April 24, 2008

So I get this email with the name "Wright" in the subject line.

And — the life of a weary blogger being what it is — I think first that it's some anti-Obama thing railing about Jeremiah Wright. And then I think of Bob Wright — is it something from Bloggingheads.tv? It starts off:
I trust you all made it through the grueling winter and are enjoying the daffodils!
That seems far afield from either Bob or Jeremiah.
With Spring comes the annual Wright & Like tour, and I hope you had such a great time last year in Delavan that you might want to try another stint?
Oh, yes, Delavan... Remember "Was I a decent docent?" It's Frank Lloyd Wright!
This year's Wright & Like is subtitled "On the Road Again", as it is a reprise of a similar tour we did six years ago, featuring four Frank Lloyd Wright houses off the I-94 corridor between Milwaukee and Madison: the Greenberg House in Dousman, the Smith House in Jefferson, the Arnold House in Columbus, and the Jackson House in Beaver Dam. We've added four more great venues to make a very full day: two John Randal McDonald houses (Oconomowoc and Beaver Dam) and one Russell Barr Williamson, in Beaver Dam, and the exquisite Farmers and Merchants Bank by Louis Sullivan, in Columbus.
I guess somehow I was a decent docent — decent enough to be asked back.

Funny, I was just sitting in Starbucks this morning — working on my notes for the last class of the semester, my last class here at Brooklyn Law School — and they played this old tune:



I can't believe your song is gone so soon.
I barely learned the tune
So soon
So soon.

9 comments:

john said...

Ann,

You really need to stretch the trip out a bit and take in the FLW gas station in Cloquet, "just off" the I-35 corridor.

Fill er' up, and remember only skinny people go to the bathroom there. Should be pretty clean.

Ralph L said...

I'm getting the video is no longer available.
Was it the old Simon & Garfunkel tune? I don't believe I've ever heard that on the radio.

Ann Althouse said...

I'm getting the video. And yeah, it's that song.

Anonymous said...

Try living in a Wright-designed home without a household staff the size of an army battalion and you might come to a different assessment of the man. Plumbers and carpenters and stone masons and gardeners and maids, oh my! And also better hire a live-in family doctor for when you or your kid bangs a shin or severs an artery against a razor sharp edge of what appears to be a table in the middle of the room at 2:30 min into the video. Harsh stone instead of warm, heavily grained, wonderfully textured woods for the interior? No thank you.

Ralph L said...

One has to sacrifice for (someone else's) art.

titusyoumustloveme said...

I love Spring Green and some of his houses around there but I absolutely hate The House on the Rock. It became an awful tourist trap.

Does it really need the world largest carasol in it's basement?

How do you spell carasol?

Ralph L said...

carousel

Ann Althouse said...

You thought the House on the Rock should remain pure? The whole idea of it is rampant impurity.

J-Dingo said...

That's great, thanks for posting it!
Didn't know about the song.
House on the Rock was intended to make fun of Wright and is supposed to be a tourist trap. Fond memories of that!