Thursday, July 14, 2016

TAKING IN CIVILIZATION AT METROPARKCENTRALIS

We went out this evening to attend one of the last guided tours of William Shakespeare's First Folios which has been on display at the main library in Cleveland which is a wonderment in itself but I'll let Anne blog about that since she was the one that took roughly 2000 very artful and composed pictures of structures right out of Cleveland's Great Age when it was the 4th or 5th largest city in America and definitely one of the wealthiest. The rich turned out to be huge patrons of the Arts and they gave with a liberal hand what was theirs to give and their institutions and endowments continue to glean from the whole wide world some of the best of art and history. I really can't believe that in my secret heart I used to mock this incredible place.

After we left and headed home from a guided visit to the wonderful Shakespeare Exhibit and First and Fourth Folios on display there lead by a most incredible librarian, we went home my way which I'm pretty sure Anne would describe as sideways, dangerously fast/slow, and with ramming speed. We didn't actually head home so much as prospect down superior avenue in search of Case Western Resurv University to get her car which she ruthlessly left behind and which we found, as usual, at the end of the line. I think the British called it the Pale back in the day.

We suddenly rejoined the 21st century at the Wade Oval which is where a lot of the patrons lavished art and history on an unsuspecting populace a long time ago. All of which is in a continuous flux of making it more and larger and better and adding parking of all things! We happened to drive through the Wade Oval Wednesday this day and it was my very first time seeing it. There were literally thousands of people out on the green by the Botanical Garden, Art Museum, wildly expanding Natural History Museum and all for some band they all appeared to be happy to listen to and maybe dance the night away to.

All said, it was eye opening for this rube from California.

I've been taking a page out of the genius of Scott Adam's blog and I'm kind of amazed at the animus against crooked Hillary. Three out of three that might have been reliably counted as very firm democratic party voters told me at lunch that they could not and would not vote for Hillary. Mind you, they won't vote for Trump either but it makes for an interesting cascade of votes on the other side this time as many of the republicans couldn't bring themselves to vote for Romney or McCain and stayed home and gave the election to a complete flubber. It was weird to see it in effect going the opposite way. I was so torn I had to lie down for a couple of hours.

I kind of look forward to next week. Most of the worthwhile buildings are built of stone and the Federal Reserve Building of Cleveland was built to fight off up to 60 days of civil insurrection and they guard the library's east, north and south approaches from across the block. It's an amazing place with buildings and statues designed to house gun turrets.

My kind of town.

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