Pandemic Pause

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Pandemic Pause
March – September 2020

The last six months have been as strange for us as for everyone. When we were enjoying the Open House weekend back in March, the coronavirus was a distant storm cloud. It was a worrying news item, but not a part of our everyday consciousness. Less than two weeks later, on March 19, the California governor announced lock down measures.  It felt as if the whole world had hit the pause button, and nothing has been the same since.

We have to preface our thoughts with the acknowledgment that God has blessed us in many ways, and we have not faced the extreme hardships so many people have endured due to the pandemic and resulting disruptions. This blog post and those that follow offer some reflections, but not they are not meant to be complaints.

March and April were very strange months. Bob’s school extended its spring break, so for the first few weeks of the slow down he was on vacation. Meanwhile, Meredith worked remotely most days and went into the office just twice a week. Her assistant was working entirely remotely, and did so for several months, so Meredith had to do all the office tasks as well as her regular work. She became intimately familiar with the Pitney Bowes postage meter, a machine she has always disliked. When Bob did return to work later in the spring, he taught entirely remotely. Many students were missing in action, because the school district had decided as a policy matter that no student’s grades could be lowered from what they were in mid-March. Consequently, no assignments were required to be done for the rest of the spring semester; everything was extra credit. The remote platforms the teachers used were a mishmash and often did not work well.

We canceled our planned spring break trip; we had planned to see our children in Washington and Ohio. Of course, opera and theater performances were canceled, and Meredith’s rowing club suspended all in person activities, both rowing and social.

One of the hardest things for us was the closing of the churches. We always attend Sunday Mass, and Meredith often goes to Mass on Wednesday mornings before work. In the immediate aftermath of the lock down, we streamed the Masses which Bishop Baron was posting online through the Word on Fire website, and soon afterwards our parish started posting videos of both daily and Sunday Masses. Although Masses at church resumed a few months ago, our parish continues to offer its video Masses online, both Sunday and daily, for the benefit of those who cannot attend in person for health reasons.

During our “binary confinement” we have broken out the corn hole game, and we play it in the backyard from time to time.

We were saddened not to go out for a nice brunch on Easter Sunday. For the last couple of years we have enjoyed the Easter Brunch offered at the Abbey, so when we received an email from the Hornblower Cruise company, which runs that site, saying that they were offering Easter brunch in a “to go” box, we signed up. We drove down to Hillcrest to pick up our box and took a walk in the neighborhood as well.

Meredith took up jigsaw puzzles, to have something to do at home other than TV and reading. In honor of the Washington kids we didn’t get to see in March, she put together a puzzle of Whidbey Island.

Bob soon joined her in putting the puzzles together. We now have the card table set up permanently in the living room – why not, we are not having company over! – to hold the current puzzle in progress.

Historic Grant Hotel

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Open House San Diego 2020
U.S. Grant Hotel
Downtown San Diego
March 8, 2020

We spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon touring several architectural sites on view to the public as part of the Open House San Diego program.  The Open House concept began in London, England in 1992 as a way to bring a wider understanding of architecture to the public.  The San Diego version began in 2017 with tours of sites in Banker’s Hill, Downtown, the Gaslamp District, East Village, and Barrio Logan.  It has expanded its range since then. On these weekends, places that may not normally be open to the public are available.  The OH! San Diego program is organized by the San Diego Architectural Foundation.  In 2018 we toured some of the sites in the Banker’s Hill area as part of the Open House weekend, but never got around to blogging about them.

This year we visited several sites in the Gaslamp District, starting with a self-guided tour at the U.S. Grant Hotel.  We picked up a handsome brochure that led us around the public spaces of the hotel.  The brochure was available on the OH weekend at a table hosted by volunteers, but may also be available to the public at the Concierge desk for tours at other times.  The hotel is located on the site of the original “downtown” hotel, the Horton House, built by Alonzo Horton when he created “New Town” San Diego in the 1860s.  The U.S. Grant Hotel was built by a consortium of businessmen affiliated with Ulysses S. Grant, Jr., the second son of President Grant.  Construction was interrupted in the wake of the San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906, because of other demands for construction labor, but eventually the hotel opened in 1910.

The guide led us around the ornate lobby area, which holds historic images and information about the development of the hotel in the mezzanine level near the valet entrance.  There were no functions being hosted the day that we toured, and we were able to walk through all of the ballrooms and meeting rooms that are not on view when in use by private parties.  The Palm Court is an elegant space in the location of what was once the hotel’s dining room, and is named in honor of the former Palm Garden terrace, later enclosed to provide the “Presidential Ballroom” on the second floor.

Also on the lobby level is the beautiful and historic Grant Grill. The Grill was a meeting place for businessmen in its early years of the 1950s and 1960s; “Men ONLY Before 3:00 P.M.” read the sign at the time.  In 1969, that rule was challenged by a group of female attorneys who held a protest sit-in at lunch time, booking a table under an assumed, masculine name.  The rule was finally abolished after legal action was threatened.  One of the protesters later went on to become a member of Congress and another became a Superior Court judge.

We went up to the second floor and saw what seems to be the largest public space in the hotel, the Presidential Ballroom.  It boasts a stage area.  In the foyer on that level are portraits of all of the presidents and first ladies who have visited the hotel, while near the entrance to the ballroom are photos of presidential visits.

On the lower level we found several interesting architectural drawings, plans, and photographs of the hotel throughout its history.  In the 1930s, an eleventh floor was added to the hotel to serve as the studio and broadcast center for KFSD radio.

The elegant “Court” spaces, Chafee (pictured above) and Chairman’s, served originally as lounges for men and women preparing for or seeking respite from the events in the adjacent Crystal Ballroom.  The Crystal Ballroom is an ornate space that has been remodeled, most recently when the Sycuan Tribe purchased the hotel and modernized it in the early 2000s, but it retains the air of the original.  The travertine and marble are set off by the elegant pillars and gleaming chandeliers and draw the eye to the original fireplace at the far end.

Coming up: posts about the historic San Diego Trust and Savings Bank building, and sites in the Gaslamp.

Dream Machines

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Petersen Automotive Museum
March 7, 2020
Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles

We went to the Petersen auto museum to see the special exhibition Hollywood Dream Machines: Vehicles of Science Fiction and Fantasy.  Dozens of vehicles from science fiction themed movies and television shows are on display.  The exhibition was curated in collaboration with the San Diego-based Comic-Con Museum.  It runs through May 2020.

There are science fiction vehicles displayed around the lobby and even a couple in the parking garage.  The first car to meet us as we entered the main gallery on the ground floor was the familiar DeLorean from the Back to the Future movies.  We particularly enjoyed the numerous Batman related vehicles, not only the Batmobiles, but also Batman motorcycles, Joker cars, and models and images of the Batmobile over the years.

Meredith and her sister were taken by the Star Wars speeder on display. We rolled our eyes at the exhibit tag, though.  For all three of us the 1977 movie will always be Star Wars, and not The New Hope.

We also enjoyed seeing other non-Hollywood classic cars.  The Petersen has an extensive collection, which it rotates from time to time. Although we have been there before, there were many vehicles on display that we had not seen before, including the 1886 Benz Motorwagen pictured above.  The Motorwagen had 0.75 horsepower and could achieve a top speed of 10 miles per hour.  Although not the very first automobile, it may be the first practical one.

On our three prior visits, we went with Meredith‘s mother Margaret. Our most recent prior visit was to see the grand reopening in 2015.  Shortly before that the museum had remodeled its exterior; our blog post about that visit, including the architecture, can be seen here.  The year before that we went to the Petersen to see the Mustang exhibit, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Ford’s release of the first Mustangs.

The museum’s collection is extensive, and not all cars it owns can be displayed at any one time.  The Petersen, for an extra charge, offers tours of its vault.  We have never seen the vault but think it might be worth doing someday.

We noticed the same deficits in accessibility that struck us when we last visited, with Margaret in her wheelchair.  Although there are no steps to climb inside the museum, the internal doors are heavy and do not have push button openers, and the parking garage lacks an elevator.

Parking is expensive, a flat $17 for the day, but that reflects the Wilshire location.  Other parking options in the area are in the same cost range.

We are thinking that our next Los Angeles museum venture will probably be to the Skirball in May, to see the Star Trek exhibition, which will open on April 30.

Nixon Library and Museum

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Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
Yorba Linda
January 19, 2020

Our first museum trip of 2020 was to the Nixon library in Yorba Linda, up in Orange County.  Last year we visited the Reagan library in Simi Valley and purchased a membership.  That membership offers reciprocal admission privileges at other presidential libraries, and we were interested in the Nixon library, so we made a point of going before the membership expired.  (We never did write up our February 2019 Reagan outing, but a blog post about an earlier visit we made to the Reagan library can be seen here.)  We were also interested in the special exhibition at the Nixon library that ran just through March 1, about the Apollo 11 mission and moon landing.

We were totally engrossed by the museum, both permanent collection and temporary exhibit.  That’s why we are running behind with this blog post; a full report would require a much longer write up than we usually provide.  Let’s just hit the highlights.

The permanent collection recounts the history of Nixon’s life before, during and after his presidency.  It starts with his presidency, then the second section of the permanent galleries traces his life before and after his time as president.  (In contrast, the permanent galleries at the Reagan museum follow a strict chronological approach, starting with his boyhood.)  The Watergate gallery is comprehensive and does not pull punches.  We were completely fascinated by the exhibits and became immersed in the events of that era, to the point that we did not realize how much time had gone by.  Richard Nixon was never one of our favorite public figures, but as we traced the events of his life at the museum, we were impressed with his humble origins, work ethic, intelligence, and persistence.  We knew about, but were interested to revisit, the main events of his presidency: the trip to China, detente, the Vietnam war and disengagement, domestic social changes, etc.  But we were not aware of Nixon’s continuing role as an elder statesman, consulted by subsequent presidents on foreign policy matters.  We were also struck by one comment: that he was an introvert in an extrovert’s profession.

There are good videos throughout the museum, especially the introductory video at the entrance, which features some of Nixon’s advisors, including Henry Kissinger, as well as biographers and family members.  There are historical video recordings as well, such as the Checkers speech, and Nixon’s resignation speech which we both remember hearing.

Nixon’s birth home is located on the grounds and can be toured with a docent.  His father Frank Nixon built the house himself, from a kit supplied by a lumber yard.

Also on the grounds is the helicopter Nixon used while president, and it can be toured as well.  It is the one area that is not handicapped accessible; visitors must climb stairs to get into it.

The temporary exhibit commemorating the moon landing sparked memories for both of us, of that magical summer night when we first watched men walk on the surface of the moon.

The building that we visited was the museum.  The presidential library, with an extensive document collection, is a separate building, open for research Monday through Friday.

There is no full service café on site; there is a lunch cart, which closes at 3 pm.  Visitors are free to leave and eat elsewhere and then return.

Full price tickets are $16, with discounts for seniors, students, military, and children.  The museum is open Monday to Saturday 10am to 5pm, and Sunday 11am to 5pm.  Accessibility good, except for the helicopter.

Parking is free, and there were plenty of open spaces the day we visited.

Il Guercino

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Timken Museum
Balboa Park
November 24, 2019

Recently Meredith discovered the 17th century Italian painter Giovanni Francesco Barbieri through a blog post featuring one of his paintings of the Annunciation.  The Angelus Project blog posts a new image of the Annunciation each week.  Barbieri is better known by his nickname “Il Guercino.”

She wanted to know more about Barbieri, and started with the Wikipedia article about him.  Apparently guercino is Italian for “squint-eyed.”  His Wikipedia entry has an image done by a contemporary artist, Ottavio Leoni, that shows Barbieri’s right eye crossing in, a form of strabismus (an umbrella term for several types of misalignment of the eyes).  Also intriguing was a link in that Wikipedia article to a medical journal article exploring whether Leonardo da Vinci may have had strabismus.  Other famous artists with various types of strabismus may include Rembrandt, Dürer, Degas, and Picasso.

We shared this information with our optometrist daughter, who told us that she had been discussing strabismic artists, particularly painters, with a colleague recently.  She was struck by the observation that paintings represent a 3D world in a 2D medium, and that translating three dimensions down to two may be easier for people who already see the world in two dimensions because of their strabismus.

Soon after that discussion we were visiting the Timken and discovered that there is a painting in their permanent collection by Barbieri, of the parable of the Prodigal Son.  In that parable, the father who welcomes back the errant son represents God forgiving sinners.  Luke 15:11-32.  A docent at the Timken explained to us that in addition to illustrating the original Gospel story, the painting also represents the Catholic Church of the Counter-Reformation, ready to welcome back Protestants.

The Life in Your Years

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A British study published this month found that people who visit museums and art galleries regularly live longer. Other engagement with the arts, such as attending theater performances or the opera, had a similar beneficial effect. Over half the association is independent of factors that could explain the link such as wealth, mobility, and mental health.

We first saw the study reported in the December 22, 2019 New York Times, but their online paywall is a nuisance to navigate; a write up can also be seen on CNN’s website.

Researchers from University College London reviewed data from more than 6,000 adults in England age 50 years and older, who were taking part in a wider study on aging and who were followed for 12 years on average. They found that people who engaged in the arts more frequently — every few months or more — had a 31% lower risk of dying early compared to those who did not. Even going to the theater or museum once or twice a year was linked with a 14% lower risk.

Why? It is not clear, but one researcher commented that “engaging with the arts can act as a buffer against stress and build creativity that allows people to adapt to changing circumstances. It also helps people build social capital — accessing emotional support and information that helps people age more successfully. We also thought that a greater sense of purpose could play a role.”

New Year’s resolution: visit more museums!

Manet’s Later Years

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Getty Center 
Sepulveda Pass, Los Angeles
November 16, 2019

We drove up to the Getty to see Manet and Modern Beauty, their special exhibition of over 80 works by Edouard Manet, created in the final years of his life.  We had read a preview article about it in the Los Angeles Times, and we were reminded of it by the monthly email newsletter we receive from the Getty.  Meredith’s sister Kathleen met us there.

The works on display included not only oil paintings but also pastels, watercolors, and letters Manet sent to friends that he decorated with small sketches or watercolor images.

The marquee work, Jeanne (Spring), is a beautifully executed painting of a well-dressed young woman who symbolizes Spring.  Manet had originally intended to paint all four seasons, each represented by a woman in seasonal dress. He did not live long enough to finish the project. He did paint Autumn, and that work is displayed near Spring in the Getty exhibit.

We enjoyed seeing images of the artist’s black and white cat Zizi, first eyeing a brioche and then curled up on his wife’s lap, in typical cat pose.

 Manet also painted friends’ dogs, and the portrait of one named “Bob” was included in the exhibition.

As we finished touring the Manet exhibition, we were treated to an outdoor musical and dance performance piece that was part of the Bridge-S series created and produced by Solange Knowles.  On the drive up to the Getty, we had read an article about her production in the Los Angeles Times. 

We stopped for lunch in the museum cafe, then went to see two other smaller temporary exhibitions, Balthazar: A Black African King in Medieval and Renaissance Art and Peasants in Pastel: Millet and the Pastel Revival.

The magi who came to see the infant Jesus are not named in the Gospels; indeed they are not even stated to be three in number.  But legend has filled in the gap, and tradition has it that one of the three wise men came from Africa and was named Balthazar.  We were interested to see how depictions of Balthazar changed over the centuries, and some of the illuminated manuscripts on display were exquisitely beautiful.

The pastel collection only included about a dozen works, but they were very well done.  Jean-Francois Millet came from a peasant family and often depicted rural scenes.  He led a revival in the use of pastels; displayed with his works are some by other artists who followed his lead like Alfred Sisley and Camille Pissarro.

It was a beautiful day; we enjoyed the views both to the east to UCLA and downtown, and west toward the ocean. The Getty Center gardens are beautiful, and we made a mental note to leave time for a tour of the grounds when we next come.

Admission to the Getty is free, but parking costs $20 per car. The price drops to $15 in mid afternoon and to $10 in the evening. The Manet exhibition runs through January 12, 2020.  The Balthazar exhibition ends February 16, 2020, and the pastels run through May 10, 2020.

Masterpiece Double Header

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University of San Diego
Timken Museum of Art
September 27 & 28, 2019

Meredith’s USD alumni magazine alerted us to a special art exhibition several months ago, and Meredith explored it this past weekend.

The University of San Diego and the Timken Museum have joined together, in partnership with the British Museum, to bring to town a selection of outstanding Italian prints and drawings owned by the British Museum, mainly from the Renaissance period.

Some can be seen at USD’s Hoehn Family Galleries, in Founders Hall on the university campus.  The exhibition there is entitled Christ: Life, Death and Resurrection. 

The rest can be seen at the Timken Museum in Balboa Park, in the special exhibition room.  It is entitled simply Masterpieces of Italian Drawings.

The rarest and most exciting piece on exhibit is Michelangelo’s drawing The Three Crosses. That piece can be seen at USD. It figures prominently in the publicity for the exhibition, for instance on the cover of the alumni magazine, but it is by no means the only masterpiece on display.

Admission to both museums is free.

Postcript: both exhibitions closed in December 2019, but USD posted an excellent video online, with curatorial fellow John Murphy conducting a virtual highlights tour of the USD portion of the project.  It runs 28 minutes and can be seen here.

Spain’s Golden Age

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San Diego Museum of Art
Balboa Park
May 19, 2019 and July 28, 2019

We went to see the San Diego Museum of Art’s new featured exhibition, Art & Empire: the Golden Age of Spain, on its opening weekend and then again more recently with a friend.  In between our two visits we went to Spain, where we saw other Golden Age paintings at the Prado Museum in Madrid.  It was fun to put the San Diego exhibition in the greater context.

The SDMA Golden Age exhibition features more than 100 art works, mostly paintings, from Spain’s imperial age.  The works include not only those by Spanish artists, but also many by contemporaneous colonial artists.  They are grouped thematically, with religious art making up a majority of the pieces on display, and many secular subjects shown as well.  The museum’s own Spanish art is gathered here, together with many borrowed pieces.

There were many great works, and we cannot name a favorite.  A very memorable piece was Velazquez’s Kitchen Maid with the Supper at Emmaus, which is interesting for its focus on the maid, with Jesus and the disciples in the background.  It is displayed near a more traditional treatment of that subject. 

We entered the museum for free as part of our annual Balboa Park Explorer Pass but paid $5 extra to get into the Art & Empire exhibit. It was well worth it!  Without the pass, museum admission is $15, $10 for seniors, and the exhibition is an extra $5. 

The exhibition runs through September 2.

After we were done at the museum on our first visit, we had fun riding the carousel over near the zoo. Meredith succeeded in grabbing the brass ring and won a second ride for free.

 

Blog-iversary Number Five

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Five years ago today we put our first post on line.  For several years before that, the two of us had been taking Meredith’s mother Margaret to various museums and historic sites around Los Angeles.  We went up to see her once or twice a month at the board and care home in the San Fernando Valley where she was living at the time.  Taking Margaret on those outings was both a way give her some fun diversion and also a way for us to visit with her that was interactive and meaningful.  After a while we thought, if we are going to all these museums, why not review them?  Our eldest daughter helped us create the blog, and we have been posting ever since.

Margaret passed away in June 2016, and not a day goes by that Meredith does not think about and miss her.  We continue to blog about museums, and occasionally hikes and other discoveries.  Our focus has shifted more to San Diego, but we still go up to Los Angeles from time to time on the weekend to see special exhibits at museums up north.

On our calendar for the coming months are: (1) the Hollywood Dream Machines: Vehicles of Sci-Fi and Fantasy exhibition at the Petersen Automotive Museum, which is open now and will run through March 15, 2020, and is co-sponsored by the Comic-Con Museum; and (2) the University of San Diego’s Christ: Life, Death and Resurrection art exhibition, which runs September 13 to December 13 and will include Michelangelo’s brush drawing The Three Crosses along with other Italian Renaissance master works on loan from the British Museum.