The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is pleased to announce the expansion of its on-water experience offerings through the acquisition of the cruise boat PATRIOT, which has been docked at CBMM’s waterfront for decades.

Effective immediately, CBMM assumes day-to-day operations of the 65-foot, two-level vessel modeled to resemble a Chesapeake Bay steamboat that has offered guests scenic cruises of the Miles River since 1990. All reservations will be honored, with the current staff remaining in place.

“We are absolutely thrilled to add PATRIOT to the CBMM family,” CBMM President & CEO Kristen Greenaway said. “Given PATRIOT’s impeccable reputation and ability to give access to the Miles River to 20,000 guests per year, the acquisition of the vessel is a key addition to delivering our mission. We appreciate previous owners Robin and John Marrah with entrusting us to steward PATRIOT into its next chapter and wish them all the best.”

Adding PATRIOT is a natural step for CBMM as it has been a fixture of St. Michaels Harbor and CBMM partner, dating back to 1969 when Jim Heikes refitted a wooden fishing boat as a cruise vessel named PATRIOT.

Today, PATRIOT has the capacity to provide tours for up to 149 passengers. The enclosed main deck offers climate-controlled comfort, while the top deck is partially covered by a canopy. It’s the perfect setting to enjoy breathtaking views while learning local history from experienced guides.

“Robin and I have been blessed for almost 14 years of ownership of the PATRIOT,” John Marrah said. “It has been a huge part of our lives in St. Michaels, and we truly believe that CBMM is the best new home where the PATRIOT will thrive. We have valued our relationship with Kristen Greenaway and the CBMM team for many years and are thrilled that the PATRIOT is in their loving hands.”

CBMM has long prioritized offering its guests opportunities to experience the Miles River on the water.

In recent years, many of those cruises were offered on its passenger-carrying buyboat Winnie Estelle, and with that venerable vessel undergoing maintenance this year, CBMM has added Harbor Highlights Cruises aboard other vessels in its historic floating fleet. More offerings are also on the horizon aboard its newest buyboat, Choptank.

With PATRIOT, CBMM’s short-term focus will be to finish the season strong while beginning to explore the long-term opportunities that the acquisition provides.

Guests can continue to book tours online at patriotcruises.com or buy tickets from the booth adjacent to the dock through Oct. 22.

Right now, Narrated Historical Cruises are offered seven days per week, plus Island Music Cocktail Cruises on select weekend days. Adults and seniors will continue to receive a $3 discount off CBMM general admission by showing their PATRIOT ticket.

Peak viewing season for the “naked eye” giant planets continues this month, with Saturn visible all night, Jupiter, rising later, dominating the eastern sky before dawn. Meantime, Venus becomes even brighter in the early morning sky, and by the end of September will be joined by Mercury.

Saturn, which just passed opposition August 27th, remains at its best visibility for 2023 all month among the dim stars of zodiac constellation Aquarius. From the southeastern sky at sunset it appears due south by midnight early in September. By the end of the month it will be due south by 10 p.m. On September 23rd the growing gibbous Moon will appear just below Saturn.

Jupiter rises around 10 p.m. in early September and it will be well up in the eastern sky by 10 p.m. by September 30th. Among the faint star of Aries the ram it is unmistakable. Both Jupiter and Saturn are beautiful in small telescopes all month.

Venus is so bright in the eastern sky and hour and a half before dawn that it cannot be mistaken. On September 11th a very thin crescent Moon appears just above the planet an hour before the Sun rises. Mercury rises above the eastern horizon too, brightening all the while from September 6th to September 22nd, gaining altitude steadily. It does not get as high as Venus but it can be found below Venus 30 minutes before sunrise on September 29th.

The autumnal equinox is marked on September 23rd when the Sun appears above the Celestial Equator (the equator of the sky). At that time the Sun at noon will be found exactly 50 degrees above the southern horizon. Thereafter with each passing day the Sun will appear below the sky’s equator until it reaches its lowest point at Winter Solstice (solstice means “Sun stop.”) on December 22nd. For us then, at 39 degrees North Latitude, the Sun will only be 26 1/2 degrees above the southern horizon at noon.

Look nearly overhead September nights and spot Vega (in Lyra the harp), the brightest star of summer. Cast your eyes left (east) to another bright star Deneb (in Cygnus the Swan); and then down to find Altair, brightest star in Aquila the eagle. Then look back up to Vega. You will have traced the “Summer Triangle” —– a beautiful asterism formed by these 3 first magnitude stars. It will remain visible, appearing to move into the west as we move into fall and on into Early December.

When the Spy sends two special agents on any case, particularly those involving the culinary arts, it shows we mean business when checking out new establishments in the area.

And that was the resource allocation for the Spy’s first reconnaissance mission this week at Anthony’s in Oxford.

Despite its under-the-radar opening a few weeks ago, it was easy for anyone passing the old beloved Latitude 38 on Oxford Road that Anthony’s had now arrived in its place.

While it looks the same on the outside, native Oxford will be a bit shocked and impressed with the warm red dining rooms that take its cue from Italy rather than the Eastern Shore.

A friendly wait staff seemed to be off to a good start as they continue to find their footing. And both the wine list and the dinner menu offer clues that some thought has gone into both. So it was perhaps no surprise that Anthony was Pope Tavern’s first chef when its new owners purchased it a few years back.

Now, Anthony has taken the big step of finally having his own place, and pride in ownership is very much on display. And that includes baking his own bread.

The agents didn’t push the envelope on the ordering front: salad and bolognese pasta for one, escargot and salmon for the other. A shared bottle of high quality chaniti and two folks were provided for a decidedly cinnamon-oriented tiramisu at the end.

All of those selections were enjoyable, but it is far too early (and unfair, says the Spy manual) to provide a serious critique here. Nonetheless, the agents gave Anthony’s an initial “code green,” meaning it was safe for the community to test themselves.

And that will be easy to do since, going against recent trends, Anthony’s is open seven days a week.

Anthony’s Italian Restaurant
 26342 Oxford Rd, Oxford, MD 21654
Phone: (410) 226-1118
Open seven days a week

Groundbreaking masters of the 20th century and a similarly groundbreaking still-life photographer who’s also the Academy Art Museum’s 2023 artist-in-residence shared the spotlight in the opening reception for three new exhibits at Easton’s Academy Art Museum Thursday evening, Aug. 3. 

Le Repas Frugal, by Pablo Picasso

“Spatial Reckoning: Morandi, Picasso and Villon” in the museum’s Healy Gallery focuses on how three famed European painters changed how representational art of the 19th century evolved into Modernism, Cubism, and, later, Post-Expressionism. Upon entering, the first image you’ll see what looks to be a 1931 unfinished drypoint etching, Le Peintre Decorateur (The Painter Decorator), a near-faceless ghostly image by French artist Jacques Villon (1875-1963). Next is a second etching of the same title with facial features filled in. Next are the Two Renees which depicts a girl on her bicycle (1906) and another, five years later – presumably of the same girl, this time with a pouting scowl on her face. 

Moving on, you can’t miss the true masterpiece, Le Repas Frugal, by Pablo Picasso of Spain (1881-1973), a 1913 print of the famous etching from a private collection picturing a despondent couple who’ve just shared a meal that did not satisfy either their physical or spiritual hunger. Another Picasso, a circa 1900 watercolor, depicts a painter named Carlos who, in profile, projects a clownishly prominent nose and ruby red lips. In between, we get a glimpse of Picasso’s Cubist future, a quite geometric 1912 pen-and-ink on paper of a man holding a cigar. The evolution toward Cubism advances with Villon’s 1941-42 engraving of a girl’s distorted, cross-hatched face, looking as if startled by a frightful event.

The show’s last third belongs to Italian painter Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964), who devoted much of his career to painting or drawing ordinary kitchen objects – pitchers, cups, and vases. I can’t say that I get the appeal or what they have to do with the progression to modern art movements, other than his 1927 Still Life with Cloth on the Left, executed with far more textured detail than his other works on display here.

All three artists are said to have been inspired by Paul Cezanne, and a print of his oil portrait of his wife in a red dress is mounted next to text describing the influence he had on artists from his time.

Across the hall in the Lederer Gallery, Canadian-born/Chicago-based artist-in-residence Laura Letinsky changes the visual subject to the 21st century with her large, lens-based color still lifes and arranged domestic scenes of mostly residual disorder. Who Loves the Sun (Weather Report), a 2022 archival pigment print, looks like a messy forecast with something spilled all over it. A 2013 untitled series of chromogenic images printed on silver-based paper under the designation of Albeit features one of the sushi-roll slices beside an empty plate as if someone forgot to serve them properly. An untitled #9 diptych from a 2006 To Say It Isn’t So series places an unused Target shopping bag next to a depleted serving box of McDonald’s fries. This image is paired with an opened gift box and a broken fork stabbing a black ribbon. Go figure. I can only guess what it says about life in the new millennium, though it appears to suggest dysfunction. 

In the two smaller downstairs museum galleries, Baltimore-based artist Amy Boone-McCreesh’s Visual Currency presents wry commentary on what passes for high fashion and decorative arts in a setting of luxury and showy bad taste. Her 2019 Vanity Wall Hanging, a digital printed mixed-media on silk, depicts a charmingly vintage interpretation of a frilly but chintzy imitation of the rich life – possibly, we imagine, purchased with collapsed crypto-currency. Similarly, in Access to Beauty I and II, the 2021 mixed-media collages suggest that access to the scenic environs beyond are blocked by forbidding fencing. Don’t fence me in, country singers used to sing. How about don’t fence me out?======

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic and editor now living in Easton.

Three New Academy Art Shows
“Laura Letinsky, 2023 Artist-in-Residence: No More Than It Should Be,” “Spatial Reckoning: Morandi, Picasso and Villon,” both through Oct. 22, and “Amy Boone-McCreesh: Visual Currency,” through Nov. 5, Academy Museum of Art, 106 South St., Easton; academyartmuseum.org

No doubt the entire Mid-Shore was a witness to one of the most remarkable lightning storms in recent history last night, but it took an article this morning in the New York Times that indicated that it had achieved national attention.