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."

the Napier line

Lady Sarah Lennox by Sir Joshua Reynolds

(Art Institute of Chicago)

Lady Sarah Lennox was a favorite of King George III of Great Britain. I learned this while watching an interview with India Amarteifio and Corey Mylchreest who play Charlotte and George in the Shonda Rhimes and Netflix series "Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story." Lady Sarah married Charles Bunbury and later George Napier. She and Napier had eight children. One wonders if Evelyn Napier, a friend of Lady Mary in "Downton Abbey," was perhaps a grandson or great-grandson of Lady Sarah.

The Heart's Invisible Furies

I have been getting toward the end of The heart's invisible furies by John Boyne. A compelling read and some portions have been just a little too close to things that are happening or have happened in my life. This morning as I was reading, someone asked what I was reading. I handed the book to him and said something like "it's the story of an Irish man from the 1940s and I'm in the '80s now." I rarely recommend a book to someone. Enjoying a particular book is such a personal thing. Again, more resonance in Furies when I read the following passage just now.

And I quote ....

"No, you're all right. I believe you," she said, waving my offer away. "Cyril then, if you prefer. What's that you're reading?"

I turned the book over to reveal a copy of Colm Toibín's The Story of the Night. I'd owned it for years but had never got around to reading it until now.

"Now, I haven't read that one," she said, picking it up and reading the back. "Is it any good?"

"It is," I said.

"Should I read it?"

"Well, that's up to you, really."

.... end quote

As it happens, I think The story of the night is my favorite book by Tóibín.

ARLIS/NA @ CDMX

I just got back from the Art Libraries Society of North America conference in Mexico City, our first conference in Mexico although we have been proudly North American all of our collective lives. We have already met a few times in Canada (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Banff). Mexico City is a gritty city, like I like 'em. Gritty, busy, noisy, diverse, full of architectural treasures, good and interesting art, food (fancy and plain).

On our last afternoon, after the business meeting, Bill and I walked over to see the murals in the Secretariat of Public Education building. Diego Rivera, Jean Charlot, and others. We meandered on the way back, partly on the Calle de la República de Cuba. In addition to bridal shops and gay bars, we saw this building that could use some attention and maintenance. I think a third-floor deck would be just fine through those open arches.

That evening, we went to the Palacio de Bellas Artes for a concert by the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico. The program included an overture by Louise Farrenc (Opus 23), a double bass concerto by Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf (KR 172), and the Third ("Organ") Symphony by Camille Saint-Saëns. The music was lovely. The conductor was a joy to watch. The hall has a Tiffany dome as well as a Tiffany (glass) stage curtain. The first and third works were played on the full stage. The Ditters von Dittersdorf only uses a chamber orchestra so they put some chairs on the front of the proscenium and lowered the Tiffany glass curtain for that portion of the concert. We were physically as well as musically in heaven. Bill had purposely chosen seats in the top of the house (más alta, por favor) so we were close to the Tiffany dome.

Now back home and last night was the dance showing by choreography students at Alfred University. Pretty glorious too. Stendhal much?

(view from exhibit hall at the conference, Hilton Reforma)

(my CDMX picture album on Flickr)

Radio Girls, before and after their time

There are all sorts of reasons why you buy and/or read a book. Sometimes it's the stack of books on the new releases table in the bookstore. Sometimes it's a review. Sometimes a friend recommends the book. Maybe the book is just in the social air. And sometimes the daughter of a friend and colleague is the author. It was this last circumstance that put Radio Girls by Sarah-Jane Stratford on my to-read shelf.

(image from Penguin-Random House webpage for the book)

Sarah-Jane Stratford is the daughter of my longtime art cataloging colleague Nancy Norris, now retired from UCLA. It took me a little while to get into the story but I'm awfully glad I got past that. The story is set in London, between the wars, as the fascist threat grows and people become more and more aware of the seriousness of the threat. The "radio girls" are working at BBC which is in its infancy.

The first printing of the New American Library paperback edition was in June 2016. It is amazing and terrifying how the story resonates with the situation in the United States from 2016 when Trump was running and then serving as president. Suppression of news. Officious bosses. Male date assumptions. Stratford must have had her fore-seeing glasses on.

Always looking for parallels, I was amused that one of the bad guys was a Mr Grigson. Not quite the same name as Michael Gregson, from Downton Abbey, but our heroine Maisie Musgrave's fiancé Simon does go to Germany on family business and get involved with Grigson on some corporate shenanigans related to making deals with the Nazi government. By the way, librarians are mentioned a couple times as being good with facts.

teardowns

I have been watching the 1981 version of Brideshead Revisited. Lady Marchmain has died and the London house has been sold by Lord Marchmain. Bridey has asked Charles to paint some views of the house before it is torn down, to be replaced by flats. But don't worry. The house will be saved and the flats will not be built. Charles will find his painting career with the success of the paintings. I know the house will be saved because it is also Grantham House, the London residence of the Crawleys from Downton Abbey.

This photo of the actual Bridgewater House, on the site of Cleveland House, is on Flickr, taken by jupiter1953.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/b1953/7616519714

I first watched the 1981 Brideshead at Judith Holliday's apartment in the Dewitt Mall Apartments in Ithaca. My then boyfriend Randy and I went over every Sunday night while it was on Great Performances on PBS. I had not had a television and bought a modest black-and-white television so we could watch the series. Randy also did not have a television. Judith had a color TV and it beat out my B&W model. I took along my copy of the book and it was amazing (and surprising) how much of the dialogue in the book made it into the telescript.

meta credits

So you may know that I watch film credits pretty voraciously. I love the loopy rhyme of Loop Group as well as the name of such a post-production sound group that I have seen credited a number of times: Sync or Swim. Sometimes, the folks responsible are called Crowd ADR or just ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement). I just watched Going Down in LA-LA Land and was amused by the credit for Expendables. Those responsible for expendables were Studio Depot, The Expendables Recycler, Bulbtronics, and Expendable. I glanced over the YouTube comments and someone noted that they really enjoyed watching the credits because "The ADR then is hilarious." Here's the two leads getting to know each other:

P.S. Emma Kantor also reads the end credits: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/magazine/closing-credits-movies.html

at hand, just six feet away

I occasionally think that I should find an institution that could use the books on art and architecture that I've been buying for decades. I used to worry about the appraisal for tax deduction purposes and decided that was just an impediment. Still, it is satisfying to have my book collection when I am at an Unboxed Lunch sponsored by the Archives of American Art. Josh Franco talked today about new accessions to the Lucy Lippard archive. He happened to pick out the folder on her book Overlay. It was glorious to stand up, take a couple steps, and take Overlay off the shelf and look at it as he spoke.

separated at birth: BIG

VIA 57 West

New York City

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), architect

https://big.dk/

BIBFRAME Implementation Group (BIG)

photo above:

David.Clay.Photography, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

stops along the way on my southern road trip

It may be mostly for my own memory aid, but I thought I would do a post with the overnight and other significant stops along my southern road trip loop from Alfred down to Orlando and then over to Biloxi before heading back North.

• Washington, D.C.: Sargent & Spain exhibition at the National Gallery (including chat with curator Sarah Cash and talking with NGA catalogers), This Present Moment at the Renwick, Giuseppe de Nittis at the Phillips, MASS Design Group at the National Building Museum, plus SAAM, NPG, Hirshhorn
• Richmond, Va.: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Branch Museum of Architecture and Design, Valentine Museum, VCU Institute of Contemporary Art (the building designed by Steven Holl, the museum was closed on New Year's Eve)
• Durham, N.C.: drop off some magazines for USModernist, shop for Sunday Times at The Streets at Southpoint (a new mall pretending to be a good old Main Street and doing a decent job of it)
• Florence, S.C.: Florence County Museum (art and history), visit Jeanette and Wanda
• Charleston, S.C.: Gibbes Museum of Art (including Bo Bartlett show on the top floor)
• Beaufort, S.C.
• Savannah, Ga.: Telfair Academy (with plaster casts of Laocoön and other classical works)
• St Augustine, Fla.: the old fortifications (17th century)
• Orlando, Fla.: visit Elizabeth G, Florida Polytechnic University (new building by Santiago Calatrava), Florida Southern College (buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright including a Usonian house), Orlando Museum of Art (exhibition Don't Ask Me Where I'm From and good selection of older and newer works from their American collections), Mennello  Museum of American Art (exhibition In Conversation: Will Wilson & Edward S. Curtis)
• Fanning Springs, Fla.: ARLIS/NA Cataloging Advisory Committee meeting via Zoom
• Apalachicola, Fla.: overnight spot, just love saying the word
• Lillian, Ala.: Johnny B's Front Porch for Taco Tuesdays
• Foley, Ala.: Book Exchange (the clerk very nicely helped me with the $100 bill that came out of the ATM without sufficient warning)
• Biloxi, Miss.: Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art (one of the major impetuses for this road trip and totally met expectations, museum designed by Frank Gehry)
• Meridian, Miss.: mostly overnight stop but now I wish I'd checked it out a little more
• Montgomery, Ala.: drove around Selma on my way to Montgomery (the tornado struck a few hours later), Lowndes County Interpretive Center of the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail between the two cities, National Memorial to Peace and Justice (designed by MASS Design Group), Legacy Museum, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald House Museum
• Tuskegee, Ala.: Tuskegee University with a chapel by Paul Rudolph and other buildings either by Rudolph or showing his strong influence (Fry and Welch, former Tuskegee architecture professors, collaborated on the chapel)
  

From Tuskegee, I started taking mostly interstate highways and was seriously headed toward home in Alfred, New York. I whizzed past Atlanta, Charlotte, Roanoke, Staunton, Harrisburg, and Corning. A couple days of driving most of the daylight hours. Not my favorite way to go from one place to another but when it's time to head home, the interstates do a pretty good (if jarring) job of it.

A couple miscellaneous observations: raptors love to fly over the interstates (must be the road kill), lightly traveled U.S. highways are generally in better shape than the heavily traveled interstates (well, duh).

My Flickr photostream has a picture album from the road. Here's a picture of the trailhead parking area where I attended the CAC meeting in Fanning Springs, Florida.