Of Treasure & Trash
The head of the department of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts at the Morgan Library, William Voelkle, spoke last week about his 10 favorite treasures in the collection. One was from an 11th-century gospel lectionary (a book of readings for Roman Catholic mass), from the Monastery of St. Peter in Salzburg, Austria.
"My interest in the manuscript was piqued by a call from a curator at the Pretzel Museum in Philadelphia who timidly asked whether there were pictures of pretzels in medieval manuscripts," Mr. Voelkle said. "I said, ‘Yes, they served them at the Last Supper.'"
Pretzels were regarded as a Lenten food, so it was appropriate, he said, that in this picture, Jesus is depicted as giving Judas a piece of pretzel.
In addition, the Morgan has another pretzel image in the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, the famous Dutch manuscript that dates to around 1440. The manuscript has a border consisting of pretzels and biscuits.
Mr. Voelkle had sent photos of both manuscripts to the Pretzel Museum. About seven or eight years ago, he went to Philadelphia curious to see how the museum had used the pictures. He found they had enlarged the picture from the Catherine of Cleves manuscript to the size of a door. The Last Supper picture was not there. Mr. Voelkle said, to audience mirth, that maybe the Pretzel Museum had not wanted to suggest that pretzels were only for Lent, but a food for all seasons.
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GOING FOR THE GOLD While the Morgan Library has treasures indoors, there are other treasures to be found outdoors all around the Northeast region of America.Earlier this month, the Knickerbocker spoke with Donna Day-Wright of Copiague, N.Y., a chief financial officer for a Long Island company, who was gold panning in the small town of Byron, Maine, about a two-hour drive northwest from Portland.
She and a group of relatives were wading in the east branch of the Swift River. She finds that area of the state simple and relaxed; she intends to move there after retiring in six years.
In her party was Ken Grover, 83, who said he had been panning for gold on that river since 1956. His son Bruce was operating a motorized dredge that floats on pontoons. He has painted a portrait of a gold-panning hermit who lived in the area named Carl Shillings (1888-1978). According to C.J. Stevens's book, "Memoirs of a Maine Gold Hunter" (John Wade Publisher), Shillings said he was once a tree surgeon in Syracuse, N.Y.
Meanwhile over at the Coos Canyon Rock & Gift Shop, aspiring musician Kevin White was giving a demonstration on how to pan for gold.What skills do one need for this endeavor? "Patience," he said.
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TALKING TRASH There are a lot of performances in art galleries, but few like the one Tuesday at the Atlantic Gallery on Wooster Street in SoHo. Surrounded by a room full of art devoted to the subject of trash, a senior attorney at the National Resource Defense Council, Eric Goldstein, performed an analysis of a typical office wastepaper basket.
He calmly dissected that day's waste can from his NRDC office. He began by pulling out three newspapers, and "a whole lot of printed out material." Mr. Goldstein noted that despite using computers, Americans are producing large amounts of printed materials. He said paper consumption was expected to double by 2020. He added that 87% of paper consumed is in industrialized nations. In New York City, he said, paper accounts for about a third of the residential waste stream.
His wastebasket was also full of plastic, which comprises about 9% of the city's residential waste stream. He pulled out a pen. He said some of those present might remember when people would buy refills. "Nobody does that anymore," he said.
