We’re back at the Pilgrim Sands in Plymouth. This photo’s from last night and now I’m up waiting for the sunrise hoping for a clear horizon of one the sun can burn off. The above view is northeast from our deck and the overnight guy, who works two jobs, the other in Boston, tells me the rise occurs over there where that spit of land dies into the ocean. You’ll see.
This morning I checked cnn.com, as I do everyday, and their headline photo showed earthquake damage in St. Louis. Captivated, I read on. The center of the earthquake was 133 miles east of St. Louis. I did the math and wondered why they didn’t say the center’s in Evansville, Indiana or damn close. Christ, why not say the center is twelve hundred miles west of New York City?
I thought this behavior more appropriate for a Californian.
I agree with some of what Louise says about Mark and Ginger’s daughter Molly’s latest play “Travesties,†but if I were writing the review I would have donated more page space to the acting, which to our minds (I’m speaking for Diane too), was extraordinarily good. The best we’ve seen in any of her plays. Combine that level of performance with a script that teases history and demands more focus that my brain has available cells and you’ve got one terrific afternoon . And, again, we had close-up seats in a small theatre. It’s been fun riding Molly’s coattails but after this play she’s moving back to New York.
After the play we ate dinner at Addis Red Sea, an Ethiopian restaurant across the street from the theater.
The rakkities are risking a trip to Italy in May. (Manarola, in Cinqueterre on May 9-12, then Pisa, then Sicily and the Aeolian Islands, May 15-22.)
MAY 2008 HEADLINES
May 7. Alitalia airlines goes bankrupt, IATA revokes Alitalia’s license before a buyout can occur. Newly elected Prime Minister Berlusconi promises that his government will fix the situation when he comes into power.
May 10. Repeating the events of December, 2002, landslides in cliffs of Cinqueterre close train line connecting cities. Travelers staying in Cinqueterre’s towns must walk out of the National Park region, following ancestral routes through the terraced vineyards.
May 13. Railroad strikes stop train traffic across Italy. Anti hitch-hiking laws are not enforced, permitting disgruntled travelers to gradually move towards their destinations.
May 14. Tower of Pisa unexpectedly collapses. Unfortunately it falls onto the spectacular Baptistry in historic center. Carnage closes city.
May 15. Alitalia’s flights from northern Italy to Sicily become intermittent. Only flights between
midnight and 4 am on Mondays and Thursdays operate until further notice.
May 17. Mt Etna erupts, pouring lava down onto Catania and neighboring towns, repeating the disaster of 1992. Routes to Syracuse and Ortegia are closed, forcing locals to take boats or roundabout land routes.
May 18. Ever-rumbling Stromboli, highest and most active of the Aeolian Island volcanoes, creates a tsunami worse than the one of 2002, flooding the neighboring Islands, forcing residents and travelers to seek high ground.
May 19. Prime Minister Berlusconi eliminates all Federal taxes. Citizens celebrate with massive wine fests across Italy. Taxis, buses, and ferries become more erratic than usual.
May 20. Air France buys Alitalia at fire-sale price of 25 Euro-cents per share. Alitalia’s pilots and airline workers quit in disgust.
May 21. British Airways workers cannibalize old terminal 4 at Heathrow, while re-constructing terminal 5. Incoming flights from continental Europe are stopped from landing at Heathrow. Connections to the United States fail. Travellers stranded in Europe, some happy, some not.
—————————————-
Some of these events are currently in progress or promised, others having happened in the past. But what the heck, you can’t worry in Italy. Good meals of fine pasta with excellent Italian house wine are ever available, regardless of the chaos.
-rakkity
Hey Michael,
Below is an email from my youngest Hannah that I would like you to share with the blog. You may recall she is over in Lugano Switzerland looking at her first choice school, Franklin College. She’ll be joined by her boyfriend Willy on Thursday and they will continue on to tour Italy. They will start their travels by overnight train to Naples, then on to Venice, Rome and Florence. They are really being quite money-smart about it by sleeping mostly on trains and in hostels preferring to spend their money on good food and sightseeing. I’m very proud of her travel spirit!
I’ll keep you posted as her tour progresses!
Jen’nifer
______________________________
Ciao tutti!
Sono in Svizzera!
Today I went to a town called Benzona and visited three castles there. I think these pictures represent a sampling of all three, but my battery began to die part way through so the first castle is more photographed. There was about a mile straight uphill between all the castles, even taking short cuts. The short cuts were these paths that went between the zig zags of the road, and ended up getting me into a slightly precarious situation.
From the third castle getting back to the Statione, I saw a particularly untraveled path that looked suspiciously awesome and decided to try my luck. In a matter of moments I was lost, standing in the woods next to a chain linked fence protecting someone’s yard and a makeshift grape yard. I stopped to look at the map I picked up at information which conveniently showed me roads and not this untraveled path I was attempting to get myself off of. While studying the decidedly useless map, I glanced at the fence only to find that it was now the only thing separating me from a very large, unfriendly pooch. After a combination of running and tumbling down the hill, I found myself on an identifiable road and managed my way back to civilization, where the only animal I had to worry about was the bird I shared my lunch with. (No really, a bird sat on my table and ate from my bread while I munched the spaghetti!)
I hope you are all having as much fun as I am!
Hannah
Hey Michael,
Below is an email from my youngest Hannah that I would like you to share with the blog. You may recall she is over in Lugano Switzerland looking at her first choice school, Franklin College. She’ll be joined by her boyfriend Willy on Thursday and they will continue on to tour Italy. They will start their travels by overnight train to Naples, then on to Venice, Rome and Florence. They are really being quite money-smart about it by sleeping mostly on trains and in hostels preferring to spend their money on good food and sightseeing. I’m very proud of her travel spirit!
I’ll keep you posted as her tour progresses!
Jen’nifer
______________________________
Ciao tutti!
Sono in Svizzera!
Today I went to a town called Benzona and visited three castles there. I think these pictures represent a sampling of all three, but my battery began to die part way through so the first castle is more photographed. There was about a mile straight uphill between all the castles, even taking short cuts. The short cuts were these paths that went between the zig zags of the road, and ended up getting me into a slightly precarious situation.
From the third castle getting back to the Statione, I saw a particularly untraveled path that looked suspiciously awesome and decided to try my luck. In a matter of moments I was lost, standing in the woods next to a chain linked fence protecting someone’s yard and a makeshift grape yard. I stopped to look at the map I picked up at information which conveniently showed me roads and not this untraveled path I was attempting to get myself off of. While studying the decidedly useless map, I glanced at the fence only to find that it was now the only thing separating me from a very large, unfriendly pooch. After a combination of running and tumbling down the hill, I found myself on an identifiable road and managed my way back to civilization, where the only animal I had to worry about was the bird I shared my lunch with. (No really, a bird sat on my table and ate from my bread while I munched the spaghetti!)
I hope you are all having as much fun as I am!
Hannah
Michael,
Finally, the wildflowers are coming to the foothills. And that’s in spite of two snowstorms we had last week right here in Boulder. (The snow disappeared the next day.) This picture shows the area we XC-skied in at about 10,500 ft the day before yesterday. It’s up above the tunnel under the Front Range where the Colorado Zephyr breezes its way to California. A gentle blizzard dropped a foot of wonderful, light powder while we skied.
Then today, Beth and I went for a hike on snow-free (at 5,400 ft) Marshall Mesa, just south of town, and spotted lots of Pasqueflowers and tiny, pink Moss Campions.
Spring is finally coming to the Front Range foothills, but I’ll miss the snow!
–rakkity
Michael,
I don’t think this new toy is a spoof. The eyePhone may not actually be available yet, but it looks technologically feasible. It’s just what we Beartooth fogies need to identify those mysterious lakes and mountains without fooling around with maps.
I wonder what happens if you point it at yourself? Does it come up with your personal webpage or blog?
–rakkity
Mike,
A couple of weeks ago, Mrs Rakkity & I got back from a circumnavigation of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.  One of the nicest towns we spent time in was Santa Fe which is so full of street art, art galleries, random art, and “revival adobe”, my little camera nearly caught fire. I have boiled and distilled my snapshots down to a few. These are not the not necessarily the best because I selected them as personal favorites, each with its own back story.
After Santa Fe, we hiked through Aztec Ruins and Canyons of the Ancients, for which I also have albums, and I’ll pass them on in due time.
Ed
From the letters to the editor of The New York Times Book Review.
(Travis, please read)
To the Editor:
Pamela Paul’s riveting, ribald and sophisticated review of Mary Roach’s “Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex†(March 30) is accompanied by an intriguing pink portrait of a hypothetical organic molecular entity. Perhaps this molecular banner was meant to represent the pheromonic chemical science behind sex research. If so, with its dozen brazen errors, among them dangling, flaccid atoms, the flagrant partnering of carbons with a harem of five bonds and a menage a trois of oxygens and hydrogens, it was a lesson in aberration. Could it be that this molecule was so captivated by its inclusion in Paul’s review that it wantonly chose to form new, revealing bonding relationships, ones that are simply unheard of in our more staid prudish chemistry?
Alan M Rosan
Madison, J.J.
The writer is a professor of chemistry at Drew University.
To the Editor:
The figure accompanying the review of “Bonk†made me cringe. I’m not sure what its use is, other than to give the article a “scientific†feel. It is the chemical equivalent of stinging together a bunch of English words in random order. Sure, it may look like a paragraph to someone who doesn’t speak English, but for those who do, it is nothing short of atrocious. Please, in the future, have someone with at least a semester of undergraduate chemistry take a look at such figures – any of my students would be able to identify at least two dozen errors in this figure.
Dan Willenbring
Davis, CA.
The writer is a graduate student in the chemistry department at the University of California, Davis.
*****************
I added the editor’s reply to the comments section so you all could have time to ponder what these erudite folks are complaining about.
Adam’s photo from their rental on Bailey Island.
Michael, many of your readers have probably seen the #5 article, about the itinerant island chain San Serriffe with two main islands Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse, but just in case they didn’t (no pun intended, honest – I didn’t catch it until I re-read this), I do think you should publish it or a link or whatever. It ties in with recent discussions.
Jennifer
