Now that I am vaccinated and have also had my booster, I am getting out there a bit more. A week ago I did an overnight trip to Philadelphia. The afternoon I arrived, I went to the Wagner Free Institute of Science as I mentioned in my last post, and noted the synoptic collections there.
The impetus for my visit was to attend a concert by Steely Dan. I am a modest Steely Dan fan, but most of all I wanted to see Donald Fagen, one of the co-founders of the band along with Walter Becker (deceased). It looks like Fagen is the only remaining original member, but I guess he owns the name. These legacy bands sometimes make me wince, but at least it's not The Beach Boys without Brian Wilson.
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| Steely Dan members timeline (Wikipedia) |
As a solo artist, Fagen wrote the song I.G.Y., which I consider the musical anthem of the International Geophysical Year. I had a blog post about him and the song back in January. Fagen didn't sing I.G.Y. in this show. The band performed the entire Steely Dan album Aja, and a number of their other hits. Maybe my favorite was Deacon Blues, in this video played by an ensemble similar to the one I saw:
The concert was Steely Dannish smooth, albeit a bit loud. I felt distracted by the light show and the whirling dervish guy dancing nonstop like a madman a few seats away. I was chastised for the one photo I took, even though I would guess nothing was said to the 2/3 of
the crowd who remained unmasked, counter to stated protocols (although vaccination proof was checked upon entry). And why couldn't people just sit and listen, rather than the constant flow of people to the bar and popcorn stand.
The day after the concert I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I toured the much-hyped Jasper Johns exhibit. Johns was "discovered" by noted gallery owner Leo Castelli in 1958, during the IGY.
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| Jasper Johns and Leo Castelli, 1958 (FORMIDABLE MAG) |
I did not take a photo of one of Johns' iconic flag pictures, with the 48 stars to indicate it represented a time before the statehood of Alaska, which I mentioned in the last post. But I did snap this one painting
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| Jasper Johns' Target (1958) |
from the show dating to the IGY period, Target. Appropriate, since to me it was reminiscent of a cross-section of the Earth's interior, showing our planet's major divisions.
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| Schematic cross-section of the Earth (BBC) |
The second exhibit I looked at was on the photography and printing of Richard Benson. The subtitle for the last few panels of the exhibit was "Looking Beyond Prints." The explanatory text explained that "Benson collected antique postage stamps and currency ... viewing them as finely made prints produced in extraordinarily large editions. He turned to the stamps for some of his last photographs, using a scanner in place of the camera... he believed this new stage of digital technology would enable us to hold onto everything old, as in the case of these stamps, which he was delighted to see reproduced in fine detail at an unprecedented scale."
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| Fancy Cancels (2013), pigment inkjet print. Aprroximately 2' x 3'. |
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| Black Jack Stamp with Fancy Cancel (2013), pigment inkjet print. Appoximately 1' x 1.5'. |
"Benson eagerly collected examples of the 2-cent Andrew Jackson stamp [Scott #73], known as the Black Jack, printer between 1863 and 1869. He especially loved the 'fancy cancels' found on many examples. These are designs used by postal clerks to mark used stamps in that era. Often carved on cork and paired with a chosen ink color, they are highly individual. Of course, the cancel marks are prints themselves, deigned to obliterate or deface the image below. Here again, as in so much of Benson's work, we encounter anonymous individuals creatively marking their work and time in the world" (Philadelphia Art Museum).
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