Tag Archives: Leisure

August 10, 2021

Summer Sunday Stroll in Salem

By daseger

Sometimes I try to look at Salem as a tourist, a casual tourist taking a stroll, rather than with my historian/resident intensity. It doesn’t work for long, but I can pull it off for a few hours. I haven’t been home for very many weekends this summer, and I’m about to depart for two weeks in the Hudson River Valley, so I decided to take a long walk around Salem on a humid August afternoon, taking only pretty pictures (no new buildings). Two happenings inspired me: the annual antique car meet on Chestnut Street sponsored by Historic New England’s Phillips House (which did not happen last year and so I was REALLY looking forward to it) and the bountiful gardens around town, the products of our very rainy July.

I just love the juxtaposition of old cars and old houses at this car meet, which gets bigger and better every year.

More natural color: the Ropes Mansion and Derby House gardens are bursting with blooms at this time of year; the former is a formal annual garden, the latter a Colonial Revival garden of traditional plants: they are actually quite complementary. The Ropes is maintained by the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) and the Derby garden by the Salem Maritime National Historic site: I appreciate these perpetual gifts to the community by both organizations.

Ropes and Derby Gardens.

It was definitely phlox time in both gardens, and Derby was abuzz with bees and butterflies. While I am grateful to the PEM for the Ropes Garden (as well as the open Ropes Mansion), even the casual tourist is going to notice their other properties around town and wonder what’s going on there? Can I get in? The grounds of Peirce-Nichols have always been wide open, now they are closed (but not locked) and I can’t remember the last time I was in there or Crowninshield-Bentley. Ok, stepping outside of my casual tourist mode (I told you it doesn’t work for long): every time I walk by the newly-restored Daland and Plummer buildings on Essex, right next to the Visitors Center, I can’t help but think: why can’t the Salem Museum go here? The buildings are so beautiful, so convenient, and apparently empty. Why can’t the PEM install their recent Witch Trial exhibit in there, along with the wonderful “Salem Stories” still on display across the way, and the Bowyer sundial, the Pickman codfish, James Emerton’s Paracelsus apothecary sign, various Derby items, the rooster weathervane from the former East Church, maps, photographs and paintings by Salem artists, among many other things and create a contextual introduction to Salem history for the those tourists who do not come dressed in Halloween costumes in the middle of August? And residents too! A girl can dream.

The PEM’s Peirce-Nichols, Crowninshield-Bentley, and Daland houses + Plummer Hall, the previous location of the Phillips Library.

Back on the tourist trail. I must say: Essex Street east and west on either side of the pedestrian mall is looking pretty good these days: some nice restorations, street gardens, and window boxes. One thing that the casual tourist might not notice, but I sure have, are some improvements in the hardscape downtown: there are several islands which have been neglected for years which are newly-planted and newly-mulched, like those across from the old Custom House, below. Central Street is further embellished by two beautiful shops, Emporium 32 and Diehl Marcus & Co. Back up on Essex and further down, I checked out the newly-restored First Period Daniels House, apparently the “Oldest Bed and Breakfast in the US,” and then walked down to Derby Street.

Shop window installation by Salem artist Meg Nichols of Mink Studio, reflecting the PEM’s summer exhibition, In American Waters: the Sea in American Painting. Central Street shops, Essex Street wreaths, and the Daniels House.

Derby Street feels like the realm of the House of the Seven Gables and the Salem Maritime National Historic Site, both of which I’ve written about many times, but in the midst of the latter is my favorite little street, Palfrey Court, lined by the Derby Garden, several Georgian buildings, and St. Joseph’s Hall as well as the former “Rum Shop” (another building that needs a purpose!). I just love this little street: when I stand in the middle of it looking down towards Derby and the water, I get a better sense of Salem’s maritime-mandated streetscape than anywhere else. It’s the mix of buildings, the narrowness of the street, the absence of cars. Up ahead is the (relatively) new location of the Salem Arts Association, a perfect spot with lots to see inside.

Palfrey Court and the Salem Arts Association.

And returning home for the golden/cocktail hour!

7 Comments | tags: Architecture, Cars, Historic New England, Home, Leisure, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem Arts Association, Salem Maritime National Historic Site, Summer | posted in Salem, Tourism

August 2, 2017

Summer Reading List

By daseger

My entire summer can be summed up by the fact that I am only now offering up this “summer reading list” on August 2! I’m still teaching for a few weeks yet, but other obligations have lifted, so I’d really like to get into my library (to pick out books–I seldom read there, because as you can see below, there is no comfy chair). I’m not really a fiction reader, but I do have a few novels on my list, including Kate Hickman’s The House at Bishopsgate, Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent, and a strange pioneering Gothic novel that I’ve been wanting to read for years: Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (I like variations on the Faustian Pact). Local readers will probably assume that the Essex Serpent is about the famous Gloucester sea serpent that appeared off Cape Ann several times in the colonial era, but most famously in August of 1817–so this is his/her anniversary year! But no, Perry’s book is about another mythical Essex Sea Serpent, appearing across the Atlantic at the close of the nineteenth century.

Summer Reading List Library

Summer Reading List Bishopsgate

Summer Reading Essex

Summer Reading List Melmoth

Summer Reading Sea Serpent The American Essex/Gloucester Sea Serpent, 1817, Boston Rare Maps.

My nonfiction stack is higher, and comprised of books I need to read for course prep as well as for pleasure. The former titles are, for the most part, a bit too dry to reference here (the latest biography of John Knox!), but some might appeal to a broader audience. I like to pick themes for my medieval survey every year, just to make it interesting for myself and my students because it is indeed a survey, and this fall’s theme is medieval outlaws, ideal and real. That means I must reread Robin Hood, as well as as Maurice Keen’s classic The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, and finally finish a few biographies, including one on Simon de Montfort. I’m also going to try to up my food history game this coming academic year, so am reading two books by Massimo Montanari: Cheese, Pears & History is amazing! Anything regarding consumption is always interesting to me, but I am trying to read more agricultural history so I’m not always talking about the one percent: this Oliver Rackham book has been by my bedside for years and I am determined to finish it this summer. Finally (and I’m not really sure where this “fits”: I guess it it reading for pleasure!), I just picked up a copy of the very amusing and collectible Cooking to Kill. The Poison Cook-Book (1951), the book that has been called “not only a cook-book to end all cook-books, but also a cook-book to end all cooks”.

Summer Reading List Medieval

Summer Reading food collage

Summer Reading Spices

Cooking-To-Kill-The-Poison-Cookbook

15 Comments | tags: books, Cookbooks, Food and drink, Leisure, Monsters, Summer, Teaching | posted in Culture

May 21, 2015

Casting Dice

By daseger

The sheer beauty of the Chestnut Street park this spring–just outside my bedroom window–combined with the solicitousness of my neighbors in picking up after their dogs (newly allowed this year) has got me thinking about lawn games, played, of course, on a perfect summer day (or early evening), g&t in hand. There is always croquet or bocce, but somehow three pictures of lawn dice popped up on my computer screen in the last few days, so right now that’s my focus: I’m not quite sure what you do with these jumbo dice, but I like the concept. When looking around for some game possibilities, I fell down the rabbit hole that is the history of dice–back to antiquity. What we think of as a simple game certainly had some weighty symbolism attached to it in the past: the die is cast for Julius Caesar, Roman soldiers casting dice to determine who would get the bloodstained garments of Jesus after the crucifixion, dice games played with Death Personified during the Middle Ages, vice, vice, and more vice. Think about the evolution of the verbs associated with dice: casting is somewhat suspicious, but once it evolves into a game of throwing, it becomes an increasingly harmless activity. And tumbling dice are clearly even more innocuous.

Jumbo Wooden Dice sets from Paper Source, Crate and Barrel, and The Grommet; lazy (half-naked!) dice players in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (The Smithfield Decretals, British Library MS Royal MS 10 E IV; Walters Art Gallery MS W4492V by Master Jean de Mauléon, c. 1542); the modern design motif: tumbling dice fabric from the 1930s, ©The Design Library, New York.