Traveling up Lambert’s Cove Road, just after you pass the Tisbury town line, you round a bend and come to the place where worlds collide. On your left is Simon’s house, and every year around the Christmas holidays he creates a beautiful and original display of lights. He’s an artist and his work ranges from the traditional (a Santa and sleigh taking off into the winter night) to the more offbeat (a grove of coconut palm trees that look like they came right off a Key West cocktail napkin).
David has a different approach to Christmas light decorations – a more spontaneous approach, if you will. His is the next house on the left, and as you approach it, with Simon’s creation still twinkling in your mind’s eye, you see David’s salute to the holidays hanging high above you. It’s in a tree directly over the road in front of his house, and it’s up so high that he surely had to use a cherry picker to get it there. It’s a single clump of lights thrown over a branch. You can read into it what you like, but to me it looks like a jockstrap. A brightly lit, festive holiday jockstrap.
Way off in the woods on the hill behind his house is still more evidence of David’s art. Once again it’s a single strand of lights, this time draped over a large pine tree and, if anything, this one’s even more interesting than the other because of the way the wind sculpts it into different shapes. Some nights it looks like somebody’s hanging up there; other nights it looks like a cross. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to drive by sometime and see pilgrims gathered around the tree waiting to be healed.
It’s pointless to argue over whose art is better, Simon’s or David’s. What’s better, realism or dada? But David definitely gets big bonus points for one important fact: he keeps his lit all year-round. And if you’ve ever been to the Vineyard in February or March, you’ll know what a favor to the community this is.
In the summertime, what with daylight saving time and trophy houses lit up so brightly they can be spotted from the space shuttle, we’ve got more light than we know what to do with. Same goes for the fall, and of course over the holidays everyone pulls out all the stops. But then, right after the first of the year, someone throws the switch and plunges the Island into darkness. Don’t even think about going to Edgartown in February unless you have a flashlight.
And that’s why I’m personally thankful to David for his effort to bring a little cheer into our bleak winter world. As they say, better to hang lights from a tree in a clump that looks like a jockstrap than forever curse the darkness.
