This post is part of a series about a road trip to New Orleans that starts here.

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After what seemed like hours, Lynn and I stumbled out of the van Gogh exhibit.  I blinked like a mole because it had been so dim in there.  I needed to find a bathroom and asked a nearby guard, who launched into the story of her life, which included having diabetes, moving to Chicago from Gary, Indiana, and being a weight lifter.  I made the mistake of saying, “I lift weights too,” and that gave her license to talk some more.  She wasn’t talking with me or even to me; she was just talking.

Lynn had done an about face right away but I would have felt mean walking away. In my imagination I filled in the story of her life—how she must be an impoverished single mother who had to do this excruciatingly boring job, how it must be so hard on her back to stand all day, and so on.  Then I remembered I needed a bathroom, butted in to ask her again, and made my escape after many Minnesota-nice thank yous and repetitions of “Have a nice day!”

This type of talking was a theme on our trip, I realize in retrospect.  People launching into long, one-way recitations about themselves, with no encouragement from us.  There were never any questions about us—none of the give and take that  turns talking into conversation.  It’s like being held prisoner by words.  What is that about?  I’ve experienced it from time to time throughout my life but is it more prevalent now?  Does it have something to do with social media and people wanting to tell their stories?  Is it a symptom of loneliness and isolation in our modern society?

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Speaking of long talkers, David our innkeeper had recommended that we see the miniatures at the Art Institute.  “I took mama and Miss Rose to see them, when they visited from Kentucky,” he said. “Mama didn’t say nothin’ the whole time.  I wondered if she didn’t like it. Then I finally said, ‘Mama, don’t you like them?’ and she said, ‘Oh I do!  I do, but I can’t imagine dusting all of them!’”

I laughed and Lynn fake laughed but I could tell she was puzzled.  Once we actually got to the miniature rooms and she saw what they were, she explained why.  “When he said miniatures, I thought of tiny portraits that people used to have done before there was photography.”  Here is an example of an English miniature:

Here is what the miniatures in the Art Institute are:

Miniature rooms from various periods and countries—hundreds of them.  They are really fun to look at and yes, they must be a pain to dust.

We thought we were done but to reach the exit we had to walk through the Asian section.  So we took another hour or so to admire works from Japan, Indonesia, China, and India. Lynn has been to all these places.  She’s Anglo-Indian and has been to India many times.  She worked for Oxfam in Aceh, Indonesia after the Indian Ocean tsunami.  So she’s learned a thing or two about the vast territory covered by the label “Asia.”

“But I never retain anything I’ve learned,” she explained.  So she knew which god was Ganesh and which was Krishna but I was definitely going to have to Google them later to learn more.

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David had also recommended that we visit the Chicago Cultural Center, one block north and across Michigan Avenue from the Art Institute.  “It was a library, but now they hold concerts and have art exhibits there, and it’s fabulous,” he said.

And he was right!  I had never even heard of the place, and it turned out to be the highlight of Chicago for me.  The building was completed in 1897 and features the largest dome of Tiffany glass in the world:

I loved the details.  It wasn’t called The Gilded Age for nothing:

I was happy to realize that I still had many classic works left to read: Scott, Burns, Tennyson, Gray.  Someday—when I can no longer travel.

This is the fifth post about a road trip to New Orleans that starts here.

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Lynn and I spend hours in the Art Institute.  We lingered with the impressionists, then she specifically wanted to see “American Gothic” by Grant Wood.

I found a sweet little website for children, or maybe just simple-minded people, that describes the painting: “After he made sketches of the house, Grant looked for just the right people to go with it.  He thought his family dentist and his own sister, Nan, would be perfect for the farmer and his daughter.  Grant entered American Gothic in a big show at the Art Institute of Chicago, and won the third place prize.  People all over America loved the newspaper pictures they saw of it.  Soon, Grant’s paintings started to become very popular.  One reason for this was that many people felt Grant’s art was easier to understand than a lot of the new modern art being done.”

I could relate to that later, when we visited a modern art exhibit:

The second photo is actually an air vent, but really, how different is it from the “real art” on the left?  Maybe I’m just a philistine.  But then there was this, made entirely of snake skins:

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We waited in line for lunch in the shi-shi café at the Institute. The young cook kept up a stream of talk while he worked.  Or, that is, he stopped working every time he started talking. He wasn’t talking to us; it was like a stream of consciousness. After 25 minutes we finally reached a table with our stir fries and some fortifying red wine.

Two couples from St. Louis sat next to us at the picnic-style table and struck up a conversation.  They were all eating giant sausages. Lynn peered at them dubiously.

“This one is a Chicago style brat,” the woman next to me explained.  “And this one is a Polish sausage—there’s a big Polish population in Chicago.”

“And this is a wiener,” said her husband.  Lynn turned to me and gave me her special blank expression that said so much.

After they had wolfed down their sausages, Lynn had her say.  “None of those were proper sausages!  A wee-ner,” she dragged out the name to emphasize its silliness.  “What’s a wiener!?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure whatever’s inside isn’t good.” I said.  “My mom used to buy them by the dozens and keep them in the freezer.  We would eat them like frozen treats.  A couple years ago there was an outbreak of a mysterious neurological illness at a meat packing plant in Minnesota.  They were using a new technique with high-pressure hoses to blast out every bit of brain matter from pigs’ skulls.”  Lynn recoiled in horror, rightly so.

“I’m so glad I stopped eating pork years ago!  I’ve never paid much attention to British sausages, or to American ones for that matter,” I said.

“British sausages are very different to what those people were eating.  We would never eat anything like a wiener!”  Lynn tried to describe how wonderful and superior British sausages were but it was lost on me.

These are the kinds of conversations you have when you travel with someone from another country.  They’re amusing and confusing, and eventually I find myself Googling “British sausages” late at night.

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Back to the impressionists.  There was a special Vincent van Gogh exhibit called Three Bedrooms.  Lynn pronounced his name “van Goff.”  In America we say “van Go.”

There was an interpretive film. They had physically recreated the bedroom.  There were other artists’ paintings of bedrooms or some such.  And on and on.  It really put the “anal” in artisanal.

Then, finally, the three paintings:

Now, I like Vincent van Gogh as much as the next person.  Again, maybe I’m just an ignoramus.  But I can hear the marketing department at the Institute brainstorming: “I know!  Let’s find three almost-identical paintings by some name-brand artist, make up a story about them, and call it an exhibit!  We can charge extra and sell lots of merchandise!”

The merch part was good, as I was able to buy my Vince a Vincent t-shirt. One souvenir crossed off the list.