More on the Visit

Today was the Minneapolis Art Institute. We saw the Raphael Madonna on loan from London, a show of contemporary Native American art, a collection of 20th century American art recently donated to the museum, the African Art Gallery, some of the East Asian collection. My brother and I stopped by the Jade Mountain, which we grew up with, since it comes from the Walker Art Center. My brother said it was more fun when it wasn't in a plexy case, and we could walk our fingers up the mountain's carved stairs. Then we checked out the museum shop. I bought a scarf and a museum membership. The advantage of having a visitor is -- we do things we don't do enough, such as visiting the Institute.

In many ways the high point was a painted metal sculpture from Africa: a coffin in the form of a giant crayfish. I want to be buried in something like that. The artist, who is contemporary, has also done a coffin in the form of a giant cell phone. Patrick wants to see that. I am happy with the crayfish.

We then went to Northland Visions, a Native American store not too far from the Institute. I bought some wild rice and a beaded key ring for my brother's wife. The one I gave her previously is debeading. The wife of the couple who established the store was there. We asked about her son, who is currently running the store. He just made a trip to France to pitch Native-American-harvested wild rice to French chefs. Apparently the stuff the French call riz sauvage is fake, actually black rice from Indonesia.