Sparkling pink lemonade

One surefire sign of spring in the Boston suburbs is the emergence of curbside lemonade stands: something straight out of Norman Rockwell. Earlier today, J and I drove past a couple of kids who were trying to wave down passing cars on a busy street. One of them was wearing a rainbow-colored clown wig and waving a sign, but we were driving the wrong way and traffic was too heavy for us to stop. Last week I’d seen a different set of kids selling lemonade on this same busy street, but they were lucky enough to have set up their stand before a stop sign at rush hour, so they had a captive audience. But in that case, too, I was going the wrong way and wasn’t able to stop.

When we’re exploring our neighborhood on foot, though, J and I make a point to stop at lemonade stands: how can you walk past cute kids trying to sell something? Parents in our neighborhood tend to be civic-minded, so most of the kids we’ve encountered sell lemonade to raise money for charity. Over the years, we’ve sipped lemonade to raise money for the earthquakes in Haiti, the tsunami in Japan, and endangered tigers in Asia. At each makeshift stand, I can imagine the conversation that led to its creation, with a kid asking Mom or Dad what they can do to help some horrible situation they’ve seen on TV, and Mom or Dad suggesting a lemonade stand as a worthwhile pursuit. Think globally, sell lemonade locally.

So this afternoon when J and I were out walking and saw a couple of kids selling sparkling pink lemonade to raise money for tomorrow’s Walk for Hunger, we couldn’t say no. Instead, we bought a couple cups, helped the kids met their fundraising goal, and walked on, the ice-cold pink beverage in our cups matching the bright flowering hue of the Boston suburbs in May.

 

Being there, now

On Sunday when J and I took the T into Boston to see the samurai at the Museum of Fine Arts, we stopped at Copley Square to visit the makeshift memorial that has arisen near the site of the Boston Marathon bombings. I wanted to see where it all happened—I wanted to stand on the very spot—even though the bombings happened in a place where I’ve stood many times before. Somehow, I hoped that being there, now, would help me understand what it must have been like to be there, then.

The Marathon bombings happened in a place where I’ve frequently been. Years ago, during the first year of my Master’s program at Boston College, I lived in a depressing, ant-infested apartment in Malden—a lifetime away from campus, it seemed—and the Boston Public Library at Copley Square was like a second home to me.

During the second year of my Master’s program, I lived in a garden flat in Beacon Hill, a stone’s throw from Boston’s Back Bay, so I’d regularly watch the marathon near the finish line on Boylston Street, right across from the library. In those days, I’d typically show up in the afternoon, after the elite front runners and fleet-of-foot had already finished, when the injured, the underdogs, and the unlikely—the folks, in other words, who really needed an audience to cheer them on—were gamely limping their way to the finish line.

Revisiting Boylston Street cemented the realization that the only thing separating me and countless other Marathon spectators from being at the Right Place at the Wrong Time was simply time and chance. If tragedy struck at 2:50 pm on April 15, 2013, it could have easily struck minutes, hours, or even years earlier: then rather than now, that year rather than this.

Why did tragedy strike here and now, with these particular people and passersby present? That is the great unanswerable question in the aftermath of tragedy, a version of the scandal of particularity, as theologians call it. If either grace or grief (take your pick) can happen anywhere and at any time, why did one or the other happen Now and Here? It’s not morbid curiosity that has been driving Bostonians to visit the bombing site in droves: it is the abiding, unanswerable question every survivor at some point asks: “Why not me?”

In the aftermath of tragedy, there is also a curious desire—one that might seem counter-intuitive, if you’re observing it secondhand—to immerse oneself in a large, anonymous crowd, or to simply be outside with others. Since the Boston Marathon happens on a state holiday, many of us watched coverage of the bombings in the relative isolation of our homes, with only our closest loved ones present. “Stay away from crowds” was one of the warnings issued in the immediate aftermath of the attack, as Boylston Street was blocked, the Marathon was cancelled, and confused runners were re-routed to safety.

This isolationist message was underscored on Lockdown Friday, when venturing outside and gathering in crowds were officially verboten. After the second bombing suspect was captured and the city-wide lockdown was rescinded, the collective psyche gravitated irresistibly in the opposite direction. Now, there is something hugely soothing about being outside and with others, whether at a memorial service, candlelight vigil, or bustling baseball game. The impulse is insistent: we will get through this together, and we will do it by coming together.

Sunday was a positively gorgeous spring day, a perfect day to take the T into town and walk around with throngs of placid pedestrians. Our trolley was packed with Red Sox fans and a woman who was proudly taking her grand-daughter to the Big Apple Circus, just as she had taken the girl’s mother years before. On Sunday there was a home Celtics game in the afternoon, a home Bruins game in the evening, and “Art in Bloom” all day at the MFA: a little something for everyone on a mild and sunny day when it felt like all of Boston was finally blooming.

It was, in other words, a bustling day in the city, with the entire world (it seemed) showing up stroll down Boylston Street and pay their respects at a makeshift, open-air memorial.

After arriving in Copley Square, J and I had to wait in line to view the piles of offerings left along a quadrangle of metal barricades set up in Copley Plaza to contain a teeming outpouring of flowers, running shoes, stuffed animals, handwritten notes, signs, paintings, T-shirts, rosaries, ball-caps, and origami cranes adorning every available surface.

In one corner of the memorial area, there was a heap of bracelets and meditation beads; atop another pile of flowers, someone had left a waterlogged copy of a favorite children’s book. Elsewhere, someone had left an unopened box of spaghetti and a tin of cookies—a nod, perhaps, to a marathoner’s pre-race stint of carbo-loading—and I saw several separate piles of coins, as if the impulse to leave a memento led onlookers to empty their pockets, offering anything at hand.

At the memorial, there were rubber ducks and stone angels, a plaster Pieta and candles. One tree was draped with rosaries and faded prayer flags, and another had seemingly sprouted a bouquet of American flags from its base.

The sheer volume of stuff was both amazing and overwhelming: such an outpouring of love for the dead, the injured, and for Boston on the whole.

As large as it was, the memorial mound continued to grow as we wended our way through the piles, pointing and reading notes and snapping photos.

One father helped his little girl add her contribution to the pile—it was shiny and sparkly, decorated with ribbons and glitter—while a loose cluster of twenty-somethings wrote messages on blue and yellow strips of paper that they added to an ever-growing chain, every link a prayer.

It was incredibly moving to see such an abundant, seemingly worldwide outpouring of love: a tidal surge of well-wishes from everywhere, as if a wave had overwhelmed us with a great teeming detritus of remembrance.

When we witness tragedy from afar, whether from across town or across the country, we want to do something in response, even if all we can do is sign a banner or leave a handwritten note.

Examining the neatly arranged assortment of offerings felt like browsing a giant yard sale or flea market where every item carried words of encouragement rather than a price tag: priceless.

But out of the many came the occasional one, individual messages that stopped me short with their poignancy: the note, for instance, from police officers in Colorado promising to take over the watch for slain MIT police officer Sean Collier…

…or the child who drew the “poisonous bomb” the only way he knew how, which was like something out of a Road Runner cartoon.

But the individual item that hit me hardest—a surprise surge of sentiment that threatened to turn my Boston Strong into Boston Sobs—was a still-packaged plaque showing a young boy with hands folded in prayer: the kind of thing you’d give a little boy for his First Communion.

I don’t know if eight-year-old Martin Richard was Catholic, but this much I know: he won’t be taking Communion with his classmates this year, having achieved a premature oneness with eternity instead.

I’m not sure I found any answers by visiting the Boston Marathon bombing site, but what I found was an upsurge of hope. Whether they acted alone or with accomplices, the Boston bombing suspects can’t possibly outnumber the people who came out to walk on Sunday or the people who continue to heap their blessings on a city it’s easy to fall in love with all over again.

Click here for a complete photo set of images from the makeshift Boston Marathon memorial in Copley Square, or click here for my earlier post about (and pictures from) this year’s Boston Marathon.

 

Samurai strong

Yesterday J and I took the T into Boston to go to the Museum of Fine Arts, where we saw Paul Cezanne’s “The Large Bathers,” which is currently on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as well as an exhibit of samurai armor. Although I don’t know much about Cezanne or the samurai, I was enchanted by both exhibits, albeit in entirely different ways.

Cezanne’s “Bathers” are calmly monumental with their bold, blurry pastels. Although the painting is in oil, Cezanne creates a watercolor-like effect that is simultaneously provocative and mesmerizing: the kind of painting you could study for an eternity, drawn into the depths of its soothing pastoral vision.

Displayed alongside Paul Gauguin’s equally evocative “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going,” Cezanne’s “Bathers” represents a turn away from the classical nude, which seems almost too-perfect in its idealized timelessness, and toward a more embodied Modernist vision. The bodies Cezanne and Gauguin depict look like actual, earthly bodies at rest, and it seems natural to rest a while in their presence.

The pieces of samurai armor currently on display at the MFA, on the other hand, are almost cartoonishly quirky, and I immediately fell in love with them. After walking through several galleries containing glass-case examples of helmets, breastplates, shin-guards, and other armature, J and I entered a room with two life-size free-standing displays: on one side, a trio of fully-bedecked warriors galloping on heavily-armored steeds…

…and on the other, a gang of walking warriors, their ornate armature letting enemies know in an instant that these guys mean business.

When you look like a bad-ass space alien and carry a big sword, you can let your appearance do the talking.

This is the last week of the semester at Framingham State, which means I’ll be swamped with paper-grading for the next two weeks. It felt good to take a virtual vacation at the MFA yesterday, traveling first to France to lounge with Cezanne and then to imperial Japan to stand with samurai. I’ve set the photo at the top of this post as my desktop background: a silent reminder to stay samurai strong over the next few, tiring weeks.

Click here to see my complete photo-set from yesterday’s MFA outing. Enjoy!

 

Taking back Watertown

Last night A (not her real initial) and I met at Mount Auburn Cemetery to take a quick walk before heading to the Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown for pancakes and conversation: something we’ve done more than a few times in the past. Last night’s cemetery stroll and diner date was more than just another chance to chat over comfort food: it was an intentional act of purification. Ever since Watertown, Massachusetts made the national news a week ago for being the site of the Boston bombing manhunt, I’ve been wanting to reclaim a sleepy little city that’s just one town over from mine: a normally quiet suburb that most folks outside of Boston probably never heard of until the Tsarnaev brothers made it infamous.

Yesterday marked one week since the day-long lockdown that turned the greater Boston area into a ghost town. Lockdown Friday started with emails and recorded phone messages from the mayor telling us to stay indoors, and it ended with us watching televised coverage of people cheering in the streets after the remaining bombing suspect had been captured. In between, J and I did indeed stay inside, remaining glued to CNN and local televised news reports as we waited for some sense of closure to end a truly terrible week.

Lockdown Friday was a gorgeous spring day, which made staying inside that much more difficult; what made the day surreal was watching television coverage of places that are both nearby and familiar. Although I typically describe Mount Auburn Cemetery as being in Cambridge since that’s where the main entrance is, most of the cemetery actually lies in Watertown. To get to Mount Auburn from Cambridge, you take a Watertown bus from Harvard Square; to get to Mount Auburn from Newton, you drive down Watertown Avenue. During last week’s manhunt, local and federal law enforcement used the parking lot at the Watertown Mall as a staging area, and as I watched each televised press conference, I remembered the various times I’d parked there to buy socks, underwear, or other “essentials” at the Watertown Target.

J probably can tell you exactly how many times I said “Look, that’s the diner!” as CNN showed one of their reporters standing on Mount Auburn Street, reporting on every gunshot or dog bark she heard. (Jon Stewart on The Daily Show rightly skewered this same reporter for remarking that the streets of Watertown were eerily quiet, as if someone had dropped a bomb somewhere.) J didn’t need to be told again and again and again that the shiny silver building visible in the background was “the” diner where A and I go for pancakes after our cemetery strolls: he could clearly see that for himself. But I kept pointing it out because I couldn’t quite believe a quiet little neighborhood just one town over from ours was suddenly the site of Breaking News.

Last night A and I went walking at Mount Auburn Cemetery followed by dinner at the Deluxe Town Diner as a way of reclaiming Watertown: now that Suspect One is dead and Suspect Two has been captured, it’s time for Watertown to go back to being a sleepy little suburb about six miles outside of Boston. For the most part, Watertown seems to be returning to normal: last night, Mount Auburn was as lovely as always, and the diner was bustling with Friday night customers. The only indications that Watertown hasn’t completely returned to normal were the “Boston Strong” and “Boston We are One” slogans on MBTA bus marquees and a curious rush-hour traffic jam I experienced near the intersection of Watertown and Galen Streets. From my vantage point near the end of a long queue of cars, I could see flashing lights as several police vehicles escorted something large and white out of Watertown. Only later did I figure out I’d probably witnessed police moving the infamous boat that Suspect Number Two was captured in.

Apart from traffic delays caused by evidence removal, it felt good to return to the familiar calm of Mount Auburn Cemetery, and it felt even better to enjoy comfort food at a diner that was bustling with Friday night customers. Like other businesses in the greater Boston area, the Deluxe Town Diner lost a day’s worth of business on Lockdown Friday, so A and I made a point to leave our waitress an extra-generous tip: a small token of appreciation for a sleepy little suburb that I’m guessing is eager to return to relative obscurity.

Click here for more photos from last night’s purification trip to Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Deluxe Town Diner. Enjoy!

 

Don’t worry about a thing

On Sunday, J and I went to an afternoon Red Sox game. It was a picture-perfect day with a cloudless sky and comfortably cool temperatures: the kind of day when you can’t think of anywhere you’d rather be than sitting in the centerfield bleachers, watching a ballgame on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

When J and I bought tickets to this particular Red Sox game months ago, we had no idea the timing would be significant. Happening less than a week after the Boston Marathon bombings, Sunday’s ballgame was the first time after the attack that J and I went to a crowded public event. When J and I bought tickets to this particular Red Sox game, in other words, we had no idea that simply showing up and sitting in the centerfield bleachers surrounded by strangers would feel like an act of purification: proof that life in New England can return to “almost normal” in the aftermath of heartbreak, and proof that we can still gather in a crowd with anonymous others—a big, teeming throng, just like Marathon Monday—without anything bad happening.

When you go to a Sunday afternoon ballgame at Fenway Park, it’s easy to feel like you’re attending a kind of grassy, open-air church with a diverse community of baseball “believers.” There’s something inexplicably wholesome about watching a ballgame on a sunny Sunday afternoon, with everyone’s eyes fixed on the same Field of Dreams, and on Sunday I craved the quiet calm of this kind of secular fellowship.

Today I read a news story about a local priest who spoke at Marathon bombing victim Krystle Campbell’s funeral on Monday, then attended a Red Sox game with his father later that night, and something he said resonated with my own experience:

“Sports has been so important in the past week,” Fr. Hines said. “You’re gathering a lot of people in one place, whether it’s at the Garden or Fenway Park, and it allows them that sort of civic moment where we’re all together. It’s kind of a concentrated moment. Sports in Boston is so important. We’re indoctrinated from a young age. We follow them and bleed their colors and offers us an opportunity to come together and have some enjoyment even if it’s just a moment for us to get together and talk and laugh.”

Fr. Hines talks about the communal feeling fans experience when they’re gathered to root for the same team, and on Sunday, it felt good to feel that kind of fellowship again. Given that I sometimes feel claustrophobic in crowds, I’d wondered if I’d panic when I found myself surrounded by strangers so soon after the Marathon attack, but the familiar atmosphere of “Friendly Fenway” helped quell that reaction.

When you go to church on a sunny Sunday, you expect to sing hymns, and I’d wondered whether I’d get weepy when we sang the national anthem before the start of the game, “God Bless America” and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh inning stretch, and “Sweet Caroline” in the middle of the eighth inning. Instead, it was a song I hadn’t expected to hear—Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” piped in on the public address system—that caused my eyes to mist when I heard a handful of fans join together to sing the chorus:

Don’t worry about a thing
’cause every little thing gonna be alright

I don’t know if I believe in that Field of Dreams enough to say that every little thing is going to be all right: it certainly was bittersweet to enjoy a ballgame on a sunny Sunday with the memory of those who were killed, injured, and traumatized in last week’s attacks. But it felt good to feel like every little thing might be okay, eventually, the fellowship of a ballpark full of fans feeling as close to “back to normal” as I could have hoped for.

Click here for more pictures from Sunday afternoon’s ballgame between the Boston Red Sox and the Kansas City Royals. Enjoy!

 

Venturing out

It’s been fiercely cold this week, so I’ve spent a lot of time hunkered down at home. Our cats are indoor creatures who have perfected the art of hunkering, mapping out the warmest radiators and most comfortable cushions. On a cold day, there’s something hugely comforting about curling up with a warm laptop and a purring throng of resting, grooming, and sleeping creatures, each of them quietly stoking their inner fires.

This isn’t to say I haven’t ventured out during this cold snap: I still have face-to-face classes to teach, dogs to escort to and from our backyard dog pen, and a photo a day to take. On Thursday, I dragged myself out of my office at Framingham State to take a short walk off campus and back, even a twenty-minute walk feeling like an adventurous arctic exploration. As much as my body might not want to walk when temperatures are in the single-digits, walking in the brutal cold feels strangely healthy after you’ve done it, the brisk air enlivening your steps. “Cold air kills flu germs,” I tell myself as I breathe the first, searing lungful of frigid air. I don’t know whether that is scientifically true, but it feels healthy to breathe fresh air rather than the stale, indoor stuff shared with colleagues, students, and random strangers.

On Friday, J and I went to an afternoon symphony concert, which meant we bundled up to walk from our house to the T and from the T to Symphony Hall, stopping along the way for lunch. “That’s a popular choice,” our waiter chuckled after both J and I ordered hot soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Looking up, J and I noticed that indeed, the restaurant was filled with bundled married couples, many of them eating hot soup and sandwiches, and all of them clearly headed to the symphony.

“These are the hardy symphony-goers who can still get around on their own,” I whispered to J, since the BSO is largely popular with elderly folks, many of whom arrive at Symphony Hall by the busload from local retirement communities: one of the perks of growing old in a city with a world-class orchestra. True to our experience of past concerts, the BSO ushers expertly guided folks with physical challenges to their seats, whisking away canes and walkers to be stored in a neat row outside the restroom: the geriatric equivalent of the rows of baby-strollers you see outside playgrounds and popular amusement park rides.

“At least they showed up,” J mentioned, nodding to our otherwise empty row; apparently many concert-goers stayed home, daunted by either the cold weather or the threat of flu. I’d stuffed a handful of cough drops in my purse before we left home, knowing that Coughing At The Symphony is a social faux pas that is to be avoided at all costs. We didn’t need to avail ourselves of that emergency stash, though, and we heard very few coughs or sniffles during the symphony’s performance. Apparently the folks who venture out for a concert on a frigid day are an especially hardy bunch.

 

Orderly

Today’s Photo Friday theme is “Orderly,” so I’m taking a brief break from my grading to show you this rack of neatly arranged Hubway bikes in front of the Apple Store on Boylston Street. Locating a bike-sharing station in front of an Apple Store makes sense on two levels. First, there’s probably a wide demographic overlap between bike-sharers and Apple aficionados. Second, a sturdy rack filled with bikes provides a barrier from thieves looking to drive their car through a glass store front in order to pick up a new iPhone or iPad.

I recently replaced my ancient (first generation!) iPod Shuffle with a brand-new (fifth generation) iPod Touch, which I’ve been playing with during breaks from my seemingly bottomless paper-piles. (No, I didn’t crash into an Apple Store to “select” my new iPod: J ordered it for me online.) At this point in the semester, even my to-do lists have to-do lists, so it’s good to have a new gadget to play with during my grading-breaks.

Once the semester is over and I’m completely done with grading, I’ll probably want to enjoy another product J and I saw in an orderly arrangement through a Boston storefront window:

This is my contribution to today’s Photo Friday theme, “Orderly.” In case you can’t read the labels in the previous picture, that’s an entire display case of Miller High Life at the Mass Ave Tavern: not necessarily my favorite beer, but an orderly and eye-catching display nevertheless.

 

Taking a break

I always vow to get caught up with grading before Thanksgiving, so I can take a proper break over the holiday…and inevitably failing to do that, I always vow to get caught up with grading over Thanksgiving, so I can finish the remaining weeks of the semester in a calm, leisurely fashion.

Instead, I’m woefully behind with grading, with looming paper-piles from all six (!) of the classes I’m teaching. It felt great to take Thanksgiving day off from grading, teaching prep, and even the thought of teaching and grading: on Thursday it was sunny and mild, so J and I took a long walk in downtown Boston, where we saw people sitting and enjoying the sun on the Charles River Esplanade, albeit in coats. Even when it’s not really summer, it can be fun to pretend it is.

So, after a long holiday weekend of pretending I could take a break from grading, teaching prep, and even the thought of teaching and grading, it’s time to get back to it. I probably won’t have time to blog much over the next week while I’m digging out from my paper-piles; I’m even taking a break from writing my daily hour, having finished the three-month contract I’d made with my writing partner, with plans to resume the practice in December. For now, it’s time to get down to the business of reading rather than writing, those paper-piles not having disappeared despite all my attempts to ignore them out of existence.

 

Sunny Sunday

Several weekends ago, J and I went to a steamy Sunday afternoon Red Sox game against the Kansas City Royals. The forecast said the day was supposed to be partly cloudy with temperatures in the 70s, but it felt much hotter in the shade-free centerfield bleacher seats.

Whenever J and I go to sunny summer ballgames at Fenway, I remember the Red Sox games we’ve attended in Atlanta, which were far hotter than anything we’ve experienced here in Boston. Watching the crowd at an Atlanta ballgame, you see fans who are acclimated to heat: they know how to deal with it, just as Boston residents know how to deal with snowy winters. Watching the crowd at an Atlanta game, you see spectators who focus all their energy on merely spectating, conserving as much energy as possible while sheltering under any source of shade they can muster: game program, fielder’s mitt, or any kind of hat.

In Atlanta, we saw seasoned baseball fans–obviously veterans of many hot games–who arrived with frozen bottles of water, soda, or Gatorade that they’d slowly sip as as they melted: a long-lasting ice-cold beverage. We saw fans who, oblivious to fashion, draped their heads and necks with towels soaked in cold water–or, lacking a towel, water-soaked T-shirts. Atlanta fans, I learned, don’t fight the heat: they lean into it. You don’t worry about looking sweaty at an Atlanta game, because everyone is sweaty. You ease into the heat the way you’d settle into a sauna, letting the warmth loosen your muscles and unlock any residual tension in your body. Instead of recoiling against the heat, trying to resist it, you consciously relax, allowing the sun to bake the sweat from your skin, leaving a rime of salt: a gritty residue that makes you feel like you spent the day at the beach, not at a ballgame.

The other secret I learned from Atlanta ballgames? Eat frozen lemonade, Italian ice, or whatever similar refreshment you can find. In Atlanta, they sold yogurt-sized cups of frozen Minute Maid lemonade, and at Fenway, they sell cups of lemonade-flavored Luigi’s Italian ice. Thoreau once said that if you chop your own firewood, it warms you twice: once while you chop it, and again when you burn it. Taking a phrase from Thoreau, I’d argue that eating frozen lemonade cools you thrice: once when you hold it, again when you eat it one melting spoonful at a time, and once more when you drink the melted liquid that’s left when you’ve finished: ice-cold citrusy, syrupy goodness.

Going to a ballgame on a hot day is a return to life at its most elemental. It’s just you, the sun, and your own sweaty skin: the beer, hotdogs, and ballgame itself are almost incidental. You could be sitting in the bleachers, or you could be sitting on the beach. Either way, you come home sun-baked and sweaty, as ready to head to the showers as any of the players you watched competing on the field.

Click here for more photos from last month’s game between the Boston Red Sox and the Kansas City Royals.

 

Infinite infinity

Yesterday A (not her real initial) and I went to the Institute of Contemporary Art, where we took a brief walk through Josiah McElheny’s current exhibit, Some Pictures of the Infinite. Longtime readers of Hoarded Ordinaries might remember McElheny’s Endlessly Repeating Twentieth Century Modernism, a piece at the Museum of Fine Arts which I’ve photographed frequently and blogged repeatedly. Based on my fondness for McElheny’s MFA piece, I was eager to see how his ICA exhibit held up to my expectations.

Walking through an art exhibit when you have only a limited amount of time is actually an interesting exercise in discernment and discrimination. A and I arrived at the ICA about an hour before closing, and my sprained foot was already beginning to fatigue from our previous wanderings. Because we didn’t have endless time to explore McElheny’s endless infinities, we had to choose which works to linger over and which to politely limp past.

I could have gazed infinitely on McElheny’s Collection of Glass Concerning the Search for Infinity, an assortment of hand-blown glass plates, each of which was etched with fine, spiraling lines that called to mind a child’s Spirograph toy. I was similarly captivated by the intricate detail of Drawings and Photographs for a Chandelier, which juxtaposes photographs of constellation-like bursts of light with geometric line drawings. But Czech Modernism Mirrored and Reflected Infinitely and Scale Model for a Totally Reflective Landscape, both of which closely mirror (pun intended) the shiny, reflective surfaces of McElheny’s MFA piece, left me underwhelmed. I’d like to think there is more to McElheny than simple shiny surfaces, so my immediate response to both of these installations was a resigned “Been there, done that.”

Luckily, Island Universe exceeded expectations. At first glance, the piece is deceptively simple, just a half-dozen modern-style chandeliers hanging at varying heights in a large, airy gallery. Once you start walking among these hanging pieces, however, you realize how intriguing they are, calling to mind spinning galaxies of stars circling shiny suns or equally intricate atomic structures with sparking-bright electrons orbiting densely reflective nuclei.

In its own spare, modernist way, Island Universe reminded me of the floral excesses of Dale Chihuly’s glass chandeliers (or, more accurately, the enchanting experience of wandering through a roomful of them). The piece also called to mind the frozen explosions of Cai Guo-Qiang’s Inopportune, an installation of which I’d seen at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (and subsequently blogged) in 2005. Galaxies, atoms, and exploding cars are all bright and sparking things: you don’t need infinite hours to appreciate them, just the flash of an appreciative eye.

Click here for a photo set from Josiah McElheny’s “Island Universe. Enjoy!