Catching Up -
Sorry, dear reader, that it has been so long since I have had a chance to add to my pathetic little blog. Work and pleasure have consumed all of my time. [Blogging, by implication, is something other than work or pleasure]. Let me quickly catch y’all up on what has been happening in my life.

The Liefhebbers Go to Washington -
Sally and I are truly liefhebbers or lovers of paintings. When we travel to any major urban area there is an impossible list of museums and exhibitions that must be seen. As a reminder of why one must travel to see art, Sally, Julia, and I went to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts one evening to hear the famous Indian singer, Zila Khan. Stepping around a corner, I was floored by Robert Berk’s bust of JFK. It is an image I have seen most of my life but I never realized the immense size of this highly textured portrait. I had imagined the bust to be life size but the top of my head was level with Kennedy’s chin! It is an entirely different experience to be in the physical presence of the art.

Washington DC is hell for art lovers because no visit is long enough to get to everything interesting. On this trip we saw the Societe Anonyme exhibition at the Phillips Collection, America’s first museum of modern art; in the Dutch Cabinet Galleries at the National Gallery of Art Sally got four steps closer in her quest to see every painting by Johannes Vermeer; the National Portrait Gallery was hosting an annual portrait competition; and the new National Museum of the American Indian would, alone, have been worth the trip.
Vacation and travel for me is always a busman’s holiday. At the Library of Congress, Dan De Simone honored me with a private behind the scene tour. Dan is curator of the extraordinary Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection containing nine centuries of illustrated books. The National Gallery of Art Library was exhibiting the work of Claire Van Vliet who was also represented in an exhibition on the book as art at the National Museum of Women in Arts. This fabulous show featured more than 100 books by 86 women from 12 countries. Two of our favorites were Peregrine Honig’s “Ovubet (26 Girls with Sweet Centers) and Audrey Niffengger’s visual novel “Three Incestuous Sisters”. For a review of the show in the Washington Post click on Book As Art: Read Closely article An interesting interview with Niffengger is available by copying the following url to your mp3 player.
http://nmwa.org/file/podcast/NMWA_P150.xml
As beautiful as the work in the show was, I came away even more impressed with the book art being done by Minnesota women. Nothing I saw in the show was more beautiful, creative, or well executed than books by Harriet Bart’s Mnemonic Press, Paulette Myers-Rich’s Traffic Street Press, or Jody Williams’s Flying Paper Press, to name just a few.

Elections -
There is far too much to say and too little time to write about the elections. I will just say that the most embarrassing aspect of the recent election was that Minnesota elected Bachmann to Congress. My fantasy is that at some point in the next year she is moved by the Holy Spirit to speak in tongues on the House floor. The clear high point of the election was the good sportsmanship shown by the losing candidate in Senate District 50, Rae Hart Anderson. She took “Minnesota Nice” to new levels when, after the election, she e-mailed her opponent Satveer Chaudhary, a practicing Hindu, wishing that he would “get to know Jesus as Christ as Lord and Savior”. How sweet of her. How thoughtful. By the way, you missed a great election night party at my home. 100 people stopped by to roast a hot dog over the bonfire and have a beer or two.

Theodore C. Blegen -
I was honored with the 2005 Theodore C. Blegan Award at the MHS annual meeting this fall. The award is given to a Society staff member for an article in "Minnesota History" magazine. My friend, Tom, called with congrats on my "Teddy". Dean Blegen rolled over in his grave. I have a clear memory of being a 17 year old geek at the MHS annual meeting meeting in 1971 when the first Blegen award was given out.

Woods and Water -
Other than that excitement fall has been unexpectedly warm and we have taken great advantage of it getting out on the water almost every night and walking in the woods often. I’ll leave you with two photos from a walk at Afton State Park the last Sunday in November. One photo is of Sally and Dori and another of Finbar on the St. Croix. He loves to climb trees and someday I’ll regret encouraging that habit.