A day off.
I have a couple of radio interviews in the morning. An attractive freckled woman sits really close to me when she interviews me because we were sharing a mike (I guess). I got self-conscious.
Here in the USA people are wandering the halls making deals, whispering and yelling into phones, under pressure, hoping for that advantage, that marketing plan that will bust it all wide open. Some hotel rooms are arranged like little business offices- with a fax machine, whiteout, cello tape, a stapler and paper clips... even an archaic giant plug-in calculator — all arranged neatly. A business office from 10 years ago, sort of. Like an anthropological exhibition of what the typical 1990 office desk would have looked like. It must make non-business types staying here feel like they're slackers, not with the American program. I myself welcome the office supplies- though I don't need any today.
I bike to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum and then to the Museum of Fine Arts. At the Gardner museum I was hoping to find sea creatures made of blown Venetian glass that I'd seen pictures of, but no luck. The place is a big, dark mansion filled with her stuff arranged by room decor, not so much by object, theme, or chronology. It is kind of like wandering though an empty rich-person's house and discovering a Cecil Beaton tucked among the family snapshots on the piano, except in this case it's renaissance paintings and Sergeant portraits. It would be interesting to present a regular museum show like this, as if it's someone's house.
At the Fine Arts museum there is a show of Japanese postcards, which are pretty spectacular. Who knew? Mostly very graphic, few of them have photos - and all very elegant and beautifully printed.
There is also a huge Gaugin in Tahiti show here, which simultaneously exposes him as a despicable person (quit his day job and left his family) and a fake (the poses of the Tahitian girl-women were often modeled after Javanese and Indian photos of Buddhist sculptures he had with him, for example). And Tahiti was far from the Eden he depicts it as. Missionaries had pretty much destroyed the local culture by the time he arrived. But it makes one wonder if a lie, a tempting seductive myth, has some positive value. To put the possibility of paradise into the world's imagination might not be such a bad thing. And they are lovely paintings, pleasing to the eye. Poor guy, though; he painted all these pictures and barely sold enough in Paris to cover expenses. He knew then his "vision" was not for Europe at that moment, so he returned to Tahiti and died there.
There is a big sign on Fenway Park, the baseball stadium, about locking your guns. It reminds me of a sign I saw on a car that said, "I don't call 911." I defend myself by shooting first was the implication, I guess.
We all have dinner at a seafood restaurant and I sit by tour veterans Daniel, Todd, and Joe the driver. They immediately begin to tell tour horror stories, which are hugely amusing - if you're not there. Apparently both Prince and Michael Flatley, like many others, don't care for red lights so they often arrange a police escort to and from airports. As they do with politicians, the police block intersections and allow the limos to speed through without stopping all the way to the airport, or from the airport to the venue. My jaw is dropping at this expensive, arrogant behavior, but it's fascinating. Apparently, there was an incident where the Prince limos were accidentally stopped at a light within sight of the arena and the fans began to converge on the cars. Guns were drawn. Sheesh... but it all calmed down and no one was killed on account of a red light.
The only soldier punished for the abuse and torture of Iraqis is the guy who took the well-circulated pictures. Since these crimes were known about inside the military and defense depts. for 6 months this is kind of shocking. It seems a typical case of blame the messenger... punish the guy that broke ranks and leaked.... I think he was the only one to plead guilty so far... what, are the others going to say - that's not them in the photos?
