My wife laughs that my love of gadgets is a remnant of my Communist upbringing, when western toys were objects of veneration. A couple of days ago, I found myself on a Lufthansa flight over the Atlantic indulging precisely that love: using an app, I could see live pictures of our house in rural Poland via the security cameras. I could also check that the alarm is on, heating system off and the new photovoltaic farm is producing more energy than the house is consuming. I suppose that’s the consumerist heaven we fought for in those days, just as much as for freedom and democracy.
Back in Boston, I am reminded why I prefer museums created by the whim of a millionaire to those assembled by committees. The equivalent here of the Frick Collection in New York or Sir John Soane’s in London is the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
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