Out on a Wintry Day

Rainy Evening on Hennepin Avenue, by Robert Koehler ca. 1902--hanging at M.I.A.

So, I did say in the Andrew Bird post that Saturday December the twelfth was filled with beautiful everything, and here I have those day time things. (I'm working backwards!)

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is a wonderful place, and I've enjoyed going there a lot in the past few years. The resident-art is free to look at, and (save for a few over-zealous guards eyeing you down) an afternoon spent there is quiet and wondrous. I recommend it.

Anyway, currently, they have an exhibit of borrowed pieces of art from the Louvre. (!) My grandparents invited us to go look at it with them, and it is really nothing less than amazing. Although only the tiniest fraction of their art could be borrowed and brought across the sea, the ones that made the voyage are exceptional. There were archaic pieces, Da Vinci sketches preserved on their paper, and also there was The Astronomer. Present, in real life! Wow! This was a very special meeting for me! Do go, if you have the chance.

After we finished poring over the pieces in there, I spent hours more wandering about the rest of the museum (one could easily spend a week there and not get bored). The building itself is beautiful. The place is immaculate.
I looked out the multi-storey wall of windows, and saw a lovely panorama of a wintry Minnapolis. In the foreground were kids and their trails left by their sleds on the gentle hill with trees scattered, up to their ankles in white snow. The middle had some city streets and the various apartment blocks and the back held the classic line of sky-scrapers. It was a very pretty sight.Later, after having left the musee', we went back to the grandparents' place, where I left to take a walk. The weather was good; the air crisp but not harsh, no terrible wind, the sun casting light along the trees and the structures. It was beautiful. I stopped for a moment to take a fellow's photo with his bike on the greenway, then walked uptown. It wasn't terribly slushy yet, so I went on to cheapo records, where the warmth fogged up my spectacles. The sky began to dim, so I strode briskly back, reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography to keep me company. I was met back at the grandparents' with grilled cheese sandwiches and hot chocolate, paired (oddly enough) with a can of tropical fruit bits. At any rate, I think my day epitomized the romantic and jazz aura of the town. And it proves that it actually can still exist and happen in that way. It's very lovely.