Jane Lapotaire

Every once in a while, there's a scene in some film or other program where an actor just shines. Jane Lapotaire is the actress that just knocked me off my chair. She plays Princess Alice (Battenberg), the mother of HRH Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, in The Crown. She has been staying at Buckingham Palace after a coup made the situation in Greece precarious. Her brother, Lord Mountbatten, has just gotten a dressing down from Queen Elizabeth for conspiring (QE II's word) with others against Harold Wilson's government.

Lord Mountbatten goes to see Princess Alice in her room and their conversation resonated for me as I think about what to do about more Trump presidency. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT6yUlDzkfs 

As I was watching that scene in The Crown, I realized that Jane Lapotaire also played Princess Kuragin in Downton Abbey.

I was wearing my t-shirt yesterday with a quote from Moira Rose of Schitt's Creek. "When one of us shines, all of us shine."

oops, continuity issues in Schitt's Creek

 When you've watched a television series a gazillion times, you notice some funny things like ...

• When Moira gets the proposed contract for the Crows movie and David is reading the terms, he mentions that her pay will be in Baltic money. Make that Balkan since they're filming in Bosnia. I do forgive them because I really have to think about Baltic/Balkan. Moira does later correctly say Balkan Peninsula or some such thing when she's referring to the filming.
• When the family is at the Amish family's house, Alexis is sitting at a picnic table. The conversation continues and, all of a sudden, she's on the other side of the table.
• Bob's got raw milk for his coffee. Johnny "borrows" some. When they're talking about it, the lid is on the bottle and then off the bottle and then back on the bottle.
• In the "Bachelor Party" episode, Alexis's pen jumps around on her journal/calendar. She is pretty agitated and the jumpiness may be contagious.
• Stevie sets her glass down twice on the table at the "Surprise Party" before she and David dance together.
• Roland's name tag wiggles around on his jacket when he and Moira are at the RAMC conference.
• Sebastien Raine says Room 5 would be just fine. Stevie gives him the key. When Moira comes to the door to challenge Sebastien, the door has the number 4.
• Johnny and Moira are arguing in "The Motel Guest" about the little quirks that might drive each other crazy. There's a white bottle cap or something next to Moira's teacup after a while.
• Ken borrows a pen and paper from David to write down Patrick's number. When he leaves and Patrick comes over to David and Alexis, Patrick has the paper but the pen has disappeared.
• I think the only time anybody is in Room 8 at the motel is during the "Moira Rosé" episode when Patrick is watching the game with David before David runs off with his mother.
• In the episode about Ted's coded booty call from Heather, Alexis says that Lisa called about stopping over after work. It's confusing whether the name is confused or both a Lisa and a Heather live at the farm.

None of this is a problem for me. It's more fun than disappointment that these things happen. It's a little like LC cataloging copy or the New York times. There used to be layers of proofreading of such things as cataloging copy or newspapers. Now, the cataloger or journalist writes and types the copy and mistakes are more likely to happen without an extra pair of eyes looking over the copy. No more layer of typesetter eyes.

Since I've been known to draw parallels between Schitt's Creek and Downton Abbey, I probably should mention that Thomas's collar escapes for part of the episode wherein he hides Lord Grantham's dog Isis. The flyaway collar happens when he meets Lord Grantham on the front walk after the dog has been found.

When I ordered my rosy peach t-shirt from Etsy, it came with a Rose Apothecary shopping bag.

separated at birth: the illusion of space

David North

Doorway to Imagination (2020)

built by David North in his backyard (photo by David North)

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/05/871023673/2-uncles-and-a-doorway-to-imagination-spread-love-on-social-media

Robert Gober

site-specific installation (1992)

Dia Chelsea, New York City

(photo by Bill Jacobson Studio, New York)

https://www.diaart.org/exhibition/exhibitions-projects/robert-gober-exhibition

The title of the Gober piece reminds me of a subject cataloging conundrum from some years ago. LCSH had long had the term "Installations (Art)" for installation works, with the scope note:

• Here are entered works on a type of art form in which an entire exhibition space is transformed into a three-dimensional work of art by the arrangement of objects and materials within the space.

They added "Site-specific installations (Art)" in 2001 with the scope note:

• Here are entered works on art installations created for a specific site that use elements of the site as an integral part of the work of art and are intended to be displayed and viewed only at that site.

I tried to convince the subject specialists at LC that the new heading was not valuable. It might have literary warrant and one might take issue with either scope note. More important, trying to split "Site-specific installations" from plain old "Installations" seemed likely to lead a cataloger to use the words in the resource being cataloged rather than being able to make an objective determination concerning site specificity.

I looked at the LC record for the 1992 Dia exhibition at which the site-specific installation was shown. The record has "Installations (Art) -- United States -- Exhibitions" because it predates the establishment of "Site-specific installations (Art)." I am quite sure that I've seen the Gober work included in other exhibitions. There are internet pictures of the work at Glenstone.

Even though I didn't want the new subject heading, I was delighted to get a t-shirt that said "site-specific installation" at the Whitney.

art and nature

Today I'm wearing the Tom Thomson t-shirt that I bought at the Art Gallery of Ontario many years ago. The text reads "Was his work more influenced by art movements or the movements of the wind and water?"

Today I'm reading about the Pritzker Architecture Prize 2020 being awarded to Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects. The article in the N.Y. Times about the prize includes this quotation from Farrell in response to a question about fame, recognition, and starchitects: "There are people whose work should be more recognized sometimes. The media goes for the easy thing -- eye candy. Architecture is much more. It infiltrates our lives in a much deeper way. It's important to remember that the earth is beautiful and sunlight is liquid gold. A lot of architecture excludes natural phenomena -- the rising and setting sun, the power of springtime moving up through the soul."

Daniel and I were talking about the glory of the winter sun as you go about looking at buildings.

you can call me keith

So I was on my way home from the VRA/Upstate meeting in Salem, New York, at the McNish House, a project of Sheafe Satterthwaite. Sheafe is a part-time teacher and raconteur at Williams College, teaching American landscape history and other courses. The house is lovely, the 17th-century kitchen is remarkable, the book collection is stupendous. On the way home, after walking about some more in downtown Troy, I went over the Menands Bridge to Albany, walked about some more and went to the Albany Institute of History and Art. The mystery of the Albany mummies show had some wonderful Egyptian Revival tchotchkes.

Then it was on my way. As I neared Oneonta, I figured it was about lunch time and I could go to the Neptune Diner ... oh, no, I can go to downtown Oneonta and visit Green Toad Bookstore and eat someplace downtown. Green Toad is paired with a coffee house. I had on my Annie Leibovitz t-shirt with the picture of Keith Haring, from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

After I ordered my sandwich and coffee, the cashier asked if the guy on the t-shirt was me. No, but that's OK, you can call me Keith if you want to.

(Photo from http://www.artnet.com/auctions/)