Under the Influence of Art

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts is just a mile up Huntington Avenue from our hotel, but knowing that I'd be walking miles in the museum, I took a cab anyway, even though the rain had stopped. The MFA's claim to fame is its Impressionist collection, which is pretty spectacular: three van Goghs, an assortment of Monets including a particularly lovable one of Camille Monet in Japanese costume, one not very distinguished Cassatt, a Renoir, the obligatory Gauguin, and a number of lesser illuminati.

The museum itself is undergoing massive construction and renovation, so a number of galleries were closed, to my disappointment. It also has that highly disorienting layout that makes so many art museums so confusing -- gallery leads into gallery, which doubles back onto gallery, and pretty soon, you're going around and around the same statue of Buddha, which is why I tend not to visit the Asian art exhibits. (I DID, however, enjoy the gallery of antique Chinese furniture. Very simple and beautiful.)

Anybody who wants to tour the place can start at the MFA's fantastic website, http://www.mfa.org/index.asp. I have some observations to make that aren't exactly museum-specific.

1. Asia, India, and Indonesia must have produced craptons of "art," because every museum I have ever been in has had rooms and rooms of it. One wonders if there are any votive statues, family altars, antique porcelains, bronze Krishnas, or statues of the Buddha left anywhere in Asia. I think I saw all these same artifacts in Seattle, so I skipped through.

2. Why do middle schools insist on bringing three busloads of seventh graders to museums when I am there? Why, in fact, do they do this at all? The middle schoolers run shrieking through the galleries, waving the lists of questions their teachers have given them, and pooling their answers. They're having a blast, but it's so LOUD.

3. And that leads me to my next question: why are we so hushed and deferential in the presence of Art? It's not like we're going to wake it up or something. Certain pieces have left me speechless, for deeply personal reasons, (Mary Cassatt's "Baby Reaching for an Apple," for instance, and Titian's "Daniel"), but I'm not exactly sure why the middle schoolers shattering the quiet should be considered irreverant. The Appreciation of Art is, apparently, best conducted sotto voce.

4. Finally, where is Sarah and that convenient art history minor when I need her? She's better than a museum guidebook, plus, I can make comments to her that I probably couldn't make to anyone else.

Some of those comments are pretty irreverent. For instance, Theodore van Loon's 1620 "Adoration of the Shepherds," portrays a creepy scene where Mary lifts the blanket off of a blond two year old, so a bunch of people leaning over him can have a closer look. Where do we get these ideas? Then there's Aert de Gelder's "Rest on the Flight into Egypt," above, where Mary appears to be wearing a sombrero. Perhaps she was trying to be incognito? In Antonio de Pereda's "The Immaculate Conception," Mary is standing on a disturbing pile of baby heads. I need to stay out of the 17th Century European galleries.

Teddy

Even though he has gone to his eternal home, Teddy Kennedy is ubiquitous in Boston. He is the reason I-90 runs under our hotel and not beside it. He is the reason John Adams' library is not still in storage boxes. He is the reason the MBTA is one of the best public transportation systems in America. He funneled billions of federal dollars into Massachusetts, which is, I suppose, one of the functions of a senator.

Boston magazine did a surprisingly balanced retrospective of his life that stinted neither his hard work nor his flaws. It also listed his projects in and around Boston, and I have to say, whatever else his legacy may be, he's going to be remembered around here for a long, long time, as one of the city's greatest benefactors. He wasn't, according to people who are supposed to know, as bright as his brother John, or as passionate as his brother Bobby. He was, however, a tireless plodder, and those people can get quite a long way, indeed.

In Search of John Adams' Books

I have, unfortunately, come to Boston and fallen madly in love with the Boston Public Library. I can hear my kids yelling "Dork!" from here, but I don't care. It's an immense building, with a gorgeous central courtyard and fountain, marble staircases, fabulous frescoes, and a reading room that I would cheerfully live in, if I could. I was in heaven.

I went there because it's the first stop on my tour of literary Boston, and it houses John Adams' personal library. Should you ever need to FIND John Adams' personal library, let me give you this easy series of steps.

1. Go into the Boston Public Library and lurk by the main stairs. Watch for an elderly man who looks as much as possible like the late G.P. Winship. It helps if he is wearing an old sweater and a preoccupied expression.

2. Follow him up three flights of marble stairs, through a gallery of some French guy's political cartoons, past two abandoned letterpress printing presses, and through a room full of storage shelves and ancient card catalogues, wherein six men in turbans will be looking assiduously at musical scores.

3. Turn left past the display of creepy marionettes, and go through the book-thief-detector.

4. Stop in the display room, even though your unwitting guide will be waltzing through to the reading room. You CAN have access to any of Adams' books, but you'll have to think of a plausible reason, and that's hard to do on the spur of the moment.

Seriously, the Adams' collection was amazing, if only because it's so easy to imagine him holding those leather-bound volumes. I spent a LONG time at the BPL, exploring the building and reading histories of Boston in the reading room. I may have to move to Boston just so I can be near this place.

After I tore myself away, I bought a DMD at a drugstore, and drank it on the steps of Trinity Church, where I also made friends with a Great Pyrenees named Letty, and her owner. I have found Bostonians surprisingly friendly. The only experience I'd had with people from Massachusetts was in San Francisco, where our little pension also held six cranky and and pushy people from Cambridge. Turns out, they must have been anomalies.

From Trinity, I went to the Public Garden, where I sat on a bench and sketched, while my aching hip rested. Remembering the monster sketchbook that I made Kathy lug through Longwood Gardens, and not having her here to lug this one, I packed lighter. It came in immensely handy, though, for keeping notes and making small drawings. I pretty much wrote out the AmLit blog in it while I was at lunch (pizza at a bar called Uno).

Beat in Beantown

Orbitz has a trap for the unwary traveler -- a phone call three hours before your flight that tells you if it's on time or not. Our flight left Roanoke at 6:40. You do the math. I've had about four hours' sleep, maybe not that much, and it's been a very full day, so this will be a short post with more goodies to follow.

We don't have much of a sense of Boston yet, because this is one confusing city. For starters, its 380 years old, and the streets in the old part of town are unbelievably narrow. Add to that the turns and twists that old streets take, and lay over top of that modern, wider streets that occasionally dive underneath the city in tunnels. It's not a city for drivers. On the plus side, Logan Airport is really close to downtown -- about a ten-minute cab ride -- and the city is very walkable.

I guess I'll find out how walkable tomorrow, as Hank puts in a full day of conference (8 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and I start my tour of literary and historical sites for the American Lit. class. Photos and other goodies to follow.

And They All Lived Happily Ever After

. . . sort of. A few loose ends need wrapping up, but I am so pooped that I might just get my fingers on the wrong keys and leave them there. We left Rodanthe this morning at 9:30, but it was almost six before we got home, thanks to thunderstorms, torrential downpours, and a 10-mile traffic backup less than 25 miles from home. What a kick in the teeth that was! I was driving so Hank could study, but in a couple of places, he turned off his computer, probably so he could pray.

Now Hank and I are home -- I'm ready for bed; he's trying to repair

his computer, which lost its mind earlier this evening. Chip's out with friends, because he slept most of the way home. Suz will be back tomorrow, and Sarah, of course, went back to Harrisonburg. I realized this week how much I enjoyed having time with my kids, because we don't exactly live together any more. I also had a blast taking Ashley to the bead shop, where she made a necklace for Autumn and let Autumn choose beads for a bracelet for Ashley. It was so fun. I hope Scott gets the pictures up soon, because they're precious.

I also realized how much I enjoyed the other people we were privileged to share the week with. We had a lot of coming and going, but it was all good. As Ian said on Day One: "We're all going to eat rainbows and poop butterflies." It was about that good, honestly.

Our Week in Food

Normally, we eat out about once per beach trip, because meals are communal affairs, fun to fix and not too terrible to clean up. Many hands make light work, and all that jazz. This trip, however, we've been going out more, in twos and fours and sixes and one eleven. Since I really want to be a restaurant reviewer when I grow up, here's the scoop, in no particular order.

Top Dog Cafe, Rodanthe. Still a favorite. Chip, Guy, Ian, Jody, Hank and I hit this on Sunday night and were well pleased, as usual. Top Dog started as a microscopic beach bar, but has morphed into something more upscale. The tuna steaks were perfect -- medium rare and meltingly tasty. I had bacon-wrapped scallops over pasta. When I saw them, my heart sank, because they were very brown on the outside. Turns out, it was just the bacon; the scallops were perfectly tender and juicy. Yum. Chip had a monstrous hamburger that fed him for dinner, and Ian and Scott for lunch the next day. Yes, it was that big.

Atlantic Coast Cafe, Rodanthe. This one is so good, we keep going back. Ian and Jody went first, and reported that the fish tacos were delicious. Hugh, Susette, and I went for lunch on Wednesday, and found that not only were the fish tacos great, but the oyster po'boy wasn't bad, either. The taco construction really added to their flavor -- a corn taco shell inside a flour tortilla, with jalapeno cream cheese, flaky (not fishy) white fish, shredded sweet cabbage, more cheese, and topped with homemade pico de gallo. Even people who don't like fish love these tacos. AND they're not expensive at all. Ashley and Scott went there for breakfast today and reported that breakfast was just as yummy as lunch.

Penguin Isle/Pamlico Jack's, South Nags Head. When this was Penguin Isle, we ate there with Pam and Tye Kirkner. Now it's Pamlico Jack's, but it's weird -- same staff, same chef, same owners, but now they've got a pirate theme. Even the staff think it's stupid. Fortunately, the food is the same, just with ridiculous pirate names. Hugh's seafood medley had the perfect degree of doneness, and wasn't smothered in sauces or other things that obscured the flavors. I had a tuna steak that was, our waitress said, "unloaded off the boat and in the back door." Also wonderful were the Buffalo tuna bites, where the spicy, blue cheese flavor did not overwhelm the tuna. Side items at the Restaurant Formerly Known as Penguin Isle are overpriced and forgettable, particularly the cheese grits. Mine are better. Desserts are house made, which is good, but hit-or-miss, which is bad. The cheesecake wasn't great, but the creme brulee was delicious, and the cherry pie worth every calorie.

Jimmy's Seafood Buffet, Ocracoke. If you like crab legs, this is your place. The people in our party who like them were encfhanted. I wasn't as thrilled with everything else. It had all been on the steam tables too long, and scallops were in short supply. This is too expensive for overdone and hectic service. Skip it and go to Captain George's if you absolutely have to have a seafood buffet.

Our House. We had fun with food this week, from Brent's mom's spaghetti to spiral sliced ham, to shrimp with Outer Banks Crab Boil, to jambalaya. We're at the point where a restaurant has to be pretty awesome to beat what we can do ourselves. (I forgot to mention the Tennessee jam cake I made for Chip's birthday, the cherry brownies Chip made, and the iced gingersnaps that were Hank's brainchildren. We didn't starve.)

Miss Autumn

I am not ready, emphatically not ready, for grandchildren, but if and when I have them, I hope they're as chill as Autumn. The photo is Scott, Ashley, and Autumn on the ferry last night, as a point of reference. We hadn't met Scott's family, and I was a little apprehensive. Turns out it was a waste of angst. Ashley is great, and Autumn is amazing.

She will be three in November, but she is the least whiny two-and-a-half year old I have ever seen. She's always laughing, able to amuse herself with a game timer, and thinks that Jeff hung the moon. (Well, Sarah's a favorite, too.) Yesterday she played with Sarah and Jeff in the surf, laughing hysterically, until she had blue lips. I remember those blue lips. Our own kids wouldn't get out of the surf until their lips were purple.

To warm up, she sat on Sarah's lap, wrapped in two beach towels, flirting with Jeff. It's a good thing that Ashley is a National Champion sharpshooter, because they're going to need big guns, probably about the time Autumn turns eight. It's a real credit to Scott and Ashley, and their parenting skills, that Autumn is such a happy, well-adjusted girl. We've all enjoyed her so much. Here she is wearing Sarah's shoes. This morning she's been amusing herself with a tape measure for an hour now. I love that in a baby.

And Ashley has been such a pleasant surprise. She quilts! She knits! She blows things up with gunfire! We've been looking at quilting magazines, and she's knitting a sweater for Autumn, insisting to me how easy it is. I do not have good memories of knitting, but I almost want to try again. I do needlepoint until the urge fades.