After a particularly trying episode of whooping cough my sister and I were dragged to the Black Forest to “take the air.” Walks through rainy meadows and dark forests, populated by dwarfs and witches in my vivid imagination, did nothing to improve the mood. My mother’s bedside reading, however, did. She had brought Walter Slezak’s biography of his father, Leo Slezak, What time’s the next swan?, and laughed out loud ever so often under our bulging feather beds. Slezak was a Wagnerian Heldentenor, larger than life, with a wicked sense of humor. When singing Lohengrin, the opera technicians sent the swan-like boat, meant for his entrance onto the stage, full force ahead without him in it. He is reported to have drily inquired” Wann, bitte, geht der nächste Schwan?”

https://www.amazon.de/What-Times-Next-Swan-Slezak/dp/B0007DL03Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1487961603&sr=1-1&keywords=what+time%27s+the+next+swan%3F

Having no clue what the opera was about, I was subsequently treated to my mother’s re-enactment of the basic story of Lohengrin, fueled, no doubt, by her enjoyment of the local specialty of pear brandy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWg2UD5kzjA

Decades later I had a similarly wonderful experience, when a bunch of hippies re-enacted, singing and all, another tale unknown to me: The Wizard of Oz. I had tried to mend a broken heart on a Caribbean Island and here I was marveling at flying monkeys and songs of tin men (now, I wonder, why would heartless, hollow men come to mind..)  – all of us, this time, stoned out of our minds. Life can be pretty amazing.

In any case, this next week is the swan song (a metaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement) for my current exhibit at Cameraworks Gallery. If you have not yet visited, I’d be honored if you did. Here is a review that might help you make up your mind. Today, Saturday, the gallery is open, on Sunday it is closed, and I am taking the whole series down on Friday afternoon….

http://www.orartswatch.org/well-worn-oregon-refugee-dreams/

I photographed these swans last weekend in pouring rain through a car window at Ridgefield, WA – the blurry quality is the distortions from the sheets of rain….