This series of blogs will provide an account of our recent travels. They were pretty good. But no episode is without blemish. The worst are probably where illness or injury are involved, but travel is not staying home. It is not knowing where you can get a particular set of groceries or where the fruit is likely to be at its best. A bad bed, an airless room, a shocking meal … Each time it might be an adventure, or a failure, or a disappointment, or a disaster. That’s the gamble.
So I collected these bits and pieces out of my journal as an offset to all the other wonderful things I will otherwise describe and illustrate. And I did take some photos of moments that seemed to say travel.
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Do travellers lose their humanity I wonder?
As we went through customs [in Zurich] I was moved to think how infantilised travel makes you. Unmoored. A good word. Tired, disoriented, that twilight consciousness business, ripe for any sort of picking, and in no need of any further duties. Somehow fellow travellers become aliens too. And all those well-rested officials who’ll be off to their own bed. Do they care? I don’t think so.
There is that constant wrestle with uncertainty. The Uncertain Aged: that’s not a new category at all.
Waiting. So much waiting. And those damn zig-zag lines.
[Montreal airport: THE worst.]
Night sweats as you wake too early and try to get back to sleep meanwhile managing swimming visions, snatches of music, memories, projections.
You need to deal with things that are in the moment and get control of that. Except that it is always necessary to be looking at least a bit ahead. You might get into bad trouble if you don’t. But everything is so immediate because your wits must be about you. It is another sort of exercise, and it’s why you so often just have to let go and laugh your way through.
Travellers are different somehow. Wearing the uniform — their travel cazh and all the accoutrements. And the horseshoe ballon round the neck. And all those people who don’t realise they’re wearing a pack. And those enormous carry on bags, and people who rush down the aisle to get off first and save about 15 seconds. And the ones who stand immobile in door ways. And the ones who walk along staring at their phones and expect you to get out of the way. Hate that.
That unreserved seat, that one you’re looking for. Where is it? Who’s watching your mission and what for, entertainment? You can be reduced to just food and sleep, if you can get both or either that is.
[In Innsbruck] it was Corpus Christi Day and everything was shut! Everything. Corpus Christi Day! What the hell is that?! (It turned out that wasn’t true and we had an excellent meal at a very friendly Italian restaurant.)
In a bank of four seats we have seats 2 and 3 for a 13 hour flight, and the flight is full. How can that be possible? The Worst Seats Ever, for which we’ve paid a fortune!
The bakery didn’t open till 9.30. Sunday. What the hell!
Ah filling in a form in an unknown foreign language which requires your credit card details to enable you to get get on or off a means of transport when you’re in a queue with dozens of people behind you. NOT PLEASANT. [The ferry from Venice to the airport. Worked out okay.]
I wonder if I have misjudged this itinerary, or perhaps have become more certain I have. Too much packed in … hard work this travel business.
The test really is was it possible? And the answer must be yes, without qualification. Because it has happened. We’re doing it. And better than surviving. So much that is a thrill-a-minute, and we can always conk out. There is a new level of acceptability for conking out. Yeah. Let’s conk out.
How was the trip? Good. Great. Anything terrible happen? No. Myrna had some emergency dental care but it worked out okay. Highlight? That’s a perfectly sensible question but impossible to answer. Here for example is one of mine.
The ShakeShack in North Euclid Avenue, St Louis, 10.45pm July 2. We wanted something sweet to eat. Drink actually. North Euclid Avenue was nearby, pretty downtown. There was some light doof doof music, but it was quiet-ish and people were minding their own business. The baseball is on the telly. The commentary goes: ‘That is amazing.’ ‘Ball to go into the dirt.’ ‘Yeah. I know.’ A flare-up was rumbling gently behind the counter. Some orders had been mixed up. The room had a certain flavour which was exactly as it should have been. Tasty. Rich. And something we are unlikely to replicate. I wasn’t there. I was watching. Immersed.
What sort of an answer is that? I had several dozen experiences like that. All I can say is that this series of blogs is one answer to the question.
We went to a lot of places and did a lot of things. We slept in Singapore, Zurich, Innsbruck, five places in the Dolomites in northern Italy, Venice, Lisbon, Madrid, Montreal, Albany, the Hudson Valley, Washington, St Louis, Nashville, Memphis, Hot Springs, Nacogdoches, Galveston and Houston.
This blog, however, is an attempt to pick off some things which caught our attention that mightn’t need a larger context.
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We found the finalists of the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize in Singapore’s National Gallery, a load of treats. The winner is above. Jongjin Park’s ‘Strata of Illusion’. About 80cms across, it consists of swatches of paper soaked in porcelain, glazed and then fired. Extraordinary. I had other favourites. Below is Norwegian Gjertrud Hals ‘Scala’ made out of knitted linen and resin.
Not everyone was interested.
And in Singapore there is always the orchid garden.
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In Zurich’s southern suburbs nestled in the between the brawny strongholds (its neighbour below) which border the Zurichsee is Le Corbusier’s Pavillon. The ‘detached’ roof covers a deck reached via the very generous staircase contained in the grey blockwork. Now a museum commemorating the architect’s work, it still contains many elements of a domestic house. It would be very exposed to live in — no shutters, blinds or curtains — but it is such a deft creation.
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And Zurich again. An exhibit in the Natural History Museum giving new meaning to the idea ‘Big Bird’. And yes, genuine fossils.
I should also note that not far from here we encountered and opened Albert Einstein’s locker (F40) at the University of Zurich. I have a video of Myrna doing so and examining its contents but I couldn’t load it. Pictured is one of a long queue of people who were interested in doing so as well. And that’s it: a few photos, some books, a hand written letter. I think, really, you had to imagine yourself in the presence of greatness. Just as interesting was the monster careers festival going on below, and the very Swiss smells coming from the canteen.
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Zurich did us proud. Strolling through the Kunsthaus’s collection on permanent loan from Emil Bührle and … suddenly, suddenly, there’s this mass assemblage of medieval religious imagery surrounding one of Rodin’s Little Dancers. Normally each of these might have 15 or 20 square metres to themselves, but this is a packed house with millions of dollars worth of art just staring at you: so intimate, so at hand, so attainable, so overpowering. Almost a church congregation with most of the congregants named Mary. Very daring curating.
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The final ascent of the Lhotse Face. Nah not really. The hike up to the top of Nordkette overlooking Innsbruck. 2256m, (and, for Michael, 7401 feet). On this day it rained hard in the morning, it snowed lightly when we reached the top and it was sunny and clear when we got back to town.
This is what Innsbruck and environs looked like from the top.
And in the other direction.
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Our walk, the Chestnut Way, has been a pilgrimage beginning at the Abbey of Novacella just out of Bressanone/ Brixen (where both Italian and German were spoken, but far more German than Italian) and finishing at the cathedral of Bolzano/ Bozen (where there was a dramatic switch to Italian in both language and culture). We began on a Sunday morning and footled around with buses that never came before getting a taxi to the convent. We had a look around and then suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a major religious event. This icon and its purveyors led a substantial procession with all sorts of other bits and pieces not to mention a choir which sang sweetly and with fervour.
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At Varna and Vilandro on the walk. You wouldn’t necessarily see this if you stayed home.
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Road paving cobbles. Anyone who has been to Europe will have seen them. But I love them. A particularly nice patch outside our hotel at Collalbo/ Klobenstein.
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For travellers everywhere: the Young Man with the Enormous Pack with Stuff Hanging Off It navigating past your head getting off the train at Venice.
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Where else could it possibly be? A boat had just gone past, but also note the plane below the sun, and the green reflection in the water. Sometimes photos just do their own work for you.
But also …
Tintoretto’s version of the Last Supper at Venice’s Accademia. Huge. Wonderful. Foregrounded by Marina Abramovic’s stone slippers which of course everyone wants to try on, but you’re not allowed. ☹️
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Lisbon’s own Crystal Palace, the Pavilhão de Exposições (Exhibition Pavilion) up in the hills on its outskirts. Built in 1884, it’s on one of Moti’s major routes and is one of Geoff’s favourite places in his current home town.
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Isabel II, veiled. Camillo Torreggiani, 1855. The Prado in Madrid. ‘The queen’s face is veiled, a device recalling the veiled images of Faith, Virtue and Religion.’ Of course. But in marble! Marble! And completely convincing. The pedestal is also his work.
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The Montreal Barbie Expo. More than 1000 Barbies duded up in a wide variety of ways. All countries of the world represented, including Australia Barbie and Sydney Opera House Barbie. Below, that’s the late Queen between the (‘Turn back Time’) Cher and (‘Pirates of the Caribbean’) Johnny Depp Barbies and just behind the Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins Barbie. Unmissable. A delight.
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Home town hero. Montreal’s groovy section. It’s a Lego tree on the corner. Ate well at a Lebanese place called Omnivore just behind me.
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The staircase up to our very comfortable and well out-fitted AirBnB in Albany (NY State). The home of an artist.
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Food vans at a free outdoor concert in Albany. A version of Kansas playing if you’re old enough to remember, and you might well not be.
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One of the two main steel members of the bridge over the Stuyvesant Falls just out of Kinderhook NY. Exquisite isn’t it, but you mightn’t want to drive your car over it, continuing my interest and concern about the bridges of the US of A.
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The Anthony Chapel in the Garvan Woodland Gardens just out of Hot Springs Arkansas. The walls and roof are clad in glass. It’s just there about 15 miles out of town. Mainly used for weddings I believe.
And this happens in America for this reason.
There were five other plaques with perhaps 200 names on them. Carefully graded, this one was top wozza as at least some people in NZ say.
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You’re unlikely to go to Hope Arkansas so this is for you. Bill Clinton was born and spent his childhood with his grandparents in Hot Springs after his father left and while his mother re-trained as a nurse. But how useful is it to be able to say The Man from Hope! He spent his teenage years here and there wouldn’t have been much doing I can tell you. BUT it does have this little footpath paint job framing one of the endless crepe myrtles, endless, so many crepe myrtles, so many different colours, endless, that we saw.
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If you’ve taught Year 11 Psychology or been brought up on the ‘Children’s Book of Wonders’ Houston’s Museum of Illusions will not have much for you. In fact when so much else is on offer — and for free, the Menil collection is five minutes drive away — I’d recommend against. Fairly firmly. But we went. You wanted spectacles? Spectacle.
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An amazing drive along the Bolivar Peninsular, 40 kilometres Gilchrist to Port Bolivar, with Galveston Bay on one side and the Caribbean, visible here, on the other. It might be 200m wide at some points and then suddenly you come across the houses on stilts, 16 feet to the floor by edict. The first one we saw had no visible means of access. Everything below the floor had washed away. Like the ‘sea wall’ here. And that was a phenomenal storm. I have never experienced rain like the rain in Texas.
This is actually a photo of a photo from the Houston Contemporary Art Gallery, but that’s what we saw.
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Two bits of an astronaut’s suit, sleeve and knee. They were in the Houston Craft Museum and they were there because they didn’t pop out of a box; they were hand made. They were next to some wire circuitry that had been hand woven (poor photo of amazing objects at right) and the cowboy boots with kangaroo skin uppers below were nearby.
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Glorious Galveston, cnr Ball and 17th, and thoroughly deserved winner of Yard of the Month award. This was a gorgeous house among several hundred others. There will be a separate blog about Galveston. Although the ‘sea waves crashing’ have some significance, it’s not just all about them.
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And finally in this wunderkammer something I thought might be appropriate.
Look again.
Okay. Once more.
Jason Salavon, American, born 1970
Little Infinity. 2020
Site specific wall paper. Museum commission funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund, 2020.141
Using software he designed, Jason Salavon, has pulled nearly a quarter million images from the ImageNet dataset, a picture collection used by researchers and corporations to train artificial intelligence systems. By sampling each of the datasets 20,000 categories and arranging those images from darkest to lightest in each category, Salavon suggests the flood of imagery that inundates our daily lives.
[Museum, of Fine Arts , Houston]
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There’ll be a lot more because there was a lot more.
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