Summer Travel News -- Episode I

One of the major "goals" of this summer's 11- or 12-day vacation (and I realize that vacations should not have goals) was to meet my fellow Amy Sacker fan and scholar, Stuart Walker, who works at the Boston Public Library in their Rare Book division.  Pam and I did get a chance to spend an afternoon with him, over lunch at a Cambridge Indian restaurant, then at the Schlesinger Library (Radcliffe) enjoying the generous hospitality of Marylene Altieri, Curator of Books there.  What treasures they have! Although I realize that Stuart and I swim in a tiny pond of binding enthusiasts focusing on a few designers, it was great fin to meet him in person rather than cybernetically as I have for the last several years.


Amusingly, a half hour or so before before meeting Stuart as he emerged from the subway, my wife and I were sitting in Harvard Square, passing the time by people- and sparrow-watching. A fellow glanced at us as he walked by, proceeded another 20 feet or so, turned, and said "Your name is Schumacher, isn't it?  You work in the library at UNCG."  As it turned out, he works here at UNCG in Student Affairs and was in Cambridge for a one-day conference. Small, as they say, world !

That was only one afternoon of our trip.  The other highlights of our three nights in Boston (Natick, actually, but so much cheaper!!) were our visits to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts [enormous, global in scope, with a wonderful exhibit of Dale Chihuly's magnificent art glass] and the Gardner Museum [intimate, idiosyncratic, and delightful] just a couple of hundred yards away. Between the Rembrandts, the Stellas and everything in between,  we were quite "arted out" by the end of the day !!

 [This is outside the BMFA, but a bit too much chiaroscuro !]

More news soon . . .