Massachusetts Trip
Nov. 12th, 2022 08:34 amAs I commented in yesterday’s post, I am returned from Massachusetts! An excellent trip! Extra shout-out to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skygiants and genarti for letting me show up a day early when my initial plan to stop in Ithaca fell through when my hostess’s son took ill. (This resulted in a fourteen-hour drive and PERHAPS the course of wisdom would have been to stop at a hotel, but no regrets.)
Highlights of the trip, in roughly chronological order:
Two days in Concord! On the first day, I recreated (backward) Georgie’s walk in The Fledgling from her house to Walden Pond. (Did not meet a Goose Prince who could teach me how to fly. Perhaps if I had started at Georgie’s house and walked to Walden Pond rather than the other way around.) Also waded in Walden Pond as it was very warm.
Second day: visited Louisa May Alcott’s house, which featured a video of an LMA reenactor warmly welcoming us into the house, when we all know that the real LMA would have been climbing out the back windows to avoid annoying literary fans. Particularly enjoyed the paintings that May (Amy in Little Women) sketched directly on the wall.
In the evening we watched the Biggles movie, in which a perfectly good Biggles movie has been inexplicably chopped up to introduce a time-traveling TV dinner salesman, who is somehow the main character, even though the movie is called Biggles and also the time-traveling TV dinner salesman actor can’t act. Baffling.
(However it did later on contribute to a conversation about plotting, action sequences, World War I pilots etc. which may have finally cracked the story of the World War I princess fighter pilot and her communist BFF who overthrew the monarchy and is now trying to have the princess executed by firing squad! “It’s not personal, Fritzi.” “If it’s so impersonal, then why don’t you shoot me yourself? Or are you too good to complete the same tasks as common soldiers?”)
On Saturday,skygiants and genarti and I visited the Athenaeum! If I lived in Boston I would be DEEPLY tempted to get a membership. If only I could split in two and the second me could make it her life’s work to read in the Athenaeum all day long… Told them the v. important story about how Josephine Preston Peabody and her BFF Abbie Farwell Brown used to use a specific book in the Athenaeum as a post office to leave notes to each other. Doesn’t that sound like the beginning of a novel in itself?
Then the second leg of my journey began! I went to western Massachusetts to visitasakiyume, and we went to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, where I would happily leave yet another, third self simple to read through the entire picture book library… However, I suspect this third self would eventually finish the holdings (it is a small library, and picture books are quick to read; I zoomed through Christopher Denise’s adorable Knight Owl about an owl who becomes a knight and befriend a dragon), at which point perhaps it would pop over to the Yiddish Book Center (literally right across the street! asakiyume and I went on a tour with a wonderfully knowledgeable guide) and teach itself Yiddish, because if you can subdivide like an amoeba and have infinite selves then why not?
…Curiously enoughasakiyume and I also watched Severance, which is about a different and darker kind of subdivision of selves. Amazing. Can’t believe it ended on a cliffhanger like that. Fascinating to see the different ways that these characters have adjusted (or refuse to adjust) to life in this totalizing workplace that their subdivided selves never get to leave.
Oh, and we made an apple pie! I made the crust and it turned out pretty nicely if I do say so myself.
And then back on the road, with a stop in Ithaca after all, as my friend’s son had recovered from his indisposition and it was safe for me to come! I took along the picture books Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Anatole as presents and said son (two years old; obsessed with trains; “Can’t he get to his dinosaur phase yet?” my friend sighed) requested each one read at least twice, so overall successful presents.
And then home again! And then right back to work yesterday, and now I am weary. Today perhaps will be a quiet day to rest, but I do want to get back to writing soon… I rattled off the first chapter of The Princess and the Communist (working title; had to set aside The Flying Princess) while on the road but of course one needs all the subsequent chapters too!
skygiants and genarti for letting me show up a day early when my initial plan to stop in Ithaca fell through when my hostess’s son took ill. (This resulted in a fourteen-hour drive and PERHAPS the course of wisdom would have been to stop at a hotel, but no regrets.)Highlights of the trip, in roughly chronological order:
Two days in Concord! On the first day, I recreated (backward) Georgie’s walk in The Fledgling from her house to Walden Pond. (Did not meet a Goose Prince who could teach me how to fly. Perhaps if I had started at Georgie’s house and walked to Walden Pond rather than the other way around.) Also waded in Walden Pond as it was very warm.
Second day: visited Louisa May Alcott’s house, which featured a video of an LMA reenactor warmly welcoming us into the house, when we all know that the real LMA would have been climbing out the back windows to avoid annoying literary fans. Particularly enjoyed the paintings that May (Amy in Little Women) sketched directly on the wall.
In the evening we watched the Biggles movie, in which a perfectly good Biggles movie has been inexplicably chopped up to introduce a time-traveling TV dinner salesman, who is somehow the main character, even though the movie is called Biggles and also the time-traveling TV dinner salesman actor can’t act. Baffling.
(However it did later on contribute to a conversation about plotting, action sequences, World War I pilots etc. which may have finally cracked the story of the World War I princess fighter pilot and her communist BFF who overthrew the monarchy and is now trying to have the princess executed by firing squad! “It’s not personal, Fritzi.” “If it’s so impersonal, then why don’t you shoot me yourself? Or are you too good to complete the same tasks as common soldiers?”)
On Saturday,
skygiants and genarti and I visited the Athenaeum! If I lived in Boston I would be DEEPLY tempted to get a membership. If only I could split in two and the second me could make it her life’s work to read in the Athenaeum all day long… Told them the v. important story about how Josephine Preston Peabody and her BFF Abbie Farwell Brown used to use a specific book in the Athenaeum as a post office to leave notes to each other. Doesn’t that sound like the beginning of a novel in itself?Then the second leg of my journey began! I went to western Massachusetts to visit
asakiyume, and we went to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, where I would happily leave yet another, third self simple to read through the entire picture book library… However, I suspect this third self would eventually finish the holdings (it is a small library, and picture books are quick to read; I zoomed through Christopher Denise’s adorable Knight Owl about an owl who becomes a knight and befriend a dragon), at which point perhaps it would pop over to the Yiddish Book Center (literally right across the street! asakiyume and I went on a tour with a wonderfully knowledgeable guide) and teach itself Yiddish, because if you can subdivide like an amoeba and have infinite selves then why not? …Curiously enough
asakiyume and I also watched Severance, which is about a different and darker kind of subdivision of selves. Amazing. Can’t believe it ended on a cliffhanger like that. Fascinating to see the different ways that these characters have adjusted (or refuse to adjust) to life in this totalizing workplace that their subdivided selves never get to leave. Oh, and we made an apple pie! I made the crust and it turned out pretty nicely if I do say so myself.
And then back on the road, with a stop in Ithaca after all, as my friend’s son had recovered from his indisposition and it was safe for me to come! I took along the picture books Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Anatole as presents and said son (two years old; obsessed with trains; “Can’t he get to his dinosaur phase yet?” my friend sighed) requested each one read at least twice, so overall successful presents.
And then home again! And then right back to work yesterday, and now I am weary. Today perhaps will be a quiet day to rest, but I do want to get back to writing soon… I rattled off the first chapter of The Princess and the Communist (working title; had to set aside The Flying Princess) while on the road but of course one needs all the subsequent chapters too!
