Maps, glass and friends

This past weekend Sarah and I spent a very fun weekend together- it's been too long!!  The original plan was to see the Chihuly exhibit on Saturday afternoon, but by the time we got there, the line was out the door and the tickets were sold out.  So we made the best of a hot and sweaty day, and went to the Maparium in the Mary Baker Eddy Librairy near the Christian Science Cathedral. 



I took a trip here in the 3rd grade, and it was about the same as I remember.  Of course, all I really remember is standing inside the giant globe. 

After the globe, and it's nifty acoustics experiments (you think I'm loud in regular rooms...), we toured the cathedral.  The neo-classical architecture is beautiful, and we caught the tail end of a free tour.



The organ in the Old Part of the church

  

The organ in the main church.

I really enjoyed learning about Mary Baker Eddy.  She seemed geeky and progressive for her day in the 1800's, and a completely logical response to the sketchy practices of medicine at that time.  Mary founded the Christian Scientist movement, in response to folks becoming more ill via modern medicine (which included bloodletting, balancing humors, etc) than with common prayer.  Frankly, I think I'd come to the same conclusion if I were she.

The evening was spent watching Breaking Bad, touring through Sarah's Greatity-great uncle's letters from the 1840's (Wow!) and checking out her rockin' new audio-visual setup.  Blue ray... wooooowwww....

We also bought our tickets in advance, and went back to the MFA in the morning.  After fancy coffee and smoothies of course.

The museum was AWESOME.  Chihuly is neat- I love glass art as much as pottery, with it's fluid lines and strong postures.  Most of his work feels very aquatic and peaceful.  His first work is obviously aquatic, but a little crowded, like a scene from Alice in Wonderland.


We're gonna need a bigger boat!



In the basket exhibit, but they look like jellyfish to me.



Part of the ceiling



The chandeliers room


More images of the show are here.  There were loads of people.  Going early was the best possible plan.  The rockin'est part of the exhibit, tho, was the MFA's audio guide. 


It's hard to tell, but it's an artist working with molten glass.

 It's an iPod Touch!!  Not only did you get an audio tour of the special exhibit, but it contained videos of Chihuly's agents creating the exhibits.  And it was useful for the ENTIRE MUSEUM.  Punch in the number of the John Singer Sargent portrait you're looking at, and you get a multimedia presentation on it's context, technique, and some side notes of the people involved.  Amazing.  I asked if they had something like this available in the iTunes store, and they said they were working on it.  How amazing would it be to download an entire museum, learn the history of the pieces you want to see, before you go?



This cow made me laugh after touring the serious art.

The day ended with a much-needed trip to Anna's Taqueria on Sarah's back porch.  Perfection.  Thanks for a great time, Sarah!  Hope we can do it again soon.