Travelogues
Journeys, both local & distant
The contrasts of spring
This is my idea of perfect weather. It’s just about 80 degrees, sunny with a slight breeze at the sun goes down. The ice cream shop across the street is bustling with families with small children, teens in little clusters, young men and women out for an evening. A mom and dad walk down the sidewalk pushing a stroller while an older couple in a bright yellow convertible VW Beetle stop at the intersection.
These are the spring evenings that make all the cold and dreariness of New England winters worthwhile. It’s the contrast that makes you appreciate it all the more. I’m sure places like Florida and Texas and Hawaii have their charms, but for my money the change of seasons is the number one reason to be a New Englander.
An end to vacation and the beginning of a new year
Since you’re reading this, obviously we made it home. Thankfully we made it without any glitches, as smooth as can be expected in these teams of Fort Knox-level security and bare-bones travel.
As usual, dealing with the people in Austin’s airport is miles apart from dealing with people at Boston’s Logan. They were warm, friendly, and helpful. Logan workers are often helpful (but not always) and usually polite, but rarely are they warm and open.
We were able to switch our seats to a completely open row near the rear of the airplane, so I could jump across the aisle and Isabella could have a seat to herself. It’s amazing the difference between flying in coach when it’s full and flying when you have room to breath. It’s nearly like flying business class. And while JetBlue doesn’t offer a meal, I do appreciate the constant flow of complimentary beverages, especially since you can’t carry anything through security. And you can carry sandwiches through (for now), which are better than any economy-class airline meal anyway.
You can see Isabella in that photo up there, sitting in her seat and watching “Finding Nemo”, which I had ripped to the hard drive to save battery power. (Don’t worry, I do own the DVD.) Consider that photo an abberation, however, as on this flight Isabella was much more apt to want to get out of the seat and go into the aisle. She had an uncanny ability to fall down or drop her sippy cup or doll just as someone was coming by to go to the lavatory.
As for me, I watched a Travel Channel marathon of Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations”, which it’s always entertaining to see someone consume what is to me looks disgusting (and based on his reaction probably is) and/or eat food that is so spicy as to make my eyes water, just watching him eat it.
My always helpful and ready-to-assist brother-in-law Pete picked us up at the airport, along with my nieces Kateri and Chiara, saving us $40 for a taxi. Thanks Pete!
And then home again, where I had to figure out how to turn on the new water heater the landlord had installed in our absence and turn up the heat and pull my car out of the garage and put it behind Melanie’s in the driveway and put the car seat back in her car and … the million things you do when you come home after being away for a bit more than a week. On tomorrow’s to-do list: Take down the Christmas tree and figure out whether the city disposal date has passed.
Of course, there always work tomorrow and dealing with the piles of paper and meeting requests and notes and emails that have inevitably gathered in my absence, no one obliging me by refusing to work while I’m gone. Such inconsideration. Still, it will be good to jump back in, especially since we’re going to be so busy the next few weeks.
I feel especially bad for my in-laws who will miss Isabella so much. And Isabella as she begins to realize they’re not here. She had grown so close to them in the past week that it was tough to take her away from them. The consolation is that we should see them again soon when Melanie has Sophia at the end of February. I have to say that they are so generous in bringing us down and treating us and showering Isabella with love and attention. As the first grandchild on Melanie’s side of the family, she’s spoiled, spoiled, but in the good way with love. And it gives us a little bit of break to have several sets of helping hands at the ready to feed her, distract her, take her outside to play, read her books, etc.
And so on to the next challenges: The birth of our new baby and then moving again later in the spring. There’s never a dull moment.
A great Mexican meal
Last night my mother-in-law took us out to dinner at an awesome authentically Mexican restaurant here in Austin called Fonda San Miguel. I wrote up my review of the experience at Yelp.com. (Not to be forgotten is my father-in-law who stayed home to babysit.)
The food was amazing, even if my entree was not the most exciting of them. Thankfully everyone likes to share. Melanie’s dish was the best, Chiles en Nogada, (a similar recipe is here), a Poblano chile stuffed with spiced pork shoulder and various fruits covered with a walnut sauce and pomegranate seeds. While it sounds a bit strange at first, the completed dish was sublime. My entree was a little more pedestrian but not any less delicious, a few lamp chops, grilled simply, with a side of chipotle-cheese potato casserole. My sister-in-law had duck enchiladas.
My recommendation is when you go to a nice restaurant, give preference to the specials, because the chef is (a) showing off his skills and (b) using what’s fresh and good from suppliers. Not at every place, mind you, since in some places the chef is merely clearing out his fridge, but in the good places.
After dinner we had great desserts and I had a very nice glass of Port, a Warre Otima 10-year-old, with which we raised a toast to J.R.R. Tolkien.
If you’re ever in Austin and want a wonderful Mexican meal, this is the place to go.
Let the vacating begin!
As is our usual custom, we’ve removed ourselves to Austin after Christmas for a visit with Melanie’s family. They’re fun folks and they just adore Isabella, plus the weather is always so much nicer than Boston at the turn of the year. Oh, and let’s not forget the barbecue and Tex-Mex.
We took an early morning flight on JetBlue, although thankfully they’ve moved it back about an hour later than it was last year. We still didn’t get off the ground until about 45 minutes because they had to (a) fix a door latch and (b) pump in some more gas to compensate for a headwind across the country.
Unfortunately that headwind increased our flight time from 4 hours to 4 hours and 45 minutes. Four hours on a full plane with a toddler was daunting; 4-1/4 seemed potentially disastrous. However, aside from a few moments of panic when Momma had to get up and use the lavatory (poor pregnant women and their “urgent need”), she did pretty well. I should have pulled out my laptop a lot earlier, because when I started playing “Finding Nemo” for her about an hour from the end of the flight, she was out like a light.
Meanwhile, I was watching the Discovery Channel marathon of “Man v. Wild”, which I’ve never seen before. What a great show! (I told Melanie that I have a “man crush” on the host, Bear Gryll. It’s nothing untoward, just means he’s so cool, I want to be his best friend.) If you’ve never seen it either, he’s a former British SAS who has also climbed Everest. At the beginning of each episode, he’s dropped into some wilderness with only a knife, a canteen, and a flint and steel, and he must survive until he walks back into civilization. It’s not completely reality, as he has a camera crew with him and they create certain scenarios to illustrate survival concepts, but he still has to get his own water and food and make his own shelter.
Anyway, once we landed, Granddad was waiting for us in the terminal. As soon as we got home, she rushed out into the backyard where he showed her how to gather up pecans from the ground. That’s them in the photo up there.
With all the attention she’s going to get over the next week from her aunt and uncles and grandparents, how will we ever take her back home?
Next week some time, Melanie has arranged a meet-up with other Catholic bloggers in the Austin area, so that should be lots of fun. Other than that, we have no agenda but to relax and have fun.
More snow foibles
To update from yesterday, we ended up with nearly a foot of snow on the ground, but the worst part was what it did to the commute. Not everyone was a prescient as me — ahem, I left at noon — and by the time people were leaving work around 2, the snow was already sticking and creating a mess. It was the commute from hell for many people.
My poor sister was traveling from Norwood to Peabody—a journey that normally takes about an hour without traffic—with her 4 kids and husband and while they started at 1 pm they didn’t get home until after 6 and perhaps almost 7. Some folks at work who didn’t leave early were still stuck there as late as 8 pm.
On the other hand, I breezed right home even faster than usual and the snow only started sticking just as I got a few miles from home.
Anyway, this morning on my way in to work I noticed a few more characteristic foibles of New Englanders in the snow, mind-boggling behaviors that make you wonder what they’re thinking. For one thing, I saw people using snow blowers to blast snow out into the street as cars are driving by. For one thing, it obscures their vision. For another, it undoes the plowing, making the street slick and difficult to drive on.
Then there are the people who are too much in a hurry to take the snow off their cars. I have seen people literally dig out portholes in the front and back windows and driver’s and passenger’s windows, leaving everything else covered, including headlights, taillights, and directional signals. Not to mention the eight-inch-thick slab of snow on the roof that comes flying off in one great mass as soon as the rocket scientists hits highway speeds.
Driving in to work this morning, I saw cars entombed on the side of the road, cars abandoned in the middle of the street, folks walking on heavily traveled byways because the sidewalks were covered and more.
A few years ago, after an even bigger storm, my car got stuck in a snow bank because some coffee-junky parked his Subaru Outback on a narrow corner of a barely plowed street outside a Starbucks, forcing me to swing wide and into an unplowed abyss.
Wow, I don’t usually start getting this antsy about snow stupidity until sometime in February. I must be getting old. I should move to Texas.
Dutch priest, French saint, Texas BBQ
What fun! Fr. Roderick Vonhogen, the Dutch priest behind the Catholic podcast network SQPN was in Austin this weekend for a young adult conference. And today he was to con-celebrate Mass and be the homilist at Melanie’s home parish, St. Louis King of France Parish.
Since we couldn’t be there, I told Melanie’s mom, Pat, about it (and that Fr. Roderick called the choir—which she’s in—excellent) so she met him at Mass and went out with him and a group for breakfast afterward (or lunch, since it was a BBQ place). Pretty cool. I look forward to hearing his impressions in his next Daily Breakfast podcast. Especially what he thought of the Mass at St. Louis, with the dozen altar servers and all the beauty and pageantry possible in a Mass of the Ordinary Use.
My mother-in-law sounded like she had a good time too and was favorably impressed with Father’s homily. Darn, missed opportunities. Living vicariously through my mom-in-law.
Roadside digital mural will lead to accidents
That image is the new headquarters of WGBH, the public broadcasting powerhouse that originates in Boston. The building sits next to the Massachusetts Turnpike in Brighton, and in fact, juts out over the highway. Over the past few months they’ve been doing some work on the side of the building and just this week switched on a giant “digital mural,” which the rest of us would call a TV billboard. To be sure, this isn’t broadcasting TV shows, but it is showing moving images.
Does anyone else think this is a bad idea? I drive this route every day and yesterday was the first day it was switched on. There’s a straight stretch of highway headed eastbound just before it, about a half mile long. That thing is jumping and moving and is distraction from the road. How long before the first accidents caused by driver distraction? Didn’t anyone think about this?
I’m also worried about the trend. How long before regular billboards are replaced by jumping and moving video images designed to distract even more? Do-gooders are trying to ban cell-phone use while driving. Is that more distracting than a video billboard?
Whatever the intent, this is just more visual pollution and a road hazard.
P.S. Last week, while they were testing it, the mural was displaying a gigantic yards tall and wide Microsoft Windows error message. I wish I’d photographed it. I can’t wait for the first blue screen of death.
Photo by Jeff Goldberg/Boston Herald
Latin in Maine and the Boston-LA connection
I feel like we’ve driven 500 miles this past weekend. Not quite but not far off either. In fact we drove more than 330 miles, first to Maine and then home, then to Newport, Rhode Island, then to a little town in Connecticut and home again. Poor Isabella started squawking every time I tried to put her back in the car.
Of course, it was all worth it in the end because we visited my mom and my sister at their house in Windham, Maine; attended the Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Missal at the cathedral in Portland; traveled to Newport, Rhode Island to meet up with Karen Hall and drive with her to Connecticut for lunch at the home of the parents of Barbara Nicolosi.
Maine and the Mass of Bl. John XXIII
Let’s start at the top. We headed to Maine on Saturday morning, making good time by avoiding the Friday night rush. first stopped by a farm stand that had some animals out for petting, including a llama that took a liking to Isabella’s hair. Then we took a jaunt by a park and then picked up some lobsters. (Only the second ones I’d had all summer.) On Sunday, my mom wanted to go out for breakfast before Mass, but miscalculated on how long it would take on the holiday weekend and we missed our Mass. Our only other options were the ExtraForm Mass at Immaculate Conception Cathedral at noon or a Spanish Mass at St. Dominic’s at 12:15. Now, mind you Isabella had very little nap the day before, did not get a full night’s sleep that night and now had not had a nap yet.
I was afraid we were on the edge of a full-blown cranky child meltdown. To top it off, I was dressed for a vacation-weekend Mass, not a ExtraForm Mass (i.e. I wasn’t wearing a suit or tie). On the other hand, a Spanish Mass was likely to be a whole lot longer. So we went to my first Mass of the Extraordinary Form of the Missal of Bl. John XXIII.
What did I think?, you’re asking. Um, it was long. And quiet. Yes, I know a low Mass is not necessarily a good first introduction, but my main impression was that I understand the desire for authentic reform. The fact that the prayers were said inaudibly bugged me. Yes, I know I can sort of follow along in a missal (if I’d had one), but only in an approximate “He’s probably saying this prayer now” sense. Certainly, there was plenty of reverence and I was impressed by the precision shown by the altar boys. I didn’t catch the name of the priest who celebrated the Mass, but he was very elderly and when he spoke in English he spoke. Very. Slowly. But when he prayed in Latin hespokeveryrapidly. The homily was a half hour if it was a minute, which is unfortunate because he could have said what he did in 20 minutes if he didn’t. Speak. So. Slowly.
So we went to my first Mass of the Extraordinary Form of the Missal of Bl. John XXIII.
Okay, maybe that’s not fair, since what he did say was pretty good if a bit heavy-handed. Um, Catholics weren’t actually the first people in the New World. I believe that honor goes to the Indians. I think he meant that Catholics were the first Europeans in the New World, not Protestants. And I think Father should have written his homily down beforehand because it was quite clearly stream-of-consciousness and off the cuff, going on until he ran out of things to say.
In the end, I’m glad the Extraordinary Form of the Mass is available and I’m glad that Pope Benedict gave us the motu proprio. But I’m fairly certain that it’s not something I would want on a regular basis, not in that form. Oh and we did not have a child meltdown. Melanie did take her out during part of the homily, changed her diaper in the car, gave her a piece of bagel, and when she brought her back the homily was still going on.
Newport and Connecticut and Karen and Barbara
So today, we got up bright and early to head down to Newport. I’d got wind on Karen’s blog that she was going to be in the area (and Rhode Island counts as “in the area” for people from Boston) and asked if she’d be available for lunch during her visit. Somehow we ended up invited to Barbara’s family’s house for lunch and off we went. We met Karen and Barbara and Barbara’s sister at Karen’s hotel. (They were only 15 minutes late; Sorry, Karen, couldn’t resist.) Unfortunately, I’d missed Karen’s last message which told me to call her to get directions directly to Barbara’s family’s house in Connecticut. But it was a nice country drive anyway.
We had a great time chatting, although between Barbara and Karen (and Barbara’s mom, who’s a real pistol!), I’m not sure I got more than a few dozen words in the whole time. 
Of course, Melanie and I were constantly having to chase Isabella who managed to destroy only one breakable during the visit. (I’m still cringing.)
Nevertheless, I had great fun listening to them talk about Hollywood and the crazy people they meet and the bizarreness that is the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. We also started making plans for a St. Blog’s Parish Retreat (I just made that up right here) and started a list of the people who have to come. Of course, we talked about blogging and other Catholic bloggers; I’m sure more than a few ears were burning out there.
Our visit ended all too soon, but I’m hopeful we can see Karen in October when she’s supposed to swing through Boston itself.
The great thing about this gathering was how quickly we felt right at home. Being an orthodox Catholic is a small enough fraternity sometimes, but being a St. Blog’s blogger is an even smaller one so you feel an instant affinity and comfort when you meet. It was quite amazing, but maybe not so when you consider what amazing people Karen and Barbara are.
I was also quite pleased by a very nice gift Karen gave me of a first draft script of an episode of “Jericho” she wrote last season. She’d remembered me saying that it was one of my favorite new shows of the season and brought it along. She also brought an only slightly embarrassing photo of one of the stars of “Heroes” taken at a New Year’s Party at his house.
Incidentally, Karen has a very interesting perspective on the intramural Church wars and how she can be friends with Catholic folks she thinks are completely off-the-wall theologically. I’m thinking more about what she said and will have to mull it for some time. Food for thought.
What’s your local fave place to eat?
New York foodie Ed Levine was just waxing poetic about local faves, those places you go for authentic local food and he highlights a candidate in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, called Oxford Creamery.
Meanwhile, last night I watched the latest episode of Alton Brown’s show “Feasting on Asphalt 2: The River Run,” in which he stopped at a local roadhouse in Illinois for some ridiculously inexpensive, high quality food.
That got me to thinking about my local faves, although I think I need to define what that is. Launching from Levine’s springboard, I will advance the completely arbitrary definition of a local fave as a local place that serves good, home-style food at a low cost and where you’ll find primarily local folks being served by a (generally) happy and welcoming staff. Even better if it’s not a place that’s ever been written up in a bestselling book about food and restaurants, featured in a magazine’s “best-of”, or lauded in a TV show.
The no-chains rule eliminates the first one that comes to mind for me: Kelly’s Roast Beef. Kelly’s is a Boston tradition, starting with a single outlet on Revere Beach, selling, well, roast beef, but ironically more famous for the fried clams. But over the past decade or so, they’ve opened up several quite slick locations around Boston, so I have to eliminate them from my list.
On the other hand, the Clam Box in Ipswich would qualify, except I’m pretty sure they’ve been featured in plenty of best-of books and magazines. Likewise for Woodman’s in Essex. No, I think I have to get even more local.
And I think I need to add another qualification and this is bound to be controversial: a local fave needs to serve more than one meal, and perhaps must serve breakfast. Arbitrary, maybe, but I think that it’s a sign that the establishment is truly a part of the local fabric because it meets a variety of needs.
So who does make the list? In Salem, I think Red’s fits the bill. Yes, yes, I know, Red’s has won “Best of Boston” and similar awards on a consistent basis, but you have to go there to see why it must be included. The place opens at an ungodly hour, like 5 am or something, to serve early rising workers or outdoorsmen. It has counter service. The menu is a slice of Americana, serving all the comfort food you can imagine and nothing exotic. While tourists come in, it’s a place that locals frequent. And it’s been there forever.
Moving outside of Salem, I would also nominate Chute’s in Windham, Maine. My mom and my sister live in Windham and whenever we’re up there, we stop at Chute’s after Sunday Mass. It’s a small, local place with friendly waitresses who call you hon’ and serve fresh-baked muffins and pies and you feel like you’ve stepped back in time. And it’s not going to be featured in any travel magazines.
So am I off-base? Should the definition of “local fave” be expanded? Am I being too picky and parochial? What’s your local fave?
A day in the sun
The nice thing about working for the Church is that holy days of obligations are days off. So after going to Mass on Wednesday, I’m going to spend the day with family and friends.
My friend Andy—who’s been living in Louisiana the last couple of years working as youth and music minister for a couple of parishes—is back in town for vacation so a bunch of us are taking off for the day to Bradley Palmer State Park in Ipswich. It’s a bucolic little park, not very close to anything and not much besides trails inside…
Except, a very nice wading pool for kids. This place is great. There’s several features that throw water in various directions; it’s fenced in so that kids can’t wander too far; there are picnic tables and grills; and while it’s always packed—especially on near-90 days like Wednesday promises to be—it’s never overwhelming, at least on weekdays when everyone else has to be working.
I’m very excited because I haven’t been able to see Isabella at the pool this year and Melanie says she’s taken to it like, well, a fish to water if you’ll excuse the cliche.
Speaking of Isabella, she’s had a cute little episode the other day when she found my old belt and wanted to wear it like I do. So I wrapped it around her several times and latched it. It still hung down like a cowboys gunbelt, but she was very happy with her fashion statement and spent quite some time staring at herself in the floor-length mirror and laughing uproariously.
Here’s the video of it:
All aboard the USS Constitution
What a fantastic day! I’ve uploaded my set of photos to Flickr. A YouTube video of the 21-gun salute is also available.
For those of you joining me late, my dad gave me the coolest gift, which was to sail aboard the USS Constitution during her annual July Fourth cruise around Boston harbor. He is friends with a former captain of the ship, who gave Dad his own tickets. My dad knows what a nut I am about old ships and so he invited me to go.
I met my dad at the boarding line about 8:30 am at the Charlestown Navy Yard. Everyone in the line as well as the whole crew were very excited. We quickly learned that the day would include an assisted sail (the Constitution does not sail under her own power anymore, but must be assisted by tugs) out to Castle Island in South Boston and back. We would have several admirals aboard as well as several ship captains and a group of people becoming naturalized citizens during a ceremony while underway.
We were pretty much given the run of the ship and explored a bit. The crew was helpful and friendly and snappy in their period uniforms. In a bit of an anachronism, the crew has both men and women, but they all looked very young. (I’m getting so old.)
For the occasion I wore my USS Ronald W. Reagan, CVN-76, hat to honor our nation’s 40th president and the Navy. My dad, a Navy veteran of the Korean War era, had his Navy hat. We calculated that it had been more than 50 years since he mustered out of the service. More than one sailor he talked to thanked him for his service to the country.
The ceremony was properly full of ritual and pomp. The Navy Band played the classics, like “Washington Post” (if you don’t know the name you recognize the tune from the last graduation you attended probably) and others.
Highest honors to our heroes
Technorati Tags: Fourth of July | Independence Day | USS Constitution | Old Ironsides | Boston | US Navy |
The coolest Fourth ever
Update: I've now put up a post with photos, video, and my impressions of this awesome day.
I’m going to have the coolest Independence Day ever and I think it will be hard for anyone to top. That’s because I will be spending my Fourth aboard the world’s oldest commissioned warship, the USS Constitution, during it’s annual turnaround cruise in Boston Harbor.
My dad knows a former commanding officer of the ship known as “Old Ironsides” and some time ago promised me that he would ask his friend about getting us onboard for the cruise. I’d forgotten all about it until today when he called me to tell me not to make any plans for the Fourth.
You have to understand that the Constitution is my favorite historical or tourist attraction in Boston, a city full of historical or tourist attractions. I love square-rigged ships from the Age of Sail. I devoured the Horatio Hornblower and Aubrey-Maturin book series.
On the ship’s bicentennial, when the Navy sailed it from Boston to Marblehead, I got up at some ungodly hour before dawn to photograph it from the shore in that early morning light.
So yeah, this is big. Very big.
I plan to take a lot of photos and video. I tried to convince Melanie that I need a better camera to take said photos but she looked at me funny and said I didn’t. She just doesn’t understand. Sigh.
Technorati Tags: USS Constitution | Old Ironsides | Fourth of July | Independence Day | Boston |
Fun things to do on a sunny Saturday afternoon in early Spring
It was a beautiful early spring day here on the North Shore of Massachusetts and we wanted to get out and about. So we hopped in the car and headed north.
The nice thing about the North Shore, constituting the coastal towns of Essex County north of Boston to the New Hampshire border, are all the ways to get around without getting on a highway. Many times we’ll drive up Route 127 through Beverly and Manchester-by-the-sea , past “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it” Magnolia into famed Gloucester and Rockport.
But this time we decided to head up Route 1A. Melanie had mentioned a farm she’d been to called Russell Orchards and I was curious where it was. As usual for these trips we had no itinerary and would go wherever the urge led. So we headed up Route 1A, which would take us to Cape Ann. As we got to North Beverly, crawling through weekend traffic the whole way, we stopped at our favorite bread bakery, Great Harvest. Everything is made on the premises and they even mill their own wheat for the freshest possible flour, which means their bread lasts forever even without preservatives. By early afternoon the selection was meager, but we did get a loaf of honey whole wheat along with a couple of cookies and a turtle bar. Isabella, who’d been cranky so far, immediately brightened up at the prospect of some very fresh bread.
We continued on our way through the very tony towns of Wenham and Hamilton, past early American and colonial-era homes worth a small fortune plus a lot of horse and vegetable farms.
Incipient Spring
Technorati Tags: Massachusetts | North Shore | Ipswich | Rowley | Beverly | Crane Beach | Plum Island | fun things to do on a Saturday afternoon |
Bah humbug to Halloween in Salem
So today is Halloween and like every year I will blog about how bad it is here in Salem. Evidently, my neighbors are beginning to agree. Starting with the first weekend in October, the traffic congestion on Saturdays and Sundays grows and grows until by the end of the month, you just don’t bother going out on the weekends. On Halloween, nearly the entire center of the city is shut down so that tens of thousands of people can come in and wander around the streets in costume. Not that there’s anything for them to do: the bars fill to capacity nearly right away, the restaurants are packed as well, and the haunted houses have long, long lines. And so they wander around. While public drinking is forbidden, that doesn’t seem to stop many folks.
Our city leaders claim that we need Halloween as our city’s economic engine. I doubt it provides the dollars they think it does. For one thing, many of the businesses that set up for the month are operated by out-of-towners who take their cash, come November 1, and head for warmer climes. Yeah, the restaurants and bars make money and the kid working the haunted houses for minimum wage. But what about the costs? How much business is lost because folks are scared away by the milling and sometimes rowdy crowds? How much money is spent on the suffocating police presence? This year they’ve set up a mobile command center and put up video surveillance around town. They say they don’t want a repeat of last year’s stabbings. Unfortunately, there’s been a warning of possible gang activity. Oh joy.
Afternoon in the museum
One of the few benefits of being unemployed is the opportunity to do things during the day with Melanie and Isabella. Today, we went to the Peabody-Essex Museum here in Salem for its Painting Summer in New England exhibit. As residents of the city we get in for free, which is a price you can’t beat. It seems, though, that it’s well worth the price of regular admission since this has been the museum’s most popular exhibit ever.
(N.B. The museum is one of the oldest in the country, originally founded as a ship captain’s club. When they brought back treasures from their jaunts around the globe, they’d display them in the club. In fact, the Oriental galleries were the original exhibits of the museum.)
The Summer in New England exhibit includes some of the most well known American painters, including John Singer Sargent, Andrew Wyeth, Winslow Homer, Maxfield Parrish, and even Normal Rockwell, as well as many lesser known but also talented artists. The styles varied from realism to impressionism to abstract to pop art and on. It’s very nice with a lot of art I really liked (as well as some that left me cold.) The curators engaged in a little of the standard art-criticism twaddle in some of the descriptions (bringing in irrelevancies like one artist’s bisexuality and how it supposedly influenced his painting, making it “detached” and “awkward.” Huh?)
My favorite, I think, was Maxfield Parrish’s “Hunt Farm”. This print doesn’t really do it justice. The colors on the original are much deeper and the light is magical, almost evocative of a fantasy or fairy world. He also used a glaze atop the painting that works almost like a polyutherane coating on a hardwood floor: bringing out the colors and the grain. (This link to a story about the whole exhibition has a much better reproduction, as well as examples of the other works.)
Bella was very good for most of the show. We made it through four of the five galleries before she started squawking about her dirty diaper. She was very popular among the other art patrons and museum employees, drawing almost as much attention as the paintings. Unfortunately, the paintings didn’t excite her much at this point. We’ll have to wait a year or two.
I always say I have to remember to visit the museum more often. It’s a privilege I don’t take advantage of enough.
Technorati Tags:art, museum, New England, painthings, Peabody-Essex, Salem, summer
