Finally Finished the Book I Was Reading

I did not like Mona Awad’s novel Bunny. It took me forever to read it because I had to force myself. Finally, I am done. Why did I read it? Because it’s recommended by Margaret Atwood, for whom I have enormous respect (you can see the blurb on the cover). I’ve read just about every book that Margaret Atwood ever wrote, and quite a bit of her poetry. This book is nothing like her work. But it’s not surprising — why would she like an author who was just like her? I don’t even want to try to review Bunny, which centers around a graduate writing program at a fictional university, and is a kind of endless hallucination in the deteriorating mind of a desperate victim of writer’s block, self-hatred, and suffering the contempt of the other women in the program. 

I do not agree with Margaret Atwood.

This is a real bunny (species: swamp rabbit) that we saw in Texas last week.
In Mona Awad’s book there are effectively no real bunnies of any species. Only hallucinations.

Blog post and bunny photo © 2025 mae sander

The Menil Collection

Museum website photo

In the museum: our friend Eleanor (in Green) and Len (at right).

On the second-to-last day of our visit to Texas, we joined our friends Eleanor and Roger, who first gave us a tour of several neighborhoods of the city, and then took us to the Menil Collection, a small but fabulous museum based on the amazing collections of Domenique de Menil (1908-1997). For us a highlight was the large number of works by René Magritte, the Belgian surrealist. The museum owns 54 of his works, though not all of them are on display.

One of the many works by Magritte, a favorite of ours for many years.

The Surrealist Wunderkammer

Surrealism is one of the major themes of the art work in the Menil Collection, and one of the highlights of the museum is a carefully arranged room full of surrealist art along with other types of art that have been beloved by surrealists and their fans. Tribal art, certain works by earlier artists such as Archimbalvo, and various other choices complement the intentions of the surrealist painters of the early 20th century.

A Mickey-Mouse Kachina (museum photo).

Photo of the Wunderkammer (from museum website)

Photo from museum website

We loved the collections of objects that were put together in the “Surrealist Wunderkammer” which could also be called a cabinet of curiosities. When we walked into the room where this collection is displayed, we were strongly reminded of the collection that belonged to the surrealist poet André Breton (1896-1966), and were gratified when we found a mask of his face displayed between two tribal masks in one of the cases in the room. Here’s the official description from the museum website:

“A Surrealist Wunderkammer is a single-gallery exhibition devoted to seeing the world from the perspective of Surrealism, an international art and literary movement started by André Breton, Paul Éluard, and others in France during the 1920s. The gallery presents ethnographic and found ‘surreal’ objects, obsolete photographic and moving image technologies, and other works that informed the thinking of artists affiliated with Surrealism.”

(Source: https://www.menil.org/exhibitions/376-a-surrealist-wunderkammer)

A Special Exhibit: Joe Overstreet

After visiting the Menil collections, we continued by viewing a special exhibit of the work of Joe Overstreet (1933-2019).

Cy Twombly

Finally, we visited the separate building dedicated to the work of Cy Twombly (1928-2011).

One of the Cy Twombly rooms

In the Garden

Broken Obelisk, a sculpture by Barnett Newman in the museum garden

Blog post © 2025 mae sander

Photos are original or as credited to the museum website.

April Food

 In My Kitchen until I went to Texas

A new crock for holding utensils: the only new item in the kitchen.

Some things we cooked…

Dining in Texas

Dinner at Fig and Olive in the Galleria shopping mall.

Dragon roll at Hachi, a very enjoyable sushi restaurant near our hotel in Houston.

Salmon sashimi served in a bowl with blue-lit ice at Hachi.

Around Winnie, Texas, and other birding places

Another place in Texas…

Taco Salad

Blackened Redfish

More places…

Galveston with Debbie from Readerbuzz

Mennil Collection Museum, Houston

Dinner at the Menil Collection Museum with our friend Eleanor.

Asparagus and goat cheese crepes and salad at the Menil.

Photos © 2025 mae sander

Home Again

We are back home in Ann Arbor. It's beautiful and warm, and our azaleas, magnolias and other blossoms are beautiful. Our flight from Houston to Detroit was easy and uneventful.

Photos © 2025 mae sander

A Visit to Galveston

What fun to meet a fellow blogger! Here I am with Debbie Nance from Readerbuzz.
Len and I drove down from Houston to Galveston to meet Debbie and her husband Jim.
We enjoyed oysters and pecan pie for lunch at one of her favorites on the waterfront, Gaido’s.

The beach in front of the restaurant.

After lunch, we also looked at a few water birds.
A lovely way to spend our last day in Texas.

Photos © 2025 mae sander

Historic Houston

Yesterday, we got together with some long-time friends in Houston: Eleanor, whom we have known since our student days when we lived in Grenoble, France (long story), and her husband Roger, whom we met later at a few reunions of friends from those days. Eleanor has lived almost her entire life in Houston, as did her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, and she says she just loves this city. She drove us on a tour of the historic district where many very old houses are preserved, and where her mother and father grew up and went to school. She drove us past former family homes and the elementary school building her father attended. After the tour, we went to the Menil Collection, a small and wonderful museum. Here are some photos of the restored Victorian houses in the neighborhood. I’ll write about the Menil Collection another day.

In a nearby neighborhood, we saw the building where the Obama election headquarters were located — a great mural on the building really impressed me:

Eleanor also drove us around the campus of Rice University, where she went to school and also where she participates in many alumni activities. It’s a very impressive and large campus!

We had a great day in Houston! It was wonderful to hear Eleanor’s memories of the homes and streets where her family lived. She now lives in a different neighborhood, where we also drove a bit.

Photos © 2025 mae sander

Houston Museum of Fine Arts

 

After seeing many ibis in the fields during our birding tour, we were happy to be greeted by this
Egyptian ibis (from 664-332 BCE) almost as soon as we entered the museum!

The Impressionist rooms of the museum are magnificent, with a selection of many of our
favorite painters, especially including a number of masterpieces that we didn’t know about.

The Orange Trees by Gustave Caillebotte (1878) was my favorite.
Reproduction from the museum website.

Frantisek Kupka, Czechoslovakian, 1871-1957 

The Yellow Scale, c. 1907

The museum is housed in several buildings, all very architecturally interesting.
I won’t try to go into detail about the way the collections are arranged. We visited three of them.

The photography exhibit was very interesting, including a 19th century history and highlights of 
20th and 21st century photographic art.

A special exhibit featured a collection of 16th century Italian tapestries portraying a huge battle.
Armor, swords, and other contemporary items were also on display.

In the lobby near the tapestry exhibit, a children’s play area was set up,
with murals based on the tapestries.

At the end of our visit to the museum we looked at a few of the rooms that
featured Islamic and Korean art works.

Photos © 2025 mae sander