Okay, but you perhaps do not realize how offensive it is to be compared in any way to Emile...this is not banter, but bull...
Anyway, it is beautiful, if a little warm, in the Washington- Baltimore area, and we had already gone to the beach last week to beat the crowds, so we took the opportunity while everyone was involved in outdoor play to go to the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walter's Gallery, which we check in with regularly. The calculation worked, and there were no crowds at all, but both museums were undergoing renovations, so there was a degree of unsettlement. The BMA is primarily noteworthy for the Cone collection, two sisters (one became a physician) who hung out with Gertrude Stein and other patrons of the avant- garde, and who amassed quite a collection, primarily of Matisses, but also of early Picasso's, varied contemporary painters such as Tanguy and Bonnard, and even a few Impressionist and Post- Impressionist painters. Highlights from the collection were still up, but the main galleries housing them were down, and therefore there was not the same profusion, which we missed. On the other hand, the had put together a bunch of the surrealist works they own, and it may quite an impressive small exhibit, giving one a strong sense of the fractured sensibility of the inter-war era...
At the Walters, the need to create "highlight" rooms while shutting down one of the main buildings created a peculiar effect, as one could move rapidly between the ancient Near East, Greco- Roman Antiquity, varied "medieval" items (including Islamic, Russian, and Western European objects), Renaissance, and Early Modern paintings, statuary, and other objets d'art. One felt as if the varied ages were collasing upon one...
In Little Italy, we went to a restaurant that we have visited before, because we knew it to be reliable. After some Calamari Fritti, we ate simply, my wife and I eating lasagne del forno, my son eating Canelli Calabrese. Somehow, we were so stuffed that we passed on the tiramasu, which is excellent there. But the thing that I wanted to mention was the meticulousness of the lasagna, the careful layering of the flat noodles with cheese and meat, the sort of thing that demonstrates a culture to which food is important, and worth some trouble. The seasoning was just so, my sons pasta neither to hard nor too soggy, and even the iced tea that we drank was on the mark. Have any of you seen "Big Night", "Eat, Drink,Man, Woman", or even "Babette's Feast"? Food as a sacrament...
Finally, after dinner, we drove through the up- scale part of Baltimore, around Roland Park (some of you may remember from "Homicide"). I wanted to show my wife some houses of particular dignity and solidity, the kind of patrician abodes that express the idea that someone of importance in the community lives there, not merely someone wealthy. The last time I had driven through, with my son, I had been led to wonder what it would be like to grow up in such a house, in such a neighborhood, and go to the sort of private schools that serviced such places. My wife supposes that they would mainly grow up like the Buddha, insulated from the real world, and due for a shock. I am not so sure, although I suppose it depends on one's parents. Any thoughts from the thread?...
By the time we left to get home, I was very tired, but also very pleased to have beaten the crowds... |
