We drifted out toward Old Lyme, East Lyme, and South Lyme, pulling off Route 95 for roads that sound promising–Shore Road, Neck Road, Rope Ferry Road, 4 Mile River Road–and any left or right that catches our eye. Grand old trees spread out over the roadways, bare branches waving in the stiffening wind. Architectural delights abound: stern mansard roofs, graceful molded cornices, towers and turrets both rounded and square.

The John Sill House, on Lyme Street in Old Lyme, Connecticut, was built around 1817. Sill was a smuggler who hid his booty in secret closets built throughout the structure. He enjoyed the dwelling for only three years, losing it in the wake of his arrest in 1820. (Historic Buildings of Connecticut image)

From time to time we’d stop and park the car to get a closer look. The temperature was below freezing, and the rising wind, abetted by a winter sun hanging low in the sky, drove us back quickly to the warmth of the car. I had neglected to bring a hat and gloves, a bad move.

With a stark yet reassuring grace, the John McCurdy House sits right across from the daunting First Congregational Church of Old Lyme. It was built around 1700 by the perfectly named Amos Tinker. General Washington, we are told, spent a night here in April 1776, while on his way from Boston to New York. We shall not question it. (Historic Buildings of Connecticut image)

After a nice lunch and a glass of wine at the cozy Black Sheep Tavern, on Main Street in Niantic, we drove east by Jordan Cove and decided to head for the coast. The wind seemed even stronger, shaking the car now and then, and a cover of thick gray clouds now fully obscured the sky. How had we not seen that happen? Attracted by a sign for Harkness Memorial State Park, we caught a glimpse of ocean and turned south off Great Neck Road. Ours was the only car in the parking lot. We could see the roiling Atlantic about 1,500 feet away, beyond a broad expanse of lawn. Let’s do it–we’ve come this far. Nonnie pulled her scarf over her head, I jammed my hands into my jacket pockets, and we made a dash for the water. The wind was so strong and my fingers so cold, I had trouble keeping the camera still.

The falling mercury and the strengthening gale conspired to make the beach grow more distant with each step.

The bitter wind, now gusting past 40 mph, lacerated us with sand from the beach. The sign to the left, Nonnie bravely discovered, reads "No Swimming."

Though terribly cold, a mysterious mansion on the far east end of the property proved irresistible.

Even from a distance, the gardens beckoned.

The frozen gravel crunched at each step. What is this place? Who lived here?

Flecks of snow were starting to appear, making it all but impossible to imagine a string quartet, croquet, and a bottomless Pimm's Cup.

"On the table was spread a snow-white tablecloth; upon it was a splendid porcelain service, and the roast goose was steaming famously with its stuffing of apple and dried plums."

We were beyond cold, but the place held such delights that we couldn't pull ouselves away.

As soon as we returned home, Nonnie planted herself at the iMac to discover the identity of the gardens' architect. It was the work of the extraordinary Beatrix Jones Farrand, one of Nonnie's favorites. A wonderful surprise.

Farrand fell in love with landscape while summering at her family home on Mount Desert Island, in Maine. During trips to England she visited the estimable Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson. As if that weren't enough, Edith Wharton was her aunt. Farrand designed the kitchen garden at The Mount, Wharton's estate in Lennox, Massachusetts.

It was time to go home. What discoveries we shared today.

The estate was called Eolia, and the forty-two-room mansion became the summer home of Edward S. Harkness, who inherited a fortune thanks to his father’s investments in a promising company called Standard Oil. Harkness bought the property in 1907, when he was thirty-three.  He was worth about about $155 million when he died, at the age of sixty-six, in 1940. That’s about $2.4 billion today. Harkness had deep pockets but a bottomless heart. His philanthropy extends far beyond this beautiful estate, set so dramatically against Long Island Sound. He gave away nearly $130 million, making major donations to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, and Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. Countless colleges, universities, and boarding schools benefited from his charity, and the Yale School of Drama and its theatre were created through his gifts. A peerless legacy.

Later, while reading up on Harkness, I came across an article by Richard F. Niebling, in the Fall 1982 issue of The Phillips Exeter Bulletin, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Harkness Plan, a $5.8 million bequest that significantly enlarged the Academy and established endowments. Niebling notes that the recipients of Harkness’s substantial gifts were varied, but that two overarching observations can be made of all of them: “…they all received Harkness’s personal attention, and none of them, in their material embodiment, were allowed, during his lifetime, to bear his name. Where the name Harkness is attached to some building, it commemorates another Harkness–for instance, the Harkness Pavilion in New York City honors his mother; The Harkness Tower at Yale, his brother. There is no Harkness dormitory at Exeter or college at Yale or house at Harvard. He was a very modest man.”

The peculiar joy of the batting cage–the creaking mechanical arm, the grunts and exclamations from adjacent batters, the expectation of each pitch, the final weariness and satisfaction–returned in a rush, along with many more of the unique charms of baseball, reading “The Way of Baseball: Finding Stillness at 95 mph,” by Shawn Green and Gordon McAlpine (Simon & Schuster, 2011).

Shawn Green, who began his fifteen-year career with the Toronto Blue Jays, holds the major league record for total bases in a single game, nineteen, when he hit four home runs, a double, and a single against the Milwaukee Brewers on May 23, 2002. He's also the only major league player to hit seven home runs in a three-game span (May 23-25, 2002). He hit 42 homers that year, among the 192 homers he hit in a great five-year stretch from 1998-2002, when he was among the top hitters in the game. (google image)

“The Way of Baseball” describes the role of Zen meditation in Green’s journey to free himself from his ego, play baseball without the burden of goals, and learn to live in and savor the moment. It’s unusual and refreshing to hear a professional American athlete speak this way about himself, and it’s the first time I’ve finished a sports memoir reminded that the desire for perfection is an invitation to disappointment.

Green was in his third undistinguished season with the Blue Jays when manager Cito Gaston forbade him from using the batting cage unless it was in the presence of the team’s batting coach. They wanted Green, a left-handed hitter, to learn to pull the ball–that is, to make contact with the ball early and hit it to right field, increasing the chances of a home run. Green wouldn’t do it. He wanted to hit productively to all fields. In anger and frustration, Green started practicing on a batting tee, the only place he was allowed to take unsupervised swings.

"My breathing became rhythmic: inhaling as I put the ball on the tee, holding my breath as I got in my stance, and exhaling as I took my swing," Green writes. "What was happening here? My tee work had started out as form of punishment, yet suddenly it felt like something else, something more than just a hitting exercise. Was it becoming a meditation?" Green used a Tanner Tee, just like this one. (google image)

In time, Green found that his daily work with the tee was quieting the voice in his head and rewarding him with stillness. He learned, as one does in yoga, to focus on his breathing and not on the pose, to feel the swing without thinking about it. His practice gave him the confidence and the self-awareness to take apart his swing and burnish each of its components: his stance in the batter’s box, the length of his stride, the orientation of the head and eyes toward the pitcher, and the “loading” of the upper body–that is, the location and timed movement of the shoulders, arms, and wrists as the swing develops, among many other elements. Most important, Green came to see the pitcher not as an opponent but as a partner.

Green lingers in satisfying detail on how he rebuilt his swing over the next two years, deepening his meditation practice and stilling the natural tendency to be hard on himself. He is learning, as Buddha taught, that “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” Hardest of lessons, alas.

There are delightful observations on the era’s greatest pitchers along the way:

• “Pedro Martinez was untouchable in the late ’90s not because he threw harder than anyone else but because both his fastballs and off-speed pitches looked the same coming out of his hand. Such deception, along with great control and movement, makes it tough for a hitter to get the barrel of the bat on the ball.”
• “[Curt] Schilling’s glove started the same every time out of the windup, but when his glove went over his head, the fingers rounded on the forkball and remained flatter on the fastball. From the stretch, it was more difficult to catch, and I sometimes got crossed up because the differences were so subtle. Other times, I swung and missed even though I knew what was coming because Schilling had such good movement on his pitches.”
• “[Randy Johnson's] tip was easy to discern because his glove flared before he began his windup…. In one game he grew so paranoid about us having his pitches that he altered his whole delivery by hiding his hand behind his back rather than keeping it in his glove as he normally did. I enjoyed seeing such an intimidating figure completely lost in his head.”

These tropes–of being lost in the head, over thinking, hearing the harping, critical voice of “the little man on my shoulder”–inform the book, becoming most dramatic after Green’s eventual success with the Blue Jays led to his signing a six-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers for $84 million. The pressure was on, and Green imploded.

“The pull of my ego proved too strong,” Green writes. “My awareness became lost in my new identity…. What I didn’t realize was that it was my ego that was pulling me out of the present moment at the plate. Instead of becoming the act of hitting, as I had in the past, I was working toward the purpose of fulfilling statistical goals. I calculated that I needed to hit about 7 homers and notch about 20 RBIs each month to stay on track with the player I was supposed to be: the star who’d hit 42 home runs and had 123 RBIs the season before.” Green finds a new understanding in a familiar Zen proverb: “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” Humbled by his disappointing performance in 2000, Green recommits himself to living in the present moment, rediscovers his swing, and lets go of ambition and goals. The process is nicely symbolized in a section on Green’s decision, on September 26, 2001, not to play on Yom Kippur, though not a fully observant Jew. The incident, of course, echoes Sandy Koufax’s famous decision to sit out a World Series game in 1965 because it fell on Yom Kippur. For Green, the decision allows him to display respect for his heritage and to sever a tie with his ego: missing the game ended a streak of 415 consecutive games and cost him a shot at hitting fifty home runs for the season. (He ended with 49 homers and 125 RBIs.)

Here’s a look at Green’s swing, slowed down, as part of a television ad against the use of smokeless tobacco products. Green was with Arizona Diamondbacks at the time (2005-6). The swings starts about twenty seconds in. I’m struck not only by the relaxed grace of his swing but by the way he lowers his head at the moment of contact, as if bowing in gratitude.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Green’s account of his historic week in May 2002 is fascinating reading, all the more effective for his and co-writer McAlpine’s decision to chronicle each at bat with excerpts from Green’s journal entries, written after the games. What a stretch of hitting. Among the gems was a first-pitch home run against Schilling, with the defending world-champion Diamondbacks, marking Green’s seventh consecutive hit, five of which were home runs. In the next game, Green broke his bat on the last swing of his streak, hitting his seventh home run in three consecutive games, batting eleven for thirteen with fourteen RBIs. The cracked bat now rests in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, in Cooperstown, New York. And the satisfying memory of Green’s rewarding journey rests in me. Namaste, Shawn Green.

Kahlenberg's study of Navajo blankets weaves the disheartening story of the tribe's forced relocation and incarceration with its indominable spirit, as reflected in the vivid patterns, colors, and emotive power of textile weaving.

The book is a wonderful portal to the artistic beauty of Navajo blankets, with key aesthetic points dramatically illustrated by full-page color photographs of the textiles. Kahlenberg’s observations are trenchant and confident.

“It is obvious that in the weaving of blankets, there is a tradition for complexity and control without equal in our culture,” she writes. “In their blankets, the Navajo had a visual language that enabled them to show each other who they were. The blankets were self-portraits in which the Navajo manifested their place among people, their integration with the landscape, and their oneness with the spiritual forces of life…. There was a dynamic connection between design and function–a Navajo blanket expressed the character of its wearer and give him a kind of permanent gesture….

“There are constants in the Navajo experience which underlie the tradition of these blankets. Foremost of these is a feeling of energy. It is as if each blanket were a diagram of the spiritual presence of an individual.”

Kahlenberg’s aesthetic is especially valuable as it bestows us with the new ability to engage with Navajo blankets as artworks rather than to simply see them as craft or utilitarian objects, to enter a created world as our perception and imagination dovetail with the tangible vision of the artist. Her careful explication of technique, cultural history, and evolving design features gives us the vocabulary–the tools–we need to apprehend and to feel in new ways. A great gift. She is also wonderful when explicating the role of abstraction in Navajo society–a trait deeply rooted in the tribe’s shared culture rather than the sole purview of “the artist,” as it is in our culture–as well as the creative freedom and independence of women, all of whom were weavers, in Navajo society.

A splendid example of an Eye-Dazzler blanket, a style that emerged and flourished between 1875 and 1890. The name was given to these blankets by traders, in response to their explosive expressionistic urgency.

It must be fantastic to see these blankets up close. The blanket above, for example, is 80 inches by 57 inches. Astonishing. (It’s available here for $9,500.)

The Arizona State Museum organized an exhibition on Navajo weaving in 2004-5. The museum’s website offers a nice introductory history of the art, with slide shows and other helpful features. The exhibition also included the work of contemporary Navajo weavers.

One of the most fascinating features Kahlenberg discusses is the Navajo blanket’s lack of a border. On all four sides, the patterns move to the edge, go past the edge, and continue into infinity. It is as if the wearer becomes enclosed literally and figuratively in the unique vision of an infinite physical and metaphysical landscape. It was only later in the 1890s, when the commercial role and influence of traders grew stronger, that this never-ending quality gave way to the use of borders as a design element–indeed, a very emblem of the political enclosure of Native Americans. The traders were reacting to the wishes of the buyers of blankets who lived back East, who found the lack of borders upsetting, Kahlenberg notes.

So it is, thanks to the obituary, that we play a part in the continuation of a life well lived,  leading it past an ending and toward a shared future.

Through an international student employment agency, we both arranged to work on a family farm for a month. Room and board were included. The pay would be one dollar a day. The math worked, and so did the vibes. A possible glitch was that we’d be working on different farms, more than a few hours away from each other by ferry and bus, so we’d be separated for a month. But that might be good. We’d get to take a break from each other, become more self-sufficient. A happy reunion after a month apart would set us up well for the long hitchhike to Paris, the next stop on our summer’s itinerary.

I was placed with the family of Leif Hjelmvold, who owned a small farm in Ulvik, on the Hardangerfjord. Leif  and his wife Marte had two children, both too young to be of much help to their father, who had been ill and was slow recovering.  His wife tended the two dozen milk cows and maintained the household, enough work for three people. So they had prevailed upon their grown nephew, Geir Hydle, to work the farm for the summer with someone they would hire through a work agency. The someone was me. A blessing!

The events of that month on the Hjelmvold farm, of the month in Paris, and of all the stops and starts along the way will be told at another time. I mention this episode here because of the Norwegian legend that sits atop this blog: Kven spør etter leidi når ein har slik vind! The author is the poet Olav V. Hauge, the Poet of Ulvik. In English, the poem from which this line is drawn is “You Were the Wind.” Here it is Norwegian, followed by an English translation by Robert Bly, as found in The Dream We Carry: Selected and Last Poems of Olav H. Hague, translated by Robert Bly and Robert Hedin:

Du var vinden

Eg er ein båt
utan vind.
Du var vinden.
Var det den leidi eg skulde?
Kven spør etter leidi
når ein har slik vind!

You Were the Wind

I am a boat
without wind.
You were the wind.
Was that the direction I wanted to go?
Who cares about directions
with a wind like that!

So I will change the name of my blog from “Kven spør etter leidi når ein har slik vind!” to “Who cares about directions with a wind like that!” Should we care about our direction? Who cares about directions with a wind like that! I shall savor the wind.

We worked Monday through Friday and until noon on Saturday for the thirty days I worked on the Hjelmvold farm in Norway. On my first Saturday, after lunch, Geir led me down the winding road in the direction of the town waterfront center, not much more than a hotel, a grocery store, a few small shops, and a church. We passed by a cut off the road, a driveway winding upward.

“The Poet lives here,” Geir said.

“Who?”

“The Poet of Ulvik,” he said. “Olav isn’t home today.”

Olav H. Hauge (August 18, 1909 -- May 23, 1994) was born in Ulvik, Norway, and lived his entire life there, tending to his apple trees and his poetry. His first volume was published when he was 33. Hague's vision is fiercely spare. Meaning hangs on the fate of stones, moss, firewood, and smoke.

Here is Hague reading “Du var vinden” and three other poems, with images of his wife Bodil Cappelen, the Hardangerfjord, and the Ulvik mountainside:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The other three poems he reads here are “Elvane møtest,” “Det er den draumen,” and “Katten.” “Det er den draumen” (This Is the Dream) is extraordinary. The repetition of “at” and “opna seg” create an atmosphere of ritual and tension as powerful and unstoppable as a retreating tide. Here it is in Norwegian and in Robert Bly’s translation:

Det er den draumen

Det er den draumen
Det er den draumen me ber på
at noko vidunderlig skal skje,
at det må skje -
at tidi skal opna seg,
at hjarta skal opna seg,
at dører skal opna seg,
at kjeldor skal springa -
at draumen skal opna seg,
at me ei morgonstund skal glida inn
på ein våg me ikkje har visst um.

This Is the Dream

This is the dream we carry through the world
that something fantastic will happen
that it has to happen
that time will open by itself
that doors shall open by themselves
that the heart will find itself open
that mountain springs will jump up
that the dream will open by itself
that we one early morning
will slip into a harbor
that we have never known.

Finally, here is a look at Hauge reading at a festival in Haugesund, Norway, in 1972, just a few months after my stay in Ulvik. He is visibly heartened by the warm reception!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thank you, Olav! Thank you, Ulvik!

Vijendra: Hello. Welcome to Adobe Technical Support.

Vijendra: Hi Jerry.

Vijendra: I have received your query. Please allow me a moment to verify your account and to review the details of your request.

Jerry: Hi. I have downloaded the Premiere trial program, but I don’t know how to start it. Can you help me?

Vijendra: As I understand you have download the product but not able to start the installation. Am I correct?

Jerry: Yes.

Vijendra: Thank you for confirming the issue.

Vijendra: I will be glad to check and help you with that.

Vijendra: May I know if you are trying to install the trail version or the full version of the product?

Jerry: It said it installed but I don’t know how to start it.

Jerry: Trial.

Vijendra: Thank you for the information.

Vijendra: May I know the full name of the product you have installed?

Jerry: Adobe Premiere Prp CS5.5 Family

Jerry: I mean Pro

Vijendra: Thank you.

Vijendra: Please click on Go.

Vijendra: Select Computer.

Vijendra: Select your MAC Hard disc.

Jerry: Where do I find “Go”?

Vijendra: It will be on the top of your MAC screen.

Jerry: okay. please wait a moment….

Vijendra: Sure.

Jerry: okay. i found it. i selected the hard drive.

Vijendra: Great!

Vijendra: Please click on Applications.

Jerry: okay. i clicked applications

Vijendra: Now try to locate Premiere Pro from the list you get.

Jerry: looking for it….

Vijendra: Okay.

Jerry: It’s not in the Applications folder. Should a drag the Pro disc icon from my desktop into the Applications folder?

Jerry: I mean, “Should I…”

Vijendra: No.

Jerry: okay.

Vijendra: Just to confirm was installation completed without any errors?

Jerry: The window told me it was completed.

Jerry: Wait. I see something.

Jerry: In the Application folder I see Adobe Encore CS5.1 and another Adobe icon that says Adobe Media Encoder CS5.5 and another that says Adobe OnLocation CS5.1. Does that help?

Vijendra: Jerry, the same way there should be an icon that says Premiere pro.

Vijendra: Not a problem.

Jerry: I’m sorry. It’s not there.

Vijendra: Please click on Spotlight and type Premiere Pro and press enter.

Jerry: Is Spotlight the search function?

Vijendra: Let me know if you are able to locate the icon.

Vijendra: Yes.

Jerry: i see the icon. two of them. one says Adobe Pre 5.5 (1.69 GB) and the other says Adobe Pre 5.5 (4 items).

Vijendra: Please click on the second icon Adobe Pre 5.5 (4 items) and let me know the status?

Jerry: four folders inside it: deploy, packages, payloads, and a red one that says Install.

Vijendra: Okay.

Vijendra: Now please select the first option Adobe Pre 5.5 (1.69 GB).

Vijendra: May I know the status?

Jerry: open. it contains the same items that are in the folder on my desktop: 7 pdfs in different languages, a folder that says Adobe Encore CS5.5, a folder that says Adobe OnLocation CS5.1, and a purple colored box with Pr on it that also says Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5

Vijendra: Please click on the purple clour box icon.

Vijendra: *colour.

Vijendra: Let me know the status after you click that.

Jerry: once again, i clicked it open and see this: four folders inside it: deploy, packages, payloads, and a red one that says Install.

Jerry: it’s like i keep going in circles!

Vijendra: Please click on install icon.

Jerry: initializing….

Vijendra: Okay.

Jerry: i accepted agreement. shall i install again as a trial?

Vijendra: Yes, please continue with the installation.

Jerry: okay. i’ll select Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 Family and Install, okay?

Vijendra: Yes.

Vijendra: Let me know once the time required to install is displayed on the installation screen.

Jerry: currently installing. “about 4 minutes”

Vijendra: Okay.

Vijendra: I see that the installation was not completed last time.

Jerry: i’m sorry about that! i am trying to learn more about computers. sometimes it’s hard….

Vijendra: Not a problem.

Jerry: thank you. 34 percent….

Vijendra: You are most welcome.

Jerry: I am in Kingston, Rhode Island, USA. where are you, Vijendra?

Vijendra: You have reached Adobe Technical Support based in Bangalore, India.

Vijendra: May I know the status of the installation.

Jerry: awesome. I have not visited India. 49 percent.

Vijendra: Okay.

Jerry: 52 percent

Vijendra: Once the installation is completed you can launch the product.

Vijendra: Will you be able to take it from here?

Jerry: 72 percent. can you stay with me till it finishes?

Vijendra: Okay, not a problem.

Jerry: thank you. 79 percent.

Vijendra: You are welcome.

Jerry: the closest i’ve come to India is drinking Darjeeling tea…. 88 percent.

Vijendra: Good to know that.

Jerry: complete. it tells me to “take the next steps…” shall i hit DONE?

Vijendra: Just to confirm do you have an option as Next.

Vijendra: ?

Jerry: no. the window says Thank you, Your installation is complete. I see two icons: Ol and En. I can also View Video Tutorials, and in the bottom right a tab says DONE.

Vijendra: Click on done.

Jerry: i did. and the window disappeared. this is what has happened past times.
Vijendra: Now please locate the products from the Applications folder.

Jerry: okay. stand by….

Vijendra: Sure.

Jerry: it has the same ones i mentioned before. no Premiere folder.

Vijendra: Please allow me a moment while I check this information for you.

Jerry: thank you. this is what i mean about going in circles. i have tried this about 20 times. i must be doing something wrong, but i don’t know what.

Vijendra: Thank you for your patience.

Jerry: Thank you for your patience!

Vijendra: I will provide you the link to download CS 5 Cleaner Tool.

Jerry: okay

Vijendra: Please download it and run it on your computer.

Jerry: will do

Vijendra: http://download.macromedia.com/pub/creativesuite/cleanertool/mac/AdobeCreativeSuiteCleanerTool.dmg

Vijendra: Please click on the above link and download the tool.

Jerry: done.

Vijendra: Just to confirm have you installed the cleaner tool on your computer

Vijendra: ?

Jerry: yes. i see a window that has three items: Adobe Creative Suite CleanerTool, Read Me First, and VersionInfo.

Vijendra: Please click on Adobe Creative Suite CleanerTool.

Jerry: done. shall i click on “Clean All CS5-CS5.5″ ?

Vijendra: Yes.

Jerry: running.

Vijendra: Okay.

Jerry: it says “There is no session to delete.” Shall I hit Quit?

Vijendra: Yes.

Jerry: done.

Vijendra: May I  know if you are trying to install the product from the disc?

Jerry: i have no disc. i am trying to download the trial online.

Vijendra: Okay.

Vijendra: Please open the file that you have downloaded.

Jerry: once again, i get this: 7 pdfs in different languages, a folder that says Adobe Encore CS5.5, a folder that says Adobe OnLocation CS5.1, and a purple colored box with Pr on it that also says Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5

Vijendra: Please click on Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5.

Jerry: again, i get this: four folders inside it: deploy, packages, payloads, and a red one that says Install.

Vijendra: Please click on Install and start the installation again.

Jerry: initializing

Vijendra: As we have run the Cleaner tool this might fix the problem.

Jerry: okay.

Vijendra: Let me know the status please.

Jerry: installing

Vijendra: Okay.

Vijendra: Just to confirm have you selected all the products when you star the installation?

Jerry: yes, i did.

Vijendra: Okay.

Jerry: when it’s done installing, i should find the Premiere icon in my Applications folder, correct?

Vijendra: Yes.

Jerry: when i find the icon there, shall i click on it?

Vijendra: Yes, please go ahead and click on it.

Jerry: okay. you don’t have to wait while it’s installing. you probably have other people to help. thank you very much!

Vijendra: I can setup a call back from our representative to confirm if the installation was successful.

Jerry: thank you!

Vijendra: Shall I go ahead and setup a call back?

Jerry: yes, please

Vijendra: Great!

Vijendra: May I have the contact number?

Jerry: cell phone is xxx-xxx-xxxx

Vijendra: Thank you.

Vijendra: Our representative will call you in 1 hour from now.

Jerry: thank you!

Vijendra: You are most welcome.

Vijendra: Is there anything else I can help you with?

Vijendra: Hello. Welcome to Adobe Technical Support.

Vijendra: Sorry for the typo error.

Vijendra: Is there anything else I can help you with?

Jerry: i’m all set. installation is 86 percent complete.

Vijendra: Okay.

Vijendra: In this case I will wait till the installation is completed.

Jerry: complete.

Vijendra: Okay.

Jerry: checking applications….

Vijendra: Thank you.

Jerry: i don’t see it.

Vijendra: Please allow me a moment while I check this information for you.

Jerry: okay.

Vijendra: Thank you for your patience.

Jerry: i see a folder that says Creative Suite 5.5 Design Premium

Vijendra: Please click on Apple Menu on the top left corner and select About My MAC and provide me the information you see there.

Jerry: OS X

Jerry: version 10.5.8

Jerry: 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo

Jerry: 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

Vijendra: Thank you for the information.

Jerry: maybe my computer is too old….

Vijendra: I see that the computer you have is a 32bit MAC that is the reason you are not able to install the product.

Vijendra: In order to install Premiere Pro you need 64 bit computer.

Jerry: oh. i’m sorry i wasted your time. i feel badly.

Vijendra: Not a problem.

Jerry: okay. thank you. bye.

Vijendra: You are most welcome.

Vijendra: Is there anything else I can help you with?

Jerry: no thank you. bye.

Vijendra: It’s my pleasure chatting with you today. .

Vijendra: Thank you for contacting Adobe. Good Bye.

Jerry: bye.

Thank you, Stan Laurel. I couldn’t have said it better.

Now, wait a moment. We can’t end sadly, even with a brilliant silent clown. Let’s delight in the trailer for “The Artist,” the new silent motion picture written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius, featuring Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Kingston Public Library, formerly the King's County Courthouse, where the first of two sessions to ratify the Constitution was held, in March, 1790. (The second and determining session was held in May, in Newport.) Observers are fond of concluding that Rhode Island was the last colony to ratify the Constitution due to an admirable and indomitable streak of poltical petulance. Not so. It's just that the roads were so bad no one could get to Kingston and Newport any sooner. They still are. (google image)

So it was, a few days ago, that I looked both ways umpteen times so as not to get flattened, and made it across Kingstown Road. As I stepped up from the roadway to the sidewalk in front of the library,  my eyes grabbed an object that did not belong: a round iron disk, two and one-eighth inches in diameter and seven-eighths inches in depth. Mottled with rust. Heavy, and surprisingly so. Unexpected and attractive. Must take this home, I thought. I was immediately transported–pummeled, is more like it–to the world of Ben Katchor’s comic strips, a  world where objects small and easily disregarded are made to be the linchpins of the universe.

Ben Katchor, artist, urban philospher, and all-around cool guy (Photograph by Barry Munger)

Katchor’s work is essential, in the same way as is the work of, say, Art Spiegelman, John Ford, and Galway Kinnell. Each compels us to look again at the paths we trod, day in, day out, revealing gateways where the mundane and the eternal intersect.

The sound of trapped air escaping. Is it "Geyser brand beef stew with tomatoes," "sentimental spaghetti with hidden meatballs," "premature pears in heavy syrup," or "unconscious picnic ham in its own sweat"? "The end of my spoon is absent," a character muses aloud, dipping a spoon into a hot bowl of pea soup while crossing the street, "but not gone." (from "The Cardboard Valise," New York: Pantheon Books, 2011--used with permission)

I discovered Katchor’s work many years ago during a long spell when I subscribed to The Forward, one of North America’s great newspapers, and saw his weekly strip, “Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer.” Katchor’s work is the recreation of a lost world even as it is the creation of a world that never existed. It is where our memories of the teeth of escalators mingle with the shadow play of light in revolving doors, where the look and feel and sound of brittle, yellowed cellophane tape on the pages of old scrapbooks collide with the taste of Christmas ribbon candy, where a man in boxer shorts and paper flip-flops reading a travel brochure about Outer Canthus and the Tensint Islands crosses the street to smack into a vendor of used staples.

Katchor's protagonists, including Elijah Salamis--here seen crossing a windswept corner of Kavanah Avenue, on a cold night in Fluxion City, in his skivvies--are eternally bemused yet knowing, open to unexpected discoveries, confident that every detail of the ever-changing universe has purpose and meaning. (from "The Cardboard Valise," New York: Pantheon Books, 2011--used with permission)

Description is useless. Walk, don’t run–no, wait: better yet, amble–to your nearest public library, and request everything that Ben Katchor has published. Seek him out online. Go to amazon.com or abebooks.com and spend your hard-earned money on his deserving art. His work is an endless delight.

Litter and its shadow, made to be more than important: essential. (from "The Cardboard Valise," New York: Pantheon Books, 2011--used with permission)

So. Here is what I found, in assorted, uncaptioned iterations. Okay, one caption.

You have mail.

The great character actor Slim Pickens, left, with actor and singer Rex Allen. The two were paired for a series of Westerns produced by Republic Pictures, in the 1950s. Pickens was born Louis Burton Lindley Jr. in Kingsburg, California. He quit school at twelve to join the rodeo. (google image)

In past years, the rows of blueberry bushes were draped high with plastic netting to keep the birds away. Not so this year, and the birds were more plentiful than the blueberries. The young attendant advised us to pick near the road and avoid the rows closest to her stand. So we did. And, as always, we found that pickers are guided to the rows that have nearly been picked clean. So we looped back around toward the stand and found a row or two that had some promise. But even those weren’t thickly laden with fruit as in the past. It took awhile, but we picked about seven pounds. So good in the morning on Wheaties with almond milk, and, best of all, Nonnie will make blueberry jam.

Vaccinium corymbosum, a summer emblem, seen newly rinsed in our colander. Nonnie's blueberry jam will tease summer through winter.

Slim Pickens. Unforgettable in the final, terrifying sequence of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Perfect casting. This is an earlier scene. (Note James Earl Jones, in his first movie role, as Lt. Lothar Zogg.)

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I was never a Rex Allen fan. But I loved Roy Rogers when I was a kid, and grew to like him even more when I learned of his association with the Sons of the Pioneers. This clip is especially fine for a close look at the wonderful violinist Hugh Farr:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rogers had such a relaxed manner in front of the camera, with a ready, somewhat self-effacing smile. His cowboy hat tilted slightly back from his brow, sometimes revealing a dark Elvis-like curl, moist with perspiration. Well, then: blueberry picking, Roy Rogers, and “nuclear combat toe to toe with the Ruskies.” Go figure.

We were handed an Isle of Jura 10-year-old at the door and were met with this at our tables: four more expressions of Jura and six expressions of Dalmore, including the 1992 Mackenzie and the King Alexander III.

Paterson joined Whyte & Mackay in 1970, and was named master blender just five years later, at the age of 26. He had his first taste of Scotch whisky when he was eight. The glass was handed to him by his father, who also made his living by his nose, as did his grandfather. He recalls seeing his father, silhouetted by a rising wall of whisky casks, pour the golden liquor in the glass, swirl the glass with vigor, then thrust his nose deep inside to disentangle the aroma and identify the strands of its enticing web.

“What do you think of it?” his father asked.

“Well, er, it’s very nice, Dad,” the youngster replied.

“Very nice?” his father gasped. “Is it heavy like your grandfather? Is it light like your mother? Is it sweet like chocolate? Is it dry like the dust on the floor?”

If you wonder where Paterson got his patter, it runs in the family.

The event was arranged by Elliott Fishbein, the hospitable muse of Town Wine & Spirits, in Rumford, and was hosted by Agawam Hunt, the private country club, also in Rumford. My brother Rick and I–we grew up in the Rumford section of East Providence–were joined by my wife Nonnie, a South County lass whose taste is drawn to smoke and peat and salt and seaweed. She’s a Lagavulin 16, if you know single-malt whisky. I’m an Edradour 1o. Rick is a newcomer to whisky, and he could not have found a more profitable portal through which to make his first appearance.

About 90 participants, fewer than ten women, age span 35 to 65 or thereabouts. Nice buffet. Attractive room. Paterson delivered a power-point presentation that was light on graphics and heavy on verbiage. He has the penetrating voice of a sideshow barker and the deft pacing of an evangelist, slowly rising to a grand peak that ends in a humorous remark or a glorious profanity, then letting us down gently to gather ourselves for the next crescendo. And there was always a next.

He knows his history, and when he mentioned a date that was crucial in the timeline of single-malt and blended whisky, he mentioned the month, day, and year. And time of day. And sometimes the weather. After a half dozen such references, we knew they were coming, which only added to the delight at the payoff. The day in 1263 when Colin Fitzgerald, first chieftain of the clan Mackenzie, saved the life of King Alexander III by killing the twelve-point stag about to impale him–partly cloudy, Paterson said with the gravity of a witness under oath. Down came the house.

Benjamin West's "Alexander III of Scotland Rescued from the Fury of the Stag by the Intrepidity of Colin Fitzgerald." Dimensions: 12 feet x 17 feet. Weather: partly cloudy. (Scottish National Gallery image)

When he mentioned Henry VIII shuttering the realm’s more than 800 monasteries, Paterson spat on the floor. A reference to Queen Elizabeth I was met with another volley of spittle. Holding the glass with hand cupped under the bell and taking a quick whiff, he said, “If you nose the glass like this, you’re an asshole. If I ever see you hold the glass like this, I’ll kill you.” When he demonstrated how a Boston bartender once filled his whisky glass with days’ old ice redolent of fish, he violently threw whisky and ice across the room against the hardwood wall at Agawam Hunt.

So we learned in vivid manner the history of single malts and blended whiskies, what gives whisky its flavor (80 percent comes from the wood that makes the cask), how to bring awareness to the taste of crushed almond and burnt sugar and lemon peel, of marmalade and licorice as the liquor cascades across the taste buds, over and under the tongue, so that, as Paterson said of Jackson Pollock’s paintings, “the inner world will be revealed” when you regard them long enough. A wonderful analogy, I thought. “To extract the flavors, that’s what your mouth is for,” said Paterson–in a stampede of neural messages that tumble into the brain and heart.

"Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist)" by Jackson Pollock, 1950, National Gallery of Art. “Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you," Pollock said. "There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was.” (National Gallery of Art image)

Paterson showed us how to nose the whiskey, slowly, with an open mind and a relaxed deliberation, inhaling the aroma and then pulling away from the glass. To rest. Three times he did this, always slowly. Then he took a mouthful and let it splash on its own inside his mouth, as the alcohol and phenols released their, uh, alcohol and phenols, I guess. He didn’t get into the chemistry of the thing, which I’m sure is fascinating, beyond saying that the marriage of water, air, grain, and wood is a beautiful thing. An acquired taste? Of course. What isn’t? And what area of human endeavor and accomplishment is not richer the more it is savored? So whisky works its wonders, and we’re all the better for it.

Speaking of marriage, here we are with Richard Paterson. "Love makes the world go 'round? Rubbish," he said. "Whisky makes the world go 'round--and twice as fast." (Photograph by Rick O'Brien)

At evening’s end, Nonnie preferred the Dalmore Grand Reserva: “As densely satisfying as heavy bittersweet chocolate.” Rick preferred the Jura 21: “By far my favorite. It wasn’t even close. Head and shoulders above everything else.”  I preferred the Dalmore 18. Here’s how the blessed anonymous marketing copywriter characterizes Dalmore 18 on the company website: “Matured initially in American white oak for 14 years before being transferred to Matusalem Spanish sherry butts for 3 years, these unique whiskies were finally married for a further 12 months in upstanding sherry butts. Nature and nurture have delivered a classic Dalmore. Rich walnut brown in colour with copper highlights. A charming aroma of pine, lemongrass, and cinnamon. A galaxy of chocolate, vanilla, Colombian coffee, truffles, and rosemary tantalise the palate. An enduring aftertaste of violets and jasmine.”

A description worthy of Paterson himself. But we cannot say “guidbye” to great writing without mentioning Charles McGrath’s wonderful story in the New York Times Magazine of July 21. He captures Paterson perfectly as he tells the tale of the master blender’s assignment to recreate the whisky that Ernest Shackleton took with him and his crew on their 1907-1909 expedition to the South Pole aboard the Nimrod. Three cases of the stuff were found in February 2007 by a team restoring Shackleton’s Antarctic hut. Paterson’s nose and palate determined enough information to construct it anew. As McGrath so nicely puts it, “And yet the new whisky is also a very modern and even an artificial artifact, the product of science and technology as much as of antiquarian connoisseurship. It’s like a CD that has been engineered to sound like vinyl.”  It’s a fascinating story, told here. And, of course, McGrath is wise enough to give Paterson the last word, as will I, as the Scotsman relishes a glass of delicious Jura Superstition: “Ah,” he says, his eyes flashing with delight. “Drink it with the wind and rain in your face, and it will come alive.”

“Misafire ikram edilecek kadar iyi!”

The Turkish Embassy, presently located at 2525 Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, D.C. (google image)

Say it with me now: “Misafire ikram edilecek kadar iyi!”

Pop “Turkish Embassy” into google images and a few unexpected entries turn up. Here’s one of them, a photograph of the jazz harpist Adele Girard who played at the Turkish Embassy in Washington with a group of musicians including Johnny Hodges and Barney Bigard. Curious. Digging around a bit, I learned that the second Turkish ambassador to the United States, appointed in 1934, was Mehmet Munir Ertegun, the father of Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, two of the most important producers in American jazz, rock, and rhythm and blues. A jazz fan like his sons, Ertegun hosted many jazz performances at the embassy, notable, among other reasons, for being integrated.

The Washington Post has a nice story about the jazz performances, a tradition that resumed in February of this year, in honor of Black History Month, thanks to the present Turkish Ambassador to the United States, Namik Tan. The William P. Gottlieb Collection at the Library of Congress includes a number of photographs taken at the Turkish Embassy between 1938 and 1948, among them this shot of Girard.

Youtube cooperates, as well, with this perfectly bizarre film of Girard and her trio.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s my favorite photograph of Girard, exhausted at the embassy, with 78′s scattered on the bed and a drink on the floor.

Adele Girard, catching some z's at the Turkish Embassy (Library of Congress image)

Turkish-style braised eggplant. The lengthening shadows of a summer sunset make everything look and taste better.

The recipe says to use a vegetable peeler to cut off alternating strips of eggplant skin. Don’t bother. I declined to peel and core the tomatoes, too. Stir in the fresh dill just before serving, and garnish at the table with fresh parsley and a dollop of Greek-style plain yogurt. The combination of pine nuts, raisins, cumin, and cinnamon is wonderful. Here it is:

Turkish-Style Braised Eggplant