[Magdalen] New Jersey ain't purty

[ME Michaud]

But the people are lively. And it's in the New York metro
area. The television news is fast and weird. They cover
the arts as if it's news. And the guy in the hotel lobby
is listening to Edith Piaf instead of Billy Ray Cyrus.
Real actual bagels in the breakfast area. And decent
tea.

Life may or may not be good, but it certainly is interesting.

Off to the Florence Griswold Museum (a place of pilgrimage
for me) this afternoon, then (God willing) Boston this evening.

Oh, and speaking of American Impressionism and the
Hudson River School (and Swedenborgianism): George
Inness (the best painter you might never have heard of).
His landscapes were influenced by and expressions of
his Swedenborgian faith. When he painted the sun glinting
through trees, he was speaking as eloquently of God as
Tintoretto or Raphael ever did.
-M