Tribute to M.

We met up with my cousin Ruth a few weeks ago in the D.C. area. In addition to her many talents as a journalist and producer, she is also an artist! And just look at this gift she made for us:

A beautiful line drawing with wash of our little girl! Maybe you'll recognize the photo Ruth was working from:

I'm so touched at the way Ruth captured Maddie at seven months – and she already looks different today. This special portrait is now proudly displayed on our shelf in the living room. Come on over so you can admire it for yourself! Thank you, Ruth!!

Boston Babymoon!

All the cool (pregnant) kids these days seem to go on a "babymoon" to exotic locations, places where it'll be much more difficult to go to once the baby arrives. My spring break finally arrived this week – already in my third trimester! So we weren't going to be too ambitious in planning a big trip: we can't go to the Caribbean because of Zika virus; I'm sure I wouldn't tolerate a long flight very well; and mostly, I just want to sleep all day!

So we happily planned a low-key visit for a few days up to Boston. We've been saying for the past couple years that we would go up and visit our friends, and now we finally had the motivation to go. We found a place on Airbnb in Cambridge, which is apparently where all of our friends now live.

After a stroll around Harvard Square, we checked out some places along the Freedom Trail. We ate lunch at Quincy Market:

And checked out the Paul Revere House and Old North Church ("one if by land, two if by sea..."):

Must make time for North End snacks, of course!

For dinner, we drove out to Newton to see Sarah B., her husband, and her adorable toddler. Sarah B. is also expecting, due just 4 weeks after me! Here we are with matching socks and baby bumps:

The next day was rainy, cold, and fairly miserable. Perfect for a museum day! After a taco stop, we spent the afternoon at the Museum of Fine Arts (my first time there!).

They had quite a nice antiquities collection (for an American museum). I hadn't realized it earlier, but one particularly important vase is in their collection:

What's special about this 6th c., black-figure Corinthian vase? Well, it depicts Heracles on the left (with the bow and arrow), Hesione in the middle, and the sea monster that threatened Troy on the right (a somewhat obscure myth that I will not go into here). It's an odd-looking "sea monster," though, no? It really looks like an animal skull protruding from a rock. And this, friends, serves as evidence for how early Greeks interpreted the fossil record they encountered in their daily lives. How else to make sense of the strange, unrecognizable animal bones preserved in stone? Why, these are the mythological monsters of the past! Anyway, I do love this line of reasoning, and if you want to know more, I suggest you read the genuinely interesting and entertaining book I learned this from, Adrienne Mayor's The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times.

And now, back to vacation photos. We got to visit with one of my former roommates from Michigan, Christa, who now is on the faculty at Harvard and has two beautiful little kids! She also still has the two dogs Nien and Mika (plus their daughter) who first introduced me to puppy love. I don't know whether they remembered me, but I was sure happy to see them!

Before departing, we visited Townsman, a restaurant my brother Peter is invested in. I think it was a good choice, because the food was delicious, the location excellent (near the Chinatown T-stop and a close walk to Boston Common), the service accommodating, and there was a bustling lunchtime crowd. Everyone, go eat there!

 

And thus concluded our babymoon. Thanks to all our friends and family who made the time to see us! We hope to see you soon in Long Island, where you will be welcomed by all three of us!

It's a Small World

I was in San Francisco last weekend for my professional organization's annual meeting. I was fortunate to have a pretty relaxed meeting: no paper to give, no job interviews...just dealing with administrative responsibilities related to my summer program, meeting up with friends, visiting with former professors, etc.

Dave flew out to SF at the conclusion of the conference so that we could take a mini-vacation together! Our first stop was the De Young Museum, which I had long heard about but never visited. The art there is mainly focused on the Americas/Africa/Oceania, which is far outside my realm of knowledge. Maybe it's because I really only know about Classical art, but I enjoyed seeing several objects at the De Young that reminded me of popular motifs in ancient Mediterranean art.

The museum holds amazing murals from Teotihuacan, Mexico (600-800 AD). Here's an image of two bristly coyotes attacking a deer:

The deer attack is a pretty common motif in archaic Greek art, and here we have a lion attacking a bull (similar motif) on the walls at Persepolis!

We also saw these neat Inuit or Eskimo boat models:

...which are quite similar to the kind of ancient Egyptian boat models that are fairly common grave goods:

And my favorite comparandum is this Inuit storage box, with a polar bear lid:

And the type of Greek pyxis from the Geometric period that has a horse handle:

Anyway, nothing profound or scholarly to say about any of this – I'm no art historian, and surely any kind of generalization about this sort of thing would be wrong. But it's pretty neat-o!

back in action?

I am slowly re-emerging from a summer of all-consuming, all-intensive language teaching. I didn't intend to take a complete hiatus from blogging, but I guess I'm not surprised that it happened anyway. I'm often overly ambitious about piling on activities, social events, and travel during periods of academic stress. This summer, I toned it down and just focused on getting through each day, trying to have a normal conversation with Dave before bed, and then sleeping! Even then, I didn't always succeed, but at least I never got sick.

But now I'd like to get back into updating this blog! I briefly considered abandoning it entirely: I've got a long and intimidating list of things to write in this upcoming semester, and the fewer distractions, the better! But I do love looking back on the record of the things I do write up, and the challenge of finding visual material to enliven that record helps me think and grow in new ways. Besides, we all need to take a break from work every once in a while!

So here's a quick catch-up on some highlights from the summer, starting with May:

The dress rehearsal for my choir's spring performance (all Beethoven) at Carnegie Hall! I've decided not to rejoin this choir in the fall (too much to do), but I'm glad I had the chance to participate last year.

U2 concert at Madison Square Garden – the band is on the near part of the stage, and the spotlights are about to come on. 

Our tenth college reunion!

 Paint Nite with Katie and Julie in Manhattan

 Dave and I recently discovered Cedarmere, the summer home of William Cullen Bryant (of Bryant Park fame). It's a little estate on Roslyn Harbor, perfect for a picnic!

And now it's on to fall. But first – Dave and I get to go on vacation! We're headed to Costa Rica for a week. More pictures when we return!

bridge and tunnel

I'm not having as much fun in the city as I'd like, since Dave is away, I commute from the suburbs, and work is keeping me busy. Sadly, I've become much less motivated to seek out cultural experiences, performances, fancy foods, or art. But whenever a friend invites me to do something, I'm eager to jump on board.

A few weeks ago, one of my colleagues invited the other women faculty in our cohort to go to the ballet with her. I hadn't been to the ballet in years! We saw a performance of Giselle by the American Ballet Theatre. I'm such a text-focused person; how am I to deal with a narrative that doesn't have any words? The dancers were fabulous, there were moments of visual beauty that made me gasp, and the story was so ridiculous that I cracked up aloud.

A young, frail peasant girl, Giselle, falls in love with a man whom she thinks is a fellow peasant. He turns out to be a disguised nobleman who is engaged to a noblewoman. Giselle dies of a broken heart. End Act I. In the second act, Giselle joins a group of sinister lady ghosts, the Wilis, who were young women jilted at the altar. They take their revenge on men who wander into their forest by making them dance to their death!!! Giselle protects her former lover. The end! Story ballets are the best.


I consider my primary cultural interest to lie in classical music. I love hearing the orchestra, piano recitals, opera, string quartets, etc. So it's funny to me that the only live music I've taken in since moving to NY was last night, at the the famous rock club, Webster Hall. I went to hear my friend's punk band, Habits, play in the concert venue in the basement, the Studio. I had never been to a live punk show before, and I was worried that I was going to be beaten up, as if punks are still interested in beating up nerds. (They are not.)

I brought ear plugs, as my friend suggested, which helped a lot. I have no inner critic for punk music, so I could evaluate my experience based on other criteria: was the club a comfortable temperature? (yes.) was it too crowded? (no.) was the music enjoyable? (sure! until the next band came on, and they screamed too much and I got scared.) did i feel comfortable dancing in place? (yes. since I already had a Latin textbook poking out of my purse, I could just give up on "looking cool.") could I leave and get home in time for regular bedtime? (yes. it was an early show.) Success!

Finally, some funny foods. Last night, I finally got to try Alder, Wylie Dufresne's casual restaurant. It was far more accessible than wd-50. There was some molecular gastronomy involved in each of the dishes, but everything also just tasted good. Shrimp on shrimp, pigs in a blanket (Chinese sausage!), and French onion soup rings below:

Looking forward to more summer city fun!

collage

This post is inspired by Katie H.'s recent post of art she made in her art journaling class.

A few weeks ago, I saw Gail Levin's collage retrospective, "On NOT Becoming an Artist." Gail is an artist and art historian; she and her husband, who is in my department, graciously hosted the benefit event that I organized last month. Their home is full of precious objects, from woven cloths to paintings to antique chairs. I was very interested to see her own art, but a little nervous, because I must confess that I usually struggle to relate to contemporary art – the more alive the artist, the more difficult I find the work. ;)

But it was delightful! The project started when she decided to write her memoir, and realized that her life was better told in images, rather than text. So she created a series of collages – she included photographs of herself, friends, and family, and wrote important quotes or ideas in her own hand. Here are snapshots of two collages, the first of which describes how Gail discovered in college that her mother's paintings were copies of famous works, the second of which represents the dream home she longed for as a child. (Apologies for the crappy cell phone pictures.)

I really enjoyed learning about Gail's life – she was a model! her father threatened to disown her if she became an artist, so she became an art historian, and he was still mad! she traveled the globe as a single woman in the 60s and met famous artists! she wrote books that became very famous! But most of all, I loved its accessibility. I felt inspired – maybe we should each make a collage (like Katie H. did) to try to capture a moment in our lives. This seems less intimidating than, say, taking up oil painting. Could be a fun Friday night activity?