One More Smithsonian

Christmas Gaiety in the National Gallery, Washington, DC

SMITHSONIAN

For the last week we have been darting around the various Smithsonian museums on the National Mall catching up with our Nation’s past. At the National Gallery a temporary exhibit presenting various portraits of Abraham Lincoln is open (did you know that he had blue eyes?).

Abraham Lincoln in one of his more jovial moods

After that, we strolled over to the Smithsonian’s, National Museum of American History, and gazed upon Dorothy Gale's Ruby Slippers—Wizard of Oz!

"There's no place like home."

But before all of that took place we visited DC's Chinatown, and dined on some fine Chinese cuisine at our favorite Chinese restaurant. The adventuresome Daisy had a bowl of fried dumplings, but I could not decide whether to have the $9.95 platter of "Soya Sauce Intestines"—presumably pig—or the $12.95 "Pig's Belly with Preserved Mustard Green." I settled for pig belly's delight! Daisy was absolutely appalled by the idea of eating slimy pig gut, but I knew better!

Now I know that you are all salivating in anticipation of my detailed description of Pig's Belly happy, happy, joy, joy, so without further delay, let us indulge! When our waitress brought me my dinner I have to admit that my eyes widened, and my mouth dropped. It was not the side bowl of rice that caused this reaction, but the sight of a brown soupy glop of fried blubber!

No comment...

It was essentially a bowl of thick sliced bacon with a hint of meat, not exactly chew food. All one had to do was to delicately vacuum it off of your chopsticks (I used a fork), and down your gullet it slid. It was liposuction without the all the jabbing! However, I did experience a protracted period of gastrointestinal recovery. I have to tell you that it really was quite a tasty treat. I am sure that my arteries will be happy to pack it away for a future bypass or heart attack.

I have to tell you, that that was a moment of immoderation that I shall not soon repeat.

EPILOGUE

This has absolutely nothing to do with the above story, and the fate of its characters; it does, however, deal with the demise of an institution. I just learned that Olympia, Hamms, and that infamous Brown Label beer, are no longer brewed in Tumwater, Washington.

It was every guzzler of cheap beers dream (myself EX-cluded) to make the pilgrimage to Tumwater at least once in their lifetime. But now one must journey across the Bible Belt to experience the Olyland. Yes, it is now brewed in Texas! Geeeaaaaaaaaaaaaawd! I suppose Long Star beer makes the grade to be included as a classic, sub-standard brew. So I suppose that Oly is now in good company.

Museums

I know that you cannot judge the enormity of this museum's front entrance by this picture, but I assure you, it is truly impressive! Those doorways are a good 12 feet high.


1831 John Bull (and wife)

This is the Little Engine That Could, and did get inside the Museum of American History. That is a life-size replica of a horse to the left.

The early Americans revered George Washington to an extreme.

The Greensboro's Lunch Counter--go look it up.

There were hundreds of people in the museum walking around Sleeping Beauty, and yet he snored on, oblivious to his surroundings.

An egg about to be scrambled...

Copyright © 2008 Jonathan Aspensen All rights reserved. No part of this website, nor any of its contents, may be
reproduced in any form without the express written permission of
Jonathan Aspensen.

New England Leaf Peeping--

Click on this picture to get a full view

FALL IN NEW ENGLAND

When I reached an age that I could fully appreciate the glossy photos of a calendar, I was enamored by the autumn colors of New England. I thought what a treat it would be to travel the back roads of rural Vermont or New Hampshire, and ogle at the changing hues of fall. This October on the "peak weekend" for color, Daisy and Alabaster Hickey became what New Englanders call "Leaf Peepers." We were not disappointed by any measure at the glory autumn brings to this quiet region of small villages and old traditions. The photos of rolling hills and mountainsides covered in the rusty foliage of fall were as brilliant and as wonderful as I had imagined. The setting sun's low shafts of light intensified the oxidized hues, and caused one's head to be in constant motion so as not to miss a hidden splash of brilliance.

Leaf Peeper's Delight

Good friends from Montana, now residing in wilds of New Hampshire, invited us to experience New England with them; an offer we gleefully accepted. The small university town of Plymouth, New Hampshire was our destination.

BRONX

We anticipated that the drive up would be an uneventful slog through New Jersey's Industrial Corridor, which is an eye-burning, gas emitting complex of oil refineries and general, mechanized ugliness; and I am happy to report that we were not disappointed—in the least. However, once in New York our GPS suggested a shortcut across the Bronx. This unscheduled detour at 10:30pm took us down narrow, car-packed, unlit streets with shadowy creatures loitering in the dark. It was downright unnerving!

QUALITY

Once north of New York's foulest, we pulled into a Quality "Ain't" Inn, and looked forward to a good night's sleep. It was in Newburgh, New York, and I would sleep in a ditch before I considered lodging there again. The walls of this sprawling motel were constructed of paper, and the finest details of our neighbor's conversations could easily be heard. At three in the morning, Daisy had had enough, and requested that we be relocated to a quieter room (I was too tired to care).

Our new room had two pictures over each bed, and at a glance my mind registered seeing a horse drawn coach, leafless trees, and what appeared to be the silhouette of the canyon walls of Utah's Zion National Park. Upon closer examination I came to the realization that it was not Zion, but New York's Central Park. All part of the quality deception.

Before sunrise I heard a gentle rap on a door. It was our neighbor trying to encourage her husband to expedite his business in the bathroom. Shortly thereafter, we packed up our belongings and headed north, away from the Bronx and the absence of quality. After breakfast at Neptune's Diner (a first rate eatery) we skirted New York State's lower Adirondack Mountains, turned east and headed across the girth of Vermont. In case you were wondering, it was not until we got to New Hampshire that I spied my first Adirondack chair.

VERMONT/NEW HAMPSHIRE

These diminutive States encircle some of the most beautiful country the Northeast has to offer. Vermont is my favorite, and it is maple syrup that now courses through my veins. Gawd, I love Vermont!

BREAKFAST ON MAIN STREET

After an evening of fine dinning, great conversation, and an honest, restful night's sleep, we met our friends at an honest-to-gawd diner, and resumed our marathon praise of New England. The diner car, turned restaurant, is named Fracher's Diner, but do not let that fool you; its current owner renamed it the Main Street Diner. And thus it shall remain until someone else buys it, and names it something else.

The interior of the diner car turned restaurant

CAMP ON GILDED POND

After a fine breakfast, our hosts invited us out to their "camp" to sit, and enjoy the pond. The pond was a small lake which fed a larger lake (at which, incidentally, the movie “On Golden Pond” was filmed), which poured into another lake, which emptied into yet another lake, and so on, and so forth right down to the Atlantic Ocean. At least that is my romantic assumption.

The view from their lake front property

As we sat on the banks of "Gilded Pond," a name I gave it, I could not help but engorge my mind with the fabulous view before me. Although a glance around the lake would indicate little going on, a closer assessment would reveal evidence of considerable activity on this quiet body of water.


There were rising fish snagging hapless bugs from the water, kayakers leisurely paddling the lake's circumference, a fisherman languidly casting his line, a couple in a canoe heading for their hideaway cabin on a small, wooded island, and of course the twitter of birds. What were we all doing, you may ask? I cannot speak for the others, but I was disengaged, lost in reflective rumination. Not unlike a cow eating grass--in a meadow--in New England.

Various Houses, Store Fronts, and Curiosities Along Our New England Journey

Passing vehicles were channeled through these friendly blockades to solicit donations for the volunteer fire department or the humane society, they either had a boot or bucket in hand. I stopped a little beyond the sight of the township's constable, and held out a camera bag soliciting for leaf peeper donations. I got one Twinkie and a half eaten bolony sandwich. My only complaint was they used too much mustard.

Robert Frost, Norman Rockwell, and Daniel Webster all called New England their home at one time or another. This man was none of the aforementioned people of history.

Need I comment?

Our GREAT accommodations at the Plymouth, New Hampshire's Pilgrim Inn

I have not a clue as to what the cut-out cows were all about, but people were taking pictures of them--like me!

The white court house(now museum) in the background is where Daniel Webster defended his first legal case in 1805. And lost.

Our trip back home was less eventful, and safely took us through the Bronx. However, the next time we travel north we are going to go farther inland, and bypass all this wonderfulness.

Projects at Twilight

Bridge Over Troubled Water

And on Monday it was back at work with oodles of buses and traffic with nowhere to go, but to wait.

Copyright © 2008 Jonathan Aspensen All rights reserved. No part of this website, nor any of its contents, may be
reproduced in any form without the express written permission of
Jonathan Aspensen.

The Work of Frank Frazetta--

The FRAZETTA STONE--A Translation of Fantasy

I first came in contact with Frank Frazetta's work back in the 1950's and early '60's when he cartooned for Al Capp's, Lil' Abner. Of all the Sunday funnies that I admired as a child, his work is foremost in my memory. Who could forget the queer menagerie of characters that called Dogpatch home?

Frazetta's work has influenced many artists over the decades, and I strongly suspect that the body of his work will continue to do so for centuries to come. His work is the standard by which fantasy/realism is measured. In “Painting with Fire,” the film autobiography of Frank Frazetta revealed that his primary publisher once told him to just paint a picture, and that they would find a book that fit it—that’s how marketable his paintings were as fantasy book covers. I suspect that if one were to place his cover art on Darwin's research into the varied design of barnacles, it would become a New York Times best seller.

His insightful study of good and evil, and their many incarnations, has made an obvious impact on the monsters and heroes people go to the cinema to see. Would his rendering of Conan the Barbarian have been as convincing if this hero had resembled Elmer Fudd? The movie sets and costumes in “Conan the Barbarian” were designed based on the benchmark set by Frazetta in his paintings of the same.

FARZETTA'S (almost) WHOLESOME WOMEN

When you are looking at a Frazetta painting of a woman, no reference could possible be drawn to a Gibson Girl with their high, laced collar, balloon sleeved blouses, and Victorian values (not in the least); Frazetta's lassies are scantily clad, if they are wearing any clothing at all, and often they find themselves either in peril or as a warrior in pursuit of peril. Whichever, they are unmistakably Frazetta.

His male audience (for the most part) looks upon his women as desirable; whereas women (some women), find them to be unrealistic, and sexist. They are unquestionably buxom, and in some cases are as formidable as their male counterparts or the monsters that guard or imprison them. I would rather face one of Frazetta's glowing-eyed monsters than to come face to face with one of his seductive, sword wielding vixens.

Upon learning that a museum showcasing his work (http://www.frazettaartgallery.com/) was within a morning's drive from us (200 miles to our north—one way), we loaded into the car, and headed for Pennsylvania. When we arrived at his property there was little to indicate that we had arrived at our desired destination. No billboards, no flashing neon signs, not even a stick painted red! It was not until we entered his curvaceous driveway (how apropos), that we were greeted by a small sign that read, "Museum." A crude arrow pointed to the left; that was it.

We each paid our $10.00 entrance fee, signed the guestbook, and were free to wander around viewing the wonders of his talent. Later his grandson introduced himself, and filled us in a few more details concerning his grandfather's paintings.

His teenage grandson was a congenial, red-headed lad with a ready smile that would have disarmed any one of his grandfather's most ferocious beasts. As we chatted I gazed up at a painting of a lass with a prodigious a'…er'ah…fanny, and asked his grandson if he knew the name of the model? "I could make a lot of money taking her on the road," said I, "just by cracking coconuts with that butt of hers!" He looked up at the painting, slapped his hand over his mouth, and convulsed with laughter. Moments later he regained his composure, and told us that he had wanted to take some of his grandfather's work to his school's show-and-tell, but that his teacher would not allow him to do so. Such paintings would not be in compliance with school policy. Imagine that. I was about to offer a suggestion that he could have placed upon the parts of questionable reveal, a Band-Aid swimsuit, but I decided to leave well enough alone.

I studied Frazetta's technique in nearly every painting, I followed the brush strokes of his oil paintings, and I meandered the smooth wash of his watercolors, and I have to say that I left his gallery enthralled, and satisfied that I had visited a Master's work.

Here is the link to Frazetta's official website; enjoy, but be forewarned, his work ain't for the priggish to view:   http://frankfrazettamuseum.com/

Copyright © 2008 Jonathan Aspensen All rights reserved. No part of this website, nor any of its contents, may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of Jonathan Aspensen.

Short Stories by Alabaster Hickey

Once upon a time a little pooh bear observed a panda.

Likewise, the panda observed the pooh bear, and afterwords picked its teeth.
THEND

The Pharmacy

The small waiting area of the grocery store’s pharmacy displayed the usual items of importance: there were vitamins, diet aids, cold packs, enemas, and so on. The tall man, with the white hair, mustache, and bearded chin, stood quietly perusing the shelves with detached interest. That was until his eyes scanned the bold print on a label announcing a new flavor. Peering over the counter toward the pharmacist, the tall man remarked in a low voice, “F-f-flavored condoms? Pray tell, do they come in jalapeño?” The pharmacist looked up and chuckled. The tall man seeing an opportunity to do some investigative reporting, pressed the pharmacist further, “Do you stay up late at night pondering what ‘flavor’ your customers might want to wear?” Again the pharmacist chuckled, only this time his cheeks reddened as he dipped his head in apparent embarrassment.

The tall man grinned satisfactorily, turned around and sauntered out into a passing aisle. Turning back toward the waiting area he noted the presence of a peculiar woman whom he had seen around town. He sized her up momentarily, and then detoured his gaze. With his back toward her, the tall man observed a customer reaching for a bottle of men’s body wash. “What in the hell is men’s body wash,” thought the tall man, “and what can it do that a can of cleanser can’t?”

The tall man’s indirect attention was diverted back to the woman as she commenced to detail her immediate life’s problems. Her audience, a heavily tattooed man with closely cropped hair, listened attentively as she laid her case before him. "They think I'm bipolar,” the woman said, a diagnosis given by some ambiguous authority, “but I don't think so! I just have ADHD, and I think it’s all the stuff I’m going through with the way my parents treat me--I think they’re my problem, they don’t treat me nice.” The tattooed man bobbed his head in silent confirmation. “My brother,” she continued, “won't let me see my nephew; I don’t know why, they don’t trust me around him.” She paused pensively, “They took pictures of his baptism--in a church, but I didn't go; they took my camera and took the pictures of him being baptized. And I know what they're going to say when they find out the pictures aren’t on my camera anymore. They’re going to say I de-e-e-leted them, but I didn't,” she insisted. Another pause, another segue, “I’m not going with anyone right now,” she offered for no apparent reason, “but I am seeing someone, but they don’t know it” They, meaning whom, I wondered? “I don't let men in my house anymore because one stole from me $4,000, and raped me. I think all my problems are because of my family. I don't think I'm bipolar, I just have ADHD."

The tattooed man turned toward her and sympathetically said, "Ye-e-eah, I used to have all that too.” A suspension in their conversation followed as their eyes locked upon the other’s. “But one thing I learned is, if you don't have to take the medication--don't take it."

The pharmacist called the tattooed man’s name, and he left with his prescription. The woman approached the counter, her eyes fixed upon the pharmacist alone. Meanwhile, the tall man stepped back to an even greater distance not wishing to be engaged in her conversation at all. “Should I take the antibiotic twice a day or once in the morning?” she asked the pharmacist. He glanced up but said nothing. She then repeated (nearly verbatim) her perceived problems and their cause.

The pharmacist called my name and the troubled woman fell silent. Upon taking leave with my stapled bag of medication, I looked the pharmacist squarely in the eyes, smiled, and said in a low, jesting tone, "I envy you." He smiled broadly and laughed.

The Elevator

The elevator door slowly pulled aside and everyone wishing to go up, walked in. The hospital’s deep, bed size elevator was full of men in suits, and women dressed to the hilt in modest splendor. A few, the tall man included, were dressed down in casual garb, and looked the part of a patient.

As the doors closed behind him, the tall man stepped to the side. Facing the crowded elevator room, the tall man smiled, looked at the blank faces staring back at him, and said, “You’re probably wondering why I called this meeting?” The elevator exploded in laughter. “Ding!” The door opened, and the tall man walked out.

Alabaster Hickey

Copyright © 2008 Jonathan Aspensen All rights reserved. No part of this website, nor any of its contents, may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of Jonathan Aspensen.

The Art of Eating Maryland Crabs

First off, reach into the pile of boiling hot crabs that were steamed in Old Bay seasoning, and select one by size that suits your appetite.

Flip the crab over to expose its belly. This is a male crab which is indicated by the spear-shaped structure called an "apron." That is the thingy in the middle.

The hinged apron is then pulled down, and the crab's erstwhile business district is exposed. You then snap the spear off, and that releases the crab's upper shell from its lower half.

The mighty crab's machine shop is then opened for your scavenging endeavors. The lungs (the cream colored leafy structures on its flanks) are discarded.

The top half corners of the crab's shell harbors a creaming goo that resembles mustard; hence, its name, "mustard." However, it no more tastes like mustard than mayonnaise tastes like mustard or ketchup tastes like asparagus soup.

A yummy finger tip of mustard.

With its lungs removed you can now suck from its meridian all the gooey goodness of more mustard! Then hold the crab carcass firmly betwixt your hands and snap it in half.

Ummmmmmmmm, meat. Ummmmm, mustard.

SLURP, SLURP, SLURP!!!

"GOOD GAWD! You don't expect me to eat that wormy looking mess--DO YOU?" Yes, just be careful not to eat the gray colored "sand sack." It only takes one bite to realize why it ought to be discarded.

Take your knife and crack a groove near the pincers, and crack away the arm--voila--a nice chunk of meat is there for your delight! The middle segment of the arm also has a pleasant surprise of meat as well. BUT--be sure the crab is fully cooked!

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"SON-OF-A-B-WORD!" And yes, I do mean BROCCOLI.

Copyright © 2008 Jonathan Aspensen All rights reserved. No part of this website, nor any of its contents, may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of Jonathan Aspensen.