Transatlantic

So far I'm on track to read four books each month this year. Today I finished the book club selection for March, even though we won't be able to make the meeting. I thought that I would write a few paragraphs to send along to the book club hosts to share in our absence.

I have not yet written those paragraphs, because I am still thinking about the book - Transatlantic by Colum McCann. When I read Amazon reviews, I was little concerned that I wouldn't be able to follow the plot, but even with the various characters throughout 140-some years, it wasn't too difficult to keep stories straight. The novel's construction weaves the lives of unknown (and fictional) women throughout various non-fiction events that connect America and Ireland. In that way, it kept my interest.

Although some of the language is beautiful, it also calls attention to itself, and I found the paragraphs of details bogged me down. Because there are many characters, the development of said characters had to be minimized, if there was development at all.

My questions I would ask book club would be - what is the meaning of all that soggy ground? That is a detail that came back in various places. Also, why didn't anyone ever open that letter until the end? (This is not really a spoiler, I don't think.)

D-1 Umpiring

Ever since our daughter left for college, H has wanted to continue being involved in softball, so he has been umpiring for the past 11 years. (How can it have been that long?) It started out innocently enough with local rec ball, then travel ball, then older girls. Pretty soon he was working with NCAA and Division 3. We thought it would be great if he could umpire games close to home, like at Pomona-Pitzer and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, or even La Verne.

He does the occasional local game, and I enjoy watching him work when I can. Last night he umpired a game in Fullerton with the visiting team from Tennessee which is ranked #2 in the nation right now. In Division 1. While that, in and of itself is pretty exciting (really, it is!), the downside is that H had to remove the Oregon O from the back of our car. You cannot show favoritism for a team, any team, if you umpire.

Chronicles: Volume One

Picked this book up at a rummage sale and finally finished it. That's how it goes with books you own. They get pushed back in favor of the books that have a due date.

You wouldn't expect a typical memoir from Bob Dylan, and you don't get one. Not one in chronological order. Not one with clear dates or even names (what was his wife's name, I wonder?). Although there is plenty of name-dropping. The beginning seemed to me to be a slog-fest of "then I played here, and I talked to these people, and I went there," etc. That's probably the real reason it took so long to finish.

Once I picked it back up, I got interested in the middle where Dylan actually talks about how some of his songs came into existence. As you might think, no song comes about in the same way. Sometimes the songs you don't think much about are the ones that touch a chord with your audience.

One thing that I particularly admire about Dylan are his lyrics. I seem to be able to write prose, maybe a little poetry, but I feel completely stymied when it comes to lyrics. However, my favorite thing that I ever composed had lyrics which I had to borrow from poets. All of Dylan's songs seem to come from lyrics first, which makes great sense to me.

TEDx

Yesterday in the early afternoon, in front of Garrison Theater, I ran across 10th Street blocked to traffic, two food trucks with long lines and seemingly great activity. Approaching the building I saw signs announcing TEDx talks.

Today I discovered that this all-day event featured speakers on the topic of storytelling. This website lists the speakers and their backgrounds. I have been thinking quite a bit lately about the importance of story (and an upcoming blog posts or maybe posts will reflect that), so I will be checking the web in the near future to see when these talks will be online.

Here is why I was over near Garrison yesterday, watching a movie next door in Boone Recital Hall.

Vegan Spaghetti Squash and Black Bean Mexican Bowl

I haven't posted a recipe in awhile, and last night we made this one for the second time. It's a keeper, so I thought I would share. If the word vegan makes you turn away, don't. It tastes really, really good and fills you up.

You can find the recipe at Kalyn's Kitchen website which has a plethora of low-glycemic recipes. I've made a handful of the recipes, and have bookmarked a number of others that I am ready to try.

This is the recipe that made me buy a bottle of Green Tabasco sauce (which is not too hot).

Musical Gift

This week a former Vista student from many years ago (before I ever lived in Claremont) donated some musical instruments to the school. I was not there when she came by, so I have no idea who she is, but I am very grateful to have these for the music room.

On Art Installation

Some of our book club members have moved from Claremont to LA and live near LACMA. That means that when we go to their place for book club, we stop by the art museum before we meet for book discussion. It's fun to go to LACMA with another of our book club members. He is an artist as well as the Associate Director at the Pomona College Museum of Art. He was particularly interested in seeing the exhibit called Four Abstract Classicists (which includes Claremont artist Karl Benjamin). He was greatly disappointed in the exhibit, however, and this is why. It consists of only 8 works. Only one Benjamin. 

Karl Benjamin work on the left

He also did not like the fact that these two Hammersley works were placed so close to one another. They are not naturally a pair, and the eye needs more space between non-related works.

In another room, he pointed out to us that the new rage is to place art in the salon-style, like it was done back in the day. (Think Isabel Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston.) Here are book club friends examining why it is difficult to enjoy individual works of art when hung in this manner.

Whooping Cough in Claremont

I have not seen anything online or in the Courier about it, but there is a whooping cough outbreak at Chaparral Elementary School. All people who have had exposure to anyone at Chaparral have been advised to get a course of antibiotics whether or not they show symptoms. While this may seem like overkill, this is a highly contagious disease which can take hold of a person for 3 months or more. That's a lot of life to give up.

When I went to get my vaccinations for our trip to Peru they included the Tdap, so I feel pretty safe that I am immune right now.

Best American Short Stories 2006

It's easy to let a book of short stories sit on the bedside table. (My opinion on this matter here.) You finish one, and then maybe forget about the book since there are no cliffhangers. Then, I got it into my head that I want to read one book a week, and the current read would not be finished in time to turn the calendar over. I thought I should finish this one and then be able to hand it over to my daughter who is a short story fan. I'm glad I finished it since two of the final stories were favorites of mine. They were "A New Gravestone for an Old Grave," by David Bezmozgis and "The Casual Car Pool," by Katherine Bell. 

If you missed my post about the book I finished in the first week of February, it's because I wrote about it on my music blog here.

I Hope I Get a Letter Redux

Looking back through my blog, I realize that Valentine's Day is not the huge holiday around here that it might be. That's okay. We usually have a nice dinner. Tonight we are grilling salmon and our daughter brought over some delicious-looking desserts for us. We'll probably watch some Olympics, too. I will also enjoy the fact this this is a Friday night of a 3-day weekend.

For your edification, I refer you back to a cute Valentiney video from Vista from several years ago. You can see it here.

#TBT

It's trendy now to post an old photo on social media on Thursdays. It's called Throw-Back Thursday. I enjoy seeing older photos of friends, trying to imagine what the stories are behind the photos. Since the Claremont USD had our Elementary Strings Concert last night, I thought it would be appropriate to show a photo of the El Roble Orchestra from the 1990s. (The ER Orchestra always plays at the end of the elementary concert so that students can see where they will be playing in a year or two and to get inspired by the older kids.) Back then, Gary Iida was the conductor of the orchestra. He was a much beloved teacher at both CHS and El Roble, and we miss him in the community very much.

Waterlogue

I have been having some fun with a new app that I bought for my iPad. It's called Waterlogue, and it turns photos into watercolors. It has a variety of filters, so you can get different effects. Here are just a few examples.

This is the original photo I took at LACMA in November

The Pantages

In the nearly 28 years we've lived in Claremont, we had never been to the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Until now. I do not know what it has taken so long. We've been to the Music Center downtown, Disney Concert Hall, Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa - all of those venues on multiple occasions. 

So, here is the exterior of the Pantages at the corner of Hollywood and Vine. We wandered down Hollywood Blvd. looking at the various stars on the walk of fame, the people hawking tours, the open-air buses, the sleazy stores, and we asked each other - why would people consider this as a tourist destination? 

Then we walked inside the Pantages, and wow! It is like someone on Art Deco steroids went crazy. My camera would not take very good pictures in the darkly-lit interior, but if you google the theater and look under images, you can see much better photos than I would have taken. I especially loved the light fixture at the very center of the ceiling. 

We saw the show The Book of Mormon, and the production was very good, but despite some very funny parts and good music, it just didn't rise to the top of my favorite shows list. Lion King, Wicked and Sweeney Todd still sit there.

Pitzer President's House

The Pitzer President's House has been under renovation for about a year now, and this past week it appears that the family may now be living in it once again. It was completely gutted and substantially added on to.

February 2013

Part of sign on fence detailing the house history

November 2013 after the fence was removed

Nearly done, Feb. 2014

Voila!

New Housing Development

Here is a photo from the southwest corner of Indian Hill Blvd and Vista Drive. For years and years this has been an empty lot. I know that Vista's former principal, Ley Yeager, had tried to find out who owned the land to see if there could be a community garden on that land. He is a big believer in gardening. Apparently that never happened, and this week a fence has gone up around the lot and a sign declaring single-family homes will be on that spot now.

H.R.H. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn

I could not find evidence of this visit on the HMC website, but Thailand's Royalty stopped by for a campus visit yesterday.

According to her website, the duties of H.R.H. Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn have much to do with education. Thailand has the Royal Thai Scholar program which sends students to the US for higher education so that they may return home to Thailand to help develop their home country. HMC has had Royal Thai Scholars over the years, and HRH stopped by to tour the campus.

I did not get to meet her, but I heard that she enjoyed her visit. Here she is with HMC president Maria Klawe.

The Odds

I am keeping up very well with my New Year's Resolution to not take any more food photos, but maybe I should have also resolved to get back to my book reading since I have managed to finish four books in January.

Maybe it's a little cheating that this recent book is not only less than 200 pages, it is also an easy and fun read. I don't think I've read anything else by Stewart O'Nan, but perhaps he will appear on my radar now.

This charming book about a middle-aged couple whose marriage and financial health is crumbling, take a last-ditch trip to Niagara Falls with what money they have left to see if they can win big at the roulette tables and perhaps save their marriage. I particularly enjoy the chapter headings, each of which tells the odds of something, say, the odds of landing on black at the roulette table or the odds of a marriage proposal on Valentine's Day, which hints at what might happen in the chapter.

Ladies' Night Out

This blurry pic shows how close we
 were to the stage

On the spur of the moment, one of my book club friends emailed some of the women in the group and told us that she had just picked up 5 tickets to Wanda Sykes at Bridges, would we like to have a Ladies' Night Out? 

Of course! We started out at Hayato Sushi for a relaxing dinner (where we saw more book club friends as well as other Claremont folk) before we headed over to the (apparently) sold out comedy show.

If you don't know the comedy of Wanda Sykes, and you don't mind a little raunchiness, you can watch some clips of her on youtube. I had seen her on the Ellen Show a few times, and here is a link to one such appearance about a year ago.

It's good to laugh!

CBS Children's Film Festival

For some reason, the other day I remembered a movie I had seen on tv as a kid called Skinny and Fatty. Nowadays it is so easy to find out all kinds of information with a quick internet search. Up popped The CBS Children's Film Festival with Kukla, Fran and Ollie. This site here has a list of all the movies shown on Saturdays from 1967-1971. I know that I watched many of the films, all from countries all over the world (Including The Red Balloon, the most famous one), but the one that stuck in my head all these years is Skinny and Fatty which is on youtube in its entirety here.

This 45-minute show tugged at my heartstrings as a child when the new boy, a wealthy heavyset kid nicknamed Fatty arrives at school and a poor boy, Komatsu befriends him (and betrays him). The themes of bullying, being new, being different (and not being able to climb the pole) speak to all school children, and rewatching this movie recently brought it all home to me again.