Music from a Keyless Piano

Fairview Scenic Drive

2011-11-22T05:38:00.001-05:00

We started the Fairview tour in Caneadea where the Coffee Plus Cafe offers coffee with at attitude. Had it been summer we might have found ice cream at the outdoor stand but since it was well into fall, hours there are shorter, only 7-11 am Tuesday through Friday - a little later on the weekend.

We continued north on 19 then detoured to the Houghton campus. Houghton has some wonderful stone buildings but the only one we went into was the Stevens Art Center. Normally they have a show but we happened along between shows. When up, shows are open to the public with details listed on the Houghton website.

Some people aren’t aware that the colleges in Houghton and Alfred open many of their performances and shows to the general public for free. Some concerts or plays might require a ticket but fees are low and quality is high. Check online events calendars to see what’s going on.

At Houghton, we found Kaylan Butgen, a post grad art student, using a letter press patented in 1882. This wonderful machine, The Pearl, flowed silently to move color over paper as Kaylan made personalized stationary with rubber ink.

We wandered through classrooms and work areas at the Stevens Center and then moved from Houghton to Fillmore turning left on County Route 27 to see Wiscoy Falls. Seeing the falls requires a short detour from the driving route to cross the creek to park your car near the old saw mill, a large, wooden, creek-side structure that must have been impressive when it gathered up logs and made them into planks.

Both our brochure and the man we found on the road at his mail box said that there is a trail from the sawmill to the dam. We hiked far enough to get mud up to our knees but only made it to the 4th of the 5 falls which is a fair distance from the dam. Sometimes it seemed as if we were on a trail but we didn’t find markers. We took a short cut through someone’s yard to make it down stream without having to go through the water again. It’s a pretty place alive with the sound of rushing water.

We made our way back to 27 and, at the time, we found a considerable enthusiasm for Halloween decorations. We also sighted a house ready for Christmas. At least they won’t freeze their fingers getting out the decorations.

We turned right at the end of Wiscoy and Mills Mills Road and found the Roger Mills Memorial Bridge and the dam and came back to the tour to head out County Route 3.

Three things were very common on throughout this tour – laundry hung to dry, firewood for sale and small produce stands. These may all relate to the fact that many of the people living along this route are Amish or Mennonite.

It was Monday when we drove and apparently a lot of families hold that as laundry day. I remember that my Grandmother and Mother did. Since modern machines aren’t on these farms, the families presumably do considerably more to clean clothes than to toss them in the washer and push a button so they may commonly set aside a day to do that.

In keeping with the neighborhood was the Pine Grove Country Store on County Route 3. They had things for sale that we hadn’t thought about shopping for. There were 50 pound sacks of flour or oats (rolled or cut). They had a few different sugars, several flours and 3 kinds of popcorn. There were bulk spices at prices worth the drive, grains, crayons, dinnerware and calf blankets.

The hardware section had parts and pieces to build or repair a buggy and the children’s section offered boy’s straw hats in various sizes and styles. There were buttons, boot laces and bolts of fabric in somber blue, black, brown and white. One shelf had the largest stainless steel bowl I’ve ever seen – a bowl for canning huge amounts of fruits or vegetables for large families.

One shelf sported a butane clothes iron. It seemed awkward and heavy but maybe easier than other irons might be.

We bought gingersnaps (spicy and crisp), sesame sticks (salty and crisp), spelt flour and rolled oats– but not 50 pounds of anything. The Pine Grove Country Store was as far as our schedule allowed us to drive that day. We had to scoot back to Wellsville for a meeting. Our total drive was just over 100 miles.

My favorite part was the scenery. The sheets blowing in the wind on porches or across yards really gave a sense of country as did the women in their long dresses raking leaves while men in straw hats worked in fields. All of them would have made wonderful photos but none made it into my camera. Better to just remember.

Sky High Scenic Drive - Allegany County

2011-10-28T10:11:00.000-05:00

Secondin our series of scenic drives, Sky High, was tackled in the rain. Sky Highpasses through the Village of Wellsville, just down the road from our house, sothat’s where we started the drive. Of course, like all the tours, it’s possibleto start at any point and go in either direction.

Westopped at the Bradley Medical Arts building and peeked through the iron gatesinto the Bradley Gardens to get a glimpse of the pond, the plants, the lawnsand the statues. In the past, a person could walk through the gardens but nowit’s posted and private. Still, it’s one of the prettiest bits of Wellsville.

Wellsville’sMain Street with stately homes, well-established trees and wide road all invitepeople into the business district where a few new stores are popping up. Two ofthem, Serendipities and Delinquent, are side by side at 175 N Main. Delinquentis Wellsville’s edgy, punk clothing store with band T-Shirts and bullet belts(sizes child through adult) while Serendipities calms the eye with work fromseveral area craftspeople and Allegany Artisans with a few antiques tossed in.

Worthyof note and holding vigil on Main Street for over a hundred years is the DavidA Howe Public Library currently hidden behind construction equipment as theentry undergoes a reconstruction. Fairly new to the community is the WellsvilleCreative Arts Center with several food and drink choices, live music and clay instructioninside the reconstructed building of the much-missed Carter Hardware Store.

Othereateries are Modern Diner, Pizza King and the Texas Hot. Our favorite choicefor lunch is Better Days Pub serving local foods and weekly vegetarian mealsalong with seasonally changing decorations and a constant parade of benefitprograms for community organizations and members. There’s also the Beef Haus,scene of weekly Rotary meetings.

MainStreet is a shopping district. Buy antiques, get shoes at Hamilton’s, rockthrough the Music Alley, choose flooring, try on clothing, get your hydroponicgrowing supplies, order posters at Ink, or get the bugs out of your computerwith help at Computer Clinic – Wellsville’s small business of the year.

Passingthrough Wellsville we turned east on Route 417. Castaways is just outside ofWellsville and we looked inside to learn that they are having their first everHalloween Costume Party with Bloody Mary’s for $2.50 and draft beer for $1.00starting at 8 pm on October 29. The decorations are up and there will be prizesfor costumes. Dress scary. Eat hearty.

Thenext stop was Brown’s Marsh. Local birders love this place but when we stoppedand waited all we found were ripples and water rings made by creatures hiding underwater.The reflection of the hillside was perfect though.

Movingon toward Andover we stopped at Kelly Jackson’s stand for some squash. In other years Jackson’s stand has overflowedwith produce but this year just wasn’t good for their garden. A few bright pumpkinsand squash are out there and Kelly walks down the drive when she hears a car. She’sthinking of putting out an honor system pay bucket since the crop isn’t worthyof regular hours.

We struck out in Andover because both the Emporium and Paradise Café were closed that afternoon so we read the blurb in Sky High and splashed through the rain.

Sky High offers a choice between Route 22 or 417 calling 22 a washboard road. “Washboard” sounded like a warning for a rutted dirt road. Not so. Route 22 is a roller coaster with high peaks that give a view of a ribbon of road plunging down and then racing up the next hill between fields of corn. On a clear day the view must be wonderful because even in the drizzle the sky felt high and wide. We guessed this road is what gave the tour its name.

Here’s the treasure of this drive for us – Hill Top Deli. With apologies to Independence, this place is the essence of out-of-the-way, in the middle of nowhere, on County Road 22. The deli offers sandwiches on breads baked in the store but the grocery is what caught our eyes. We found: Organic Blue Agave, Organic Honey, Shoo Fly Pie Mix, Uncle Henry’s Handmade Pretzels, a 10 pound milk chocolate bar, Garlic Mustard Pickled eggs and dozens and dozens of spices – many hard to find.

As a result of that stop I may have developed an Uncle Henry pretzel habit and a desire to say Sarsaparilla at odd moments.

Movingalong through Hallsport we found an ATV trail and lots of evidence of the PennYork Energy Company. After moving overroads we’d never see we ended up at the intersection of 29 and 19 at YorksCorners where the old store is now a cute house and the Mennonite Church standsguard over the cemetery.

AlmaPond is out there and if you are like us you want to know why Alma Pond is a“pond.” This is not some little roundpuddle but a long, narrow body of water that seems to deserve a name fittingits size. There are parking areas for the public and there’s the Alma Rod andGun Club which is for members.

Wewatched the rain fall on the water and again found the hillside and cloudsreflected in the water while tendrils of mist curled up from the water. I verymuch wanted a canoe and paddle.

Wecame back through Petrolia, home of the Triangle #1, the first successful,commercial oil well in Allegany County. With those modifiers it does sound asif there were a few messy, failed attempts before Triangle #1.

With our side trips and the occasionalwrong turn Sky High Tour took us over 65 drizzly and rainy miles.

See www.DiscoverAlleganyCounty.comor call 1-800-836-1869 or 585-268-5500 for events, restaurants, brochures andlocal tourism. Find brochures Libraries, restaurants and banks. Brochurechoices are Scenic Drives, Spring Summer Fall, Artisans & Galleries,Historic Trails, Hunting & Fishing, Fall Winter Spring and Festivals &Events. This driving tour is listed in Scenic Drives.

Elaine Hardman is a member of theAllegany County Office of Tourism Advisory Board.

Scenic Drive: Oil Country

2011-10-28T08:06:00.000-05:00

If youlike to ride on a twisty, curvy road or if you’re the sort who gets to the topof a hill and drinks in the gorgeous view, Allegany County is for you. TheAllegany County Office of Tourism worked with motorists who trundled on backroads just for fun, bicyclists with strong thighs and lots of gears andleather-clad motorcyclist who enjoyed leaning into a curve then put togethermaps of 6 suggested tours. Enter the tour at any point from eitherdirection though the brochure gives written directions for the favored route. While you can jump on anywhereor turn 2 loops into a custom drive, we aimed to stay close to the trail withthe occasional detour.

We drove through Friendship to startSouth on Route 34 on “Oil Country.” Before we got to cruising speed, we stopped atan old cemetery. We didn’tsee a sign for the cemetery but found it freshly mowed, clad with a flagsurrounded by flowers. We searched out Babcocks, Coons, Wrights and Steenrodsburied as long ago as 1822.

We tried to read through the fadedletters on stories for Anne and Tolcut. Anne’s stone read, “In Memory of Anne,consort of Tolcut Gold who departed this life February 15, 1827 aged 63 yearsfour months.”

It was the word “consort” thatattracted attention. Was Anne his wife or his companion? Did the word favor onemeaning over another in 1827? Anne didn’t have a last name on the stone.

Then there was Tolcut Gold’sstone. Tolcut died in September1836 but his stone also gives details. “Tolcot lived 77 years. He served hiscountry during the revolution. He was a good citizen and an honest man anddeparted this life…” The rest of it was buried in dirt and lichen.

(NOTE: Tolcott's great, great, great, great grandson called me to say that his family was pleased to read that I'd found their stones and that they were, very surely, married. Consort meant wife.)

Continuing south on Route 34 through Wirt,we passed a stone railroad support, fields, houses, cabins, fences,wildflowers, sheds, barns, an old wooden cistern, logging roads and then apond. I asked Rick to go back to the pond so he stopped and turned around andparked about 2 feet from a very surprised blue heron.

The bird accepted the car, the enginenoise and our faces but when the camera came up for a shot that was over theline. The heron took a leap forward for a second and then pushed hard with hugewings.

We also detoured onto Route 5B to theHilltop Lodge. In the early 1800s William A. Dusenbury built Hilltop as his privateretreat using part of the fortune he accrued by establishing the First NationalBank of Olean and by investing, like many others in the area, in lumber and oil.

Hilltop Lodge now offers glamping – glamorous camping. The owner/chef isRichard Fontana who retired from law enforcement in Erie County and bought theHilltop Lodge in the 1980s. Driving the long, narrow private road into the areaprepares glampers for the wooded quiet of the cabins andlodge.

Glampers can find all meals at the Lodge butthe restaurant is open to the public Wednesday through Saturday nights withprivate parties any time. Richard calls the menu "upscale with myhome cooked Italian meals."

Leaving Hilltop Lodge we turned rightand passed variety - elegant houses and rudimentary cabins, polished and proudhomes and abandoned dwellings, boats and trucks, small bridges and miles ofopen fields alternating with extensive mowed lawns.

Main Street in Bolivar hosts thePioneer Oil Museum, closed when we passed. We found a variety of cemeteries andmillion dollar views. The overlook at the top of the hill on Route 5 betweenLittle Genesee and Obi had a chain across the path so we respected that.

Sloppy Joe’s Deli in West Clarksvillecaught our eye. Well, more honestly the barn sale next to Sloppy Joe’s caughtmy eye but since we were in the parking lot, we went into Sloppy Joe’s. It’s atake-off-your-coat-and-put-on-your-slippers sort of place. The sign insideinvites people to “Sit Long, Talk Much, Laugh Often.

Joree Tavano, who runs Sloppy Joe’swith her husband Joe, said that their lives changed the day they hung thatsign. The café is comfy with plastic tablecloths and filled chairs. That’swhere we learned that the overlook on Route 5 is on private property mostlyopen by chance but always open on Easter Sunday for prayer services around thecross on the hill.

Sloppy Joe’s (open from 7 am till 8pm) serves pizza, subs, wings and friendship. Fridays are for fish fries butTuesdays are reserved for spaghetti, wings and - for the last 14 years - an openmic so head over with your guitar.

It’s such a special place that after oneof the regulars, Jim Holcomb, died his wife Debbie brought his farm boots inand put them among the collectibles on display.

Ray Baker studied his coffee mug andsaid he’d been in the place so many times he couldn’t count that high. He saidthey all missed Jim and then said, “I buried my wife yesterday but I’m rightback here again. It’s a big family here, you know. You get attached. You feelcamaraderie and solace.”

That makes Sloppy Joe’s an Allegany Countygem.

By this time, Rick and I were near theend of Oil Country but we detoured again when we saw some odd signs labeled Mt.Irenaeus. Following the arrows up some dirt "roads" we discovered aretreat and home to Franciscan Monks, loosely tied to St. Bonaventure. Mt.Irenaeus occasionally welcomes guests for Sunday Eucharist (followed by a dishto pass meal). The area is not handicapped accessible and it’s best to call716-375-2096 before venturing up the mountain.

The website for local tourism is www.DiscoverAlleganyCounty.com.Call 1-800-836-1869 or 585-268-5500 to request brochures or look for them inlocal Libraries and banks. Brochure choices are Scenic Drives, Spring SummerFall, Artisans & Galleries, Historic Trails, Hunting & Fishing, FallWinter Spring and Festivals & Events. This driving tour is listed in ScenicDrives.

Elaine Hardman is amember of the Allegany County Office of Tourism Advisory

Steamtown

2011-10-21T14:07:00.001-05:00

Scranton: American park, American history, American innovations –built on steel rails and packed inside of brick buildings. That’s one of our National Parks just about 3 hours from Wellsville – Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, PA, signed into existence by Ronald Reagan 25 years ago.

The park sprawls over 40 acres that years ago held the guts of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. In the 1850s, men crawled into brick lined pits under trains to service the steam engines. If they were lucky, they crawled out, went home and came back to do it again.

Countless limbs were lost in those pits but labor was cheap, worker safety was unknown and there was always another willing to pick up the wrench and keep the trains running. The rail lines were the circulatory system of the industrial revolution and the system grew for over 100 years.

Steamtown has 100 engines and cars that chug and thunder enough to shake the ground mildly or make the overhead pedestrian bridge shimmy.

Short rides are offered Wednesdays through Sundays. 5 times a day the conductor yells his, “All‘ board” for the short trips. There are long excursions in the summer and duringthe October foliage season

An operating steam engine is the glory part of Steamtown but the hard, serious work is the historic preservation in the tool shop. Steamtown, like many parts of the park system, operates with bare bones staff - only 8 mechanics keep the excursion engines running. When time allows, they rebuild locomotives taking years and spending about $1.5 million.

Rebuilding is hard and repair is frequent. These old engines were slapped together ascheaply as possible. The rule seemed to be build ‘em fast, keep ‘em running till they’re scrap. The goal was to make as much money as possible moving things and people around the country.

There wasn’t any care to put clean water in the boiler. Sometimes an engine (depending on weight and landscape) would need to refill water in as few as 30 miles. If the only water was from a creek, that would do. It meant a serious build up of scale inside the boiler.

Coal was the other part of making steam and the cheaper it was the better the railroad liked it. Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal offered a cleaner burn so that was desirable but it often had shale mixed in. Boys as young as 8 worked grueling 10 hours shifts picking shale out of coal as it passed them on a conveyer belt. The fireman always hoped for clean coal. He might shovel 2 tons of stuff in the firebox in an hour and he wanted every pound of it to make steam.

Engines went to the roundhouse for routine maintenance and small repairs. That’s where they’d drive the engine over a water pit and drop the ash and where workers crawled over and under the engine before sending it back to the rails to earn money.

More serious repairs took place in the tool shop and the work done there was pretty impressive given that they used slide rules, hammers and sweat. Did you know that some engines have steel tires on their wheels? Changing a train tire starts with removing the axle and then moves on toward a ring of white, hot flame to expand and remove the steel tire.

It seems that while there were about 1,250,000 steam engines (2,000 remain) made, many were one of a kind made for a certain route or a specific task like moving lumber. Some were almost experiments to figure out a better, or more accurately cheaper, way to build the next one. Repairs then, as now, meant making parts by hand.

Sometimes the designers or railroad workers would invent a safety or labor saving feature but worker-safety and ease weren’t in the realm of interest for railroad operators. There was a ready supply of hungry people willing to work on any engine.

The steam engines died out quickly once diesel came in. The diesel didn’t need those water or coal stops. Diesel maintenance demands were lower, speeds higher and the labor cost was a fraction. A diesel needed one mechanic for every 40needed on a steam engine. Within a few years of their introduction, the diesel took over the rails.

My favorite part was the History Museum where a life-size figure of a paper boy, porter, tycoon, passenger, conductor, etc stood next to information about how that person fit into railroad society. The exhibit listed wages, hours, duties, traditions and clothing. It made history feel very personal. I was so absorbed by the exhibit I didn’t think to take a single photo there.

On the other hand, if I could bring one thing home, it would have to be the mail sorting car. I’m a sucker for organizers. My husband said he’d rather have the velocipede. I can see the allure.

BOX To visit Steamtown go to http://www.nps.gov/stea/index.htm. Entry is free to children ages 15 and under. Adults ages 16 and up pay $7. There is also a senior citizen pass that, for$10, allows entry to the holder and 3 companions, valid at any National Park Service facility for one year.

Steamtown has a railroad yard (be attentive for moving trains at all times), History Museum, Technology Museum, theater, roundhouse, tool shop and a gift shop. Train rides carry and extra fee. Find food across the pedestrian bridge at the Steamtown Mall.

Cut away view of inside a steam engine boiler.

Chugging with steam - the glory of the steam age
These pipes at the front of the image will go inside the boiler as it is rebuilt.
More of the cut away boiler to give an idea of what is happening.

Inside the caboose. See more of my photos on flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stoneflowerpottery/sets/72157627545255713/

To visit Steamtown go to http://www.nps.gov/stea/index.htm. Entry is free to children ages 15 and under. Adults ages 16 and up pay $7. There is also a senior citizen pass that, for$10, allows entry to the holder and 3 companions, valid at any National Park Service facility for one year.

Chickens on Hertel

2011-05-16T08:14:00.003-05:00

Chickens on Hertel Avenue

A Hardman Family Story

We have a family story about Jay and his encounters in Kuala Lumpur with the man we named “The Chicken-Plucker.” Memories of chickens in my childhood are from the chicken store on Hertel Avenue in Buffalo in the 50’s.

My family lived in the first of a group of three houses next to a car dealer and across the street from the dry cleaner/bookie. (I don’t know if there was really a bookie, but my father said that there was because he saw people go in empty handed and come out the same so I wasn’t allowed to walk in front of that building.)

Sometimes my mother sent me past the other two houses and the church parking lot, on the good side of the street, to the brick building that held a car repair shop and a chicken coop on the ground floor and apartments above.

Entering the shop was strange because, on the inside, it didn’t look, smell or sound like the city. The floor was covered in sawdust. The owner walked through the mist of odors, leading with his enormous belly, wearing a blood-spattered apron over his long-sleeved white jacket. The sawdust on the floor behind his counter was not fresh but mixed with chicken droppings and feathers.

The back of the store had cages and a chopping block. The wire cages held chickens, sometimes more, and sometimes fewer, but always noisy. The birds would pompously strut with their darting beaks. Their combs proudly dressed their heads and their bead-like eyes sparkled in the light of the bare bulbs hanging on black wires.

The man sold eggs in gray, cardboard boxes tied with a string that spun from a spool on the counter, traveled through a wire loop above and came back down to his flying hands to be wrapped around the carton, tied and snapped, the small sound of which was lost among the clucking. Placed in my hands, those eggs were carried, cautiously, back to the kitchen at 1101.

Sometimes I was not an egg customer but a chicken customer. The chickens knew the difference. “My mother wants a nice, fat chicken and she doesn’t want any feathers. She hates the feathers!”

Then he went to the cage to select a chicken for butchering, the noise was deafening. Shouts of chicken kinship or chicken fear were far more hectic than those of egg loss.

His counter was too high for me to look over though I could peek around the side. I didn’t see the business that so fascinated and shocked Jay in Malaysia because The Chicken Man stepped outside the back door to do the serious stuff. When finished, he would hand me the still-warm chicken wrapped in paper and tied with his flying string. It was okay to skip, run or even to roller skate with a package of chicken and, when I was holding a dead chicken, a chicken so recently gone from life to meat, moving faster seemed like a good idea.

There were always a few small feathers and my mother would burn them off with the flame on our gas stove before she washed the chicken and started dinner.

The man and his chickens were gone by the time I was ten years old and could walk all the way to the corner drugstore or ride my bike around the whole block. I remember stopping once to look in his dark window. The cages were empty, a few feathers were on the floor in the dusty corners and the quiet, so unusual for that store, was eerie.

Elaine Hardman is a retired teacher/potter/tin cutter who gets eggs from Meredith and stories everywhere.

horns on 1939 Chevy

2011-03-16T08:07:00.000-05:00

AAAAAOOOOOOGGGGAAAAA

Pumpkins for Barbara

2010-10-24T17:23:00.004-05:00

Every year some of Barbara's friends get together to carve pumpkins for her porch. Years past we worked together with Norm Ives to create pumpkins for Barbara's porch. Call these pumpkins Norm, Barbara, Friendly, Loving or tradition. They are for Barbara. Two of them were grown from seeds captured from last year's pumpkin and next year's will be grown from fat slippery seeds saved from this year's. Such is tradition.

Carvers: Ed Eicher, Jim Horn, HM Bateman, Rick & Elaine Hardman, Pete Midgley, Allison Midgley, The Great Pumpkin.

Thanks to Barbara Cobb for supplying some of the pumpkins.

Sol LeWitt Scibble part 2

2010-09-11T19:37:00.001-05:00

The Sol LeWitt Scribble Drawing continues to advance with more than a hundred hours of pencil contact to the walls of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery each day. One of the people penciling this historic piece is Wellsville’s Allison Midgley, Technology Coordinator at the David Howe Library and mixed media artist.

Midgley’s on leave from the Library for 8 weeks during each of which she will practice 42 hours of precision drawing flowing from first one hand and then the other.

Midgley said, “The drawing is about our ability to collaborate, coordinate and communicate. Each artist works in an area for some hours and then moves to another area. In this way each artist has the chance to give the work a personal impression while we also blend the many styles into the whole.”

The drawing was commissioned in 2006 by gallery director Louis Grachos. Sol LeWitt (American, 1928-2007) finished the design, producing an artist sketch, computer generated plans and a maquette (model) before his sad death in 2007. Following his vision, work at the Albright-Knox began this August.

The process involves drawing chaotic, rounded scribbles across the 2200 square feet of wall to create LeWitt’s intertwined pipes. The piece is the largest of LeWitt’s 1261 wall drawings.

While working, the artists look closely, many of them holding a shop light in one hand and a pencil in the other. They lean forward moving the light and turning their heads watching and evaluating as they trail graphite over the wall. They stand or sit on floors or scaffold boards or reach through spaces to contact the different parts of the wall – in some places 22 feet tall.

They examine the work up close and from a distance. The piece is about chaos making precision - about small becoming great. The team of artists and artisans blend their hands into a single work of art. In the end scribbles become pipes bending, pushing out from and stretching across the 3 interior walls of the stairwell – including 2 inside corners - another unique feature for this work.

From a few feet, the lines present disarray but stepping back the lines advance with continuous gradations somehow changing into crisp divisions where the “pipes” meet at right angles and diverge with clear boundaries. Boundaries made of controlled chaos. They do it by always drawing with the same amount of pressure and the same line quality but by changing the density of the lines. The layered lines create texture and become reflective surfaces.

Midgley said that it’s been interesting to see how the lead use changes. “On the first days, each person went through several leads or pencils daily and then as the density of lines within an area increased, it took less lead to make more apparent change. It’s a study in contrasts.”

“Honored,” is the word she uses when she muses over her role in the drawing. Midgley received her undergraduate degree art from the University of Dallas in 1988 and moved to Wellsville in 1990. At the Library she coordinates computers with patrons, staff and materials. During off time she makes mixed media art, rides her bike and practices yoga.

“Yesterday,” she said, “I just looked around and thought, I’m part of this. I’m involved in this.”

So, is every line important? “Yes,” Midgley said. “If you pulled one out, you’d see where it had been. Each line builds on preceding lines. They are all part of the whole, part of the texture. We look at the small area but think of the large. Each line matters.”

It is estimated that the artists will put pencils down early in October and that, possibly, on October 12 clear sealant will be applied to protect the delicate graphite lines. Then the plastic will come down and scaffolds will be removed and the warren of steel pipes that seem to pull the walls into rounded, burnished steel forms will be open to visitors from around the world.

Until then, at the bottom of the stairs, there is a sign stating that the crew includes “painters, printmakers, illustrators, architects and one librarian.”

By mid October all of their names will stand proudly for decades as this industrial image shines in one of the country’s premier modern art galleries in this old, manufacturing city.

Elaine Hardman is a potter, member of the Allegany Artisans and friend of Allison Midgley. Elaine grew up on the corner of Hertel and Delaware Avenues in Buffalo, NY. -Support for the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s exhibitions and installations are provided, in part, by the Seymour H. Knox Foundation, the John R. Oishei Foundation and the Margaret Wendt Foundation.

Wellsville artist adding to the Albright Knox

2010-09-04T18:18:00.004-05:00

Early in my life there was an incident with a bobby pin as a scribble-device. Looking back through 55 years of cobwebbed time, I faintly see varnish dust fly from the broken tip of a black bobby pin. The scribble grew, intertwined and danced with movement and intricacy.

Unfortunately my creativity involved a treasured parlor end table. I remember my mother’s crestfallen face as she rubbed the table top in disbelief and despair.

Many of us likely have early life scribble experiences ranging from achievement to disaster. At the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo scribble lives as noun, verb and art as a team of artists, printmakers and architects scribble over walls bridging the 1905 gallery with the 1962 wing with the installation of the last, the largest and possibly the most intricate of the world’s Sol LeWitt drawings.

Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) created structures, drew, made prints and painted, showing his work at hundreds of solo exhibitions around the world from 1965 onward. He was interested in music, mathematics, architecture, line, process, communication and ideas. Over 1200 of his works were huge, architectural drawings executed by crews as is this Scribble Drawing at the Albright-Knox.

The team working now in Buffalo includes head draftsman Takeshi Arita and 4 assistants from the Sol LeWitt Studio in New York, 2 Albright-Knox Art Handlers and 9 apprentices including librarian/printmaker/mixed media artist Allison Midgley of Wellsville. For 8 weeks the crew will draw millions of layered, chaotic scribbles that will, over time and from a distance, become an ordered, precise drawing covering 2200 square feet.

Now, in week three, the artists enter a scaffold area covered in taped plastic sheets housing ladders. The air, filled with graphite motes – escapees from the process - is forced through a filtration system that drones during work periods. Zippers in the plastic allow entry and exit. Disposable booties over shoes trap some dirt and on either side of entry points sticky floor mats are tattooed with graphite footprints.

The plastic walls defining the work area were constructed weeks ago and the scaffolding held painters who covered the walls with 2 coats of oil based paint and then 5 more of latex – sanding between coats - giving the walls the look and feel of paper.

On the uniform surface, the artists measured out the drawing, masking areas with craft paper and labeling it in white chalk numbers with each number indicating a level of density of line. They had a short lesson in basic scribble technique and started turning graphite into the first of millions of lines. They created flowing curves, sharpening the lead by pulling it against the surface of the wall, bending and turning their hands over the lines, becoming ever more graceful as they worked and received individual coaching.

Like many huge undertakings this is not work for the faint of heart - or arm. They work 6 days a week/ 7 hours a day with lunch and an afternoon break. While at the wall, they are asked to be in the moment with intense concentration. “Be present,” Arita tells them. “Don’t be automatic. Each person is an artist. What you do makes the whole thing work.”

Could they cut the number of drawing hours from the estimated 5,000 if they used brushes? Sprayers? Chalk? Not if they want to accomplish the goal. To give the effect required, the drawing must be of many lines, layered and focused.

The apprentices and draftsmen draw crisp, even, whispers of graphite that build on each other to create the visual roar of millions of butterfly wings. The many lines give the drawing depth so that now, 3 weeks into the project, the densely filled areas look luminous. From one side, they are rich velvet and from another point of view they become huge pipes of burnished steel. The surfaces reflect light as if mirrors. All from a simple pencil.

Sol LeWitt began his drawing career in the 60s with pencil on walls – radical for the time and, according to Ilana Chlebowski, Curatorial Assistant at the Alright-Kinox, still radical.

LeWitt explored paints and colors, shapes and shadows, lines and angles over the decades. To give an idea of his stature, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (with Williams College Museum of Art) opened an exhibition of LeWitt’s work that will be on view for 25 years and offers 105 drawings covering nearly an acre of wall space.

Pieces for that exhibit were among the last works LeWitt created before his death in 2007. They were created with the materials he used in 1960 and returned to – the pencil on a wall. Now, this crew of artists is bringing his last huge graphite, wall project to the world.

Allison Midgley saw the notice of Scribble Wall Line Drawing while surfing the internet. She mulled it over reading through the criteria and applied for the position after learning that she could take a leave of absence from her job at the David A. Howe Library. She put forth her art with her willingness to commit to the 8 week task and after time was thrilled to be accepted.

Part II

Midgley’s on leave from the Library for 8 weeks during each of which she will practice 42 hours of precision drawing flowing from first one hand and then the other.

The process involves drawing chaotic, rounded scribbles across the 2200 square feet of wall to create LeWitt’s intertwined pipes. The piece is the largest of LeWitt’s 1261 wall drawings.

“Yesterday,” she said, “I just looked around and thought, I’m part of this. I’m involved in this.”

Until then, at the bottom of the stairs, there is a sign stating that the crew includes “painters, printmakers, illustrators, architects and one librarian.”

By mid October all of their names will stand proudly for decades as this industrial image shines in one of the country’s premier modern art galleries in this old, manufacturing city.

Elaine Hardman is a potter, member of the Allegany Artisans and friend of Allison Midgley. Elaine grew up on the corner of Hertel and Delaware Avenues in Buffalo, NY.

Support for the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s exhibitions and installations are provided, in part, by the Seymour H. Knox Foundation, the John R. Oishei Foundation and the Margaret Wendt Foundation.

The Albright Knox Art Gallery is located at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York. Call 716.882.8700. Summer hours are noon to 5 Tuesday through Saturday. Admission for adults $12, Students and Seniors $8. Driving time from Wellsville is near 2 hours. Parking fees apply in the front lot but is free at the rear of the buildings.

More about the project at www.Albrightknox.org.

A little dance after lunch at Better Days

2010-06-26T15:38:00.003-05:00

Senior Thesis Show Allison R. Craver

2010-05-02T22:00:00.005-05:00

There’s pottery in our kitchen. Honestly, there’s pottery all over our house but more is in the kitchen. Functional work, food-related stuff – that’s what my hands do with clay and how my mind sees stoneware so when Allison Craver said that her pottery rarely belongs in a kitchen my brain hiccuped.

Allison came to Alfred for art with no intention of working with ceramics. She came for the solid and sensible reason that the School of Art and Design is a good deal. When she began exploring what Alfred offered she found herself absorbed by clay – the challenges of clay’s technical issues, the varied systems for construction and the chemistry that creates and solves problems all drew her in but then she realized the soft side of clay. The community.

She became entwined with the many layers of friendship and camaraderie that the ceramics community offers. Students have to work together to load and fire a kiln; to share the space inside the fire chambers; to move the massive weight of bricks and shelves and work. Clay students rely on each other because they have to and then because that’s the way they work.

Allison is interested in personal spaces and sculptural forms. She makes bedroom boxes, forms that could be used to hold coins, jewelry, keepsakes, special things but not food. Soap dishes are in her realm; oatmeal bowls are not. She works with a series of molds so her pieces are constructed in segments but are of varied size and texture. The detail in them caught my eye when I roamed the senior work area one day so I asked to talk with her.

Allison attributes her interest in art to her family. “I grew up in an artistic, creative household and didn’t realize till later that some parents don’t make things.”

She began actively drawing in a sketch book when she was six and she just carried it around drawing her cat and things in her house. For now, Allison seems interested in what she is trying to accomplish thought she seems not to like all her work - not an unusual situation when one is so immersed in a project and seeking some ideal. She looks at her outcomes and finds the next direction to continue her work.

The work she will display at her Senior Thesis Show on Saturday will include a variety of her special boxes posed on pedestals decorated with terra cotta clay pressed into molds to create large plinth structures. The structures will be about stability; the boxes – fragility; the process – an evolving understanding of space.

For the summer Allison Craver will be at Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine. After that it’s intense work for four or five years and then maybe grad school.
To see the work of clay, fabric, paint and ideas at the Senior Thesis shows be on the Alfred University Campus from about 4 till 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 7.

Interesting insect caught in a bag - inspiration comes from many sources.

StoneFlowerPottery

2010-04-26T17:01:00.001-05:00

In 1974 I sat at a potter's kickwheel and gave it such a solid push that I knocked myself backwards to the clay-spattered floor. That first kickwheel was at the Robinson Center for Crafts in Binghamton. Later I studied at Touchstone Center for Crafts in Pennsylvania and then worked at home while I studied with Pete Nye at SUNY Alfred and participated in shows at the Herrick Library.
I was lucky enough to work at the School of Art and Design, Alfred University Summer Clay programs with John Gill several times and in 2004 joined a group of Alfred University students to travel to Jingdezhen China to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of porcelain.
In 1998 I became a member of the Allegany Artisans and have served as a board member and officer ever since. I use an electric wheel and throw while standing firmly on 2 feet, no toppling over expected.

My hands force lumps of clay to be round, tall and wide in my little studio in our 1880s home along the Genesee River in Wellsville. I enjoy the rhythm of throwing and making miniatures with my fingertips as well as large forms with the force of all my body.
Large or small, whatever I am making, each pot is important. I sometimes feel that I reach into clay to touch earth and history, forming useful items by forcing clay between my hands and then using time and fire to harden the shapes. It is an honor to be a potter and to have bowls and creatures involved in the daily lives of people around the world.
I was recently honored by the Skutt Kiln Peep Show in Philadelphia at the National Council on Ceramic Arts Education conference and by being part of Starting Small at the Artist Knot in Andover.

Join me on Facebook at StoneFlowerPottery.

Belmont's Purple House Spring Show & Sale

2010-04-17T11:19:00.008-05:00

When Pat Vossler told me that there was a time that she didn’t like antiques, my jaw dropped to her 100 year old carpet hitting, on the way down, antique glassware and photos. Her husband, Lew, changed her life in many ways from parenting two daughters to getting her interested in travel and by teaching her to love, and collect, antiques.

Pat lives in Belmont’s Purple House. Only a few years ago it was red, white and blue, striking in its own way but it didn’t look like it was dressed for high tea in the spring of 1890 like it does now. It needed to be painted so in trying to decide what to do Pat went to the Belmont Library and found a book about Victorian houses. She thumbed through it until she found one of those grand ladies done in shades of purple.

“Some people like it,” said Pat. “People knock at the door for permission to take photos but one woman looked at the house and asked if the paint had been on sale.”

“I wish,” was Pat’s laughing reply. It’s Pat’s Purple House and she likes it - a lot. Even the front lawn is sprinkled in purple forget-me-nots.

Inside are thousands of other colors because inside are thousands of other things but before describing any of those things, the house deserves a bit more time. It was built circa 1895 by Dr. Herbert A. Barney.

The March 22, 1907 issue of the Belmont Dispatch is my source of information about Dr. Barney. The entire front page holds eulogies and testimonials on the occasion of his death from quinsy at age 42. He was a doctor, town supervisor, the coroner and county jail physician. Clearly, he worked long hours with a deep sense of obligation to meet the needs of people, sometimes giving his patients money rather than charging them. The paper reports that over 1,000 people attended his funeral.

Legend has it that he was an inventor, that the second floor of his home was used as a home for elderly patients, that he experimented on himself in trying to develop new medicines but these are stories handed down from Lew Vossler to Pat and she doesn’t really know.

Clearly, Dr. Barney had the means to construct a marvelous house. Likely it had gas lamps then and multiple fireplaces. There is still a wood fireplace in the living room and the mantle from another fireplace stands in the dining room. There are two sets of pocket doors and the swinging door to the kitchen has a pair of hinges 8 inches long and large enough that a person could slip a garden hose inside.

The turret was in the original design as was the old tin roof which has lasted over 110 years (but due to be replaced this summer). After the Barney family left, the house was divided into apartments and went into decline until Lew and his first wife Jane Whitcomb purchased it with her parents in about 1940. Lew set to work restore the original glory with interior renovations and a new porch.

Pat’s favorite area is the dining room. It has the swinging door to the kitchen, a fabulous window with huge beveled glass panels as well as beveled diamonds. There is a large built-in china cupboard too. The walls and ceiling are papered in textured green and white and in the center is the table that Lew built. He built it right there in the dining room – it’s that big and heavy – and he caned the seats in several of the chairs that surround it.

Lew built a lot of things for Pat and he supported all her decorating ideas. They worked together to accessorize the house starting with his collection of antique boot jacks, door stops and tools. Then Pat got into it. There’s a little corner with souvenirs of the 14 European countries they traveled to. Then she started collecting hats and sometimes has tea parties where her guests all wear the hats.

Pat collected spoons from the many states she and Lew visited and she searched for and found hand painted photos by Wallace Nutting, a Presbyterian Minister from New England. In the kitchen is Pat’s teapot collection. She and her granddaughter washed them all recently and counted 58. One is from Cakes and Curious in Cuba. It is a divided pot with two spouts so it can steep and serve 2 teas at once.

She has a collection of dresses including her mother-in-law’s wedding dress and a celluloid collection of little boxes and pins. She collects old photos thinking that it’s sad that this bit of family history ends up in some rummage sale or antique shop. She gathers them up and takes care of them wishing she knew who that baby was or how life worked out for the smart gentleman with the mustache.

A lot of Pat’s things are like that. They are more made of memories than of wood, paint or china. The men’s hats were collected by Lew as they drove; the thermometers while driving along the old US highways during the 50s and 60s when they stayed at bed and breakfasts. The tea tiles, coin spoons, tea cups and dolls are important for what they represent as well as for their craftsmanship and beauty.

Pat’s respect and admiration for handcrafted work makes the Purple House a natural place for a craft show and so that’s why it has been the site of a Mother’s Day weekend craft show and sale for 3 years now.

Pat’s daughter is Kristen Vossler-Wigent, soap-maker and partner in Green Circle Grove. Also working as Green Circle Grove is Meredith Chilson who designs and sews totes, purses, bags, lunch bags and bitty bags. Together these ladies do a number of shows but they kick off the season with a tea party/sale in Pat’s kitchen.

Green Circle Grove often partners with Joan Sinclair with her cross stitch, weaving and and detailed needle work as well as with StoneFlowerPottery, locally known for Mommy Vases or Grandma Vases as well as all kinds of functional and fun pottery.

Green Circle Grove, StoneFlowerPottery and Joan Sinclair will be in the Purple House on Friday, May 6 from 11 till 6 and Saturday, May 7 from 10 till 4. Come over for tea and cookies and take home a handmade gift for Mother’s Day. Support the local economy and peek at Pat’s collections. White gloves and veiled hats optional.

For more information call 585 808 0385, visit GreenCircleGrove.com or find StoneFlowerPottery on Facebook.

Alfred Symphonic Band Concert, April 23

2010-04-15T09:54:00.002-05:00

Trumpet and French horn solos abound in the next concert for Alfred University's Symphonic Band - 8 p.m. in Harder Hall on April 23rd. The guy behind the trumpet started playing when he was 9 years old – Alejandro Miranda-Bermudez.
At Spencerport Elementary, students were welcomed into the instrumental music program in fourth grade. Alejandro’s parents asked him if he was interested. “Sure,” he remembers saying.
Mr. Rossiter, the teacher, asked Alejandro what he’d like to play and the answer was, “Trumpet.”
There was no enticing Alejandro with trombones, saxophones or percussion toys – not once he decided that trumpets are, “loud, noisy and sounded awesome.” Decision made, on trumpet he started and on trumpet he stayed.
He played in symphonic bands from the start and in 8th grade joined the jazz band. Alejandro was accepted into the most demanding levels of band and so was able to travel around the country to perform. That he accepted the extra work and commitment is interesting because he claims to be “a little lazy” and says his parents “made” him practice. It doesn’t seem to be a lazy choice.
After high school, Alejandro thought he would go to his “top pick” – Fredonia - but appeased his parents with a visit to Alfred University and that was it. With the same certainty that he became a trumpet player, he selected Alfred. He says he can’t pinpoint why Alfred felt so right. (Maybe the campus was loud, noisy or in some way awesome that day.) AU accepts students in groups without forcing a minor in the field and that was a big plus. Alex knew that he wanted to keep music in his life but not as the focus of his study.
During his 4 years on campus, Alejandro spent a lot of time in the Miller Center and grew to appreciate the professors. “The people in Miller are great. You couldn’t ask for a better faculty.” smiled Alejandro. “Dr. Foster is an awesome professor and it’s been great learning from him.”
Alex has gotten to know the professors in Miller because somehow this “lazy” guy played with the Symphonic Band and Orchestra for 7 semesters each while shoehorning Brass Ensemble into 4 semesters and, for really loud and noisy stuff, managed a season of Pep Band. That’s a lot of time in Miller Hall with his trumpet all while maintaining high grades in his major field of Psychology. Alejandro said, “It’s about prioritizing and organizing.”
His favorite piece in this concert is Mother Earth composed by David Maslanka in 2006. The piece is the essence of musical variety - seemingly unrelated and disparate parts that come together and make sense when played well.
Next year Alejandro hopes to attend graduate school saying that in his field he needs an MS for most positions. Hopefully he’ll find one with an open band or orchestra policy such as AU.
On the other side of the Symphonic Band seating you’ll find Ben Esham with his French horn. Ben’s family found the level of organization and dedication needed to raise 4 children and get all of them to both violin and other (French horn, oboe and flute) lessons.
Benjamin is a senior at Alfred University and a member of the Symphonic Band set to perform on April 23rd. Benjamin talked about his experience with music, starting as a second grade violinist under the instruction of a husband and wife team’s elementary string program, a program that Benjamin’s younger siblings also attended. Right now the program is being threatened with budget cuts but Benjamin’s and other parents are working to keep the program intact – further evidence that the Esham family values all the embellishments that music can bring to life.
In addition to studying violin and horn, Benjamin also spent a bit of time with a trumpet in Jazz band and with a mellophone (what a flute player might see as a trumpet/French horn blend) for marching band. He finished his high school marching career as Drum Major, a task requiring conducting and leadership skills. The Geneseo band marched in street shows where Benjamin led 90 students from a high school population of 240. That’s impressive.
Geneseo’s band also traveled so Benjamin went to Charleston, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Trips like that mean intense rehearsals and a ton of fundraising too.
After high school, Benjamin chose Alfred University because of “a very nice scholarship” but also because he liked the location, the size of the school and that he could play in the band or orchestra without having to major in music. While Benjamin has spent uncounted hours in AU performance groups - Symphonic Orchestra for seven semesters, Symphonic Band for 8 semesters and all 4 years in Pep Band - he chose to minor in chemistry, not music.
Benjamin came to Alfred as a National Merit Scholar and he maintained high standards throughout his studies as shown by his induction into Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year. His coursework was likely demanding because keeping that chemistry minor company is a pair of majors - math and physics. Benjamin plans to study theoretical high-energy physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after leaving Alfred.
Benjamin’s favorite piece in this concert is Sanctuary by Frank Tichelli. “It’s beautiful the whole way through. It’s soft and reflective at the start and builds to intensity in the middle but it’s consistently beautiful,” he feels.
The performance of Sanctuary, in all its beauty and strength will be dedicated to Julie Taylor Ogden, a woman of great beauty and strength, who played with the group before her life was dictated by pain and claimed by cancer.
Benjamin said that he’s really been impressed with Dr. Chris Foster, director of the band. “He built the band from a really small group into an ensemble that has gotten larger and better every semester.”
The Symphonic Band Concert invites you to an impressive one-hour collection of contemporary music written expressly for symphonic band. Selections include Samuel Hazo’s jubilant “Exultate,” Steven Bryant’s pensive “Bloom,” and Dana Wilson’s dry and rhythmic “Colorado Peaks.”
The concert will be in Holmes Auditorium, Harder Hall, on Friday, April 23 at 8 p.m. It’s free, open to the public and a dignified start for Hot Dog Day weekend. Enter Harder Hall on the uphill side through the multiple glass doors. Turn right to Howell Hall auditorium.

Sarah Carmen presents Senior Thesis Show

2010-04-05T06:40:00.002-05:00

A few years ago I thought I had a basic understanding of “art” but as a result of listening actively and looking deeply, of concentrating intently as various students described their work, I’ve realized that art is a small word holding an entire world of meanings.

Is art about what I see or about a practice of exploring materials and processes? Maybe it’s about discovering relationships and linking science with thought or past with present. Maybe it’s about making people slow down and put words to their responses as their eyes or even hands explore an object or idea.

Maybe, all I know is maybe so it’s time to work at that definition some more. It’s time for Alfred University’s 2010 Senior Thesis Shows. All seniors in Alfred University’s School of Art and Design create a thesis and present work to explore that thesis - a senior show. Every student will have a different thesis and will present their answers in different ways – using clay, paint, rocks, dirt, glass, paper, gesso, time, fur, wood, dance, sound, machines and whatever other material seems to suit the thesis. The shows will be held on Saturday, May 8. The opening reception is from 4-7 pm and you’re invited. Bring a friend and share rides. Parking is hard to find.

In preparation for the shows, I spoke with Sarah Carmen. Sarah’s major is Art and Design with a concentration in photography and a minor in Education. Sarah came to Alfred to study art and she always intended to include education in her program but she didn’t jump into photography until she signed up for classes for a semester overseas in Scotland last year.

She filled out paperwork choosing graphic design as her course work while in Scotland. As soon as she saw those words on the paper she realized that she wasn’t a bit interested in graphic design. She wanted to study photography. She changed the answer and has been snapping up antique cameras and photos on 2 continents. “Art has been heaven ever since,” according to Sarah.

Sarah’s camera of choice is a circa 1950 Ansco Flex medium format camera. It has 2 lenses, one for her to frame her image and the other to expose light to the film. She can’t get film for this camera so she buys black and white Kodak 120mm film and takes it off the spool to rewind it onto other spools that will actually fit inside the camera. The process of loading film takes her about 30 minutes.

Sarah has a friend, a psychology student, who understands Sarah’s language of photography. She knows how to stand and how to look to capture the aspect of the setting that Sarah wants in her photo. That’s an uncommon skill, she says.
Sarah’s project involves using her photos as well as photos she has found and copied and manipulating them by cutting them, changing the textures, blowing them up and changing them.

One of her projects in Scotland was to present a single photo 50 different ways. She really liked that project and doing it made her stretch her understanding of images. When she returned from Scotland she brought that challenge with her and has spent her senior year manipulating photos in even more ways. While working with photos this way she realized that the processes made her photos more like her memories of Scotland.

“The mind sheds memories,” said Sarah. “Our minds take in an image through our eyes but change that image to fill it in with textures and related experiences – current or from other time periods. Our minds work on those images, superimposing some parts and erasing others but we think those are the images we really saw.”

Sarah makes copies of her images and then puts them on heavy, gesso-coated paper and then washes off the paper to reveal grainy images on the large sheets. Photographic representation of mind-fuzzed memories. She also layers photos in light boxes putting several images on plastic or glass and piling them up in groupings that seem related to her.

The light boxes will be small and the washed images will be huge and they will all represent Sarah’s mind and memory and her sense of “heaven” in a space shared with Rayanna Bump’s stained-glass show in Harder Hall on the second floor painting area.

Starting Small, show at The Artist Knot

2010-03-14T22:20:00.007-05:00

Boats by Molly Dougherty (photo provided)

Amy Brown meant to start small but her first show at the newly remodeled gallery, the Artist Knot in Andover, drew a huge crowd – enormous in enthusiasm and massively impressed.

Among the first guests to walk in were Rick and Sarah Recio from Wellsville. Rick said that several forces nudged them to attend the show. They read articles about the store/gallery in 2 area papers and then their neighbor brought a gift from the Artist Knot. Rick drove past it twice a day for a while – always too early or too late to stop – but the postcard about the show made them set the date for a visit.

Recios found three “favorites” on display in the show as well as in the main gallery: a Salvador Dali print, a painting of elephant tulips and a Dick Lang bowl. They sipped wine, visited friends, snacked on an engaging spread of food and in the end chose the Dali, an intricate design wonderfully framed and matted.

Ann and Rich Hampshire, present, were pleased that there is a place like the Artist Knot to show off all our local artists.

Anthony Lipnicki, proprietor of the Mustard Seed Inn, said, “This is a wonderful addition to the community of Andover. Andover is turning into “the place to be” and this opening gave me the chance to appreciate the talent in our area. It also made me realize the quality of art made by some of my friends.”

Another guest, Ty Houston from Hornell, spent a great deal of time studying Bob Chaffee’s wood carvings as well as an oil painting by Jay Pullman of Hornell. Pullman’s painting, Time for a Rest III showed a pile of logs, large diameter pieces on the bottom and smaller on the top, a blue jacket hanging on one log and a maul leaning against its future task.

Houston works for the Tribune in Hornell. Last week, her job required her to visit a sawmill so the topic in Pullman’s piece caught her eye, surprising her. While working, she had walked past stacks of wood, mundane things unworthy of note, but Pullman had looked at much the same scene and turned it into art. “He took a small part of life and made it bigger. He saw something I would never have seen,” she said as she continued to study the patterns in the wood.

“The title is Time for a Rest III and that makes me want to know the story. Was the jacket still on the person in number one? Was there a number 4? Was it the painter’s jacket?”

Houston left those questions hanging but later Pullman arrived with answers. Before painting this series, he had been living in the south but hurricane Katrina destroyed his home so he moved to the “family homestead” in Hartsville. There he faced that pile of wood, wore that jacket and wielded that maul to turn chunks of tree into winter heat. His wood piles were neatly stacked with an artist’s eye toward pattern - and the pattern came to this series of paintings. The larger logs at the bottom of the stack were those that refused to yield to his maul.

The Artist Knot is filled with the work of 48 artist and artisans but Starting Small has small works created by 12 of them. The show includes drawings by Jerry Brown, paintings by Tom O’Grady and o’bhriuthiann, wood carvings by Alec MacCrea, silver jewelry by Trina Allen and pottery by Mark Corwine. Molly Dougherty, of Richburg, was not only the youngest artist but the most popular among patrons Starting Small opened on Friday, March 12, 2010 and continues on Tuesdays through Saturdays until April 23 during regular hours. In addition to art, the Artist Knot also sells professional art supplies and materials. Visit www.ArtistKnot.com for hours.

Bob Chaffee's Lonesome Indian (photo provided)

Trina Allen's Free Falling Leaves necklace (photo provided)

Dick Lang's Brown Covered Jar (photo provided)

The CornerStone of Alfred

2010-03-08T21:53:00.002-05:00

What if you had to describe the totality of Alfred? How would you do it? How would you present the story of a traffic light celebration or a place where an art show might spend a glorious hour in a public restroom or on a Main Street bench?

How would you introduce or symbolize the people who give Alfred life as an experience and not just an address? How would tuck Alfred, the entity, into a play and send it off to a stage where at least one person in the audience would emit that comforting sigh, slow and steady, that we stream through our bodies after a long or difficult journey?

Those questions and tasks were the topics tackled and mused during a weekend workshop with Cornerstone Theater Company. Cornerstone is a multi-ethnic, ensemble-based theater company that works with communities to help them create new plays or adapt classic plays in order to tell a story in a way that can create, define, strengthen or expand a community. That’s a simple description. Find more if you’d like at CornerstoneTheater.org.

In a list of things that I am not one would surely find “actor” so when Becky Prophet invited me to attend an acting workshop my first response was to look for a hiding place but Becky is a force of nature and her enthusiasm led created interest and curiosity so I braved the snow (and the threat of acting) and came to Alfred to be part of the process.

The workshop was presented by Paula Donnelly and Laurie Woolery from Cornerstone. Donnelly and Woolery both sport a huge list of theatrical involvements listing several theatrical groups, residencies and shows. They came to Alfred to develop their own image of the community through experience with residents and to demonstrate the exercises that Cornerstone employs.

During some early exercises we learned that the 26 participants were life-long residents of Alfred, people who chose to move to Alfred, people who were new to the area and people who expected a short-term (perhaps 4 year) relationship with the town. The group was made up of people with all manner of learning styles and found they could make sub groups with several commonalities such as favorite foods, having performed in groups or thinking that puppies are adorable. These were cultural mapping activities that required interaction and cooperation.

Cornerstone has guidelines for dialogue and we went over some of the elements in establishing a productive dialogue. There was discussion about the elements that define a community and the some of the ways of engaging with a community as well as guidelines for successful community meetings – all of which Donnelly and Woolery followed to make participants feel welcome and to keep everyone engaged.

During an exercise called wagon wheel, rotating pairs answered questions about their lives and their experiences in prejudice and assumptions. The focus moved from participants to the community as ideas built. In another exercise small groups talked about the specific characters that make Alfred come alive. Some of the “people” listed were art students, engineering students, and the town cops. Specific names included John Ninos, John Cunningham and Becky Prophet.

In describing Alfred through the senses people spoke of Nana’s, the Terra Cotta and Kinfolk when considering taste. For sight and smells they spoke of the hills and natural areas. The sound of peacefulness and the bells were commonly mentioned.
There were many small town stories shared from the memories of eating a can of pork and beans while walking down Main Street in the 1950s to the experience of arriving in Alfred just a few months ago and feeling welcomed from the first minute.

On the second day of the workshop a lot of these memories, impressions and details worked into short skits to try to explain the concept of Alfred. Whether or not this process continues and grows into something more the workshop was an interesting process in building a sense of community and learning to establish groups that work well together.

Buenos Aries

2010-02-14T14:42:00.000-05:00

At the time of this piece we have been in Buenos Aries 4 of our 5 days. We’ve accepted that nobody with sense wears gold here and left our necklaces and my ring in the hotel. I’ve seen some tourists wear gold but not many of them – 2 young guys with fine gold chains and iPods and one older woman with a marvelous antique gold chain.

It’s all about security here. Men wear belly pouches under their arms and around their necks. Women clutch bags at their stomachs and backpacks are worn at the front almost 100% of the time on adults.

We have noticed a strong café culture with plenty of cafes to choose from. People sit and sip tea, coffee, latte, cappuccino and vino for hours in the day. We went to Café Tortoni, standing in line to get permission from the doorman to enter. Inside this National Heritage site the waiters are in black suits with white shirts and the proverbial towel over the arm. There are 2 rooms set up for historical preservation areas with Café’ Tortoni memorabilia and in one corner of the working area there are 3 mannequins of historical characters who once ate and talked there.

Upstairs is the National Tango academy where there are shows and lessons offered. In the café I ate a salad of tomatoes, peaches, a boiled egg and pickled palm hearts served with Balsamic vinegar and olive oil. It was great but I couldn’t finish the huge bowl of food. Rick had some marvelous hot chocolate (not thick like in Spain but milky like in the US but richer.) served with 3 sugar dusted churros.

We visited a Burger King built inside of a 18th century mansion where the pillars and ornate ceilings and doorways were preserved. We visited a bookstore built into a theater where the stage was used for the café and the balconies were lined with books and CDs and DVDs. It is ranked as the second most wonderful book store in the world and I can’t imagine what could outrank it.

We went to stand at the golden doors of city hall at 4 pm on Saturday and when the doors opened 2 guards marched out to stay at the entry for the hour that city hall is open for visitors. The city hall was expanded when the city acquired the neighboring newspaper building whose lobby was carved from oak and whose ballroom has 2 stages and is as ornate as anything in Peter Hoff in St. Petersburg. Rick and I were the only English speakers so we had a private tour.

In our visits up and down streets and in and out of subways we often see men with babies or little children. When the family is together the man pushes the stroller unless there are a few children and he has to carry one or two.

The Harrods closed 20 years ago and that building remains totally empty and dark but without the graffiti that afflicts the banks that are known to do businesses with genocidal governments.

The splendor of so many buildings is eye popping. It isn’t quite Prague or Budapest but it isn’t as old as either of those cities either. It is said to be the Paris of South America and deserves any name that recognizes its glorious architecture. We would like it just a bit more if the heat didn’t melt our bones and make us rubbery legged in the streets.

South American Hotels

2010-02-14T14:40:00.002-05:00

We stayed at 3 hotels on this trip. In Santiago it was Hotel Orly, a tiny hotel tucked into the center of town where there was tea, coffee, water, fruit and cookies all day long in a charming café on the main floor. We arrived too early for our room but we were offered breakfast and the chance to sit and rest in the lobby or common area before we went out into the Chilean heat. Overall it was a super hotel and I would recommend it to anyone.

In Valparaiso we stayed at Hostel Morgan, a small home maintained by a woman and her daughter. They gave us a find breakfast, good sightseeing advice. I would stay there anytime and happily since Valparaiso was wonderful to walk around. The public art was everywhere to find - like searching for Easter Eggs in the grass.

Third –and another winner- was Lola House in Buenos Aries. This is run by 2 sisters who hired their brother-in-law to do the renovations to turn an 1850s family home into a Spanish style house with a courtyard and wonderful tiles. The name is in honor of their brother-in-law’s mother, Dorothy. She was Spanish( Lola is the Spanish diminutive of Dorothy.) and so that dictated the style of the home with stained glass in the ceiling and over the doorway as well as intricate tile installations glazed to show Lola’s favorite paintings and designs.

Anna and Irena couldn’t be more gracious and welcoming hostesses. Breakfast is generous; internet is free and the air conditioners make the rooms more than comfortable. Someone is on hand to let guests in around the clock and the dogs guard the patio in the night.

Punta Arenas Chile

2010-02-05T13:55:00.011-05:00

Puerto Varis Chile

2010-02-05T13:49:00.005-05:00

Photos in Puerto Montt Chile

2010-02-05T13:44:00.012-05:00

Puerto Montt Chile

2010-02-05T13:42:00.000-05:00

I forgot my flickr password so am posting photos here. These were all taken in Puerto Mont where the ship docked for most of a day. It’s a small port so the ship anchored – or whatever they do – in the middle of the water and we took tenders into the port. (The tenders are rated form 90 passengers for the short rides from the ship to the small docks but are rated for 150 people if the ship starts to sink. I just don’t see how that many people would fit on these small boats but I digress.)
There are a few scenes from the dock at Puerto Montt. The tide was low and we had to climb up from the tenders at about a 45 degree angle. It must have been tough for a number of the passengers. It also looked tough on the old boats near the edge of the water. One looked to be well past any floating ability.
Some men were unloading lots of potatoes – future papas fritas perhaps. One man was selling ground chili pepper in burlap bags placed on the sidewalk. That seemed odd. It didn’t seem that many tourists would buy chili pepper and most of the people walking around were tourists.
We passed a parked helicopter – no idea why it was there – and noticed a shop for helicopter blade repairs. Again, no idea how many helicopters dropped by this little town to have their blades spruced up.
There were many shops selling scarves and sweaters and women knit away at blinding speed but we bought nothing. Shop keeper after shop keeper said the scarves were alpaca but they felt like cotton. The, one woman said that the rest would all tell us the fabric was alpaca but they were lying. It’s cotton. I believed her. Nobody claimed they were hand woven though they were soft and colorful.

We took a public bus to Puerto Varis. We walked through the bus terminal but didn’t see any tickets for sale there so went back to the mini bus. There was a sign in one that said Puerto Varis in the front window and a sign on the side that said 600 pesos, about $1.25. A tray of coins near the driver meant that he sold the tickets there.
When he began to back out of his parking space it seemed it would be impossible. There were buses beside and behind him. He just backed up with about half an inch to spare on either side. He took money from passengers as they got on making change and driving at the same time. He had one passenger sit up front with him and he took a cell phone call while paying a toll and continued to talk as he drove and made change. Possibly the regulations for bus drivers in Chile and in the US are different.

Fran and Fransja in Valapairso

2010-02-05T13:39:00.000-05:00

Fran and Fransja, people we sat with in Atlanta, met in Valpraiso and sailed with on the Veendam, told us some rip off stories with great whatareyagonnadoaboutit glee.
First, they got some help from a man to move their luggage from the home they stayed in to the car to move from Santiago to Valparaiso. He said he would do it for a tip and so she tipped him what she thought was $2 dollars. It was really $20. He said he was moving luggage for 2 people so she gave him another bill. Then the woman who was driving them asked what they had tipped and Franja said about $4 dollars.
“That’ not enough,” her friend said so she tipped the guy another $4. Finally Fransja worked it out that she had an error involving decimal places and she realized why the guy was so happy.
Then they bought some wine to have wine, bread and cheese for dinner. They chose a bottle of wine and paid for it and felt pretty good about their good deal till they stopped in the next wine store just to look and found the same bottle for half the price. It was, they reported, lousy wine but it was paid for so they drank it.
The third rip off was they paid for stamps in a store where they bought post cards. They paid 600 pesos per stamp and never noticed that the stamps were worth 440 pesos.
While Fran and Fransja felt they were taken advantage by the citizens of Chile, Rick and I were cared for by a number of friendly aunts and uncles in Chile.
One woman came up to us in Santiago to tell us to wear our back packs in front so they wouldn’t be stolen. Several people told me to put my camera away or it would be stolen. Maria at the Hostel Morgan circled streets we should never walk on and one woman noticed that we paid for something with a 10,000 peso note instead of a 1,000 peso note and she made the woman give us back our money. Had she not spoken we never would have realized the mistake.

Valparaiso

2010-02-01T13:33:00.002-05:00

Valparaiso
We took a public bus from Santiago to Valparaiso and that went very well. Not like in Peru where the goats were on the roof and the standing people pushing their butts against sitting faces but a “super class,” four star, air conditioned Pullman Bus that really was quiet and smooth.

The receptionist at the Hotel Orly gave us a note stating that we wished to buy 2 tickets to Valparaiso on the next bus. If he hadn’t there is no telling where we might be now. There’s not a lot of English in Chile.

We got to the bus station by taxi with an English speaking driver who will be going to the beach on February 20 when the prices are lower and he can take time off. He insisted we try the Late Harvest wine during our stay. Late harvest the wine made from grapes that stay on the vine for a long while and dry some and become very sweet making a sweet wine for desserts. At any rate he left us at the station and Rick managed to get us tickets with the note.

Valparaiso is a port town built on 42 hills so many of the sidewalks are like those in Alaska – steps – endless steps. Walking 5 blocks might mean 2 blocks up, 2 down and another up. Driving is circuitous because of having to wend around the hills.

The houses are wonderfully painted. They are coral and turquoise; sunburst yellow and aquamarine; and some are simply the canvas for cats, cows, flowers, boats and portraits. To say that the city is colorful is inadequate. The many retaining walls, the garage doors and the house walls are decorated. The sidewalks are decorated. The doors burst with imagination. The steps are yellow brick roads into a dazzling city.

We stayed at the Hostel Morgan where Maria was wonderful. She and her daughter run the hostel and she shares her knowledge of the city. She had an adaptor that we borrowed to charge the laptop and the camera batteries. She prepared breakfast and visited with us. She accepted our post cards and money for stamps and would post them for us later. If you ever go to Valparaiso, stay at the Hostel Morgan and wear comfy shoes because every step is either uphill or downhill.

Also staying at the Hostel were Fran and Franja. While they are interesting on their own I realized that we had sat next to them at the Atlanta Airport and then we learned that they were going on the Veedam for the cruise. Fran works at Alyison Orchards and Franja does all kinds of stuff including restoration of antique dolls and toys.

We went from the Hostel to the cruise ship terminal where we had an interesting experience. Boarding for the ship was delayed. The reason for the delay was not well defined. Apparently high winds delayed the entry to the port by 3 hours. They sailed against 90 knot winds which are gale force winds of over 100 mph. They also experienced really rough seas. Many people on the ship were sea sick but many more suffered by gastrointestinal problems so the ship had to be sanitized before anyone could enter it.

We have no idea what happened to the passengers who were sick. Did they have the flu? Which flu? Are they now quarantined somewhere? How many were sick? How much of the sickness was due to the rough seas and how much to bacteria and how much to viruses? What bacteria and what viruses? How worried should we be?

Holland America said that anyone who was not willing to board the ship could have a full refund. They never give a full refund. Holland America sent us by bus to the beach resort town just down the road where they set up food at the Sheraton Hotel. They set up a corded area where we could leave our backpacks and carry-on luggage but then nobody watched the bags and slowly they disappeared. One man had his backpack taken from the back of his chair but hopefully the rest of the backpacks were taken by their owners. We kept ours in our hands the whole time.

Also by means of apology HA gave everyone $15 ship credit. That adds up to a lot times 1300 people but not much when divided by the 6 hours we sat around the Sheraton and waited. We were told that the buses would take us to the ship at 3:30 so we went for a walk and then returned to the Sheraton where nobody knew anything and we didn’t leave until 6:30. On board there are some stringent modifications. HA had told us that the authorities are impressed with their response to the situation. We kinda wonder what the authorities know but nobody’s talking.

Our cabin steward looked exhausted when we were finally allowed to come into the area to see him. He said that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast at 5:30 that morning. An extra crew had come in to help sanitize the ship with a special solution but in addition to all the normal cleaning, every common surface had to be sanitized. Some kind of powder was put on carpets and an oily solution went on the furniture and all hand rails and tables. Even now, when using a public restroom, one uses a sanitized wipe to open the door.

There is no self service. There are no salt or pepper shakers on the table. There is no bread basket but the server delivers bread and butter to each person. There is no self service for at the buffet or at the water, tea, coffee areas so that means considerable delays. Even the daily Sudok puzzle has to be handed to people rather than be put out in a tray. There are extra hand sanitizer dispensers – everywhere – and people use them. All the books are locked closed and I don’t know that I’d want to read any of them.

No handshakes are allowed. People are to bump elbows – the Holland American Bump. The captain asked everyone to refrain from ever touching their faces just after telling us that there is nothing to worry about.

“The authorities” – the people so impressed with the response to the situation - will assess the situation in 2 or 3 days and decide if any self service may be reinstated. We were wondering if this illness on the ship was enough to make the news out there is the wider world where uninvolved people may know more than those rocking on the sea.

HARDMAN HOLIDAY NEWS

2009-12-16T19:49:00.012-05:00

For more photos click on the Flickr cloud to the right....

Most years I vowed to start the Christmas letter early or to keep track of major events all year and so to post this primary-source, family history but this year I didn’t even try.
In January Rick and I went to Singapore and then cruised around Australia and New Zealand. We traveled 5 weeks—a trip made possible by friends who helped with house, mail and cat tending.
The photo above was taken looking down from the top of the monument at Borobodur while the next photo is from the paper factory and museum in Burnie, Australia.

Next is of a farmer works his field in Bali.

While we were home in the summer Rick and I (mostly Rick) worked on doors— 4 of them. My favorite is the door to the basement studios. Rick repaired a door rescued from a trash pile and we installed my handmade sunflower tiles in place of the glass. As part of the door project I meant to paint the front door green but all I managed was to leave the can of primer in the front hall for 2 months. Maybe in the spring

The other big event this summer was our garden. Rick a rototilled the sand and compost into a nice mix and I planted snow peas, tomatoes, broccoli, garlic, pumpkins, squash, strawberries and rhubarb.

The rhubarb & pumpkins took over the land. I planned on strawberry rhubarb crisp for Rick but there were few strawberries (next year will be great) so looked toward apples but we didn’t get a single apple this year from a tree that generally had bushels to share.
The radishes were round and spicy; the carrots short and sweet and the lettuce grew faster than we could chew. One gourd seed from the compost germinated and gave us about 50 gourds but the tomatoes rotted for us as they did for most.

The broccoli produced until after snowfall. We’re making the garden larger next year and planting okra and more things that appeal to Rick so that means fewer zucchini.

While our tomatoes rotted we went to the Baltic States on a cruise. This photo is part of the city wall in Tallin, Estonia.

I spent Halloween in Boston with Emilie and Josh. Em was a speaker at the Boston Vegetarian Society Food Fest. Josh and I helped her serve 400 samples of food to her guests during the event and then we all went out dancing that night.

Jay had several pieces of his work accepted as part of the Fleisher/Ollman Gallery annual group exhibition. “I Don’t Watch the Internet” opened on Dec 10 and runs through January 16. Rick and I are going after Christmas. a(This is Rick, Me, Miss Dot, and Jay in Philly. Miss Dot is Jay's neighbor and extended family.

Other than that I continue to play flute and make pottery. Rick builds furniture, works on the 1939 Chevy and fixes things I break. The cat purrs; snow falls; fire snaps and one hopes the world comes to value kindness.

Alfred University Equestrian Teams

2009-12-07T21:32:00.004-05:00

The Alfred University Equestrian teams work diligently to ride precisely. They aim for technical perfection as a rule but once a year they get a little wacky and ride in costume, to music, without judges, just for fun. That happened last Sunday at the Bromeley-Daggett Equestrian Center.

There were top hats, feathers, glitter, donkey ears and a horse’s tail fighting for relief from a green Shrek costume.

First up was Kristen Kovatch in her equestrian version of Brittney Spears. Kristen rode “Docs Peppy Image” – her own horse – while Brittney’s recording of “Circus” filled the arena. There was some impressive galloping where she and the horse leaned into the turns as if she was taking a winding road full speed on a motorcycle.

Nick Munch rode “Mighty Little Lena” and Katherine Kennedy rode “Roan” with her fluffy skirt blowing to the tune of “Love Story.”

Aeryn Dougan dressed her horse, “Spring Start” as Shrek and herself as a big-bellied donkey and performed to “Bad Reputation” from the first Shrek movie.

Hanna Certis rode “Old Frank Hickory” to the sound of “I Can Sleep When I’m Dead,” one of several country western tunes that thumped along with the hooves in the area. Another was “Address in the Stars,” a song that accompanied Kayla Summerville on her glitter-speckled horse “Paulie.”

There was an impressive dressage duo drill by Rebecca Jacobson and Beth Ulbrecht. Beth is the head captain of the English varsity equestrian team which is currently in second place in the region – their best performance ranking so far.

Finally there was another freestyle western performance – a trio with Kristen Kovatch, Natalie Grow and Kate West.
The arena is a fairly large area but it seemed to shrink when filled with three speeding, skidding horses. It took guts and confidence to attempt that work with a trio but it went smoothly as one would expect because these three women are members of the Western Riding Team and are in 2nd place in the region.

There are 3 more events open to the public in the near future. All are free though there will be food for sale in the concession stand.

On January 16 & 17 Alfred U will host the Western Interscholastic Equestrian Association Show and on February 6th they will host the Western Intercollegiate Horse Show Association. Both evens generally run from 9 am to 4 pm and the arena has heated viewing areas on both floors where visitors may sit or stand and watch. All are welcome to attend.

There’s also a horse sale scheduled for December 12. The sale will feature 5 colts used in the Training Program. These colts were purchased so that students could experience training a horse and the sale is a part of that class. In addition to those 5 colts there will be about a dozen other horses for sale.
For more information visit www.alfred.edu/academics/equestrian/facilities.cfm or contact Nancy Kohler, Program Director, at 607.587.9012 and remember to “cowboy up.”

Allegany County Citizens for Responsible Government

2009-10-27T14:56:00.003-05:00

I attended the October 26 meeting of Allegany County Citizens for Responsible Government. The meeting of people from around the county was inspiring because it was real citizen action with people coming together without regard for political party to work on one issue.

The meeting started with the approval of the minutes from the last meeting, plowed through some correspondence and then jumped full force into a review of name-calling and what the board members and legislative guests felt were ies and political manipulation.

The tinder in this ongoing conflict is the proposed “Citizen’s Plan” that would renovate existing spaces in the old jail and the old Belmont School to provide for the Allegany County Court’s need for space at considerably lower cost in dollars and environmental impact than the construction of a new Court House wing. I favor this plan because I’m one to reuse and recycle.

Barb Hetzel, the only Democrat on the group’s board, read a letter from Chairman Crandall denying permission for citizens to tour the third floor area of the old jail. He cited safety concerns and security concerns because the area is used for storage. They wanted to see the floor to personally as they had toured the available space at the old Belmont School.

Hetzel also read parts of a letter from the office of the Unified Court System, Sixth Judicial District. The letter discussed the use of an existing building to satisfy the needs of the courts in the city of Oneida. The UCS indicated that “there is no requirement that court offices be all on one floor” and stated that the City of Oneida would be reimbursed “for construction renovation costs to an existing building at 100% for interior construction, electrical work, and plumbing work for the space the court occupies.”

The letter elaborated that Cooperstown recently completed a similar project where an old grocery store was reworked to serve the needs of the court system. Where courts were given space by renovating existing buildings the cost of the project was “approximately one third the cost of new construction.”

The letter sounded as if there was great support at the state level for renovating an existing space and that the state should cover the cost of the program rather than stacking the tax burden on Allegany County.

Then the steam really poured on the issue when Hetzel read a lengthy letter presented, by Dave Pullen, to the county legislature at their meeting. The letter, dismissive of the lawsuit and several specific individuals involved with it, was read in full at the meeting after Pullen was “granted privilege of the floor” while time to respond to it was denied to Kruger.
Pullen said that the lawsuit pages were riddled with errors and strikeouts but Scott guessed that what, at a glance, looked like strikeouts were actually underlines meant to indicate case names. Scott also said that the deadline to file was nearly expired by the time he was able to prepare the paperwork and that once filed he would be able to make amendments and corrections.

Pullen said that the order of show cause was not signed by a judge. This is true, said Ross, but it is because all of the local judges recused themselves and it was necessary to wait for a judge to be assigned to the case. Now that a judge is assigned, the paper will be signed.

Kruger was displeased that the letter trumpeted the value of letting the vote of the people stand and cited cases where the legislators worked to dismiss the voice of the people. He said that legislators had tried to have Young and Giglio create a special state law to allow the construction of a court house next to the jail without a local vote on a the matter.

Kruger also stated that Hornell built their court facilities in an old bank and the total cost was $2 million. He said that listening to Pullen read his letter without being able to respond or question was like being a mule in a hailstorm with no choice but to take the pelting.

Kruger said it was important for voters to look at who really has concern for the tax payers. While Social Security recipients will get no COLA this year because there is no inflation, they will have to pay higher taxes because all the department heads were voted raises. He also said that while he has never been a member of ACCFRG that he has attended all meetings to answer questions and to listen to the people. That, he said, was his job and he intended to do it as well as he could. “Where he the other members (legislators) been? They chose to hide in caucus,” said Kruger.

For the matter of the lawsuit being brought to support the candidacy of Ross Scott, several members made it clear that this was not a decision made by one or two people but many voters - over 100 citizens attending the September meeting. Those citizens donated their money to pay the fees. Scott said that he was working on the project, gratis, as a public citizen and he’d have done it whether or not he was running for office. The timing of the stages of the project, and therefore the actions against it, has always been the choice of the county board of legislators and not of Scott or of ACCFRG.

Also, in the matter of timing, Scott stated that the lawsuit challenges the unconstitutionality of the plan’s approval. The deadlines for dealing with an unconstitutional process are different and this lawsuit was filed within the timeline for that process.

Responding to Pullen’s letter asserted that the purchase of 2 houses in Belmont had nothing to do with the court house project Cindy Gowiski read a letter written by Mr. Margeson to one of the home owners. The letter specifically says that their home is needed to provide area for parking because of the project.

Galen Stout reported on his pursuit of the naming of the Allegany County Courthouse as a historic structure. The State Historic Preservation Office determined that the Allegany County Courthouse is eligible and sent letters regarding that Mr. Crandall, the Preservation League and others. None of the recipients have responded.

I’d like to thank these people for digging into the dry numbers and issues and speaking up in the face of “hailstones.”

Stop the Pottery -Time for TV

2009-10-16T18:00:00.003-05:00

Being president of the Allegany Artisans is one of those jobs pointing in more directions than a porcupine’s quills.
Last Wednesday was like that. I was trying not to skid into panic mode over the Studio Tour (just 11 days off) and was making one of my to-do-list/calendars that would map my way through the studio and end with all pots dried, bisque, glazed, priced and displayed when I remembered that one of my points of duty involved calling Lea DiCenso, executive producer at AM Buffalo. I had talked with her a week earlier and she said that hosting the Allegany Artisans on the show this year unlikely but she never knew what might happen. She has managed to feature the Artisans every year for a while now. We couldn’t complain about a year off.
I dialed expecting voice mail. She answered. I expected her to accept a few photos and information for WKBW’s website but she jumped into business mode. There was a cancellation. 6 minutes were available on Thursday – 18 hours hence. Could I make a few things happen?
My first use of the to-do-list/calendar was to flip it over to take notes from Lea while swallowing concerns for pottery. Pots could dry while I was on TV on Thursday.
I started mental calculations and plans. Sarah Phillips agreed to throw her gardening aside and go with me. She would pack up some paintings. I started taking tracking down 6 photos – 300 dpi – horizontal orientation.
Lea needed a poster that would work on TV. She had rattled off pixel dimensions that I immediately forgot. (Don’t tell her that.) The Allegany Artisans always have a vertical poster and she wanted horizontal. Sarah and I brainstormed options and I remembered that Hope Zaccagni had sent a pdf of part of the brochure for our website. Rick dropped what he was doing to work on that. If he cut off the top and bottom and photo-shopped the Tourism phone number and website over the group photo, we could call it a horizontal poster.
Hope Zaccagni designed the brochure so had all the photos but she was in meetings all day but Steve Walker had some and so did Kandace and Alec and so did I. Mine were from 2008 but a Bruce Greene teapot is timeless. WKBW had jpgs in a couple of hours.
Russ Allen agreed to drop off a wooden train and Bob Chaffee promised a carved plate and a never-wrinkles table cover. I packed my Pete Midgley vase from the mantle, Hope’s drawing from the dining room and chose a shirt that would show off my Jim Horn pin in googly-eyed splendor.
In the morning Sarah and I drove to Buffalo. Security at WKBW is strict. There are lots of doors but visitors go to the front door and call the person who is expecting them. Inside there are reception areas, offices and rooms filled with monitors, keyboards and blinking lights all held together by miles of cables and wires.
AM Buffalo is a live show and the studio has a few areas – the jackpot drawing set, the sofa set, the rolling table and the kitchen. There are 5 cameras aimed in different direction. Each wears a monitor for the text above its unblinking eye but there are no people behind the cameras. The people are off in those equipment-filled rooms. At least I expect they are during the show. When we arrived just after 9 a.m., the crew that came to work at 4:30 that morning was having lunch.
Sarah and I set up our art and talked about it. Linda Pellegrino laughed at my cow bank while Lea insisted it was a pig. Mike told me to bring in the table and clay demo stuff that Lea said to leave in the car. “Ask Lea,” I said, not wishing to be stuck in the middle of anything.
As if Sarah and I had a smidge of Linda’s experience and ease we were given a 2 minute sketch of our 6 minute show. It was my 3rd show and I knew not to try to prepare. What I hoped to say would never fit with what Linda would shoot out as a question.
I set my inner monitors to keep with the conversation and mention as many artisans as possible. Push the phone number. Name the website. Keep breathing. Try not to look doopy. Don’t cough. Don’t sneeze on Linda.
Seconds later the segment was over. Linda said it was easy to go on air with us. We were so confident and at ease. Could have fooled me.
I stopped at the Allegany County Tourism office on the way home. Patience Regan jumped out of her chair saying I should have warned her before getting myself on some big TV production. She had 18 phone calls in just 2 hours. Whether or not you caught us on WKBW, come to my studio for great pots, Jim Horn’s pins, and refreshments. Sarah says to see her in Rushford for paintings, silk scarves and better refreshments.
Of course there are more choices. Visit www.AlleganyArtisans.com to find all 36 locations and all 47 artisans offering locally made, quality work during the 22nd annual Studio Tour.

St Petersburg

2009-09-08T01:36:00.001-05:00

St Petersburg: I almost hate to say it but one of the best parts of visiting St Petersburg may have been the people in our tour group. Jo and Rob were fun and cheery and it was totally Jo’s fault that I sat on that carved lion at Peterhof. (Well, maybe not totally Jo’s fault.) There were also 4 people from western NY one of whom worked at the white house for over 20 years and had some very interesting stories to tell. He couldn’t tell the best of the stories because White House staffers take vows of silence but it was still pretty interesting to talk with him.

The cruise ship’s people made us believe that it would be hard to get through immigration and that the officials would be rude but they weren’t at all. We were in line for about half an hour but it was pretty straight forward – show passport and proof of tour agency contact with immigration card and go. The cruise ship told us to have copies of our passports but we didn’t need them and they told us that we couldn’t bring food into Russia but that wasn’t true either and the food at the tourist locations was darn expensive – such as the tiny $18 sandwich – so on the second day we took food.

Our guide was the articulate and knowledgeable Sophia from J & T Travel. Russian tour agencies are allowed to bring people into Russia without visas. J&T arranged for us to go right into museums and churches instead of waiting in lines; had bottled water for us both days and gave us Russian dolls at the end. Also, we signed up for a tour with 4 people at a given price but when they expanded the group to 13 people the price went down to 2/3rds of the original price so that was a great surprise.

We started with a photo stop at a large square in the middle of town by St. Isaacs Church. It was damaged in the second war but when they rebuilt it damaged areas of the pillars were left as is. We were there early so it wasn’t open.

We went to Catherine’s Palace for our first taste of royal taste. There was a band playing and trying to sell CDs outside the palace. Inside was gold leaf everything.

One room was windows on one side and mirrors on the other 3 with 500 lights (replacing 500 candles) and all the decorations were carved wood with gold leaf. The room shimmered with glitz. The floor was marvelous and the mirrors were aching for fancy gowns instead of travel pants and T-shirts. The ceiling was painted and carved and gold leafed. Royalty really goes for bling.

In the halls were 2 Cupid statues. One Cupid sleeps – that’s the west – and in the east Cupid wakes up. The statues were to help guests know which wing of the palace they were standing in.

There were portraits of hims and hers and visitors and generals. There were some empty dresses showing the detail of clothing. Catherine (I think it was Catherine) never liked to wear the same gown twice. I think they have 14,000 of her gowns. How they made them fast enough is a mystery. It’s not like these were simple shifts or as if they had Singers to work with. When I think of the stitching on those yards of fabric it seems the seamstresses who first had machines must have thought they were sent from heaven.

There is a big deal made of the Amber Room. The walls are covered in bits of amber.

There are some lovely amber picture frames and I looked and squinted and turned this way and that but it seemed to me that there was no actual picture in the frames. I thought the amber would form an image in mosaic pieces but I don’t think so. I took a couple of photos before realizing that they aren’t allowed. There’s a long story about the room being stolen and taken by the Nazis and never recovered but then being reproduced from sketches. After such a build up about the amazing and marvelous Amber Room I was disappointed.

The palace looks great now but in the time of the soviet rule it was really allowed to run down. There was a lot of damage during the Second World War but it’s mostly tip top now though the upkeep on a palace is significant.

We went to an out of the way Russian Orthodox church. The yard was a bit of a mess with some construction going on and the gardens in disarray but the church looked like a cross between a cake decorating contest and a crazy quilt. There were colors and details everywhere. The outside was bright with tiles and domes and turrets and the inside was totally painted. A wedding had just taken place when we arrived and the bride and groom were leaving with guests so we went inside and looked – gawked more likely. My photos will go on flickr but they are only of the exterior and of the entry hall. No photos were allowed in the church itself but the exterior is more than enough to understand how fancy a building can get.

Peterhof – now that is really fancy but this fancy is about fountains and statues.
There are hundreds of fountains in the property and the water runs through all of them by force of gravity. It shoots tens of feet into the air at some fountains and cascades down others but it’s all just gravity. Sophia said that the water was regulated by having it flow through pipes of different diameters. It was hard to believe. Really hard to believe.

This is also a place where one can understand how detached from the ordinary people a member of royalty is. It’s not very different in the US where the members of congress at state and national levels learn to live a life of power and prestige.

That White House staff members told me that it was absurd that he should have the power over the president’s schedule that he did and also said that the major corporations own all the politicians and that there is no way that we’ll get health care or banking regulations. The country will slide so much further into decay and that change is not likely in my lifetime. So depressing and yet it is what I have often felt. Obama said, “Yes we can.” He never said, “Yes, we will.” I fear he just won’t.

About sitting on the lion at Peterhof. I saw someone do it and so decided to get into the act and Jo took the photo. I guess that after that the police came over and told people to stop. I wouldn’t have done it but the lion was polished smooth from people sitting on it so I thought to go with the flow.

The Metro was great. It was just a short trip but I’m so glad we did it. The Stalin-era stations are the best, Sophia said. They were elegantly dressed in tile work and gorgeous brass lighting fixtures and there were statues and mosaics and scrolls and some crazy Britt lady making faces at me on the longest escalator ever.

The metro is used by half the citizens every day and they need to go far below the surface to find the tracks. The Stalin Era stations are the most beautiful and beautiful is the right word. They are the palaces of the underground. Sophia said that the houses built in the Stalin era are also very well built and bring the best prices now.

She said that lots of stuff fell into ill repair during the Soviet era because an apartment meant for a family would have 5 or 7 families living in it with nobody being an owner so nobody took care of the places. Now people buy apartments and they keep them well-maintained.

We went into the subway and crunched into a packed car to go one stop and then walked through a station to another train where we spent 2 stops worth of time stomach-to-back with the citizens of St. Petersburg. When we got out the driver was there with the van and we went to the Kiznechny Market which is where folks can buy gorgeous (organic) fruits and vegetables. Sophia said that people are willing to pay the high prices to get less food because the flavor is so much better. The market also had caviar and meats and cheeses. It was beautiful.
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The city is filled with gorgeous buildings and bridges. Sorry about overusing that word but it’s just the best fit. It was a real work out for the cameras.
On the second day we saw a puppy in red carpenter jeans and a fuzzy puppy that actually turned out to be a bear cub available for photos near a lovely bridge.

The Church of the Spilled Blood was the most amazing. It had been severely damaged during the Second World War and then was used as a potato storage house during the Soviet era. An unexploded shell landed in the main cupola but was removed. The church has been totally renovated now. The entire inside is covered in images made with tiny mosaic tiles - floors, walls, ceiling. It was the most impressive building. Czar Alexander II was murdered at the location so the church was built on the spot in his memory.

Then there was the Hermitage. Just when a person thinks that there can’t be anything more spectacular or ornate or complex, there is the Hermitage. It’s an art gallery containing the treasures of the royal family. These folk bought Rembrandts and Rodans and Cezannes when those guys were just artists down the block working for food so the walls are covered in treasures valued at about a million for every penny invested.

The Hermitage also holds a collection called the hidden treasures. These are works stolen from Jews by Nazis and now being contested in courts. There are no photos of these paintings allowed ostensibly because the ownership is disputed but I wonder if it is because with no photos fewer connections will be made. These people making the claims are also getting pretty old and dying off.

I’m sure I saw and heard and thought a hundred interesting things during the 2 days in St. Petersburg but the ideas have all been crowded out now by the visits to so many other places.

the first 4 days of our trip

2009-09-06T13:44:00.000-05:00

Warning – If you are going to Amsterdam and plan to buy train or metro tickets with your credit card, know your pin number. Rick and I never use our pin numbers. (Do we actually have them?) Not having pin numbers added a level of difficulty to our purchase of train tickets but that was nothing compared with the level of difficulty that Delta Air assigned to our flight.

We parked in Rochester at the $15 per week parking lot at the entrance to the airport. There were only a few empty spaces and that’s the most packed we’ve ever seen it. We rolled past the gas station and across the street through the official parking lot and checked our bags to JFK. That was the last easy part of the trip.

In JFK the check in line was huge – a human snake of luggage, squirming children, exhausted adults and very serious faces. It seems that Friday’s 3:40 flight had been cancelled so an entire plane load of we’ve-been-waiting-for -24 hours-people stood demanding attention and transportation to Amsterdam in addition to the already booked plane load of we’re-going-to-Amsterdam-on-Saturday-people.

There were computer check-in kiosks for the regular Saturday flight and another group for the rescheduled people who would leave at 4:40. A person led us to the 3:40 line and Rick entered our information. The machine spit out 2 boarding passes. While we were trying to move into a line to check the luggage a man called my name. He had our luggage tags and while I was being amazed about the speed of his finding us he said, “Look at this mess.”

It was a mess. The floor was covered with people and suitcases. There were lines crossing lines. There were throngs of people; hordes of passengers; seething pools of frustration pulling wheeled suitcases.

The representative continued, “It’s because of these self-serve computer kiosks,” he fumed. “They fired people, added computers and ruined our system. They cut costs and piled on the work. They’ve ruined everything.”

I hardly dared to talk with him. He was so frustrated and exhausted. He put the tags on our suitcases and sent us to join a line for the self serve suitcase security. The passengers in that line were possessive of their bit of floor space and shooed us away. We tried to find the end of the line for the 3:40 flight and when we found someone set to go at 4:40 they let us in. We didn’t have as much time as they did, right?

There were 2 x-ray machines and 2 exhausted people feeding them suitcases. The machine would slowly pull a suitcase inside, examine it and shove it out the back with a vehement kick that rocked the entire machine. With a mix of faith and hope we left our bags there and went to the gate.

We boarded the plane a little behind schedule and then sat there on the tarmac. What was going on? When the captain spoke about a half hour later I expected him to say something cheerful like that the plane would be pulled to the taxi way but, nope. Instead he told us a little story about the cancelled flight on Friday and the rescheduling of flights that was done without a provision for food for an extra plane. That “extra” plane had food but we did not. He hoped the wait would be short but in the meantime the crew would serve what they had and he’d have them start the in-flight film.

The crew had apple juice, orange juice and water. They said that there was no food at all but we learned later that first class folk had wine and nuts.

The half hour grew to 2 hours when the captain announced the wait would be at least 90 minutes longer. The groans and complaints swelled. People were missing connecting flights. Babies declined to be patient. Everyone was getting hungry and stiff and they weren’t even getting anywhere for it.

Likely someone asked if we couldn’t just take the food from the 4:40 flight and we were told not to be jealous. That flight hadn’t taken off either. They were without a full crew to serve “our” food so they were sitting and waiting also. Was that true or a clever bit of spin?

To forestall mutiny, the captain arranged $10 food vouchers for each of us and called the buses back to take us to the terminal to amuse ourselves. On the way out we passed the first class folk eating nuts and drinking wine. Rick and I got to the door in time to find the first bus had filled and gone so we stayed there and talked. One of the crew echoed the frustration of the luggage-tag man. People were cut from the workforce. Workloads were doubled. People were exhausted from working past the breaking point, forgetting things, making mistakes. “It can’t go on like this,” she said.

The bit of JFK that we were able to walk through had a couple of rest rooms; a Hudson; a coffee shop and a Chinese restaurant. The vouchers were good at the coffee shop and restaurant only. The staff there wasn’t prepared for an extra planeload of people all at once.

Rick and I went to the coffee shop and easily spent our $20 on not much food but it was better than sitting on the plane. Still the problems continued. When we got back on the plane the food still had not arrived. It really made sense when we thought of the task of making meals for 150 people while trying to stay on schedule for all the other planes.

The food finally arrived at about 9 pm but by then we were blocked in by another plane so they had to take away the boarding ladder, tow the plane and then tow us out to where we could join the queue waiting to take off and that finally happened at about 10 p.m. – 6 hours later than scheduled. The flight was only 6 hours and 25 minutes so this was like double duty in that seat. I will admit that we arrived with our luggage but we lost half day in Amsterdam.

Instead of getting to Amsterdam at 6 a.m., we arrived after noon expecting to roll right out to the Botel. Once we bought train tickets we easily made it to Central Station and it should have been an easy walk to the Botel but, and who could be prepared for this, they moved it. A regular Hotel is quite attached to the ground and unlikely to change addresses but a Botel can move across a river. Instead of walking we had to take a ferry.

Someone told us to take the ferry on the left but she meant the left most of the 4 blue and white ferrys and not the green ferry that was all the way to the left of the pier. I bought a pair of tickets for the greens (at a computer kiosk with no people and not much English). When I realized that they were the wrong tickets, I tried to sell them to someone else. The first few people wanted round trip but we had one way and then the next bunch of people wanted children’s tickets and we had adults. I finally found a pair of women who wanted them but I couldn’t make change so they dug in their purses for coins and I only lost a bit on the transaction.

So we got on the free – yes, it was free – ferry. Once settled we decided to strike out to see Amsterdam. We looked at buildings and tried to take heed of the warning – Many a vacation has been ruined by a silent bike or tram. Look both ways when crossing streets. Amazing how hard it was to attend to the small bikes in one direction after maneuvering around a large tram from another.
We decided to get some snacks for dinner and head back to the Botel for an early sleep. We were about to pay at the checkout when the store went dark with a snap. It was very sad to leave the goodies on the counter and be shooed out of the store but we all need to deal with life’s small disasters and I suppose that they often do accost us one after another.

Day 2
I think that this day is mostly photographs to go on Flickr. We had a great meal on the roof of the public Library and went to 2 museums. When we come back in 2 weeks we’ll take a canal cruise and rent bikes. That is, if I can get Steuben Trust to allow my bank card to work.

Day 3 – at Sea on the Celebrity Century
Our cabin is very nice. The wood furniture is rich and we have so much storage that there are 4 empty drawers and 2 empty shelves. They are small drawers and shelves but still all our things have a place and there is room to spare and it looks nice. The cabin feels large though it’s a mystery where people put their large suitcases. Our small bags fit in the closets.

Cabin aside, the ship is a disappointment. There is no promenade deck. One holds that name but there is no place where one can walk laps. There’s a jogging track up on deck 14 but the wind is tremendous and we don’t want to jog. If we did it would require 14 laps per mile. There are treadmills but the walking gait isn’t the same and so they don’t do the trick for us.

The library here is about 1/10 the size of the library on the Volendam which is a smaller ship – 500 fewer passengers. The Volendam had nearly as many travel reference books as this library has fiction and this library is only fiction. There are no daily papers and no magazines that we have found here.

There is no self service laundry. The Volendam had them on all cabin floors and it was great to do a quick ironing touch-up or a load of underwear and socks. We talked with others who said that this is the first cruise they’ve had without self service laundry. Since we, or more accurately since I am basically cheap and fussy of my laundry soap this is a problem the solution to which is rinsing out clothing at night and hanging them in the shower or over the back of a chair.

The Volendam (our ship for 3 other cruises) crew took us on behind the scenes tours into the kitchens and behind stage and such but here that only happens for a fee. There’s a self guided art tour onboard but I tried diligently to find the works and failed. Niches are empty and works are inside of restaurants that are only open now and then and nobody knew (including an officer and the main desk) that there should be an original Picasso somewhere.

Our waiter is attentive and helpful but I am unable to convey to him that I would like a dessert without milk. He offers gluten free and sugar free but the concept of milk-free dessert does not exist in his world.

Day 4 – Germany

We might have gone to Berlin while the ship was docked in Warnemunde but the tour was $300+ per person for the day and involved 6 hours in a train so we took a self guided tour of Rostock and intended to make it back in time to see Warnemunde too.

In the cruise ship terminal we purchased Rostok value cards for 7 Euros. These gave us the use of all local trains and trams for the day and entry or discounted entry into several places in both towns as well as details for the train and tram and maps of both areas. The train was a double decker that ran every 15 minutes all the time and the line was thoroughly decorated with graffiti festooned pipes and overpasses.

I took a photo of a huge apartment with sunflower motif mosaic tiles on the entire wall. Another apartment complex was decorated in the same way with a starburst. It’s nice to see such large scale art where a plain cinderblock wall would do the functional job. There isn’t enough public art in the world.
Rostok was easily walkable. Well, the distances were easy to walk. The cobblestones, no so much. Ankle twisters they are and while concentrating on one’s footfall it is also necessary to watch for the silent bikes and trams as it was in Amsterdam.

The town square was huge and held an open market for fruit, vegetables, meats and cheese and also for cooked food including fried potatoes, wienersnitzel, sausage and drinks. The sausage looks like overlong hot dogs and are offered in up to half meter lengths with or without curry sauce.

The buildings looked a lot like those in Amsterdam with those great shapes on the roof tops. The town hall was built in 1270 and then 2 neighboring houses were attached to it. The jail was in the bottom floors and the remaining building areas held offices, a market and wine cellars. The renovation was lovely and it’s possible to look through heavy glass panels on the floor to see the huge wooden beam that form the skeleton of the original building.

A traditional building material is brick. Sometimes the brick is glazed black or white or cream. The most common is black and it is used with red in alternating rows. There is also a traditional pattern called the German string which puts the brick at an angle so that a corner points outward and the negative space between is a v-shape. The lighthouse in Warenemunde is made of cream and white glazed brick and several old buildings in Rostock are of the red and black brick. When the East German communist party took over the old styles and indeed old buildings were not honored. They particularly blew up churches. They (the city planners) did not just take buildings down. They blew them up and, as I said, particularly churches. It seems a pity to blow up a thousand year old church or anything.

St. Mary’s church was not torn down. It continues to stand and house an astronomic al clock built in 1200 and still running. Every couple hundred years they have to repaint the part of the dial concerning the year. At this point that dial holds 1885 to 2017. It chimes on the hour and once a day an apostle marches out and bows to Jesus. While I saw nothing move I did record a lovely set of bells and one can hear the gears churning away in the background. Happily the organ rehearsal stopped to allow the chime of the bells.

We also found St. Peter’s church, long the tallest tower in the town so the beacon for fishermen to return to port. We took an elevator to the top of the tower. The elevator was oddly placed just inside the front door so that was smack in the line of vision when entering the church door but when we climbed down the steps we were really happy it was there to take us up. In the tower a massive web of timber climbs to the top of the spire above while 12 windows offer a view of the town from every direction. On the way down we found a bit of a crack in the tower wall – the kind that allows daylight to peep in. It didn’t seem an ideal situation for a church, or any brick, wall.

Climbing down was easy at first with normal stairs but at the end we had to go down the 800 year old, small spiral steps, gripping tightly to a thick, dirty, white rope.

When we returned to Warenmunde the E-café was closed as was the lighthouse. The mini train was parked for the night and we were tired from walking on cobblestones so we missed most of the town.

Stockholm
The seagulls escorted the ship into the harbor here, swirling and crying for bits of food thrown by passengers (forbidden by the captain), blown from dishes on the veranda or churned up by the ship as it passed in the water. There are white gulls whose wings cross at the end and wear an orange spot on the center, lower beak as well as brown gull with unadorned beaks that hide their wing tips when they walk. All of them turn their heads and fix their eyes on this and that with jerked movements and call out demands, “Mine. Mine.”

The many islands along the shipping lane have trees, small cottages, large houses and rocky cheeks. In the water the smaller cruise ships from the Viking Line bring passengers back and forth from Finland to Sweden on overnight shopping/drinking jaunts. Rick’ s guide book claims that the ships stop briefly at some non-European Union Islands so that the trip becomes international and thereby the shopping tax free and this makes the jaunt very popular.

I might add here that the Dutch spell island without the “s” in a very reasonable and enviable manner.
Our ship docked flawlessly. It is amazing to experience such delicate control over a huge, or as our neighbor Gail has aid, ginormous vessel. The nose goes dock ward first and a rope is tossed to the dock with the aid of a small ball tied to it. Then the dock men strain to pull the light rope in order to pull the heavy rope out of the water and loop it onto the rope goes over it thing. As they pull the rope forward, the rear of the ship moves in line all so slowly and gently that there is no perception of movement on the ship.

We chose to go on our own so left the ship for the public ferry which took us directly to the Vasa museum. We passed some cranes painted to look like giraffes. I love that stuff. Did the company pay workers to do that? Did some artist ask to be allowed? Is the giraffe’s head ever in the way? Was it done for tourists, for fun or as a lost bet? Whatever the start, the tradition continues. The cranes are giraffes.
The Vasa museum building is irregularly shaped with ship’s masts through the roof. It was once a dry dock but the Vasa was towed into it; the water drained and a museum built around it.

Here’s the story of the Vasa. In 1628 Sweden was at war with Poland and the king chose to have a special war ship built with two rows of cannons for power and hundreds of carvings for beauty. The ship was well under construction when the king demanded more canons. More canons were brought but the ship builders were concerned. They had tested the ship in the usual way. 30 seamen stood on one side and ran together to the other side and turned and ran back to check the stability. Generally the exercise involved running back and forth 10 times. If the ship didn’t capsize, it was stable.

The seamen on the Vasa were stopped after 3 runs because the ship began to tilt too much. The ballast added to counteract for the extra canons was insufficient but the king was waiting for the ship to pick him up – a colorful and powerful chariot of glory on the sea.

The sailors were allowed to bring their families onboard for the short trip in Stockholm to pick up provisions. It was a glorious, clear day. They opened all the cannon doors and began to sail. The wind picked up and tilted the ship. The insufficient ballast consisted of round rocks that rolled to one side causing more of a problem and then the open cannon doors allowed cold Baltic waters to enter. In 20 minutes the ship was sunk along with 30 or so people, two of them a man and woman in embrace.

The water was only 30 meters deep but the ship fell on its side so was totally under water for 333 years. In 1640 (or so – not quite sure) an effort was made to raise the ship but all that was accomplished was to stand it upright and to reclaim the canons and the masts. The technology for raising a ship was not at hand.

The ship was joined with wooden pegs and iron nails. Where the parts were held with wooden peg, it pretty much stayed together. The iron nails rusted and the smaller parts fell to the ocean mud where they were preserved. The ship was found in the late 1950 and what was pulled to the surface were over 14,000 parts of the ultimate jigsaw puzzle.

The ship is preserved and reassembled, a process that took several years. Iron picks were used to line up old nail holes and put parts back together. Some parts were reproduced and fitted in but these are easy to see. The old are rough and the new are smooth. 95% is original. The carvings include Roman warriors, lions, coats of arms, and mythical creatures such as mermaids and tritons.

There is a reconstructed below decks area with roughly formed, full-sized statues of men and reproduced cannons so that visitors can walk through and get a sense of the space. A model stands in full sail and in full color to help understand what a masterpiece the Vasa was. A film explains a lot of the project and English tours are given regularly by lovely Swedish guides.

Our next stop was the Nordiska Museet just behind the Vasa. It was a gorgeous building with samples of folk art and table settings, clothing and furniture, photographs and toys. I learned several things such as in the 1500s when guests came to dinner they brought their own cutlery. The main focus for art and entertainment is the wedding or the funeral. Both bring large numbers of people together to see or use things and to eat. The Sami are the main indigenous people in Norway and they care for reindeer herds. The Chernobyl disaster disrupted their lively hoods for a long while. People wouldn’t buy reindeer meat for fear of contamination. Even now, the reindeer are fed food brought to them rather than being allowed to graze where Chernobyl’s fall out has contaminated.

This is a Sami poem about floods.
Violated Village – In agony the village breathes – flees in terror from new waters – the water rises high toward the settlements – With toil the dwellings are moved – smooth slopes, green pastures – they must leave with a heavy heart.

Punch (water, sugar, tea, lemon and arrack) was originally for men only and was served hot or cold with cigars at card games. Tea was for ladies but servants could take used tea leaves to brew their own teas.
At the turn of the century it was acceptable to invite people for coffee rather than for a full dinner. Coffee meant at least 7 kind of cake or cookies and the guest had to taste them all.

In the garden in front of the Nordic Museum a bronze Jenny Lind sits in a ruffled skirt. The lovely gardens are segregated by color with the purple being my favorite.

We finished our short time with a full circle around the harbor taking photos of gorgeous buildings, including the palace. The cruise schedule allows for only short visits in each city and the time goes quickly.

I did learn that the expensive – to me they seem expensive at $70 to $300 per person for a tour – tours offered by the ship include an hour or more shopping in selected stores. It seems a waste of time to shop where there are only 6 hours or so to see a major city. So many lovely places to see and so little time because it’s a big deal to miss the ship.

Helsinki
We started with the Sunday morning Flea Market, Rumble Sale, Boot Sale in a square midway between the cruise ship dock and mid city. It was a small area with people set up with tables but also with a great number of clothing racks. I would say that nearly every [person was selling clothing and not a few things had sequins or some sort of glitter. There were shoes and ties and the very best Scrooge McDuck statue I ever saw. It would have been great to toss in the back of the car and drag home for a joke for Rick and maybe for a garden piece later but the operative word here is drag and there is only so much dragging home can be done. The Mickey and Mini Mouse clocks were a hoot.

Rick liked an antique knife and also a set of weights (the largest was a KG itself) and also an old set of ice skates but all he bought was a donut. It’s easy to like things and smile at them but the carrying home sets the bar pretty high for actual purchases.

There were a great number of books for adults and children and sparkly sneakers and scarves and plates and goblets and sorts of things one could never get home in one piece. The prices were really low and the shoppers numerous and enthusiastic.

Our first stop was the Church of the Rock which was blasted out of a huge rock in the 60s. Entry to the church was free but the use of the rest room was 1 Euro. (Rick and I paid $3 between us to pee. He said it cost more to pee than to drink.) There was a sweet organ there and pulpit had a green cloth draped over it that ended with plants growing at the base. The dome is copper outside and 15 miles of copper ribbon inside. There’s a full balcony for the church and outside it’s okay to climb the rocks though not to climb on the actual dome.

The Lutheran Cathedral was topped with the most brilliant onion domes. We couldn’t figure how they got them so shinny. Inside it was open floor or folding chairs but ornate altars and things on the walls.

The Russian Church was filled with pews with closed sides. It was necessary to open the gate to walk into the pew. The organ was massive and ornate. The whole thing was pretty ornate or I thought so till we found another church where there couldn’t have been one more bit of folderol squeezed in with a shoe horn. In this church there had just been a concert and the microphones and sound equipment were being put up and CDs were still for sale.

That’s about all we had time for in Helsinki though we took photos of lovely buildings – lots of them art novo. We did again manage not to be smashed by a silent tram and hardly saw any bikes at all.

Senator Kristen Gillibrand

2009-08-18T10:53:00.000-05:00

ANGELICA: Two cars rolled up to the Angelica Sweet Shop just after 1 on Monday afternoon for one of Senator Kristen Gillibrand’s many stops across 10 of New York’s southern counties. With Gillibrand were her two small sons. Five year old Theo headed for the candy counter at the Sweet Shop while little Henry was content to peek around his grandmother’s neck. Gillibrand put her Senate office on wheels to move it from Chautauqua County eastward to her home in Columbia for what she calls “The Senate at your Super market” tour.
Several county dignitaries and an array of citizens from Wellsville, Andover, Alfred and certainly Angelica were on hand to greet the Senator offering her pamphlets and books to thumb through later hoping to build a concept of what Allegany County offers.
The visit started with Theo’s tour of the Sweet Shop candy wall where Gillibrand nabbed a quick Twizzler and then moved outside to take questions and define her position on a variety of topics. She is not holding town hall meetings but rather talking in small groups with constituents.
Health care is a huge concern. She’d like reforms to the health insurance industry that would end the practice of excluding people for pre-existing conditions. She supports preventive care and proposes that there be no co-pay for cancer screening tests. She also supports that there be a universal form to simplify office work and increase efficency.
Gillibrand supports a public option for which people would pay premiums of no more than 5% of their income. Along with that she would require a better reimbursement rate to the medical providers. In cities, the volume of patients helps the money flow into a service provider but in rural areas, the fee for service has to cover the cost of operating. There just aren’t enough people using the service to make up for low rates in rural areas.
Having said all that, she was doubtful that the legislative chambers would pass such an inclusive bill even though the end result would be lower costs for everyone. Right now insurance costs are increasing at four times the rate that salaries increase and it’s just not sustainable.
The average family income in Allegany County is $40,000 while basic insurance plans are $10,000. People can’t pay that. That makes people depend on the Emergency Room - the least efficient/ most expensive way to go.
Gillibrand is also looking at bringing alternative energy projects to the Southern Tier. She said we have the workforce, the education and the resources to get into cellulose ethanol, wind and solar power. There’s a history of manufacturing in this area and the country needs to make use of remaining expertise.
Gillibrand said that the anger over the cap and trade bill is really anger about the economy. In rural areas of New York the unemployment rate is 15%. She said that cap and trade allows clean industries to sell their carbon savings to dirtier industries that produce more carbon but said that what we really need is to clean up our air. In the Bronx, 25% of all children have asthma. The federal government might make money available to entrepreneurs to develop clean energy sources or to reduce air pollution and such small businesses could drive the economic engine.
“Our energy policy is part of the health debate when you look at air quality,” she said going on to voice concerns about obesity. The country spends $100 Billion a year on medical matters related to obesity and another $500 Billion on heart disease. She wants to ban trans-fats to encourage people to eat calories with more nutrition and to increase reimbursement rates for school lunches so schools can serve children actual chicken and not a frozen, processed item. She wants mandatory physical education for children for an hour a day in schools and she wants health insurance to cover dietary counseling for all.
At the end Gillibrand was asked to push for a public option while her party holds a majority in the senate. A robust, aggressive public option would drive prices down. She was also asked to make insurance companies subject to anti-trust laws. She said that the Senate just has to do something to help, to take a step forward and to start making changes.

Town Hall meeting

2009-08-18T10:42:00.004-05:00

OLEAN, Sunday August 16

I went to the Eric Massa town hall meeting in Olean on Sunday night and then sent this Email to 6 people. On Monday, at the meeting with Senator Gillibrand I learned that my Email traveled to several other inboxes so I'm sending it to a few more.

It was exhausting.
In part it was bad because Eric let people go on and on. When I left I talked with some staffers to say that it might be better if he would give people 2 minutes to pose a question and let them come back a second time if there is time left. (A later Email from Eric said that he will continue to listen to every person's every word and try to understand them all.)

One guy wanted the government out of health care but he also wants the government to tell all insurance companies that they must become non profit. He doesn't want them to be not for profit because the profit motive is important but they should be non profit.

Another man said that money for women's health matters means for abortions because women are fornicators and abortions are the only women's health issue that there is. He wasn't the worst one but he said he was a retired doctor and that he knew what women are really like.

People railed against the left's plan to turn us into a socialist nation. Eric said that under socialism patients have no right to choose their doctor, doctors don't get to choose hospitals and there's someone else dictating what procedures would be allowed. That, he said, is what veterans face. Eric is on the veteran's insurance plan and refused to take the golden plan offered to all congressional members. He won't take it until all his constituents are covered by insurance. He also introduced an amendment that was accepted into the bill that would require congressmen and senators to be on the insurance plan created by whatever bill is passed.

I think that most of them were angry that they lost the election. I think the angry people at this meeting get their information from one or two right wing voices who enjoy manipulating people.

They would say that page such and such of the bill said this and that and Eric would turn to the page and read it to them and they would say he was lying. There were claims that the bill allows for the government to have full access to everyone's checking account when it actually says that it allows for e payments. Is that full access? They said that if the provision for an end of life directive wasn't about requiring death panels then it wouldn't have been rescinded.

Eric was patient and polite. He several times pointed out inconsistencies in the questions and demands put by an individual such as the person with the non profit/not for profit business but was repeatedly told that he was lying. He'd offer them the pages and insist he read the words on that page and they'd say, "Liar."

'there was yelling and booing. People would say they read the real bill on the internet.

He'd say that he really couldn't help them more than that and that he had to move on but I wished he'd said that more often.

I felt that the hall had about 1/3 mean spirited, nasty, loud people and 2/3 people interested in discussion. One man said that he knew he was speaking for 90% of the people in the hall and another woman said that he had no right to claim to know her feelings which differed sharply. That woman was great. Lisa someone.

One woman said she was being laid off and losing her health care but that she didn't want a public option,she wanted a job with health care. A public option wouldn't help her at all.

The air was full of anger and hatred. It was truly an awful place to be.

I was there with a supportive friend or I'd have sat in the car and sobbed afterward. We stayed for 3 hours. The meeting went on for 4 1/2 hours. The selfishness of the people speaking at the meeting who have insurance was astounding.

Canisteo town hall

2009-08-17T08:40:00.001-05:00

CANISTEO: On August 12th the Canisteo Town Hall often filled with applause, sometimes with laughter, occasionally with frustration. Several citizens said that they had gone to the town hall meeting expecting to be annoyed and disappointed but instead they found that they appreciated and respected their Congressman, Eric Massa.
The meeting focused on health care with the majority of time spent with questions and answers. Because of several unpatriotic episodes at other town hall meetings Massa asked that people not boo or clap “because that intimidates people and that keeps me from accomplishing my job.”
Massa’s copy of HR 3200 (the Health Care bill) was spattered from his morning in Gowanda where he helped clear mud from basements. He described the flood water devastation in Gowanda and talked of the spirit of camaraderie experienced when strangers work side by side.
Massa has read HR 3200, a thousand page bill, 4 times- so far. He said that a lot of information going around the internet is just not factual. One segment he read was on Advanced Care Planning Consultation. That segment allows Medicare to pay for a doctor’s visit to discuss end of life care.
If a person wants every heroic measure taken to prolong their life, they can direct that in a document sometimes called a living will. If they want to have maximum pain relief or minimum pain relief or if they wish to die at home or in a hospital then each person can put their personal beliefs and preferences in writing so that when they can no longer carry on a discussion their family will know just what they want. Contrary to some discussion on talk radio, a living will puts end of life decisions clearly into each person’s hands, away from government reach.
Massa sees a living will an implement of self protection and has, for himself, a very detailed living will because 10 years ago he battled cancer. His living will tells people clearly his choices regarding pain medication, feeding tubes, respirators and other tools and procedures so that his voice can guide his doctors even if he is unable to talk.
One thing that Massa doesn’t like in HR 3200 is that it reduces Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals. That’s bad because if Medicare doesn’t pay enough, doctors won’t take Medicare patients.
There was a great deal of discussion about Medicare. Massa said that the promise of Medicare was that if people paid 1.5% of their earnings toward the program and then a monthly premium while they use this government-healthcare they would have medical coverage for life. That percentage hasn’t changed though costs have skyrocketed.
Some constituents pointed out that though the percentage stayed at the same level, the amount of money contributed increased. While that is true people paying health insurance premiums are spending 30% of their income on insurance- an amount that has exploded over the past 10 years. It has been suggested that changing the Medicare deduction to 2% could rescue the program long-term and still be a bargain compared with private insurance plans.
Another frequent statement was that people don’t want the government interfering in their health care and over and over it was pointed out that Medicare and the Veteran’s health care system are both government administered healthcare systems. When asked, about 40% of the audience indicated involvement in government healthcare now. Some people said that it was unconstitutional for the government to be involved in health care but it wasn’t clear whether they supported the continuation of government involvement by continuing Medicare and Veteran’s health programs or if they want those programs to end.
Massa said that there is no proposal to establish socialized medicine in that patients would continue to choose their doctors, doctors would continue to choose their hospitals and doctors and patients would choose procedures. He said that nobody was looking at adopting the Canadian system or the French system. Massa would like to blend existing good ideas into a unique American plan but at this time there is no provision for a public option in the bill.
There is a provision that would require that insurance plans have stable premiums, end the practice of excluding people because of pre-existing conditions and keep co-pays stable and predictable.
Someone asked why the bill was written to protect the insurance companies and someone else said that it was all kept in secrecy but Massa said that the entire bill can be read online by anyone. Massa would like the bill to include tort reform that sets a limit on payments for pain and suffering.
Massa reported that he attended a meeting with insurance company representatives who said that they did not want to compete with a public option such as Medicare because Medicare provides insurance cheaper and more efficiently than private companies can.
Massa feels that a for-profit insurance company provides an ethical conundrum because the insurance corporation exists to provide share holder value. The fewer payments made for health care, the more money paid to investors.
Should all Americans have health insurance? All Americans are required to have car insurance and few would argue with the wisdom of that.
Massa supports eliminating the Medicare prescription plan donut hole. He promised not to vote for any bill he wasn’t given time to read. He would like to stop pharmaceutical companies from advertising on TV. A billion dollars spent on ads is a billion less spent for medical benefits. Pharmaceutical companies spend more on advertising than on research and 50% of all the advertising dollars were spent on Viagra, Cialis and Levetra.
When people brought up the costs involved in giving medical care to people Massa said that the concerns about costs were really concerns about the explosion of the national debt in the last 8 years. He was against the bank bailout bill and the Iraq supplemental emergency bill which wasn’t used to fund the war in Iraq and didn’t address any emergencies.
“If we do nothing about health care reform we do so at our peril,’ Massa said. ‘Health care premiums have doubled in the last 10 years and will double again in the next 10. We can’t afford to do nothing. Only the insurance companies are excluded from the Sherman Anti Trust Laws. Insurance companies divide the territory so they don’t compete. This is called collusion.”
One older gentleman in the crowd told Massa, “You exude the code of honor. Thanks for being helpful. I came here to scoff but you have a lot of Navy in you and I’m pleased.”

In a Timely Manner

2009-07-20T20:45:00.004-05:00

Once upon a time, time was different. It’s hard to believe but the whole idea of standard time was controversial – the stuff of Sunday sermons and arguments. Watches were expensive and nowhere near accurate until well into the 1800s so people set clocks or watches daily based on the directive of God - high noon - apparent solar time.

High noon rolled across the country in a slow, even pace without a care for standardization and that was good enough until the country went from rutted dirt roads to smooth rails. With the extension of the railway system a person could move at such speed that the hodge-podge of times became a problem. The train couldn’t leave Philadelphia at 8 a.m. and arrive at its destinations for orderly departures without a regulated time system.

Along with the railroad system, telegraph companies stood on the side of time-standardization while others resisted holding instead to the belief that God didn’t intend for time to be defined. The sun at its peak each day was timely.

In 1870 there were 80 time zones based on the parade of shadows on sundials. By 1880 there were 56 time zones. Over the decades, as miles of train track grew, the number of time zones decreased. In 1883 the General Time Convention approved standard time zones in North America (4 in the US and 5 in Canada). On November 18 that year during “the day of two noons” the system was adopted by many people. Some communities resisted standardized time saying it was “unnatural” but over time most people accepted it so that it was mere formality when a 1918 law established standardized time.

I learned this at the National Clock and Watch Museum in York Pennsylvania where odd time pieces tick and chime with myriad pendulum heartbeats and fanciful bells in clocks tall and small, plain and fancy.

I live among clocks –grandfather, grandmother, regulator, schoolhouse, mantle and more – clocks that require a Saturday morning ritual of pulling chains and turning keys to renew the kinetic energy that keeps home time marching on – clocks built by my husband Rick. Surrounded by clocks I never thought of the fight behind establishing the right for our clocks to chime the quarter hour.

Stranger still to me was the whole Japanese concept of time using 12 segments of time – 6 in the day and 6 for the night. In the summer the daylight hours stretch but in the winter the evening hours dominated. Correspondingly, Japanese clocks were built with sliding numerals to stretch or shrink the “hours” to fit into the patterns of day and night. No matter how long the day or the night, each held 6 units of time.

This too was based on religious beliefs. People were called to prayer with one, two or three chimes so time was marked with four to nine bells with noon and midnight marked with nine bells each. God changed the length of day and night so people changed the length of hours.

In 1873, outnumbered by those following the western system, Japan accepted the 24 equal hour divisions for each day and redesigned and imported clocks.
The National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors regards time keeping as both an art and a science. It seems they are right. Museum hours change seasonally. Admission. www.nawcc.org/museum

The Engle clock, built Stephen D. Engle (1837-1921) over a 20 year period in Hazleton Pennsylvania. The clock toured the country for 70 years until 1951. It now chimes, marches, parades, peeks, whistles, plays and otherwise entertains at the National Clock and Watch museum.

Health Care Rally in Washington DC

2009-06-29T13:05:00.005-05:00

Washington: Medical insurance companies attract anger like Velcro captures lint. Who, of those clutching tightly to their own health insurance, hasn’t waited while doctors file with some desk jockey for permission to do a medical test? Who hasn’t heard about someone fighting to get out of the tight spot between doctors needing payment and insurance companies stalling? It’s time to clean up some of the health care mess so on June 25th approximately 25,000 American citizens traveled from nearly every state to form an army of citizen lobbyists demanding lives over dollars as the US looks toward health care reform.
Senator Chuck Schumer was opening speaker, seemingly cheerleader, with wildly enthusiastic and mercifully brief comments to the crowd steaming in the sun at Senator’s Park in front of the capitol building. Schumer declared that it’s time to change business as usual in health care. What does Schumer want? A strong public option for health coverage for everyone. Schumer shouted, “The greatest country in the world should have the greatest health care in the world.”
As the New York State Senate is mired in conflict that has business in Albany flailing, it seemed that that people’s voices may actually be heard in Washington. Senators Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand as well as Representative Eric Massa are on board with proposals to bring an aggressive public option to health care in the US.
The most recent polls show that at least 72% of Americans want to have a public option for health care. What’s a public option? Some call it Medicare for all in trying to explain the goal but others call it socialized medicine when trying to protect the status quo.
Why isn’t it socialism? Because the government won’t employ the doctors or own the hospitals but rather hospitals and doctors will be independent as they are now. Because people will have their choice of doctors, clinics and hospitals. Since nothing of the system would be run by the government, there’s nothing of socialism in the plan.

Speakers at the rally from workers to pastors to small business owners said that they hate that insurance companies decide on treatment options. They hate that insurance companies decide who they will insure and set the rates without oversight operating in a near-monopoly situation.
What the House and Senate are looking at are bills that would allow people to opt into a public program similar to Medicad. People could choose to participate the same way that people can choose public or private schools or the public post office or private mail carriers such as UPS or FedEx. In the same way that public and private can co-exist in those business models, public and private health insurance can also fit into the market place.
Possibly shining stars in the language are passages that take the dreaded “pre-existing condition” problem out of the conversation. With the public and private models in competition and with companies no longer being allowed to consider pre-existing health problems in their billing structure citizens should benefit. Another change is that coverage would have to include preventive care.
Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio said that America needs a health care system with a strong public option but that the health insurance industry is claiming that the government can’t do anything right. “If so,” said Brown, “why are they afraid of a public option?”
Brown and Schumer along with Rockefeller, Leahy and dozens of other senators all declare that having an option for public health care would increase competition, lower prices, improve quality and benefit consumers. Massa stepped through the numbers to show how the program could be paid for by shifting money that’s already out there in the health industry – using it to pay doctors and not insurance corporation big wigs.
The public health option is good for the economy – perhaps closer to necessary. Many senators and representatives stated that the economic recovery is hindered by the health care crisis.
Under the current patchwork program nearly 20,000 Americans die every year because they have no health insurance. Worried about expenses, they ignore problems or fail to treat chronic disease and die early. According to the Institute of Medicine, the US is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not provide health care for all citizens.

iLoves iPod

2009-06-20T13:22:00.005-05:00

Not long ago iTunes was a foreign concept; the iPod a device of mystery and podcasts of no more importance than a mote of dust among the billions on the computer monitor. No more. The iTunes logo is prominent on my desktop. I’m a regular in the iTunes store and iPod goes where I go. I’ve become a podcast junkie.
Now everyone over 30 has rolled their eyes in contempt and turned away so it’s just us older folk left. Go now - download iTunes. It’s like a Bergren Forum lecture series available 24/7 at home on your computer or anywhere in the world where an iPod may whisper in your ears.
I bought an iPod because when we travel Rick likes to drive with the radio off. I, on the other hand, wish to be aurally entertained.
Emilie encouraged me certain that I would like an iPod and Jay said it was easy to understand. My friend, Susan, said that if she could download podcasts, anyone could. Buoyed with their reassurance and enthusiasm I ordered an iPod - engraved - Elaine Hardman, CEO StoneFlowerPottery.com.
ITunes is a free download offered with the Barbie-Doll philosophy which is that people will buy things to go with the free system. Not willing to disappoint I started with the iPod and added a docking station so I could listen in the studio and then needed a case to protect it and finally (or not) new headphones for comfort.
Ready to make nice with this technology I began by ripping the Dixie Chicks. I don’t actually know what ripping is but iTunes asked if it might perform the service when it registered presence of a CD and then it sped through the music. When it finished, the screen showed each song title, length, genre, artist, recording date and the name of the album. It even, as if my musical opinion mattered, allowed me to rank the songs with zero to four stars.
I ripped through every CD in the house including AU Concert Band music that I needed to become fluent with and all the great music from Emilie and Josh’s wedding. With the historic cowboy music Jay found somewhere and lots of old rock tunes it added up to 1270 songs in one day.
Either iTunes or the iPod can sort and play by many criteria and it will just play and play and play without juggling CDs. Who invented this thing and why didn’t they tell me sooner?
After ripping I dove into the iTunes store where it seems that the best stuff they offer is FREE. That’s my kind of store.
Waiting for me now are nearly 558 podcasts (19 days of steady listening) including 13 short lessons in conversational Spanish and countless lessons on technology and science. If I wasn’t born a geek, I have evolved into one.
While walking through Wellsville one week doing errands the Vinyl Café visited my ears. The VC is rather like the Prairie Home Companion but set in Canada and featuring Dave and his friends. In this particular episode Dave acquired and faced his fear of rats and brought one home for the kids after being locked in the trunk of his car with it. I likely looked the fool laughing while picking up toothpaste.
This American Life is often, and deservedly, at the top of the podcast download list. It’s always interesting - so interesting that I donated to the show because it’s just too good to be free.
Podcasts aren’t all fun and games. There are programs about philosophy and debates on moral questions. CBC radio offers Quirks and Quarks as well as Ideas. In the political arena I like Rachel Maddow’s information but not Bill O’Reily’s vicious streak. For balance I listen to Left, Right and Center. For daily living advice there is Stuff You Ought to Know and Stuff Your Mother Taught You. For emotional and human interest there is The Moth - a series of programs with real people telling about themselves or family members. One can download whole books and listen while walking the dog or weeding the garden.
My exercise videos nestle into the 120 gig hard drive along with a photo album, all that music and days worth of podcasts and vodcasts (videos) and yet 80% of the drive is empty, waiting for more - and it all fits in my pocket.
iTunes holds a marvelous world of information and entertainment with podcasts that are like winning the information lottery every day. The computer makes it work, the iPod makes it portable and all kinds of things make it really worth having.

Coup in New York Senate

2009-06-14T21:04:00.005-05:00

The spectacular New York State Capitol building stands glorious and stately. It’s a building to be proud of but civic prides stops at the magnificent doors. Inside the halls feel slimy with the corruption of “pay to play”.

As of January, Republicans had 40 consecutive years of majority in the NY Senate during which New York’s “Empire State” image decayed. Democrats took over in January and several bills to benefit the general public made it into committees, a discussion series that was meant to culminate with a celebration of democracy – public hearings that would send bills to Assembly and Senate floors.

On Monday the Assembly Standing Committee on Insurance and the Senate Standing Committee on Judiciary met publically. On Tuesday, buses from around the state were set to bring citizen groups to several more hearings when legislative directives supported by up to 70% of the state’s voters were expected to be passed to the full floor with probability that they would become laws.

Now forget that for-the-people stuff. Instead, a Florida billionaire strode the Capitol’s halls making arrangements with New York’s legislators, an entourage of suits jogging in his money-power wake.

Tom Golisano, founder of Paychex, a NY business worth billions, said that New York’s tax system was too high and he moved to Florida. Even though he moved, he reportedly poured money into legislative campaigns to change the leadership in the Senate where Republicans have led the agenda and created tax codes for decades.

According to the Buffalo News, Golisano was dissatisfied with tax rates and with the staffing of the Senate’s Buffalo office so, reportedly, Golisano tugged on his financial ropes to bring politicians to his way of thinking leading to a coup in the New York Senate.

Golisano was photographed with Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate who announced they would caucus with the Republicans. Why is this a big deal? There are 30 Republican and 32 Democratic senators - a majority margin of 2. With Espada and Monserrate crossing the aisle to the Republican side, the majority structure flipped. The majority party chooses who will chair each committee and those chairs choose what legislation to consider and what to send to the shredder. The majority party can kill bills by simply not allowing them to come to the floor.

It is also no small matter that the majority party draws the lines for legislative districts, a deed regularly done with regard not to community lines but to party lines thereby ensuring the reelection of the majority party (gerrymandering). Republicans have controlled those lines for the last 70 years.

Changing the majority meant changing all committee chairs and cancelling all the hearings scheduled for this week “for the people.”

According to officials of Citizen Action NY, corporate lobbyists outside the Senate Chamber cheered as the Republicans declared control of the Senate on Monday. Republican control likely signaled job security for them with the “Pay to Play” culture in Albany for lobbyists and bad deals for millions of work-a-day people.
The busloads of citizens took their meeting rooms in a spirit of anger rather than excitement over being involved in the political process. About 100 people from Citizen Action NY protested outside the office of Pedro Espada just after Golisano exited.

News crews from all major stations filmed the group and recorded statements, both prepared and impassioned off-the-cuff, while the majority of citizens stood behind them holding placards and wearing tape over their mouths to illustrate that the voices of the people have been cut from the process. After the statements, they tore the tape off and chanted “Golisano pays, Pedro plays.”

”

Citizen Action of NY then occupied the office of Hiram Monserrate until he met with them. Monserrate, while he has personal legal problems outside the legislature, had worked with several citizen and labor groups to sponsor the legislative measures that were to have been ushered out of committee that day. Monserrate told Citizen Action NY that he would work with the Democratic Party to try to find a resolution to the stalemate and on Wednesday he refused to caucus with Republicans instead meeting with Democratic senators.

For the rest of the week there were protests in Buffalo, Rochester and Albany and negotiations among lawyers for both parties. As of Friday, the legality of the coup remains under discussion, government work has halted and those who hoped that clean elections would come to New York are once more disappointed.

On Monday, Hiram Monserrate returned to the Democratic Caucus resulting in a 31-31 tie thus sending the decision of leadership to the courts.

Senate Hearing in Rochester

2009-06-02T05:48:00.002-05:00

ROCHESTER Our state's government operates behind closed doors in hushed halls where people focus on money. Committee meetings are as muted as a gray cat in the fog. At least, they were.

Senator Joseph Addabbo now chairs the Senate Committee on Elections and he opened his committee doors so wide that every citizen in New York can find a chair. Right now in New York money is the primary determinant of who is elected and what laws are passed. Bills in Addabbos’s committee may change that.

Addabbo has offered a series of hearings across the state, most recently at Nazareth College in Rochester where he found over 80 people and heard 27 presentations. Addabbo complimented attendees saying that this was the largest turnout the committee has experienced.

The room was filled with people fired up over a plan to revamp NY's system of funding political campaigns. For years citizens have been knocking on closed doors in Albany, shouting about the pay-to-play political system that serves special interests groups over constituents. Mario Cuomo proposed changes nearly 30 years ago only for things to get worse.

New York is recognized as having the most dysfunctional state government and that puts us low on a depressed stage. Lobbyists in Albany outnumber legislators. Hands that give out campaign cash come back after elections to lean heavily on the shoulders of legislators creating a system where money buys campaigns and campaigns pay up by passing tailored legislation.

Addabbo opened his committee to constituents for comments on several bills on electoral matters that have been long stewing in the legislative pot. He brought the discussion on the road breaking tradition with senatorial secrecy.

At the hearing people repeatedly called for Clean Money/Clean Elections, the long-running campaign for public financing of elections. Before you roll yours eyes over the use of public money understand that the states using public financing (Arizona and Maine) have seen the cost of running government decrease because legislators don’t seek funding from special interest groups; they don’t make thousands of calls for donations; they don’t duck out of legislative sessions to chase contributions. What they do is talk with constituents, define problems and work out solutions.

Most of the 80 people in Rochester were private citizens. One, Stewart Berger, asked that the laws create a program that is simple, comprehensive and fair.

Basically, proposals are that potential candidates would collect some number of token donations - $5 to $250 - from natural persons. (Natural persons are living, voting people rather than legal persons which are corporations. Corporations were granted personhood in an 1886 Supreme Court ruling.) When potential candidates collect the required number of donations, they qualify for public funding in an amount specified for that office. Larger districts would allot more money.

With donations coming only from natural persons, corporate influence would be reduced significantly.

Blair Horner, representing NYPIRG, presented Abbaddo with large written testimonial which he summed by stating that New York has inadequate disclosure laws and what laws exist are poorly enforced. Three things are needed. 1. Public financing for elections. 2. Lower contribution limits. 3. Aggressive enforcement of campaign contribution limits and an independent enforcement agency that is well staffed and funded.

Horner continued, “I’m optimistic this year. The Governor, Senate majority leader and the Assembly leader all say that it’s time for campaign finance reform. This creates a window of opportunity and it’s important to jump through that window.”

Nathan Jassic, from Binghamton, asked that NY break the link between money and elections. Jassic was echoed by Paula Hanser and Ed Scutt who spoke about the influence of money on recent bills and voter turnout. A Zogby poll indicated that 58% of New Yorkers feel that legislators listen to contributors and not constituents while voter studies show 80% of the states have better voter participation than NY.

Sam Fedele from Rochester said that there can be no progress on any issue until the problem of money is solved. “A business weighs each action on the value to its bottom line. A corporation is not moral or patriotic. When it makes a political donation, it wants a financial return.”

Thomas Ferrarese from the Monroe County Board of Elections spoke against changes saying that we should be proud of the system in New York State. He cited Help America Vote Act as a hastily written law that did not make elections safer or easier for voters. He suggested that NY increase penalties for abuse of campaign funds and institute a multi-tiered system so that those running for small, local offices would have less accounting and reporting demanded of them than those running for statewide offices.

Jon Greenbaum, representing Metro Justice of Rochester, made 4 requests. Candidates need enough funding to launch a reasonable campaign. They need extra rounds of funding to counter spending by wealthy candidates. He cited that the cost of elections in Arizona decreased significantly since extra round grants were added saying that wealthy candidates learned they can’t outspend the system. Greenbaum pressed for a donation limit of $100 but said that $250 might work. He asked that to qualify for public money people should have to do something serious, something difficult but not impossible for the ordinary person.

Senator Abbaddo asked Greenbaum to read the committee's proposal for bundling contributions and to give feedback on the measure.

Time and time again citizens brought up redistricting asking that it be based on population and not on the political party registration. There were also repeated complaints about out-of-district corporations pushing money into congressional races. People want that outside money out of their political lives. While it seems like a fairy tale to hope that NY could lessen the influence of money in politics, it might be possible this year.

If you care about the issue call Senator Young at 518-455-3563 or 1-800-707-0058. Put your voice behind keeping things as they are or ask her to support changes in campaign finance.

Alfred University, Student Thesis Shows

2009-04-29T08:09:00.003-05:00

SAM NEWMAN

Art may be pretty but that’s a side line, a diversion. Art is thought and art students, during their years at Alfred, think. Yes, they learn, make connections, explore materials, create, change and organize in a personal way but through it all they really think. The other thing many of them do is collect stuff – stuff to think about.
Sam Newman is a senior who is amassing mechanical stuff for his senior show, a show that may appeal strongly to your inner tinkerer. Sam grew up in the suburbs of Columbus Ohio where his Mom works with soft metals such as copper sheets to make art. He always liked being creative but science and chemistry appealed to him also. Toward the end of high school Sam started doing some performance art that encompassed the environment and social issues. Sam’s work shows that science, sociology, history, mathematics, chemistry and art make pretty comfortable companions.
Sam said that in high school he tried to explore apathy, specifically the apathy toward the environment that a person falls into when growing up in the suburbs. As a kid, his strongest contact with environmental issues involved sideline things such as turning off lights and recycling. For a couple of months he dyed his hands orange with henna so that looking at them would remind him of what he should be doing environmentally.
He created a billboard that said I don’t care about the environment and neither do you. He invited people to stand in front of this with a bullhorn and admit how they weren’t helping to conserve resources. After high school he came to AU to study art history and foundations and to try to figure out what his art needed to say.
Newman realized that he appreciates functionality and gave some time to kinetic sculptures that connected with people but decided that he didn’t know enough about making the precise machines he wanted. In considering how to deal with that he started spending time on Alfred’s Main Street interacting with people and getting his once-henna stained hands into social dynamics.
The last years of art school give more time for research and exploration so he teamed up with Jen Urfer and took on the duties of the RePo Depot where he lived with the kinds and amounts of stuff that is wasted. It seems he felt some responsibility to reuse some of it and that led him to studying power – personal, electrical and political.
He and Urfer put together some workshops for the community where they presented some homemade solar and wind solutions. The last workshop drew a standing room only crowd and led to the start of a resource website. Continuing the building, Newman is putting his energy into making some sculptural, mechanical object to generate electricity and perhaps be useful as a tool or a teaching aid or a path to conversation.
Newman will set up his senior thesis show in Davis along with other students of similar or connected interests. He’s going to build working wind turbines and will have information for people to take. He hopes that people will stop to help him, maybe to get their hands dirty or find a solution. Maybe some will pick up a recipe for solar or wind power. He hopes to link those who help him with each other and to build a support network.
“Technology,” he says, “is accessible. It can involve a group effort and employ found materials. It’s completely possible to be self taught in the technology of renewable energy.”
Newman takes the idea of what art is and stretches it into what art can do. His conversations invite people to walk along with him in a journey of learning.
“Art has given me the most interesting interactions I’ve ever had. It’s been the basis for engaging people in planning and problem solving. Art can be a conversation that is engaging on all sides.”
The 2009 senior thesis shows will open on Saturday, May 9 at 4 p.m. These free shows are located around the campus and the public is warmly welcome to look, converse and think.

JENNY URFER

Jen Urfer is another School of Art and Design student who has directed her mind toward building community, sharing, categorizing information and creating solutions.
Urfer has presented workshops on alternative energy with Sam Newman but in her own studio she works with soil, egg shells, time, light and gentle spritz of moisture. Jen grew up in a wooded area around Danbury, Connecticut remembering how her town changed as the population grew. She remembers a childhood with family hikes, her Mom’s garden and strong support for education.
Urfer liked learning and felt that her teachers had confidence in her but just never thought that what school offered suited her learning style. She has taken control of that experience and in getting her BFA in Art she’s including a minor in Education. She’s already built a packet of lesson plans with lines blurred between subject matter and lots of hands-on exploration of materials and concepts.
She doesn’t think that math, science and history should be taught separately but sees math in things – such as a leaf. Her lessons involve the senses and incorporate discovery in order to reach other students who may have an unconventional style.
Urfer came to Alfred because the area reminded her of her home but also because of the “amazing art program and the gracious people” she met here. She visited other schools where she felt some haughty faculty members bristled with self-importance. Alfred’s faculty was comfortable and open.
Through foundations classes and into her next 2 years she had every intention of working with ceramics but last year she made a jump and now works with social/environmental issues.
The term environmentalism, Urfer believes, has suffered from negative stereotyping though she sees this changing. People are making connections and coming to realize that assaults on the environment affect the entire economy as well as the social support system. People, she feels, are seeing how things are connected and are willing to search for and support solutions.
One connection she thinks Americans should attend to more is the one between health and food. She noted that Americans donate huge sums of money to cancer research but they don’t seem to notice that all this stuff put into the soil, toxic chemical fertilizers, end up on their dinner plate. If stuff is toxic when it’s spread on the soil, how can it be good after it flows into a plant?
While still working in clay, Urfer began to become involved on campus in conversations about affordable health care, reasonable college costs and the Waxman Bill (an environmental initiative). It was while doing this that she began to examine the propaganda machines of large corporations. For example the Monsanto website looks like an inviting oasis but Monsanto’s history is stained by the promotion of Agent Orange and all the veterans harmed by it.
This past February, Urfer worked with Kacie Dean to bring a contingent of 13 students to Power Shift, a climate change conference in Washington DC. The trip was funded by Student Affairs, the Bernstein Fund, Green Alfred, the AU Student Senate and the Environmental Science Department.

About 6,000 of the participants lobbied in congress to promote the Waxman Markey Bill in order to cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 and create 5 million green jobs. The experience was exciting saying that it was uplifting to work with such a larger group of people dedicated to green technology.
Urfer’s now urging people to plant sustainable gardens starting by putting a seed in some potting mix in a broken egg shell. She has hundreds if not thousands of egg shells, some to share and others already at work in her studio greenhouse. At her thesis show she’ll have soil and egg shells and suggests that people bring seeds, maybe some to share.
Plant your seeds at the show and bring an egg carton so you can get them home. Afterwards, Urfer suggests, place the whole thing in an old bread bag to keep warmth and moisture in as seeds generate. Open the bag and spritz once or twice a day and soon the tiny, hidden plant will peek out. When it’s ready, put the whole egg shell in your garden.
She’ll also have video interviews with other members of the Alfred Community who discuss their ideas about and efforts toward conservation.
Urfer will be in the Davis Gym with her opening from 4-7 on Saturday, May 9. (Davis Gym is the dark red brick building on the left if one enters the campus at the traffic light.) Many shows will be in Harder Hall which is immediately right at that same entry. Find a show and likely you’ll find a map that will bring you to other shows spread throughout the campus. All are open to the public and free.

JEFF MILLER

Jeff Miller hopes to bend, twist and generally mess with your perceptions of clay. You might pause when you see his sculpture. You might wonder - What is that? It looks pliable. Can I play with it? Jeff’s thesis show for his Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from Alfred University is one of many spread around Alfred on May 9th and they are all open to the public.
When I saw Jeff’s post card with 2 sculptures, my thoughts were of squishy koosh-balls. This was a huge squiggly ball, a ball that invited one to curl up within the soft tentacles but, of course, they aren’t soft and there’s no cuddling. It’s made of stern clay that softly flows through space.
Jeff’s high school was the Metropolitan Regional Technical Center in Providence RI where every student is required to work as an intern 2 days each week. Jeff looked around a bit before deciding to ask to work at a pottery studio. He had to clean up and do odd jobs and in turn he learned to throw, fire kilns and really get interested in clay. By the time he was a senior Jeff thought he might become a functional, production potter. People encouraged him to explore Alfred University.
Jeff wasn’t sure that his portfolio would get him into Alfred but he gave it a try and when I asked him if AU has been a good experience his body language extruded a living exclamation point at the end of a heart-felt, “Yes.”
Alfred has been a good place to learn, to find new paths, to make lasting connections and to both change and grow. One thing that changed his view of art was a sound class with Andrew Deutsch. Jeff said that class opened him up. He’s also been encouraged greatly by Wayne Higby and many others.
Jeff still likes pots but his work with clay has changed full tilt from the functional stuff he started with. He doesn’t think of his work in words as much as forms and ideas that represent creatures of microscopic, unknown, hidden universes. One he showed me is a core with 2,000+ holes in it. There are clay “sticks” to fit into each hole. These sticks look both delicate and confrontational.
If there is a theme in his work it’s modular. He said that if he thinks about a substance he looks into it knowing that it can be broken down into a basic element or a bit of energy. The universe is about variety without end yet all these different things – plants, animals, microorganisms, minerals, whatever - come from the same basic blocks. He thinks not of words but of clay and particles and how they can be endlessly reorganized.
When Jeff takes his modules into a gallery he isn’t sure what’s going to happen with the space. People come in to see what he’s doing and they interact with him as well as the modules. Each time one of his sculptures goes together it can be, most likely will be, different. He enjoys watching pieces grow into sculptures and enjoys the sense of play that people find in his modules. He particularly enjoys working on his forms with the many friends he has watched develop as artists over the four years while he too was growing.
Jeff’s work is terra cotta, mostly unglazed, bisque fired and fragile. There are thousands of leafy parts and thousands of sticks and thousands of – words escape me. Jeff says that there’s a sort of zen to making things over and over again. He visited the Cutco factory in Olean and talked with a man who takes the burr off the blades of knives and this guy has done the process for 30 years and has an art to his every movement. Jeff respects that authority of movement.
Jeff’s sticks (that’s my word, not his) are made 9 at a time with a clay extruder. He cuts them off and rolls them out a bit to finish the ends. Some ends have hooks so they can hang from the bottoms of pieces and others have a simple, rounded point.
Some clay seeps around the edge of the extruder as he works and these become organic, leafy shapes that top some of the sculptures. All the pieces are fragile. Some of the sculptures will be up on legs that will just almost at the point of breaking. He likes it that ceramics, as a material, is so permanent but he is using it in a way that emphasizes the fragility.
After graduation Jeff would like to travel. He plans to go to China to the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. He’d like to explore the world for a while and eventually go to grad school.
Jeff has no name for his thesis exhibition. He’d rather leave titles and definitions up to you. His work will be in the Cohen Studio at the rear of 55 North Main Street. For those of you unfamiliar with Alfred, the Cohen Studio is behind a pink house across the street from Nana’s Japanese Café. There’s a small parking area and inside the building you’ll find maps to all the other thesis exhibitions opening around the campus between 4 and 7 pm on Saturday, May 9.

Borobudur, Indonesia

2009-04-04T01:07:00.003-05:00

Yesterday we went to Borobudur, Indonesia’s largest Buddhist temple. Impressive, huge and detailed as it was, something was missing.

Our trip was as members of a herd of tourists – not our usual way of experiencing a temple. The ship docked in Semerang and Borobudur is a significant drive away so we thought that if we went on our own that it was entirely possible that we’d get back late and would miss the ship so we took a Holland American excursion. If anyone travels in an excursion, they are guaranteed that the ship will not leave without them so it wasn’t the excursion we took as much as the sense of guaranteed return.

Along the way we passed some million dollar photos, photos kept out of our camera by speed and a bus window. The horse drawn carts were super. Some horses advertised their presence in silver and leather finery while others had brightly colored carts and others were work-a-day plain.

There were people slaving away under conical straw hats in the mercilessly large, hot rice paddies. Women planted seedlings or pulled weeds and men pushed what might be called hand tractors but looked like long, homemade roto-tillers. The rice fields themselves were patchworks of glistening, brown water or fields of green or brown rectangles whose lines were drawn by grassy burms where barefoot farmers lugged hoes or bundles of leaves. Bamboo sticks along the sides of plots supported long beans and occasional trees added their own brand of green.

Rice, by the way, is about 50 cents per kilo for the good stuff and it is eaten 3 times a day by everyone. The rice farmers grow white and red rice as well as white or black sticky rice. Some own the land and some share crop. There are also people who share bulls and other animals. One person buys the animal and the other cares for it until it is mature. They share the sale price of the animal or the sale price of what it may create such as milk.

In cities groups of children waited for transportation or walked together in animated groups. The younger children wore red shorts or skirts and white shirts. Middle school children were defined by dark blue and white and high school students by gray and white. Unlike Australia’s these uniforms did not include hats though the sun and heat here accost the body with even less mercy.

There were motorcycles with families of 4 or rolled carpets or huge bales or boxes that dwarfed their drivers. Trucks full of water buffalo and bicycle powered carts all begged to be captured in pixels but the camera couldn’t work fast enough or focus through the dirty window.

Another missed photo that I so wish I had is one of the police dolls. I don’t know what they are called but at some rotaries, or traffic circles or roundabouts, there were concrete, life-sized traffic officers painted in appropriate colors and tirelessly at attention.

Speaking of police, we had a police escort for the whole trip. There were 5 buses in our convoy and a police cruiser with blaring siren led the way. At all major intersections, police stoped traffic so our convoy could travel uninhibited. If the right lane was more open than the left, the convoy just went in that lane. The rest of the cars, trucks and motorcycles were at our mercy. How the people in the car or in the first bus tolerated the hours of siren, I cannot imagine.

Onboard the bus our guide talked endlessly about life in Samerang. He is Catholic and is married to a Catholic woman. His wife was Moslem but her parents sent her to a Catholic school and she converted. He said that the government insists that people not marry outside their religion and said that women must be at least 20 and men at least 24 in order to marry.

Churches can approve of a marriage of younger people who can have a religious marriage until they are old enough for a civil wedding. It is not allowed to live together without being married by one institution or the other and if a woman gets pregnant then she gets married.

The man pays the woman’s family a dowry and it seemed that a middle class dowry was about 500,000 to 1,000,000 Rupiah ($50-$100 US). The bride’s family could use part or all of that money for the wedding celebration which might include having people witness the wedding ceremony and then having a meal or might just be a party after the ceremony. There might be bands or singers at the cerebration or the guests might come to the bride’s home in small, staggered groups for an hour or two.

The guide said that every Indonesian must have a religion. It is not allowed to say that they have no religion because that might mean that they are communists and that’s not allowed.

The temple at Borbudur rises as a huge mound in a field with nicely kept gardens but it’s just there by itself. There are no long walkways with guardians on either side that allow the sense of grandeur to grow as one marches toward the temple. There are no auxiliary temples or mahouts with elephants. Rather than quiet conversation in small groups there are loud speakers and harsh city sounds that convey more of a sense of Disneyland than of worship.

That may be the real difference. Nobody seemed to be there in order to pray. There were no prayer cloths tied around trees and it didn’t feel that candles or incense had ever burned there. The literature compared the t

BALI INDONESIA

2009-04-04T01:06:00.000-05:00

Pandang Bai, Bali, Indonesia offers things to do for anyone who can make it past the hagglers on the beach. It’s hard to resist them. They want very little money for what they offer but knowing that I would never use the things and that they don’t appeal to me aesthetically made it possible to say no.

We did agree to go in a taxi to outer towns to look around. The driver stopped when we asked him to and he took us to a wood carving place as well as a batik place though the prices at both were out of this world – so high they had to price in US dollars because they’d have run out of zeros using Indonesian Rupiah.

We stopped to take photos of the bridge protector. Since all bad things come from water, the bridges need special creatures to protect them from the water. Some of these are quite elaborate.

At another area we stopped to take photos of rice fields but it was hard to capture the small terraces on the photo so I took a little step onto a rice paddy wall. Apparently I weigh more than a rice farmer because the wall under one foot gave out and I ended up with a mud-coated shoe. Later, in the toilet at a wood carving studio, I held my foot over top of the toilet and poured a bucket of water over it to flush off some of the mud. (It was one of those bucket-flush toilets and this may have been the first time I was happy not to have a flush toilet.)

While the rinse removed some mud it also resulted in a distinct squish while walking out. As the shoe dried the mud became more apparent so I tried to clean it back at the ship where I learned that wet wipes and Q-tips are not the best tools for cleaning mud from a shoe.

Another stop was the Bat Temple. Built into the side of a hill, it has sheltered thousands of bats since the 11th century. Our guide told us that there are a million bats in the cave along with snakes. The snakes never come out but eat the dead or dying bats.

The bats have to feed so they come out at night looking for insects. I said it would be exciting to see them fly off but he disagreed. “The bat shit rains all over the temple, Madam.” he said.

He said it as easily as if he had asked it I would like tea.

His name was Wayun or something akin. It means first. He is the first born son and has 4 brothers so they are named First, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth. He and his brothers went to elementary school and then had to drop out. While elementary school is free the students and families must buy uniforms and all their books and materials. This was enough for his family to manage. They couldn’t afford high school so he works at the temple.

In the past, before the bombing , 500 people would come to the temple every day but now there are 30 ore 40 a day and nobody at the temple has money.

An old man trailed Rick to sell him a coin for $4 so I eventually bought the coin. Our guide told us that the man’s grandfather found the coin in a sunken ship off the coast. Who knows?

After I bought that coin another man appeared with another coin and I bought that too for $3 with no story of grandfathers or sunken ships but in a flash he whipped out another coin so Rick and I skedaddled before we became the owners of dozens of coins.

We talked with a port officer, a gentleman dressed in a red shirt, red plaid sarong and with a kris in his belt loop. There were many such officers who seemed to take turns directing traffic, sitting and watching traffic and smoking cigarettes in nearby cafes. This particular officer allowed me to take his photo and then asked for my Holland America 25 day cruise button. He collects them. It didn’t mean much to me so I gave it him and he said it would be the 209th in his collection.

He talked about his kris saying it was his grandfathers and that the kris has magic in it and power in it so it’s best to keep it in a family. He seemed surprised that Rick had actually been able to buy a kris so maybe they are not sold in Indonesia as they were in Malaysia.

Back on the ship with a bit of lunch in us at 6 p.m. Rick stretched out on the bed and I went to walk the deck one time. One of the maintenance men was fighting with a tender propeller. It had about a kilometer of rope of various sizes wrapped around it and he was trying to get it off.

The anti-pirate acoustic weapons are still on deck and the security officers continue to prowl but there’s been no official alert of any kind. Only rumor.

Walking on Hamilton Island

2009-03-24T01:29:00.000-05:00

Things changed incredibly fast today. One minute we were creeping up on a Kookaburra and the next we were scrambling down the hill. An Irish couple with us was pointed to the Kookaburra and said they were quite brave birds so it was possible to get close for a photo. The sun was shining and there was a pleasant breeze on Prospect Point at the northern end of Hamilton Island in the Whitsunday Islands.

The Kookaburras had been laughing at us the whole time we clambered up the 3 KM to the lookout and on the way down we head another bird, a fat, large, black and white bird with no neck but a throaty gobble or cackle. This bird pumped his heavy wings and sailed over to the Kookaburras where he caused quite an uproar.

We waited for the Irish folk we had visited at the peak to see if they could tell us about the bird we sighted and they suggested that it was an Australian turkey but they found a Kookaburra in the tree so that’s why I went off the trail to get a photo but just before I could take the photo a drop of water fell on my nose and the bird took off. In the next moment the sun was gone and buckets of rain were pouring over us.

I put my camera and iPod in the backpack and we headed down the trail. The nearest shelter was nearly 3 KM down the hill so that’s where we headed. The trail went from awkward to slippery. The 18 inch tall steps were more of a challenge than they had been on the way up.

The rain lasted only a few minutes but long enough to soak us. We stopped to wipe our glasses and faces and felt pleased that the storm was over but shortly it started to rain again and again after a second false stop so we were pretty soaked by the time we made it down the hill.

There was no shelter from the sidewalk to the Volendam’s tender but a little more rain didn’t matter by then and the whole walk was worth it.

Sydney, AU

2009-03-20T18:14:00.000-05:00

We entered Sydney Harbour late limping with one broken engine. The ship sat in the harbor with doors below the stateroom decks open to the sea looking as if work was being done to engines but it’s unclear if it was or would be repaired because we left 90 minutes earlier than originally scheduled. Would that much time help us get to our next destination on time? We have 2 days at sea so could 90 minutes matter?

Entry into the harbour brings one past a number of beautiful bays and beaches as well as the house the queen pops into when she visits. Elaborate digs for sure. As we entered, a Celebrity ship sat sadly in dry dock for repairs and I crossed my fingers that there wasn’t a dry dock in the near future for the Volendam.

We docked in Sydney at 9:30 rather than 8 and then there was a delay in clearing the ship to disembark so that frantic people were stuffed in the hall at the gangway location. It was a log jam of people, luggage and wheelchairs so the ship’s powers directed everyone, over the pa system, to vacate the halls and stairs until they were called to return or the gang way would stay closed. Like good do-bees we left and only returned when in-transit passengers were called. Here’s the thing, when we reached the gangway that same log-jam of increasingly desperate people stood there.

People with early flights were desperate about the time and we in transit were just going for sightseeing but we were allowed to repeat “In Transit. Excuse me.” and so make our way off the ship while they were refused exit, Maybe the luggage transfer was the problem. The ship is generally quite organized soi there must have been a reason for the delays still it would have helped everyone to know what was going on because it felt like a mutiny might erupt at any moment on those stairs.

The big thing we did on our first day in Sydney was a tour the Endeavor, a replica of James Cooke’s ship. What a project!

There was a charge to see the ship, a bit of a shock after all the free museums, but it was staffed with devoted volunteers. The original Endeavor sunk during the American war of Independence so a few years ago a wealthy person decided that he’d build an exact replica. It seems he went to jail so things faltered and then there was a new sponsor and that ended but third time’s a charm and the Endeavor replica was carved, fitted and launched – for a mere $17 million US.

The first thing I noticed on board was the array of ropes but while I was gaping at the 29 kilometers of rope a volunteer insisted on showing me the toilets. It’s not that they thought I had to “go” but rather that they enjoyed the shock value of the “toilets”- large boards with holes cut out of them so that one marched out to the bow of the ship, dropped one’s drawers and balanced on this board depositing one’s personal waste through the hole and into the sea. Arse-wiping was done with the frayed end of a rope which was lowered into the sea to clean it off for the next person. Recycling, one volunteer said, is nothing new. Life at sea, I thought, must have been very tough.

The original Endeavor, built in 1768 for considerably less than $17 million, was state of the art for its time. The cook stove was a huge iron stove set on stone set on tin and fueled by wood. A fire burned from morning till mid day cooking first 94 breakfasts and then stewing enough to give hot stew for lunch and leftovers for dinner. The fire had to be put out midday to reduce the danger of fire at night.

To say that conditions were tight gives little of the sense of space available. One could stand in the center of the below deck area but it was necessary to scoot/scuttle through parts of the ship where the ceiling and floor were only about 4 feet apart. Hammocks with 14” of space were strung over tables at night and when the sailors got up hammocks were stowed away and people hunched over to walk around. They lived like this for 3 year – except for those who died of dysentery.

Actually they did well for a long while because Cook was attentive to health. Everyone had to wash hands and dishes with vinegar and they were given sauerkraut for the vitamin C that kept scurvy away. Each sailor had 2 hammocks – one to use while the other was washed and allowed to dry. Once dysentery and malaria joined them on board, it was a mess.

This replica sails every 3 or so years following one of Cook’s routes and one can book a berth if in possession of enough cash and a willingness to part with it.

Day 2 in Sydney started with walking across the bridge. Had we been willing to part with $329 each we could have climbed to the pinnacle while lashed to the iron work and led by guides. We could have looked down from so much further up and could have had the adventure of a greater wind and wider view but the cost seemed steeper than the bridge so we just walked on the sidewalk – no small walk.

The sidewalk traffic was brisk with walkers and joggers. The view looking down on the aquarium, the Hyatt Hotel and all the boats was worth the climb.

On the way to the bridge we went to a very classy street market and after the bridge we went to the Powerhouse museum to see Australia’s first steam locomotive, a steam engine built by James Watt and used in a mill for over 102 years, a model of the Russian Soyez (4 and 5), and models of the very tiny Vanguard and larger Sputnik. There were lots of entertaining interactive exhibits and periodically the exhibits roared to life. Near the train the audio would turn on with the sound of horse hoofs clomping on the road and the train engine and whistle and people talking with the call for All Aboard sailing over the din. It was an interesting feature except for the startling effect of sudden noise on the un-expecting.

I, for one, was worn out by the walking and gawking. There are marvelous buildings here and lots of people to look at. The school groups are all defined by their uniforms which include sun hats. There are many stylish people about and several outfits were worth two moments of gawking. The shoes and sandals are impressive. How can anyone maneuver on those tiny spiky heels? How many straps can one pair of sandals have? Who first thought to pair knee highs with spike heels? How many variations on the drawing of a skull can one find on T-shirts or socks? It’s an interesting world.

Then there are the variations in architecture. Sydney is filled with lovely old buildings from the colonial era but the most recognizable structure is the Opera House. Did you know that the roofs are covered in ceramic tiles? I didn’t. The colors of the tiles give the sense of texture from a distance and up close they become a detailed design. It’s huge and elegant outside so no doubt striking inside though we didn’t take the tour but instead went into the Botanical Gardens where we also didn’t take the tour. Not very good tourists, are we?

The Volendam

2009-03-13T22:04:00.000-05:00

The Volendam is our temporary home. Our stateroom is on the 6th level, inside. There’s a curtain on the wall behind the bed to give the illusion of a window. Neighboring cabins have windows and sliding glass doors for their verandas. They have small sitting areas and they have to take a few steps to reach stuff but their rooms cost several times what we paid.

We have a king-sized bed taking up half the room and then a love seat, a chair, a table (slightly larger than your Thanksgiving turkey platter) and a dresser. There are 5 closets – one with a small safe – some with shelves – and there’s a bathroom with a shower/no tub. The tiny room forces one to everything away every time it’s ued and generally that’s what we do. It’s a little bit of fun to know where everything is.

Our small suitcases are under the bed but the large one doesn’t fit so it’s under the desk redefining it as a not-desk and making the ottoman easy to trip over in the dark. We’ve one electrical outlet in the bathroom but it runs nothing more than a shaver. To charge the electric toothbrush or to clean the brush heads with the ultraviolet light we must use the outlet on our not-desk. Likewise that’s where we can charge batteries or run our waterpic. Using a waterpic is messy enough over a sink but on the not-desk there’s another level of difficulty.

Our room steward, Dedi, has to clean 29 staterooms twice a day, every day. 29. I think that’s twice as many as the guys did last year. Dedi brings mail – notices of promotions on board, the daily activities schedule, special notes, bills and the condensed New York Times (8 pages long and 2 days old). He cleans the bathrooms and I’ve seen him in a room with a huge washer so think he has to launder all the sheets and towels.

He delivers fresh ice and fruit daily and then he has to meet passengers’ whims. Since people with the verandas likely paid $8,000 or more EACH to be in those large and fancy rooms, it would not surprise me to hear that there are daily whims.

In his spare time he folds towels into animal shapes and decorates our bed with them adding 2 golden coins of milk chocolate and an invitation to order room service breakfast in bed the next day.

Living in this high-rent district it is surprising to see that the self-service laundry is busy all day. It’s $2 per load of wash including soap but we don’t like their soap so brought our own. Often people go to and from the laundry in their robes.

There’s a snack bar, a cafeteria, a restaurant, and a fancy restaurant. One is required to use hand sanitizer before entering any food area and shaking hands is discouraged as is holding the handrails. If people start to get sick all the salt and pepper shakers are removed from tables and stewards come along to offer salt and pepper touched only by their gloved hands.

The best food is in the Pinnacle but there is a $20 per person cover charge and, with the other restaurants “free,” it seems an unjustified luxury though they grill the asparagus and it’s quiet and relaxed while the Rotterdam has hundreds eating there in 2 shifts and all the vegetables are steamed or baked. We had only 2 “free” coupons for the Pinnacle so we eat dinner in the Rotterdam restaurant and breakfast and lunch in the Lido cafeteria. One can eat somewhere 24 hours a day paying only for bar drinks or soft drinks.

The stewards seem to have to serve twice the number of tables compared with last year. Sometimes the wine steward doesn’t make it to our table until the main dish is served. The cut backs are clearly hurting the level of comfort here. The stewards seem exhausted when they walk the halls. Who can enjoy an outing knowing that people are slaving away on board all day? Who can consider room service? The trays must weigh 50 pounds but if the service isn’t used another job is cut. What to do? I’d like to have my brown shoes polished but hate to ask.

Last year the staff had time to visit and many of them worked to learn the language of the passengers but now it’s here-your-are and they take off. We’ve also noticed that the spotless stainless steel and brass aren’t as spotless. The life raft containers look dirty. It’s not that we need spotless but it just shows how pushed the staff members are. Some of the higher level people are short with passengers and I think they are just exhausted. Likely they get grief from crew and passengers.

What else? There are shows every night – comedians and jugglers; magicians and singers; dancers and what-all troupes. Rick generally hates them and I like to give most a chance so go alone. Most seem to come on board for a day or two and then jump off to find another ship. Tough way to live or exciting. Not sure.

There’s a daily movie with popcorn and there are cooking demos and tours behind scenes in the kitchen. There’s a gym, a spa, an indoor and outdoor pool and a couple of hot tubs. There are shops, a casino and a library. The library lends books for free, offers internet for $.55 per minute (for dialup speed) and rents DVDs. One can walk the lower promenade deck with 3.5 laps equaling a mile. Clearly posted are warnings – NO JOGGING. I break that rule occasionally because around the corner at the bow the wind can be very strong and jogging a few steps is the only way to have my feet keep up with the rest of me.

The naturalist gives lectures and commentaries on the deck and the magician gave a lecture on Houdini. One can purchase “art” though the reputation of on board art (in general) is not reassuring.

There really is always something to do. The TV offers CNN or Turner Classic movies or showings or any lectures or commentaries by the naturalist or entertainer as well as a closed circuit showing of what can be seen from the bridge.

Being onboard I wish not to say I’m hungry but rather that I’m feeling peckish. It seems appropriate to like and want tea but I’m making little progress there. Dinner at 8 feels reasonable though at 5:30 my stomach needs reassurance that it will be fed.

Napier, NZ

2009-03-13T22:03:00.001-05:00

In 1931 Napier, NZ was being crushed by the Great Depression but things suddenly turned worse in February when a 7.6 earthquake demolished most of center city breaking gas lines which naturally led to fires that broken water lines couldn’t do a thing about. Then the shaken people endured 600 aftershocks over the next 2 weeks which, it seems, should have sent them packing but it didn’t.

The earthquake pushed this part of the North Island upward an additional 2 meters expanding Napier by a great deal so the city planners talked things over and decided that Napier should be rebuilt in Art Deco style with wider streets and stronger materials. Looking down one finds that the manhole covers are art deco; looking up the street light poles reflect the same design; and looking around many buildings are decorated in mission style, art deco and Spanish

How did they decide who owned the extra land? How did they work it out who gave up old land in order to make wider streets? How did they pay for all of this building during the depression?

I have none of those answers but do have photos of art deco buildings where people work dressed as though it’ s still 1930 something. Vintage cars are popular - 6 of them came to the dock to greet the Volendam in the morning and another 10 stopped by to see the ship off while the local jazz band played and several passengers jitterbugged their way up the ramp. These little towns really try to make the passengers feel as if they’ve been invited to a party.

There’s an opossum store here because they’ve got an infestation of about 70,000,000 opossums who eat at least 21,000 tones of foliage every night. Trappers catch the animals and their fur is made into slippers, wraps, fur trim or sold as skins. I should add that the opossum here is a long-haired relative to the rat-like American version - rather raccoon like in fur.

More popular than the skin is the fur which is worked into Merino wool for knitted gloves, scarves, socks, hats, vests and sweaters. Socks are about $26 and vests start at $250. I didn’t even look at sweaters prices but will admit that the stuff is cashmere-soft. The store’s motto is, “buy a sweater, save a tree.”

The sunken gardens are picture perfect with a stylized water lily sculpture and mini water wheel. Next to this quiet, reserved area there’s a huge skate park with booming rap music and dozens of ramps and things for skateboarders to try to kill themselves on. There’s also an outdoor roller blade park, a huge playground and a beach.

The town provided free shuttle buses through the working port into town. This area exports pulp to Japan for paper and lumber for construction. The other main export is fruit – primarily apples – and a major import is the cruise passenger supposedly, but this ship came in at 7 and nothing opened till 10 or 11 and then the all aboard was 1:30 so it didn’t leave much time for taking advantage of the well-heeled passengers interested in leaving Euros or dollars in port.

Wellington, NZ

2009-03-12T14:20:00.001-05:00

Wellington, NZ is my kind of town. There are clean, public toilets all over town – so numerous that even I walk right past many of them rather than searching madly to find one.

We walked downtown taking a short cut through the old National Bank building which now houses shops and cafes on its marvelous tile floors. The cable car was our goal and we found it just after a tour bus whose 100 passengers were able to go to the front of the line. Timing is so important.

The ride was okay but the real reward was the cable car museum at the top. Cable car #1 was there in its glorious red paint and car #3 was refurbished in its original cream and green. It was a beauty and crowning it was an almost exact copy of the brass bell. The original bell was eliminated when the car was modernized but the city of San Francisco had an extra antique bell of the proper vintage so they donated it to the museum. Wasn’t that awfully good of them?

When the first cable car went into service the company built a tea room because people trekking up the hill would naturally want to have tea there. The tea room is gone but some lovely photos remain and there’s also a Campbell Stokes sunshine recorder. This is a sphere of clear glass the size of a grapefruit. Under the sphere is a strip of paper. The sphere focuses the sun’s rays on the paper and burns a hole in a strip across the paper as the day progresses. The paper strip was replaced daily, or nightly, and the old strips retained to show how much sunlight there was each day. Very cool.

The other reason to go up the hill is to walk through the botanical gardens which, like most of the museums, are free and manned by volunteers. The succulents were magnificent and everything was impeccably groomed.

The gardens end at an old cemetery, a historic and unusual burial ground. Instead of having a cemetery for each church, early Wellington had one cemetery divided into Anglican, Jewish and “public” sectors. Holding Wellington’s departed from 1840 till 1892, it was adorned with ornate cast iron fences around nearly every plot and the stones showed details of Wellington since they gave the name, birth date and place and death date and place for the first to be interred there along with the name of the ship that person sailed to Wellington if they were not born there.

A couple of things seemed odd to me. One is that subsequent deaths were listed as a name and then something like “beloved wife of the above” or “brother of the above”. Another is that there seemed to be some stones packed without room for a casket between. And the really odd thing is that this cemetery is split by an 8 lane highway. How could that happen?

In order to construct the highway, the remains of 3700 people were dug up and moved to a mass grave elsewhere. The highway went in, the disrupted stones were placed in their appropriate sectors (Anglican, Jewish and “public”) and the remaining parts of the cemetery were named a heritage site so it wouldn’t be disturbed. It’s all in the timing.

Civic square had a marvelous blend of sculptures including an actual drum circle that anyone could beat on at will and a floating ball rather like the Chalice at Christchurch square. Neil Dawson made both sculptures using aluminum and designing them both with ferns.

Te Papa is the museum of New Zealand. I won’t mention the admission cost or the volunteers but will say that it’s amazing. The whole building is a sculpture with huge open spaces and more interactive displays than we had time to mess around with. What we didn’t see is the only Giant Squid on display in any museum in the world. We didn’t see it because they are still building the special squid tank and it’s not scheduled to be finished till next week. Bummer. I find the Giant Squid fascinating. This isn’t the largest ever found and it’s not perfect since a lot of its skin was lost and it has only one of those soccer-ball-sized eyes left but it’s bound to draw the crowds.

Tomorrow – Napier.

Picton, NZ

2009-03-11T21:17:00.001-05:00

Picton, New Zealand would fit inside Wellsville with room to spare but for the port and marina. We walked from the dock through town and up to a lookout point on the snout. Other people might call it a peninsula or point.

The hiking trails begin on the other side of the bay accessed by Coat Hanger Bridge so named for the thin wires that make up the sides. We trudged sometimes and sometimes strolled to reach Queen Charlotte Observation Point. The map showed toilets, a picnic area and an information site so we kinda expected a bit of civilization there but there was a pit toilet (somewhat less than we were accustomed to and populated by flies who seemed to object to any intrusion), a picnic table and a placard naming all the bays and sounds one could see –and one could see for miles. The view was worth the roughly 3 mile trek upward.

We snacked on peanut brownie cookies and water as our reward for reaching the top and just before leaving a couple we’d passed earlier came. They looked a tad disappointed when they realized that there was no food service. Thinking they looked puckish, I offered and they accepted a dousing of hand sanitizer and a cookie. They refused any more than that and to earn his snack the man shared that with his GPS he knew we had walked 5.27 km from Coat Hanger Bridge. Rick and I had gone further since we missed the start and had to work back. More than that - we’d walked from the ship since we missed the shuttle that ran every 20 minutes. All told we likely walked 7 plus miles out and back.

We passed the whaling museum to buy a bit from local artisans. One man carved stones and another was a wood turner who lived 80 km away. I bought a used book from a man who has been selling used books on the dock for 12 years. A used paper back is $4 to $15, a fraction of the $40 and upwards of a new paperback. (I suspect the Library does a good business.)

He said that everything was expensive and that’s why there are so many used clothing and used furniture stores. Houses range from $300,000 to $500,000 for ordinary buildings and we had noted a sign in a Realtor’s office that they’d negotiate prices over $800,000. Who even counts that high?

Where does this money come from? Most of the towns have lost their manufacturing jobs and this service industry idea isn’t going to maintain the standard of living with $13 cups of soup, $15 sandwiches and $300 Keens. Things are slowing down everywhere. The docks at Dunedin (done Eden) and Christchurch were loaded with wood and wood pulp but there was no activity there at all. The mountain of wood pulp just sat. The stuff was meant for China but now it seems to sit. We saw little happening with any of the pulp or lumber piles.

There were 12 container-movers in Christchurch but only 6 were at work.

We did see some dandy old cars on the Picton pier. A man there said that someone buys old Cooper Minis, packs them 8 to a container after taking off the wheels, sends them to the US to be refurbished and then sold at double the outlay. Who would think shipping cars to the US would be a money maker?

There was an intense rain at about 2 while we were at the Internet Café. Later the Captain announced that his engineers had done a great job holding the ship steady and apologized for those who had to wait to come onboard since the gangplank was unsafe in the wild winds. This place is the land of 4 seasons a day.

Christchurch, New Zealand

2009-03-10T20:18:00.001-05:00

Christchurch, NZ
The cathedral here offers a lookout from the top of the steeple for those willing to pay for the right to climb 134 steps. The cathedral’s vaulted ceiling is as impressive as any and is visible at ground level so that’s where we started the day.

Cathedral square is a pleasant place. The tourist trams drive through every few minutes and people have little shops under umbrellas. Most of them are only vendors but one woman offered her own little paintings as well as hats and scarves from the wool she spun and knitted. Jay will have such a hat to wear next winter if our luggage makes it home.

There was also a man who did some carving and also designed work to be done by his “friends.” One carving he had was a tiny, intricate NZ lizard that is not a lizard. It certainly looks like a lizard but the description in museums makes it clear it is not a lizard though the commentary does not advance to the next step to tell what it is. Rick bought the not-lizard carved into a seed.

Nearby Neil Dawson’s sculpture, chalice, towers above the square. It sort of looks like a flower vase and then rather like a lacy ice cream cone. The form is natural aluminum color on the outside and blue inside but the open work allows both colors to show. It was dedicated just before 9-11-01 and has since become a magnet for protestors. People climb the sculpture and present their grievances or hold rallies at the base.

No protestors were on hand for us though an aging hippie juggled while another sang and played guitar and a third begged for money to go home. There was a unicycle lying sadly on the sidewalk but nobody put foot to pedal.

We also missed the wizard, a local guy who welded two VW front ends together to create his car which he parks while he rants and raves on a variety of topics.

We did see Victoria Square near city hall. There was a lovely bridge and a huge round flower garden that functioned as a clock. With flowers rather than numbers, the huge hands were meant to rotate and give the time but right now it’s only correct twice a day.

Johnson’s grocery is packed to the gills with tea and biscuits. They had a big sale on a new shipment of tinned haggis which we resisted choosing instead cashews to break the bite of afternoon hunger. The owner apologized to us, as did most people, for the cold weather. It was only a chilly 70 degrees here. What would they think of Wellsville in winter?

Queen Victoria not only had a park but also a clock dedicated on her 50th anniversary of the throne. It was pretty but not as pretty as the peacock fountain in super-huge Haley Park.

This was a hoot – Christ College. It was clear we were near when the trickle of boys wearing gray knee socks and shorts with white shirts and black and white ties turned from occasional to swarm. It’s a college –not a university - so boys go from out of elementary school at about age 11 or 12 and stay through high school. It’s completely grand.

The grass is like a golf green and the buildings like palaces. We could only go as far as the bollards. Don’t begin to think that I know a bollard from a not-lizard but the sign limiting our passage was near some sort of short polls so we guessed those were bollards. The boys were so totally proper that none of them could possibly be the source of the common graffiti around NZ.

A gentleman at the museum guessed that tuition would be about $20,000 a year for borders. He said that a lot of the farmers sent their sons to school there to continue the family tradition at Christ College.

Rutherford’s Den was another marvelous, free exhibit. There’s this building – part castle/part Hogwarts – constructed in 1874 as a high school. In a forward thinking mood, it was made to accommodate not just boys but girls. After 99 years the school moved to a new campus and the old school became shops and studios and restaurants but the rooms used by Ernest Rutherford to experiment and to lecture are now a museum about this man who appears on the NZ $100 bill.

The lecture hall is just as it was in his day and it is possible to sit there and listen to recordings of his teachings about the atom. He developed many theories about atoms including that they were mostly empty space. He helped develop the Geiger counter and to calculate the half life of radioactive substances. He also taught science to young people in that very room.

When a great scientist dies any number of things might happen to offer tribute. Somehow his neighbor thought that she’d just take a couple of his diplomas and make them into lampshades. The museum was able to recover the lampshades but as diplomas they are a bit of a mess.

There was a long list of stuff we saw and did there but this is already longer than you likely hoped.

Dunedin, New Zealand

2009-03-10T20:16:00.001-05:00

Dunedin, South Island, New Zealand

We spent the day in Dunedin. The ship actually docked in Port Chalmers but it’s a tiny town and the big deal is Dunedin so we took the free shuttle in.

All the towns here have had free shuttles for us. One of the other passengers told us that, last year on one of the big cruise ships, 2,000 passengers landed and tried to take public transport into town creating a mad house. The bus drivers would only take a few people on each run because they had all their regular passengers to pick up so it took 2 hours to get off the dock on the public buses. The cruise passengers were pretty angry, these people said, and the cruise lines worked together to get free shuttles.

This made the taxi drivers unhappy because they had a captive crowd for the $40 ride to Dunedin (and similar situations in other towns) so the free shuttles agreed to run only an hour after docking so that people in a hurry would take taxis. In spite of that there were buses ready to run as soon as we docked though they hid inside of a building at the end of the dock. As in other towns, the drivers are volunteers but unlike other towns there was no second volunteer to give commentary on the bus.

In town we found a few interesting things. The old train station is covered in Royal Dalton tiles on floor and walls - 700.000 of them.

St. Paul’s Cathedral was built with $60.000 in 1919 on the site of a previous church established in 1863. Construction included 38 steps of Takaka marble outside and Gothic-style pillars with a vaulted roof of Oamaru limestone inside but money was short so a temporary chancel (where the altar is) was built. It took 50 years to get the money for the permanent chancel and what they built was poured concrete cast in a simple, modern style with clear glass windows. It looks a bit unusual with the two different styles in one building.

We saw a few other interesting things such as beer delivery by tanker truck. It reminded Rick of the septic pumpers and made me think of a milk tanker. The driver said he’d been delivering beer to pubs for 18 years. This particular brewery once had a fleet of 50 tankers spreading beer all around the south island but with so many new micro breweries and the influx of bottles and cans, there are now only 2 tankers at work. He was pumping 600 liters into this particular pub.

The other odd thing was the public toilet. It was a little stall with a toilet inside. When one entered and closed the door lights came on. The toilet paper dispensed from a machine activated by a motion sensor. The toilet flushed only when one used the sink to wash hands and then the door opened with a button. After use, the door closed and the many sprayers throughout the room washed it all down. It was free and almost as much fun as the singing Charmin toilets in New York when HM, Susan, Norma and I went. (I can be so easily amused.)

We went to a marvelous museum with all kind of displays including art from China and an exhibit on Darwin and fossils of the giant birds and turtles that once lived here and it was all free. Just can’t get over the free museums.

We visited with a large curly dog and a black and white cat. The dog blocked the way into a store and the cat was at the finest post box in New Zealand. We dodged the occasional rain – storms that lasted about 90 seconds and then disappeared. It was like that all day. Bits of rain; lots of sharp wind; sun; clouds; and then another short downpour.

Back at the ship I stayed on deck to see the tug bring us out of dock and to watch all the birds and see the sheep on the hillsides. The Great Northern Albatross (found in the south but found after another species had been named the Great Southern Albatross) sailed in large, lazy circles over the lighthouse and cormorants dove in the sea. At the end of the harbor a rainbow appeared with a brilliant neon color scheme. Great day!

Day at Sea

2009-03-09T20:53:00.002-05:00

It’s our third day at sea and when the ship is still, I miss the rocking. I’ll have to eat those words along with a round of little pink pills if the waves pick up but for now it’s true.

We’ve been in Fiordland National Park on the southern island of New Zealand since early morning –Sunday for us. We went to the bow to watch the sun almost rise. This little area gets something over 23 feet of rain a year. That is not a typo. There’s so much rain that it runs off the rock cliffs and into the water rapidly so that there are a few feet of freshwater supporting an entire ecosystem above the salt water life.

Spencer, our naturalist, joked that NZ is the land of 4 seasons in one day. Off one end of the ship is the sun while the other is crushed under clouds. The wind is brisk and between an announcement about some rock formations and beautiful weather, clouds rolled in over less time than it took to grab cameras and go down 3 levels. People were already rushing in, shaking off rain that was pounding in at a 90 degree angle.

This, Spencer chortles, is great because the rain causes nearly instant waterfalls off the cliffs. One little waterfall spouted nicely this morning looking near enough to feel the mist and seeming a few feet high. It was a couple of miles away and 500 feet tall. One’s sense of scale is blown to bits by an ocean.

I went to a couple of cooking demos this morning and learned that the mashed potatoes are made with cream, butter, milk, cheddar cheese, nutmeg, rosemary and thyme. Rick was a bit headachy and stuffy and never thought to suspect the potatoes as a source of nutmeg. The demos, for me, aren’t so much about cooking as about finding what I can and can’t eat. There’s food everywhere and we are admonished never to let ourselves feel peckish.

Keeping peckish at bay required recipes that start with “peel 40 pounds of potatoes and 40 pounds of onions.”

There was also a fruit and vegetable carving demo. What that guy could do with a watermelon, 10 minutes and a sharp knife. Amazing. He made flowers from beet and/or turnip slices, from carrot chunks, sweet peppers and onions using celery stalk leaves and nesting it all into a vase made from a cantaloupe. (Aussies, Brits and Americans have different names for all sorts of stuff making conversation interesting.)

The library on board is something out of a BBC production. People – all gray-haired if haired at all – sitting in chairs, playing scrabble, reading the papers or books or snoozing in soft recliners. The voices curve words with a charming British lilt. What am I doing here and what if someone realizes I don’t belong?
Dunnedin NZ tomorrow.

Thrown off a Tram; Tossed by the Sea

2009-03-09T20:50:00.001-05:00

To paraphrase an old warning – it’s all fun and games until someone vomits a stomach out. That is, people are always joking about rough seas but then the waves start and it’s not so funny, It’s rather hard to come up with a seasick-joke while on a pitching, rolling vessel in a storm.

Captain Bos announced last night that because of high winds the ship would need the help of tugs to leave the harbor. I guess that Ships can maneuver well when under speed but the starts and stops make it less responsive. But he also warned us that at 9 p.m. and for at least 30 minutes that sailing would be rough. He laughed saying that the promenade doors would be locked and that we should use care in moving about the ship.

Was he lying, in error or just manipulating those of tender stomach? My guess is that Captain Bos does not make mistakes regarding this vessel and I, for one, feel nicely manipulate.

The ship did start to become active at 9 p.m. The dining hall pitched and stewards grabbed bottles and stacked plate covers with feet splayed for balance and arms stretched to hold as much as possible.

As the stewards strained against the movement, the rest of the place shouted or yelped – as if on a lurching Ferris wheel. The ship rolled back and nervous laughter sprinkled over the room. Not a minute later another wave tipped the ship and my mind started seeing us as a miniscule cork on the vast ocean.

In my head a screen scrolled terms on an endless loop – rollicking, rolling, pitching, tossing, undulating, sloping, rising, falling, plunging, swelling, heaving, lurching, churning, surging, leaning, slanting, dipping, tumbling (but never, never, NEVER sinking).

By 9:15 my internal conversation became, “You’re halfway there. Hang on. In 15 minutes it will be over.”

The countdown continued and as the numbers decreased my suspicion regarding the Captain grew but my stomach started to adjust. I could last longer. I could keep my dinner and ride out the storm for another half hour.

After dinner Rick and I tried to look out on deck but all the lights were out (to protect the birds) and the doors were locked (to protect us). The force of the wind could be heard and felt as it rushed through the tiny gaps around the doors.
We made way to the stateroom passing others in the halls. Everyone either hung onto the rails or lurched down the narrow halls. One man asked if I was drunk or just pretending – wise guy. A woman said that someone opened a stateroom door and she plunged in, an unannounced and unexpected guest.

When Rick and I got to our room he moved our gift bottle of sparkling wine to the sofa and turned just in time to catch the sailing fruit bowl. At the same time all four drawers on our night stands slid open, then shut, then open. We locked the top drawers and put shoes in front of the bottom drawers to hold them shut.
A towel in the top drawer kept stuff from rolling back and forth inside the drawer but what would hold my stomach? Had the captain warned the rough seas would last all night my composure might have wavered long enough to forget to swallow. Because of the captain I convinced myself that the rough seas were temporary and while waiting for the problem to end I adjusted little by little and fell asleep but remember thinking that putting a baby in a rocking cradle might be child abuse.

This day had started with going ashore in Melbourne, Australia. We walked around town and went to some museums and it was all very civilized. Melbourne has a legion of volunteer guides in red hats and vests. They man the tourist information desks and stroll the streets looking for people to help. All of them assured us that the trip back to the dock was easy on the 109 tram.

Melbourne has a marvelous free tram that goes in a loop around downtown all day long and gives a commentary on the attractions and architecture at each stop. We rode the tram a couple of times. Once while we were on it, the driver got off. It was a bit curious until we realized he was going to the public toilets on the corner.

There is also a free public bus that has a larger loop than the tram. It seems a very generous and hospitable service. How nice if New York offered that to tourists.
Our ship sailed at 5:30 so giving plenty of time we boarded the 109 at 4:00. The 109 is part of the regular public transit system so there were kids and people going to and from shopping and work as well as not a few cruise-ship-folk.

Getting around Melbourne was easy stuff. No problem at all except that this tram driver announced she wasn’t going to go to the docks but would return to the city. The tram had about 120 people on it and there were another 50 at the stop intending to board it, not to see people get off and watch the empty tram scuttle away.

The next 109 tram stopped and people squeezed on. The driver tried to shut the doors when he felt that the train was full but people kept pushing on and then the doors wouldn’t close. He was very angry as he came by to reset the doors and then to turn off the engine and turn it on again. At each stop the doors would open and people in the train would try to discourage anyone from getting on but 3 people would get off and 20 would crush on.

The driver finally threw us all off four stops from the docks at 4:55. We started walking near 2 young girls who said that it took them 25 minutes to walk to the docks from that point. We charged ahead – make that I charged ahead and Rick tried to slow me. We saw two 109 trams pass us but they were stuffed with arms and legs and head pressed up against the glass doors and walls like so many human flowers between the pages of an old dictionary.

We wanted the next tram but we were walking on the pedestrian path and the tram ran on the track on the other side of a fence. Then one stopped when we were near the crossway. I chased it down but the tram started to leave. I banged on the side and the driver opened the door. Rick caught up so we were both able to get on and head toward the dock. There were no more trams behind u so missing it would have meant at least a 10 minute wait. We could relax except that, just after my panting from our 10minute jog, this tram driver put us off too. There were too many trams in the station and it couldn’t go all the way so we walked again and made it into the customs area at 5:15. Screening took a little while and then we were on the ship with 5 minutes to spare. Rick said that we were never in danger of missing the ship but I don’t know about that. So, after that relaxing trip back from the city, we pitched and rolled on the ship until landing an hour late in Burnie, Tasmania.

Burnie Tasmania
The people of Burnie are about as proud of their city and as nice to strangers as any people could be. They have the cleanest air and purest water in the world. The tip of South America is to their west but the air and water that reaches Tasmania doesn’t touch other land for thousands of miles. Burnie was a bit of a mess until the 70s when making paper, acids and paint pigment were their main industries. All those industries have ended or cleaned up their acts in the past decades and being clean and green seem to be taken seriously by almost everyone.

As in Melbourne the guides are volunteers. There were 29 cruise ships in Burnie this year after only 13 last year and all of them were met by a free shuttle bus with volunteer guides and drivers.

A free shuttle bus took us to the tourist information center where volunteers gave out brochures and sold tickets on the Burnie Attractions Bus. Volunteers also manned the volunteer-built Burnie Pioneer Museum which was constructed with wood, windows and doors from old structures in Burnie so that it looked like a 1900 street scene but it was a reproduction.

We took the bus to Wilf Campbell Lookout and took photos of the dock and our ship and the panoramic view of the harbor.

The next stop was the Emu Valley Rhododendron Garden. This is also volunteer-built and run. The Rhododendron society somehow got title to 30 acres of bush land and then started tearing down trees to build terraced gardens with, so far, 23000 species of plants. They’ve been recognized around the world for their collections of rhododendron. They have species from all around the world and the plants are grouped with the other plants that would occur with them in those areas so there is a North
American area and a Korean area and another Japanese area and they are working on a Chinese layout.

This guide had just sprayed the hillside to kill everything there so he could plant the Chinese varieties. What, I asked, had he sprayed with?

Roundup, he said – good stuff. He knew that Monsanto guaranteed that Roundup broke down in 2 weeks and totally disappeared. He sprayed 30 liters of Roundup every week and had been doing it for years without a mask or gloves and believed that it was safe though he was diagnosed with cancer recently. Funny he should put it that way.
I told him that Monsanto was the company that brought us Agent Orange. He wasn’t concerned though. He said it was suspicious people like me who believe in the myth of global warming.

We made a few more visits and then took the free shuttle back to the dock with time to spare. A retired bricklayer on the ship is a resident of Burnie and he said that nearly everyone in town (and that’s 20,000 people) volunteers for something. Everyone helps in some way and it’s not a chore but a social due that everyone enjoys and supports. Doesn’t that sound super?

In the night the sea became rough again. I could barely move in the morning. The ship rocked. Rick said he enjoyed it and timed his breathing with the movement of the ship. Not so for me.

Captain Bos shut down the elevators, put motion sickness bag dispensers at every elevator, emptied the pools and hot tubs and made motion sickness pills available at the hotel desk. On the deck all the cushions were taken away from chairs and they were all folded and tied tight to the side rails. I later talked with one of the shop workers and he said that even seasoned sailors experienced seasickness that day.

Rick brought me some of the seasickness pills with the directions reading - “Do not take on empty stomach.” The whole thing about needing these pills involves the stomach not wanting to keep food inside. With part of a slowly eaten bagel and the little pink pill I could again maneuver and we did a few ship-board activities including visiting with some Australian women who had been sailing for 50 years. We also got back into eating which one can hardly avoid doing on a cruise ship.

Sydney

2009-03-03T18:24:00.000-05:00

Out of Sydney
We walked about Sydney for part of the day finding the maritime museum and looking at buildings, crossing a great old bridge and considering a visit to the aquarium when we return in a few days. Boarding the ship was, as generally, an efficient exercise in maritime organization.
There were many staff people on hand to check our documentation and take security photos. All passengers must certify in writing that they do not have a fever and that they haven’t had any gastro intestinal illnesses in the past 48 hours. Passengers aren’t supposed to have been around anyone who is sick. I wonder what happens if people admit to any of this. With 1400 passengers it’s hard to believe that nobody has been sick but perhaps so since most of them (most of us) are “seniors” and away from the runny-nosed kids.
One must use hand sanitizer before entering the ship or any restaurant on the ship. Passengers are encouraged to use only their own lavatories and if public restrooms are used, there are paper towels at the doors so that one has no need to touch the door handle.
The captain is very entertaining and uses the public address system to encourage extra hand washing and to tell people what’s going on. Apparently when the ship stopped in Sydney it was necessary to use an emergency braking system. While one might wonder the reason, he kept that to himself but told that using it caused some electrical problems that had to be straightened out before we could set sail.
He has addressed the group many times since to update on a low pressure system near Tasmania. This system has a pressure of 28.4 millibars, I think, and it is lower than another system on the island that was producing a cyclone as he spoke. He promised to put sea sickness bags near all the elevators, a move that will lead me to take the steps. Supposedly at about 8 p.m. tonight we will be near the edge of the storm which is moving northward. He is still hoping that the storm will shift or dissipate before we get to it.
The captain said that all outdoor lights will be turned off at night. During storm birds are disoriented and tired by high winds and will fly into the ships drawn by lights. There are, already, some dead birds on the ship’s deck.
He also said that when we reach a certain point that the ballast in the ship will be shifted to compensate for winds. He shut the pool which had major sloshing over the sides this morning and he suggested that while walking we always have one hand on a part of the ship to steady us.
This is in sharp contrast to the regular admonition against touching hand rails or ship walls. Apparently it’s better to get sick than to fall down. He expects attendance at dinner to be relaxed tonight and I’m wondering if we should get a second late lunch/early dinner or just drink water.
Last night the flashlight in Rick’s night stand rolled back and forth several times and I wondered what it would be like if the ship’s movement increased. Tonight I may find out. It’s mid afternoon now and the curtains are waving a bit. I think it’s time to take his suggestion of clearing the desk and table and putting everything inside of drawers.

10 pm
The sea is getting rough and the winds picking up. Oh my.

Singapore

2009-03-03T18:23:00.000-05:00

Singapore
Our first notable encounter on this trip to Singapore occurred in the Rochester Airport. We learned that our checked bag weighed 55 pounds and that the excess 5 pounds would carry a $150 surcharge. Holy cow. We moved things around and made our carry-on heavier and bulkier but saved the $150. Looming in the near future is the notion that we have neither space nor weight for any treasures we might find on the trip.
Having dealt with the suitcase we concentrated on the serious task of getting to Singapore. We didn’t wait long in Rochester before we flew to Chicago where we waited and flew to Los Angeles where we waited and flew to Hong Kong where we waited and flew to Singapore. More expensive tickets might whisk a person along in fewer steps but no matter the route Singapore is on the other side of a large world.
It was interesting to look at airports along the way. If ranked only by the style, cleanliness and art in airports, Singapore and Hong Kong would leave the US bleakly behind. Both those airports are new and elegant as is the subway system in Singapore. Full of mosaics and large spaces, it’s like traveling though an art museum. The tracks are hidden behind glass walls whose doors only open when the trains are there. The safety and cleanliness of such a system are without question.
Singapore is a new, tiny country. They say they have no water supply on the island but I’m guessing that means in quantity for the population because people have lived here for a long time.
Again, in the modern context, there are no natural resources yet the country seem to provide for the people. It was a Sultanate and then the British claimed it. Japan took it in the Second World War and it spent a bit of time as part of the Malay Federation but racial tensions and the political pressure of Indonesia forced Singapore into independence and they’ve done well.
With pockets of Chinese, Indian and European as well as other ethnic groups and huge areas of poverty Singapore took an interesting approach to racism decades ago. They built low income housing and required that every floor have families of different ethnicity. Over time people have come to see each other as neighbors and not as ethnic groups and this has helped bring the country together. Perfect? Not likely but real progress is made all the time.
It seems that the country’s pride has also helped. Singapore doesn’t talk about military wealth or power. How could they? It’s tiny with a small population. What they talk about is being educated. What they show is cleanliness and landscaping. There is public art everywhere. The economy seems strong and the country seems “together” at least to visitors. That’s not the impression one gets from LXA.
While in Singapore I am oversized and under bling-ed. There are sparkling Indian saris and rhinestone embedded T-shirts. Shoes and boots are jeweled and the sun dances over handbags and jewelry. The size-zero women become inches taller on heels which seem no impediment to traveling stride after stride over the streets and into shops. Even if a few sparkles were added to my backpack and perhaps my sneaker laces, I would still be a few sizes out of the ordinary.
Singapore is changing. Though the flowers blossom on every elevated walkway and the parks are amazing pockets of jungle one can find the occasional bit of litter and the stainless steel panels in the mass transit areas show fingerprints. Taxi drivers say that they wait 30 minute for a new fare and some shops are permanently shuttered. Hotel occupancy is down and we heard only the occasional German or French conversation.
Western food has pushed into Singapore where Kentucky Fried Chicken is presented as an American Classic and people choose Subway sandwiches over won ton mee or masla dosi. As a result some people have attained a Western girth and, according to the papers, related Western diseases. Since everyone is covered by the same health plan, it is in everyone’s interest to be healthy so warnings are posted on snack foods to eat in moderation. Commentators in videos at the Museum urge Asian food and rejection of Starbucks. Change is tough.
Rick and I discovered, on our last day, the best masala dosai in the world. I say this with great conviction. The best spring rolls in the world can be found at the Chang Dao Nest in Thailand. We’ve eaten spring rolls everywhere and those are the best.

We’ve eaten masala dosai in a lot of places too including our month long trek through India and this was the best. Called Sree Sagar Pte Ltd, Pure Veg Restaurant, it is the establishment owned by Mr. Ananda Rao K.

The dosai was perfect. The masala had a wonderful flavor that made me just keep chewing it to make it last. The onion was mild and the other spices were able to blend and carry through. I don’t know the name for the coconut dipping sauce or the red sauce but I ate every drop of both. The sambal was, again, perfectly spiced. I also had a samosa. I could have eaten those samosas every day for years. If I could write about food the way Emilie does, you’d understand how good this stuff was. I had eaten some masala dosai the day before elsewhere and it was okay but when I tasted Mr. Rao’s food there was no comparison.

I have a photo of Mr. Rao and his cook and will post it when possible but if anyone out there is going to Singapore, stop by the Lau Pa Sat Festival Market and find him at the end of the row on Street 1 or go to his restaurant at 212 Serangoon Road. He has a website - www.sreesagar.com but what he really has is the best masala dosai in the world.

Rain interfered with our walking in the evening so we went inside a mall and were amazed by the number of people walking around a mall on a Sunday evening. Slightly over half the stores were open and hundreds of people gathered in groups in chairs or on the floor or leaning over the railing talking in that mix of Asian languages that just sounds like Singapore.

Ceremonial Swearing in of Eric Massa

2009-02-19T20:41:00.000-05:00

People came from across the 29th Congressional District to witness the Ceremonial Swearing in Ceremony for Congressman Eric Massa in the courtroom of Judge John Ark . The ceremony was slightly delayed by the crunch at the security check fort the Monroe County Hall of Justice. One of the security guards remarked that he had never seen so many people at security in his years of working there.
Eric Massa issued an open invitation to people to attend the ceremony so several veterans, labor leaders, attorneys and assorted citizens were on hand to welcome Massa as their representative.
After being introduced by the Judge, Senator Schumer suggested that many people should feel joy and a sense of accomplishment over Massa’s win. First on the list was Massa. He spent 24 years in military service after growing up in a military family. He served in Beirut and in Desert Storm and then as assistant to the Supreme Allied Commander, Wesley Clark.
Massa didn't grow up with a silver spoon in his mouth but earned every success. Living and then working in Corning over 20 years, he ran for this congressional seat 2 years ago and lost by a hair. Schumer said that Massa “had the gumption to run again”- this time successfully.
Second Schumer said, this was a great day for the Massa family because a politician’s life does not stay at the office. The home phone rings daily and people constantly demand time and conversation. Eric is a successful person in part because of his family.
Also, he noted, this was a great day for the diverse people of the 29th district who have a smart, capable, open, caring person who will work tirelessly for them. Finally it was a great day for the nation where a government can pass the reins of power peacefully.
Schumer also talked about our republic relating that Ben Franklin was asked what went on in Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. He answered, “We have created a republic, if you can keep it.”
Keeping a republic requires that people take time from their lives, their work, and their families to learn about issues and candidates and to vote. Franklin wasn’t certain that people would give their time for that purpose. Keeping a republic also requires that people put themselves forward for office with a desire to serve the interests of the public above their private interests. Perhaps, feared Franklin, only scoundrels would seek office.
Schumer noted that the room filled with standing room only shows that people are involved and he said, “Look at who we elected. One of our best.”
Judge Ark administered the oath of office, reading it to ensure accuracy. Beverly Massa held the bible and Senator Schumer stood with them. Afterwards, Massa spoke saying, that it was an important ceremony, a binding contract between him and the people he represents. "I could not be more honored or humbled."
He thanked the people present for their support and work on his behalf. He particularly thanked Paul Shanahan and Jim Doyle for earnestly teaching him about the judicial branch of government stating that “we have all been lessened by the assault on our judiciary over the last 8 years.”
Massa said that “Decisions in our government are made by those who show up and last Tuesday 2 ½ million people showed up in Washington.”
He hopes the level of citizen involvement with the government will grow. In order to encourage citizens of the 29th district he intends to activity represent those who voted for him and those who voted against him.
Rochester’s Mayor Duffy thanked Senator Schumer for attending and congratulated Massa calling him a man of honor and character who spoke of issues rather than making personal attacks."He's the real deal. He knows what it is like to be laid off from a job. He knows what it is like to put his life on the line for his country. He has a passion for life and for government and he is entering government at an important time full of great changes."
Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks said, "Politics divides but government brings us together. I have no doubt that Eric will serve the people well. It shows his commitment to service to have regional swearing in ceremonies. Although I am a Republican I respect Eric Massa and share many of his goals."
Congressman Massa took time to speak with most of the people in the room individually at the close of the ceremony.