me, OCTOBER was my last post.
What I do like though, is that every so often I get emails from the blog counter thingy, (lower right), telling me that another thousand people have viewed my blog, but that - according to the stats I so narcissisticly seek out - the only reason that people keep finding my blog is that they are googling "colouring in Jesus" and they find my post about visiting New York because I linked here while ranting about the history of Western Christian painting and it gives me a consistent ponderance as to what they think when it is my blog they find. Well, assuming they discover the link they think "well good, now I have a picture for the kids to colour on Sunday". But personally, I like to think I challenge their whole view of Western art history, the didactic nature of same, and really, everything that's happened, ever.
I hope they get those brass pin things that you can shove through paper and then spread out so that you can make cut out figures of Jesus where the arms and legs move. There are two things I remember from my early days as a Sunday School pupil and they are:
1) the metal chairs. supremely uncomfortable but with an appealing aesthetic that practically made me dance when I discovered the Exact Same Chairs at Tilley's 17 years later and a reasonably loyal - or at least repetitive - attendee of Tilley's ever since, despite hating almost everything about the place.*
2) The brass (maybe?) pins that did the splits so you could colour in and then cut out the torso & head section of Jesus (or other assorted religious figure) and then attach arms and legs, and hey presto, moving Jesus.
* Tilley's is often treated as a bit of a religion in Canberra - not inappropriate, given the stylistic heritage of their outdoor settings - but let me, if you will, rant, because, Oh My Word. The place drives me up the wall. Because yes, they have excellent, if uncomfortable chairs, that I obviously have a very personal connection with, and they have painted their ceiling red, which is always a plus, and they have velvet curtains, also good, and on occasions they have bands playing Canberra which means I don't have to see them at the ANU Bar which always makes me want to smack an undergraduate Because They Are Children And Can't Handle Liquor, and also wifi, even though they don't have enough powerpoints in the place to really make it a generous offer - and I think that's it: they promise so much, but refuse to deliver, right from the teetering brink of the cusp of we were about to single-handedly make Canberra a blissful paradise. Firstly, they set themselves up as a heavenly red roomed cafe where you can loiter for hours and study undisturbed bar for a regularly impeccable classics jazz soundtrack, but then, they can't make coffee. Just to smack you in the face: we have purpose built an ideal habitat for you, but denied you the very crux of the point of doing so: you will wait for longer than you took to gestate, order said beverage, and then we will give you a cup of bitter filth. Which brings me to, secondly, They Charge A Lot, refuse to offer table service, and frequently deliver below the standards of McDonalds. Seriously, I have had better coffee from a franchise that advertises with a clown. You have to queue with everyone in the place for AN INSANE AMOUNT of time, and then they deliver below the very proximity of goodness. Thirdle, okay, that's a typo, that I just corrected, but then had to go back and change because how much should thirdle be a word?, Thirdly, the staff. You order your beverage, knowing how truly awful it is going to be, and the staff give you the "I am doing you SUCH a favour, you should lick between my toes" attitude: if you hate working here so much - and clearly I would, so sympathy, sister (as it invariably is) - Get. Another. Job. At least up until recently, they have been around fairly plentifully. It's not like I think you have a great job and therefore should be enjoying it, but I've done jobs I haven't liked as well, but the point is: you're being paid to serve. So serve. You aren't doing me a favour, you're being paid to do this. In fact, I've just done half your job by standing here wait to ask for my "coffee" and then wait for an inordinate amount of time for you to make the damn thing, so Happy Faces. Fourthly, when you go to see a gig and they make you stand in the rain because they are incapable of managing a system whereby you've paid quite a bit for tickets and you don't have to stand in the street. Fifthly, the staff - bless their arrogant little hearts - don't ever seem to quite know what is going on, so whenever you call them, with those stumbling brainteasers: "What time does the gig start?", "What time do the doors open?", "Can we book a table?" or the brain-exploding "Will you be serving food at this event?" you get a different answer from every member of staff, none of which is conclusive, until you turn up to said event and just discover as you go whatever regime they have installed. Sixly, the imppossibility of keeping the kitchen open for an event. so: a) they are a restaurant. b) they have sold out (because, 6.i, they only put bands on they know are going to sell the venue out, and are still game enough to have that "Keeping music live" banner: long have I wanted to add a subtitle "as long as the musicians have proven their commerical value"), c) they know there is going to be an hour and a half between the doors opening and the band playing. So, in consequence, they offer cheese plates. Which sell out. And then refuse to allow you to bring additional food from the handily located supermarket "because we still have cake". I'VE JUST HAD A BOTTLE OF RED AND A WHEEL OF BRIE I CAN'T HAVE CAKE. I NEED SAVORY CARBS, SAVORY! DAMN YOU."
So whenever someone suggests we have brunch at Tilley's on the weekend I have to make alternative arrangements.
*deep breath*
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Friday, January 23, 2009
Friday, August 08, 2008
Give us this day our daily cheeseburger
unknown artist, Armenia
Forty Martyrs of Sebaste
Late 17th century
tempera on wood panel
Queensland Art Gallery
Friday, June 27, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
rantpost: How art made the world
I’m a shocking hypocrite when it comes to arts broadcasting, happy to rant and rail that the yarts doesn’t get enough coverage on tv, but scathingly critical whenever anyone attempts it. I was pondering this as I ranted away, watching “How art made the world” this evening, a documentary, about how art made the world. One of my problems with such documentaries is the pace of them. It seems to take an unending length of time to actually get to any point, and you really don’t need to provide any detailed evidence – the occasional reference to an ancient text and a Californian academic, and you’re right as rain to assert how the ancient Greeks felt about realism.
Tonight’s episode discussed the question of why humans distort the body when they depict it.
This practice apparently started with Venus of Willendorf, 25 000 years ago, one of the earliest sculptures ever discovered. It’s strange how things are talked about has having “started” with the earliest example we’ve yet found, the implication being that we found the very first one ever. And it just happened to be in Europe, entrenching the notion that that is where civilsation in any meaningful sense truly took flight. It was entertaining to hear the description of it as a complete figure and then have the reveal and see a figure with no arms, legs that stop below the knee and who seems to have a crocheted beanie pulled down over her head. Of course, he meant complete as in the figure was complete as it was made, hence its interest to the topic of the program: why the omissions of some parts of the figure and the exaggeration of others (breasts, hips, genitals)? Which I thought was stunningly obvious, but that’s where the opportunity arose to bring in seagulls, so who am I to comment?
This required endless footage of seagulls, just in case you spent the past couple of years melding with your toilet, and don't remember what they look like. Why, in a program about art, is so much time devoted to showing us seagulls and imagining a time line of world history by looking at a row of trees? Anyway, because seagulls recognise the red stripe on their mother's beak as the thing to bash for food, and will also bash sticks with a red stripe on them in an attempt to get food, and hence if seagulls were to open an art gallery they would put a stick on the wall with a red stripe and be strangely drawn to contemplate it. I thought that they would be drawn to bash it with their faces, but there you go. It is demonstrated therefore, that the human propensity to exaggerate the physical aspects of female bodies in early sculpture is a fertility thing. Well, just lucky they did that study about seagulls in the 50s or heaven knows when we could have ever figured that out.
I paraphrase: After a 100 000 years or so, of humans being nomads, there was a bit of weather, and sustainability became an issue. No one came up with the idea of Earth Hour, so instead they settled around the Nile, and founded Egypt. By 5000 BC Egypt was one of the first fully settled cities on earth with a stable agricultural and government systems. The first to use images of the body in art. Instead of exaggerating physical features as they did in Willendorf they created a stylised figure that was depicted according to a proportional grid that governed Egyptian art for millenia. To understand what this must have been like, we were asked to imagine that Picasso's works were the only image that we saw of the human figure depicted ever. A strangely irrelevant comparison, and one that seemed to imply that Egyptians were entirely muddled by only seeing people represented in one way, and could not read them as bearing particular meanings. It seemed strange to just discuss the human figure isolated from any other aspect of their art, especially hieroglyphs.
Ancient Greek statues would answer the question of why we depict people, if anything possibly could. Now there’s a shock. I paraphrase again: Ancient Greeks were fixated with the body, and they had very set ideas about what the body should look like. The more physically perfect you were, the more godlike you were seen to be. The Greek artists did something that no one had ever done before: they used their eyes. And came up with a greater realism than anyone ever had before. After going to Egypt and discovering that sculpture could be lifesize, or even larger! Although undoubtedly the Greeks came up with technical innovations and extraordinarily beautiful sculpture, to say that no other artists had ever used their eyes before is just bizarre. Realism perhaps became a goal that it had not been before, thus realism in their work is an expression of that, in the same way that the "Venus" is an expression of its maker's value of fertility. Anyway, they achieved realism, looked at it, and decided it was dull. Polyclitus figured out how to make it more interesting again by moving things around to depict a sense of movement in the figure. Everything had been leading to this! They created something more human than human! And so they went back to exaggeration! A strangely circular argument: earlier "primitive" art used exaggeration, the Greek's took us where we had never been before... and so they went back to exaggeration! Then the 5th century bronze warrior statues were declared the best sculptures ever. Quite a claim. I haven't seen them, so maybe when I do I'll have a bit of a Damascus, but although I can see they're stunning, to say that they are the pinnacle of sculpture seems at a tad hyperbolic.
But, this is why bodies in art look the way they do, because we humans don’t like reality. What we choose to exaggerate is "where the science gets left behind and the magic comes in."
Throw forward to a glimpse of Michelangelo & Henry Moore, and we're done.
Motivating the whole show seemed to be the idea that where art ended up, in say, 1950, was some how inevitable in 25 000 BC, rather than it being based on looking at what was around in 1950 and reading back into history, based on available, surviving examples. That isn't necessarily a bad way to discuss what artists in 1950 were doing, afterall, they were looking at those examples, but sweeping generalisations bug me. Particularly because what artists were doing in Papua New Guinea in 1950 had nothing to do with Ancient Greece, and distorted the body in specific and unique ways, and somehow they were "made" by Egyptian and European art... It's not impossible that I'm slightly overexposed, but the examples to make his case were so Art History 101 I couldn't really understand the point of making another documentary about it.
The ABC then proved me wrong by showing a great documentary about art half an hour later, about a community of Aboriginal people who started painting in 2002. They were forced to leave their traditional land in the 1960s by a drought, and had never returned. Last year a trip was arranged and the community travelled the four days it takes to return to their homeland. It was incredibly moving to see their return to the place they had been yearning for, and I found it fascinating to see how they painted in a contemporary form (ie acrylics on canvas) in their traditional visual language, to respond to this hugely emotive event.
Tonight’s episode discussed the question of why humans distort the body when they depict it.
This practice apparently started with Venus of Willendorf, 25 000 years ago, one of the earliest sculptures ever discovered. It’s strange how things are talked about has having “started” with the earliest example we’ve yet found, the implication being that we found the very first one ever. And it just happened to be in Europe, entrenching the notion that that is where civilsation in any meaningful sense truly took flight. It was entertaining to hear the description of it as a complete figure and then have the reveal and see a figure with no arms, legs that stop below the knee and who seems to have a crocheted beanie pulled down over her head. Of course, he meant complete as in the figure was complete as it was made, hence its interest to the topic of the program: why the omissions of some parts of the figure and the exaggeration of others (breasts, hips, genitals)? Which I thought was stunningly obvious, but that’s where the opportunity arose to bring in seagulls, so who am I to comment?
This required endless footage of seagulls, just in case you spent the past couple of years melding with your toilet, and don't remember what they look like. Why, in a program about art, is so much time devoted to showing us seagulls and imagining a time line of world history by looking at a row of trees? Anyway, because seagulls recognise the red stripe on their mother's beak as the thing to bash for food, and will also bash sticks with a red stripe on them in an attempt to get food, and hence if seagulls were to open an art gallery they would put a stick on the wall with a red stripe and be strangely drawn to contemplate it. I thought that they would be drawn to bash it with their faces, but there you go. It is demonstrated therefore, that the human propensity to exaggerate the physical aspects of female bodies in early sculpture is a fertility thing. Well, just lucky they did that study about seagulls in the 50s or heaven knows when we could have ever figured that out.
I paraphrase: After a 100 000 years or so, of humans being nomads, there was a bit of weather, and sustainability became an issue. No one came up with the idea of Earth Hour, so instead they settled around the Nile, and founded Egypt. By 5000 BC Egypt was one of the first fully settled cities on earth with a stable agricultural and government systems. The first to use images of the body in art. Instead of exaggerating physical features as they did in Willendorf they created a stylised figure that was depicted according to a proportional grid that governed Egyptian art for millenia. To understand what this must have been like, we were asked to imagine that Picasso's works were the only image that we saw of the human figure depicted ever. A strangely irrelevant comparison, and one that seemed to imply that Egyptians were entirely muddled by only seeing people represented in one way, and could not read them as bearing particular meanings. It seemed strange to just discuss the human figure isolated from any other aspect of their art, especially hieroglyphs.
Ancient Greek statues would answer the question of why we depict people, if anything possibly could. Now there’s a shock. I paraphrase again: Ancient Greeks were fixated with the body, and they had very set ideas about what the body should look like. The more physically perfect you were, the more godlike you were seen to be. The Greek artists did something that no one had ever done before: they used their eyes. And came up with a greater realism than anyone ever had before. After going to Egypt and discovering that sculpture could be lifesize, or even larger! Although undoubtedly the Greeks came up with technical innovations and extraordinarily beautiful sculpture, to say that no other artists had ever used their eyes before is just bizarre. Realism perhaps became a goal that it had not been before, thus realism in their work is an expression of that, in the same way that the "Venus" is an expression of its maker's value of fertility. Anyway, they achieved realism, looked at it, and decided it was dull. Polyclitus figured out how to make it more interesting again by moving things around to depict a sense of movement in the figure. Everything had been leading to this! They created something more human than human! And so they went back to exaggeration! A strangely circular argument: earlier "primitive" art used exaggeration, the Greek's took us where we had never been before... and so they went back to exaggeration! Then the 5th century bronze warrior statues were declared the best sculptures ever. Quite a claim. I haven't seen them, so maybe when I do I'll have a bit of a Damascus, but although I can see they're stunning, to say that they are the pinnacle of sculpture seems at a tad hyperbolic.
But, this is why bodies in art look the way they do, because we humans don’t like reality. What we choose to exaggerate is "where the science gets left behind and the magic comes in."
Throw forward to a glimpse of Michelangelo & Henry Moore, and we're done.
Motivating the whole show seemed to be the idea that where art ended up, in say, 1950, was some how inevitable in 25 000 BC, rather than it being based on looking at what was around in 1950 and reading back into history, based on available, surviving examples. That isn't necessarily a bad way to discuss what artists in 1950 were doing, afterall, they were looking at those examples, but sweeping generalisations bug me. Particularly because what artists were doing in Papua New Guinea in 1950 had nothing to do with Ancient Greece, and distorted the body in specific and unique ways, and somehow they were "made" by Egyptian and European art... It's not impossible that I'm slightly overexposed, but the examples to make his case were so Art History 101 I couldn't really understand the point of making another documentary about it.
The ABC then proved me wrong by showing a great documentary about art half an hour later, about a community of Aboriginal people who started painting in 2002. They were forced to leave their traditional land in the 1960s by a drought, and had never returned. Last year a trip was arranged and the community travelled the four days it takes to return to their homeland. It was incredibly moving to see their return to the place they had been yearning for, and I found it fascinating to see how they painted in a contemporary form (ie acrylics on canvas) in their traditional visual language, to respond to this hugely emotive event.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
the apple isle
After another night's rest in the Hostel of the Clanking Pipes (the central heating featured quite the echoing acoustic accompaniment and performed both its aural and thermal duties with excessive enthusiasm. The first night we didn't realise the window could open - yes yes I know, between us we may have attended uni for about twenty years, but that doesn't mean the occasional detail doesn't skip gaily past - and I woke up with the conviction that we could grow papayas in here to the sound of iron-soled clog dancers performing on a tin roof, not the best start) and went in search of breakfast. Which we found, and was okay, at least with somewhat better coffee. But was one of those places that uses disposable everything, and so had a definite moment of understanding what Gore is ranting on about when looking at disposable plate, cups, cutlery - when you are eating in for goodness sake. And the mountain of napkins that you get every single time you order any comestible item. Now, I know that I spill coffee copiously and often, but I don't think my fame actually precedes me on that score (or, for that matter, on any other, being imaginary) so it can't just be me. And anyway, a poncho would surely be more appropriate for my coffee "moments".
So then we headed off to look at more art, again, happily via Central Park. We had to wait at the Whitney to open so I got a truly awful coffee. And someone else spilled it on me, and then after cleaning it up, spilt it again, so somehow my gift is attracting other people to spill coffee on me. Quite strange. The Whitney giftshop is quite good. I then went to look at their exhibitions and after about 45 minutes realised my eyes were still tired from the previous day, so it was a bit of a trudging visit. The current exhibition of Modernism in American art, looking at the different expressions of it - not just photography and Abstract Expressionism but the broader context - was interesting, but I couldn't quite grind my brain up to speed. Then a Kara Walker exhibition - another Kara Walker exhibition - she's currently being exhibited at the Fogg, the Met and the Whitney, so the word overexposed does come to mind, especially seeing as the Fogg and the Met are exhibiting the same series and all three feature the same device (19th century-style black silhouettes). And then an exhibition of the past two years of acquisitions by the Whitney, in which the most interesting thing that I saw was Adrian Grenier. I'm a fan of Entourage, so I was very excited. And proceeded to "coincidentally" have exactly the same path through the exhibition as he did. Managed not to drool forth my enthusiasm for his work, instead keeping my stalkerage to a silent one. He's smaller than I thought.
Then we went shopping in Soho! Yay! New jeans! And enough clothes so that I wouldn't have to do any laundry before I left. We trudged homewards at about 6.30, intending quite an early night, but came across a cosy looking bar, a dumpling house and a movie theatre in immediate proximity to one another so ended up having an excellent night. The best martini that I have ever had [haaaaaaapppppy place], then 'Martian Child', the new John Cusack film, which, possibly as a result of the basin of gin I had just consumed, I did enjoy, and then a pleasing repast of steamed dumplings and grilled salmon.
Monday, after the Clanging Pipes Ensemble performed their nightly routine, our time was limited as my friend had to return to Boston, so we sallied forth to consume further quantities of flimsily constructed coffee and then visit the Natural History Museum. Which truly has an impressive dinosaur in the lobby, and there's so few places about which you can honestly make that comment, isn't there? It's a refreshing change. After the lobby we went to the gift shop, which is fantastic, over two floors, I spent more time in there than in the musuem. Some good christmas shopping was done and a shirt acquired for a Small Person who Enjoys Dinosaurs. After that we looked at stuffed mammals. The American ones were very interesting. Has anyone heard of the 'Fisher'? Kind of weird to come across whole species of mammal that you have never even heard of. Baby skunks! Cute!
Then the return trip to Port Authority, and a sad farewell :(
I consoled myself with an enormous piece of cheesecake. It was vast. And had rasperries, chocolate and hazelnuts in it. So tasty. And a wander around Time Square. I checked out what was playing that night and discovered: very little. Apparently my visit was the time in which the stagehands decided to strike. I'm all in favour of the plight of the worker and all (I mean, of easing the plight of the worker, not that they should be further enplightened), but timing people, timing. Still, at least people can still strike in America, and they aren't only offered the option of "go get another job" if the one you have isn't working out. Because that's always just so easy isn't Tony, you self-satisfied, sharp-faced prig of a man. Not everyone wants to be a miner. [ahem. rant over. well, paused.]
Then I went on a Quest. I wanted on particular toy, from one particular toy shop. Unfortunately I misremember the location of the shop, and spend a long time walking in the wrong part of town, until I eventually get directions from someone who I will maintain a small candle of appreciation for until the day that I die, and then the store is sold out. Gah. Grumpy pants firmly in place, I went ... downtown! Where all the lights are bright! More dumplings. aaaah. Happy. And a shirt with trees on it. Also, more shoes.
Friday, November 16, 2007
and so to New York
Five or so hours on a bus and we were in NYC, which is, in fact, My Happy Place. No wonder I can't do self-relaxation routines: soho exudes a different kind of peace to that of imagined autumnal forests and babbling brooks. My luggage had expanded by this point to a dimension that forbade subway travel (bad packing the night before I left, compounded by a spree in Philadelphia, sparked by a shoe store, that saw me leave as the semi-ironic owner of a pair of shoes that cost $12 and are constructed out of brown floral netting, that then spiraled out of control, all the way along South St, to incorporate a 3/4 length leather jacket ($99, thus inevitable and I feel excusable...), a pair of polka dot rainshoes and mother-of-pearl earrings emblazoned with cherries) and so required waiting forty five minutes to catch a taxi, and the same to actually drive to our hostel. I don't recommend arriving in NYC during Friday night peak hour on the eve of a long weekend. We made it, dumped our stuff, and turned around and in 15 minutes on the subway returned to where we had started out, to meet up with other painting conservators and an evening of martini, mexican food and an insight into the innards of NYC galleries.
Saturday was Met day! Having fortified ourselves with breakfast, bottomless coffee that resembled coffee in the sense of being a warm brown liquid but little else, and a walk across Central Park (which I do recommend in Fall) and make-up coffees, that this time contained taste and some measure of caffeine, if not that imparted by the happiness of espresso. We arrived at the Met at about 10.30, and left at about 4pm. In between, we examined art, lots of art. I went to the Met twice last time I was in NY and both times got suckered into the abstract expressionist corner, and not much further: the rest of modern, and the post-impressionist and inevitably the impressionist, because you can't really escape them and I felt strangely obliged to look at them, even though I'm quite, quite over the impressionist gaze and all the social and scientific advancement it heralds. So this time I was determined to at least pay a cursory glance beyond this happy corner of the museum. So I promptly got suckered into the abstract expressionists. At the moment they have an exhibition of abstract expressionism from a private collection that has just been donated to the Met, and surely solidifies its claim to have probably the finest collection of American art during this period. It wasn't just that she had bought large works by all of the key artists, but that she had such an eye for excellent examples - even a Phillip Guston that I didn't hate. So then I felt obliged, as I was nearby, to go sit with Jackson for a bit, and then Jasper, and Wassily. After that I summoned my legs to offer me carriage out of that part of the museum, and to contemplate its vastness. We took a look at the exhibition of some of the panels of Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise, which are remarkable, and then I scampered through the museum in a general state of overstimulation. The ancient near east collection for instance, or all of European art, with its endless depictions that jolt you between Jesus' birth, resurrection, babyhood and death every time you turn your head. My favourite are the ones that represent the ascension, because the hovering Jesus in a contrapposto and flowing robes always makes me think "Dancing Jesus". This is my problem with a lot, if not most, of European art, between say 1550 and 1850: it's completely insane. I'm sure when a lot of people talk about "good art", as opposed to "contemporary art", and mean painting that depicts things with as high a degree of verisimilitude as possible, and for an obvious reason (commemoration, adoration and so on), they mean this kind of painting, but when you look at it en masse, it's completely whack. The outstanding artists are all the more incredible for depicting crazy stuff in a way that seems rational. I don't mean crazy stuff as in the depiction of christianity, I just mean the manner in which it is done: entirely still figures in flowing robes of the most glorious hues, gathered around a stricken corpse with the most incredible musculature, a few stray animals, perhaps a still life in one corner, a skull in another, a peacock above, all in an unearthly landscape: the whole scene is a pastiche of symbolic elements that read a coherent narrative to those in the know, and are an effective didactic device to a largely pre-literate age, but when you encounter them now, in a room full of similar works, after eight other rooms thus overbrimming: whack. Hence my interests in the modern, the glued and the abstract.
Exiting the museum, we went in search of martini, followed by an unfortunately fruitless search downtown for "that polish place I ate in last time I was here and I think is on the next block... no the next... maybe over an avenue...". Eventually the quest was abandoned in favour of roast chicken, which was consolingly excellent.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
onwards
Monday was the final day in Philadelphia, in which I had planned originally to visit the PMA, but in a startling moment of clarity, realised that it would be shut and hence why I skipped the conference on Sunday. That meant that Monday was free for some touristy stuff. Reading Terminal markets - some interesting little stalls of Pennsylvania gifts (slightly odd looking calico Amish/Voodoo dolls being a treat that I only just managed to forgo), then lots of fresh food and food stalls. Then to the Fabric workshop (or some similar named institution) which was really interesting. Unfortunately it was located in a temporary building while its original home is being rebuilt, so there wasn't a huge deal to look at, but there were examples of the projects they create with contemporary artists - good contemporary artists (Oldenburg, Kiki Smith, Mona Hatoum) - all sorts of textile related things as well as some beautiful wallpapers. Excellent giftshop.
Then My First Cheesesteak Experience: and can I just say arraghagh, good. White roll, steak slivers, onion, cheese. If you have to induce a heart attack, this is the way to do it.
Followed, to round out the tourist adventure, by a duck tour - one of those amphibious vehicles, that took us around the streets of the old city, and then onto the Delaware River. The bit around the city was really interesting, lots of historical detail that you don't otherwise pick up on - such as the AME church that was both beautiful and one of the key stations on the underground railway, and that the paved stone streets were paved with stones originally brought over as ballast in ships that came over empty to take the products of the New World back to Europe. And some stuff about Ben Franklin, the American flag, and some of the oldest streets in America. And then we did a fairly pointless bit on the Delaware, that seemed more to demonstrate that we are in an amphibious vehicle and isn't that cool? Surely it can't have been necessary to get such a vehicle just to show us where Will Smith's dad lives (which he must certainly appreciate whenever he is out on his deck).
The next day I woke up at 4.30 in the morning again, and had to kill time until I could get breakfast, then wandered around the city, very strange for me to be up and wandering at 6am. Nice to watch a city come to life though. Lunchtime saw me board a train to go to Boston, which was great, it was definitely nice to not have to contemplate getting on another plane, and the views, especially between New York and Boston, were stunning. It was great to see the autumn colours in the landscape, and the coastline of upstate New York. No wonder they bleat on so much about their country houses, they are stunning. 6pm I arrived and was very happy to see my friend who resides in those parts.
The next day I accompanied her to Harvard, and managed to spend most of the day with her by joining in on her work morning tea and the gallery staff seminar, which was a lot of fun and very interesting. Took a look around the Fogg Museum - excellent - and spilt coffee on myself in front of the smart people of Harvard (fortunately this was at a cafe, not my friend's work place). The campus itself is lovely. And with excellent burgers.
That evening I made a truly superb risotto. I don't mean to boast, but, well, no, clearly I do, it truly was very tasty. Mushroom, asparagus and smoked tuna. Quite marvelous, I have discovered that I enjoy smoked tuna.
The following day was the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which was not dissimilar to the Philadelphia one, but perhaps with more of a focus on ancient art rather than post-1900. My perceptions are possibly skewed by their renovations, which have necessitated the temporary removal of some of the collection. There was an excellent exhibition of contemporary craft, with quite a few Australian wood work pieces that were stunning.
The gift shop is better in the Philly.
After that I left and wandered around central Boston, buying the extra bag that my incessant shopping renders inevitable. Visited the first market in Boston, which now contains very little of interest, but in a very nice building. The next day we caught the greyhound bound for New York Ciddy!
Then My First Cheesesteak Experience: and can I just say arraghagh, good. White roll, steak slivers, onion, cheese. If you have to induce a heart attack, this is the way to do it.
Followed, to round out the tourist adventure, by a duck tour - one of those amphibious vehicles, that took us around the streets of the old city, and then onto the Delaware River. The bit around the city was really interesting, lots of historical detail that you don't otherwise pick up on - such as the AME church that was both beautiful and one of the key stations on the underground railway, and that the paved stone streets were paved with stones originally brought over as ballast in ships that came over empty to take the products of the New World back to Europe. And some stuff about Ben Franklin, the American flag, and some of the oldest streets in America. And then we did a fairly pointless bit on the Delaware, that seemed more to demonstrate that we are in an amphibious vehicle and isn't that cool? Surely it can't have been necessary to get such a vehicle just to show us where Will Smith's dad lives (which he must certainly appreciate whenever he is out on his deck).
The next day I woke up at 4.30 in the morning again, and had to kill time until I could get breakfast, then wandered around the city, very strange for me to be up and wandering at 6am. Nice to watch a city come to life though. Lunchtime saw me board a train to go to Boston, which was great, it was definitely nice to not have to contemplate getting on another plane, and the views, especially between New York and Boston, were stunning. It was great to see the autumn colours in the landscape, and the coastline of upstate New York. No wonder they bleat on so much about their country houses, they are stunning. 6pm I arrived and was very happy to see my friend who resides in those parts.
The next day I accompanied her to Harvard, and managed to spend most of the day with her by joining in on her work morning tea and the gallery staff seminar, which was a lot of fun and very interesting. Took a look around the Fogg Museum - excellent - and spilt coffee on myself in front of the smart people of Harvard (fortunately this was at a cafe, not my friend's work place). The campus itself is lovely. And with excellent burgers.
That evening I made a truly superb risotto. I don't mean to boast, but, well, no, clearly I do, it truly was very tasty. Mushroom, asparagus and smoked tuna. Quite marvelous, I have discovered that I enjoy smoked tuna.
The following day was the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which was not dissimilar to the Philadelphia one, but perhaps with more of a focus on ancient art rather than post-1900. My perceptions are possibly skewed by their renovations, which have necessitated the temporary removal of some of the collection. There was an excellent exhibition of contemporary craft, with quite a few Australian wood work pieces that were stunning.
The gift shop is better in the Philly.
After that I left and wandered around central Boston, buying the extra bag that my incessant shopping renders inevitable. Visited the first market in Boston, which now contains very little of interest, but in a very nice building. The next day we caught the greyhound bound for New York Ciddy!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
