#518 Saint and Nation and Maps

Kelly keeps telling me he has a cool job in the Scholars' Lab.  

He's always been inquisitive, so he's energized by working with scholars from so many different disciplines who use Geographic Information Systems.  And he likes to make maps.

A few months ago, he came home with stories of his search for 17th-century political boundaries of Spain.  He'd been consulting with Erin Rowe on her forthcoming book tracking the "Spanish devotion to the cult of saints".

Now Saint and Nation is published and shelved at Alderman Library.  Four maps are bound inside. They clearly show, among other things, Spanish political boundaries from the 17th century.

Yours in agreeing Kelly has a cool job,
Mary

#517 Plein Air Dining

Sometimes, many wonderful things happen all at once. 

Last weekend - so filled with friends and weddings and gorgeous summer weather and outdoor dining - was one of those times. 

Outdoor dining?  Now, I'm not saying that this was the best part, but we savored every meal from Thursday to Sunday - outside.  We Johnstons don't excel in the kitchen, so mixing out-of-town company with the perfect summer weather yielded Thursday night dinner at Petit Pois, Friday lunch at Basil, Friday dinner under a tent in Orange, Saturday lunch at Eppie's, Saturday dinner outside the UVA observatory, and Sunday brunch at The Nook.

I don't want to be accused of placing the emphasis on the wrong thing here, but really.  Does it get any better than this?  Perhaps we need to modify the Johnston Visitor Plan to focus more on plein air dining, because Charlottesville is really, really good at it.  Much love to Margaret, our friend and weekend dining companion, for joining in the fun.

Yours in enjoying a delightful and delicious weekend,
Mary

#516 Wedding Geometry

Saturday, 9-10-11, was a day for weddings, both geometric.

The afternoon outdoor wedding made fine use of spirally arranged chairs.

To start the service, each member of the wedding party walked single file into the spiral's opening, circumambulating toward the center and the waiting officiant, passing every guest along the way.  

As the service began, we all served as ring bearers.  The person seated at the spiral opening produced the wedding rings tied to a decorative pillow and passed them to his right.  This blessing of the rings passed through the hands of each guest until delivery at the spiral's center.

The evening wedding made fine use of spheres.

Under a hemispherical observatory dome, the bride and groom wed. Hemispherical wedding cakes arranged in sequence away from a central sun cake mimicked our solar system.

We all took turns watching a full round moon through a five-ton telescope.

Yours in appreciating our creative geometric newlywed friends,
Kelly

#515 Moshe Safdie - Wow!

Sometimes a building just makes me say Wow!

A few days ago I watched Charlie Rose interview architect Moshe Safdie.  I was shocked to learn how many Wow! Safdie buildings we've recently encountered in our travels without knowing their common architect. 

Singapore: Marina Bay Sands

National Mall: Unites States Institute of Peace

 Arkansas: Crystal Bridges Museum of Art

Kansas City: Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

Montreal: Habitat '67

all images: msafdie.com

Architecture, it's my one weakness.  And maps.

Yours in enjoying the Wow! and the maps,
Kelly

#514 Frank Lloyd Wright's Zimmerman House

"A work of art for kindred spirits"

He was a doctor and husband.  She was a nurse and wife.  Together these kindred spirits wrote a letter to Frank Lloyd Wright asking him to design "a small, spacious, simple home" to fit their Manchester, New Hampshire lifestyle. 

Three years later the happy couple moved into their shiny new 1700 square foot modern home.  Although the neighbors laughed, calling Wright's Usonian design a "chicken coop", the owners loved the place.  It fit them.  They enjoyed it for more than thirty five years, then donated the little gem to the local Currier Museum of Art upon their deaths. 

Mary and I have been fortunate to visit more than thirty Frank Lloyd Wright sites around the world but never in New Hampshire and never one that felt like such a great fit for us, this house designed for two.

Yours in enjoying the benefits of kindred spirits,
Kelly

#513 Nate Visits Charlottesville

Get ready.  I'm about to show you how cool it was for us to have our nephew Nate hang out for a few days of fun around Charlottesville.

We're off to a strong start, Skyping with the fam in Germany and Idaho and Missouri.

 We outsmarted the July Virginia heat by hanging out underground.

Outside the cave was too hot, so we hiked deep into the longest pre-Civil War tunnel in the United States.

Yea, I'd hiked this tunnel on Halloween before, but this July trip had the super dense scary fog and these scary cars. Don't ask. You had to be there. Scary.

After the tunnel we were chilly, so we fixed that by hiking to Humpback Rocks where we chilled.

Before he flew home, Nate made about 50 new friends at a party.  He's so Rambis.

Yea, too bad that visit ever had to end.

Yours in hangin' with cool,
Kelly

#512 Boat Trip

If you are missing the MV Explorer, you might consider watching Boat Trip.

Boat Trip, a 2002 Cuba Gooding Jr movie, is not known for its cinematic excellence.  (Check out the trailer.) Cuba and his friend Horatio Sanz are having women trouble so they sign up for a cruise (not a voyage!) to get away - only to discover it's a gay cruise.  But if you look past all the shenanigans, you'll see that much of Boat Trip was filmed on board the Olympic Voyager (the sister ship to the MV Explorer) like this scene on the 7th deck port side.  

The happy ending involves Cuba parachuting into the pool on the 7th deck.

And if you watch closely, you can see some of the differences between the Olympic Voyager and the MV Explorer:

• The Olympic Voyager has a gangway entrance on deck 3. (The MV Explorer gangway is only on decks 2 and 5.)
• The Olympic Voyager deck 5 cabins have bay windows (The MV Explorer deck 5 cabins have balconies.)
• The Olympic Voyager has a sporty yellow racing stripe. (The MV Explorer stripe is orange.)

Yours in enjoying the Olympic Voyager as a substitute for the real thing,
Mary