January 10, 2005

We were there!

Plep links to a cool site: New York 1964 World's Fair.

And lookee here:

This was taken a couple of weeks ago, after a good (and educational!) afternoon at the New York Science Museum, on the same site.

In the same post, Plep also links to a virtual tour of Northern Manhattan.

Other sites:

Hidden New York: "visit twelve little-known locations around the city." A PBS online documentary.

See another modernist landmark at the UN Virtual Tour.

Or change tracks and visit the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

A Catcher in the Rye Photo Tour.

December 28, 2004

Well we're home

Long drive. Brain is fried; regular posting will resume soon.

December 23, 2004

Xmas Eve eve

It's mild and rainy here, and of course we have no raincoats or umbrellas, just parkas and snow boots.

Working my way through all the holiday drinks at Starbucks: peppermint mocha, gingerbread, egg-nog. It's looking like a low-carb new year.

Going into the city tonight to meet an old college chum of Joe's and have some dinner, probably in Chinatown. Then, if the Jinker Boy is still awake and not in danger of imminent meltdown, we may go and look at the tree at Rockerfella Center. Though I have to say, he seems a touch overwhelmed by the whole Xmas-in-Queens apparatus.

Tomorrow is my sister-in-law's mother's birthday, and we are all going to a chi-chi restaurant to celebrate. Then, Xmas day. I am still trying to figure out how to finesse the whole Santa thing since Joe's family opens presents on the evening of the 24th. Santa came in from the balcony, bypassing the triple locks, while we were eating dinner?

December 22, 2004

There is something compelling

about tourist sites, off-season.

Took Jinker Boy to Coney Island yesterday, to see the NY Aquarium. If we had not had JB with us, would have taken lots of photos of decrepit amusement park architecture. (Of course, if we had not had JB with us, we wouldn't have been there at all ... )

JB: I liked the walruses!
Joe: And the Nathan's foot-long hotdog.
JB: Yeah!

December 16, 2004

Bangor or bust!

I doubt I will be able to post for the next ten days, but I will try. No doubt I will have some posts saved up.

Have a holly jolly Xmas!

December 01, 2004

Counting the hours

One ... more ... class.

Had our last prose narrative meeting this past Monday. A small, but very good group. We had discussions, rather than classes, and that was a pleasure.

Gender Studies finished today. Much larger, but also a good group. Quite a few of them clearly engaged with the course, and with each other, and I was glad to be able to offer them something to move on to (we are organizing for International Women's Day, starting next week;¹ there may be some action on campus climate issues as a result of recent — and some not-so-recent —anti-transgender harassment).

The intro. class will continue next term.

Marking-marking-marking for the next who-can-tell-how-long, but it all has to be tied-up before Dec. 14th when we leave for NYC for ten days or so.

¹ Mon. Dec. 6 at 1:30 in the Faculty/Staff lounge, if anyone is interested.

October 27, 2004

I love St. John's

This is my third visit here. None in the winter, which might dampen my ardour, it's true. But what a fine city! Small, but with lots of amenities and culture up the wazoo. Hilly and interesting for walking, in a glorious setting. And the rest of Newfoundland is so beautiful: if I believed in Heaven, it would look like the west coast of Newfoundland. Well, but that's not right, either: the idea of Heaven implies a certain ease, a certain pastoral and pastel comfort involving tinkly music, chaise lounges and cream cheese. Oh, wait. Well, tinkly music, at the very least. And there is nothing comfortable or easeful anywhere in Newfoundland as far as I can see, at least out of doors. It's rough, and there is not as much grandeur as in the Rockies, but there is depth to eveything: the colours are subtle, you have to look hard but when you do there is no end to the gradiations.

And if that sounds silly, why there are loads of wonderful pubs.

October 25, 2004

Inexplicable connection problems

over the weekend that I can't blame on the university server. So, no posts, reading, email, or anything. I actually had to read things on paper and talk to people.

Actually, had a very good day yesterday: took my little fish for his swimming lesson, and then to visit his grandparents. Who are not-so-secretly horrified that he still uses pull-ups, though they have the good sense not to say so outright.

Leaving in a few hours for a conference in St. John's, Newfoundland. A wonderful city; hope I have a little time to walk around. How can you not love a city with a clothing store called "Wenches & Rogues"? Back on Thursday, though I hope to find access while away.

August 27, 2004

Who, me morbid?

My Blair Witch photo of the cemetary at Bury St. Edmunds (July 2004). Click image for larger view.

Afterlife: the four seasons in Streatham Cemetery: lovely in a the opening of Six Feet Under sort of way (from web zen).

Thanatos.net: death mask gallery (from web zen).

The Body Revealed: Renaissance and Baroque Anatomical Illustration (from Plep).

Obituary Central (from Plep).

Cemetery art and photography (from Plep).

Death and Dying, part of the Victorian Dictionary (from Plep).

William Corder's death mask, the Moyses Hall Museum, Bury St. Edmunds

August 14, 2004

At the movies

Got a babysitter and went out for dinner and a movie (woo hoo!). Left too late to catch The Manchurian Candidate, which Joe wanted to see — he often screens the original in his popular culture class — so we saw The Bourne Supremacy although neither of us had seen The Bourne Identity (first, or second. Though we remedied that by renting both at Blockbuster on the way home, as much to extend our night out as anything else, I think).

Kept thinking, all the way through the film as the narrative swept from one exciting location to the next — Goa, Naples, Berlin, NYC, Moscow — that this is really the way to travel. Painless, cheap, no fatigue or troublesome dislocation. I am ready and waiting for the virtual future, man. Bring it on!

After dinner we went to a new Thai restaurant, which might not seem noteworthy to many, but is for us. When we moved to Saint John almost eight years ago there were few interesting restaurants: a good sea-food place, an inconsistent little-bit-of-everything place with a horrendous, punning name, a couple of stultifyingly timid upscale places, a Chinese restaurant where everything is covered in sticky red sauce, an excellent Guatemalan restaurant — okay, granted, that was unexpected — and lots of fast food, diners, and steakhouses. Since that time there have opened two or three other Chinese restaurants, all good, two Thai restaurants, a wonderful Indian restaurant, and a few others (another of which also has a punning name). It has become, in short, a town where you actually have to decide where to go for dinner based on something other than your pocketbook.

That being said, the meal tonight was not wonderful. Both Joe's and my soup tasted vinegary, and my tamarind shrimps, and dessert, were both too sweet. Sigh. I tease my cousin that he and some of his friends are food Nazis. You know, people who send dishes back even if they're not burnt. But then, that is in London where one can routinely pay more for a good restaurent meal than, in other places, a good restaurant, so perhaps they have some justification. During dinner this evening I kept having to grab my evil arm, like some cranky love-child of Peter Sellers and the late, lamented Julia Childs. Or Martha Stewart, more like. Quite inconsistent given the amount of Kraft dinner I have eaten in my life.

Perhaps it's just as well that we aren't able to eat too many meals out these days without the levelling influence of the Jinker Boy.

[We have this book and the Jinker Boy likes it, although he does not seem to recognize the pointedness of my choice in having bought it for him.]

This blog entry mirrors the pattern of Joe's and my conversations whenever we do have a chance to go out alone: it always comes back to the Jinker Boy.

August 08, 2004

That was not the amusing post

This is.

So we went to Rainbow Valley, an amusement park in Cavendish, P.E.I. You need to scrutinize the web site to understand the true vibe of the place. That 70s Show should shoot an episode there. Here is one of the two souvenir shops (the other is a castle); maybe Jackie could get a job there:

Here is a close-up of the window (it contains a garden gnome holding a Canadian flag, in case it's not clear):

And the rest of the park is equally wonderful. With the bonus that since it was built way back when, the trees are mature and so the whole place is lovely and shaded.

But I was worried, when we first got there, that it might be overwhelming for the Jinker Boy. After all, he probably could have happily played with any one of the things he saw for half an hour, and here were a couple of acres. It took quite awhile to coax him away from the yellow ducky boat, and then he found a shoe house, presumably of the Old Woman who had so many children she didn't know what to do (and how she managed in one room I can't imagine), and he wouldn't come out:

(Here is a close-up of his face:)

It wasn't as though it was particularly interesting there, either: the shoe was beside a half-filled pond with what looked to be part of a plastic crocodile who had seen better days.

And straight ahead was a band of weird birds who would break into song ("Rocking Robin") at irregular intervals, through no discernible mechanism.

Then there were the various passersby, determined to see every nook and cranny, who stomped up the steps to the shoe house then jumped when they noticed the little boy half hidden behind the stove. I thought we had reached a stalemate when Joe appeared and took matters into his paternal hands:

But don't cry for the Jinker Boy; after this inauspicious beginning he decided that he loved Rainbow Valley. Particularly the water slide.

[Click on image for larger view]

He has been periodically asking when we will go back, ever since.

August 06, 2004

We're baaack!

I sat down to write an amusing post about taking the Jinker Boy to a theme park in P.E.I. but had five hundred (that is not a typo) spam comments, most of them offering various calming medications. Some of which I could have used this past week. But still.

August 01, 2004

No postings

for a week. Going camping in PEI. Need a vacation after the last trip.

In spades.

July 28, 2004

Stateside

Arrived back in Newark Sunday, and spent a couple of days in Queen's at the Jinker Boy's Nonna's (or "Noona," as he calls her. Which is apparently charmingly archaic dialect and not mispronunciation. Who knew?)

Driving away from the airport I was reminded of the episode of The Soprano's in which Tony, Christopher and Paulie go to Italy. In Naples, Paulie is sentimental, full of enthusiasm, but the Italians he meets are uncomprehending. In one scene a prostitute remains unimpressed that his family was from her village; in another, a man on the street starts to rant about Nato when Paulie tells him he is from America. Near the end of the episode there is a wonderful, understated shot of Paulie sitting in the car, smiling out the window as he is driven home from the airport past various scrap-yards and dumps.

In keeping with one of the themes of my recent trip, of my reunion with the menfolk, I refer you to a passage from Elizabeth Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Brontë which alludes to the period just after Brontë's wedding to Arthur Nicholls:

Henceforward the sacred doors of home are closed upon her married life. We, her loving friends, standing outside, caught occasional glimpses of brightness, and pleasant peaceful murmurs of sound, telling of the gladness within; and we looked at each other, and gently said, "After a hard and long struggle — after many cares and many bitter sorrows — she is tasting happiness now!" We thought of the slight astringencies of her character, and how they would turn to full ripe sweetness in that calm sunshine of domestic peace. We remembered her trials, and were glad in the idea that God had seen fit to wipe away the tears from her eyes. Those who saw her, saw an outward change in her look, telling of inward things. And we thought, and we hoped, and we prophesied, in our great love and reverence.

And that is all I will say about that, except to add that the Jinker Boy, Joe and I (and Sally, but don't tell the management) are in a motel in Maine, on the way home. Joe is lying spread-eagled on the bed watching the Democratic Convention and JB has a black eye from slipping on the deck of the motel pool. "Ripe sweetness" indeed.

My mug

George posted the somewhat-less-disturbing photo (of me, I mean. George himself remains hip throughout). For the morbidly curious, go here.

July 25, 2004

Women on the go

Made a quick visit to the National Portrait Gallery yesterday (and did you know that there is also one in the U.S.? Most confusing for googlers) and saw Off the Beaten Track: Three Centuries of Women Travellers. Aphra Behn and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu were featured, but I didn't buy the book because the exhibition was skewed towards the 19th and 20th centuries. While interesting, not my patch.

Had upscale Italian last night. That brings the tally of London meals to one Chinese, one Portuguese, one Thai, one Indian, and one Italian. Had English cooking elsewhere, mind — mainly at the conference, and with my relatives — though I did have an excellent Indian meal in Bury St. Edmunds.

This will probably be my last entry for a few days; am flying back to NYC this afternoon and will no doubt be prevented from having any keyboard time by the Jinker Boy. And quite rightly.

And, am about to eat my last pain chocolat and drink my last latte for awhile; back to low carbs. And not a moment too soon.

Yesterday's conversation with a just-woken Jinker Boy:

Me: Good morning, sweetie!
JB: Mummy.
Me: Did you have a nice sleep?
JB: [beat] Yiss.
Me: Mummy's coming home tomorrow!
JB: Why?

July 24, 2004

An itinerent massage therapist saved my life

just now, in the tatty tourist market by St. Martin's in the Fields.¹ Eighteen quid for half an hour on the neck, and another twenty for thirty minutes of reflexology (aka. foot-poking), and cheap at twice the price. Well okay, that last is an exaggeration, but well worth every strange, large penny, anyway. I really, really needed to lie on a big air mattress in a tent, open to the late afternoon breeze, and drift off as someone found all the sore bits.

This has turned into a difficult trip. The first half, the conference and research side-trip to Suffolk, went well. But I have tried to fit in too much travelling, with the result that I have had a wicked migraine for the last few days (just now under control with my second-to-last pill). The series of visits to aging and/or ailing aunts and uncles has not been too upbeat, either. Okay, that sounds cold, and it shouldn't because I don't feel cold, I feel teary because this is probably the last time I will see some of them. Or, in the case of my uncle who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and of whom I am very fond, the last time he will see me. Oh hell, even my Uncle Bob's dog, Hamish, is fifteen. Jesus H. Christ on a raft!

¹ Which has not been in the fields since the early seventeenth century. See what I am learning from reading Quicksilver?

July 18, 2004

The British Museum

Went to the British Museum today; the last time I was there I worked in the Reading Room but only visited one exhibit, of early books. Today I spent a good few hours and saw three exhibits:

Living and dying, an exhibition that "looks at how people around the world deal with the tough realities of life, averting or confronting trouble, sorrow, need and sickness" (online tour). Not as drippy as they make it sound. The bulk of the exhibit consists of artifacts from different cultures. Cradle to Grave, an installation piece, was very cool. And moving:

Cradle to Grave explores our approach to health in Britain today. The piece incorporates a lifetime supply of prescribed drugs knitted into two lengths of fabric, illustrating the medical stories of one woman and one man.

Each length contains over 14,000 drugs, the estimated average prescribed to every person in Britain in their lifetime. This does not include pills we might buy over the counter, which would require about 40,000 pills each.

Sobering to see all those tiny pills laid out in neat rows, covering so much space.

I also saw Matisse to Freud: A Critic's Choice, Alexander Walker's bequest of his fabulous collection of more than 200 twentieth-century prints and drawings, including Jim Dine's "Five Paintbrushes (Sixth State)" (1973), which I particularly liked:

Finally, I saw Enlightenment,¹ "a rich new exhibition using thousands of objects from the Museum's collection to show how people understood their world in the Age of Enlightenment" (online tour). The focus here is on eighteenth-century approaches to various developing branches of science. The exhibits are displayed much as they might have been at the time, in various glass-topped cases, and the refurbished King's Library is the perfect setting for showcasing an approach to artifacts rather than the artifacts themselves. An interestingly self-conscious move, as the British Museum was itself founded in 1753.

Before I left I popped my head in the former Reading Room where I spent many contented hours doing dissertation research, but was unable to stay. Of course the new library site was needed and I was relieved to hear that the BM was going to maintain the Reading Room, but in fact it is not the Reading Room any more; even though it is the actual physical space, apparently unchanged, it has become a model gesturing to its own past, no different from any other exhibit despite its much-touted function as information hub for the museum. When I was there last it was a working library; the only people there were librarians or readers. Now it is filled with the same crowds who stand in front of all the other displays. The Great Court, in which the Reading Room is centred, is grand and airy, a beautiful space. But still, I am sad.

¹ Beware the pulsing icons.

At least I didn't post the close-up of the sheep

Following from my post about visiting Haworth, here is a photo of the parsonage (the extension on the right was added later),

and an atmospheric shot, if I say so myself, of the field just behind it:

Oh, what the hell!:

Travel tips

Awhile back Jill posted some excellent advice for travelling with a laptop which I have been scrupulously following this trip, often at great inconvenience (eg. stuffing a water bottle in my waistband in order not to put it in, or even near, my computer bag). In the same public spirit, I thought I would add some further advice, and if everyone follows suit with their own tips, sometime in a year or two some alert blog reader may actually have a smooth trip. Technologically speaking.

Here is my advice:

DON'T wait until you have arrived at your destination to look for an adaptor for your laptop.

DON'T travel to three separate electronics stores, carrying all your luggage and/or keeping a taxi waiting, meter ticking, looking for a voltage converter only to be told, in the third store, that laptops, being made for mobility, don't require them (D'oh!).

July 17, 2004

Catching up

Written in Leeds, 14 July 2004

On jet lag

William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, despite my complaints, was a good read and had some interesting things to say, in particular, about jet lag. Cayce, the main character (who gets to travel first class and to sleep in one of those little pods that I can only drool over in high-end magazines), says that when you travel by plane you are going at such speeds that you leave your soul behind, stretched out behind you by the thinnest of umbilical cords.¹. Evocative, but not quite how I feel; if I had a soul, and if I thought it was somewhere over the mid-Atlantic, at least I could take comfort that it was on its way, like a wayward suitcase. I have the hollowed-out feeling of having lost something without the confidence that it will return. Or that it will return in the same shape without burst zippers or having been plundered in some lost luggage room.

Gibson also helpfully informs the reader that "Jacques Cousteau said that jet lag was his favorite drug" (12). I have been trying to adopt this cheery perspective but when I repeated it to a fellow conference attendee she responded that Cousteau must have been into downers.

If only jetlag were that simple. And consistent.

I hasten to add here that I am not complaining and that I realize how infuriating it would be if I were. I'm just trying to describe an experience.

A cacophony of voices all around, scraps of which stay with me and roll through my head. Naomi, a Japanese woman I met in London, and her precisely inflected English. Half a dozen Scottish voices, friends of my cousin, and here at this conference: David, Al, Stuart, Charles, Stephen. A PhD student here at Leeds whom I had tentatively identified as Canadian but then who moved south, and west, with each word she spoke. Karin, a German woman I spoke with for a long time yesterday. And the quiet relief of Elspeth's voice, Elspeth from Saskatoon. Who would have thought it was such work to speak and listen to one's own language? Especially when the rest of the world so thoughtfully learns it in order to save us the trouble of really having to make an effort?

There have also been moments of excitement, of consciousness of stretching, of disappearing boundaries, and strange impulses to transparency. And moments of happy recognition: the skies; the hedgerows; hell, the paving stones. I never feel so North American as when I am here, but I know this place, from my own visits but also refracted through my parents' stories of the 1930s, the 1940s, the 1950s. I suppose in some ways I know it better than they, as they don't — can't, or won't — understand it now.

But back to the original subject: perhaps Cayce is right, after all: the cord which attaches me to the Jinker Boy is stretched painfully (for me if not for him: his dad reports he is happy and busy; his nonna reports he is eating and sleeping well, is quiet and good. But quiet isn't good!). Me, I am noticing all strollers, all babies, all toys and children's clothes in store windows, all playgrounds. And I won't be going home for another ten days. What was I thinking?

¹ Adam Roberts notes that this conceit is not original to Gibson.

Excerpt from a telephone conversation with the Jinker Boy, 13/7/04:

JB [in background]: I talka Mummy! I talka Mummy! [thumping noise]
Me: Hi, baby!
JB: Mummy! Ottopus!
Me: Did you go to the Aquarium?
JB: No! Piderman!
Me: [beat] Oh! You played Spiderman with Daddy?
JB: An Beaderbarka!
Me: [beat] Peter Parker?
JB: Beaderbarka an Piderman!
Me: [beat] You saw the movie Spiderman?
JB: Yiss! Daw Piderman Daddy!
Me: Daddy took you to see Spiderman?²
JB: Yiss! Ottopus!
Me: [beat] Wasn't it scary? Weren't there bad guys?
JB: No! Good guys!
Me: Can I talk to Daddy, honey?
JB: No!

² You, the little sweetie who was frightened at Shrek 2?

On going to Haworth on July 14, 2004:

The conference organizers arranged a trip to the village of Haworth, which is about an hour from Leeds. A busload set off, many of us making snide, self-conscious comments to each other about the silliness of such literary pilgrimages. And Haworth is very commercial, with a Villette Coffee House where I had a rather hard bun and a cup of tea (just like the food at Lowood!), and the Ye Olde Brontë Tea Rooms. And there were some howlers at the Brontë Parsonage Museum itself, like the careful preservation of some doodles on the nursery wall even though the adjacent plaque admits that none of the Brontës had done them. But I was brought up short when I came to the kitchen, saw papers and a tiny book on the narrow table, and read that Emily Brontë had worked at learning German while baking the bread. And again: upstairs in a display case there is a tiny, white embroidered bonnet, made by a friend in anticipation of Charlotte's baby, a baby that was never born because Charlotte, the last of the Brontë siblings, died while only three months pregnant at the age of thirty-nine. Downstairs there is a temporary exhibit of artifacts from Emily and Charlotte's time in Brussels, with letters from Charlotte to M. Héger that were too painful to dwell on. And though some of us were decrying the mild weather and the lushness of the countryside, if one squints away from the souvenir shops and the flower boxes, one can almost imagine what it might have been like in that small stone village in the 1850s. Then, to make the day perfect, as we walked back to the bus the clouds gathered and lowered, and the wind picked up.

Okay, but I didn't kiss the ground.

Haworth webcam: enjoy literary history while in your underwear.

Leeds webcam: no muss, no fuss!

July 15, 2004

I'm still here

in Leeds, in the Public Library, enjoying free access and lots of frustration (can't access my webmail; can't seem to post to MT though if you read this that one has been solved). Will post more late on the 17th when I'm back in London and have wifi access. Conference was great; will try to write about it. And have some posts on the PB to add.

July 11, 2004

Day 2

Didn't get my ass -- sorry, arse -- in gear in time to get to the shops to buy an adapter and so am typing this on my cousin's &*#&ç!! French keyboard. Off to a Portuguese restaurant for dinner; had Chinese last night. This isn't the London in which my father grew up, that's for sure.

Talked to Joe and the Jinker Boy on the phone earlier:

JB: Hi Mummy!
Me: Hi baby!
JB: Bwok pardee!
Me: You went to a block party?
JB: Fiwah twuck!
Me: There was a fire truck there?
JB: Yiss! All da kids!
Me: There were lots of kids there?
JB: Yiss! Sweep alone!
Me: You slept alone last night?
JB: Daddy sweep alone!
Me: Daddy slept alone?
JB: Yiss! Mummy go werk!
Me: Mummy's gone to work?
JB: Yiss! Bye-bye! See you lader!
Me: Bye-bye, baby; miss you!
Joe: Huh?

July 10, 2004

Does anybody really know what time it is?

Posting this from my cousin's living room in London; it is either 8:49 pm or 1:49 am.

The flight over was not too bad at all, and since Virgin has a variety of videos on tap, was able to avoid the usual pap and got to watch the brilliant Shaun of the Dead: "A romantic comedy. With zombies." And the fact that everyone around me seemed to be watching The Princess Diaries added a certain piquancy to the experience.

All for now. Don't want to waste any more juice until I get hold of an adapter so I can recharge my PB battery. Already spent way too much time going through email, getting rid of spam, and writing messages I'm sure to regret.

July 06, 2004

I wanna go to NYC

they tell me it's the place to be...

Okay, we're off, and posting will be sporadic for the next month.

Adios, au revoir, ciao!

July 04, 2004

Preparing for trip to the UK

And why do they drive on the wrong side of the road, anyway? Flaschenpost links to some theories, where I found this helpful advice:

If you are planning to visit the UK and happen to come from one of the many countries that drive on the wrong side of the road, the following advice, direct from the Ministry of Transport, is for you:

“Visitors are informed that in the United Kingdom traffic drives on the left-hand side of the road. In the interests of safety, you are advised to practise this in your country of origin for a week or two before driving in the UK.”

I was correct to veto my cousin's suggestion of a car rental.

July 02, 2004

You better watch out, you better not cry

Okay, here is my (rough) schedule. If anyone out there in the ether wants to meet in the meat, let me know:

NYC: July 7-8
London: July 10-11
Leeds: July 12-15
Bury St. Edmunds: July 15-16
After that, it gets a little hazy: London/South Wales/Devon
Leaving UK on July 25
NYC: July 26-27
P.E.I.: July 30-Aug. 5

A rolling stone, etc.

June 28, 2004

We went to the beach today

Finally, a lovely day. We set out for New River Beach to meet some friends. The ride was smooth until a couple of kilometres before the turnoff to the park, when traffic came to a standstill. We finally arrived at the entrance only to find traffic cops directing people to park along the highway and walk in; the annual sand sculpting contest was today. Under other circumstances that would have sounded like fun, but between us we have three children aged one to four, not to mention one bouncing Schnauzer, and we feared for the sculptures. So, we turned around and headed back to Saint John and one of the beaches at the Irving Nature Park, the kids dug a hole to China and tried to pull the dog into it, and a good time was had by most.

What we missed:

[Click for larger image]

Photos from 2002 and 2003 by J. Gordon Anderson.

Elsewhere:

Moss Beach Sandcastles, September 13, 2003.
Sandcastle Festivals.
Sand Castle Central: from the basics to the spectacular.
The Queen of Sandcastles.
Sultans Of Sand.
Sandcastle Basics.
Sandcastle Insanity.
The Physics of Sandcastles. From NASA!

June 27, 2004

Getting about

Trading Places: The East India Company and Asia, 1600–1843 (via Plep).

Visit 18th-century Italy at three Getty exhibitions.

Transportation Inventions & Events of the Enlightenment Period.

Hudson's Bay Company Digital Collection.

Digital maps of Scotland, 1560-1892.

South Sea Bubble Playing Cards, 1720.

Outlaws and Highwaymen.

Fantastic Voyages Quiz: "Over the years, many authors have written stories of journeys to the Moon. But which were really possible?"

June 03, 2004

Poaching

culture, poaching links...

Hand knit superhero costumes that look like grandpa's longjohns, embroidery samplers featuring comic book vignettes, beaded trading cards: it's all here (via Boing Boing).

The Heinz Nixdorf Museum: "From cuneiform to computers." Think stone tablets and computers that fill whole rooms (via Boing Boing. Who have the resources). On a related note, Liz Lawley contemplates adding to the landfill.

Elizabeth Gaskell's home open to tourists (from MoorishGirl). I've been to Chawton and Dylan Thomas's boathouse, have walked through Bloomsbury, and will be going to Haworth in July as part of a conference. Now to get up to Manchester ...

More on gendering robots, from the new, refurbished ms.musings.

Also from msmusings: WisCon, and seven women sf writers talk about rewriting a masculine tradition. This from Patricia Wrede: "Size does matter."

Perhaps I have misjudged Eliot all these years (from Rake's Progress).

The Shatnerian keeps up with his home town.

Vintage tobacco ads (and related products such as "Slug-a-Bug insect killer for use around children, food, pets!") and before and after trade card ephemera (from Beautiful Stuff [and here]).

"Corpi, Murakami, and Contemporary Hardboiled Fiction" by Cathy Stebly, about using hard-boiled fiction to examine the past (from wood s lot).

"Studies in Narrative: Science Fiction and Fantasy": twenty lectures that overview both genres, available as MP3 downloads from The University of Minnesota (from Beautiful Stuff).

Index to the biographies and writings of members of the Frankfurt School and The Charles Booth Online Archive (both from Plep).

May 23, 2004

How did they know?

You are the 1933 Beck Map! A diagram rather than a true map, you distort what you represent. A thing of engineering beauty, many after you will form themselves in your image. Hand me that 3/8th Gripley, would you?


Which London Underground Map Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I'll have to find a copy for my trip in July. Just to make things interesting.

(Thanks to to drown a rose).

April 25, 2004

Fly through the sky

Got to plan a trip to Leeds in July, a.s.a.p. (off to this conference). Maybe this will motivate me: places I've been:

(link from Liz, jill and various others. It's going around.)

April 12, 2004

We are Canadian, part 347

We went to a sugar camp today with some friends of ours, took a tour, and then had a breakfast of sausages and pancakes. The guide poured hot maple syrup on snow spread over a split log, and gave out popsicle sticks so that we could twirl it up and eat it. Delicious! The children, as you see, fell on it like locusts.

These are not the first New Brunswickers we have met who have found innovative ways — all of which seem to involve tourism — to continue leading some semblance of a traditional life.

April 11, 2004

Ghost stations

Photo by David Sagarin. City Hall Station, NYC.

Underground History, a site devoted to abandoned stations on London's Underground. Via Boing Boing.

London's Abandoned Tube Stations. Via Plep.

Closed stations in Paris' subway.

Cincinnati's Abandoned Subway (also posted by Plep).

More from Cincinnati.

Remnants of Abandoned Stations, Tunnels, and Station Entrances found on the MBTA.

Abandoned Stations at nycsubway.org.

Abandoned Stations (NYC) by Joseph Brennan, "the city's foremost expert when it comes to these abandoned stations," according to NewYorkish.

Abandoned subway tunnel (Newark), at Satan's Laundromat.

Friends of the High Line, "a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and reuse of the High Line, an elevated rail structure on the West Side of Manhattan" (check out the photo gallery).

OldNYC.com, "a web page that explores some of the many facets of New York City's transportation infrastructure" (link from Making Light, in an excellent post about NYC which also links to Forgotten NY. Other links here, here, and here.)

Photo by Bruce Davidson. NYC Subway, 1980

The photo, above, is how I remember the subway when I first went to NYC with Joe in 1984. I kinda miss the graffiti.

March 10, 2004

Last of the reading week posts

5/3/04/9:44pm

Playgrounds of NYC

In partial fulfillment of my promise:

Here is the Jinker boy in Union Square playground while Mummy and Daddy are spelling each other off to make book-buying runs to nearby Barnes and Noble:

Here he is in Juniper Park in Queens:

Here he is in one of those oversized hamster runs, where he was taken as a birthday treat by his aunt and uncle. He loved it, of course; we could only extract him with the promise of cake and presents waiting at home and even then he howled like a monkey:

And here is a shot on the promenade at Brooklyn Heights,

(me, Jinker boy, our friends Jeremy and Danielle) on the way to the playground,

just before a downpour.

6/3/04/12:10am

This going without web access, cold turkey, is rough! I could make more of an effort to get some access, I suppose, but time is tight. We'll be out tomorrow; perhaps I can finagle an hour at an internet cafe from Joe, in exchange for ... what? Being so wonderful to all his family? Yeah, that's it! For being so wonderful!

[Never did, of course. But then, wasn't all that wonderful.]

March 09, 2004

Catching up

I have some serious blog reading to do over the next couple of days. How could I have been at the centre — sorry, "center" — of the universe and have been so out of touch? No blog reading or writing, no academy awards. And they sounded so good, too. Here, via la gringa (whose neighbourhood I passed through, though I missed the fire — hiya!), is some cogent Oscar commentary from Matt Haber's dog.

On a less worldly note, la gringa directs us to the Heavenly Hunks calendar".

Non-posts for the past ten days

Thurs. Mar.4/2:36pm

Report: The PowerBook G4

I love the way the keyboard feels: crisp and light, cool to the touch. Metallic keyboards are the way to go. I also love that it is an expanded keyboard. And the backlighting is a sleek, high tech version of glow-in-the-dark bugs stuck to the ceiling: I love it.

Nice big screen. Speakers better than last PowerBook. And it's so fast: none of those horrible straining sounds.

One quibble: when I first went to open it I was confused; the apple on the lid is upsidedown. Then I realised: the logo is no longer for me; it is a public message. On some level this disconcerts. It seems so ... so ... self-promoting.

My Mac, c'est moi.

Haiku for NYC

Fetal buds amidst
grey leaves, organic exhaust,
debris. Breathe deeply.

5:44pm

Sleeping

I used to be a particular sleeper. Needed my own Obusforme pillow. Couldn't sleep if any lights were on, and never travelled without my sleep mask (a friend called them my "Reuben Kincaid goggles"). Even light from outside coming in a window or under a door. I had to cover up the light from clock radios with a sock or towel. Also, I never travelled without ear-plugs, and even wore them at home when there was too much snoring. And, I had to be on my own side of the bed, no matter where the bed. If I ended up on the other side, I could not sleep until I poked and prodded my way back to where I belonged.

All that has changed. I now often go to sleep with two people snoring; I go to sleep with lights on, and sometimes even on the wrong side of the bed. I'm not sure whether to congratulate myself on this newfound flexibility, or see it as a symptom of ongoing exhaustion.

5/3/04/9:47pm

For someone who spills his drinks and foods with stunning regularity, the Jinker Boy is very fastidious about not wearing damp or stained clothing.

And, are three year olds capable of sarcasm? I reprimanded his nibs for making a mess and he ran about saying, "Big mess! Make a big mess!" in a tone that I can only describe as mocking.

February 27, 2004

Arrivederci!

I know I've been promising to go away for some time. Now it looks as though we will be able to pick up the vehicle this evening at five. Well, this won't be the first time we've hit the road after dark, and usually with much less reason.

Bangor or bust!

Will have very limited access to the internet for the next little while, so posts will be sporadic at best, and quite likely non-existent. But when I get back on the 9th, I will treat you to all the details of our trip, with a focus on the dog parks and playgrounds of Manhattan.

February 25, 2004

#@%*!

Or I should say, $$$$$$!! A routine pre-trip tune-up has turned into a sinkhole. We need struts, whatever they are. Which should arrive tomorrow, as they were ordered today. So we should have the car on Friday. So we should be able to make Bangor, Maine late Friday night in order to cut a couple of hours off the long haul to NYC on Saturday. So, at the least, a day and a half less in the Big Apple, and who knows how much less money to spend. I'm already cranky. Imagine how awful our routine pre-trip grousing is going to be this time.

February 21, 2004

Start spreading the news

We're off to NYC in a few days to visit the Jinker Boy's Nonna, see a friend who is at NYU on a fellowship, see friends and family, and who knows? Maybe even go to some museums or whatnot. As is usual with our trips, this one is upon us before we realised and we are rushing about getting haircuts (us) and tune-ups (the car) in the next couple of days. Leaving on Thursday and driving; the long drive — from New Brunswick, through Maine, and then into more populous regions, and then into too populous regions — lessens the culture shock and gives us some wheels while we're there.

August 31, 2003

National Folk Festival in Bangor

On the way home we stopped in Bangor to take in the National Folk Festival.

[photo: Joe Galbo]

It was crowded, but the weather was nice and cool after NYC. (Driving north we stopped at a rest stop on the interstate and I got out and stood under the pines and even though the air was full of exhaust and the ground was littered, I felt at home). There were many amazing acts, and I was delighted to have been able to see John Styles's Punch and Judy show:

The jury is still out on whether or not Alex has become more stroppy since seeing it. Though he did bite me two days ago.

And of course there was the blackout

[photo: Joe Galbo]

We were in NY during the blackout; it happened the day before Joe's mother was scheduled to fly to Italy (and leave us the apartment to entertain our friends who were en route). Needless to say, massive anxiety all around. I was worried because even though our friends weren't bringing their Newf, there still wouldn't be enough room for all of us if the flight was delayed or cancelled.

Here is a nice collection of photos from John Wehr, who documented the whole night in Lower Manhattan.

But we were in Queens.

(Alex with flashlight in Nonna's bedroom [Joe Galbo])

We went for a walk in the evening and passed people sitting in their driveways listening to radios and watching portable televisions. It was still very hot, and while I felt the sense of excitement, especially among the youth, I was also feeling a very Canadian sense of claustrophobia. People were managing, and in interesting ways, but the fact is that the blackout couldn't have gone on much longer than it did without some people dying of heat exhaustion or food poisoning. People more than a few floors up didn't even have water; a friend of ours lives on the 29th floor of a high rise in Chinatown. Our house here in New Brunswick, as one visitor commented, is "off the grid": we are on a well and have a septic tank (two, in fact), and we have a wood stove, so we are fairly self–contained. Of course, we lived in Toronto for many years, but while Toronto covers every inch of space, people aren't layered there like they are in NYC. Everyone talked about how New Yorkers help each other during a crisis. And they have to; their living spaces are so intertwined.

Joe, my Brooklyn–raised partner, was just reading this over my shoulder and he suggested that I add that this sense of beleaguered comraderie is very post 9–11, and that during the massive power outage in '77 there were riots.

Those were different times.

August 30, 2003

Back in the saddle

Back from our various travels and madly scrabbling now so that I don't feel so—well, madly scrabbling—the first couple of weeks of classes. Spent the week putting course materials on WebCT, choosing better icons than the boring ones on offer, and finishing the move to the new, improved office.

New York is a different place with children along. Not only did we have Alex, 2 1/2, but some friends of ours joined us after the first week: two adults and their daughters, 4 and 1 (give or take). So we visited a lot of parks and playgrounds,

checked out the mummies at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

and had a blast at the

(Long Island Children's Museum), where sometimes the kids have to drag the parents away from the music room, or the blocks.

Also did some book shopping, of course, and bought Alex some cute European outfits at Century 21—the kind of cute outfits that would get him beaten up in a few years so I had better indulge myself now.

Didn't get any work done while down there, though I dragged it along with me as usual. Did, however, read most of the previously mentioned Dozois anthology, which I enjoyed very much. Bought China Miéville's Scar, which I look forward to diving into perhaps at Xmas, as I doubt I will have much time for non–teaching related reading for the next three months. Have read two by him—King Rat and Perdido Street Station, both of which are excellent: well–written, original, compelling. The monsters in PSS are fascinating, and strangely sympathetic at points. In both novels the beings allied with the protagonists are often almost as dangerous as the bad guys; propbably not a coincidence that Miéville is political. PSS is ultimately quite bleak, for which it has been criticised by some, but hey, life can be bleak. It is good for us as readers to have our knee–jerk desire for a completely happy ending frustrated every now and then. And it's a real pleasure to find novels that I can unreservedly share with my 88 years old dad; he really likes Miéville for his evocations of London and his creation of fantastical, London–like, New Crobuzon (Dad is originally from London. After reading the two novels, he finally saw an author photo of the shaved–headed, earringed, twenty–something Mieville, and said, "That's more or less what I expected.")

Click photo for an interview from 2001 with Cheryl Morgan for Strange Horizons.

August 09, 2003

Start spreading the news

Re. previous posting: Sonya Dorman Hess's "When I Was Miss Dow" was the story I couldn't remember.

We're off to NYC tomorrow, for ten days or so, and plan to catch the National Folk Festival (U.S.A.) in Bangor on the way back. And no, it's not like the music in A Mighty Wind (though I really enjoyed that film), but rather, lots of world music. We'll see how a toddler and a miniature Schnauzer survive all the grooviness.

I doubt that I will be doing much blogging while I'm away, since I will be reduced to dial–up. But we will see. We're taking some friends so it will be a chance to see all the things that you don't visit any more if you go there a lot, like the Empire State Building etc. etc.

But come hell or high water, I'm coming back with a cool pair of glasses. The previously mentioned toddler broke two (TWO!!) pairs from Rapp Optical. I'm going to leave the new pair at work until he's 21.

singing in the rain

Well, that trip was a bust. We managed to get in a blissful, if slightly chilly swim late in the afternoon we arrived, but it rained that evening and all night, and promised to continue doing so for the next 48 hours, so we left early. When I was younger I used to sneer at people with trailers—one summer I stayed at the "Free Camp" ('nuff said) two miles outside of Jasper, Alberta, and the folks there called the trailer–users "Gorbies," though no-one could tell me why—but they look pretty good when you have a soggy, unhappy two–year–old.

August 03, 2003

off to the beach

We're heading out to Shediac for a couple of days of camping and swimming in what is billed as "the warmest water north of the Carolinas." Who knows, I may even finish Patience and Fortitude.