Ralph’s Cars
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Matthew brought Sarah and we had a most unusual MFA experience. The Ralph Lauren Collection of Cars. Cars? Not art? Audio players with Ralph describing at what age he fell in love with which car? ìDad, heÃs a jackass.î DonÃt misinterpret, weÃre glad we went, but IÃm convinced it set the mood for DianeÃs comment later as we browsed paintings by Fantin-Latour, Gainsborough,Rembrandt and Nicholas de Largillierre
ìLook at the colors, the perfect brown eyes, the reflection on his armor, the separate strands of hair.î
ìBut who would want to look so goofy , year after year, century after century.î
Afterwards, we made our usual Village Smokehouse dinner stop. Matthew and SarahÃs meals were proportioned for normal humans, Diane looked down at her baby back ribs and said, ìI have a pig on my plate.î
One more from the collection.
Happy Birthday, Diane.
Sumptuous images of cars almost as tasty as that cake, which looks mighty fine itself! Well-executed images. And thanks for the gems from what I imagine to be a running, no-holds-barred interchange on a shared art experience, however disparate the responses and details. But no editorials on the cars themselves, or the sum of that experience (pehaps ignoring Ralph’s blatherments)?
Comment by coattail rider — March 4, 2005 @ 9:52 am
Hmmmmm…. Looks like 39 candles (or so).
Happy birthday, Daine!
Comment by rakkity — March 4, 2005 @ 2:19 pm
Diane,
Happy happy happy birthday, but the spell check says delete? and I say ìNo Wayî would I trade any or all of those missed birthdays of a sister-in-law who has laughed at my jokes all these years (MikeÃs first comments to you were, îDonÃt encourage him.î I think you even thought that was a joke.) So, no joke, happy birthday, Diane, you woman of countless wonders, thank you for being such a North star, and all the other cardinal directions for that matter, you being the all-encompassing soul that you are, thank you, for telling Michael in the middle of the night, that it was his ìstupidityî that woke you up, and thank you for being brave enough to fear for your life on Moose Head Lake, and for the midnight trips to the Cape, and the later ones to Gilsum, thanks for being such an eternal trooper, ready to bust even me for my politics, thanks for going back for the Salvador Dali Digit in the saw dust floor, and thanks for opening the door to me when this lion lost his bride, so thanks for all the stories through all the years, for your brook of laughter, and mountain of companionship, thanks for the time, and the timelessness, Happy Birthday.
Comment by millide — March 4, 2005 @ 7:10 pm
I think IÃll buy a seat on that train of personal and obscure memories. Thanks, Diane, for laughing when we pushed that tiny plane onto the runway in Belize for our flight to Ambergris Cay, for not flipping out when out rent-a-beast died on the way back to Belize City from San Ignacio, for sleeping in Tikal with crawling lizards casting shadows from the walls of our tent, for joining us on those Moose River trips in spite of your regularly scheduled fall ear aches, for jumping in your old Buick at midnight, after work, for those youthfully exuberant drives to Maine to sleep exposed on that rocky island off Popham Beach, for believing a normal night is almost getting run over by patrolling beach NaziÃs, for only holding your breath during our death defying drive through the snow in the Colorado Rockies, for tolerating my yearly obsession to become a dot off the shore of Lucy Vincent Beach, for supporting all of my harebrained schemes, even those that put both our lives in jeopardy ( I guess this one is redundant), for the solid role-model-of-a-young-self during your fatherÃs illness, and for loving maybe even more than me a nightÃs sleep on the ground under a canopy of leaves and stars.
Comment by michael — March 5, 2005 @ 9:46 am
Coattail,
Have you ever sipped from a glass of orange juice thinking it was milk? Going to the MFA to see cars is a little like that. Surrounded by great art and weÃre staring at sheet metal. Okay, forget the OJ, think going to Fenway Park and watching a soccer game.
Comment by michael — March 5, 2005 @ 9:52 am
Diane,
Lest all these kudos come to feel too eulogistic, please hang around and let them amass yet further. Too rich! Such an outpouring of birthday warmth……. The bestest of presents! To which I’ll add my own, miniscule, Happy Birthday!
Michael (clever psdeudonym, that), a very apt dscription of the MFA experience, thanks. Nails it for me.
Comment by alarmed — March 5, 2005 @ 2:12 pm