| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 15 February 2005 |
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There are guided tours, but they were not until 10 AM, so we walked around on our own, and the signs posted around the mission helped explain what we were seeing. One advantage of doing this is that is was very quiet; we were the only people there.
After this we went to the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum (http://www.amn.org/McNayext.htm). (Actually this is known locally as the McNay Art Museum, but everything we had seen before this used the full name, leading us to refer to it as 'the art museum with the funny name.') One feature we found interesting was the Leeper Auditorium, named after John Palmer Leeper. You may not find that as fascinating. (He is no relation.)
This was another small but choice collection, with Cezanne, Renoir, Pisarro ('Haymakers Resting,' featuring his high horizon and large figures), Mondrian (pre-geometric), Gauguin, Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh ('Women Crossing the Fields'), Matisse, Léger, Braque, Modigliani, Rousseau, Utrillo, Chagall, Rivera, and Rodin ('The Burghurs of Calais'). One of the paintings I liked the best was Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's 'Portrait of Hans Frisch.' There was a gallery of modern abstract art, but it does little for me; a mottled green triangle with wooden 'hinges' on the sides labeled 'Aphrodite' makes no sense to me.
The special exhibit was of Lola Alvarez Bravo's photography. I was particularly struck by her collage 'Anarchia arquitectónica en la ciudad de Mexico' which is reminiscent of many paintings, including one in the Toledo Museum that I think is titled 'The Architect's Nightmare.'
The medieval room had a painting titled 'Mary Magdalene' which was painted by and artist named 'Master of the (Madonna with the) Parrot' (1490-1550). All I can think of is 'the artist formerly known as Prince.'
We had lunch at Tomatillos, a very good Mexican place near the Witte Museum. We split an order of guacamole enchiladas and an order of chicken mole, and both were excellent.
We wanted to go to the Witte Museum. However, while admission is $6.95, it was free after 3 PM on Tuesdays. This was Tuesday, but it was only 1:30 PM. Across the street from Tomatillos was Half-Price Books, and Mark suggested we kill time there. An hour and a half later (and $38 poorer) we left Half-Price books. Our best find was a book Mark spotted, an R. A. Lafferty numbered and autographed limited edition which we've seen elsewhere priced at $45, but here was in the clearance section for $2.
At 3 PM we went to the Witte Museum. The first thing we saw on entering was a Triceratops skeleton and a Tyrannosaurus rex skull. Mark claims every science museum has a dinosaur exhibit. I said I didn't remember one from the military medical museum, but Mark claimed that didn't count as a science museum.
Everything here is bilingual, even more so than in Fort Worth. Well, except for the quote over one ecology exhibit: 'The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, 'What good is it?' If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not.' (Aldo Leopold).
To illustrate animals' food requirements, they had a video game where you were a hawk hunting for food. We watched a video on 'Venomous Insects, Spiders, and Other Arthropods.' We also learned that Texas has seven regions. Texarkana is Pineywoods, Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin are Prairie, Johnson City is Hill Country, San Antonio is Thornbrush, and Houston is Dunes & Marshes. The two we aren't visited this trip are Plains (Amarillo), and Deserts & Mountains (El Paso). One sign said, 'South Texas-where everything sticks, stings, or sticks.'
Texas has a Math and Science Hotline (1-800-566-5066), where I guess you can call with emergency questions about Goldbach's Conjecture and such.
In addition to the main building, there is a log cabin and other buildings outside, more for the History part. In the main building they have a 'visible storage' furniture exhibit. This was of furniture made from horn. All I could think of was 'I use antlers in all of my decorating.'
We finished here about 6 PM and went back to the motel, not being hungry for dinner.
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Today was our twenty-fifth anniversary.
We started our wild celebration by a visit to the Spanish Governors Palace ($1). This was only moderately interesting, except for the sign about the washing area in the dining room being there because washing the hands before eating was a religious ceremony. Now, I've never heard of Catholics having such a ceremony, but Jews certainly do, so I have strong suspicions that the Spanish Governors, or at least some of them, were from Converso families. (They may not have even known this.) This is not all that unlikely; recent studies have shown that a very high percentage of the Spanish families in the American Southwest were probably Conversos who came here to avoid the prying eyes of the Inquisition.
Our next stop was Fort Sam Houston and the U. S. Army Medical Department Museum. One set of statistics near the beginning were the survival rates of wounded in various wars (to show how medical care has improved: Civil War, 55%, World War II, 70%; Korea, 75%; Vietnam 87%. (These figures do not include those who were killed outright.) In the Civil War, 168,777 were wounded in action and 75,538 died of their wounds, while 199,270 died of disease (about evenly divided among fever, diarrhea, lung diseases, and other).
We also stopped briefly at the Fort Sam Houston Museum, which had a history of the post, including information on the Rough Riders, who trained there.
After lunch at the Krung Thai, we checked into the Marriott Riverwalk about 2 PM.
It still being early, we decided to go over to the Alamo. This was 'well-attended,' but still probably had fewer people than The Sixth Floor.
There was a lot of historical information, starting from the very beginning of settlement in the area, through the Spanish invasion, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla's 'El Grito' of September 16, 1810, for Mexican independence, and later Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's abolition of the constitution of 1824 which had given power to the states and provided for an elected president and congress. While Texas had been in favor of those parts, they hadn't liked the part which had combined the state of Texas with Coahuila and put its capital in Saltillo.
But it was the decree of April 6, 1830, which halted American immigration (articles 9 and 11), levied taxes, and prohibited the importation of slaves (Article 10) that really got the Texians (as they seem to be called) fired up. A series of battles led up to the 'Thirteen Days of Glory' (February 23 through March 6, 1836) at the Alamo. The Alamo defenders didn't even know that Texas issued its Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836. More fighting followed the Alamo, including the March 27 Goliad Massacre. But the revolution ended successfully when Santa Anna surrendered on April 21 after the battle of San Jacinto.
Almost ten year later (December 29, 1845) the United States annexed Texas (at Texas's request) and Texas formally joined the Union on February 19, 1846. And except for that slight dust-up between 1861 and 1865, she's stayed a loyal member since then.
The videotape shown there is just a bit slanted, but it was produced by the Daughters of the Texas Republic. For example, it talks about the Mexican Army being 'driven by the ruthless will of the dictator' and fails to mention that one of the freedoms the Texians were fighting for was the freedom to own slaves. In fact, one of the first acts of Texas was to expel all free Negroes.
I will not recount the story of the Alamo itself; I assume you know it, or have at least seen the John Wayne version. For a slightly different version, read José Enrique de la Peña's With Santa Anna in Texas. For a really different version, read Scott Cupp's 'Thirteen Days of Glory.'
Later in the evening we walked along the Riverwalk for a while, but even that was very hot.
August 28:
August 29:
August 30:
August 31:
September 1:
These were the days of the convention and are covered in excruciating detail in my (separate) convention report.
Monday night after the convention ended we did go to see Kull the Conqueror. I can't recommend it.
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We were going to stay in San Antonio to watch 'Mission to Mir' in the IMAX theater, but we discovered that it was showing at the Houston Space Center and was included in the admission there. So we headed out east on I-10 toward Houston.
Even though in Texas terms, San Antonio and Houston are close, they are still a long way apart-180 miles, taking about four hours of driving. When we arrived we checked into the Grant Motel, a hangover from the 1950s, advertising 'Pool' and 'Color TV' in neon on their sign. (They had modernized the locks to be electronic, though.)
We then took I-610 and TX-134 to the San Jacinto Battleground (http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/cgi-bin/print_hit_boldl/park/battlesh/battlesh.htm) in La Porte (southeast of Houston). If Fort Worth is 'Cow Town,' then Houston is 'Oil Town.' We drove past miles of oil refineries followed by more miles of oil refineries.
San Jacinto is the site of the final battle of the Texian Revolution (or whatever it should be called). It took eighteen minutes for the Texians to defeat the Mexicans, and considerably longer for them to commit assorted atrocities on the wounded and on the corpses. The only reason this battle was definitive was that Santa Anna was captured the next day, and that pretty much ended the war-or at least paused it until 1845, when the United States annexed Texas. That got Mexico upset again, so in a sense the Mexican War was just a continuation of the Texian Revolution.
The San Jacinto Monument is the world's tallest stone monument at 567.31 feet and 70,300,000 pounds. It was, however, being restored when we were there, so the star at the top was enclosed in chicken wire while this was going on. That was a pity as I would have like to see it, since it has the interesting geometric property of being seen as a five-pointed star from any (horizontal) direction.
The museum in the base was open. It covered the entire historical period from the first Spanish settlers to annexation, though not in a very chronological way.
We then drove to the Menil Collection because I had forgotten it was closed Tuesdays. However, right nearby was the Alabama Bookstop, a bookstore in the Bookstop chain built in a converted movie theater (the Alabama Theater). The conversion was minimal (they took the seats out), and the ceiling, murals, balcony, and side areas remain the same. The balcony has a cafe, but the stage area has magazines, rather than the film books which I would have put there (they are also on the balcony). It was, all in all, a unique bookstore, and we ended up buying a few books there as well (two film books, appropriately enough, and a couple of science books as well).
Afterwards we still weren't hungry (we have eaten a pretty big lunch), but we did stop for ice cream. |
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