Flashback Blog: May 2010

For the entire 4 years of my Ohio period (great men like Pablo and I have our lives divided into periods) I had been intending to go to Fallingwater. The most famous work by my favorite architect was a mere 3.5 hours away, across the Pennsylvania border. This was practically one of the reasons I went to Ohio State. And for the 4 years I never went. 3.5 hours is just enough time to make the trip inconvenient. And people always wanted to watch football instead of going to see famous architecture, so I was stuck.

But with a week before I left Ohio (forever?) I was bound and determined to see this modern marvel before I traveled west. Because who knows what kind of architecture they’d have in Arizona. Teepees and sod-homes if my 7th grade history taught me anything (which it didn’t.) So I decided to take a Me Day. Not only was I going to finally go to Fallingwater, but I was also going to stop by Pittsburgh “on the way home.” It wasn’t at all on the way home, but it was close enough to justify combining the trips. And what did Pittsburgh have? Only the largest collection of Akira artwork ever collected. Clearly this had to be a Me Day as there has likely never been someone who would drive out of their way to see both a Frank Lloyd Wright home and a collection of art from a Japanese cartoon.

Rather than listen to music on the drive I listened to the Ricky Gervais show. If there has been someone that has gone to Fallingwater and the Pittsburgh Cartoon Museum in one day, they almost certainly didn’t listen to British comedy podcasts in between.

Fallingwater was awesome. Sadly, it’s covered with people pretty much every day of the year. This day was no exception. But was exceptional was that it was bright and sunny and breezy, a pleasant combination to hike in and around a house with no air conditioning, many steps and multiple photo ops. My tour guide was fine enough, except she catered almost exclusively to the two small children on the tour. And man, those kids knew nothing about architecture.

I decided that it’s my goal in life to become fabulously wealthy and buy Fallingwater. And probably move it somewhere other than rural Pennsylvania. Which would likely require me to build a waterfall first, but since I’m fabulously wealthy that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

The Akira exhibit was also awesome. I realize that having an anime movie as one of my top all time films relegates me to the untouchable outcasts of polite society. But the movie looks so amazing, even in still frames. And now I can justifiably say “It belongs in a museum!” Because it was in a museum. A museum of cartoons, but a museum nonetheless.

All in all, Me Day was pretty great. I’m glad I celebrated it instead of somebody else’s day. Pictures are available here: Me Day