Monthly Archives: April 2013

Tuesday Orts

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I hadn’t heard that Jonathan Winters had died until this evening. I hadn’t known he was still alive, but then again his most recent roles seemed to involve voicing Grandpa Smurf, something I would never have known without reading his obit. When I was young, though, he seemed to pop up on TV a lot without warning.

But that’s understandable. A gig is a gig. As funnymen of my parents’ generation go, he aged a lot better than most.

The MIT Center for Real Estate is a big deal in real estate education. It educates real estate pros and generates some interesting real estate data. Also, MIT is also not known to be short on its endowment. So how is it that the latest thing on center’s web site, under the “News and Events” section, is dated November 30, 2011? How it is that the newsletters produced by the center stop around the same time? Did the person who was maintaining it leave, and the organization couldn’t be bothered with it afterwards? I can see that for a small organization on a shoestring — in which case the site shouldn’t promise “news” — but MIT?

More than 30 years ago, I spent a few days camped out in a dorm room at MIT. I noticed a few things while there, such as that everyone on the hall went to the common room to watch an afternoon showing of Star Trek, and everyone knew the lines. (The original series; because this was 1982, the only series. Patrick Stewart was still just a Shakespearean actor who’d played Sejanus for the BBC.)

I discovered that there’s a major collection of samurai armor and art in Dallas, of all places. At the newly opened Ann & Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Museum: The Samurai Collection. I mentioned that to Ed, who’s familiar with the Barbier-Mueller Museum in Switzerland, and he said, ” If it came out of the Barbier, odds are, it’s better than anything you saw in Japan.”

Another thing to see. But at least it’s easier to go to Dallas than, say, Geneva.

April Mayhem

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I got to know Boylston St. fairly well in 1995. I didn’t walk there every day, but often enough. Part of the street features rows of small, upper-end shops and these days, an Apple Store, though I don’t think it was there then. And I think I remember walking by the Boston Public Library and noticing that the marathon finish line is painted permanently in the street.

We didn’t watch the marathon on Patriots’ Day that year, which is the Massachusetts (and Maine) state holiday to commemorate Lexington & Concord. Rather, we watched a parade on Mass. Ave. in Arlington. Two days later, while at work downtown, I heard about the mayhem in Oklahoma City on the radio. This time of year seems to inspire losers with bombs.

I hear about today’s mayhem on the radio as I drove along today, between errands, in the company of Ann. The only memorable one of these errands was to the pet store we visited last week, to return a brush the dog didn’t like, and buy a tag that could be engraved with contact information in case she runs off. I’d imagined that we’d buy it, and then send it somewhere for engraving.

That was me, thinking old-fashioned thoughts. The store had a laser-based machine that only does one thing: engrave animal tags you’ve just bought, no extra charge. Simple to use, fascinating to watch.

Tiger Hill, Suzhou

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We visited Tiger Hill in Suzhou in April 1994. I took no notes about it, only a few pictures (to the right is the pagoda on the hill). But through the magic of the Internet — very low-grade magic, these days — I can pull up a description that’s a good stab at English by someone who’s first language is something else (some brand of Chinese, no doubt), but ultimately awkward.

The writer’s also probably fond enough of Tiger Hill to write about it in Wiki for the English-speaking world see read about it.

All text is sic: “According to the Historical Records, the Wu King Helu was buried on the hill, called then ‘the Hill Emerging from the Sea’. The legend goes that three days after his burial a white tiger appeared squatting on the hill. Hence the name. It has an elevation of over 30 m. and covers about 49.41ac. Tiger Hill boasts impressive rocks, deep dales, 3 matchless scenes, 9 suitable occasions for enjoyment, 18 scenic spots, and changing scenery at all times. No wonder it has been an awe-inspiring sight in the area south of the Lower Yangtze.

“The Yunyan Temple Pagoda and the Sword Pool are well-known features of the hill. With a history going back more than 1,000 years, the simple, archaic and imposing Yunyan Temple Pagoda, also known as the Second Leaning Tower on earth, stands aloft at the top of the hill, serving as a symbol of ancient Suzhou for years.

“The Tomb of the Wu King Helu under the Sword Pool has remained an unsolved mystery for two and a half millennia. The story goes that the great Jin master Wang Xizhi traded his calligraphy for lovable geese from the Taoist Abbot. And the windy vale and cloudy spring make the visitor reluctant to leave.”

A Dog’s Life

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Some updates: My mother has moved from the hospital to a rehab center. I spoke with her on the phone not long ago, and regarding rehab she said, no, no, no. Actually, she said she found the exercise regimen “boring,” something she rarely says, so it must be so. She never was one for exercise anyway, except walking. And she’s lived to be 87 and counting. Hm.

Our dog is settling into her new routine. Food in the morning provided by Lilly before she goes to school; a walk with me to do her business not long after; a daytime of lying around the house while I work (I move her dog-bed into my office, she hops in and only rises when I do, or when a noise outside sets her to barking); much joy when Lilly and Ann come home, and even more when Yuriko does; an evening walk with Yuriko and sometimes Ann, again to do her business; the evening meal, provided by Lilly; lying around in the evening; and sleeping when we sleep, mostly. Also: visits to the back yard, watching intently while we prepare and eat our food, time with some chew toys, and so on. Definitely a dog’s life.

Been a rainy few days lately, and this seems to have intensified the smells the dog enjoys on our morning walks. At least this morning it seemed to. But then again, dogs always live in an olfactory world we primates can only dimly imagine.

The new dog prompted a visit to a pet store chain the other day, a kind of store I haven’t spent a lot of time in over the years. I noticed all kinds of interesting things. For instance, Martha Stewart has stuck her name on all kinds of pet products. Martha Stewart? Really? Remember, she’s a convicted felon.

I happened to see Titanic recently. Not the big-damn-deal movie of the 1990s, but the more modest melodrama made in 1953, most notable (besides for its setting) as a Barbara Stanwick vehicle. She plays the estranged wife of a wealthy man, played by Clifton Webb. From the get-go I was sure he was going to die nobly and she was going to survive sorrowfully, and sure enough, that’s what happened. Other parts in the movie were played by an astonishingly young Robert Wagner and the unmistakable Thelma Ritter – unmistakable for her voice, but I had to look up her name – who was the Unsinkable Molly Brown, though not using that name for some reason.

Not a bad movie. Pretty good for a ’50s melodrama, in fact. The Wiki entry on the movie is amusing for the long list “historical inaccuracies.” I’m sure if you’d suggested to the screenwriter that the movie could be made more historically accurate, he’d have cast you an odd look for a moment, taken another sip of his whiskey, and gotten back to typing without so much as a word.

New Zealand in my Pocket

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Maybe here or in Texas recently, I got what I thought was a Canadian five-cent piece in change. It was nickel-sized and had Queen Elizabeth on it. Nothing too unusual about getting such a coin, even in Texas.

Yesterday I was picking through my change for quarters and took a closer look at the presumed Canadian nickel. It was no such thing. Instead, somehow or other I’d gotten a New Zealand 20-cent piece in change. I’d never seen one before, not even in Australia, where surely some kiwi coins must end up. A coin’s trip from New Zealand to the U.S. isn’t inconceivable, but it sure is unusual.

The Queen, of course, is on the obverse (seen below at 150 percent). Nothing odd in that. (Unless Yuriko sees the coin. That Elizabeth is the sovereign of New Zealand she finds a little strange.)

The reverse, on the other hand, has something no other coin has: Pukaki. My scan hardly does it justice.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand says: “New Zealand’s 20 cent coins issued since 1990 feature a remarkable Maori carving, as illustrated above. This is no generic image. Rather it is a reproduction of a specific carving of an 18th century Maori warrior leader called Pukaki, who was a Rangatira (Chief) of the Ngati Whakaue iwi of Te Arawa in the Rotorua district. The carving was made in 1836 and today it can be viewed in the entrance of the Rotorua District Council…

“Pukaki came to the attention of the Reserve Bank as a result of the 1984-87 Te Maori exhibition and the use of Pukaki’s image on a particularly striking Maori Language Commission publicity poster. At the time the Reserve Bank was looking for a new image to put on the 20 cent coin, given that the kiwi was being moved to the new $1 coin. The first Pukaki 20 cent coins were issued in 1990. More recently, a gold $10 collectors’ coin featuring Pukaki has been minted.”

The entire article about Pukaki is here. Also interesting to note: the coin is plated steel, which is more common than I realized, and has even been suggested for U.S. 1 cent and 5 cent coins. (And even though advocated by former Rep. Ron Paul in the same breath he hyperventilated about the boogeyman Fed, it seemed to be a serious proposal.)

The NZ 20c edge is also novel: a treatment called Spanish flower, which is seven indents evenly spaced. Why “Spanish” flower? I wondered. Wiki to the rescue (almost): “The 50 Spanish peseta coin issued between 1990 and 2000 were the first [citation needed]  that featured the Spanish flower.” Presumably for benefit of the blind, though it also makes differentiating the coins easier for the sighted.

Anyway, the NZ 20c piece a nice little design. And who knows that the United States minted a 20c piece, once upon a time? Not for long, though. It was one of the great coinage failures of the ’70s. The 1870s, that is.

U.S. Coin Values speculates that “perhaps the coin might have gained a foothold in American society had it not been so easily confused with the quarter of that era.” In other words, it suffered the Susan B. Anthony effect long before that coin ever did.

Sisters in Death

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I know how hard it can be to produce good copy on a regular basis, but you know a story with a head like the following – from the LA Times’ TV critic, which popped up on Google News today – is going to be as ridiculous as you’d think: “Margaret Thatcher, Annette Funicello and the spectrum of sisterhood.”

The first graph confirms the fatuousness: “… a strange day took from us two women who helped a generation redefine what it meant to be a woman… as disparate as their careers and legacies were, they each contributed to shifting ideals of femininity and a modern woman’s movement often as dismayed by its successes as its failure.”

Oh, yeah? I remember when Groucho Marx and Elvis Presley shuffled off this mortal coil at about the same time. And I thought, wow, they each contributed to the shifting ideas of what it means to be a man in the modern world.

This is just too easy to mock. The process of putting this story together seems to have been the following: two famous women just died. Let’s put them together in death! Because they were both women who were, you know, kinda different from each other. Compare but especially contrast. By golly, women aren’t all the same! You can destroy a lot of patriarchal privilege with that kind of heavy insight.

Not that Maggie and Annette had nothing in common. Both were female, both spoke English, both had once been in the public eye, and both happened to die at roughly the same time. But can you imagine Prime Minister Thatcher sporting mouse ears or in a beach movie? (Go ahead, try.) Or Mouseketeer Funicello busting a coal miners’ strike or ordering the Royal Navy to clean Argentina’s clock?

Another story popped up today that I found much more interesting: “Nervous Europe Drives Demand for Dollars,” which was in The Financial Times. It notes: “The amount of dollar cash in circulation has risen by 42 percent in the last five years, with a main reason being demand from Europe, according to a top U.S. Federal Reserve official… The surge in demand for U.S. cash suggests that the world is worried about the safety of its banks and the future of the euro — but has no fear of inflation or default in the U.S.”

A little bit nuts, when you think about it. The euro’s dodgy, for sure. So what do Russians et al. decide to hoard instead? U.S. paper. (A special linen-cotton blend, actually). $100 Federal Reserve notes, to be exact. I guess it really is all about the Benjamins. Talk about talismanic power. I’m hardly a gold-standard crank, but last time I heard, Federal Reserve notes offer zero percent return, which is even lousier than a savings account, meaning that their value is slowly eroding.

Dog Day

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Something new in our house, as of today.

We got her from a rescue organization. She’s a three-and-some-year-old Lab-Bassett mix, they said, and already had a name, though not necessarily one I would have picked for a dog. Since she responds to it, we decided to keep it. In the few hours she’s been around the house, I’ve also called her “dog” and “hound” and “animal.” Not too worry, all are affectionate nicknames.

It’s early still, but my impression is that this dog likes to do what dogs ought to do, namely this:

I’m sure we’ll be taking more pictures, and probably some action shots, maybe as soon as a squirrel shows up in the back yard. I expect her to respond in a dog-like way to that, too.

SubTropolis

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Early April 1999.

Just returned from Kansas City, which has its interests, but I was too occupied to see much of it, except for a “tour” given by an office developer. He knew the market well, and as you’d imagine, liked to talk.

We visited SubTropolis at one point, which is an underground warehouse and distribution complex, created from a former limestone mine, which was dug straight into the side of a KC hill. The former mine space now houses all kinds of goods, plus some thousands of people who work there. One of their big tenants is the post office, which stores millions of stamps there.

Postscript 2013: I toured a fair amount of commercial real estate in 1999, so this description sounds blase, but actually I was taken with SubTropolis, as I often am with places I’ve never seen before.

More recently, Steve Nadis wrote in The Atlantic: “With 5 million square feet of leased warehouse, light-industry, and office space, and a network of more than two miles of rail lines and six miles of roads, SubTropolis is the world’s largest underground business complex… [and not the only one in KC]. More than 10 percent of the industrial space in greater Kansas City is located ‘down under,’ covering about 25 million square feet—an area bigger than the downtown business district. Mining limestone for use in roadway construction and agriculture continues, with additional acreage carved out each year.”

View From the Brackenridge Eagle

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Last time we were in San Antonio, we rode the Brackenridge Eagle miniature train, which makes a circuit through the park of the same name. The Sunken Gardens is near the main depot and the ride isn’t that expensive, so on impulse we went again. Ann insisted on borrowing my camera and documenting the ride. She took some good pictures.

This a (miniature) RR bridge across the San Antonio River.

And the river itself, in its lily pad glory. This point isn’t very far at all from the headwaters of the river, which accounts for its small size.

The unmistakeable branches of a mesquite tree near the tracks. The line brushes up against vegetation fairly close in some spots, and the requirement is to keep your hands (and head) inside the train. It’s a good idea.

Not the most picturesque landscape, but note the Tower of the Americas in the background.

This train’s too good just for kids.

The Sunken Gardens

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I went with my brother and children to the Sunken Gardens in San Antonio last week. It isn’t officially called that, but rather the Japanese Tea Gardens. More about that in a moment, but under any name it’s a lovely place, and a fine example of land re-use, since long ago it was a quarry.

A view from the “sunken” portion of the gardens, looking up at the pavilion, whose columns are remarkable stacks of stone, a bit like manmade hoodoos.

Coming from the pre-spring landscapes of the North, we appreciated the spring lushness of the place. Of all of San Antonio, actually.

At its web site, the city of San Antonio briefly tells the story of the Sunken Gardens, which is part of the larger story of Brackenridge Park, crown jewel of San Antonio municipal parks. “The restored garden features a lush year-round garden and a floral display with shaded walkways, stone bridges, a 60-foot waterfall and ponds filled with koi,” the site accurately says.

I call it the Sunken Gardens because that’s what everyone called when I was growing up, and maybe people still call it that, despite the official renaming. There’s nothing wrong with the official name, since it honors the pre-WWII history of the garden, but I see no reason to change.

This woman took a better selection of pictures of the garden than I had the patience to make.