A very cold journey, Hooters and Hall, Our Future Fat Fighting Force, and Mad, Murderous Cows

Well, I was away for two long weeks, a few days of which were spent watching the thermometer, cozily safe from the wind chill, lie to me and co-driver Jimmy V that it was 0 degrees outside. Fortunately, we got to go to Dallas and defrost. After driving by the downtown Hooters restaurant there (where a sign outside reads "The World's Largest Hooters," meaning it has the biggest dining room), we then went to pick up some items at the Women's Museum, which we retrieved from a storage room dominated by a portrait of a nursing Jerry Hall.

But enough about boobs, and on to cultural expectations. Jimmy V, a Bronx citizen on his first trip across the country, was amazed that Iowans will just leave their vehicles by the side of the highway and depart (as they are wont to do after a snowstorm crash). Weren't they afraid their cars would be stripped or stolen? No, they were afraid they personally would be crushed by one or more of the jackknifed semis we saw scattered about, and hightailed it out of there with the first cop or Good Samaritan who stopped by.

Speaking of New Yorkers, I always enjoy the way some New Yorker humorists can spin a funny story from a short, dry, news clipping. Here are two recent terrific examples.

The military's concerns about conscript fitness inspired George Saunders' tale of a platoon of porky privates. Perhaps we are soon to be defended by the National Lard....

Bovine-on-human attack statistics were the catalyst for this Woody Allen piece about a cow that plots to dispatch a whiny film director who has upset his rural Jersey Shangri-La. Recognize the artiste described thusly?:
A wormy little cipher, myopic behind black-framed glasses and groomed loutishly in his idea of rural chic: all tweedy and woodsy, with cap and muffler, ready for the leprechauns.

Enjoy!

DisastaCat astride her personal San Andreas fault

Ode to a recently purloined plasma TV

O, Panasonic 42-inch,
We hardly knew ye
Nor had time with you to share
The HD movies On-Demand we rented (so rare).
It is almost too much to bear,
To know you will never again present Scrubs, nor Simpsons, nor the Report Colbert.
And wherever you are now, we ask you please, feign poor health
And show nothing but the test pattern to those who gained you by nightly stealth.
And take good care of little IBook, and even littler Wii,
And know that we miss you most dreadfully.
How shall we ever forget thee three? What could ever replace the digital hearts of you?
We’ll read the latest gadget reports, and hear what’s hot from our friend Stew.

At the Gagosian Gallery in NYC....

I was down in New York most of the past week, packing up an artist's donation to a major museum. On one day, though, we couldn't work on that project, so I made pickups and deliveries around Manhattan. My cohort that day was an artist, and after making one stop, he suggested we take a look into the Gagosian Gallery, which was across from our truck, in the Chelsea arts district.

The Gagosian now has an exhibit by Richard Serra called "Blind Spot/Open-ended." Walking around these two sculptures was like getting a tugboat's view of a rusted hull; walking inside "Blind Spot" you felt like you were in Andrew Carnergie's idea of a maze. My artist friend said that there are only a few machines that can bend steel in this way, and Serra owns one of them (this seems plausible, although this fellow had a tendency to stretch the truth a bit).

Yes, Virginia, there is a Florida in Massachusetts...

....and a few days ago, on our trip to the Williamstown Art Conservation Center, it looked like this.....Previously called "Bernardston Grant" or "Zoar", it might have named by town fathers upon its incorporation about the time the US bought the future home of the Dolphins and your parents' retirement condo.

Your daily Bible history - Zoar
was a city near Sodom and Gomorrah, and in the destruction of those cities it was preserved to "afford shelter to Lot." Lot, on a low-sodium diet, forsook his wife and produced two children from dalliances with his own daughters. These strange offspring were hard-rocking Moab and cool-blowing Ammon. So be it.

Lady Godiva and her trusty steed on their way to the Walmart....

for the big special on Oreo Double-Stuffers.

Art history in the hills of Cow Hampshire....

Deep in the woods north of Manchester, I recently met Dr. Andrew Stangel, professor of History and Art History at the University of New Hampshire, European tour guide extraordinaire, and enthusiast of Willie Nelson and Patsy Cline. "Andy" is donating (to his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin) some of the rare books, prints, and military medals he has collected during 20 years living in Europe, and 35 leading art tours throughout that Continent. He began guiding tours for the US Forces in Europe in the 70s, and now does so for UNH alumni and others. When I mentioned my interest in it, Andy encouraged me to sign up for his tour - "I'm not one of those 'That aisle to the Mona Lisa, that aisle to the Winged Victory, and meet back here in a half hour!' kind of guides".

As Willie and Patsy alternated lamentations for lost loves from the kitchen, our art-handling crew packed up Andy's gifts, ably advised by the school's registrar, Andrea Selbig. Andy was intensely interested in how things were packed, and proclaimed awe at the care we'd taken with his things, and with our big, bright, new blue truck. He also regaled us with stories, one of which betrayed his deep love of the pun; after his Berkely apartment suffered a vicious 1970 earthquake in which his fishtanks almost toppled, he returned said tanks and occupants to the pet store, telling the owner, "The age of aquariums is over".

[I have a U-W connection also; my sister Sue is a U-W graduate and employee, and as I write this I proudly wear her gift of a "Wisconsin 1994 Rose Bowl Champions" sweatshirt. Christi doesn't like me to wear this aged garment outside the house, perhaps thinking that something so old could have only been retrieved from the Salvation Army. When I do, though, strangers will accost me with the latest Wisconsin athletic news, which is how I heard their men beat DUKE in basketball.]

After we finished packing and loading our truck, Andy snapped a photo of us all, which I hope will keep good company with his other 100,000-plus art-history pictures.