Can Any Good Thing Come out of Detroit?

How often do you hear a good word about Detroit? When I posted on FB that I was in the Detroit airport, one friend asked whether I was being punished for something. No, I was only on the way home from parents' weekend at Hillsdale College, and I'd actually been thinking how pleasant most of the workers in and around the airport had been. I wondered whether there was a campaign on to make people think better of Detroit. They did make some points with me. 
When I arrived on Friday, my rental car wasn't ready, though I had reserved one and paid in advance. I'd asked for GPS, and the only right-size vehicle in the place had none. I waited. (Without GPS, I'd still be circling the airport today.) I waited over an hour. And with me waited the adorable customer service girl, who continually apologized and sympathized. She was so sweet, I started to feel sorry for her!
When I returned the car, the young lady who checked it in introduced herself, smiled, asked whether I'd had any problems, and looked me in the eye. Nice. The shuttle driver was pleasant and polite. Served as a tonic to my exhausted being. 
Utter spaciness made me forget to pull the CPAP breathing machine out of my duffel before pushing my gear through the X-ray tunnel. They pulled it. Ahead of me, the TSA agent in charge of suspicious bundles dealt with a young man who inexplicably didn't know that they won't let you carry full tubes of shampoo and stuff onboard. He had three or four large tubes of grooming potions in his bag. The agent told him, "You can go take a shower, or you can check the bag." Her good humor made me smile. She maintained that attitude as she pulled my CPAP out, swabbed it for danger and carried it and the duffel back to have it scanned again. Kindness to dopey travelers, for the win. 
Everyone I dealt with was polite and humane, but the topper may have been the woman swabbing the restroom near my gate. I said to her, "What a job, eh, like housework all day long." 
She grinned back at me and said "Somebody's got to do it." Then she told me how important it was to her to make sure that guests had a pleasant experience. "Nobody likes a dirty bathroom."
I thanked her for taking such good care of the place. She said, "You're welcome, and you have a God-blessed day."
"You too," said I. And I think we both did.

The Body Farm and the Dead Paintings

      I always try to read the local paper when I travel; abundance of papers in the US seems a pillar of freedom, though perhaps now a weakening one. Reading the Santa Fe New Mexican during breakfast a while ago in my favorite city, I learned that Mesa State College in Colorado was planning a high-altitude "body farm," a "forensic research site where people who have donated their corpses are left to rot." (Sounds a little premature. I do hope this was supposed to happen after they die.) Problem: the site was within a few hundred feet of some private homes. After protests, the college has decided to find a more remote location. Said one neighbor, "It'll be nice not to have to worry about where the flies have been when they land on my hamburger or potato salad at a barbecue." Indeed.
      A fitting intro to art of Susan Rothenberg at Santa Fe's Georgia O'Keeffe museum. First, "Cabin Fever," image of horse and shadow with a line down the middle. (photo below) Quote from artist says she was thinking of cave paintings and fascinated with stopping the motion of things; that's what she thought the line did. It made me think of a bug on a pin, though. The legs were in running position, but I saw no motion, no life. In the same room, "Squeeze," black outline on white of horse's legs, hoofs up, with a line through them, looking, she admits, as though they are hanging in a butcher shop. At bottom, held between the legs, a horse's head, in outline: on the left, open lips; on the right, a stubby ear, and a curve as though the head were cut off just below the jaw, with no neck. My reaction: this is horrible.
      There's a hallway between that gallery room and the next where they normally hang a painting on each side. In it, I saw a little boy cover his eyes and hide his face against his mother's shoulder. I stepped in to see what caused this. Was it "Hands and Shadows," with two raised arms casting shadows that look like dragons? Or "Outline," with another horse head at lower right, looking as though it had decayed to the shape of an oven mitt-- no eyes, no ears, just those open lips on the end.
      Rothenberg observes that she hardly ever paints a whole figure, at least not of human beings. She also says she doesn't necessarily know exactly what she is painting-- could be this, could be that. I finally decided she is alarmed by the world, especially when something fast, loud or odd happens. And she does not love the world (in contrast to O'Keeffe, who was immersed in the beauty of form and color.) A final painting showed me why: "Folded Buddha," also below. A black figure with crossed arms holds blue legs folded upward, the feet pressed into a hollow chest. "We revolve around an empty middle," she says. That explained the hideousness of the paintings, and the only human-ish faces she places on the borders of some-- they have no life. Even those that are supposed to be observing and reacting to the action of the painting show no connection with it. They are blank. I think the poor woman has no awareness of the human soul, and certainly no hint of a creator God. Utterly opposite to O'Keeffe, who said that God told her, if she painted the Pedernal mountain enough, she could have it. An O'Keeffe I never saw before: "The Beyond," done in 1972, when I believe she was starting to think about the next life. Bottom third is black, then a band of cloudy blue, a strip of white, reflecting light like the moon, then more cloudy blue. What struck me was that the black was closest to the viewer, as though this world is the dark one, but there is light, clarity, up ahead. For now, we see through a glass darkly... 

The motionless horse

The empty soul

Antidote: dancing St. Francis