Leaf Heads.

Leaf Heads

by james bezerra

Hey, wouldn’t it be weird if we lived in a world where – instead of growing leaves – trees grew tiny heads that could talk? But the heads had the same life cycle as leaves? So at first the trees spout tiny little baby heads and those heads just cry all the time. So if you left your window open on a warm Spring night – instead of hearing the rustle of the leaves – you would hear thousands of softly crying baby heads.

And then in the Summer, when the leaf/heads are fully matured you would hear them all talking to each other. They would be saying things like, “How did we get here?” or “What is going on?” or “Why are we so high up?” or “Why don’t I have a body?!”

But then as Fall set in the leaf/heads would start aging and changing colors and shriveling up and dying. So if you were out for an evening stroll you would only be able to hear a cacophony of shrieks and groans because all the heads would be screaming, “Oh god, oh god! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! Please help me!” And as the weather grew colder and the leaves fell, the ground would become covered in a brown festering layer of dead, rotting heads.

Then the Winter would finally descent and there would maybe only be one sad, lonely leaf/head left hanging on the branch outside your window. And at night, when you crawl into bed, you would still be able to see its face lit up in the pale moonlight. And you could see its sad, lonely, putrefying eyes looking in at you. And you would look back at it and you would be struck by the sadness you see in its disfigured, but still very human-looking, face. You would realize how lucky you are. And how warm you are. And you would stare at that leaf face and you would want to say something. But you wouldn’t be able to think of anything to say. And you would feel a real sympathy and a kind of sadness so deep that it makes you uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that – even though it makes you feel awful – you get up and close the curtains so that it can’t look at you anymore. Then you go back to bed and you lay with your back facing the window. And then when you wake up the next day and look outside you see that the face is gone. That it broke loose sometime in the night and you look down and see it laying there on top of a fresh layer of white snow. You see how black and misshapen and alone it is. And you feel guilty again for not having done anything to help, even though you still don’t know what you could have done.

.

.

.

Stuff in Boston, like Giant Freaky Baby Heads.

So Violet and I are in spending a week bumming around New England and today was our only full day in Boston. I love Boston.

We slept through the rain this morning and then got up and went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. It is one of those museums that is basically just some dead rich person’s house. I love these kinds of places. It is apparently okay to be a horder as long as you horde Greek statuary.

Anyway, it was a wonderful and beautiful museum. Here is their website:gardnermuseum.org

One of the cool things about the museum is that it was built to look like a Venetian palazzo, so it has this tall and beautiful courtyard in the center. You’re not allowed to take pictures inside the museum, but Violet snuck this one on her camera phone (which she was supposed to have turned off, she's so bad):



One of the other interesting things about it, in 1990 thieves stole several paintings and sketches, including Rembrandt’s The Sea of Galilee. Well they still have the picture frames hanging on the walls, empty. In the spot where four Degas sketches were hanging, the nails are still there, waiting patiently. That's pretty cool.

This is The Sea of Galilee, if you see it, email that website I just posted!
If you show up with it on Antique Roadshow the FBI will be all over you.

The museum is down in an area of Boston called the Fenway, it is kinda pretty - Northeastern University is down there - and we wandered through the Kelleher Rose Garden (there are more kinds or roses in the world than are dreamt of in all of your philosophy) and then we stumbled across the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and while it might be a world class museum, it has creepy, giant baby heads in front of it! Here is a picture of one:


Freakish, right?

So then we went up to Trinity Church, which is just amazing. It really is something that you should see. A hundred years ago (or so the literature says) it was considered one of the ten most (architecturally) important buildings in America. It was still on the list ten years ago too. It is one of those places where that pictures can’t do justice to. Like this one:


It was too dark inside. Sorry about that. Here is a picture of the outside:


Then we walked around the Boston Public Library, which is a lot like the New York Public Library, but smaller (you could say this about Boston itself too).

Then we went on over to Harvard, it looks like Hogwarts, but with more brick. A lot more brick.

Then over to a fun and fancy part of Boston called the North End, it is the kind of place with a million Italian restaurants and dessert places with lines out onto the sidewalk.

Then back to the hotel (which I got on Hotwire for an outrageously awesome price).

Tomorrow we will ride the train down to Brown to bum around. Pray for good weather.
.
.
.
.
.
.