װעלן עפֿענען די טירן פון דער וועלט אויפסנײַ
We went to the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the Harvard Art Museums. At the former, we saw exquisitely rendered rotting and blighted glass fruit by Rudolf Blaschka—apricots shriveled with brown rot, softly splotching pears, strawberries furred with blue mold. You wouldn't want to eat them, but it is a masterstroke to make a material as brittle and glinting as glass look sticky, squishy, sunken, fuzzy, bruised. I was especially fond of the magnified field of Aspergillus, globes of spore-clusters on jelly-translucent stalks in a squiggling network of hyphae. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch took some pictures, mostly of the glass sea creatures also by the Blaschkas and the hallway of deep-sea black-light paintings. We said hello to the Kronosaurus, because it's just good manners. The Chilean rose tarantula really was a beautiful rose-gold color on the fine hairs of its legs and the shield of its back. At the latter, we mostly wandered around among the modern and contemporary art on the first floor; we meant to check out the special exhibitions on the third floor, but there kept being another room of Impressionists, or Surrealists, or the Berlin Secession. I love Lyonel Feininger's Avenue of Trees (1915) like I'd like it on my wall, the fractured prism of a fairy-tale wood, an Angela Carter story you're already disappearing into. His Bird Cloud (1926) is the same crystalline fragmenting of a world, but I've seen skies with exactly that quality of light. The evidence of El Lissitzky and László Moholy-Nagy suggests that I like Constructivism, or maybe I just like anybody who likes Victory Over the Sun. I understand why Max Beckmann kept The Fire (1945) with him till the end of his life: however chilly the circumstances of its painting, it is warming to look at. I wish very much that the information for Robert Smullyan Sloan's Negro Soldier (1945)—which is even better in person, one of those penetrating portraits that studies you back—included the model's name.
We were supposed to meet my parents for break-fast at Mamaleh's, but due to a problem with broken track-switching on the Red Line that made our train take half an hour from Harvard to Davis, rather than throwing ourselves back on the grenade to Kendall, we opted to meet them instead at Porter Square Books and I am just as glad we did, because I got the surprise present of running intorushthatspeaks. Then we went to the restaurant and some of us had reubens and some of us had whitefish and most of us had knishes and I personally had a bowl of borscht with a thin dicing of cucumber and a thick garnish of labne and half a bagel covered with very savory chopped liver and mustard stolen from my husband's knish. We got our pictures taken in black and white in their semi-antique photo booth, although we misjudged the number of photos in the strip, so we are only hanging around one another's necks and smiling, not kissing for the flashbulb. The staff heard it was my birthday and brought me a slice of apple and date crostata with a candle lit in it. Rob gave me a beautiful little black-and-white-and-gold enamel pin of a mimic octopus, which now lives on my lapel above the Elder Sign of NecronomiCon. The rest of my birthday will be celebrated on Friday when my brother's family can make it.
I am home now and it is a new year and our cats are warm. The world is complicated. It's the one we've got. Right now, I am not unhappy to be in it.
spatch took some pictures, mostly of the glass sea creatures also by the Blaschkas and the hallway of deep-sea black-light paintings. We said hello to the Kronosaurus, because it's just good manners. The Chilean rose tarantula really was a beautiful rose-gold color on the fine hairs of its legs and the shield of its back. At the latter, we mostly wandered around among the modern and contemporary art on the first floor; we meant to check out the special exhibitions on the third floor, but there kept being another room of Impressionists, or Surrealists, or the Berlin Secession. I love Lyonel Feininger's Avenue of Trees (1915) like I'd like it on my wall, the fractured prism of a fairy-tale wood, an Angela Carter story you're already disappearing into. His Bird Cloud (1926) is the same crystalline fragmenting of a world, but I've seen skies with exactly that quality of light. The evidence of El Lissitzky and László Moholy-Nagy suggests that I like Constructivism, or maybe I just like anybody who likes Victory Over the Sun. I understand why Max Beckmann kept The Fire (1945) with him till the end of his life: however chilly the circumstances of its painting, it is warming to look at. I wish very much that the information for Robert Smullyan Sloan's Negro Soldier (1945)—which is even better in person, one of those penetrating portraits that studies you back—included the model's name.We were supposed to meet my parents for break-fast at Mamaleh's, but due to a problem with broken track-switching on the Red Line that made our train take half an hour from Harvard to Davis, rather than throwing ourselves back on the grenade to Kendall, we opted to meet them instead at Porter Square Books and I am just as glad we did, because I got the surprise present of running into
rushthatspeaks. Then we went to the restaurant and some of us had reubens and some of us had whitefish and most of us had knishes and I personally had a bowl of borscht with a thin dicing of cucumber and a thick garnish of labne and half a bagel covered with very savory chopped liver and mustard stolen from my husband's knish. We got our pictures taken in black and white in their semi-antique photo booth, although we misjudged the number of photos in the strip, so we are only hanging around one another's necks and smiling, not kissing for the flashbulb. The staff heard it was my birthday and brought me a slice of apple and date crostata with a candle lit in it. Rob gave me a beautiful little black-and-white-and-gold enamel pin of a mimic octopus, which now lives on my lapel above the Elder Sign of NecronomiCon. The rest of my birthday will be celebrated on Friday when my brother's family can make it.I am home now and it is a new year and our cats are warm. The world is complicated. It's the one we've got. Right now, I am not unhappy to be in it.
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I know! I used to have a photo of it on my old phone. The last time I saw it, I believe the card read something like "magnetotaaffeite," but it's the same little purple stone.
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I figured it was just something to do with the the Magnetoim.
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It was really nice!
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I haven't been to the Harvard natural history museum in several years, so a question, : did you notice whether the blighted fruit and the Aspergillus are part of the old glass flower collection, or are newer work?
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Thank you!
did you notice whether the blighted fruit and the Aspergillus are part of the old glass flower collection, or are newer work?
They're part of the original collection—they were made by Rudolf Blaschka, the younger of the pair of famed glassmakers, between 1924 and 1932. They just haven't been on display in decades.
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Thank you!
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Thank you!
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It was a good birthday. I'd still like functional public transit, please.
This is indeed the world we have; however, I'm still hell-bent on improving it.
I never said we shouldn't. In general I tend to feel strongly that we should. (See also: quoting Perchik.) But since I have a lot of difficulty wanting to be here at all, irrespective of the state of the world, I do not think it is complacent for me to enjoy the alternative when it occurs.
If that was not the intent of your comment, I apologize for misreading. I am just not sure how to take it.
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I'm glad you're here, too.
My intent was to say "Hey, we just finished that part of the year where we think a lot about compassion and kindness and the rabbinic directives associated with them and all that has left me thinking about what I want to do to help heal the world."
That make any sense? Sorry for being unclear.
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Thank you!
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Thank you! Yes. I love their sea creatures especially.
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this is the best and i am glad
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Thank you.
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It's heartening to hear that
Nine
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It was really nice!
Wishing all of you health and happiness.
Thank you.
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We said hello to the Kronosaurus because it's just good manners. --*approval*
It's the one we've got --yes.
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Thank you! I was impressed the fluorescent effect came through.
And again, I keep pinging on Frontera Verde. I'm not saying she looks like you or you look like her, just that there's an atmosphere around her that reminds me of you.
I'm honored! (The show's holding up?)
--yes.
All the more obligation to it.
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We're on slow rotation, so we only just saw episode three yesterday, but so far, yes. I gather from looking at reviews that the ending leaves a little to be desired, so I'm prepared for that. I also spoiled myself and now know something about the nature of the villain which doesn't surprise me much in one sense, but on the other hand, there's enough evil in human nature without having to resort to this trope (which may be enough to spoil it for you too, but maybe not)
I mean partly I just like looking at the Amazon.
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I don't think that's a bad thing.
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Thank you! It was a good set of things to do. (I like the photo, too.)
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Thank you for the photos, especially 'Negro Soldier' – what a magnificent, haunting work. And your octopus pin is completely adorable!
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Thank you!
Thank you for the photos, especially 'Negro Soldier' – what a magnificent, haunting work.
You're very welcome. I hope you get the chance to visit it in person sometime.
And your octopus pin is completely adorable!
I'm really fond of it.