Visions of the Past

Love this set of images.  I saw them a couple of weeks ago and knew I'd seen something similar somewhere . . . Then, I remembered these great images of the grounds of the Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion.  The one above is my favorite - I love how the photographer who merged the photos played around a bit and made it appear that the people in the older image are looking up at the lanterns in the modern image.

Whisky History

This is pretty cool. The project started as a conservation story - in essence, a "project to thaw, open and examine a crate of what is believed to contain whisky from Ernest Shackleton’s 1908 British Antarctic (Nimrod) Expedition has started at Canterbury Museum, New Zealand."

Of course, once the marketing department at Whyte & MacKay company had its way with the story, it became what you can see in the video above.  Read all about the conservation here (I've had the link in my sidebar for awhile now - love this story).

It's Titled "Apartment Archeology"

Source

I like this.  :)

The Power of the Third Place

(photo credit)

Today, I ran down a hill behind a rolling hoop with a boy who can't read very well and a boy who can't speak English very well.  None of that mattered.  It was all flailing arms & laughter.  There was no need for words and I was grateful that my museum was able to provide all three of us with that wordless connection.

Personal/Professional Connection

I was in a very interesting meeting today at one of my museums. Next year is the 400th anniversary of Anne Bradstreet's birth and various museums/towns in Massachusetts are planning some celebration and recognition of "The Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung Up in America."  While perusing a selected works of Anne's before the meeting, I noticed this poem, which I had first read excerpted in Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's Good Wives.

Since my husband is eight months into a year-long military deployment, Anne's words in this piece touched me on a personal level. Enjoy the poem and keep an eye out for Anne Bradstreet events in Massachusetts in 2012!

A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment

My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay, more, 

My joy, my magazine of earthly store,

If two be one, as surely thou and I, 

How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lie? 

So many steps, head from the heart to sever, 

If but a neck, soon should we be together. 

I like the Earth this season, mourn in black, 

My Sun is gone so far in's zodiac, 

Whom whilst I 'joyed, nor storms, nor frost I felt, 

His warmth such frigid colds did cause to melt. 

My chilled limbs now numbed lie forlorn; 

Return; return, sweet Sol, from Capricorn; 

In this dead time, alas, what can I more 

Than view those fruits which through thy heat I bore? 

Which sweet contentment yield me for a space, 

True living pictures of their father's face. 

O strange effect! now thou art southward gone, 

I weary grow the tedious day so long; 

But when thou northward to me shalt return, 

I wish my Sun may never set, but burn 

Within the Cancer of my glowing breast, 

The welcome house of him my dearest guest. 

Where ever, ever stay, and go not thence, 

Till nature's sad decree shall call thee hence; 

Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone, 

I here, thou there, yet but both one.

A Gaggle of Dustpans

Probably not the right collective noun there.  :)  I got a kick out of this arrangement of dustpans and brushes that I was hosing down for my archaeology program and had to take a picture.  This was on a Tuesday around 2pm, I think.  The museum world is very different from the for-profit working world . . .   

Museum Daily #Who Knows Anymore

This was my morning yesterday.  :)  Helping to plant a 3 Sisters raised bed garden with 12 preschoolers in the sunshine.  Not a bad way to start the week . . .