Ben’s Chili Bowl / Codmother
I’m in DC for the weekend before heading out to Tilghman for a few days. Last night Peter and I went over to U Street for some eats. I couldn’t be this close to Ben’s without stopping in for a Half Smoke. It was amazing.
Afterwards, he wanted to take me to Codmother for fish and chips. What a place. Great fish though.
As I was driving down of Friday and listening to BBC Radio 4, I heard this commentary by A.L. Kennedy and found it interesting. You can either read it here, or better yet listen to the podcast here. I found it very touching.
Transition
I have been back from England for several days, but had some images from there I wanted to post, so this will be a bit transitional.
Cris and I had a nice walk in the Green Park and in St James’s Park on Saturday before heading back up to Stratford upon Avon.
There was an amazing exhibit at the entrance of St James’s called “Fields of Battle – Lands of Peace“. Photographer Michael St. Maur Sheil went to major sites of the first world war and documented what remains from 100 years ago. It is a brilliant idea, and executed really well. It is wild to see huge photographs mounted outside.
Whenever I drive from London to Stratford upon Avon I stop at the Oxford Services on the M40. Just above the carpark is a hillock where you get a great view of the countryside. I think I might have posted a similar photograph from a previous trip.
We basically did the same walk on Sunday that we had done the week before.
This time it was very misty. I am happy to say that the horse with the red coat had his friend back.
The nice thing about doing walks in different weather conditions is that you see the landscape in an entirely different way.
Although the beer looked pretty much the same.
As did the outdoor gents. (Gentlemen is such a nice word; it should be used more.)
After the Sunday roast at the pub, we went next door to Snowshill Manor. The whole place is really bizarre, and very interesting. The gardens are really nice and I was really pleased to see this Green Man water spigot. I have become somewhat obsessed with the idea of the Green Man; it is very pagan but you can still find him in some early churches in England. I think there are 4 in Shakespeare’s church in Stratford upon Avon. (There is also a great XTC song about him.)
It is nice to be home, although for some reason England is always the place I feel the most comfortable. But I live here, and it is a beautiful part of the world. The Olive was really glad to see us, and after the recent rains she has been able to find water (and mud) everywhere.
AT&T Park, Giants v Nationals
Yesterday I went to see the Nationals play the Giants at AT&T Park in San Francisco. It was an interesting game. Very few hits and not much scoring. The Nationals won in 10, 2 to 1. As you can see it was a beautiful day, perfect for baseball. I was at the mercy of the guy selling the tickets, and just asked for a very cheap seat. Ended up in section 302, which by my estimation is the nicest place to sit in the whole park. The only problem was that for the first time in all my years of going to baseball games, it was difficult to concentrate on the action with this amazing view of the bay always pulling me away from the game. Even if you HATE baseball, it is totally worth $24.00 to sit up here for an afternoon drinking a few beers and being part of a crowd of very friendly people. / After the game I blasted over to the offices of Collector’s Weekly and met with Hunter Oatman-Stanford who wrote this article about the suitcases that really opened a lot of doors for me. We were joined by two other editors and had a great chat about this and that. I was totally blown away when they told me that the story had generated roughly 600,000 views on their site. I really owe a lot to Hunter for his great interview and interest in the project. / Made it out to the airport in time to catch the redeye back to Boston. Got home at about 9.30 this morning and was happy to see the Pearl, who after a bit of a scare this weekend seems to be back on her feet.
Long Day
It has been a long but good day sorting out plans for the Exploratorium exhibit. I’ll post a longer update tomorrow morning. In the meantime, as someone once said, “When in Rome, do like Romans” (or at least drink their beer).
Jon Crispin's Notebook 
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