Trip to Italy
Our friends, A&M, took the opportunity of her milestone birthday to have a party in Umbria. Half a dozen guests joined them in a country villa near Perugia that rents suites and spent several days exploring the area together.
Janet and I took a long week, ten days in all, and spent the latter half of it on our own in one of my favorite cities, Venice. Janet's expertise with travel bookings paid off by securing for us excellent rooms at the Hilton on Giudecca, which had its own launch to ferry guests back and forth to the city proper.
The good ship Molino Stucky Hilton VeniceOn our way to Venice, we stopped for one night in Ravenna. The medieval mosaics are remarkable indeed; but the side trip was primarily so that I could visit the grave of my grandfather, who is buried there in the Commonwealth War Cemetery.
Wall Street Pillow Fight
Apparently there was a
pillow fight on Wall Street yesterday. I heard some noise, but from 25 floors up it's a little hard to tell one brouhaha from another. When I went out in the evening to meet Janet I was nonplussed to see white feathers in the gutters and cracks of the sidewalks all up and down the block. It seems that the pillow fight is an annual event, normally held in Union Square, closer to the student population of NYC. It was moved to Wall Street this year, presumably because the Financial District denizens are in greater need of the catharsis.
The Old Boys Club is the Knickerbocker
The colourizing of my middle school miseries has progressed considerably towards a nostalgic sepia. Few of my peers at
Upper Canada College, which I attended for grades seven, eight and nine, are remembered with great fondness (although not none). But I've recently discovered that these poisonous little boys have grown up into the captains of industry that we were told they would, and the difference between the idea and the reality is surprisingly genial.
This comes up because I have recently been discovered by the UCC alumni association and consequently opportunities have been arising to mingle with ex-pat Old Boys here in New York. In early February, there was a reception for UCC and Bishop Strachan School alumni at the Canadian consul's residence. And the other day was the annual reception for New York alumni at the
Knickerbocker Club, which is exactly the kind of place, apparently transported directly from 1890s London, that you'd expect to find UCC grads congregating. It has been strange to see people I last knew at age 14, now with thinning hair and jowls; but as I say, surprisingly pleasant.
Eugene Onegin at The (other) Met
My appreciation for opera owes more than anything else to the Saturday afternoon Texaco broadcasts on CBC 2 (long before it was called that), Live From the Met. My mother was a regular listener, and as children hours of opera was a penance we had to pay if we wanted, say, riding lessons on Saturdays (not that I particularly did, but I had a pony-mad sister). When I left home, I found the habit had become ingrained and puttering about my home with the opera on in the background was a pleasant way to spend Saturday afternoon.
So many years after that, and some slight increase in listening sophistication, it seems natural and inevitable that I should take my mother to the the
Metropolitan Opera here in New York. The Met has a special program for
rush tickets, and since I have the time these days, I lined up before the appointed time and snagged two tickets to
Eugene Onegin for $20 each (since these seats normally start at $110, it's a pretty terrific deal).
Mum in the lobby of the opera house at intermission
The MMA with Mum
My mother is visiting for a short period, and we returned to the Met together. This time for the old masters, and while the crowds were considerably more manageable than during Janet's and my visit at New Year's, this was offset by some of the galleries being closed. I didn't bring a good camera, only my phone, but I did manage to add to my collection of
Dogs in Art.
Chris Howard
I made a sudden trip back to Toronto last weekend. A friend of mine, the husband of one of my best friends from high school, fell off his roof while adjusting his satellite dish. For most people undertaking this in February would have been beyond foolhardy, but in Chris's case - as an experienced and respected film industry gaffer (here's his
IMDB entry) used to performing miracles of electrical contrivance every day - I would only have said beforehand that it was perhaps a little unwise.
His wife used the web to tell his friends and colleagues about his coma, removal from life support, and eventual funeral details. With more than 1000 members, the Friends of Chris Howard group on Facebook proved a very effective tool for getting the word out. I don't know how many people there will be in the Friends of Miles O'Reilly, but it won't be anywhere near a thousand.
While many of those friends were in Hollywood and elsewhere in the film world, that many people and more attended the memorial service. It was held in a sound stage at Filmport Studios, and was standing room only.
Chris was a person so warm, kind and gregarious that fifteen minutes after you've met him you want to say "oh stop trying so hard"; but eventually you realize there's nothing forced about it, that really is his personality. Chris's sudden death has been an earthquake event, a revelation that solid things we take as for granted as the ground under our feet are insubstantial and ephemeral. My closest friends are shaken and reeling; I can't imagine what this experience has been for my dear friend and her daughter.
US Airways Float Plane Experiment
You probably heard about the plane that tried to land next to our old place in Battery Park. Quite the headlines it has made here. I went by on Sunday to check out the soggy remains, and found they had managed to get the fuselage hoisted on a barge and were taking their time off-loading any fuel before moving it.
I found myself with plenty of other rubber-neckers to keep me company, including the professional gawkers. I'm not sure what would have made the images so precious to justify the media hanging around for two days, but I guess that's the job.
Trip to the Met
We so rarely get out and trace the tourist culture route in our current city, and that is a mistake as egregious as failing to visit the Musee d'Orsay while we lived in Paris (oops). We do from time to time make the effort to correct our failing, and we took advantage of this holiday to visit the
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Janet is a fan of photography so we focused on some special exhibitions of that art. Here she is viewing some pre-war New York street life captured by
Rudy Burckhardt.
Our friends, A&M, took the opportunity of her milestone birthday to have a party in Umbria. Half a dozen guests joined them in a country villa near Perugia that rents suites and spent several days exploring the area together.
The good ship Molino Stucky Hilton Venice
