Rest in peace, Margaret

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Our hearts are full today. Meredith’s mother Margaret died Monday. She had suffered a major stroke a few days before and passed away quietly Monday evening, without regaining consciousness.

It is hard to find words to express what she meant to us and how we feel. Margaret was fond of John Donne’s poetry, including this famous one, which she could recite in large part from memory, so we offer it now:

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Beer and Cannibals

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Museum of Man
Balboa Park
May 30, 2016

We went with our middle daughter and her husband to the Museum of Man in Balboa Park. Meredith had visited that museum recently by herself, but she had not been in to see the special exhibit about cannibals, and the rest of us had not been there for many years.

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We first explored the Beerology exhibit. It chronicles the history of beer making around the world. Many different cultures, using a variety of grains, have made beer. Each region has a separate display case and write up. Various ancient artifacts are displayed in the cases. Our son-in-law is a home brewer and was particularly interested in that exhibit.

We also spent considerable time in the special exhibit about cannibals, Cannibals: Myth and Reality, which is located in the separate exhibit space across Laurel Street from the main building. It is not a permanent exhibit, but it will run until 2018. The displays include interesting artifacts, videos, and explanatory displays. We were taken a little aback, though, by the moral relativist undertone to much of the exhibit. It is best summed up by a button Meredith picked up when leaving, which said “Cannibals are people, too.” Extensive space is devoted to survival cannibalism by Europeans and people of European descent, such as the Donner party, shipwrecked English sailors, and the plane crash survivors in the Andes. Little differentiation is made between survival cannibalism and ritual cannibalism. Neither the reasons for ritual cannibalism nor its relation to human sacrifice are explored in any depth. Our guess is that the curators were so leery of giving visitors unfavorable opinions about ethnic groups whose ancestors practiced ritual cannibalism, that they missed an opportunity to educate. The exhibit is entertaining, and at times informative, but it is not enlightening.

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The adult admission price for the museum and cannibal exhibit combined is $20; for the museum alone it is $12.50. There are discounts for seniors, military, students, and youths. Parking is free in Balboa Park, but visitors may need to park some distance from the museum and walk or ride a shuttle.

Leonis Adobe 2016

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Leonis Adobe
Calabasas
May 28, 2016

On this visit we took Margaret to visit the Leonis Adobe in Calabasas. We have been there before. The site is well laid out and maintained. In addition to the two historic dwellings – the adobe which dates from the mid-19th century and the Plummer House relocated from West Hollywood – there are livestock and plantings typical of what would have been found on the Leonis ranch in the 1880s.

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The adobe is furnished with period furnishings and artifacts, some of which are original to the site. The costumed docents are quite helpful and generally well-informed. (Bob was able to explain to one docent that an unusual artifact in the pantry was a butter churn, of atypical design, because his mother had an antique one of the same type.)

As with many historical buildings, the adobe building is not completely wheelchair accessible. We took Margaret around the grounds and into the ground floor of the adobe. Bob went up the steps to see the second-story rooms while Meredith stayed downstairs with Margaret. Much of the site can be seen by a wheelchair patron though, including the outbuildings, with old wagons and farm equipment; the livestock and gardens, as well as the main part of the adobe and the Plummer House, so it was well worth the visit.

We purchased a small bag of hay in the gift shop when we arrived, and fed some of the sheep and goats. Margaret enjoyed both feeding and petting them. We admired the horses and longhorn cattle from a distance; visitors cannot get close enough to touch the larger animals.

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The Leonis Adobe Foundation put together the Passport 2 History program, and we have used that booklet and website as a guide to many of our outings. There are over 80 participating museums and historic sites throughout Central and Southern California. A few months ago we misplaced our physical passport, so we bought another one ($3) on this trip.

Admission is free, but donations are encouraged, and we made sure to drop a contribution in the box.

After we had seen all that we wanted to see, we went next-door to the Sagebrush Cantina for lunch. Meredith’s sister Kathleen joined us, and we had a nice time catching up. We all enjoyed our lunches. The menu is predominantly Mexican food, but there are other choices as well. Margaret enjoyed wild mushroom tacos with goat cheese.

Since our visit fell on Memorial Day weekend, we made it a point to stop at the Veterans cemetery in Westwood. After we dropped Margaret off, we stopped for flowers, then visited the grave of Meredith’s stepfather Eli. The entire cemetery had been decorated with miniature flags by each grave; quite a sight waving in the breeze!

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Getty — Cave Temples

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Getty Center
Sepulveda Pass
May 15, 2016

We took Margaret to the Getty Center, primarily to see the new exhibition, the Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China’s Silk Road. History is one of her main interests, and she had very much enjoyed the Silk Road exhibit at the Natural History Museum when we saw it several years ago, in our pre-blog period, so this exhibit was a “must see.”

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We first heard about this exhibition through the Getty 360 email newsletter which the Getty sends us each month, and we then saw an Associated Press article about it in the San Diego Union Tribune: Getty Center Recreates Elaborate Chinese Caves. It runs through September 4, 2016.

The caves of Mogao near Dunhuang were carved out in stages over nearly a millennium from the 4th to the 14th centuries, by Buddhist monks and others. The cave temple complex served those traveling on the Silk Road. The area is situated in northwestern China, on the eastern edge of the Gobi Desert, north of Tibet and south of Mongolia. Roughly half of the approximately 1000 caves have some decoration, and many of those feature elaborate and beautiful religious sculptures and paintings. Many caves fell into disuse during the Ming Dynasty of the 14th to 17th centuries, and the complex seems to have been used only as a local religious center after that. Sand drifted over the site and obscured many of the grottoes and the wooden facades of the cave entrances decayed. Early in the 20th century, Wang Yuanlu, a Daoist monk, discovered tens of thousands of ancient documents and other artifacts that had been sealed in one of the caves. In 1943 the Dunhuang Academy was established to explore and conserve Mogao. Since the 1970s the caves have become a tourist attraction, and the number of visitors has made conservation a critical need. For the last decade, the Getty Conservation Institute has worked with the local institute to stabilize, preserve, and restore some of the cave paintings.

The Getty exhibition has three parts. In the Research Institute building, which we visited first, are displayed actual historical artifacts such as sculptures, parchments, paintings, and drawings. Margaret particularly enjoyed a large embroidered silk tapestry showing a life-sized Buddha, called the Miraculous Image of Liangzhou. It was made around 700 A.D. (It enjoyed a shout out in the AP article linked above.)

Right next to that exhibition there is a small movie theater showing The Cave 45 Virtual Immersive Experience, a short film in 3-D of one of the restored caves, explaining the details of the statuary and the paintings in that particular cave.

The third part of the exhibition is a tent that has been set up especially for this purpose on the entrance plaza at the Getty Center, right near where the trams drop arriving visitors. Within that tent are replicas of three of the cave temples, with docents available to answer questions.

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Due to capacity limits, there is timed entry to the replica cave tent. We had the bad luck to time our visit to coincide with a very large group from Riverside which had blocked out some time in the early afternoon. When we first tried to get timed tickets, right after lunch, we were told there would not be any given out for an hour and a half, so we went off to look at the new Rembrandt (see below). When we came back, the earliest timed tickets we could get would have had us waiting at the Getty for nearly an hour and a half, and Margaret was already fatigued at that point. We asked at the information booth if any accommodation could be made for her, given her disabilities, and a supervisor helped us to the front of the line both for the replica cave and the movie, with just a short wait for each. He was gracious and helpful; we were relieved and grateful. If we had been there on our own the wait would not have mattered, and we could have toured other galleries in the meantime, but Margaret has very limited stamina these days.

Although the Chinese cave art was the main focus of our visit, we did make time to see another new exhibit, The Promise of Youth: Rembrandt’s Senses Rediscovered. The Getty owns several Rembrandt paintings and has a couple others on long term loan, but the one which is currently the center of attention is on short term loan only until August 28, 2016. It is called The Unconscious Patient (Allegory of the Sense of Smell) and is one of a series that Rembrandt painted as a young artist illustrating the five senses. See more about the series, and photos of the paintings, on the Getty’s website: here. This painting, illustrating the sense of smell, is displayed between paintings illustrating touch and hearing. The backstory is one of those stranger than fiction stories; the painting was recently rediscovered, and its owners did not know it was by Rembrandt. We read the story of its discovery in an article in the Los Angeles Times. Adjacent to the three “senses” paintings are the museum’s other Rembrandt works.

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Admission to the Getty is free, but those arriving by private car pay $15 to park. Parking is at the foot of the hill, and visitors ride trams up to the entry plaza. There were ample handicap spaces in the garage, and accessibility is generally good throughout the center. Finding the elevators is sometimes a little challenging, but all levels of the exhibit buildings can be reached either by elevator or (within the Research Institute exhibit space) by ramp. As we noted, the staff was very helpful with accommodating Margaret, so we give them high marks for disability services.

The café is arranged as a food court with half a dozen stations offering a wide selection of food. The food is good, and the prices are reasonable for a museum cafe. There is also a sit down restaurant.

Autry Revisited

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Autry Museum of the American West
Griffith Park
April 30, 2016

We took Margaret to the Autry Museum in Griffith Park, one of our favorite museums. Its large collection explores the history and image of the American West from several perspectives. Downstairs, where we spent most of our time today, is devoted to the historical West. Several exhibits have been revamped since we last explored that section. We thought the Cowboy Gallery — a display about the cattle industry and cowboys — was particularly well done, and the full size chuck wagon displayed in that gallery was interesting to look at. Farther on in the historical section, Margaret enjoyed seeing both the well restored stagecoach and also the bison display.

We went on from the historical section to the movie section. This gallery has artifacts from Western movies and movie stars, all the way from the silent era to the present. We enjoyed seeing the short video with clips of singing cowboys, including Gene Autry of course. There is a larger video screen at one entrance to the gallery. Today it was showing a loop of clips from Autry movies, which Margaret very much enjoyed.

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Upstairs there is a large gallery devoted to Western themed art. We did not spend a lot of time in it today, but we did make a point of seeing a special exhibition we had read about, California Impressionism: The Gardena High School Collection. From 1919 through 1956, the senior classes at Gardena High School each bought a work of art to donate to the school. The students made selecting the works a class project. In the process they acquired some very good works by artists who were young and upcoming at the time, many of whom are well-regarded now.

We ate lunch at the museum café, which serves excellent food. The menu is simple – burgers, sandwiches, salads, and several hot dishes. Margaret was in the mood for something Mexican, so she ordered the chicken street tacos, which Meredith had as well. Bob enjoyed the chili and half sandwich combo, and we all enjoyed the order of cornbread we shared. Prices are quite reasonable for a museum café.

The Autry is perhaps the most accessible museum for wheelchair patrons of all the places that we have visited. There are no interior doors separating galleries, which can be awkward at other museums, and it offers an impressive number of handicap parking spaces.

Adult admission is $10; there are discounts for seniors, students, and children. Active duty military get in free. The museum participates in the Bank of America Museums on Us program and also offers a discount to AAA members. Parking is free.

After the visit we took Margaret back to her board and care residence. Meredith’s sister Kathleen met us there, and the four of us sat outside in the garden for a while, visiting and catching up. It is increasingly difficult for Margaret to make the transfers from wheelchair to car and back, so we are trying to make just one stop when we go out, rather than multiple stops for lunch or coffee separate from the museum or other outing.

SD Museum of Art — Brueghel and Putnam

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San Diego Museum of Art
April 19, 2016
Balboa Park

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Meredith took advantage of Resident Free Tuesday in Balboa Park to see two special exhibitions at the Museum of Art: Brueghel to Canaletto, European Masterpieces from the Grasset Collection, featuring paintings from the Low Countries post 1600, and Ferocious Bronze, the Animal Sculptures of Arthur Putnam, featuring dramatic bronze sculptures done in the early 20th century.

There are about 40 paintings on display in the Brueghel to Canaletto exhibition, beautiful still lifes and landscape paintings from the 17th century. These are on loan from a private collection, and most have not been displayed publicly before. There are some really stunning pieces among them. It is hard to single out any one work, but Meredith enjoyed the humorous touches in Peter Binoit’s paintings, which include small mice unobtrusively eating some of the delicious looking food. This exhibition will run only through August 2, 2016 and is well worth a visit.

Sculptor Arthur Putnam lived from 1873 to 1930 and worked mainly on the West Coast. Publisher E. W. Scripps gave Putnam his first major commission, to sculpt five monumental bronze figures for his ranch near San Diego. Putnam won a gold medal at San Francisco’s 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Central to this current exhibition are 28 of Putnam’s animal bronzes, selected from over 100 that the Museum received in 1925 as a gift from the Spreckels family. The exhibition also includes sketches and other material.

The Putnam exhibition will run through October 11, 2016. The Museum of Art is running it as their contribution to Part of the Pride. In honor of the San Diego Zoo’s centennial, five prominent Balboa Park institutions are collaborating to offer animal-themed exhibitions in 2016.

Meredith went on the third Tuesday of the month and so enjoyed free admission; regular admission is $12 for adults, with discounted prices for seniors, military, students, and youths. (She bought a book in the gift shop, so we made a financial contribution to the museum that way.)

San Diego Museum of Man

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San Diego Museum of Man
Balboa Park
April 19, 2016

Meredith played hooky from work and went to Balboa Park on a Tuesday afternoon, to take advantage of a couple of the museums offering free Tuesday admission to San Diego County residents. Most of the park’s museums participate in this program once a month, on a rotating basis. This day was a third Tuesday, which meant the participating museums that day were the Museum of Man, the Museum of Art, the Mingei Museum, and the Japanese Friendship Garden.

Meredith had hoped to see the cannibal exhibit, Cannibals: Myth & Reality, but that is a special exhibition with a separate, paid admission, so she decided to skip it this time and see it later when we can both go. That exhibit is scheduled to run through 2018, so there should be plenty of opportunity.

Meredith found the exhibit on race, Race, Are We So Different?, to be particularly interesting. There was a timeline of race perception and laws with good factual information, and a self portrait section with subjective descriptions. She was struck by the woman whose heritage mixed many ethnic groups, who wrote of herself “I’m what’s on the spoon when you pull it out of the melting pot.” The museum’s website advises this exhibit will be temporarily closed from May 20 through June 5, 2016.

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She strolled through various other exhibits about the Maya, the Kumeyaay, the history of beer, monsters, and primates. Exhibits are well laid out and accompanied by helpful written information.

As noted above, Meredith’s visit was on a free Tuesday. Regular admission is $12.50 for adults, $20 with the cannibal exhibit included. There are reduced rates for seniors, military, youth, and students. There is a small additional charge for those who want to buy timed tickets and climb the California Tower, with views out over the park. Balboa Park offers free parking, but lots can be crowded, and visitors may need to park at a distance and walk or take a tram.

Shakespeare Is Coming to Town!

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April 23, 2016 marked the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and it is the day that the San Diego Library opened up ticketing to see a rare copy of his First Folio. The book will be on display at San Diego’s Central (downtown) Library from June 4 through July 7, as part of an exhibition co-hosted by the library and the Old Globe Theatre. The exhibition will free of charge, but due to its anticipated popularity, the library recommends patrons obtain tickets in advance. Timed admission will run every 30 minutes. Tickets can be obtained at this link:

Folio ticketing

A limited number of drop-in tickets will also be available at the Central Library each day.

What is the First Folio, and what’s the big deal? During Shakespeare’s lifetime, some but not all of his plays were published in quartos, basically flimsy paperbacks. The quartos were unauthorized and inaccurate versions of the plays. After Shakespeare died, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two of his friends, accomplished what Shakespeare had never done for himself — publish a complete, definitive collection of his plays. In addition to the quartos, they had access to materials that no longer exist, such as the original handwritten manuscripts and actors’ prompt copies.

Without the work of Heminges and Condell, Shakespeare might not be remembered today. Certainly, far fewer of his plays would have been preserved, because 18 plays are known to us only through the First Folio and had not appeared in quarto form, among them Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest. The New York Post ran an excellent article explaining how the First Folio was compiled and what its importance is. The book that will be coming to San Diego is on loan from the Folger Shakespeare Library. It is one of just 235 surviving copies.

The exhibition website tells us this about the upcoming exhibition:

Shakespeare’s First Folio will be available for viewing and opened to the page with “To be or not to be” from “Hamlet.” Accompanying the rare book will be a multi-panel exhibition exploring the significance of Shakespeare, then and now, as well as the importance of the First Folio. A supplemental exhibition will showcase original props, costumes, photographs, and ephemera from The Old Globe’s 80-year archives….

In addition there will be a un-ticketed complimentary display in the Hervey Family Rare Book Room adjacent to the art gallery. “Publishing Shakespeare” will present rare and exquisite editions of work by and about Shakespeare. Drawing from the San Diego Public Library’s rare book collection, the exhibition will include more than 50 beautifully produced books and prints spanning four centuries of publishing and book art.

Skirball — Baseball

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Skirball Cultural Center
Sepulveda Pass
April 9, 2016

We took Margaret on her first museum outing for nearly three months, since our January visit to the Southwest Museum. All three of us love baseball, so we were pleased that the Skirball has just opened a pair of baseball themed exhibitions.

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Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Becoming American pays tribute to the American Jews and other immigrants and minorities who played baseball or contributed to it in other roles. Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax feature prominently, as do Jackie Robinson, Joe DiMaggio, Fernando Valenzuela, and many other ethnic minority players. The exhibit includes many pieces of historic memorabilia, such as jerseys, bats, mitts, baseball cards, among other things. We were impressed by the four baseballs autographed by Sandy Koufax to Walter O’Malley after each of his four no-hitters, including his perfect game. Meredith was puzzling over a large photograph of Hank Greenberg with a Yankee player, wondering who the Yankee was, and Margaret recognized immediately that he was Joe DiMaggio. This exhibition will run through October 30.

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In a separate gallery we enjoyed seeing vibrantly colored paintings by artist Ben Sakoguchi, The Unauthorized History of Baseball in 100-Odd Paintings. Each painting is done in the style of the old orange crate labels popular from the 1920s through 1950s. Various different baseball players, personalities, and themes are illustrated, some humorous, others poignant. There is an excellent short video featuring the artist, discussing his work and describing his inspiration. A baker’s dozen of images can be seen on the museum’s website: here. This exhibition runs through October 2.

Both of the baseball exhibitions are included with the museum admission, as is the museum’s permanent collection, Visions and Values, Jewish Life from Antiquity to America. Prices are $12 for general admission; $9 for seniors, students, and children over 12; and $7 for children 2–12. Parking is free and generally ample.

We enjoyed our lunch at Zeidler’s Café, possibly our most favorite in-museum restaurant of all the museums we have visited. Margaret and Bob each had sandwiches; Meredith had the spinach and cheese empanada. Margaret was a little befuddled when presented with her options for side dishes, saying simply “too many choices.” We reminded her that she likes the fresh fruit Zeidler’s serves, so she ordered that, and she particularly enjoyed the pineapple. All the food was tasty, service excellent, and the portions were generous. The cost was reasonable considering the quality of the food and service.

Whidbey Island

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Whidbey Island, Washington
March 19-20, 2016

We flew to Seattle to visit with our oldest and youngest daughters and our daughter-in-law. Last time we visited them we enjoyed exploring Bainbridge Island, and we were intrigued by the idea of further island explorations. This year we decided to explore Whidbey Island, and we took the ferry from Mukilteo to Clinton, at the southern tip of Whidbey.

The scenery was magnificent — snow capped mountains to east and west, water, farms, and trees — all very different from what we see in San Diego.

On our drive north from Clinton, we stopped at Fort Casey State Park. This site is now a state park; formerly it was an army base with coastal defense artillery. Two large (10 inch barrel) guns are still in place for viewing, together with their massive carriages, and two of the 3 inch barrel guns are also on display. Our youngest daughter liked the maze of underground rooms and the artillery “dumb waiter” (our term) which was once used to raise the shells to the guns. From the ramparts we could see out over Admiralty Inlet across to the Olympic Peninsula. We were lucky to come on a free pass day; generally Washington state parks charge a fee of $10 per car per day for a Discovery Pass, or $30 for an annual pass.

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Within the park, just a short walk from Fort Casey, is the Admiralty Head Lighthouse, built in 1903 and used until 1922. We watched a video with archival footage of live firing practice of the big guns at Fort Casey. Bob and the girls climbed up the lighthouse tower. (Meredith waited on the landing.) There is no lamp in the lighthouse now, but there is a great view from its tower. On the ground floor there are several exhibits, including other lighthouse lenses typical of ones used in that period. Meredith was interested by the wooden library box; every few months the lighthouse service would deliver a box containing an assortment of books, both fiction and non-fiction, for the keeper to read.

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We went on to the Island County Historical Society Museum, located near the waterfront in Coupeville, a scenic small town founded in 1852. Family admission worked out to about $2 each. We enjoyed looking at the 1902 Holsman car displayed in the lobby; it was the first automobile on the entire island. There are some impressive baskets on display in the Native American exhibit on the bottom floor of the museum.

In the late afternoon we stopped at the PBY Naval Air Museum in the town of Oak Harbor. On one side of the highway is a retired PBY seaplane, which saw service in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. The museum’s indoor displays are in a building across the road. We found them to be well labeled and very informative. We watched an excellent video which featured local residents reminiscing about life in Oak Harbor before the naval air station and describing the transformation that occurred with the opening of the air base and the all consuming war effort of WWII. Adult admission to the museum is ordinarily $7, but we had picked up discount coupons at the Island County Museum so paid $6 each.

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We stayed overnight at the Best Western in Oak Harbor. The next morning we attended Mass at the local parish then drove to the north end of the island to see the scenic Deception Pass, so called because the first European explorers in the area thought that waterway was the mouth of a river. (Instead it is part of the Salish Sea, the network of inlets and waterways between the Olympic Peninsula and the mainland of Washington State.) We drove south from there, mainly retracing our steps but adding a couple of scenic detours. We enjoyed an excellent locally-sourced lunch at the Oystercatcher in historic Coupeville, stopped to see some mid 19th century blockhouses, and then finished our excursion with a tasting at the Spoiled Dog Winery. Late in the afternoon we took the ferry and headed back to the girls’ home.