new encounters with dawn.

Well now that I'm more than halfway through the trip, maybe, just maybe, I should take the record of it beyond the airport. Having arrived in the hotel to a crushing sense of "it's two in the morning, I'm alone in a big city, this doona cover is horrible, and I have to speak in public tomorrow", I found it rather difficult to get to sleep. I woke up the next morning to an actually painful sense of exhaustion, somehow gathered myself into what I think was a presentable state and went to confront the breakfast buffet.

Now I know that this was a more expensive hotel than the one in which I stayed in in London, but the breakfast buffet was an interesting cultural exchange: both described as Continental (though not specifying which continent) but London:
White sliced bread, plastic cheese, truly awful jam, cheap tea and instant coffee.
US: doughnuts, bagels, croissants, fruit, yoghurt, waffles, brewed coffee, selection of cereal, breads of various denominations.... and it went on.

The whole doughnut (heh! pun) for breakfast thing: strangely alluring when you've had no sleep, but does inspire the thought: "If I continue to eat this much sugar I will be going home with a candied leg."

So anyway, after the breakfast interlude, I went on my way to the conference. I'm told that I was coherent during my presentation, but couldn't honestly contribute to that debate, as I can't quite remember what I said. I was happy to hear that I was, as I was revising it while I was speaking, which is always an interesting approach to take when you're not completely conscious. It was a deep relief to get it over with fairly early in the conference and then be able to relax. The other speakers in the session were very interesting, and they became my conference buddies for the rest of the weekend, as we bonded over snacks after our papers, which revived me sufficiently to get through another couple of sessions and the drinks reception that followed. I then decided to walk back to the hotel, which was a nice, if bleary, way to finally encounter the streets of Philadelphia (sing it!).

The location was really good, as it meant I got to walk through Philadelphia's old city, the earliest part of Philly, where Independance Hall is, assorted statues wearing frock coats, that kind of thing. Something about signing some sort of declaration. The surrounding blocks have now become overrun with the national constitution centre, national history of this or that etc. The following day was some more presentations, then the conference lunch, which provided me both with a chicken wrap featuring grapes, and a few moments of amusement. I should preface this by saying that the conference was divided into various streams - so I was in Art, Design and Architecture, then there was childhood studies, sci fi, music, fashion, etc, as well as American culture and death: and so when, during the lunchtime announcements which went on interminably and to which not much attention was being paid, I couldn't help finding a certain element of humour to the minute's silence that was called to remember "so and so, the former convenor of the Death studies panel". Finally, some primary research....

And then I went on a tour of a cemetery. Which also had it's moments of hilarity. The cemetery itself, Woodlands, was fascinating, as old cemeteries are, both for their social history aspects, and the melange of styles of sculpture that compete for attention. What was entertaining was our tour guides, who were both older gentlemen, clearly fascinated by the subject, clearly very good at what they did, and clearly hadn't rehearsed how sharing the tour guide role would work - so one would dart off in one direction while the other did in the opposite - and then one would randomly stop in the middle of nowhere, tell a very interesting anecdote about one of the graves but conclude it by saying "I've lost where the grave actually is though". One of my favourites was the following exchange, while looking at the largest headstone in the place (about two stories high):
"Now this isn't a true obelisk"
"Why not?"
"Because a true obelisk is made out of one piece of stone, and as we can see this made out of many stones"
"So what do you call this?"
"An obelisk"

Only followed when we stopped to discuss that a cenotaph is when the body is buried somewhere else and a headstone is place in memory of them, "as we can see this woman was buried in Kansas"..... [as we walked away, sotto voce] ... "with Dorothy."

When we returned to the hotel we went to another couple of sessions, which having woken up at 4.30 am, I have virtually no memory of, and then to the hotel bar, for red wine (and rioja is our friend is it not?) and flatbread pizzas, which I think was all that bar could actually make in any neighbourhood of edibility, but which they did very well. Then, back to my hotel, sleep, coffee, doughnuts....

The Philadelphia Museum of Art {gasp}... excellent! Having woken up at six am, I was there on the dot of opening (which I was very happy about as the queues were out the door by the time I left). Scoffing heartily at the idea that I would want to see the Renoir exhibition, I proceeded into the general collection. The Philly is shaped in a big U, with the ground floor on one side being American art and on the other European impressionism and modern art, so probably the biggest hits of their collection, the impressionism was fairly standard compared to other US collections, though outstanding compared to any Australian one. Cezanne's large bathers was something you travel to see though, one of those art history one-oh-one paintings, as is Renoir's bathers, with the key difference being that one was fascinating and entrancing, and one made me want to gag. I proceed fairly rapidly through the Impressionist/post-Impressionist section and got into the more interesting modern and contemporary arm. Which is really interestingly presented, not strictly divided according to time/location, but brings out themes and parallels. A small chapel is dedicated to Brancusi, with some Mondrian, which is really excellent, and then the Duchamp collection! Nude descending a staircase! {can't verbalise}

Upstairs: European history, excellent medieval pieces, and a lot of installations set up as rooms, so "French sitting room 17th century" "cloisters" etc, that they'd wholesale moved to the museum. Which are both excellent and highlight the different resources of Australian and American galleries/museums: both feel same sense of inadequacy due to distance from European tradition, one bleats and creates nationalistic sheep backlash paintings, one tries to transplant as much of it as possible. Amazing what a slightly different approach to philanthropy can do.

Then, to remind Judas and Thomas of the good ol' days, I decided to walk back to the hotel, to see the other side of central Philadelphia. And found a Gap outlet. Happy $12 pants. Met for final drinks, then we found an Excellent mexican restaurant, oh my the salsa.