Boston- So, as Jule and BrookeLynne's friend pointed out, Newbury Street in Back Bay is a nice shops area to go up. Newbury Comics (I got a Meatwad "plushie keychain" that I'll hang in my car cuz it's gigantic, and picked up the new Magnet and Venus... Sleater-Kinney were on both covers, so I eventually picked that up there, too. Pretty great noisy one. They've bought a bunch of effects pedals... so if you were waiting for them to make an album that didn't sound like The Hot Rock again, this is it.), various indie stores of clothes n such, posh stores, Hello Kitty stores (kinda small), Virgin Megastore, and so on.
Museum of Fine Arts- This is a really good one. Its gift shop has the best art/photo book store I've ever seen. I wish I could afford all the damn things... also, well, they have art from everywhere. Good Japanese/ Chinese prints (and swords and armor and statues). Van Gogh (La Berceuse) and Gauguin (Where Have I Been? Where Am I? Where Am I Going?; I didn't like the lighting at all on it. It casts a glare when you try to look closely at the details. It's a huge painting.)... some of my favorite stuff was the Oceania/ Pacific and African rooms's historic objects. I love this one, the "power figure" from the Congo:
It grants wishes when you drive nails into it. I know, you'd expect it to be pissed off at having nails driven into it and not grant wishes. I spoke to the African Tribal Art Museum curator in Portland about them, too, because they have a couple; he said they were chiefly for requests for medicinal healing, but also wishes... and you could ask them to do revenge stuff against people, too. In the pic above- the eyes and stomach are mirror plates.
I went by Faneuil Hall Marketplace, too, but it's really pretty wack compared to Newbury. Also- the Boston "T" subway is really, really odd. It's like something so distorted and oddly laid-out you'd see it in a dream. Long, weird hallways; confusing signs; some trains like normal subways while the Green lines are trolley cars; parts where you walk over the tracks; low platforms that are really close to the tracks. Those "connector" stations where you switch lines? They aren't exactly close by each other.
Portland- Has an awful lot of art in it. Art schools + art students + art galleries + art stores = Portland. Plus, it has lots of small, old-type stores and maritime associations/ stuff. I went on the train at the museum of narrow gauge railroad. Maine had several rail tracks of two feet width, as opposed to standard gauge (four-foot-plus) rail, since it cost about a quarter the price to run narrow gauge railroad. It ran until the Depression when 1) there were the obvious economic factors, 2) trucks and interstate highways came into the picture. They would haul cranberries, lumber, and yeah people.
The Portland Public Market has a lot of good, odd food/ snack choices in it. BrookeLynne sort of suggested I go there and space out on the rainy/ cold day. I did.
There is quite a bit of nice art at the Portland Art Museum. They had an early Max Beckmann self-sketch, quite a lot of Impressionists (I like Renoir's work of people, but generally find Impressionist landscapes a bit pink/light green for my liking... still, it was considered heretical for them to eschew all the black paint/ heavy shadows of Renaissance art, so I can respect that)... I didn't see as much Edward Hopper as I thought I might, but oh well... and unfortunately the recent exhibits had just closed.
I did see BrookeLynne too, of course. We were at the Old Port Festival (I imagine you all know what a street festival is like) for a bit, and later had brunch. She is of course quite great, and her dudefriend Skip was a pretty decorous (yes, I am using a thesaurus; I didn't want to use "cool" again. I still need new adjectives.) guy, and of course Lucas is so cute (but seemed a little oblivious of me. I guess I'm used to attracting kids's attention by being tall, but I think Skip is already tall, so I was out of novelties).
Old Orchard Beach- is where I stayed. It is like a small Rehoboth Beach, to use an mid-Atlantic example (which I haven't been to in ages). The weather was very warm/ sunny my entire trip, except Monday in Portland, which was 50 degrees and foggy/misty. I suppose it's a feature of New England being between the Great Lakes, Canada, the Atlantic, and the mid-Atlantic (i.e. hot as crap weather in June) that it can go from 85 to 50 to 85 in 3 days with no problem.
I guess that's my trip...also, yeah, well, I feel mentally odd this week; very suddenly out of it and lonely at times. But not all the time. But some, very suddenly. Despite my funn in travels, and seeing folks, and future set-up plans to see folks (Karmella's Game tonight; Black Cat tomorrow; Lez Zepplin with drjmd Thursday?; two amusement park trips and another Outer Banks trip for the next six weeks). Ah well, rollercoasters, emotional and other. I should really get out and bloody exercise and buy my dad birthday presents.
Museum of Fine Arts- This is a really good one. Its gift shop has the best art/photo book store I've ever seen. I wish I could afford all the damn things... also, well, they have art from everywhere. Good Japanese/ Chinese prints (and swords and armor and statues). Van Gogh (La Berceuse) and Gauguin (Where Have I Been? Where Am I? Where Am I Going?; I didn't like the lighting at all on it. It casts a glare when you try to look closely at the details. It's a huge painting.)... some of my favorite stuff was the Oceania/ Pacific and African rooms's historic objects. I love this one, the "power figure" from the Congo:
It grants wishes when you drive nails into it. I know, you'd expect it to be pissed off at having nails driven into it and not grant wishes. I spoke to the African Tribal Art Museum curator in Portland about them, too, because they have a couple; he said they were chiefly for requests for medicinal healing, but also wishes... and you could ask them to do revenge stuff against people, too. In the pic above- the eyes and stomach are mirror plates.
I went by Faneuil Hall Marketplace, too, but it's really pretty wack compared to Newbury. Also- the Boston "T" subway is really, really odd. It's like something so distorted and oddly laid-out you'd see it in a dream. Long, weird hallways; confusing signs; some trains like normal subways while the Green lines are trolley cars; parts where you walk over the tracks; low platforms that are really close to the tracks. Those "connector" stations where you switch lines? They aren't exactly close by each other.
Portland- Has an awful lot of art in it. Art schools + art students + art galleries + art stores = Portland. Plus, it has lots of small, old-type stores and maritime associations/ stuff. I went on the train at the museum of narrow gauge railroad. Maine had several rail tracks of two feet width, as opposed to standard gauge (four-foot-plus) rail, since it cost about a quarter the price to run narrow gauge railroad. It ran until the Depression when 1) there were the obvious economic factors, 2) trucks and interstate highways came into the picture. They would haul cranberries, lumber, and yeah people.
The Portland Public Market has a lot of good, odd food/ snack choices in it. BrookeLynne sort of suggested I go there and space out on the rainy/ cold day. I did.
There is quite a bit of nice art at the Portland Art Museum. They had an early Max Beckmann self-sketch, quite a lot of Impressionists (I like Renoir's work of people, but generally find Impressionist landscapes a bit pink/light green for my liking... still, it was considered heretical for them to eschew all the black paint/ heavy shadows of Renaissance art, so I can respect that)... I didn't see as much Edward Hopper as I thought I might, but oh well... and unfortunately the recent exhibits had just closed.
I did see BrookeLynne too, of course. We were at the Old Port Festival (I imagine you all know what a street festival is like) for a bit, and later had brunch. She is of course quite great, and her dudefriend Skip was a pretty decorous (yes, I am using a thesaurus; I didn't want to use "cool" again. I still need new adjectives.) guy, and of course Lucas is so cute (but seemed a little oblivious of me. I guess I'm used to attracting kids's attention by being tall, but I think Skip is already tall, so I was out of novelties).
Old Orchard Beach- is where I stayed. It is like a small Rehoboth Beach, to use an mid-Atlantic example (which I haven't been to in ages). The weather was very warm/ sunny my entire trip, except Monday in Portland, which was 50 degrees and foggy/misty. I suppose it's a feature of New England being between the Great Lakes, Canada, the Atlantic, and the mid-Atlantic (i.e. hot as crap weather in June) that it can go from 85 to 50 to 85 in 3 days with no problem.
I guess that's my trip...also, yeah, well, I feel mentally odd this week; very suddenly out of it and lonely at times. But not all the time. But some, very suddenly. Despite my funn in travels, and seeing folks, and future set-up plans to see folks (Karmella's Game tonight; Black Cat tomorrow; Lez Zepplin with drjmd Thursday?; two amusement park trips and another Outer Banks trip for the next six weeks). Ah well, rollercoasters, emotional and other. I should really get out and bloody exercise and buy my dad birthday presents.
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