Random! Traveling!

So fiatlouis has been visiting. I obviously went "um, what do you take a hydrogeologist to see?" because we walked down Kelly past the rockcuts to the waterworks museum, and later went to the Delaware Water Gap so's he could walk part of the Appalachian trail. Which is not to say we didn't do the standard touristy things as well -- day trip to NYC! Old City! South Street! The usual.

We went to see the Liberty Bell, and it's really a poor presentation, because the thirty second snippet of MLK Jr's speech in the movie you see right before turning the corner to see the actual bell -- "When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual, 'Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.'" -- gave us both the shivers, after which said bell is a letdown. m_shell suggests that this is intentional, and meant to make us feel that the bell is only a metyfor, and all that, but it's poor presentation either way. Put the bell post-most of the exhibit and pre-that movie, and we'll get the metyfor AND feel like seeing the bell is cool.

We also got to see the Before Victoria exhibit at the NY library, which was way fun. If I'd thought of it, I would have purchased the companion volume for friede, because the exhibit kicked of the ass, and I'm sorry she can't see it. A drawing by Victoria as a child! Mrs Jordan as Hipolyta! Mary Wollstonecraft's letter to Catharine Macaulay Graham! Eeeee! *is big dork*

Also they had a copy of the book with my favorite title EVER: Poems on Conchology and Botany by Sarah Hoare. I've never seen a real copy! They didn't include any sample stanzas (a shame, and the only flaw in the exhibit, really), but I present two here:

Helix! may suit thy taste and form,
And I like thee would shun the storm
Of life, and live alone;
Like hermit in a safe retreat,
From scenes where false ones coldly greet,
And uncongenial tempers meet,
Unknowing and unknown.

Thou Strombus! hast no fine array,
No physiognomical display,
To seize upon the soul;
Sensations rise at sight of thee,
Far other than the ecstasy,
That beauty's winning sovereignty,
Inspires from pole to pole.

Don't those rock? Aren't they, like, fabulous as examples of scientific works of the early nineteenth century? Also they would be good mnemonics, if I could ever remember them. (Strombus tends to stick in my head due to the "physiognomical display," though.)

I obviously need a big dork icon, but I don't have one, so for now llamas will have to do.

ETA: lj spellcheck wants me to replace "conchology" with "gynecology," which somehow seems hilarious.