I definitely wore my wife out today. When we got home from art galleries, she said that for her upcoming birthday...

[NNadir]

...among her gifts, she would like Charles Manson coconut brandy.

What she meant:



I wore her out.

We went to the Zimmerli Museum in New Brunswick to see the wonderful...Native American Art Exhibit.

It appears they were setting up for a panel talk, Topographies of Dissent: Opening Reception & Panel Conversation (The Zimmerli has one of the world's best collections of Soviet era dissident - non-conformist, as opposed to the officially sanctioned Stalin era "socialist realist" - art.)

I wanted to stay for the panel discussion (free wine afterwards at the reception), but she said, "Listen Bub, I have a daily long commute; I'm exhausted and I can't spend all of my free time on academic type talks." (She works in academia; so there's that.)

OK, if you think you should drink Charles Manson drinks, you do deserve a rest.

[IbogaProject]

1. I love the Zimmerli !!

It is a great museum. I was suprised by the Newark Museum of Art as well.

[NNadir]

2. The Zimmerli is indeed, a great museum. One of the great benefits of living in New Jersey, is access to great art.

The Met, the Modern, the Whitney, the Guggenheim in NY - and one I definitely need to get to before I die - the Neue, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Barnes Foundation, the Rodin museum, the Princeton University Museum (soon to reopen on Halloween), and finally, the museums we visited recently in the Hudson Valley, the Bard Museum of Art, the Vassar Museum of Art.

My first serious date (where I actually thought I had a chance with her) with my wife was at the Modern. I ran into her on campus, after not seeing her for a while, and we chatted, and I mentioned the show at the Modern I was going to see, and she told me she'd love to go but couldn't afford it. I told her I'd treat, for the "pleasure of your company," and things went uphill from there. It was one of the many "best days of my life" I shared with her.

[IbogaProject]

3. I first caught my now wife's attention

Describing catching a sunset on the Met's Roof. Sadly they are now going to build it up in height. It was just above the Central Park Tree canopy.

Another for your list is The Frick Collection. An old Guilded Age mansion w an intact art colection. https://www.frick.org/

[NNadir]

6. Thanks. I didn't know that the Frick collection existed. Interestingly, the Chemistry building at Princeton is...

...named for Frick. I never looked to see who he was, but when the moved the Chemistry Department to a new building, they kept the name.

He was an interesting guy, a coal and steel magnate involved in the Johnstown Flood apparently because his "hunting club" failed to maintain their dam.

It's not like contempt for the poor by the super rich is a new thing.

Henry Clay Frick.

I took out of the library this week, an interesting book, about which I learned from a wealthy person ironically enough, called "The Great Leveler", even more ironically printed by the Princeton University Press, which contends that the only solution to great wealth inequity is violence, i.e. kill the rich.

I'm not sure I'll find time to read it, as my reading backlog is enormous now. I'm having a very hard time keeping up.

In any case, thank you. The provenance of great art is troubling - the Met was largely financed by the Sackler family ultimately of Oxycontin fame (although a Sackler, Arthur, pre-oxycontin, can be credited with the creation of the modern pharmaceutical industry).

Irrespective of the provenance and the ugliness behind its acquisition, great art is still great art.

I'll check it out before I die, I hope, but next on my list for great NY museums is the Neue. I am a huge fan of Max Beckmann, and as a result, I am very interested in the Weimar era German Art, as the country descended into fascism.

Thanks again. I appreciate the knowledge.

[IbogaProject]

7. The Neue is great !!

Frankly they are close 85th & 70th & 5th, and ate both half day museums, so w lunch at one you could do both, in one sweep.

[NNadir]

8. My wife and I are spending our 40th wedding anniversary in New York with a play, lunch and dinner.

Perhaps we can do it then, particularly, as we're considering, getting a hotel room.

(For me, it's actually our 41st anniversary.)

[IbogaProject]

9. Have a great visit

And a very happy anniversary !!

[IbogaProject]

11. Econ was one of my two majors

And I really got into Economic History and Economic Philosophy. This "violence is the only solution" was covert propiganda after the Paris Commune. Marx's partner and benefactor was wealthy and I believe that is where the violence is the solution came from. I feel if we are to ever get out of this mess is for a global asset audit and really figure out who owns what. Then we have to decide how to provide enough, sustain the environment while allowing for research, innovation and ability for good ideas to be rewarded. I lament that Carter's plan to eliminate oil imports by 2000, using 1970s tech being discarded by the GOP & Reagan is such a catastrophe.

[NNadir]

12. This is probably off topic in the Lounge, but Carter's energy policy "to get off oil" was potentially disastrous.

It included Fischer-Tropsch chemistry, which would have proved even more climatically odious than oil and gas.

It was a viable, but extremely dirty, coal to oil process, industrialized in Nazi Germany and in Apartheid era South Africa.

I loved Jimmy Carter the man, and I voted for him twice, but while many people think his energy policies were wise, I'm glad they fell through.

His decision to give a "moral example" - a reflection of his religious views - by not reprocessing used nuclear fuel was not wise, although, I will admit that if he'd moved forward, as Britain and France did, ignoring his "moral example," it would have been a Purex chemistry approach, not the best. I think there is far better technology now and happily, we now have lots of aged used nuclear fuel, if we're wise enough to use it.

[IbogaProject]

13. Interesting

I am glad we didn't go with coal gasification, but it might have been better to have sent less money to foreign despots.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. You went to Canada -- and came *back* ?? WHY ????

I think I would have rather gone to hide in the woods than come back to Trumpistan.

[NNadir]

10. My good friend, wrong New Brunswick. NJ, not Canada.

My son went to Canada recently and came back. (Quebec, not New Brunswick).

Once he finishes his Ph.D, and his girlfriend finishes hers, I hope they'll go there (or France, or somewhere in parts of Europe that remain civilized) and never come back.

[eppur_se_muova]

14. Next you'll tell me that off-ramp in Maine doesn't really lead to Poland ! ;)

I know to be careful re. Portland and Madison (and of course Springfield) but I'm not sure the name New Brunswick, NJ ever impinged on my brain. If it did, it apparently left no impression.

Well, gotta run -- I have less than half an hour to get to Athens.

[some_of_us_are_sane]

5. OMG! Sounds like the kind of mental hiccup I suffer from!

LOL!!! Thank you! (We can all use some comic relief.)

[Floyd R. Turbo]

15. I hear that Charles Manson is a

killer brandy!

[NNadir]

16. I don't like coconut and thus won't take a stab at it.

[Floyd R. Turbo]

17. It has a cult like following!