Monthly Archives: June 2012

Betrayal

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I’ve figured it out – my body is recapitulating all my worst illnesses, in order.

Bronchitis in the place of pneumonia (that was when I was 23?). Started last week, still going on.

Crazy GI symptoms that remind me of pancreatitis (Christmas break when I was 25). I seem to have survived them, but Wednesday night I thought about going to the E.R. I was still pretty uncomfortable yesterday, but ok today.

Today I’m having the kind of wrist pain that kicked off the carpal tunnel years (34-35, the endgame of the dissertation). I’ve been icing it and wearing my old wrist brace since noon.

What’s tomorrow? Some version of the lung abcess-driven pneumonia from the summer of 2001? If so, I quit!

Garden Walk Geneva – Laurence’s House

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Last weekend was the first Garden Walk Geneva – organized in large part by the amazing Kathryn Vaughn (whose garden was in great shape, too). This is my colleague Laurence Erussard’s front yard – you should see the orchard!

There were 18 open gardens – it took me 2 hours to walk from Pulteney Park to Copeland and back.

*sigh* damp spot on the living room carpet

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A new colleague asked why I hadn’t included my building in the possible rental list if, as I told her, there were vacancies.

Well, the 7-month saga of the living room ceiling is not over yet — I came home to look for a book (which at least I found, Lara!) and stepped barefoot into a damp spot on the living room carpet.

Within 3 minutes the sound of a drip from 11 feet up hitting the bottom of a plastic bucket confirmed my worst suspicion — the leak is NOT fixed.

*tock* There’s another!

That’s why I didn’t include The Pulteney in my list. I think a lot of us feel the same way — we love the building and our apartments, but would consider not moving here in the first place if we had it to do over again, sad to say.

Further: This morning every seam in the ceiling was wet and dripping. I’m at the office and back at my place they’re cutting an even bigger hole into the ceiling than before.

Unobtanium?

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I watched Avatar for the first time last night. Cool effects. Stupid movie. Stupidest part? Unobtanium. James Cameron goes to the trouble of inventing a language with a 1,000 word vocabulary for his Big Blue Bipeds but he didn’t bother to come up with a better fake mineral to be stripped from their planet than Unobtanium?

Your Blogger at the Museum Folkwang, Essen

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Museum Folkwang, Essen by Michael Tinkler
Museum Folkwang, Essen, a photo by Michael Tinkler on Flickr.

Finally! I’ve gotten the pictures uploaded and mainly sorted! Danyal and I went to several museums – the best art museum was certainly the Folkwang. They have a splendid collection of 19th and 20th Century German and French painting and some good sculpture. The building is brand new (built since I was in in Essen in 2009, which was one of my main reasons for going back!). It’s by David Chipperfield – here’s the story of the competition. It’s a very serene building – the colors are very subdued, and the galleries are strung around a series of courtyards. Every courtyard is different — some are partially paved, some have trees, some have sculptures. Here are my photos (or photos of me there). Here are everyone’s. We weren’t supposed to take interior photos, but I really don’t see why we can’t photograph for architecture.

The exterior surface is made of what I think is a cast glass – irregularly smooth, but very satisfying to touch and look at.

Early Warmth

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I wrestled the window unit into a living room window this morning – we’re going to sit in the 90s for the next couple of days. This is early for Upstate New York! Pretty soon (though not soon enough!) we’ll be back down to lows of 60 at night and I might not turn it on again until August.

Glad to have the option, though, when I need it!

Beauty

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Dionysus by Michael Tinkler
Dionysus, a photo by Michael Tinkler on Flickr.

If you want classical beauty, you won’t do much better than this bronze Dionysus in the Museo Palazzo Massimo. Click to go to my Flickr stream and you can see him full length.

I love these figures with the inlaid eyes — in his case, limestone. What we would give to see them the way the Romans saw them, polished, colored, and in a better setting than a cold museum! While I was on the road I re-read Steven Saylor’s Catilina’s Riddle (on Kindle). At the end of that book, Gordianus the Finder trades a farm he inherited from a rich friend for the friend’s house on the Palatine; in the peristyle of the house is a statue of Minerva which must have been along the same lines as this, which seeing this Dionysus brought home.

This particular Dionysus was discovered along the Tiber during the construction of the Ponte Garibaldi in the mid-1880s, just upstream from Tiber Island. He’s of the Hadrianic era (c. 125).

Freshly cleaned!

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Freshly cleaned! by Michael Tinkler
Freshly cleaned!, a photo by Michael Tinkler on Flickr.
The Temple of Porntunus (misidentified for years as the Temple of Fortuna Virilis) has been under scaffolding and wraps for a long time – 5 years? They’re not finished, but the porch is finally revealed in all its splendor!
And yay – I finally found the right place to type my password so that I can post directly from Flickr!