You Humor Me Today
Mirthquake. I just encountered this word and I find it endlessly amusing. Are you having a mirthquake today? I am.
More seriously, Fargo and I went with our fine arts class to the Dallas Arts district today. Our first stop was the Texas state fairgrounds, which had seven commemorative Art Deco buildings from 1936. Fargo didn't take any pictures. Bad Fargo.
He did take pictures of our next stop, the Dallas City Hall, designed by I.M. Pei.
It's an inverted pyramid shape, which is way cool. People's office windows were hanging out over empty space. This, and the other Pei building we got to see later, use a lot of straight geometry, so he liked to offset this by having fountains and bright, curvy sculptures around his architecture.
In the case of city hall, this was a red ball with a bite taken out of it, spinning in a pool.
We ate lunch in the Plaza of the Americas, I believe it was called.
Then we went inside the nearby cathedral, Virgin of the Guadalpue. The sun shone very nicely through the western transept stained glass.
Then to the Meyerson. Spork, Slope, Sydney and I had poked out heads in here on an earlier trip to Dallas, but this was my first real visit. We did get to hear a pipe organ recital!
I'd heard from people that it was really cool, but none of them had bothered to tell me what I learned today: that I.M. Pei designed the building, that one of the nation's best pipe organs is inside the concert hall.
There's tons of technical reasons that make it a really really awesome concert hall, but the end artistic result was just beautiful. It was completely soundproof, so despite being in the middle of downtown Dallas with an airport flight path right over the building, one could hear nothing from the outside.
After this, we spent an hour and a half running through a few parts of the Art Museum. I found a Van Gogh I'd like to write the class report on, if I don't do a favorite pieta of mine, so more on that later.
I felt really tired all day, but again, coffee to the rescue. Wanting to sit down while looking at art reaaaally reminded me of my jet-lagged dash through London early this year. Funny how these things always happen together.
More seriously, Fargo and I went with our fine arts class to the Dallas Arts district today. Our first stop was the Texas state fairgrounds, which had seven commemorative Art Deco buildings from 1936. Fargo didn't take any pictures. Bad Fargo.
He did take pictures of our next stop, the Dallas City Hall, designed by I.M. Pei.
It's an inverted pyramid shape, which is way cool. People's office windows were hanging out over empty space. This, and the other Pei building we got to see later, use a lot of straight geometry, so he liked to offset this by having fountains and bright, curvy sculptures around his architecture.
In the case of city hall, this was a red ball with a bite taken out of it, spinning in a pool.
We ate lunch in the Plaza of the Americas, I believe it was called.
Then we went inside the nearby cathedral, Virgin of the Guadalpue. The sun shone very nicely through the western transept stained glass.
Then to the Meyerson. Spork, Slope, Sydney and I had poked out heads in here on an earlier trip to Dallas, but this was my first real visit. We did get to hear a pipe organ recital!
I'd heard from people that it was really cool, but none of them had bothered to tell me what I learned today: that I.M. Pei designed the building, that one of the nation's best pipe organs is inside the concert hall.
There's tons of technical reasons that make it a really really awesome concert hall, but the end artistic result was just beautiful. It was completely soundproof, so despite being in the middle of downtown Dallas with an airport flight path right over the building, one could hear nothing from the outside.
After this, we spent an hour and a half running through a few parts of the Art Museum. I found a Van Gogh I'd like to write the class report on, if I don't do a favorite pieta of mine, so more on that later.
I felt really tired all day, but again, coffee to the rescue. Wanting to sit down while looking at art reaaaally reminded me of my jet-lagged dash through London early this year. Funny how these things always happen together.
I'm impressed with good ol' Dallas.