Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

I really should read my own blog.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Not all heroes wear capes.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

No Justins, No Peace

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / LGBTQ Rights / LGBTQ Rights Are Human Rights / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Proud

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Proud

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Per the Washington Post:

… The tour was announced last year, before the pandemic closed many museums across the country, and it opens on schedule at the Art Institute of Chicago (June 18-Aug. 15) before moving to the Brooklyn Museum (Aug. 27-Oct. 24), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Nov. 7-Jan. 2, 2022), the High Museum of Art in Atlanta (Jan. 14-March 13, 2022) and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (March 27-May 30, 2022). Most of the cities share a connection with the Obamas or the artists. In addition to the Obamas’ well-known ties to Chicago, Sherald grew up in Georgia, and Wiley was born in Los Angeles and has a studio in Brooklyn…

Reader Interactions

119Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    Weird watching Colbert and seeing Dana Carvey sounding more like Jimmy Stewart or George HW than Biden, but okay.

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    adam harris @AdamHSays
    This is quite a sentence. https://nytimes.com/2021/05/19/us/

    “The Biden administration’s efforts to provide $4 billion in debt relief to minority farmers is encountering stiff resistance from banks, which are complaining that the government initiative to pay off the loans of borrowers who have faced decades of financial discrimination will cut into their profits and hurt investors.”

    The more things change, the more they stay the same.

  6. 6.

    NotMax

    Should be noted that Judge Jackson is to fill the position vacated by Garland when he moved to become Attorney General.

    Rs voting for confirmation: Murkowski, Collins and (hoodathunk it) Graham.

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax: Their definition of “pretty” must be different from mine. Hermann, MO is fine, so is Hot Springs, AR, but IMHO neither are anywhere near the “Prettiest” towns in these 2 states.

  8. 8.

    sab

    @debbie: Seriously? Yellow Springs is flat as a pancake. Try Gambier. Or Kent. Or Granville. Or Hiram. Or Oberlin. And those are just the college towns.

    Chagrin Falls is lovely.

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax: And I can’t believe they think Sheridan is the prettiest town in WY. Maybe they’ve cleaned it up since I lived there.

  13. 13.

    Baud

    I feel like the media is more concerned about Biden’s meeting with Putin than they ever were with the puppet.

  20. 20.

    germy

    @rikyrah:

    Maybe it’s time for a new pillow?

    My old one, it said “washable” so I ran it through the washer and dryer.  It was nice and clean after that, but it lost its fluffiness.

    I bought a cheap pillow last week at Aldi.  Not sure how long it’ll last, but it’s fluffy and supports my heavy head.

  22. 22.

    SiubhanDuinne

    So excited to see that the Obama portraits are coming to Atlanta next year! I’ve been yearning to see them for a long time.

  26. 26.

    WereBear

    I still feel whiplash from the last 5-6 years.

    Like I live in a house, which then burns down, and I spend some time in the hospital, and when I come back the house is rebuilt and what treasures I could save have been placed there for me…

  27. 27.

    Ken

    @SiubhanDuinne: I’m one of those plebians who thinks looking at a jpg of the painting is as good as looking at the real thing, with the added advantage that I don’t have to wait in lines.

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @zhena gogolia: I had a good time there, too good a time in fact, but Sheridan wasn’t much more than a dusty main street and looking at the picture it still isn’t.

    @Bluegirlfromwyo: I certainly wouldn’t want to venture a guess as to the prettiest, but Story is a hop, skip, and a jump away and as pretty as any postcard. Probably not enough bars there. I suspect they don’t even have a motel.

  32. 32.

    Spanky

    @WereBear: It didn’t burn down, it was invaded by a troupe of white trash, who then proceeded to trash it.

    But though trashed, it still stands, and is gonna require a bit of fumigating. To say the least.

  33. 33.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Ken:

    You have a point about waiting in lines, but to me part of the experience of seeing paintings in galleries or museums is that you get the impact of scale. For instance, the first time I saw the Mona Lisa I was shocked at how small it actually is, since it looms so large in our imaginations. Other paintings are far bigger than a .jpg or other reproduction can possibly indicate, and to me the choice of size is an important part of what the artist wants to convey.

  34. 34.

    Betty Cracker

    Fun fact about Judge Jackson: she is related to Paul Ryan by marriage. Her husband’s twin brother is Ryan’s brother-in-law.

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Don’t ever change Misery: St. Clair man removed from storm drain

    A St. Clair man was hospitalized after being removed from a storm drain Sunday night, according to a Union Police news release.

    The 36-year-old man, whose name was not provided, was found stuck in a pipe after police were called to the area of Sarah Lane in southwestern Union at around 9 p.m. Sunday, police said. The man, who police said was impaired on drugs, told officers he crawled into the pipe looking for his Jeep.

    Union Fire and Ambulance were called to the scene to help remove the man.

    The man was not injured from being stuck in the pipe but was taken to the hospital because of his drug impairment, police said. He was then taken to the Franklin County Adult Detention Center for “safekeeping,” according to Union Police.

    Rex ChapmanHorse [email protected]
    “I thought I parked it right here.”

  37. 37.

    Soprano2

    @sab: My mother was born in Chagrin Falls, and went to grade school there until she was 9.  She was in the same class there as Tim Conway!

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Hartmann: The Breakaway Republic of Missouri

    Gov. Mike Parson visited a shooting range called Frontier Justice in a town called Lee’s Summit to sign a law called the Second Amendment Preservation Act on Saturday.

    Well, of course he did.

    What a fitting spot to send a message to the neighboring United States that it need not try treading on sovereign Missouri with some radical-socialist plot to take its guns. The new state law says federal gun laws don’t apply here anymore, and there will be a dear price to pay for any local law enforcement officials who don’t abide by that.

    The choice of location could not have been more apropos. It was a shot across the bow to the Yankee administration of President Joe Biden. Or as Parson’s patriots like to call him: Alleged President Joe Biden.

    What part of “frontier justice” do you not understand? Does the name Lee not ring a bell?

    This is about as close to an official Civil War reenactment that the lunatic edition of the Republican Party can get away with in Missouri. Don’t bother pointing out that Missouri was technically a neutral state in that war: Folks here don’t have time for critical race theory.

    What they do have time for is a culture war. The message is very clear to the Biden administration, along with progressives, liberals, moderates and rational conservatives everywhere: We’d sooner secede from the union than tolerate such intrusions and indignities as background checks for gun purchases.

  39. 39.

    SFAW

    @NotMax:

    Based on my limited experience (i.e., New England towns), I think the pre-edited title was probably “The Prettiest Tourist Towns in Each State.”

  40. 40.

    Soprano2

    @WereBear: Yes, art in person is different from seeing pictures on the internet, although it’s good that the internet allows many more people to see paintings.

    I have a cat question. We have been trying to “court” a young male cat who has taken up residence around our house, probably because we’ve been feeding him and he decided to use the small house my husband built for our “half-cat” (a cat who we kind of share with a neighbor). We’re pretty sure he’s never had an owner.  I don’t think he’s feral, but he’s skittish enough that we can’t pet him yet. We keep talking to him soothingly, trying to get him used to us. We’ve been able to get closer and closer to him before he runs to a distance. We’d like to get him to trust us enough that we could take him to the vet to get him neutered and checked and vaccinated. Should we just keep doing this, or are there other things we could do? My husband wants to offer him sardines. LOL

  42. 42.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I confess that I have limited (a/k/a zero) training in constitutional law, but I would think that nullification (as it used to be called) is not quite legal.

  43. 43.

    zhena gogolia

    @Soprano2: 
    We did this with a trap we borrowed from our local cat shelter. You have to monitor it and whisk them off as soon as they go in.

  44. 44.

    Ken

    @Soprano2: We’d like to get him to trust us enough that we could take him to the vet to get him neutered

    I broke out laughing at this point.  Sorry, just imagining the cat sitting there staring balefully at you afterward, thinking “I trusted you….”

    Also sorry, no useful suggestions for getting it to approach.

  47. 47.

    debbie

    @sab:

    That whole area, which I think is the southern end of Hocking Hills, reminds me of New England, so I may be less than objective about this.

  48. 48.

    SFAW

    @Soprano2:

    Have you tried tranquilizer darts, or putting stuff in his food? That should increase his “compliance.” [Yes, I’m kidding. No useful suggestions, of course, but good luck! We “adopted” one of our favorite cats in a similar fashion, but he was not nearly as skittish as your guy.]

  50. 50.

    sdhays

    @WereBear: Oh, hell yes. You can’t fully appreciate the colors and textures of impressionist paintings through a jpg.

    @SiubhanDuinne: I don’t know when you saw the Mona Lisa, but when I “saw” it in 2018, the crowds were so obnoxious that it ruined the experience. There was a fence keeping everyone at least 10-15 feet away (understandable), and there was a huge crowd at the fence….and everyone was trying to take a selfie. Not take a picture of the Mona Lisa to see better or take home, no. They had to have their ugly faces in it. And they couldn’t just take a picture and then move on and let people who actually wanted to look at it for 30 seconds look uninterrupted, they just had to continue taking “better” selfies. Practically no one was actually even looking at it with their own eyes.

    But, yes, it’s much smaller than you’d think seeing it in movies or on the internet.

  53. 53.

    sab

    I haven’t read the thread yet. I am a girl (old bat now) but when I was in high school I had a dozen gay friends. Not one of them survived AIDS. I love gay rights stuff, but it always makes me so sad.

  54. 54.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @sdhays:

    Happily, both times I visited the Mona Lisa were long before the proliferation of cell phones and selfies. The first time, in 1959, there weren’t big crowds at all. Certainly there was a decent contingent of tourists moving through, but it was far from mobbed. I remember seeing a young art student sitting on the floor doing a sketch of the ML, so obviously he had something of a clear sight line. There was a rope but it wasn’t very far from the painting — I imagine just far enough to prevent anyone from touching it.

    My second visit to the Louvre was 1971. I seem to recall it was more crowded then, but nothing like what you describe.

  55. 55.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @NotMax: I grew up in Michigan and honestly I could name a half dozen towns that are prettier than Mackinac Island. The island writ large is very pretty but the main town has all the trappings of a first class tourist trap. I like Mackinac Island but the only time I spend in town there is the time it takes to walk from the ferry dock to other parts of the island.

    I’d take Frankfort, Leeland, Pentwater, Glenn Arbor and Cross village over it (also probably Holland, Saugatuck, and Grand Haven) as the actual towns go.

    For Vermont…Woodstock gives Stowe a run for its money.

     

    @debbie: Port Clinton has a picturesque setting on Lake Erie – as does Kelleys Island. Yellow Springs is pretty groovy though (I went to college in nearby Springfield – you can probably guess which college that is) and is nicer than Port Clinton as a town.

  57. 57.

    sab

    @debbie: I live in the Connecticut Western Reserve (south of Cleveland) which my brother in law from Mass thinks looks like New England so I am biased. We have hills!

    ETA: Also too sugar maple trees! With maple sugar!

  58. 58.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Robyn Liu, MD, MPH, [email protected]
    The best thing happened in clinic today.

    I met a 77yo woman who was really interested in my tattoo but didn’t understand it. I told her it’s from the opening scene of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. She remembered her kids enjoyed it.

    Later in the visit I had to recheck her vitals. The machine glitched on the first try so I tapped it and tried again. When the reading beeped onto the screen, her face lit up and she cried, “I’m not dead yet!”

    Of course I immediately answered, “Shut up, you will be soon.”

  59. 59.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Sadly, Guernica is one I’ve not seen in person. It’s always been a favourite, and of course I know it’s ginormous. I know it only from reproductions, so I expect seeing it in the flesh (so to speak) would be pretty overwhelming.

  61. 61.

    Betty Cracker

    @sab: I know exactly what you mean. I lost several male gay friends too in the early to mid 90s, and I thought I was going to lose all of them, but then that drug cocktail came along and saved their lives. .

  62. 62.

    Soprano2

    @zhena gogolia:  We’ve thought of that, but I’m afraid if we use a trap once we bring him home and release him we’ll never see him again! We may have to resort to that if it takes too long to coax him.

  65. 65.

    WereBear

    @Soprano2: We’d like to get him to trust us enough that we could take him to the vet to get him neutered and checked and vaccinated. Should we just keep doing this, or are there other things we could do? My husband wants to offer him sardines. LOL

     
    I would use a trap and a willing third party to take him back and forth to the vet.

    Then, after they have been deposited by this third party in a quarantine room or a basement, and while they are still under the influence :) I would let them explore. The sardines could be an excellent move, here.

    Then, see how he does with people in the house. Adjust to one’s own preferences and space, of course.

  66. 66.

    sab

    @Soprano2: Really? Jackals are exceptional. So BJ needs to be kinder to Ohio. Some of your okay forebears’ descendants are still here.

  68. 68.

    Soprano2

    @WereBear: Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it. It’s so weird, we have no idea where he came from – he just showed up one day. He’s probably 4-5 months old, and doesn’t seem to have ever had an owner. I don’t remember seeing any yellow kittens around the neighborhood, either.

  69. 69.

    Gin & Tonic

    @SiubhanDuinne: I count myself very fortunate that I saw it both at MoMA and then later at the Prado. I suppose a book could be written about moving it.

  71. 71.

    Soprano2

    @sab: This is true, jackals are exceptional people. I’ve never been to Ohio, and my mom moved away when she was 9 years old. I don’t think she ever went back, either. She still likes cold winters, though.

  74. 74.

    Soprano2

    I went to the Louvre in January 1980 when I was on my choir trip (the same one where we sang at Chartres Cathedral, among others). We did finally reach the Mona Lisa, and I was also surprised it was so small. It was behind a glass barrier that was kind of like a little room for the painting, and there were a lot of people there, but I did get to actually see and take a picture of it. I also saw “The Night Watch” at the Reijksmuseum in Amsterdam on the same trip; I remember it being very, very large.

  75. 75.

    Citizen Alan

    @SiubhanDuinne: Somewht off topic but the Mona Lisa talk amuses me. I just finished writing a chapter for the novel I’m working on that mentions the Mona Lisa … specifically the real Mona Lisa, which the antagonist, an immortal Randian Objectivist sorcerer, “acquired” in 1911 and replaced with an exact duplicate. He keeps the original in a secret vault (next to his signed, first edition Atlas Shrugged) where no one but him is ever allowed to look at it.

  79. 79.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @OzarkHillbilly: ​
    Ah, the rush to Nullification. I remember when that happened under Obama, too. And the mainstream Republican pundits opinionating that maybe the military should step in and remove Obama from power. Good times.

  80. 80.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Gin & Tonic: Yes, I saw Guernica in both places too. Made a big impression both times [note of understatement].

    Rembrandt’s paintings are another which MUST be seen live and in person. Reproductions simply cannot capture the subtlety and depth of his work. I am not close to being an art expert and don’t even play one on tv, but was transfixed by his self-portrait at the Reijksmuseum.

  81. 81.

    PST

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    You have a point about waiting in lines, but to me part of the experience of seeing paintings in galleries or museums is that you get the impact of scale. For instance, the first time I saw the Mona Lisa I was shocked at how small it actually is, since it looms so large in our imaginations.

    My experience in that department was sort of the opposite: amazement at seeing Picasso’s Guernica a couple of years ago. Wow, that’s big! I knew what it looked like, and I even have a vague memory of maybe having seen it once half a century ago, but I was stunned by its scale.

  82. 82.

    Soprano2

    @sab: I would love that! It’s still so strange to me to feel like I “know” a bunch of people I’ve never actually met in person.

  83. 83.

    BC in Illinois

    @Ken: 
    @SiubhanDuinne: 

    On waiting in lines.

    I saw the Mona Lisa at the National Gallery of Art (apparently in January, 1963). Yes, it was two hours of waiting in line, but the waiting in line was almost the best part of the experience.

    As I remember it (I was 13 at the time), the Mona Lisa was in a gallery to the left. When you entered the National Gallery, after a certain amount of waiting outside, the line turned to the right. And then we wound through rooms of American art, then basically through the history of European art. So that by the time we got to Da Vinci, we had had a two-hour overview of art history, with time to read all the descriptions. Much better than a single showing of the one painting.

    [ I got to go with my mother, because I was the only one of her sons who was interested. She was in Paris during WW II, as a WAC, but I don’t think that she had been able to see the Mona Lisa then. ]

  84. 84.

    germy

    @O. Felix Culpa: 

    Same thing with statues. I remember seeing some Rodin statues that were larger than life. Someone told me he did it for a reason: he’d been accused by critics of working from casts of models. He wanted to show them he wasn’t cheating.

  85. 85.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Citizen Alan: Before finishing your book you should watch a Polish movie called Vinci about the Lady with Ermine in Krakow…it’s a heist movie in which the thief has multiple replicas of the famous painting before attempting to steal it.

  86. 86.

    Barbara

    @sdhays: I have not been to the Louvre in a long time, because when I visited the first time I was underwhelmed.  Not by the art, of course, but by the experience.  The Louvre was not built as a museum, and the curators at the Louvre seem to have built their expectations and ours on that principle — Well, it wasn’t built as a museum so what do you expect?

    I don’t know exactly what policies they have adopted, but it seems like timed tickets and one-way flow through the most popular attractions (what the Vatican does), along with a time limit (what Borghese Gallery does) would at least ameliorate the problem.  But truly, you can’t appreciate the most famous of the Louvre’s attractions because it’s just not possible to do so in the setting that is the Louvre.  They have basically given up.

  87. 87.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Very excited for the portraits show when it comes to LACMA.  There’s a great PBS documentary called “Black Art” that features both of these artists (and several more) and their work is really amazing.

  88. 88.

    germy

    @PST:

    I remember seeing Guernica in person, and on the same visit I saw some other modern art (I don’t remember the artist) that contained newspaper pages and bits of other found stuff from 1912.  Fascinating to look at.

    I remember seeing Van Gogh paintings, and the guard was extremely vigilant.  Watched us like hawks.

    He explained some visitors had touched the painting, to feel the texture.  He was on high alert after that.

  90. 90.

    PST

    @germy: There is something about Van Gogh’s paintings that makes you want to touch them, isn’t there? And he’s not the only one. I’m lucky enough to live a short bike ride from the Art Institute in Chicago, which means it’s easy to make frequent short visits and never have to feel the need to see it all they way I would at other large museums. The guards are watchful, but there is no work that I can think of that you can’t get close enough to appreciate the textures, not even the most famous ones.

  93. 93.

    sanjeevs

    @Baud: Barr announced his resignation on 14 December effective 23rd. This happened on 29th December. So I doubt he knew the specifics but guessed something crazy would be attempted.

    Also

    • At 3:08 p.m., Mr. Meadows sent Mr. Rosen a YouTube link referencing the Italy conspiracy, labeled “Brad Johnson:  Rome, Satellites, Servers:  an Update.”  Mr. Rosen forwarded the email to Mr. Donoghue, who responded:  “Pure insanity.”  Mr. Rosen explained to Mr. Donoghue that after receiving the message, he was asked to have the FBI meet with Brad Johnson, who Mr. Rosen learned “is working with Rudy Giuliani.”  Mr. Rosen said he refused the request.

    People like Meadows are getting their worldview off randos on YouTube.

  94. 94.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Barbara:  You have to approach the Louvre as you will be back several times. Choose a few things or one section to look at, finish those and them leave. Plan to see other things the next time you come. It doesn’t matter if you never come back; you wouldn’t have seen everything any if you tried but your one visit would have both under- and overwhelming.

  95. 95.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Carmel-By-TheSea???  Are you f-ing kidding me?  When we did an epic trip from Los Angeles up to Crater Lake NP and back (via coast) Carmel was like the ONLY place that we weren’t impressed by.  It looks way to polished, planned and purposely styled.  There are SO MANY prettier cities in CA.  June Lake, Mammoth Lakes, Ojai, Mendocino, just to name a few.  CBTS looks like a Hollywood set.  Pass.

  96. 96.

    debbie

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I saw it at MoMA and couldn’t get over the size. Hard to step back and take it all in when you’re painting at that scale. But it’s definitely awe inspiring.

  97. 97.

    sdhays

    @Barbara: For me, the Mona Lisa was the only real bad part of the Louvre. Most of the art at the Louvre is from an earlier period than I usually really like, but it’s all pretty much the creme de la creme of Europe, so of course it’s fantastic. I ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would.

    Of course, the Musee d’ Orsay was absolutely stunning. Walls and walls and walls of fantastic impressionist art from all the masters. Just incredible.

  98. 98.

    Barbara

    @Omnes Omnibus: I did all that.  It is simply impossible to appreciate the Louvre’s most famous art works in the setting in which they are being displayed.  I might be pickier than average.  The NGA in Washington has a stunning, much less famous Leonardo portrait of a woman that is displayed in a much more intimate setting and is never mobbed.  The dichotomy between what the Mona Lisa deserves in order to be appreciated and what it gets is too great, even without crowds. Ditto for Venus de Milo, although that is somewhat less jarring.  Even the Uffizi (Botticelli’s Venus) and the Accademia (Michelangelo’s David) manage this dilemma better.

  99. 99.

    debbie

    @Barbara:

    When I was unemployed in NYC, I visited the Met most every week. I took it room by room and really spent time looking at each thing in the gallery. Amazing how much more I saw than I had on the countless visits before.

  102. 102.

    artem1s

    @debbie:

    @sab:

    Or any of the river towns or North Coast urban landscapes.  Not everyone thinks ‘pretty’ is defined by what attracts tourists.

  104. 104.

    TomatoQueen

    Dept of I Hope It Rains So Nobody Has to Walk Back Anything…

    With coronavirus infections down sharply, Biden and Bowser announce mass July Fourth celebration

    President Biden and D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) called on Americans to gather and celebrate July Fourth in Washington, announcing that as in past years, before the coronavirus pandemic, an Independence Day celebration will be held on the National Mall. The Biden administration will host military families on the White House’s South Lawn, and Bowser said the local Barracks Row and Palisades Fourth of July parades will return.

  106. 106.

    WereBear

    @Soprano2: He could have been dumped and is working through the abandonment.

    He knows people will help him. He’s just afraid. And I wonder about ferals: at that age, he could warm up fairly quickly. But I’ve heard about adult ferals, who live like shadows for a year or more… and then one day decide, “Well, they haven’t screwed up yet.”

    And become domesticated :)

  107. 107.

    WereBear

    Of course! It’s like dating!

    And who are you kidding? Don’t you want to spoil him? It’s a loving cat’s natural state :)

  108. 108.

    opiejeanne

    @UncleEbeneezer: June Lake! We used to rent a cabin at Big Rock Landing almost every summer for several years. I don’t remember the town being especially pretty, although it did have that magnificent lodge (the last time we went they were turning it into time share condos). We fished and hiked and explored the rest of the region, got scared by a  bear, and always had one supper at the Carson Peak Inn. The kids are grown but they still think it’s heaven and have taken friends and spouses there.

  109. 109.

    Barbara

    @sdhays:  I wasn’t too fond of Musee d’Orsay either. It was better than Louvre, for sure, but it still seems to me that there is a “greatest hits” quality to both museums, and maybe that is inevitable given the grandeur of the setting and the vast quantity of great art that people want to see when they visit Paris. The museum that I visited without any preconceived ideas of what I was getting myself into was Austria’s state museum of art in Vienna. I didn’t have nearly enough time to see it, but what really struck me was the amount of effort that had been expended to group paintings in a way that made it possible to appreciate their qualities individually and put them into historical context.

    On the whole, however, I am glad that people still love and want to go to any art museum, so I will seek out the smaller and more curated experiences I like and not harumph too much about others taking selfies under the Mona Lisa.

  110. 110.

    Origuy

    Guernica is now at the Reina Sofia, which is where I saw it. It is stunning when you see it in person. When I go to Chicago, I almost always go to the Art Institute and stop at Le Grand Jatte. I’ve never been to Paris, so I haven’t seen the Mona Lisa in person. Not a big fan of portraits in general. I liked The Night Watch, which is more of a genre painting.

    I looked through that list of prettiest towns; there must be prettier towns in California than Carmel-By-The-Sea. I agreed with the choice of Bloomington, Indiana. I may be biased though, since I grew up there.

  111. 111.

    Ken

    @NotMax: About half the pictures aren’t “this town is pretty” as “if you go a couple miles out of town, the scenery is pretty.”

    And the picture for Hermann MO is ridiculous.  I’ve been there, they could have shown the view over the Missouri River or the vineyards; why a pair of empty railroad tracks?

  112. 112.

    sab

    @debbie: Lol. My sister is an art historian. When we would go to a museum she and my dad would spend all day in one gallery while the rest of us saw every gallery and also ate lunch.

  113. 113.

    J R in WV

    On my last visit to Manhattan, NYC, with friends, we booked an art history professor for our visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which included her taking us to the “club restaurant” for brunch after spending 6 hours on guided tour. We started with Greek and Roman art from long ago, worked through Renaissance art masters, then did impressionists.

    After she took off and the brunch with wine, we visited other wings of great stuff, arms and armor on horses, from Japan and Europe, Unguided strolling — the majority of their art is either donated private collections willed to the museum or on more-or-less permanent loan from owners. Amazing what people can collect when money is of no import. And all the NYC museums have Sackler wings from the opioid magnate families…

    Was probably the best museum visit we had ever had, guide knew not only all the art on display, she knew most of the art in storage in vaults as well. By the brush stroke, and who each artist studied to begin their careers. Total geek genius on art history, worth every cent they charged for her service. Was the week before Thanksgiving week, almost no tourists The Empire State Building had no lines for anything, and the museum crowds were mostly locals.

  114. 114.

    The Golux

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    …part of the experience of seeing paintings in galleries or museums is that you get the impact of scale.

    Yes, indeed.  Several years ago, we went to see an exhibit  of Monet’s water lilies at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, and (a) they were huge, and (b) the texture of the paint was astonishing.  Incredibly thick.  It really made you admire Monet’s ability to visualize the end result as he was applying the layers.

    No way a computer image could do it justice.

  115. 115.

    StringOnAStick

    There was a copy of Guernica on the wall my undergrad college snack bar, full sized.  I looked at it nearly every week day for 4.5 years since that’s where I did most of my studying.  I think it made me even more liberal and anti-war than I already was.

  116. 116.

    Mary Ellen Sandahl

    @OzarkHillbilly: ​
     Huh! I’m 77, and I first encountered Monty Python when , recently out of college and visiting Britain for the first time, I saw it in its virgin run on the Beeb on the telly of a rather cool fellow I was dating. We had just had a small joint, and I found myself watching the Gynecologists vs Long John Silver Impersonators match with joyful gaping mouth, wondering how much of it was the hemp!
    The Pythons didn’t make it onto US television until about 3-4 yrs later, IIRC. All my friends dug them instantly, and I felt a bit smug!

  117. 117.

    sab

    My cats don’t like sardines at all. I think it is because sardines are slathered in olive oil, which my cats don’t like. Canned crab they like. Also tuna fish.

  118. 118.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @opiejeanne:

    Fun fact about Judge Jackson: she is related to Paul Ryan by marriage. Her husband’s twin brother is Ryan’s brother-in-law.

    Wouldn’t that make her husband his BIL also?

    No, except in a casual and inaccurate sense. I expect the family connection is that Judge Jackson’s BIL (her husband’s twin) is married to Ryan’s sister.

    The English language doesn’t distinguish between “spouse’s sibling” and “sibling’s spouse.” And it should.

  119. 119.

    The Lodger

    @Gin & Tonic: Van Gogh. Prints and web don’t communicate at all how three-dimensional his paintings are. He sculptures that paint on the canvas.

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