Category Archives: books

Weather Most Foul: What We Saw/What We Didn’t

[The six to ten foot waves of the Adriatic Sea taken through the sea-splashed window of our stateroom aboard the Windstar’s “WindSurf”. Photo is mine]

Here I am sitting in a room of the Welcome Hotel on the Boulevard Saint-Germain in the 6th Arrondissement of Paris about to write a blog post on Milan, Italy. Not too many days ago I sat in a suite in a hotel in Como, Italy and thought about writing a post about Paris.

What does all this mean, my dear readers might ask. It means that a great deal has transpired since my last post, which was written in Como. Okay, fair enough. Bloggers have to plan ahead, don’t they? If this is as clear as the view from our window (shown above), then you can see things that I can’t.

We made two visits to Milan. The first lasted three nights. We wanted to explore the city but more importantly, Mariam was determined to see Da Vinci’s “Last Supper” which has been undergoing restoration for many years. (Leonardo had made a bad decision on how to apply certain pigments which he wanted to adhere to the plaster wall. It failed. The masterpiece began degrading within a few years.) It continued to decline in quality for several centuries (and even survived the bombing of WW II.) Now it has been restored as much as modern techniques will allow. I knew about the painting in a superficial way. But our tour guide pointed out aspects the Master used…and they took my breath away.

[The Last Supper. Photo is mine]

The painting depicts the moment when Christ said: “One of you will betray me.” Everyone of the twelve apostles has a different facial reaction. The figures are arranged in groups of three. The Vanishing Point is right behind Christ’s head. I won’t name them all (you can Google it) but I will say two things:

~~The man (first from Christ’s left arm) has his finger pointing upward. That is “Doubting Thomas”.

~~Judas (third from Christ’s right arm) is doing two things. He’s reaching for a piece of bread and he is clutching a small bag containing the thirty silver coins.

I’m not a very religious guy, but these details absolutely fascinate me. Perhaps I should have been an artist…but I can’t draw a stick figure without a guide.

After we viewed the painting, I decided that I could indeed make the walk back to the hotel. Besides, our route would take us past the famous Duomo.

Now, I had visited the majority of the English cathedrals over the years, but nothing prepared me for the detail, of the this Italian masterpiece of architecture. I was put off by the hordes of tourists (it was worse than Times Square after every Broadway play ends). Probably worse than a Taylor Swift intermission at Madison Square Garden.

[The Duomo (cathedral) in Milan. There are cathedrals…and then there’s this. This is not merely eye-catching, it borders on miraculous. Hyperbole? Perhaps, but I tend to avoid hyperbole. But I will note that my astonishment was so great that my head would burst open like a watermelon and all my brains would spit out my eyes. {This was borrowed from Maya Angelou.} Photo is mine]

We continued onto our hotel.

The following day, May 22, we took a tram ride just to feel like locals. We stopped feeling like locals when the #19 stopped so far away from our hotel that we needed yet another Uber. (Note to self: Buy a transit map).

On May 23, we boarded a train for an hours ride to Como. We found a small hotel with a great view:

[The view from our hotel in Como. Photo is mine]

The first thing we did was ride the funicular to the top of a local mountain. The view was very hazy so the photos are not worth showing here.

The next day we took a boat ride to Bellagio.

[An ascending stairway to additional shopping in Bellagio. Photo is mine]

Back to Como we found our hotel and its restaurant closed (no one told us). A thunderstorm broke. We made it across the square and dined at the Vintage Jazz Food & Wine. We both had Sea Bass.

The next morning we took yet another train back to Milan. We needed to do this because it was where the Paris train would depart at the ungodly hour of 6:25 am.

I was awake at 4:00 am.

All this brings us here to Paris where I’m sitting in the aforementioned hotel writing this.

Last night we attended the 9:00 pm show at the Moulin Rouge. It was quite a spectacular performance that included amazing costumes, a contortionist, two men who did the impossible act of one man holding the other on his head. I could feel his C1 and C2 cervical bones being crushed. I enjoyed a rousing rendition of the Can-Can, but I barely noticed the bare breasts of the dozen or so dancers. I was too busy rubbing my sore neck. Mariam had to tell me about the beautiful semi-naked dancers in the Uber on the way home.

Something Is Missing

I need to go back to mid-May and tell you one more part of our cruise on the “Wind Surf”. 

The highlight of the Adriatic segment of the cruise was to visit the beautiful city of Dubrovnik, Croatia. And this is where the lead-in photo at the top of the blog comes in. The sea was so rough and the rain so heavy that the Port Authority would not let us dock.

So, we missed this:

Dubrovnik old town city walls aerial view in a sunny day

[Dubrovnik old town city walls aerial view in a sunny day. Photo source: Getty Images]

A few days later, when were were scheduled to visit Capri, Sicily, we had chosen to visit The Blue Grotto. The cruise line cancelled that excursion (for reasons that are not totally clear to us). 

We missed this:

[Capri Island’s Blue Grotto. Photo source: Getty Images]

The last night on board the “Wind Surf”, some crew members put on a Talent Show. This is the only photo I took and shows our breakfast/dinner server joined with another server and performed a traditional Balinese dance.

[Suti, our server from Bali is on the right. Photo is mine]

What more can I say about the first major leg of our two month journey except that I’m in a hotel in Paris, hoping for the ice machine to be fixed, shopping at Shakespeare & Co. books and looking into booking an evening dinner cruise on the Seine. After all that sea adventure, why should I get on another boat?

To celebrate my birthday, of course.

Dorset of My Dreams

“Oh, to be in England…”

–Robert Browning

[The chalk coast of Dorset. Photo: Google Search]

It all started on a late winter morning of 1984. I was walking to my office at King & Low-Heywood Thomas School (KLHT) in Stamford, Connecticut. Walking with me was a teacher/administrator. She was going through her teacher-mail regarding microscope sales and Petri dish discounts. She held on to an envelope and after a few moments glanced at the contents, she turned to me and said: “Here, maybe you will find this interesting.” She handed me a letter. I took a quick look and put it on my desk. I had a first period class.

Later, after my ninth cup of Faculty Room Coffee I looked over the letter. It was from a business office in New York City. The company arranged Teacher Exchanges. I put it on my desk again and went off to meet with a student. As the Fates would have it, the British teacher who was seeking an exchange was right there in the office. We talked. He took the Amtrak to Stamford where I met him and took him to the school for a tour.

To make a long story short, this guy, Chris, really wanted to do the exchange. The Headmaster was not so enthusiastic. But, it all worked out in the end. Early August of 1984 found me on an late evening flight to Heathrow.

[Corfe Hills School, Corfe Mullen, Dorset. Photo: Source CHS webside]

A year is a long time to distill my experiences into a few paragraphs. Simply put, I had a few rocky days getting to know the ‘system’, meeting my colleagues, learning the names of my students and attempting to find my various classrooms. I was hired as a Geography teacher, a subject I love. I was happy. What was difficult was the number of courses they gave me to teach. I taught fifth and sixth form geography, General Studies and Religious Studies. They gave it all to me.

“Face it. You’re bloody irrelevant being here only a year,” some administrator told me on my second or third day.

[Last day of school. Two of my favorite students who helped me and gave me sage advice. Sally in the white blouse and Yzanne is to my right. Photo: Photo is mine]

I was never bored. When the weekends approached, I was faced with two choices (mostly): Take a hike on a Footpath in Thomas Hardy country or go to BritRail, buy a return and spend the weekend in a Cathedral city like Wells or Salisbury. I couldn’t get enough of the countryside, the dramatic coast of Dorset, the small villages that had little more than a pub. My ‘local’ pub was the Barley Mow. I can’t tell you how many pints and Steak & Kidney Pie I’ve eaten in that very old thatched building.

[A hillside with a copse of trees on the summit. Photo is mine]

I found some walks that went through some of the most picturesque locations. The sunken path below is near Shaftesbury. Madonna had a house nearby.

[One of my favorite footpaths. The trail itself is sunken about ten feet. Photo is mine]

The places I travelled are all marked off in my dozens of hiking guides. My personal best is a nine-mile walk that began in the parking lot of a pub called A Brace of Pheasants. I was exhausted at the end of the day. The Ploughman’s Lunch and two pints of Guinness helped me start out but didn’t help me finish. I had a Steak & Kidney Pie. It was a Sunday so I went home, took a shower and turned on Radio 4 to listen to a drama. Later, when I was a bit too hyped-up to sleep, I would tune to the station that carried “Prime Minister’s Question Time”. You can image how interesting that show was.

[Footpath signage. Photo is mine]

I have been back to Dorset many times since the mid ’80’s. I made every effort to share what my past was like by going on footpaths with Mariam. My favorite hill to climb is the Glastonbury Tor.

[Mariam on top of the Glastonbury Tor. Beneath her feet, King Arthur is said to await a return to save England. Photo is mine]

Mariam and I spent one Christmas (just before Covid) at a ancient northern Dorset pub called the White Lion Inn. A cozy room. A friendly bar downstairs and a garden eating area.

[The White Lion Inn. Photo is mine]
[A typical narrow back lane in Cornwall. Photo is mine]

Each trip Mariam and I make, we try to explore a different region. Above is our trip to Cornwall. We’ve been to The Lake District, Cornwall, Yorkshire, Dartmoor, the east coast and London, of course.

[Our close friends. They live in north Dorset. Anna is destined to be a great ballerina. Photo is mine.]

I’ve only picked out a minute part of the things I did while in Dorset. But, like all good adventures, I got a book out of it.

[So go out and buy yourself this book. It contains all my adventures (mostly). And it has color illustrations. A great holiday gift. Photo is mine]

Farewell Marcel

[Volumn #1]

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

–Marcel Proust

As I strolled through the Parisian gardens of Luxembourg I paused and watched the people absorbing the sun’s warmth which was peeking, like a cat burglar, through the sweet gate in the sky made possible by the slowly drifting clouds that often looked dark and menacing at times and light, dazzling and adamantine at others. I opened a package of Madelines I was never without and dipped one in a small cup of tea I had purchased from a portly gentleman with a bushy mustache and a pocket that sagged with the spare francs he had earned that day. The scent of the tea on the little cookie entered into my every senses. I began to think of my youth, the girls I loved who had by now become stately women. I touched my beard, newly trimmed, and could feel the grayness of my hair. I was old. What happened to all those Lost Years, the years of my older youth, my early middle age and now my late middle age? I had yet to taste of the fruits of old age with its wrinkles, gray hair and painful legs. I had yet failed in my attempts to rediscover the Lost Time of my life. My memories were fading and I must learn ways to regain the imagery and sensations of the questionable choices I had made in the heat of my youth when my blood ran hot in my veins and laughter came easy. But along with the cheers and smiles I am beginning to recall how hard and fast my heart breaks. I have loved but my love was too dear for the women I most desired.

I brought the Madeline to my nose again. I drew in an olfactory sensation that brought back my most elusive memories. I closed my eyes and somewhere, behind my eyes and between my ears were the smells of burning leaves along Front Street of Owego in the state of New York, the town where my childhood was played out like a Shakespearian play, sometimes a tragedy sometimes a comedy. The leaves gave way to the sweet fragrance of a newly mown lawn along Main Street. The old river town has changed over the years, I am told, into a boutique village of cafes and antique shops selling the latest of the old town’s ephemera. One can sit in the sun and watch the slowly drifting Susquehanna River as it winds its way to the Chesapeake Bay. Up on Cemetery Hill, the moss grows over the lettering of the graves of young men and women I played with in sandy baseball fields and snowy hills that seem to exist only to provide gravity to an eight-year-old boy on a sled. How many languid afternoons has seen me at The Fair Grounds, eating sloppy cheesesteak sandwiches and watching the horses race the oval track. On the back row of seats in the grandstand is where I may have tasted my first Madeline.

I shall set a goal for myself. Some people are driven by their need for achieving certain goals. Driven to do such picaresque actions these goals are sometimes achievable and sometimes not. Some people have the ability to set recording devices in order to never miss an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians or the Hoarders. Some set themselves on arduous journeys to summit Everest or Denali or the Matterhorn. Others will bike their way across Iowa. Many jump out of airplanes (on purpose) to feel the rush of the wind as they free fall a thousand feet. I set my goal several years ago (I’m not saying when) to read what is arguably the longest novel ever written (not counting the Game of Thrones books). I was going to read Proust’s magnum opus: A La Recherche du Temps Perdu or otherwise referred to in English as In Search of Lost Time. It will be a daunting task. The book (depending on the edition) runs from 3,000 to 4,000 pages. My eyes must look at and understand 1,267,069 words. The books are six in number. I must search for and find the longest sentence ever written. That sentence clocks in at 847 words.

I am proud and somewhat amazed that I have only fifty pages left to complete this gargantuan task. At times the book can be like sucking fudge through a straw. The exquisite power of the language, the depth of the writing, the scope of the descriptions, the insights into love, death, grief, loneliness, lust, desire and dreams of men and women. I truly believe that if one calls him or herself a lover of books, then reading Proust is a must do action.

I have read many books in my life (so far) but none of them can stand up under the blazing light of Proust. If you like challenges…read these books. You’ll never see another book, your life and your dreams and memories the same way again…ever.

[Proust had little need for paragraph breaks, commas and pictures.]

[All photos are mine.]

Of Time, Thomas Wolfe & Me

[The Thomas Wolfe House, Asheville, NC. Photo is mine]

“Each of us is all the sums he has not counted; subtract us into the nakedness and night again, and you shall see begin in Crete four thousand years ago the love that ended yesterday in Texas,”…

You, my readers, have no idea how long I’ve waited to use that quote in a blog or short story. Now, I sit in the 9th floor room of the Marriott Renaissance in Asheville, North Carolina. Just steps away from the hotel front door is Thomas Wolfe’s House. I can feel his presence. The quote puts into clarity the feelings I’ve always had about everyone’s shared history and the unbroken continuity of human relationships. I must be careful. I must be wary. Something I say or do, however small, will set in motion a chain of events that may not be apparent for a hundred centuries.

I grew up in Owego, New York, a small town in the south-central part of New York State. I am not ashamed to admit that I’ve had a difficult time coming to terms with the fact that that is not my home anymore. I’ve grown up and I’ve moved away. But something deep inside me tugs away and whispers in my ear: “You want to go home, don’t you?”

“A stone, a leaf, an unfound door; a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten faces.”

The spare, nearly naked choice of words…the sentiment…I’ve felt this too.

Many years ago Bob Dylan wrote these words:

“…she opened up a book of poems

And handed it to me

Written by an Italian poet

From the thirteenth century

And every one of them words rang true

And glowed like burning coal

Pouring off of every page

Like it was written in my soul…”

–“Tangled Up in Blue”

That’s the way the writing of Thomas Wolfe strikes me. The man knows me. He understands me. He has seen into my heart and he writes words that are usually just out of the touch of my fingers, on the tip of my tongue or just behind my eyes, or only in my dreams…on the rare midnight hours when I do dream. Dylan, of course, has the same effect. But this post is not about Bob. It’s about how Wolfe’s books reflect my take on life. The titles of his most popular novels are ones I would have chosen.

-Of Time And The River

-You Can’t Go Home Again

-Look Homeword, Angel

[The Angel. The inspiration for Wolfe. Now located on a private plot (not Wolfe’s) in Oakdale Cemetery in Hendersonville, NC. Source: Photo is mine]

I’ve read a fair number of books on the craft of writing and I’ve learned how the story arc is supposed to play out in fiction. The secret to almost all stories is the “Hero’s Journey”. Most, if not all, great tales use the common archetype: The protagonist sets out on a journey, he/she must overcome challenges (conflict)…the ultimate goal? To Go Home. Everyone wants to go home.

[Cover of a new edition. Source: Google search]

Examples abound: Dorothy wants to go back to Kansas, Odysseus wants to return to Penelope in Ithaca and most of the characters in Game of Thrones want to go home, wherever that is. For many years, Owego, NY, was that lodestone. And to some extent, it still is. I was happy growing up in that small river town. The cemetery on the hill. The river. The backyards. The children attending St. Patrick’s playing in the school yard. Standing on the Court Street Bridge and looking down at the Susquehanna River ice floes crash against the abutments. The autumn leaves that covered the Bluestone sidewalks. The smell of the burning leaves, back in the day. The snow piles. The smell of newly mown lawns.

It’s been said many times: “You can’t go home again”. In my late middle age years I went home again, to live. It was an act born of necessity. But, I found the adage true. You really can’t go home again.

But the urge surfaces every so often, when I’m not looking, when I’m not listening. The urge to go home.

In the end, though, where is home for me? I don’t know. Perhaps that’s the root cause of my restlessness…and my loneliness.

Some Awesome Suggestions for Awesome Summer Reading

If you’re smart you’ve been vaccinated and now, mask free. And it’s summer! Time to dust off your Speedo or your polka dot bikini and head for the nearest beach. The nearest beach to us is Lake Clear…about five miles away. Normally I would avoid going anywhere near water. This is the Adirondacks and the summer is under control of black flies, gnats and mosquitos. But I do make an exception for Lake Clear Beach. There is a constant breeze from the lake that keeps the number of biting insects to a reasonable level, whatever that is. One is too many for this less-than-hardy soul. But it’s nature, it’s the Northern Forest and we should all make an effort to become one with our environment.

But I digress.

If you’re like me, stretched out on a Walmart Beach Chair, staring at the cumulonimbus clouds building to the west can get a little boring. What’s the solution? Read something. I’ve collected a few can’t put down books to serve as a guide to help you wile away the hours on the sand. So grab your Visa card and iPhone and Google Amazon to order these literary gems. Ready?

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

This is truly an awesome book. Unique and very original this novel imagines the grief of Abraham Lincoln just after the death of his son, Willie. Much of the narrative finds Lincoln making mid-night visits to the vault where Willie is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery on the edge of Washington, D.C. This story brought more than one tear to this reader’s eyes. Totally original and awesome. Makes for a great bed time read as well.

The Captive & The Fugitive by Marcel Proust (Moncrieff translation) Vol. V of In Search of Lost Time

If you can get past the cover you will be treated to one of the Masterpieces of Literature. Once known as Remembrance of Things Past this translation uses the updated title. It is often compared with the works of Jackie Collins or Nora Roberts. You have to start with Volume I of course. There are six books that make up this awesome piece of literature. Volume V (the one I’m reading is a mere 1,000 pages. I looked at Volume VI and was relieved to find it was only 700 or so pages long. This is a contender for one of the longest books ever written. To be honest, it’s not a real page turner unless you enjoy reading thousands of pages of nostalgia brought on by the smell of a Madeline cookie. [Note: Do not read this book in hardcover when in bed. The weight will crush a few bones in your chest and collapse your sternum.] Look, if after a few thousand pages you find that this is not for you just leave the book on your coffee table or carry it to Starbucks and stare at a few pages. It’s a real chick magnet and will impress the in-laws. Walk around with any of the volumes tucked under your arm and people will make way for you and give you more credit than you probably deserve. It helped me on my dates with a gypsy (Romani) woman named Tanya. We read to each other, cooked a chicken over an open fire, drank red wine and talked of going to Oslo. It’s truly an awesome book.

Mosquito by Timothy Winegard

This is a totally awesome book. It contains a complete study of one of the most dangerous insects. Malaria wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t for the tiny mosquito. Me? I just find them really annoying. Reading it brings out the urge to scratch my knee.

Ned & Ashtabula: The Erie Canal Hauntings by Patrick Egan

This awesome writer has given us yet another novel to move your soul and scare you silly. The author deftly weaves a tale of the mysterious happenings along the Canal in the 1830’s. A coming of age tale with foreshadowing and scary scenes. The author uses foreshadowing, metaphors and gratuitous nudity to weave a tale of dread. There’s magic in this book. Demons and a pretty young woman compel our protagonist Ned, to come to terms with his past and to face the future with a new found wisdom. Another awesome book by this gifted writer and is available from Amazon (paperback and Kindle).

Essential Muir

We all love Greta from Norway don’t we? Well pick up this collection of writings by John Muir who founded the Sierra Club. Nature writing from the Master. It is truly awesome.

A Freewheelin’ Time by Suze Rotolo

We all can agree that Bob Dylan is one awesome guy. This memoir by the woman who is shown clutching Dylan’s arm on the cover of A Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan album. The book reflects the heady days in Greenwich village in the early 1960’s. It’s not a kiss and tell and avoids revealing the real Dylan. I could tell you more about this awesome book after I read it. Rotolo passed away in 2011.

So there you have it. A handful of suggestions from yours truly. Don’t blame me if you’re bored this summer. You could always go into your own lockdown if that’s your thing. Don’t forget the sunblock and have an awesome summer.