01 February 2011

The Joy of Snow, or Winter Wonderland Blues

They say the British are always complaining about the weather. But with no Brits in sight, these days, all I seem to hear is winter whingeing. I'm even doing it myself.


I spent four years on the West Coast in a suburb of Victoria, British Columbia. It's a place that, in Canadian terms, never gets very hot or very cold. The roses in our front garden lasted until December and Christmas dinner included parsley from our garden. The first spring flowers appeared in February and snow was something that came in on peoples' cars from places such as Duncan.

And I loved the tall trees -- I keep waiting for re-runs of Twin Peaks, just to get another glimpse of them. Most of all, I don't think I'll ever forget being able to see the Olympic Range of mountains from my living room window.


Whoops, not the Olympic Range, but a range of Olympians. Detail of the Gods vs the Titans
 on the Pergamon Altar in Berlin. These kids sure had no respect for the older generation.
Several months ago, I came across a beautiful large paperback entitled Rainforest: Ancient Realm of the Pacific Northwest at my favourite second-hand bookshop in Montreal. Although there is some text, it's primarily a collection of  nature photographs taken in and along the West Coast, from BC to California. Page after page of moss-covered giants, mountain streams snaking through mossy forests, mist-enclosed mountains, and ice-and-snow encrusted vegetation -- you get the picture. Amazingly, although the introduction is by David Suzuki, there is only one smallish image of devastated, broken forest.

Any Group of Seven collection would show far worse deforestation. Take, for example, Joan Murray's Northern Lights: Masterpieces of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. If a painting's title includes the word "Algoma", you can be certain the trees will be some variety of blackened stump. Nevertheless, Murray's book is eye-catching, with full page photos of both the artists' best and lesser-known works, from the early years up to the late '30s. Flip through it, and you'll understand why Tom Thomson found painting summer landscapes too boringly blah, too green.

I also love pictures of snow. I've spent hours in front of  Lawren Harris' white landscapes marvelling at the variety of colours he used to render his snow just right -- blues, pinks and yellows, among others. What I hate is the snow experience. The chill, the damp, the shovelling, and the way Downtown Montreal's sidewalks resemble single-file forest trails long after the snow has ceased falling. Not to forget the ice. I especially loathe the ice. Fall on slippery pavement a few times and you'll understand why.

My family recently welcomed me home after a "warmer weather" holiday in the US. Three days in New York spent at the Met and its neighbour to the north, the Guggenheim, with a side-trip to the New York Public Library, and over a week in the Boston suburb of Cambridge. After leaving Quebec's snow it was great to be in an almost snow-free New York. As for Boston, I often went out without my gloves. Nevertheless, it was still cold outside, so I was forced to seek the indoor pleasures of museums, libraries and bookshops.

I always love going to the Met, and again it didn't disappoint. The highlights of this visit were American Landscapes (gigantic!); Haremhab, The General Who Became King (for those with an interest in ancient Egypt or Tutankhamen); Thinking Outside the Box: European Cabinets, Caskets, and Boxes from the Permanent Collection (1500-1900) (exquisite); The Roman mosaic from Lod, Israel (beautiful); and of course the "new" Greek and Roman Galleries (spellbinding).


Roman silver at the Met. Not quite the Warren Cup, although the shop
does have its diminutive British Museum guide in the bookstore.


When I visit a museum or art gallery, I usually pop into the bookstore first. Just to see what's there, mind you. That way I'll have an idea as to the exhibitions with guides or catalogues. The down side is that I end up with a heavy bag of books while I tour the building. Now, before I left on my trip, it came to me that I may have taken a risk importing a small British Museum guide a few years ago. It covered the focal piece of a special exhibition I had just seen, located in a room with warning signs at the entry. In fact, I remember most of the guide justifying the museum's recent acquisition of this disturbing masterpiece of the Roman silversmith. What had come to me was the idea that Canada Customs might not agree.

Of one thing I was sure -- the book would never be allowed into the US. But here it was at the Met. The slim volume, an unexpurgated twin to my home copy, was barely noticeable on the bookshelf. (Un-) expurgated: Are you like me in always completing the thought with " 'Olsen's Standard Book of British Birds' -- The one without the gannet"?)

I departed the Met bookstore with nothing more than the books I absolutely could not do without. The idea of lugging them to Boston and then home to Canada was a big incentive. I'm now the proud owner of the following lovelies:
Next day, I was off to the Guggenheim, whose shop was small and less inviting than most of its ilk, perhaps due to after-Christmas sales and the recent closing of its special exhibition, Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918–1936. No book section! While the top two floors were closed, not everything from the exhibition had been removed. Fortunately, rather than starting at the bottom, as the numbering of the remaining exhibition pieces suggested, I followed my guide book's advice and chose to walk down, rather than up. Another great tip from the The Mini Rough Guide to New York City. I enjoy Frank Lloyd Wright's work, so I'd recommend a visit even if the building were empty -- the artworks were the icing on the cake.

My third and final day in New York was spent at the main branch of the New York Public Library, the Stephen A Schwartzman Building. Given the hype at the beginning of the 2 pm tour, I was expecting a near repeat of my visit to London's British Library late last century. We had a brief view of the stacks -- a small, far away peep into virtual darkness -- and tempted with "Here's our fabulous map room, too bad it's shut today" and "People come from all over to do genealogical research; the room's down that hall". However, what we did get was a detailed explanation of how to fill out a book request.

Nor was there anything resembling the British Library's Treasury Room, where you can view a copy of the Magna Carta (have you read 1215: The year of Magna Carta? It's a small gem of a book.) and the Lindisfarne Gospels (the sacking of Lindisfarne Abbey is considered the beginning of the Viking age).

While waiting  for the Library's building tour, I took the tour of  the special exhibition on the main floor, Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. If you are like me and love to see old books, this was the place to be, especially since it was all free -- unlike the museums, this place has no entrance fees.

Centuries-old Torahs, Bibles and Qur'ans. One volume of Gutenberg's Bible. An early American Puritan prayer book, with the prayers in a form quite different from that of the King James Version. Although Tyndale, Wycliffe and Caxton, among others, were represented, I was surprised there was no Geneva Bible, a favourite of the Pilgrims until they became The Authorities in the New World. When our guide mentioned that the King James Bible was based primarily on earlier English-language texts, especially Coverdale's, I made a mental note to speak to her before leaving.

My plan was to recommend Adam Nicolson's fascinating God's Secretaries, an amazing story of teamwork among the highly-educated. It's a great read, and if that's not enough, you can try Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution it Inspired. Should you want to know more about Gutenberg and his financially ruinous quest for perfection, take a gander at The Gutenberg Revolution: How Printing Changed World History. All three books tell the story of people who were ahead of their time. As for the tour guide, she hadn't read Nicholson's book, And she wasn't interested.

One thing the New York Public Library had over the British Library was a shop. Although its book section is small, it's full of great books. I picked up the softcover British Library catalogue to Three Faiths, entitled Sacred: Exhibition Catalogue. Although some of the exhibits are different, the focus is the same. I managed to control myself and left David Crystal's newest tome, Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language, for later. Also available was his By Hook or By Crook: A Journey in Search of English, which I really enjoyed when I read it last year. If you think he's enthusiastic when you read his books, you should hear him talk. Close your eyes and you can imagine him jumping up and down and waving his arms with excitement.

I left NYC just in the nick of time. Thirty minutes after my 7:30 pm departure for Boston, new travel was to be suspended in anticipation of The Snowstorm. On arrival at Boston's South Station by 11:30, I had yet to see a single flake, but next morning in Cambridge the windowsills had about four inches of snow. Despite the horrors of the white stuff I managed to trek the ten minutes' walk to Harvard Square, to me, the beginning of the bookstore pilgrimage trail. It was on a later trip to the Coop that I would scoop up Simon Armitage's The Odyssey. It was Armitage's reading of an excerpt on BBC4's Gods and Monsters: Homer's Odyssey (aka In Search of Odysseus) that had begun my own odyssey in search for the book.

My idea of a nice piece of turf. The
garden at Longfellow House a few months
 ago. It's just you and the bunnies when
 the house is closed to visitors.
A few days later, I braved the vagaries of the T's Green Line trams to visit the Museum of Fine Arts. I was obliged to leave (why do museums always close so early?) before I could enter the new Art of the Americas Wing. I'd recommend the special exhibitions I saw, but most closed a few days after I saw them. There was however Millet and Rural France. Located in a hallway, the exhibition showcases several small works by Millet in media other than oil. Two black and white studies for The Gleaners, a riverbank scene with a sky with the colours "of a Japanese woodblock print", a miniature landscape at dusk, a patch of dandelions evocative of the Group of Seven -- but with detail more evocative of Durer's 1503 patch of turf -- they're all wonderful.

Taking advantage of the MFA's "return free within 10 days" offer, I made another foray to see the new Art of the Americas Wing. A bathroom search led me to Fresh Ink: Ten Takes on Chinese Tradition. Before I was robbed of all my new, expensive calligraphy gear by security guards at Japan's Kansai Airport a few years ago, I used to search out all the Chinese watercolours I could find. Now I tend to avoid them, but I decided to take a quick walk through Fresh Ink anyway. I wish I had seen the exhibition on my first visit, so that I could have seen it twice. It was breath-taking. Not only were they contemporary works incredible, ancient works that gave the artists their inspiration were on display too. I walked through the exhibition twice and spent a fair amount of time just gawping. If you visit and they have still run out of exhibition guides, you now know who picked up the last wrapped catalogue. Due to a computer glitch, only the two display copies (both highly pawed) remained upon my departure.

I think my Fresh Ink catalogue will go wonderfully with my Jane English Tao Te Ching. Her black and white photographs are a wonderful translation of the landscapes some of the exhibition's artists evoke. It's no surprise that the 1997 edition commemorates 25 years in print.


French tableware from the second half of the 18th century in the Sèvres Ceramics Museum.
The ugliest china I have ever seen on display anywhere. Pink wood grain -- tacky, tacky, tacky.


I made one commuter rail trip from Boston. Salem's Peabody-Essex Museum website promised old ships' logs and journals from the city's heyday as an international shipping port along with period luxury goods imported from Japan and Chinese export china (ie, porcelain). I love old maps and books and china. It was a sad day for me when Toronto's Gardiner Museum was demolished. I found solace in a visit to Paris suburb Sèvres' Ceramics Museum (Musée national de Céramique) -- the third largest in the world. If you examine the photo of the building on wikipedia, you'll notice two white columns flanking the main entrance. They're actually gigantic Chinese vases. The new Gardiner later made some restitution by hosting Made in China: Export Porcelain (1500-1800) in 2007. According to the introduction, a subsidy from the sponsor had been necessary to publish the catalogue. It's sumptuous.

Although the Salem exhibition had neither the breadth or width of the Gardiner's it was still worth the trip. Apart from the porcelain, there were paintings showing details of the trade; from the ordering, to production, to shipping. Interspersed between the display cases are floor to ceiling pieces of antique wallpaper depicting Chinese pottery production. Lovely landscapes with miners and potters. Beautiful and instructive.

Berlin's Museum Island. Not just empty
 words -- it takes a bridge to get there.
Considering that European customers had only written contact with the Westerners who placed the orders and that this was done in minimal contact areas of China where neither the potters nor the decorators had any knowledge or contact with the West. it's amazing anybody can appreciate and understand the designs on the early pieces. I love early Meissen pieces too -- the first European porcelain looks almost, but not quite like the Chinese. It's wonderful, Chinese products, then Chinese artisans producing with more or less successful Western-style designs, European attempts at mimicking the Chinese, European designs that try to look like the Chinese European-ish designs. It gets better when you see what the Japanese made of all this. When they entered the trade, they put their own spin on the Chinese designs. Not to forget the Arab market. For only some Chinese export ware was destined for Europe.

By the way, Meissen china is still being produced. When I was in Berlin a few years ago, I managed to tear myself away from Museum Island for a walk along tony Unter den Linden. Looking into the window of a shop, I saw teacup and saucer sets running at about 400 euros. I didn't bother going inside to get a better idea of the price range, it's always been an expensive product.

Arrival by boat at Drottningholm. No welcoming party?
My favourite piece at the Peabody-Essex Museum was a huge bowl (think giant punchbowl) with a lid and platter. It was commissioned as a gift to Swedish royalty and its design is meant to be viewed from the front. It depicts Drottningholm Palace and its Chinese Pavilion. There are tiny Europeans on a wooden dock and a Swedish flag fluttering in the wind. It really needs a magnifying glass to appreciate it fully. Although the main palace, where official functions are held, such as receiving new ambassadors, is in Stockholm, Drottningholm is the residence of the royal family. The mundane way to visit is to take Stockholm's subway and then a bus. I took the romantic way by boat. It's not fast, but the scenery is worth it. I travelled in early May and I almost believed I was in Algonquin Park's interior.

Drottningholm's Chinese Pavilion in May.
The Chinese Pavilion was built to be used, not simply a pretty toy to be shown to admirers, and the love put into it's furnishing shows. As I was leaving, I saw a group of Chinese visitors. They were in stitches. I'm not sure whether they said so in so many words (it may have been on the descriptive card), but the decorative Chinese calligraphy panel they were viewing was just that -- decorative. The Chinese characters were pure nonsense.



Somehow I made it out of the Peabody-Essex without visiting the book section of the bookstore. Probably something to do that when I was accosted by a guard on the second floor and told the museum was "closing in ten minutes" as if I had been crouched behind some display case rather than in plain sight in an empty gallery. I had been on my way to the cloakroom, sorry "coatroom", when I noticed the shop was open and none of the staff was telling customers to get a move-on.

One of the Met's small Chinese vases. 
Late 17th-early  18th century in a bright 
sang de boeuf red.  Not for vegetarians.
 Note the photographer's
 skillful use of museum-glare lighting.


So I decided to join them. Picked up two beautiful little Chinese vases (solid colour with white interior) at half price. If I were to photograph them an place the picture amongst my pictures of the original variety at the Met, you wouldn't notice the difference. Turns out they go wonderfully with the vase I bought this summer at the same shop. Although I kept searching for books, I couldn't find any. I came upon the bookshop on the way to fetching my coat but was (1) worried it was so late the coat check person had given up and gone home or (2) not brazen enough to walk in and be the last customer. You choose, both are equally probable, and each is 100% correct.

By now you're probably thinking that Salem might actually be worth visiting outside the Halloween season, but what's all this have to do with the winter and the weather? Lots.

I arrived at North Station, as instructed my the MBTA's handy trip planner (only two trip suggestions at a time, and leaving earlier doesn't mean arriving earlier, so it takes forever to obtain and print out a feasible selection). After I settled the confusion about the 125 Rockport train -- according to my trip planner Rockport-bound train was to leave at 1:20 and this 125 still had TBA for a platform upon my arrival -- I only had about 45 minutes to wait. Isn't selective reading wonderful? If I had read what came before the Rockport and 125 I would have learnt on my own that the 1:20 pm train and train #125 were were separated by an hour. And, no, I would not consider the fact that the train listed on the line above 125 was something like 346 and the one below something like 459 to be a dead give-away. Never underestimate the power of wishful thinking.

So what does one do in an almost empty train station with 40-odd minutes to wait? Before pulling out a book, that is. Visit the local ice cream stand, of course. The one at North Station is like a trip back to the '70s. The product names, the artwork, everything screams nostalgia. Unfortunately, the prices are strictly 2011 Boston. I enjoyed my selection -- a smoothie with lemon sorbet and raspberries and sparkling water. However, when I attended ConU (the newly merged Sir George Williams and Loyola Universities, now known to outsiders as Concordia), we had a smoothie counter in the cafeteria. A straw remains upright without the lid in a real smoothie. That said, beggars can't  be choosers in a train station and most stations would have provided less enjoyment -- visual and alimentary -- for US $5.25.

When I returned home to Canada, I calmed the nostalgia bug by watching one of my husband's favourite DVDs -- the 2009 Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music. I remember seeing the original movie when it came out. Luckily for me, Quebec has had some of the laxest film censorship around. It was rated 13 Years, and I looked older than my age. I've never been able to fly to London without thinking of Arlo Guthrie singing Coming into Los Angeles, even though I've never taken the polar route.

My traveller's luck held out for the return trip. Salem's commuter rail platform is reached from the street by descending a set of stairs, walking past the stops for the even more infrequent buses to Boston and other places, walking along the train platform and ascending a more substantial set of stairs to what could be broadly described as an enclosure. That is, if you accept having a roof and three walls as a definition. I would have needed to descend the stairs and stand in the open air to determine whether "shelter" could be included in this definition.

It sure was tough negotiating a way off
 the Boston-bound train. Some of the passengers
 were real monsters. Detail from the Pergamon Altar.
With the sun having set a good while before, it sure was cold. The guy who kept walking back and forth clapping his hands and making other "gee, I'm cold" gestures for the next almost-hour sure made it hard to forget. I say "almost-hour" because it took a few minutes to get through all those people walking out of the station. As I froze, it became more and more apparent that those people had just alighted from the Rockport-to-Boston train. My train. In hindsight, I should have wasted more time generating and printing return schedules.

Now if you want to hear about really nasty weather, I could talk about the high 22, low 24 Celsius weather we had the other day, back home in Quebec.

Instead, I'll just sign off with the thought of a July afternoon in Granada. It was 39 degrees Celsius. Every time I sat there would be some local fanning herself who would turn to me and say "Que calor!". I horrified one by telling her that, after factoring in the humidity or wind chill, we could reach 39 degrees in the summer and 39 below in the winter, back at home. It's been less the two centuries since they shut down the headquarters of the Spanish Inquisition in nearby Cordoba, so it ought to take a great deal to horrify an Andalusian.

For those whose only familiarity with the Spanish Inquisition is from Monty Python sketches, I would recommend Reston's thought-provoking Dogs of God:  Columbus, the Inquisition and the Defeat of the Moors rounded out by the bittersweet The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. If you're not in the mood for nonfiction, Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of Al-Rassan may give you a taste for the real thing. It's where I started.

So quit complaining about the weather -- it's always going to be too hot or too cold. Take your advice from the Monty Python crew and Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.


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