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Last night we ate at Sala Thai on Second Avenue. The highlight of the meal was shrimp in tamarind sauce with a special rice like a pilaf. Very satisfactory. Tonight we decided to go to a movie on the West Side. We took the bus to Columbus Avenue, then started walking south. At 83rd St. we found a bakery-cafe, called Columbus. It was modern cafeteria style; food was displayed in glass cases, you ordered, paid and took it to a table. We each had a selection of three salads and split a kind of cheese baguette. I had a roasted Brussels sprout salad, a multigrain salad and tuna with celery, raisins and apples. Renee had the Brussels sprout salad, lentil salad and sesame chicken. I could eat there every night.

After dinner we saw The Willow Tree, an Iranian movie about a blind man who recovers his sight (and loses his world). Good film, lovely views of Teheran, could have been better cinematography. Now we’re reading the Sunday Times.

New York, Day One

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It was raining and warm when we left Pittsburgh yesterday; New York was raining and cold: 63 degrees. It actually felt good after all the heat and humidity. Today the air was washed clean, the sky an intense blue with no clouds and it’s still relatively cool. I walked over to the Metropolitan early this morning. It was amazingly uncrowded. Usually there are so many people on the stairs it’s hard to get in.

The first thing I did was go up to the roof garden, which was still cool and peaceful. The air was so clear you could see details on the buildings on Central Park West. I took a number of pictures but I won’t be able to post them until I get home, since I didn’t take the necessary cabling and I don’t want to put too much stuff on Renee’s computer.

There was an exhibit of Frank Stella sculpture, heavy kind of aggravating stuff more suited to a blustery fall day. I walked through the new Greek and Roman galleries. They are beautiful, but, much as I hate to admit it, I’m really not interested in Greek and Roman art. I think it’s not so much a matter of interest as of stamina. My legs won’t hold out for more than a few hours at a museum so I feel I must make choices about what I will see. African art is located next to the Greek and Roman and I find that more interesting. Actually, there is so much African art it could be a museum all by itself. Also looked at a charming, small exhibit called One of a Kind: The Studio Craft Movement. That one could have been twice as large and I would have been twice as happy.

My legs finally told me they weren’t going much further so I walked over to the bus stop. I don’t know how many times I’ve been at that stop and never noticed the amazing aluminum art deco trim on the building across the street. That’s the wonderful part about New York: it is so rich there is always something new or something you hadn’t noticed before. (picture to come)

More Concert Week

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The first concert, Monday night, was all about jazz, with a jazz choir and jazz instrumental ensemble. Here is a picture of some of the choir. Dsc03140

They were great, as was the instrumental ensemble. Last night most of the vocalists in the program each sang a solo. In my first attempt at internet video, HERE IS CHARNA!

http://www.youtube.com/v/hNardXRCoBY

As she sang I kept thinking about another notable solo. She must have been seven or eight; she was part of a kids musical theater group. This tiny girl came out from behind a closed curtain, all alone, sat down on the edge at the left side of the stage and proceeded to belt out a song. I don’t remember what song, but I can still see her sitting there looking so alone and vulnerable I wept. She was completely confident and unafraid, unlike her silly grandmother.

Concert Week

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This is the last week of Charna’s precollege music course at Carnegie Mellon; Renee is here for the concerts. We’re running around a lot during the day, even though it’s way too hot, and we’ve been going to concerts each evening. More about that later.

Today we went to the Phipps and saw half of the Chihuly show. It was too hot to see all of it at one time–conservatories are not air conditioned. Yesterday we went to lunch with a Long Island friend of Renee’s who happened to be here for a convention. Then we went over to the convention center and walked through the wonderful water feature. Dsc03156_2
I think this is my favorite place in Pittsburgh. It’s dark and cool and cavernous; I love the feel of it as I walk through. I’m still trying to figure out how to make a tunnel book out of this image. That will have to wait until next month. On Friday, I’m going back to New York with Renee to  visit all of the friends I left behind. This is Renee taking a picture of me taking a picture of her.Dsc03149

Look Again

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I thought I’d try another look. I like the color better; can’t say I like the drawing at the top, but I’m limited in what I can do with this Typepad blog. So, I’ll try living with this for awhile.

New Look

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I’ve been bored with the look of this blog for some time now. I finally made the change; now I have to decide if I like it. One thing I like is that the center column, with the post, is wider. Of course that makes the two outside columns, with all of the pictures, smaller. If you have any thoughts on this, let me know.

Nostalgia

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I have been immersed in information about Japan as I prepare for my trip in October. Since I am not going on a tour I have to make all of my own arrangements. It’s a lot of work. In order to maintain the mood I decided to reread The Tale of Genji instead of the mystery potboilers I usually read at bedtime. The book has been on my shelves forever. What I did not expect was that it would open a Pandora’s box of memories and questions, or should I say forgetories.

I thought I first read the book when I lived in California from 1957 to 1959, where, largely due to the influence of a friend, Jean Rosenstein, I first became interested in Japanese and Hawaiian culture.  I had been interested in China since 1947 when I had a pen pal from Shanghai but it was impossible to think about China in 1959; Japan was making a great PR effort to reach out to us and seemed so accessible.

I clearly recollect discussing the book with Jean, but last night I saw that the copyright was 1960. So this discussion had to have been by letter, or perhaps on one of the visits we made to each other. We returned to Chicago in 1959 and a few years later Max and Jean returned to Adrian, Michigan, her home town. So now I want to know when we discussed the book and what happened to Max and Jean and their 5 kids who were mostly older than Robin.

I don’t usually look back. I have enough going on in the present to keep me occupied. And one of the sad things about getting older is that friends who were even older may well be only memories and questions remain unanswered.

Looking for the little things

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I went birding today with Carol, an enthusiastic birder. The lure, for me, was not the birds but the promise or wild flowers on a real prairie. Illinois may have had prairie at some time in the past, and a few years ago there was a campaign to preserve the last bit of prairie in the Chicago area, but I never saw it. Today was my big day: four of us drove out to Butler, PA to the Jennings Environmental Center, where we found both prairie and woodland trails and joined a group of experienced bird and nature watchers. There were no mountains and no broad vistas here. We began our walk on the prairie trails, so there were no beautiful stands of trees. I had to adjust my thinking and my point of view; to look at the little things. I wanted to photograph on this trip, to test how well my little digital camera would do.

As we started walking through the prairie the experts in our group identified bird calls, talked about the wild flowers and pointed out butterflies and caterpillars. We found a tiny plant, about a quarter inch across, called a scarlet cap, growing on a twig. On another branch we found this bird’s nest fungus. Dsc03125
Each of these little buttons was also no more than a quarter inch across. Tiny spores, less than a millimeter each, were the eggs inside the nest. You would be able to see them on the left edge of the photo if the focus was sharper. Although my camera is supposed to take close up pictures, I’m not entirely satisfied with the results. I have to try it again when I’m alone and can concentrate on what I’m doing. I’m learning about the camera, but I still don’t fully understand it.

Pictures from the walk are in the photo album labeled Jennings Prairie.


Healthcare, not insurance care

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I went to see Sicko this week, and also went to a meeting about single payer healthcare. I wasn’t going to go to Sicko; I figured it was preaching to the choir. I was amazed at how much he told me that I didn’t know before, and how it held my attention. As my movie rating system goes, this one gets top billing. I never thought about looking at my watch.

I’ve been fairly pessimistic about the possibility of getting single payer healthcare in my lifetime. Sure, I don’t need it: I have Medicare! But so much of our healthcare system is awful: wasteful, aggravating, totally irrational. Only the insurance and pharmaceutical companies benefit from our system. Even after seeing the movie, I wasn’t too hopeful. But the meeting I attended was overflowing with people, and most were committed to changing the system.

The internet is filled with information about single payer and universal healthcare. Jane Bryant Quinn has a wonderful article in this week’s Newsweek, dealing with the economics of a new system. Western PA has a website urging single payer for the state of Pennsylvania, and Healthcare-NOW is working on the national level. Take a look at this site for a comparison of the costs of the war in Iraq and what it would cost to cover everyone in the country. And for my friends who ask, "Do you want the government in charge of your health? Think of the post office," I can only reply, Do you want the insurance companies making billions of dollars from your healthcare? That money can only come from denying your needs.

Update

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Today was my last Chinese Conversation class. I’m really sorry it’s over. My teacher is beautiful and charming; she made the onerous task of learning a totally strange language into a great game. She was wonderful. I only learned a few words, but I understand the pronunciation much better–my goal. I find fascinating the differences in syntax and word derivation. Perhaps this will also help me tutor Shirley Sun, whom I am hoping to see again in New York next month.

My other Osher class, about Pittsburgh’s early history, was also excellent. The instructor has a real gift for explaining the events of 200 and 300 years ago in modern terms and making them immediately intelligible.

I still have two more sessions of the Asian Art class I’m auditing, then a month of vacation. I’ll be going to New York in a couple of weeks. I guess that will be a vacation within my perpetual vacation.

PS: I finally got that prescription.