museum – Changing Way

Three Things I Liked About Dallas

I like exploring places new to me. The thing I liked most about my recent trip to Dallas was that, for the first time in over two years, I was able to travel to and explore a new place.

The second, and most Dallas-specific thing, was the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. Its website is jfk.org. It is in the building from which Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy. The museum gives great insight into the early 1960s, Kennedy, the assassination, and the many theories about the assassination.

I also enjoyed visits to the Dallas Museum of Art and to other art museums. But if you have to visit just one of the city’s many museums, I recommend heading to Dealey Plaza.

The third thing was the food, and in particular, barbeque. Maybe bbq should have been the first thing! They cook bbq slow and serve it fast (I lunched early, avoiding peak times). The beef at the famous Pecan Lodge was particularly tasty, although I’ll never be able to resist pulled pork.

I was also impressed by Tex-Mex, Chinese, and Indian food in the Dallas area.

I really enjoyed my few days in Dallas. But what did I miss?

DC Photo Safari

Washington DC was a lot of fun over the last few days. Since I expect to be spending a lot of time in and around the capital (if not the Capitol) over the years to come, it hereby joins the elite ranks of things that have their own category on this blog.

I found DC to be a very photogenic city, even though we’re at the opposite end of the year from spring, the season in which it is reputed to be at its best. I particularly loved the East Building of the National Gallery of Art. I refer to, and loved, both the building itself and the contents.

I asked very respectfully on the way in whether photography was permitted within the museum: without flash, of course. I was told that it was permitted with flash (but with some additional and, to me, reasonable restrictions). So I snapped away happily, but without flash, which I consider to be intrusive inside museums (and in many other places).

In contrast, when I tried to take a photo of the Thurgood Marshall building, I was told that it was not allowed. I may construct a grumble later, but right now it’s time to head back to Boston.

Fun in Philly

Philadelphia fun this weekend has included a trip to the Museum of Art and a surprise. It has also included more heat and humidity than I’m happy to cope with in April, and the disappointment of not seeing the Cézanne exhibition to which I was so looking forward. We were at the museum in the morning, and the next entry time for which there were tickets available was 4pm.

But enter and enjoy the museum we did anyway. We went, not only to the main museum, but also to the Perelman Building. Some of the gallery space there is currently devoted to an exhibition of Henri Matisse and Modern Art on the French Riviera. The painting is by Dufy, and shows the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, along which I promenaded many times when I lived near there.

In the afternoon, we were fortunate enough to stumble across Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, a much-mosaic’d house and courtyard. You can see my ***** review at Yelp.

Sun Day in Philly

This is Philbert, mascot of Reading Terminal Market. I think that it compares very favorably with Boston’s Quincy Market, in that it’s more of a market than a mall. There’s a short video of the market at the end of this post.

I am impressed with the Philadelphia Museum of Art (and will leave comparisons with Boston’s MFA until I’ve had a good chance to check out the expanded MFA). We were lucky to catch, on the penultimate day, the excellent Nandalal Bose exhibition (here’s a review in the NYT).

I’ll just mention the hotter-than-the-August-weather Szechuan lunch we had in Philly’s Chinatown, and my regret and surprise that the name of the restaurant isn’t seared into my mind. I also regret that I didn’t take a picture of the poster offering an “infamous Vietnamese hoagie” or something like that. If you want to linger in Philly, here’s that video of Reading Terminal Market: