I'm having a grand time re-reading the works of H.H.Munro ("Saki"). His Edwardian sensibilities and sardonic humor are just the sort of qualities I enjoy in his fiction. Their admirable brevity, too, of course.
Novels are fine, but to really 'get into' a novel, when reading just a chapter is likely nowadays to put me to sleep, seems to me too big an investment in time. Or so it would appear, for the nonce, while we're at home, with a myriad little chores to attend to. On an ocean cruise, yes, novels would be just the thing. (It could just be a case of the old attention span getting shorter with age, ja?)
Lately I've taken to resurrecting the great masters of the short story from their resting-places in my library -- Jorge Luis Borges, and Antonio Tabucchi; once in a while Alberto Moravia; Richard Yates, Andre Dubus, and Raymond Carver; John Updike's early stuff; and my favorite at college, Donald Barthelme.
I am putting aside Chekhov and de Maupassant for the time being. Will get back to them later, along with James Joyce's 'Dubliners'.
A compendium of images - most original, some not - words, and links, sometimes musical, gathered for the exclusive enjoyment of friends and relatives, some old, and some new.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Mozart & A Bad Cough
Today is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
I'm feeling better after having been laid low by bronchitis this past week. The cough has not yet subsided completely, but it is now not half as severe as it was two or three days ago, when each bark that emerged from my midsection sounded like the dying bellow of some prehistoric beast in a deep cave.
The weather has been mostly fine, though a bit cold for my taste, and there have been spells of rain.
Hope I shall be able to resume my morning walks before long.
* * * * *
I'm feeling better after having been laid low by bronchitis this past week. The cough has not yet subsided completely, but it is now not half as severe as it was two or three days ago, when each bark that emerged from my midsection sounded like the dying bellow of some prehistoric beast in a deep cave.
The weather has been mostly fine, though a bit cold for my taste, and there have been spells of rain.
Hope I shall be able to resume my morning walks before long.
* * * * *
Ketchup bottles nowadays are plastic, and some of them come upside-down, with the flip-top as the bottle's base. It's actually quite a sensible design, this upside-down bottle, for it saves the user the trouble of having to pound on the bottle (especially a half-empty one) to get the ketchup out. Mustard, sandwich spread, and mayonnaise containers have also taken on the upside-down configuration, and others are bound to follow suit.
This is the kind of ergonomic thinking ("outside the box", to use the currently fashionable cliché) that is the hallmark of American innovativeness in packaging.Monday, January 23, 2006
Television Viewing
Finally, finally our big-screen TV is fully installed, after today's running of the speaker wires under the house and to the back of the room for the surround speakers. The wires are now hidden from view (before today they lay under the carpet). The entire project has taken several months from start to finish, partly due to the delayed arrival of certain electronic components, and partly to the busy work schedules of the parties involved.
Meanwhile we have been enjoying the television and the excellent audio system, although mainly in the simple viewing of cable news channels rather than of rented movies, which is what we had originally intended the system to be used for.
We do not yet subscribe to high-definition TV, but will do so before long, as our friends tell us there is a significant improvement in the image quality.
Television viewing in general is an activity that is better appreciated with age. Nowadays there are so many channels, broadcast, cable, and satellite, not to mention pay-per-view and other premium offerings, that it really is overkill.
Time was when we would sit quietly of an evening after supper to listen to music on the stereo. Seldom do we do that these days. There always seems to be something interesting on television to trump the stereo. Besides, a person can now listen to high quality music via the computer speakers if so inclined.
The times they are a-changing.
* * *
I notice that British television reporters, especially those who speak the Queen's English with an accent other than the 'standard' Oxbridge, will consistently pronounce the word 'drawing' as though there were an extra 'r' after the 'w' — as in 'drawring'. It grates as much to these old ears as does George Bush's 'nucular'.
Meanwhile we have been enjoying the television and the excellent audio system, although mainly in the simple viewing of cable news channels rather than of rented movies, which is what we had originally intended the system to be used for.
We do not yet subscribe to high-definition TV, but will do so before long, as our friends tell us there is a significant improvement in the image quality.
Television viewing in general is an activity that is better appreciated with age. Nowadays there are so many channels, broadcast, cable, and satellite, not to mention pay-per-view and other premium offerings, that it really is overkill.
Time was when we would sit quietly of an evening after supper to listen to music on the stereo. Seldom do we do that these days. There always seems to be something interesting on television to trump the stereo. Besides, a person can now listen to high quality music via the computer speakers if so inclined.
The times they are a-changing.
* * *
I notice that British television reporters, especially those who speak the Queen's English with an accent other than the 'standard' Oxbridge, will consistently pronounce the word 'drawing' as though there were an extra 'r' after the 'w' — as in 'drawring'. It grates as much to these old ears as does George Bush's 'nucular'.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Another Doctor's Office
The nurses in the doctor's office are cheerful this morning. The doctor is late coming in, and the nurses tell the patients that he will be in as soon he gets out of surgery.
Meanwhile the receptionist, a young Asian woman with a ponytail, is busy answering phone calls. In between calls, she pulls on her rubber gloves to gingerly pick up a plastic ziplock baggie with someone's specimen in a cylinder inside. She holds the baggie by its very edge and at arm's length to take it into the back and out of sight.
A bowlegged man in his sixties comes in and stands at the receptionist's window waiting for her return. Beside the window is a long picture frame with a 'Peanuts' comic strip in it. The edge of the frame extends several inches over the frosted glass of the receptionist's window. Whoever had put the frame up evidently misjudged its width but had made no attempt to reposition it.
When the receptionist is seated once again, after having exchanged a number of light-hearted and non-work-related remarks with the cheerful nurses, and taken a bite of some confection that one of her office mates has brought in to share, she turns to the waiting man and asks him if he has still the same address, phone number, and medical insurance coverage that are shown on his chart. He grunts in assent, in a voice that is barely audible.
On the other walls in the waiting room are mediocre art reproductions — one is of a pinkish sunlit terrace with a balustrade overlooking what appears to be a Mediterranean town, a boat marina in the distance, some flowers in urns in the foreground. The perspective is poorly rendered, the buildings having a vanishing point that does not correspond with that of the yacht-filled marina in the background; it is not an intentional distortion of the scene, it is simply poor drawing.
The magazines in the waiting room are several months old. On a low table in a corner of the room is a tray with a small stack of paper, on each of which is a photocopy of a word puzzle, and next to it a pencil holder with five or six stubby yellow pencils. These waiting room accessories suggest that waiting there can be a lengthy process.
In the examination room, where one is finally admitted after having been weighed, there are a chair, a stool for the doctor, an examination table with a pull-out extension, and upper and lower cupboards against one wall with a Formica countertop surmounting the lower cupboard. On the wall by the examination table is attached a wire frame holding the blood-pressure measuring sleeve, and the blood-pressure gauge next to it.
On the countertop are glass jars with metal lids — they contain cottonwool balls, wooden tongue depressors, and Q-tips. Next to them are a bottle of alcohol, a flashlight, a stethoscope, and brochures about various ailments in which the doctor is specialized. There are no magazines in the examination room.
On the wall opposite the door is a large plastic relief map of the human torso, with its entire gastrointestinal system exposed, and each gland, organ, and feature identified. Diseased components are shown in fine rosy, purplish, or bilious yellow detail.
It is many minutes before the doctos shows up.
Meanwhile the receptionist, a young Asian woman with a ponytail, is busy answering phone calls. In between calls, she pulls on her rubber gloves to gingerly pick up a plastic ziplock baggie with someone's specimen in a cylinder inside. She holds the baggie by its very edge and at arm's length to take it into the back and out of sight.
A bowlegged man in his sixties comes in and stands at the receptionist's window waiting for her return. Beside the window is a long picture frame with a 'Peanuts' comic strip in it. The edge of the frame extends several inches over the frosted glass of the receptionist's window. Whoever had put the frame up evidently misjudged its width but had made no attempt to reposition it.
When the receptionist is seated once again, after having exchanged a number of light-hearted and non-work-related remarks with the cheerful nurses, and taken a bite of some confection that one of her office mates has brought in to share, she turns to the waiting man and asks him if he has still the same address, phone number, and medical insurance coverage that are shown on his chart. He grunts in assent, in a voice that is barely audible.
On the other walls in the waiting room are mediocre art reproductions — one is of a pinkish sunlit terrace with a balustrade overlooking what appears to be a Mediterranean town, a boat marina in the distance, some flowers in urns in the foreground. The perspective is poorly rendered, the buildings having a vanishing point that does not correspond with that of the yacht-filled marina in the background; it is not an intentional distortion of the scene, it is simply poor drawing.
The magazines in the waiting room are several months old. On a low table in a corner of the room is a tray with a small stack of paper, on each of which is a photocopy of a word puzzle, and next to it a pencil holder with five or six stubby yellow pencils. These waiting room accessories suggest that waiting there can be a lengthy process.
In the examination room, where one is finally admitted after having been weighed, there are a chair, a stool for the doctor, an examination table with a pull-out extension, and upper and lower cupboards against one wall with a Formica countertop surmounting the lower cupboard. On the wall by the examination table is attached a wire frame holding the blood-pressure measuring sleeve, and the blood-pressure gauge next to it.
On the countertop are glass jars with metal lids — they contain cottonwool balls, wooden tongue depressors, and Q-tips. Next to them are a bottle of alcohol, a flashlight, a stethoscope, and brochures about various ailments in which the doctor is specialized. There are no magazines in the examination room.
On the wall opposite the door is a large plastic relief map of the human torso, with its entire gastrointestinal system exposed, and each gland, organ, and feature identified. Diseased components are shown in fine rosy, purplish, or bilious yellow detail.
It is many minutes before the doctos shows up.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Yesterday's weather
Yesterday the weather here in the San Francisco Bay Area was as close to perfect as one would be likely to find anywhere, anytime. After the previous day's thunderstorms, the air was crisp, and visibility was so clear that you could see for tens of miles in every direction from our high vantage point. I am sure that the air quality must have been one for the record books in terms of purity.
Meanwhile, up in Seattle, they have had continuous rainfall for twenty-seven days, which if uninterrupted for the next six, will result in the toppling of the previous record for the longest period of unceasing rainfall, and possibly also the record for the largest volume of precipitation. My Seattleite friends must be growing gills by now.
Yesterday was my brother-in-law's birthday, and we were invited to his home in the East Bay for dinner, an event attended as well by his children, their spouses and their children, some of them mere toddlers.
Meanwhile, up in Seattle, they have had continuous rainfall for twenty-seven days, which if uninterrupted for the next six, will result in the toppling of the previous record for the longest period of unceasing rainfall, and possibly also the record for the largest volume of precipitation. My Seattleite friends must be growing gills by now.
Yesterday was my brother-in-law's birthday, and we were invited to his home in the East Bay for dinner, an event attended as well by his children, their spouses and their children, some of them mere toddlers.
Friday, January 13, 2006
The Art of Copying
Like the Japanese in the early years of the last century, the Chinese today have perfected the art of copying. The originals of the items copied are often upmarket objects of high value. I was shown a Montblanc men’s watch with the signature transparent back that allows the intricate movement to be seen. It would take an expert to tell the fake from the real thing.
The same is true of high-fashion clothing with famous names like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Chanel and others. As also with fountain pens, electronic gadgets, and a myriad of brand-name products that originally came from Western Europe and North America.
But nowadays many (and perhaps one might even say, most) of the manufactures with familiar brand names from Western Europe and North America are in fact made in China. I just bought a set of KEF loudspeakers to replace the ones of the same brand I bought years ago that had been made in England. The new KEFs are made in China. Do they sound genuine? Do the people at KEF exercise quality control to ensure that the Chinese-made speakers are as true to their specs as the old British-made ones?
Can one even tell the difference from the sound they produce? Yes, yes, and no. At least, that's what I think.
So why would someone buy a genuine Cartier fountain pen or Rolex watch (if indeed one can be assured of its genuineness by a gilt certificate of authenticity) at about fifty or sixty times the price of a well-made fake? Might it be just for snob value?
The same is true of high-fashion clothing with famous names like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Chanel and others. As also with fountain pens, electronic gadgets, and a myriad of brand-name products that originally came from Western Europe and North America.
But nowadays many (and perhaps one might even say, most) of the manufactures with familiar brand names from Western Europe and North America are in fact made in China. I just bought a set of KEF loudspeakers to replace the ones of the same brand I bought years ago that had been made in England. The new KEFs are made in China. Do they sound genuine? Do the people at KEF exercise quality control to ensure that the Chinese-made speakers are as true to their specs as the old British-made ones?
Can one even tell the difference from the sound they produce? Yes, yes, and no. At least, that's what I think.
So why would someone buy a genuine Cartier fountain pen or Rolex watch (if indeed one can be assured of its genuineness by a gilt certificate of authenticity) at about fifty or sixty times the price of a well-made fake? Might it be just for snob value?
And So It Goes
I finish reading this morning's newspaper, and am about to take it out to the garage to place it in the paper recycling bin, which is full from all the junk mail that has accumulated over the past three weeks when we were away on our trip. So I commandeer the plastics recycling bin, which is only half-full, moving the plastics in it to the metal recycling bin, also half-full, and transfer the excess paper from the overfilled paper recycling bin to the plastics recycling bin.
As I turn to leave the garage I notice that the suitcases from our recent trip have not yet been stored away. They normally reside in the upper rack of the storage shelves against the far garage wall that I had built sixteen years ago when I retired. I will need a stepladder to get them up there where they belong. The stepladder is behind my wife's car, and cannot be moved unless I move the car out of the garage. Of course, I could just open the garage door and back the car out just enough for me to get to the stepladder, but that would mean that the car would be half in and half out of the garage, with the bottom of the garage door over the midsection of the car.
I decide that it is not a good strategy to do this. See, some years before, the garage door had slipped down without warning and made a mark, not quite a dent, but rather a noticeable abrasion, on the trunk lid of an older car we had then.
I find that I do not have my car keys with me. I am still in my pajamas and robe.
I go back into the house to get the car keys. On the way to the bedroom I notice a pile of junk mail, not in the recycling bin yet because they contain questionable items bearing my name and address that really need to be shredded in the paper shredder, which is located conveniently by the table in the entrance vestibule. Identity theft is a major concern these days, and so I try to shred everything that has my name and address on it. I turn on the shredder and feed the pieces of mail into it, not more than six sheets at a time because the gears will bind if you overload the shredder. The process takes about six minutes, and when finished I discover that the bin beneath the shredder is full. To make things easier on myself I normally line the bin with a plastic bag. This time I had not done so.
Just emptying the shredded contents of the shredder bin into the paper recycling bin, without using a plastic bag, is not a good idea. The shreds can get blown away. There were times when I found that, after being left out the night before the trash pickup, the uncontained paper shreds would end up all over the flower beds and the front lawn. It was not a pleasant sight.
So I return to the garage for a large plastic bag to contain the paper shreds, and empty the contents of the shredder bin into the bag. Then I hunt through the kitchen drawers to find a twist tie to secure it, before taking the whole thing out to the garage.
By this time our monthly delivery of bottled water has arrived, and the six blue five-gallon bottles are sitting just outside the garage entrance. To get the car out I must move the bottles out of the way, and into the garage. Moving the bottles one at a time takes about three minutes, as the darn things are heavy, and my back is not as flexible as it once was.
Now I can get into the car, start the engine, and back it out onto the driveway and out of harm's way. Now I can get the stepladder. Now I can store the suitcases where they belong.
Oh, did I mention this? On one of my trips back into the house I noticed that one of my paintings on the wall behind the couch was a little crooked. So with a plastic bag filled with shredded paper in one hand, and car keys in the other, I had to go over and straighten it.
And so the morning goes.
As I turn to leave the garage I notice that the suitcases from our recent trip have not yet been stored away. They normally reside in the upper rack of the storage shelves against the far garage wall that I had built sixteen years ago when I retired. I will need a stepladder to get them up there where they belong. The stepladder is behind my wife's car, and cannot be moved unless I move the car out of the garage. Of course, I could just open the garage door and back the car out just enough for me to get to the stepladder, but that would mean that the car would be half in and half out of the garage, with the bottom of the garage door over the midsection of the car.
I decide that it is not a good strategy to do this. See, some years before, the garage door had slipped down without warning and made a mark, not quite a dent, but rather a noticeable abrasion, on the trunk lid of an older car we had then.
I find that I do not have my car keys with me. I am still in my pajamas and robe.
I go back into the house to get the car keys. On the way to the bedroom I notice a pile of junk mail, not in the recycling bin yet because they contain questionable items bearing my name and address that really need to be shredded in the paper shredder, which is located conveniently by the table in the entrance vestibule. Identity theft is a major concern these days, and so I try to shred everything that has my name and address on it. I turn on the shredder and feed the pieces of mail into it, not more than six sheets at a time because the gears will bind if you overload the shredder. The process takes about six minutes, and when finished I discover that the bin beneath the shredder is full. To make things easier on myself I normally line the bin with a plastic bag. This time I had not done so.
Just emptying the shredded contents of the shredder bin into the paper recycling bin, without using a plastic bag, is not a good idea. The shreds can get blown away. There were times when I found that, after being left out the night before the trash pickup, the uncontained paper shreds would end up all over the flower beds and the front lawn. It was not a pleasant sight.
So I return to the garage for a large plastic bag to contain the paper shreds, and empty the contents of the shredder bin into the bag. Then I hunt through the kitchen drawers to find a twist tie to secure it, before taking the whole thing out to the garage.
By this time our monthly delivery of bottled water has arrived, and the six blue five-gallon bottles are sitting just outside the garage entrance. To get the car out I must move the bottles out of the way, and into the garage. Moving the bottles one at a time takes about three minutes, as the darn things are heavy, and my back is not as flexible as it once was.
Now I can get into the car, start the engine, and back it out onto the driveway and out of harm's way. Now I can get the stepladder. Now I can store the suitcases where they belong.
Oh, did I mention this? On one of my trips back into the house I noticed that one of my paintings on the wall behind the couch was a little crooked. So with a plastic bag filled with shredded paper in one hand, and car keys in the other, I had to go over and straighten it.
And so the morning goes.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Hong Kong Holiday
So here is the reason that there have been no new postings to this blog for the past three weeks. I have been away, spending the holidays in Hong Kong. My wife and I were last there six years ago, and there have been astonishing changes to the city in the interim. And this Christmas we decided to take our granddaughters along with our son and his fiancée for a Christmas visit.
Hong Kong literally sparkles during the holiday season, and the tall buildings fronting the harbor are ablaze with elaborate Christmas illuminations the likes of which one seldom sees anywhere else. Imagine the power usage in a metropolis where at all hours of the night there are enough neon signs and other lighting to read a newspaper by. At Christmastime, multiply this by a factor of five or six. You can take hand-held pictures at night with a digital camera, sans flash, and they'll turn out okay.
Our hotel was some distance away from the city center on Hong Kong Island, and our room overlooked the Happy Valley racecourse, where on race days there may be tens if not hundreds of thousands of gamblers in the stands. Horse racing is the only legal form of gambling in Hong Kong, unlike neighboring Macau with its many Las Vegas style casinos.
We have good friends who are longtime residents of Hong Kong, and their presence and their hospitality made our visit all the more enjoyable. There were more luncheons and dinners (whether at their homes or in the myriad fine restaurants and clubs in different parts of the city and on the adjoining mainland of Kowloon) than any respectable gourmand could wish for.
And then there was shopping. Yes, indeed. It being Christmas, the stores were well and truly stocked. All the designer houses bearing names familiar to those who keep track of such things were represented, and since our last visit there, shopping malls of great size and extravagance have sprouted in places where none had existed before. Hong Kong in the old days (by which I mean the Fifties and Sixties) was a true shoppers' paradise, and there were many bargains to be found, in Swiss watches, fine hand-tailored Italian silk suits and brand name Japanese cameras, for example. Today it is still a shoppers' paradise, but the bargains are no longer there, unless one takes into account the knock-off Swiss watches, Montblanc fountain pens, and designer goods that come across from China (and are illegal to bring back into the U.S.).
When the rest of the family came some days after us, we did the usual tourist things — went up to Victoria Peak on the Peak Tram for the spectacular panoramas of the city, the mainland and the harbor; rode the famous "Star" Ferry several times; traveled the very modern and efficient bus and Mass Transit Railway systems, and the Kowloon-Canton Railway line to the New Territories.
And then we took a one-day trip to neighboring Macau, the former Portuguese-administered territory on the opposite (western) side of the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong. The jetfoil took 45 minutes to cover the 40 or so miles, compared to the old ferries we remembered from the 1950s, which took 3 hours for the crossing. We hired a van on arrival to take us around the city, which in reality is only a few square miles in area. The tour included the main sights of the newly-refurbished city, especially the parts that represented its four-hundred-plus years of colonial history as the first settlement by Europeans on the China coast. We noted the plethora of new casinos, some now American-owned, the many new high-rise buildings, the land reclamations (not as extensive as Hong Kong's but still tending to overwhelm the once-charming Praia Grande), and as with Hong Kong, the exuberant Christmas decorations and illuminations around the main square.
Macau is known for its fine restaurants, serving cuisines from China as well as from Portugal, and all points in between. Indeed, Macanese cuisine is considered by many culinary experts to be among the best fusion cuisine to be found anywhere in the world, encompassing as it does the spices of South East Asia with the freshness and delicacy of Chinese cooking and the wholesome Mediterranean fare of Portugal.
Our return to Hong Kong in late evening was an experience in waiting that might have been forestalled had we bought two-way jetfoil tickets at the outset. Instead we had to contend with long lines of returning gamblers anxious to get back to Hong Kong as soon as possible.
After our granddaughters left for home, we went to stay with our good friends for a few days at their comfortable home in a bucolic part of the countryside of Kowloon known as the New Territories. The term 'New' derives from the fact that the Territories were ceded to the British for 99 years in 1898, some 56 years after they first acquired the island of Hong Kong. In 1997, as we know, the former British Crown Colony was returned to China and became a Special Administrative Region, as was Portuguese-administered Macau two and a half years later.
As we neared the end of our visit, our hosts took us in their cabin cruiser for a leisurely afternoon cruise around the lovely bays and beaches of a serene and unspoiled part of Hong Kong. The excursion showed us a face of the territory that few tourists ever have a chance to visit, and we were most grateful for this fresh experience.
It was quite warm in Hong Kong for the better part of our stay, with temperatures in the 70oF range, and only turned colder the day we left.
Our flight back to San Francisco took about eleven hours, a shade under the time it took for us to get to Hong Kong. The jetstream must have helped speed us home.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)