Friends! Art! Science!
Today was spent in the company of fearsclave who was in town in order to put his lovely wife on a plane. I am sad I didn't get to see her, but the timing for that was off.
We spent the better part of the morning and afternoon together, starting with a quick stop by Sail, which is a sporting goods store I'd never heard of until today. It was very reminiscent of the Mountain Equipment Coop, and I had to fight all my outdoorsy sporting goods urges that suddenly all sprang to life again. It might be the promise of spring around the corner, but suddenly all I wanted to do was go for a really long hike in the woods and pull out my fishing gear and declare what fearsclave likes to call "jihad against the fish."
We dropped by a tobacconist's shop, because fearsclave has become a pipe-smoking redneck hipster. It was a neat little shop, though the name escapes me currently. The woman running the shop was the founder's granddaughter, which was very cool. Definitely a family business, and right in the heart of downtown Ottawa. We had a nice chat, and then it was time for lunch.
fearsclave had earlier suggested a restaurant called Coconut Lagoon, which serves Southern Indian food. It was absolutely delicious, though lunch time means we didn't get the full menu but rather a buffet-style self-serve. Like I said, absolutely delicious, and I will definitely have to go back one of these days.
The afternoon was reserved for the National Gallery, to which I had never been. Our goal was the Group of Seven, and we happily ogled the Tom Thomsons and the Arthur Lizmers for quite a while. It's a beautiful museum, and if my brain was more lyrically inclined right now I'd probably wax poetic about the architecture and the tranquil atrium with trees and flowers where you can sit and collect yourself if you're so inclined. I could feel the tension draining from me just by standing there for even a few minutes. I do love going to museums, greeting the paintings I know as old friends and discovering new ones as well. The last time I'd been to a museum was in 2011 when I visited Rome, which is pretty sad. I'm going to have to look up the free or at least half-price museum days so I can go a bit more often.
The temporary exhibit was super cool. It was an installation in the chapel by Janet Cardiff, called the Forty Part Motet. It's a musical piece--a reworking of Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis, a 16th-century English composer. She recorded each voice part as an individual track, then set up each with it's own speaker in the chapel. That way you can stand either dead centre or next to each speaker and hear each individual voice, or "climb in the music" as she puts it. It blew me away. If you have a chance to see it, I can't recommend it enough.
We continued on with our museum tour, though we didn't get to see all the exhibits. In the Canadian works section there was one painting in particular that caught our eye. It had been commissioned by a company that mined and produced refined nickel, and I'm pretty sure that the giant-ass painting done in the style of Soviet realism was not what they had in mind. (I don't remember the name of the artist. If someone knows it, please tell me!) It was huge and featured a rather aggressive looking worker holding the tools of his trade in a way that was more reminiscent of a machine gun than anything else. There was another man bent over a microscope next to a set of beakers and test tubes, while a WWII-style bomber flew over a high-speed train. On the left factory chimneys belched smoke into the sky, while on the far right molten nickel was poured into a container not featured in the painting. Above the molten nickel skyscrapers reached toward the indifferent sky. So, naturally, fearsclave and I had the following exchange:
Me: "Science!"
fearsclave: "Industry!"
In Unison: "PROGRESS!"
It was a good moment. I think we giggled over it for about 10 minutes after that.
Alas, the day came to an end far too quickly, since I'm working tonight (and here I am!). But it was a nice change of pace from work-sleep-work-home-chores-sleep-back to work. Tonight I just have to work through being tired and the headache I developed about half an hour before coming here, and everything should be fine.
We spent the better part of the morning and afternoon together, starting with a quick stop by Sail, which is a sporting goods store I'd never heard of until today. It was very reminiscent of the Mountain Equipment Coop, and I had to fight all my outdoorsy sporting goods urges that suddenly all sprang to life again. It might be the promise of spring around the corner, but suddenly all I wanted to do was go for a really long hike in the woods and pull out my fishing gear and declare what fearsclave likes to call "jihad against the fish."
We dropped by a tobacconist's shop, because fearsclave has become a pipe-smoking redneck hipster. It was a neat little shop, though the name escapes me currently. The woman running the shop was the founder's granddaughter, which was very cool. Definitely a family business, and right in the heart of downtown Ottawa. We had a nice chat, and then it was time for lunch.
fearsclave had earlier suggested a restaurant called Coconut Lagoon, which serves Southern Indian food. It was absolutely delicious, though lunch time means we didn't get the full menu but rather a buffet-style self-serve. Like I said, absolutely delicious, and I will definitely have to go back one of these days.
The afternoon was reserved for the National Gallery, to which I had never been. Our goal was the Group of Seven, and we happily ogled the Tom Thomsons and the Arthur Lizmers for quite a while. It's a beautiful museum, and if my brain was more lyrically inclined right now I'd probably wax poetic about the architecture and the tranquil atrium with trees and flowers where you can sit and collect yourself if you're so inclined. I could feel the tension draining from me just by standing there for even a few minutes. I do love going to museums, greeting the paintings I know as old friends and discovering new ones as well. The last time I'd been to a museum was in 2011 when I visited Rome, which is pretty sad. I'm going to have to look up the free or at least half-price museum days so I can go a bit more often.
The temporary exhibit was super cool. It was an installation in the chapel by Janet Cardiff, called the Forty Part Motet. It's a musical piece--a reworking of Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis, a 16th-century English composer. She recorded each voice part as an individual track, then set up each with it's own speaker in the chapel. That way you can stand either dead centre or next to each speaker and hear each individual voice, or "climb in the music" as she puts it. It blew me away. If you have a chance to see it, I can't recommend it enough.
We continued on with our museum tour, though we didn't get to see all the exhibits. In the Canadian works section there was one painting in particular that caught our eye. It had been commissioned by a company that mined and produced refined nickel, and I'm pretty sure that the giant-ass painting done in the style of Soviet realism was not what they had in mind. (I don't remember the name of the artist. If someone knows it, please tell me!) It was huge and featured a rather aggressive looking worker holding the tools of his trade in a way that was more reminiscent of a machine gun than anything else. There was another man bent over a microscope next to a set of beakers and test tubes, while a WWII-style bomber flew over a high-speed train. On the left factory chimneys belched smoke into the sky, while on the far right molten nickel was poured into a container not featured in the painting. Above the molten nickel skyscrapers reached toward the indifferent sky. So, naturally, fearsclave and I had the following exchange:
Me: "Science!"
fearsclave: "Industry!"
In Unison: "PROGRESS!"
It was a good moment. I think we giggled over it for about 10 minutes after that.
Alas, the day came to an end far too quickly, since I'm working tonight (and here I am!). But it was a nice change of pace from work-sleep-work-home-chores-sleep-back to work. Tonight I just have to work through being tired and the headache I developed about half an hour before coming here, and everything should be fine.