Nerd Tourism: Streets of Philadelphia

The movers came and they took quite a while getting my things into the truck, but that's also because they were doing it right, wrapping everything in blankets and such to ensure its safe delivery, 3000 miles away. Afterwards I had to find something to do with myself for the rest of the day. Luckily that wasn't hard to do.


Bunnicula does not know what to make of the empty apartment.

I stopped for lunch then headed for the Mason Museum, a place I've always wanted to check out, taking photos along the way...


Wee airplane over City Hall

Former Mayor Frank Rizzo could use a shoe shine.




John McCain as a mummer?


To my chagrin but not my surprise, the Mason Museum is closed on Mondays. So I hightailed it over to the Franklin Institute in hopes of catching the Galileo exhibit there.



Seeing the instruments in the exhibit were cool, but unfortunately nearly all of the medieval books in the exhibit were facsimiles, and not terribly convincing ones at that. I could tell the 4 or 5 real ones out of the dozens of fakes from across the room. Also, although most of the exhibit was very low lit, at the exit two of the REAL medieval books, one on loan from UPenn's rare book room and another, funnily enough, from my now-former company (because the book was published in Amsterdam by Louis Elzevir in the 1600s) were under the harshest possible fluorescent lights. I shook my head. Tsk tsk. Wanted to call the book police, as if there were such a thing.

But the Franklin holds a lot of Philly nostalgia for me. As a very young child I thought I'd be a scientist (a paleontologist, I declared, in kindergarten). Going through the heart for the first time is a very vivid, exciting childhood memory of mine. A first love, even. I went through it again today. Though I've been at the Franklin for a number of things over my years in Philadelphia (shooting a music video, seeing IMAX films, even DJing there) but going through the heart today as an adult was movingly nostalgic for me.




Also I forgot how much I adored Foucault's Pendulum, even if it does remind me of Vertigo.



Can you feel the earth move under your feet? Since half of the pegs are knocked down, you can see it's near closing time.

Speaking of first loves, I ducked into the Free Library of Philadelphia, but only briefly. Missed the rare book room hours. Might try to find the time to go by again this week. That was the first rare book room I'd been in, and now I feel I'd appreciate it much more. Also, as a teenager, I started taking the train into the city to work on this research project, and it was an important summer for me, learning to love not only the library but negotiating the city for the first time on my own.





I also ducked into the Book Corner, a beloved former haunt, to see what they had in their rare books, even though I can't buy a thing because all of my stuff is packed and gone. Still spent a decent amount of time in there. They've got great pretty used copies of everything. A real browsing bookstore.



Continued on over to Mugshots for a coffee, passing another fave, Eastern State Penitentiary. One peanut butter and chocolate soy smoothie (plus espresso shot) and a few chapters of Origin of the Species via Kindle later, and it wasn't a bad first day of (thankfully temporary) unemployment.

Nerd Tourism: Westward Edition

I've always had a tendency to seek out nerdly delights wherever I travel, but over the past year or so it's definitely hit a fever pitch. As my interest and knowledge of rare books grows, I get more familiar with the places where they're kept and know where to look when I travel. I've been referring to this trajectory as Nerd Tourism, though I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of it. Anyway here's my latest installment of nerd tourism, California and Las Vegas edition.

I hadn't heard of Henry Huntington until I started my docent training at the Rosenbach Museum & Library. Dr. Rosenbach is known for building most of the best rare books libraries in the United States on behalf of his wealthy clients, and Mr. Huntington was his best client, and the only one not living in the northeast. His former residence is now the The Huntington Museum, Library, and Botanical Gardens, and the grounds are absolutely massive. No modern day millionaire would ever be able to afford or maintain this kind of California real estate. Just my luck, it was pouring down rain in the Sunshine state the day of my visit, but my interests lay where there was practically no light to be found.



Because of my MLIS and my connection with the Rosenbach, I managed to get a behind-the-scenes tour of the library building at the Huntington. Unfortunately (and such is the trouble with nerd tourism in general) most museums are not very photo-friendly, especially in the places others never get to go. The photos I have here from the Huntington are from the historic house where photos are allowed. Anyway the Huntington is an absolutely amazing facility, especially if you are one of their lucky "readers" who get access to the collections. Every corner we turned, I thought I couldn't be more astounded, and then there'd be something else. The original stacks Huntington had built that aren't connected to the floor or walls (hard to explain unless you're looking at them) so they would sway in case of earthquake...reading rooms that rival the New York Public Library's just tucked away into corners...a jaw-dropping state-of-the-art photography studio...and a conservation center with medieval printing tools to repair their treasures.



It was pretty amazing to have the Rosenbach context on the collections, because so many of the things that Dr. R bought for Huntington he ended up collecting himself as well. One notable exception is a medieval elephant folio (read: effing huge) Canterbury Tales that the executors of Chaucer's estate had made in his memory. One delightful surprise that I highly, highly recommend checking out is their History of Science collection. I seriously lost my shit in that hall over all the amazing old science books and association copies. The layout of the exhibit was amazing, and they had interactive pieces (you could look through a replica of Galileo's telescope to see how he would have seen the moon) and they also had digital screens where one could flip through the books on display and zoom in and out using your fingernail. It was glorious, I can't wait to go back on a sunnier day.

A day, a desert drive, and a stop at the Pee Wee's Big Adventure dinosaurs later, I was in Las Vegas for a work trip. The night before I left I managed to get to Bauman's Rare Books at the Shoppes at the Palazzo. I first heard of Bauman's through my boyfriend's father, there was a store in Philadelphia which are now administrative offices. One of the very few things I liked about Vegas: even the rare book shop, which on a whole are always known for being only open for 2 hours on a Tuesday, was open until 11pm. And it was an oasis in the noisy, smoky den of iniquity that is Las Vegas.



Can you hear the angels heralding? I spent a long, long time browsing the shelves, and taking photos, and talking to the shopkeeps. They even let me paw this little $36 thousand number...




This copy of James Joyce's Ulysses is special in that it is illustrated by Henri Matisse, and signed by them both. And as is often the case with Joyce, there is drama surrounding this partnership. The apocryphal story is that the two artists were sitting at a table signing these special edition copies of the book, and about 12 signatures in Joyce realized that Matisse didn't illustrate the action in his story at all, but just did illustrations for Homer's Odyssey instead. And of course, anyone who knows Ulysses and who looks at the drawings Matisse did would jump to similar conclusions. Apparently Joyce stormed off in a huff. Can't say I blame him. But the resulting, rare artifact is an interesting, unusual piece with a great story behind it.



It was definitely my favorite moment in Sin City. Unfortunately at that price, it'll stay in Vegas.