Text 12442, 52 rader
Skriven 2011-06-19 16:34:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: trip rpt 490
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I wanted to see what was happening at Balboa Park. It turned
out the House of Pacific Relations was sponsoring some sort
of event to promote peace in our time or something.

This organization, a sort of Rotarian type of arrangement,
has a little enclave of cottages in the park, each dedicated
to a nation and its culture. So the German one is decorated
like a little house in the Bavarian woods and sells pastry
of a hearty sort; the Brit one has a teakettle and is
decorated with pictures of the Cotswolds and various manors,
and so on. This day was the once a year food festival, in
which everyone brings out the best in typical home cooking.
We went through all the cottages and booths and sniffed what
was on offer: in the morning, it was mostly breakfast food,
so we decided we'd go back later.

And I heard music, sweet music in the distance: turns out the
3rd Aircraft Wing Band, based nearby, was performing a variety
of military music and music performed as though it were military
music in the shell there (the real reason, as I remarked to
Lilli, I knew it was live music rather than taped stuff, was
the sizable proportion of wrong notes). We made our way there
and heard a few selections and then wandered off.

The Timken Collection, in a smallish building next to the San
Diego Museum of Art, is pretty amazing for what it is - four
rooms of European art and one of Russian ikons, and you could
spend an hour there. I thought the French and Italians kind
of ehh, but the Dutch masters were masterly. This museum
boasts the only Rembrandt in the city; plus there is a Hals
portrait, a Breughel landscape, and assorted other goodies.
And it's all free. And, in common with about 75% of the things
I want to look up, it's not in Microsoft Streets and Trips.

The San Diego Museum, by contrast, is a decent-size city
museum, also with some worthwhile stuff, skewed a little
toward the Barbizons and pre-Impressionists. Apparently there
were two sisters who gave much of their art collection to
found this place but kept the really good stuff, which became
the Timken Collection (their name was not Timken, but I forget
what it was). The Japanese exhibition (temporary) deals with
watercolor depictions of travelers on the Edo road: quite
interesting. There is also a fairly impressive assortment of
20th century stuff, including several really nice O'Keeffes
and some lesser efforts from the big big names.




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