View from Cold Spring (January 2nd)

Mississippi River Cruise

Through a series of unexpected events, my family and I ended up celebrating my parents’ wedding anniversary on an Elvis-themed cruise.  We weren’t quite sure what to expect, so I packed a few sequined garments "just in case" (you never know when you might need to blend in with a host of Elvis impersonators).  

We started in Memphis, where we toured Sun Studio - Elvis’s first label was the Sun Record Company - and posed for pictures in the old recording studio:

I also managed to sneak in not one but two visits to the Memphis Zoo before we embarked:

  

One of my favorites - river otters!  They roamed around, surprisingly, in a tight pack:

Serendipitously, a penguin went into attack mode just on the right side of the frame:

We also visited the National Civil Rights Museum, at the site of the former Lorraine Motel.  A wreath commemorates the site of Dr. Martin Luther King's death:

One highlight: an October 1964 journal with a cover story "The First Negro President: The Man" (described as "The New Bestselling Novel": 

Onboard, we were pleasantly surprised to find that sequins were entirely optional!  We saw no Elvis impersonators at all, but we heard an interesting talk by one of his former bodyguards (whose sister dated Elvis for a while), and most evenings, the musicians sang "Kentucky Rain" and other favorites.  

Stops on the way included Natchez, where we attended a program on “Southern Hospitality” at the lovely home of Regina Charboneau:

At Vicksburg National Military Park, we saw the USS Cairo, which was resurrected from the Mississippi River and displayed with the surviving portions mounted within a wood frame intended to evoke the vessel's original lines suggested (a method known as "ghosting"):

We learned a lot about the devastating 1927 flood, and some of the bad choices that made it even worse, including attempts by townsfolk on opposite sides of the river to undermine the other side's levees.  A PBS video (transcript) shown at the 1927 Flood Museum in Greenville, Mississippi highlighted the horrific local treatment of African-Americans during the flood.  They were pressed into service at gunpoint, and were forced to stay in a badly organized camp on one of the levees -- even after several boats came to evacuate them.

The smokestacks folded down when we went under bridges:

The paddlewheel, at night:

Elvis was everywhere!

Blast from the Past: Post-9/11 Numerology and Paranoia

In late September 2001, a friend forwarded me an item that had freaked her out a little.  I don't remember all the details, but someone had pointed out that "George W. Bush" and "The Pentagon" each had exactly eleven letters, and that the WTC attacks had occurred on the eleventh of September.

I immediately replied with a permutation of her name (first initial plus last name) which had exactly eleven letters.  Then I said:

Coincidence? I don't think so.  I'd better call the FBI "really quick" (another 11 letters) to help them "investigate" (oh no, another 11 letters - they must be in on the plot too!  AAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!!).

I signed off with a common presentation of my own name that also came to exactly 11 letters, followed by a quick postscript: "And in an odd coincidence, 'coincidence' has 11 letters too."

Blast from the Past - Japan & Taiwan 1988

To justify having kept my travel notes all these many moons, I'll post a few highlights (or lowlights) here.

July 7 - National Science Museum, Ueno Park

National Museum

More Kanji ...



July 14 - tour with volunteer Anglophone student guide, Yoko, an English literature major at a local university.

She told us much about the history of Shintoism and Buddhism, and about the monks and their lives.

 

 

Another lovely (and rather reassuring) memory:



 

July 14 - Buddhist temple; Horyuji

 

 

 

July 15 - Nara National Museum

 

I was apparently disappointed in the organization of the art in this first section of the museum because it was not at all chronological, making it difficult to trace the development of styles.  (Often, "an 8th century piece is followed by a primitive 2nd century piece.") However, I noted that "Many of these countries had art superior to the medieval European art by the second to sixth centuries AD."

 

July 20 - Kyoto to Kanagawa

 

We crisscrossed the station but ultimately managed to board the correct train with five minutes to spare.  Our ride on the Shinkansen was 2.5 hours long and apparently "livened by ... an enormous gilded Buddha visible from the train, and ... three young children and their permissive parents."

 

Toei Movieland

 

Highlights included "haunted house, samurai village, trick studio, and funhouse."  My mom and brother both enjoyed lifting up a "stone fountain" (actually made of Styrofoam).

 

July 21

 

This yakittori place was certainly "under the radar" for us outsiders -- it could easily have been a private residence, as it offered no glimpse of the interior, and no hint of its purpose.  Tourist-oriented venues typically had an English word (such as "restaurant") on display, or plastic food dishes in the window, or at least images of food.  This was a relatively low-key, high-class establishment. The owner seemed to be pleased we found our way in, and absolutely doted on my brother.  He brought us watermelon for dessert (which we did not order) and gave my brother a wooden sake box to take home. As I recall, there was only one other table occupied; it was a group of Japanese businessmen.  They'd been drinking, and one of them stopped by to say initially something along the lines of it's a shame how that last war turned out; we should do it again and have it come out right this time.  I was rather shocked.  On his way back from the bathroom, he explained that he was joking.  He (and perhaps one or two of his associates) joined us for a while.

 

Taipei -National Palace Museum

 

 

 

* * *

 

Coda

 

Sadly, when we returned home, we learned - when going through the stacks of mail - that my grandmother had died.  My grandfather had, in his rationalist manner, decided not to interrupt our vacation, and the cremation had taken place promptly and without ceremony.  There was no memorial service.  He was even angry with her for a while, for not clinging on to life and triumphing over illness through sheer force of will; he claimed that she had gotten everything she wanted from the marriage (two fine sons, grandchildren, a golden wedding anniversary), and then left him.

 



NYC 4Q2015 Miscellany

A few small highlights from the fourth quarter of 2015 in NYC:

• December 19 - Oh, What Fun! A Philharmonic Holiday at Lincoln Center, with Amanda, Kat, Carolyn, Pat, and Helen.
• "I'll Be Home for Christmas" - with ASL coming in as a round / harmony / counterpoint.  The phrase "only in my dreams" is punctuated with fingers opening above the head
• "Sleigh Ride" - nice horsey touches! A neigh at the end, and a metal puppet horse head appears from the back of the orchestra.
• Supposedly Mariah Carey's All I want for Christmas is you is the THE most requested Christmas song?!
• Wonderful arrangement of "Happy Holiday" (Berlin, 1942) and "Happy" (Pharrell Williams, 2013) by O. Eldor
• Conductor Courtney Lewis's introduction to an excerpt from Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel: "While their mom and dad are off to accept their 'Parent of the Year' award..."
• Eric Owens, bass-baritone, performing "You're a Mean One, Mr Grinch" with relish!
• NYCGMC came back in, filling the aisles as well as the stage, for the Christmas Carol Sing-Along
• November 20 - An evening in honor of CJ Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948) - featuring three Chief Judges (SCOTUS - John Roberts; CTA2 - Katzmann; COA - Lippman)
• Lots of references to Hughes's trademark facial hair  by three clean-shaven chief judges.
• All white men.  Hmm.
• CJ Roberts was the most impressive of the lot, very funny.  And he shone in the interview skirmish with CJ Katzmann (who seemed to try to trip him up a few times; Roberts deftly dodged the traps and teased him a bit, e.g. by using the commonplace term "lower courts" followed by a quick "no offense intended" and then a suggestion that the term "lower" court was actually a gentle euphemism for the term "inferior courts" found in the U.S. Constitution)
• Roberts claimed that the famous "switch in time that saved nine" was not, in fact, the reason the court-packing scheme came to naught.  His take was that the savvy CJ Hughes played his cards well against a popular President, by attacking the fig leaves of rationale Roosevelt had offered to conceal his naked power grab.  So, before the legislature, Hughes noted that if the concern was that the 9 old men of SCOTUS had a backlog or weren't getting through things quickly enough, adding more justices actually wouldn't help - since they operate by deliberating together, getting more judges would only add more views and more debate would only slow things down.  (I think he also tried to show why the so-called backlog was not, in fact, a backlog, but I don't remember the details on that.)
• Roberts focused on how politically connected the Supreme Court Justices were, back in the day.  Indeed, early on the justices might have past and future government posts; SCOTUS was not necessarily the capstone to a career.  Hughes could pass up an initial shot at the Supreme Court to be Governor of New York, in order to wait for an appointment where he could be CJ rather than a mere associate.  (It was in this context - and talking about the diplomatic skills needed for CJ - that Katzmann asked "innocently" whether background as US Secretary of State would be helpful  for a Chief Justice; no one mentioned Hillary Clinton by name, but the audience could appreciate the game here.)
• Roberts also talked about how clerking for Rehnquist exposed him to a particular Swedish-Russian war that Rehnquist was really keen on (Rehnquist and the Russian CJ apparently loved talking about it)... And so when Roberts met his Russian counterpart, he was able to dazzle him by casually offering an opinion about some particular strategic errors in an "obscure" battle.
• Anna Bolena - October 5 at Lincoln Center.  I splurged on this, tickets right up front in the Orchestra.  I was very excited about it, but the Opera Curse struck me toward the end and my eyelids became very heavy until the finale.

Untitled

Elementary school:

Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.
-- Tennyson, "Charge of the Light Brigade"

College:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
-- Shakespeare, "Henry V" act III scene 1 

Post-grad:

Hyġe sceal þȳ heardra,    heorte þȳ cēnre,
mōd sceal þȳ māre     þȳ ūre mæġen lȳtlaþ.
-- "Battle of Maldon"

Study Break

As far as I'm concerned, studying Anglo-Saxon has not exactly been a walk in the park.  But I took a break from cramming for the final exam to enjoy a few signs warning me of thin ice.  

Ice so thin it is not even discernible...

Hudson River & the Cornish Estate

Hike with CLN, 6.61 miles: Washburn (w) > Notch (b) > Brook (r) > Cornish

So the usual hike - but we tried a new restaurant afterward.  It was not as good as Le Bouchon.

Autumnal Scenes - Hudson Valley

I did 6.32 miles: Undercliff (y) > Brook (r) > Cornish (b)

I hadn't brought any food, but Bruce was kind enough to give me a granola bar and banana.  The problem with sitting down to eat was that it gave me a chance to realize I had no energy or enthusiasm for the rest of the contemplated "figure 8" hike.  So we split up at the bridge; I took the easy exit just before the hard slog began.

High Line

Probably the biggest highlight of the Faith & Work conference, for me, was its proximity to an entrance to the High Line.  So I was able to wander there before the program and during breaks.  It was surprisingly crowded with tourists - or maybe not so surprising for a clement autumn Saturday.

Graffiti in the Sky

Virgin Wall with Metal "Graffiti" Sculpture

Running Fountain - for those hot autumn days?

Ivy Halls with TV Dish

I really liked two of the speakers at the conference - both on Friday night's program, as it turned out.  And one of the people I met Saturday had an interesting gig - he had apparently transformed his career based on a prior CFW conference, when he decided to stop focusing on his own advancement and look for ways to try to meet the world's needs through his work.  (He works for the biggest grocery company in Canada, and apparently came up with an innovative approach to bring more fresh produce to the masses conveniently and economically. This ended up being profitable for the company - new market segment! - and advantageous to his career.  Yay!  Everybody wins!)