Travelogue: Cleveland

Taking a break from the UK/Ireland trip, to share images and thoughts about a weekend trip my husband, son, and I took to Cleveland. A few years ago, we launched a new type of trip within our family--the 1-1 (i.e., parent(s) and kid). With five of us all having our own interests, this is a way to build strong bonds without having to constantly compromise on where to go, what to see, what to eat, etc. We still do the "everybody in the bus" trips, but the 1-1s are very special.

This year, Noah announced that he would love to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. I was particularly excited because except for our trip to Kansas City in May '08 to catch Wicked, I haven't really spent any time in the Midwest. Now I know why--it is not easy to get there by plane from Colorado. It's easier to go to Cancun, Honolulu, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, etc. than it is to get to Cleveland. Maybe it's just that the airlines have really cut down on flights and plane size to stay in business, but we had a rough time finding any non-stop flights DEN/CLE that weren't outrageously expensive. But we did, and we went last weekend.



We didn't have time to visit any other Cleveland sites other than the R&R HofF, but that was absolutely terrific. A beautiful building on the outside, and spacious and interesting, hip and entertaining on the inside.

Key takeaways...
...all the costumes on display seemed really small. For example, Bruce Springsteen's leather jacket looks like it would be tight on my petite 14-year old daughter. I expected Mick Jagger's outfits to be tiny, but it seemed that all the outfits were small.
...loved seeing the handwritten notes and early lyrics for blockbuster songs; I especially liked seeing Linda Ronstadt's handwritten play list for a 70's concert that included all of my favorites!
...interesting to see Jimi Hendrix's art from his schooldays--especially the ones of guys playing football. Seems so Wally Cleaver.
...found that a lot of my favorite music was included in the "roots of rock and roll" part of the exhibit.
...one, and only one, Elton John item. A picture of him. Despite being inducted into the HoF quite a long time ago, the museum has no memorabilia. We asked why not and were told that he donates everything to charity. So why don't some of the people who bought it, lend it for display?
...it was packed. I particularly liked seeing the grandmas and grandpas lined up to view the KISS exhibit. The times they are a rolling along!
...you can only take pictures in the lobby area. Apparently it's a copyright, intellectual property thing wherein the artists who have donated or lent work to the musuem don't want people taking pictures of their art and selling it, I guess.
...the musuem is on the shores of Lake Erie, and we stayed a few blocks away with a view of the lake. Weird to be so near that big a body of water and not hear it.



I would go back to Cleveland in a minute to explore the rest of the city. Just driving around and finding a few great restaurants was enough to make me appreciate that there is more to this heartland city than we were able to squeeze in.

The Grand Sophy: Merchant of Venice meets Oliver Twist meets Gone With the Wind

I jumped on the Georgette Heyer bandwagon that is sweeping the blogosphere and read The Grand Sophy during a quickie weekend trip to Cleveland to visit the great and glorious Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I was happily rolling along, laughing at Sophy's antics as she dealt with cousin Cecelia and her gormless poet, Augustus Fawnhope, cousin Charles and his humorless fiancée, Eugenia Wraxton, and her various other relatives, suitors, and lovers. Then, Sophy decided to help cousin Hubert and that involved a trip to Goldhangar, the moneylender. I was appalled that Heyer included such a blatantly anti-semitic character in this romp in Regencyland. Goldhangar was Fagin and Shylock and every other Jewish moneylender that has disgraced literature for centuries. I can forgive Shakespeare because there is sufficient ambiguity in his words to allow actors over the ages to portray Shylock in a completely sympathetic way without changing a word of the play. Dickens, one can argue, still lived in the dark ages but I don't like him enough to try to excuse his prejudices. Heyer,however, should've be taught better or know better, especially since The Grand Sophy was written in 1950 (aka post-WWII).

At one point, Sophy brags that her father says that she was "born without any nerves at all...and almost no sensibility." It seems to me that her creator demonstrates almost no sensitivity in her portrayal of Goldhangar. I sort of feel the way I did when I studied the Civil War after reading Gone With the Wind a bazillion times. Like Margaret Mitchell, Heyer can tell a good story, but is it an honest story? This reminds me of a conversation I had with my kids when we recently went to see a stage production of To Kill a Mockingbird - the point I was trying to make is that being fiction doesn't mean a story isn't true, and all great literature should be true.

To Kill a Mockingbird is much more true than The Grand Sophy--I don't think anyone's going to argue that point--nor is anyone going to argue whether or not The Grand Sophy is great literature. In GWTW, Mammy tells Scarlett that Rhett is no good, even though he has lots of money--"he come of good stock and he all slicked up lak a race hawse, but he a mule in hawse harness."

It seems to me that GWTW and The Grand Sophy are mighty appealing, they're all slicked up like race horses, but they're lies...just mules in horse harnesses. Lots of people are reading and enjoying Heyer these days, but the poison in a portrayal of a stock character that should have left our culture centuries ago is that it doesn't taste like the poison it is. And that's what makes it dangerous. It is poison, and we shouldn't just swallow it just because it tastes good.

Is this the only instance of Heyer being racist? I haven't read enough of her to know. Maybe I'll read a bio of her next to know whereof she comes before I read more of her novels.