Dear Reader,
The third “half” of our holiday has been the best yet … at the same time possibly the most relaxing as we have had a few “days off” where we just hung around and took a walk in the park (10 to 20 April 2011). Every day more trees burst into leaf, more blossoms appear and more sunlight peeps through the ever-present clouds. The weather is quite the opposite to last year at this time - mostly overcast and cool. But Sunday was glorious.
Americans seem to delight in long words where shorter ones would suffice. There are dozens of examples although some of them are now changing: elevator (lift), apartment (flat), automobile (car), preserve (jam), penitentiary (jail), reservation (booking), lavatory (toilet), street car (tram) … the list goes on.
I took the Brooklyn Subway to the end of the line, just a few blocks from the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. At Fort Hamilton is one of the many huge Veterans’ Hospitals where the terrible casualties of the American wars are brought with their burns, lost limbs and other horrific injuries. I was there both to inspect their methadone clinic as well as attend a Grand Rounds presentation on complex cases. It was a very successful day but very moving. Law makers in both the US and Australia should walk thru the wards of such facilites to be reminded of the mayhem caused in wars so far from home and which seem to be doing so little for our own freedoms while antagonizing others unnecessarily.
Despite my antipathy to some aspects of America (consumption, pollution, global warming, etc, just like Australia) I am delighted and privileged, almost embarrassed to be so warmly welcomed by Americans and the ‘international’ flavour of Manhattan. New York is often said to be a separate country from the rest of America.
I have seen Comte Ory, a sexy Rossini romp, first in the cinema and then in the theatre - quite a contrasting set of experiences of the same Met opera production. We have also attended Verdi’s Otello at Carnegie Hall with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Muti. Somehow a concert performance can be even more exciting than the staged work. It would be impossible to imagine a stage with all of the singers, chorus and children’s chorus as we heard before us with the entire orchestra from Illinois. Aleksandrs Antonenko has a glorious tenor voice equal to this giant role. Krassimira Stoyanova sang the heart out of Desdemona while Carlo Guelfi was a menacing Iago.
We were intent on seeing if there were any little pieces of Egypt available in the antiquities shops. We only have hundreds rather than thousands of dollars so nothing was available in either of the two shops which sell such items. Some of their items are over 10,000 dollars and for exhibits which are more impressive than those you see in the museums here or anywhere (except Egypt, of course). After a Google search Allan secured a Daunian pitcher for $400 which we were delighted about. The Daunian civilization was in Apulia on the eastern side of Italy while the Etruscans, who were much more advanced, were on the west, around modern day Tuscanny. The pot is over 2000 years old and is in perfect condition. A modern piece could cost more at an arts and crafts gallery! By chance Apulia is the very province where Riccardo Muti was brought up.
I attended an expert panel discussion on aspects of Anti-Semitism in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice
They did not use one excerpt from the play and so it was not really a learning experience regarding the drama. However it showed many aspects of hundreds of years of serious discrimination and how people survive. One panellist (a Rabbi) read out a rather shocking and clearly anti-Semitic quote and THEN told us it was from President Truman’s private diaries. But afterwards I looked it up to find that he had edited the quote so that it sounded much worse than it really was (about the underdog becoming the boss, and forgetting the less fortunate, etc). All food for thought. I also made my first visit to Crown Heights in Brooklyn ... it is a veritable 'stetl'. My visit to Crown Heights
We have also taken in the parks and gardens which are all coming into bloom, leaf and blossom. The spring starts in about the second week of March with snow drops and crocus low down close to the ground. The forsythia yellow bushes are next, followed by daffodils, hyacinth and tulips. Just as the daffodils are wilting the weeping willows are coming into full leaf and the first prunus, white single cherry and apple blossoms appear. Just as the other trees are starting to get their leaves by about the third week of April the double pink Japanese cherry trees burst forth - one of the most spectacular sights in the horticultural world. I wonder that someone has not designed some recipes for them.
A meeting with a senior colleague from Yale University and then I give Journal Club at Rockeller with Dr Kreek before departing for Sydney on Wednesday.
Spring has sprung:
