Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Cattitude, Adrian, and I just spent a couple of days in New York City, mostly to see my mother. We talked a lot, walked a lot, and ate some good food. Good sushi at a randomly selected restaurant Friday evening, and Ukrainian food for lunch today before we came back to Boston. I had two kinds of pierogi: truffled mushroom, new on Veselka's menu since my last visit, and sweet potato.

I also showed Adrian the Cloisters, and we had dinner last night with my aunt Lea, her husband Dave, and my cousin Janet, as well as Mom.

[I will try to post more later, but want to at least touch on this before falling over. Tonight the cats need my attention.]

We went to the Bellevue art museum yesterday, because I wanted to see the exhibit "The Art of Gaman." It's a collection of art made from scrap and found materials by prisoners in the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II; I saw an article in The Stranger and decided it sounded interesting.

Almost everything on display is small; it ranges from practical things like scissors and teapots made from scrap metal, since the prisoners were allowed to bring almost nothing with them, to tiny painted brooches, and dolls made from reused kimono fabrics. The curators provide background where they can, sometimes include pre- or post-War art careers; some of the artists are unknown, or known only in the sense that other work by the same artist is known, but nothing about the artist's life.

This is a traveling exhibit; I don't know where else it may be going, and googling on "the Art of Gaman" found me various articles from other museums and cities where it's been shown over the last few years. It's at the Bellevue Art Museum until October 12. If you have a King County library card, you can get a free pass for museum admission for two. (These are for specific days, but I had a wide choice of dates, including Saturdays and Sundays.)

As long as we were there, we also went to an origami exhibit: this was a mix of naturalistic works, including a frog, a gecko, and a dinosaur skeleton, and geometric abstractions. Some of the pieces were traditional one-sheet-of-paper origami, others used many sheets or combined paper with bits of other materials (the frog was sprayed with something metallic). There's also an example of an origami-inspired plastic tent, and pictures of a space telescope whose design is based on computational origami. Unlike The Art of Gaman, I wouldn't make a special trip for the origami exhibit, but I enjoyed it.

Yesterday's discovery is that on a really clear day, I can see Mount Rainier from parts of Bellevue Downtown Park. It was a gorgeous January day, of the sort that I am used to from back east: clear, sunny, temperature in the mid-40s F (7 or 8 C). We've been getting quite a few bright sunny days, which I gather is thoroughly unusual. I may stop throwing on clothes and dashing outside at the first sign of sunlight, if this continues.

I solved the bra problem (which I was grumbling about a few weeks ago). Macy's, unlike Nordstrom, carries the brand I'm used to buying, and Bali makes a few styles of 38C bras that I like, all of them without underwire. (They do make bras with underwires, but unlike some companies they don't insist on that.)

Vanguard last night was fun: Jerry and Suzle hosted, and there was what felt like a fairly large crowd. This may be because it was cool enough that the party was indoors except for a few people who went outside to smoke: a few months ago at Kate and Glenn's, nonsmokers were also hanging out outside. Kate and Glenn (who were taking someone else downtown) gave me a ride to the bus tunnel, so I only had to wait for one bus, and worry less about schedules.

roadnotes came to visit us this afternoon; we had some good conversation, and she took some of our unwanted books home with her. (I have been donating them, a backpack full at a time, to the Friends of the Library, but there are a lot left.)

I took advantage of the monthly free day at the Seattle Art Museum to see the Peru exhibit on Thursday. It was good, but crowded (of course) and I got to feeling that I had looked at enough religious art already (representing a variety of religions at different times). My after-lunch wandering through some of the other galleries was more fun, because more relaxed. In between, I got a light lunch at the Crumpet Shop, a potentially dangerous place—they will sell you a bottomless cup of tea, and it's good tea—and had a nice conversation with someone who asked if she could share my table. I had been about to leave, but we were having fun talking, so I got some more tea and stayed a while.

Yesterday wasn't a good day: julian_tiger woke me early, and I never got back to sleep, including an annoying bit where I started brooding about not getting back to sleep. An afternoon nap helped with the tiredness, but the bad mood lingered until bedtime.

I woke this morning at a reasonable 7:45, feeling quite a bit better. Tea, conversation with cattitude and adrian_turtle, a long, comfortable hot shower, Scrabble, and lunch. Then we went down to the Museum of Natural History, which has all sorts of interesting exhibits and has the advantage of being indoors. We still had the cold walk through the park, but once we got to the subway station, we were indoors until we got back out of the subway at the same station after the museum. (I am inordinately fond of the subway-level entrance to that museum; the museum has been there quite a bit longer than the subway.) I was particularly glad of this because, after a block or so of the walk to the train, my chest was feeling tight--no other symptoms--and I suspect I am not 100% well. Not coughing, I don't think it's worth a doctor's visit, but I may be wrong, given that bronchitis is one of those things where having had it before is a risk factor for having it again.
(I was fine on the walk home after the museum.)

Rather than wearing ourselves out trying to see everything, we aimed specifically for the current special exhibit on the Silk Road. It's nicely set up, with the displays arranged partly by geography: starting at Xi'an (once capital of China) in the east, through Turfan and Samarkand, to Baghdad in the West. It talks about silk, about pottery and glass and spices and other things carried along the way, about camels, about the cities, about different kinds of writing and different things people wrote on (from cuneiform tablets to bamboo slats to papyrus to paper made of hemp and mulberry, and Chinese paper money), about the alternate route by sea. And somehow I was less than impressed, but that may be because my back started hurting halfway through. Cattitude thought highly of the exhibit.

After that, we stopped on the first floor to see the piece of cloth woven in Madagascar from golden spider silk, a very attractive piece meant as both a proof-of-concept of working with spider silk and an attempt to revive weaving in Madagascar. The label there noted that they can't raise these spiders in captivity, because they are aggressively cannibalistic, so they captured spiders, used a specially made devise to extract the silk, and then released them.

While we were waiting for our 2:30 admission to the Silk Road (we got to the museum around 2), we stopped in the gift shop, where I found a small calendar (to keep at my desk) but we didn't find a full-size wall calendar we both liked. We may have to visit a bookstore together. The souvenir shop for the silk road exhibit didn't grab us. So, a pretty inexpensive outing: we have 30-day unlimited metrocards, and a museum membership.

Home, with tea, and I suspect I'm not going to be making an apple crisp this evening.

I took today off from work to hang out with alanro, who has been staying with us since Friday. He wanted to visit the meteorites at the Museum of Natural History, so we headed down there in the late morning. (At the moment, the meteorite and mineral halls are open only 10-1 weekdays and afternoons on Saturday and Sunday.) First, Alan admired some of the art in the subway station, and we detoured slightly so I could show him the coelacanth mosaic, having mentioned earlier in the morning that I had researched my coelacanth tattoo in part at the museum. I took the opportunity to renew our lapsed museum membership, and am now trying to convince myself that this doesn't count as treating myself to something with my bonus, because I'd have done this bonus or no.

On our way to the stuff we most wanted to see, we walked through the Hall of Biodiversity, the Hall of New York State Environment, the ground-floor rotunda, and the Human Evolution exhibit. I tend to treat the NY state environment exhibits mostly as a corridor on the way from one place to another. This time, because Alan was interested, we stopped and really looked at things, especially the map showing the dominant foliage for "middle North America," which included a good chunk of Canada, all of the contiguous 48 states, and Mexico as far south as all of Baja California and the northern Yucatan.

Since I was last at the museum, they have renovated that entrance hall, and the Haida canoe is now hung well above eye level, instead of displayed close to the ground. It's a completely different view: I don't think I'd known there were carvings on the bottom.

The meteorite collection is its fine self; we spent quite a while looking at the huge Greenland meteorite, and some smaller stuff. Then into the gems hall: "recent acquisitions" is some fine opals, including some serious iridescence and some nice carvings. One advantage of going to the museum on a Monday morning is that it's not crowded: plenty of time and space to look at the Star of India and the other star rubies and sapphires. The lighting in that hall is much dimmer than I remembered, enough so that the big hunk of amethyst on the floor looked black rather than purple, and I stumbled and almost fell because I missed a step.

Since we had finite museum energy, we then got on the subway down to the Village, where I indulged myself by treating Alan and roadnotes to a sushi lunch (again, partly to do something with the bonus other than calling it rainy day money, though I do expect to bank much, even most, of it). So, more good conversation, then I realized I was feeling wiped, so went home while Alan went book shopping.

Also, someone needs to remember the use of quote marks. The museum admission ticket is advertising one of the current special exhibits. Unfortunately, what it says is "Climate Change proudly presented by Bank of America."

Not that I had a high opinion of that bank as is, but I don't think they're solely responsible for this one.

cattitude and I just had a very pleasant time showing zorinth around the American Museum of Natural History.

He's in town with papersky, who is here for the Nebulas. We met them, and davidlevine, for a quick slice of pizza, then Papersky and David went back to the hotel, and Cattitude, Zorinth, and I took the train uptown.

We started on the fourth floor, because the original plan had been "take Zorinth to AMNH and show him the dinosaurs." The three of us had fun showing each other stuff--Cattitude and I know the museum, but Zorinth was pointing out details of the fossils to us as well as the other way around. At one point, Cattitude asked to borrow the small flashlight that I keep in my daypack, for a closer look at a fossil; it didn't make a huge difference. After two or three halls, Cattitude decided he wasn't entirely well, and headed home; Z and I kept looking at cool things, including the rest of the dinosaurs.

Having nothing specific in mind after dinosaurs, we went downstairs, which led to the Hall of African Mammals. I led him in there to show off the elephants from above, after which we went around the dioramas on the third floor, then those on the second floor (the level the elephants are actually on), with the fine old dioramas. A discussion while in there about whether giraffes were taller than blue whales had included me saying "We could go look," so we stopped in briefly to see the huge model hanging from the wall of the Hall of Fishes (though we skipped the rest of that hall).

We finished up with the Hall of Rocks and Minerals: Faberge miniatures, specimen gold (the fine leafing and branching some nuggets do), then along to the case of fluorescent minerals, which we watched through three cycles of turning the lights on (so we could see the usual look of them) and off (for the fluorescence). And then casually into the adjacent room, where Zorinth of course walked straight ahead and right up to the Star of India. We had fun looking at star sapphires; Zorinth said he especially liked the red one just below the Star of India. And on around the rest of that room, full of gemstones and a rebuilt gem pocket from a topaz mine. And out again, to look at huge pieces of amethyst and azurite, and a stalagmite, and lots of other things both attractive and educational.

It had been years since I actually went all the way around that hall, instead of just showing off the star sapphires to visitors and then stopping by my favorite huge hunk of amethyst. I should do so more often.

As a bonus, the path in and out of the Hall of Gems and Minerals is through the Hall of Human Origins, which has a model of Turkana Boy that I think is new, and a cast of a Homo floresiensis that I know I hadn't seen before.

That was about as much museum as I had in me, so I took Zorinth back downtown, then came home via the grocery store. (I needed vegetables to make fish stock, having bought fish "frames" (bones and some of the usually-less-desirable flesh) for the purpose at the Greenmarket this morning.)

This afternoon, cattitude and I met treadpath and screaminghippo for pizza and a visit to the American Museum of Natural History, which has a special exhibit on the city of Petra. On the way in, Cattitude and I rejoined the museum; this not only gets us unlimited visits, and a discount on snacks and gift shop and such (though it'll be a few weeks before we get our membership cards), we'll get Natural History magazine again. And they threw in two free IMAX tickets, usable any time this year.

Petra is a city--now, the ruins of a city--in northern Arabia, built around the 4th century BCE by the Nabataeans. They turned a defensible location with reasonable access to water (no small matter in Arabia, then or now) into a major trading crossroads.

The exhibit was excellent, though smaller than I'd have liked. Most of the material was on loan, largely from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities. I suspect a large part of the problem is that there aren't that many portable artefacts from Petra: the people built by carving into the stone. But there were pictures of the stone tombs, pieces of buildings, a bit of jewelry, some sections of pipe, and images of deities, some made locally and some obviously imported. With trade came cultural influences. After Alexander the Great came back from India, the Nabateans started carving elephant heads into their buildings as a symbol of strength; some of the images show obvious foreign influence.

At the museum entrance, they gave us timed tickets; there was a guided tour leaving at the time we asked for, but we weren't required to stay with it. We didn't, partly because I wasn't thrilled with the guide, and partly because I didn't want to be surrounded by lots of strangers and thus unable to see the exhibits clearly. Fortunately, the explanatory material in the exhibit is also good: often, along with descriptions (e.g., "bronze lamp with human figure handle") there are discussions of cultural influences, and then a section on "how we know".

Petra was badly damaged by an earthquake, a couple of centuries after the Romans took over Arabia [there were notes on why they think the takeover wasn't by battle] and some time after Christianity became important in the city. The earthquake has been dated, and the "how we know" explains that, first, an earliest date was put on the quake by the discovery of a hoard of coins known to have been minted in a given year. And then a letter was found describing the quake: the author not only dated the letter, he gave the time of the quake itself and the aftershock. (The city had already become less important, as trade moved elsewhere for a variety of reasons.)

I wasn't surprised that they were getting pepper and fabric over the Silk Road, nor that Petra is mentioned in Chinese records beginning in the 2nd century BCE. What surprised me is that one of those Chinese mentions is of a troupe of traveling jugglers who had come from Petra to China.

After the Petra exhibit, we went down to the Hall of Ocean Life; I was the only one of us who'd seen it since it reopened. I had to bail out earlier than I'd wanted; first my toes cramped in a weird way while we were walking around, and then I just felt vaguely unsteady and quite tired, so it was clearly time to go home. Tea helped, but not enough; we were close to Museum closing time, and I wasn't up for a long wander outside, even on a relatively mild day. Once again, I was glad of that the basement entrance of the museum connects directly with the IND subway line.

To celebrate cattitude's birthday, he and I went out to the New York Hall of Science, which is in Flushing Meadow Park (the old World's Fair grounds, in Queens). They are midway through refurbishing, which means I saw an unusual sign: "Rocket Reconstruction". Specifically, they are repairing an Atlas rocket with a Mercury capsule as its payload, and a Titan II with a replica Gemini capsule (more info at the Hall of Science Website). There's construction fencing around it, but we got a good view through the gate, including of ladders up to (or maybe into) the bottoms of both rockets.

The main things on the second floor are a selection of scientific photos, mostly insects, microbes, and Hubble images; an auditorium; and a weird artwork, 10 Kilometer Radius, photos of the 72 points (5%deg; apart) and ten kilometers from the building, including graffiti, flags, a bird in flight, and quite a bit of water. (I liked it, but I'm not at all sure it was correctly labeled "sculpture".) We went into the auditorium for a show about electricity and lightning--fun, but definitely aimed at children. I wanted a bigger van de Graaf generator: most of the audience volunteer's hair stayed flad to her head.

Downstairs, we played with light and soap bubbles and simple machines and such. Good, as small science museums go. I liked the place a lot when I was a child: I suspect the difference is in my expectations, rather than the quality of the exhibits: I know much of what they're teaching and because I've been to other science museums since. But a device that produces a vertical sheet of soap bubble, about ten feet wide and up to six feet high, is fun no matter what, and the Carnegie Museum has given them some fine glass model animals.

I spent most of this afternoon with livredor, who is delightful company. We wandered around the Museum of Natural History, looking at dinosaurs, extinct mammals, and so on, and had a fine time, despite the docent who insisted on pointing things out despite our lack of interest in talking to him. (Another docent responded very well to my question "I thought they'd found a second species of coelacanth", and admitted that the sign was out of date.) I also got to show off the glass invertebrates, and see the refurbished Hall of Ocean Life, complete with life-size model blue whale. We also discovered that scallops not only use jet propulsion, they hop on their edges: "Clams got legs!"

By then I was in serious need of a cup of tea, so we went back to the apartment that Livredor and her friend Jen are borrowing, had tea, and talked for another couple of hours, then went out and had kosher pizza (with mushrooms, fresh garlic, and fried onions).

rysmiel, thank you for introducing us.

The morning I'd spent at the gym, then invited myself downtown to eat some of eleanor's macaroni and cheese.

( gym numbers )

If you're curious about the French and Indian War, Fraunces Tavern probably won't help. They already know George Washington was a hero--at least--and don't need to explain why.

Some things defy explanation. There's a case containing a bit of Washington's hair.

A piece of the church pew he sat in, duly labeled as "wood."

An attractive little box, open to show a small piece of Washington's coffin. The tag on that one says who donated it, but not how he obtained it--bribery? Theft? A gift from the undertaker?

A fancy little container for one of his teeth. Except, as we all learned in school, Washington wore false teeth. Solemnly on display, in a bit of glass that looks designed as a pendant, is one of George Washington's dentures.

If the Sons of the Revolution were an explicitly religious organization, they'd have a piece of the True Cross.