Cities of 2018

The past few years (e.g. here and here), I've been recording a list of all the cities outside NJ/NY that either I visited for work-related purposes, or that AA and I went to for a vacation. There is little doubt that the two most remarkable places we visited in 2018 were the furthest north and the furthest south I've ever been before: Iceland and Costa Rica. Both of these trips were remarkable for being very nature-oriented. 

Reykjavik is fine city, but it was our Golden Circle tour that brought us to Thingvellir National Park, where we saw the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates crashed against one another--a humbling experience--as well as the site where their Parliament met for over 1,000 years until they built an actual building in Reykjavik in 1930. The waterfalls and geysers were spectacular as well. Iceland is like being on another planet; it's completely desolate but remarkable for its unusual geological formations and hot springs. We missed the Northern Lights and the spa experience, so another visit is in order! Save money if you're thinking about going, though, because it's not cheap!

On the complete opposite spectrum, Costa Rica's southwestern Pacific coast was unlike anything I ever experienced, with spectacular views and wildlife that made me smile non-stop. Monkeys howl in the trees around you and greet you on your patio (and, yes, try to steal your food!), and there are giant iguanas, tropical birds, and actual crabs that walk right past you too. We went zip-lining while we were there, among other adventures--something I never thought I would do (picture at right, climbing stairs to the next zip!)--and I loved it. It was an incredible outdoorsy trip with a wonderfully relaxing hotel at the top of a mountain.

We also had wonderful opportunities to visit with family, and another great adventure happened in our own backyard when, in one day with AA's family, we toured NYC by boat (Circle Line), land (walking the streets), and air--a helicopter tour (photo at the top!). The helicopter tour was exhilarating...if also admittedly a tad frightening...but that's what these adventures are all about...pushing yourself just a little further to experience all that life has to offer. We always take stock and remember how fortunate we are to be able to travel, and we are forever grateful for these experiences of the world. Here are the Cities of 2018...

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Athens/Atlanta, Georgia

Fairfield, Connecticut

The Hague/Delft, The Netherlands

Kansas City, Missouri (leaving for here tonight!)

Leamington Spa, England

Liverpool, England

London, England (2 visits)

Manuel Antonio/Quepos, Costa Rica

Montreal, Canada

New Haven, Connecticut

Ogunquit, Maine

Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Quebec City, Canada

Reykjavik, Iceland

St. Petersburg/Palm Harbor/Tarpon Springs, Florida (3 visits)

La Traviata at The Met

Giuseppe Verdi's opera La Traviata, first shown in Venice in 1853, is undoubtedly one of my favorites in terms of the music and arias. There's something incredibly lyrical and moving about upbeat, vivacious celebrations like "Libiamo, ne' lieti calici," and emotionally bittersweet duets like when Violetta and Alfredo profess their love..."Croce e delizio al cor." I've seen this opera live three times in my life (yes, I've kept a record!): the New York City Opera in Clearwater at Ruth Eckerd Hall on March 23, 1996; the Florida Grand Opera in Miami on November 18, 2003; and now The Met Opera in New York on December 11, 2018. Third time was the charm for sure; the performance was wonderful.

I had gotten tickets for us as a birthday gift for AA, and what intrigued me about this version of the opera was that it was a new production staged by Michael Mayer, and it would be the premiere of The Met's new musical director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The orchestral performance was fantastic; to quote The New York Times reviewer Anthony Tommasini: "I expected his 'Traviata' to be good, but not this good." Tommasini goes on to describe soprano Diana Damrau's performance as Violetta as "extraordinary...singing with big, plush yet focused sound," and baritone Quinn Kelsey as Germont as "grave and formidable." Both of them were excellent. I was admittedly a little disappointed in tenor Juan Diego Florez as Alfredo, not because he sang poorly but because he was not strong enough, but apparently that was part of his characterization of Alfredo, to make him more shy and uncertain. I thought the new stage production by Mayer, with seasonal changes in lighting, and a neo-Baroque Second Empire interior, were lovely and appropriate. The costumes did seem to come out of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, but overall it added to the colorful, moving performance overall.

The Met's website for the production has excellent videos with scenes and arias, as well as background information on the production, all worth watching. In reading the Playbill, I was surprised to discover that La Traviata first premiered at The Met in 1883, one month after they opened, went on hiatus for nine years, and since then has been performed over 1000 times, in a number of different well-known productions. Going to The Met can be extremely expensive these days, but we were fortunate to have discounted tickets I got through Columbia. I've been to The Met a few other times before, having seen performances of Aida (2012) and Tosca (2015). But it is worth noting that my very first live opera experience, when I was about 13 years old, was at The Met. Uncle Peter and Aunt Florence had been given last-minute box seats for Rigoletto that a friend of theirs could not use, and knowing my rising interest at that time, they invited me to go, so I went with Uncle Peter. The funny thing was that Woody Allen and Mia Farrow sat in the box next to us...and left during one of the intermissions! Going to The Met at that age (on a school night!), seeing my first opera live in that setting, was one of those lifetime memories you never forget.

Morier and Persia Exhibition

It may seem strange to be blogging about an exhibition that has now closed, but it only occurred to me last night that I never wrote about the exhibition Looking East: James Justinian Morier & Nineteenth-Century Persia that we recently had on view in our display cases in Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. (Chalk it up to having been too busy for months to actually write about it!) The exhibition was part of the MA in Art History Presents series, the second in a new series in which the MA students curate an exhibition utilizing art from Columbia's permanent collection, under the guidance of Dr. Frederique Baumgartner (director of the MA program, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University) and me (curator of Art Properties, Avery Library, Columbia University). You may recall that earlier this year we opened the first of these shows about the 17th-century printmaker Robert Nanteuil.

This exhibition centered around the portrait you see here of the writer and diplomat James Justinian Morier (ca. 1780-1849), attributed to the painter George Henry Harlow (1787-1819) and painted in 1818. At first glance the portrait is a theatrical depiction of Morier dressed in Orientalist clothing, but in fact there is some historical accuracy to his clothing as representing what men wore in the early years of the Qajar dynasty (1794-1925) in Iran. Morier was part of the British diplomatic service that sought to establish a peace treaty between Persia and Britain during the years of the Napoleonic wars. Morier wrote and illustrated two travelogues about his time in Persia (published in 1812 and 1818), and then went on to have an illustrious career as a Romantic novelist with his most famous book being The Adventures of Hajji Baba, of Ispahan (1824). The exhibition sought to contextualize the historical period in which the painting and his illustrated texts (including the image of the "Persian Breakfast" you see at top), while considering ideas of colonialism and Orientalism in the writings of Edward Said and Linda Nochlin. I curated with one of the students a supplementary section as well, focusing on a selection of Iranian ceramics from the collection.

It was quite a successful exhibition, and we produced an excellent online companion exhibition, including a series of essays by the students introduced by Baumgartner and me. This project was inspired by research I had done previously on this painting, having given two conference papers about it in Pittsburgh in October 2015 and in Raleigh in January 2017. It's a great tale of how a painting first draws you in because of its appearance, but the more you look into it and consider all the imagery, as well as the background of the sitter and his world, it shows how art can convey new ideas and still have an incredible lifeline 200+ years after the events in which it was first painted.

Books of 2018

The annual New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2018 came out a few weeks ago, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there were two books on the list this year that I already had an interest in: The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst (which I bought but haven't read yet) and Warlight by Michael Ondaatje (which I did actually read and found interesting, like a literary, Corot-like veiled-mist tale). Among the novels on this new list that intrigue me and are now on my Amazon wish list are The Witch Elm by Tana French, Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday, and The Overstory by Richard Powers. One major book not on their list because it came out afterward--and which, of course, is now on my "to read" list!--is Michelle Obama's Becoming. AA is reading it, as is my friend MT, and both are totally absorbed.

The book cover you see above reflects what I would say is the best novel I read this year, The Handmaid's Tale [1986]. Even though I have not seen the new series, I decided to step into the infamous dystopian world created by Margaret Atwood over 30 years ago, and I was enthralled. The book is fantastic and frightening; it feels so real and plausible, particularly in light of how things are going these days politically. Even better, it's beautifully written, slow even at times, the protagonist paying attention to details and inner feelings and memories in a way that is haunting to read. Atwood announced recently she is writing a long-awaited sequel, about which I'm uncertain how I feel. Part of me is curious like others to know where Offred actually went and what happened to her, but another part of me worries the sequel will be too influenced by popular culture today and won't live up to the author's own masterful exploration into this disturbing futuristic, misogynistic world. Speaking of misogyny, last year about this time I was reading Madame Bovary and I still think it was a beautifully written novel and highly recommend it to people all the time. It even topped my list of the the best novels I read between 2014 and 2017! Other great novels that I read this year included: Julian Barnes's existentially obsessive biographical novel Flaubert's Parrot [1984]; Penelope Fitzgerald's community of miserable, hateful people in The Bookshop [1978]; the sad Everything I Never Told You [2014] by Celeste Ng, which was on the NYT 2014 list; and Ruth Rendell's foray into racism and murder with Simisola [1994]. I also read this year the mid-century classic Lolita [1955] by Vladimir Nabakov, and I absolutely hated this book, not even so much for the nauseating storyline but because the writing itself drove me nuts.

Since I wrote last year's post on Books of 2017, I have read 32 books. I finally took the time to read Sculpture: Processes and Principles [1977] by Rudolf Wittkower, with which I had familiarity but had not read in its entirety before now. It really is a fantastic overview about techniques in stone carving and modeling for anyone interested in knowing more about the great European sculptors of the past. Bridging the gap between art and biography, two of my favorites this year were Art for the Nation: The Eastlakes and the Victorian Art World [2011] by Susanna Avery-Quash and Julie Sheldon, and self-described "tranny potter" Grayson Perry's memoirs, co-written with Wendy Jones, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl [2006]. Another great biographical account was Richard Blanco's memoir For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet's Journey [2013], which I read after we visited the excellent exhibition of his poetry with photographs by Jacob Hessler in Ogunquit, Maine. In the realm of American history, I read Jon Meacham's new book The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels [2018], the cover of which you see here. This book was such a fascinating overview of highlights in American history from the colonial period through the 1960s, showing how so many of our great leaders, including Lincoln and FDR, enacted social change because of the influence of the people, social activists and civil rights leaders, the true "soul of America." The book is a great testament and response to the politics of today.

Right now, I'm currently reading two books. On the literary fiction side, I am finally reading Jane Austen's Persuasion, published posthumously two centuries ago. I am nearing the end and I am worried it won't have a happy ending! I'm also reading Richard Holmes's fantastic collective biography The Age of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science [2010], reminding us that science was not the separate discipline we perceive it to be today, but part of the exploration of the natural world along with art, literature, and music in the decades before and after 1800. This book has made for some relaxing bedtime reading, before turning in and dreaming each night...

The Passing of Caryl Ambrose

It's never easy to lose someone who is a close family member. About ten days before we celebrated Uncle Eddy's 90th birthday, our cousin Caryl M. Ambrose passed away at the age of 74 on Thanksgiving after suffering for many months with a terminal illness. I took the picture you see here a couple of years ago, with Caryl seated on the left with her sister Marilyn and Uncle Eddy, all of us taking in the sun after having lunch on the waterfront in Dunedin, FL. We all take some comfort knowing that Caryl is no longer in pain anymore, but because she always exuded an incredible strength of character, independent spirit, zest for what is right in the world, and an unending love for her family, her passing is challenging to process. Caryl was my second cousin. While her grandfather and my grandmother (Nana) were brother and sister, they were at opposite ends of a family timeline, almost twenty years apart in age, so that in fact my Nana and Caryl's father, Uncle Tommy, were close in age. Caryl was always interested in learning more about family history and loved when I would tell her about any new discoveries I had made in the Ambrose-and-Bagge English side of our family history. She was a Bronx-born girl, like so many in our family, and lived most of her life in NYC where she ran a travel consultant firm, then retired early and went to Florida with Marilyn, and had a whole new second life there as a nurse. Here is her obituary that her sister and brother wrote:

"Caryl's final safari was to heaven on 11/22/18 at the age of 74. Her life was a tale of two cities-New York and Tampa Bay. Her company, the African Transfer, specialized in safaris to Kenya, Tanzania and Botswana. She then went on to another career as a nurse where she lovingly rescued many needy folks and furry creatures. She leaves behind her sister Marilyn, brother Dennis (Laura) and his family in Illinois – Nephews TJ & Glenn. Niece Ashley, great nephews Aiden and Anthony … and her rescue cat Chris … as well as numerous, wonderful kissing cuzzins and many lifelong friends."

Caryl never stopped wanting to know how everyone else around her was doing. She would write letters--actual handwritten letters, as recently as earlier this year to me--in which she remembered everything AA and I had going on, wanting to hear all about our travels (Marilyn would always add the funny side-bar comments and jokes in the letter!). Caryl was a caregiver, someone who instinctively wanted to help, to her own detriment in that she refused to let on about anything happening with her own health. Before she moved to Florida, I had always seen both Caryl and Marilyn as the savvy independent sisters, the first in NYC the second in Chicago. Caryl ran her own business, traveled worldwide, took care of some beautiful cats and dogs, and still managed to look after all of our great-uncles and other aging relatives. When my father and I planned a big trip to Italy and England back in 1991 (long before Internet search engines!), she coordinated our entire five-week trip, with flights and hotels and train tickets. I remember being completely amazed at how she was able to pull it all together so easily.

The one thing about Caryl that I will always cherish and keep close to my heart, though, was her encouragement and support of my writing. This is not something many people know. When I was a teenager, she heard that I was trying to write a novel, a family saga of sorts set in the 1800s (I was heavily influenced by John Jakes's Kent Family Chronicles at the time). Without any hesitation, she told me to give her a copy of the manuscript and she would "show it" to someone she knew "in the business." I was completely in awe that she "knew" someone and had connections like that, so I gave her a copy. The truth is, I have absolutely no idea if she actually showed it to anyone or not--even more truthfully, I hope she didn't because it was a horrible, early attempt at writing! The point is, she believed in me. She didn't assess my talents, she saw my drive and interest, and she was one of the first people in the family to encourage me to do this. That simple gesture on her part inspired me in ways that I still feel to this day in all of my efforts when I write something, whether it's an article, fiction, or even this blog. That gesture made me realize how a simple action can help support and encourage someone in ways no one can ever know. I will miss her energy, her laughter, her letters, and her love of family, but her spirit lives on in so many of us.

90 Years Young

Last weekend AA & I went back to Florida to help celebrate with family & friends Uncle Eddy's 90th birthday. He's the last of the brothers & sisters from that branch of the family that produced all of us, and he's been so generous and good to all of us that he deserves this milestone marker of his life and times. What's the one favorite thing we all love about his life? That he worked at the Bronx Zoo! These days, he is settled in an assisted living facility, uses a wheelchair most of the time, and is rather thin, but he's still got his "marbles" moving around properly in his head and he hasn't lost his hearing or his sense of humor, so overall he's doing pretty well. Here's to Uncle Eddy...90 years young!