Hello, anybody here? No? All on Facebook? Come on, SOMEbody must be here. Hello?

OMG! How dare an art critic, critique the Hop Show.

Here is the link to the Boston Globe Sunday art review of the current Hop Show held at the Cape Ann Museum.
No family member who wishes to remain "correctly" a member of said family, is to utter any
comment of the "Five O'Clock in the Afternoon" huge painting on display, unless they feel that it is a "great" painting & worth every penny of the $100,000. purchase price.

No, the figures are not statues.

Here is the link:

http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2009/08/23/view_from_the_terrace_considers_works_of_charles_hopkinson?mode=PF

Any blogger who utters a critically negative remark will have the choice of a third floor maid's room during Thanksgiving. It's cold there, I know for a fact.
Anyway, I did enjoy the Show & feel fortunate to view Hop. art at home.
Maggie only wishes she owned many more of his works.

Will C. Hopkinson ever be reviewed as "great" as defined as the equal to Sargent,
other than that Sargent ate lunch at the Estate?

Best to you all, but sorry time marches on in the Art world,
Jim Masek

MIT or UCLA?

Hello there, family.

So I'm currently trying to decide where to go to school. I'm going for a PhD in linguistics, and my choices are UCLA and MIT. I've visited both, and they're both lovely for their own reasons, and boy is it hard to choose.

One of the advantages for MIT is, of course, Manch, as well as several of you fine folks. On the other hand, I'm told some of your other fine folks are in LA.

Someone just tell me what to do!

~Meaghan Fowlie

a New Year, a New Washington...

... time for a new post to replace all those Thanksgiving pictures and stories.

I'm guessing that about 98.75% of us are pleased with the results of the 08 election, and are alternately thrilling and cringing as news of the days come and go.

Maine is having a plethora of snow, I guess the far northwest is getting much more than its usual allotment as well. I'm getting two to three good cardiopulmonary workouts every week, and my shoulders are getting some shape to them. Our fair city requires homeowners to clear the sidewalks down to the brick, and will fine us if we don't. We have another building dweller who handles one of the edges of our corner block, and we do the other. Twould be o so nice if the city balanced 'our' commitment to the sidewalks by keeping the street plowage from cresting the banks and refilling 'my' sidewalk, but no. Do other cities do this too?

Glimpsed warmer climes for a brief vacation, tho in NC it was down to high twenties at the end of last week visiting Lynne's daughter & family near Charlotte. Passed thru the Detroit airport on a leg home, it was well below zero there, made the high twenties back in Maine seem balmy... or was that just me?

So... let's hear more winter tales... and try not to be such a whiner like me.