When we were in Spain years ago we did a bit of the famous Camino de Santiago, a religious pilgramage across the top part of of the country. We did our stretch in a rented car, passing hundreds of people who were doing it the old fashioned way on foot. I felt the same guilty twinge this weekend when we drove down the east side of Seneca Lake and then back up the western side. The Seneca7 relay race was the same day so we passed runners, each from a group of 7, as they ran the 77.7 circumference of the lake in the same direction as us.
The exaggerated gestures of German Expressionism are some of the most exciting art of all time so I planned to celebrate my birthday surrounded by works from the “Age of Discontent” at the Johnson Museum on Cornell’s campus. Max Beckmann, Erich Heckel, Ernst Kirchner, Emil Nolde, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff are all there but Beckmann steals the show here with his intense, jam-packed compositions of people at home, in concert halls, taverns, strip clubs and opium dens. And how about this chimney sweep?
An added bonus at the Johnson is the “Witness: 20th-Century Photographic Images from the Collection of Gary and Ellen Davis” show with Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and a disturbing “Bravo 20” photo of a bomb crater by Richard Misrach. Bravo 20 was the name the U.S. Navy gave their illegal bombing exercises in the American west on a site the Native Americans called the “Source of Creation.” Coming back from Ithaca you pass 9,500-acres of land between Seneca and Cayuga lakes, the old “Seneca Ordnance Depot”, that is still fenced in and rather imposing except for the beautiful white deer and I couldn’t help but think of Misrach’s photo.
The Finger Lakes region is gods’ country, a wild mix of Indian reservations, Mennonite communities, mobil homes, luxurious second homes ringing the lakes and hundreds of vineyards catering to the stretch limo hoards. We whizzed by a sign mounted on someone’s mailbox that read “God’s Judgement Will Come” and then passed under a giant electronic sign on the NYS thruway that read, ” No Texting While Driving.” Peggi said, “Didn’t New York State just text us?”
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“Didn’t New York State just text us?”
Best quote of the year to date. Hands down.
Did you see the film The Way with Martin Sheen (directed by Emilio Estevez) about the camino de santiago de compostella? Loved it and it streams on Netflix.
I agree w/ Mahoney.
I saw The Way…..ultimately didn’t think it was great story line…maybe needed a little more punch. But the scenery was great, and just the idea of hooking up with strangers to do that hike has romantic flair. A couple of the characters were cool – the Canadian chick, and the chubby Nordic guy was likeable.