Words to live by: No home is complete without a rubber chicken. I’m sure Archie McPhee would agree.
Except that he’s a commercial fiction, invented to sell rubber chickens and many other novelty items at a store named Archie McPhee. The place happens to be within walking distance of Lilly and Dan’s apartment in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle, so I walked over and took a look the last full day we were in town.
Archie McPhee is in a basic building, whimsically adorned, on N. 45th St., which is the commercial spine of Wallingford, at least part of its way.
As a novelty store, it’s chock-a-block with novelties.
A lot of Bigfoot items. This is the Pacific Northwest, after all.
The store web site lists the following categories to make your shopping easier: Rubber Chickens, Bigfoot, Unicorns, Cats, Hands, Birds, Squirrels, Bacon & Meat, Zombies & Monsters, Pickles, Underpants, J.P. Patches, Creepy Horse Head, Religion.
J.P. Patches? “The J.P. Patches Show aired on KIRO-TV in Seattle from 1958-1981 and broadcast over 10,000 episodes in its 23-year run,” Archie McPhee tells those of us who grew up in other parts of the country.
“Just about every kid who grew up in the Northwest during that time tuned in as Julius Pierpont Patches, Mayor of the City Dump, entertained them with cartoons, sketches and special guests.”
Besides some postcards, I bought a Meditating Bigfoot. Only $4. A store like this needs support from the public.
I didn’t buy a rubber chicken. We have one already, and Lilly specifically asked me not to buy one to leave at her apartment, because she knows how I think.
The star of the shop is naturally rubber chickens, including (I think) what’s called the world’s largest.
Maybe so. But there might be bigger ones in Guangdong Province, what with its centuries of history as a rubber chicken hub. But never mind, Archie McPhee has a Rubber Chicken Museum.
A gimmick, for sure. But it does have rubber chickens of historic interest on display behind protective glass.
“Our owner, Mark Pahlow, started the business selling rubber lizards and other crazy things out of his house in L.A.,” the store says. “He found that people couldn’t get enough of his collectible junk, but he needed space for his company to grow. Risking it all, he packed his entire inventory into a U-Haul truck and headed for Seattle. In 1983 he set up shop with two employees in Seattle’s Fremont district using the name ‘Archie McPhee.’ ”
Eventually, Pahlow needed more novelties than whoever makes them in (say) Guangdong Province could provide, so he started designing his own. Now the company produces as many as 200 new products a year, or at least he did about eight years ago, according to Atlas Obscura, an article worth reading for its tales of the weirdness involved in making and selling weird things.
After returning from Europe in mid-August 1983, I spent about 10 days in New York City, a kind of coda to the longer trip. Expenses were low, since I was house sitting – apartment (co-op?) sitting in Greenwich Village – for Deb, a woman I’d met in Germany, while she was on the Jersey shore with her parents. A place New Yorkers went in August, Deb said, because their analysts were out of town. I think she was only half-joking.
If I were a different person, I would have spent late nights at the likes of CBGB, the Palladium, Danceteria, or the Peppermint Lounge (or the Village Vanguard or the Bitter End, for that matter), staggered back to Deb’s apartment, and slept most of the day. That would have been quite the time and place for that kind of activity. But no: I didn’t take a stronger interest in live music in small venues until I lived in Nashville for a few years, and I never did latch on to the alcohol or cocaine components of those kinds of nights. So any stories I’d tell about the NYC club scene 40 years ago would be necessarily made up.
I did a lot of walking. Mostly Manhattan, but one day I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and spent some time in that borough. I also made it up the Bronx.
The zoo was a little run down in those days, but nothing like the south Bronx territory I saw from the #5 IRT. The zoo guide above, looking at it now, is a model of compact information, unfolding to offer a good map of the zoo’s 265 acres on one side, and on the other side, other information about the zoo, and the various trails in the facility one could follow to see different kinds of animals: the Wild Asia Trail, Africa Trail, Reptiles and Apes, Bird Valley Trail, etc.
I see that elephant and llama rides were available for an extra fee in those days. I wonder if that’s still the case.
Back in Manhattan, there was always Art to see.
Note the adult admission price: $3. Or the equivalent of about $10 these days. And what is the adult rate as of 2024? $30. That’s just gouging, MoMA. You have no excuse.
Vistas. I don’t remember what I paid, but the ESB price now is absurd. I’m glad I’ve already been there.
I went to the top of the Empire State Building at night, and marveled at the glow of the city, but also at just how many vehicles on the street below were yellow cabs. I was at the World Trade Center observation deck during the day; a lost view.
Revel in the obscurity: Details of posters advertising a regional brand of candy that hasn’t been made in years, created by a commercial artist no one has ever heard of, on display in a large town few people visit.
Bloomington-based Beich Candy Co. was the candy maker, and the posters advertise its Whiz Bar, whose slogan – until inflation made it obsolete – was “Whiz, best nickel candy there iz-z.”
The posters are behind glass at the McLean County Museum of History, and thus hard to photography in total without glare. But details work out nicely.
We visited the museum on Saturday morning.
“These posters were created by Don Shirley (1913-2001) for States Display, a local commercial art business,” notes the museum. “He was an artist and illustrator.”
A Prussian immigrant by the name of Paul F. Beich founded the candy company that carried his name. Beich Candy Co. lives on as a unit of Ferrero, with a candy factory in Bloomington (recently expanded), but Whiz seems to be no more. A chocolate-marshmallow-peanut confection, it sounds something like a Goo-Goo Cluster.
An even deeper dive into Beich Co. is at an Illinois Wesleyan University website. It’s the story of a food technologist who worked for the company, one Justin J. Alikonis.
“He designed and patented, among other things, a marshmallow-making machine, the ‘Whizolater,’ named after the Beich flagship candy bar, the Whiz,” the site says. “With no moving parts and operating solely on pressurized air, the Whizolater could make 1,400 gallons of marshmallow or nougat per hour.”
As local history museums go, McLean County is top drawer, with enough displays and artifacts to inspire all sorts of rabbit-hole expeditions, besides 20th-century candy making in central Illinois. Such as friends of Lincoln who otherwise would be lost to history.
He even looks a little like Lincoln, but maybe that’s just 19th-century styling.
Otherwise obscure incidents in McLean County history make their appearance as well, such as one in 1854, when a mob of Know-Nothings smashed 50 barrels each of brandy and cherry bounce, and 50 casks each of “high wine,” gin and whiskey taken from groggeries in Bloomington, according to the museum.
I had to look up cherry bounce. For those who like their neurotoxins sweet, I guess. The Know-Nothings were destroying the alcohol – “washed the prairie” with it, said a contemporary account, though perhaps some of it was squirreled away by thirsty Know-Nothings – presumably because it was associated with immigrant saloons.
A flag. For union and liberty.
A replica of the one carried by the 33rd Illinois Infantry Regiment, which has its start comprised of teachers and students and former students at Normal University (later ISU), with university president Charles E. Hovey as its colonel.
Most local history museums have oddities, and so does McLean County.
It’s a little hard to tell, but that’s a large chair. Though I’m six feet tall, my feet barely touched the ground. “Yes, please sit here!” its sign said. “The owners of Howard & Kirkpatrick’s Home Furnishings places this oversized chair outside their store to draw customers inside.”
The displays and artifacts are one thing, but what really makes the museum sing is its digs in the former courthouse.
Especially the former courtroom.
In which hangs a portrait of Vice President Adlai Stevenson.
The courthouse dates from the early 1900s, a time when officialdom at least believed that the physical structures of republican government ought to have a touch of grandeur.
Early last year, I ordered a number of 4″ x 6″ tabletop flags from an online vendor that doesn’t happen to be Amazon. I have pocket change and postcards and tourist spoons and all kinds of bric-a-brac from the places I’ve been, so why not flags? One for each nation I’ve visited.
So I ordered a Portuguese flag last week, to add to the collection. While Macao was still administrated by Portugal when I visited in 1990, it was too much of a stretch to say I’d been to Portugal, until last month.
Something I never noticed on the flag – behind the shield of Portugal, which has a lore of its own – is an armillary sphere, a model of objects in the sky. A navigators’ tool, among other things, which fits Portuguese history nicely. A cool design element.
We saw other representations of the globe — terrestrial or celestial — at Pena Palace in Sintra.
This one at Jerónimos Monastery.
For sale at the Cod Museum, canned fish. At fancy prices.
For sale at a Portuguese grocery store, canned fish. At everyday prices.
In case you didn’t buy enough canned fish in the city, at the airport there’s a branch of Mundo Fantástico Da Sardinha Portuguesa, a sardine store on the Praça do Rossio.
For once, the Google Maps description is accurate: “Souvenir shop showcasing fancy tins of Portuguese sardines in a wacky, circuslike atmosphere.” You can even sit on a sardine throne.
The “Beer Museum” off Praça do Comércio seemed more like a restaurant and bar, but anyway you have to have a beer at a place like that, and I did. A Portuguese brew whose name I was too much on vacation to remember.
I wasn’t awed by the beer, which was good enough, but I was awed by this display. That’s one artful wall of beer.
We didn’t make it to the castle overlooking Lisbon (Castelo de São Jorge), so I can’t comment on the view from there. I will say that the roof of our hotel offered a pretty good one.
Looking up at the city is another kind of vista. There’s a ferry port (and subway station) on the Tagus near Praça do Comércio. Step outside there, and some of the city is visible. The stone tower is part of Lisbon Cathedral.
We emerged from the subway one morning and spotted this.
Monumento aos Mortos da Grande Guerra. I had to check, and found out that about 12,000 Portuguese soldiers died in WWI, including in France but also fighting the Germans in Africa. The memorial is on Av. Da Liberdade.
Europe, in my experience, is pretty good at putting together leafy boulevards.
That’s a tall order for a sandwich shop. We didn’t investigate the claim, either the number of steps, nor the state of mind.
At Basílica de Nossa Senhora dos Mártires, we encountered this fellow.
Rather Roman looking, and I mean the ancient Roman army, not “prays like a Roman with her eyes on fire.” At first I thought he might be Cornelius the Centurion, but the key clue is HODIE (“today”) written on the cross, meaning he’s Expeditus. I don’t ever remember seeing him depicted in a church. The patron of urgent causes, among other things.
We saw a flamenco show in Barcelona last year, but no fado in Lisbon. We did see a fado truck, however.
We ate at the Time Out Market Lisboa twice.
There was a reason it was crowded. Everything was a little expensive, but really good. Such as this place, whose grub was like Shake Shack.
The last meal of the trip wasn’t at Time Out Lisboa, but a Vietnamese restaurant with room enough for about 20 people. It too was full.
Spotted at one of the subway stations we passed through more than once. Alice in Wonderland‘s fans are international in scope.
On the whole, the Lisbon subways are efficient and inexpensive, and the lines go a lot of places. Even so, elevator maintenance did seem to be an issue. There were times when our tired feet would have appreciated an elevator, but no go.
Scenes from Parc Eduardo VII, which includes green space and gardens but also elegant buildings.
There was an event there that day, at least according to those blue signs, that had something to do with the Portuguese Space Agency. I didn’t know there was such a thing. I’d have assumed Portugal would participate in the ESA, and leave it at that. But no, the Agência Espacial Portuguesa was founded in 2019, and is looking to create a space port in the Azores.
We didn’t investigate the event any further, but we did look at the tiles on the building. Nice.
Among the kings of Portugal, there was no Edward VII – only one Edward, who reigned from 1433 to 1438 – so when I saw it on the map, I figured it was for the British monarch of that regnal name. Yes, according to Wiki: “The park is named for King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, who visited Portugal in 1903 to strengthen relations between the two countries and reaffirm the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance.”
Lisbon manhole covers. Maybe not as artful as some of the other street details on Lisbon, but not bad.
I saw S.L.A.T. a fair amount. Later, I looked it up: Sinalização Luminosa Automática de Trânsito – Automatic Traffic Light Signaling.
On the day after much climbing around the Sintra hills, that is, Friday, May 17, the idea of visiting the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum and the surrounding Calouste Gulbenkian Garden had a lot going for it. A reportedly great collection of art, for one thing, in a vivid green park. Just as important, it was walking distance from our hotel. A fairly short walking distance, with the interlude of a leisurely brunch on the way. Our last full day in Portugal was going to be leisurely.
The brunch. Mine anyway.
There are pancakes, as you might find in North America, but under the meat and eggs, a position that’s less common over here. Good pancakes too. Considering the cost of living in Portugal and the relatively strong dollar vs. the euro, we enjoyed high-quality breakfast food at IHOP prices.
Much has been written about the oilman Calouste Gulbenkian (d. 1955) elsewhere, for feats of industrialism and a colossal amount of philanthropy. Then there was the matter of collecting art, which he did with both hands.
Apparently he liked Lisbon a great deal, and who wouldn’t, especially after Paris got too hot in 1940. Much earlier, he and his family escaped Ottoman persecution, so while you can’t call such a wealthy fellow a refuge, he did feel the need to flee occasionally, along the way evolving into a shadowy British-Armenian billionaire with a massive art collection. These days, his artwork is in the museum named for him in Lisbon, developed by his posthumous foundation.
“When it comes to sheer diversity enhanced by the highest of standards, then the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon is in a category of its own,” the NYT reported in 1984. “Its collections range from art of the ancient Greeks to the Impressionists, from Iznik faience to Jacob armchairs made for Marie Antoinette, with a goodly complement of carpets, coins, tapestries, ivories and illuminated manuscripts thrown in…
“Unlike most other museums (the Frick is a significant exception), the physical plant has been designed to fit the collection, rather than the other way around. There are vast halls for carpets, and small rooms for silver, vitrines designed so that objects can be seen from every side, and all in such a way that nothing ever looks crowded. The light, too, is unusually good.”
The description is still accurate. The variety doesn’t hit you until you’re past a half-dozen galleries, but then it hits all at once. The aesthetic appetite of this oilman emulator of Le goût Rothschild spanned centuries and continents, and he had the means to act on it.
Among other things, I spent quality time with his ancient coin collection. Gulbenkian had examples from all around the Greek world in the first few centuries after the invention of coinage in Lydia. He had some from Lydia itself; some of the first coins ever.
A good number of Near Eastern carpets were on display, some near the floor lying flat and lightly roped off. To my eye, flawless works. They gave me the opportunity to pass along the idea (to Ann) that certain carpet markers of yore, perhaps Persians, deliberately included a small imperfection in their work because only God is perfect. Something I heard years ago, I don’t know where, and I can’t vouch for its accuracy, caveats that I also passed along. I’m not the only one to wonder.
The Gulbenkian Foundation complex, including the museum, didn’t open until until more than a decade after his death, and pretty much screams 1969.
The garden, lush in an Iberian May, takes some of the edge off the brutalism.
We visited the museum first, then strolled the garden afterward.
The museum includes an indoor-outdoor cafe, where we stopped for pastries late in mid-afternoon, sitting outside.
If the Belém Tower and the Monument of the Discoveries were about Portuguese ventures into the world, the nearby Jerónimos Monastery shows one thing they brought back: immense wealth. Taxes needed to be paid on the incoming wealth, of course, and a certain large part of those levies went to build Mosteiro dos Jerónimos. The Hieronymite monks who lived there for a few centuries were tasked to pray for the souls of successive kings of Portugal and to minister to those leaving on ocean-spanning voyages.
Money well spent, I’d say. The monastery is the extraordinary work of a number of hands, beginning with architect Diogo de Boitaca and including a succession of other architects, designers and sculptors. Together with Belém Tower, it is a World Heritage Site.
The outside of the monastery church, Santa Maria.
The monastery grounds include other large museums, such as ones devoted to Portuguese naval history, and an archaeological museum, both of which would surely be worth the time. But we focused, as most visitors do, on the monastery church and the cloister next to it.
These structures are considered class-A examples of Manueline, a style particular to Portugal during the Age of Discovery and with an emphasis on elaborate stonework. Sturdy work, too: the earthquake of ’55 didn’t do a lot of damage to the monastery.
Some Portuguese royals, namely the go-getters of the Aviz dynasty who oversaw worldwide Portuguese expansion, are entombed in both transept chapels. Note the elephants supporting the tombs.
Quite the ceiling.
Vasco da Gama, as mentioned previously, has a tomb near the church’s entrance. Across from him is the Portuguese epic poet Luís Vaz de Camões (d. 1580), whose best known work celebrates the voyages of da Gama.
The poet might not actually be in the tomb. His original resting place was disturbed by the 1755 earthquake, and by the time of his entombment in Santa Maria in the 19th century, finding his remains was a matter of guesswork.
Santa Maria church, I’m glad to say, charged no admission, though I was happy to donate a few euros to its upkeep. All you have to do is wait in line, which took about 20 minutes.
The cloister, on the other hand, sold admissions, though at a fairly reasonable 10 euros. It was busy, but not so crowded that we couldn’t buy admission right then. Anyway, it was entirely worth it.
One is allowed to peer into the courtyard, but not enter it. I believe that that’s actual grass, not Astroturf.
Endless details carved all around.
A large refectory includes the sort of tilework that Portugal is famous for.
Including a depiction of an emotionally distressed horse.
That’s what it looks like to me, at least. Some of the tile artists apparently appreciated the fact that such a horse’s lot is little but work, work, work.
The cat at Museu Arqueológico do Carmo in Lisbon wasn’t shy. This was his territory, after all. Tourists, such as ourselves, were just passing through.
A descendant of cats who did mousing duties at the Convent of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Convento da Ordem do Carmo)centuries ago, including the sizable Gothic church associated with that long-gone convent? I like to think so, but in any case the cat seems to have the run of the place, a museum formed from the stabilized ruins of that church.
The green strips running the length of the nave-shell aren’t covered with grass. It’s something like Astroturf, if not that brand itself. For some reason, I found that amusing.
Surviving bits are on display under the roofless nave.
Including St. John Nepomucene, a sculpture by created in 1743, back when the 14th-century Czech martyr had recently become a saint (1729). Was getting a trending new saint a consideration for the Carmelites as they decided which saint statue to commission?
Looks like the sculpture survived the 1755 earthquake, which not only destroyed the church, it ended the site as a monastic community. The museum dates from the 19th century, through the efforts of the Association of Portuguese Archaeologists. But history wasn’t done with the site, museum or not: the former convent was a brief focus of activity during the Carnation Revolution.
The roof remains, or was restored to, the transept and the sanctuary, which now house other artifacts.
Such as a number of elaborate tombs original to the church, or relocated from other places where they were being neglected. This is the 14th-century tomb of King Ferdinand I (d. 1383). Apparently his remains got lost along the way, or at least are not in the tomb any more.
More tombs.
Or more likely, former tombs, now exhibits illustrating status, even in death. As if we needed even more reminders of impermanence in the ruins of an enormous church.
Because of our drive through southern Missouri on April 6, first on Missouri 32, then U.S. 63 and U.S. 60, generally trending west but also somewhat south, I’ve learned a few things.
One, there’s a crater on Venus named after Laura Ingalls Wilder, which is mentioned in passing here and confirmed by the USGS.
All features on that planet are named after females, real or fictional. Specifically, according to the IAU, craters are named for “women who have made outstanding or fundamental contributions to their field (over 20 km); common female first names (under 20 km).” I assume the measurements refer to diameter.
This page on planetary nomenclature is fascinating stuff, as far as I’m concerned. Dig down a little deeper, and you’ll find 900 Venusian crater names, from Abigail (the name) and Abington (actress Francis Abington) to Zurka (gypsy first name) and Zbereva (aviator Lidiya Zvereva, d. 1916). With a death date like that, I’d assume a flying accident, but no: typhoid fever.
Also, I learned that Michael Landon, who portrayed Laura Ingalls Wilder’s father on TV, doesn’t look much like the man, Charles Ingalls. I can see that for myself, as he’s pictured with his wife Caroline here.
If it had been up to me, Landon would have at least sported a beard like Chas. Ingalls’. I don’t know whether that would have made Little House on the Prairie a better show, but it couldn’t have hurt.
The drive wasn’t quite car commercial driving. There was some traffic, and while the spring green woods and flowering patches of Mark Twain National Forest and the farms and businesses and churches and small-town buildings of southern Missouri offered pleasant enough scenery (and a favorite town name: Cabool), it wasn’t a Class A two-lane drive, as we would experience later, in Arkansas.
Late in the afternoon, we came to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum, near U.S. 60 as it passes through Mansfield, Mo., and we were just in time to catch the last tour of the day. That’s what ultimately turned my attention to Venusian craters, 19th-century beards, etc.
Not bad for an essentially self-built house – mostly by Wilder’s husband, Almanzo Wilder. She lived until 1957, for many years at this house, and could afford comfortable furnishings later in life.
Though the colors and styles were different, the living room nevertheless reminded me of my grandparents’ home in San Antonio. It had a similar old-folks-in-mid-century feeling somehow.
Not quite the depth of cold today as the three days before. I think temps reached double digits, reckoned in Fahrenheit, and tomorrow we’ll enjoy a balmy 20 F. With a little more snow, and sliding temps for the weekend. Such is January.
One of our more interesting moments in Louisville at the end of ’23 came at the lower level of a downtown hotel. I took a moment to rest on a bench.
Soon, Yuriko joined me.
It’s a little hard to tell with still images, but the letters appeared to drift downward and then rest on your reflection. Up close, the letters looked like this.
We were looking at an art installation next to a bank of elevators.
Back in the 2000s, I wrote at least one article, already lost to time, about a new boutique hotel in Louisville, of all places. The redevelopment of a number of derelict downtown warehouses, joined for the purpose, created the 21c Hotel Museum. I brought my professional skepticism to the task. Saving warehouses is a good idea, and if the market can bear high-priced hotel rooms in downtown Louisville, fine.
But the hotel was supposed to be a contemporary art museum as well, as its founders were art collectors. I doubted that it was much of a museum, though without any evidence one way or the other. It just sounded like the sort of claim a new boutique hotel would make: put a few paintings in an empty room on the property, call yourself a museum, elevate your room rates.
That was in a time – before the panic of 2008 – of a number of boutique hotel rollouts, often smaller brands owned by very large hotel chains, each angling for something to make it stand out, at least superficially, from the sameness of the mainstream brands.
That all was in the back of my mind when, on December 30, we dropped by 21c Hotel Museum.
A gilded statue stands watch outside: “David (inspired by Michelangelo)” (2005), which is double the size of its inspiration and largely fiberglass, by Turkish artist Serkan Özkaya.
I hadn’t thought about the 21c in a number of years, so even as I entered, I wasn’t expecting much. I was wrong. As a museum, the place is fair-sized, its art in galleries on the hotel’s lower level, and it has an interesting collection.
I couldn’t find the description of the metal tornado near the ceiling, but I liked it.
Details of other works at the 21c. A series of faces.
All of the works are recent vintage, as in 21st century. Fitting the name. Though the Louisville redevelopment was the first of them, there are currently eight 21c Hotel Museums, owned by Accor, including others in Bentonville, Ark., Chicago, Cincinnati, Durham, NC, Kansas City, Mo., Lexington, Ky. and St. Louis. Each has exhibit space, collectively totaling 75,000 square feet.
Best of all, you can just wander in and look at it. No admission, no questions asked.
Down the hall from the “Text Rain” is a work tucked away in a utilitarian lower space outside a window, “Cloud Rings” by Ned Kahn (2006). Its sign says: A series of devices that continuously shoot rings of fog up into an exterior sunken courtyard space.
Even before you enter the grounds of Churchill Downs, you encounter bronze horses. Both are winners of the Kentucky Derby. One is Aristides, at the Paddock gate, who came in first in the first Derby in 1875 – long before it was a Run for the Roses,® or the first race of the Triple Crown,® or the Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports,® or the object of 21st-century renovations.
The Derby was about drinking and gambling from day one, I believe, and not in moderation, yet genteel enough (at least in the stands) for the monied elite — traditions that grand event upholds to the present, all the other trappings notwithstanding. What better for a spring day in Kentucky?
The other horse, and statue, is more recent: Barbaro.
I suspected right away that some physical remains of Barbaro were there as well, and yes, his ashes are, I read later. I’ve pretty much ignored thoroughbred horseracing most of my life, and even my limited interest in the ’80s was because I enjoyed going to the Derby in person. So I wondered about Barbaro. I must have heard the news story in the 2000s, but it had evaporated, gone amid the backdrop of a household with little kids.
Still, I figured, as a Derby winner his birth and death years (2003 to 2007) pretty much got to the heart of Barbaro’s career – a shooting star among race horses, brilliance to ashes. Later I looked up the details, including in a succinct, eulogizing video, and that’s about the size of it.
A thoughtful comment from the video’s comment section: Not making an anti-racing statement but, if you feel bad for Barbaro, take a moment to think about all of the other horses that broke down and died, on/off the track, too. Barbaro got kind letters, flowers, signs and even gift baskets with horse feed sent to his veterinarian centre, because he was a champion. Just seems sad that we only do that for the gifted athletes of the sport, even though every one of those incredible animals gave it their all for our entertainment.
@catarena8031
Near Barbaro is the entrance to the Kentucky Derby Museum, and near the admission desk is a countdown clock.
(As it appeared on December 28.)
While we were still in the parking lot, headed for the entrance, we passed by a young couple leaving. Out of the blue the man said to us, “Take the Barn and Backside Tour. It costs more, but it’s worth it.”
“Really?” I said, in a friendly tone. They both nodded their agreement.
“You get to see a lot more,” he said, gesturing with his hands a bit, sort of making parentheses around his sizable beard. “Some of the stables and other places behind the track.”
We agreed that that sounded good and parted ways. I asked about it at the desk. Sorry, sold out. So we got the basic tour and museum admission, a spot over $20 per person. The museum, well organized and informative but not overtaxed with dense reading, was worth a look, for a small glimpse into a whole other world.
Also, you get to see a facsimile of Mage, last year’s winner.
And the trophy War Admiral received in 1937 for winning the Derby.
Along with a good many other items. Other displays included Triple Crown winners – each one had a kiosk – how thoroughbreds are raised, the building of the track and the early races, video screens to call up and watch previous televised races (I watched ’86; I only heard it when there), images of the flamboyant hats and dresses worn by female racegoers, and the part African-Americans have played in the event, especially as jockeys: a good many in the early years, including Oliver Lewis; nil as Jim Crow solidified; some since the legal end of segregation.
The tour started with a short presentation on a 360-degree screen well above eye level: part movie, part still images with a sound track, and about what the horses and the jockeys and all the many other support staff do to put on the Derby. Quick-moving, it idealized the event somewhat, but who would expect otherwise?
The cinematography was exceptional sometimes, giving me the sense that whatever else the racehorses are, they’re massive, powerful beasts of tremendous energy. And what manor of men would perch themselves atop these beasts at their top speeds? Besides relatively small men and a few women, that is. I have a new-found respect for jockeys.
Also, it got me to thinking, a little along the lines of the comment above. Sure, it’s fine to know about the winners down the years, and I’ll go along with the notion that, say, Secretariat was a very great racer indeed. But what about the also-rans? Not just also-rans, but last rans?
Back when Aristides took the prize to the crowd’s acclaim, a horse named Gold Mine proved not to be one, coming in 15th and last. When Sir Barton won on his way to the first Triple Crown in 1919, Vindex was 12th and last.
Vindex? After the Roman who rebelled, unsuccessfully, against Nero? Could be. I can imagine the owner reading about the bold Vindex in the works of I forget which Roman historian. It would have been a thing for a horse-owning Kentucky gentleman to do in his youth in late 19th century, possibly even in the original Latin.
One more. When Secretariat won the day in 1973, before a national audience (including a 12-year-old me), Warbucks was 13th and last.
From the museum, the tour group moved to under the grandstands, guided by a competent employee of the track. She told us a capsule history of the race and the Downs.
Out to the lowest level of the grandstand. It’s a good view, I have to say.
The guide provided more history and some physical information about the track itself, and about the enormous stable complex on the other side of the track, way off in the distance, which sounded big enough to have its own zip code. (It doesn’t seem to.)
Then we headed back to the museum for a few more minutes, and that was that. Chintzy, Churchill Downs. That was more like a $12 museum + tour package. Not even a few minutes up in the grandstands? Did some whiz in the organization, or maybe a computer program, determine that eliminating the small but measurable cost in elevator maintenance and maybe slightly higher insurance premiums was worth shorting the patrons in their experience? Just speculation.
All I know is that the view from the grandstands should have been part of it. One visit to the Derby, I had access to the grandstands, and wandered around quite a while. You really get caught up in the thing looking down on the lively, colorful crowds and the active racetrack. Even on an empty winter day, I think you’d feel an echo of those festive times.
