penzilla

Had a really fantastic day in Pittsburgh. It really reminded me of the old days. My parents and I (and Coco of course—because if she didn’t come my Dad would have to come up with a good excuse for why he put iChat in her little crate and then downloaded viewer software to his blackberry) drove up around lunchtime. And once you get into Pittsburgh, you know it. It’s a city that’s built right into the hills, and really, I can’t think of another place that it looks like.

After visiting with my Grandma and Grandpa for a bit and dropping Coco off for the afternoon, we headed downtown to the Andy Warhol Museum. Once we got downtown, we encountered a strange site: hundreds of ridiculously drunk cowboy hat wearing people staggering around their tailgates in the middle of the rain. Okay. Pittsburgh. Drunk people? yes. Staggering? yes. Tailgating in the middle of the rain? certainly, nearly obligatory. But straw cowboy hats dangling seashells and strawberry colored hawaiian leis? no. That’s not the Pittsburgh I’ve grown to adore. But once we made it through the masses we learned that (in nine short hours) country mega star Kenny Chesney was performing.

But I digress.

The museum was wonderful.

In addition to The Warhol collections, there were several galleries featuring Glenn Kaino. His uber project is really rad, and if you have time, check it out.

The highlights for me were the Last Supper

and by far: The Silver Clouds:

Warhol created it for a 1966 exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery. It was so interesting at the time because the public could actually touch the art, and more, the art could touch the people. At first it’s a bit startling to be in the room, especially alone, as we were at the time. But then the eeriness transforms into a peacefulness that is really unmatched. For me, it’s public art at its best.

After the museum we drove through the North Side so that my Dad could see the houses on Franklin Road where he grew up.

I remember the house well (especially those front stairs) and the memories there are some of the best from my childhood and most nostalgic now as an adult. As a kid, Pittsburgh was like some exotic world where somewhere between the nitrogens my Dad and his brothers (Tom, Scott, and Mark) were playing baseball at the corner diamond. It was the Carnegie science center and the Monongahela incline overlooking the place where the three rivers meet. It was a place full of big stories (my Grandpa was a pilot for the Jolly Rogers squadron in WWII) and big voices–really the best of that old model American family, the best of that old model American city. It’s certainly something precious that I’m going to take with me.