A hot day toward the tail end of the summer

I’m still on the East Coast, reading about the protest march in NY, but staying put in Connecticut, not having the time to do much beyond helping others move (my back retaliated against my blog put-down of laughter as the cure-all and is now acting finicky again, but there are things to do and one can not be wimpy about one’s infirmities).

I did note the summer jazz festival on the New Haven Green last night. It was loud and filled with townspeople who set up blankets for the evening of music, much in the way that Madisonians set up blankets for summer Concerts on the Square. [The analogy ends here. The event could not have been more different in all respects.]

IT WAS REALLY LOUD MUSIC! Isaac Hayes was the guest artist and he certainly drew the crowds.

In truth, it was an insane mixture of happenings. On the one hand, a thousand parent-types lugged bookshelves (no, I do not know why Yale does not provide bookshelves in dorm rooms, it makes absolutely no sense to me) and boxes and milled around campus, while the “band played on” on the Green, with the rowdy townfolk having the time of their lives. I wish I could replay the night. I wish I had spent more time milling around the Green, watching the hundreds and hundreds of families enjoy the free night of music. I was past lugging shelves by then, but my pernicious back made me retire early. But not so early that I would miss the exuberance, the smells of grilled foods, the sticky feel of melting popsicles and rousing sounds coming from the speakers on the Green.

What’s New Haven like?

1. It is like Florence. It has too many one way streets that lead you astray, so that if you go down a block to check out curbside parking and there isn’t an open spot, you may as well reconcile yourself to a thirty minute detour just to get back to the same block again. The city is best explored without a car.

So many stop lights! Sometimes, the wait forces you to look up and admire what's around you. The baloons are there to welcome in the new academic year. 

2. It is like any University City, USA. Strip it of the university and you would have a cone without the ice cream, a shell without its inhabitant, a lake without water… you get the point. Is it an unhappy alliance? I wouldn’t say so. More like a love-hate, push-pull affair. When I lived in Hyde Park, home to the University of Chicago, it was push & hate all the way. Here, it depends whom you’re talking to at what time in the day. I find New Havenites generally a friendly bunch, unreasonably so, considering how much they can be left out of the university powerhouse.

If you're not inspired to learn in this setting, then hang it up 

3. It is like Little Italy, NY. This is, after all, the outpost for many an Italian immigrant family. Aside from the great pizza, you’ll find bakeries with those terrific Italian cookies that aren’t too sweet and that make every coffee break a sensual experience.

One of the many, many excellent pies -- this one appeasing the mushroom lovers and the pepperoni nuts 

4. It is like every urban center in the States: its commercial periphery is too vast, too abundant, too cluttered, too heavily trafficked. Consider this: yesterday, I needed to purchase a small coffee maker – a simple machine that would brew small quantities of the caffeinated beverage. I could now list you 100 places within a ten mile radius that sell them, from Walmart, to Linens and Things, Walgreens, Sam’s Club, etc etc. Why do we need so many stores?

5. It is an ocean port without any visible sign of the ocean. I can be here for five days and never see any body of water. But sea gulls are everywhere.

6. It is like New York City – overflowing with a great number of mid-range eateries (and like NY, it has an abundant upper range as well, but I’ll pass on that). There are more excellent (typically ethnic) restaurants within a 10 block range than I have ever seen anywhere (5 terrific Thai places alone to choose from, 3 Indian, several Ethiopian, Malaysian, etc etc).

7. It is like the island of Fiji in that it is in love with pure (bottled) Fiji water. I personally do not understand why one must go half way across the earth to find water suitable to sell in New Haven, but there you have it: you want bottled water, you have to buy the Fiji stuff.

the hottest selling water in town 

8. It is not like Madison. As I said earlier, it’s farmers market is inferior to ours. Two stalls, open Saturdays from 9 ‘til 12. It is interesting, though, to come and shop. You have to wait patiently as customers take out their “Connecticut Produce” coupons (I am guessing that these are a form of “food stamps”) and give them to the farmer and then together they select foods that will fill the, say, $12 ration. Those waiting (me for instance), give enthusiastic advice as to what might be a good next choice, and the farmers generously throw in over and beyond what the coupon might buy. For $12, the shopper walks away with a large supply of produce. At the Madison market, $12 wont go very far.

New Haven farmers market: stall number one 

New Haven farmers' market: stall number 2. Don't scroll further -- it ends here. 

Conversation with a holistic-medicine type (“hmt”)

HMT: So, I hear your back kind of whacked out yesterday?
nc: Yes! Suddenly, for no good reason, just hours before I was to do my good deed of helping people move in New Haven, I did one of those maneuvers that resulted in a lower back pain that grew and grew until it became so monumental that I could not walk without a grimace. Let alone sit. And movement from one to the other was impossible.

HMT: A shame. A ruined trip then, no?
nc: No! What’s a sprained back? Why should that stand in the way of moving, lifting, painting, heaving, etc.?

HMT: There are therapies you could consider…
nc: The thing is, the excruciating pain was intensifying, intensifying and then, someone said something profoundly funny at breakfast and I laughed and laughed and then… well, slowly but surely the pain abated. Somewhat. It was a turning point.

HMT: Totally! You experienced a holistic moment of recovery. Good vibes, flowing from your brain, triggered by the laughter lead to a recovery. Are you a believer now in the power of positive thought processes?
nc: No. Sorry, come back again with something more convincing.

Give us this day our daily news

Does anyone read USA Today outside of their hotel room, while traveling?

Headline from this morning: “I am not going to come in second” says president Bush. Fearless confidence.

Does anyone read the New Haven Register outside of a handful of New Havenites?

Headline from this morning: “Surprise, Surprise.” This is not a reference to anything of a political nature but to Davenport and Capriati upsets this week in a women’s tennis tournament that is taking place in New Haven at the moment. There has been some famous-player-spotting in the elevator of my hotel, but I am oblivious to it all having absolutely no genetic material that would predispose me toward having the ability to match faces in real life with those seen in media sources. If some such ability had been required as part of the SAT/GRE/LSAT testing process I would have never made it into academia, even at the level of “student.”

Does anyone read buried stories in the NYT that speak lavishly and exuberantly about Gore Vidal and Ravello?

Probably not. But they should. In the article, we read that Gore Vidal is selling his house in Ravello because his infirmities do not permit him easy access to the main piazza, where people congregate daily. I would agree that it is impossible to omit this from your Ravello routines and I, too, would sell rather than be reminded on a daily basis that this great joy is no longer available to me.

What is also interesting in the article is Vidal’s reference to his own book collection. He claims that books require him to purchase elaborate, expansive homes – otherwise he’d live in a one-bedroom flat. At last count, he had some 8,000 books.

I have never counted the books that are in my house (back in Madison) and so I do not know if 8,000 is a huge and excessive amount or just a moderately large collection. Do others count their books? Do you? I would imagine throwing around such (potentially) large numbers during dinner conversation would buy some status, but is this reason enough to engage in the act of counting? Do you start on the day you move to your very first pad and then simply add to the tally each time you make a new purchase? Or, at some point, when you’ve observed to yourself “wow, I have a lot of books,” do you hire a counter? Or maybe this is a goal that you set early in life. In your youth, you say to yourself “I will some day have two children, a steady income and 8,000 books. And I will never come in second!”

I belong to those that have thrown away moldy books and given away titles that I will never ever open again in my life. But now I’m having regrets. I feel like I’ve thrown away bragging rights to what could have been a significant topic of conversation during otherwise slow-moving dinner conversations. Ah well, at some point someone is bound to then ask --"and how many of those have you actually read, cover to cover?" Best not to get into that.

Cabbies

Taking a cab from La Guardia Airport to Grand Central Station in NY gave me a ride with a cabbie who had twenty years of driving behind him and plenty of comments to offer, with just a little bit of prodding on my part. He was of Haitian descent and had a stellar accent that made me think of the Caribbean islands. He complained about the Convention taking business away from cab drivers (so much of the city is shut down to traffic starting tomorrow). But he would not, even after my best efforts at persistent (naggish, in fact) questioning, reveal whom he was going to vote for in the forthcoming elections (I did tell him his tip would remain the same, no matter whom he supported).

Taking a cab from Union Station in New Haven to the hotel (wireless!!) again put me in the front seat with a cabbie from Haiti. This man was younger and quieter and I decided the ride would be too short to engage him in much of anything. However, when the radio news person proclaimed that Kerry had just challenged Bush to a weekly debate in the time period between now and the elections, my cabbie burst out laughing. This was an opportunity to dig in and prod. Will he support the incumbent? Nooooo, Bush, according to him, made a fatal mistake by going into Iraq. The economy didn’t come into play at all in our brief discussion. It was all about the troubles brought on by the war.

No cab scheduled for tomorrow. A shame – some of the best stories come from these rides.

The night before I fly off seems to be forever tagged as – karaoke night

I was told that there were no fewer than 9 bloggers at the Karaoke Kid tonight. I went not because I had the time, nor because I needed to sing my brains out, not for any reason at all but to watch the talented and the talentless join forces to create something special: a feeling of community.

I truly do enjoy watching people come together in this way. But it means a late night for me, followed by an even later hour of packing in order to catch the early (and I mean EARLY) flight to La Guardia.
Worth it? Yes, always.

When was the last time you played ping pong?

I commented yesterday on Poland’s preoccupation with TV airing of the ping pong elimination rounds during of the 1996 Summer Olympics. I may have been blind to the nuance of that programming decision: today in the IHT (here) one can read about China’s current ping pong diplomacy with Hong Kong. Perhaps airing ping pong matches between China and other countries had political import 8 years ago; perhaps it spoke to alignments between Poland and the mainland Chinese government ? Let’s not forget about the political motivation behind Olympic TV favoritism.

Ping pong diplomacy is itself an odd concept, at least to those of us who cannot fathom the sending of teams across state lines to coax support for strategic governmental action. We’ll send political candidates to kiss babies and eat Wisconsin cheese, but ping pong teams -- that’s just too out of our league. Though we did engage in ping pong diplomacy with China some years back, I think one has to write this off as an odd moment in American history. I don’t think people even have ping pong tables in their garages anymore, as they did in “Leave it to Beaver” days. Ping pong definitely seems to be one of those sports (along with perhaps badminton or archery) that has failed to catch the American imagination. We prefer watching burly men piling in heaps in pursuit of a ball that isn’t even round in shape (see, I DO understand football!). None of this clicking of a little ball against a table surface. How wimpy is that.

I think another trip is in order

It’s not that I am restless, oh no. Who would ever accuse me of that? I can stay put, in the same way that an old person can after they’ve decided they’ve seen the world and it doesn’t measure up to the comfy mattress back home. Really, I am capable of not leaving Madison for months at a time. [Blogger honesty kicks in here:] Make that weeks – certainly being stationary for weeks is quite possible for me.

But this is not such a time. Tomorrow I am off to the East Coast, to do my good deed of the year (helping another – no, make that one, two, perhaps even three others – move boxes and furniture up and down countless steps). For the most part I’ll be in New Haven – the city that struggles with a high unemployment rate, but still manages to maintain the highest concentration of free WiFi cafes anywhere. It will be the first trip I will have taken where blogging should not present technical challenges. I say this with some trepidation because I know that with computers, something always goes wrong when you least expect it to.

In addition to blogger nirvana, I expect to find the following: better weather (come on Wisconsin, this summer you were one wet noodle weather-wise; get it together!); better pizza (New Haven has the single best pizzeria this side of the Atlantic – not that I tried them all, but others have backed me up on this); more people sporting that tense, furrowed-brow look (which is visibly absent in Wisconsin because life, for the most part, is less stressful here); fewer mosquitoes (what do they want to hang out in CT for when they have wet and green WI?); and no farmer’s market to speak of (they can’t even fake it: two stalls and they call it market – what a laugh).

I’m running ahead of myself. Today is still all about wet, buggy, but beautiful nonetheless, Wisconsin. Hey, I’m loyal.

Game theory

As anyone will tell you, I am so, so far from being a spectator sport nut that I can’t even brag about my ignorance because it is too embarrassing. Football mystifies me (both what goes on on the field and why people are watching). Baseball is only a notch above soap operas. Basketball looks like it ought to be fun but somehow, for me, it isn’t.

All this is puzzling since many would regard me as moderately athletic. I like sports. I’m not especially talented at many but I have done a lot in my life. I have even rowed for the UW crew team (that would be the University of Warsaw!) and I have considered amateur downhill racing one especially gratifying skiing season back in New England.

So what’s with sports watching?

Ann blogged (here) how she disliked watching team sports. I am with her on that, even though I have no good reason for my disfavor. In fact, you’d think I’d be the type to appreciate watching a team join together in the pursuit of excellence. But no. What I love to watch (and this spills over into non-athletic domains as well) is individual excellence. And so, indeed, I make a sports exception: I am an Olympic nut.

Summer Olympics, however, have been a cruel presence. With one exception (Australia, in September), they are always…. in the summer. Since I am often chasing my European roots then, I have been forced to look at the games through Italian eyes twice in the last dozen years, and through Polish eyes once. It’s been a nightmare. The Poles (up until this year where I am sure they are obsessing about their medalist swimmer) seem keen on airing the flight of the ping pong ball: back and forth and back and forth, through endless elimination rounds. The Italians – well, they get so PASSIONATE about all things Italian. The medals are rare, but when they come, the craze level rises to such heights that you might as well give up thinking that you’ll see anything but the repeat of the speed walker, over and over again, until the next medal is awarded, sometime in the future.

I should also say that being in Europe does trump watching the Olympics and so for me, the summer games get shortchanged. But come winter, two years from now -- that's when I can really indulge this little love of mine. Nothing distracts me in February. [I have no kind words to offer about February in Wisconsin.] Once, every four years, the world comes alive through athletic competition during that dullest of all months.

But for now, I can just catch the tail end of an event. Here and there, by myself. It’s not the way it was meant to be. A boisterous crowd of like-minded people would be preferable, but one takes what one can get – in this case, a private moment, late at night, relishing the victory of some very talented individual, wherever she or he may come from.

Gee but it’s great to be back home…

Ah, were that but true! No one enjoys transitions from vacation to work and so I should not use this blog as an opportunity to reiterate truths repeated the world over – it was better, tastier, sunnier, funner, on vacation, it is dreary, lonely, dismal, frantic, etc etc now that I am home.

What do I miss most? What would I love to import back here? Not the olive oil or porcini mushrooms or the perpetual sunshine or the sense of history. It’s all grand, but what I would pay millions to bring with me here is this: the ready and willing attitude of friends and strangers to stop nearly anything and everything to have a conversation with you. Curiosity, coupled with a desire to share thoughts and insights, no matter how trivial. Early in the morning, late into the night. The natural, easy sociability, in chance encounters, sure, but especially among friends.

On a more optimistic note, I am HAPPY to see the likes of WiFi again. Two weeks of Italian dial-up blogging (without a phone line during one) has exhausted me. But it did convince me that I am dedicated to the blogging enterprise, regardless of technical obstacles, time pressures, readership issues (I canceled my tracking registry and I refuse to add comments so that I never know who is reading unless I get email notes and comments; thanks for those good words last week –you know who you are!!) and in spite of my perpetual thematic ambivalence.

The blog has survived a curious sort of summer. Lets hope the blogger pulls herself up to speed as well, and with alacrity.