This I found to be a very interesting essay on a number of fronts. Trouble with bubbles always makes interesting reading anyway.
Hope you enjoy it. Squeaky Keene is used by permission of the author. Find her other writing at: www.hoardedordinaries.com
May 23, 2005
Squeaky Keene!
[Soap suds, Central Square fountain, Keene, NH]
One sign of spring here in Keene is the moment when city crews turn on the fountain in downtown's Central Square. A second sign of spring is the first time local pranksters pour soap in the fountain.
Apparently there's not a lot to do on a Saturday night in Keene...either that or the fence set up to deter vandals from marring the Beech Hill water tower is working, driving frustrated graffiti-artists downhill to express their rebellious urges in a cleaner medium. Whereas the water tower on Beech Hill is semi-secluded with only the occupants of one nearby house to watch youthful comings and goings, the park at the center of downtown's Central Square is right across from the police station. Presumably sudsing a fountain right under the watchful eye of the law is quite a prank-pulling coup, which might explain why hooligans keep doing it.
Last year, the Central Square fountain got soaped several times over the course of the summer...but I don't remember it happening so early in the season. Yesterday's afternoon stroll was the first time this year I'd seen the fountain on much less sudsed; apparently, this season's crop of surreptitious soapsters wasted no time getting down to business. By the time I happened upon the fountain yesterday, the suds had apparently subsided with only an occasional wisp of foam on nearby park benches to suggest how high the soapy tide had originally raged. Fountain-sudsing is, presumably, an ephemeral art, its very medium being designed to go down the drain.
Normally, Keene takes meticulous pride in the appearance of its downtown. When Hollywood used the streets of Keene as an on-location site for the filming of the movie Jumanji, crews had to dirty up the place to make it look like a run-down town. One souvenir of the movie shoot is a painted mural for the fictional Parrish Shoes company; another is a Keene Public Library binder of behind-the-scenes photos, including a shot of a Central Square sign informing visitors that Keene isn't typically so run-down and dirty: it had been made up (or down) to look homely.
Keene, it seems, is proud of its squeaky clean image...but acres of soap suds might be overdoing it. I'm told that cleaning soap from a circulating fountain is an expensive and time-consuming task; I'm sure city workcrews aren't happy that spring's bubble-blowing days are back. Still, pouring soap into a fountain, like toilet-papering a rival's tree, hearkens back to a simpler, more innocent time: if fountain-soaping is the most nefarious thing local youths are up to on a Saturday night, many towns would willingly trade places with us. Although repeated soapings are both expensive and annoying to clean up, surely suds are less lasting than the remnant of paint on brick.
Marcia from The Heart of New England has reprinted my photo essay on the stone bridges of Hillsborough County, which you can read here. Enjoy!
Posted by lorianne at May 23, 2005 12:36 PM
About Dr. Lorianne DiSabato (formerly Schaub)
[Lorianne DiSabato]
Borrowing a phrase from writer Annie Dillard, Lorianne often describes herself as being "spiritually promiscuous." Raised Catholic, Lorianne was "born again" as an undergraduate student in Toledo, Ohio; soon afterward, she taught herself how to meditate at an evangelical Bible camp. After graduating, marrying, and spending a year as a Catholic campus minister, Lorianne moved to Boston, where she received her M.A. in English literature from Boston College and took Zen Buddhist precepts through the international Kwan Um School of Zen.
After completing PhD coursework at Northeastern University and living for two and a half years as a residential student at the Cambridge Zen Center, Lorianne moved to New Hampshire, where she co-founded the Southern New Hampshire Zen Group, a weekly meditation group which meets in Keene, NH. Lorianne is an English instructor at Keene State College and teaches online writing and literature courses through Southern New Hampshire University. In the spring of 2004, Lorianne received her doctorate in English literature from Northeastern University, where she completed a PhD dissertation on spirituality of place in 19th and 20th century nature writing.
A self-described "nature nut," Lorianne enjoys hiking, birding, and amateur botanical studies. A long-time journal-keeper, she also likes to write short essays, including her online nature column, Pedestrian Thoughts, and her weblog, Hoarded Ordinaries. Lorianne currently lives in Keene, NH with her dog, Reggie.