Ok, we’ve mentioned the Seminary in the Journal before… we even shot parts of the cover of Myxomatosis Failed and a couple of promo shots there. I’ve been going there for years, ever since a girl I was seeing invited me out for a midnight rendezvous with friends to this magical place, scouting for another friends’ vampire movie. I stumbled across it again while Rowan and I were Living in Kensington, unknowingly and literally around the corner from this spectacular collection of collapsing structures. I’ve seen it in all sorts of weather, and all sorts of seasons, and during a visit early this spring, I’d picked up a Save Our Seminary brochure with the tour schedule in it… and October 28th, 2006 was the first date I could make… and come Hell or high water, come incomplete Zeppelin tune or incomplete Halloween costume, I was fucking GOING!
As I drove south on I-95, the winds were picking up, piling the clouds dramatically on to one another, whipping the trees, spattering my windshield with rain.. I feared for my tour, but hoped perhaps I’d be one of the only people there (I’d invited some friends too, but only Janna could come – maybe just the two of us with a personal tour guide? tasty!)… however, the Seminary has recently been purchased by a developing company and is being refurbished into condos and single-family homes. On the one hand, it means that the buildings will be saved and rebuilt and money will be pumped into them… they’re keeping the grounds open to the public and are building a small museum – on the other hand, they’re also building a bunch of town houses right in the midst of the Seminary grounds. The immediate practical effect of this is that a LOT of people showed up for the tour! The secondary effect is that they’ve stripped a lot of the underbrush and grass out of the area and, according to water conservation principles and stuff like that that Sara knows about, there was a whoooole lot of mud.
Oh, and fences. We couldn’t access half the site because of mud and fences.
Still, it’s always interesting to see what changes from visit to visit. I’ve been there while it was completely overgrown – for years the military (who’d condemned the property and forced the school that owned it to sell at an obscenely low price on obscenely short notice) had been fighting with the Historical Society to be allowed to tear it all down – unable to make progress, they’d aimed for a policy of demolition through neglect and allowed the buildings to fall into disrepair and in many cases, collapse. Since World War II, most of the large bridges have collapsed, many of the sculptures have been vandalized or stolen, the windows shattered… as recently as the 90’s arson has taken its toll, this past winter frozen pipes have caused even more damage, and apparently as short as a week ago, a building collapsed in on itself. I’m glad that something’s being done to save it, but all the majesties of what’s still secreted away inside – stuff we got to see photographs of on the tour and were told tantalizing tales of – that’s to be eternally locked away from prying eyes, restored as rich people’s homes…
I don’t know, I’ve known about the Seminary for longer than many of these tour guides have, and noone has the right to a 1910-tiled swimming pool as a Living room without me at least SEEING it first!!!
Sigh.
In any case, go check out the Forest Glen Seminary. It’s amazing.
After the tour, it was off to pick up Rowan and head over to College Perk to prepare for the Heather Birthday / Halloween show. We were expecting a house packed with friends and got exactly what we were hoping for (over and above – friends from North Carolina drove up seven hours from Wilmington to see us!!!!).
The band dressed up as Viper pilots from the new Battlestar Galactica, and we got to demonstrate our geek over the course of the night. We had our dogtags and call-signs and called ilyVIRGINS “nuggets”. A good time was had by all – the imbibement of ambrosia and the gathering of cubits was perpetrated and it turned into one of the best nights we’ve ever had. My friend Richard recorded the night, and though I don’t have high hopes of it being a very good recording, I’m eager to hear it and relive the night – though I hope I was as funny as I thought I was… though perhaps we can skip over the part where Dan Zimmerman (in his guise as a Moon Monster) probed me with his … device…
