(No, you may not go to the lavatory. Sit back down, please.)
This year was particularly interesting, what with the world economy half-past implosion, the air space a quarter-after volcanic eruption, and the Gulf waters five minutes-past oil plume. That doesn't include the credit meltdown and housing slump that may have made home-sweet-home look like a pretty good vacation destination this year.
Us? Well, we headed out into the great Midwest, visiting the kinds of places where the natives would ask incredulously, "You're here on vacation? No, really--why are you here?"
Sometimes it's important to see your own backyard.
Geography really might be everything. This is a statue of Lewis and Clark. Lewis is the guy with his head above water, and if you look closely, you can spot Clark's hat. These two are perhaps the greatest explorers in American history, sent by Jefferson across the continent in 1804 and immortalized most recently by Stephen Ambrose in his 1996 Undaunted Courage.
You'll note that the greatness of Lewis and Clark happens to be covered by water, in this case the mighty Mississippi near the Arch in St. Louis. The river was running about 18 feet above its normal level on the day we passed by.
You see, it's a metaphor. (This is the kind of thing teachers look for in a summer essay. I'm cruising now.) Men (and women) may do great things, but nature is always mightier. And, I've come to believe, geography really might be everything. The arguments that George Friedman made in The Next Hundred Years, which clear away all the noise of current events and focuses on geopolitics, were very compelling. And, last Sunday in the NYT's Book Review, the cover was devoted to Eliza Griswold's latest book, The Tenth Parallel. I heard her interviewed on the Book Review podcast and she said something like, she has been unable to develop a neat and tidy theory for religious conflict, but knows of no such conflict that doesn't have a secular trigger. What's the most important trigger--and often the only trigger? Land. It's about the geography.
If you want to understand business, follow the money. If you want to understand human beings, follow the land. Follow the rivers. But not too closely--just ask Lewis and Clark.
An Icon is Only an Icon. All my life I've heard about Graceland, so when I finally visited this summer I was startled to see that the mansion itself is about the size of the average new home being built in our town. Don't get me wrong--it's not tiny. But for an icon, it's a pretty compact and underwhelming icon.
That's just one reason that it's a good idea to see icons for yourself.
In fact, I could argue (teachers like when you take positions) that all of Graceland is an attempt to take Elvis, a very talented but very flawed individual, and preserve his status as an icon. It's an odd kind of "modern" museum that does that, though in fairness, Graceland doesn't purport to be a museum.
In a bit of cosmic leveling, however, we later visited the Lincoln Museum and Library in Springfield, IL. This is a terrific place that takes educated and heroic pains to shift Lincoln "the icon" back into Lincoln the man.
I like this kind of museum better.
And Speaking of Icons. We visited Chicago's Art Institute, which is every bit as majestic as you would expect, and eventually made our way over to American Gothic. It's not tiny, exactly, but it isn't as grand as it's always been in my mind's eye.
Still very cool, but just about right for a wall at Graceland, if you know what I mean.
By the way, it's his daughter, NOT his wife. Oy. After all these years I finally learn the truth.
This may involve therapy. .
Sometimes It's Good to Remember the Bad Stuff. One of the most beautiful buildings in St. Louis, currently under renovation, is the Old Courthouse (now part of the Jefferson Expansion Memorial). It's also the place where the first two Dred Scott decisions were handed down, the case that would make its way to the Supreme Court and result in one of the two or three worst rulings in the Court's history. It's one of those places were all this beautiful architecture contains all this dreadful history.
I'm glad they're renovating it.
I'd Rather Market Memories Than History. One of the highlights of our travels was making our way through the Museum of Civil Rights, only to find ourselves suddenly standing in Martin Luther King's room at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, just a few feet from where he was assassinated in 1968. Whoa. My wife, children and I all stood very quietly for a little while, just soaking in the place. Of course, it was an entirely different experience for my kids, who knew this place (like the Civil War and the Roman Empire) as history, because my wife and I knew it as memory. (Youthful memory, but memory nonetheless.) It was pretty special.
It got me to wondering if a museum has to change its tactics over time as people die and memories--which are so seductive and resonant--fade and history takes over. The Lincoln Museum has a cut-and-dried marketing puzzle: teach and sell truthful, interesting history.
Pearl Harbor is a place that's in, I suppose, a kind of late transition, moving rapidly from memory to history. The Lorraine Hotel and Civil Rights Museum are in early transition--they'll be selling a mix of memory and history for another few decades.
You might know that Trigger and Bullet from the Roy Rogers Museum were auctioned off recently. You might be too young to know that Trigger was Roy's stuffed horse (who fetched $266,500) and Bullet his stuffed dog (who fetched $35,000). The Rogers museum, faced with fading memories, had moved from Victorville, CA, to Branson, MO, but fans continued to dwindle. Eventually: kaput. There weren't enough memories to buy or history to sell.
Anyway, I'd rather market memories than history--not that either would be such a bad job
The National Ornamental Museum is one such place. You could spend your entire visit at the Tenth Anniversary Gates--the contribution of nearly 200 metalsmiths--and never actually make it into the museum.
But that would be a mistake.
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