I have moved my blog to a new address:
from now on, go to
www.arthurthinks.wordpress.com
It will be better, I promise.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Highlights of Our Recent Trip to Michigan (20 cents)
Detroit:
1. The restaurant in Greektown which, in spite of its menu, had no fish tonight. At all.
2. The suite at the Athenian Plaza Hotel, a converted warehouse, with frosted glass doors into the hallway, so you can see the outlines of people inside, with frosted glass doors between the bathtub and the sleeping area with the same results, where the living room (ha!) and the sleeping room are separating by four steps, which are unlit at the top, and with the bathroom on the upper level and the bedroom on the lower, where there are gigantic round pillars in the middle of both rooms (just sitting there)and where $20 can get you valet parking, which means that they take your car right across the street to an $8 lot.
3. My cousin's very nice four bedroom coop in a highrise building, with glass walls on two sides and views of the U.S. and Canada, which she hopes to be able to sell for $125,000. (that's about what a parking space costs here)
Bay City, Michigan
1. The omelets at the omelet shop which look so much better on the menu than on the plate.
2. The Bay City Antique Center, which has about 400,000,000,000 things for sale, not one of which you would want in your house.
The Traverse City, Michigan Area.
1. Where the Bluebird Restaurant in Leland serves most things "in the Bluebird style" (which appears to be some sort of fried), but has on the menu whitefish which can be either broiled or served in the Bluebird style. When I asked the waitress how it was broiled, she said that "it is really good in the Bluebird style, and that is what we are known for." But I said, well, I really just want it broiled. And that is how I got it and it was very, very good, and I told her so, that she should not be afraid to recommend it that way. And she answered: "we are known here for the Bluebird style and if I recommended it broiled, I might lose my job". I told her I would not like to see that happen.
2. How about the amorous couple in room 17, who kept everyone else awake at night?
(No one we knew, I am happy to say)
3. Where we had lunch at the old asylum (now being converted into any number of things) and discovered that the food wasn't any better now than it was when the hospital was in full swing.
4. Where in northern Michigan, the calendar said October, and the thermometer July.
5. Where our restaurant on Torch Lake couldn't serve us because they had a complete power failure, but we were served in the same owner's restaurant near Traverse City, which had the effect of saving us about 50 miles round trip.
6. Where my one friend gets up to go swimming every morning at 5:45, and another is an expert on wine, but never touches the stuff.
7. Where the Tapawingo restaurant was told that they could choose our pre-meal appetizers and decided on rabbit pate and fois gras.
1. The restaurant in Greektown which, in spite of its menu, had no fish tonight. At all.
2. The suite at the Athenian Plaza Hotel, a converted warehouse, with frosted glass doors into the hallway, so you can see the outlines of people inside, with frosted glass doors between the bathtub and the sleeping area with the same results, where the living room (ha!) and the sleeping room are separating by four steps, which are unlit at the top, and with the bathroom on the upper level and the bedroom on the lower, where there are gigantic round pillars in the middle of both rooms (just sitting there)and where $20 can get you valet parking, which means that they take your car right across the street to an $8 lot.
3. My cousin's very nice four bedroom coop in a highrise building, with glass walls on two sides and views of the U.S. and Canada, which she hopes to be able to sell for $125,000. (that's about what a parking space costs here)
Bay City, Michigan
1. The omelets at the omelet shop which look so much better on the menu than on the plate.
2. The Bay City Antique Center, which has about 400,000,000,000 things for sale, not one of which you would want in your house.
The Traverse City, Michigan Area.
1. Where the Bluebird Restaurant in Leland serves most things "in the Bluebird style" (which appears to be some sort of fried), but has on the menu whitefish which can be either broiled or served in the Bluebird style. When I asked the waitress how it was broiled, she said that "it is really good in the Bluebird style, and that is what we are known for." But I said, well, I really just want it broiled. And that is how I got it and it was very, very good, and I told her so, that she should not be afraid to recommend it that way. And she answered: "we are known here for the Bluebird style and if I recommended it broiled, I might lose my job". I told her I would not like to see that happen.
2. How about the amorous couple in room 17, who kept everyone else awake at night?
(No one we knew, I am happy to say)
3. Where we had lunch at the old asylum (now being converted into any number of things) and discovered that the food wasn't any better now than it was when the hospital was in full swing.
4. Where in northern Michigan, the calendar said October, and the thermometer July.
5. Where our restaurant on Torch Lake couldn't serve us because they had a complete power failure, but we were served in the same owner's restaurant near Traverse City, which had the effect of saving us about 50 miles round trip.
6. Where my one friend gets up to go swimming every morning at 5:45, and another is an expert on wine, but never touches the stuff.
7. Where the Tapawingo restaurant was told that they could choose our pre-meal appetizers and decided on rabbit pate and fois gras.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Athol Fugard and Joseph Conrad (one cent)
Not a likely combination, but having seen Fugard's riveting play "My Children, My Africa" last night at the Studio, I need to draw the comparison.
In "Under Western Eyes", we saw Mazurov, trying to remain an innocent, caught in a situation where the revolutionaries thought he was a revolutionary, and the conservatives thought him a conservative. And each had power to keep him in line. A dictatorial government and an increasingly monolithic revolutionary movement.
"My Children, My Africa" takes place in South Africa in the 1980s, when apartheid was still the law of the land, but where chinks in its armor began to appear on all sides. The blacks became more prone to dissent and rebellion, and some of the whites more open to reconciliation. It is in this situation that young, attractive, charismatic, intellectual Thami Mbikwana finds himself caught in the middle. A high schooler with academic skills who could easily be a bridge to an integrated society, who loves English poetry, who gets along with a white debate partner (an unusual circumstance to be sure) enters into a revolt against every thing white, and tear down the entire society that has affected his race so badly.
Does he want to? Or is community forcing him to? Does he have no choice? Or has he made a choice?
In many ways, the situations are not very different in that the central character is an individual whose freedom is circumscribed by circumstance.
Both the book and the play are quite heavy (the play is better written). Oh, for the days of Red Skelton's "Confederate Yankee", a delightful old comedy about a hapless individual who is recruited by both sides during the civil war and who, because of his general befuddlement, comes through unscathed.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Under Western Eyes (35 cents)
It is St. Petersburg, 1911. You are living in the last decade of the Romanov dynasty. But of course you don't know that. You just know that the monarchy is in trouble, and the country is filled with revolutionary thought (and occasionally revolutionary activity). People are imprisoned for no reason whatsoever.
You are a young man, a student. You are very worried, because you do not know what the future will bring.
You are determined to ignore the political and social unrest. You study. You want to be an engineer. You go to class, you stay in your room. You have no friends.
A minister is killed in a well planned ambush. There is a knock on your door. A fellow student. He is sweating. He tells you he is the assassin. That a new Russia is just around the corner. You are panicked.
Why has he come to you? Because you are the last person the authorities would suspect.
What do you do? Do you help your fellow student? Do you turn him in?
Mazurov tries the former, and winds up doing the latter. That's when the trouble starts.
The assassin is captured and killed. Mazurov convinces the authorities that he has never been a rebel. But the revolutionaries learn that their cohort went to Mazurov for help and that therefore he must be one of them. And a very important one.
So the authorities decide that Mazurov is to be a spy. No choice. And they send him into the heart of the Russian revolutionary community in Switzerland, where he meets, among others, the mother and sister of the murdered murderer.
This is the basis of the plot of Under Western Eyes, by Joseph Conrad. A wordy book, sometimes hard to get through. But with an intriguing central character, who is caught in web after web, simply because he tried to stay neutral.
There is a lesson here. Maybe.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Yriarte's Venice (1 cent)
Charles Yriarte was a 19th century French author, who devoted much of his life to travel and to writing of his travels. In the 1870s, he wrote a book on Venice, which was published in English just before the turn of the century. I found a beautiful copy and bought it and, much to my surprise, read it.
I learned quite a bit, although the book presupposed more knowledge of Venetian history than I had (my friends at Wikipedia helped me along). The book told of the origins of Venice (during the last days of the Roman empire, future Venetians escaped their pursuers and wound up on a series of islands off the Adriatic coast), how they built the city off-shore, of their need to defend themselves and consequently to develop ocean going expertise. The growth of trade. The independent kingdom. Its expansion on both sides of the Adriatic. Its assistance during the crusades; its rivalry with Constantinople. The effect of the fall of Constantinople to the Turks - a trading partner was gone. The end of independence with the coming of Napolean, the Austrian rule after the Napoleonic Wars, and finally the unity of Italy.
And the architecture (mixture of east and west), the churches (in what was not a very religious city), art, lace making, the publishing industry.
A very nice introduction (albeit too detailed for common man) to a unique place.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
A Problem?
When I started keeping my log for the week, I saved, but did not publish, and edited a number of times before publishing today. But then I found out that the publication date is not today's date, but is the date of my first entry. So you have to scroll down a couple of postings.
Also, I could not figure out to carefully put photos on this type of blog, so I gave up.
Also, I could not figure out to carefully put photos on this type of blog, so I gave up.
News You Can't Use
From our July driving trip:
The seedless black raspberry jam from Das Jam Shoppe (talk about a weird name for a shoppe) in Fairview MO. is top quality, although I don't exactly know why as a company motto, they site Job 26:7 "He hangeth the world upon nothing."
On the other hand, the wild elderberry jelly from P.J. Enterprise of Batesville, Arkansas is too tart.
The seedless black raspberry jam from Das Jam Shoppe (talk about a weird name for a shoppe) in Fairview MO. is top quality, although I don't exactly know why as a company motto, they site Job 26:7 "He hangeth the world upon nothing."
On the other hand, the wild elderberry jelly from P.J. Enterprise of Batesville, Arkansas is too tart.
Friday, September 28, 2007
See Post Below on Michael Mukasey Before Reading This One. Then Proceed
Ran into another friend today. He went to college with Justice Anthony Kennedy. Says no one remembers him either.
There is a pattern here.
There is a pattern here.
No Dry Cleaner Left Behind, and Why I Go to Cosi
So, I go into Zips this morning to pick up my dry cleaning and laundry. Zips charges $1.85 per item. But there is a poster on the wall saying that they will charge teachers only $1.50 per item. It's a special deal.
The Sign says "For Teacher's
$1.50 per item"
What is this country coming two?
So, I go into Naan and Beyond, our corner Indian carryout for lunch, and order a Caesar salad (I know, not very Indian) with tandoori lamb. The salad is acceptable. The lamb tastes like a fully grown sheep slaughtered about three years ago.
Want to exercise your jaw? Go to Naan and Beyond. Otherwise, stick with Cosi.
The Sign says "For Teacher's
$1.50 per item"
What is this country coming two?
So, I go into Naan and Beyond, our corner Indian carryout for lunch, and order a Caesar salad (I know, not very Indian) with tandoori lamb. The salad is acceptable. The lamb tastes like a fully grown sheep slaughtered about three years ago.
Want to exercise your jaw? Go to Naan and Beyond. Otherwise, stick with Cosi.
Istanbul Was Constantinople, Now It's Istanbul, Not Constantinople
I have remarked before how the New York Times uses the terms Myanmar and Yangon, while the Washington Post uses the older terms Burma and Rangoon. Today's Washington Examiner (which uses Myanmar and Yangon) contains a box explaining when the country's name was changed, and how some people identify the name with the current regime and refuse to use it). Today's Post and Times both contain headlines on the first page, using Burma and Myanmar respectively, as you would expect.
But - can you believe this? - the Post's Express edition has a headline using Myanmar.
Huh?
But - can you believe this? - the Post's Express edition has a headline using Myanmar.
Huh?
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Now do you understand how it all works? (2 cents)
From today's Wall Street Journal:
"Syria indicated that it is willing to let the U.N. take custody of the Shebaa Farms area claimed by Lebanon, but under Israeli occupation, a Spanish diplomat said."
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Our Attorney General Designate (3 cents)
I went to law school with Michael Mukasey. I remember him. He seemed like a nice, bright fellow. I hardly (if at all) knew him. I don't know who did.
I got a call from a reporter on the Yale Daily News who was doing a story on Mukasey's background, and was looking for law school anecdotes. I had been referred to him by a classmate. I spoke to him. I told him that I remembered Mukasey, that he seemed like a nice, bright fellow, but that I hardly (if at all) knew him. And I had not seen him since law school.
He told me he had talked to 'about half a dozen' members of the class and everyone said the same thing.
I also talked to a friend who is one of the fund raisers for our 40th reunion, coming up next month. He said that he, and his two fellow co-chairs, could not even figure out who could call Mukasey to ask for money.
I have tried to figure it out. I read in a Washington Post article that Mukasey was and is an orthodox Jew, and went to an orthodox day school in New York, Ramaz. Maybe that was the clue. If he was orthodox (and not many were in those days), that would explain why he might have eaten no meals in the law school dining hall, rather than the 21 that most of us had paid for, and ate. And maybe he even went back to NYC on Friday nights (not far from New Haven) to return on Sunday, like a commuter almost. It is possible.
On the metro this morning, I ran into a friend, who had attended Ramaz, although some years after Mukasey. I told her this story. She thought it plausible.
But then she told me one of her own. She had gone to Harvard College, and lived in Leverett House. One of the other Leverett House residents at the time was now Chief Justice John Roberts. No one remembers him either.
I got a call from a reporter on the Yale Daily News who was doing a story on Mukasey's background, and was looking for law school anecdotes. I had been referred to him by a classmate. I spoke to him. I told him that I remembered Mukasey, that he seemed like a nice, bright fellow, but that I hardly (if at all) knew him. And I had not seen him since law school.
He told me he had talked to 'about half a dozen' members of the class and everyone said the same thing.
I also talked to a friend who is one of the fund raisers for our 40th reunion, coming up next month. He said that he, and his two fellow co-chairs, could not even figure out who could call Mukasey to ask for money.
I have tried to figure it out. I read in a Washington Post article that Mukasey was and is an orthodox Jew, and went to an orthodox day school in New York, Ramaz. Maybe that was the clue. If he was orthodox (and not many were in those days), that would explain why he might have eaten no meals in the law school dining hall, rather than the 21 that most of us had paid for, and ate. And maybe he even went back to NYC on Friday nights (not far from New Haven) to return on Sunday, like a commuter almost. It is possible.
On the metro this morning, I ran into a friend, who had attended Ramaz, although some years after Mukasey. I told her this story. She thought it plausible.
But then she told me one of her own. She had gone to Harvard College, and lived in Leverett House. One of the other Leverett House residents at the time was now Chief Justice John Roberts. No one remembers him either.
Monday, September 24, 2007
This week
<
1. The Book. Some years ago I bought a book called "Whoredom in Kimmage" by a woman named Rosemary Mahoney. It was signed by Mahoney and I purchased it at the going out of business sale of the used book store on Wisconsin Avenue, near the Japanese restaurant. I don't think I ever opened the book and, to be frank, do not know what it is about.
Last week, I saw another book by Mahoney, signed by Mahoney, on the outside table at Second Story Books. It was called "A Likely Story: One Summer With Lillian Hellman", and was the retelling of the summer when high school student Rosemary Mahoney got a job as a housemaid for Lillian Hellman on Martha's Vinyard.
After finishing the book, I am not sure what would be worse. Spending the summer with Lillian Hellman, or having the 17 year old Mahoney living in my house.
It is probably a tie.
I know it is too late to spend time with Hellman, but if Mahoney ever suggests it, just so you know, I will run the other way. Far and fast.
Has my old friend Larry Gillis said in college as a group of us were telling a story going from person to person: "The mayonnaise factory blew up" "How was it?" "It was Hell, man".
So was the book.
2. The Baseball Games. You have to give to the Nats. After starting the year with expectations of 100+ losses, and losing 16 of their first 25 games, the Nats have, since then, played at a 50-50 level, and now have a record better than eight of the other teams in the 30 team major leagues.
Their schedule requires them to devote the last two weeks of the season to the two teams leading their division, the Mets and the Phillies. So far, they have beat the Mets 5 out of 6 games, and lost 3 out of four to the Phillies. They play the Phillies 3 times and the season is over. We shall see what happens. After sweeping the Mets, the Phillies are only one game out of first place in the division. So these games, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, will be very important.
Their relief pitching has been a strong point, but they need to rely on a closer with more consistency than Chad Cordero has had this year. I know he is only 24 or something like that, but how will he be when he is 29, and is he worth keeping around?
Next year, the hope is that Nick Johnson, Christian Guzman, Dmitri Young and Sean Hill will have their injuries behind them. Even with no changes in personnel, the team should be competitive.
3.
The concert. It had been a long time since I have gone to a Tuesday concert at Epiphany Church. I am not sure why. But I did go on Tuesday to see an interesting group called Ensemble Gaudior. Three members played at the church, baroque music on vintage instruments. Alexandra MacCracken's violin was made in 1665, and Lori Barnet's cello in 1755 (both have been restored), and Joseph Gascho's harpsichord was made in 1965 but based on a 1694 design. That is in and of itself quite interesting.
I never know quite how to rate a performance on vintage instruments, since the sound is invariably different. I enjoyed the concert, and had very different reactions to the four pieces played. MacCracken played a selection from a Bach partita, which she chose, I assume, because she liked it and could play it in a very spirited fashion. The other pieces were by composers who were apparently quite prominent in their time, but with whom I have no familiarity: Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Johann Jakob Froberger, and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber. I thought that the Schmelzer sonata prima was dull and flat and not particularly well played. I thought that the Froberger toccata and capriccio was snoozable. But I loved the Biber! It was his sonata terza from sonatae violino solo, but was an ensemble piece. It had extraordinarily modern harmonies and tonalities for a piece written in 1681. He lived in Salzburg and published a fair amount of music. I'd like to hear more.
MacCracken introduced the piece, and said there would be a suprise ending. There was. In the middle of a phrase on a hanging up-note, it just ended. I wonder. It was also 1:00 on the dot. Perhaps you can end the Biber anywhere you choose.
4. The Entertainer. I went to see Alan Alda, author of a new series of essays,"Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself" speak on Tuesday night at the 6th and I Street Synagogue. It was part of the Politics and Prose author series. It seemed like the building was over 90% full.
It is clear that everyone there loves Alan Alda. And admittedly, he is a very charming and engaging fellow. Most people know him from "Mash". In fact, when the moderator asked the audience, "How many people here have never watched an episode of Mash on television?", only one hand went up -- mine. I cannot quite understand how war and medicine together make for entertainment (especially for humorous entertainment), but I am really in the minority on this one.
Alda's speech was a rambling one, although it did not seem so because his delivery is so good. I have no idea what the books is about; it did not really come up. He basically told anecdotes about himself.
He talked about celebrity, the number of times people who when the meet him lose their motor skills, or become verbally dyslexic and say to him "You are my biggest fan". And he says this happens to all celebrities. And then he tells how tongue tied he got when he, years ago, met Liv Ullman for the first time.
He talks about people ask him to give speeches at odd places. Like the time he was asked to give the commencement address at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. He assumed that they had trained their students how to practice medicine, but needed him to show them how to act like a doctor. Or the time he was asked to speak about Thomas Jefferson at Monticello to a group of Jefferson scholars.
He talked about how people do him favors. Like when he visited the leaning tower in Pisa and was taken up some steps beyond a sign that said "absolutely no one allowed". He asked about the sign, and was told it was very dangerous there, and if there was any additional movement, anyone in there would be trapped. No one could enter, but for him, they said, "we will make an exception".
He seems like a genuine fellow, very talented, and dedicated to being meaningful. But would I go see him again if he were speaking in the office down the hall?
Nah.
5. The big speech. President Ahmadinejad speaks at Columbia University. I heard part of the speech and some of the questions asked by the students and the answers to those questions. It does not appear that the event added to, or further endangered, world peace.
My own impression was somewhat unexpected. I thought that, if I lived in the closed society which has been Iran for almost 30 years, and my news was controlled and managed, and I was not a particularly sophisticated or worldly person, I might have eaten up almost everything A. said. It was internally consistent, it bespoke of confidence and lack of ambiguity or equivocation.
It is only when you look at it through the perspective of a broader view of today's world that you realize it was almost all utter nonsense.
So, I can see the secret of his success.
Two ancillary questions:
first, was Columbia president Lee Bollinger's insultingly descriptive introduction (accurate or not) appropriate. I say 'no'. It reminded me of a DC Bar Association meeting thirty years ago when the invited guest was then Secretary of Defense Henry Kissinger and the U.S. had just sent troops into Cambodia chasing the Viet Cong. The then president of the DC bar in introducing Cambodia made it clear that neither he, nor the Bar Association, was endorsing such criminal action, then saying, "and I give you Mr. Kissinger...." Not appropriate.
second, what about Ahmadinejad's crazy remark about their being no homosexuals in Iran. Even for the isolated Iranian, this would have raised a question. As an old law school professor of mine once said: you can listen to a beautiful clock strike the hour, but if you count the strikes and they add up to thirteen, you doubt not only the last strike, but all that came before it. Maybe that was the reaction I would have had, were I in Iran listening to my president.
6. Another book. I am not sure how I pick them, but I read a book called "Bartholdi and the Statue of Liberty", written I think for teenagers by Willadene Price and published in 1959. I really enjoyed its simplistic writing style, recognizing that there were probably more generalities in the book than a full fledged biography would have contained.
But here was Frederic Bartholdi, of a wealthy Alsatian family, indifferent student, artist. Became a sculptor, and became enamored of the United States and of the French assistance to the American Revolution. And he decided that there should be a statue dedicated to Liberty. The biggest statue in the world.
The book tells of his political, social and artistic vision, his relationship with major French artistic and cultural figures, his mother and his wife (the model for the statue). But most interestingly, it tells how the statue was made, how it was financed, how it was displayed and how it was transported.
There is a lot of information, all of it (and I mean all of it) interesting in this little book.
7.The movie. "Into the Wild", directed by Sean Penn, starring Emile Hirsch, from the book by John Krakauer, based on a true story. A young college graduate from an abusive family (that, to the outside world looks perfect) decides to forsake society, and go out on his own. Changing his name to Alexander Supertramp, he is remarkably successful in his initial ventures in the west, ranging from the Dakotas to Baja California, meeting and charming some interesting people on the way, giving away his money, taking odd jobs now and then. But his real goal is to go to Alaska, to go out into the wild, and to live all by himself.
He finds an abandoned bus, which serves as his home and shelter (and where his body will eventually be found). He eats wild berries and shoots small game, and again does quite well. Until he decides it is time to leave, and discovers that he is trapped. The river he waded across months earlier is now a torrential stream, uncrossable. He was, I assume, by then out of ammunition, and he can no longer gather meat. He is left to foraging vegetation with the help of his book. He guesses wrong on one plant, and becomes violently ill. He then starves to death.
The movie is over 2 1/2 hours long. It is well acted, and photographed. But it is not uplifting, it did not touch me emotionally, and I would have been just as happy if I had never gone to see it.
8.
The exhibit. There is a Morris Louis retrospective at the Hirschhorn. Large, large abstractions. The Washington Color School. Twenty eight paintings on display. A personal connection, because Edie knows his widow (he died 45 years ago).
I found the work quite absorbing. Paintings you could look at for a long time. That surprised me.
The technique is also interesting. Although the work is done on canvas, these are not oil paintings, but more like batiks, where the thin paint is absorbed into and becomes part of the campus. It is an affecting technique, but it makes conservation that much more difficult, and there is one room devoted to conservation problems, also quite interesting.
My impression of Louis is that he was really a sorrowful character. He seems to have been singularly morose and uncommunicative. He was obsessive about his work, using his bedroom or dining room (depending on the house) as his studio. He rarely emerged. He died of lung cancer at the age of 49.
9. Next to the exhibit. The Hirschhorn, on the same floor, has a number of large installations from its own collection based on light. There is a very dark room, with a pale reddish orange light cast on a full wall. There is a clear acrylic bagel shaped prism (with a much larger hole)which spins on a string slowly (and randomly?) while a bright light shines through it, bringing shadows and forms and rainbow colors to the white wall beyond. There is an installation called 'Invisible', which looks just that unless you stand about three feet the from the beam of light cast from it, in which case the word 'visible' shows clearly on your body.
I thought these light based exhibits were worth the price of admission on their own.
10. The cafe. Yesterday, we stopped at a small cafe on maybe 9th and R (maybe), called Asia. Very modest, quite pleasant, quite busy, small menu. Not too far north of the convention center, but for the neighborhood. Shows what is happening in Shaw.
1. The Book. Some years ago I bought a book called "Whoredom in Kimmage" by a woman named Rosemary Mahoney. It was signed by Mahoney and I purchased it at the going out of business sale of the used book store on Wisconsin Avenue, near the Japanese restaurant. I don't think I ever opened the book and, to be frank, do not know what it is about.
Last week, I saw another book by Mahoney, signed by Mahoney, on the outside table at Second Story Books. It was called "A Likely Story: One Summer With Lillian Hellman", and was the retelling of the summer when high school student Rosemary Mahoney got a job as a housemaid for Lillian Hellman on Martha's Vinyard.
After finishing the book, I am not sure what would be worse. Spending the summer with Lillian Hellman, or having the 17 year old Mahoney living in my house.
It is probably a tie.
I know it is too late to spend time with Hellman, but if Mahoney ever suggests it, just so you know, I will run the other way. Far and fast.
Has my old friend Larry Gillis said in college as a group of us were telling a story going from person to person: "The mayonnaise factory blew up" "How was it?" "It was Hell, man".
So was the book.
2. The Baseball Games. You have to give to the Nats. After starting the year with expectations of 100+ losses, and losing 16 of their first 25 games, the Nats have, since then, played at a 50-50 level, and now have a record better than eight of the other teams in the 30 team major leagues.
Their schedule requires them to devote the last two weeks of the season to the two teams leading their division, the Mets and the Phillies. So far, they have beat the Mets 5 out of 6 games, and lost 3 out of four to the Phillies. They play the Phillies 3 times and the season is over. We shall see what happens. After sweeping the Mets, the Phillies are only one game out of first place in the division. So these games, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, will be very important.
Their relief pitching has been a strong point, but they need to rely on a closer with more consistency than Chad Cordero has had this year. I know he is only 24 or something like that, but how will he be when he is 29, and is he worth keeping around?
Next year, the hope is that Nick Johnson, Christian Guzman, Dmitri Young and Sean Hill will have their injuries behind them. Even with no changes in personnel, the team should be competitive.
3.
The concert. It had been a long time since I have gone to a Tuesday concert at Epiphany Church. I am not sure why. But I did go on Tuesday to see an interesting group called Ensemble Gaudior. Three members played at the church, baroque music on vintage instruments. Alexandra MacCracken's violin was made in 1665, and Lori Barnet's cello in 1755 (both have been restored), and Joseph Gascho's harpsichord was made in 1965 but based on a 1694 design. That is in and of itself quite interesting.
I never know quite how to rate a performance on vintage instruments, since the sound is invariably different. I enjoyed the concert, and had very different reactions to the four pieces played. MacCracken played a selection from a Bach partita, which she chose, I assume, because she liked it and could play it in a very spirited fashion. The other pieces were by composers who were apparently quite prominent in their time, but with whom I have no familiarity: Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Johann Jakob Froberger, and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber. I thought that the Schmelzer sonata prima was dull and flat and not particularly well played. I thought that the Froberger toccata and capriccio was snoozable. But I loved the Biber! It was his sonata terza from sonatae violino solo, but was an ensemble piece. It had extraordinarily modern harmonies and tonalities for a piece written in 1681. He lived in Salzburg and published a fair amount of music. I'd like to hear more.
MacCracken introduced the piece, and said there would be a suprise ending. There was. In the middle of a phrase on a hanging up-note, it just ended. I wonder. It was also 1:00 on the dot. Perhaps you can end the Biber anywhere you choose.
4. The Entertainer. I went to see Alan Alda, author of a new series of essays,"Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself" speak on Tuesday night at the 6th and I Street Synagogue. It was part of the Politics and Prose author series. It seemed like the building was over 90% full.
It is clear that everyone there loves Alan Alda. And admittedly, he is a very charming and engaging fellow. Most people know him from "Mash". In fact, when the moderator asked the audience, "How many people here have never watched an episode of Mash on television?", only one hand went up -- mine. I cannot quite understand how war and medicine together make for entertainment (especially for humorous entertainment), but I am really in the minority on this one.
Alda's speech was a rambling one, although it did not seem so because his delivery is so good. I have no idea what the books is about; it did not really come up. He basically told anecdotes about himself.
He talked about celebrity, the number of times people who when the meet him lose their motor skills, or become verbally dyslexic and say to him "You are my biggest fan". And he says this happens to all celebrities. And then he tells how tongue tied he got when he, years ago, met Liv Ullman for the first time.
He talks about people ask him to give speeches at odd places. Like the time he was asked to give the commencement address at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. He assumed that they had trained their students how to practice medicine, but needed him to show them how to act like a doctor. Or the time he was asked to speak about Thomas Jefferson at Monticello to a group of Jefferson scholars.
He talked about how people do him favors. Like when he visited the leaning tower in Pisa and was taken up some steps beyond a sign that said "absolutely no one allowed". He asked about the sign, and was told it was very dangerous there, and if there was any additional movement, anyone in there would be trapped. No one could enter, but for him, they said, "we will make an exception".
He seems like a genuine fellow, very talented, and dedicated to being meaningful. But would I go see him again if he were speaking in the office down the hall?
Nah.
5. The big speech. President Ahmadinejad speaks at Columbia University. I heard part of the speech and some of the questions asked by the students and the answers to those questions. It does not appear that the event added to, or further endangered, world peace.
My own impression was somewhat unexpected. I thought that, if I lived in the closed society which has been Iran for almost 30 years, and my news was controlled and managed, and I was not a particularly sophisticated or worldly person, I might have eaten up almost everything A. said. It was internally consistent, it bespoke of confidence and lack of ambiguity or equivocation.
It is only when you look at it through the perspective of a broader view of today's world that you realize it was almost all utter nonsense.
So, I can see the secret of his success.
Two ancillary questions:
first, was Columbia president Lee Bollinger's insultingly descriptive introduction (accurate or not) appropriate. I say 'no'. It reminded me of a DC Bar Association meeting thirty years ago when the invited guest was then Secretary of Defense Henry Kissinger and the U.S. had just sent troops into Cambodia chasing the Viet Cong. The then president of the DC bar in introducing Cambodia made it clear that neither he, nor the Bar Association, was endorsing such criminal action, then saying, "and I give you Mr. Kissinger...." Not appropriate.
second, what about Ahmadinejad's crazy remark about their being no homosexuals in Iran. Even for the isolated Iranian, this would have raised a question. As an old law school professor of mine once said: you can listen to a beautiful clock strike the hour, but if you count the strikes and they add up to thirteen, you doubt not only the last strike, but all that came before it. Maybe that was the reaction I would have had, were I in Iran listening to my president.
6. Another book. I am not sure how I pick them, but I read a book called "Bartholdi and the Statue of Liberty", written I think for teenagers by Willadene Price and published in 1959. I really enjoyed its simplistic writing style, recognizing that there were probably more generalities in the book than a full fledged biography would have contained.
But here was Frederic Bartholdi, of a wealthy Alsatian family, indifferent student, artist. Became a sculptor, and became enamored of the United States and of the French assistance to the American Revolution. And he decided that there should be a statue dedicated to Liberty. The biggest statue in the world.
The book tells of his political, social and artistic vision, his relationship with major French artistic and cultural figures, his mother and his wife (the model for the statue). But most interestingly, it tells how the statue was made, how it was financed, how it was displayed and how it was transported.
There is a lot of information, all of it (and I mean all of it) interesting in this little book.
7.The movie. "Into the Wild", directed by Sean Penn, starring Emile Hirsch, from the book by John Krakauer, based on a true story. A young college graduate from an abusive family (that, to the outside world looks perfect) decides to forsake society, and go out on his own. Changing his name to Alexander Supertramp, he is remarkably successful in his initial ventures in the west, ranging from the Dakotas to Baja California, meeting and charming some interesting people on the way, giving away his money, taking odd jobs now and then. But his real goal is to go to Alaska, to go out into the wild, and to live all by himself.
He finds an abandoned bus, which serves as his home and shelter (and where his body will eventually be found). He eats wild berries and shoots small game, and again does quite well. Until he decides it is time to leave, and discovers that he is trapped. The river he waded across months earlier is now a torrential stream, uncrossable. He was, I assume, by then out of ammunition, and he can no longer gather meat. He is left to foraging vegetation with the help of his book. He guesses wrong on one plant, and becomes violently ill. He then starves to death.
The movie is over 2 1/2 hours long. It is well acted, and photographed. But it is not uplifting, it did not touch me emotionally, and I would have been just as happy if I had never gone to see it.
8.
The exhibit. There is a Morris Louis retrospective at the Hirschhorn. Large, large abstractions. The Washington Color School. Twenty eight paintings on display. A personal connection, because Edie knows his widow (he died 45 years ago).
I found the work quite absorbing. Paintings you could look at for a long time. That surprised me.
The technique is also interesting. Although the work is done on canvas, these are not oil paintings, but more like batiks, where the thin paint is absorbed into and becomes part of the campus. It is an affecting technique, but it makes conservation that much more difficult, and there is one room devoted to conservation problems, also quite interesting.
My impression of Louis is that he was really a sorrowful character. He seems to have been singularly morose and uncommunicative. He was obsessive about his work, using his bedroom or dining room (depending on the house) as his studio. He rarely emerged. He died of lung cancer at the age of 49.
9. Next to the exhibit. The Hirschhorn, on the same floor, has a number of large installations from its own collection based on light. There is a very dark room, with a pale reddish orange light cast on a full wall. There is a clear acrylic bagel shaped prism (with a much larger hole)which spins on a string slowly (and randomly?) while a bright light shines through it, bringing shadows and forms and rainbow colors to the white wall beyond. There is an installation called 'Invisible', which looks just that unless you stand about three feet the from the beam of light cast from it, in which case the word 'visible' shows clearly on your body.
I thought these light based exhibits were worth the price of admission on their own.
10. The cafe. Yesterday, we stopped at a small cafe on maybe 9th and R (maybe), called Asia. Very modest, quite pleasant, quite busy, small menu. Not too far north of the convention center, but for the neighborhood. Shows what is happening in Shaw.
Medicare (12 cents)
I was told that I should apply for Medicare, even though I am covered by a health plan at my work. So, I called up the number given to me at the Social Security Administration. An 800 number.
They told me (by recorded voice) that they could help me in many ways but first (they told me this in English) that if I wanted to continue in Spanish I had to push number 2. I did not do that.
Then they gave me some thoughts about why I might be calling and asked me which was closest. I said "enroll in Medicare" and they said that they could help me with my Medicare questions, and switched me to another computer.
This computer told me that they would talk to me, but first they had some things to tell me about Medicare. And they went on for several minutes telling me things that were of no relevance to me, and there seemed (seems) to be no way to cut them short. When that was over, they asked me exactly what I wanted and I told them, and they switched me to another computer.
This computer told me, with sorrow, that my wait would be about ten minutes and I could call back at another time, but they tended to be very busy, especially at the start of the month and the start of the week, and the start of the day. Because it was 5 p.m. on the 24th of the month, I thought I was OK, and decided to hang on.
The computer then asked me a number of questions: my social security number, my first name, my last name, my mother's maiden name, the state or location of my birth. Each one I answered. If the computer heard me correctly, it responded by repeating what I had said and then asking me if it had repeated what I had said.
But several times, it did not understand me sufficiently. In those instances, what did it do? Believe it or not, it said "OK, let's skip that and go on to the next question."
Within about ten minutes a real live person came on; she was very helpful. She told me that I should apply for Part A (Hospitalization only); there was no charge. I could apply for part B when my health insurance was going to end and, as long as I did not dilly dally and applied promptly at that time, I would not be penalized with higher Medicare premiums. All of that was good news.
I asked if I could apply on line, and she said yes, and I was fine with that, and we hung up.
And then I went on line, and after trying to figure out from both the Medicare and the Social Security sites how to apply (that took quite a while believe it or not), I filled in the page of information about my age, etc, and then pushed the continue button, and got a screen that said: "Due to the answers you gave on the last page, you cannot process this application electronically".
I tried 3 times and got the same answer, so I called back Social Security and went through the exact same process as before, only this time my wait was to be "more than ten minutes". I waited.
I got another very nice young woman (who sounded like the precise voice-twin of the first) who told me that she did not understand how the first voice told me to apply on line, because (this was in the tone of her voice, not in her words) everyone with half a brain (I thought that was me) knows that you cannot apply to Part A online without applying to Part B as well.
So, I said, being a cheery old person, OK, let's do it by phone and she said, "OK, let's set you up with an appointment".
I said "What?" And she repeated what she had said before, so I said OK, and she said that next appointment was on October 11, and that someone would call me at 1 p.m.
What do you think the odds are that that will happen?
They told me (by recorded voice) that they could help me in many ways but first (they told me this in English) that if I wanted to continue in Spanish I had to push number 2. I did not do that.
Then they gave me some thoughts about why I might be calling and asked me which was closest. I said "enroll in Medicare" and they said that they could help me with my Medicare questions, and switched me to another computer.
This computer told me that they would talk to me, but first they had some things to tell me about Medicare. And they went on for several minutes telling me things that were of no relevance to me, and there seemed (seems) to be no way to cut them short. When that was over, they asked me exactly what I wanted and I told them, and they switched me to another computer.
This computer told me, with sorrow, that my wait would be about ten minutes and I could call back at another time, but they tended to be very busy, especially at the start of the month and the start of the week, and the start of the day. Because it was 5 p.m. on the 24th of the month, I thought I was OK, and decided to hang on.
The computer then asked me a number of questions: my social security number, my first name, my last name, my mother's maiden name, the state or location of my birth. Each one I answered. If the computer heard me correctly, it responded by repeating what I had said and then asking me if it had repeated what I had said.
But several times, it did not understand me sufficiently. In those instances, what did it do? Believe it or not, it said "OK, let's skip that and go on to the next question."
Within about ten minutes a real live person came on; she was very helpful. She told me that I should apply for Part A (Hospitalization only); there was no charge. I could apply for part B when my health insurance was going to end and, as long as I did not dilly dally and applied promptly at that time, I would not be penalized with higher Medicare premiums. All of that was good news.
I asked if I could apply on line, and she said yes, and I was fine with that, and we hung up.
And then I went on line, and after trying to figure out from both the Medicare and the Social Security sites how to apply (that took quite a while believe it or not), I filled in the page of information about my age, etc, and then pushed the continue button, and got a screen that said: "Due to the answers you gave on the last page, you cannot process this application electronically".
I tried 3 times and got the same answer, so I called back Social Security and went through the exact same process as before, only this time my wait was to be "more than ten minutes". I waited.
I got another very nice young woman (who sounded like the precise voice-twin of the first) who told me that she did not understand how the first voice told me to apply on line, because (this was in the tone of her voice, not in her words) everyone with half a brain (I thought that was me) knows that you cannot apply to Part A online without applying to Part B as well.
So, I said, being a cheery old person, OK, let's do it by phone and she said, "OK, let's set you up with an appointment".
I said "What?" And she repeated what she had said before, so I said OK, and she said that next appointment was on October 11, and that someone would call me at 1 p.m.
What do you think the odds are that that will happen?
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Starting Next Week (4 cents)
I am going to try something new. I am going to put together a weekly posting, to be published on Saturday or Sunday. I will write and edit it over the course of the week (editing will probably help, as everything you see now is first draft material). During the week, I will only put in short anecdotal pieces.
I have missed out listing or describing many things I have seen or done.
For example, what did I think about Amy Ziff's one-woman show, Accident, which is a Theater J "extra"? In many ways, I liked it, although I found that it too seemed too much a first draft, and thoughts that it needed a tighter weave. What did I like about it best? Probably, Ziff's memory of her father, who liked apple crisp, apple cake, apple pie, apple betty....anything with apples. I can identify with that.
How was dinner at Logan Tavern (as usual good, although my wine choice could have been better; I had a syrah along with my salmon)? How was dinner at Jaleo (quite good, and I especially recommend the Basque stew, for those whose diets permit it)? How was brunch at the Chevy Chase Bread and Chocolate (good eggs!)?
How about today's final baseball game at RFK? Nats beat the Phillies 5-3. They say the crowd was about 40,000 (Ha. Ha. Give or take 10,000). The day was beautiful. And I got to meet Chris and Joel (and German girl). And see Marsha and her daughter, whose name I have forgotten. (By the way, third baseball game in 8 days, a 2007 season record)
Speaking about forgetting names, when Rabbi Miller mentioned Tricia Nixon in her sermon, I began to think of the other Nixon daughter, the one who married David Eisenhower. I always liked her better. But I could not think of her name, so I sat during Yom Kippur services for about ten minutes running through every name I could think of before Julie popped into my head. This is a dangerous sign, isn't it? And what is Marsha's daughter's name?
I see that Franz Bader's book store (expensive art books) is going out of business in downtown DC, as well as Bonifant's Used Book Store in Wheaton. I didn't do anything to keep them alive, that's for sure. Also saw that Earl Allen's clothing store downtown is gone, and Continental Jewelers is on its way. What will replace them, and why can't strip retail last inside the city?
Did I say that I read Margot Livesey's "Criminals", a novel about one man who found a baby and one who lost the same baby? I think I might have.
I also read Lucille Eichengreen's very interesting book "Rumkowski and the Orphans of Lodz", a first hand account of the Lodz ghetto from 1939-1944. Very depressing obviously, but a fascinating picture of what life was like there and then. Rumkowski, you might remember from my review of the exhibit at the Holocaust museum on the Children of the Lodz ghetto was the orphanage director who was placed in charge of the ghetto by the Germans and who organized the ghetto for work, thinking that productivity was the way to the German hearts. Of course, he was wrong, as it turned out (and he and his family were sent to, and murdered in, Auschwitz), but he could have been correct, I guess. His administration was by and large a continuing series of 'Sophie's choices', decided who should live and who should die (sounds familiar on the day after Yom Kippur, huh?).
The twist in this book was portraying him as a child molester, amongst everything else (from first hand knowledge of the author, and of many she met during her years in captivity). I don't remember this being a focal point of the museum exhibit, and wonder why not.
And then there was the Smithsonian lecture on Timbuktu, by a man and woman who recently wrote the biography of the city. I wish that they had been better presenters or more sure of their topic. They clearly are not scholars, but there was a lot that I did not know that was fascinating.
Timbuktu, by the way, is in Mali. It has been around for perhaps 2000 years. It is on the Niger River and was once a great trading port, a center for the manufacture of iron goods and other weapons, surrounded on three sides by dense forests (now gone, all desert), and the intellectual capital of the Moslem world. It is a racially and ethnically diverse place, and always has been. It's oldest existing mosque was built about 1000, and is now being restored by the Aga Khan Foundation, it is very poor. There may be as many as 1,000,000 manuscripts in public and private collections there, most of which have never been translated or studied.
Did I talk about the Smithsonian's Portugal exhibit? Or the lecture that I attended on topics related to that exhibit? Or my disapppointing look at the Earl Cunningham exibit at the Museum of American Art?
So many things to mention. So little time.
I have missed out listing or describing many things I have seen or done.
For example, what did I think about Amy Ziff's one-woman show, Accident, which is a Theater J "extra"? In many ways, I liked it, although I found that it too seemed too much a first draft, and thoughts that it needed a tighter weave. What did I like about it best? Probably, Ziff's memory of her father, who liked apple crisp, apple cake, apple pie, apple betty....anything with apples. I can identify with that.
How was dinner at Logan Tavern (as usual good, although my wine choice could have been better; I had a syrah along with my salmon)? How was dinner at Jaleo (quite good, and I especially recommend the Basque stew, for those whose diets permit it)? How was brunch at the Chevy Chase Bread and Chocolate (good eggs!)?
How about today's final baseball game at RFK? Nats beat the Phillies 5-3. They say the crowd was about 40,000 (Ha. Ha. Give or take 10,000). The day was beautiful. And I got to meet Chris and Joel (and German girl). And see Marsha and her daughter, whose name I have forgotten. (By the way, third baseball game in 8 days, a 2007 season record)
Speaking about forgetting names, when Rabbi Miller mentioned Tricia Nixon in her sermon, I began to think of the other Nixon daughter, the one who married David Eisenhower. I always liked her better. But I could not think of her name, so I sat during Yom Kippur services for about ten minutes running through every name I could think of before Julie popped into my head. This is a dangerous sign, isn't it? And what is Marsha's daughter's name?
I see that Franz Bader's book store (expensive art books) is going out of business in downtown DC, as well as Bonifant's Used Book Store in Wheaton. I didn't do anything to keep them alive, that's for sure. Also saw that Earl Allen's clothing store downtown is gone, and Continental Jewelers is on its way. What will replace them, and why can't strip retail last inside the city?
Did I say that I read Margot Livesey's "Criminals", a novel about one man who found a baby and one who lost the same baby? I think I might have.
I also read Lucille Eichengreen's very interesting book "Rumkowski and the Orphans of Lodz", a first hand account of the Lodz ghetto from 1939-1944. Very depressing obviously, but a fascinating picture of what life was like there and then. Rumkowski, you might remember from my review of the exhibit at the Holocaust museum on the Children of the Lodz ghetto was the orphanage director who was placed in charge of the ghetto by the Germans and who organized the ghetto for work, thinking that productivity was the way to the German hearts. Of course, he was wrong, as it turned out (and he and his family were sent to, and murdered in, Auschwitz), but he could have been correct, I guess. His administration was by and large a continuing series of 'Sophie's choices', decided who should live and who should die (sounds familiar on the day after Yom Kippur, huh?).
The twist in this book was portraying him as a child molester, amongst everything else (from first hand knowledge of the author, and of many she met during her years in captivity). I don't remember this being a focal point of the museum exhibit, and wonder why not.
And then there was the Smithsonian lecture on Timbuktu, by a man and woman who recently wrote the biography of the city. I wish that they had been better presenters or more sure of their topic. They clearly are not scholars, but there was a lot that I did not know that was fascinating.
Timbuktu, by the way, is in Mali. It has been around for perhaps 2000 years. It is on the Niger River and was once a great trading port, a center for the manufacture of iron goods and other weapons, surrounded on three sides by dense forests (now gone, all desert), and the intellectual capital of the Moslem world. It is a racially and ethnically diverse place, and always has been. It's oldest existing mosque was built about 1000, and is now being restored by the Aga Khan Foundation, it is very poor. There may be as many as 1,000,000 manuscripts in public and private collections there, most of which have never been translated or studied.
Did I talk about the Smithsonian's Portugal exhibit? Or the lecture that I attended on topics related to that exhibit? Or my disapppointing look at the Earl Cunningham exibit at the Museum of American Art?
So many things to mention. So little time.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Adventures with Amtrak ($1.27)
I don't think of myself as a particularly lullable person, but yesterday morning, when my Amtrak train to New York left Union Station on time and arrived at Penn Station on time, I was lulled to believe that Amtrak would always be on time. I thought that my $76.50 was well spent, although I think that the price (for the regular train, with a senior discount) is a bit high.
I spent the majority of the day in meetings, I took a nice walk through mid-town on a beautiful day, I stopped at a small Thai restaurant on 8th Avenue near Penn Station for a delicious meal (green papaya salad, and chicken and vegetables in a ginger sauce), and got to Penn Station at about 6:30, in time for my 6:45 train.
I looked at the time board, which showed the usual 20 or so trains scheduled to be leaving, and noticed that all said "On Time", except for mine. Mine said "1 hour, 40 minute delay".
For some reason, I did not believe it. I thought I had misread the sign. I thought the sign maker had misspoke. I walked around to the other side, to see if it said something different. It did not. I was paralyzed. I was not sure what to do.
I walked around and looked at other people. That did not help.
I walked to my right, to my left, ahead. I turned around. I put my briefcase down. I picked it up. Penn Station does not have any seats to sit in, and I did not know how I was going to spend 1 hour and 40 minutes.
Then I remembered there was an information kiosk and I went there. I told the woman in the kiosk that I had a ticket on the 6:45. She said: "You have time, go to gate 13E and take the train to Harrisburg. It will stop in Philadelphia. You will be fine." I said: "What will I do when I get to Philadelphia?" She said: "isn't that where you are going?" "No", I said, "Washington". Her smile faded, she stared at me, she took a second or two, and then she said "I guess you are just out of luck".
"Do you think the time is firm?", I asked. "Yes", she said. "What was the problem?" "I think it is track repair work north of here." "Oh", I said.
And then came the clincher. She said: "I don't know why they don't build this into the schedule. This has been happening all week. Very regular." "When did they post the delay", I asked? "Quite some time ago."
I thanked her (it wasn't her fault, and at least she wanted to send me to Philadelphia) and walked away.
I looked at the board again, and saw that there was a 7 o'clock Acela, and a relatively short Acela line, so I went to stand in it. I did not know if I could make it, but thought I would give it a chance. Of course, an Acela is more expensive, and I figured it would cost me about an extra $75. Was that worth getting back into Washington at about 10 p.m., rather than 11:45? I debated. I got to the window (I had decided that if I got a ticket in time, I would take it, and if not, that God wanted me to wait until 8:25.) The woman took my credit card. I asked her how much extra the Acela was. She told me it would cost me an additional $96. I told her, even with the senior discount? She said that they had no senior discount (it is 15%) on the Acela.
I thought for a minute. They are 1 hour and 40 minutes late, and I am the one that pays an extra $96? That made no sense. I retrieved my credit card.
I looked at the board again, to see if the 1 hour, 40 minutes had changed. It had; now it was only 1 hour and 25 minutes. But then I saw something else; I saw that there was another regularly scheduled train at 7:35. And I saw that there was a fairly long, but not terribly long, ticket line, and once again I stood in it. This was successful, and I now had a ticket on a train leaving at 7:35, as opposed to my original train, now scheduled to leave at 8:10.
I would save 35 minutes, and I killed most of the delay.
But then I thought about my friend at the information kiosk. Why did she tell me I was out of luck? Why didn't she tell me about the 7:35 (which then would have bee n a 50 minute saving)? No answer for that one. At all.
I went back to the board. My 7:35 was now delayed. It would leave at 7:45. OK, I was still saving 25 minutes.
Then 7:45 came. And there was a public address system announcement that said that the train would leave at 7:45, but that the gate had not yet been assigned, and wouldn't be until the train came into Penn Station, which would be "momentarily". I looked at the schedule board. A new entry was placed next to my train number, where the gate reference should have been. It said: STAND BY.
A couple of hundred people were waiting for this train. We all stood by. And we stared at the screen. Not one person took one eye off it, for what seemed like decades. And more decades.
At about 7:50, the gate was announced, and we pulled out of the station at about 8. I was scared to death. By my measure the other train was only about ten minutes behind us. You can make up ten minutes very quickly. I was sure we would rear-ended, all the way home.
I spent the majority of the day in meetings, I took a nice walk through mid-town on a beautiful day, I stopped at a small Thai restaurant on 8th Avenue near Penn Station for a delicious meal (green papaya salad, and chicken and vegetables in a ginger sauce), and got to Penn Station at about 6:30, in time for my 6:45 train.
I looked at the time board, which showed the usual 20 or so trains scheduled to be leaving, and noticed that all said "On Time", except for mine. Mine said "1 hour, 40 minute delay".
For some reason, I did not believe it. I thought I had misread the sign. I thought the sign maker had misspoke. I walked around to the other side, to see if it said something different. It did not. I was paralyzed. I was not sure what to do.
I walked around and looked at other people. That did not help.
I walked to my right, to my left, ahead. I turned around. I put my briefcase down. I picked it up. Penn Station does not have any seats to sit in, and I did not know how I was going to spend 1 hour and 40 minutes.
Then I remembered there was an information kiosk and I went there. I told the woman in the kiosk that I had a ticket on the 6:45. She said: "You have time, go to gate 13E and take the train to Harrisburg. It will stop in Philadelphia. You will be fine." I said: "What will I do when I get to Philadelphia?" She said: "isn't that where you are going?" "No", I said, "Washington". Her smile faded, she stared at me, she took a second or two, and then she said "I guess you are just out of luck".
"Do you think the time is firm?", I asked. "Yes", she said. "What was the problem?" "I think it is track repair work north of here." "Oh", I said.
And then came the clincher. She said: "I don't know why they don't build this into the schedule. This has been happening all week. Very regular." "When did they post the delay", I asked? "Quite some time ago."
I thanked her (it wasn't her fault, and at least she wanted to send me to Philadelphia) and walked away.
I looked at the board again, and saw that there was a 7 o'clock Acela, and a relatively short Acela line, so I went to stand in it. I did not know if I could make it, but thought I would give it a chance. Of course, an Acela is more expensive, and I figured it would cost me about an extra $75. Was that worth getting back into Washington at about 10 p.m., rather than 11:45? I debated. I got to the window (I had decided that if I got a ticket in time, I would take it, and if not, that God wanted me to wait until 8:25.) The woman took my credit card. I asked her how much extra the Acela was. She told me it would cost me an additional $96. I told her, even with the senior discount? She said that they had no senior discount (it is 15%) on the Acela.
I thought for a minute. They are 1 hour and 40 minutes late, and I am the one that pays an extra $96? That made no sense. I retrieved my credit card.
I looked at the board again, to see if the 1 hour, 40 minutes had changed. It had; now it was only 1 hour and 25 minutes. But then I saw something else; I saw that there was another regularly scheduled train at 7:35. And I saw that there was a fairly long, but not terribly long, ticket line, and once again I stood in it. This was successful, and I now had a ticket on a train leaving at 7:35, as opposed to my original train, now scheduled to leave at 8:10.
I would save 35 minutes, and I killed most of the delay.
But then I thought about my friend at the information kiosk. Why did she tell me I was out of luck? Why didn't she tell me about the 7:35 (which then would have bee n a 50 minute saving)? No answer for that one. At all.
I went back to the board. My 7:35 was now delayed. It would leave at 7:45. OK, I was still saving 25 minutes.
Then 7:45 came. And there was a public address system announcement that said that the train would leave at 7:45, but that the gate had not yet been assigned, and wouldn't be until the train came into Penn Station, which would be "momentarily". I looked at the schedule board. A new entry was placed next to my train number, where the gate reference should have been. It said: STAND BY.
A couple of hundred people were waiting for this train. We all stood by. And we stared at the screen. Not one person took one eye off it, for what seemed like decades. And more decades.
At about 7:50, the gate was announced, and we pulled out of the station at about 8. I was scared to death. By my measure the other train was only about ten minutes behind us. You can make up ten minutes very quickly. I was sure we would rear-ended, all the way home.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Happy New Year, 5768 (one cent)
From this morning's Washington Post:
1. Raniyah, Iraq. "For four weeks now, Kurdish villagers in this far northeastern corner of Iraq have endured a punishing barrage of rockets and artillery shells from what they say are Iranian troops across the border. The seemingly indiscriminate shelling has burned acres of orchards and grassland, damaged homes, killed livestock and driven about 2,500 people to abandon about two dozen villages."
2. Big Creek, WV. "Police said six people, including three women, held a 20-year old woman captive for at least a week. During that time, the victim, who is black, was beaten, stabbed, raped and tortured, all the while being subject to racial slurs from her white tormentors, police said."
3. San Luis Obispo, CA. "But as Navarro hung on, tension mounted in the operating room...With time slipping away, one of the transplant surgeons ordered repeated doses of the narcotic morphine and the sedative Ativan, jokingly calling the drugs 'candy', according to police reports. Navarro eventually died, but too late for his organs to be transplanted."
4. Corsicana, TX. "A 6 year old girl was found hanged inside her family's garage and had been sexually assaulted before she died, police said."
5. American military dead in Iraq now stands at 3,765.
6. Padang, Indonesia. "On Wednesday, a strong earthquake shook Southeast Asia, collapsing buildings, killing at least five people and injuring dozens in Indonesia."
7. Baghdad. "Two sergeants who helped write a New York Times op-ed article sharply critical of the Pentagon's assessment of the Iraq war were killed in a Baghdad crash this week, and one grieving mother wants the army to explain their deaths."
8. Somalia. "Thousands of children face starvation as attacks continue around southern Somalia, the health minister and UNICEF said Wednesday."
9. Arlington, VA. "For nearly six hours, a senior FBI official terrorized his Arlington County girlfriend, at times holding her at knifepoint in her closet, dragging her around by her hair and forcing a gun into her mouth in a jealous, drunken rage, police allege in court documents."
10. Fairfax Co., VA. "Authorities arrested 17 people in Northern Virginia and Maryland yesterday on charges that included distributing metamphetamine and trafficking in firearms, prosecutors said."
11. Fairfax Co., VA. "Police shot King sometime after 3:30 a.m. in the Dulles Technology Center...where they were responding to a report of a one car accident. Police said King pointed a gun at them, prompting them to fire."
And of course, there are articles about war in Iraq, about Iranian intentions, about bombs in Syria, and you name it.
Can it ever end? Look on page A10, the article entitled "Climate Link to Neanderthal Demise Abates", where a representative from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution says (based on new studies of marine sediment sampling showing that there was no major climatic change at the time the Neanderthals died out) "They survived 20,000 years of very unstable climate. Then when you add humans to the mix, they are gone...." This was 30,000 years ago.
You answer the question.
Shanah tovah
1. Raniyah, Iraq. "For four weeks now, Kurdish villagers in this far northeastern corner of Iraq have endured a punishing barrage of rockets and artillery shells from what they say are Iranian troops across the border. The seemingly indiscriminate shelling has burned acres of orchards and grassland, damaged homes, killed livestock and driven about 2,500 people to abandon about two dozen villages."
2. Big Creek, WV. "Police said six people, including three women, held a 20-year old woman captive for at least a week. During that time, the victim, who is black, was beaten, stabbed, raped and tortured, all the while being subject to racial slurs from her white tormentors, police said."
3. San Luis Obispo, CA. "But as Navarro hung on, tension mounted in the operating room...With time slipping away, one of the transplant surgeons ordered repeated doses of the narcotic morphine and the sedative Ativan, jokingly calling the drugs 'candy', according to police reports. Navarro eventually died, but too late for his organs to be transplanted."
4. Corsicana, TX. "A 6 year old girl was found hanged inside her family's garage and had been sexually assaulted before she died, police said."
5. American military dead in Iraq now stands at 3,765.
6. Padang, Indonesia. "On Wednesday, a strong earthquake shook Southeast Asia, collapsing buildings, killing at least five people and injuring dozens in Indonesia."
7. Baghdad. "Two sergeants who helped write a New York Times op-ed article sharply critical of the Pentagon's assessment of the Iraq war were killed in a Baghdad crash this week, and one grieving mother wants the army to explain their deaths."
8. Somalia. "Thousands of children face starvation as attacks continue around southern Somalia, the health minister and UNICEF said Wednesday."
9. Arlington, VA. "For nearly six hours, a senior FBI official terrorized his Arlington County girlfriend, at times holding her at knifepoint in her closet, dragging her around by her hair and forcing a gun into her mouth in a jealous, drunken rage, police allege in court documents."
10. Fairfax Co., VA. "Authorities arrested 17 people in Northern Virginia and Maryland yesterday on charges that included distributing metamphetamine and trafficking in firearms, prosecutors said."
11. Fairfax Co., VA. "Police shot King sometime after 3:30 a.m. in the Dulles Technology Center...where they were responding to a report of a one car accident. Police said King pointed a gun at them, prompting them to fire."
And of course, there are articles about war in Iraq, about Iranian intentions, about bombs in Syria, and you name it.
Can it ever end? Look on page A10, the article entitled "Climate Link to Neanderthal Demise Abates", where a representative from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution says (based on new studies of marine sediment sampling showing that there was no major climatic change at the time the Neanderthals died out) "They survived 20,000 years of very unstable climate. Then when you add humans to the mix, they are gone...." This was 30,000 years ago.
You answer the question.
Shanah tovah
My Four Questions for General Petraeus (14 cents)
1. If the policy was to withdraw from Iraq as quickly as possible, how long would it take, and how would it be accomplished?
2. If this policy were implemented, what do you think would happen to Iraq?
3. If your current policy is followed, how long will there be U.S. troops in Iraq?
4. If your policy is followed, how many more American soldiers or civilians do you think would be killed or seriously wounded before withdrawal is complete?
2. If this policy were implemented, what do you think would happen to Iraq?
3. If your current policy is followed, how long will there be U.S. troops in Iraq?
4. If your policy is followed, how many more American soldiers or civilians do you think would be killed or seriously wounded before withdrawal is complete?
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Zips and Sips
Dropping off my laundry this morning at Zips, I decided for the first time, to get a cup of coffee at Sips. A small cup of coffee costs $1.71. That is about what it costs to get an overcoat dry-cleaned! My last cup of Sips coffee.
I was surprised that all but one of the tables were filled (a la Politics and Prose) at about 10 a.m.
I am also trying to figure out the message on the Sips carry out coffee cup: "Caution, contents hot, and so are you!"
How do they even know?
I was surprised that all but one of the tables were filled (a la Politics and Prose) at about 10 a.m.
I am also trying to figure out the message on the Sips carry out coffee cup: "Caution, contents hot, and so are you!"
How do they even know?
Monday, September 10, 2007
Potpourri (78 cents)
Carry out tonight from Dahlak, an Eritrean restaurant located at 18th and Florida. Took out their vegetable combinations. Quite good. Second time I have gone there. Each time, I seem to have been the only non-Eritrean in the place. And none of their customers are female. But they are quite friendly. Maybe they see a new market in white males? I'll do it again. (The picture, by the way, is from one of the Dahlak Islands, off the coast at Asmara)
Stopped in next door at my favorite wine store to tell them how well the Rudi Wiest Riesling went with our dinner, and asked them to recommend a second Spanish red to complement the Razon which we like so much. They suggested Vina Rey, a 100% tempranillo. About $10, like the Razon, so we shall see.
Finally got to the Portugal exhibit at the Sackler. As usual, we went the day before it closed. A great exhibit, with separate sections dealing with Portugal itself, and Portuguese colonization and commercial activity in China, Japan, India, Africa and Brazil.
I started Manju Kapur's "Difficult Daughters", but on the first ten pages, I came across the following words: shor-shaar, chauth, uthala, aalu ki sabzi, mithai, pice, angan, sandhya, bua, beti, dai, puja, hakim, and allopath. Can I get through this book? I see what's going on, but I must be missing something.
Speaking of white panel trucks, every time I see one, I am sure there is some sort of terrorist inside. You may remember when the Washington sniper w
as running around and no one knew when or where he would strike next. Witnesses had talked about white panel trucks being in the vicinity of the shootings, and anyone driving a white panel truck came under suspicion. Well, it turned out that the sniper was driving, I think, a red Chrysler. Or something like that. There never was any connection between a white panel truck and the crimes. But that is of no matter, because the connection had been established in my mind. If I, the least susceptible of people, can have my mind twisted by this unimportant, short-lived suspicion, is it any wonder that prejudices develop against Jews, blacks, Hispanics, Arabs, or whomever? How can one be expected to shake them off??
Then, there was the weird comment in yesterday's Washington Post by a staff writer comparing the presumed disagreement between high level members of the Bush administration on the proper course to take in Iraq to "family members squabbling at a funeral". Huh??
Finally, as we all know, Labor Day is always the time that Washington's heat and humidity breaks. But this year it did not happen. Today it was an ultra-humid 90 something. Global warming? Can you judge it based on one day and one week??
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Over the Past Week (27 cents)
Over the past week:
1. We ate at home every evening. That hardly ever happens. And the food was very good.
2.
I ate at Eli's Restaurant Tuesday for lunch. One of the two kosher restaurants within a walk of my office (the other being at the JCC), it is not bad. It is a meat restaurant, and while the food is sort of ordinary, the menu is expansive, and the service very friendly. And the atmosphere is comfortable. Sometimes it is difficult for a kosher restaurant to seem like an ordinary place, and they carry that off at Eli's. I just had a turkey sandwich, so nothing out of the ordinary. But I also had iced coffee. I had asked the waitress if she could give me iced coffee and she said she could, but with an explanation that all that meant was that they would pour the coffee in a glass with ice, that they had no special "iced coffee". I told her I understood, and the coffee came with enough ice, in a 20 oz. glass, and was one of the best glasses of iced coffee I have ever had. Whether that was by chance, I don't know.
3. So, I read one of the stranger books I have ever read - "Lying Together" by Jennifer Beth Cohen. I picked the book up because it purported to be the story of an American woman and her Russian fiance, and the complications that arose in their relationship. Well, it turned out that the Russian fiance was American and that they were both journalists working in/and interested in Russia.
They were college friends (at an unnamed university, which I will call "Tufts") who lost contact with each other for about seven years, as each went their own ways, both being somewhat successful professionally and less than successful romantically. They reconnected by internet, decided they were in love with each other, and that she would move to Russia to join him, where he had been working for years.
The initial glamor of the relationship wears off, he turns out to be an alcoholic and manic/depressive, and she turns out to be a pill pusher, and she tells the story of how she tried to save him but how, after he tried to commit suicide, it became too much, how the engagement was broken off, and how she came back to the US and lived happily ever after.
The names were changed to protect the guilty, she says, and she was not going to allow the book to be sold or reviewed in Russia (a trick which she couldn't accomplish).
Her fiance came off terribly, and she not much better in my opinion, although her description of the lives of American journalists in the Russia of the 1990s (the reason I was interested in the book) made for good reading.
I decided to look her up on the internet; she now being a producer for CBS news as I understand it.
The first thing I saw, on the website of an English language Russia based web magazine, was a rant from her boyfriend, who trashed the book, trashed Cohen, said that everyone in Russia knew who the book was about and that he was more than embarrassed and outraged, and then went on to tell his side of the story, which was quite different but still made both of them sound like just horrid people.
Then I saw a conversation with a Russian literary reviewer who wanted to review the book and asked the publisher for a copy. The publisher said, no, that copies were not available in Russia. The reviewer said, what?, I can buy it on the internet. The publisher agreed this was possible, but that he hoped he wouldn't. Apparently, all this became big news in Russia.
At any rate, someone is now making (or has made) a documentary movie about the book (I admit that I have not looked closely at this flashy website), Jennifer got married to a guy named Michael Oko, and they both talk about the book and how wonderful their life is together, and......yuck.
3. Now I am reading Margot Livesey's "Criminals", which is the story of a Scottish investment banker who finds a baby in the men's room at a train station on his way from his London home to console his sister in Perthshire, and how he brings the baby with him and his lonely sister promises to turn it over to the authorities. And how the baby's mother's boyfriend, angry at the mother, decides to put the baby on the men's room floor, and go outside and see the mother's reaction when he tells her the baby has disappeared (a joke, you see), and didn't expect an investment banker to pick up the baby and put it on a bus, but decides to follow the investment banker and get his address for reverse ransom purposes. I am half way through the book. I think it silly, but I will continue to read it.
I bought "Criminals" and "Lying Together" (the ex-boyfriend titles his story of the relationship "Cohen Lies Alone") along with two other books that I have pledged to try to read, Manju Kapur's "Difficult Daughters" and Maxine Clair's "Rattlebone".
Stay tuned.
1. We ate at home every evening. That hardly ever happens. And the food was very good.
2.
I ate at Eli's Restaurant Tuesday for lunch. One of the two kosher restaurants within a walk of my office (the other being at the JCC), it is not bad. It is a meat restaurant, and while the food is sort of ordinary, the menu is expansive, and the service very friendly. And the atmosphere is comfortable. Sometimes it is difficult for a kosher restaurant to seem like an ordinary place, and they carry that off at Eli's. I just had a turkey sandwich, so nothing out of the ordinary. But I also had iced coffee. I had asked the waitress if she could give me iced coffee and she said she could, but with an explanation that all that meant was that they would pour the coffee in a glass with ice, that they had no special "iced coffee". I told her I understood, and the coffee came with enough ice, in a 20 oz. glass, and was one of the best glasses of iced coffee I have ever had. Whether that was by chance, I don't know.
3. So, I read one of the stranger books I have ever read - "Lying Together" by Jennifer Beth Cohen. I picked the book up because it purported to be the story of an American woman and her Russian fiance, and the complications that arose in their relationship. Well, it turned out that the Russian fiance was American and that they were both journalists working in/and interested in Russia.
They were college friends (at an unnamed university, which I will call "Tufts") who lost contact with each other for about seven years, as each went their own ways, both being somewhat successful professionally and less than successful romantically. They reconnected by internet, decided they were in love with each other, and that she would move to Russia to join him, where he had been working for years.
The initial glamor of the relationship wears off, he turns out to be an alcoholic and manic/depressive, and she turns out to be a pill pusher, and she tells the story of how she tried to save him but how, after he tried to commit suicide, it became too much, how the engagement was broken off, and how she came back to the US and lived happily ever after.
The names were changed to protect the guilty, she says, and she was not going to allow the book to be sold or reviewed in Russia (a trick which she couldn't accomplish).
Her fiance came off terribly, and she not much better in my opinion, although her description of the lives of American journalists in the Russia of the 1990s (the reason I was interested in the book) made for good reading.
I decided to look her up on the internet; she now being a producer for CBS news as I understand it.
The first thing I saw, on the website of an English language Russia based web magazine, was a rant from her boyfriend, who trashed the book, trashed Cohen, said that everyone in Russia knew who the book was about and that he was more than embarrassed and outraged, and then went on to tell his side of the story, which was quite different but still made both of them sound like just horrid people.
Then I saw a conversation with a Russian literary reviewer who wanted to review the book and asked the publisher for a copy. The publisher said, no, that copies were not available in Russia. The reviewer said, what?, I can buy it on the internet. The publisher agreed this was possible, but that he hoped he wouldn't. Apparently, all this became big news in Russia.
At any rate, someone is now making (or has made) a documentary movie about the book (I admit that I have not looked closely at this flashy website), Jennifer got married to a guy named Michael Oko, and they both talk about the book and how wonderful their life is together, and......yuck.
3. Now I am reading Margot Livesey's "Criminals", which is the story of a Scottish investment banker who finds a baby in the men's room at a train station on his way from his London home to console his sister in Perthshire, and how he brings the baby with him and his lonely sister promises to turn it over to the authorities. And how the baby's mother's boyfriend, angry at the mother, decides to put the baby on the men's room floor, and go outside and see the mother's reaction when he tells her the baby has disappeared (a joke, you see), and didn't expect an investment banker to pick up the baby and put it on a bus, but decides to follow the investment banker and get his address for reverse ransom purposes. I am half way through the book. I think it silly, but I will continue to read it.
I bought "Criminals" and "Lying Together" (the ex-boyfriend titles his story of the relationship "Cohen Lies Alone") along with two other books that I have pledged to try to read, Manju Kapur's "Difficult Daughters" and Maxine Clair's "Rattlebone".
Stay tuned.
Monday, September 03, 2007
Two Very Similar, Very Different Books (1 cent)
One is Ben W. McClelland's "Soldier's Son" and the other Arnold Zable's "Jewels and Ashes". Each was written by a talented writer, who was tracing the history of his family. McClelland's father was killed in World War II when McClelland was barely out of infancy; Zable's parents both lived into old age, but they were just about the only survivors of their family, most of whom perished during World War II. McClelland grew up in southwest Pennsylvania, coal country; Zabel in Australia.
I would recommend McClelland's book because he is a very good writer (he is a professor of English and English composition at the University of Mississippi). His mother's struggle to raise a family without a father, and his grandparents and greatgrandparents trials and tribulations in changing America, are not without interest. Small town life in the 1950s and 1960s holds some fascination. But at the end, I had trouble. I couldn't remember one family member from the other, and I had little recollection of most of the stories McClelland told, although I enjoyed reading them very much. But I did not come out of the book very fond of McClelland, so I really didn't care about his stories. For his family members, the book is of course invaluable. For his students, it is proof that their prof can write. But for me and you, I am not so sure. Perhaps I am not being fair.
Zable's book, on the other hand, tells the story of life in Bialystok and surrounding shtetls from before World War I through the Holocaust, and tells the story of the survival of his parents, who were able to leave before the real bad times began. His technique is fascinating. Like Jonathan Safran Foer, he took a trip to recover his parents past. Unlike Foer, he did find traces of their past lives, and did not have to make anything up. And, his trip occurred about ten years prior to Jonathan's, so that he was able to meet more people (speaking in Yiddish and poor Polish) who were alive at the time, although he did not meet anyone who knew personally his parents (some did remember his grandfather, who hawked newspapers and magazines in the main square for decades).
So you follow Zable geographically, and within the geography you go back and forth in time. This works so well in this book. You don't have the same geographic references in "Soldier's Son", and the weaving from recent to deep past, and from realative to relative is more confusing.
And Zable was working with a much broader brush. He was able to put together a detailed history of the twentieth century Jewish experience in Bialystok, down to the last Aktion in 1943, and the "liberation" by the Russians in 1944. So it becomes a book of historical, and not just personal, importance.
I found the McClelland book (published in 2004) on the outside table at Second Story books. The provenance of the Zable book is more interesting; I picked it up at a used book store in Rolla, Missouri, where it was sitting (and it had been inscribed by Zable to 'Freda', apparently a distant relative).
I would recommend McClelland's book because he is a very good writer (he is a professor of English and English composition at the University of Mississippi). His mother's struggle to raise a family without a father, and his grandparents and greatgrandparents trials and tribulations in changing America, are not without interest. Small town life in the 1950s and 1960s holds some fascination. But at the end, I had trouble. I couldn't remember one family member from the other, and I had little recollection of most of the stories McClelland told, although I enjoyed reading them very much. But I did not come out of the book very fond of McClelland, so I really didn't care about his stories. For his family members, the book is of course invaluable. For his students, it is proof that their prof can write. But for me and you, I am not so sure. Perhaps I am not being fair.
Zable's book, on the other hand, tells the story of life in Bialystok and surrounding shtetls from before World War I through the Holocaust, and tells the story of the survival of his parents, who were able to leave before the real bad times began. His technique is fascinating. Like Jonathan Safran Foer, he took a trip to recover his parents past. Unlike Foer, he did find traces of their past lives, and did not have to make anything up. And, his trip occurred about ten years prior to Jonathan's, so that he was able to meet more people (speaking in Yiddish and poor Polish) who were alive at the time, although he did not meet anyone who knew personally his parents (some did remember his grandfather, who hawked newspapers and magazines in the main square for decades).
So you follow Zable geographically, and within the geography you go back and forth in time. This works so well in this book. You don't have the same geographic references in "Soldier's Son", and the weaving from recent to deep past, and from realative to relative is more confusing.
And Zable was working with a much broader brush. He was able to put together a detailed history of the twentieth century Jewish experience in Bialystok, down to the last Aktion in 1943, and the "liberation" by the Russians in 1944. So it becomes a book of historical, and not just personal, importance.
I found the McClelland book (published in 2004) on the outside table at Second Story books. The provenance of the Zable book is more interesting; I picked it up at a used book store in Rolla, Missouri, where it was sitting (and it had been inscribed by Zable to 'Freda', apparently a distant relative).
Sunday, September 02, 2007
I'm Sorry, But Tuesday Will Be Too Late (3 cents)
The National Portrait Gallery of the UK had lent a large number of terrific portraits to the National Portrait Gallery of the US of A, and they are all going to be packed up on Tuesday. You will have missed a great exhibit of portraits of kings and mistresses, politicians and entertainers. I think I am going to get the catalog.
There are portraits of Henry VIII, Richard III, Queen Mary and Mary Queen of Scots, Victoria (in India looking quite rotund, working on her boxes), Elizabeth I (very big portrait, but not as big as the one of Judy Dench) and II, Churchill (understated), Blair (with very blue eyes), Thatcher (I am sure she likes this one), and more. Along with some pretty ladies (such as Lady Hamilton, Sam Taylor-Wood (yes, that's a lady) and _______, the most attractive of them all. There are several other ladies, reputed to be the prettiest of their time, who clearly were not.
Authors? Yes, including Oscar Wilde smirking, D.H. Lawrence sulking, T.S. Eliot (of course he was from St. Louis) in an abstract mode, Henry James looking very serious, Shakespeare (with an earing in his ear, but maybe it's not Shakespeare), Charles Dickens looking quite young and feminine, Charles Darwin looking very much the patriarch, and many others. Musicians? Yes. Actors? Of course.
Friday, August 31, 2007
A Commuter's Dream (one cent)
If only every day could be the Friday before Labor Day. I drove through the park today. It was virtually empty. As was the office garage.
But enough of that.
Let's talk about breakfast.
As I was having a good bagel and a bad cup of coffee this morning, I wondered why Pumpernickel's couldn't serve the quality and variety of coffees served at Cafe de Francesco in Barcelona. Why is it that even coffee shops, like Starbucks or Caribou or whatever cannot match what the simplest shops sell to drink in Spain? Why do the exotic drinks here need to be so exotic? And so caloric? And so big?
Then, I realized that thinking along those lines would get me nowhere, so I reversed gears and wondered why Cafe de Francesco doesn't serve good (or any bagels)? What do you need for a bagel? You need flour (they have that), yeast (they have that), water (they have that) and toppings or flavorings (they have those). Then it occurred to me. The magic ingredient is butter. The bakers in Barcelona probably cannot conceive of baking without butter, just like the coffee brewers in the US cannot conceive of a drink that can't be sold in a 20 oz. cup.
But enough of that.
Let's talk about breakfast.
As I was having a good bagel and a bad cup of coffee this morning, I wondered why Pumpernickel's couldn't serve the quality and variety of coffees served at Cafe de Francesco in Barcelona. Why is it that even coffee shops, like Starbucks or Caribou or whatever cannot match what the simplest shops sell to drink in Spain? Why do the exotic drinks here need to be so exotic? And so caloric? And so big?
Then, I realized that thinking along those lines would get me nowhere, so I reversed gears and wondered why Cafe de Francesco doesn't serve good (or any bagels)? What do you need for a bagel? You need flour (they have that), yeast (they have that), water (they have that) and toppings or flavorings (they have those). Then it occurred to me. The magic ingredient is butter. The bakers in Barcelona probably cannot conceive of baking without butter, just like the coffee brewers in the US cannot conceive of a drink that can't be sold in a 20 oz. cup.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
What a Difference a Day Makes
A few weeks ago, I picked up a paperback copy of a book I had never heard of, written by an author totally unknown to me. "Baghdad Express" by Joel Turnipseed. In the early 1990s, Turnipseed, a philosophy student at the University of Minnesota and a lance corporal in the U.S. Marine Reserves, was called up for duty in the first Gulf War. The book is, in effect, his diary.
When I first bought the book at Books for America, I took it next door to Soho's and looked through it while having a sandwich and Diet Coke. I found it appallingly bad. I thought it was poorly written, disrespectful of everything, profane, and not very illuminating. I put it aside and did not look at it again.
Until last night. For some reason, I decided to read "Baghdad Express". I think it was because I was tired and the book didn't weigh very much, it was only 200 pages long, and at least I knew what I would find and knew I wouldn't be challenged.
Last night (and still today), I thought the book was insightful, well written, and quite illuminating. I thought it formed a good complement to recently read "Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell. I would recommend it.
What a difference a day makes.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
There are interesting things happening today, but
I don't seem to be able to find time to deal with them on the blog. So you'll have to come back another time.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Thoughts About Macao
I followed a docent's tour yesterday on the portion of the Sackler Museum's extraordinary exhibit on Portugal's navigational exploits of the 15th and 16th centuries and their ongoing influence across the globe. Yesterday's tour concentrated on China.
In 1557, the Chinese granted the Portuguese the right to establish a community at Macao. This led to Portuguese rule of the Macao peninsula and nearby islands for 442 years, ending in 1999, when the territory was formally ceded to the Republic of China. The Sackler exhibit deals with trade, with religious missionary movements, and with the relationship between the Portuguese and the royal court in Beijing. Beautiful silks, extraordinary porcelains, maps and paintings populate the three exhibit rooms. A mixture of cultures, neither overtaking the other.
And, I recall Macao always being compared to Hong Kong, the British Chinese coastal colony, and always coming out second best (and nowhere near Hong Kong in glitz, prosperity, or in any other category).
Switch to 2007. Look at today's New York Times and the article entitled "High Rolling Right Past Las Vegas". Let me quote: "The $2.4 billion Venetian Macao Resort, scheduled to open here Tuesday, will give Sin City more than a run for its money. The Venetian has more floor space than four Empire State Buildings. The hotel's slot machines, baccarat tables, and other games of chance sprawl across a casino more than three times the size of the largest casino in Las Vegas. The 15,000 seat sports area nearly rivals Madison Square Garden, the convention center has a 6,000 seat banquet hall and the luxury shopping mall has three indoor canals with singing gondoliers; the Venetian in Las Vegas has just one.....But what is most surprising about the 3,000 suite project is that it is merely the first of 14 interconnected hotels being built here by the Las Vegas Sands Corporation....and the [overall] project is just the largest of a series of giant gambling complexes being constructed here in Macao, on the southwestern lip of the Pearl River."
So what happened here? What happened to the silk and porcelain? What happened to good old Catholicism's inroads on the Chinese religions?
And what's more, what does this say about the world? Think Darfur, think Iraq, think the entire Moslem world, think Cuba, think...... And, lest it be forgot, the country of which Macao has now been a territory since 1999 is Communist China!!
I cannot process this at all.
Random (3 cents)
I was shocked a few months ago when I heard that David Halberstam had been killed in a random automobile accident. He had been invited to participate in a panel discussion at Stanford and was, I think, being driven from the campus either to his hotel or to the airport when his car (it was being driven by a graduate student, if I remember correctly) was hit by another. Random. Very sad. Very unexpected.
But it is not only Halberstam. I read in this morning's Examiner the following brief article: "An Arlington man was killed in a two car collision when a sport utility vehiclae ran a red light near the National Archives on Saturday night, according to D.C. police. Brian Ross Russell, 48, was a passenger in a taxi travelling on Constitution about 8 p.m. Saturday when a 2004 Toyota Four Runner traveling south on Ninth Street NW reportedly ran a red light and collided with the taxi....."
Random. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere, anyway, I guess. But on Connecticut Avenue at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night in a taxi?
But it is not only Halberstam. I read in this morning's Examiner the following brief article: "An Arlington man was killed in a two car collision when a sport utility vehiclae ran a red light near the National Archives on Saturday night, according to D.C. police. Brian Ross Russell, 48, was a passenger in a taxi travelling on Constitution about 8 p.m. Saturday when a 2004 Toyota Four Runner traveling south on Ninth Street NW reportedly ran a red light and collided with the taxi....."
Random. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere, anyway, I guess. But on Connecticut Avenue at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night in a taxi?
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Sunday Morning
Sunday morning cannot be better spent than eating a bagel, drinking coffee and reading through the latest issue of the Biblical Archaeological Review. The September/October issue has two fascinating articles on the second Jewish revolt (the "Bar Kochba Revolt"), talking about the historical and archaeological sources, the degree of seriousness with which the revolt was taken by the Romans, and the degree of destruction which resulted. Not much in the way of contemporaneous reporting (there was no Josephus), but more and more discoveries on the ground substantiating the basic information which had been provided by Roman historian Cassius Dio.
In the Meantime (3 cents)
While procrastinating on detailed descriptions of some of the sights of Barcelona, I have not been wasting all of my time (or perhaps I have, depending on your point of view). Here is what has been going on since we returned from Spain ten days ago.
Books: First, I have read two books.
The one, not surprisingly, was George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia", his description of his time in Barcelona and environs during the Spanish Civil War. Orwell went to Spain as a journalist, it would seem, in 1937, but quickly decided the owed it to the world to enter what he hoped would be the first successful defeat of fascism (Hitler and Mussolini facing no opposition). He joined an Anarchist militia and spent several months in the mountains of Catalonia, freezing, starving, observing, ruminating, and participating in several minor skirmishes to try to divert the Franco troops from the real battlegrounds, such as the city of Huerca. He was one of a number of English volunteers, and he was seriously wounded with a bullet that went through his neck, and was lucky to have survived. After spending time in various hospitals, he was sent back to Barcelona, arriving in time for the street fighting that occurred there, all between various of the non-fascist groups, the "democratic" government, the communists and the anarchists.
He concluded that war was unpleasant, that the Franco forces were going to lose (so he thought), but that the communists and the anarchists would also be on the losing side, with the government forces in control, leading to more of a plutocracy or oligarchy than a true democracy. He felt that the communists, afraid of the egalitarian philosophy of the anarchists, were a reactionary, rather than a revolutionary, force, siding with the government against fascism. He felt that both communism and fascism shared many qualities, including extreme class inequality (in spite of the communists stated) and total lack of tolerance. Orwell was of course quite right in much of his thinking.
"As for the newspaper talk about this being a war for democracy, it was plain eye-wash. No one in his senses supposed that there was any hope of democracy, even as we understand it in England and France, in a country so divided and exhausted as Spain would be when the war was over. It would have to be a dictatorship, and it was clear that the chance of a workingclass dictatorship had passed. That meant that the general movement would be in the direction of some kind of Fascism. Fascism called, no doubt, by some politer name, and - because this was Spain - more human and less efficient than the German or Italian varieties. The only alternatives were an infinitely worse dictatorship by Franco, or (always a possibility) that the war would end with Spain divided up, either by actual frontiers or into economic zones."
You can imagine what Orwell would be saying about Iraq.
He wrote this book, by the way, as a relatively young man, shortly after his return from the country. "Animal Farm" and "1984" were yet to come.
The second book I read was William Golding's "Pincher Martin", selected because I had read nothing by Golding and it was short. Man against nature: like "Robinson Crusoe" or "The Old Man and the Sea", but much more ambiguous than either. Martin is shipwrecked of a British warship during World War II and swept onto a remote Atlantic Island. The book is the story of Martin's battle against drowning, and his fight for survival without obvious sources of food and shelter. The prose is dense, but very well composed and very evocative.
But then something weird happens, that no one knows how to describe. Two new characters suddenly appear in the last chapter. Other members of the British navy exploring the island. They find Martin's body on the beach.
The trick is that Martin is wearing the boots that he had taken off while fighting the ocean to keep from drowning in the first chapter of the book.
What does this mean? Where is the reality? Was his survival a dream? A post-death dream?
Questions, questions, questions. And Golding was certainly not going to provide the answer.
Movies: I have seen three movies. Only one, "Once", was seen in regular theater; the other two were seen as part of the National Gallery of Art's free weekend cinema program.
"Once" is a very uplifting and enjoyable Irish movie. starring Glen Hansard and Marketa Iglova. Hansard, the leader of the Irish rock group 'The Frames' plays a young man who, when not helping his father in his vacuum cleaner repair shop, busks on the streets of downtown Dublin, playing popular songs during the daylight hours, and his own compositions at night. Iglova, who in real life sings with the Frames, plays a recent Czech emigrant who is intrigued by Hansard's music and by Hansard and who is excited to learn his day time job, because she has a vacuum in need of repair.
The chemistry between these two very likeable characters is highly charged, and together they work on his music (she is a musician as well, and helps him put together a makeshift band - the Frames, I suppose -) and produce a CD. They borrow money for the production, and the recording studio director thinks that this is a big waste of his time, until they start to play and sing.
You can imagine what will happen next as this couple draws closer and closer together. But it does not happen. Their relationship is an impossible one (she has a husband, still in the Czech Republic, and a daughter), and he still pines for his old girlfriend, now living in London.
Nevertheless, the movie has a happy ending (if indeed it is the ending), as they go forward on their separate life trajectories. The music is good. And, believe it or not, not only is there no overt sex in the movie, but there are no bad guys either.
Once has won a number of audience awards at recent festivals. It was released this year.
The second movie was "Maskerade", a 1934 Viennese movie, set around the turn of the century, and centered around the Viennese elite and their highly cultured high life. The most famous portrait painter of the time is rumored to have affairs with the women he paints; the wife of one of the city's top surgeons who is the brother of the musical conductor visits the painter hoping for more than a painting, and, although she is painted on wearing a mask and a chinchilla muff, she is disappointed to learned that the painter is a painter and not a serial lover. But her picture accidentally becomes public, and a scandal must be avoided. Of course, the painter falls in love with a woman of a lower social class, who is the only person in the movie with deep common sense and have furtive romantic interludes, all sorts of family intrigue and even an attempted murder (along with a Enrico Caruso performing in Rigoletto under the not quite cuckholded maestro) occur, but again all live happily every after (or, I guess, until World War I breaks out).
A very different movie was "Miss Universe 1929", a documentary about the first Miss University, Lisl Goldarbeiter of Vienna, half Jewish and very attractive, and her first cousin and second husband Marci Tanzer of Szeged, Hungary. Tanzer, a mechanical engineer by training and an amateur movie maker, filmed Goldarbeiter throughout her life, and it is these films that provide the basis for the movie. They were put together, with a little supportive dialog from a very old Tanzer (90+), awfully. An interesting story, with very interesting movie clips, could not have been turned into a documentary more sloppily.
Educational Forum: Only 27 people by my count attended a workshop presentation on Friday at the Holocaust Museum on the subject of Kristallnacht and the reaction of the American religious establishment (based on religious media, press and airwaves) to it. The nine presenters were finishing a two week workshop program sponsored by the Helena Rubenstein Foundation. They were all scholars, and representatives of various religious denominations. There was quite a bit of interest in this presentation (as a scholarly topic, this is apparently fairly virgin territory), as the reactions (and the intensity of pursuit of action based on the reactions) were quite varied, and often in surprising ways. But I came out of it thinking, in a sense, who cares? Clearly, nothing helped.
Books: First, I have read two books.
The one, not surprisingly, was George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia", his description of his time in Barcelona and environs during the Spanish Civil War. Orwell went to Spain as a journalist, it would seem, in 1937, but quickly decided the owed it to the world to enter what he hoped would be the first successful defeat of fascism (Hitler and Mussolini facing no opposition). He joined an Anarchist militia and spent several months in the mountains of Catalonia, freezing, starving, observing, ruminating, and participating in several minor skirmishes to try to divert the Franco troops from the real battlegrounds, such as the city of Huerca. He was one of a number of English volunteers, and he was seriously wounded with a bullet that went through his neck, and was lucky to have survived. After spending time in various hospitals, he was sent back to Barcelona, arriving in time for the street fighting that occurred there, all between various of the non-fascist groups, the "democratic" government, the communists and the anarchists.
He concluded that war was unpleasant, that the Franco forces were going to lose (so he thought), but that the communists and the anarchists would also be on the losing side, with the government forces in control, leading to more of a plutocracy or oligarchy than a true democracy. He felt that the communists, afraid of the egalitarian philosophy of the anarchists, were a reactionary, rather than a revolutionary, force, siding with the government against fascism. He felt that both communism and fascism shared many qualities, including extreme class inequality (in spite of the communists stated) and total lack of tolerance. Orwell was of course quite right in much of his thinking.
"As for the newspaper talk about this being a war for democracy, it was plain eye-wash. No one in his senses supposed that there was any hope of democracy, even as we understand it in England and France, in a country so divided and exhausted as Spain would be when the war was over. It would have to be a dictatorship, and it was clear that the chance of a workingclass dictatorship had passed. That meant that the general movement would be in the direction of some kind of Fascism. Fascism called, no doubt, by some politer name, and - because this was Spain - more human and less efficient than the German or Italian varieties. The only alternatives were an infinitely worse dictatorship by Franco, or (always a possibility) that the war would end with Spain divided up, either by actual frontiers or into economic zones."
You can imagine what Orwell would be saying about Iraq.
He wrote this book, by the way, as a relatively young man, shortly after his return from the country. "Animal Farm" and "1984" were yet to come.
The second book I read was William Golding's "Pincher Martin", selected because I had read nothing by Golding and it was short. Man against nature: like "Robinson Crusoe" or "The Old Man and the Sea", but much more ambiguous than either. Martin is shipwrecked of a British warship during World War II and swept onto a remote Atlantic Island. The book is the story of Martin's battle against drowning, and his fight for survival without obvious sources of food and shelter. The prose is dense, but very well composed and very evocative.
But then something weird happens, that no one knows how to describe. Two new characters suddenly appear in the last chapter. Other members of the British navy exploring the island. They find Martin's body on the beach.
The trick is that Martin is wearing the boots that he had taken off while fighting the ocean to keep from drowning in the first chapter of the book.
What does this mean? Where is the reality? Was his survival a dream? A post-death dream?
Questions, questions, questions. And Golding was certainly not going to provide the answer.
Movies: I have seen three movies. Only one, "Once", was seen in regular theater; the other two were seen as part of the National Gallery of Art's free weekend cinema program.
"Once" is a very uplifting and enjoyable Irish movie. starring Glen Hansard and Marketa Iglova. Hansard, the leader of the Irish rock group 'The Frames' plays a young man who, when not helping his father in his vacuum cleaner repair shop, busks on the streets of downtown Dublin, playing popular songs during the daylight hours, and his own compositions at night. Iglova, who in real life sings with the Frames, plays a recent Czech emigrant who is intrigued by Hansard's music and by Hansard and who is excited to learn his day time job, because she has a vacuum in need of repair.
The chemistry between these two very likeable characters is highly charged, and together they work on his music (she is a musician as well, and helps him put together a makeshift band - the Frames, I suppose -) and produce a CD. They borrow money for the production, and the recording studio director thinks that this is a big waste of his time, until they start to play and sing.
You can imagine what will happen next as this couple draws closer and closer together. But it does not happen. Their relationship is an impossible one (she has a husband, still in the Czech Republic, and a daughter), and he still pines for his old girlfriend, now living in London.
Nevertheless, the movie has a happy ending (if indeed it is the ending), as they go forward on their separate life trajectories. The music is good. And, believe it or not, not only is there no overt sex in the movie, but there are no bad guys either.
Once has won a number of audience awards at recent festivals. It was released this year.
The second movie was "Maskerade", a 1934 Viennese movie, set around the turn of the century, and centered around the Viennese elite and their highly cultured high life. The most famous portrait painter of the time is rumored to have affairs with the women he paints; the wife of one of the city's top surgeons who is the brother of the musical conductor visits the painter hoping for more than a painting, and, although she is painted on wearing a mask and a chinchilla muff, she is disappointed to learned that the painter is a painter and not a serial lover. But her picture accidentally becomes public, and a scandal must be avoided. Of course, the painter falls in love with a woman of a lower social class, who is the only person in the movie with deep common sense and have furtive romantic interludes, all sorts of family intrigue and even an attempted murder (along with a Enrico Caruso performing in Rigoletto under the not quite cuckholded maestro) occur, but again all live happily every after (or, I guess, until World War I breaks out).
A very different movie was "Miss Universe 1929", a documentary about the first Miss University, Lisl Goldarbeiter of Vienna, half Jewish and very attractive, and her first cousin and second husband Marci Tanzer of Szeged, Hungary. Tanzer, a mechanical engineer by training and an amateur movie maker, filmed Goldarbeiter throughout her life, and it is these films that provide the basis for the movie. They were put together, with a little supportive dialog from a very old Tanzer (90+), awfully. An interesting story, with very interesting movie clips, could not have been turned into a documentary more sloppily.
Educational Forum: Only 27 people by my count attended a workshop presentation on Friday at the Holocaust Museum on the subject of Kristallnacht and the reaction of the American religious establishment (based on religious media, press and airwaves) to it. The nine presenters were finishing a two week workshop program sponsored by the Helena Rubenstein Foundation. They were all scholars, and representatives of various religious denominations. There was quite a bit of interest in this presentation (as a scholarly topic, this is apparently fairly virgin territory), as the reactions (and the intensity of pursuit of action based on the reactions) were quite varied, and often in surprising ways. But I came out of it thinking, in a sense, who cares? Clearly, nothing helped.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
And the results of the chocolate poll are.......
Totally inconclusive. Virtually a four way tie.
And the lesson is.......
And the lesson is.......
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Another Diversionary Posting (12 cents)
I am walking by Dupont Circle. Drivers entering or leaving the circle at New Hampshire, 19th or Connecticut are always dangerously confused. I am standing waiting to cross New Hampshire. The light favors the cars entering the circle from New Hampshire. There are three people on my side of the street, and about ten on the other side waiting to cross. A car stops, although it has a green light (actually a flashing yellow arrow, which is part of the problem). The woman waiting on my left waves at the driver, motioning her to go forward. She does.
I almost talk to the woman. I want to tell her that what she did was very dangerous. Even though the driver had the right to go, and the woman was waiting patiently on the sidewalk. Others, particularly those on the other side, might have taken the driver at her word, and started to cross on foot. The driver, undoubtedly at least somewhat confused, might have seen the waving hand and, without looking carefully to her right, might have accelerated. It could have been bad.
But I didn't, and she and I went walking separately, but in the same direction, until we came to Connecticut Avenue. Now, there were just the two of us. Now I am on her left. There is no one on the other side waiting to cross towards us. The light favors the cars coming onto Connecticut from the circle. But a car hesitates and in fact, the driver waves at us to go forward.
What do I do? I shake my head 'no', and wave the driver on.
My walking companion (who I am happy to say did not walk in front of the car) says to me: "I am glad you did that. People get so confused here. I wish more people would do that."
I didn't say anything (except for a muffled 'yeah'). I was too embarrassed.
I almost talk to the woman. I want to tell her that what she did was very dangerous. Even though the driver had the right to go, and the woman was waiting patiently on the sidewalk. Others, particularly those on the other side, might have taken the driver at her word, and started to cross on foot. The driver, undoubtedly at least somewhat confused, might have seen the waving hand and, without looking carefully to her right, might have accelerated. It could have been bad.
But I didn't, and she and I went walking separately, but in the same direction, until we came to Connecticut Avenue. Now, there were just the two of us. Now I am on her left. There is no one on the other side waiting to cross towards us. The light favors the cars coming onto Connecticut from the circle. But a car hesitates and in fact, the driver waves at us to go forward.
What do I do? I shake my head 'no', and wave the driver on.
My walking companion (who I am happy to say did not walk in front of the car) says to me: "I am glad you did that. People get so confused here. I wish more people would do that."
I didn't say anything (except for a muffled 'yeah'). I was too embarrassed.
It's Not About Me, But......
I talked to my cousin who told me that she and her husband had just come back from several days in Branson, MO (you might remember my earlier discussion of our drive-thru in Branson). The tourist center was closed, the man who owned the magic water fountain had died, the theater group they wanted to see was on vacation for a week, and the excursion train was not running. And she said that they had a good time. They did see Yuri Smirnoff (What a city!) and Chinese acrobats (the guys who spin plates??). And the temperature was in the upper 90s. Wish I were there.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
The Spanish Chocolate Countdown (one cent)
I brought four large bars of Spanish dark chocolate for my office. Two are Torres chocolates, and two are Valor Chocolates. Each are 70% cacao.
My experience with this type of chocolate (which I take for medical purposes only, along with my red wine) is that it is very bitter (this is what qualifies it as medicinal, I believe).
But, lo and behold, the Spanish chocolate doe not share this characteristic. It is not bitter at all.
The first chocolate, tried on Friday, was a plain Torres bar. It was very very well received. The second chocolate, sampled on Monday, was a Torres bar with filberts. You cannot believe how well it was received. The third chocolate, sampled today, was a Valor bar with pieces of orange rind. It was received well enough, but clearly appears to be in third place.
But why? Is it because Torres makes better chocolate bars than Valor? Or is it that the orange rind not only does not add to the chocolate's popularity, but actually detracts from it.
Tomorrow should tell the tale, when we sample Valor's dark chocolate with almonds.
I will report back.
My experience with this type of chocolate (which I take for medical purposes only, along with my red wine) is that it is very bitter (this is what qualifies it as medicinal, I believe).
But, lo and behold, the Spanish chocolate doe not share this characteristic. It is not bitter at all.
The first chocolate, tried on Friday, was a plain Torres bar. It was very very well received. The second chocolate, sampled on Monday, was a Torres bar with filberts. You cannot believe how well it was received. The third chocolate, sampled today, was a Valor bar with pieces of orange rind. It was received well enough, but clearly appears to be in third place.
But why? Is it because Torres makes better chocolate bars than Valor? Or is it that the orange rind not only does not add to the chocolate's popularity, but actually detracts from it.
Tomorrow should tell the tale, when we sample Valor's dark chocolate with almonds.
I will report back.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Initial Thoughts on Barcelona Trip - Part 5 - The Sights (Survey Course)
In nine days, I was able to do the following:
1. Take the Bus Touristic. THUMBS UP
2. Visit the Cathedral. NO THUMBS
3. Walk La Rambla. NO THUMBS
4. See the Columbus Monument. NO THUMBS
5. Visit the Museum of the City. THUMBS UP
6. Visit the Museum Frederic Mares. THUMBS UP
7. See Placa de Sant Jaume. NO THUMBS
8. See the Roman Wall. THUMBS UP
9. Visit the (possible) Sinagago Major. NO THUMBS
10. Go to the Contemporary Art Museum. THUMBS UP
11. Visit the Museum Picasso NO THUMBS
12. Vist the Textile Museum NO THUMBS
13. Visit the Aquarium THUMBS UP
14. Walk on the beach. NO THUMBS
15. Visit Gaudi's La Pedrera THUMBS UP
16. Visit Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia NO THUMBS
17. Explore Park Guell THUMBS UP
18. Visit the Fundacio Joan Miro THUMBS UP
19. Go to the National Museum of Arts of Catalonia THUMBS UP
20. Visit the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion NO THUMBS
21. Take a Side Trip to Gerona THUMBS UP
22. Take a Side Trip to Figueres, and see the Teatre-Museu Dali. MANY THUMBS UP
23. Go to the Saturday Flea Market. NO THUMBS
24. Go to the Sunday Used Book Market THUMBS UP
25. Take a Harbor Tour THUMBS UP
26. Do a Little Shopping
27. Wander Around
28. Visit the Diocese Museum
I did not get to do these things, which I wanted to do:
1. Go to the Geology Museum
2. Go to the Museum of the History of Catalonia
3. See the Gran Theatre del Liceu
4. Visit the Maritime Museum
5. Visit the Center of Catalonian Culture
6. Go to Palau Batllo
7. Go to the Palau de la Musica
8. Visit Fundacio Antoni Tapies
9. Visit the Monastery de Pedralbes
10. Visit the Royal Palace of Pedralbes
11. Go to the Caixa Forum
12. Explore the Castell de Montjuic
13. Go to the Archeology Museum
14. Go to the Ethnological Museum
I would also like to go to Montserrat (M and E went this time)
I don't care about the Wax Museum, the Chocolate Museum or the Museum of Erotica
1. Take the Bus Touristic. THUMBS UP
2. Visit the Cathedral. NO THUMBS
3. Walk La Rambla. NO THUMBS
4. See the Columbus Monument. NO THUMBS
5. Visit the Museum of the City. THUMBS UP
6. Visit the Museum Frederic Mares. THUMBS UP
7. See Placa de Sant Jaume. NO THUMBS
8. See the Roman Wall. THUMBS UP
9. Visit the (possible) Sinagago Major. NO THUMBS
10. Go to the Contemporary Art Museum. THUMBS UP
11. Visit the Museum Picasso NO THUMBS
12. Vist the Textile Museum NO THUMBS
13. Visit the Aquarium THUMBS UP
14. Walk on the beach. NO THUMBS
15. Visit Gaudi's La Pedrera THUMBS UP
16. Visit Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia NO THUMBS
17. Explore Park Guell THUMBS UP
18. Visit the Fundacio Joan Miro THUMBS UP
19. Go to the National Museum of Arts of Catalonia THUMBS UP
20. Visit the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion NO THUMBS
21. Take a Side Trip to Gerona THUMBS UP
22. Take a Side Trip to Figueres, and see the Teatre-Museu Dali. MANY THUMBS UP
23. Go to the Saturday Flea Market. NO THUMBS
24. Go to the Sunday Used Book Market THUMBS UP
25. Take a Harbor Tour THUMBS UP
26. Do a Little Shopping
27. Wander Around
28. Visit the Diocese Museum
I did not get to do these things, which I wanted to do:
1. Go to the Geology Museum
2. Go to the Museum of the History of Catalonia
3. See the Gran Theatre del Liceu
4. Visit the Maritime Museum
5. Visit the Center of Catalonian Culture
6. Go to Palau Batllo
7. Go to the Palau de la Musica
8. Visit Fundacio Antoni Tapies
9. Visit the Monastery de Pedralbes
10. Visit the Royal Palace of Pedralbes
11. Go to the Caixa Forum
12. Explore the Castell de Montjuic
13. Go to the Archeology Museum
14. Go to the Ethnological Museum
I would also like to go to Montserrat (M and E went this time)
I don't care about the Wax Museum, the Chocolate Museum or the Museum of Erotica
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Initial Thoughts on Barcelona Trip - Part 4: The Food (1 cent)
The last time I was in Spain was in 1972. I remember the food as consistently the best I tasted anywhere, in quality, variety and quantity.
I did not have the same reaction this time in Barcelona. I thought we had good meals, but most were not spectacular. Of course, we did not search out spectacular restaurants, but I did not do that in 1972 either.
Here is a rundown of our meals. Restaurants are either rated with a "thumbs up" (which means I recommend it), "thumbs down" (the opposite), or "no thumbs" (eat there only if you're hungry).
Cafe de Francesca. Our breakfasts were similar to those I remember from that first trip. Coffee and pastries. As I earlier reported, we had breakfast virtually every morning at Cafe de Francesca, just down the street from the Hotel Majestic. This is part of a chain (I saw at least two others). It is more atmospheric than a Starbucks (and yes, Barcelona has Starbucks). It has two rows of outside tables on Passeig de Gracia under umbrellas, small tables inside in a front and a back room, menus of various sorts on the walls (all in Catalan), and a long bar with inviting stools on your right as you enter through two arched doorways. Hint: service is much quicker at the bar.
Because of language, it was hard to know all of the choices we had. The standard coffee was espresso, of course, and you could get all of the varieties you could expect. It was quite good. You could also get coffee americano, which appeared to be two shots of espresso diluted somewhat. It was also quite good, and stronger than typical American coffee. There was a large variety of teas. H. had jasmine oolong most mornings. There were also wall signs saying that Jamaican (Black Mountain) and Costa Rican coffee was available, but I didn't pursue and don't know how that would be served; I did see that there were separate coffee makers for each. There was fresh squeezed orange juice, processed with a large juicer (which seemed to be standard in a number of restaurants in the city; why don't we have those?).
The pastries were of high quality, as well. Croissants (chocolate and plain), palmiers, muffins (magdalenas) and others which were familiar. And some not so familiar, such as a tartaleta musico, which had nuts and dates and raisins, as well as a little custard in a pastry shell, the pastis de poma (sliced apple over custard in a square phylo-like dough pastry), and the canya crema (elongated cream filled pastry).
At night, the cafe turned into a bar, with among other things, a variety of grappa flavors and limoncello, a lemon liquor from Capri. We stopped in one evening before going back to the hotel. There was a torrential rain that night and we were trapped in the cafe for more than an hour, along with many others (including friends from DC. Grappa never tasted so good. THUMBS UP
Agua. Agua is a beautiful restaurant right on the Mediterranean. There is a broad boardwalk over looking the beach, well north of most of the beach front restaurants in the former Olympic Village area. Agua is actually located under the boardwalk. There is a small modern, glass enclosed entrance at the boardwalk level, perhaps measuring 8 feet square. Just big enough to enclose the stairway going down. The main dining room is spacious, divided into a bar area and an eating area, with glass windows overlooking the water. Outside is a terrace that is, in effect, right on the beach. The guidebooks all say that reservations are needed, but we were able to get a table at an early hour (for Spain that is, about 8:30 p.m.), "as long as you will be finished by ten". In fact, we were not quite finished, but no one seemed to care. Two of us ordered the tuna, and proclaimed it to be about the best ever had (but they had not yet been to Bar-Mut - read on), one of us had a monkfish brochette, and one had a codfish confit (simply cooked, served on a spinach base). We were all very satisfied. As for as starters, we had a very nice mixed vegetable medley, fried artichokes, a tomato/pepper salad, and a standard arugala salad with shaved parmesan cheese. We shared two desserts, a Greek yogurt with strawberries, and figs with marscapone. We also shared a very nice red wine, Belezos Acuarela 2005. All the Spanish reds we had were good; this was one of the best. It was a tempranillo, from Rioja. [www.aguadeltragaluz.com.] THUMBS UP
Agua was an expensive restaurant, as you might expect. About $40 per person.
El Puchero de Baralantra. We stumbled upon this restaurant early in the trip. It is located a few blocks from our hotel in the L'Eixample section of the city. We had tried to eat first at Cervesaria Catalunya, a restaurant perpetually crowded (it must be the Lauriol Plaza of Barcelona) and then at a nearby Italian restaurant, but both were overflowing with tapas minded twenty-somethings, so we found a nearby restaurant that only had a few other tables filled.
The service was very nice and, speaking about grappa, we each got a glass on the house (two kinds, killer and potable) after our meal. The food was adequate, but this is not a restaurant that one would rave about. El Puchero promotes itself as a restaurant serving traditional food, using natural produce, and not following the latest trends ("because some things never change").
We had two main courses, a tuna in a pepper sauce and an Andalusian baby squid, along with gazpacho, and several plates of tapas: olives, two kinds of omelettes, a cheese tapas, potatas bravas, and others. THUMBS DOWN
The cost was a little over $30 per person, including wine. www.elpurcherodebaralantra.com
Ugarit. Ugarit was a very pleasant surprise. It is a Syrian restaurant (I think there are three branches) located in the Gracia section of the city. I had passed it one afternoon about 4 p.m. and it was filled, so I thought it must be good. We had a little trepidation about going to a Syrian restaurant out of this country, it must be admitted. Our waiter spoke English pretty well amongst other languages. I told him that his English was much better than his Arabic. He laughed. I am not sure he knew a word of Arabic (he was from Bangladesh).
I wish I could tell you what we had, but the receipt is in Catalan-Arabic, and my memory is not helping me. The food included fattuch salad (with tomatoes, lettuce and bread), fried eggplant with tahini, and shwarma. Perhaps some of my dinner companions remember more.
This was an extremely crowded restaurant. The price was under $25 per person. THUMBS UP [www.restauranteugarik.restaurantesok.com]
Sedna. Sedna is a restaurant in the harbor area, but not right on the beach. It overlooks a marina in the enclosed harbor across the street in the area that is known as Porta Vell. It turned out to be our most expensive meal, and although it was very good, we probably did have better at some of our other choices. The main courses were turbot, salmon, duck and scallops. We had wine and sangria to drink. We had three desserts, two tarts (one apple, one apricot) and an Italian creme (tirimasu). The meal cost just over $50 per person. NO THUMBS [www.restaurantesedna.com]
Celler del Trabucaire. After visiting Gaudi's Church of the Holy Family, we had lunch at a small restaurant nearby. E. had anchovies on toast, H. had tuna on toast, and M. and I split a large assorted plate of hot tapas, which included baby octopus, sausages, olives, salads, mushrooms, patatas bravas, skewered chicken and more. About $20 a person. NO THUMBS
Can Majo.
The last time I was in Spain was in 1972. I remember the food as consistently the best I tasted anywhere, in quality, variety and quantity. Can Majo is an old, well reputed beach front restaurant, where we had dinner with our friends, the K's, who were also in Barcelona. Altogether there were 11 of us. The food was very good, the outside table with the strolling magicians very comfortable, and a good time was had by all. About $45 per person. I had hake or, as it is known in Spain, merluza. THUMBS UP
Wembly. Wembly is a neighborhood restaurant where M and I had lunch. The average age of the customers was about 80, it seemed (M asked me if we had wandered into the dining hall of an old age home). The food was not great, but for what it was, it was just fine, and the quantities were substantial. We had fixed price meals at $20 each. I had lamb, M. had cod. THUMBS DOWN
La Polpa. La Polpa was a find. E., M., and I went there on a Saturday night. It is a very trendy restaurant in L'Eixample. They have two courses - no tapas. The walls are filled with bottles of wine and chic chachkas. We had cod, dorado, and chicken brochettes for our main courses, a vegetable tart, a cheese salad, and a tri-color salad for our starters. We split one dessert, a date and nut bread/cake topped by unsweetened Greek yogurt. Doesn't sound that good? It was perfect. The very nice wine was the restaurant's private label. About $25 per person. THUMBS UP
Farga. Farga is a combination restaurant/tapas bar/geleteria located just off the Diagonal, near Passeig de Gracia. We had dinner sitting outside (where they add 20% to the price), and had merluza and salmon, ravioli with spinach and chopped meat, and duck with hundred-year old sauce, along with gazpacho, and pumpkin soup f0r a starter. The wine was Cresta Rosa, a rose. The dessert was an appealing selection of small cakes. It was about $35 per person. THUMBS UP.
Bar Mut. Bar Mut was our last restaurant. We stumbled on it, and went inside. It is really a wine bar with only about 8 or 10 tables, plus seats at the bar. And the tables are small. And there is no outside seating. But this was perhaps the trendiest place of them all. With no end of bottles of different wines climbing every wall. There was no menu, just blackboards with offerings and prices (of course not in English). The servings were a little larger than standard tapas size, but not full meal size. We over ordered. We had absolutely delicious tuna. We had a spinach salad, we had a delicious steak with foie gras, we had large prawns, we had chicken with pesto. And we have wine by the glass. This is a well known establishment, it turns out, and the reviews all say that same thing. Extraordinary food. But, oh, those prices. Our tapas-like meal cost us $45 per person. THUMBS UP
Restaurante Quixote. This is a typical restaurant about two blocks from the hotel. We ate here the first night. Again, the food was not bad, but there is no reason to go back. Actually, I don't remember what we ordered, except that E., who was tired from the trip, just had a saladTHUMBS DOWN.
El Zorzal. El Zorzal is an Argentinian restaurant, also known as Gaucho. There are a surprising number of Argentinian restaurants (and Argentinians) in Barcelona. We had lunch there, and discovered that they served fish as well as beef. The decor was very understated; it looked like a place for workers, not tourists. It was a nice place for lunch. NO THUMBS
La Marona. When we got to Barcelona, it was about noon, and we asked the concierge at the hotel (well, actually, one of the clerks; there is no official concierge) and he recommended an upscale seafood restaurant in the Gracia section. We took a cab, and upon arrival realized that it was too upscale for lunch for four tired travelers, and passed. We started walking back and found La Marona. I remember that I ordered as an appetizer a dish called judias verdes. I know this means green beans, but I think it may also mean green Jew. Is that possible? E. had gazpacho and large sardines, which I tasted and thought only so-so. NO THUMBS
I did not have the same reaction this time in Barcelona. I thought we had good meals, but most were not spectacular. Of course, we did not search out spectacular restaurants, but I did not do that in 1972 either.
Here is a rundown of our meals. Restaurants are either rated with a "thumbs up" (which means I recommend it), "thumbs down" (the opposite), or "no thumbs" (eat there only if you're hungry).
Cafe de Francesca. Our breakfasts were similar to those I remember from that first trip. Coffee and pastries. As I earlier reported, we had breakfast virtually every morning at Cafe de Francesca, just down the street from the Hotel Majestic. This is part of a chain (I saw at least two others). It is more atmospheric than a Starbucks (and yes, Barcelona has Starbucks). It has two rows of outside tables on Passeig de Gracia under umbrellas, small tables inside in a front and a back room, menus of various sorts on the walls (all in Catalan), and a long bar with inviting stools on your right as you enter through two arched doorways. Hint: service is much quicker at the bar.
Because of language, it was hard to know all of the choices we had. The standard coffee was espresso, of course, and you could get all of the varieties you could expect. It was quite good. You could also get coffee americano, which appeared to be two shots of espresso diluted somewhat. It was also quite good, and stronger than typical American coffee. There was a large variety of teas. H. had jasmine oolong most mornings. There were also wall signs saying that Jamaican (Black Mountain) and Costa Rican coffee was available, but I didn't pursue and don't know how that would be served; I did see that there were separate coffee makers for each. There was fresh squeezed orange juice, processed with a large juicer (which seemed to be standard in a number of restaurants in the city; why don't we have those?).
The pastries were of high quality, as well. Croissants (chocolate and plain), palmiers, muffins (magdalenas) and others which were familiar. And some not so familiar, such as a tartaleta musico, which had nuts and dates and raisins, as well as a little custard in a pastry shell, the pastis de poma (sliced apple over custard in a square phylo-like dough pastry), and the canya crema (elongated cream filled pastry).
At night, the cafe turned into a bar, with among other things, a variety of grappa flavors and limoncello, a lemon liquor from Capri. We stopped in one evening before going back to the hotel. There was a torrential rain that night and we were trapped in the cafe for more than an hour, along with many others (including friends from DC. Grappa never tasted so good. THUMBS UP
Agua. Agua is a beautiful restaurant right on the Mediterranean. There is a broad boardwalk over looking the beach, well north of most of the beach front restaurants in the former Olympic Village area. Agua is actually located under the boardwalk. There is a small modern, glass enclosed entrance at the boardwalk level, perhaps measuring 8 feet square. Just big enough to enclose the stairway going down. The main dining room is spacious, divided into a bar area and an eating area, with glass windows overlooking the water. Outside is a terrace that is, in effect, right on the beach. The guidebooks all say that reservations are needed, but we were able to get a table at an early hour (for Spain that is, about 8:30 p.m.), "as long as you will be finished by ten". In fact, we were not quite finished, but no one seemed to care. Two of us ordered the tuna, and proclaimed it to be about the best ever had (but they had not yet been to Bar-Mut - read on), one of us had a monkfish brochette, and one had a codfish confit (simply cooked, served on a spinach base). We were all very satisfied. As for as starters, we had a very nice mixed vegetable medley, fried artichokes, a tomato/pepper salad, and a standard arugala salad with shaved parmesan cheese. We shared two desserts, a Greek yogurt with strawberries, and figs with marscapone. We also shared a very nice red wine, Belezos Acuarela 2005. All the Spanish reds we had were good; this was one of the best. It was a tempranillo, from Rioja. [www.aguadeltragaluz.com.] THUMBS UP
Agua was an expensive restaurant, as you might expect. About $40 per person.
El Puchero de Baralantra. We stumbled upon this restaurant early in the trip. It is located a few blocks from our hotel in the L'Eixample section of the city. We had tried to eat first at Cervesaria Catalunya, a restaurant perpetually crowded (it must be the Lauriol Plaza of Barcelona) and then at a nearby Italian restaurant, but both were overflowing with tapas minded twenty-somethings, so we found a nearby restaurant that only had a few other tables filled.
The service was very nice and, speaking about grappa, we each got a glass on the house (two kinds, killer and potable) after our meal. The food was adequate, but this is not a restaurant that one would rave about. El Puchero promotes itself as a restaurant serving traditional food, using natural produce, and not following the latest trends ("because some things never change").
We had two main courses, a tuna in a pepper sauce and an Andalusian baby squid, along with gazpacho, and several plates of tapas: olives, two kinds of omelettes, a cheese tapas, potatas bravas, and others. THUMBS DOWN
The cost was a little over $30 per person, including wine. www.elpurcherodebaralantra.com
Ugarit. Ugarit was a very pleasant surprise. It is a Syrian restaurant (I think there are three branches) located in the Gracia section of the city. I had passed it one afternoon about 4 p.m. and it was filled, so I thought it must be good. We had a little trepidation about going to a Syrian restaurant out of this country, it must be admitted. Our waiter spoke English pretty well amongst other languages. I told him that his English was much better than his Arabic. He laughed. I am not sure he knew a word of Arabic (he was from Bangladesh).
I wish I could tell you what we had, but the receipt is in Catalan-Arabic, and my memory is not helping me. The food included fattuch salad (with tomatoes, lettuce and bread), fried eggplant with tahini, and shwarma. Perhaps some of my dinner companions remember more.
This was an extremely crowded restaurant. The price was under $25 per person. THUMBS UP [www.restauranteugarik.restaurantesok.com]
Sedna. Sedna is a restaurant in the harbor area, but not right on the beach. It overlooks a marina in the enclosed harbor across the street in the area that is known as Porta Vell. It turned out to be our most expensive meal, and although it was very good, we probably did have better at some of our other choices. The main courses were turbot, salmon, duck and scallops. We had wine and sangria to drink. We had three desserts, two tarts (one apple, one apricot) and an Italian creme (tirimasu). The meal cost just over $50 per person. NO THUMBS [www.restaurantesedna.com]
Celler del Trabucaire. After visiting Gaudi's Church of the Holy Family, we had lunch at a small restaurant nearby. E. had anchovies on toast, H. had tuna on toast, and M. and I split a large assorted plate of hot tapas, which included baby octopus, sausages, olives, salads, mushrooms, patatas bravas, skewered chicken and more. About $20 a person. NO THUMBS
Can Majo.
The last time I was in Spain was in 1972. I remember the food as consistently the best I tasted anywhere, in quality, variety and quantity. Can Majo is an old, well reputed beach front restaurant, where we had dinner with our friends, the K's, who were also in Barcelona. Altogether there were 11 of us. The food was very good, the outside table with the strolling magicians very comfortable, and a good time was had by all. About $45 per person. I had hake or, as it is known in Spain, merluza. THUMBS UP
Wembly. Wembly is a neighborhood restaurant where M and I had lunch. The average age of the customers was about 80, it seemed (M asked me if we had wandered into the dining hall of an old age home). The food was not great, but for what it was, it was just fine, and the quantities were substantial. We had fixed price meals at $20 each. I had lamb, M. had cod. THUMBS DOWN
La Polpa. La Polpa was a find. E., M., and I went there on a Saturday night. It is a very trendy restaurant in L'Eixample. They have two courses - no tapas. The walls are filled with bottles of wine and chic chachkas. We had cod, dorado, and chicken brochettes for our main courses, a vegetable tart, a cheese salad, and a tri-color salad for our starters. We split one dessert, a date and nut bread/cake topped by unsweetened Greek yogurt. Doesn't sound that good? It was perfect. The very nice wine was the restaurant's private label. About $25 per person. THUMBS UP
Farga. Farga is a combination restaurant/tapas bar/geleteria located just off the Diagonal, near Passeig de Gracia. We had dinner sitting outside (where they add 20% to the price), and had merluza and salmon, ravioli with spinach and chopped meat, and duck with hundred-year old sauce, along with gazpacho, and pumpkin soup f0r a starter. The wine was Cresta Rosa, a rose. The dessert was an appealing selection of small cakes. It was about $35 per person. THUMBS UP.
Bar Mut. Bar Mut was our last restaurant. We stumbled on it, and went inside. It is really a wine bar with only about 8 or 10 tables, plus seats at the bar. And the tables are small. And there is no outside seating. But this was perhaps the trendiest place of them all. With no end of bottles of different wines climbing every wall. There was no menu, just blackboards with offerings and prices (of course not in English). The servings were a little larger than standard tapas size, but not full meal size. We over ordered. We had absolutely delicious tuna. We had a spinach salad, we had a delicious steak with foie gras, we had large prawns, we had chicken with pesto. And we have wine by the glass. This is a well known establishment, it turns out, and the reviews all say that same thing. Extraordinary food. But, oh, those prices. Our tapas-like meal cost us $45 per person. THUMBS UP
Restaurante Quixote. This is a typical restaurant about two blocks from the hotel. We ate here the first night. Again, the food was not bad, but there is no reason to go back. Actually, I don't remember what we ordered, except that E., who was tired from the trip, just had a saladTHUMBS DOWN.
El Zorzal. El Zorzal is an Argentinian restaurant, also known as Gaucho. There are a surprising number of Argentinian restaurants (and Argentinians) in Barcelona. We had lunch there, and discovered that they served fish as well as beef. The decor was very understated; it looked like a place for workers, not tourists. It was a nice place for lunch. NO THUMBS
La Marona. When we got to Barcelona, it was about noon, and we asked the concierge at the hotel (well, actually, one of the clerks; there is no official concierge) and he recommended an upscale seafood restaurant in the Gracia section. We took a cab, and upon arrival realized that it was too upscale for lunch for four tired travelers, and passed. We started walking back and found La Marona. I remember that I ordered as an appetizer a dish called judias verdes. I know this means green beans, but I think it may also mean green Jew. Is that possible? E. had gazpacho and large sardines, which I tasted and thought only so-so. NO THUMBS
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)