"The Uneven Intensity of Duration"

Kitchen: EMCEE C.M., Master of None grew up in a family of six boys, played outside a lot, studied Linguistics, Russian and Sculpture at Brandeleis and UConn, worked at a Siberian Village trade school ... ISCP. Emcee C.M.'s identity is also mixed up with a flexible, inclusive group of participants called the K.I.D.S. (Kindness and Imagination Development Society). - Artist Studio Programs SmackMellon blurb September 2010

I HAVE to have that hat! - Babs, DUMBO, September 2010

"The Uneven Intensity of Duration" - somehow reminds me of "The Incredible Lightness of Being". It has a nice sound, but what does it mean, and does it really matter anyway? The words are the message, to misquote someone who deserves to be misquoted (Marshall McLuhan).

"The Uneven Intensity of Duration" is the name of an exhibition by Charlotte Schultz and I was fortunate to see it today at SmackMellon, Artist Studio Program at the Dumbo Arts Festival, Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass this weekend.

I went there with my friend Babs. We had a great time. Babs bought a hat at Blueberri and we both recommend anyone wanting style and friendly service to drop by there.

I relaxed and took photos. You can see them here.



Or to look individually, at your own pace, HERE.

Stay tuned.

Tooth, Justice and the American Way

I don't notice their teeth. No one smiles around here (the East Village). - My friend Babs, September 2010

Smile - it improves your face value. - Australian Embassy poster, 1980

Keep smiling, keep shining
Knowing you can always count on me, for sure
That's what friends are for - Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager 1982

Me and unknown boys, Australia, circa 1970 - "Look mum, no teeth!"

After brunch today at a local restaurant, I dashed back home to check my photo albums.

I was in a state of shock. Delayed AND current.

I've been to Nina's restaurant many times. It is near the corner of 90th and Second. I like it because it reminds me of restaurants back home in Australia. Mario's on Brunswick Street  Fitzroy, for example. Well not really, but close enough.

I was in shock because while I was sitting there at Nina's I suddenly I realized that I now looked the same as everyone else there, and this had not been the case before. What had changed was that my teeth were now identical to everyone else's. I had AMERICAN teeth. Pearly white and even. Symmetrical. Regular. Shiny. All this since just yesterday and courtesy of my new and brilliant dentist.

Yes, I just got them (the teeth) yesterday, in the form of a temporary bridge that will, eventually, be replaced by six crowns, splinted individually to each adjacent tooth.

I've had dental phobia for as long as I can remember. It was made much worse after I saw Roman Polanski's "The Tenant", where the main character, Trelkowski, played by Polanski, discovers a hole of a hole in his apartment with a human tooth stashed inside. I am by the way, heavily influenced by Polanski, who I regard as the greatest film director ever; I have not been able to eat rabbit since seeing his "Repulsion" when I was a teenager.

Films play a big part in my life when having dental work done in New York. "Repulsion" morphs into "Marathon Man" (set unsettlingly in Manhattan), which morphs into "The Tenant". You can see then, I'm a real basket-case where dentistry is concerned.

Australian Actor, Bryan Brown

But back to my American teeth. The dentist did a wonderful job, but I can barely cope. Where are my crooked, stained and crowded, my over-repaired and fragile Aussie teeth? Gone, as a matter of necessity. The products of no fluoride in the water of my childhood, hopeless state-school dentists in my early school years, smoking,  and a couple of weird Harley Street London dentists in the 1970s, who I think were getting revenge on Australia's bid for republicanism. Whatever.

So here I am in Manhattan, 100 years later. With a new smile. Well, new teeth - I  do not show my teeth when I smile.

And that is my reason for my hurrying home from Nina's Restaurant after brunch this morning. I wanted to check on this.

Do I really not show my teeth when I smile? And what about my fellow Australians?

Above left  is a photo of myself a century ago. I'm with some boys that my friend B and I decided to use for a photo. Look Mom (mum), no teeth!

Julia Gillard, Prime Minister

But it isn't just me and my friends and strangers. Here is Australian actor, Bryan Brown. And Australia Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. And Australian actress Nicole Kidman.

Hmmm,  I might be onto something here. Perhaps I could write an article for a   pop-psychology magazine. Why don't Australians open their mouths when photographed?

In any case, ever since I dared to get up this morning I've been running to a mirror to practice smiling with a teeth-exposed smile.

An American face grimaces back.

Scary.

Australian Actor, Nicole Kidman

I obviously have a lot still to learn .

Meanwhile, I'll keep smiling ...

Innocence

Once there was a way to get back homeward
Once there was a way to get back home
Sleep pretty darling do not cry
And I will sing a lullaby - Golden Slumbers - Beatles

Hey look at these kids.

My generation.

Yesterday (yes my troubles did seem so far away) I did a 2010 FaceBook thing. I found people, old friends, to "friend". I made a concerted effort. Why, I do not know.

But, there they were.

A whole heap of them. FaceBook people.

Who would have thought?

There we were.

And there I am too. I suppose.

And so thank you.

I get by

with a little help from my friends.

The Sad Case of Myung Yeol Hwang

For 12 years Korean tiler Myung Yeol Hwang worked on dozens of building sites in Australia, but in late August, after falling victim to a severe respiratory illness, he died penniless and virtually homeless.

Since then his body has been in the Glebe morgue in Sydney. Lonely death highlights illegal workers' plight, ABC News

May Day 2010 - Immigration Rally New York

Until a short time ago I condemned illegal immigration. Without hesitation. There was, in my way of thinking, no excuse. They, the illegals, jumped the queue. "Legal" immigrants (like myself in America), waited and paid hundreds of dollars in fees in order to obtain Green Cards. And so on. And so forth.

Then I read Chris Cleave's Little Bee. And changed. Completely.

Little Bee is a Nigerian girl who has learned to talk like the Queen. She's a refuge who has been detained in an immigration detention center forty miles east of London for two years. I've never heard a Nigerian woman speaking the Queen's English, so I can't vouch for the accuracy of the dialogue. But I believed in Little Bee from the first paragraph ... Jessica Gribble.

What horrors some people in this world go through. Horrors that most of us in the West can not imagine. What right have we to condemn those who try to find a better life? For many it isn't just a a case of finding a "better life", but a case of survival - those who flee their birth country in order to live.

We watch shows like "Hotel Rwanda"and shake our heads. How terrible. Yes it is.

I realize that in the world as it is, there cannot be the freedom of crossing borders, of moving countries, without restriction. Although this "freedom" is one that many Americans, Australians and English assume is their right. But there can be no excuse for any society allowing a man to be treated as Myung Yeol Hwang was.

America has proportionally many more illegal immigrants than Australia. People here don't believe me when I tell them about the detention centers in Australia, and the Australian detention centers that existed on small island nations pre-2007.

The Pacific Solution was the name given to the Australian government policy (2001–2007) of transporting asylum seekers to detention camps on small island nations in the Pacific Ocean, rather than allowing them to land on the Australian mainland. It had bi-partisan support from both the Liberal-National government and Labor opposition at the time.The Pacific Solution

The "Pacific Solution" is now off the books, thanks to Kevin Rudd. But one has to be concerned about Mr Rudd's successor, Julia Gillard, who before the 2010 Federal Election in Australia, proposed setting up an immigration "processing" center for "boat people" in Dili, East Timor. This struck me at the time as arrogant on two counts. Ms Gillard had not consulted the government of East Timor before she advocated the "Timor Solution", and in any case, if processing "boat people" is not appropriate for Australia, why is it appropriate for East Timor?

Eataly Butcher

I WAS going to write about Eataly in Manhattan. It was recommended to me by my friend Babs. An aficionado on all things New York. I went to Eataly especially today. I took photos and uploaded them, for this blog.

And then I read about Mr Myung Yeol Hwang.

I am Kathleenwng and I approve this message.

Driving Rough-Shod Over Potholes

The wheels on the bus go round and round,
round and round,
round and round.
The wheels on the bus go round and round,
all through the town.  - Philip A Parker

The morning commute. I'm on the Q60 bus, which runs from 60th Street Manhattan, east to Queens.

Is this the worst bus run in the city? I certainly hope so because anything worse would be REALLY scary.

I'm sitting carefully, holding on to the rail of the seat in front of me. I do this for two reasons.

1: the seats slope down at an angle of about 10 degrees below the horizontal, and are made of a slippery synthetic material. If you weigh less than 20 stone you are likely to slip off onto the floor in front.

2: Once the bus turns onto the Queensboro Bridge (don't you just love the way Americans spell 'borough') there are deep and plentiful potholes. The drivers rarely slow down but rather put the accelerator pedal flat to the floor so that the bus bounces around and all the passengers, not just me, hold onto the rails of the seats in front of them, so that we all look like terrified people on a Big Dipper.

Seats on the Q60

There is, no there WAS a woman sitting behind me. Suddenly she flies through the air sideways, landing on the passage-way floor, still in sitting position. People try to reach her to pull her up, but it isn't easy. The bus hasn't slowed and the Samaritans move gingerly lest they suffer a similar fate.

Eventually everyone is back in their seats. The woman who flew through the air hasn't spoken a word and is staring straight ahead. Spooky.

I decide to occupy myself by taking photos. Here's one of the seat next to me. God this city's going to the pack!

Seat on the Q60 September 2010

Oscar Wilde could have said, "There's only one thing worse than sitting in a Q60 bus, and that's not sitting in a Q60 bus."

Waiting for the Q60. That's what I spend some time doing every working day at 8:30 a.m. On the corner of Second Avenue and 60th Street. There's usually a few of us there. Waiting. It is the starting point for the trip and there's a dispatcher man stationed there. Well not always, sometimes he's sitting in his car, especially when it's snowing. There's no shelter on the corner and the wind-tunnel gusts blow Manhattan dust onto our clothes and into our hair.

The dispatcher doesn't talk to us. He doesn't tell us if the bus is running late. Sometimes he'll chat to a bus driver who has shown up late from the Queens - Manhattan run. Usually about the baseball. The door of the bus will not open till the driver is ready to go. So we continue standing, while we listen to dispatcher and the driver talk about baseball. The dust or snow and an occasional page of a newspaper blow around the desolate corner that bears little resemblance to most people's idea of a bus-stop.

Once, when we'd all been waiting half an hour I asked the dispatcher if there would soon be a bus coming. He looked at me. Stunned. "How would I know?" he snapped. "Well what about the two-wave radio you have; can't you contact the bus, or even base?" I ventured. He just shook his head incredulously and before walking away from me, told me slowly as if talking to a small child, that he couldn't control the weather or traffic jams and what did people expect nowadays.

"Stand Clear of the Doors Please"

I called after him that I didn't expect him to control the buses, just to tell us what was going on.

The next day when I had just taken my seat on the bus and it was about to start. Mr Dispatcher stood at the doorway chatting with the driver. Then he turned to me and said very loudly so everyone in the bus could hear him, "There are some really weird people around. People who think we control the weather! The things people expect nowadays".

Why do I get the Q60 bus? Why not the subway? Well there's only one thing worse than the number 6 subway ...

But that's another story.

Ghosts of Things Past

... it's just that going home is such a ride
going home is such a ride
going home is such a ride
going home is such a low and lonely ride Dory Previn, "Lady with the Braid"

On the way to Edinburgh - through a glass greenly

Vacation over. I'm back in New York. No more stone fences, no more tea and scones or rolling green hills. No more nights of quiet and darkness.

Soon Buxton will be a distant memory. Every day away increases its unreality.

On returning from vacation, we try to keep the feel, the memory of the other place, but layer by layer it diminishes then disappears, and one's home and work become the norm and life goes on.

Where Lizzie Falls for Mr Darcy!

I always attempt to keep the "feel" of a vacation for as long as possible. But this inevitably turns out to be of no avail.

Soon, for me, New York will be as it was before I left it. And my life, my being will be in it. It will be the norm.

Is it just me or do all vacations have the same type of ending?

And now I come to think of it, the same beginning? I envisage the vacation's timeline as following along the line of a Gaussian curve.

A Typical Buxton Street

Timeline of a Vacation
Day 1: Travel to the destination. Feeling of anticipation
Day 2: Getting adjusted. Experiencing the differences between the vacation place and home.
Day 3: The days seem to stretch out before you. Relaxation
Day 4 to the penultimate day: Enjoyment
Penultimate Day: A wasted day. Some packing. It's useless to start a new adventure, as you'll be leaving tomorrow.
Last Day: Travel home. Feeling disoriented.
Last Day plus 1: Adjusting to reality.
Last Day plus 2: More adjusting. Feelings of nostalgia
Last Day plus 3: Vacation life almost forgotten. Or hard to believe in.
Last Day plus 4: Normality. Lowest point, right-hand side of the Gaussian curve.

I'm at "Last Day plus 3".

Tomorrow I return to the land of the normal.

Well sort of normal.

New York normal.

Stay tuned

Slipping on Gravestones

Now I'm in a bar in Copenhagen
And I'm trying hard to forget your name
And I'm staring at the label on a bottle of cerveza
And every fucking city feels the same - Paul Kelly

Just a few short days ago I was sight-seeing a small church near  Macclesfield, England.

And now I'm 30,000 feet above sea level, on Delta flight 155 traveling back to New York.

There is supposed to be internet access on board, but it isn't working yet. We are too far from the U.S. I hope to post this before we land.

We land in New York - my current home. And despite the Paul Kelly song, every city is not the same.

Despite globalization, despite the proliferation of Starbucks, the Gaps and DNKYs, there are still places that have an  individual identity indelibly stamped upon them; their own identity. Manhattan and Buxton for example.

Buxton, the Peak district, United Kingdom. I've just come from there. Apart from the friendships that are both timeless and placeless  - (D, L and J thank you) - there are the the local endearing peculiarities.

"One glass of white wine please?" "Large or small?" Excuse me???

Tea and scones with jam-not-jelly and clotted  cream, recently made into a habit for me and D for "afternoon  tea". Stately homes now staffed by volunteers and visited by "commoners". School kids in traditional school uniforms that they've slung on in a hurry, St Trinians'-like, but with a certain panache -  or is it just that they don't even need to care?

Eccentric  elderly couples taking Sunday walks  with local  maps and hiking shoes - the women  without make-up and the men without guile - through the adjoining British countryside, somehow reminding  one that WWII isn't so far away.

The tabloids with their screaming headlines and page 3 girls.

The freeways interrupted by traffic lights and roundabouts.

Buxton, Derbyshire. Just last night I was sitting in a  Buxton pub. At 10:00 pm the local "teams" lined up for the Sunday night quiz. Teams with names like "The Few", "Cupcakes" and "The Manchester Balls". The publican reads out  general knowledge questions - well English general knowledge questions. Our team, the Cupcakes came third. I feel guilty as they'd' accepted my  answer to "Which company introduced travelers' checks?" I said Thomas Cook when it was in fact American Express.

Not that it mattered. We all had fun, and  numerous glasses of "large white wine".

I'll miss D, L and J and Buxton. Nothing can replace old friends. And of course, nothing needs to.

And so it is New York, New York.  My city which I love. So good they named it twice.

But why  oh why are there no tea-rooms there? Tea-rooms with scones, jam-not-jelly and clotted cream.

Royally British

Jane Bennett: 'My dearest sister, now be serious. I want to talk very seriously. Let me know every thing that I am to know, without delay. Will you tell me how long you have loved him?'

Elizabeth Bennett: 'It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.' Pride and Prejudice

Lyme Hall, Cheshire was 'Pemberley' in the BBC production
 of the Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice.

We completed our Halcyon Day at Edinburgh's Halcyon House, Elizabeth Bennett style. On foot. In AustenSpeak we were "all anticipation" at moving into our new dwelling on Princes Street. The aptly named, "Royal British Hotel".

That being accomplished, we set off, American-style, to "do Edinburgh". Which we did. Perfectly.

Seeing Edinburgh involves a lot of hill-climbing and endless cups of tea, broken up by looking at old canon through castle turrets, buying single malt whiskey, and eating in style at the Café Royal.

Recommendations:
The The Royal British Hotel
The Café Royal
The National Gallery of Scotland
Edinburgh Castle

Canon at Edinburgh Castle

Then it was back to Buxton and England's Peak District, where we visited Lyme Hall. I was particularly interested in the Lake where Colin Firth drenched himself for Lizzie in the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice. Also of interest were several other things British. The rose garden, the Italianate palace of Lyme Hall, and the paintings depicting English soldiers chopping off Frenchmen's arms.

But perhaps the most British aspect of present day Lyme Hall is its staff - volunteers who are conscientiously present in every nook and cranny, and who are only too pleased (and able) to answer any question.

Roses, Lyme Hall Rose Garden

I had to smile though. I noticed that there were absolutely no

washing or toilet facilities except for an obviously later addition of a single cream and white tiled bathroom. I asked the nearby volunteer attendant when it was constructed. "Early twentieth century," she replied. "Oh," I answered, Australian-style, knowing the answer only all too well, "What did they use before that?"

I detected a momentary flicker of annoyance and disapproval. She then righted herself, poised again. "Chamber pots I suppose," she mouthed.

Ah, the British, gotta love 'em.

And now I really MUST go. D is preparing watercress sandwiches for lunch.

Stay tuned.

Halcyon Day

Halcyon means calm and tranquil, or 'happy or carefree'. It is rarely used now apart from in the expression halcyon days. The name of the legendary bird was actually alcyon, the 'h' was added in regard to the supposed association with the sea ('hals' in Greek). The Phrase Finder

Full Scottish Breakfast

The night before we were to catch the train to Edinburgh D and I decided we'd better think about accommodation. A(nother) glass of wine later and we were ready.

We googled "Scotland Edinburgh old town accommodation" and various combinations thereof. We found a number of Edinburgh accommodation sites, but nothing much under £400 per night. Could Edinburgh be more expensive than New York?

I think not. We must have been doing something wrong but I have no desire to find out what. Eventually panic set in and we decided to look for a B&B. We found one called Halcyon House. £106 per night for the two of us.

The best thing about Halcyon House is its breakfast (see above), which is included in the price. But what about the rest of it, and why did I title this posting "Halcyon Day" - singular?

Well .... I would recommend Halcyon House to the following people

One sixth of the  stair case at Halcyon

1: People wanting to practise their mountain-climbing skills. Halcyon House is situated on top of one of the highest peaks in Edinburgh - at least that's what it feels like attempting to get there from Edinburgh's Waverly train station. And your climbing won't end there. Depending upon which floor your room is on, you will have to climb 36 (first floor above ground, 72 (2nd), or 108 (3rd) stairs to get to your room.

2: People who don't like phones and who like big breakfasts.

3: People who are practicing to be a hotel inspector à la Ruth Watson.

Ruth Watson is a well-known (in the UK) hotelier who has a mission - "to reverse Britain’s depressing reputation for poorly run hotels, guesthouses and B&Bs". She also has a television show, called appropriately enough, The Hotel Inspector.

Indeed there were times during our one day (yes we moved) stay at the Halcyon, that I felt I'd morphed into Ms Watson.

Canon at Edinburgh Castle -  thanks to my climbing practice
at the Halcyon, I was able to reach the summit.

There's no real reception area at the Halcyon - just a bit of un-manned space given over to tourist pamphlets in the hallway. Adjacent to the pamphlet rack, a sole minuscule table has a minuscule vase taking up most of its surface, thus making filling out the obligatory registration form somewhat difficult.

In our room's bathroom there was nowhere to put a toothbrush, let alone any creams or cosmetics. I used a chest of drawers for my laptop. There was no shampoo. There was however soap. No TV, not that this bothered us. No little extras. Just the basics.

Breakfast was served in a fairly typical B&B room, peopled by people who spoke, if at all, in whispers. In the center of each table stood a small vase holding a dusty artificial flower that bore no resemblance to any species of flora that I have come across in my 100 years on this planet.

Two Tourists At the Edinburgh Castle

The breakfast was generous and the landlord keen to make Scottish jokes and to greet every guest in the dining room.

And yes, I've thought of something else good. There was free high-speed wireless internet access in our room. I could not see this facility advertised in any Halcyon literature. Perhaps it belonged to the neighboring B&B. It was unsecured and un-passworded.

I wasn't going to make a special trip down 72 steps to ask.

There was no phone.


My name is Kathleenwng and I approve this message

In the Time it Takes to Drink a Cup of Tea

I hear the train a comin'
It's rollin' 'round the bend,
And I ain't seen the sunshine,
Since, I don't know when - Johnny Cash

My new GPS-enabled camera tells me I'm near Lancaster UK. I'm on a train on my way to Edinburgh with D. The man on the opposite side of the aisle has just told me that my "3" brand dongle is useless. Great, I have a useless dongle!

Which means I can't get on the internet. Can there be life outside the internets?

It seems so. I'm typing this into TextPad and will upload it to Blogger when we get to the hotel which is called Halcyon. I keep thinking "Halcyon Days" but cannot remember where I heard this expression. Is it the title of a novel? I seem to think it is, perhaps written by Evelyn Waugh. But I can't Google it. Is there life without Google?

I browsed The Times earlier. The London Times. Paper. I can't read the New York one until we get to the Halcyon and have internet connectivity.

I enjoyed reading The Times. It brought back memories of when I lived in London a hundred years ago. England is much the same as it was back then in the olden days, with stories about the Blitz, soccer and Labour politicians. Yes. Really. The Blitz. Hard to believe.

Talking about politicians, the Daily Mail has a news item about Tony Blair's recently published autobiography, "The Journey". Apparently people are going to bookstores and moving copies from the Biography section to the Crime, Horror and Dark Fantasies sections.

I try my dongle again. Perhaps it'll work now that we are in the countryside. A check of the User Guide tells me that after putting it into the USB port, you have to wait for the "time it takes to drink a cup of tea". How very English!

I bought a cup of tea from the train's mobile cafeteria. I've finished it now and the dongle is still not working. I suspect I drank it too quickly.

Yes, that must be it.

Gay Kookaburras

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Merry, merry king of the bush is he
Laugh kookaburra, laugh Kookaburra,
Gay your life must be - from "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree", Marion Sinclair 1932

Next thing you know, they'll be changing Van Gogh's "Sunflowers"!

I read today that a school in Australia has banned the word "gay" from the classic Aussie song for children - "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree".

Instead of "Gay your life must be", students at Cheltenham's Lepage Primary School have been told to sing "Fun your life must be" in another win for political correctness.

How bizarre - think up your own song Garry Martin, principal of Lepage, Don't go around changing other people's creative efforts. Next thing you''ll be wanting to clothe Michelangelo's David, or changing the words in "The Merchant of Venice".

Seems like "Kookaburra Sings in the Old Gum Tree" is getting more than its fair share of attention lately.

"Kookaburra was penned" 75 years ago by Toorak teacher Marion Sinclair and is now owned by Larrikin Music. This year the Federal Court of Australia awarded Larrikin 5% of the royalties from their song "Down Under" after ruling that Men at Work's "Down Under" had breached copyright by including a riff from the Kookaburra song. The decision is under appeal.

I'd watch out if I were you, Mr. Martin.

And then there's our unofficial National Anthem - the one that brings tears to the eyes of Aussie expats everywhere.

There's a new version - a translation sung, here by Indigenous Australian Ali Mills - "Waltjim Bat Matilda" in "Kriol" - which used to be "Creole" which used to be "Pigeon".

For non-Australian readers - in Ali's version, "Baah" is the translation of "jumbuck" which means sheep. Words! When will we get them right? ....

I think it's one of the better versions I've heard, but will there be a problem with it? Certainly the the use of Creole in government literature has been considered, and probably has been, demeaning. Take the case of the brochure and the he U.S. Department of Housing (HUD).

Late 1999 Rezedents Rights & Rispansabilities was published by HUD. Purportedly a "Creole" translation, the document began, "Yuh as a rezedent, ave di rights ahn di rispansabilities to elp mek yuh HUD-asisted owzing ah behta owme fi yuh ahn yuh fambily," and continued in that vein for several pages. Some declared it a "racial parody" and it was eventually withdrawn from distribution.

I tend to think that the brochure WAS demeaning whether it was meant to be or not. It was probably a good thing that it was withdrawn.

But language should be looked at in context and I was sorry to read that Ali Mills had initially worried that she'd set back the image of indigenous Australians by 50 years if she recorded "Waltjim Bat Matilda".

People like Garry Martin who no doubt will be ever known as the spoiler of gay kookaburras, need to get a life.

I close on a brighter note. Take a walk in my neighbourhood.

My name is Kathleenwng and I approve this message.