Lionel Ashling

Environmental Outing 5- Bass Museum of Art

Although I live in Miami Beach, I’ve never gone to the Bass Museum of Art. There are plenty of art galleries nearby, and I guess it always seemed like the redheaded stepchild (or as I like to call them, step-headed red-children) of the artistic institutions of Miami Beach. Some might term “artistic institutions of Miami Beach” an oxymoron, which makes this small building with the ugly facade even less tempting to enter.

Nonetheless, the class does require that we go to new places, so I went in by myself. I had to check my water bottle in at the door, but they didn’t frisk me for a camera, which is good because photography is not allowed. I had decided to go to the Bass Museum to see the Picasso pen and ink exhibit, which I had seen before while in Denmark, but found out that I had missed the deadline by two days. Not only that, but the entire upper floor of the museum was closed off, as well as some parts of the lower floor. There were also hired men painting the walls from flat white to deep red.

The painters worked out to my advantage for illegally photographing the exhibits (thus proving I went there). Their ladders, rope-offs, and drop cloths all obscured me while in the largest open exhibit, that of classical Dutch painters, tapestries, and sculptures. Thus, they are the ones I posted. The ones I wanted to take pictures of– these two 40-foot tapestries of two different hunting scenes– were unfortunately guarded zealously. Finding those two huge tapestries was the one surprising fact about my visit: despite the usual menagerie of Christian medieval art, the Bass museum of art has two of the top 20 largest tapestries in the world on exhibit. Pretty impressive for such a tiny museum.

In the photo:
Top left: Palm tree sculpture
Top right: Lot and his family running from Sodom
Bottom left: some tapestry (one whose subject eludes me)
Bottom right (from left to right): adoration of Adonis by Venus, a sculpture of the Virgin Mary, Jesus carrying his own cross

Environmental Outing 4: Churchill’s

I had never been to Churchill’s, though had heard many good things about it from my friends. The man who taught me to play classical guitar, Mr. Wood, often said that he played there on Monday night jazz nights, although I never got a chance to go.
However, this time, my friend Gaby dragged me along with her friend Greg and two of his friends , whose names I forget. We pulled into the Churchill’s parking lot, just past the “Welcome to Little Haiti” sign. A rather intriguing place for a British-style pub, but I’m not one to complain. I was unafraid of the sketchy characters skulking about, although my cohorts seemed to be a little on edge. After paying the entrance fee of five dollars, we went inside the smoke-filled bar. There was a stage on one side of the bar and a billiards table on the other. It was an open mic night, meaning that anyone could sign up and play, although no one had started by the time we arrived. In fact, it was pretty dead. Apparently the British standard of punctuality was replaced with Hispanic time-keeping. Despite the lack of a crowd, the first band came on, headed by this Jewish Japanese guy named Ravelstein that I had met at some other venue before. He and his band played excellent hard rock (as they did the last time I had seen them) to a rapidly filling room. This exemplary performance unfortunately segued into this fat, mopey emo kid whining his lame poetry over laptop noise. After a few identical reggae bands, the last band we saw play, Raffa and Rainer, came on. Her voice reminded me a lot of this country/jazz singer I like, Jolie Holland, and her sultry pipes harmonized perfectly with the slow slide guitar played by Raffa. Hence, their picture is up rather than anyone else’s.
I was surprised to find that I already had one song of theirs on my computer when I returned home, and what is more interesting to me, it was one they hadn’t played. I listened to it with much gusto. I will post it right after this image, as Tumblr allows only one file type at a time. I hope you enjoy as much as I did!

Mouse Pad And Outer Space

Here is a scan of the very dirty and somewhat colorful manila folder I use for my mousepad. When my original mouse broke, I had to use a laser USB mouse I found rather than buying a new one, thanks to the cheap Jew in me. But I found that my laser mouse didn’t work so well on my wooden desktop (unlike my prior mouse), and was forced to find a mousepad. But I couldn’t… thus, the cheap Jew in me once again improvised with an unused manila folder detailing the praises of various types of electric toothbrushes. Through my propensity to doodle with my free hands, and also thanks to various phone conversations, countless time spent waiting (for software to install/music to download/JPEGs to open/etc), and all the other random time I spend sitting at this little desk, it has metamorphosed into this monstrosity. As you can see, it is heavily stained, inked, penciled, scratched, and so on. Interesting visual nonetheless.

The next picture looks like one of those outer space ones from Hubble, but it is really just a scan of what has seeped through on the other side of the folder, then inverted in Photoshop. I added a star brush, and presto! Outer space. We all come from outer space anyway (considering how this planet was made through accretion 4.6 billion years ago), and finding little remnants and reminders like this makes me smile.

So pretty, so hard to believe it’s actually at FIU

One of the few beautiful spots on our wretched North Campus. This is a tiny dock overlooking a tiny trail off the Oleta River; the view stretches all the way to some of the condos in Bal Harbour. There are on the dock these two lightbulbs on poles that are caged in these cool little houses, presumably to protect them from flying debris during hurricanes and other such storms. The dock itself is located right near the Marine Lab beyond the tennis courts. I go here sometimes to listen to music and overlook the river in between classes, as it is pretty and relatively unknown about. The only people I have ever seen near this serene area are a) this black girl who was silently grooving to music in her headphones, b) this police officer who followed me around because I was barefoot, as I am prone to be, c) a sanitation worker on one of those nifty golf carts, and d) some gray-haired kayaking tourists in gaudy polos and khakis. None of these people ever stepped foot on the dock; at least not while I was there. That’s why the misanthrope in me likes it so much. That, and because all of the other patrons are animals other than humans- fish, herons, crustaceans, vultures, and raccoons.

Environmental Outing 2: Coldstone

This might come as a surprise to most people, but I am not an ice cream fan. It’s just not my thing. I understand the appeal of cold and sweet, but it’s just not my preference. As I am fond of quoting from the most random of sources, let me say this, which was spoken to me by my TV, “Different strokes for different folks.”
That said, I usually don’t go to ice cream stores. No use buying something I’m not that into, right? I’d go occasionally with a girl, as I have yet to meet a girl who does not like ice cream. In fact, going with a girl is what brought me to Coldstone, an ice cream store I had heard glowing reviews about, but never really had the impetus to visit. My friend Rachel was paying a sympathy call to a (very gay) friend named Ian, who wanted to complain about his boyfriend’s emotional distance and about other potential suitors who might make him happier. I went because she asked me to, and because she didn’t want to make the drive up to Hollywood all by herself.
I didn’t find Ian very interesting, as he would talk nonstop, but I was amazed at the ice cream place. There was a huge line, even an hour before closing time, and the line was almost entirely female.  Most of the patrons (but by no means all) were expectedly pleasantly plump as well. But what was even more fascinating than the customers were the clerks. They showed not a trace of the fatigue that generally seems to plague the service sector; they were bubbly and cheerful. My friends said that the Coldstone staff is always like this, which made me ponder the logistics of recruiting and training such friendly people who have to remember various, standardized combinations of ice cream and toppings that I would guess are invariable from store to store, as well as custom customer orders.
But by far the most amazing thing about the service at Coldstone is the way that they make the ice cream. Most ice cream places I had been to merely scooped the ice cream out of the metal tub and liberally sprinkled toppings on top. Not so at Coldstone- they use special utensils to evenly distribute the various cookies, candies, syrups, and the like into the ice cream itself- much like a pizza maker kneading dough, only with frozen cream instead of wheat and flour.
This made me wonder about all the other potential food genres waiting to be blended (in this case, pizza and ice cream). Perhaps a curry sausage stand like they have in Germany, only with gourmet toppings for hot dogs like in Boston? A French hibachi restaurant? A full-blown Hawaiian luau at McDonald’s? The possibilities are endless. The ice cream, by the way, was fantastic.

Environmental Outing #1- Colorful Condoms

Sometimes you go into a place and don’t really realize what may be hidden behind a set of closed doors in the back. Perhaps there is a drab, fluorescent-lit office; perhaps there is a riotous party. In the case of the CVS pharmacy on Lincoln and Washington, it was neither.
I had never been to an HIV clinic before, and when my friend Rachel wanted to get tested, I went along with her and my other friend Gaby as moral support. I didn’t think she had it, but she is one of the “better-safe-than-sorry” crowd. She is also the type to get very nervous and unsure of her answer if you continually ask her the same question. She will even do this going-crazy-making process for you (as she was doing in the case of the question, “Do you have HIV?”).
HIV testing went a lot faster than I expected it to; they don’t even use blood samples anymore. The test is done with a swab of the mouth and takes about five to ten minutes. In the meantime, I sat reading trashy magazines with Gaby when I noticed the plastic tub filled with multi-colored condoms. They were available for free, which struck me as odd, since CVS also sells condoms (this latter fact I knew already). But here they were inside of this tub, behind a door which anyone could merely waltz through, and get for free what they could overpay for at the counter of the same place. That struck me as odd, almost like this hidden secret for “the real pros.” But what really struck me most were the colors- they came in such bright, fruit-like shades that I had to ask the clerk if they were flavored. They unfortunately were not.
They also came stuck in pairs. I only wanted one of each. With trepidation, I again asked the clerk if I could have every color, but only a single one. He glanced at me with a puzzled face, then laughed when I explained that I wanted to make a condom rainbow. Sadly, they only had the “warm” side of the spectrum; in other words, red, orange, yellow, and green. Blue through indigo would have to be obtained through other means which I have yet to find.
In short, when I went to the CVS HIV clinic, I was not expecting free, colorful rubbers. I wasn’t expecting much of anything, really. But when I got home, I had wacky protection that would be temporarily useless (but very pretty nonetheless) to a monogamous man like me while my girlfriend is still overseas. It also sparked a creative idea for an ad campaign- a huge physical rainbow of free condoms, with a sign asking people to take one (or more). Perhaps a message could be underneath, something LGBT-related perhaps, or even just to spread brand awareness rather than disease. In any case, I got more than I bargained for (which was nothing at all) when I went to the HIV clinic.