Local time

QUITO, Ecuador -- I went to the local tourist office at 9 a.m. to sign up for a walking tour. They informed me quite formally that tours began only at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

 

No other tours were available, she said.

 

But she added that if I really wanted to, the tour could start at 9 a.m.

 

How sweet.

From the LAL archive

Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 10:17:01 -0500 (CDT)
From: *******@Waisman.Wisc.Edu
Subject: !holafrom spain!

hi so i was interviewed on spanish television
for my scholarship you say
uhuh
not
i was on my way to the real madrid-olympiakis game
at estadio bernabeu-----106000 screaming meshugoyim
about 40000 of whom are in standing room
with flags the size of our living room and constantly
cheering clapping and dancing---they even have a clap
that is exactly like the muskie jaw clap ----except they say
puto de 7$%$7!
listen up sections o and p --they make you seem comatose)

so anyway
here i am and the madrid tv show --interviewing the man on the
streetabout news of the day
grabs me and asks me whos going to win the BIG gane next week
real madrid or barcelona
---now at this time im surrounded by a jillion real madrid hooligans
dancing and singing the real madrid cheer---
so whaddamigonna say? RRRRRReal madriddd!
so the crowd loves me they try to pick me up(one guy also tries to relieve me
of my wallet but the sound man gives him a shove and the crowd gtes on his case majorly --hes lucky to be around )

then the ballooon gets punctured the interviewer (who by the way is
movie-star beautiful) asks me who my favorite real madrid player is
---ooooops I HAVE NO IDEA who is on the team !!!
so i say er well i actually dont know anything about the team
the crowd does NOt like this
murmers of !joder ! and worse aruse
---how soon they forget
i was then lucky to get out of there
more later
hope all is well
love
dad

vive le communisme

vive le communisme

Young communists

festival of l'humanite

i went to the communist party be-in held in paris and it was quite a scene.
there was a crowd of thousands to take in the offerings of 3 days of  discussion, debate, music and this is france after all---food,food,food.

i was surprised by the number of young people who were there as young communists handing out literature and proselytizing for
leftist causes----of course many youth were there for cruising,eating,drinking and hip-hop (not much rock and roll)
there was a tent city for hippy nomads who seemed to be having a good time.

what was very appealing was that each local communist organization had a tent featuring food from their native region
--and of course a local band to sing songs of revolutions gone by.
there was a tent for the friends of the paris commune of 1871----these guys were not quite like our own civil war enactors____they
are serious about the lessons and ideals of the paris commune.

there were many oldsters who are still fighting the battles of trotsky et al
and aficionados of the spanish civil war.

the iconic pictures of che were much in evidence but what blew me away was that
mumia abu-jamal had quasi rock star status---there was a load of literature on the amerikan
so called justice system and the trials of mumia as well as hagiographic references to him
as the latest sacco/vanzetti or rosenberg.
meetings on mumia abu jamal are scheduled well into the fall.

not withstanding michael moore i went to a discussion of health care and found that many seniors were very worried about
sarkozy taking away some of their heqlth cqre benefits.

indeed whenever an audience seemed restless there was nothing better than referring to sarko-fascism to
get a big response from the crowd-----much more than an anti-amerikan remark--which is both because sarko is local and also anti-amerikan
remarks so commonplace they begin to lose their valence.

most people spoke of the amerikan parties as tweedledee and tweedledum.
hollande is not much liked by the communists and their response to socialist party
desires for a united front is the sound of one hand clapping.

Eat kosher in France

Buddhist temple in Paris parking lot

Who's watching the gaydar?

last night's democratic "debate" on lbgt issues was predictably an "i'm ok ,you're more than ok"
lovey-dovey-rama.
but as has happened in previous outings dennis the k. shined.
he says what needs to be said without worrying about tiptoeing around controversy.
he, of course, is insufferable in tooting his own horn but let's be honest---he's a breath of fresh air
among the pusillanimous crowd.

On the beach

whenever i am planning a beach vacation i check with dr. beach's website to see his latest ratings but of late have been disappointed with his rating system.
i dissent from some of his high ratings.
also he retires previous winners from the ratings, which seems to miss the point of finding out which are truly the best beaches any given year.

sitting pretty

whenever i get satisfied that we have the ultimate in advanced gadgetry in the u.s. it's time for a visit to japan.
the toilet seat in my hotel room in tokyo has a console of control buttons that resembles the cockpit of a 747--choices of sprays at various temperatures and warm air blasts are included with a heated toilet seat. there is of course a flush control as well.
the bright lights of shinjuku make times square's illumination seem dim but that's true for several other asian cities such as shanghai as well.

cheney reaction

there are many parts of the cheney shooting story which don't seem to fit with the information given to us so far.
we are now told that one or more birdshot pellets penetrated the chest and "migrated" either into or abutting the heart muscle.
we were led to believe that the victim was many yards away from cheney when the incident occured.
for birdshot to penetrate the victim's street clothes and outer clothes including a padded orange hunter's jacket and skin and tissue between two ribs (it would not go through the sternum or a rib-bone itself) it would have to have been shot from fairly close. close enough so that even in the very short time it takes to decide on a target it should have been obvious that the victim was not a quail (that's why they wear orange--right?).
so what did happen--well,obviously we can only guess---but what happened was very probably NOT what we've been told so far. possibly the gun went off by accident when cheney tripped or got bumped who knows ---certainly not the press or the american public.

now to get to the cheney pr mavens--isn't it interesting that the hospital called the event a heart attack---all the information they gave us actually suggests that the victim suffered a direct heart injury as a result of a penetrating gunshot wound.
no one uses the term heart attack for this type of event. if this happened (as it does with bullets on the streets of dc it would be : victim shot in the heart!).
of course (like clinton's meaning of "is") technically the heart was "attacked" or injured----but the term heart attack is a label which removes the onus of guilt from cheney: the poor guy's heart weakened by age ,stress or bad eating habits wimped out
after an unfortunate accident.

of course all the newspapers and tv newscasters use this line without a moment's reflection-----once again; game,set,medal to the bush/cheney pr machine.

fountain of youth

once again mick jagger and the boys strut their stuff without a hint of arthritic limbs or aerobic limits.one wonders:
drugs,sex and rock and roll couldn't be all that bad. indeed it brings to mind burroughs in his very interesting if demented book -junkie. he argued that heroin was quite good for you.
in any case all this comes to mind after going to a concert by ed trickett--a stalwart of clean ,granola,hippie living
who certainly does look his age ( calm down,his singing is still beautiful).

brokeback to the future

for all you brokeback fans, check this out:

/www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfODSPIYwpQ

bye bye krater

there are some works of art that have an aura--special power to awe,inspire,transform,transfix--elicit an emotional response of pleasure ,surprise,sympathy.

one such work is the head of cleopatra now in berlin---another ,for me, is the euphronios krater which since 1972 has been in new york at the met.

it is now recognized by the met to have been looted from an archeological site near rome and is being sent baaaack. no more krater visits on my trips to new york.

thank you dubya

it's reallly hard to stay tuned to any speech by george w. but all of a sudden last night i heard "switch grass". ????switch grass ---never heard of the stuff, but waddya know it grows right here in wisconsin on marshy land---and, get this can be used to make ethanol as a source of energy. i have a totally marshy back yard--are you getting the picture--first global warming so that i can put in an orange grove and now energy crisis so i can put in a switch grass farm and grow my own fuel.
thank you george!

hyper-major cd

every now and then you hear a catchy tune which grabs your attention and simply won't let go.
here we have much more than a one-tune hook.
run do not walk to your nearest cd outlet and grab: dimanche a bamako by amadou and mariam.

wait til next year!

in an article notable for it's poor timing vis-a-vis beach season the new issue of nature physics has important data on the stability of sand-water mixtures (i.e. stability of sandcastles).
the bottom line: 1 part water :: 8 parts sand.

the gardener and penguins

the constant gardener is one of le carre's less successful efforts. the plot is at times incoherent but
as always le carre's characters are interesting and twisted into knots by ethical dilemmas--i'm
talking about the book --so i am interested whether the film "linearizes" the plot. the book is at the end a scream against the evils of big pharma--i'm also interested in whether the film pulls any of this punch.

what can i say about the penguins----it's a powerful argument against intelligent design.

movie odds and ends

amc has had a bunch of really good films in the past week.
last night i watched" the green years "with charles coburn,hume cronin,jessica tandy,elsa
lancaster and the young dean stockwell. it's one of those family saga poor/orphan/lost boy
makes good after many social/family crises--a bit like "how green was my valley" which no one else in my family appreciates but which i think is one of the top films ever made.

george raft appears in a minor role---as a priest no less--but he maintains his usual deadpan usually reserved for his roles as a gangster.

i almost went to see "flightplan" with jodi foster tonight after reading a very positive review in the daily cardinal but how good could this film about a mother looking for her child in a plane for 2 hours be. interestingly i recently saw jodi foster in a french film playing a totaly minor role
( i mean a walk on character for 2 minutes). it was quite a surprise--after all --she is a STAR.
her french was perfectly fluent (although the character was supposedly not born in france).
i thought of jodi foster because there was a news story about hinckley possibly being released which must be distressing to her whether or not he in fact gets released or whether or not he is now risk free.

our last netflix viewing was "divorce italian style" with the young marcello mastroianni. i hadn't seen it for many years but it holds up well. wonderfully constructed story line and marvellous background music.