A return to the Norman Rockwell Museum

 

This past Saturday would be a long day with my brother.  We had tried to get together on a weekend for a while for a road trip to the Norman Rockwell Museum.  Since I've seen the exhibition before, I figured that I'd look at things I didn't look at before, and let him wander around the place while I sat and took a load off my feet.

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I set my alarms to wake me around 8 am, so that I could be at our meeting place by 10:30 am.  It's hard to believe that I was early for a change, but I arrived at the parking lot around 10:15 and killed time waiting for him.  Unfortunately, he hit a lot of traffic, and didn't get to the lot until 11 am.  (It also didn't help that Google Maps gave him bad driving instructions.  But I digress.)

Once we were on the road, it took us a little over 2 hours to reach the museum.  (We were careful not to feed the bears.  We passed at least 3 "Smokeys" handing out citations on our way up.)  It was the perfect day for such a drive: traffic flowed smoothly and fast, there were no clouds in the sky, and it was the perfect temperature to drive to the Berkshires on an autumn day.  Eventually, we made it to the museum, and we went inside.

My brother took in all the exhibits slowly, while I picked and chose what I wanted to see next.  I didn't try to take everything in on this visit.  Instead, I looked for the exhibits that interested me most, and took some pictures before sitting down to ease my back pain.  Once we were done, I went to their shop and bought a couple of books related to the art of Mad, and then we departed the museum to find some lunch.

Once in Stockbridge, it was hard to find a vacant parking spot.  But we got lucky.  However, we did not find much in the way of open restaurants that weren't crowded at the time.  Yet, after a little bit of walking, we found a place to sit down for lunch.  (I won't mention where the place is, but as Arlo sang, "it's just a half of a mile from the railroad tracks.")  Sadly, Alice left the building many years before, and its current proprietors serve good food with mediocre service - so I will look for other dining venues when next in town.

After our late lunch, it was time to drive home.  I shared some of the driving duties, as my brother needed to nap a bit.  Boy, does he saw wood!  This wasn't as bad as I made it sound.  But he was tired, and he'd still have 90 minutes of driving ahead of him when he dropped me off at my car.  I was home by 6:30 or so, while he got home by 7:45.  (Again, he hit a lot of traffic.)  I was home in time to do laundry, but I didn't bother with this.  I could do it on Monday when I have some time.....

My Pooka was at it again!

 

I just spent $20 to replace a souvenir button that cost me $2.50.  And that wasn't a bad deal, except that I found the button two days after its replacement.

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A couple of weeks ago, RQS and I went to the Norman Rockwell Museum to see an exhibit for the Art of Mad Magazine.  Somehow, I had misplaced the sweater that had this souvenir button on it. After searching everywhere for it, I gave up hope of finding it and ordered a replacement.  Today, I found that sweater and button.

Misplacing items like this has always been a common occurrence for me.  I have learned to have two of everything important, as I never know when one of these things will go missing.  (I'm still looking for a pendant I bought while in Hawaii - it was one of my favorites!)  I even have duplicates of all of my portable electronic stuff (wires, adapters, etc.), as I tend to misplace or lose them while in transit.  (I lost a cell phone charger on a flight back from London this year, and just replaced it.)

If you were to see a picture of my desk, you'd understand why I misplace things so often.  A cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind.  Boy, this is an understatement in my case!  But it does allow for the random mutations of ideas which allow me to have insights that most people aren't lucky enough to have.  (Could you imagine how much more boring I would have been if my brain hadn't been able to make its random connections?)  

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One of these days, I'll be able to straighten out the mess on my desk, in my bedroom, and throughout the apartment.  Until then, I expect to keep misplacing many more things and replacing them prematurely.

A visit to the Norman Rockwell Museum (Going "MAD" for the day.)

 

I didn't know this, but Mad Magazine once offered Norman Rockwell a commission to update the image of Alfred E. Newman.  Sadly, he declined the offer, based on the "Good Advice" from his wife.  However, years after his death, the Norman Rockwell Museum decided to have an exhibition of the Art of Mad Magazine. 

Both RQS and I realized that this would be a rare chance to see Mad's art treated as something more than disposable, especially since the current publishers of the magazine helped with the exhibition.  Our only issue would be the distance to get there.  We skipped going there the day before because of the length of the drive and the time it would take to reach the museum.  Since we didn't know when we'd have the chance to drive there on a weekend day, we bit the bullet and left the house around 10:00 am.

The drive up the Taconic parkway was dull and boring (as expected), but we made it to the museum by 12:30 pm (including stops for breakfast and bio-breaks).  Given the warm weather, it was the perfect day for both of us to be wearing linen dresses.  So we were comfortable on the short walk from the parking lot to the museum, as well as inside where it was properly air conditioned.

 

Some of Mad's "Usual Gang of Idiots"

I've been a fan of Mad Magazine since I was a child, and I have to say that this exhibition does Mad's Usual Gang of Idiots" justice, as it covers art from the EC Comics day, through the Golden Age of Mad, to the Current Day.

Of course, no exhibition of Mad Mad Magazine artifacts would be complete without a reference to my favorite sport 43 Man Squamish.  Although the unplayable sport described in Mad is a joke, it has rules always tend to make me smile when I read them. One could go on and on about this visit.  But it was nice to see the work of Al Jaffee, Dave Berg, Don Martin and Sergio Aragones again, being given the respect it deserves. 

We both spent too much at the museum's gift shop, and left the place around 3:00 pm.  It took us 2 1/2 hours to get home, including a stop in Dover Plains for ice cream.  It was a long day for us, but a day well spent....

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Not so sure of what to talk about today.

 

The above cover is one of my favorites from the Lampoon.  It's wonderfully political, politically incorrect, and funny as heck.  We had much thicker skins when this magazine was published.  One could drop the "N-Word" and use it humorously, as Mel Brooks did in Blazing Saddles.  

I miss the humor magazines of my youth.  Both Mad Magazine and the National Lampoon are long gone, or exist only to recycle old articles.  Both magazines were influential in their own ways.  Mad taught young people to think of current events in a different way than most people might think.  And the Lampoon taught young adults that good humor was rarely politically correct.  Mad would spoof Star Trek's opening ("To go where no man has gone before"), by having the male crew exit to the ladies room. The Lampoon would attack minorities with an "Unwanted Foreigners" issue, and attack these same groups with racist descriptions of these groups - all meant to generate laughs, and not to be taken seriously.

Yet, I miss something even more.  When I was young, TV could afford to provoke thought. Could you imagine "All in the Family" being a popular TV series?  Too many people would get upset at the Archie Bunker character's use of politically incorrect language.  And yet, it was considered acceptable way back when, as the show illustrated how both Archie and "Meathead" were just as prejudiced - just from different directions.

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Today, many "conservatives" want to "Own the Libs".  In the process of doing so, they often act like children, calling Liberals names I won't repeat here.  But many Liberals are just as bad in their own way.  They ignore how and why many Conservatives became radicalized, and have no interest in the concerns of people from the other side of the aisle.

As a TG member of society, I would be among those groups at risk if the Conservatives gained absolute social power.  Luckily, it will take a lot to get the NYC region to flip.  But history has shown this can and does happen when enough people are alienated from the political system AND begin to put their faith in a bombastic populist leader.

So, what are we to do?  For one thing, we should celebrate and publicize the successes of TG people like Amy Schneider (of Jeopardy fame). If we can convince enough people that we are safe to be around, we might just be left alone when political winds change.  Yet, we will only be left alone in more progressive areas.  Most of us can not go stealth if needed.  It is in our interest to fight for the interests of our tribes while we can - and we must do so now....