I can imagine you all in my mind’s eye — right now, as I write — tapping your collective foot and looking at your collective timepiece, sighing a collective sigh, and proclaiming in a huff: he’s late!. I can also imagine that you haven’t noticed. Not. At. All.
Either way, it’s true. I am late in making a post. But I am late for a very good reason. I’ve been off, in my academic capacity, at the meetings of the Popular Culture / American Culture Association. I’ve been off giving a paper about the reception of the Brothers Grimm’s Kinder- und Hausmärchen in the United States in the nineteenth century. And in a much more limited capacity, I’ve been off gallivanting around Massachusetts, peeping about a combination of historical sites and tourist … um … traps.
In my travels this past weekend, I made it to Salem, MA, where I got to sample the fare at Ye Olde Pepper Candy Companie, which is among the oldest (if not the absolute oldest) continually operating candy outfit in the United States (established in 1806). I’ve been eating lobster roll, and pasty-white seafood soup, and hanging out with (some really excellent) people who make a great show of dropping their R’s.
More interesting for blogging purposes, however, I’ve also been walking around with my camera. I got a chance, while I was in Salem, to visit the Salem Witch Trials Memorial, and the adjacent historical cemetery. And for various reasons, I ended up photographing it pretty extensively.
I’m not going to talk about the Memorial too much, except to say that was established fairly recently — 1992 — and that it’s an excellent, effective space. It reminds me of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. a little bit, in that it’s neither too sappy nor too graphic, it lends itself to various different kinds of uses, and it promotes quiet and solemnity without feeling stifling.
It’s a great space to photograph. And so pleased was I with how some of the pictures came out that I thought I’d share a couple here.
You may consider this to be in lieu of food blogging, for now. Though a new food post is in the pipeline as we speak, and will be ready in a couple of short days.
For more images of Salem, you may visit the full set on Flickr.