Meet Me at the Met and Other Fun This Weekend

Saturday found us in the glorious halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, primarily to see "Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity."  We loved the combination of paintings by Monet, Degas, Tissot, Caillebotte (okay, so they weren't all Impressionists, but the word sells tickets!) and the crinolined and bustled fashions of the second half of the 19th century.  Bud, who recently read a biography of Monet, was glad to tell us all about Monet's wife Camille as well as the exhibition of 1871 and plein-air painting.  Sis especially liked Monet's "cotton candy" painting of a woman in white with a parasol on a hill.

We also walked the 19th-century galleries, where Sis wanted to see Degas's statue of a dancer.  She stood mesmerized for awhile, liking the cloth skirt and ribbon of the otherwise bronze figure.  Bud kept asking us to describe the subjects of painting so we finally would send him to read the labels.  For the painting in the above photo, of the massacre of the Innocents, the label really didn't help him understand the dead children or bereft mothers.  Interesting to note that the Met situates its labels at the height of an 8-year old, also probably that of a person in a wheelchair.

We had lunch on the (somewhat chilly) steps, though many of the fancy gourmet food carts have left--no cupcakes, no shakes, just New York hot dogs, which were good enough for Sis, Bud, and Mama!

Back inside, led by a banner on the facade of the building, we tracked down the newly-opened "Photography and the American Civil War," with his collection of carte-de-visite portraits in lockets and frames, battlefield images of casualties both dead and injured, and equipment such as cameras, braces to hold subjects' necks still, and stereoscopes, which were the kiddos' favorite.

We headed home soon after, with a swazu over to Columbia.  We picked up some huge slices of Koronet pizza and ate them in front of Butler Library, where Mama and I met way back when.  The kids love hearing that story over again and marveled that we could point to the exact stone bench (really more of a wall) where I was sitting eating breakfast when we were introduced by a co-worker.  We'll have to go back for a longer visit next time, to hit some of our other favorite spots again (we took them once before, but they were probably too young to remember the library stacks, the Hungarian Cafe, and St. John the Divine.)

Saturday night, our babysitter came so that Mama and I could go to see Audra McDonald in concert with last-minute, half-price tickets.  I'd seen her before, both in Carousel and Ragtime, and was looking forward to it.  And we loved it!  We had great seats, front row center mezzanine.  Most of the songs dealt with the meaning of life, such as "Make Someone Happy" and "First You Dream."  But, including those, I didn't know most of the songs, several being 1930s musical standards which isn't my forte.  She "got over herself" to sing "I Could've Danced All Night," but she encouraged us to sing along.  She sang about flying--and played the piano--in honor of her father who died five years ago in a plane crash.  She was inspired to add "My Buddy" by an 86-year old veteran singing the song in Harvard Square; she sang some lullabies because her daughter wouldn't listen to them, saying her mother's singing "made my ears cry."   The song about the effects of September 11th on one person, "I'll Be There," made us both cry.  And we laughed hysterically, truly to the point of tears, when she sang her German art songs with lyrics from, of all places, Craigslist!  There she was operatically singing about finding a particular type of Hudson Valley pickle because "some dipschitz though out my bottle!"  I wasn't as affected by her song "Go Back Home" about the Scottsboro Boys or "Some Days" from a James Baldwin poem, but I really liked the poignant chorus and story of "Stars and the Moon," about being promised true love yet wanting a yacht and champagne.  And her version of "Moment in the Woods."  She closed with a song first sung by the person she considered the best singer ever--Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow."  No Porgy and Bess, no Carousel, no Ragtime.  And it was all wonderful nonetheless.  Mama and I glowed the rest of the weekend from having done something so adult, so enjoyable, so much like we used to, so memorable.  We picked up Indian food on the way home and chatted late into the night.

Sunday was spent mainly at church--we were in charge of snacks, bringing homemade brownies, cheese and crackers, veggies and dip--as we had both morning service and I had a small group ministry meeting of parents of young children in the afternoon.  There we discussed, passionately yet sensitively (also rather liberally), the shooting tragedy in Newtown through the lens of parenthood.  I just joined the group but felt really comfortable with everyone and am very glad to have found a niche at church.  Meanwhile, Mama and the kids made wooden pinball machines at a local museum and went for a short hike.

We ended the outing with some frozen yogurt--tart or lychee or strawberry yogurt with fruit toppings, caramel sauce, raspberry sauce, coconut, almonds, mochi, gummies, maraschino cherries--we had more toppings than yogurt!  A sweet end to a great weekend.

Advent Activities: O Christmas Trees!

With rain in the forecast, we decided to ditch our plans to go to candlelight at Sturbridge Village tonight.  So we headed into NYC instead.  Not for the usual 5th Avenue promenade and visit to the Rockefeller Tree, but uptown on both the East and West sides to visit the Met and the American Museum of Natural History.

The kids didn't get into either of the audiobooks we had so we played car games--the ABC game (J and Q are hard), counting the cars (1 pt for cars, 5 for buses, 10 for trucks, -5 for police!), count the Christmas trees (more of that on the way home), then once we hit the city, we looked for iconic NYC things--taxis, food carts, police cars, ambulances, fire trucks, bodegas, fire escapes.

Our first stop was the Met, where we went straight to the medieval hall to see the creche.  All the while, Bud kept telling us that a group of Adelie penguins is called a creche.  We were a bit doubtful, having heard of colonies of penguins, even rafts of penguins.  But guess what?  I just looked it up and he's right.  A creche of Adelie penguins.

Well, there are not penguins in this creche.  Instead, we saw an elephant, a camel, numerous sheep, a donkey, an ox, some dogs, plus, of course, the Holy Family, angels, Wise Men, the shepherds, and all the Neapolitan peasants surrounding them.  It was a delightful I-spy.

  

Before we left the Met, we took a detour to the newly-installed (relatively) American galleries specifically to see Emmanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware.  We looked long and hard at the huge painting, talking about art vs. history--the sunrise halo around Washington, the stable triangle-shape of the figures in the boat, the pinnacle at the flag, the diversity of figures in the boat (Scottish, frontiersmen, African, etc), as well as how and when the actual crossing took place.  Plus the original circumstances of the creation and exhibition of the work about 100 years later.  It really is a fun painting to explore.

The kids probably could have stayed all day, but we were off across the park to AMNH.  I have long wanted to see the Origami Tree and so we headed straight to it.  And we loved it!  If I-spy was fun with the creche, it was doubly fun with all the origami animals:  koalas, owls, penguins, bunnies, pandas, hedgehogs (perhaps--they were high up!), dolphin, ducks, swan, jellyfish, foxes, lemurs, peacocks, bears, horeshoe crabs,  oh so many different critters.  Just look at the pictures.  There are over 500 figures, made by members of Origami USA, who start in July to finish in time.  Very intriguing and inspiring.

   



We visited the dioramas--both in North American mammals (bunnies!) and the hall of the Blue Whale (penguins and manatee).  Did you know that the Blue Whale hall might be the best place to stretch your back in NYC?  (Well, I bet Central Park would be good, too, but not in December.)   I spent awhile on the floor, horizontal like those around me, admiring the whale from below.  Very good for the spine!

Then we headed to the special exhibition, Global Kitchen, which is all about "food, farm to fork."  The first bit of the exhibition was perhaps too science-y for me and even too preachy (and I'm the choir!  Maybe that's why!)--gallons of water, pounds of waste, etc etc etc.  Though, as the NYTimes reviewer notes, this is an exhibition about how people have intersected with nature for sustenance and how that has totally gone awry recently with agribusiness.   But then, I prefer anthropology and social history.  There were a few history of science facts I found intriguing--kohlrabi, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, and all cauliflower actually originate from the same wild cabbage weedy-thing that has been cultivated for thousands of years; apples are 7 times less bitter than their crabapple forebears; bananas might be extinct in our lifetime because they only use one genetic family which is susceptible to a blight right now.  We had fun tasting cornbread in the Whole Foods-sponsored kitchen (mine is better!  They change the topic every two weeks).  And we liked sniffing all the different scent interactives (yeah, lavender; ugh, garlic).  We especially liked the Aztec market with its basket and bags and pots full of fish, beans, corn, tortillas, agave, iguana, turkey, tomatoes, pumpkins, squash, squash blossoms, etc etc.  It was a great display.  And without wheat, cheese, chicken, or beef--several of the items we associate with modern-day Mexican food.  Or plastic or styrofoam or even glass containers!  We also loved situating ourselves at meals through the ages--a feast with Kublai Khan, ice cream with Jane Austen, reclining with Roman empress Livia Drusilla.  And cooking our own meals on an interactive computer "stove" making groundnut soup, poached eggs, grilled salmon (see here for more recipes and info).  And seeing what Ghandi usually ate (vegetarian), what Michael Phelps downs during intense training (Bud wanted to try to eat that--3 breakfast sandwiches, omelets, oatmeal, French toast, coffee, what Otzi (the 5,000 year old Iceman found in the Alps) had for breakfast the day he died (dried Ibex and some fruit, I think), and what Nobel Peace prize winner and sustainable food activist Wangari Matthai would eat.  There were also displays on cookbooks, the history of utensils, and the specific traditions of China, Morocco, France, and Korea.  The only part that fell very very short was food as ritual--two small cases cramming diverse celebrations such as Chinese New Year and Day of the Dead together, accompanied by a too-short film about different traditions.  This could have been an exhibition itself and was not properly addressed.  But the gift shop made up for the slightly rushed end--we chose several different kinds of chocolate and candies to sample on the ride home!  And so we drove home up Broadway, munching on black raspberries, peach chewies, chocolate marzipan, and "milk bottles" of condensed milk candy.

But that wasn't the end of our day!  After a two-hour rest at home (including several holiday specials I slept right through), we headed for dinner at Bloodroot--because it's Latke night for Hanukkah, where a lovely clay menorah was lit in the center of the dining room!  The kids even played the dreidl game with another little kid and his dad while we all waited for our food to come.   Then we happily gorged on porcini soup (Bud's favorite), Cambodian kanji, oatmeal bread, three kinds of latkes (potato, cauliflower, and beets, with sour cream, applesauce, and a great beet spread from the NYTimes, Selma said.  Sis loved the cauliflower latkes), halushkin (noodles and cabbage), solianka (tomato-y mushroom-cabbage dish), Jamaican jerk "chicken" with this spicy green chile spread, marinated tofu salad, and then cranberry kissl, kombucha squash roll with cream cheese (think pumpkin roll), and hot fudge sundaes!

A wonderful day of family, food, and fun.  And trees!

One of Bloodroot's cats curled up on Bud's jacket.

Time Travel

The Cloisters from the Western Terrace

The Cuxa Cloister

The Rabbit in the Unicorn Tapestries

The Unicorn in Captivity

(all of the above taken without flash by my phone; every time I take a picture, I remember the ad, "If it rings, it's not a camera.  I'll see if Mama will upload her pics from her fancy camera!)


Yesterday we traveled through time and space via The Cloisters, the medieval art branch of the Met, in northern Manhattan.  Mama and I hadn't been in years, the kids never, but we were drawn by the exhibition of the famed Lewis Chessmen.

Better known as the inspiration of the set Ron and Harry play in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Sis and Bud had a great time admiring the intricate walrus ivory pieces, with their unique details.  The kids even drew their favorite pieces.  We learned a lot about chess, from its origins in 6th-century India where elephants were main pieces--these later became bishops when the game moved into Western Europe; how Rooks/Castles replaced Warders, and the subset Beserkers, who are often show biting their shields; how rules change--the King used to be able to move 4 squares in his opening and the Queen could initially jump other pieces; how ivory chess pieces were made in Trondheim, Norway, in the 11-12th centuries and moved West through trade to Scotland, where this horde was found in the early 19th-century--the man who first dug them up thought they were elves!

The kids continued to draw throughout the museum, with Mama's guidance in forming shapes and sketching--a wall painting of a lion, an archway, a crucifix, and stained glass windows, enjoying how much the whole place felt like a medieval castle.  We even went outside in the damp fog to take in the view of the Hudson from the Western Terrace.  We could enjoy the "ramparts" of the museum but could only barely see the outline of the massive George Washington Bridge (GWB).  The other outdoor spaces--the two cloisters filled with plants--were closed for the winter, but I still enjoyed sitting in the Cuxa Cloister, with the scent of potted hyacinths and rosemary, plus citrus and olive trees.

Bud was bothered by the tomb effigies, even after we explained that the skeletons were long gone.  He just couldn't appreciate the chain mail and shields while thinking of them as tombs. We did notice, however, that most of the sepulchres had dogs at the feet of the departed; one elaborate tomb also sat on lions and a sheep, with a bunny nearby.  We also marveled at the extensive damage to one sculpture's face due to touching over time--dark, shiny, and lacking detailed compared to the face of the sculpture out of reach.

Sis liked the Unicorn Tapestries (and here), particularly because of the rabbit in one of them.  We listened to a visiting art history prof give an awful, incoherent, and incorrect explanation of the tapestries to his class of bored college students; when he left, I told the kids all the other interpretations of the works of art.  "Bad" or lazy or simplistic art history--especially because in this case he provided a rigid religious interpretation, ignoring the two tapestries that didn't fit (which scholars believe belong to a secular metaphor of the unicorn as lover), and then discounting a question by a student about other unicorn tapestries, which he'd never heard of (in Cluny!  See the novel The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracey Chevalier)--drives me nuts (like DaVinci Code).  They especially liked the unicorn's horn (actually a narwhal tusk) on view.  We also spent some time admiring The Merode Altarpiece, with Mama and I plumbing the depths of Art 101 for all the symbolism in the detailed piece.  Sis liked the baby Jesus flying to Mary on the mini-cross!  We also examined more than one Lamentation and Pieta, giving us a chance to review the Easter story with the kids.

But that's next weekend!

Art History in Action

Check out Dr. Carrie Rebora Barratt, curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, explaining to Stephen Colbert why you can't lick paintings and that those red fobs aren't George Washington's testicles!  It's art history in action, folks.  And I studied with and later worked for her for a bit  . . . . So glad the Leutze painting is back on view.  I've wanted to take the kids to see it for ages.