Where the Turf Meets the Surf!

Magnet #888 - The Magnet

I bought this magnet from the superawesome Morgan Library & Museum, because it seriously just cracked me up.

It took me a good 15 years before I finally made it to that library - even if I worked literally across the street from it. We went for the Jane Austen personal notes and letters exhibit, which was amazing, even if you aren't her biggest fan. But I loved the new addition by Renzo Piano - pretty snazzy.

Anyway, like any good magnate/robber baron, J.P. Morgan was quite the art collector. This is The Magnet, a cartoon drawn by Joseph Keppler, Jr. for Puck magazine. That's J.P. Morgan on the top left, using his dollar sign magnet (totally looks like something out of Richie Rich, by the way) to attract all of Europe's great art treasures to America.

I feel like I keep going to museums built by families who made their money the old-fashioned way - starting from poor families and managing to build up successful businesses from the ground up, and managing to collect art along the way, in the end, giving it back to the peoples. The Morgan Library & Museum, the Frick Collection, the Timken Museum here in Balboa Park in San Diego. Small collections worth millions, and worth hours of my time.

Thank you, wealthy families of America. If you've managed to reach one person here in America, it's me. Yay, for you guys.

I'm using this for today, because we went to the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club race track today. So fun. I loved that we were toting around 4-year-old and an almost 2-year-old rambunctious set of boys. And who knew the track was so popular among pretty much every demographic you can think of - the cuteboys with the cuteboys, the old, the young, the rich, the skeevy, the desperate.

Bing Crosby and two buddies built the track way back in 1937, and he became a fixture at the track until his death in 1977. I love how the Del Mar race track became one of the old-school Hollywood places to be, given it's proximity to well, Hollywood. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Betty Grable, and countless others. Plus, Seabiscuit raced here, so says the pictures on the walls of fame around Del Mar track, and the historic Stratford Inn.

And to think, the only thing I knew of the Del Mar track is this grand front area in front of the paddocks, where I could have sworn one of our Loveswept authors had us use as the backdrop of Anticipation.

I had to laugh today, though, because while this magnet has to do with earned money, today on the way into the track, I heard a guard yell out to one of the oldies, Hey! I hope you get a 1099 today!

Flying carpet ride

Magnet #675 - The Modern Wing

I picked this up in Chicago - love when I can get image magnets of the actual museum. Of course, it's cool when the building's so darn cool to merit a magnet, I guess.

If ever you're hanging out in Chicago with a spare few hours, definitely go see the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago. It's one of the biggest museum projects in years, and likely to be one of the last on this grand of a scale for a while.

Go for the art, but go for the building, too, which was designed by famed museum architect Renzo Piano.

Remember how I was talking about artists' visual vocabulary? To my untrained eye, I think that it's the same thing with architects. As I learn more about each architect, I'm starting to recognize the telltale hallmarks of their respective work.

For example, I visited the Morgan Library for the first time a few weeks ago and just by looking at around, I totally knew who did the addition before I even Googled it. It probably has more to do with the fact that I'd been watching the progress on the Modern Wing for months before it opened, and also, because Piano's designed several buildings that I've both seen and visited recently, including the Morgan and the relatively new New York Times Building, both buildings with a lot of glass and steel.

Rather than solid, closed exterior walls, his work seems to always have this slatted look of steel and glass - allowing for as much light through as possible, making the interior space seem brighter and bigger, lighter and airy. That slatted look extends to his ceilings - where they create this sort of flying-carpet kind of canopy above.

Though the existing museum space, was no slouch, The Modern Wing was no exception - I loved it, from the main hall, to the staircases, to the overlooks, and terrific interiors. A fantastic space - and well befitting all the supercool artwork they're exhibiting.