Autumn is my favorite season. Even though as a child I was not adept at the things associated with it (like football and school), I’ve always loved it. My feelings have something to do with the deep privacy I associate with the fall, especially when weighed against the summer – the season in which you’re expected to wear as few clothes as possible and be all gregarious and whatnot. Yes, when the first hints of autumn waft through the air it’s like a melodious voice whispering, “Don’t worry, little man; the heat, the vacations, the long days, and the bright light are all subsiding.”
Perhaps what I love most about the autumn is that it’s the time of year when I feel least noticeable. I always had the back of the classroom in which to sit, and on my way home from school I’d shuffle my feet through the fallen leaves and get lost in the rhythm. And by the time I got home, the sun would be lost behind the trees’ thinning branches, leaving a brilliant fantasy world of twisted and elongated shadows.
Of course, the one problem that inevitably arose in the autumn was that I’d fall in love. This unfortunate occurrence added to the melodrama and made the season seem even weirder and darker – a space in which I wasn’t entirely comfortable. But this just added to the creepy side of the fall: the death, Halloween, hobgoblin side. Ultimately, it was all part of the autumnal package.
In my adulthood, the autumn has held on to a lot of its mystical properties: I love how the light changes, and how the days get shorter. It’s still a strange, secretive time. I usually go through a few weeks when I prefer not to leave the house after dark, and the earlier it gets darker, the less time I spend away from home.
Living the last seven years in southern California has meant that the autumn has taken on a new significance for me. It’s usually the time of year when I become hopelessly homesick. Ironically, this works well within my seasonal paradigm: the yearning and pining feelings of homesickness are quite similar to the feelings associated with young love, so in a way, being here has brought me closer to my youthful appreciation of the fall.
So today, as communion, I decided to go out and search for the essence of the SoCal autumn. I hope its beauty isn’t lost on you:
Happy autumn – enjoy the time in your head.
Lovely photos, Scott. Fall evokes many of the same feelings in me, especially since October marks the time I first fell in love, so things seem especially vivid. Why is it easier to feel alive in fall than any other time of year, even now?
(Oh, and by the way–you alphabetize your 20th-century fiction! You are so busted!)
oh baby, they alphabetize everything. walls full of books. i’m kind of jealous, though i’ve never given up our plan to organize by library of congress call numbers.
and chimpy! i miss that little bounder.
scott — you made me so wistful for southern california that i want to throw pumpkin guts at you. i certainly fell in love with this post.
the autumn days and cooler nights, so true. but it is the smell, the scent of the dew on the leaves, the everchanging whisper in the trees, the carpet of colors that convert even the most neglected lawn into a Kandinsky – these things bring forth those emotions as well. it hasn’t changed in its beauty: New Jersey still rocks.
This is a gorgeous post, Scott. Autumn is my favorite season too (although winter is a close second) for essentially the same reasons you outline in this post. I’ve always been told that, since I’ve only ever lived in Caliornia, I don’t now what these seasons are really like. I’ve never actually touched snow, so I guess they all could be right, but your pics remind me why I love the seasons here.
Beautiful post Scott – and not just the pictures. Autumn holds a special place in my mind also – there is something very bittersweet about it. Plus, while I was not exactly academically oriented as a kid, I’ve become more so over the years, so Autumn also brings the desire to sit inside and study. Plus I get presents for my birthday.
I think we get ripped off on the whole seasonal thing here on the west coast, but I won’t be griping about that come February…
OT: Anyone listening to In Rainbows yet?
Autumn is my favorite season! Caramel covered apples on a stick! Crispy cold mornings and evenings– and two of the best holidays– Halloween and Thanksgiving. But, Scotty, I think we discussed this briefly at your, ahem, birthday party, so I’m happy to have the conversation with you again.
Also, Autumn is one of my favorite friends.
wow, amazing photos (and some lovely sentiments as well)… personally, i have a hard time reconciling my desire for the temperature to shift (however slight that shift might be), to wear sweaters and jackets, to experience rain and gloom (my favorites: rain and gloom!) with the days getting shorter and shorter and shorter until it’s dark at, like, 3:30.
But, yeah, I get nostalgic for the autumnal weather of my Washington State childhood.
Fall is my favorite season too – and if you stay very still and listen, you can feel and hear the change of the season in So. Cal. The air gets very dry, the wind blows, and there’s an electricity in the air – it adds to the eeriness and loneliness of the days getting darker earlier, and the sun is extra golden. There’s a nip in the air as soon as the sun starts to go down. Lovely post Scott! Plus orange is my favorite color.
Great photos Scotty! I think they capture the So Cal fall quite well. On a recent holiday in Seattle I discovered I do not miss the Pacific Northwest fall season at all. It was wet and cold and I was uncomfortable and grumpy. Rain storms can be fun when you get to stay inside and don’t have to drive (since I have now developed a fear of driving in rain). Living in Southern California is kind of like being on vacation – all the time. Even though I never get to wear any of my sweaters and coats anymore, it’s pretty awesome.
Great photos. But how do you get palm trees, poofy jackets, falling leaves, and green grass all at the same time?
Rachel: Yes, it’s not just the fiction that’s alphabetized in this house, believe you me — god forbid a Sonic Youth CD should wind up before a Snoop Dogg CD. Sheesh!
BW: We miss you over here too. As your post illustrates, you make even weird, world-ending weather seem okay. And the bounder often asks about you.
Ab: Thanks for the most beautiful imagery: the Kandinsky lawn…I miss NJ.
Miller: Thanks for the kind words. I’m happy that I finally get what’s good about living here.
Brooke: I remember reading a Sunday NY Times while eating brunch overlooking the ocean one February morning and reading that the previous day it was one degree in Central Park; indeed, there is a charm to warm walks on the beech in the middle of winter.
Rachel: I have no clue what you’re talking about.
Tremain: Wait, I had a birthday? I don’t remember. To those who weren’t there, I got a little drunk, and have a spotty memory of the event.
Jeremy: A photo complement from you means an awful lot. Thanks.
Jen: I can’ t wait to see you bathed in orange on Friday night.
Beth W, oh, Beth W: I can’t imagine you being grumpy.
Dave, it’s the magic of southern California.
Plus, thee enticing and lovely Chimpy!
Hear, hear to everything that’s been said, but also: one of my favorite things about the photos is that they seem to be a variety of ways to capture or frame fall light. Really great in that sense.
Conversion
Greeny-orange
black body
still against grey
Skunky-striped swarth spread
across a very blue expanse
grey tinged with lighted white
Let everything dwell
in the changed light angle
Sighs
float across the grey air
catch my feathered tips
of hair
They float too
plus, steph is pretty.
Plus foxy.
That hound is Chimpalicious!
rach — i’ll be listening soon.
scott — what planet do you live on? the radiohead download didn’t make it to long beach?
scott lives on planet excellent.
and i think steph is plus foxy too.
B, if the question was: “Has anyone downloaded the Radiohead record yet?” I would have gotten it. I didn’t know the name of the recording. Guess I’m not as planetary as I thought.
Rachel: sorry I didn’t get your reference. Have you listened to it?
scott you know i was just loving you. i didn’t know the name of the album until midnight last night. i’ve heard mostly good things but still haven’t listened.
http://www.inrainbows.com
This is Andrea…I have not listened to it.
hey scotty — in response to your comment on another post about my comment here (or some such cross-commenting; i’m confused), i didn’t mean to celebrate the drowning polar bears and penguins by enjoying my unusually late day at the beach. but when 87 degrees presents itself as an option in october, you can either sit around the house moping (and probably contributing to the problem by running your AC on high), or dress appropriately and bring your sunscreen.
as for fall: it’s been lovely the last few days to turn OFF the AC, open the windows, and catch a beautiful fall breeze. plus i love fall cooking and drinking — especially cooking things with pumpkins in them. pumpkin and black bean enchiladas! hooray for fall!
And squash soup! it seemed crazy when I was roasting squash in Sunday’s 85-degree heat, but it has been delightful this week, which is suddenly blustery and crisp.
As for the Radiohead album, I have only listened to parts, but I like it very much, and yesterday’s release (pay-what-you-like download; spendy artefact to follow) seems to be the definitive death knell for the music industry as it’s currently structured. After all, isn’t Radiohead the biggest band (of musical significance) in the world?
Rachel, I agree with you that the RH recording will prove to be a super important component in the way in which the music industry changes, but one of the things I love about catalysts for real change is that they are often seemingly insignificant or unconnected to what they are changing.
A classic example of this is the invention of the modern clock — created as a way for Catholic monks to more strictly observe times for prayer — and the way this invention was mass produced and adopted by business owners as a way to create an official work day/work week. Ironically, a tool for transcendence through prayer was used to formalize the grip on the working classes.
Using this template, one could say that Sputnik was the event that seems unconnected but will cause the death throws of the recording industry. After it’s launch (just over fifty years ago) the US entered the space (and technology) race in earnest. The military created the ARPANET as a way for research institutes to share information, and you all know the rest.
The great irony of this story is that Sputnik, a civil endeavor, will do more to harm an American, capitalist mainstay than any of the Soviet’s ICBMs. Funny how the cold war still shows its reach every now and again.
Rachel, I agree with you that the RH recording will prove to be a super important component in the way in which the music industry changes, but one of the things I love about catalysts for real change is that they are often seemingly insignificant or unconnected to what they are changing.
A classic example of this is the invention of the modern clock — created as a way for Catholic monks to more strictly observe times for prayer — and the way this invention was mass produced and adopted by business owners as a way to create an official work day/work week. Ironically, a tool for transcendence through prayer was used to formalize the grip on the working classes.
Using this template, one could say that Sputnik was the event that seems unconnected but will cause the death throws of the recording industry. After it’s launch (just over fifty years ago) the US entered the space (and technology) race in earnest. The military created the ARPANET as a way for research institutes to share information, and you all know the rest.
The great irony of this story is that Sputnik, a civil endeavor, will do more to harm an American, capitalist mainstay than any of the Soviet’s ICBMs. Funny how the cold war still shows its reach every now and again.
Bryan, I don’t remember suggesting that you enjoy the drowning of polar bears; I think Mr. Keaton would do just what you did: make lemonade from lemons, and enjoy the weather.
PS: I often gripe when people leave really long comments, and say things like: “how could such and such thing I’m going to read this whole, effeing comment?!”
scott — your lengthy comments only make me say, “and why do all the LA people think they can only come up with one post every 9 weeks? half their freaking comments are post-length!”
I bought the Radiohead download for $5. If they hadn’t offered it that way, I would have probably downloaded it without paying sometime, or just listened to it on someone’s iPod, since I like Radiohead but not enough to spend lots of money on their music.
If more bands did this pay-what-you-will thing, I would probably buy a lot of albums for $3 or so.
What’s this about clocks?
Sure, it’s a post-length comment if you post the entire thing twice . . . maybe I should suggest this to my students who can’t meet the 4-page requirement.
oops. So professors do actually read papers in their entirety.
Well, the technology to do what Radiohead is doing has existed for a while (thanks, Sputnik!), as has independent distribution. But when huge bands jump ship from their record labels, they point out just how unneccessary the old industry apparatus has become. Even Madonna is taking a different route!
p.s. Fall rocks.
Yes, the old apparatus is in the process of becoming increasingly irrelevant; what we are witnessing is a perfect example of a large entity’s inability or refusal to adapt to a quickly changing environment. We see a similar process in the American military’s inability to keep up with the ever-changing tactics of Iraqi insurgents.
TO AUTUMN
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Just the first stanza of one of my all-time fave poems. That’s Keats, people. Look on his works, ye mighty, and despair!
I didn’t get a chance to read this lovely post until this morning, Scotty. I love fall, too, and all the more now that a harsh winter doesn’t follow close behind it. It’s much easier to take the drop in temperature when I know it won’t drop much more.
Beauty-full photos, too!
P.S. New Radiohead = yummy goodness. Saw Beirut last night, too. Good stuff! Anyone heard their new one?
okay. i guess if you post your entire comment twice you should really only be posting every 4 weeks instead of 9. bw
Scott, you know how difficult it is to pull myself off of other sites so you consider this comment high praise.
OCD geek alert: read no further if you don’t immediately replace a drink in the fridge with that same bottle or can.
As a fellow alphabetizer (remember the sneer the clerk in High Fidelity gives John Cusack when he asks if that is how he organizes his vinyl collection?); do you have any hard and fast rules on compilations or multiple performers?
I guess I’m talking primarily about CD’s here but books too-how does one do it at Chimpy’s place?
Here’s a timely test case-Christopher O’ Riley’s (brilliant in my opinion) piano transcriptions of Radiohead filed under O or R? How about a classical disc which features more than one composer, would you file by the conductor or the primary soloist?
i once saw someone’s CD shelves who had alphbetized the late-70s Bowie albums under “E” for Eno.
I differ with the Steph on this, but I think the key to any system is the ease at which one can find what they are looking for as well as the chance coming across something you may have forgotten about. Regarding your O’Riley/Radohead question, Commish, I would (personally now — y’all don’t need to get in a bunch about this) file it with Radiohead.
My reasoning would be that I won’t remember O’Riley’s name as much as I would the concept of the record, and if I was going for a Radiohead CD, I may see the O’Riley CD and grab that one instead.
As for collections, my instinct is to file them under the most significant artist. For example, I have a collection of the London Phil doing minimalist composers. I file it under Philip Glass because he is the most (okay only) recognizable composer on the collection. Concurrently, I file the Heroes CD (Glass doing work inspired by Bowie and Eno) under Glass as well because Bowie and Eno have equal weight in the collection.
As for literary collections, I have a separate area for those in my bookshelf and I alphabetize them according to title. I’m not sure how Steph does hers.
#34: Tim: what a Fecund po-eme it is!
ALPHABETIZED ACCORDING TO TITLE??
Oh, you mean anthologies. I was about to go fix that shit right now.
My anthologies are filed by genre, roughly, but if I’m being super Virgo, within one author’s (or artist’s) catalog I would file the works (or albums) chronoglogically. The Beatles go between the Beat and the Bee Gees, but you can’t have Abbey Road coming before Rubber Soul just because it comes first in the alphabet.
I mean, hypothetically, of course.
and to respond to Ruben further: at the end of all the Beatles comes all their solo albums, still under B and before the next artist. So sue me that “Ringo’s Rotogravure” isn’t under S (or, more appropriately, so sue me for owning it at all).
I’m with Steph. If I see Out of Time filed after Automatic For the People, I blow a gasket. (R.E.M.: before or after Radiohead? Discuss.)
Oh, and everybody knows that the Beatles come between the Beat and Beck.
All Parliament and Funkadelic is filed under ‘Clinton’ in this household. How about yours?
Well Rachel, it’s tricky when you have two separate files. The Bee Gees come after the Beatles (er, Ringo) in the vinly section. In the CD section, Beck (yes, every album, sorry Ruben) is between that Beatles “Love” CD (or should that be under Martin?) and Belle & Sebastian.
I have to admit I can’t stand having artists separated in both files, some in vinyl and some in CD.
Tim: Funkadelic is under P. Clinton is under C. Inconsistent, I know. As for the Rs, if they were in the same file (which they aren’t), as it currently stands Radiohead would come before R.E.M., but I think that’s probably wrong.
Wow, you guys are sick, uh, I mean super cool.
Steph, I would love to hear you break down your fiction genres for your anthologies. Be as Virgo as you like.
You’re already super.
I’m with you on going chronologically within the alphabetizing-I go from Please Please Me to Abbey Road but what do you do with compilations or boxed sets that contain early and late stuff-recording dates or release date of the disc?
I do file O’Riley under Radiohead-they wrote the songs and he is the arranger/performer just like I’ll file Glenn Gould performing a whole disc of Bach under B…but if Gould is performing multiple composers then it goes under G because he is the dominant presence. Scott, we’d never find anything at each other’s house, my minimalist disc is under M.
Where would you put the Bacharach/Costello collaboration? I put it under C but have no compelling reason why-maybe because he sings on it too.
But filing John, Paul, George, and Ringo (!) under B is bold in my book. At what point does someone deserve their own spot on the shelf? Or does it just depend on the band that they splinter from? You wouldn’t file Neil Young under Buffalo Springfield, would you?
Bryan’s comment about filing Bowie under E for Eno got me thinking about taking that to extremes. Why stop at solo albums under Beatles-think of all the other discs that could go there-from Badfinger to Oasis and so on. You could end up having only five or six artists which everyone flows from-see Jack Black’s blackboard in The School of Rock.
I file Chimpy under H for Hound and Haunted treat.
You wouldn’t file Neil Young under Buffalo Springfield, would you?
No, I’d file Buffalo under Neil.
As for the Beatles, none of the solo albums warrant their own spot, however, PM and Wings goes under W. Also, Alison Moyet would get her own slot as would Yaz.
Is it weird that my books are organized first by genre and then by height? I mostly have non-fiction and only care about how the books look on the shelves.
lane used to organize CDs by the color of their spine.
in my office i divide books between lit crit, lit, and history, and run them in a roughly chronological order from the 16th century or earlier at the top shelves and the 20th century at the bottom. everything, however, is very rough. i know the general area a book should be in, but i depend on my memory of what the spine looks like when i’m trying to find something.
You wouldn’t file Neil Young under Buffalo Springfield, would you?
No, I’d file Buffalo under Neil.
Hell, I file Rick James under Neil Young.