Shaking my head with resignation masquerading as wisdom
I know I’ve cluttered this blog up with a lot of train and car images but why stop now? Having a small son means I often get to ride steam trains and visit transportation museums. I do love old machinery and the many elegant elements that make up the whole.
A friend visiting in the summer provided the excuse to see some of the area around Stockholm. I hate to admit it but even though I’m a short drive or train ride away I have not explored that city as much as I should. Drottningholm Palace just outside Stockholm is where the Swedish royals actually live but you can still tour a portion of the historic building. While there’s certainly vast wealth on display you can see that Sweden’s Royal Family wasn’t the wealthiest in Europe by all the faux detailing and decoration. I captured a little bit of it in pictures.
I’ve accumulated some more photos from disparate sources. Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario, Canada has its share of hyphens. Despite that it is a rather large tourist attraction hosting some of the best vineyards in the Great White North. Besides the trodden grapes the area has a great deal of history including action during the war of 1812 (when it was the capital of Upper Canada) and before. If you want to see Niagara Falls do yourself a favor and take a day trip there while making this quaint town your home base.
Closer to home (mine, at least) is the Yankee Air museum. It’s a non-profit organization that restores and flies vintage WWII aircraft. When you take into consideration the vast, and I mean vast, quantity of military aircraft made under the stars and stripes for the great war (part deux) it is mind boggling how few survive. It’s a good thing that some groups preserve this heritage.
So, here are some pictures captured at the above.
A few weeks ago I took my first trip to Philadelphia which isn’t that far from my new digs in Pennsylvania. I went ostensibly for an NAWCC chapter mart where I could look over watches and such for sale. Afterwards I had planned to go to the Simone Foundation Automotive Museum with a fellow horological student. Some of the world’s most famous sports cars are in this facility on display. There are not an overwhelming number of cars (which is good) but they make up for that in beauty. Pre-war Italian, British, French, and American vehicles are in tableaux to show the era they raced. The sensuous curves and touches that are form without function are as lovely as any sculpture.
As I usually do I took some pictures of the details of many cars. Also as usual the endeavor of photographing in available light meant that some images did not turn our even though I take a vast number of exposures. I’m happy the ones below were acceptable to me.
What? More pictures of cars? Yes, sorry. Guilty as charged. But I have an excuse: I went to an automotive museum. Near where I live now is Hershey, PA (yes, that’s the place with the candy and amusement park) and the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) Museum. I’ve been meaning to visit it and I finally got around to rousing myself to go and play the tourist. It turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable place, well-kept and full of interesting vehicles and displays. What I wound up recording were images reflecting my fascination with small details and not the entire autos. Well, at least I’m not spoiling the museum for you with my microscopic presentation.
Just a friendly reminder: click on the images to enlarge.
I’m always happy that I have the Monday around my birthday off for Martin Luther King Day. Besides contemplating the message the great man put forth I like to try and get out of the house and do something with my free time. This year I decided to go and see something educational. There’s not much close to where I live for a day trip that I’ve not been to already. One place I’ve passed the sign for a number of times (without stopping) is a museum in nearby Danville, VA. It is certainly educational and unusual since it’s the AAF Tank Museum.
While not exactly of the martial inclination I do take an interest in history and enjoy looking at the machinery of the military. So much effort and ingenuity is put into the vast and varied equipment needed to supply, transport, and provide the means of aggression. There’s an amazing variety of this here but also as interesting is the presentation. This isn’t a national or state museum but a private concern and shows the quirkiness inherent in a labor of love which starts with the building. I assume it was once some industrial facility because it is a huge and labyrinthine place that with ever turn divulges something you may not have expected.
There are tanks and more tanks arrayed in rows in the giants halls from many different countries and periods of the 20th century. The focus is on American equipment but hulking metal monsters from enemy and allies alike are sprinkled throughout. Some are surrounded by uniformed manikins and artificial terrain to create a bit of a surreal setting. This is certainly the quirky bit as it’s not very convincing and even a somewhat disturbing. It’s like seeing the wooden inhabitants of a department store window display come to the conclusion they’ve had enough and decide to arm.
There is a lot more than Tanks, however. Motorized gun carriages, half-tracks, armored scout cars, troop transports, motorcycles, mortars, field artillery, bombs, a helicopter, and even bicycles are spread about the place. A large missile for delivering a nuclear payload sits in a row near a min-sub. Quite a variety and every object has a description of its purpose and history.
After you’ve wandered the halls full of both restored and rusty denizens you enter a smaller area that seems to have possibly been the offices of the prior commercial tenant. This has to be one of the most confusing jumbles of halls and rooms I’ve even seen. The contents are just as remarkable as the rest of the place, however. Rooms of military optics, communication equipment, heavy and shoulder arms, memorabilia, and toys are found here. Oh, and what seems like countless uniformed manikins which makes me think this is where the ones by the tanks escaped from. The Hall of Generals has many representatives like this kitted out in their proper uniforms and I really mean a lot! There are also displays of non-general staff as well going back to examples of such things as Austro-Hungarian uniforms. Just to add some additional oddness to this mute army is a display of tiny children’s mock uniforms. Then there are the hats. Row after row of headgear from all eras is packed into glass display cases. Beautiful ornate Imperial helmets share space with cloth caps in the isles. Women’s service millinery is represented in one isle just in case you forget that they served as well.
It’s the unexpected surprises that pop up which can really make you scratch your head. In back of one area was a poorly done representation of the “Star Gate” from the eponymous movie and TV show. Not sure what that was about. Also, a giant battle theater for remote controlled tanks takes up a large chunk of floor space. Wandering alone most of the time in this wonderland made it all the more eerie. I’ve worked in manufacturing facilities and an alien feeling is created by seeing the displays where large and noisy factory equipment should be.
I both had fun and learned a great deal that I’ll never be able to use in a dinner conversation (unless I’m having dinner in a mess hall). Peruse the pictures below to help illustrate my comments above.
My father has had a few years of ill health (and all the baggage being a wee bit of a hypochondriac can add to that) so when some medical tweaks suddenly made him regain some vigor I was impressed. Since my father is at his craziest when in high spirits his purchase of a Porsche was only modestly shocking. Certainly at his age he should do whatever makes him happy and I’m all for indiscriminate spending on fun things, after all look what I collect! These events were a sign that it was time to get my father out and about doing something fun and far away after such a long period of him protesting he couldn’t.
Even though the weekend after Thanksgiving was very close the free from work Friday made the time ideal for this road trip and I went about quickly (OK, I procrastinated) making plans for it. Soon I found myself flying into Buffalo, NY and taking the wheel to move on down the road for 7 hours into the heart of Manhattan. It wasn’t all bliss, though. The expensive SUV didn’t have an iPod aux jack even though the cheapest Kia comes with such gratis. A few hours of driving and I was looking (and looking and looking) for a decent book on CD at Cracker Barrel to fill time on the boring concrete ribbon of the interstate. Learning to use the complex interface for the rather misguided navigation system also tried my patience. It worked like the partially decommissioned HAL did in near the end of 2001 a space odyssey and I was surprised it didn’t start singing “Daisy” somewhere in New Jersey.
Miraculously we made it to our Midtown hotel only to find our room was not ready yet. Actually, It wasn’t ready for two hours which normally would have perturbed me if it wasn’t for the fact that I got comped free stuff every time I went to the desk to ask “ready yet?” In the end through judicious choice of a different receptionist every time I went up to put forth my inquiry I had accumulated 10 free breakfasts and 4 slips for drinks at the bar. That was 4 more breakfasts than we needed for our 3 day stay but they started being distributed en masse towards the end of my pilgrimage to bug them.
The goals for the weekend fell into two general categories: Things with my father and things without my father. The latter was intended to help me keep my sanity over this period. The former included eating and the opera which was the point for coming to the city and we certainly had a good deal of both.
The Opera was Il Trittico by Giacomo Puccini and I was astounded by the stage presentation and voices presented by the Metropolitan Opera. It was long but that was justified by the final of the three single act operas called Gianni Schicchi. This was a very funny comic opera that won the heart of this most ambivalent opera listener. My father loved it all and even made a friend in an old woman who I found him discussing Czechoslovakia with when I returned from intermission. Below are some images of the event for you to take a gander at. The sets and stagecraft utilized for this were incredible and even utilized some tricks of perception to make the stage seem deeper than in actuality. Yes, I did put a tie on for the event which I felt was appropriate even if I’m not sure I didn’t look a bit like a tourist.
My father is a fine person but he has weird outbursts of angry old man at times. I’m pretty good at putting my hand over his mouth when this happens but my biggest challenge was to keep him from getting into trouble. In the end I am happy to say only 4 times did I cringe in either embarrassment or shock. At the opera he grumped at someone who got in front of him in the elevator which is par for the course. After the performance when cabs were scarce he wanted me to take proactive physical action to obtain a cab before others who had seniority. I will say here that he has some trouble walking and didn’t like standing around but I have two strikes against me in cab warfare: I’m polite and I’m rather small. Lastly, there was his outburst at a hostess at a German restaurant we ate at and how his inexplicable insertion of his hand in another person’s waiting food. I’m not even going to give details about that little incident.
Around all the other activities I did get to eat (and eat). One of my favorite restaurants is Les Halles whose executive chef once was Antony Bourdain. I go there for the boudin noir which in English has the less romantic name of blood sausage. Certainly not something you’ll find at the local IHOP but totally tasty if you can get beyond the ingredient in its name. Some giant German sausages at the Heidelberg, a prickly pear margarita at Dos Caminos, and some great Belgian beer at the BXL Café got worked into the trip as well. However, the only pictures of my general wanderings are of the environs of Rockefeller center. It was lovely as usual and the big tree was…well…big.
So, that takes care of the boring part of this all. Now I can talk about one of my favorite topics: pens and friends. I made a beeline Saturday morning for Art Brown International Pen Store which is a great place if you are of the pen, stationary, and ink mindset. An enjoyable time for me is wandering and ogling the contents of such a place, as you can imagine. I was picking up a few presents and some other items when I came across bottles of the now discontinued Montblanc Racing Green ink. I bought a bottle since it was low priced and now seemingly rare. I’m only mentioning this since I think I’m going to give it away on this blog in the near future.
Sunday saw me off on my own to visit MOMA. I wanted to see the Tim Burton art exhibit being shown but found after getting my tickets that you were assigned to a time slot when they would let you see it. Of course that time was 3 or so hours later than the when I arrived so I never got to view it. Still, all was not lost as I got to see a really fabulous exhibit on the Bauhaus school in prewar Germany.
After my fill of Deutsch modernism I had a terrific lunch with Dominique James, a pen friend. He is one of the original members of the Fountain Pen Network-Philippines group which I’ve blogged about before. Since I’m a distant acquaintance of a couple FPN-P members I’ve known that he lived in NYC and thought I’d see if he might want to meet up. I’m always stunned that someone would be nice enough to spend their valuable time with me but he agreed. The lunch was very enjoyable with much talk about pens interspersed with some interesting information on the Philippines and cooking. I stayed longer than anticipated so I was off in a rush to my next appointment.
Two people willing to see me in one day doesn’t come along too often so I hustled uptown to the Columbia University area. There another wonderful person who I knew from online interaction, but never met in person, waited. I, of course, was quite late to meet her and which got me off on the “now you look like a dimwit” foot. Mia was far nicer than I had a right to expect and my tardiness was overlooked. I got a highly enjoyable tour of the local neighborhood and a few places of sustenance. Food makes me docile and easily led so it was a good thing that I had great crepes for a pre-dinner snack followed by some wonderful croissants from a local French bakery. After the tour and picture taking I had an experience which reminded me of being on a childhood play date with a friend. We spread out pens, pads, and inks and spend time trying it all out. It ended way too soon as I had to go to dinner with my father who had spent a great deal of time watching football that day (yes, that’s my father). I left taking with me the two best tamales I ever had.
While on that neighborhood walking tour I did get to see a fascinating Church and fountain. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is very imposing and creepily gothic. In the gardens next to it is both the oddest and most interesting fountains I’ve ever seen. The Peace Fountain has a depiction of the battle of good and evil which contains (among other things) a giant crab, the sun, and an Angel. Not sure how to fathom what kind of aquatic/solar/heavenly battle is going on but it’s dramatic. Even more surprising was the albino peacock that wandered behind a fence on the grounds. That was the last thing I expected to see in New York City.
I think both my father and myself had a great trip to that little, sparsely populated island city. I’m hoping to get back again at least to check out more stationary stores and maybe catch another opera to try and stay awake during.
While in Chicago I visited the Smith Stained Glass Museum on Navy Pier. I love stained glass and Chicago was a center for that craft in the United States. Most people know about Frank Lloyd Wright and his famous windows but the museum holds more than just examples of those. There are four focuses for its exhibits: victorian, prairie, modern, and contemporary. It’s the only museum in the U.S. to focus solely on stained glass.
I hope you enjoyed the factoids. I took some pictures that day which are below.
