Henry David Thoreau: Cape Cod (1865)

I've only just discovered that Henry David Thoreau wrote a book about Cape Cod, which is very interesting, amusing, and begins with Thoreau as an ambulance chaser – arriving in Boston and finding difficulties catching the boat to Provincetown, he makes for a shipwreck off the coast of Cohasset.

 

There is a link to the text below, plus a link to an earlier post I made about Thoreau in more familiar territory – Walden Pond just outside Concord:

 

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Henry David Thoreau: Cape Cod (1865)
Henry David Thoreau's Walden Pond, Concord

Thornton W. Burgess in Sandwich, Cape Cod, Massachusetts: Literary New England #21

Although he spent most of his life in or near Springfield, Massachusetts (latterly in Hampden, where his former home is now the Laughing Brook Wildlife Sanctuary), the children's writer and conservationist Thornton W. Burgess (1874—1965) saw his birthplace in Sandwich, Cape Cod as his spiritual home: it is where his deep concern for wildlife was born.

The house was built in 1746, and Burgess was a direct descendant of Thomas Burgess, one of the first settlers in the town in 1637.

The museum is inside the Deacon Eldred House, and also serves as the Sandwich Chamber of Commerce Visitor Information Center. We couldn't see inside because it had just come to the end of the season.

A welcome sign at the side of the door gives an indication of a few of Burgess's many animal characters, such as Peter Rabbit, Reddy Fox, and Sammy Jay depicted here.

And unsurprisngly, representations of animals are present outside, such as this rabbit in the sage.

Or this metal squirrel.

Or this plaque of rabbits on the roof. The quotation 'The finest gift is a portion of thyself' is from Ralph Waldo Emerson.

'A TUSSIE-MUSSIE GARDEN

OUR HERB GARDEN IS A 50' CIRCULAR GARDEN

DESIGNED TO REPRESENT A TUSSIE-MUSSIE,

A SMALL NOSEGAY OF FLOWERS AND HERBS

TIED WITH A RIBBON.

THE GARDEN IS DIVIDED INTO AREAS OF

FRAGRANT, CULINARY, MEDICINAL AND DYEING HERBS.

THE OPPOSITE END OF OUR GARDEN OFFERS A

"DIFFERENT VIEW" AND TWO SPECIAL GARDENS.

CREATED FOR THE THORNTON BURGESS MUSEUM

BY WILLIAM & BARBARA SOLLER'

I couldn't work it out, but then I didn't expect to.

Ditto the sundial.

Views of the back and side elevations.

There is also a 'small touch and smell' herb garden.

At the back of the house is Shawme pond, and a few yards further down is Dexter's Grist Mill, which was first operated in about 1654. It was restored in 1961.

Some Writers of Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts: Literary New England #13

Provincetown harbor, Cape Cod, formed the backcloth to a number of writers' lives.

Commercial Street looks out onto the harbor, and has been the home of a number of writers. This is number 466, the former home of Mary Heaton Vorse.

'MARY HEATON VORSE

1882–1966

AUTHOR

WAR CORRESPONDENT

LABOR JOURNALIST

LIVED HERE'

Vorse lived here from 1908–66, the year of her death. She was involved with the famous Provincetown Players. In this post, I frequently paraphrase from the brochure 'Provincetown Historic Walking Tour', published in 2010 by the Provincetown Historical Commission and funded by the Provincetown Tourism Fund.

I've already mentioned Vorse in this blog in relation to her novel Strike(1930) – concerning the 1929 Loray Mill strike in Gastonia, North Carolina – although the brochure understandably only mentions her Time and the Town: A Provincetown Chronicle (1942), which states that she 'imbues her characters [...] with proletarian nobility'. Her house was owned by Captain Kibbe Cook.

The above photo of Vorse is in the public domain: a 1919 passport photo.

 564 Commercial Street, the former home of Susan Glaspell:

'SUSAN

GLASPELL

1882–1948

NOVELIST

PLAYWRIGHT

LIVED HERE'

571 Commercial Street, the former home of John Dos Passos.

 'JOHN

DOS PASSOS

1896–1960

NOVELIST

LIVED HERE'

577 Commercial Street, Francis' Flats.

 'EUGENE

O'NEILL

1888–1953

DRAMATIST

LIVED HERE'

Quite by chance, I stumbled across this plaque:

'IN HOMAGE TO

EUGENE GLADSTONE O'NEILL

FOR HIS CONTRIBUTION TO

AMERICAN DRAMA

WRITTEN AT THIS SITE IN

THE YEAR OF OUR LORD

NINETEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN

WERE THE PLAYS:

"ILE"

"THE MOON OF THE CARIBEES"

"THE LONG VOYAGE HOME"

"IN THE ZONE"'

The above plaque stands on an exterior wall by the entrance to Atlantic House.

627 is the final house of literary interest on Commercial Street.

Now the Norman Mailer Center, the writer lived here from 1990 to his death in 2007. The Norman Mailer Writers Colony aims to honor Mailer's contribution to literature, and encourage future writers.

Finally, and moving away from Commercial Street, 27a Bradford Street was a barn that editor and bookseller Frank Shay turned into the Barnstormers' Theater (now a private residence) to maintain the spirit here of the Provincetown Players after their removal to New York, and writers linked to it are O'Neill, Vorse, and Harry Kemp.

Unfortunately, we were unable to locate the graves of Mailer, Vorse, and Hutch Hapgood in Provincetown Cemetery, nor Susan Glaspell's in Snow Cemetery, Truro, but hadn't really the time to spend on seeking out omissions too much. Nevertheless, many thanks to Provincetown Tourism Office for helping Penny so much.

 

Below is a link to a post I made on Mary Heaton Vorse's Strike!:

 

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Mary Heaton Vorse: Strike!

Edward Gorey's Yarmouth Port, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Unless a person is aware of the work of the artist and writer Edward Gorey (1925-2000), they would of course have no idea what to expect from a visit to the Edward Gorey House (or 'Elephant House') at tiny Yarmouth Port, Cape Cod. Just another museum? Well, hardly.

The facade of the house reveals no abnormalities at all. But the parking lot's at the side, facing the garden.

In the garden is a magnolia tree, and a notice reveals the history of it:


'The Edward Gorey House

Southern Magnolia Tree

'As told to us by Docent and local friend of

Edward's, Sally White

'A tree rarely seen in this part of the country, this southern magnolia was brought back from Mount Vernon in a small pot by the sisters who resided in the house, Louise and Olive Simpkins, during one of their "motoring" trips from 1928 (or perhaps 1929.) Olive, who was tall, slender and shy, always did the driving on the sister's [sic] journeys: Louise, who was short,

heavyset and the life of the party did not drive.

'The tree has managed to flourish in harsh New England weather,  most likely because it is partially shielded from the elements in this nook of what is now the Edward Gorey House, receiving shelter from the winds and an abundance of sunshine.

'Louise and Olive had another sister, Ethel, who built a replica of this house nearby. After her sisters passed away, Ethel would sell the magnificent flowers that the tree produces at the Yarmouth Port library for $1.00. When a local woman complained of the price of a flower, Ethel firmly reminded her the proceeds were for the benefit of the library.

'When Ethel died, September 15th 1978, she requested that her funeral not include any store-bought flowers, either real or artificial, but instead be decorated "with whatever was growing in the yard at the time." This tree produced a single bloom the day Ethel was buried (a rare occurrence so late in the season) and her friends had to climb out the third storey window to retrieve it for her service, where it was arranged with ivy from the yard.'

But things get odder. I couldn't make sense of the rockery to find any snake, but this other poster begins to ease us into the world of Edward Gorey:

'THE

EDWARD

GOREY

SERPENT

'Both the interior and the exterior of 8 Strawberry

Lane was [sic] decorated by Edward Gorey with rocks

of all shapes and sizes, most of them in no

particular order or arrangement of any

meaning to anyone except for Edward himself.

'In his lifetime, this particular part of the yard was

very much overgrown, intentionally so by

Edward who had a penchant for allowing

everything he shared his home with to go about its

business. He included his lawn in that philosophy

of simply letting things be.

'This rock formation was not therefore as visible as

visible today as it is with its manicured lawn. When asked

what he was doing during the installation of these rocks

in their serpentine pattern, Edward responded

that he was building a serpent for others

to discover just as you have.'

In keeping with a place in which the former owner loved cats, the Gorey House cat just sort of wandered in and moved in. This huge monster is obviously spoiled rotten, and was called Ombledroom in a naming competition, although the paper in the museum that informs the visitor of this also mentions 'Omble' for short, or 'Mr E.', or 'Mystery', but I never got round to reading that in the house, only on the photo I took. Hey, yeah, this is another place you can take photos! Let's see some.

Gorey also made a number of puppets (often for his puppet plays), but there's so much here, so:

'Do not ask "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.'

Which reminds me that Gorey illustrated an edition of T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.
 

 And he not only also illustrated Bram Stoker's Dracula, but made the set and costume design for the stage adaptation that ran for over 1000 performances on Broadway.

'It came 17 years ago - and to this day
it has shown no intention of going away.'

The Doubtful Guest was published in 1957. Gorey's principal literary influences are perhaps Ronald Firbank, Evelyn Waugh, Ivy Compton-Burnett and Agatha Christie, although The Doubtful Guest's mutation, Figbash, has been compared with Max Erst's Loplop, and Gorey himself owned to Chinese, Japanese and Symbolist art influences.

Gorey possessed more than twenty fur coats, but later regretted it, and allowed several racoons to live in his attic in a kind of jesture of conciliation.

When he was older, Gorey spent all his time in Cape Cod and put on productions locally. Above is a poster for 'Epistolary Play', which was an 'entertainment read by two actors' in nearby Cotoit Center for the Arts for Fridays and Saturdays for a month in the summer of 1997.

 Gorey's kitchen.

Productions Gorey put on often involved glove puppets, of which a number are on display here.

The caption above states that Gorey's big bear was purchased at FAO Schwarz in New York City,  and adds that it had to be kept at Gorey's cousin's in order to prevent the cats from mutilating it.

 A few examples of the kind of things that Gorey used to have around him.

 Interesting, if inexplicable - as of course it should be.

 'Eek' is billed as 'A staged reading of works by Edward Gorey' performed by the Cape Rep Theatre in East Brewster, which was presumably posthumously.

Rick Jones lent the house the Edward Gorey urn, which is believed to have been a finial from a horse-drawn hearse, and the base of which is by Gorey's close friend Herbert Senn. The urn contains none of Gorey's ashes: about half were buried with his family in Ohio, and the other half 'transported out to sea on a wreath of magnolia branches taken from the famed Gorey House tree.' A few ashes remaining were, according to Gorey's wishes,  thrown in the yard of his house.

I couldn't resist buying this short book by 'Ogred Weary', which of course is one of several pseudonyms he used, along with Dogear Wryde, Ms. Regera Dowdy, etc. It probably doesn't need to be said that this book can in no way be described as 'pornographic': everything is suggested, and all is in the mind of the reader.

My Art Brut (or related) posts:
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Rémy Callot, Carvin (Nord)
Kevin Duffy, Ashton-in-Makerfield
The Art Brut of Léopold Truc, Cabrières d'Avignon (34)
Le Musée Extraordinaire de Georges Mazoyer, Ansouis (34)
Le Facteur Cheval's Palais Idéal, Hauterives (26) 
The Little Chapel, Guernsey
Museum of Appalachia, Norris, Clinton, Tennessee
Ed Leedskalnin in Homestead, Florida
La Fabuloserie, Dicy, Yonne (89)
Street Art City, Lurcy-Lévis, Allier (03)
The Outsider Art of Jean Linard, Neuvy-deux-Clochers (18)
Jean Bertholle, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jean-Pierre Schetz, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jules Damloup, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Camille Vidal, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Pascal Verbena, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
The Art of Theodore Major
Edward Gorey's Yarmouth Port, Cape Cod, MA
Marcel Vinsard in Pontcharra, Isère (38)
Carine Fol (ed.): Outsider Art in Question
Vincent Capt: Écrivainer : La langue morcelée de Samuel Daiber
The Amazing World of Danielle Jacqui, Roquevaire (13)
Alphonse Gurlie, Maisonneuve (07)

La Demeure du Chaos, Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d'Or, Rhône (69)
Emmanuel Arredondo in Varennes Vauzelles, Nièvre (58)
Musée de la Luna Rossa (revisited), Caen, Calvados (14)
La Fontaine de Château-Chinon, Nièvre (58)