S. Worthen | Weblog

Wedding Rehearsal

Thursday morning's flight to Houston was uneventful. The flight attendant was very diligent in refilling drinks, and I took photos of morning light reflecting off of lakes and rivers below.

I've never been to Texas before, except to change planes, and certainly never Houston in August. I thought I knew heat and humidity, but never anything like this before. I step out of air conditioned cars and buildings, and my glasses fog right up in the weight of the air. Still, Houston seems a handsome enough city, lush and green with pines and river oaks.

I spent much of Thursday at the Menil Collection. When I asked my relatives-who-work-in-museums to recommend the museum most worth going to while in town, they were unanimous. So it was I spent my time browsing an extraordinary personal collection of primarily twentieth-century and tribal artwork in a striking Renzo Piano building. There was also a solid antiquity collection and a reasonable sampling of medieval work - but nothing early modern. There were even three prehistoric horse bone-carved drawings.

The best part of the Menil Collection, however, were its outlying buildings, worth the walks through the humidity: a dedicated Cy Twombly building; a dedicated Dan Flavin building; and the extraordinarily calm and contemplative space of the Rothko Chapel. (There's also a Byzantine fresco chapel, but it's only open Fri-Sun). Returning to the hotel afterwards was more work than I'd realized though: while the museum is world-famous, it's apparently not so well known within Houston itself.

I'm here for several days for chamaeleoncat's wedding. The event doubles as a small Toronto reunion. The rehearsal for the ceremony was today; everyone's well-rehearsed now for the ceremony itself tomorrow.