New York -- Thanksgiving and After

Due to our early call on Thanksgiving, we chose a 3:15 dinner reservation. Our prix fixe dinner was inexpensive and totally rocked!

Pretty sure we slept 12 hours on Thursday.

We went to a great restaurant for breakfast and it was sunny and chill. We were the only people in there. Sorry for them, but it was completely delightful for us.

Then we headed uptown again to see the Nicholas Roerich museum. 

Here's the man himself:

For more on him, please see his wikipedia page. It's complicated. He was born rich in Russia, went to art school, fled, painted a bunch, was friends with Madame Blavatsky, a guy built him a skyscraper, then they fell out.

In 1935 Roerich got FDR to sign a treaty that would make us not blow up places of cultural or scientific importance in case of war. That was kinda cool.

His small drawings are nice. His big paintings are terrible. Once he discovered blue, it was all downhill.

Unfortunate floor detail:

Fascinating!

We went back to the hotel and to the airport. A relatively chill bit of travel ensued. I watched 4 episodes of the first season of Downton Abbey.

So ends our journey to New York to wrangle a balloon in the Macy's Parade.

It Happened -- Hawaii 2022

Travel was unexpectedly uneventful. Our Lyft was cushy. Three years of miles accrual meant that we went first class, which was fine. I got to watch Everything Everywhere all at Once, which was super weird and neat. We went to La Mariana for lunch and had our first taste of the 2022 holidays:

Our local market has what we need, so we just ate out of the refrigerator case, bought some bottled mai tais and sat on the lanai. Mrguy, recovering from a migraine, had some hypervigilent moments. They only bother him.

On my birthday we went to Sea Bear Beach (what we call it), which you get to by snaking through the parking lot. The area where you can swim is a little smaller than before, but you have a shaded beach with very few people on it. I have felt sooo unlaxed since I got here. It's amazing to realize that dealing with my mom has a physical component. I felt my stomach drop in a good way immediately.

Then off to the museum, which had some of the best traveling exhibitions I've seen there in years. The theme was flowers, and there were paintings from their own collection, like this Paul Wonner:

Also I'm totally in love with the butt grain parquet in the gallery and had to take a photo:

We saw a really cool show by Noah Harders.

And a fantastic piece: Soundsuit 8:46 by Nick Cave:

and then we stepped into Rebecca Louise Law's Awakening, an immersive exhibit that was filled with local and non-local dried vegetation strung on wire and crafted into ;aths within space. The interplay of the objects, shapes and depth of field was tremendous.

I have no idea whether I can load this video into the blog, but this is what it was like to experience the piece:

After touring the galleries, we had lunch at the cafe, and then took in the Sundance Indigenous Short Film Program.

It all went to plan.

While I was rolling around in my bed with Covid I planned out some things for my birthday, including finding a restaurant, Senia, where we could have a great meal. We usually don't do this (eat a fancy dinner) but this sounded really special. And while I was too sick to get out of bed, I'd think "Maybe tomorrow I could get up the stairs by myself so I can grab my credit card and make reservations". Eventually my wish came true.

Dinner was delicious. We had an appetizer that came under a smoke-filled dome. We ate the world's richest risotto. We had scallops that were so good that mrguy decided that he might even *enjoy* scallops.

It was just a great great day, and a good way to usher in a new decade of life (depending on how you count it).

Sorry if the video doesn't load. This has been an experiment. 

Ripley's Believe it or Not

OK, I guess this is the second reference to Ripley's in recent times. Last month, there was a stir when Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum lent Marilyn Monroe's iconic "Happy Birthday Mr. President" dress to Kim Kardashian to wear at the Met Gala.

I have a few opinions on this, especially as the interwebs blew up with stories about how she wrecked the dress.

First, I find the Met Gala super vulgar. It's for a good cause (the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute), but I do not dig the lead up or the photos or -- I don't know. For whatever reason I shun the coverage.

My ears pricked up, however, when I heard that Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson were planning to attend (yay Pete Davidson!). And then when I read the coverage about her wearing the Marilyn Monroe dress, I had various feelings. First, I felt like nobody besides Marilyn Monroe should ever wear that dress. And then I also felt like that dress should never be seen by humans -- that it should exist only in photographs. And then I realized that Ripley's Believe it or Not is the owner of the dress. And then I realized that the dress is unobtanium, but at the end of the day it's just a dress. Good for you, Kim Kardashian.

People are now schvitzing over the fact that she wore the dress. That it might have been damaged by her wearing it. And to them I say a hearty "tough toenails". The owner of the dress may do whatever the owner of the dress wants to do with it. And if a real museum belonging to the AAM had been willing to pony up 4.8 million clams to own the dress, only a mannequin would have ever worn it.

But no museum would spend that much money, I imagine, to buy a dress whose story reveals the public besmirching of the presidency by a sitting president. It has been one of the most famous dresses of all time, to be sure. And it was worn by one of the most famous tragic beauties of the 20th Century. And the story behind it, that she and her voluptuous body had to be sewn into it at the side of the stage, is captivating. Over time, and even right now, how does the scenario of her affair with the sitting president, and singing to JFK, who was POTUS and her lover, much to the chagrin of the First Lady, sit with us? The dress is borne of a stunt and continues with a stunt... 

I didn't post this post at the time I wrote it, for some reason. I think it was because I decided to watch some Kardashian show, for the first time. I had judged without actually knowing anything about it. The jury is still out on that for me.

Anyhoo, I hear from a friend that since the Kardashianing of the dress at the Met Gala Ripleys Believe it or Not has draped the dress on a Kim-proportioned dress form. Instead of returning it to the Marilyn-shaped dress form. The story of the dress continues. It is probably worth less now, but that also remains to be seen.

Hawaii 2019, Day 2

We had big plans for day 2. Get up early, swim at our beach and go to Shangri La.

I wish I could recreate the experience of the little beach in front of Michel's restaurant via a photo tableau, but I don't want to lose my phone there, so I just have to keep it in my heart. To get there you walk through our hotel's parking lot and walk next to the service entrance of the little hotel next door. Then you're on a teeny little beach with one palm tree. It's maybe 100 feet wide, and bounded by the sea wall and the Outrigger Club. People meet there every day to swim and take out their outriggers, with the occasional small group that has hired an outrigger to do a paddle out and scatter cremains. It's perfect for us because both the beach and the water are in the shadow of the hotel above Michel's.

When I'm feeling stressed and want to settle down I think of that beach, of floating on my back and listening to the pebbles clink against each other underneath the waves. It's so restful. I feel like I leave my body when I'm there.

We had lunch at the museum, which is always a pleasure, and visited an exhibit that paired my favorite Lee Bontacou piece with Louise Nevelson's work. So satisfying. I kinda want to make a quilt in the likeness of this Lee Bontacou.

And then we went to Shangri La. It's incredibly beautiful, and during our tour I suffered from heat stroke. This is why January is the perfect month for us to be in Hawaii.

After Shangri La we went to a great beer bar and waited for our friend who works at UH Manoa to get off work. She used to work at the forklift factory.

And then we went to dinner. OMG it was so much fun to reconnect. We heard all about her new adventures moving back to Hawaii. She's such a foodie. We told her how much we like the experience at Michel's (on the other side of the glass from our little beach where we swim). So we agreed to get reservations the next night and have some Cherries Jubilee :)

So ends day 2.

Except! I forgot that somewhere in this day we also found time to go sell clothes at Barrio Vintage. This is the second time I've brought a suitcase full of clothing to sell them, and it's been quite satisfying both times. I don't think I walk in the door looking like someone who has an amazing stash, and I do. My boobs are just too big to get into some of my outfits, so it's time to downsize. It makes me happy to repatriate the goods to Hawaii.

Norway Day 4

Our last day in Norway was great. We weren't able to make contact with our cousin due to the previously mentioned Jurassic technology problem. Oh well. Instead, mrguy took us to Kode, where we got our first exposure to Hilma af Klint. Her paintings were awesome. Then we took in the Nikolai Astrup show. What I particularly enjoyed about his paintings is that the setting was a farm called Myklebust. My family also lived at a farm of that name, but I don't know if it is the same one (there were several by that name).

Nikolai Astrup's wife, Engel Sunde, filled their house with textiles, some of which she collected and some of which she made. This interior scene is really compelling. In addition to her groovy textiles this painting shows that someone in the household, presumably her, was growing an Easter lily, fuschia, and what looks like an aloe. In Norway, in the early 1900s. I wouldn't have thought, and maybe that's silly of me.

A few more paintings, now. First, mrguy identified this one from sight as a painting by Anton Graf. He was correct. He and I are now kinda experts at spotting late 18th century Eastern German court paintings.

And this painting I loved -- paintings of dead loved ones are both weird and touching, especially when the subject is a child.

After we were done at the museum, mrguy escorted me to the University of Bergen library, where I could look for bygdebøker. Once ensconced at the library, mrguy went off to buy more records. He didn't really have a mission at the library and doesn't read Norwegian, but knew of a record store he hadn't visited already.

Back at the library: with assistance from a librarian I was able to find the section in the library that contained the bygdebøker I needed. I had a great hour and a half figuring out the organization of these books and, really, confirming and extending the family history research I had done twenty years ago, and to take it back another few generations. Yay!

I felt guilty with my pleasure, and after an hour and a half I texted mrguy and we went to a great bar, where we had a few beers. Awesome chairs, there.

And then we went back to the apartment and I spent as much time as possible after packing and before falling asleep using my Norwegian ISP address to access resources on the National Archives digitized collections online. Oh now I wish I had a Norwegian IP address every day! They have digitized newspapers, which would be amazing to read and use for research.

So ends our trip to Sweden and Norway. They are both delightful and different from each other, and I hope that we some day return.

Germany 2017 Post 5

The reason we were in Leipzig *at all* was because of genealogy.

I had always wanted to go back *one generation* on my German lines, which would allow me to identify the parents of my first immigrant ancestors. In 2012 I had the opportunity to go to Germany for work, and I did a little genealogy work beforehand. One of my ancestors had a really uncommon last name, and I found an obituary on Google Book of a guy with that same last name, who lived in the town where my guy was born. Could they be related? I printed it out and brought it with me.

Friends I made at the museum in Germany where I was working translated the obituary for me. I learned that the guy with the same name had been married to the daughter of the portrait painter Gottlob. Fascinating! I couldn't get any farther without help, so I hired a researcher in Germany to help me. For the next few years I worked with her, and she helped confirm connections between the American and German branches of the family and to link them to the person whose obituary I'd originally found. To Belinda Bölckow (real name), I am eternally grateful. I'd ask her specific questions and she'd bring me answers from various archives in Saxony. I'd do my own research based on what she found, and then I'd develop new questions. Much of the family story rested in Leipzig, it seems, so I really wanted to go there.

Day 2 in Leipzig, we boarded one of its many graffitied trains headed downtown and had coffee at Café Riquet. The facade sports elephant gargoyles and mosaics. The interiors have deeply carved wooden paneling with duck pond scenes. It's so beautiful that you can't simply pass it by.

After some coffee, we went into the Altes Rathaus (old town hall). Can't recall why we walked in, but it had to be my favorite stop in Leipzig. We entered the main hall, and it was lined with portraits of government officials. I asked the lady at the counter if she knew whether any were by Gottlob, and she did not know. But mrguy quickly started scanning the walls and found portrait paintings of Gottlob's that I hadn't even known about. It was exciting. These were objects created, and touched, by my 5th great grandfather. There were also a few of his etchings, but the paintings really show the direct hand of the artist.

Not sure how much I've spoken of Gottlob, but he has been a great find in the family tree. He was born in a military installation in Poland. By the age of 25, the time of his first child's birth, he was both a bodyguard to a count and also a painter. As seen through his children's baptismal records, which note his profession, over the years he progressed to cabinet painter and royal Bernbergian court painter. His children's godparents show that Gottlob was acquainted with a variety of artists, minor royalty, merchants and artists or musicians of note. My sense is that these sponsorships might have been requested during portrait sittings, because Gottlob was seemingly not of royal birth. And we may never know.

Gottlob was known primarily as a portrait painter, and often a copyist. When the famous local portrait painter Anton Graf was not available, my guy Gottlob was often called on to start a portrait from scratch or to copy an existing work by Graf. When I saw the courthouse lined with portraits it suddenly became clear that these were the governor's photo of their day. Every government building needs one, and that adds up to a lot of portraits, not all of which could be painted by Anton Graf. Here are a few from the Rathaus:

Christian Erdmann Deyling

Georg Gottfried Hermann (definitely in the style of Graf)

 

Romanus Teller

And just for the icing on the cake, another gallery displayed a portrait of two daughters of Adam Friedrich Oeser, one of Gottlob's mentors from the Leipzig painting academy. These women were godparents to two of Gottlob's children.

I can't say enough about this place and its collections. There was an exhibit of special trunks belonging to various guilds. A chronological exhibition about the city of Leipzig was completely gripping. Here were a few items from the various collections:

Mourning art:

Shelf lining paper in a festive Hitler Youth design. Looks wholesome and normal, just like the Boy Scouts. Scary.

A chunk of wall graffitti by Alfred Frank "Hunger! All thanks to The Fuehrer".

I was moved by the fairly unflinching look at their culture and what their people have done. There was a display of photographs of members of the Roma community that had been exterminated. And then a section detailing the Cold War period. All really well done. My mind was full, but it was only mid-day.

European Vacation 2014, Part 8

We took Ryanair from Brussels to Budapest. It was my first Ryanair experience, and it was great. If you set your expectations really really low and have good earplugs, it's no problem.

Why Budapest? It started the first time I saw Shop Around The Corner (1940) filmed entirely on a studio lot somewhere. The setting seemed romantic and the names of the characters were unusual to me, and it's a great movie. I asked mrguy to take me to Budapest, and he did. It was awesome, if brief.

Prior to our visit I had had all sorts of notions of what we'd be doing in Budapest, and where we'd be eating and we did almost none of that. Instead we ate at our hotel both nights (and it was super yummy) and did what we could do by bus. If I'm not mistaken, we'd done so much at this point that we were pretty pooped. I still regret not getting to the park where they gathered all of the Soviet statues. But if we'd done that we would have missed other things.

Our hotel is the orange one on the right in the background here:

 

What I didn't realize was that Castle Hill, in Buda, is a tourist destination. But during this time of year at night, all of the castles and monuments are lit up and you have them to yourself. Mrguy and I walked around a lot after dinner and looked at the parliament building across the river. Insanely big, that building.

Looking back at my photos I realize that one of the things that I loved about Budapest was that it was so immersive. The Hungarian language has no Latin roots to hang onto. The city is full of old buildings and there are commemorative plaques everywhere telling me important things that I can't read. I have many photos of plaques that I should translate. Just for fun, I'll pick one at random:

OK, well that's ten minutes of my life I'd like back. This plaque commemorates a "Hungarian royal home office clerk." But there were many cool things to see in the small slice of Budapest we saw. Does anyone know what the BSD daemon has to do with Hungarian cuisine? The B does not stand for Budapest!

We went here: 

and came out with smoked paprika. I know this is typical tourist fare, but it is now my go-to spice. Paprika does not need to be terrible, People!! Major revelation. Smoked paprika makes all food taste like bacon, and I do not have a problem with that.

We had a tasty falafel, bought curtains by the pound, and I almost had to save a woman from walking backwards into traffic while staring at my hair. I was prepared to grab her by the coat collar if I had to.

My all time favorite thing in Budapest was the Hungarian National Museum. The earlier parts of the museum were easier to follow (more English signage), but it was all interesting. Especially fascinating was a description of contemporaneous civilizations in Hungary (not sure of the period, but AD) separated by the Buda River. They were as different as could be. One was almost Iron Age in its development, and the other seemed centuries ahead. Yet if two people from those cultures stood on the banks of the river they could see each other with the naked eye. It blew me away.

Oh Budapest, I'm longing to see you again. Lord knows when that will happen again, and the government is being harsh to immigrants, so I'm conflicted.

Anyway, on to Vienna