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September 19, 2007
September 18, 2007
Derry, Ireland (a wee bit of trip report)
Hands Across The Divide statue (by Maurice Harron) located in the middle of a roundabout west of Craigavon Bridge in Derry.
I shot the photograph through the window of a vehicle wheeling through the roundabout. There are much better ones to be found on the Web. The statue is supposed to portray a Catholic and a Protestant tentatively reaching out to each other in peace.
We had a few hours touring around Derry after our transport set us down close to the walls. John McNulty, the guy walking us about, covered Derry history far past (Siege of Derry, 1688) and new past (the Troubles and Bloody Sunday, 1972).
McNulty had been in Derry in 1972 — although not in Bogside on that Sunday — and had a lot to say about Bloody Sunday and the Troubles. He also told us that after much work and testimony, the results from the Saville Bloody Sunday Inquiry are due out some time soon-ish. Maybe early next year.
At great cost, I might add. According to Shaun Woodward, Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office, “The cash spend on the Bloody Sunday inquiry was £178.264 million at the end of April 2007.” with more costs sure to be added as the report gets written. Yikes.
We took a walk along the walls of Derry, spent time inside the Apprentice Boys of Derry museum,
toured the murals by the Bogside artists
and the Bloody Sunday memorial
and visited the Guildhall before coming back to our hotel for a slightly drizzly picnic lunch on the grounds.
Later on in the afternoon, John Hume joined us and gave a free-wheeling talk about life, the peace process and the universe. He wrapped up his talk by telling us what a fantastic president Hillary would be and asking us to always call Derry “Derry” not “Londonderry.”
Then Hume sang the song he claims should be the American Irish anthem, Danny Boy. He claims the song is a lament of an Irish mother to her emigrant son. Oh, but his is a lovely voice and he sang the song with heart. No dry eyes here as the song ended.
After the talk, he retreated to the Beech Hill sitting room/bar and his nibs and I order up some Smithwicks and spent an hour or so with him and other fellow travelers, chatting in too comfy chairs, helping him kill time before he and his wife, Pat, joined the gang for dinner at the hotel. Man, has that guy seen a lot of history.
Derry was an interesting place. We spent three nights at Beech Hill, but only a day in Derry. (The other full day we had was filled with an absolutely glorious walk along the Giants’ Causeway and the headlands.)
I’m glad we saw the bits of Derry we did. Glad to have heard Hume talk on the subject. Derry isn’t a place I’d return to again and again but I’m glad we stopped there for the time we did. What we experienced brought the history of the place a bit closer to heart.
The history of that region is a sad one. Here’s to the future envisioned in Hands Across The Divide. Here’s to reconciliation.
Between Storms on Flickr
Between Storms on Flickr by Jim M. Goldstein.
I reached Goldstein’s flickr collection via The Best: BRAVO, a Flickr group composed entirely of “world class” photographs (as defined by group members), which I reached from the Diaethria Clymena Butterfly group (no, really!), which I’d been asked to add a photo to.
I like the travel pictures I take, really I do, but whenever I start thinking what grande pictures I take, I’m immediately humbled looking at the really wonderful photographs to be found on the Web every time you turn around.
Take a look, f’rex, at the photographs in the BRAVO group or the photographs on Goldstein’s Web site.
Wow.
My trip photos and trip report are still “in progress.”
Soon.
September 17, 2007
Intellectual bling
In comments on “Stuff,” SourGrapes wrote
TA with all that, but I’d include books too. What are ya keeping them for? In most cases it’s not to refer to. They’re intellectual bling. It’s very very unusual to have a couple thousand books, but that guy forgot to say “in our class of people”.
I keep books I want to look at again. And the rest go off to subsequent readers. Books are made to be read, not to be shelved.
Ouch, pal.
There’s something about books and not just as intellectual bling. I’m happiest in a nest full of books, all that unrealized and unread or waiting to be reread potential.
Yesterday I was rummaging through my stash of travel books, looking for old books on London for someone who’s working on the animation for (don’t spew) A CHRISTMAS CAROL, due out in 2009. (Jim Carrey will be voicing Ebenezer Scrooge/Ghost of Christmas Past/Ghost of Christmas Present/Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. I told you not to spew!)
Didn’t find any, but found some early 20thc. Baedekers covering London and GB, found some old books covering places we’d been walking in N Wales, got sidetracked by a book on Mount Athos. … All that roaming around and a very cozy afternoon reading wouldn’t have happened if I gave away my stash of books. (I am giving away some of the books, ones I know I’ll never need/read/want to see again. But …)
I just love the potential of masses of books, love libraries. I was absolutely blissed out this trip by the Long Room at Trinity College, Dublin.
I was || this close to settling in to help them keep track of the 200K books they have stashed away there. (And Good Lord, they should join the 21st century and start scanning that collection. If that room goes up in flames, a world of knowledge will be lost. Maybe Bill Gates would subsidize the project. I’d volunteer. …)
What a place.
Heaven.
Stuff
A Paul Graham essay on Stuff. (something I know something about)
Another way to resist acquiring stuff is to think of the overall cost of owning it. The purchase price is just the beginning. You’re going to have to think about that thing for years—perhaps for the rest of your life. Every thing you own takes energy away from you. Some give more than they take. Those are the only things worth having.
I’ve now stopped accumulating stuff. Except books—but books are different. Books are more like a fluid than individual objects. It’s not especially inconvenient to own several thousand books, whereas if you owned several thousand random possessions you’d be a local celebrity. But except for books, I now actively avoid stuff. If I want to spend money on some kind of treat, I’ll take services over goods any day.
Comment tail has some added goodness.
via ev
Current to-do list includes
*Clean up old junk
*Minimize new stuff
HUGE Potential as writers’ retreat
Asha’s back. Her blog pics today are of Tonopah, Nevada.
Tonopah. Check it out! It’s not just an alliterative town name found in an old Lowell George song.
And I’ve been from Tucson to Tucumcari
Tehachapi to Tonopah
Driven every kind of rig that’s ever been made
Driven the backroads so I wouldn’t get weighed
And if you give me weed, whites and wine
And you show me a sign
And I’ll be willin’ to be movin’ *
(* as sung not only by Little Feat but also by Ronstadt and others)
Asha noted that the Grand Old Lady of Tonopah, the Mizpah Hotel, is For Sale! [PDF]
Sounds perfect for a writers’ retreat, doesn’t it? Out in the middle of nowhere, halfway between Las Vegas and Reno. Two bars. (for those convivial evenings) Two restaurants. (soze you don’t have to go far to find eats). No gaming license. (fewer distractions for you)
Gutted and rebuilt in 1976.
56 rooms, including 6 parlor suites, all with private baths and thermostatically controlled heating and air conditioning. Fine Brussels carpeting was laid throughout, new stained glass windows were hand-crafted for the first floor and the finest of wall paper was hung on all of the walls. The exterior was given a face lift and park benches and iron lighting fixtures installed along the sidewalk. The old bowling alley and other buildings were also incorporated into the expansion.
On the National Registry of Historic Places. Resident ghosts! Wyatt Earp tended bar here! Dempsey worked as a bouncer!
Take a look at Asha’s Tonopah photos and travelogue.
ONLY $1.5m for the Mizpah Hotel! Perfect writers’ retreat, I think.
What’d’ya think?
September 16, 2007
If I were a rich man … Donald Fisher and the Contemporary Art Museum
Donald Fisher, founder of Gap, offers to build a museum in the Presidio to house his art collection
Gap founder Donald Fisher, one of the world’s leading contemporary art collectors and a powerful force in local politics, has offered to build a sprawling museum in the Presidio to showcase his vast collection, which until now has largely been hidden away in his company’s San Francisco headquarters.
Since Fisher and his wife, Doris, founded Gap Inc. in 1969, they have amassed what is widely considered to be among the most extensive private collections of 20th and 21st century art. Yet with the exception of pieces that are occasionally loaned to museums, much of what they own has never been seen by people outside the art world.
The Fishers, whose retail empire brings in about $16 billion a year, hope to build a 100,000-square-foot museum with 55,000 square feet of gallery space — 5,000 more square feet than at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art — to house their collection of more than 1,000 works.
Donald Fisher, 78, will announce his plan to build the Contemporary Art Museum of the Presidio today at a news conference in the national park.
[...]
If I were a rich man …
The sleepy southeast quadrant of San Francisco is buzzing with activity — first the Ballpark, then the new UC Medical Center and all the accompanying activity at Mission Bay and soon, perhaps, a new football stadium and thousands of new homes at Hunters Point. Don Fisher’s Contemporary Art Museum would be a perfect addition to the mix.
We just spent a day at the Tate Modern in London. The revitalization of the south bank is largely due to the visionaries who placed the museum there. Think of the effect of having the CAM located on our southeast bay shore near Pier 70/Potrero Point!
The T-Third provides public transit access to the location. There’s even room for parking. Some dream of having water taxis operating up and down the bay edge. Picture vaporettos stopping at the CAM en route from the new stadium at Hunters Point to Fort Point and places in between.
There are alternatives to the Presidio for a spot for the Contemporary Art Museum, creative, wonderful alternatives. Build the CAM in our southeastern quadrant, at the edge of the Bay down near Pier 70.
If I were a rich man …
Are you listening, Donald Fisher? There are alternatives to the Presidio for the Contemporary Art Museum. Make a statement by setting the CAM in our southeastern quadrant at a spot at the edge of the Bay.
September 14, 2007
The wanderer returns
It’s very nice to go trav’ling
But it’s oh so nice to come home.
— Sammy Cahn
(The rooms at the Crinan Hotel have lovely views across Loch Crinan to Duntrune Castle. Oh, to be a Malcolm.)