In a whispering gallery, it’s pretty freaky how you can hear someone talking from way across a vast room as if they’re right next to you. Recently, I encountered a whispering gallery on vacation in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, where I also caught a glimpse of a living statue that inspired Quint’s disguise. I’ve also murmured secret messages to friends in a whispering gallery at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. But in my research, I discovered that not all whispering galleries are intentionally planned. At Gates Circle in Buffalo, NY, the benches formed the parabola that bounced the sound of speech across the park.
Speaking of Buffalo—I painted the South Dock Boardwalk Ferris wheel yellow in commemoration of the Giant Coaster in now-defunct Crystal Beach Amusement Park in Ontario. I grew up just over the Peace Bridge in Buffalo, and enjoyed numerous excursions to Crystal Beach as a child. The Giant Coaster was a wooden roller coaster built in 1916 and, sadly, demolished in 1989. It was gloriously yellow.