Wealth and Beauty

Aeonium "Schwartzkopf" at The Huntington Library and Gardens

One of the places I have loved to visit, when I have visited LA, is The Huntington Library and Gardens.  It recently started a phased in re-opening, with advance ticket sales, only allowing a certain number of people. However, the greenhouse and library are not open yet, so I'm waiting a while. After the pandemic, I'm definitely going to be a member. It's one of these examples of a positive cultural legacy resulting from obscene wealth. For example, Huntington's way of collecting specimens for his extensive desert garden was to hire his very own personal train staffed with Mexican laborers, who would ride the train through Mexico and collect specimens and then deliver them to Huntington at a rail station somewhere near LA. 

Aeonium sp. 

A First Folio copy of Midsummer Night's Dream

Isaac Newton's personal copy of The Principia

Cleistocactus winteri

Newton's copy of his own description of his invention, the Newtonian reflector telescope

A bench full of awesome Conophytum, a genus in the Aizoaceae

The view back to Santa Monica from the end of the Santa Monica Pier

 

The Ferris wheel on the pier

Big contrast: A pic of Killington, Vermont, last October

Walk in beauty. 

I'm mostly sitting around these days, preparing to teach, teaching, or grading. Or answering emails. On and on. Working remotely is more demanding in some ways than being an in person teacher. It's been surreal. I have only ever seen most of my colleagues and students via Zoom. I've also been trying to refrain from spending money for a while so I can blast away all of the debt I incurred exiting the PhD program. It's okay to be hunkered down and a teaching hermit, but my heart is really longing for those long late autumn/winter dark camping nights. May many such be in my future. I loved spending more time in wintry places last winter and might seek out the same. 

Meanwhile, I'm also biding time for the reopening of Los Angeles. It's already good to be here, but being able to go to The Getty, or to shows, or to galleries, or to some of the incredible movie theaters here, or to gardens, will be grand. Let alone actually seeing people or socializing. It's been weird being here with everything sort of shut down.