Traveler's Beauty in New Haven

Desitnation has become the point of travel, not the traveling. Except if you disembark the train in New Haven. Union Station is full of beauty, grace, and a grand beginning to the Yale art museums awating you for a day's excursion.

It's not Paris, but American Grand for Amtrak and Metro North.

 More to come- Linnie

19th c. Copy of 15th Century Icon--How Valuable in 21st?

Purchased by the English tourists in Forrester novels, the Room-with-a-View crowd came home with Fra Angelico imitations, complete with carved gilt wood frames.
Found in a CT antique shop, Woodbury (located on Rt7 north of I-84) is the Antiques Mecca nearest NYC.
How much did he pay?
Send me your guess...
- Linnie

Jung's Red Book and Fra Angelico (above)

Husband hits the birthday lotto! I received a 19th century Florentine copy of Fra Angelico's trumpting angel, complete with gothic gilt frame, AND the first publishing of Jung's complete journal of his spiritual journey---"his largest and most important work, unsequestered and translated after five decades."

Happiness...years of joy.

Olana Above the Hudson

One hundred miles upriver from Miss Liberty sits the Moroccan fantasy of painter Frederick Church, whose paintings and estate are of the grandest scale. Famous in the Hudson School of Painting, he is best remembered for the monstrous Niagra Falls which he accompanied around the world several times, paying for Olana with ease. (Now owned by Brooklyn Museum of Art but mostly loaned out for the $)

A National Trust site, plan for the day and a picnic. Bring your paints. Just off the NY State Thruway, and Leeds has a good diner if it rains.

More to come- Linnie

When I Lived in New York...

New York is thousands of neighborhoods. We love the City but we live in our neighborhoods. As I travel buses, trains and planes, the former NYers next to me swoon about the old neighborhood.

Original art of your street will be a good investment. Lifelong. Support your neighborhood artist.

More to come- Linnie

Book of Hours- Prayers 5x a Day

Illuminated medieval book of prayer made for Catherine of Cleves is displayed at the JP Morgan Library and Museum until May 2 for a $12.00 admission. On-line after May 2 at http://www.themorgan.org/collections/works/cleves/default.asp

For $1.00 you can visit the Met's Cloisters in Ft. Tyron Park on the Hudson (Bus M4 from Grand Central--Cheap but 1.5 hour ride). In the gift shop, the book is reproduced in large format, and you can browse for free. Several other Book of Hours are also in book form ranging in price from $8.95 to 85.00.
Best Buy: A readable usuable Book of Hours by Thomas Merton on Amazon. Enlightened and focusing. Spiritual prayers in rhythm: pre-dawn, dawn, day, dusk, dark. Join the Muslim and Hassidic communites in devoted attention. Or chant a holy sound constantly.
Whatever keeps you Present.
More to come- Linnie

Death comes High and Low

LOW---The Brooklyn Museum of Art has taken the low road to Egyptian Afterlife. Mummification details inscribed on the walls of the exhibit, and body parts on display insure that school tours will be noisy and gory. The hind-brain at it's best in public.

HIGH---In contrast, The Rubin Museum of Art's "Remember You Will Die" focuses across cultures on the process, rituals and spiritual beliefs. Any Hospice worker would be at home in this exhibit. The pre-frontal cortex may learn some things at the Rubin!