Walk-through

I couldn't help but think of London when we were in Houston recently (of all places!) and during a stroll around our friends' neighborhood we came upon this lovely pathway...

What I thought of was some of the tiny passages I encountered (and occasionally got lost in) around Kensington. You can see what I mean here (about half-way down the post) and here (towards the bottom of the page).

The Houston walkway led to this handsome pocket park...

(which of course is something else London has lots of)... and we assume that's why it's there, to allow residents of the neighborhood to get to it easily, since the blocks are rather long. The passageway cuts two of these long blocks in half.

a dapper tourist along the path

Remembering the V&A

Wow! It's been a year since I posted on this blog! Believe me, I haven't gone that long without thinking of London, but this is the first time in a while that I've had a London reminiscence that called the blog to mind.

PAPERWEIGHTS!

Yes, I was recently in a museum that had a whole room full of paperweights, and I couldn't help but remember the wonderful Victoria and Albert Museum. How many rooms full of curious and wonderful objects does it have?! 

The paperweight room is in the basement of the Chicago Art Institute, which I was lucky enough to visit on a recent trip to that fine city. And while it certainly wasn't as voluminous as the lace room or the silver gallery in the V&A, it was just as much fun and just as delightful a discovery.

Not only are the paperweights on display gorgeous objects worthy of being in an art museum...

...but the displays also provided some intriguing information about how they are made...

What an unexpected, but utterly cool, collection of objects! But that's not the only quirky, V&A-like set of displays that the Art Institute offers.

Also in the basement is their collection of tiny rooms...which is just what it sounds like. A bunch of dollhouse rooms that are exquisitely decorated in a variety of period styles. So neat!

The displays are fronted with glass, so it was hard to get good pictures. But, take it from me, this little gallery is well worth the time to visit.

So much detail! And how did they make it seem like sunlight was actually entering through the tiny windows and doors?! Amazing!

I'll close with a particularly haunting image from the Institute's main collection (it's famous for its Impressionist collection)...another London memory:

I'll have more about the wonderful painting we saw here in a future post over on Hometown Tourist.

An unexpected memorial

Perhaps I should re-title this blog to reflect its recent emphasis on war memorials. But these fascinating pieces of public art do always remind me of my time in London, and, in fact, in the U.K. Where they seem to be omni-present.

On a recent trip I encountered a memorial that surprised me. It commemorates a war that became overshadowed by the much larger conflicts that followed it, but which contained some hints of what was to come.

"to commemorate the heroic devotion of the Canadians
who fell in the South African War..."

In the middle of downtown Montréal is this handsome memorial to Canadians who fought with Britain in the Boer War, which happened around the turn of the 20th century. The memorial was erected in 1907.

Given all the many memorials I visited and photographed in the U.K., I don't remember a single one commemorating this conflict! I wonder what impulse led to its appearance here? Granted, I know very little about this war. Some of the battles listed on the memorial sounded vaguely familiar...

face of the memorial listing Boer War battles

What I primarily know is that Churchill made a name for himself as a war correspondent during it, and that it introduced concentration camps to the world.

But if I had to name a Dominion country who participated in the war, it would be the Aussies. Admittedly, this knowledge comes from seeing Breaker Morant at an impressionable age, not from any military history knowledge.

However, even an unpopular and somewhat obscure war has a human cost that should be remembered. And I found this unexpected memorial well executed and a moving sight in the early dusk of our stroll around a small part of this lovely city.

War Memorial Central--west

Living, as I do, in a city that has its own Cenotaph, war memorials that remind me of London aren't exactly scarce in my experience. But I recently got a mega-dose by visiting a series of these structures in connection with an evening at the Symphony.

The large center in the background of this photo is our newly renovated Tobin Center, which I've blogged about over on Hometown Tourist. But the small stone-and-statuary edifice in the foreground is our local Korean War Memorial. Here's a closer view:

Then, at the other end of this plaza that faces the Center, is our Vietnam Memorial, a very dramatic sculpture:

It's large enough, with enough busy city in the background, that it's hard to get a picture of the whole thing. This is just part of it. You can see the multitude of flowery offerings left there, though, probably because of the recent anniversary of the end of the war. I imagine that there are usually not so many wreaths there, but I suspect there's always one or two at least.

I had seen the Korean and Vietnam memorials before, but new for me on this visit was the Veterans' Plaza on the backside of the Center. This space, which leads up from the River Walk, is marked by this series of handsome plaques. They not only name, but describe the heroic actions of Congressional Medial of Honor recipients from the San Antonio area. On this visit I didn't have time to read them all, but I plan to make a stop in this plaza a normal part of my pre-Symphony routine in the future, so I hope to read them all someday.

(Look for more views of the plaza in general at Hometown Tourist soon.)

Bike reminder

Walking across the University of Texas at Austin campus the other day, I happened to see a series of signs that reminded me of the various cycle-related signs I saw in the UK:

For some reason, whenever there are a lot of bikes around, they get especially touchy about where you park them!

Note the text on the sign is in burnt orange...of course!

Remembrance

I think I will always remember It comes to mind especially easily this year, since there is so much commemoration of the Great War's centenary.

This amazing memorial at the Tower of London surely made me wish I was back there more than anything I can remember.

What a wonderful, poignant, and moving tribute! I so wish I could have seen this in person.

We are doing a lot of World War I remembrance on our campus, too, though. Last week there was an interesting series of panel discussions on the War and literature, and students are being encouraged to read about the war through our community reading project. 

Plus, we now have a collection of patriotic posters on display in the Library, borrowed from our local public library's special collections:

Stop for a moment at 11:11 today and remember not only this horrible conflict (from which there are now no surviving veterans) but of the much too many that came after it, and those who fought for us in them. 

Our capital has good museums, too!

Last week I was in Washington, D.C. for a librarians' meeting and was able to take a couple of extra days to sightsee when it was over.

Since it had been a while since I had been to a really big, wear-yourself-out museum, that's what I opted for on my free Saturday. Two, in fact: our National Gallery of Art (we seem to feel the need to add the prepositional phrase, whereas the British don't) and our National Museum of Natural History.

view from the porch of the Natl. Gallery, resting up for the Natural History Museum

Yes, they wore me out, and in just a few hours. I was only able to see a few galleries of each (I know my limitations). But it was very worthwhile, both in the neat things I was able to see, and in the memories of similar London museum-ing that were brought back to me.

Natural History's central dome

I first picked the National Gallery since it has been a really long time since I was there. And, as I recall, that last visit was a whirlwind dash just before closing. This time I had a little more time to savor the sights.

Of course, the building is spectacular in itself, as you can gather from the photo of the gorgeous (and enormous) pillars in the main rotunda.

Not to mention the fine details, such as this completely over-the-top water fountain!

why not make a functional device pretty, too?

But the museum also has some really spectacular art. Since I knew I couldn't cover the whole place, I concentrated on some of my favorite periods and schools. And was rewarded by seeing some of my favorite artists, as you can see below. Note: in addition to the prepositional phrase, another big difference between this National Gallery and the one in London is that our allows photos!

Canaletto painting Venice: a favorite artist with a favorite subject matter

El Greco is always interesting

if I had to pick a single favorite artist, it would probably be Vermeer

this tiny Da Vinci is one of the jewels of the collection...

...and it's a two-fer! this is on the reverse

I'm also a fan of these ceramics

I was reminded of what became my favorite London museum, the V&A, by a special exhibit of colonial furniture. What I loved about the V&A was the way it made everyday objects into works of art, like the teapots and dinnerware you can see in this post.

The furniture exhibit accomplished a similar task. Here are some highlights:

panorama of one of the exhibit's rooms

chess, anyone?

sewing table, with a lovely hanging "basket" for supplies

this pickle dish display was almost V&A-worthy!

Another very interesting little exhibit that I saw on my way out highlighted the real "Monuments Men," some of whom were National Gallery employees in civilian life, who were taken away from duties elsewhere to help find and conserve the art treasures that had been hoarded by the Nazis. I didn't take any good pictures there, but you can learn more about this fascinating World War II side-bar story here. It made me want to see the movie!

---

Next up was science. (Actually, I had planned to go to the National Archives Museum, but the line was almost around the block! I knew I wouldn't last that long.)

Since I could feel my strength already starting to flag (in spite of the infusion of a scrumptious falafel wrap from a food truck in the mall—another England flashback!), I decided to focus on just one section of the Natural History Museum. However, I did stop to snap a shot of the iconic main rotunda:

The subject I chose to tour was geology, gems, and minerals, which is always one of my favorites. Here are some highlights of this extensive gallery:

fuzzy crystals

just one of MANY displays

more gorgeous crystals

and more (does the one in the foreground remind anyone else of a Horta?)

I wish I'd gotten someone to stand in front of this one for scale. It is HUGE! Probably about as tall as I am!

Very footsore and completely museumed-out, I was able to make my way back to the metro station—just barely! It was a great day of museum-ing and London-remembering, two activities that always go hand in hand for me.