During my nonblogging hours, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about what educators intend to teach students and whether and to what extent students are actually learning what their instructors intend. I can’t help but wonder whether I’ve ever mastered any of the learning outcomes established by an historic institution. I suspect I’m…
Getting Adventure Ready
Forget bikini ready; right now, I am training to be adventure ready. I am contemplating a hiking vacation in a desert in a very hot place, so I practice by going running in very humid New York. Where in more youthful years, I would starve myself to fit well—or as well as I could—into the…
A Little Belize, A Little Mexico, A Little Midlife Crisis?
In my on-again, off-again love affair with my Kindle (love the convenience, miss the smell of paper), I splurge and buy a digital copy of The Last Full Service Crocodile Ranch in Quintana Roo (2012) by Richard Hofheimer. It’s an engrossing story about a cancer survivor, on her second marriage, on her second honeymoon, on…
Dia: Beacon —Where Industry, Metal, Glass Converge
I expect coldness at Dia: Beacon, all angles, no softness. There will be no pastel ballerinas guarded on the walls in this former factory space in Beacon, N.Y. Entering, I wonder what Dia stands for. Is it an acronym? Does it mean “downtown industrial art” or something? No, I learn, this art space was named…
Sunday Bloodies
My little habit of appreciating a Bloody Mary sometime during any given Sunday probably started years ago at the Colgate Inn in Hamilton, N.Y., back when drinking at age 18 was still legal and Sundays weren’t ruined by multitasking or by knocking back a few at brunch. Named for Queen Mary I of England who…
If Money Machines Could Talk
Wouldn’t it be great to listen to what an ATM gets to hear on any given day? There’s an entire arch of a story line, starting with “Do you suppose this is safe?” to “Does it give out dollars or pesos?” to “Oh my God, that check didn’t clear and I only have $25 available”…
Welcome to St. Petersburg!
Need an eye-opener after a long night’s flight from JFK to St. Petersburg? Just look out the window as you head into the city. I have a “was that what I think it was?” reaction as I head to our cruise ship. My mind immediately flashes back to what new arrivals to New York might…
I’d Rather Be in Quintana Roo
On a soggy workday in gray New York, I dream of Cancún. Happy Throwback Thursday! #TBT —Lori Tripoli ~Advertisement~ ~Advertisement~
Paris to Woodstock: Sculpture Deep and Light
Travel and art seem to go hand in hand, so today I share two very different works, in two very different places, that trigger very different emotions. Auguste Rodin’s Burghers of Calais commemorates the leaders of Calais who volunteered to be executed to spare the city of Calais during the 100 Years War between England…
A Mind-Altering Mansion Crawl
No matter how many houses of the rich and famous I visit (with the George Eastman house in Rochester, N.Y. probably being my favorite), I still feel a little strange traipsing through someone else’s home, no matter how long ago it was abandoned or ‘donated’ to a historical society. Do I really need to know…