run with turkeys

Instead of running with bulls, how about turkeys?

Missoula is a body-conscious, athletically competitive town.  The amount of time one spends on the slopes or on the river is worn like a badge.  These rugged people are real mountain killers, seeking out another peak to check off their list.  It seems that every month there is an opportunity to run around town with others to celebrate, in the most basic form, your individual athleticism alongside others in the community. It's fabulous, really.  For the athletic. So what if you aren't athletic?

I'm not a runner.  I ran as a kid, of course.  I ran break-necking around the brick corner of my childhood home, feeling wind on my face from my own speed, to reach the Oak tree in the front yard and touch 'home base' in a game of Ghost in the Graveyard.  I can still hear the swishing of my brother's bell bottom jeans as he chased me.  It was fun and I smiled when I ran then.  I remember that sense of wild freedom with each stride that propelled me forward.  And I ran at school.  I ran a teeny bit of track and I ran the required laps when training for Varsity tennis, but by the time I reached my teens, I didn't love it.  It never felt quite right.  

I quit running when I was still a teenager after a bought with pneumonia and a diagnosis of severe allergies and asthma. Many more battles with pneumonia to follow, I never started running again and I don't really want to run now.  I enjoy a walk or a hike instead and it's plenty for me (as long as I do it).  My asthma is well managed since living in Montana and I know that I could probably take up running if I want.  I'm surrounded by runners, a truly supportive bunch of athletes, by the way, so the possibility is on my mind regularly.  

Regardless, I make a great spectator at Fun Runs.  I cheer everyone on when they take off and I am ready, camera in hand, for their return (unless I'm keeping warm in a coffee shop and miss it, oops).  Sure, I shake my head and say they must all be crazy (which I am not taking back yet).  I complain about getting up early on a Saturday or going out in the cold, but watching the camaraderie is a treat.  It's inspiring even without running, especially when they are fundraisers. 

It was flipping COLD for the the Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis, so cold that I declared my presence for the event was an indication of my true love to Bruce.  Many people came out to show their support for the cause running for friends and loved ones.  I'm really impressed by the people with arthritis who run, too.  Right on!  (I learned a lot about Arthritis because of this Run.)

Runners are given bells to tie to their laces.

Others add more color and creativity to the event with silly costumes.  I always appreciate dressing up in costume!  Of course, you need some reindeer in a Jingle Bell Run.    

It's Missoula so dogs are often welcome, even at a run. (I saw four inside the Ace Hardware yesterday.) Proper doggie attire required for a Run, of course!

A man with arthritis walked his arthritic horse in this Run which I thought was pretty sweet.

Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis, Missoula, 2012

 ~ ~ ~

My favorite Run to watch in Missoula so far is the Annual Turkey Run on Thanksgiving.  It's such a day of sloth and abundance in our culture that a big run brings some balance in perspective, even if I only walk around as an observer.  It was a beautiful morning along the river for it this year with a dusting of snow.

Costumes abound in this Run, too.

And dogs, plus strollers and babies (for sure in the 3K, and I saw at least 3 strollers cross the line for the 8K, too.)

Yep, even a turkey!  This one was pretty dang fast, too.  

 

I had my eye on number 496.

 

So even though I do not run, I have decided that I like Fun Runs. The sight of Marathons freak me out.  People lurching, collapsing, and limping their way across the finish line illustrates how seriously intense a Marathon is.  A few naturals reach the end like a gazelle making it look easy, but most runners in a Marathon look like they are miserable and in pain.  Way more people are smiling in a Run. 

My take away message to date?  

A Marathon is for maniacs, but a Run really does rhyme with Fun.  

Follow this link to the Arthritis Foundation. 

Follow this link to Jingle Bell Run.

Follow this link to Run Wild Missoula.

Follow this link to see the Turkey Run results. 

Whenever you might visit Missoula, I would bet there's a Run happening.  And there is of course, the Missoula Marathon in the summer (click here for more information).

the 2012 Big Sky Doc Film Fest Trailer

The 2012 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival Trailer

the artist is present kicks off the Big Sky Doc Film Fest

Remember my post, the body as medium, Abramovic with a clip from the documentary about the artist, Marina Abramovic?

It plays for FREE (sponsored by HBO), TONIGHT at 6:30 PM at the Wilma Theater in Missoula, Montana and blazes the trail for a fantastic line-up of films at this year's Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.

I'll be posting a few of my own picks on salty snack studios' Facebook page and on Twitter (@TonetteTime) as the fest progresses.

See the schedule (click here) and GO.  You won't regret it. 

conquering the Centre Pompidou in Paris

Centre Pompidou front entrance

Centre Pompidou logo (the size of my hand) embedded in cobblestones of plaza

We visited the Centre Pompidou several times.  With just the right bustling vibe, it feels like the center of town to me even if not geographically the center of Paris.  I was really attracted to this neighborhood.  I kept wanting to go back to it and wander the streets. And we did. 

Riding the escalators up each floor along the exterior frame of the building gives a wonderful peek over the tops of buildings across the city.  The motion feels appropriate with the setting. 

On one of the balconies of Centre Pompidou

 Basilique du Sacre-Coeur at Montmartre in the distance

Jugglers, entertainers and passerbys dashing around the plaza at the entrance. 

 

We spent one visit to the museum in the Edvard Munch exhibit.  Munch is most known for painting The Scream (1890s) which is not there, but I don't think the exhibit needed it.  This exhibition, called The Modern Eye, runs until the first week of January 2012 and demonstrates the variety in the artist's work including his experimentation with photography in the early 1900s.  I was really glad to see his photographs.  While not as layered, expressive and well, obviously painterly, as his paintings, and well after his break from the current trend of Impressionism, they  show his effort to use photography as another medium for probing the psyche. Self-portrait after self-portrait trying to capture an image of  anxiety or an image of the tortured soul.  Munch made so many sensitive paintings in his pursuit of making the soul visible. He returned to the same setting to paint and repaint similar scenes.  He revisits girls on bridges repeatedly; figures flow like thick water, into ground, into sky.  One red-headed figure of a girl felt so present, you could feel her longing; she made me think of my red-headed niece for the rest of the day.   

Another day we spent combing the collection. Because it's a European museum, logically there are more samples of European artists in their collection than we  see in the U.S. I found this refreshing. The Pompidou's collection has great range, and for me it was such a pleasure to see pieces by so many avant-garde artists, Fluxus artists, and so on.  They have Plight, a Joseph Beuys installation of a pair of rooms lined with felt and a grand piano in it, that for all the pictures you ever see, standing in the room and feeling that installation can take your breath away. (They also have Infiltration Homogen for Grand Piano (1966), a piano wrapped in industrial felt, which pairs with the room installation quite well.)

Mmm, and works by Andre Breton and Piero Manzoni. 

Piero Manzoni, Achrome, 1959

I discovered a few artists new to me, including this sculptor, Dorothea Tanning.  

Dorothea Tanning, de quel amour, 1970

I could go back tomorrow and spend more hours.   I could spend days.


The first times we visited the museum, we always went up an escalator on the left side. According to the museum pamphlets it seemed all exhibits were reached by going that direction. One day, we ventured up the right escalator to see the small exhibit by the artist who won this year's Marcel Duchamp award, Cyprien Gaillard.  I couldn't clearly tell by the signage that any more exhibitions were up that side of the museum or particularly, how to get to them.   

Except, I saw a modest sign on a wall that said Yayoi Kusama. The polka dot artist! 

I thought there might be a little room of her paintings or a video behind that wall.  When I headed that way with my regular museum pass, I was turned away by the ticket taker. She didn't say much but I couldn't understand her French anyway. (Surprisingly, this didn't happen very often to me, by the way.  I usually got the gist of whatever French communications I had.) Anyway, wanting to see what else was up the escalator on the right side, I went to the main counter and bought more special collection tickets, this time asking specifically for Yayoi. It was our last day and I am so glad that I was so determined.  More than I even imagined, there was a whole half floor of art hiding over there.  It was a Yayoi Kusama retrospective! 

No. B. 62, detail, by Yayoi Kusama, from m.ariii's photostream

Many paintings, sculptures and installations were on display spanning her career.  I have only seen documentation of Kusama's work - never had I seen it in person.  The textures of the various obsessive mark-making and layers of materials are impressive.  Even though obsessive, her training comes through in the sense of pattern and strong use of form to command the eye.

When walking through one of her famous polka dot room installations, with mirrored walls and red and white inflated polka dot sculptures, I stood in the far corner to take it all in.  A french woman squealed at me in French.  I started with my clumsy, "Je ne sais pas..." to explain I don't speak French.  She quickly said in English, "You are part of the art!  You are an artiste!"  I looked down at my red sweater and a long black scarf with white polka dots.  We all laughed.

Here is a 2008 video clip of the same installation on display in La Villette, France.

The Yayoi Kusama exhibit is on view until January 9th of 2012.  (I didn't see this next piece from Gagosian while in Paris, but it's a good sample of Kusama's inflatable sculptures.  They really fill up the room.)

Yayoi Kusama [Installation view], Gagosian Gallery, a photo by 16 Miles of String on Flickr.

We never figured out how to get to a couple of floors of the museum where there is a public reference library (according to the website) and what looked like a vending machine cafe.  Plus verandas with sculpture outside that I couldn't get near. As fond as I am of libraries, it seemed fine to miss some things this time. Although, not knowing how to get around to those spaces, but seeing them through glass walls and locked glass doors, bugged the shit out of me.  You can imagine my nose pressed to glass!

It's hard to tell by Pompidou's website what exhibits cost what.  We bought some three day passes (you can get 2 day, 5 day or whatever you want) good at many museums around Paris at a vending machine in the lobby, but special exhibitions cost extra.  That's fine by me, I recognize these exhibits usually cost museums a fortune to rent the work from their home museums, have the art shipped and so on, but next time I plan to ask more questions about special exhibits when I buy tickets so I don't miss anything!

MORE:

Read an article on Munch by Tobias Grey in the Wall Street Journal.

Pompidou provides quality educational materials on their website.

Sources:

m.ariii's Photostream

Gagosian Gallery
Centre Pompidou 

*NOTE: I only have a couple of snaps for my notes because the Pompidou allows visitors to take photos of their collection but not borrowed works, like the Kusama show.  

Be sure to watch for Yayoi Kusama and Joseph Beuys features in my coming Being an Artist posts. 

Finally, this (akayheartsyou) person's fun little travel video of Paris that I found on YouTube gives a couple of glimpses of clever art installations at the Pompidou. 

  

places to stay in Missoula

It is slim pickin's for great hotels in Missoula.  Some fancy resorts and lodges nearby, sure, and a few good B&B's probably (my favorite, Foxglove Cottage, closed), but not truly great hotels that I would highly recommend.  Personally, Bruce and I love to stay in historic old hotels right downtown in the cities we visit.  While rumors persist of someone reviving the hotel aspect of the Florence Building and other buildings here, Missoula doesn't have anything like that, yet.  So there is my disclaimer to start off.

The historic Wilma building downtown is right on the river, has an independent theater that hosts films, live concerts and local theatrical events.  It's been being restored with fabulous condos and some are available for rent by the night.  I've been in them and they are wonderful AND they are on par in cost with the most 'nice' hotels in town. (At the time of posting this, about $125-$150/night)  I don't know about the services or other details but for quality of spaces and location, I easily recommend Stay at the Wilma.

A couple of nice hotels - where my folks stay - are  right downtown and near the river.  The Holiday Inn Parkside (not to be confused with Holiday Inn Express which is also here) is closest to the Farmer's Market and just a block off of Higgins Street for a lot of shopping and dining options. The Doubletree (a Hilton) is a few blocks further, also close to everything, and has the only restaurant and deck right on the river (Finn & Porter) in this town which is nice for breakfast, drinks, etc.  Both have easy access to the trails along the river, too. 

Less spendy are the motels mostly along Broadway and Brooks Streets.  Friends who just came through on a cross-country Harley trip requested affordable and downtown, so I sent them to Mountain Valley Inn.  Mostly plain and a little vintage looking, the rooms are well kept.  We stayed there once while remodeling a house while living in it and were without a bathroom for a few days.  Plus, when I ran the Big Sky Documentary Film Fest a few years back, the manager at Mountain Valley generously sponsored a bunch of rooms to host filmmakers and were super accommodating, so I gladly throw them some biz in return for their support.  

That's all I have to offer for first-hand experience on the motel scene. I've stayed in many motels and Thunderbirds across the U.S. and enjoyed them, but not here yet.  Based on drive-by appearances alone, I suggest seeing motels in this town before you book your room if you can.  Certain motels rent rooms by the month and have a reputation for stumbling drunks and regular 911 calls.  And if that's your scene, knock yourself out, man.

Several chain hotels are here near exits, too, if that's what you want.  You don't need my help finding those of course.  It's a university town, so everything is packed for Griz games, Freshman orientation and so on, so keep that in mind as well.

Finally, more and more people here are renting out little bungalows, apartments over garages and their houses for the summer, a weekend or by the night.  Check out sites like VRBO (Vacation Rental By Owner) to find some great places. If you are looking to fish and stay close to Missoula, I suggest looking at listings out Rock Creek.  I hope one day to build a guesthouse for friends and family, but I'm a long way from such a decadent arrangement. 

This post is just on Missoula but there are many great places near here in other towns.  I'll build that list, too, so let me know if you have requests and I'll do them sooner rather than later.

****** 

I am growing the 'guide to visiting Missoula' section of this blog to help answer more inquiries for visitors.  I have lived in Missoula fifteen years now and have gotten many emails or phone calls with simple questions like where to stay.  I've concluded that this blog is a good place to make it available to anyone. Point your friends and loved ones here if they are heading to Missoula.  I'll do my best to make suggestions on whatever their interests or find someone appropriate who can.  And if you have particular topics of interest about visiting Missoula, just let me know.  

Links for Places to Stay in Missoula:

Stay at the Wilma Rentals

Mountain Valley Inn

The Doubletree Hilton