School of Quill Pen Santero 1830–1850 Saint Michael (San Miguel), c. 1840 Water based paints on gesso on pine panel, 13 7/8 x 11 1/4 in. (35.2 x 28.6 cm), BF622
Our last day in Philadelphia, we went to the new Barnes Museum. I know there is a faction who believe that the collection should never have been wrested from Dr. Barnes cold dead hands – there’s even a documentary about it – but honestly, Barnes was such a control freak. He wanted to utterly control the way people experienced his collection, and I, anyway, don’t think he thought art was fun; he thought it was educational only. Plus, it’s kind of crazy to try to control people like that, right? You make the art – or the website, or the meal – and you put it out there for people to experience in their own way. It was pretty fatiguing to walk through the roughly 20 rooms of the museum, with the art packed floor to ceiling, interspersed with metalware – hinges and other hardware mostly – echoing the shapes in the paintings. The thing that surprised me the most was how many New Mexican retablos Barnes had acquired (like the one above). I knew about the Renoirs and Cezannes and Modiglianis and Matisse and Van Gogh, and the decorative arts and African masks – but I hadn’t known before going there that Barnes had also raided New Mexico. There’s pueblo pottery and rugs and at least one concha belt in the collection, too – you get 45 items if you search the collection on New Mexico, and the disclaimer says that not all the items are searchable as yet.
After the Barnes, we went to DiBruno’s deli for lunch, kind of the Philadelphia equivalent of Zabar’s; more Italian, less Jewish, but still a big city deli. The Chestnut St. one that we went to had a grocery store on the first floor and restaurant upstairs. I’d shop there if I lived in downtown Philly, and in fact I have ordered online from DiBruno’s a few times. One of the Yelp reviews said, “I don’t really know how to cook, but I buy everything at DiBruno’s and my parties are fabulous.” I had an escarole and white bean salad, topped with more prosciutto than I wanted, and Mark & Toni had crab cakes. We split a giant cone of really good fries, tossed with Parmesan and parsley, served with ketchup & 1,000 island for dipping. Note to self – if we ever go back there, the sandwich selection – and salad for that matter – is lots bigger at the deli counter on the first floor. So order downstairs and take food upstairs to eat.
While we were at DiBruno’s Mark ordered a cab to get us at the hotel (just a few blocks away), a van, so we could pick up Joe, and head to the airport. From there it was just typical air travel, although somehow I got randomly selected for pre-check, and didn’t have to remove my shoes or take my laptop out of my bag. I guess to make up for leaving, when my lucky wheatie penny collection set the x-ray off, and one of the TSA guys had to rip my bag apart. We got back to Madison around 9:00 PM. It was cold, but the flights were all on time, and smooth landings, and the car started, even after being in the below zero parking lot for three nights. So what more could we ask for? And we already knew that the public schools were closed all day Tuesday – so no school for our exchange student – and the University was closed in the morning, so I planned to work at home.
We got up and shoveled the driveway and the cleaners arrived so I took off to go grocery shopping while they worked. I don’t think I was as productive as I usually am for a work-at-home day, but I did manage to get a few things done. I made split pea soup, with parsnips and carrots, and orange-oatmeal muffins, and a salad, for dinner. The ingredients for everything that we ate except some leaf lettuce had been in the house before I went shopping. I tried to go to a yoga class at Jules’ new studio, but she had to cancel due to paint fumes. I thought maybe their heat was out, since Jules was at the counter with her hat on, letting us hopefuls showing up for class know that there was no class, and assigning an extra free class to our online accounts.
Wednesday was a regular in the office day. Around 3:00 pm, as I was walking back into my building with a cup of coffee, I was wishing I didn’t have to do anything. That’s the problem with conferences – you are traveling and eating out and seeing friends, but you are in meetings and presentations, and working through an entire weekend – no down time at all. Came home and made quesadillas with the last of the sweet potatoes from my CSA winter box, and a can of black beans from mark’s pantry, and mozzarella cheese with the mold trimmed off, leftover from our Xmas Eve pizza. We ate the quesadillas with the last carton of corn from the freezer, cooked with bacon.
Bacon corn center stage, black bean sweet potato quesadillas behind.
Thursday was search committee interviews all day and dinner at Sardine. I did the eat off the edges of the menu in a French-style bistro trick – I had the Piccolo fritto – that I’d probably call fritto misto or vegetable tempura, really – assorted vegetable battered and fried, and a salad to follow. Relief after all the times of feeling too full in Philadelphia.
Friday was another “normal” work day, got a lecture recorded and some professional association, post-conference work done. Came home and ate leftovers for dinner, and went to see Inside Llwelyn Davis. Which I liked a lot, though it did once more point out my and Mark’s pretty totally different outlook on music.
Llewyn & Van Ronk compared, from Slate article
Started on Wednesday, finished on Sunday morning – truly a long and wacky week
