Nashville Without Altman

I'm in Nashville, TN on a mostly impromptu visit. Dad is at a business conference, so I'm amusing myself around town. It's been fun to be able to choose exactly what to see and when without having to consider anyone else's predilections. While finding things that are especially Nashvillelian but aren't centered around country music or horse racing has been a challenge, I'm gamely venturing about and finding things and activities with which to occupy myself. Tomorrow, I'm likely to give up on the touristy type stuff and head to the mall, but I have done the following things that I couldn't do anywhere else:

Visited the Belmont Mansion. Big pretty house built by this uber-rich woman, Adelicia Hayes Franklin Acklen Cheatham, in the second half of the 19th century; she got even richer playing both sides of the Civil War so she could sell cotton to the English for nearly a million dollars (in 1865 money!). I was there before the place opened and was waiting on the doorstep for a little while. Rather than walking in however, there's a bell that's rung and I felt like Willie Lohman hoping to get in and be accepted. Then while on the tour it was me and the college aged tour guide. It was rather awkward; I didn't know how much eye contact was appropriate, how much I should look at the room, etc. Although I tried to laugh at the scripted jokes, I was more often amused and giggling by other, apparently non-funny, very serious, parts, which prompted Charles (my tour guide) to give me strange looks. All in all though, opulent house (it had indoor plumbing before the White House!) filled with lots of marble statues and china bought on the Grand European Tour.

Ate lunch at Centennial Park by the Parthenon, the world's only life size replica. I thought it was pretty hokey until I learned that it was built in 1897 for the Centennial Fair. Since most people, Adelicia excepted, didn't have money to travel the world and the technology/spread of information (no Discovery or History channel) was far less advanced, it was probably actually very cool and culturey to go see. At that festival they also had recreations of the pyramids, street in Morocco and a bunch of other places around the world. Now there's an art gallery in the basement and 41 foot statue of Athena on the top level, crazy.

I wanted to continue my day of simulacra by seeing The Nashville King, an Elvis impersonator, but Dad was scheduled until late, and there're just some things you can't do on your own.

That was yesterday, today I went to the Frist Center for Visual Arts (the art gallery), which was okay. Half the gallery was closed because they're preparing for a new exhibit, so there were only four rooms open, each containing approximately 6-8 pictures. Ho hum, although one Monet (pretty much the only artist I recognized) was rather nice. What was rather cool was their exhibit (the one other room open in the gallery) of martele silver. This line of silver is American Art Nouveau that was shown at the 1900 Paris Exhibition! Supposedly, it is significant enough to rival Tiffany glass in America's contribution to and execution of Art Nouveau. That was lots of fun to see. Sadly the only tangible, take-homeable thing about it was a ninety dollar book in the gift shop , so I have nothing, no postcard, no pamphlet, to remember it by. I couldn't even take any pictures. Sad, because I do love all things Art Nouveau.