Phoenix, AZ - Musical Closeup

The Musical Instrument Museum is filled with wonderful instruments.  Photography is allowed, no tripods and no flash.  Still a lot of fun!

The first few photos are of a flute built from recycled materials.  The rest are from various exhibits.

The next two photos have different tones added to them.

Scottsdale, Arizona - Musical Instrument Museum (MIM)

This is one of my favorite places to visit and I have several posts. The photos won't spoil it because a big part of the experience is listening to all of the music.  We went for the Bastille Day events.  I took Beth to China to see the kinds of things that her mother saw on the last trip.

The exhibits show the country, so there is not too much to say about these.

Beth and I sat in on a "pleine aire" drawing class.  I didn't know what a "pleine aire" class was, but now I know.  It is sketching in the open air.  Wikipedia explains it to great lengths.  I am not a pleine aire pencil sketcher, but I do enjoy pleine aire photography as well as closed air photography!

 On to the displays.  We put our headset on and off we went.  I was soon texted by Karl and Michele. Set off to find them.  Then we all mingled and viewed.

 Nose flutes always intrigue me ever since my father and son came marching out of the back rooms playing harmonicas with their noses.

 The Beijing Opera gave a presentation at our tour dinner the last night in Beijing.

The man on the left has flags on his back.  Click the link below to see a better view of his costume.

(Click HERE and see the blog post where I am standing with the Beijing Opera artists.)

 The exhibit shown below illustrates "The Silk Road".  The eastern end of the road was in Xi'an.  Click here to see our visit to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, shown below.

I was distracted by the other exhibits, so left Beth to explore on her own.  Here are some other countries.

Beth stayed for more viewing because she was going to a party later with food. Michele, Karl and I went to enjoy a French inspired lunch in the restaurant, then all went our separate ways.

I love this museum and visit whenever I can.  Highly recommended.  www.mim.org

New Orleans - Street Music

The streets are filled with sounds all day long.  You can talk about this, but the best way is to click on a video and tap your toes along with the tunes!  Here is a sampling of what we saw as we walked through the French Quarter. Some of the videos may be in other posts...to add to the atmosphere.

Check all of them out.  The last one is my favorite.  I should have bought a CD...

Dinner and Jazz - Cruise the Mississippi River on the Natchez

This is a nice evening dinner, a little pricey, but a nice evening out with friends aboard the old paddle boat (the only game in town.)  The tickets are $67 per person, but look through the local magazines such as "Where" for coupons for $3-$5 off.  The price includes salad bar, buffet, and coffee/tea/soda.  Wine and drinks are extra.  We reserved the tickets through the hotel with an $11 deposit per person (which I think is the commisssion). We met at the dock and purchased the tickets. One member of our group could not attend (she had tripped on a pot hole on the street, scraped her knees, hit her head on a pole and now has a black eye, but that is another story) so we had all of the high finance with the refund for the deposit. The refund needs to be worked through the hotel person who took the reservation but this was not an issue and went quite smoothly.  I don't know if that happens with every hotel, but the staff at Place D'Armes has been super.

We were at the dock early enough to enjoy the Calliope show. Here is a little sample.

The meal was all buffet style, and you could have as much as you wanted although one trip through the line satisfied all of us.  After the meal, we could tour the steamer or just sit out on the deck and watch the river go by.  The Engine room was open and it was very interesting to visit and watch how it all works.  We went outside to enjoy the river view and, although it was a little chilly, we wrapped the scarves and pulled the coats closed and enjoyed the jazz band music.  The bank performed in the dining hall but the music was played throughout the steamer.

Canvas Print of the Natchez by Artist Alicia Morales

New Orleans -25 cent Pear Martini's at Antoine's

New Orleans is filled with music, all the time.  This is our favorite corner, as the performers here are unique and colorful.  (Watch for the unique and colorful character at the end of the video and notice the toe tapping foot action.)  If you like the music, you can purchase a CD for $10.

Choice of Pear or Lemon Drop Martinis today

What a way to start: 25 cent martinis!!! We had a choice of Pear or Lemon Zinger.  I will add more food photos later. I'm going to have the $20.11 fixed price luncheon special: cup of gumbo, [another martini], Antoine's Louisianna Gulf Shrimp Creole [plus another martini] and Pecan Bread Pudding for dessert.  Note that this price does not include the 9.75% tax, a well deserved gratuity for Austin, and 25 cents for each martini.

This restaurant is huge and seats 1300 people. It is a museum with walls of photos of all of the past Mardi Gras queens. There are party rooms that have been reserved by the Mardi Gras "teams" for over 75 years, a huge wine "hall", and delightful memorabilia capturing moments in New Orleans history.  I added the photos of the other places in the restaurant at the end of this post.

Seafood Gumbo - A classic preparation of rich Louisiana gumbo with blue crabs, oysters, and gulf shrimp

Pear Martini #2

Choice 1: Antoine's Louisianna Gulf Shrimp Creole
Fresh Louisiana shrimp in the classical Creole tomato sauce, served with steamed white rice

Choice 2: Veal Burgundy
Lightly floured Veal with a burgundy mushroom sauce served with pecan rice.

Pear Martini #3 - they are so smooth!

Bread pudding - tasty sauce, dallop of whipped creme with a mint leaf
Pudding de Pain de Noix de Pecan
A cinnamon and raisin bread pudding topped with warm Rum sauce

Antoine's is a museum...a collection of goodies from yesterday, and today.  Be sure to walk throughout the restaurant to see all that they have to view.

Photos of some of the earlier Mardi Gras queens

Jewels and necklaces from past Mardi Gras festivities.

They have a HUGE collection of liquor.
This is only one of the cases.

This is only one of the large dining rooms.

One of the Pope's visited!!

Collection of ashtrays and plates

Click to view Antoine's website
Info about Absolut Pears Martini (must be 21 years to view)

Cafe du Monde and Jackson Square Musicians

How did this get so HUGE??

Wow. I remember when this was a quant little coffee shop. This place is HUGE. Who are all these people? Who told them about my quiet little place? It grew so fast. The last time I was here was, hmm, when was that? Before Kalen. 1983? Ahhh!! Almost 30 years ago!!!

Double order of Beignets (powdered donuts), Cafe au Lait,
Chicory coffee, and hot chocolate.

Cafe du Monde serves one edible item: Beignets.  The fried donuts are freshly made and covered with powered sugar (you will be covered too!)  They offer a variety of both hot and cold drinks, and the chicory coffee is well known. You can buy your coffee in a souvenir mug, which is a fun reminder.

TIPS: Make sure that you are in the correct line.  There are two lines - one is for the take-out window and the other is to be seated.  Most times the staff will try to get the take-out line to enter from the back of the shaded outside area. The seating line is to the front of the building, off of Decatur.  The outside patio may be closed in the morning until there are enough people lined up to warrant all of the extra seating and staff.  If you see an open table, take it. No one is going to seat you, but someone will be around to clean the table of the coffee cups and powdered sugar. Then you can  make your own mess.

We walked past Jackson Square.  The square is surrounded by a beautiful iron fence, and ornate gates on each side. The outer perimeter of the fence often holds artwork from local artists and the open plaza holds fortune tellers and tarot card readers.  And, as always, musicians selling CDs, entertaining, and adding to the overall ambiance of the French Quarter.

Music at Piazza Navona -Video

The piazza was buzzing with activity and shoppers, clowns on stilts and musicians. Hasn't changed in hundreds of years.

Phoenix - Musical Instrument Museum - Visit #2

I managed another visit to MIM and talked K into visiting with me. We met at 11AM and toured Europe for about an hour then took a lunch break in the Cafe . I had the grilled sausage and K had a roast beef sandwich. Both were accompanied by a nice chilled Heineken. We returned to the second flour to tour Asia for two hours. I needed another break, so we went to the coffee shop for coffee and a cookie snack. We spent the "last hour" on a fast walking tour through the US and Canada, and then through Africa. Exhausted, we returned to the service desk to turn in our headset. The woman at the desk told us that we had to walk just down the hall to see the Hands On room and the "Visiting Artists" room. Promising that we would only quickly look, we took our headsets and journeyed down the hall.

What a wonderful surprise. String instruments, drums, things to shake and plink...all for our enjoyment.

Each section is nicely hidden, so as you move past a wall, your are delighted by the opportunity to play something else.

The guest artist room was filled with many delights. Here are a few photos of what was in the room. George Benson...

R. Carlos Nakai

Paul Simon...

And the guest musician of the day!

Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) - Phoenix

The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) is located at 4725 East Mayo Boulevard in North Phoenix. This is at the corner of Tatum and Mayo Blvds, just off of the 101. The parking lot entrance is on Mayo. The building is huge. The entranceway is landscaped with desert plants and is a beautiful start to the museum experience. Little did I know what I was in for at this point.

The customer service staff recommended that we start on the ground floor with the introductory section, then move to the second floor to begin viewing the instruments. An awesome collection of guitars started our experience, and a display on how instruments are made gave us a warm-up to what we were to see. We went to the second floor on the escalor (or you can take the stairs, or an elevator).

The layout of the building is airy and spacious. Once we reached the second floor, we put on our headsets and continued to the first room on our right: Africa. As we rounded the corner to enter the room, we were immediately blown away with the view. Instruments, text explaining what we saw, costumes, and video screens met our eyes in a layout that called for our attention.

Each exhibit has the name of the country or region, a map, the instruments along with a description...and a video screen. As you approach the exhibit, your eye is drawn to the video screen and the action. Once within range, the radio headset picks up the sound from the video and you are immediately immersed in the music.

We had been in the museum for about an hour, and realized that we were not going to be able to see everything tonight. We had made it half way through our first continent, Africa, and had so much more to see. We decided to just walk through the rest of this section and plan to come again. Walking close to the front of each exhibit, we were able to hear a sampling of the video and the sound. We walked past Pakistan...

Through parts of India...

Across some regions of China...

This is a close-up of some of the string instruments. They were beautiful.

Through Vietnam...

Across Thailand...oh I wanted to stop at each one!

Saw a little of Japan...

And a little more of China. The large rolls on the left sit in front of a screen. The things perched on top of the roll are stick puppets. The video shows that the music is played and the puppet show tells a story.

This is a mere sampling. We exited this section. South America was to our left. Europe was across the hall. We had to stop! As we walked out, we knew that this museum deserved several trips. I think that I would like to go in the morning for a few hours, enjoy lunch in the cafe, and spend a few hours in the afternoon. Where will I start next time???