Dollar (or less) Days at Baltimore attractions

This past weekend--December 9 and 10, 2017--I visited most of the attractions during the 

National Great Blacks in Wax Museum--
I think Mary McLeod Bethune looked the most life-like.

Dollar Days :

Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum
Geppi's Entertainment Museum
Jewish Museum of Maryland
Maryland Science Center
National Great Blacks in Wax Museum
Reginald F. Lewis Museum
Star-Spangled Banner Flag House
Top of the World (27th floor of pentagon-shaped building at the inner harbor with good views of the area)

Star-Spangled Banner Flag House--The dog is a nut cracker operated by raising and lowering the tail with
the nut in the mouth. I forget what the box on the right is for, maybe soap.

I didn't have time to get to the Historic Ships in Baltimore (which I've seen before), National Aquarium, and Port Discovery Children’s Museum. The Aquarium had long lines. When I walked by on Sunday around 11 am, the line extended almost to the USS Constellation, but at least the employee said that all of those in line could get in. I encountered no waiting at any of the places I visited, which was information I was looking for earlier this fall. 

Geppi's Entertainment Museum

Geppi's Entertainment Museum--
When I was a kid I watched the re-runs of the black-and-white Lassie and the color-version when she was on her own.

Dollar Days is especially great for families with little income. The Aquarium's usual prices are Adults: $39.95 and Children (3-11): $24.95. The Science Center's are Adults: $24.95 and Children (3-12): $18.95. So I will send thank you notes to the sponsors and participating sites. 

Jewish Museum of Maryland--quotes from people who lived in surrounding Lombard Street neighborhood. 

I'm not sure how to rank these. From my perspective I suppose I'd place the Babe Ruth

Maryland Science Center--
Feet on the pad at this end, head on pad at top.
After you lie down on the plastic, the employee raises
the nails that go up through holes in the plastic layer.
I could feel the points, but it doesn't hurt at all.

house at the bottom, except that it's interesting to see the rather small size of the rooms and living conditions of people near the start of the 20th century. My favorite part of the Science Center was the bed of nails. Geppi's seems more focused on comic books but with some OK exhibits on pop culture objects. What mainly interested me at the Star-Spangled Banner House was being in a house from the late 1700s/early1800s and seeing objects passed down through the generations from then. As for the wax museum, I like its uniqueness and focus but wish that more of the figures were doing something other than standing. The absence of one for Frederick Douglass surprised me, and I was told his is in the works for next year, the 200th anniversary of his birth.

In Reginald Lewis Museum

I couldn't attend Dollar Days last year, when the Baltimore Streetcar Museum and the Maryland Historical Society (which was free) took part. According to a 2015 Baltimore Sun article, in that year the sites were the same except that also included were the Carroll Mansion/Phoenix Shot Tower and the Washington Monument (Baltimore's) but not the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum.

View of the USS Constellation from the Top of the World

View of the harbor from the Top of the World. Pyramids at bottom left are the National Aquarium;
hill to the right with trees on top is Federal Hill.

John Muir's wooden Clock-Desk in lobby of Wisconsin Historical Society (University of Wisconsin-Madison campus)

I wish that I'd looked into this more while a grad student at UW. John Muir, the environmentalist who is often called the "Father of the National Parks," used this clock-desk to study while an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin. A slotted box under the toothed wheel contained books. After the time he'd set for studying a book, it would be returned to a slot and another get pushed up. The front legs are shaped like compasses for drawing circles and the back legs like stacked books. This device apparently connected to his "wide-awake bed," which would tilt him up and light a lamp as a sort of alarm clock. But other sources seem to describe the "wide-awake bed" and clock-desk as separate. Visitors to Muir's dorm room say he let them try out the bed. Muir describes the clock-desk in "The Story of My Boyhood and Youth" (1913): "I invented a desk in which the books I had to study were arranged in order at the beginning of each term. I also made a bed which set me on my feet every morning at the hour determined on, and in dark winter mornings just as the bed set me on the floor it lighted a lamp. Then, after the minutes allowed for dressing had elapsed, a click was heard and the first book to be studied was pushed up from a rack below the top of the desk, thrown open, and allowed to remain there the number of minutes required. Then the machinery closed the book and allowed it to drop back into its stall, then moved the rack forward and threw up the next in order, and so on, all the day being divided according to the times of recitation, and time required and allotted to each study."

More info: Blessing, Matt. "'The inventions, though of little importance, opened all doors for me': John Muir's Years as an Inventor". Wisconsin Magazine of History, vol. 99, no. 4 (Summer 2016): 16-27. http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm/ref/collection/wmh/id/52346 After Muir's death the family donated the unassembled clock-desk to the state. Library staff used a simple drawing of it to put it back together, but some parts seemed to be missing. I wonder if anyone has tried to create a working replica.

North Hall--where John Muir lived while at the University of Wisconsin in the 1860s. It now houses the political science department.

Wisconsin Historical Society:
Main entrance--The clock-desk is in the lobby after turning right.

Sociology Research Methods Syllabus

Here's a syllabus for one of the semesters, Spring 2006, that I taught Methods of Sociological Inquiry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I used to post teaching and research materials on UW's website but didn't move those after I left. In the future, I'll re-create it, but I will post this syllabus for now in case someone is searching for some teaching ideas. Many of the links are no longer OK. (Not all of this is aligning correctly, so I'll try to fix it later.)

My version seems to be more hands-on with a variety of research activities and includes lots more historical examples, such as from The Philadelphia Negro by Du Bois because of his use of systematic observation and interviews in the study of race. Many of the readings in my sections of research methods ended up examining the topics of race and order using different methods. In addition to Du Bois on race, Duneier used mainly participant observation but also interviews, conversation analysis, a simple field experiment, and historical research. LaPiere ran a famous field experiment in the 1920s followed by a questionnaire, and there are the field experiments by Pager (black and white men, with and without criminal records, applying for jobs) and by Massey and Lundy (undergrads at Penn calling landlords about apartments).This Spring 2006 syllabus has less on order than what I assigned in previous semesters. That topic pops up in Du Bois, Duneier, as well as Zimbardo on street vandalism.

Sociology 357—Methods of Sociological Inquiry

Spring 2006, the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Lecturer: Chuck Ditzler

Office 7105 Social Science Building             Office Hours: Tuesday 11am-noon,

Office Phone:   262-7458                               Thursday 11am-noon, or by appointment

Email: cditzler@ssc.wisc.edu

Class Scheduled: TR   9:30am-10:45am        Class Location: 6232 Social Science Bldg.

Course Description

This is a hands-on course that introduces methods of sociological research. Two themes thread throughout much of this version of the course: recognizing facts inconvenient for one’s position and developing one’s imagination or ways of perception in research. 

The primary task of a useful teacher is to teach his students to recognize “inconvenient” facts—I mean facts that are inconvenient for their party opinions. And for every party opinion there are facts that are extremely inconvenient, for my own opinion no less than for others. I believe the teacher accomplishes more than a mere intellectual task if he compels his audience to accustom itself to the existence of such facts. I would be so immodest as even to apply the expression “moral achievement,” though perhaps this may sound too grandiose for something that should go without saying.  Max Weber “Science as a Vocation”

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truth, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.  Henry David Thoreau “Where I Lived and What I Lived For” Walden

From the Undergraduate Catalog, 2003-2005:

357 Methods of Sociological Inquiry. (Crosslisted with Rur Soc) I or II or SS; 3-4 cr (I). Scientific methods and their application in the analysis of society; procedures in testing sociological theory: problem definition, hypothesis construction, collection and evaluation of data. P: So st; not open to stdts who have taken Soc 358.

Seckel Pears

Seckel pears are about two inches long and sweet. Even though their history stretches back to the 1700s in the Philadelphia area, they're not so common these days, probably because their size makes harvesting more costly for growers. Eating them seems easier, and the core is often so small that I can eat the whole thing except for the stem and the tiny end. They're my favorite pears, so I'm posting about them to encourage others to be on the look out for Seckel pears at farmers' markets and maybe to suggest that orchards grow these.

At the Dane County Farmers' Market in Madison, Wisconsin, Weston's Antique Apples sells them for maybe one Saturday in late August. I was lucky to be back this week to attend meetings and am trying to find out if any farmers sell these in the Baltimore/DC area.

For more information: 

http://usapears.org/seckel/

"The Pears of New York" by U. P. Hedrick published in 1921: https://archive.org/stream/pearsofnewyork00hedrrich#page/n7/mode/2up [Seckel appears starting on page 215.]

Purple sweet potato

Back in late May I bought this purple sweet potato at a farmers' market in Baltimore. It seemed to taste about the same as typical orange sweet potatoes but maybe with a smoother texture. That could be from how long I cooked it, though. I wish I'd clarified with the seller the specific name of this because there are different kinds of purple sweet potatoes and yams. I sometimes get purple potatoes, but I  don't remember eating  a purple sweet potato before this one.

Some nutritional advice has suggested trying to vary fruit and vegetable consumption by colors because of the different nutrients connected to the colors: green, red, yellow or orange, blue or purple, and white.

Some thoughts about illusions

"Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion." Tom near the beginning of "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams.

on bike path in Madison, Wisconsin, along Old Middleton Road (The first word is Life.)
I wonder what led someone to write this.

When re-watching online today a scene from "Come Back, Little Sheba," I found out that Shirley Booth played the mother, Amanda, in a CBS Playhouse version of "The Glass Menagerie" in 1966. The video was thought to have been lost; however, the unedited video was recently discovered and pieced together to replicate what was originally broadcast. Hal Holbrook played Tom (the son) and Laura (the daughter) was played by Barbara Loden. This was finally re-broadcast exactly fifty years later by TCM on December 8, 2016. 

 Baltimore, lawn in Roland Park neighborhood. I liked the colors of the leaves.

I didn't have time to watch the full version I found online, so I skipped to the part that especially affects me, when Laura learns about the "gentleman caller's" prior commitment. Loden's reaction of pain was visible to the audience but hidden from her mother and brother as she kept her back to them. In what might still be my favorite version, Karen Allen seemed to conceal her feelings more. As I jumped to some other scenes, I realized that maybe I want to wait to watch this with someone else to talk about it. I used to think about that kind of thing more often in the past, of waiting not to do something because I don't want to do it alone. For some reason I had once set aside a documentary by Errol Morris for that even though it wasn't especially meaningful to me. When I finally watched it because UW was screening many of his films, it was very painful for me to realize I was watching alone and I was glad that the theater was dark. 

Many things come to my mind about what the Tom character, who was probably based on Williams, says about illusions.  In The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma,  Dr. Bessel van der Kolk quotes this favorably: "The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves" (Dr. Elvin Semrad [former supervisor at Massachusetts Mental Health Center] 2014: 11). But at other times he says that a way to deal with trauma is through imagination. I forget how he reconciles those two ideas. I think I've often used day dreaming of the future as a way to get by, but the dangers are not to take enough action and to fool myself. 

Another thing I'm reminded of is when I returned home from my freshman year in college during the Labor Day weekend and watched some of "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" again on some television station.  The Willy Wonka character doesn't seem to completely believe it when he sings "Pure Imagination"--"If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it."

Baltimore, outside stores along Hartford Road. They were closed, so I couldn't ask anyone about the chalk. 

Learning about art history

Back on May 8 I replied to a comment on my post about Stephen King etc. that I'd post something about my favorite paintings.  I'll mention something close to that I started on Pinterest. So that I can figure out what I think of Pinterest and learn about art history, for one of my boards I decided to create an art museum stocked with whatever I wanted. A lot of the artworks I chose are to help create variety. Sometimes I see there is a hole in the collection and use that as a way to do some research. That's how I learned about abstract expressionist paintings by women and found that I prefer their works.  It's been months since I've added anything to the board.

Here it is:
https://www.pinterest.com/chuckditzler/my-art-museum/

A problem for someone in China is that I think you have to sign on with an account to see my full board.

If you have any suggestions, such as a hole I should fill, or want to know why I included something, please let me know.

I like this sculpture in Baltimore's Walters Art Museum because of how bronze and marble are combined and it probably is based on a famous African American actor of the 1800s, Ira Aldridge, who was known for portraying Shakespeare's Othello.  Museum's page on this artwork: http://art.thewalters.org/detail/98789/othello/

"Othello" by Pietro Calvi, modeled 1868, this executed in 1873

Thinking about some films made in Baltimore

One of my thoughts on "sat up all night reading it to each other" in my previous post was about movie scenes that have stuck to me. To get more familiar with Baltimore, last year I borrowed from the library DVDs of films by such directors as Barry Levinson and Matthew Porterfield. What saddened me while watching the Levinson films were scenes of emotional abuse, especially toward women. In Tin Men, the character played by Barbara Hershey once asked her husband, played by Danny DeVito, if they could go on a picnic. It was obvious that the meaning of this was important to her, but he dismissed this simple, romantic request. Maybe what occurred was mainly emotional neglect, but it felt like the contempt of abuse from how he responded. There was worse abuse than this, but the lack of care affected me.

In Diner, there's the scene when the wife of one character had listened to "his" records but not put them back in the slots he preferred. It was painful watching how he belittled her and showed so much contempt. I think it would instead feel wonderful if someone would take that much interest in another's musical tastes. Rather than attacking her, they could have talked about the music, whether any songs stood out for her and the feelings they evoked. The film felt more like tragedy to me than a comedy from the abuse and predator behavior of some of the men.  One of my biggest laughs during the movie was when a guy required a woman to pass an impossible trivia quiz on football before they got married. At the same time I was disturbed by the underlying message about focusing on trivial aspects of life and male control in some relationships. [Roger Ebert review of Diner]

The two films by Porterfield I've seen, Putty Hill and Hamilton, seem not so much about abuse as emotional neglect, listlessness, and disconnect from others. These were low-budget productions that received little attention. Their atmospheres felt like what is often depicted in good graphic novels about everyday life, such as Building Stories, the box of booklets by Chris Ware.

Watching these kinds of films is a good reminder of what not to do and what to value in life.

[Added on August 2: I mistakenly attributed the football quiz to Liberty Heights when it was in Diner. I should have mentioned that Liberty Heights did depict a more positive romantic relationship, which faced hurdles because it was between an African American teenage girl and a White teenage boy.]

Reading together

"The whole life of the average house, it seems, is a sort of indigestion." Frank Lloyd Wright, "Chapter 4--The Cardboard House" Modern Architecture, Being the Kahn Lectures for 1930, page 65

I recently came across a wonderful description in a guidebook about Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in the western US. It's in the section on the Hanna or Honeycomb House at Stanford.

"Jean and Paul Hanna both grew up in Minnesota. Married in 1926, they had three children. When they were both teaching at Columbia, between 1925 and 1935, they came across a review of Wright's Princeton lectures of 1930. They subsequently bought the book of them, Modern Architecture, Being the Kahn Lectures for 1930, and sat up all night reading it to each other. They were so taken with it that they wrote to Wright, and met him in Taliesin the following summer on a trip to Minnesota." From Heinz, Thomas  A. 1999. Frank Lloyd Wright Field Guide: West, Volume 3, page 33

It goes on to describe the process they went through to work with Wright to build a house at Stanford, where they re-settled in 1935.

I post on here about Wright buildings not because I'm enamored by his homes and want to live in one like them but because they are interesting, many are in the Madison and Chicago areas, and I'm attracted to his ideas on organic architecture. What I've been thinking about is how the couple became so enthusiastic together that they took turns reading to each other into the night and I guess breaks to talk about it. I wonder if they laughed together at the quote I put above and talked about what it meant. This kind of closeness is what I think is important in life.

Here's the first part of that paragraph starting Chapter 4:
"Any house is a far too complicated, clumsy, fussy, mechanical counterfeit of the human body. Electric wiring for nervous system, plumbing for bowels, heating system and fireplaces for arteries and heart, and windows for eyes, nose, and lungs generally. The structure of the house, too, is a kind of cellular tissue stuck full of bone, complex now, as the confusion of Bedlam and all beside. The whole interior is a kind of stomach that attempts to digest objects--objects, 'objects d'art' maybe, but objects always. There the affected affliction sits, ever hungry--for more objects--or plethoric with over plenty. The whole life of the average house, it seems, is a sort of indigestion."

Paul Hanna was a leading figure on elementary school education and the Social Studies Editor for World Book Encyclopedia for 35 years. [More on him  in "Paul Hanna at Stanford University"] Jean Hanna was also an expert on childhood education, but I haven't found much yet on her career.

Paths--Stony Run Trail in Baltimore

"Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast which ruminates when walking." Henry David Thoreau, "Walking," essay published in The Atlantic Monthly in June 1862, after his death [I picked this quote because last week was the 200th anniversary of Thoreau's birth and this comparison with a camel seems ridiculous to me.]

One of the hiking or walking trails/paths in Baltimore I like is Stony Run Trail, which follows a creek of that name northward from about Jones Falls. According to one website on trails, it's about three miles mainly on or near a former Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad line, nicknamed the "Ma and Pa," that ran from Baltimore to York, Pennsylvania, until the 1950s. (According to the time schedule, the trip took about four hours, that is, about 20 miles/hour.)

Here is a map: http://stonyrun.org/what-we-do/walking-path/maps-full-size/ I enter near the Remington Road bridge or by University Parkway. On my way back from Northern Parkway, I usually try one of the roads south, such as Charles Street, to take a look at the houses. The ones with huge porches interest me because I wish more houses had them. When I was a preschooler, our house in Mechanicsburg had a small porch, but I rarely went on it since my mom asked us play in the backyard away from the busy street. One summer while I was in law school, I subletted a room in an old house with a small front porch that had a swing on which I'd read to get out of the heat of indoors.

More information at the Friends of Stony Run: http://stonyrun.org/what-we-do/walking-path/

This sign emphasizes the benefit of reducing stormwater runoff:

From bridge over Stony Run north of University Parkway:

Part of the path. The creek is on the right and houses can be seen behind the trees on the left. 

This was in a garden near the path.

Mulberry Trees

One of my memories that stand out to me of when we lived in Mechanicsburg, PA, when I was about four and five years old, was walking along the railroad tracks and picking mulberries, which we then took home to eat with sugar and I think some milk. After we moved to Kansas, I sometimes found some to eat along former farmlands, one by a vacant lot near our apartment complex in Shawnee and others near our Lenexa home.

This is a tree by a path than runs through Madison's Rennebohm Park, about a ten-minute walk from my apartment there. Madison allows foraging of fruit from city parks, but I make sure to pick just a small number so as not to hog them. Bicyclists, runners, and walkers go by and stop to eat some. The stains on the path are a useful sign that there's a mulberry tree, although that's one reason homeowners should take care where they plant them.

Even though this park has been close to me for about eight years, I've rarely walked through it. Whenever I head out to Hilldale Mall or Sequoya Library, I usually walk along Sheboygan Avenue.

Promoting fruit tree plantings on public lands for harvesting by anyone is becoming more common. The Baltimore Orchard Project runs a Mulberry Madness Festival throughout June to encourage the eating of mulberries. The city of Madison has started an Edible Landscapes program, which includes allowing and encouraging people to plant something edible on terraces (the strips of land between sidewalks and streets).

The view  from Segoe Road of the eastern side with evergreens when covered with snow reminds me of idealized winter scenes of my childhood, especially the cover of the "Christmas with Chet Atkins" album. I only have photos of this view without snow, as in the picture below taken from the sidewalk.

Zen Garden in Druid Hill Park/Coldspring Labyrinth

Last month I visited the Zen Garden by walking from the southeast along the maintenance road that borders the north side of the zoo. I'd noticed the Zen Garden on the map of the park on its north side (quadrant B1) and got the idea to finally take a look after I read an article shared by one of my FB organizations.  The author of the Baltimore Sun piece, "Reviving Druid Hill's 'Zen Garden'," April 15, 2017, Craig Phillips, found that the garden hadn't really been developed or maintained much since it was started, which I think was in 2010. On his own he created a labyrinth and added some Buddhist-related pieces. Although his intentions are nice, this kind of individual initiative on parkland could backfire, such as because of First Amendment issues.

An easier way to reach the Zen Garden is from the north pedestrian/bicycle entrance, Parkdale Avenue from the Woodberry/Clipper Mill neighborhood. This picture is from inside the park toward that entrance. To get to the Zen Garden from the path, turn left at the gate post, that is, right in this picture.

I took the path just beyond the gate, although Phillips suggests a dirt path a little further down. According to the map, a stream runs between the Parkdale Road path and the path to the Zen Garden, but it seemed dry to me.

Lining this path are concrete remains that I guess maintenance dumped here. It's a short walk to the Zen Garden.

In the garden are two circles--one to the north with a Buddha statue sitting on two slabs and a labyrinth to the south.

Sign below the prayer wheel

One idea I get from walking the labyrinth is when the path takes me away from the destination just as it seems close. This reminds me of how we can face setbacks in our lives and the need for knowing how to handle them or possibly prevent them.

                                                                              

On the left side of the labyrinth is this circle to the left in the ground. The left part of it is the character for winter (冬),  but I don't know what the right part means. The circle on the right has the character for spring (春).

The bench was placed here during the initial work on the garden about seven years ago. Phillips placed that wooden face on the tree.

Baltimore Green Map has created interactive maps along with paper maps of Druid Hill Park and Jones Falls Trail. I used the latter on Tuesday when I walked to Cylburn Arboretum then north through the Mount Washington neighborhood, which has a bunch of large houses, many of which look like they could be used for haunted mansions. 

Just before the Arboretum I stopped at another labyrinth--the Coldspring Labyrinth, which sits by the Coldspring Community Center at 4800 Tamarind Road. Across the street is a Waldorf School. [The map on the Coldspring Newtown website is very good. The labyrinth is between the bird sanctuary and the ball field.]

I'd wrongly assumed that I could walk a circle back to my place after visiting the Arboretum by taking Northern Parkway east to Roland Avenue, but I discovered that stretch lacks sidewalks and is too dangerous to walk along. It has now occurred to me that my detour through Mount Washington to reach another way across I-83, Kelly Avenue, was a setback like in a labyrinth, with the setback actually a blessing in disguise. This reminds me of a useful Chinese saying 塞翁失马，焉知非福 (Sai Weng Shi Ma Yan Zhi Fei Fu--Sai Weng lost his horse - who knows if this is bad or good?/When the old man from the frontier lost his horse, how could one know it is not good fortune?). One way of translating that is this: "It can be difficult to foresee the twists and turns which compel misfortune to beget fortune, and vice versa." Chinese sayings like this tend to have background stories that help explain them. Short version for this saying. 

So many setbacks in life are much worse--making it almost impossible to find any blessing in disguise, which requires some other way to try to understand or forget what happened and move forward. I've been thinking too much lately about my mistakes and don't easily see the blessings in disguise. One way for me to deal with that is to try to use the positives to outweigh the negatives. Walking around and talking with others are among those positives. A short example of that was when I talked with a nice manager of an apartment complex I walked by and was wondering about. She gave me suggestions on how to get around the Northern Parkway obstacle.

-=----------------------------
Added on July 13, 2018
The Zen Garden has changed since I posted this. The main difference is the area around the little statue.

This seems to be a platform for meditation.

This peace sign is to the left in the above picture.

While sitting on the bench last week, I felt that the clear area beside this plot helped make this place relaxing because my eyes kept looking in that direction.

People place objects on the round block in the middle of the labyrinth.

It's been more than a year since I was here. Someone who found this entry messaged me that the Zen Garden had been improved, so last week I walked from near Penn Station along Jones Falls to Woodberry then over to the back entrance of Druid Hill Park. I felt overcome while at the Zen Garden by thoughts of how I'd thought I was getting closer to a destination last year but was actually leading myself away. Near the end of what I wrote in May 2017, I tried to rationalize going in circles, but sometimes cutting through directly is best, and I wish I'd done that.

Art Deco House in Baltimore

The colors and design of this house make me feel that I'm in a Dr. Seuss story or maybe a Beverly Cleary book. I'm thinking what it would be like to have one or two rooms in a home with colors like this--maybe an eating area for breakfast and lunch by the kitchen. I'm not sure what else. I'd prefer something more down-to-earth--brownish and white--for maybe most of the home. The colors make me feel that there are many sorts of wonderful possibilities, that life can be magical and fun.

The variety of tiles on this kitchen wall especially attracted me. I wonder how easy it would be to create this. Maybe left-overs or samples would make this a cheap project?

I visited this house in Baltimore on Saturday, May 20, during its open house on the market. Many other visitors were impressed, with some saying it is impractical. But I think practicality can include impact on one's mental states, so I suppose some of this could lead to cheerful thoughts. The rooms are rather small, though.

I'm not a fan of the furnishings, but I still think they're fascinating.

The original owners were inspired by art deco architecture in the Miami area when they built this in 1948. The heat is from hot water radiant floors.

The tall bamboo lines the property line to the south. I've never seen such tall bamboo in this part of the US.
(I now remember that I've seen very tall bamboo while walking behind the zoo in Druid Hill Park.)

Original owner painted this white, but the turquoise trim is the same.
Bay window to left is living room; one to the right is the bedroom.

view of Lake Montebello from sidewalk in front of the house