Super Sunday, of which I witnessed nary a lick. Beth and I went in to Boston, however. 1st stop: yet another furniture store, where both hard candies and Hershey Kisses(tm) were available. I'm easily amused. I had my camera so took pictures of the house on Fresh Pond Parkway my father grew up in as we passed. a kinda perfunctory act, but he mentioned life there so often that it is sort of a shrine. seemed like a perfect spring day, sunny, perhaps 50. scads of runners in shorts running along the Charles. we crossed on Mass Ave, over the bridge. Beth wanted to see Newbery St, one of the places in Boston where i imagine it's possible you'll hear the word chichi spoken. we didn't, tho. parked near the Ritz, strolled down the street. lacking furniture stores, we opted for art galleries. the 1st we came to wasn't open. me, I'd figure sunday was a good day to be open. maybe sunday they keep the hoi polloi out so that they can serve chardonnay and pigs-in-a-blanket to the high rollers. je ne sais pas. next door was open. I flinched on entering, expexting a snotty welcome (or none at all) but surprisingly we were welcomed in every gallery. this 1st one had drawings by Matisse and Dali and I guess lithographs by Rembrandt. we got several of each, they'll look great in the bathroom. by the nature of the place, I'd guess their expected clientele would be on the stuffy side but the offered sculptures were, each one, lulus. florid, hokey, over the top. I couldn't even bring myself to look at them carefully, they were just too busy. I don't know if they were all by the same person. they were marbles of human figures, females mostly, with leaves and birds and whatnot. top heavy creations balanced on one hand or whatever. hightoned equivalents to velvet portraits of Elvis. I can see some oil money lunkhead sticking one of these things in the foyer as a warning of what money can buy. and no doubt the piece's price would be mentioned in any discussion of its artistic merits. I really do believe in to each his/her own but as I said, the things were simply too busy for me even to look at, let alone grok. that gallery may've been the one that had a Pissaro oil, and one in pastel. I loved looking at the brush strokes, a feature I miss in books, where the translation of the image naturally loses something. I read a fascinating description of a Monet by a writer named Ball (David?). a very detailed and close up (microscopic) discussion of Monet's brush strokes. I like seeing that level of a painting. the next gallery was better still. a lovely Chagall in pastel, a bunch of Picasso ink drawings and other this and that. a series of prints with highly charged colours that reminded me of psychedelic album covers. another artist only does paintings of no more than 2"x3". art that fits pocket or purse. Beth asked a question of someone there, and he readily engaged. I worked in a wine store for a long time, and I didn't care if you bought Mouton-Rothschild or Soave, but customers often apologized if they weren't prepared to pay a lot. I felt like that, but the guy wasn't putting that over on me. he guy spent a lot of time talking with Beth (I roamed, and pocketed the offered hard candies). the next gallery had some weirdly glum pastels. they seemed to depict a world of pollution, which is not a subject you think pastels are made for. Beth was particularly taken by the work of a French artist. his paintings are both intense and distressed. several portaits of women that really bear down. the best perhaps was a scene in an ancient city (Pompeii, Beth wondered). some of the figure wear togas, some pants. one figure is on the ground. all very enigmatic but quite compelling. again Beth asked questions. the woman who answered was much more sales-oriented tho not obnoxiously. she said, take the ancient scene home and try it out. man, I'd hate to do that. err, the cat somehow.... the cat could, too. or I'd stumble as I carried it. or a meteorite thru the window. I think that ws he last gallery. Beth skipped into a curtain store which was too crowded and way too sensory-overloaded for me, I stayed outside. it was a day of indecently unseasonable warmth for Henry Aaron's Birthday. and the SuperBowl? I just didn't cae enough. certainly I could miss the hype in my face.