Doral and Anita shared their harvest with our home last week, and I have been busy baking with apples ever since.
Does it look like I have put a dent in our stock?
Today's recipe turned into more of a science experiment. Mary used to make a microwaved baked apple for herself after school.
David and I gave it a go. Core an apple leaving the bottom on. Ours looked like a tiny red pumpkin by the time the stem and seeds were out.
Mix together 5 mL margarine, 15 mL brown sugar, and 2.5 mL cinnamon. Put in microwave for 5 minutes. I hope, dear reader, you are not taking notes.
We ended up with cinnamon toffee that hardened on the bottom of the bowl, a teeny tiny bit of applesauce, and some crispy edible apple skin.
Time to soak the dish, and try again, I think. Our home smells great but our bellies are not full.
We had better luck with our Apple Fritters. Although we have added some notes in our recipe book for modifying the recipe, we devored the whole batch on one sitting.
Doral and Anita’s family came from Saskachewan and Alberta to
the Shuswap to celebrate Thanksgiving. They timed their trip so well that we
were able to celebrate Doral’s and Bonnie’s birthdays together. We were a table
of 10 at the Barley Station Brew Pub. We did some catching up and made plans
for Thanksgiving dinner at the lake. So much to be grateful for, including the
colours of the fall. We hope everybody else will have a great Thanksgiving,
with lots of good food and cheer.
[Ed Note: this post is one I started more than a year ago, and forgot to post. It is part 4 of a report on my day at the Louvre!]
Nourished and rested up from the food break (i don't think you really CAN do a trip to the Louvre without accounting for the need to recharge), I returned to my wanderings. I spent a bit longer in my exploration of portraiture, back in the 15th and 16th centuries in Northern Europe.
I love the seriousness of face in this portrait done by Hans Holbein the Younger of Sir Henry Wyatt (counseller to Henry VIII). I like to think that his facial expression makes visible the internal discomfort he must have felt about his King's very bad domestic behaviour in terms of divorcing or offing his wives? I also like it that the date of the painting is 1535-1537. Artistic production takes time! :-)
Also, there is this portait by/of Albrecht Dürer. In my mind, I mostly associated him with printmaking and woodblock prints. He was another of these people with fluency across media. This is one of his first self-portraits, apparently sent as a gift to his betrothed. Much to be said about how to read it (and the layers of interpretation in thistle), but for sure it shows his skill in fabric and skin.
Plus, he was quite the beauty! So visible in a closeup! (and there is something I like about his attention to his beauty)
direct but enigmatic gaze?
Something equally lovely in the "Portrait of Caspar von Köckeritz" by Lucas Cranach the Elder. It is hard to really capture the feel of being in front of the paintings (the glass always disrupts the view in a photo), but that didn't stop me from trying to take photos! :-) I kept reminding myself that there are lovely closeups of most paintings out on the Louvre website, in this case here: https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010065502
As I thought about my experience of spending time with these two beautiful portraits, I wondered if I found it a bit more 'comfortable' standing in front of Cranach painting than the Dürer one one precisely because he is NOT looking directly at the viewer! :-).
Close by was another portrait by Lucas Cranach the Elder.
This one was of John Frederick the Magnanimous, Crown Prince of Saxony (1503-1554).
I don't know too much about this chap. Not sure why and how he was held to be 'magnanimous'. But the internet does say that during his life, he had the largest library in all of Germany. So that is something!
At some point, I realized the day was getting away from me. I had really enjoyed myself in the less crowded Richlieu Wing, but knew it was time to branch out to other parts of the museum, to re-visit some works of art I had loved on other visits.
With gratitude to that Nintendo DS audioguide map, I starting searching to find a relatively short pathway to the sculptuary! Off I went. There were lots of steps to take, crowds to move past, and several missteps, but I finally got there.
How can artists create something so soft looking from something as hard as stone? Nicholas Cordier's "Three Graces" is a perfect example.
Hard not to want to just reach and out touch them (or imagine being the person braiding their hair!
I kept wandering until I found another one of my favourites, Sleeping Hermaphrodite (the son of Hermes and Aphrodite).
I saw this sculpture for the first time on a trip to the museum with Arta and Bonnie, way back in 2014. [ed note: a blog post from 2014 reports that we were the last ones to hand in our audio-guides and leave the museum! Some things just don't change.]
In any event, it is such a fantastic piece of androgynous gender-blending trans beauty.
The thing about sculptures is that they require you to 'move'. There is just no way to engage with the amazing object before you other than to keep moving to see how it opens up new vistas of amazingness to you as you continue to move around it (uh....is that like a metaphor for life or something?). Anyways, I did try doing that with my camera to see if I could remind myself of all the angles. Here is 20 seconds or so:https://youtu.be/t1Y1ivF7lxk
[Editor note: flash forward a year.... when i was wandering around the internet reading more about the sculpture, I came across this fun 8 minute 'gallery talk' dealing with a 3d printed version of the scultpure that is at Museum of Antiquities at the University of Saskatchewan! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAT665gevgU]
Finally, I came to the conclusion that my energies were finally fully depleted, and that it was time to head back home. I stopped for a few parting selfies up through the glass pyramid in the central hall, capturing the late afternoon clouds. And then called it a day!
[Editor note: Here are links to the other 3 posts (from back in 2024) summarizing my full day of dousing myself in different parts of the Louvre. Too much?! Hardly! The accounts are for those who, like me, start when the doors open, and are the last ones kicked out at the end of the day!]
1. The Richlieu Wing (the first 4 paintings) [featuring Duncan?]
[Editor note: I started this post over a year ago, and forgot to finish it. so... here it is now]
waiting in the station for our train (in the background)
Well, Steve decided that he really did need to see a Tottenham game in person (soccer).
He also determined that it was cheaper to just take the eurostar from Paris to London to do that, rather than to take a flight to London from Victoria.
And so.... we decided to take a couple of days out of the Paris vacation to take a quick 1-night jaunt to London. And the eurostar was our vehicle of choice.
having breakfast on the train
It did mean a very early start to the day, and there was a bit of a fancydance at the beginning (where it intially appeared that our tickets were for the day before?!), but we managed (even with our intermediate french skills) to sort it out and get ourselves onto the train.
The view out the window is a mixed bag at the speed the train travels.
A mixture of beauty, and an edge of vertigo. I particular enjoyed the countryside, and the strange (to me) experience of farm lands presenting themselves as 'wind farms'.
all the wind farms on the way...
There was something delicious in the beauty of their sharp angular structures agains the marshmallow grey puffs of the clouded sky.
I also found myself contemplating the various speeds of movement: I felt like I was sitting quite still in a train moving at 300km and hour, amplified when other trains would pass us going the other direction at the same speed, while the clouds moved slowly across the skies, and windmill blades rotated around at their own speed, moved by the winds, or being moved by them? Here's 20 seconds of video from the train:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_c6aITKvZ4
And so, we arrived happily at St. Pancras train station.
I do love coming in through St. Pancras.
What a beautiful station.
Just looks so much like a castle.
I did have to stop on the stairs to just spend a 20 seconds watching the clouds moving past the roof edge. I could have stayed longer:
Because my hips and knees were giving me grief, Steve undertook to get us a hotel room super-close to the train station, so I would not have to do very much walking.
He was as good as his word, and checked us into The Standard Hotel, which is exactly across the street from St. Pancras station. It was literally a stone's throw.
I don't want to sound like I am doing hotel promo, but... it was a lovely place to stay. :-)
It had such a retro/modern feel, both outside and inside.
Super nice job on the design features.
I loved the windows, which were curved on the edges, as if you were on a ship of some sort.
And then the view out the window? Wow.
Feels a bit like you are entering a ship cabin
The room was called "the King of Kings"
ah... chill-axing on the king bed and enjoying the view
I love how it feels like the windows on a cruise ship
the close up view out the hotel window
Steve, kitted out in his Tottenham gear
Having caught our breath, we went our separate ways, planning to meet up later. I was heading off to see "The Cursed Child", parts 1 and 2 (meaning a matinee performance, followed by an evening one).
Steve was going to be heading off to the Tottenham game (where he had got himself a box seat), but he had a bit more time to chill out. He did agree to send me a selfie once he got to the game.
And so, I grabbed my jacket and I headed back to the street, but with a slightly tighter timeline.
and of course it starts to rain....
Of course, those beautiful puffy clouds had turned to rain.
No worries.
We too live on a green island, so I know very well that rain is just a visit from a relative. :-)
The only snag was that, after having filled up my oyster card, and planned my travel route, I missed my bus. urgh. Ah well... it was taxi time! Another fun adventure. (trains, planes and automobiles all the way!)
arriving on time at the Palace Theatre
I arrived at the Palace Theatre with a bit of time to spare.
I couldn't help but remember that this is where Bonnie Wyora and I saw Les Miserables for the first time in 1985, where Duncan got to see Singing in the Rain with Arta in 2012.
Always fun thinking about the scores of feet, and scores of song (hahaha) that have wandered through its hallways.
Yes... a return visit to the show
this time, a seat in the stalls, not the balcony
I love all the details in the building itself
Reminding me of clock in Musee d'Orsay
Seeing the full play in one day does mean some significant time spent in a theatre seat, but I love such things. But one does need a meal in between the matinee and evening show. I followed an old pattern, and walked down the block to the closest Weatherspoons to have the chicken tikkia masala (this being one of the places where we could easily satisify the different palettes of the two boys the year we lived here). So... just another comforting retro moment. And then, back to see if the play would end in the same way. :-). It did.
The rain having stopped, I headed back to the streets, and grabbed a bus for the ride back home (yes, I am aware it is a hotel, but home is where the heart is, right?)
On the way there, Steve texted me from a local pub, so I got off the bus a few stops early, and found him.
We met up there to chat and debrief the adventures of the evening (while listening to a great musician do a couple of sets).
And then we headed back to the street for the short walk back to the hotel.
Not only had the rain stopped, but the skies were gloriously clear.
The moon was like a beacon in the sky. As clear from London as it often is from the backyard in Victoria (what? the moon is something we share?!).
The buildings along the street were illuminated, and shaded in colour.
Not many things are better than an evening walk on a warm summer night, where the rain has pulled the dust and pollution out of the air. A perfect ending to a very full day.
[Editors note: i just noticed this post i drafted over a year ago, but didn't quite finish!? And I have 4 more posts up there in draft, still to be completed? Well, the timing is wrong, but this is a post from the London Trip last summer]
My afternoon was going to be spent on the train back to Paris. That left me with just a few morning hours to play around. I determined to spend it at the British Museum, so off I went.
I had hoped to go in the front doors, but discovered that I ought to have booked an entrance ticket time (new since COVID?). I did not. As I was ticketless, they sent me to the side to get in a line up (first time that had happened to me). I was a bit worried that I would not have time to see much, but the line was moving fast, and it was lovely standing under the trees. It also meant coming in through the Montague Place entrance, a less common experience for me.
Indeed, the only other time I came in that was was on one of my first visits to the Museum in 2011. The late great Peter Fitzpatrick had invited me to take a short walk with him there. We entered that way, and so my first introduction was through the room called "Living and Dying". I recall that there had been an incredible exhibit showing all the medications a person might take over the course of their life.
admiring the Haida House Fronal Pole
Back then, that particular room had also included an amazing Inuit shaman's coat. It had seemed such a connection to the work I was doing then with Inuit law. This time (in terms of 'Canadian content'), the room was displaying a beautiful Haida house frontal pole. It had me immediately thinking about Carey Newman's conversations about the complicated spiritual life of sacred objects lodged in musueum spaces
I spent some time looking at a photo of the pole in place, and reading the information in the text. So interesting to me thinking about the stories we tell, and the contexts of knowledge we assume eachother to already have. Of course, I have questions about how such an object ended up in this space so far from the context in which it would have important social, legal, cultural (and spiritual?) meaning. I found myself thinking about the amazing Taapwaywin podcast episode "A Box of Treasures", which takes up Haida art in British museums. It is worth re-listening to.
Having just taught Cultural Property with Bob Howell this past summer, it was interesting to see this Hoa Hakananai'a Moai, and to think back on the conversations we had in class about this exact sculpture.
The interpretive panels were interesting, including an account of requests by the Rapanui for the return of the sculptures (which were removed by the British Admiralty, and gifted to the Queeen, who then gifted to the museum).
Lots of questions, of course, about what it means to have been 'gifted' something that was stolen. Well, the panels acknowledge the controversy, indicating that the Museum is in 'ongoing discussions' with the Rapanui over questions of a possible return. Lots of questions out there in the museum world!
And so, I headed through that room and out to the central court area. I love this spot. First off.... the roof! It is an amazing work of art and architecture, filling the space with natural light, inviting the outside and inside worlds into conversation: a constantly shifting palette of white and blue and grey.
And further, I never never tire of spending time with the two amazing Haida poles from Massett.
It remains so improbable to me to find them there. And they are a strange connection to home.
Just as with the frontal house pole, it is hard not to have all the questions about how they came to be there, and complicated histories of human interactions (and colonial and imperial pressures). Standing beside them is something special.
I find they demand my attention, inviting me to let my eyes move from bottom to top, and back.
This of course pulls my line of vision back up to sky, as the poles point invite me to follow the connections of ground to sky.
I know I don't have the full legal literacy to read the stories and histories inscribed there, but I have enough to know that those things ARE there, and to know I am in the presence of knowledge.
In some ways, a bit like with the Rosetta stone (which I also can't read, but which is a reminder that languages are written in different ways, and are forms through which humans speak to eachother and the world around us).
And so, everytime I go to the Museum, I do stop in to pay my respects, and to feel filled up in return by their presence, thinking of all the stories and histories they carry, and of all the stories they might also have to tell about what they too have seen in return in this strange (both weird and wonderous) space.
Amongst the weirdness is that the poles sit in proximity to the cafe area. I don't know how to think about this, to tell the truth. On the one hand, it is weird thinking about those poles listening in to scattered conversations amongst those sitting down to rest their feet, with a coffee, a sandwich, and some pudding. On the other hand, there is something I also love about taking a moment for food and rest, thinking of what i have seen there was sharing space and time with the poles. Even when I am eating by myself, I feel a bit like I am spending time in the presence of an important friend. Yep.... my weird brain/heart.
So... to help me remember the 'feeling' of being there, here is a video of a minute of the view while sitting in the open court having lunch: https://youtu.be/KIT0ultmW1g
And then, I headed off to another favourite of mine, The Enlightenment Room.
It is one of the places that just takes up 'head on' the place of colonization in histories of gathering, exhibiting and curating knowledge/objects.
I do find it such an interesting physical space to spend time in, even apart from the content of what is exhibited there. I wondered what had changed and what was the same since the last time I was there.
I started at the middle, and put my hands on the copy of the Rosetta Stone they have installed there, thinking about tools for translation across languages.
I also stopped for a minute at one of those wonderful 'hands on' stations there. I LOVE those stations! They generally have a couple of objects available to be touched and held, while one of the volunteers gives you lots of information about those objects.
There are usually a few people gathered, and it is a chance to be learning both from the volunteers, and from what the museum visitors have to add to the conversation.
This time, I got to pick up a hand ax/knife tool that was thousands of years old. What a thing to feel the edges, and think about the other tools and hands that had shaped this stone to give it some purpose and function.
And I never get tired of the paper mosaics put together by Mary Delany. The idea of a woman picking up this craft of re-creating exact copies of flower in paper.... and of starting this at the age of 72? Something so beautiful in that! Here is a link to more about her and her work https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/late-bloomer-exquisite-craft-mary-delany of creating
Sir Hans Sloane's bird collection was there too. That one is just a little bit unsettling. Beautiful, but unsettling (the notion of 'having' a bird collection, I guess).
And then I headed towards the exit, with a nod to a collection of roman coins, and a moment to drop a bit of my own british change into the donations box.
I love it that the museum is public/free.
I also liked the opportunity to think about ways I might still make some contribution as an outsider, to acknowledge the gifts of the space, even in the face of my ongoing disquiets about the complexity of museum practices in the context of the work of truth and reconciliation.
Lots to think about. And I am grateful for that!
That was on my mind as I headed back out through the main Great Russell Street entrance, into the light of day.
I wandered around the entrance, enjoying the sky from different angles, and reflected in the glass of the windows.
It was one of those days where the clouds and the blue sky are in competition with eachother (vs. those days with a lovely casting of greys).
I couldn't seem to get enough angles!
And thus endeth my report of a stolen hour at the British Museum
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