Discovered St. Petersburg, Florida, the beautiful old Florida resort city which retains that charm, and elegance, the old mixed with the new, with city parks scattered around and a wide strip of parkland stretching along Tampa Bay, with a few high rise modern pastel colored condos set back from the shore. The downtown area is quiet and slow paced, combining smooth international style and Mediterranean revival masonry buildings, but not too many skyscrapers. The style reminded me of Pasadena with its graceful 1920s architecture, or Santa Barbara, where the sea is ever visible. St. Petersburg’s waterfront and Bayshore Drive are lined with parks, the Yacht Club, aquatic center, palm arboretum, and museums. St. Petersburg lies on a peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico and Tampa Bay, connected by low bridges, is a city where it is easy to be near the water, driving over the causeways or sitting on one of the many green, empty park benches, looking out at the flat gray water of Tampa Bay, near the pier, with no land in sight, watching the gulls and cranes, and billowy white clouds above. I enjoyed the view in Vinoy Park, feeding the tame squirrels and having my lunch, a New York deli sandwich, with piled on hot pastrami, from Lucky Dill Deli on Central Avenue. I could have had a Sabrett hot dog from a street cart, my chili cheese of choice in Washington. But, how often do you find a New York deli? I was staying downtown at the older boutique Hollander Hotel, a great choice, with an attached pastries shop, and long front porch with overstuffed chairs to enjoy the rainy November evenings.

On my second day, I went out for eggs, bacon, and strong French coffee at “Apropos,” near the Hollander, past the open air post office on 4h Avenue. Apropos is a small French style cafe, with one room containing about six modest black tables, a black and white marble floor, and Frank Sinatra’s “New York” playing in the background It is run by a European couple. Like the Hollander, it was recommended to me by my Helena friends, John and Kathy Driscoll. Best of all, breakfast included a few of those sweet, small black grapes you get in neighborhood Parisian groceries. From the cafe, I walked downtown to the waterfront and discovered the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), established in 1965, low and spreading, about the size of the Norton Simon in Pasadena, with a high quality permanent collection of paintings and sculpture from the ancient world, plus wonderful early 20th Century European and American works. There were, for me, two magical rooms. The first, with paintings from the early 20th Century “Ashcan” School, plus Robert Henri and John Sloan and The Ten, plus some European Impressionists, was an almost white, pale blue or light green, room, with a light gray marble entryway and trim, white ceiling, hard wood flooring, and lots of good indirect lighting. My favorites here included Guy Penne du Bois‘ well known painting entitled “Cafe Madrid, Mr. and Mrs. Chester Dale,” 1926, with simplified figures as from an illustration, of the wealthy couple having dinner before a dark blue evening background. It was a gift from a member of the Dale family. There was also a George Luks‘ canvas, “The Magician,” 1908, of a Saxiphone player, all browns, creating a powerful dark palette, and a powerful Georgia O’Keefe 1930 painting of two reddish (pink adobe) colored plain hills with scattered pinons, set against a blue sky with swirling white clouds. This simple painting is one of the best O’Keefe’s anywhere.

There was another special room, bright yellow with gray marble trim, which included American Impressionist pieces, including Randall Davey’s 1920 masterpiece, “Portrait of Paul Robeson,” the subject sitting in a chair turning towards the artist, and wearing a white shirt. The portrait was done in broad brush strokes with coffee browns. Willard Metcalf’s “The Mountain,” 1909, showed a smooth, barren mountainside done in sage and orange. Theodore Robinson’s 1890 “Capri and Mt. Solano,” showed a small, whitewashed Greek village set against a large granite mountain, with the houses and grassy fields appearing windswept, almost in motion. The room included a John Henry Twachtman, “Venice Landscape,” 1878, bright green and verdant, with none of the usual canals, showing instead the lush countryside of the Veneto with the city in the distance. There was a George Innes, “Early Moonrise,” 1893, ethereal with moon haze, and a more realistic piece, entitled “Bretagne Soldier,” 1880 by Thomas Hovenden, of a soldier in brown uniform with purple spade (purple heart) denoting military status embroidered on the brown rumpled and stitched uniform. Other favorites in the two rooms, included Camille Corot’s “Three Bathers,” 1865, showing Corot’s Barbizon influence, with the theme of nature and the soft lines at dusk. It was his typically dark canvas, of three nude maidens in a luminous stream, with a filagree of golden leaves in upper tree branches silhouetted against the luminous sky. The docent pointed out that there was a barely discernible “paint over” on the maidens, where there had originally been another painting beneath. Paul Cezanne’s “Orchard, Cote St. Denis at Pointouche,” 1877, showed a close up small section of a forest, a composition of densely packed tree trunks in brown amid the green grass, showing how Cezanne combined cylinders, cones, and spheres to create objects in his Cubist manner. Much of the strokes were done with palette knife. There was a beautiful Johannes Jongkind, “The Schie near Rotterdam,” 1867, of a Dutch landscape, and misty moon appearing amid gray clouds above a luminous sky. The description said “light and atmosphere is what it is all about.” There were two Monets, one of his foggy “Houses of Parliament,” 1904, with touches of pink and white on the light blue canvas, and his “Springtime in Giverny,” 1885, with a village and steeple in the background and sloping hill and orchard in the foreground combining pink blossoms amid tall green grass. There was a wonderful Paul Gauguin, “Goose Girl,” 1888, of a young Breton girl tending white geese in the field, a composite of bright blues (pond), oranges, and reds in his flat, almost expressionistic style. This was the best Gauguin I have seen outside the Phillips Gallery in Washington. There was a sculpture of note, a dark brown bust by Berte Morrisot of her seven year old daughter “Julie Manet,” originally done in plaster, then covered with bronze plate. A new discovery for me was the still life by John Frederick Peto, of a pipe and box, tromp l’oil Revolutionary War era, similar to Hartnett’s still life, not dated, but Peto lived from 1854-1907. There was also a Boudain, “Laundresses on the Shore at La Touques,” 1883, unusual in that the subjects were not his usual straw hatted, leisure class families with parasols and hoop skirts enjoying the beach. There was a George Bellows, of boats at harbor on a silver day, 1912, and a Childe Hassam, “Home Sweet Home Cottage,” of a vine covered Federal house in East Hampton, 1916.

In the antiquities section, there was a wonderful Cycladic sculpture of a woman, 2500 BCE, with the usual crossed arms and, in this case, knees slightly bent, one of the first full body Cycladic figures I have seen There were a number of good black figure, red figure, and white figure Greek wine vessels, especially a white amphora, dated 575 BCE. The docent said white came last in order, and was often funerial or honorary. There was an elegant Costa Rican gold pendant, entitled “Avian,” of a bird in flight, almost constructivist, with very thin wings, dated 6th to 9th Century AD, designed for the conquering Spaniards who were attracted to gold. In the applied arts, there were Sevres porecelain, including “Vases de Varnennes,” 1900, of blossoms on a tourquoise background. There was a pair of beautiful Wedgewood renditions of Etruscan urns, dull black with red figures, dated 1790-1800, plus a 19th Century Austrian neo-Classical bench with a needlework cushion and matching chair with fan shaped back rest, each made of sandalwood. From the Asian collection, the most impressive item was perhaps the 19th Century Indian bronze of the God Shiva, dancing, with hair flayed out, in the ring of fire, and standing on a dwarf, stamping on the dwarfing of the mind. There was also an Hindu temple in miniature, a “Jaira,” with elephant figures on the roof corners stomping out ignorance. From the Japanese Edo period, there was a wood carving of seated priest, dated 1615. Finally, there was an impressive Han Dynasty standing horse, from China, dated 206 BCE, fierce looking, in terra cotta. According to the docent, these horses were from the Central Asian steppes, were 17 hands high, and were brought to the Chinese emperor, who sent an army of 60,000 warriors to a neighboring kingdom to obtain them after being told they were not for sale. Finally, there was an impressive visiting display of paintings of the ballet star Rudolf Nureyev done by Jaime Wyeth.

That evening, I drove across the causeway to the western beaches facing the Gulf of Mexico stretching from Sarasota to Clearwater I stayed at “Pass-A-Grill” Beach, where I had a grouper sandwich and slaw for dinner on the outdoor terrace at the old green colored Hurricane Restaurant on the beach. Pass-a-Grill is unlike the other St. Petersburg beaches (Treasure Island, etc.) in that it is 1920s Mediterranean revival architecture reminiscent of the bungalows of the Scott and Zelda era. It was a bit hazy as I watched the sunset. I was fighting a cold, but didn’t notice it. There were lots of families watching the luminous sunset and tangerine sky from the second floor bars in the restaurants, and from the white sand beaches, themselves. It was a ritual. There were small gray waves, currents near the shore, moving north westerly. The Gulf beaches run from Pass-A-Grill to Clearwater and the strip is pretty crowded. I almost prefer the tamer Tampa Bay views downtown. Pass-A-Grill, however, is fine, and remote and not crowded, with no high rises. Coming back to St. Petersburg, over the toll causeway bridge, curving above Tropicana Field, passing exclusive resort communities with marinas, I enjoyed the beautiful view of the sunset glinting off the modern 30 story apartment and office buildings in downtown St. Petersburg. It is a nice lifestyle, I was thinking, with the palms and the Gulf and the Bay, and the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team, a nice night drive under dark blue skies, water all around,

The next morning, I had eggs and sausages at the Hollander, on the front porch, protected in the midst of a light rain, then went to the Florida Holocaust Museum, established by holocaust survivors. it was modest in size, but had a powerful collection of maps, photographs, and videos documenting the Holocaust and the lively Jewish culture that existed in Europe before it. On the second floor was a gallery devoted to contemporary art dealing with the Holocaust, with work by local and national artists. The centerpiece was an actual railroad car, which was one of many used as transports to Auschwitz, a large stark reminder of the reality of the Holocaust, and also a lot of small exhibits related to individual survivor stories. The most powerful exhibit for me was a small niche containing two pairs of children’s felt shoes, which were displayed with a simple explanation that the shoes had belonged to a two year old girl in Holland (they gave her name) who had been transported with her family to Auschwitz, and who had not survived. After the war, the child’s relatives in the Netherlands had recovered the shoes, which had been left behind. As I left the museum, I wanted to write my thoughts in the visitor book, but was so choked up by the image of the shoes that I had to leave with a lump in my throat. I have been to several Holocaust museums and killing sites, but the shoes and the actual rail car will stick with me. The little girl never made it back. I couldn’t help thinking of my two year old grandson in Tallahassee.

The next day, before departing St. Petersburg, I drove up Central Avenue to Haslams Books, a real institution, the City Lights or Powells of Florida. Everyone in St. Petersburg was friendly and relaxed, and open, the docents, the Hollander staff, the jogger on the walking path feeding the squirrels, the deli waitress who made the point that St. Petersburg is a lot slower paced than Orlando. There was none of the theme park feel of parts of Florida. My son texted me when I got back to Tallahassee, asking how St. Petersburg was. I sent him the message: “a close second to Santa Barbara,” which he knows is my gold standard.

Paris

October in Paris and the Rhine still lingers in my mind.  Paris was beautiful and the Hotel Cujas Parthenon, in the Latin Quarter, was the perfect choice, in the Sorbonne area, next to the Pantheon and Luxembourg Gardens, five floors up to our small room, overlooking the street which had some activity all night. I have been through Paris numerous times before, staying on or near Rue St. Honore, the Champs Elysees, and Montmartre, but the Left Bank, Latin Quarter is by far the best, most French. I was reliving Hemingway, passages out of The Sun Also Rises and A Moveable Feast, sitting on the park bench in Luxembourg Gardens, having a flank steak lunch on Rue Souffot, (where Hemingway had a brioche before taking the Number 8 bus to the Madelaine), then taking the open air tour bus to Place Contrescarpe and Cloisserie de Lilas (where he wrote “Big Two Hearted River”), then a hairpin turn right to where Invalides Blvd. crosses Montparnasse and the Select, Dome and Rotonde restaurants, then turning right when we get near the Seine onto Rue St. Germain, and then passing Brasserie Lipp and Deux Magots, then later that night doing Boulevard des Cappucines and the beautiful baroque Garnier Paris Opera House, near Hemingway’s office in 1923, the Tribune.

On another day, walking down Rue St. Michel, from our hotel, to Place St. Michel, where there are many good cafes Hemingway wrote about, seeing Notre Dame across the Seine, and going into Shakespeare Books. It all meant a lot to me, reliving Hemingway, and reading passages from Sun at night in the room. It was particularly instructive, having just been to Ketchum Idaho, bookending Hemingway’s life, 1921 Paris and 1961 Idaho, the real beginning and end. I could see him young, then old. How he ended up after starting his writing career in Paris. But, mainly, I just fell for the Latin Quarter and the students, and small shops, the grocery store with black grapes, the bakery with North African proprietor, the sidewalk cafe, Brasserie du Luxembourg, across the street from the gardens on Rue Soufflot, where I had wonderful minced steak (ground beef) with egg on top, thick fries in a tin cup, and wonderful baguette, lettuce on the side, and coca cola. Cokes, like McDonalds, are always better, more exotic, almost elegant, in Paris.

I was mainly struck by the beauty of the city, the lit Seine at night, the bright oasis of the Champs Eleysees on dark nights, the grand city apartments set back from the street, Neuilly, the Opera, Notre Dame, Madelaine, Louvre, Eifel Tower, and Invalides, plus petit and grand palaces, now exhibit halls, glass domed palaces, the former with a wonderful statue of Thomas Jefferson, life-sized, a younger Jefferson in Paris, outside. I wanted to place some flowers there, honoring the greatest American and father of democracy worldwide. It was a city of majestic baroque and Renaissance buildings, lit at night, connected by bright avenues full of sidewalk cafes, full of the French and foreigners, a diverse city, all enjoying the casual life. I was stuck by the French joy of life and sense of style, the bicycles, the diversity, the youthfulness, the gaiety of the city, and the sense of humor and helpfulness from almost everyone. Seeing the youth in the cafe’s reminded me of my student years on DuPont Circle in Washington, and made me think of the cycle of life, how soon we transition to the older phase, it comes faster than these students on Rue Soufflot can imagine. How quickly we are on the other side, looking back. Saw a black and white cat, full grown, with a panhandler near the Luxembourg Metro. Seemed to be doing okay, with blanket spread next to the buildings and coin box filled with small coins. I added a few. He could tell I was a cat lover. All in all, no city could match Paris. Seeing it first colored the rest of the trip, which was pale by comparison. Even now, Paris lingers in my thoughts. It is special. I think it is the beautiful architecture of the centuries, the golden ages, plus the overall European prosperity, and modest sufficiency of all, not the great disparities of poor and rich you see in the U.S.

On day two, we went to the Musee d’Orsay, and saw the impressionists and post-impressionists, but the gallery was so crowded, it was difficult to focus for long on the paintings.  I was awed by some of the well known works, including Caillebotte’s “Men Scraping Floor,” and two Van Gogh self-portraits: “Portrait of the Artist,” 1887, in malachite green, dark tourquoise strokes, and a lighter green, all swirling together.  There was a light blue portait, “Remy, 1889.”  And, of course, there was the well known midnight blue, “Starry Night,” the most spectacular painting in the gallery.  The gallery also included a Pissarro street scene from above, always my favorites; a Sisley of Brittany harbor, with blue rippling water and lighter blue skies above; a Gauguin polynesian girls; and Bonnard’s garden scene with fancy dress; a Winslow Homer of two women dancing on a moonlit shore, a Renoir’s garden party at the Moulin de la Galette, 1876; a Monet’s portrait of Berte Morrisot, in black and white; and Whistler’s famous “Portrait of the Artist’s Mother,” 1871.  I am starting to like post-impressionism, the Fauvists, Blue Rider, and German Expressionism a lot, perhaps as much as Impressionism.  On the advice of Joseph, my sculptor friend back in Helena, I took the time to notice the architectural beauty of the gallery, itself, the former railroad station.

Amsterdam

What a change from Paris. Rain outside, canals outside for streets, I felt I was living in a different specific gravity, that of water. Hard to tell where water ends and air and land begins. People are serious and a bit dour, not much mirth. Very pretty city, lots of small shops and cafes on the corners, seating for a few couples next to the canals, bicycles flying by everywhere. A unique city, unlike any other I have seen. Charming in its way.

The Anne Frank Museum was powerful, showing haunting 16 mm Nazi videos.  First, of unknowing Dutch Jews being loaded on the trains in Amsterdam at the collection point, some chatting with German guards, asking directions, etc.  Then on arrival at Auschwitz, they still perhaps didn’t know what awaited them, the women arranging their headbands to improve their appearance, but looking haggard.  This goes directly into videos shot from above of women and children, after “selection,” moving quickly in loose column formation from the train platform to the Birkenau section of the camp.  Then, the final still photos of the women and children at Birkenau, stopped, and lined up for the last phase, the “showers,” were the most haunting.  We are looking close up at the front row, next in line.  They didn’t look at the camera, and had downturned mouths and eyes, and holding their children’s and grand chilldren’s hands, seemed resigned, knew what was coming.  They could sense it.  These 16 mm videos, which I had never seen before, brought home the Holocaust better than anything I have seen or read before.  I stood transfixed, ignoring the line of visitors trying to nudge me on.  The rest of the tour brought the Holocaust home via the micro experience of one victim, Anne Frank.

The Van Gogh museum on the following day was a great introduction to the artist, following the stages of his life and art, from Holland and his early Millet-like period, with “The Cottages,” 1883, and “Potato Eaters; to his Paris and Cluchy pen and ink and chalk sketches from 1887, similar to Japanese prints; to his middle period of more stylized brushwork at Arles hospital after his first fight with Gauguiin; to his final St. Remy asylum months, all showing the phases of his art.  I admired most his 1885 self-portraits, especially the famous “Self Portrait in Straw Hat,” in white and yellow.  Other favorites were: “Irises,” 1890; “Net Menders” 1882, of women on the hearth, like his “Potato Eaters;” and, “Undergrowth” and “Olive Grove,” both 1889, with their trademark thick brush strokes.  Then, there was “The Sower” 1888, with its dominant yellow moon and halo around it, somewhat in the style of Gauguin, with flat surfaces and black outlines.  “Wheat field with a Reaper,” 1889, was primarily yellows with dots, curves, and strokes, using a heavy brush, from his middle, Arles, period.  “Almond Blossom,” 1890, was light blue with white blooms, honoring the birth of his nephew, Theo’s son.  “Two Views of St. Paul’s Hospital,” the vestibule and gardens of an asylum that he didn’t like, highlighted the orange walls and green trim on door frames, etc.  Finally, there were three spectacular, large, horizontal rectangular canvasses, his last, just before his suicide at St. Remy in 1890. They are turbulent pieces, with turbulent skies and fields below, solitary, alone, sad.  One is “Wheatfield after Thunderclouds,” with a stormy blue sky over green fields, and a few white clouds. Then, “Wheatfield with Crows,” at Auvers, wet on wet method, and finally “Wheatfields at Twilight,” with its stormy yellow sky.  The museum also had some nice Gauguins, including his sketch of Van Gogh painting sunflowers, his “Wind Harvest in Auvers,” with ladies in Breton caps in the fields, and his own famous self portrait, “Les Miserables,” with mustached yellow face, angular, expressionistic.

The Rhine

A river cruise is a beautiful way to see Europe, focusing on the Rhine in this instance. The only problem is that they are a bit social, being on a small boat and, except for one day, plus, you are also traveling down the river at night, so there is no sitting on the deck watching Europe float by.  I would have liked to stay in Cologne or Heidelberg or Breisach or Regensburg or Strasbourg one more day.  I would still like to rent a room in a small town on the Rhine, perhaps Oberwesel, for a few days. However, I did manage a few moments each day alone on the top deck of the ship, looking at the wonderful embankments, parks, and at bridges over the Rhine lit in blue and green, etc.  It was almost all Americans on board, two great couples from Mississippi, a nice pharmatict and wife from Kansas, an interesting NYC/Florida couple, Tampa Bay Rays fans, a horse woman and her mother from Milwaukee and Chicago area, a few Texans, who were on their own, a Connecticut contingent also on their own with Red Sox caps, a couple of Minnesotans, one with Vikings cap, who reminded me of Montanans, big, hunter types, down to earth, nice, an environmentalist from Oregon, and a few Californians.  We were traveling with our Foreign Service friends Al and Donna from Washington.  One of the Mississipians, from Meridian, was a kindred spirit, a history buff.

I learned a lot on the trip, piecing together European history, starting with the Roman settlements or “limes” (Colognia Agrippina (Koln), Mongantum (Mainz), and Balisium (Basel) around 50 BC, defensive settlements stretching from Koblenz to the Danube. Then the Germanic tribes or confederations take over, first the Allemagne who overran Rome in 376 AD, then the Franks who were christianized (Catholic) and created a loose confederation, the Holy Roman Empire, by 800 under Charlemagne.  The center of this Germanic empire shifted to Austria as the Hapsburgs took control around 1200 under Charles V.  But, Germany had become a loose grouping of principates under electors and bishops, who were gradually pushed away already by the merchants and Town Halls, a revolution of sorts which culminated with the Reformation in 1618 and the rise of Protestantism.  The Reformation, itself, was a revolt against the Catholic Hapsburgs, a German thing which didn’t extend into southern Germany as much.  Around this time, the Bourbons took over in France and launched attacks into Germany.  In 1866, the Prussians took over Germany from Berlin, took control of Austria, and unified Germany.

I loved the Gothic cathedrals, including the beautiful rose sandstone walls of Heidelberg’s Holy Spirit Cathedral, the twin spires of Cologne, and the huge rose window in Strasbourg. What a beautiful innovation the Gothic was, with its tall and huge windows, so elegant and light compared to the Romanesque that came before.  Europe, despite its density, is charming and seems slower paced than the U.S., a bit more subdued and more collective, societal based, rather than individualistic. I did, however, miss the wide open spaces of the United States and the feeling of freedom.  But, strangely, after a week in Europe, I became absorbed into Europe, and started thinking of America as far away and provincial, like Australia, not really so relevant from the European perspective.  Europe is elegant, with people living with repose amid beautiful Hanseatic and Gothic and Romanesque, or classical settings.  There are nice peaceful cafes for everyone, small markets, apartments, and prosperity, and the Rhine is nicest of all, with the beautiful river and wonderful wine terraces and green hills and fields.  Heidelberg was my favorite: the college, old town, red roofs, river Neckar, wonderful schloss or castle, Gothic churches, steeples, slate gray buildings, red limestone and sandstone facades everywhere, and narrow streets. Mannheim, destroyed in the war, was interesting, a planned city of large apartments squares and tram lines linking the apartments to factories, a chessboard town, the Germans call it. Rudesheim was beautiful, walking back into the Middle Ages, wine casks and wine streets, and with 17th Century buildings everywhere as well, wonderful churches.

I also learned a lot about World War II in Europe while in Alsace. Tough battles, tougher than Anzio, Audie Murphy said, referring to the Colmar Pocket, where the 3rd Division, the Rock of the Marne, lost 8000 soldiers in two weeks fighting in minus 4 degree weather against SS units under a brutal, no surrender general, Himmler. Brutal fighting along the Vosges ridges, crossing the Ill River, going towards the main bridge at Breisach. Murphy called this “defenders country.” The Germans were very tough in retreat, good at camouflage, concealment use of artillery, etc., and used the Colmar Pocket to launch a smaller battle of the bulge, the last German offensive, on New Years Eve, 1945. Their weaponry was better, Sturmgefahr assault rifles, Panther tanks, burp guns. How our guys prevailed is a wonder. Highest losses of any Division in the war. Interesting story the tour guide relayed, that the allies underestimated how many replacements would be needed from Normandy to the Rhine, having to use non combatant and slightly wounded soldiers. The Texas Division was wiped out, replaced by the 3rd Division, whole companies disappeared in small Alsatian towns on the wine trail, like Sigolsheim. Murphy was perceptive, called the pocket an iron fist pointed into U.S. lines. Saw the area between Altheim and Holtzweher where Audi Murphy held off the Germans.  I picked some leaves from the trees near Altheim for a friend back in Helena whose father fought here.   The Colmar Pocket trip was very interesting. Riding the bus through the area, small towns leading to the Black Forest, was fascinating, and you had small villages, square layouts, surrounded by wine terraced fields. Roads run between the fields. Alsace is beautiful, more German than French in appearance.

Flying Icelandic back to Denver from Paris, looking down at Labrador Bay, I catalog my favorite parts of the trip, the open air bus ride around the Latin Quarter, Notre Dame at night, the Van Goghs, sitting atop the Viking longship alone in my coat,  the wine terraces of Alsace, the Renaissance facade at Heidelberg Castle, and, of course, the black and white cat on the blanket at Luxembourg Gardens and a young cat and its homeless owner at Strasbourg Cathedral.  Cats are always top of the list. (2014)

Driving down from Santa Barbara, I did my usual Los Angeles routines, driving up to Hollywood to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s beautiful  Barnsdale, or “Hollyhock House,” one of my favorite Wright residences, located on Olive Hill off  Vermont, but not until I had lunch at the nearby Fat Burger.   The Barnsdall house is a beautiful sculptured concrete construction with Hollyhock decorations, which Wright called “California Romanza,” built at the same time Wright was bouncing back and forth to Japan on his Imperial Hotel project.  It was 1916; Wright was leaving his midwestern Prairie House phase and entering his pre-Columbian phase, which would evolve into his “textile block” phase of interwoven and patterned concrete block houses in Pasadena and Hollywood Hills, including the 1923, Millard House in Pasadena, called “La Miniatura,” plus the Storrer, Freeman, and Ennis houses.  The Freeman House is my favorite, made of glass and steel framed windows, and four patterns of concrete blocks, it resembles a living fossil.   This was a great phase for Wright, perhaps his greatest.  The idea of concrete and glass was so modern.   On this trip I swung by the Ennis House, which is being renovated.  It is a massive Mayan temple  overlooking Hollywood.

Los Angles is a great architectural city, like Chicago, with its California modernists:  Frank Lloyd Wright, Lloyd Wright, Rudolf Schindler, Richard Neutra, the Eameses, and Irving Gill, and the mid Century modernists, John Lautner, Pierre Koenig, and the Case Study homes, plus Clifford May and George Washington Smith, and Richard Meier, etc.

Norton Simon

In the afternoon, I drove to Pasadena, one of my favorite cities, with its Greene and Greene Gamble House, an Arts and Crafts gem.  Pasadena is elegant, with its 1930s masonry buildings, aqueduct, scattered Art Deco and Art Moderne buildings, hills and vegetation, and elegant neighborhoods  lined with international style apartment complexes and garden apartments interspersed with mansions along Colorado Boulevard.  There  are a lot of Asians, especially Japanese, everywhere, and a lot of young people, wearing brogues and slacks rather than jeans, stylish.  This reminded me that it is not so important what you do as what you are.  Be stylish.  Have interests and hobbies, and friends, and live elegantly if modestly.

I pulled into the Norton Simon Art Museum, one of my favorite galleries anywhere.  It is like the Santa Barbara Museum, not real large, but exquisite in its collections.  It is like a sister to Santa Barbara’s.  I saw some wonderful pieces at the Simon, including Cezanne’s portrait of peasant in a turquoise vest and yellow hat, with wonderful pastel colors set against a blue background.  The Simon has a wonderful Degas collection, including “Dancers in the Rotunda of the Paris Opera,” 1874, with its vague silhouettes in gray and blue and mauve.  There is one of a star dancer on point, 1878, in pink and turquoise.  And one of a laundress in New Orleans, 1873, mainly whites.  The Degas sculptures include his young dancers and his wonderful horses, all  on pedestals or in glass cases spaced around the hall.

There was a Van Gogh, “The Mulberry Tree,”  1889, in olive; a verdant Rousseau jungle scene, “The Exotic Landscape,”  1910, in greens; a Bonnard, a Juan Gris, a Braque, “Artist and Model,” 1939, in black, gray, and green; a Monet portrait,  “Young Woman In Black,’ 1875, very alive; a Toulouse-Lautrec, “Cirque Fernando Horse Rider;” and Sisley’s ‘Louvreciennes in the Snow,” 1874, with lots of white and olive trees and a brown fence, one of my favorite paintings on display.   Perhaps the premier piece in the gallery was the much touted Diego Rivera mural, “The Flower Vender,” 1941, of a small girl playing in the grass.   There were some other nice sculptures, a Giocometti, “The Tall Figure,” 1960, and Brancusi’s famous gold concave “Bird in Space,”1931.

My other Simon favorites included Berte Morrisot’s  “In a Villa at the Seaside,” 1874, a good companion to her “View from the Trocadero” in Santa Barbara.  There was also a Courbet, “Marine,” 1865, of a yellow boat, clouds, and tidal pools on the shore, all blended together; a Bouduin seascape; a Vuillard, “First Fruits,” all greens; a Rembrandt self-portrait in his 50s plus his “Portrait of a Boy,” 1655, in grays and browns; a Camille Corot, “Thatched Cottage in Normandy, 1872; a Bellini, “Portrait of Joery Flugger,” 1474; and Hans Memling, “Christ’s Blessing,” 1478, on varnished wood.  In the Asia section, there was a Cambodian Angkor sculpture of the Shira, dated 925, and aan exhibit of over one hundred Hiroshige prints from Japan, of a floating world in Edo, the Shimmahi Bridge, and fifty three stations of the Tokaido, dated around 1833.  Many were owned by Frank Lloyd Wright at one point.   I forgot to mention a wondeful still life by Henri Fantin-Latour, of pink and white flowers in a vase with gray background, 1895.  After browsing the bookstore, I drifted into the back courtyard, with its small outdoor cafe and sculpture garden, on my list of favorite places.  I had a Stella Artois, and dreamed of being an artist someday.

I had dinner in Little Tokyo downtown, then drove back up to Santa Barbara, ninety minutes, pulling off 101 at the Cabrillo exit past Montecito, and winding to East Beach and my room at Pacific Crest Inn, my hangout, on Corona del Mar, just a block from the water.   On the way, car window down to the Pacific Ocean on my left, I listened to the radio, Mason Williams  “Classical Gas,” and a song called ‘Rubber Band Man,” which reminded me of Tweaks, my Belarus born white and gray short hair cat and my pal for eleven years who used to retrieve rubber bands that I would shoot across the room.  I was, as I often told her, her “rubber band man.”  She died the previous November.

That evening on the beach in Santa Barbara, I found myself, as always, looking out at a beautiful aquamarine sea surface, flat but sparkling with silver light shingles.  The tide was low, with a long time between swells and their “swoosh” sound.  In the near distance, sailboats were barely rocking at sea, their white sides luminous in the moonlight.  As night settled in, I was all alone on the promenade sidewalk, walking from East. Beach to Stearns Wharf towards the white lights of the pier.  After a while, I turned back and walled barefoot on the edge of the water, my pants rolled up and Topsiders in hand, getting my feet wet as larger waves occasionally come in, reaching the wet sand.  Standing on the sidewalk running along Cabrillo Boulevard, near the Santa Barbara Inn I took a last look at the sea through the tall palms, which were now just silhouettes.  I could see the lights of distant oil platforms and hear the seals honking out on the buoys in the dark. Night is my favorite time on the beach, enjoying the sound of the ocean and the stars above and the lights of houses behind me in the Santa Ynez foothills, and the moon above a hanging over the mountains.

The Getty

Two days later, I was back on 101, heading back to L.A., exiting onto 405 to the Getty Museum in the Santa Monica hills.    The Richard Meier designed complex is beautiful, with the signature glass and concrete from Meier, and slightly rough surfaced Italian tan stone, creating a neoclassical and geometric, but also modernistic, version of Ancient Rome, with touches of rounded or sculpted white concrete to soften the geometry.  The Getty is a large complex of similar buildings you reach with a funicular, the campus carved into terraces at different levels in the San Gabriels, offering wonderful panorama views of the Pacific from the museum cafes.

My favorites in the galleries included Edvard Munch’s “Starry Night,” a work similar to “The Scream,” in this case a large blue canvas spread with paint in rather vague forms including a small white fence running diagonally across the surface, and lake shore denoted by a rounded clump of trees.  Munch provides the best example of expressionism, letting your imagination do the work and using forms to create emotion.  My second favorite painting was Millet’s  “Portrait of Louise Antoinette Febardet,” 1841, the sitter in a black and white dress, with elegant grays, too the  first portrait I have seen by Millet.   They also had one of his peasantry scenes, “Man with a Hoe,” 1860, not as good as “The Gleaners,”  a bit less distinct, but also having great emotional appeal on the dark canvas.   Renoir’s “Le Promenade,” 1870, of a couple walking in the garden, was one of the finest Renoirs anywhere, a  bit bold in brush strokes  and color, but with great definition, greens and blues and shadows.  Monet”s “Sunrise,” 1873, blue with a touch of orange for the emerging morning sun, and with a sailing ketch in the foreground, is a wonderful small “unfinished” piece, and may be the work that labeled the “impressionism” movement. It was either this work or a similar onein the Musee d’Orsay in Paris.   Cezanne’s portrait of Anthony Valabreque, a bearded subject in white shirt, is painted with slabs of gray and black, and really captures the sitter’s character.  There was a Manet, “Rue Mosnier” from his series of thee street scenes, in white mainly, winter, with red flags hanging from the buildings for celebration; two wonderful Dutch classical era Ter Bosch works. The first, “Horse Stable,” is of a Dutch farm with the farmer’s wife in the corner of the stable, looking at their gray mare as it feeds.  You can see the importance of this horse to the family.  It is a hushed scene of great intensity.   The second work, “Girl Milking a Cow,” is another great depiction of animals.  Van Ruisdael’s “Landscape with a Wheat Field,” 1680, shows the special quality of light in Holland in the evening blues and grays.   Pieter de Hooch’s “Woman Preparing Bread and Butter for a Boy,” is an interior scene, with half door, a wooden partition with filagree, and red tile floor.  Like Vermeer, de Hooch uses more color and light to illuminate than the other Dutch masters, whose canvasses are dark browns and blacks.  Rembrandt’s “Old Man in Military Costume,” in grays and blacks, reminded me of the Chicago Art Institute’s Rembrandt of a soldier with gray metal neck plate.  There were some Hals and a Cuyp Dutch seascape, “View of the Maas at Dortrecht,” 1645, with the flat gray water like a mirror.

From the Italian Renaissance, there was Victor Carpacco’s “Hunting on the Lagoon,” 1490, set in the Venetian marshes, of men and women on boats hunting cormorants.  What a beautiful painting: the teal colored water, the black and red costumes, with simple, almost one dimensional figures and bright colors, all reminded me of Utrillo.   There was a Raphael Circle painting,”Portrait of a Man in Red,” 1483, showing Renaissance individualism.  Pontarino’s “Portrait of Halberdier,” showed a young Florentine nobleman dressed in a tan quilted jacket and red pants, and holding a rifle.   From the Flemish Renaissance, there was a Van der Weyden workshop piece, “Portrait of Isabel of Portugal,” with red cloak and a lace veil coming down over her face from a twin peaked hat like the one in Van Eyck’s wonderful young woman in white.

Other paintings which attracted my attention included Henri Rousseau’s “Celebration of Independence,” 1892, rather one -dimensional, of a crowd scene  in primary  colors;  and two Camille Corot’s, “Houses Near Orleans,” 1830, with lots of tans and distinctive rounded roofs and another one, even better, of a dark forested hillside, 1885, with a notation quoting impressionist leader Monet saying Corot was the father of us all.   There was a Van Gogh “Irises,” in green and yellow with the thick brush strokes; John Singer Sargent portrait of a woman in white, this time of Countess Aldringe; and a Turner nautical scene of British and Dutch ships working together, a bit more impressionistic than usual.

From the decorative arts building, there were French secretaries, tall desks, circa 1780, with sandal wood and ebony inlaid over oak, and with fold out drawers.  There was a Regency paneled room, 1670-1720 era, in turquoise and green, and a Roccoco, neo-classical room taken from Maison Hosten in Paris, 1795.   There was an exhibit of Frederich Evans’ photographs of British cathedrals and one of a cross section of a Nautilus sea shell, 1903, predating Westons’s similar photo.   There were some fabulous new discoveries for me beyond Carpacco:  Caspar David Frederich’s “Walk at Dusk,” from the German Romantic period, dated 1830, an almost eerie dark lavender backgrounded painting of a priest passing through a church courtyard at night under a waxing moon; and Ferdinand Khnopff, “Portrait of Jeanne Kefer,” 1885, of a young child wearing a brown coat and salmon colored bonnet and standing in front of a pastel-green and white framed door  on a gray tiled porch.

Getty Antiquities Museum

On a separate visit, I drove down from Santa Barbara, driving through Malibu Canyon to the Getty Villa, the antiquities part of the Getty Museum, a replica of a Roman summer house, based on the “House of Deer” which was uncovered near Herculenium, near Vesuvius, and reproduced by J. Paul Getty.  Roman houses were about fresoes, gardens, and walls full of art in various forms.  The Getty villa  included an ampitheater and Triclinium, or middle room, half indoors and half outdoors, connecting interior and exterior, and coral colored marble floor laid our in a kaleidosope pattern.  There were Greek, Etruscan,  and Roman statues scattered about the garden, and the museum took care to explain Etruscan (900-50 BCE), a culture based in Arezzo, Tuscany, its art  characterized by intricate patterning, including on classical statuary, delicate lines etched on marble robes and bronze figures.

My favorite  items at the Villa Museum included  a small polished piece of agate, an amulet used to recover from the flu, Roman, dated 200 AD; very light tan colored teracotta black-figure pottery, including  Greek oil jar and especially a wine cup depicting a fish monger chopping a tuna.. 525 BCE; Roman gold rings, set with a cameo etched from a red Carnelian gem stone; a Greek kouros, a marble statue of a young man approaching with outstretched and one leg forward, dated 520 BCE; a bronze Greek helmet, with holes for eyes only, dated 400 BCE; saucer shaped wine cups with markings in red and coral, dated 500 BCE; a flat, small bronze disc with an ibex bird on top, archaic Greek, dated 700 BCE; some wall fragments, mosaics, or plaster friezes with red and gray pigment scenes, my favorite of a woman and reclining leopard, and another of a peacock dated 75AD; Cycladic female figures, simple, translucent figurines with folded arms, dated 2700 BCE; a huge Etruscan storage jar, rust colored terracotta; marble busts of Augustus and Lydia; and a large hydra, or water jar, black and fluted, with gold trim, dated 340 BCE.  (2011)

I am staying at Pacific Beach, between La Jolla and San Diego, at the Pacific Terrace Hotel, looking out from the balcony at the lavender sea, palm trees, and five successions of white waves coming in, one on top of the other.  The surf is gentle.  A few surfers in wet suits are handling the small swells.  Shore birds are flying over with their “squeaks”, and two pigeons, gray, with small white bumps on their beaks, probably mates, share our balcony, sitting close together on the ledge, unafraid, looking at us benignly.

Looking out at the horizon and the blending of sky and sea in the distance, two slightly different shades of blue, I wonder if life and death are just different levels of specific gravity.  We live on one plane.  Perhaps, when we die, we simply merge to a new plane, like the blending of blues on the horizon, like the feeling in a near death situation where you float upward, looking down at your body as you float away.  Or, perhaps it is more like Faulkner’s entropy, which he describes in “The Bear,” where all life, all energy, continues on in new form.  We are all part of surrounding nature, and after we die, we merge with the clouds, soil, and vegetation.  My friend, Herb, from Helena, who is traveling with me, notes that all life seems to have a similar molecular makeup, plants and animals, and that we are closer, scientifically, than most people realize.  There is a common molecular structure.  He points to the similarity of humans and deer, and even bird internal organs, when dressing out animals.  Herb is a hunter, but lately can’t seem to pull the trigger on white tail deer in Montana during hunting season.   He is not religious and does not believe in life after death, but he is not afraid.  He thinks when you die, you live on in the memories of those who remember you.  There is nothing to worry about ahead, nothing to fear.  When we die, we die.  So what.  We should enjoy  being in our sixties and not think of the end.  We still have a lot of good years ahead of us.

I don’t know what got me thinking of life and death.  Perhaps it is because I am reading “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.”  Death always comes up in Hemingway, whose own soul floated away like a handkerchief slipping from his pocket before coming back during his close call in World War I.   In “Snows,” death is approaching the dying game hunter in Africa, appearing in his dreams as two men on bicycles or a hyena,  He dies on his cot, dreaming he is on a rescue plane to Arusha.  Beautiful and haunting.  No one beats Hemingway.

A pair of black crows are circling over the hotel, diving at the pigeons who left our balcony.   The pigeons are slower but more maneuverable, dodging the crows coming out of the sun.  The crows are patrolling.  I am trying to feed the pigeons, who have made it back to our balcony, where they have been joined by some sparrows, all getting along, sharing crumbs.  I love birds, and envy birders, going out with their guides and binoculars, traveling everywhere, jotting down birds seen, learning about them.  It’s like stamp collecting and astronomy clubs, you can learn a whole new world.

Herb and I called our wives back in Helena, then took off for a walk on the beach.  I had a rare treat, seeing two dolphins off shore, a bit out, swimming together, their backs arching in unison as they dove under then came up together.  They were dark, black, not the usual gray silver, and larger than most dolphins.  We went up to Torrey Pines State Park, high above the Pacific, on walking trails, high above La Jolla Shores.  We didn’t see any whales migrating, but we could see some spouts.  I have learned a lot from being around Herb on this vacation, namely that you don’t have to do a lot of running around.  You can just relax, and spend the morning having a healthy  bowl of cereal, then go out to the beach and journal, and make morning coffee, then take a hike at noon  at a nice place like Torrey Pines.  A bit of lunch at Rubio’s, an inexpensive but good Mexican grill, for fish tacos, and at some point drive over to the health foods store for some bread of barley and organic peanut butter and jelly, and salads for dinner.  Drink lots of water and eat healthy and decaf coffee again in the evening, getting on the Internet to see what is happening.  It is a lot different from my usual routine, running to museums and Cokes and pizza slices and bookstores.  But, I do get in my evening or night walk to the beach, no matter what– looking out at the ocean at night and the lights of small boats and towns in the distance along the coast.  California at night is still California of the 1940s.

Herb’s  life in California is the same as in Montana, but with more warmth and sun, which is his real reason for coming to San Diego.   He tracks weather forecasts carefully.   It is useful to watch how Herb can be frugal and how he takes care of his health.  I also notice how useful the Internet can be, the wealth of articles, and I watch how Herb is friendly with everyone, talking to strangers.  He has an inquisitive nature.  It is a good thing, being outgoing.  He strikes up conversations with everyone, store owners, hotel staff, a couple from Connecticut across the street from the Contemporary Arts Museum, people who turned out to be art historians.  Herb has good insights.  When talking how much we miss our wives, he observed the importance of couples building a life together, creating a shared history together that is bonding.  This shared history is the most important thing in a relationship, places you’ve been together, things you like, pets you have, relatives in common, your children, and their families.  Couples have reference points together.  This is what is important in a marriage.

Another thing I learned from Herb was to observe the California attitude, be positive and not affected by all the negative in the world.  Remain optimistic, healthy, and young.  Everyone here seems cheerful and says “hello” to others, including the girl in the health foods store who commented on our picking the right cereal, the desk clerks in the hotel who will do anything for you, and the state park employee at Torrey Pines who was a bit “new age,” philosophic,  just doing her job, laid back, no rush, enjoy the park.  California is almost unique in this: “have a nice day,” “surf’s up,” “dude,” “stoked,” “rad.”   You get good vibes here from the sun.  Good Karma, as Herb jokes, but respects.  No one is suspicious.  All are open with visitors, offering names of friends who do real estate, and have vacation rentals on the side, etc.  Herb feels he doesn’t need to do altruistic or humanitarian things, although he is active for the community at home.  It is enough to be friendly and kind to others along the way, to give people a hearing, respect.  Just be nice to everyone, make their day a little bit better.  If someone is not nice to you, just shrug it off, say to yourself “I’ve been treated worse.”  Don’t dwell on negatives, which only raise your blood pressure.

After Herb flies back to Helena, I start my own routines and projects, falling back into old habits, spending the day photographing architect Irving Gill’s houses and buildings.  I start in La Jolla with the Ellen Scripps House, now the Museum of Contemporary Art, and three Gill buildings adjacent to it:  the Bishop’s School and Scripps Hall; the La Jolla Recreation Center; and the La Jolla Women’s Club, all with arcaded fronts and rectangular, smooth-surfaced volumes, and square, wood-framed windows.  The plaster on the outside is very slightly tinted in each case, with a hint of mauve, pink, and blue mixed into the white respectively.  In addition, there is the Kautz House, now a bed and breakfast, next to the Women’s Club.  These are all classic Gill phase, 1907-12 works, a combination of Mission Style and modernism.  While in La Jolla, I saw two Gill residential works as well.  The first was Gill’s early period, less modernistic, 1894, “Windermere” house, a shingle covered cottage with hipped roofs, modest and rustic.  Gill once worked for Wright in Chicago, and this house reminds me of Wright’s pre-Prairie Style houses in Oak Park.  The other house was the 1907 Bailey House on Princess Avenue near La Jolla Shores.   Although altered, you can see the smooth-surfaced exteriors with arched windows for decoration, and with a unique sliding barn door entry adding a rustic, picturesque touch, plus an attached vine-covered pergola with wooden columns in the front garden.

Driving into San Diego, above Lindberg Field on Laurel Avenue, there is Gill’s Christian Science Church No. 2, with art glass windows and beautiful wrought ironwork fences included in the grammar.  From there, I enter the Balboa Park area, focusing on Gill’s more modest designs, modern white cubes, unadorned except for the occasional Gill trademark checkerboard pattern under a window, with windows and doors being cut into flat surfaces, like the early Adolph Loos houses in Vienna.  There are a few of Gill’s earlier 1890s houses, with craftsman or Tudor touches, and also the large, brick and cream, gabled Marston Mansion at Balboa Park, with sloping shingled roofs and some shingled siding, and lots of connected vegetation.  The third category of Gill houses, the one I admire most, consists of three 1907 houses across the street from the Marston Mansion.  Each is geometric, composed of modern cubes of smooth plaster, but with stained wood bands separating the floors, and touches of decoration added.   One is a dark brown wood and white plaster combination, with teal-colored window mullions.  Another is gray and tan, with oval and arched windows in addition to the square casements.  These are like the more elegant of Loos’ houses, reminding me also of Otto Wagner’s Villa No. 2, or Gropius’ Dessau Master’s Houses, or Olbrich at Darmstadt.  Gill is also classically inspired.  His later houses, in Los Angeles, are large, but simpler and unadorned, relying on the integrated cubes and rectangles, no arches, no colonnades, no art windows, no vined pergolas attached.

I take a side trip to Carlsbad.  There is something to be said for living to appreciate beauty.  San Diego’s North County is just that:  the best beaches, warm and friendly at night, waves coming in slowly and calmly, families around bonfires, strolling, beautiful lavender seas, parking on cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

My last stop is the San Diego Art Museum at Balboa Park.   They have a great American Impressionism permanent exhibit.   I am impressed by their Archipenko’s sculpture, “Twisting Torso,” of black marble and a Joao Miro’s sculpture, a large, low and horizontal “Solar Bird.”   I spent most of the time upstairs, at a special exhibit, an inspired Gluck family post-impressionist collection, carefully selected over the years.  This included George Braque’s “Still Life,” 1927, with unusual Vuillard-like colors, dark grays and dark greens; another Braque, called “The Corn Poppies,” 1946, in red; Raoul Dufy’s “The Seine in Paris,” 1904; and Modigliani’s “Blue Eyed Boy,” 1916, in red suit, blond hair.   I made some new discoveries: Kees Van Dongen, a Fauvist, with his  “Femme de Commerce du Revue,” 1908, mainly in dark blue cobalt and white, post-impressionistic, of a French woman of the night.   And there was Maximilian Luce, whose “Notre Dame,”  1900, was reminiscent of Monet’s Westminster series; Emile Bonnard’s “Breton Women in Fishing Boat,” 1889, reminiscent of Gauguin;  Vuillard’s “Madame Sossel in the Boudoir, Rue do Naples,” 1938; Maurice de Vlaminck’s “Village with a Church,” angular, Dutch Expressionism; and William Hartnett’s still life, ”Meganser,” 1883, of a hanging goose.  There was a Corot, “River Scene with Poplars and Houses,” 1850; Fitz Hugh Lane, “Coastline Harbor and Town,”  1865, of square masts and flat sea, grays; an Anthony van Dyke, Flemish, “Portrait of Mary Villiers,” 1636;  Diego’ Rivera’s greenish “Aqueduct,” 1948, a rounded form of Cubism; and George Innes’ farm landscape, dusky brown like Corot, entitled “Cattle in Pasture,” 1883.   There was also Thomas Eakins’ “Portrait of James Carroll Beckwith,” 1904, a large black canvas; and his “Elizabeth with a Dog,” 1871, the subject in red.  One of my favorites was Goya’s “Duke du la Roca,” 1875, white-suited nobility, gray background.  And there was Sorolia, another new discovery.  His “Maria de la Granga,” in white was Sargent-like.  The narrative said Sorolia was the best of the Spanish expats in Paris at the time.  The Museum also had a nice Italian Renaissance room, with a great Tintoretto, “Portrait of a Venetian,” 1550, in black; a Canaletto, “Grand Canal;” Veronese’s “Apollo and Daphne,” 1560; and a Giorgione, a new discovery, “Portrait of a Man,” 1509, more modern looking.  San Diego seems to relate to the Venetians.

I always have a hard choice between Santa Barbara and San Diego.  As I drive home, I do my sums.  The greatest impressions left are always of animals encountered, in San Diego it was a the three-legged shepherd with his owners on Pacific Beach, running out in the surf, not letting his disability slow him down, enjoying the beach.  What spirit dogs have.  And, there were the two pigeons at the hotel, clucking, walking into our room from the balcony, or sitting together on the ledge, or flying out, one drawing away the large crows diving at them.  Then there was Irving Gill and his 1907-12 California modernism, a touch of classical and a touch of Frank Lloyd Wright, his former boss who sent his son to apprentice with Gill in Los Angeles in the 1920s.  I loved driving around San Diego– Balboa Park, north County, Point Loma, and Mission Point– looking at the beautiful hilly areas,  lush vegetation, Eucalyptus, Palm, and Mimosa, and the expansive ocean views. It is still a bit of old California, with Wallace Neff Spanish Colonials and small bungalows and palms everywhere.  Paradise.

I arrive in Santa Fe on July 5.  Northern New Mexico reminds me of Tuscany: the art, the old families, the fresco colors, the great food.  There is something to be said for the mixture of sun and adobe, and light and shadow.  I have decided to treat myself to huevos rancheros every morning I awake in New Mexico.  This morning I am at one of the Village Inn franchises, and the “huevos” are “over easy” on a corn tortilla, smothered in green chili sauce, with pinto beans on side.  There are a lot of choices to be made when ordering.  Red or Green sauce?  How do you want the eggs?  Corn or flower tortillas?  Pinto beans, refried beans, or hash browns?  I ask for an extra order of flower tortillas to use as bread.  This is the traditional New Mexico style, with cheddar cheese melted in with the beans, and the whole ensemble running together when you break the yoke.  I am staying at a local secret, the El Rey Inn on Cerillos Road, an old-style, white painted, adobe motel straight out of the 1940s, but elegant, with lots of tile and shutters and graceful rooms which are more like suites.

After breakfast, I set out for the central Plaza, parking at the public garage on San Francisco Street.  I walk across the plaza and into the Palace of Governors and connecting Santa Fe Art Museum, which take up the northern side of the square.  Inside is a visiting exhibit from the Phillips Museum in Washington, D.C., of American Impressionism, like European Impressionism, but with a bit more diffused light and more realism.  The French is more two dimensional, using gray shading to provide perspective.  I enjoy Theodore Robinson, George Innes, J. Alden Weir, and especially Childe Hassam’s “Washington Arch in Spring,” expressing the new cosmopolitanism emerging in New York City in the 1890s.  Robert Spencer’s “A Women Ironing” reminded me of Millet.  There were some nice Taos Group painters from the early 1900s: Leon Gaspard’s “Taos Girl,” a bit abstract with lots of browns; Robert Henri’s “Maria in Wraps;” and a Gustave Baumann wood block with orange colors entitled “Frijoles Canyon.”  After the gallery, I explore the Plaza, browsing in the La Fonda Hotel gift shop.  I am attracted to their fossils, in particular, to a calcified turtle shell from South Dakota, chalky white.  I have been eyeing it for some time.   Leaving the La Fonda, I  wander over to Ortegas’ gift shop, also on the Plaza, buying a small, rectangular, silver Hopi belt buckle, before heading back to my room for a siesta.

Waking around three o’clock, I ask the desk clerk where I can find some good tacos.  He recommends a taco stand across the street, “The Burrito Stop,” which looks like a converted drive-in.   It is near two other stands that I know, “El Parasol” and “Felipes,”  also on Cerillos.   I ordered “carne adovada, shredded beef tacos, which they simply called “beef tacos.”  The tacos were, indeed, very good, large, and with a slightly smoky aroma, and the thin green taco sauce is not too spicy.  The shells were home made, dipped, still hot and only slightly oily, and irregularly shaped, with  a mixture of white and cheddar cheese sprinkled on top, covering a heaping pile of lettuce over the beef.  These were authentic Mexican, the new fad, rather than Tex Mex or New Mexican, tacos which we are used to.  The two employees, cook and waiter, were Mexicans, thin, like vaqueros, the real thing, serious, quiet, ranchero types.  Confirming my hunch,  I notice the only other car in the parking area is a Toyota Corolla parked at the side with Texas plates.  New immigrants perhaps, just in from the border.  I offer them thanks and get professional nods of appreciation in return.  The new immigrants are hard workers, entrepreneurs.

Knowing I have but one night in town, I decide to return to the Plaza.  I take Guadalupe Street, walking past the rail yards, Cowgirl Cafe, and Thomasitas Restaurant, my usual dinner stop.  That evening, I sit on a bench in the Plaza and do some people watching.  The streets are empty, unusually so, as a cowboy on his Appaloosa horse rides around the square, repeatedly.  I nod, and he nods back.  He is straight out of the 19th Century, full white mustache, tall hat, chaps, denim shirt, bandana, and a blue heeler dog trotting along beside, as he continues his nice pace, “clop, clop, clop,” on the pavement.  I notice the second time around that he has a cloth boot tied to the side of the horse, like a pouch, carrying an Australian shepherd pup, tan and white, its head sticking out.  They looked like a happy group, except the pup would like to be outside the boot.  Stretching my legs, I walk over to Don Gaspar street a couple of blocks away, admiring the photos in the Edward Curtis gallery.  I’m looking for my favorite, of native American horsemen riding through Canyon de Chelly, with its streaked gully walls as a backdrop.

The chimes are ringing at St. Francis Cathedral as walk along, reading the plaques on buildings, showing their 17th and 18th Century provenance.  If you are looking for place, next to Santa Barbara, Santa Fe may be the best place I have found.  After dark, I walk the deserted streets two blocks to the Cathedral and sit on a bench outside, admiring the structure, the tan stone, and Romanesque design.  Thee is a statue of St. Francis and the animals in front of the Cathedral, and a bird bath at the side, with an inscription from Aquinas saying birds are the most noble living things, clad in beautiful feathers, singing beautifully, and domiciled in the pure air.  On a wall next to the chapel, is a plaster cast of St. Francis, in white, lit by lights, just as the Cathedral facade is, leaving St. Francis’ prayer illuminated in the night: “may I be an instrument of your peace, sowing love, giving pardon, having faith, spreading light and joy.  I will not seek to be consoled as to console, to be loved as to love, to be understood as to understand.  For, it is in giving that we receive, in pardoning that we are pardoned, and in dying that we are born into eternal life.” The last clause is one of the more comforting things I have read about death, along with the Twenty Third Psalm, the Christian Science Scientific Statement of Being, and Anne Morrow Lindberg’s statement about being apart from life but part of it, in The Steep Ascent.   After sitting there, taking this in for a while, I walk back via Alameda Street, turning and paralleling the small canal and park which runs next to Paseo de Peralta street, backtracking to my motel.  On the way, I pass the Alameda Street bridge crossing to Canyon Road, the bridge where Klaus Fuchs passed the atomic bomb drawings to the Russians in 1945, while working at Los Alamos.  The things you can learn and see through travel.

The next morning I am on the road, seeing what may be the best part of New Mexico, the road north from Santa Fe to Taos, passing the Santa Fe Opera, and the villages of Pojaque and Arroyo Seco, branching off to the east through Nambe Pueblo to Chimayo, then onto the high back road to Taos that runs atop the pinon covered hills and mountains of the Sangre de Cristo foothills of the Rockies, pink soil amid the pinon trees, and with silver, billowing clouds above, and small casitas along the roads.  This is a magical high elevation vista: the sky lavender, the landscape coral and rust.  All the colors blend into a Hispanic and native American paradise, with buttes and bluffs in the near distance, and purple mountains far ahead behind Taos to the north.  I pass Ranchos de Chimayo, one of the best restaurants in the state, with tables on the vast lawn, the Hacienda Inn across the narrow road, and a few scattered adobe and territorial style houses, the latter with tin roofs.  There are state signs saying that certain native American villages are off limits.  At one point, I pass  over a washed out section of road.  I find myself driving along the high road above Lake Santa Cruz, on narrow winding roads lined with cottonwoods, and amid small unnamed towns which the road creeps and winds through, like in Spain.  I have to admit that I enjoy retirement now.

At one point, I  backtrack from the high road, winding back down to Espinola on the main highway.  Espinola is becoming Santa Fe’s north valley.  There are a lot of REMAX and Coldwell-Banker sings around.  But, it is still a lot of what New Mexico used to be, not yet a Santa Fe or Taos.  I pull into Blake’s Lotta Burger, a New Mexico drive in franchise, with burgers cooked on the grill.   There is a good feeling here.  It is a local hangout, with businessmen popping in for lunch.  A lot of cars are parked in the dirt lot, with customers waiting for the loud speaker to call their numbers.  Inside the drive in, elderly women are working the two windows, taking orders.  People in line are friendly with each other.  There is no hurry.  Everyone is nice.  Pigeons are everywhere in the lot.   After lunch, I am back on the highway to Taos, following the Rio Grande river the last ten miles, watching rafters in orange life vests aboard gray ten-person rafts running with the current, granite cliff walls in the background.   Emerging near Taos, on the Taos plateau, I can see miles of flat grassland, divided only by a narrow and deep  trench–the Rio Grande river gorge– winding is way northwest.

Getting into Taos, itself, I run into tall pine, rather than the stubbier pinon.  I drive through town on the single two lane street, passing Kit Carson city park, and continuing on north of town, to the outskirts, to Taos Pueblo, which I discover is about to close, at 5 p.m.   I backtrack along the main street, past the Taos Inn and Fechin House, on to the Quality Inn, a Desert Inn type motel of  the 1960s, low and spreading, built of sandy colored tan brick, and glass sliding doors, with a large pool and Elm trees covering the back lawn.  After checking in, I go out by the pool and sit on some metal chairs on the grass, under a metal awning in the light rain.  The mountains seem close.  I am reading A Moveable Feast by Hemingway, his 1920s Paris memoirs, preparing for my class in Helena.  The book transforms me back into Paris of the 1920s, just like the first time I read it as an undergraduate: the Left Bank cafes, Luxembourg Gardens, Cafe des Lillas, Deux Magots.  The air has a  fresh, pine smell in the rain.  There are some gray clouds directly above, and a high mountain in visible to the north, the Taos Ski Basin.  At 7,000 feet, I notice that Taos is cooler than Santa Fe.   The Taos light is gradually changing.  There are now clear blue openings in the clouds and more sunshine, which is diffused through the Elm trees giving me shade.

I go back up to the room to plan tomorrow’s gallery itinerary, then drive out to the downtown Plaza area to reconnoiter the route to the Harwood Gallery. In the distance, beyond the nearby pine trees, I can see pink adobe condos.  I remember to say a prayer for a brown dog I saw when driving through Espinola.  It was in the back of an old pickup, and was just skin and bones, its ribs outlined.  I pray it will be provided for and know love.  Seeing the Ernest Blumenschein museum is still open for half an hour, I park in the downpour on the narrow street in front, waiting till the rain subsides for a minute, then dodge the rain drops to run inside.  The museum is Blumenschein’s adobe house, and is typical of the vernacular, with lots of built on rooms, curved archways, wooden “niches,” “viga” cross beam timbers under the ceiling, and thick adobe walls throughout.  Sitting on an easel in the artists’s studio is his original painting, “Ranchos de Taos Church,” with gold tones and large brush strokes.  His “Mountains in Arizona,” on the dining room wall, has lots of reds, from his later period.  “The Portal” has vivid colors.  There is a Leon Gaspard painting on the living room wall, with its more post-impressionistic, abstract New Mexico scene.  I chat with the ladies who run the museum, and buy a small print of Walter Ufer’s “Where the Mountains Meet the Desert,” now in my Helena study, with its distinctive bluish mountains, tan arroyos, and predominant medium greens, then go back to the motel to have dinner in the dining room, looking out at the pool.

I return to my room, which has a small writing desk next to the window, and jot down notes on the Blumenschein Gallery, calling my wife and leaving a message, then scanning the television for baseball game.  As it gets dark, I do my Taos routine, driving south outside of town, then turning left off the highway, just beyond the city limits, continuing up a hill past a new hospital, past the new housing developments of  Ranchos de Taos, and finally turning on to an empty side road.  I switch off the headlights, cut the engine, and get out,  enjoying the evening as it turns into night, the bright stars close above in the foothills, the air cool and light.  Taos, a small town still, remains old New Mexico, like the Ansel Adams “moonrise” photo of Hernandez, 1943.  It is now totally dark except for the stars and a few lights sparkling in the distance, coming from small adobe houses and farms scattered over the plateau landscape below.  The smell of pine and pinon is stronger.  It is a night I won’t forget, like the one in Las Cruces, standing in Veterans Park, with orange and turquoise streaks in the sky to the west, or in Santa Barbara, on East Beach, with white lights of sailboats bobbing in the dark waters.  In all three cases, the beauty of the world is inspiring.  It is hard to pull myself away and go back to the room.  Three evenings to remember: desert, ocean, and mountains.   Life is a smorgasbord: the Taos night, Santa Fe Plaza in the evening, good tacos, Blumenschein’s art, even Lotta Burger in Espinola.

Finally, alone, crunching footsteps on gravel, I walk back to the car and turn on the engine.  The instrument panel lights up red in the night.  I go back to the motel, and lay out my clothes for the next day, a long sleeve maroon knit shirt, Wrangler jeans, black belt with my new Hopi buckle, and cordovan penny loafers, the same Bass Weejuns I have been wearing since 1965.  I read some Hemingway from A Moveable Feast, the chapter about a good cafe on the Place St. Michel, about Hemingway, the young man, writing about writing and about a girl he sees there.  “You’re mine forever, beauty,” he tells himself as he writes of her in his moleskin notebook using sharpened pencil.  I turn off the light, say a prayer, think about the White Sox lineup, my usual sheep, as I drift off.  I am like Jake Barnes in Hendaye, on the Spanish-French coast, in The Sun Also Rises.  Or, trying to be like Jake, enjoying the small things, folding his comb into his towel, laying out his clothes, and going into the ocean for a swim before retiring.  What a life, Hemingway had.

I awake in the morning about 8:30, take a long, hot shower to fully wake up, dress, and go downstairs to the dining room for breakfast, two eggs over easy, hash browns, two strips of bacon, and whole wheat toast with black coffee.  It came with the room.  Outside, there is a cloudless white sky telling me it is going to be hot.  I am the first to get into the Fechin House, known as the Taos Art Museum, the only person there when they open the doors. I take my time, strolling from room to room, admiring Fechin’s early Russian phase, his paintings of women, reminding me of Repin, his tutor, and of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.  Fechin’s style, however, is more abstract than Repin and Serov’s.  Fechin used wonderful red colors on his Taos portraits.  His “Manicured Lady,” in the dining room, is gray and impressionistic.  You can see see the knife scrapes on the canvas.  I also notice two very good Bert Reynolds paintings, “The Buffalo Hunter’s Son,” of a native American, plus “War Bonnet Shadows.”  Phillips was one of the founders of the Taos Art Colony.  There are also Martin Hennings, “Sunlit Foothills,” in green and tan, of pinon trees  and green mountains, and “Thinning Aspens.”  I have a large Hennnings’ poster on my bedroom wall in Helena.  Oscar Berningshaus’ “Crossing the Arroyo” is remarkable for its soft tones and hazy atmosphere, with just one bright color, of a gold saddle blanket.  Walter Ufer’s  “In a Pea Field” and “Kit Carson’s House” are my overall favorites.  The Fechin House, itself, now the museum, is impressive, a mixture of Russian and Hispanic decoration, with wood carvings, wrought iron, tiled bathrooms, and bulky wooden furniture, but with “international style” smooth white stucco exterior, cubist, and with square black metal window frames reminiscent of the Bauhaus.   From the Fechin House, I swing by the Harwood Museum, near the Plaza, where my favorites are E.I. Crouse’s firelight figures and his silver plate photographs, and J.H. Sharp’s “Body in a Teeepee,” of a native American asleep, rolled in a hammock, impressionistic and gray.

As I leave for Montana, I realize I missed a few of my regular haunts this visit.  In Santa Fe, I didn’t have breakfast at Tia Sophia’s, or blue corn enchiladas at the Shed, or visit Museum Hill and St. John’s College, or take in the Geogia O’Keefe Museum.  In Taos, I missed the Taos Inn and Taos Pueblo, the later so interesting with its famous church an communal style dwellings.  But, I have a lot to look forward on the road back: Four Corners and Moab, and Salt Lake City.  Life is indeed a smorgasbord, a  lesson  I learned from that great romantic and traveler, my Uncle Bob.   His spirit is suggesting I go back the long way through Phoenix, just so I can have bagels and lox at “Cocos.” (2009)