Oshogatsu

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Elegant Japanese Kimonos

Today, Martine and I rode Metro Rail downtown to attend an event at the Central Library celebrating Japanese New Year, or Oshogatsu. In Japan, New Years is celebrated at the beginning of January, unlike Chinese New Year, which is based on a lunar calendar. So actually it was a little late to celebrate Japanese New Year, but I guess it was difficult to schedule the Mark Taper Auditorium at the library.

There were three main exhibits, each presented by a different locally-based Japanese-American organization.

The first was ikebana, or flower arranging. In twenty minutes, a young woman created a floral masterpiece consisting of two types of lilies, mums, pine and willow branches, and other plants. I wondered how the different components stayed in place. I learned that a kenzan, variously knoen in English as a “spiky frog” or “pin frog.” was used to hold the components in place. (See the photo below.)

Kenzan

The rest of the program consisted of a fashion show of different types of kimonos for women (and men as well as children), accompanied by music on the koto, a zither with thirteen or more strings. On stage were three kotos played in unison.

I was first introduced to the koto at Dartmouth College, where I heard a concert given by an accomplished Japanese soloist. That, and my love of Japanese films, have introduced me to the joys of Japanese koto music.

The kimonos for women were truly lovely. I was amazed however how intricate the obis (sashes) were and how long it took to tie them. A skilled kimono-wearer could tie an obi in four or five minutes. It would probably take a klutz like me the better part of the morning, only to end up with an unholy mess.

Tierra de Volcanes

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Antigua Is Surrounded on All Sides by Volcanoes

Antigua, Guatemala was the fourth capital of Guatemala, the other three being destroyed by earthquakes, landslides, and volcanic eruptions. Then, in the eighteenth century, it was Antigua’s turn to succumb. Today, the capital is Guatemala City.

Although it is full of picturesque ruins, Antigua is a more popular destination than the capital. (Also, it is a lot safer.) In fact, there are several shuttle services that will whisk you to Antigua from the Guatemala City airport.

One of the Ruined Churches of Antigua

Antigua was once a city of many churches. Today, most of them are in ruins. Surprisingly, they have become tourist attractions. An attempt was made to clear some of the most dangerous debris. What was left was frequently picturesque and even photogenic.

I was in Antigua for almost a week in 2019. That gave me time to visit most of the ruined churches and take pictures.

One of the Most Damaged Churches in Antigua

I frequently wondered why the churches built by the Spanish were so damaged. My guess is that Spain has not seen that many serious earthquakes; and I suspect there are no active volcanoes on the Iberian Peninsula. The resident Maya, on the other hand, were used to earthquakes and volcanoes; so they built their ceremonial centers to last. The step pyramids of the Maya were built to last. In this respect, the Spanish conquerors had a lot to learn from their “primitive” Maya tenants.

My vacation in Guatemala lasted almost a month, so I was able to see most of the sights that interested me, including the Maya ruins at Tikal and Quiriguá. I even stepped across the border into Honduras to see the ruins at Copán.

The Beagle Channel

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Les Éclaireurs Lighthouse: “The Lighthouse at the End of the World”

There are three ways to get from the Atlantic to the Pacific at the southern tip of South America. You can take the Straits of Magellan; you can take the Beagle Channel (named after the ship that Charles Darwin took in 1831-36); and all the way around Cape Horn.

When I was in Ushuaia in 2006 and 2011, I took cruises on the Beagle Channel to Estancia Harberton to see the Magellanic penguins on Isla Pájaros. On the first trip, the weather changed abruptly so that we had to return to Ushuaia by bus rather than on shipboard. The second time, the weather was perfect; and Martine and I were actually able to land on the island and walk among the penguins.

Martine on Isla Pájaros with Penguins

Now Magellanic penguins are much smaller than Emperor or King Penguins, but they are penguins nonetheless. I suppose we could have dished out $10,000+ plus each to take a Russian icebreaker across the stormy Drake Passage to Antarctica to see the Emperor penguins, but we were (and still are) short of cash.

Seeing the penguins was nice, but Estancia Harberton was interesting in its own right. It was founded by the English missionary family that settled that part of Tierra del Fuego. The son, Lucas Bridges, is the author of perhaps the greatest book on the are: The Uttermost Part of the Earth.

I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in Argentina and Tierra del Fuego.

The Salton Civilization

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Bogus Sign at Bombay Beach

Well, now, it’s pushing it a bit to call it a civilization. The people who live on the eastern shore of the polluted Salton Sea live under difficult conditions. The temperature during the summer drives most of them away to cooler climes. Drinking water, especially for the communities of Slab City, Salvation Mountain, and East Jesus is problematic. To put it simply, there isn’t any.

According to the Wikipedia entry on the “Sea”:

The modern lake was formed from an inflow of water from the Colorado River in 1905. Beginning in 1900, an irrigation canal was dug from the Colorado River to provide water to the Imperial Valley for farming. Water from spring floods broke through a canal head-gate, diverting a portion of the river flow into the Salton Basin for two years before repairs were completed. The water in the formerly dry lake bed created the modern lake.

Currently, the Salton Sea is approximately 15 by 35 miles (24 by 56 km) in dimension, containing some 318 square miles (823.6 square km). For a short time, it was a popular tourist destination, until the combination of runoff of pesticides from Imperial Valley farmland to the south and blowing contaminated dust from the evaporating lake is turning it into California’s equivalent of the Dead Sea.

The Receding Salton Sea from Its Eastern Shore

The Salton Sea’s eastern shore has attracted an interesting breed of snowbird during the cooler months (if there are any there). Bombay Beach has been taken over by artsy types, along with Salvation Mountain. In Slab City and East Jesus, one is likely to run across people who are just trying to escape the pressures of modern life, even if thy have to sacrifice easy access to drinking water and the power grid.

The Cafes of Buenos Aires

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Inside on Cafe Tortoni on Avenida de Mayo in Buenos Aires

In my library, I have an entire bookcase dedicated to works relating mostly to Mexico and South America. Today I picked up one of my favorite titles—Gabriela Kogan’s The Authentic Bars, Cafés and Restaurants of Buenos Aires—and felt waves of nostalgia breaking over me as I turned the pages.

I have been to Buenos Aires three times. The first time, even though I broke my right shoulder later in the trip, I fell in love with the country and its capital. One of the things that impressed me most was the café culture—and I don’t mean coffee, which I never drink.

There are dozens of neighborhood eating spots, many of which was been around since the late 19th century. In my visits to the city, I patronized the following traditional cafés:

  • La Puerto Rico in the Montserrat neighborhood
  • El Tortoni, also in Montserrat
  • El Preferido de Palermo in Palermo
  • El Rincon in Recoleta, right across from the famous cemetery

I cannot look at the book’s glossary without licking my lips:

  • Berenjenas en Escabeche: eggplant marinated in a sauce of vinegar, onions, carrots, and peppercorns
  • Conejito a la Cazadora: traditional preparation of rabbit, with garlic, vegetables, white wine, tomatoes and mushrooms
  • Choripán: spiced pork sausage sandwich (my favorite)
  • Fabada Asturiana: bean and bacon soup
  • Fugazetta Rellena: “folded” pizza with onion, filled with cheese
  • Matambre: meat roulade filled with vegetables and hard-boiled eggs (another favorite)
  • Pejerrey Gran Paraná: a white meat river fish from the Rio Paraná served with boiled potatoes
  • Suprema Maryland: a dish made with breaded chicken, fried banana, french fries, and corn custard

In 2011, I went to Argentina with Martine. She is an incredibly picky eater who eschews the slightest hint of spiciness. Yet she loved the food she ate at the Buenois Aires cafés.

“The Magyar Messiahs”

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Hungarian Patriot Lajos Kossuth (1802-1894)

To understand this cynical poem by Endre Ady (1877-1919), you should first read my post entitled “A Legacy of Losers,” posted last week. The word “Magyar” means “Hungarian” in the Hungarian language.

The Magyar Messiahs

More bitter is our weeping,
different the griefs that try us.
A thousand times Messiahs
are the Magyar Messiahs.
A thousand times they perish,
unblest their crucifixion,
for vain was their affliction,
oh, vain was their affliction.

Borges at Disneyland

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Painting of Argentinean Poet Jorge-Luis Borges (1899-1986)

This was a dream I had last night: I was taking my favorite 20th century writer, Jorge-Luis Borges on a tour of Disneyland. It wasn’t the real Disneyland: It was a dream Disneyland whose dimensions were two kilometers by two kilometers. It was interesting because it taught me something about Borges as well as something about myself.

We started in a two-story pavilion dedicated to horror. I was eager to guide Borges through the different galleries, promising a special treat on the second floor, where there was a gallery dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe. At this point, Borges started to say something disparaging about Poe; but I shrugged it off and went on to the second floor, while the poet got interested in one of the ground floor galleries.

I looked forward to taking Borges to one of the restaurants in the park, but Borges said he had no interest in another buffet.

Suddenly, we cut to the railroad that circled Disneyland. It wasn’t anything like the actual railroad that goes through the park, but a more modernized train with multiple passenger cars in which we were seated on long benches facing the direction the train was going. In Disneyland, the round-the-park train seats passengers facing to the right, so that they could see the many dioramas.

At the station, I took a seat and turned to my left to see if Borges was following me. He wasn’t. Instead, a middle-aged couple sat next to me. I became agitated, as the train passed seemingly through miles of open country—a far cry from the city of Anaheim around the park. Around the halfway point, I stopped at a station and started looking for a Disney public relations rep so that he could stage a search for the lost Argentinean writer.

At this point I woke up and said to myself, “What a strange dream!”

Overlays

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Because the previous two Thursdays were holidays—Christmas and New Years respectively—I missed out on two weeks of the Los Angeles Central Library’s Thursday mindful meditation sessions. Fortunately, yesterday’s guided meditation was something of a breakthrough for me.

Over the days of our lives there are a number of overlays, like street networks and buildings over a basic topographical map. By using our breath inhalation and exhalation as an anchor, we are near the base level of our being. Many of the things that distract us are familial, occupational, religious, or cultural overlays on this base level.

One of the advantages of being retired is a diminution of the overlays that affect us. Yesterday’s half hour guided meditation felt as if it took place within five minutes. I focused on my breath pretty much exclusively.

This evening, I was looking for an illustration that I could use to illustrate my point, but I could find only map overlay images that were too technical and were themselves distracting. In the end, all I could find was the standard lotus position figure. I couldn’t even assume a lotus position without having a crane or several firemen lift me from being all tied up in a sitting knot.

So when I talk of meditation, do not think of me as sitting in a lotus position with an epicene smile on my face. Think of me as seated on a sturdy wooden library chair in relative comfort.

A Legacy of Losers

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Hungarian Writer Miklós Vámos (b, 1950)

I am currently reading Miklós Vámos’s The Book of Fathers (2000), in Hungarian: Apák Könve. In the notes at the end of the novel, I found this anecdote, which I couldn’t help but share with you. It summarizes more than half a millennium of Hungarian history.

One well-known fact is that Hungary and the Hungarians have lost every important war and revolution since the time of the Renaissance king Matthias Corvinus. He occupied Vienna and became Prince of Austria. He died in 1490. Since then, the nation and its heroes can be found only on the losing side.

A famous, if hoary, joke is instructive.

A Hungarian enters a small shop in New York and wants to buy a hat. But he doesn’t have enough dollars on him, so he asks if he could pay in forints, the Hungarian currency.

“I’ve never seen any forints,” the owner of the shop says. “Show me some.”

“Who’s this guy here?” asks the owner.

“This is Sándor Petöfi, the brightest star of Hungarian poetry. He lived in the nineteenth century. He was one of the March Youth who launched the 1848-49 War of Independence. He was killed in the Battle of Segesvár when the war was crushed by the Austrians and the Russians.”

“Oh my God, what an awful story … And who is this guy on the twenty forint bill?”

“This is György Dózsa, who led in peasant uprising in the sixteenth century. It was crushed and he was executed—actually, he was burned on a throne of fire—”

“OK, OK. And who is that on the fifty?”

“That’s Ferenc Rákóczi II, leader of another war of independence, crushed by the Habsburgs. He was forced to spend his life in exile in Turkey.”

“I should have guessed. And on the one hundred?”

“That’s Lajos Kossuth, leader of the 1848-49 War of Independence, you know. After it was crushed, he had to flee—”

The owner stops him again. “OK, you poor man, just go—you can have the hat for free.”

(Note: these banknotes are no longer in circulation, owing to the ravages of inflation.)

Air Lazarus

Posted on by | Leave a comment

The Museum of Flying in Santa Monica

Once upon a time, the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica was two or three times bigger. Founded by Donald Douglas, Jr., of Douglas Aircraft fame, it was originally located north of the Santa Monica airport beginning in 1989 and included many exhibits furnished by an independent partner. In 2002, the museum folded.

After ten years, a new, smaller museum anchored by the Donald Douglas, Jr. collection opened south of the airport in smaller quarters.

Martine and I have always liked aircraft museums. Our favorites were the Palm Springs Air Museum and the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona. What made all these aircraft museums interesting was the existence of numerous volunteer docents who piloted the planes during the wars of the late 20th century. As many of these docents reach a certain age and pass on, I suspect that the museums themselves will lose a lot of their present appeal. But for now, I think they are wonderful places to visit and learn aviation from Kitty Hawk to today.

Waco GXE Model 10 Biplane

When I first moved to Southern California, the Santa Monica Airport and much of the land surrounding it were all part of a gigantic MacDonnell Douglas Corporation factory, which after being merged out of existence sold its property to developers and to the general aviation facility that today is the Santa Monica Airport.

So even if the Museum of Flying is something of a Lazarus raised from the dead, we will continue to visit and enjoy it.