Saturday in Town

Up and about early for a trip to Boston. First a stop in Cambridge at the Micro Center where needed a sex change for a computer connection. No luck, which was real luck because today when we actually inspected the back of the computer where everything plugs in, we found that a flash/thumb drive could be plugged in directly.

Next door, at Trader Joe's the red shopping carts were zooming in and out. What a fantastic store! Reasonable priced cheeses! Just think about that. And two flavors of (cheap) Christmas Stollen, fresh from Germany. And desert honey! Again, cheap. Bargain wines, and best of all smoked trout.

Like canned white asparagus, smoked trout has become rare as hen's teeth, but Trade Joe had plenty, and now I can make my Endive with Smoked Trout and herbed cream cheese appetizer for all the parties next weekend. Look here later in the week for the recipe. All you need is smoked trout--the other ingredients are common.

Of course, we could have bought trout at the fish counter and smoked it ourselves, but kids, the temperature outside is 24 degrees and who wants to tend the smoker in that?

We saw the Napoleon exhibit--mostly stuff from the various periods of the Napoleonic age. What was instructive was that decorative objects began as rather simple designs and over the years took on a lots of gilt and furbelows, if you get my drift.

The empire dresses were so cool, esp. a white one with white embroidery. There was also a black with metallic embroidery that was to die for. Josephine's slippers look like a size 4 AAAA. I don't know anyone with such small feet.

In his early years, Napoleon was very fond of the bee as a symbol, which apparently harked back to early French comquerors. Our friend the bee. Maker of honey in a world that didn't yet know sugar, although the sugar beet came along soon thereafter (250 years ago--you do the math). I thought of the rare desert honey in the trunk of the car.

Desert honey is delicous because the dryness of the climate distills the flavors of the flowers to a wonderful essence. So our recent honey trail has been from Gumbo Lindo honey in Boca, to Sour Gum honey in Georgia to desert honey from (we assume) the Sonora.

We had lunch in the cafe at the MFA. The menu tempted with squash soup and various salads and sandwiches. Yours truly had the spinach and crimini quiche with a lovely salad. S.O. had ham and brie on a croissant with watercress and lentils with dried cranberries on the side. Lentils sounded weird but really tasted good. And the proper beverages, of course. Good people watching in the cafe, but Bostonians do dress rather unimaginatively. And drably. No matter what the Globe style sections say. Or maybe the stylish people go where I don't

We trekked back to the burbs for an open house at the artist studios in Stoughton, and I bought a Christmas present. After wine and nuts and conversations, finally back home where the house felt nice and toasty after our being out all day in the frigid wind.

We broke with tradition and ate in front of the TV while watching the Rockettes. Not their best performance, but some of the numbers were all right where they were actually, you know, dancing. They rode around in a city bus too long, and in the baggy Santa costumes their nice legs were out of sight. The best thing was watching when the camera panned to the faces of kids in the audience.

I tended to my Gather emails and worked on Festival Madness a bit. This Gather contest is a pain in the butt. I hate to troll for votes. Some of the entries are quite good--many of them need some editing and most of them aren't really my taste but I can see some good story lines developing.

On Amazon's contest, the chat groups were still causing lots of noise, and you can always see the cliques developing and everyone agreeing with everyone else, or not, and these contests that seemed like a terrific idea 4 weeks ago are now tedious to the max.

Grump. Grump. Bah, humbug.

Hanging in there,

Grapeshot

Edward Hopper at the MFA, etc.

The Edward Hopper show at the MFA in Boston was a revelation for several reasons. I had not known he was such stunning watercolorist. The watercolors were wonderful, and according to the text, done on the spot in one afternoon. The artist's notebooks contained small sketches and details of each painting in beautiful legible handwriting. New England scenery. Hopper was always a city painter to me, and he did great work in Gloucester, MA and on Cape Cod around Wellfleet and Truro. The show was on one level a restrospective of New England coastal architecture, from lighthouses to fish processing plants and beach houses.

He painted what others avoided. When everyone else was busy painting the beach at Gloucester, Hopper was off in the neighborhoods, doing old houses. I was struck, too, by the loneliness of the subjects in all of the paintings, just like the Modernisme painters in Barcelona. Alienation in the 20th Century! Now there's a topic that would fill a warehouse or two with painting, poetry, writing, music, everything, mostly people.

Yet Hopper had a long and presumably loving marriage.

When we walked into the exhibit, I had a revelation. My California book could have an artist as a character, even a painter. Once I decided that this book would not be Crime Fiction, all sorts of possibilities have presented themselves, but this one I really liked. So I'm thinking hard about that.

No more ICONS. The word "icon" and "Iconic" are so overused that I may vomit the next time I see those words writ large. Please, spare me. "Icon" isn't quite as bad as "wellness," but it's right up there. Add to the banned list, please.

Speaking of wellness, I noticed the people at the MFA seemed to be enjoying themselves and a number were actually smiling, in contrast to our health, never wellness, club where everyone looks grumpy as a bear. Maybe we should all forget the weights and the treadmill which engender frowns and grumpiness and take off at a brisk pace for the nearest museum, look at the art, relax, smile and give our bodies a break. There were lots of infants and even a few toddlers at the show, all of them cherubic and/or asleep. Didn't hear a single squawk. Must have been the happy people and the alienated art.

So think on that. Tomorrow at the club, I promise to smile and say "Hi!" to every single person whose path I cross. Maybe some will even return the greeting. I'll let you know.

In the meantime, no icons, no wellness, but SMILE!

Grapeshot

Read in at the Atlanta Journal

More and more papers, like the Boston Globe, are decreasing the book reviews and even folding the Sunday review section into other parts of the paper. The Atlanta Journal is pulling this, and yesterday there was a read-in with some literary luminaries. I love it.

http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/2007/05/protest-at-atlanta-journal-constitution.html

The fox on the stool
Is very cool.

Hmmmm.

I'm a poet
And don't know it.

My old aunts in Kansas used to say that. Never hear it around here, except when I repeat it.
Today, Significant Other and I are tooling into town to see the Edward Hopper exhibit at the MFA. Globe praised and NY Times panned. Will the WJS cast the deciding vote?