Showing posts with label Washington. Show all posts

Friday, July 05, 2024

Bears in Paris and Washington

The area around the Paris hotel where we stayed in May is inhabited by a number of large bears.
I don’t know what this mother bear is called, but we did see another one named Gwendolyn.
The bears seem perfect for sharing with Paris in July!

The unnamed bear and her cub were enjoying their table at a sidewalk cafe.
When we passed by later, they weren’t there any more.

Aside: Gustave Caillebotte painted “The Boulevard Seen from Above” in 1880.

I find it fascinating that the trees in Paris still are protected by the same type of grates.

What the bears can see: school children crossing the boulevard. In French, nounours is the word for teddy bear.
These are “Les nounours des goblins” and they have their own Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest pages (link).

Another bear. We saw at least two more but didn’t take a photo.
For example, we saw the famous one in the window of a plumbing shop that has
his head in a toilet (ugh!).

Instagram page titled Les nounours des gobelins: “Les nounours arrivent aux Gobelins pensant retrouver la terre de leurs ancêtres mais les choses ont bien changé depuis 35000 ans !”

Is this a coincidence? Or was the owner of this cafe in Washington influenced by Paris?

The Story of the Bears

In 2018 a bookstore owner in the area of Paris near the metro stop Les Gobelins distributed a number of these large bears to businesses and residents near his shop. Many of them are still scattered throughout the neighborhood, as we noticed on our brief stay there in May. Some of the bears evidently went into hibernation before the pandemic, but re-emerged to raise people’s spirits during that time. Obviously, they are still appearing in the neighborhood of Les Gobelins and many other locations, maybe even in Washington. For more history, see this wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_bears_of_the_Gobelins

Shared with Paris in July and Eileen’s Saturday Critters.

Saturday, June 15, 2024

Books and Things

Books

The Venetian Candidate

The Venetian books by Philip Gwynne Jones are entirely new to me, and I arbitrarily chose one of the last ones from the series to read first, as recommended by my friend Sheila. The Venetian Candidate (published 2023) seemed to me to be well-plotted, with interestingly developed characters and plenty of local color in Venice in January, 2020 — you can figure out the date because of several news items the characters see about a new strange virus threatening to break out.

The principal character is Nathan Sutherland, who is the British Honorary Counsel in Venice. As such, travelers in trouble come to him for help and advice, which in this book involves a missing man who was searching for information about his great-grandfather who died near Venice during World War I. Not surprisingly, this bit of history turns out to have a lot of ramifications on the present day, particularly on the candidates who are running in an election for Mayor. It gets very involved, including some violence from a hired thug, but of course it all works out well in the end.

Any self-respecting mystery author today is aware that readers want to know what the protagonists are eating and drinking. Obviously, what they eat in this book is fabulous Venetian food — and frequent quick and easy meals of pizza, which takes on quite a lot of significance:

“Gianluca didn’t even look at the menu, but smiled up at the waitress.

“‘Pizza Margherita, as always.’

“He looked over at me. ‘Now, Marco and Alessandra here are just about to tell me how boring this is.’ The two professors nodded as one. ‘But,’ Gianluca continued, ‘they’d be wrong. Because the Pizza Margherita is like Hemingway’s prose. Simple, clear, direct – no messing about. Perfect as it is.’” (p. 142)

They also drink lots of mixed drinks like Negronis, but also wine when they mean to stay sober! For example, this interchange:

“‘Okay. And to drink?’

“He shook his head. ‘I’m on duty. Just a red wine, please. And a couple of tuna and egg tramezzini.’

“I made my way over to the bar and looked at the range of food in the cabinet. Meatballs, of course. Small octopuses. Fried crab claws. Sliced meats and cheeses. All of those would be good. But what would be best on a freezing cold day? I smiled, as I saw the rows of crispy orange arancini, fried risotto balls. Perfect for getting some heat back into me.” (p. 24)

I’m glad Sheila suggested this series, and I expect to eventually read some of the other books by this author.

The Mistress of Bhatia House

“Soon, the potato and fenugreek curry was steaming in front of them, along with a thick yellow dal, stewed green beans, puris, tomato chutney, pickled turmeric, yogurt, and carrot halwa.” p. 90

“The baked cake, wheat studded with dal, nuts, and raisins, sat resting on the kitchen table. John cut two pieces for her and she put them on a metal plate.” (p. 125)

The flavors of Indian Parsi cuisine are invoked in many of the chapters of the most recent Perveen Mistry novel by Sujata Massey: The Mistress of Bhatia House (published July, 2023). I enjoyed it very much, though the central subject is depressing. Perveen, the only woman lawyer in Bombay in the early 1920s, is faced with exonerating a young servant woman who has been accused of the crime of abortion. As she unearths many unfortunate truths about the plight of women of all classes in her society, Perveen struggles against the abuse of this one woman and against the total lack of reproductive freedom for all women in her society. She must deal with the anti-woman resistance she experiences in her own efforts to achieve professional success. She realizes how the British rule of India negatively affects the interests and opportunities of Indian women and men of all classes.

Although life in modern America is nothing like this, the book does bring to mind a variety of ongoing efforts right now to deprive women of their reproductive rights! Perveen, influenced by a woman doctor who faces many of the same prejudices she is facing, is reading a revolutionary book by Margaret Sanger, the American who promoted birth control beginning in 1914. As Sujata Massey presents them, the social problems of India a century ago can really resonate with readers today.

Graphic Novels

I reviewed this earlier in the week.

One more graphic novel, Neil Gaiman’s “A Study in Emerald,”
in which Sherlock Holmes meets classic monsters.

Shared with me

Beautiful lunch in Washington, DC, sent by my family. I wish I had been there!
The cheesecake is especially enticing.

Finding Mona Lisa

Remembering Faith Ringgold (1930-2024). Her quilt: “Dancing at the Louvre” (source)

This image of Mona Lisa as Medusa turned up in a review of the book My Favorite Thing is Monsters (Book 2) by Emil Ferris. I’m not really that fond of graphic novels so I didn’t read the book, though I looked through a short (free) sequel to the book with the same title. As it happens, I tried a few other graphic novels too.

First promised for this month, Lego has postponed the release of the huge lego Mona Lisa until October.

Shared with Sunday Salon at Readerbuzz

Sunday, March 03, 2024

Painted Pillars

Art Everywhere!

In looking through my recent photos of street art and other art in public places, I’ve noticed quite a few examples of artists decorating structural pillars, both large and small. Big concrete pillars holding up highway bridges and rail crossings are often painted, as are small decorative pillars or structural pillars holding up a building. One fascinating thing about a cylindrical pillar is that you can’t get a photo of the whole design, you have to walk around it. I’ve shown some of the following photos in earlier blog posts, but I wanted to view them as a theme in street art and public art projects. Sharing with Sami’s Monday Murals.

Costa Rica

At a bar along the road: a mask on a pillar.

Painted pillar at CATIE, that is,
The Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center

A pillar in the front yard of a house on a road where we walked.

Alexandria, Virginia

Three views of the pillars beside the door to the Torpedo Factory,
which is an art space in a repurposed industrial building from World War II.

Also at the Torpedo Factory.

Decorative pillars are nothing new: here’s an example from the 18th century.
George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon near Alexandria.

National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC

This pillar in the museum was being painted as part of an exhibition of chocolate history.

I included photos of this project last week, but it fits today’s theme as well.

Detroit, Michigan

On a railroad bridge.

Another RR bridge.

Ann Arbor, Michigan

A pillar inside a parking garage downtown.

A highway bridge pillar in Gallup Park.

A porch with Christmas columns — from last December.

At a Rest Stop on the Ohio Turnpike

Workers who are repaving and fixing the roadbed are always in danger.
These images encourage drivers to respect their safety needs — “Move over! Slow Down!’

So Much History!

Decorated pillars from almost 1000 years ago, recently restored. (source)

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Visiting Northern Virginia

Last week, we visited our daughter and son-in-law in Fairfax, Virginia, and then continued to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I’ve written several posts about some of the highlights of the trip, but I wanted to add some photos from both places. Today: our visit to Virginia.

Sunday, February 11, we traveled the Ohio and PA turnpikes and continued
south to Fairfax.

We arrived just in time for the classic Superbowl refreshments: chili and guacamole.

We were also in time for Mardi Gras and Paczki.

Two Towns in Virginia: Occoquan and Alexandria.

When I was a child, there were several carriage stones in my neighborhood, but we called them
“wishing stones” and thought if you sat on them and made a wish it might come true.

Near Alexandria, we enjoyed birding, especially the owl.

The Torpedo Factory, an art space in Alexandria.

The National Museum of the American Indian, Washington DC

I have written about the special chocolate festival at the museum
Evelyn, Tom, Len, and I also looked at a variety of other exhibits.

I enjoyed a case dedicated to children’s toys and dolls.

Symbolic gifts to the Europeans to cement a treaty.

“Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations” is a long-term exhibit at the museum (from 2014-2028). The exhibit documentation states:

“From a young age, most Americans learn about the Founding Fathers, but are told very little about equally important and influential Native diplomats and leaders of Indian Nations. Treaties lie at the heart of the relationship between Indian Nations and the United States.”

The first rooms were focused on several early examples of the very numerous treaties between Indian tribes and Europeans from early colonial times through the early 20th century. These pre-Revolutionary and early 19th century examples were often made in good faith, though later broken by the settlers and politicians eager to take over land and expand the European domination of the continent. As time went on, the treaties became more and more exploitative and cynical, and the national policy of “removal,” which became law in 1830, replaced any good will towards the Native Americans. I was very interested in the artifacts, the facsimiles of treaties, and the historic information in this exhibit.