Travels in the 2nd half

When I was a child, in elementary school, we would go on a class trip to the Museum of the American Indian just about every year. This was not a trip to Washington DC, where the museum is today. It wasn’t a trip to the financial district either. It was a trip to a collection of beautiful beaux-arts buildings called Audubon Terrace. While the museum has moved to both the financial district and Washington DC, Audubon Terrace is still here and still beautiful. Audubon Terrace is named after John James Audubon because it is built on land that once was his family estate. John James Audubon is best known for his paintings of the birds of America, which he produced and published in 1827. Audubon was born in Haiti, and moved to New York in 1803. Throughout his life he move around the country and its territories. But for the last 10 years he lived on an estate he bought along the Hudson River, north of New York City. The 20 acre estate became known as Audubon Park as his widow...

Detail of BaaBaa (2016) by Sam Levigne If you are a devotee of digital art, or if you don't know anything about digital art, but want to learn about it, head to The Current Museum of Art before December 15th. The Current Museum of Art is a non-profit dedicated to preserving and exhibiting digital art. While it is looking for its permanent home the museum is running a "Beta Test" in a pop-up space at 60 Sullivan Street (entrance on 6th Ave.). Here they are running two exhibitions. In their main space is Test Patterns: Works. This exhibit of works by 10 artists show a wide range of digital art. One piece that really caught my eye was BaaBaa by Sam Levigne . Alibaba.com employs uniform metrics for all goods and services, meaning you can order crates of watches and units of coal, but also crates of domestic maids and units of sushi chefs. This blunt quantification if human life, sold alongside tools for the suppression of popular dissent, exposes pattern of...

I have been sick this week, so instead of writing out a long piece I am going to share some photos. I have found out where all of the original VW Beetles have gone to retire - Mérida Mexico. Walking around town I saw Beetles almost everywhere I looked. Here are some of the ones I was able to get photos of:

Hanford Mill One of the things that I like about getting off of the interstate is that I stumble across pleasant surprises when I drive along state highways. For example, when I visiting the town Oneonta NY in September, I took a drive along NY Route 23 east from town I noticed a sign for the “Hanford Mills Historic Site.” Having a couple of hours to pass and a very willing passenger, I turned off of NY-23 and into the past. Two-and-a-half miles along the Meridale-Davenport Center Road (County Road 10) is the Hanford Mills Museum . This lumber and grist mill is over 150 years old. It has been fully restored, and today it functions as both museum and working lumber mill providing specially made lumber and finished pieces. It is a working museum, using the water power that put in place over 100 years ago. The original sawmill was built in 1846, and in 1860 it was bought by Daniel J. Hanford. At that time it was a water powered mill, using the nearby Kortright Creek ...