuring skulls wearing a hair bow. Anyone who knows me knows I really enjoy wearing  all the swag my in-laws provide from The Smiling Skull Saloon, but no one would confuse me with some kind of threatening person.

There are now a swath of television programs and movies geared toward children that I would have thought unimaginable ten years ago. Disney recently debuted Gravity Falls, about two kids spending the summer in the great northwest with their grand-uncle who manages a “Mystery House”. Every episode centers around a presumed supernatural threat which turns out to be non-threatening … though still supernatural. For example, the male protagonist fears his sister is dating a zombie. In reality, the boyfriend is not a zombie, but a gang of gnomes disguised as one teenager.

Dude ... check it out ...

Anyway. It’s like a cross between Twin Peaks and The X-Files. We all think it is hilarious. However, the boy (age seven) does get increasing scared by the show, and has often had to cover his face, until the reveal, and then it’s all okay. I like that, some chills, then relief. No nightmares.

Paranorman, however, was not a good choice. It’s a very good movie. But I fret because  to really understand it, to even think it’s funny, you need a wealth of pop culture experience that your average nine year-old just doesn’t have. A lot of the humor makes no sense without a basic familiarity with the works of George Romero and the Salem Witch Trials. The boy didn't get the funny, he just saw zombies, and had to leave partway through.

One recent development in pop culture is the ascendance of the zombie. Dracula long ago became cuddly, thanks to the likes of The Munsters, Sesame Street and Count Chocula, the same for “Frankenstein”.  Good Lord, remember Monster Squad? As what scares us becomes familiar, we must turn to what is truly scary. When I was a child it was the Devil (The Exorcist, The Omen, et al) as an adolescent it was the stalker-killer (Friday, the 13th, Halloween and all the rest.)

Monster Squad (1976)

Supernatural animals like werewolves have never been taken seriously in my lifetime -- An American Werewolf in London, the only exception. Only the once-dead remain truly horrifying. The gentleman-corpse who is the vampire has become one to admire and love, and the Creature, in his own way a zombie, can be sympathized with because he has feelings. The zombie is simply a dead thing that continues to move -- and has only one recognizeable thought, and it is to eat you. They don’t even bother killing you first.

But even the zombie is being made more accessible. Leafing through a children’s costume catalog with the boy, we found zombie versions of superheroes. What is up with that? Why would you want to be that for Halloween? Not just a zombie … Zombie Robin? Uh, okay.

The boy and I had a very interesting conversation recently about why Halloween is associated with scary things. It wasn’t easy to explain, and maybe that confuses the average person. But it helps to know these two things; he has always known about his stillborn older brother, so celebrating the dead -- and the Day of the Dead -- are not bizarre, spooky ritauls, but an annual celebration on par with birthdays and other anniversaries. Also, too, having been raised non-religious, he has no weird conception of what death is. People are born, they live, they die and return to the earth.

Death does not scare him. At least, not yet.

Tradition.

So why is All Hallow’s Eve, and the Day of the Dead, the holidays which inspired Halloween, associated with the supernatural? He still doesn’t get it. It doesn’t keep him from enjoying it.

There is a home near us with a large front yard facing a very busy street which has an annual Halloween display which is pretty creepy. This year, however, in creating their display they decided to include a hanged person. They weren’t finished with it, but apparently someone compained, presumably, that the depiction of someone hanged -- lynched -- was offensive.

How did I know this? Because, in addition to the numerous “gag” tombstones featured in the display, they included this defensive response to whom it may concern:

I found their response more unfortunate than the hanged dummy. My city is racially diverse, with the population of whites and blacks running close to 50/50. Lynching as a symbol of race terrorism existed (past tense?) through the lifetime of many of my neighbors, it’s not something abstract.

Might I also add that if the featured style of execution were something else, say another deeply symbolic form of torturous death, say crucifixion, that might also offend a lot of people.

Part of the problem was that the figure was generic, just a big stuffed head through the noose. If it had been a cartoony witch or something, that might have seemed more in the spirit of the season.

I mean, the display also features someone drawn and quartered. That freaks the girl out more than the hanged person -- which has, at last, been detailed to represent a bonnet-wearing Puritan woman. Putting it into a period well-past, and associating it with the witch trials does make it look more appropriate to the season. But the defensive-message gravestone remains today.

SPOILER ALERT: PARANORMAN

Which brings me back to Paranorman. There really was a witch hanged in this story, a young girl who had magical powers, who was condemned as a witch. The lesson is about acceptance, about tolerance. She was a little girl with special abilities -- she wasn’t evil. However, according to certain religions, which believe in witches, it doesn’t matter if she felt she was good, having these powers means that, will you, nill you, she is a product of Satan. Like the gays. For some, tolerance is not an option.

Not a witch.

But homosexuality is a real part of nature, supernatural "witchcraft" abilities are not. The Salem Witch Trial was something that actually happened, many were imprisoned, twenty were executed. None of them were actually witches. Depicting a hanged "Salem witch" troubles me, too. That's an innocent, hanging there, first terrorized and tortured and then killed. They were lynched, too.

Monsters are fun. Men are scary.