George Fredrich Handel. Public Domain. The Messiah, written by George Frideric Handel in 1741 and first performed in Dublin before its launch in London, was originally meant for Easter. Many of us have attended the oratorio’s performance at Yuletide, a practice that gained popularity in the United States in the early nineteenth century. My first and fondest memories of The Messiah are not of it in performance, but listening to my Dad play a record of it on the hefty hi-fi as

I used to hate oysters. Typically, tidewater Marylanders pat oysters in cracker meal, fry them, and if you need a condiment, slather on some tomato ketchup. Churches in the area used to have fried oyster and ham suppers, though the increasing costs of oysters have certainly limited how many of those signs you drive by in the Maryland countryside. I equated fried oysters to a bit of breaded tire. It wasn’t until I was in my early twenties and enjoyed the briny sweet slide of a

Grab your mug, get some joe, and crack open The Coffee House: A Cultural History by Markman Ellis (Wenfield and Nicolson, 2004). I was aware of the role the coffee house played in discourse and the exchange of news. In comparison to the other beverage-oriented meeting places – taverns, ale houses etc – coffee was a sober and benign drink that did not impede industry. But I did not expect the controversy over the arrival of coffee, the government’s desire to squelch the coffee

Transit Tuesday is moving on in on Museum Monday. London Transport Museum. Old Metropolitan Railway Car. Photo: RL Fifield 2010. If I didn’t live in New York City, I would live in London. It feels like home. And for fans of transit, the London Transport Museum is an excellent time. In the city that invented modern urban transit, a plethora of equipment, signage, photos, and groovy wax mannequins in the old flower market building in Covent Garden just has to be good. In the su

One of many meals I’ve eaten while dining alone. Dusseldorf. RL Fifield, 2012. I can travel a fair amount for my job. Anyone who travels on business has eaten alone in a restaurant. Some cringe. I don’t. Evening finds me in a restaurant, not eating grocery store finds in my hotel room. That doesn’t mean that our society gets it. Asking for a table for one can elicit various reactions from the host – they’ve just found themselves down 50% at a table for two. A woman dining alo

Yes, I’m a museum professional, but that doesn’t mean I don’t use museum databases to see objects I enjoy when I get home. I’m responsible for long-term preservation activities for a group of objects from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, so as a generalist researcher using museum databases, I tend to relax looking for things very different from the ones I work with. Regular readers are familiar with my penchant for trains, tangled up somewhere in the back of my brain with n

A swatch preserved in the billet books at the London Metropolitan Archives. Thomas Coram Foundation for Children. Foundling number 12250, admitted April 2, 1759. In January of 2010, I arrived in London six hours late due to abnormal ice and snow conditions. One cancelled flight, one airport switch, and a six hour delay got me to the London Metropolitan Archives at 3pm. London was a mess – a shortage of snowmelt salt (which is a sickening pink) made all the sidewalks treachero

A swatch preserved in the billet books at the London Metropolitan Archives. Thomas Coram Foundation for Children. Foundling number 12250, admitted April 2, 1759. In January of 2010, I arrived in London six hours late due to abnormal ice and snow conditions. One cancelled flight, one airport switch, and a six hour delay got me to the London Metropolitan Archives at 3pm. London was a mess – a shortage of snowmelt salt (which is a sickening pink) made all the sidewalks treachero