Memorial Day

I spent the holiday weekend in Boston because the threats of snow and general cold unpleasantness made going out of town not seem worth it. My imaginary vacation to Maine involves more kayaking and blueberrying and pretending to be a grizzled lobster fisherman and less sulking in a raincoat about not being able to go to the beach.

Luckily free weekend at the Museum of Fine Arts helped console me about having to stay inside, along with delicious Turkish brunch at Istanbul’lu (embedded sound autoplay warning). And some baby ducks in the Public Garden.

There was also a viewing of The Evil Dead involved, which was as amazingly terrible as I had been promised, and would have been even better had I not gotten up to use the bathroom afterward and discovered the paint puffing off the wall and a giant water stain on the ceiling. I’m actually still not convinced that the walls aren’t going to start bleeding but fingers crossed.

And I bought a sundress because I am a sucker. There is probably some mystic level of self-aware anti-consumerist thought that allows you to spend your day walking around Newbury Street’s shopping propaganda and not buy anything, but I have not achieved it.

Flags on Boston Common – one for every Massachusetts service member who died in the line of duty since the Civil War.

“Parakeets and Gold Fish Bowl” by Louis Tiffany, stained glass at the MFA, created for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (whoo).

More stained glass, along with the view behind the building when the sun finally came out. My love of stained glass approaches unreasonable.

So much museum jewelry. So many identifying cards I forgot to take pictures of.

In the “New Blue and White” exhibit.

“Untitled” (Water), part of the Passages series by Felix Gonzales-Torres, who you may remember from the candy pile at the Art Institute in Chicago.

“Lilith” by Kiki Smith. “Long relegated to the realms of superstition and viewed as an evil spirit dangerous to men and children, Lilith has been reinterpreted in recent decades as an ideal of female strength and independence.” (Boston MFA)

“Endlessly Repeating Twentieth Century Modernism” by Josiah McElheny. Meant to be a statement about modernism and capitalism, I got distracted by shiny, which seems like a statement on its own.

Ducklings! Hopefully to be made way for at some point.