Weekend Thirty-Two

(Promenade on the Beach by Winslow Homer, 1880)

We began our weekend on Thursday evening at an Irish pub in Glastonbury called Hanafin’s. At the TubaChristmas concert the previous weekend, I was talking with director Gary Buttery and learned that he joins a small group of musicians to play Irish music there on Thursdays. And since I will start up again with Farmington Valley Band rehearsals in January, this might be our only chance to go and hear them.

Liz and Mark, Marie’s co-workers from Gainesville and California, were in town, so after a grueling day at the DOT, they were happy to join us. The food was pretty good. I had the mussels in Guinness cream sauce and Marie got the Bangers and Champ. Of course, we had a few Guinness to keep the throat from getting too dry. Here is a little video and a picture and a video:

In the spring we attended the student art show at Manchester Community College, so were delighted to attend the opening of the winter edition on Friday night. The art overflowed the packed gallery with paintings, drawings and sculpture in all of the hallways as well. The fantastic display was well attended and wonderful to look at. We recognized a couple of names from the spring show, but most were new. Here are a couple of our favorites:

Danielle Deptula

Sean Rossitto

Rebecca Hnatiuk

Gregor Bugaeff

Linda Blanchard

We went to see Hugo at the movies on Saturday night, with a very sparse audience of adults, and enjoyed it very much. The story and acting (Ben Kingsley as Méliès) were wonderful. And the computer and 3-D effects were all terrific. Critics say this is one of Martin Scorsese’s best films.

Fortunately, we watched the episode of The Daily Show with John Stewart with Scorsese as guest, last week. That way we learned about how Scorsese’s Hugo was much more than a children’s film. It was more of a “love letter” to pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès. I won’t go into his story right here, but it is a fascinating one.

There was one scene where a runaway train drove through the platform and out the side of Gare Montparnasse that I also know to be true, because I saw a photo of this while researching artist Fred Dana Marsh, who lived in the neighborhood. We visited the station a few years ago to ride the carousel that is there.

After taking Saturday off, we went up to Springfield, Massachusetts on Sunday. For those not aware of Springfield’s place in history, allow me to elucidate. Besides being the first Springfield in the US, there is a long list of firsts the city can claim. Too many to list here, see Wikipedia. I interned at the Springfield Symphony in the early 1970s and, believe it or not, the city has changed quite a bit.

Our first stop was to see Peter Toth’s Omiskanoagwiah – The Wolf People Medicine Man in Forest Park. This one of the many Indian sculptures Toth has done across the country which he calls the Trail of Whispering Giants. We returned to the 735-acre Forest Park, which was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, later for the Bright Nights.

Our next destination was the Michele & Donald D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts. This is one of the pillars of the Quadrangle, which includes the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum (Asiatic art and Antiquities), Springfield Science Museum (home of the first planetarium in the US), Museum of Springfield History, Connecticut Valley Historical Museum (closed for renovations) and the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden. Theodor Seuss Geisel was not only a Springfield resident, his father was superintendent of Forest Park for thirty years. Horton (of Horton Hears a Who) was based on Morganetta, an Indian elephant living at the Forest Park zoo.

It was lunchtime, so after buying our tickets (one ticket covers all museums), we headed to Main Street for a bite to eat. On the way I took a few pics:

The Puritan by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Click here to see a few more.

While Main Street has a good number of restaurants, most are not open on Sundays. Fortunately, the Red Rose Restaurant was. This 400-seat eatery is well-known for the best pizza in the Valley, but we were eager to get back to the museum, so just had a couple of Italian sausage grinders.

On the way back, we found one sneaker from the Art & Soles project which took place in 2010. As the home of basketball, the sneaker is the perfect object for a show like this in Springfield. Nineteen fiberglass sneakers were painted by artists and situated throughout the downtown area. Later an auction was held and they were removed. This one was inside a store window:

Flower Power by Gina Beavers

The art museum was presenting a special exhibition called Old Masters to Monet, for an additional $10. And while the subtitle says: Three Centuries of French Painting from the Wadsworth Atheneum, we found paintings from the 16th through the 19th centuries. Most of the work was done by lesser-known artists, but there were impressionist pieces by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas, Van Gogh and others. While Van Gogh did much of his painting in France, I’m pretty sure he is still considered a Dutch painter. No photos were allowed in this show, so here are a couple I found:

The Beach at Trouville by Claude Monet, 1870

Monet Painting in his Garden at Argenteuil by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1873

The rest of the second floor had rooms of European art from various countries and various periods. Here are some that I liked:

Le Papillon by Adolphe Jouran, c.1860

Ophelia by Jules-Joseph Lefebvre 1890

On the first floor was American art. There was even a hallway for a local artists – the first work by a female we had yet seen.  Here are a couple I liked:

Merry-Go-Round by Reginald Marsh, 1938

Studio Tea by Julian Alden Weir, 1888

There was also a small show called Je Ne Sais Quois: View of Paris:

Head of a Woman by Fernand Leger

Green Summer by Marie Laurencin

Click here to see more from the museum.

There was even a gallery for Currier & Ives prints, one of the largest held by a public museum of art.

It was now four o’clock and the Patriots were playing the Broncos, so we headed to Worthington Street to drop in at Smith’s Billiards, the oldest pool hall in New England, to catch some of the game.

On the way, we found a few pieces of sculpture by Mark Evald Johnson in Court Square:

As well as this monument to William McKinley which was originally unveiled at an entrance to Forest Park in 1905:

by sculptor Philip Martiny

Unfortunately, Smitty’s was closed due to a private function. Lucky for us, downstairs was Theodore’s, a funky old bar that was voted the “Best Blues Club in the Country.” They had Guinness on tap, lots of tv’s and a wall-sized projection of the game. The crowd was spare but growing. When the Patriots missed a play or Denver made one, the groans were in unison. We stayed for an hour or so before heading back to Forest Park. (The Patriots were still behind when we left but later won the game by a wide margin.)

Bright Nights is a project of Spirit of Springfield, which raises money for various charities. This is the 17th year and they’re up to 650,000 bulbs and I don’t know how many visitors. It was bumper to bumper when we got there. Our ticket was a gift from our friends Kathy and Fred. Here is some video and a couple of pics:

Click here for more photos.

One note about the video regarding "Toyland," "Candyland," "Game of Life," and "Monopoly" are there because Milton Bradley began in Springfield.  Also, the dinosaurs are there because there are dinosaur footprints in Forest Park.  Finally, I thought I'd include this photo of a private home all decked out: