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Lots of snow has fallen, altho possibly not as much as was predicted. T.’s martial arts was canceled as a result of the forecast, which was good. I didn’t want him driving in it.
Piano went to virtual because of the snow, which was convenient because A. didn’t get better today as I had hoped. I kept her home yesterday because she had a cough and a higher than normal temperature. Today, her temp was up to 100. *sigh* She’s not feeling good.
I bought Clint Smith’s _How the Word is Passed_, which is fantastic. I cannot recommend this enough. I’m so glad I went through samples, reading things and deciding whether to buy or not to buy. For many of those samples, I decided no. But for this one, it was _so_ good, in content and how _well_ it is written, how compelling the details, how warm the tone.
In the post-sample part, he writes about Whitney Plantation. Whitney is moving in what I would call the “destination outdoor museum” direction, rather than in the “preserve pretty house” or “local history” direction. As with other destination outdoor museums, they have moved other historic buildings from other locations where they were unlikely or unable to be preserved to Whitney, when they were possible to integrate with the mission and message of Whitney. Smith quotes a local architect’s response to these choices:
““It’s sort of like taking the frame off a Rembrandt, keeping the frame and getting rid of the artwork,” explained New Orleans preservation architect Robert Cangelosi Jr. in an interview with the Baton Rouge-based newspaper The Advocate; his firm has worked on a number of area plantations. “You must have integrity of site and location.””
I _love_ that Smith tracked down this quote and included it. It is so cartoonishly wrong in every possible way, and absolutely the kind of garbage people trying to create destinations for historical learning and tourism encounter all the fucking time, but because it’s a white guy reacting to an effort to create an experiential retelling of American Slavery, it’s _so much worse_. Zaanse Schans can move windmills to their site from all over. Sturbridge Village is proud to have buildings from all over New England. Why can’t Whitney?
Piano went to virtual because of the snow, which was convenient because A. didn’t get better today as I had hoped. I kept her home yesterday because she had a cough and a higher than normal temperature. Today, her temp was up to 100. *sigh* She’s not feeling good.
I bought Clint Smith’s _How the Word is Passed_, which is fantastic. I cannot recommend this enough. I’m so glad I went through samples, reading things and deciding whether to buy or not to buy. For many of those samples, I decided no. But for this one, it was _so_ good, in content and how _well_ it is written, how compelling the details, how warm the tone.
In the post-sample part, he writes about Whitney Plantation. Whitney is moving in what I would call the “destination outdoor museum” direction, rather than in the “preserve pretty house” or “local history” direction. As with other destination outdoor museums, they have moved other historic buildings from other locations where they were unlikely or unable to be preserved to Whitney, when they were possible to integrate with the mission and message of Whitney. Smith quotes a local architect’s response to these choices:
““It’s sort of like taking the frame off a Rembrandt, keeping the frame and getting rid of the artwork,” explained New Orleans preservation architect Robert Cangelosi Jr. in an interview with the Baton Rouge-based newspaper The Advocate; his firm has worked on a number of area plantations. “You must have integrity of site and location.””
I _love_ that Smith tracked down this quote and included it. It is so cartoonishly wrong in every possible way, and absolutely the kind of garbage people trying to create destinations for historical learning and tourism encounter all the fucking time, but because it’s a white guy reacting to an effort to create an experiential retelling of American Slavery, it’s _so much worse_. Zaanse Schans can move windmills to their site from all over. Sturbridge Village is proud to have buildings from all over New England. Why can’t Whitney?