Dixon Stuff

I got a package from Important Records yesterday containing the following two cds: Merzbow: Material Action 2 N•A•M and Merzbow: Karasu: 13 Japanese Birds Pt. 4, in addition to a Merzbow Merzbeat shirt and two Muslimgauze shirts (one green with a tiger drawing thing and one black with a circle drawing thing). In the afternoon Mary Beth and I went up to the Dixon and it was fun. There was a big exhibit on women's sporting wear from around 1800 to the 1950s. That was fun, and the most memorable thing was probably some inline skates from the last 1800s that were like little bicycles on shoes. We also got to see the typical permanent mostly-Impressionist collection in the back and my beloved Cassatt was there with a sign saying "welcome back!" and that it had been away on loan to a few exhibits in other cities over the past year or so. They also had an exhibit about the museum itself. They had a wall with photos, the kind where you move your head and it changes from one photo to another, they were of old photos of the building back when the Dixons lived in it juxtaposed with newer photos of the same views and I was very impressed how they managed to line up the angles exactly and the pictures seamlessly transitioned. Also, all the signage was bilingual (también en español) and so I tried reading everything in Spanish first. They had this little interactive thing where people put on cards things they collect (mostly children did it, but uh, we did it too!) and they have detailed, printed-out ones from the staff and they were about half-and-half translated into Spanish and Charlie (person I know who works at the Dixon) had one about collecting records and his was in Spanish, so that was a random bit of fun. Well, we went back home and then went back out to the Dixon a little later for a beer tasting thing outside in the garden (Boscos was making specialty beers from the herbs and stuff grown in the Dixon's garden). There was also some food trucks, one that had lobster rolls and one that did tacos and quesadillas (I got this brisket quesadilla and it impressed me quite a lot!). Ran into Nathan, architect who I worked with a few years ago and chatted with him a little bit. It was a very pleasant evening weather-wise. We had gotten there a little later than planned because of me and then after Mary Beth had tried a couple beers, she went back for a third and they had run out of the specialty beers, so that was a downer. We went back home and after a bit ended the night with some Schitt's Creek.