Museums and Music Expeditions
Last Saturday I went to the Persian New Year celebration at the Freer-Sackler. There were painted/dyed eggs and a man in a red outfit and face paint with a tambourine, and a *crush* of people. Festive, though I understood little of what was going on.
Then I had lunch at the American Indian Museum with la_penguinita -- excellent rabbit stew that day! I love their choices -- and some friends of hers; they'd just been to the Pompeii Exhibit at the NGA (East Wing, oddly enough), and told me they'd liked it. Then I went over to the NGA and met up with uilos and friends, and we saw it. A lot of it was about the way they liked to ornament their houses and gardens. Villa owners in those days had an odd "heads on sticks" motif going on, apparently, but badmagic said they had to have *some* decorative theme. Going to these kind of immersive exhibits is dangerous for me, because then I want to hire someone to paint my walls like Roman gardens (or Japanese teahouses, or Chinese mountains, whatever I've been to lately), only without the heads on sticks. I wasn't crazy about the curation of the exhibits (odd title for one piece, and a description of an attempted-rape sculpture as "lighthearted", but maybe they meant that's how the Romans would have regarded it?). 2 movies seemed a bit excessive for one exhibit, but it was interesting, and if you want to go, it's on through the 22nd. I'm glad I went with friends so we could discuss various bits, for sure. Thanks for organizing, Uilos!
Before splitting up in Chinatown (such as it is, in DC), uilos was kind enough to tell me how to get to my next destination, where the NIH Philharmonia played Vaughan Williams, Haydn, and Beethoven. I did notice a few mistakes (and enjoyed the drummer's expression when the triangle man carelessly hit the triangle at completely the wrong time), but hey, pretty good for an all-volunteer effort where our voluntary donations went to charity. It was fun to see *them* so excited -- for whatever reason, apparently this was the biggest audience they'd ever had. And I found the Williams piece moving. Thanks to forexample for the word!
Spent Sunday last week reading more about a furor in the SF community (some parts of it, anyway). I recommended a few books for people seeking to expand reading horizons.
Driving around this week, I heard the Lemony Snicket talk about a new children's symphony he'd co-written (?), sort of a murder mystery instead of Peter And The Wolf. In the opening scene, a composer is found decomposing... and the investigator goes around interviewing instruments. He finds out that most famous composers are already dead! Uh-oh.
Now, I'm off to another birthday party.
Then I had lunch at the American Indian Museum with la_penguinita -- excellent rabbit stew that day! I love their choices -- and some friends of hers; they'd just been to the Pompeii Exhibit at the NGA (East Wing, oddly enough), and told me they'd liked it. Then I went over to the NGA and met up with uilos and friends, and we saw it. A lot of it was about the way they liked to ornament their houses and gardens. Villa owners in those days had an odd "heads on sticks" motif going on, apparently, but badmagic said they had to have *some* decorative theme. Going to these kind of immersive exhibits is dangerous for me, because then I want to hire someone to paint my walls like Roman gardens (or Japanese teahouses, or Chinese mountains, whatever I've been to lately), only without the heads on sticks. I wasn't crazy about the curation of the exhibits (odd title for one piece, and a description of an attempted-rape sculpture as "lighthearted", but maybe they meant that's how the Romans would have regarded it?). 2 movies seemed a bit excessive for one exhibit, but it was interesting, and if you want to go, it's on through the 22nd. I'm glad I went with friends so we could discuss various bits, for sure. Thanks for organizing, Uilos!
Before splitting up in Chinatown (such as it is, in DC), uilos was kind enough to tell me how to get to my next destination, where the NIH Philharmonia played Vaughan Williams, Haydn, and Beethoven. I did notice a few mistakes (and enjoyed the drummer's expression when the triangle man carelessly hit the triangle at completely the wrong time), but hey, pretty good for an all-volunteer effort where our voluntary donations went to charity. It was fun to see *them* so excited -- for whatever reason, apparently this was the biggest audience they'd ever had. And I found the Williams piece moving. Thanks to forexample for the word!
Spent Sunday last week reading more about a furor in the SF community (some parts of it, anyway). I recommended a few books for people seeking to expand reading horizons.
Driving around this week, I heard the Lemony Snicket talk about a new children's symphony he'd co-written (?), sort of a murder mystery instead of Peter And The Wolf. In the opening scene, a composer is found decomposing... and the investigator goes around interviewing instruments. He finds out that most famous composers are already dead! Uh-oh.
Now, I'm off to another birthday party.