Do people on this side of the ocean ever cry over the strains of the balalaika?

Is there anyone aside from me who swells with great emotion when the balalaika plays its little tune as spring comes to Yuriatin?

Doctor Zhivago is not a great movie. Yurii is in many ways a despicable character. History is simplified, love is simplified. Pasternak is not at the top of the Russian heap of great writers.

But play that tune, flash those daffodils and birches and I am lost in the world that has absolutely no resemblance to this one. This is a Russian fairy tale and I love all elements that make it exactly that.

I came back to Madison tonight and I mindlessly clicked on the TV. I don't typically do this, but I was tired and I spent way too many hours at airports (on the busiest travel day of the year). Dr. Z. spun me back to another world, made up of a different range of emotions -- one I'll fully plunge into next week on my trek back to Poland. Wonderful transition. Thank you cable TV. You came through at last.

I could be home by now

I noticed that practically all my posts today have been about the "materialistic impulse." It may have something to do with being stuck at La Guardia for half the day because I caved in to the "free ticket" grabbing game. There is no free anything. I could be sipping a nice latte at Borders right now. Instead, I am watching the fog roll in from the Long Island Sound as the post-Thanksgiving crowds get fidgety. Free travel in the future hardly seems like a pleasant prospect at the moment.

Even the liquidators found the stuff to be "down there" in terms of quality

Would you run over to the Mayflower Hotel on Central Park West (or -- the former Mayflower Hotel) to pick up a bargain -- like maybe a beat-up garbage can, or an old mattress, or a sink? Some did. For the hobby of it. In the NYTimes Metro section today I read the following (emph. my own):

Riechler's Law of Shopping states that necessity has an inverse relationship to cost. As the price of an item drops, the need to own it increases... "Do I really need a portable fridge?" [Dick Riechler, the author of the law] asked, in the Socratic style. "It's cheap. Why not?"

Okay, but a used (splattered, tarnished, chipped, stained, ugh!) garbage can? Because it came from a mediocre hotel that you once stayed in? I can think of a number of reasons for "why not."

Finding beauty in a broom that you don't necessarily use with any great frequency

Always interested in learning from those who celebrate *humble beauty,* I was drawn today to the review in the Times of The Wabi-Sabi House. Wabi-sabi doesn’t seem a difficult concept (emphases throughout are my own):

It's about spare living spaces and well-worn handmade objects, and an appreciation of quiet pleasures — indeed, of plain old quiet. Sweeping a floor rather than vacuuming, taking up knitting, washing the dishes by hand — these are wabi-sabi activities. Using a glue gun (or a vibrator) is not.

I am sorry to sound contrary, but these seem to me to be indeed quiet, but not exactly pleasure-inducing activities. I am not publicly backing glue guns or vibrators, but I stand in opposition to describing cleaning as an artistic expression of humble beauty.

Further in the article, I learn that those who practice wabi-sabi believe it to be completely un-American. Perhaps as un-American as apple pie. [This is my phrase. Apple pie is Polish. Everyone should know that. Szarlotka = apple pie. Simple.] Why does wabi-sabi confuse the average American?

That's because, [the Wabi-Sabi House author] writes: "We're afraid of real poverty and decay. … [If you want to practice wabi-sabi] try not to freak out when you come home to a dirty house. Turn the lights off and light some candles, making sure they're strategically placed away from the dirty dishes and the dog hair on the carpet.

So first I am told to celebrate quiet house cleaning and then to revel in poverty and decay. This would be tough. The third identified component – not freaking out when you come home to a house that is in disarray: no problem. I am about to do that today. Though I am not too pleased with the guy who just spilled a bag of crumbled potato chips at my feet at the airport gate area. I want to tell him to humbly sweep it up for the sake of simple beauty.

Posting in limbo

Would you give up your seat on an overbooked flight for $100?
No.
For $200?
No.
For $200, and a confirmed seat on a flight in three hours?
Uh…
For a free roundtrip ticket to anywhere in the 48 states?
Uh...
For a free roundtrip ticket to anywhere in the 48 states, and a guaranteed seat on a flight that’ll get you back home in time for dinner?
Uh…
For a free roundtrip ticket to anywhere in the 48 states, and a guaranteed seat on a flight that’ll get you back home in time for dinner, and access to WiFi during your three-hour wait at La Guardia?
Do you even need to ask?

Mail from across the ocean

A message from Warsaw:

[I]t's snowing often these days and today for the first time this season I heard the sound of somebody beating away at their carpet outside (trzepanie dywanu) - the ritual that's a sure sign that Christmas is on its way (heard again before Easter).

Seals on a rock and a rider with a beautiful Slavic face

Where would New York be without Central Park? I remember a long time ago crashing on a rented bike there and being rushed to Lennox Hospital with bloodied limbs. Pleasant memories. I wasn’t the strolling type then, but I am now and today I must have cut through the park enough times to warrant a frequent-cutter upgrade – perhaps even to gold status.

For others, the Park must be all about serenity and peaceful lakes and benches and jugglers. For me, it has always felt like not quite the real thing (remember that I come from a place that has Lazienki Park; you haven’t lived until you’ve cut through Lazienki in Warsaw). But when in New York, I go to Central Park anyway, because it is so wonderful to get lost in lanes that don’t head in any linear direction, but meander and lead you to exit ten blocks from where you want to be.

Central Park: a Lake Mendota analogue?

I can do this! Sort of. 

Central Park: seals on a rock?  

In the afternoon I stopped by the Frick Museum. Now THAT was a real place of escape for me when I was fewer than half my current years. Back in the early seventies, I’d take a notebook, scoot over to the Frick cloister, sit on a stone bench and write (amidst artwork that I occasionally looked at).

Today I did not write. I’m not even sure I still know how, given my addiction to the keyboard. And I am certain there’s no wireless at the Frick. They don’t even permit flashless photos let alone machines that don’t fit in your pocket.

But I did spend some time in front of a painting that I’d always felt perversely *proud* of: the Polish Rider by Rembrandt. Yes, it pained me when, not too long ago, critics claimed it could not have been done by the great master. But now I hear we’re back on track: that gorgeous Slavic face was almost certainly painted by Rembrandt. And what beyond the face may be attributed to Rembrandt? No one knows for sure. At the Frick, they tell you that the canvas is among the most beloved in the collection, possibly because of the aura of mystery that exists about it. It is a simple painting and it is surrounded by tremendous canvases done by Bellini, El Greco, Renoir, Titian Gainsborough, Degas, Millet, Constable, Vermeer, and more. All good, all wonderful, but none depicting those classic features of a face that belongs to people from my neck of the woods. Brushed onto a canvas by a seventeenth century master. Maybe. Almost for sure.

Rembrandt? the face for sure; probably not the skeletal horse. 

A frog for the mantle

Poland is currently in the midst of its biggest international film festival, celebrating notable achievements in cinematography (read about it in Polish here; I can't help it if the NYT chose to stay away). It may be the most passed-over film festival of all time and yet it is, I think, an intriguing event. It includes workshops and screenings, where directors, cinematographers, actresses and actors view movies together and engage in discussions on film production. Is it geared toward students of film? To an extent. But this weekend you'll also find the likes of Oliver Stone and Charlize Theron in Lodz -- the city hosting the Festival. Unfortunately, Lodz is no Cannes or Venice (perhaps for this reason, Stone had to be coaxed and cajoled into making an appearance). Is this reason enough to avoid broadcasting the awards ceremony where cinematographers receive gold, silver and bronze frogs (yes, frogs -- it works in Polish) for their work? An Oscar from Hollywood, a Frog from Lodz -- it should be every filmmaker's dream. For the record: Ocean applauds the ceremony and offers full support for Polish frogs.

New York is a collage and I am in the middle of it

I would never say that NY is a city of bright colors. (Neither is Warsaw – let’s be truthful here.)
But during a holiday season all cities stray toward the pink and red and gold. Suddenly I have flashes of eternally beautiful brightness everywhere around me.

I was lured into taking a walk across town past all the top department store window displays. A NYorker will tell you that this is a big thing: lines form to check the Lord &Taylor or Saks windows. Add to it Bergdorf’s and Bloomingdale’s and you’ll have a nice quartet, displaying (often, but not always) quite the creative flights of fancy.

Window glare and sidewalks teeming with people make photography nearly impossible. But sometimes the glare-related double-imaging works to your advantage. Could it not be that Santa (courtesy of Saks) is navigating his sleigh in and around Rockefeller Plaza?

in the realm of the fantastic 

gold and glitter over a sea of people 

Lord & Taylor has the moving characters – playful, so playful; I especially like this one girl because she is holding that airplane with an exuberance and joy that is fitting for someone who associates planes with flights of imagination and adventure. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but she appears thrilled with her dreams and games…

up, up and away 

My closing shot is of the cursing chestnut guy who did NOT want me to shoot pictures. At least not after the first handful. Too many! He told me. Too many! Does he not know that it takes at least five bad ones to come up with one that is decent enough to post?

a lightbulb over chestnuts