another southern road trip, 2024

This road trip in the deep of winter to the southern states may be habit forming. Last year's road trip was quite focused on the Sargent show in Washington, visiting Jeanette in South Carolina, magazines to USModernist, visiting Elizabeth in Orlando, and the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum in Biloxi, Mississippi. This year, I did visit Jeanette again and spent a couple days with Elizabeth and brought her some papers from Alfred that she needed. But overall it was less focused. Here, again, I am posting a list of the overnight or other stops along the way.

• Fredericksburg, Virginia: after the bucolic ride through horsey Virginia country, the confluence of U.S. Route 17, U.S. Route 1, and Interstate 95 at Fredericksburg was almost more maelstrom than I could handle; I did find the Holiday Inn Express and settled into a yummy catfish and grits at the Orleans Bistro, a walk from the hotel; it was karaoke night at the bistro but I survived and woke refreshed; alas, I lost my beloved Harvard IT Summit 2011 travel mug when I left it on top of the car (I didn't drive away with it still on the roof but it wasn't there when I remembered to go get it after supper)
• Florence, South Carolina: overnight with Jeanette and Wanda, plenty of pleasant catching up
• Beaufort, South Carolina: intrigued with Beaufort, is it just because I like saying "bew-fert"?; the waiter at the Lost Local told me where I might find the Sunday New York Times the next day but City Java & News didn't come through and the Publix supermarket did; I enjoy traveling through the coastal salt marshes between Beaufort and Savannah though I didn't stop in Savannah this year
• Brunswick, Georgia: Main Street in the historic district; good pad thai at Basil Thai with a staff that included Asians, Mexicans, Blacks, and whites
• Flagler Beach, Florida: dreaming of an old-fashioned oceanside motel along the beach highway but ended up at a Hampton Inn in Palm Coast
• Winter Park, Florida: lunch, strolling, and shopping to spend time before getting to Elizabeth's after she did her volunteer income tax assistance sponsored by AARP at a community center
• Orlando, Florida (day 1): got to Elizabeth's before she was home; Capsi looked at me quizzically and then decided I was that guy from Alfred and started jumping and barking
• Orlando (day 2): both Elizabeth and I had a morning zoom; we had an easy day with a visit to the Orlando Museum and otherwise just kind of hung around and chatted
• Orlando (day 3): Elizabeth went to the community center for some more tax assistance and I walked around downtown Orlando, looked at some architecture books at the public library, and then went to the Orange County Regional History Center; the library had a historical vitrine display that included an early accession book; the new performing arts center in Orlando is named for Dr Phillips and I learned at the History Center that he developed the process for pasteurizing orange juice; I also learned that Hannibal Square in Winter Park was the former Black section of the downtown shopping area
• Sarasota, Florida: Ringling Museum of Art, particularly the new Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Center for Asian Art (a small pavilion with a green-glazed terracotta façade, designed by Machado Silvetti)
• Sarasota to Tallahassee, Florida: I wanted to take the blue highways and ended up confused off the interstate around Tampa and discovered a pre-Vatican II chapel (Queen of All Saints Chapel) near Brooksville; I couldn't go inside since the dress code for men required coat and tie, no jeans, no earrings
• Tallahassee, Florida: what a hilly surprise (the seven hills, just like Rome) after several hours of flat coastal territory
• Bainbridge, Georgia: the Quality Inn here somehow reminded me of Mount Vernon (columns and porch)
• Blakely, Georgia: county seat of Early County (good courthouse and square)
• Kolomoki Mounds State Historic Park, near Blakely: the Temple Mound is 50-odd feet high (I didn't make it to Teotihuacán last year but this mound was pretty impressive)
• Columbus, Georgia: the museum was mostly closed for rehabilitation but the Corn Center at Columbus State University had a Lennart Anderson show and several large Bo Bartlett paintings on view; downtown Columbus has a handsome new formalist Government Center that reminded me of Yamasaki and a performing arts center designed by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer; the symphony here is the second oldest in the U.S.
• Bremen, Georgia: El Morelia Mexican restaurant was just across from the Tractor Supply, near the Quality Inn
• Bremen to Rome: just the beginning of the international city names; U.S. 27 up the western side of Georgia was mostly four lane and divided highway and virtually empty; it was quite a surprise to re-enter the interstate world after Rome, Georgia

Continuing to repeat last year's road trip, at a certain point I quit dawdling and interstated most of the rest of the northward journey. This year, I did a more inland trip, skirting Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Lexington, Kentucky. I stopped at Dry Ridge, Kentucky, because it was getting dark, it was about 25 miles south of greater Cincinnati, and it was just south of Sherman, Kentucky. It also happened to be just north of The Ark Experience in Williamstown, Kentucky. I did go look through the gates to The Ark but it wasn't open and I probably wouldn't have gone in even if it had been. Anyway, I looked around Sherman a bit and took a couple pictures.

I had started seeing snow alongside the road but it was bright and the snow was melting. I skirted Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland, Ohio. One more night on the road, in Painesville, Ohio, and then back to the blue highways in Salamanca, New York, for the last couple hours.

Beyond Bremen, Rome, and Salamanca, I also went through or saw signs for Paris, London, Chatsworth, Florence, Berlin, and Athens, and Ringgold.

Top picture is a church (no sign) in Sherman, Kentucky. The bottom picture is Ca' d'Zan, the Ringling mansion, Sarasota, Florida. More pictures at https://www.flickr.com/photos/56294332@N00/.

Miuccia Chickanzeff: ah, Venice

Queen of All Saints Chapel

I happened on the Queen of All Saints Chapel on Spring Lake Road near Brooksville, Florida, because I was lost northeast of Tampa on my way from Sarasota toward Tallahassee. But what fun to find this treasure of conservative traditionalism. It would have been fun to go inside but the dress code for men included coat and tie, no jeans, no earrings. Three strikes, you're out(side).

More pictures from my southern road trip at https://www.flickr.com/photos/56294332@N00/albums/72177720314881851
 

the big thrill

I was in Beaufort, South Carolina, last night, with early supper at the Lost Local for tacos (one ahi tuna and one carnitas) and a yummy margarita (Perfect Margarita on the menu). It was Saturday night so I asked the waiter if she knew where I might get a Sunday New York Times the next morning. She didn't know but asked one of her colleagues. One place was City Java & News so I figured there was a good chance they'd be purveyors of a good selection of papers including the Times. They weren't open after I left the restaurant so I couldn't ask. The waiter said she saw folks with Sunday papers so the chances seemed good with both City Java and the other coffee shop, over on the waterfront.

Well, when I went 'round on Sunday morning, neither of the coffee shops had any papers other than the local weekly. So I asked the City Java clerk if there were any big grocery stores. Yep, there's a Publix over on Boundary Street, on the way out of town, said she. And I'm delighted to say they had quite a stack of Times but one less after I got mine.

There was a fine used book store in Cleveland named Publix Book Mart. We medieval art history graduate students at Case Western used to find great treasures there. Like manuscript leaves (at least one of mine is from the Ege album), early prints (at least one of Chuck's was a Dürer and I found a page from the Nuremberg Chronicle), and other good stuff. 

Ege 13

Nuremberg Chronicle

reading at the taverna

"Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).

Each summer I rent a house in a village in the foothills of the White Mountains in Crete. There is one bougainvillea-shaded taverna, which shares the village square with a tiny Byzantine chapel, decorated with magnificent 14th-century frescoes. I go there at lunchtime with a book. The taverna owner, Kostas, brings me whatever he's cooking, with beer. He lets me talk my lousy Greek. Cats snooze. Dogs lollop. The local farmers come and discuss the price of watermelons. I'm in heaven."

Dan Jones, "By the book," New York times book review, January 28, 2024.

Sounds perfect, Mr Jones.

cheatle

I'll admit it: I cheat at Artle, the art game from the National Gallery of Art. They show you four works in succession and you have to guess the artist. I do try but if I'm just blanking, I'll do a Google image search. Work number three today was intriguing, kind of Daliesque, fantastic surrealism.

The first and second works were very different and I should have guessed but work number three really threw me. It's one of the interesting early works from a federal competition by an artist whose mature works are significantly different.

Spoiler here: https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.158369.html 

I justify my cheating by saying that Artle is a learning experience. The object pages are linked from the game as is the artist information page. Fortunately, Artle doesn't talk back to me or accuse me of cheating. One of my friends and colleagues at the NGA Library says she is involved with setting up Artle and I thank her every day.

When I'm done with Artle, I do Wordle and Globle. They (the famous they) say that little brain exercises are good for aging people, aka everybody.

The Diplomat

I have been bingeing The Diplomat and it is kind of scary. But then you check out the day's headlines in the New York Times and discover that the real world is just a whole lot too similar. Explosive events in the Middle East. Potential for nuclear options. Personal relationships getting tangled up. Ambition and revenge. Power hunger. Maybe I should go watch Barbie.
 

the books I read in 2023

The last book I finished in 2023 was The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. I was in New York City for the New Year's weekend, catsitting at John's. John had shown me an article from Harper's on "Street Life" by Rachel Kushner from the August 2023 issue. I went to the film "All of Us Strangers" on New Year's Day. The book, the article, and the movie all circled, in their way, around the banality and disappointment and glory of everyday life and how big a role observation can play in how that works out. On the 30th, I was off galleryhopping at MoMA PS1 and ran into Janis, Sherri, Julie, and Hikmet in the Court Square subway station. I joined them in visiting the Tracey Emin and Donna Huanca shows at Faurschou in Greenpoint but then split off and went to the Whitney and LGBT Center before meeting Heidi and Dan for supper. All everyday and ordinary and glorious and, well, New York City.

The books I read this past year are listed here in chronological order of reading.

• The magician, by Colm Tóibín (2021)
• Harlem shuffle, by Colson Whitehead (2021)
• Flâneuse: women walk the city in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London, by Lauren Elkin (2017)
• Piazza Carignano, by Alain Elkann (1985) - bought at a used book store in Provincetown; the Carignano Palace in Turin was one of my favorite buildings on our 2018 trip to Turin, Milan, and Genoa; the book was fine but I really enjoyed the association with the building and plaza
• Driver's eduction, by Grant Ginder (2013) - this only gets 3.17 stars on Goodreads; that's why I don't pay too much attention to review stars; I really enjoyed this book and its style
• Germania: in wayward pursuit of the Germans and their history, by Simon Winder (2010) - one of a trilogy of histories of Middle Europe; I really enjoyed all three volumes (thanks, Daniel)
• Just by looking at him, by Ryan O'Connell (2022)
• Just mercy, by Bryan Stevenson (2014)
• Mrs Caliban, by Rachel Ingalls (1982)
• Radio girls, by Sarah-Jane Stratford (2016)
• Italian days: fifty things we know about life now, by Beppe Severgnini (2022)
• Danubia: a personal history of Habsburg Europe, by Simon Winder (2013)
• The art of description: world into word, by Mark Doty (2010) - it sounds like a book on cataloging ... but it's not, it is about words and putting them together
• The heart's invisible furies, by John Boyne (2017)
• The honey bus: the memory of loss, courage and a girl saved by bees, by Meredith May (2019)
• JD, by Mark Merlis (2015)
• Girl, woman, other, by Bernardine Evaristo (2019) - it took me a while to get used to the writing style but it worked: each sentence was a paragraph, not capitalized
• The library book, by Susan Orlean (2018)
• Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver (2018) - chomping at the bit, waiting for Demon Copperhead to come out in paper but did enjoy this one while waiting
• Becoming George Orwell: life and letters, legend and legacy, by John Rodden (2020)
• The promise, by Damon Galgut (2021)
• The poetics of cruising: queer visual culture from Whitman to Grindr, by Jack Parlett (2022)
• Solomon's crown, by Natasha Siegel (2023) - Richard the Lionheart and Philip Augustus, 12th century speculative fiction
• The address book: what street addresses reveal about identity, race, wealth, and power, by Dierdre Mask (2020)
• The last day: wrath, ruin, and reason in the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, by Nicholas Shrady (2008)
• The personal librarian, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray (2021) - fictionalized life of Belle da Costa Greene, longtime librarian for J.P. Morgan; it took me a while to get into it but I really enjoyed it once I hit the rhythm
• Every good boy does fine: a love story, in music lessons, by Jeremy Denk (2022) - maybe my favorite book of the year
• High-risk homosexual, by Edgar Gomez (2022)
• French braid, by Anne Tyler (2022)
• Dream cities: seven urban ideas that shape the world, by Wade Graham (2016)
• The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce (2012)

I would not advise you against reading any of these books. I enjoyed some of them very much as I read them. Several of them resonated with places I have been or want to go. I bought several of them in Provincetown, over the years. Plenty of Rachels. As usual, about an even split of fiction and non-fiction. And now I've started reading Orwell's roses by Rebecca Solnit and find it thoughtful (no surprise because Solnit) and compelling.

If you want to see how Goodreads saw my year in reading, go to https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2023/6837039. There, you can click on book covers and see a summary of the book and how it is rated on Goodreads. I did read a note in one of my magazine newsletters that the author had given up on Goodreads (part of the Amazon empire) and was just using Google Sheets where she could add a column for author's gender if she wanted to. I would like a column for how I heard about a book. I know Carol recommended Orwell's roses.

Lady Moody's Gravesend

The Municipal Art Society announced a tour of Gravesend, in southern Brooklyn, and entitled it "Discovering Lady Moody's Gravesend." The announcement is illustrated with a picture of Trinity Tabernacle (above, screengrabbed from Google Street View). Lady Moody (born Deborah Dunch, married Sir Henry Moody) left England in 1639 where she was prosecuted for her Anabaptist beliefs. She settled in Saugus, Massachusetts, where she soon got in trouble with the established Puritan church. She moved on to Gravesend, Brooklyn, where she is the only European woman known to have founded a town in colonial America. The Dutch West India Company was more tolerant of religious dissent than the Puritans of Massachusetts. More detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Moody

The tabernacle grabbed my attention with its quirky massing and Gothic Revival details. I was further intrigued because my mother's family has paternal roots in Gravesend. Among Lady Moody's followers who joined her in Gravesend after she was excommunicated in Massachusetts was a Thomas Poling who had a son John Poling. John's son Samuel Poling married the granddaughter of Pieter Claesen Wyckoff, an early Dutch settler. The early Polings used various spellings of the surname, including Poland, Polen, and Polan. My mother's people had settled on Polan a few generations before hers.

I am not as obsessed with genealogy as some folks but I do enjoy the probable connections. Bunches of religious dissenters. My father's paternal ancestors come down through the Clarkes of Rhode Island.

George and Dora in Philadelphia

Great Aunt Dora was one of the most gracious ladies that I knew in my childhood. She was the longtime Dean of Women at Alfred University when that role also included playing hostess to esteemed guests of the university. Her first husband was George C.R. Degen, a stockbroker, and they lived in Philadelphia for most of the first couple decades of the twentieth century. They also lived for a while in New York City; I have seen a photo of their NYC apartment which shows a bit of the cherry dining table that became part of my furnishings for much of my adult life. That table came back to the family house in Alfred, New York, in 1995 when I moved from Texas to my studio apartment in New York City.

Aunt Dora came back to the family house in Alfred, New York, after the death of her husband in the early 1920s. She married J. Nelson Norwood, also widowed, in 1954 and they lived upstairs in the family house. Uncle Nelson had been president of Alfred University. This picture shows Aunt Dora and Uncle Nelson in 1936, both officers of the university and probably part of the centennial celebrations that year. They were not yet married but are standing in front of the family house.

The reason I have been thinking about all this history is a coincidence in the most recent book I finished reading. The book was French Braid by Anne Tyler. Most of the characters and action are set in Baltimore. The mother of the family, Mercy Garrett, mentions at one point that she went to visit her friends George and Dora in Philadelphia. Nothing about the two, no relevant twist of the plot, nothing. Just George and Dora in Philadelphia.