Friday, September 20, 2019

Coincidence

"Good morning, Doctor," I said to the excellent customer at the Bottom Shelf. He's usually there early in the morning. He knows what he likes and makes decisions quickly.


"What do you like best about shopping here," I asked him recently.

"This is a gold mine for the discerning collector," he said and added quietly,
"You know, I'm a dying man. But this is one of my pleasures."

"What?" I said.

"Right now—I'm all hooked up with leads to a Holter monitor. It's just a matter of time for me." He lowered his head back to the $.10 bookshelf.

"Is this a coincidence or what?" I said, laughing hard. I whipped open my loose jacket to expose the monitor dangling around my neck.

 "I'm wearing the same thing!"

No reaction from the doctor. It was an awkward situation—my jacket gaping and my impulsive words hanging in the air between us. It was a good time to stop talking but instead of shutting up, I talked more and faster.

"But I'm not dying just yet, I hope. Only monitoring my heartbeat to see if I have Afib. I thought it was routine." I laughed some more and waited for him to join me. But he didn't think it was funny as I did. He was somber-looking as he quoted Epicurus —the art of living well and dying well are one.  

I stopped laughing and said goodbye. I never know how to answer somebody who quotes.  

When I got home, I googled the quote to see if I'd missed something in our exchange and I found this statement which put words to my friend's frame of mind. Personally, I can't see the value of viewing all of your unfolding life as a prelude to death. And I don't get the notion of living and dying being of equal value. 

“You are a beautiful person, Doctor. Clearheaded. Strong. But you seem always to be dragging your heart along the ground. From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well. You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value."--Nimit in "Thailand” 
― Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

Cruising on the Okhotsk Sea

Earlier this year we cruised from Tokyo to Vancouver with a couple of Russian ports on the itinerary.

The Captain just now announced the temperature of the Okhotsk Sea is 2 degrees centigrade (36F), the same temperature as the air. I saw a lone hardy couple outside waddling along the deck past the window of the library where I’m reading and snoozing. They’re so bundled up with thermo-block padding and zero-proof stuffing, they look like walking bowling pins. 

The Viking Orion’s library, comfortable and warm, is advertised  as having been curated by Heywood Hill, a London bookshop owned by the Duke of Devonshire. Heywood Hill. Unconfinable, like dandelion seeds blown off a stem, the library is scattered all over the ship. Books are stacked by the swimming pools, in the bars, in every public room, in the restaurants. We don’t walk around this ship; we thumb our way around from glossy photography books and art portfolios to best sellers and leather-covered volumes of Chaucer and Walter Scott. Readers slouch against the bookcases, lounge in the leather chairs, curl up in front of the fire. 

Yesterday in our first Russian port, we took back-to-back tours in Korsakov/Sakhalin. After being tendered ashore, we searched for our bus, number fifteen, headed for the Chekhov museum in Yuzhno-Sakhalin. Past rows of shiny public buses, a beat-up greyish-white chariot awaited with our number on the windshield. The several hundred other people who were taking a cultural tour (statue of Lenin, war memorial, statue to commemorate the Korean diaspora) were escorted into public buses commandeered for the occasion. The twenty-nine of us who opted for Chekhov got the “Party Bus” so named by Victor, our guide and host. Inside, it was decorated with an explosion of doilies, an essential element of interior decorating in this part of the world. 

Victor, a tall handsome man, wore a thin Clark Gable style mustache. He had flawless skin, not a mark or wrinkle to be seen on his face or hands despite his fifty-eight years. A former history teacher, oil company worker, amateur wood carver and tour guide he was the best part of the tour. He knew, as he said, how sausages and politics are made and told us about his views on both—great conversation on the longish bus ride through the targa and past the depressing local daschas which have evolved during this recent period of prosperity from “dog houses” (Victor’s word) into cheap boxy kit houses worth half a million each (building cost). In the grey drizzle, the holiday houses looked as inviting as prison camps. 

Our first stop was the municipal sports complex/tourist trap for the toilet and big surprise—to shop a display of locally made trinkets. The toilet was a big hit (few of us were under sixty) but why did they think we’d be interested in nesting dolls and nesting Putins, ball caps with Korsakov/Sakhalin written in tiny letters (so it fits) across the bill and felt christmas ornaments made by the local children? I doubt they made a single sale as few of us have rubles and the ship doesn’t do currency exchange. It’s illegal for private citizens to exchange currency, so we were all at a stand-off. 

Back on the bus we leaned into our crocheted head-rests as we rolled through the plain town (lots of boxy apartment buildings, one fancy condo building for oil executives) onward to the Chekhov museum, a modern structure, and not as billed, the former home of Chekhov and his family. Oh well, we got the usual negative Russian greeting from three middle-aged ladies wearing aprons and half-barricading the way. Volleys of loud Russian ping-ponged back and forth between Victor and the women as we stood in front of a diorama of a ship’s prow splitting a foamy sea. A couple of stairs led to a real ship's wheel. 

Victor explained the loud volley was just the usual Russian thing.

“Whoever gets here/there first makes the rules,” he said, shaking his head. Whatever the argument, Victor with his princely bearing and booming voice won. The ladies retreated to the back of the crowd clucking their tongues and looking distraught. Our weak smiles were met with glares. 

“Climb the stairs (of the diorama) and play Captain,” suggested Victor, lightening the mood. We all shifted nervously from foot to foot dreading that he’d pick one of us to play Piggie. Thankfully, he didn’t and we moved on to view a manuscript, the only real Chekhov item in the museum, Victor told us. Then he launched into a few terrible anecdotes about the conditions in the Sakhalin prison which Chekov is famous for exposing. 

“They called them lamb,” Victor said, referring to the escaped prisoners, caught by the guards and cooked up for dinner. “What else are you going to do with them?” he asked with an uneasy chuckle. “There was no food around for hundreds of miles.” Victor made sure we recognized his sarcasm. Richard, unable to contain himself, baa-aa’ed softly in my ear.

We trudged through more dioramas of bizarre, inhumane prison conditions (the Russians have always excelled at imprisoning their citizens) and walked in the rain to the deluxe hotel next door for blinis and tea. After the cannibalism talk, we were starving and much to our surprise the food was delicious, but The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. A Chekhov expert followed with a forty-minute lecture, earnest but humorless and dull. She failed to paint any kind of picture of one the most interesting authors in Russian literature. We only heard the boring bits of biography—dates and more dates interspersed with the names of musty Chekhov scholars. Victor translated and fortunately editorialized a bit. The speaker would close her book as if the end was in sight and then open it again and continue. Victor said, “A Russian never means goodbye when she say goodbye for the first time.” Richard sat us in the front, right under the speaker’s nose, so my struggle to stay awake was on full display.  

At last it was over and we dashed in the rain from the party bus to number thirty-nine where Sergei, our new guide, was waiting. Educated in Korea by a professor from Tennessee, Serge shared his world view of things and sounded like the millennials do world-wide. He escorted us to a song and dance performance by a local troupe presented in an auditorium with the worst seats ever, well almost—the eleven-inch wide seats at La Scala still hold the record—followed by more opportunities to buy awful handicrafts, poorly displayed. Then came a round of public square and statue visiting. Our guide gave us a lot of interesting information about the Koreans on the island which piqued our interest. All you can ask from a tour. 
The theater seats were designed so that everyone had a head view.


Wet, cold and tired we were happy to get back to the warm ship where they greeted us with hot cider. We need the next two days at sea to recuperate before arrival at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Kamchatka, Russia. The weather forecast isn’t good so we’re happy we cancelled our fishing trip. What fishing trip you ask?...to be continued.






Thursday, September 19, 2019

La Scala

I'm back to blogging again after more frustration with fiction.

Milan, last year:
Boring photo of the ticket space

Looks calm but confusion reigned in six or seven languages
Getting tickets to La Scala was a more interesting experience than the actual opera, Alibaba and the forty Thieves, itself. We guessed, in a fightback against scalpers, the Italian government had installed checks and re-checks on buying tickets at the box office. We had to get on one list with our names and passport numbers. After a long wait, we were escorted to a machine where we were supposed to relist everything which would then allow us to get on the real ticket list. By tuning into other conversations and watching people, we realized we didn't have to check-in at the machine. Somehow we ended up in a group allowed to buy the really cheap tickets, eleven euros each. Italians seem to enjoy everything—even the lines and confusion had a good-natured vibe.

The tickets were terrible but even the best seats at La Scala for 250 euros aren't very good. We were in the nose-bleed section and could barely see the top of the curtains running across the stage. By standing up we got an occasional glimpse. The opera was awful...overture not bad, but everything else, mediocre. Our seatmate (we were almost in each other's laps) was a nineteen-year-old Italian kid, thrilled to be sitting next to two Californians. He'd spent a summer vacation in a house trade with people from San Clemente. At intermission, we said, "Ciao" to the kid and snuck out.

Here's a review by Renata Verga on the Bachtrack website:

 https://bachtrack.com/review-cherubini-ali-baba-academy-scala-milan-september-2018

At the head of the instrumentalists, conductor Paolo Carignani managed to get the sounds and the right tempi of a score that, after the brilliant overture, is often limited to supporting the singers in their melodic lines without turning into a tune to remember. Yes, the wisdom of Cherubini's writing is admirable, but one remains indifferent to the plot and to the two-dimensional characters on stage. Ali Baba is not a grand-opĂ©ra, but has its own dances, here wittily cavorted by young, some very young, ballet students in Emanuela Tagliavia's choreography.
Liliana Cavani, who took care of the staging, has clearly expressed her intent to relate the story in a very linear fashion, without opting either for the comic nor for the fairy-tale tone. The result was a visual rendition without a backbone which, even if it nods to contemporary taste – the library in which the four main characters as students read the folk tale and have their first love skirmishes; the getaway in motor-scooter in the finale – fall back on outdated staging and scenery. It does not put to use some twists of the plot, such as the procession of slaves with the treasures stolen by Nadir, which could have given a more theatrical touch to the staging. Meanwhile, the director trivializes other moments: why the need to show Delia having a footbath during her only true great aria? Also, one could have willingly done without the sight of the burnt corpses of the thieves during the cheerful and hurried conclusion.
xxxxxxx

Afterward, we stopped into the new Starbucks cathedral (no line at 9:45, just before closing), had a pizza and bought croissants for breakfast.

Mixed feelings from the Italians we talked to about Starbucks. They love their own coffee but most agree what Starbucks did to an abandoned post office building in mid-Milan is fantastic. And the Starbucks itself is a marvel, although still shaking out the opening problems.

I noticed the next day, which we spent at the Cathedral, that the garden at the front of the Cathedral square was donated by and being maintained by Starbucks. They are good neighbors. 

and more months.....

The trees are leafing out nicely. Instead of looking like broccoli spears, they're starting to look like trees again. Soon we'll have to start watering unless we get some early rain. 


We had a pleasant afternoon at the Bottom Shelf yesterday. A woman came in and bought books she intends to send to the Solomon Islands, where her brother runs a seafood cannery. If you've donated books recently to the store, they might be on their way here:








One of many interesting facts about the islands: Blond hair occurs in 10% of the population in the islands. This is the highest occurrence of blond hair outside of European influence in the world.  After years of questions, studies have resulted in the better understanding of the blond gene. The findings show that the blond hair trait is due to an amino acid change of protein TYRP1While 10% of Solomon Islanders display the blond phenotype, about 26% of the population carry the recessive trait for it as well.

Here's how the blond gene is expressed: 
School children - Solomon Islands


We had among our customers, a teacher who refused her discount. "You charge so little I couldn't think of it." And a woman moving to Northwest Arkansas who came in to donate a box of books and left with a good-sized bag of purchases. For book lovers, it's difficult to get out of the store empty-handed. 

Despite swearing we'll resist and leave the books in the store, I picked up two small but powerful books:

Has a great index:




A customer brought this book, Merde, to our attention and thought we should take it off the shelf. I rescued it from la poubelle (the trash) and flipping through the pages discovered a bit of historical language antagonism. One of the many French words for condom is une capote anglaise, (note that it's a feminine noun), literally an English cape or coat. Funny, since we (our troops overseas in WWll) called them French letters. Why? Because they were distributed to the troops in France in small envelopes.




















Nice to know about withstanding all climates and that they're British Made.

Donations were flowing in all day. The addition of credit card capability has had an impact on sales. Instead of putting books on hold, we get the sale! When people don't have the cash and say they'll come back, they often don't. Now we're capturing those sales on the spot, a big return for the small fee the credit card companies charge. The store is on track to earn about $88,000.00 this year.