New York, Day 6: The Met

Sometimes the ways of the universe are super double awesome.  I am currently in the middle of an Alice in Wonderland obsession.  It is a rich text to me for many reasons that I’m not currently ready or able to explain.  But when I discover, by accident, that I happen to be near an Alice in Wonderland sculpture, I feel like the message is that I am on the right track somehow.  Here is what it looks like:

Just to bring things back to earth, here is my kid humoring me by posing with a bear sculpture the way he would have when he was small (I chose this over the picture of him posing as if being devoured by the center bear, which is how he poses with the sculpture now that he is larger…).

We spent the day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  One day is clearly not enough.  Those of you who have read From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs.Basil E. Frankweiler will know what I am plotting.  (Those of you who haven’t should hurry up and read it; it’s awesome.)  T. and I saw many, many beautiful things, but perhaps the best part of the day was seeing this:

It’s a picture of one part of one page of a Qur’an (here’s the whole description from the Met), one of the largest ever made.  T., because he is studying Arabic, was working on parsing it out for me when a lovely man and his son came up to us to help.  They translated the passage for us and made a beautiful object also meaningful.  In these contentious times, it warmed my heart that someone would reach out and help me in my ignorance to understand an important part of their language, culture, and religion.

Today’s John the Baptist is Spanish and sculpted.  (I also saw one painted, but it was only his head on a plate, with Salome.)

And, finally, here is a bowl with fish.  I like that it seems like the fish are swimming at different depths because of the way the coloring works.

New York, Day 5: MOMA

Sometimes I do a good job planning stuff.  I only put one thing on today’s schedule, the MOMA.  After last night’s theater excursion and the cumulative nature of all the walking we have been doing, a mellow day was definitely in order.  Here are four pieces of art I liked.

This one is a Rothko.  I did not understand why someone would want to paint big blocks of color until I saw his work and how the colors have depth and almost a sense of breath in them.  (I like the one in the SFMOMA better, but this one is lovely, too.)

This one is called Mask of Fear and it’s by Paul Klee.

I don’t remember the name of the artist who made this one, but I was amused/appalled at the way misogyny manifests in politics whenever there are strong women.  It’s a replica in ceramic of an anti-Roosevelt campaign button.

What I liked about the exhibit of Lee Friedlander’s photos was that they were hung together.  The ones in this particular set were all letters or numbers or words from signs or graffiti.  The resulting rich chaos of meaning was wonderful.  Even better, the individual photos can stand alone.  This one in particular made me happy because I love the absurd signs of life.

When we were done at the museum, we headed back to the hotel, where I hung out in the hot tub for a bit.  Next up:  napping and eventually dinner.

New York, Day 4: Libraries!

One of the initial spurs to planning this trip, besides the fact that Brent was working in NYC this week and that T. happened to have a spring break that matched up, was that the Morgan Library was hosting a Tolkien exhibit.  Here is my Tolkien nerd cred:  I have read the entire Lord of the Rings, OUT LOUD, not once, but twice, because I have two children and I love them both.  The exhibit is amazing and wonderful and everyone should go see it.  Sadly, photos are not allowed in the exhibit.  I consoled myself by buying the enormous book about the exhibit, so I can keep pictures of all the lovely and inspiring things forever and ever.

Because the Morgan is clever, they created a tie-in meal that included many Tolkien-mentioned foods.  Here is a picture of the lunch T. and I ate, Bilbo-style:

The library also has an exhibit on about early Italian drawings.  Here is John the Baptist, the saint who follows me around:

Our path to the Morgan took us past this notable New York landmark:

Also, we saw this ad with annotations on Madison Avenue, which seemed a particularly appropriate place to speak back to the marketing geniuses:

Because one library is clearly not enough, T. and I then headed to visit the New York Public Library.  Here is Patience or Fortitude (I don’t remember which one is which), one of the library lions.  My own personal librarian used to threaten that he was going to get them tattooed on his arms.  I have felt fond of the library lions since the kids were small and PBS ran Between the Lions in the afternoon.

We paused for some rest and to get spiffed up because we spent the evening at the theater.  Go see Hadestown.  It is amazing.  And the theater is pretty swanky, too:

Next up:  collapse into bed before we do more tomorrow!