Excellent Adventure

I spent the weekend with my brother and sister-in-law, more or less celebrating my birthday in the process. The drive out along US 142/42 was an interesting tour of a part of Ohio I haven't seen for a while--from the old United Technologies plant we almost purchased outside London to the triad of little universities just east of Xenia. We visted the Cincinnati Art Museum, dined in downtown Cincy, and attended a performance of a contemporary play at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival. The museum was disappointing relative to my memories, but this was first visit since seeing the Louvre, the National Gallery, the Vatican, and the Uffizi. They've reorganized some of the Hiram Powers marbles, and I don't think I succeeded in finding all of them. _Gingham Dog_ was an interesting and unexpectedly intense play depicting a marital breakdown between a white man and a black woman in New York in 1969. In many ways a fascinating, multivalent commentary on the several sides of the Civil Rights movement, it came at a high price: I don't think I've ever been so emotionally drained from watching leading actors yell at each other. All in all, a very good weekend away!