Commentari

the argentine letters

2009-03-18T08:05:00.000-07:00

1. into the argentine:

we are now into our fourth day in argentina.

the important things are going well. housing and food are terrific. moreover, housing has taken a decided leap upward in comfort and class since we are staying with eduardo and claudia for the next two weeks. eduardo and claudia are friends of jan through her love of the tango.

the house of eduardo and claudia is lovely with a courtyard full of jasmine and the glorious smell of it. it is little bit of heaven. eduardo is a flutist for tango and claudia is an artist, not just for tango but also for marvelous photographs of south american indians. both are wonderful and interesting hosts. they are willing to converse in english or in our pathetic spanish. so we are totally comfortable here. did i say it was also lovely? it is.

there has been one minor problem. i had composed a few pages of email describing the trip so far. i intended to send this to you folks. the composition has disappeared into the bowels of my laptop. so i will have to recreate it. that will take a little time. but it will be done. this will be sent off then. since the weekend is coming, i should have the time. perhaps i will sit with my laptop in a small cafe, i will have one of argentina's wondrous capuchinos, and i will compose. it will happen.

this trip began with the long drive from rochester to berea, kentucky. my ex-student jan lives and teaches there. she has a sabbatical and has invited me to join her for a few weeks in argentina and in uruguay. it is six weeks in all, the first two at a spanish language school in buenos aires.

we are joined the next week by jan's husband bob who arrives for the next 4 weeks. we immediately go to montevideo, uruguay, where the two argentine passions for meat and for tango are completelyt shared by the uruguayans. i will focus on the meat.

the last 2 and a half weeks are spent with jan and bob in the far south of argentina, the region called patagonia where the straights of magellan are and they have andes mountains with glaciers.

i have departed from deep winter in rochester. the temperature was approximately 10 degrees fahrenheit. so it was a joy to find spring had arrived on my stop in cincinnati. there was no snow, the sun was shining and the temperature was near 60 degrees fahrenheit.

cincinnati is an important stop for me since they have three important attractions which rochester does not have. rochester is a desert island of commerce isolated in the financial barrens of the north. cincinnati hums with commerce.

one, cincinnati has an ikea store. i purchased some significant bedding there. i intend to get an ikea mattress from the ikea in burlington, ontario after i return from this trip to south america. i will wait for that opportunity. it is quite far enough from burlington to rochester to have to transport a mattress, roughly 150 miles. at ikea, i bought some wonderful pillows, supports for bed frames, and a nice matress cover. all of these are meant to cure a problem in my current sleeping arrangements in rochester. sleeping well is vital for life.

ikea is a friend to cheap homemaker's and to poor students. it has scandinavian quality at reasonable prices.

two, cincinnati has a whole foods store. i like to buy some of their inexpensive organic products. such products constitute their 365 line, in other words, their everyday line. these products deviate from what chuck mcgibbon refers to as their whole paycheck line. for example, let me make here an enthusiastic advertisement for their herbal mint shampoo. it is nicely priced and smells good. i brought a bottle of it as a present for jan.

three and perhaps most important, cincinnati has its signature skyline chili outlets. chili in cincinnati is not just chili. for example, the five way version has chili, beans, spaghetti (the defining ingredient), grated cheese, and onions. lesser versions arise by subtracting one or more ingredients. three way, four way, five way, it is superb comfort food.

i arrived a jan's house in berea without incident. i woke up the next day to find that winter had returned. but it was a much milder version this far south than what was in rochester. the temperature was near 20 degrees fahrenheit, totally bearable.

the thought of winter returned in another way as we completed the final packing. since it is so far south, patagonia, especially combined with the height of the andes, is a cold place. they have glaciers there. they have penguins there.

i knew it was cooler and still i wanted to go there. what i did not know is that jan and bob had visions of hiking for days at a stretch in the andes mountains,. this would involve carrying lots and lots of gear and the necessary food. this weighs many pounds. sleeping would be in tents on glaciers. in other words, it would be both cold and heavy. horrible! (which is the same word in spanish or in english) please remember that i am a survivor of an aortic dissection! i need to take care of myself at least a little!

the meaning of these revelations was clear, it is that is necessary to pack and carry much more weight. two sets of clothes are required. one set is for buenos aires and montevideo where it is hot and humid. there, people dance tango and eat in respectable restaurants. they still sweat but they expect more formality in dress than is required of mountaineers. light and presentable clothes are definitely required.

on the other hand, moutaineers are well known for wearing clothes without changing them for weeks at a time. this second set of clothes has to be very warm, at least after sufficient layering. such clothes are bulky, and, for sleeping on glaciers in patagonia, tents, sleeping bags, and sleeping pads are going to be required. a stationary body gets cold easily.

after a search in the "backwoods" of central kentucky, i was able to find long underwear for patagonia. the wal-mart had tops but no bottoms. they were made of cotton which is a dangerous fabric for cold weather. sweat makes it wet and cold. fortunately, the metropolis of richmond, kentucky has a dunham's sporting goods store. it had the long underwear made from the superior fibre called polypropelene. so i would not freeze in the andes and on the shores of the straights of magellan.

we were to fly from lexington to atlanta and then to connect with a flight to buenos aires. jan suggested that i could fly directly from rochester to atlanta and join up with her for the flight to buenos aires. i explained that that was a bad idea with the potential for disaster. in the past four years, the airlines have treated me badly. for example, they have cancelled the first leg of flights on international trips.

it was the fear of not getting to atlanta in time to catch the flight to buenos aires with jan that convinced me that it was preferable to do the long drive to berea so as to begin our trip together with jan.

as i said, something is likely to go wrong. i expect that and i can tolerate it. but i prefer not to be alone when it happens.

jan had stressed the importance of getting to the lexington airport at least two hours before our flight. but jan and our driver, her husband bob, were both seduced by the possibility of lunch at an indian restaurant in lexington. suddenly, jan did not think that it was so vital that we insure sufficient time. we stopped in lexington to have lunch at the indian restaurant with jan and bob's friends keela and john. it was a fine lunch. the carrot and raisin dessert was excellent. i did not know that such was included in indian cuisine.

in fact, it did not matter that we were a few minutes late in getting to the airport. it all worked out with just a little more stress than might have been necessary. it was starting out to be a typical adventure with jan pearce. i have been here before and it can be fun if you stay calm.

our arrival in buenos aires occurred without incident. we went directly to the spanish language school to take a test and to start classes. the school was suitably impressed by the mountains of luggage we had brought for the combination of buenos aires, montevideo, and patagonia.

i took the test. my training with the language courses of michel thomas had great effect. michel thomas believes that verbs are the structure and foundation of a language. they are the key. hence, he emphasizes verbs, their persons, tenses, and their endings. we students of michel learn a very limited vocabulary. michel thomas believes that you can get by with an active vocabulary of very few words, especially if you learn how to transform english words into cognates, for example, different into differente.

michel is probably right but the result is that i can usually get the ending of the verb right without knowing any of the meaning. it is very difficult to converse this way. the meaning of words is vital for understanding conversation.

because of my distorted strengths, i was placed in the same class with jan and with two brasilian girls. jan has been 4 times to argentina to practice her spanish. since portuguese is much closer to spanish than english is, jan and the brasilians totally eclipsed me in conversation. i understood almost nothing. on the second day, it was clear to me that i had to drop down to a lower level.

this downward plunge put me among americans, canadians, and a single brit. i immediately moved from being the worst student in the class to being one of the better ones. in the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king. the new class is still total immersion but a lot more attention is paid to vocabulary. i am much happier.

by the way, one of my new classmates is a young version of nicole kidman. she has taught english in austria, is studying wine, and is the daughter of backstage theatre people from the upper west side of manhattan. her father is a carpenter. all i can say about her is: wow! cool and poised, sure of herself with good reason to be. she is beautiful! she is in argentina to learn the wine business. in manhattan she moonlights as a somelier at no less than le bernardin! i will have to ask her if she knows anthony bourdain. anthony loves le bernardin and i can now see yet another reason why he might do so. i can personally testify that, at 200 dollars a person, a meal at le bernardin is worth the price even if you do not get this somelier. and if you do?!

another of my new classmates is a geologist who works at a mine in the far north of canada, just south of baffin island. she is young, attractive, perky, and the only woman in a mining camp with 30 men. her company on these arctic shores included polar bears. for some reason, she is planning to abandon this dream job in order to have a more active social life in toronto.

i worry about the fact that the argentines, especially in the vicinity of buenos aires, possess peculiarities in their pronunciation of spanish. after acquiring these habits, one might not be understood in the larger world of spanish speakers. the pronunciation seems to be the spanish version of a klingon dialect with some harsh sounds which are spoken nowhere else.

for example, the double el and the y are pronounced by argentinos as follows;

the word for she, ella, is pronounced eh sha here and not eh ya as in the rest of the spanish speaking world.

the word for i, yo, is pronounced as in joe frazier and not as in yo mama.

i find it amusing that the spanish word for a retired person such as myself is "un jubilado." i believe that "un jubilado" can be back translated into "a jubilated one." very appropriate!

led by one of the teachers at the spanish school, we took a walking tour of the famous plaza de mayo. it is the home of the presidential palace, the so-called casa rosado. hence it is the location of many political demonstations.

in this location, the so-called madres del plaza del mayo performed their vigils for their disappeared children. such children were of two types.

some young ones were snatched away by the powers that be. they were given up to parents of a higher social class and raised to be ignorant of their real parents.

some were adult political trouble makers or so accused. they were imprisoned indefinitely or forced to jump out of airplanes without parachutes.

jan slandered eva peron by claiming that juan and eva had also forced people to jump out of airplanes. false upper class propaganda! this was done by the military junta who came later.

it is said that the casa rosado, the argentine pink equivalent of the united states white house, is so colored since it was decided to mix the blood of many cattle with the cement. it is appropriate. politicians and blood go together.

our guide remarked that one ex-president of argentina was so hated that he had to depart the casa rosado by helicopter, lest he be torn to shreds by the people. to a citizen of the united states like myself who has just seen george bush leave the white house, this seems like standard procedure. does anyone doubt that, in the absence of permanent security guards, bush and cheney would not live long? if the foreign terrorists did not get them, one of the newly poor and formerly well off citizens of the usa would.

our first three nights in buenos aires were spent in a cheap but clean hotel. all things considered it was a quiet place. earplugs completely muffled the sound of the late night talkers in the adjacent courtyard. life here goes late. dinner is not until 8, tango goes on all night, etc.

i prefer to go home and do homework for language class. there is not muchof it but it has to be done. then one can relax in the evening. but jan shamed me into accompanying her to a so- called milonga. this is a bar where people do tango. after five minutes, boring! some dancers have good moves but many are arrogant old guys prowling around looking for dance partners. some of these old guys are supposed to be the tango equivalent of movie stars, legends in their time. to me, they are chauvinistic old men.

jan also dragged along the two brasilian students from her class. in our broken spanish, we agreed that the tango was not as lively and exciting as the brasilian salsa dances. one of the brasilian girls indicated this with a swish of her hips. it is good way to communicate, equal to the spoken word! i had agreed to stay at the milonga for an hour. our stay lasted almost two hours. jan and the brasilians were totally ignoring me and happily chatting away in spanish. i was lost. in fact, that is why i dropped out of the spanish class with exactly those three. now here i was back in the same environment. loco! typical jan.

by the way, jan tells me that i must not call her "loco" here. loco means totally insane. but i regard loco as a humorous description of the situations jan leads me into. in the words of oliver hardy to stanley laurel, "this is another fine mess you have gotten me into." i am sure that ollie would have used the word loco to describe stan. that does not mean that ollie does not like stan!

it is important to discuss food in argentina, especially when it is very good.

first of all, it seems to a constant in latin american countries that they all have excellent coffee, rich and not bitter. i have had some superb capuchinos here. the capuchino at the cafe tortoni is exceptionally fine. the cafe tortoni was the old hangout of the intelligensia, people like the writer jorge luis borges and the founder of tango carlos gardel. in buenos aires a tango dancer is regarded as an intellectual. it is a curious fact that a dance said to have been born in brothels is so regarded.

jan corrected my understanding of tango. it included both the music and the dance. carlos gardel was a legend as a signer of tango not a legend of the dance. i stand corrected and will endeavor to have proper respect. this is important because both eduardo and claudia fully deserve much respect. and we enjoy staying with them in their house.

the cafe tortoni has many fine paintings on the wall, colorful things done by 20th century artists. i suspect that the artists paid their cafe bill that way. this cafe is a very nice place, lots of polished and varnished wood, filled with busts of famous argentine intelligensia. borges and gardel have the status of being remembered by plaster statues. borges is sitting at a table together with a women writer whose name i cannot recall. carlos garbel is standing next to them and is the spitting image of tyrone power. even the hair is slicked down the same way.

the salads at the tortoni and in other places are excellent. they are filled with many good things. hearts of palm, watercress, and beets are often included. with a little balsamic vinagraite, it is good food based on simple ingredients. it satisfies the defining characteristic of good modern cuisine. i particularly enjoy the cabreze salad, just sliced tomatoes over mozarella cheese and covered with basil. a vinaigrette completes it. each taste is clearly present and they blend well.

it is probably damaging to argentine pride that there is a legend that the tango was danced for the first time in cuba. maybe not. but there is no doubt that it was nutured in buenos aires. or maybe in montevideo also.

tango is like corn. peru and mexico are always fighting over who discovered corn. i think the cubans have long since abandoned their claim for tango. but i suspect you could still start a war between argentina and uruguay over the rights to claim origin. after all, many wars are fought over the claims of stranger religions than tango.

i should return to the subject of food. the great anthony bourdain came to argentina and to uruguay. he loved both cuisines. they are very similar. anthony loves grilled meat, both steak and pork.

argentina is famous for its beef. i happy to report that i have now sampled two kinds of steak. the chorizo is similar to a ribeye and is my current favorite. the loma is a loin and seems similar to a sirloin. argentine beef is grass fed, not finished up in feed lots as in the usa. it is therefore more tasty and with more substance. it is not tough but these cattle do have to walk around to eat. they lead a full life in the open air. they grow up to be tasty. then they are slaughtered and eaten. as long as you are at the top of the food chain, life is as it should be.

the local wine called malbec is a rich red, full bodied and quite sweet for a red. i found it very nice.

i like the beer here even better. one local beer is called quilmes. served cool. it is crisp and the perfect accompaniament to steak. and it comes in a bottle of enormous size. not a bad thing at all, but be careful and ready to drink your full. otherwise, specifically request a small bottle, uno individuale.

it is worthwhile adding that they have excellent pizza here, the thin crust kind called a marguarita or perhaps a cabreze with some basil. it is the influence of the early italian immigrants.

well, that is all for now. i finished this before the weekend actually starts. marvelous! jan and i plan to visit the cemetery where evita is buried.

stay warm up there,

joe n

2. mainly evita

hello again from the argentine.

today jan and i made a pilgrimage to the tomb of evita or eva peron. fittingly, it is the number one tourist destination in the city. the people who loved evita bring flowers to her every day even after all these over 50 years. the crowds and the cramped situation with the other lesser tombs make it difficult to get a good photograph of her tomb. they should clear out the space taken up by the surrounding other tombs! evita deserves the respect. she is after all bay far the greatest lady in argentine history.

i am reminded of the grave of el cid in the cathedral in burgos, spain. he had to share honors with bishops whose names have long since passed from history. just as in the case of evita, relatively worthless temporary wealth and social position get locations in death equal to the immortals!

evita's tomb is in the most exclusive cemetery in buenos aires. sadly, evita would not be happy with this location. she should be among the people, together with her husband and such luminaries as the iconic tango singer carlos gardel. they are in the poorer people's cemetery which was filled with the victims of a yellow fever epidemic.

it seems to be the fault of evita's family that she is where she is. her family were social climbers who wanted a family tomb in a socially impressive location. so her brother who outlived her gets to be there too.

as you may know, the body of evita was spirited off to europe by the oligarchs,the army representatives of her rich enemies in the upper classes. they wanted to totally annihilate evita's influence. eventually, they were forced to return evita's body to her husband juan peron who was in exile at the time in spain. juan eventually brought the body of evita back to buenos aires. her body is safely entombed well under ground, protected from both her enemies and the people who love her. i suppose that the grave needs to be secure so that no one can dig her up. depending on their politics, they might either vandalize the body or follow evita into battle with the oligarchy.

herein argentina, evita has the same status as a saint in the middle ages. relics are powerful and have to be protected. one good thing about evita is that she still stirs up controversy. she is both loved and hated.

think of evita as a combination of saint iago and saint francis, with a bit of saint joan thrown in, a saint who is both a warrior and a source of miracles of kindness. upon reflection, i am surprised that the oligarchs did not burn evita's body. they did it with joan and for the same reason. saint iago shows us that the miracles of god are great and that even a long lost body can lead a people to victory, in his case, against the moors, in evita's, against the oligarchy and for the lower classes!

i will have to do more research to find the truth about evita. i am beginning to suspect that evita is still being slandered by the argentine equivalent of the supporters of george bush. the rhetoric against evita seems very similar to the republican party rhetoric against the democrat party. there is much anti-union sentiment in it. i have learned to be suspicious.

her enemies call her a fascist. what does that mean? does it mean merely to create social programs benefiting the unfortunate? the oligarchs know well how to coerce others to get what they want. if you have to bruise a few feelings or gently bang a few heads to get some benefits for the poor, what is wrong with that? read on, you will see that it is not evita who was the truly violent one!

tomorrow, my second week of spanish class begins. they have promised me that jan and i will both have morning classes. this is important so that we both can use the afternoons to see the sites which are only open then. i fear that this might mean that jan and i will be back in the same class. this would be acceptable only if the teacher is not the same that we both had when we first arrived. she was a bad teacher who was totally oblivious to whether or not her students understood a word of conversation.

it would also mean that i must part with my fair nicole kidman look alike who works as a somelier at le bernardin. a unavoilable tragedy!

doris and john harper tell me that they remember beef in argentina as being so tender you could cut it with a fork. i have not yet found such beef. perhaps it is a myth. or perhaps it refers to the roasted or braised beef which is that tender.

after all, you can make most any beef that tender by braising it long enough. it is too easy that way. but i think that the myth must refer to a grilled beef, an argentine version of the japanese beef called kobe. kobe beef is worth its weight in gold and it costs just about as much.

a fellow student tells me that he has found such beef in a restaurant called cabrera and it is only 70 pesos, roughly 23 dollars, a portion.

eduardo tells me that any beef at 70 pesos a portion is "highway robbery." he tells me that no real argentino would ever bother to massage a cow in the manner that the japanese have to do to create kobe. but, by japanese standards, a price of 70 pesos per portion would be cheap.

tomorrow, after the morning language class, our plan is to go to the zoo to see the native argentine wildlife. we will know what penguins and guanacos look like when we see them.

the zoo is next to the museum of evita. jan tells me that i will like it there she says it is filled with much pro-evita propaganda. as it should be! it is a new museum and i regard it as a "must see."

by the way, i am pleased to say that, even though my worst fears have come true and i have indeed been asigned to the previously cited "bad teacher's class" , either she or i have vastly improved. now i am actually understanding much of the conversation in the class and i can withdraw my threats to demand my money back.

this morning there was a demonstation that closed the metro or subway. the train stopped halfway to school, we all got off, and a nice fellow kindly gave us directions down the street called rivadavia for the walk of the remaining 15 or so blocks to school. argentines being the way they are, we were still the first persons, teacher included, to arrive in class.

jan has remarked that she would prefer that this demonstration not lead to a coup white we are here. she feared that there was a real danger in my sarcastic remarks helping that to come about. all i said was that the federal forces should deal harshly with anyone who stops transportation and inconveniences us tourists and serious language students.

i think i said something about sending in federal troops armed with clubs. jan suspected that the demonstrators were prepared to respond with guns. she was paranoid. there was absolutely no evidence for that!

jan is remarkably considerate of argentine sensibilities. i continually inflict horror upon her with my amusing observations of argentine character. the argentines are a proud and touchy lot. jan did not like it when i found in her guidebook the latin american saying that "the argentines are the only people who can commit suicide by jumping off their own egos." true enough.

jan is remarkably polite, stange, she was never known for that. she is known for her honesty and forthrightness. age is mellowing her.

jan lives in fear of argentine english speakers hearing my sacastic remarks. when i make them, usually not in anybody else's hearing, she just looks as me with a strained smile on her face. she was never like this before. what has happened to her? has this chauvinistic culture and her love of tango intimidated her. it has certainly not tempered her views on american politics. but on those of argentina?

my laptop gave me a scare. it became quite hot, turned itself off, and would not turn itself back on. it demanded a cooling off period. then it was fine. jan tells me that i should not keep it plugged in all the time even if it is turned off. the voltage here is twice that in the states and, even with a transformer, this system was not made to tolerate that. of course, jan's primary concern is that i am wasting little dribs of electricity. rather than impoverish the earth, i will ration the time i keep the computer plugged in.

a complete shutdow of the computer would have made it very difficult to continue these emails i write. i could do so by writing the emails out by hand and then transcribing them quickly into another computer for sending. but i am happy that i do not have to descend to that level of difficulty.

today after language class jan and i took the metro and journeyed to the museum of evita.

just before finding the museum, in front of the zoo, we had lunch at a place which was a buffet whose clientelle were clearly all locals. it had a parilla (grill) on which various interesting meats were being grilled. i chose pork and was presented with a choice of a chop and some ribs. i chose the chop. the grill man had run out of plates and had to wash one just for me. although i did not see that he had access to any hot boiling water, he must have done a good job since my stomach feels happy.

anyway, the chop was delicious together with a sweet spiced marinade, vinegar based.

in addition, jan was happy. the selection of salads was fresh and appetizing, simple, crisp, and good. i liked it too. the other vegetables like eggplant and potatos, a choice of mashed and fried, were excellent also.

but the green melon was the star of the lunch. it was the very best i had ever had, naturally sweetened on the vine, just right.

my observation is that the common people of buenos aires eat very well, from the meat grilled right in front of you, beef and pork, all the way to the staple vegetables, the melons, and the flan for dessert. our place was clearly the best all-you-can-eat place i have ever visited.

from there, we proceeded over to the museo evita. the museo is in the building which used to house her charitable foundation. we paid our entrance fee of 12 pesos and began our tour of enlightenment.

the tour began with a film of evita's buriel. the museum set the film to a haunting modern tango music, sort of a tango version of mozart's requiem mass.

there were many photos of the young evita. there were selections of her film work. she was on her way to being a star. as one might expect from the 1930s argentine film industry, the acting was rather melodramic. evita was not a bad actress but her performances were often rather too formal. but such was the style at the time and, as the song says, evita always had style.

i took out my camera and snapped a photo of a dress that evita had worn. the guard gently chided me that this was not permitted. i was genuinely sorry. he did not confiscate my camera. he smiled. he made no threat to do so. so i have this one picture.

there were films, propaganda and news, of the work of evita's foundation. her foundation supported orphanages, old people's homes, homes for battered or displaced women, health care, and what we would call social security. i thought i was listening to the 1930s and 1940s programs of the democratic party in the usa. this was called fascism by the oligarchy!

the more things change, the more they stay the same!

there is a lot of room for corruption in private charitable foundations. it would be surprising if there were none in evita's. i do not know. what i do know is that she did a lot of good before she died at 33, worked long hours and helped a lot of people. the right winger oligarchs who opposed her only wished to destroy her programs without replacing them by anything better. they eventually succeeded and one result is that we see poor little girls and boys begging for food money on the subway.

more and more, it looks to me that these argentine oligarchy and the military who opposed her were the argentine equivalent of the rush limbaughs and dick cheneys of today. they were the representatives of the dark side.

evita seems like a more forceful and tougher south american version of eleanor roosevelt. in case you don't remember, the right wingers in american hated eleanor too. such are good at hating.

when evita died, the military stole her body. they transorted it to milan, italy and buried her secretly under a false name. years later, when her body was returned to juan peron in spain ant thence to buenos aires. she had been well embalmed and that her hair had grown to be long and lush. but her nose was broken, her face was cut, and her toes had been amputated and the wound sealed with tar. it was rumored that liberties had been taken.

the oligarchs do not even respect the dead.

to hear the voice of evita speaking to the people when she knew she was dying is to recognize the phrasing and the diction. the broadway play got its lyrics, its heart and soul, from the original.

in the song of thepaly, evita is telling the people: all through my wild times, my sad enchantments, i kept my promise, don't keep your distance. the emotion and cadence were there in the historical reality.

i am impressed by this lady evita. she bears a striking resemblence to my financial advisor and former skating buddy, kathryn owellen. they are both good looking in the same fresh faced way. there are signs that the current financial crisis may bring out more agreement in kathryn with evita-like policies!

the facts about evita can be transformative. i am pleased to report that jan has reevaluated her position on evita. jan now concedes that evita's museum is a suitable educational experience for the next trip jan leads of berea college students to argentina. of course, the primary purpose of such trips will remain tango. jan is both sensible and a silly rabbit!

after leaving the museum it was too late and we were too tired to visit the zoo. argentine wildlife remains a mystery to us.

we descended into the rush hour metro, packed ourselves onto a sardine can of a train, and found our way back home.

near the house of eduardo and claudia we discovered a large enclosed market where we bought salads to eat at home. as usual, the fresh ingrediants were excellent with just oil and vinegar. so the subways are a problem but, on the whole, argentina functions well in the important things.

best wishes,

joe n

3. buenos buenos aires

today was the last day of spanish language school. this school believes in what john harper calls "the lake wobegone way of education." harper's statement that all students were above average now has a wikipedia reference. i can testify that it was john harper who invented the terminology. he did so in a faculty senate meeting on grading policy, specifically addressing the elimination of grades in the freshman year.

in language school, we all, without exception, received certificates of accomplishment in the study of spanish. whether we could actually speak and understand spanish was not an issue. the wizard of oz had certificates for us all.

on the last day, our teacher emphatically informed us that the compound past tense, such as "we have learned", is used in all the rest of the spanish speaking world, even in chile, but never, never used in buenos aires. she said they, the portenos, were proud of this fact.

in the afternoon, jan and i went to the museum of carlos gardel located in the house in buenos aires that he shared with his mother. there we watched a bit of an old 1930s film starring the iconic tango singer. it was filled with the actors saying lines in the compound past tense!

before visiting the carlos gardel museum we stopped at the huge and fancy abasto shopping mall. while there i had a wonderful tenderloin steak in the food court. the steak and its accompanying salad were both terrific. the steak was accompanied by a marvelously garlicy pesto sauce. the cucumbers in the salad were sweet and crisp. it was a very pleasant lunch. it proves that, if food courts have charcoal fired grills and fresh ingredients, they can serve excellent food.

by the way, this food court had the world's only kosher mcdonalds outside of israel. it was closed at the time so we did not get to ask jan's question concerning whether or not a kosher cheeseburger could possibly exist. since jan is a vegetarian, she did not actually want one. it was a theoretical question.

according to the omniscient wikipedia, the kosher mcdonalds serves no dairy at all. problem solved! but you can get a quarter pounder with cheese at the regular mcdonalds in the same food court.

there are three advantages to being done with spanish language class.

one, we do not have to get up at seven in the morning.

two, we do not have to ride the rush hour metro. we are packed in like sardines. there is no need to hold onto a strap. you are totally supported by the crush of people. you get very hot and tired. the close packing also insures that there is very little air circulation. it is an aspect of argentina, the humidity, the steam of it, especially of buenos aires. when you consider how rats behave under similar circumstances, the portenos, the citizens of buenos aires, behave very well. they endure much with no complaint.

three, we might actually have more time to see the sights of buenos aires. further possibilities include the famous race track, the mysterious "evita city" which walt disney may have used as a model for a part of disneyland, and of course one or two famous parillas or meat grills.

evita city may or may not be the same as evita's children's city. the internet is confusing on this. evita's children's city was a small scale model in which children could be free and learn to govern their lives. that is what i would really like to see.

at our local parilla last night, i ordered three good things, all of them grilled.

i ordered a chorizo sausage, not to be confused with the rib eye like steak of the same name. it was red and spicy like the portuguese version, sort of a cross between polish sausage and pepperoni. a good thing and michelle would have liked it. they also have a thinner version which must be identical to the portuguese.

i ordered morcilla, a blood sausage which is more of a blood pudding. you squeeze it out of its skin and indulge in the soft tasty purple mooosh. my mother was fond of a similar german version. although you boil the german version and you grill the argentine one, the taste, the color, and consistency turn out much the same.

the third order, that of mallejas, was the star. mallejas are sweetbreads, the thymus glands of lamb, beef, or pork. they are what the french call ris de veau. as the name indicates they are sweet tasting, not bitter at all. these were excellent, grilled with just the addition of some lemon juice. the french usually prepare a sauce for them and that is certainly the very best way to go. but this simple grilling with lemon is very good indeed. i intend to return for more.

my understanding of the argentine parilla grows. it is grilled meat in all its forms. the core is beef, as chorizo or ribeye, as lomo or tenderloin. important alternative meats are pork, as chops or ribs, sausage as chorizo or morcilla. lamb and even goat are grilled. rivaling the world of beef are the superb sweatbreads, mallejas. i have not yet sampled forms of grilled chicken or fish. i still have to explore cuts of beef like vacio or flank steak, and the tenderloin that is ojo de bife, short ribs, asado de tira or costillas. but these are not central issues and i feel that i can walk into a parilla now and know how to eat well in various ways.

our lady professor in spanish class told us that the classic expression of an argentine male when an attractive woman walks by is: "que lomo!", literally, "what loins!". since beef and tango are the two major religions in argentina, this can be interpreted as pure male chauvinism based on lust, that is, "what a piece of meat she is!", or as a sincere form of worship based on the use of the legs as powerful instruments of dance in the tango. in tango, the woman's legs are often entwined with those of a man. so either way, there is a great deal of lust involved.

there is the strut of a man and the allure of a woman. like roosters and hens. tango.

argentina is a culture of steam. sometimes the steam is repressed. until it explodes. sometimes it is right out there from the beginning. it is in the sex. it is in the politics. in the demonstrations in the plazas.
in the impulsiveness of che guevara. it is in the anger. steam is near or on the surface in all things. steam is in evita, in deep, mysterious, active, and powerful evita. full of bite and good works, a medieval light that shines on in life and in death. evita is tango combined with religion. she is beef. because like che she worked so hard. the long hours, for the poor and for social justice. for argentina. evita is at once the lamb and the beef of god. plus his bite. that is life, that is tango. that is evita.

4. fascists and such

hello from buenos aires:

jan convinced me to accompany her on a bus ride to the airport. her purpose was to test out the idea of going on tuesday to meet her husband bob's plane. she must leave the house at 5:30 in the morning. at this hour, she will do this alone. the cost of a bus will 66 cents compared to a 20 dollar taxi ride. i will be sleeping.

i was lured into this test bus ride by the prospect of catching a glimpse of cuidad evita, evita city. evita city is a housing development just three kilometres from the international airport of buenos aires. it is not the so-called children's city of evita. this may no longer exist.

evita city is a bright and shining planned community laid out on a large property in the shape of evita's head. okay, this part is bizarre! but it is a clean community with lots of fresh white paint. it is a classic example of urban planning from the 40s, reminiscent of the planned communities of paul goodman. it looks like a nice place to live.

in the spirit of evita, it possesses a large white church with mosque like spires.

evita city is thus a successful example of government planning for the housing of the working class and the poor. when the military dictatorship took over from peron, they renamed the community after some nondescript general. to be expected! but the people always called it evita city and now it again has its proper name.

i am moved to speculate on the nature of south american government. these governments are almost always authoritarian dictatorships.

the dictatorships come in three types. all three abuse the people by censorship, jailings, and killings. all three fill the pockets of the ruling class, more or less. the question is: do any of them do any good at all? and for whom?

there is the dictatorship for the rich. this form is the sort that the united stated usually supports. it is characterized by an economy unfettered by restraints and corrupted by forms of cronyism, either local or international. the elite is smug, convinced of its moral superiority over the common people. a form of divine right is taken for granted. this form of government does little or nothing for the poor. but large profits can sometimes be made in international trade to the benefit of a small group, often those with links to multinational corporations.

this sort of government can be instituted or furthered by the so-called "shock doctrine" described by naomi klein. some shock hits the society, either by intention or accident, and the frightened masses are stampeded into giving up their political and economic rights. this is what happened in chile under pinochet and in russia under yeltsin. it helps to have disciples of the late milton friedman in place to grease the the process.

an attempt to approximate this sort of government occurred in the bush administration after 9-11.

there is the dictatorship of the left, so-called socialism or communism. this form is opposed by the united states. it seeks government ownership of the means of production. the united states regards this as the ultimate sin these days. it is characterized by inefficiency. it is totalitarian, attempting to shape all views. it represses the rich and expropriates foreign ownership. it tries to foster social programs which benefit a broad class of people. the capitalist powers usually attempt to isolate and cut off these nations. cuba comes to mind. venezuela is innoculated by the possession of oil. the united states has made attempts to overthrow both of them.

to a large extent the united states opposition to left wing dictatorships is a legacy of the cold war. such dictatorships were the natural allies of china and russia, strong and powerful enemies of the united states. with such allies came an insulation from western capitalism, both from its benefits and its exploitations.

there is the dictatorship called fascist. during and just after the second world war, the united states was opposed to this form. but with the anticommunist realignment, it is not opposed now. fascism seeks a corporate union between the state and capitalism. it is characterized by ruthless efficiency and also by glorification of the leader. it makes the trains run on time. it is deeply flawed by its power to crush opposition. in germany but not in italy, it led to mass murder.

the argentine form of fascism, peronism, was economic nationalism based on peron's admiration of benito mussolini. it had no racist component. jews were safe in argentina and prospered and multiplied there. it never resorted to systematic organized violence or dictatorial rule. it stifled the opposition by its resounding electoral victory and by its contempt for the elite who it accused of being traitors and agents of foreign powers. it nationalised broadcasting, controlled the unions, rationed newspaper print, shut down the national newpaper, la prensa, and jailed an opposition leader. these are heavy handed totalitarian tactics to be sure.

but it instituted programs for the common people. it built evita city, sent kids to summer camp, instituted a social security system, created shelters for lost women, old people's homes, and a system of national health care.

in other words, it shares many of the characteristics of the new deal. that must be why some writers describe peronism as a leftist form of government. it is all so confusing!

evita herself used her power to slight those who had slighted her. financial corruption was not unknown to her or her favored brother. she spent lavishly on herself, on jewelry, on clothes. evita's self beautification was not hidden. it was a political tool. the people lapped it up just as they do today with celebrities. evita was a star!

but she worked so hard to do good for the people. her genuine commitment to good works is the thing which justifies her. that is the thing which is missing in the play and movie about her. yes, her people adored her, lived through her, and forgave her much. but, not for nothing was she regarded as a saint. at her core, she was a genuine force, a bright, shiney, tinsely force, like a hollywood star who works hard for good things.

evita was not a force like che in fatigues in the jungle. she was not like fidel. she was not a self-effacing force. she was a self-aggrandizing force, for the people.

by his brutal racism, hitler gave fascism a permanent stain. always remember though that the democracies did not fight him for this reason. they fought along side the soviet union in order to contain aggressive war. aggressive war was the primary crime at the nurenburg trials.

after the war, it was impossible to ignore the evidence of nazi barbarism.
this barbarism was not however a defining characteristic of all forms of fascism.

by south american standards, fascism was not the worst form of government. they have seen far worse. they still do.

of the three forms of dictatorship, the communist and the fascist form seem to benefit more people. the dictatorship of the rich, that is oligarchy, it benefits only a small number. all forms of dictatorship, whether friends or enemies of the united states, suppress liberty.

the people of latin american have been hurt by the sacrifice of their economic interests. riches such as coffee in columbia and brazil, minerals in peru, bolivia, and argentina, fruit in central america, and, until recently, oil in venezuela, and oil in mexico have been sacrificed on the altar of international capitalism in the service of the so-called democratic powers.

now the united states is focused on opposition to any leftist form of social justice, at home or abroad. at home our senators object to the tyranny of requiring companies to accept caps on executive pay in return for the gift of government money. these senators never had an objection to capping earned income in welfare cases! this is the hypocrisy of fundamentalist free market religion in economic thinking.

political corruption is not absent in united states democracy. it never has been. in recent times, witness the financial corruption of cheney. witness the care and financial feeding of the underachieving fratboy, george bush.

witness the new revelations concerning the magical process whereby ex-senator dashle, with nothing but insider knowledge to sell,succeeded in maintaining a lavish lifestyle. witness the fact that obama was willing to appoint dashle to a key position influencing the economic destiny of health care in the united states. obama was willing to ignore the obvious and well known fact that dashle was the husband of a major lobbyist. since dashle sleeps with shit, he cannot wake up smelling like a rose.

witness bill clinton feasting off his connections with fatcats, foreign and domestic. he too crawled up the social and political ladder as did evita. he too worked very hard. has he done as much good as evita? i don't think so. that was not bill's focus.

recall the wisdom of mark twain: "the only congenitally criminal class in the united states is the united states congress." americans should be careful before they throw stones at evita and her foundation.

i have had a revelation. there is a permutation of the qualities of bill and hillary clinton which will give you a faint approximation to the combined qualities of juan and eva peron. but, of course, without eva's style!

jan and i returned by bus from the airport. we went to the neigborhood of buenos aired which is called la boca. la boca is located at the mouth of a smaller river which empties there into the immense rio de la plata. it is a port neighborhood with an artist colony. at an outdoor stall, i bought my second belt of argentine leather. in spanish, i had a pleasant conversation with the seller.

la boca was the first time in argentina that i felt i was in a tourist town. there were restaurants with tango singers and tango dancers. we choose one with a group which also included flamenco and gaucho dancing, a nice loud stomping while twirling bolas.

jan and i shared some beer. jan ordered a russian salad. she had hoped for beets but it turned out to be a nice potato salad. i ordered mussels a la provence. this was just mussels with lots of garlic, parley, and wine. no tomatos, which i think is standard in mussles provencales. but very nice. my favorite remains the mussels marinieres which leaves out the garlic. at home or in a parisien brasserie, it can't be beaten.

we returned to the piers where there was a free bongo drum concert. no tips were expected. it was music made just for the pleasure of making it.

a group of performance artists strolled by. among them, there were a grown man in diapers, a woman in a negligee with black fishnet stockings and carrying a paper mache pig, a man in a devil suit, and various others.

i remarked to jan that, if she continued to have difficulty getting tango dances at the bars called milongas, then adopting the outfit of the negligee and the black fishnet stockings would probably cure that problem. she should leave out the paper mache pig.

we had freshly squeezed orange juice and caught the bus home.

we catch buses in buenos aires solely by knowing the number of the buses which will serve us. there are many which will work and many which will not. the 53 bus we choose was not crowded and delivered us to a street near our lodgings with eduardo and claudia. our day of city bus adventure was successfully completed.

today, jan and i took a taxi to an outdoor market on the outskirts of buenos aires. it was supposed to feature the presence of gauchos but, sadly, it was just a shell of what it is from april to december. none the less, i had a pleasant lunch of mollegas, sweetbreads, at the neuve chicago restaurant in the market area. the waiter beamed at me when i ordered the mollejas. he knew that i was not just any tourist. i shared the argentino enjoyment of unfairly neglected organs of the cow.

but the waiter really liked jan. he talked to her a lot. after she ordered her usual salad, he tried to coax her to get a dessert. he assured her that she was "redhaired and skinny." it was a complement.

the mollejas with lemon and chimichura sauce, oil, vinegar, garlic, oregano, and spices, were superb, even better than the first time in buenos aries.

i attempted to buy a pair of gaucho pants but they were way too long. the effect was baggy and sloppy. not true gaucho style.

my only purchase at this market was a leather money belt. the leather here is excellent and economical.

since this market was not in season, we invested in yet another taxi. this one took us from the this market at the outskirts to the sunday market in san telmo. san telmol is a neighborhood of buenos aires.

i approached an open air bookstall. as i was flipping through a used cookbook written in german, i noticed two books which were selling for 2000 pesos each. that is approximately 700 dollars per book! what could be worth so much?

the first book was old and bound with a rubber band. i did not ask to open it. but it had the nazi symbol of a red swastika on the cover.

the second book was opened to show a photo of adolf hitler at attention. he was smiling at another man who i think was the leader of the german youth. this book was a deutsche jugendbuch, the nazi equivalent of a boy scout handbook. perhaps the price of 700 dollars was worth the chance to recall old memories. perhaps these old memories could be shared with the present pope.

the deutshe judendbuch was right next to a pile of old photographs of eva peron. i do not know if there was any connection.

let me close with set of jokes about argentina. the consistency of theme is remarkable.

1. q. how does an argentine commit suicide?
a. he jumps off his ego.

2. q. how do recognize an argentine spy?
a. by the sign on her back that says "i am the greatest spy in the world."

3. q. how do you make a quick buck?
a. buy an argentine for what he is worth and sell him for what he thinks he is worth.

4. an argentine asks a spaniard, 'friend, do you know which country is closest to heaven?" "argentina, i suppose," retorts the angry spaniard. "no, friend," says the argentine, "uruguay is the closest to argentina!"

5. a man meets an argentine in the street and asks him for a light. the argentine starts patting his pants, chest, and seat pockets. "sorry," he says, "i can't find my lighter-but man, do i have a great body!"

6. a pschologist calls her colleague at 2am in the morning. "it's an emergency!" she says.
"at two in the morning? it better be good." says the colleague.
"i have a unique client," says the first, "it's and inferiority complex!"
"an inferiority complex? but they're so common!" shouts the colleague.
and the pschologist responds, "yes, but....an argentine?"

7. god is creating the countries. he says to his assistant, "here's a good one: lots of rich land, beautiful high mountains, great beaches, verdant forests, and a wide variety of climates and animals. what do you think?"
the assistant replies, "but that is so much to give to one place!"
"it's ok," says god. "i'll fill it with argentines!"

on that note i will close. but i really do like it here!

joe n

5. where the beef is

in the morning i encountered a large cockroach in the bathroom. as i stepped on him, i remembered the identical phenomenon happening in new orleans many years ago. it was after al vitter's wedding. i forget whether i stepped on the cockroach then. but he was very large and brown.

new orleans and buenos aires are such similar cities. both are hot and humid, both have a strong tradition of music, jazz for new orleans and tango for buenos aires. both have strong culinary traditions. new orleans is focused on gumbo, shrimp, and crawfish. buenos aires is focused on beef. both are infested with large brown cockroaches.

i am not certain but i think that buenos aires is safe from destruction by water and storm. one never hears of tropical cyhclones down here. perhaps that is a product of a north american focus. but new orleans has a clear lead in the variety of its cuisine.

jan and i went to the ferry terminal in preparation for our trip to montevideo. from the metro to this terminal is a walk of six long blocks or more. as is usual here at this time of year, it was hot and humid.

we discovered that the days of paper tickets were gone. the e-tickets we had were all were going to get.

our goal in two days was to go from buenos aires to montevideo. after 5 days, we would come back from montevideo to colonia via bus and thence by ferry from colonia to buenos aires.

if we could shed our luggage in colonia, this would give us time to see the sights of this small town. it seems that the only way we can shed our luggage in colonia is to book an overnight stay in one of the hotels there. i think that is what we will do.

we went to see the buenos aires cemetery called la charcarita. this is a lower class version of recoleta cemetery. it is still grand indeed. its surrounding walls are high and noble in the roman manner. it is much larger than recoleta. among many, many others, it has the graves of the tango singer carlos gardel, the transatlantic flier jorge newbury, and some 1920s faith healer. every day they all get flowers. but all together they don't get as many flowers as evita.

we were led to believe that juan peron was buried in la charcarita. his family's tomb is there but he has been moved. we could not determine where. it is the fate of the perons, eva and juan, to wander in death.

the wide spaciousness of la charcarita contrasts with the close packing in la recoleta. even though la recoleta is the more prestigious place to be buried, it makes me wish that evita had been buried in la charcarita. there she would also have been close to the many people buried in the underground burial vaults of la charcarita. the space and the company would have suited her better.

we did not descend into the vaults but we could see the steps leading down to them. the extent of the underground burials was impressive. the argentines have many corpses to preserve. theirs is a culture which, for the most part, does not forget the dead. perhaps that is why real hatred is shown by argentines trying to obliterate the memory of people like evita and later the so-called disappeared activists.

i dragged jan to the cabrera restaurant in the district they call palermo. palermo is a high class neighborhood of buenos aires which began as a home for italian immigrants. hence, the name. it has been much upgraded. you can tell by the many dealerships which sell high priced foreign cars. but, in the cab on the way to the restaurant, we saw an abandoned and burnt out car. this is one of the symbols of buenos aires. i do not know why they are not towed away.

among those which do not specialize in foreign food, cabrera is one of the fanciest restaurants in buenos aires. in other words, cabrera specializes in beef. i went there seeking the argentine version of kobe beef. this is a beef so tender you can cut it with a fork. i found it there and, poco hecho, what they call rare here, the taste of it was superb.

many small portions of vegetables, such as roasted garlic, french beans, roasted red peppers, lima beans, a wonderful pear with pepper, too many to list, were included as side dishes. the combination was a spectacular meal. this alone would have been more than enough for anybody.

but i was eating with jan. jan is a semi-vegetarian, that is, a vegetarian who does not object to eating fish. i suppose that fish are not a high enough life form. the devouring of fish does not offend the semi-vegetarian.

so, in addition to my having this wondrous tenderloin with the consistency of butter, jan shared with me a roasted kabob of vegetables, tomatos and eggplant, and a salad of avocado and smoked salmon. it was accompanied by a nice red wine, a malbec blended with a syrah. blending cuts the fullness of the malbec down a little. this is a good thing.

lest we forget an essential that adds to any meal, there was a nice agua con gas to wash it down.

clearly, this meal constituted a mountain of delicious food. the total cost, wine included, was approximately 40 dollars per person. you cannot get that in new york! if you add to this the fact that the argentine version of kobe beef seems to be fully as good as the japanese version which costs at least five times as much, then you fully appreciate what a bargain this meal was.

while i do not doubt that no argentine would endure massaging a cow as the japanese do with kobe, still they must be doing something right.

we were given the leftovers to take home. we will make a dent in it ourselves. we will also have the help of the soon to arrive husband bob of jan. bob has a reputation of being able to consume enormous quantities of food. the remnants of our meal will not go to waste!

the cabrera was a restaurant filled with tourists. without a reservation, we ate at a table outside. there were many people waiting but the restaurant provides free champagne to help them pass the time.

as we got up to leave, we heard american tourists discussing which cuts of beef to get. i volunteered the information that the kobe beef was superb.

the resulting conversation gave me some valuable information. they recommended the rock towers torres del paine in patagonia as a world class sight not to be missed. there was a dirt road to the torres. to see the torres it was not necessary to carry all your gear, to hike up steep slopes at high altitude, and to sleep on a glacier. all you had to do was to pay for a ride. hence, i could sleep in a bed in the hostel. i would not need to carry tons in order to eat and to sleep. prospects are improving!

this morning bob arrived from the states. jan picked him up at the airport and immediately whisked him off to get tea and medialunas. i have not yet seen tea available in a cafe here but eduardo assures me that it is.

it is a curious fact that the national drink, mate, a form of herbal tea, is available in very few cafes. in grocery stores you can get bags of the stuff. you can make your own. people do.

mate is a ritual. hot water is poured over the leaves. the mate is drunk through the mandatory filtering straw. and the process is repeated, with the same cup possibly passed on to another.

if one feels that one might need a drink of mate at any momemt, the argentine leather industry represented by the street vendors can provide an enormous carrying case for a thermos. you carry it over your shoulder.

but it is very difficult to buy mate already prepared. outside of the tourist areas would regular tea be any different?

eduardo has done me the kindness of making mate for me. it comes in a little cup together with the all important straw. eduardo tells me that this straw must be of good quality and not moved when in place, lest it get clogged.

the cups for mate are little gourds which must be properly cured before the first use. it is necessary to coat the inside of the gourd with wet mate leaves and then let set for three days. failure to do this will adversely affect the gourd for the remainder of its life.

mate, done properly with a little sugar, has won me over. i will carry a bag of it and the required cup and straw home with me.

we took the metro to the zoo. i was particularly eager to see the whole lineup of llama type animals. in increasing order of size, these are the vicuna, the gaunaco, and the llama. this is also the increasing order of value of their wool for sweaters. the vicuna has a very appealing look with intelligent looking eyes. i suspect it is hoping that some corn will be thrown its way.

i found nemo, that is, the parrot type fish who is the prototype of the hero of the well known movie. he lives in a tank next to very large cousins.

in the reptile house, we saw an anaconda. he was totally submerged under water. his head was not visible. since he needs to breathe, we must have missed where he keeps his head.

the rain forest exhibit had specimens both alive and dead. there were large spiders, large scorpions, large moths, large butterflies, large insects of undetermined type, and large frogs. many of these creatures seem to be large, fully capable of causing pain to larger creatures like ourselves.

since my companions bob and jan present a united front on requiring periodic food, we stopped at the zoo food outlet. it was an argentine copy of macdonalds. i decided to try the comida classica, a cheeseburger with pepsi light and fries. both tasted inferior to the macdonalds versions. the hamburger was less juicy and the fries were less crisp on the outside. many gourmets, for example, frank peterson, are willing to say that mcdonalds makes pretty good fires. these were not as good. bob asserted as fact that mcdonalds imbues everything they make with sugar. that is why it is so popular with children. this is probably so. but i wouldn't say that the lack of sugar was what made the zoo cheeseburger and fries dry and inferior to the mcdonalds' versions. i suspect it was primarily due to long term exposure to the zoo's heat lamp.

while we were eating our so-called lunch, it began to rain. and then it rained harder. as we wended our way through the zoo, we took refuge briefly in a men's room next to the urinals. we were not alone there. men ducked in and out depending on the intensity of the rain. eventually we made a determined effort to reach the safety of the metro.

once safely inside the metro, i pointed out one of the many kiosks where one could buy women's lingerie. i never saw anyone actually making a purchase so i do not know whether these emergency purchases in the metro are made more by men or more by women. jan's theory is that men buy lingerie on their way home. it is a substitute for flowers. there are flower shops next to the metro but only near cemeteries. what you need depends on your purpose. but sex and death are both very important in argentina.

we rushed home from the metro through the rain. as i type this it is still raining hard.

it is time to do some packing for montevideo.

6. across the wide la plata

claudia shared mate with me. mate or yerba mate is the traditional argentine drink. she explained that one must share mate. when satisfied, add some more hot water, perhaps more sugar, and pass it to a friend. you share the same cup and straw. inspired by an affection for this drink, i looked it up for purchase on the internet. all was available, the leaves, the little gourd cup, and the special straw.

but claudia was shocked at the prices. she offered to take me to buy both the leaves, the yerba mate, and the paraphrenalia. we bought a bag of the leaves, the yerba mate, in a supermercado and the gourd and straw in a small shop on the large street called rividavia. not surprisingly, it was all much cheaper than on the internet, just 24 pesos total for a gourd, un mate, and nice straw, un bombilla. and 4 pesos for a 2 kilo bag of the leaves.

i am leaving my gourd here to be cured by experts. it is a simple process, just fill it with leaves and cold water for three days.

we are taking the ferry, the buquebus, from buenos aires to montevideo. it is a three hour trip. the ferry is almost empty. i have discovered what makes for the most desired seat. it is not a window view alone, or a place in the sun. plenty of those are unoccupied. the valuable seats are those which are next to a window and have an electrical outlet, a scenic view and something to plug your laptop into. for a while, i chose to have a view. but now i choose electrical power. but i have no view.

the rio de la plata is wide indeed. but it is brown water all the way from argentina to uruguay. the rio is a big muddy lake with distant shorelines. it has whitecaps tinged with brown. since plata means silver, the rio de la plata is properly named only if silver comes in brown.

in the spirit of the dogs of buenos aires, the rio de la plata might be called the rio de leche. the sidewalks of buenos aires are littered with the wastes of dogs. the locals, the portenos, refer to this as dulce de leche. dulce de leche is the sweet caramelized substance made from milk and used to flavor ice cream. it is similar to caramelized sugar and very popular here.

there is a law in buenos aires requiring dog walkers to pick up. but no one obeys it. it is necessary to keep a sharp eye open in residential neighborhoods.

on this boat of empty seats, bob is frustrated by the fact that there are partitions which prevent one from stretching out and taking a proper sleep. he seriously wishes for an allen wrench, in this part of the world, they have troops to stop that sort of thing.

we arrived at the port of montrevideo and went through customs. i had a little problem using the atm machine. so i pulled out the power card, the morgan stanley card. since the rate of exchange is 20 to 1, i withdrew over 2000 uruguayan pesos. with it i bought a grilled cheese sandwich and
a pepwsi light. i still had lots left over to pay for the taxi ride to the hotel.

the hotel staff were very helpful. in the day time, we are safe going wherever we want. at night, stay closer to the hotel. there are coffee shops in the immediate vicinity.

the tango lessons that jan and bob are signed up for include some kind of tango show at the beach tonight. i think that i will just have some coffee and be a vegetable tonight.

we are now in a nice clean budget hotel with internet. however, they have q shortage of power outlets. at the moment the wireless is superb in the lobby where they do have an outlet. in celebration, i am going to send this now, my first email from montevideo, uruguay.

7. the temple of grilled food

montevideo is not hot and humid! at least, not right now. for the first time in two weeks, i am wearing an undershirt.

the weather is perfect with little humidity. i slept well with no fan and the windows open. weather does not get any better.

since the change in latitude and longitude is trivial, the difference in weather must be a result of the change in orientation to the atlantic ocean. the water seemed less muddy and more oceanic here. the wind blows.

my room in the hotel palacio has a private bath and a shower. the shower head is located near the ceiling high above the tub. the ceiling is very high. it is hard to see how one could take a shower without making a big mess. no matter, i took a delightful bath this morning.

when i emptied the bath tub, i discovered that the water was bubbling up through the tiles in the floor. it is very common in europe and in buenos aires to have have the shower floor be the floor of the whole bathroom. i decided to regard this bubbling phenomenon as a variation of that and not to worry about it.

the next morning, i saw that the bathtub drain pipe was severely corroded. i guessed that the bubbling problem could be greatly diminished by just slightly displacing the drain plug so as to let the water drain out slowly. it worked.

i like the fact that my toilet bowl here is flushed by pulling a cord on an overhead tank. the resulting torrent is quite effective. it reminds me of growing up in chicago. my mother always complained that the new toilets did not flush as well as those with overhead tanks. i have learned that one should never underestimate the effects of gravity. and one should listen to one's mother.

i accompanied jan and bob on a search for breakfast. jan was quite determined to fine a suitable place. her criteria were fourfold: it should be authentic uruguayan, it should not be greasy, it should not be expensive, and it should not be frequented by tourists. unfortunately our hotel had been chosen to be in the neighborhood of one of the most expensive hotels in montevideo, these criteria were impossible to meet.

after passing by authentic mcdonalds and burger kings, we settled on a uruguayan version of the same thing. bob got a greasy hamburger with cheese and an egg. i got some empanadas internacionales, small turnovers filled with some powdered egg that the army invented in world war two. eggs mcmuffins would have been better.

the capuchino at our place seems to have been made with instant coffee. this was a disaster.

jan, who had had no breakfast, was cheered by the purchase of fresh fruit.

we the continued our meanderings until we found the expensive hotel which had determined our location. this hotel, a very fancy modern radisson, is the location of the festival of tango lessons that jan and bob had contracted to do while we are in montevideo.

tango has moved into the upper class. to think that it started as a way to pass the time in bars frequented by sailors and prostitutes! so it started as a way to rest up and recharge!

i realized that i had spoken too soon when i said that it was not hot in montevideo. our breakfast wanderings and the search for the site of the tango lessons had made me overheated. fortunately, the fancy hotel had a beautiful bathroom where i could strip off my shirt and undershirt and reappear in only one layer.

i left jan and bob with their tango lessons and headed out to see the town. my first goal was to beef up my money supply. in buenos aires the automatic tellers are quite welcoming but in montevideo they refuse to give anything to foreigners. what to do?

i immediately thought of jan and bob's fancy hotel. fancy hotels can always change american dollars into the local currency! indeed this hotel has a casino which is open at all hours and it was happy to transform my currency. at that point, i did not care what exchange rate i was given.

flush with cash i headed to my main goal in montevideo, the old port market. the port market has been transformed into a place with many parillas, the fired grills where meat is cooked. there is almost nothing else there now, just a few remaining shops selling high priced woolen goods and mate gourds. the market has become totally focused on the preparation and serving of grilled food. locals frequent it but i suspect most of the profits are generated by the tourist trade.

the food at the port market is expensive but completely authentic. you are surrounded by the fires of the parillas. they are piled high with meats located at strategic heat locations, appropriate to the meat and the stage of doneness. it is devoted to the religion of grilling.

i was in meat heaven. surrounded by meat in various stages of grilling. fire and meat together were a vision, not of hell, but of heaven.

the waiters told me that they remembered a tall man with a camera crew. a year ago, he had come to them from the north. they had liked him and he them. here was a man who knew meat and savored the taste, the sumptuous greasiness of it all. this was the great anthony bourdain! anthony's show on uruguay had motivated me to make my pilgrimage to the port market. i was not disappointed.

i had an idea to temporarily change my focus from beef to lamb.

but then i was totally seduced by the opportunity to have grilled langostinos, a very large shrimp. the langostinos came with the head and shell still on and soaked in garlic and oil. it is a grilled version of what they call barbeque shrimp in new orleans. the heads are on there too.

i added a salsa made with tomatos, onions, vinegar and oil. together with a grilled red pepper and a large bottle of patricia, the beer brewed in uruguay, as the old commercial says: it can't get much better than this!

afterwards, the restaurant honored me by letting me approach the sacred fire. they put a black chef's hat on me and had me pick up a short rib of beef with a fork and knife. as i held it high, they made the moment immortal by taking a picture. it is inside my camera now.

with much smiling and much saying of "amigo!" we parted, i the pilgrim who would return and they the keepers of the flame.

i returned to my hotel via the ocean walk. the path reminds me of walking in my youth in chicago along the shores of lake michigan. the barriers to the waters are the same sort of two tiered concrete. both have fisherman with their poles. since salt water fish tend to be bigger than the biggest lake michigan perch, the fishing poles are longer and stronger. otherwise, it is the same.

and both have ladies in bikinis basking in the sun, some of them young and nubile and some of them human versions of the elephant seal. it is nice to see both kinds.

in argentina and in uruguay, one can always find coca cola and pepsi cola. indeed, they are sold all over the world. for those who wish to end this form of american commercial imperialism, there is encouraging news. richard kane has alerted me to the fact that a hindu nationalist organization has begun a research program intended to end the world domination of coke and pepsi. once again nationalism strikes out at imperialism!

the hindus are basing their hopes on an animal that is sacred to them. i speak of course of the cow. products made from cow's milk have long been a competitor to soft drinks.

now a new front, based on hindu practices, has been opened. cow urine, hereafter to be marketed as cow water, can be made to taste good. and, unlike coke and perpsi, it has absolutely no toxicity.

the hindu researchers have not yet decided whether cow water will come only in the traditional form or also in a new version, cow water light.

not content with the development of cow urine, they also assert that cow manure has been unfairly neglected as a basis for human cuisine. do not scoff, they have evidence for this too in past practices.

here in uruguay and in argentina, there is a less drastic alternative to coke and pepsi. especially in uruguay, people carry with them a mate gourd and a thermos of hot water. they walk around sipping the mate through the required straw.

the mate gourds, the straws, and the mate leaves are the most popular tourist product in montevideo. they are available on tables in the street, shops in the squares, and in the gift shops of fine hotels. they are everywhere!

mate is full of anti-oxidents and it encourages weight loss. i sense a real opportunity to bottle mate and perhaps to carbonate it. since ice tea is already bottled, why not mate?

coke and pepsi may survive the competition from mate but cow water does not stand a chance. the economies of the mate producing nations, argentina, uruguay, paraguay, and brazil will boom. the economy of india will be forced to rely on the answering of telephones and on the taking over of the computer software industry.

when i went out to get breakfast this morning the streets were being patrolled by many men and women. they were a cheerful bunch and wore police unifroms with the labels policia turistica. i was unable to determine whether these tourist police were there to protect the tourists or to protect the shopkeepers from the tourists. the only obvious function of these police was their smiling presence. they were stationed every few blocks with clumps in the main tourist sites. perhaps their employment is some kind of uruguayan economic stimulus package.

the charging software for my laptop battery has ceased to function. simple attempts to remedy the situation have failed. i will not do the next step. it would involve wiping the harddrive and losing all my stuff. i choose instead to use the laptop with no battery. i must therefore plug it in to an electrical outle. otherwise, it will not function.

this hotel has wireless in a tiny room near the lobby. but it has no outlets there. the rooms for guests have outlets but no wireless. hence, in my room one can use the computer but there is no internet. fortunately, the sofa by the lobby desk has a nearby outlet and is close enough to the tiny room to have wireless.

so there is no unsolvable problem with the laptop. but this morning while i was reading email, i was suddenly hit by a package of cookies which had falled through the lobby airshaft from several stories up.

i was surrounded by shattered cookies. the maid was cleaning rooms and had unwisely placed the cookies on the edge of the airshaft. i was startled but uninjured. the staff was both amused and embarrassed by the incident.

8. around and about montevideo

bob, jan, and i took a taxi to the main bus station in montevideo. it is an impressive place, bright and clean, two stories high and home to many bus companies. these can transport you all over uruguay and even into brazil. it feels more like a train station in europe than a bus station. it has an air of bustling properity. there is none of the dreary hopelessness which i associate to bus stations in the united states.

we were there to buy tickets for our departure in two days to the small uruguayan town of colonia. there were so many different ticket counters that we did not know where to go.

jan likes to charge ahead, indulging in a randon search pattern until she finds her goal. she has her students program little robots that way. it rubs off on her. but this time we have to cheat and ask the tourist office where to go. success!

on the way back we stopped at a museum of the gaucho. the gaucho was a sort of wilder cowboy common to both uruguay and argentina. he was unruly and sometimes vicious. his museum is housed in an impressive old mansion with polished marble and polished wood staircases. only in south america!

the essential equipment of the gaucho was on display. there were bolas, four balls at the end of connected ropes. the gaucho had inherited bolas from the native indian inhabitants. bolas are a weapon. they are whirled around and then thrown in an expert manner to tangle in the legs of the victim. thus, bolas make easy prey of the ostrich-like rheas. they can also be used on creatures who walk on feet or on those who ride upon such.

but the gaucho's essential item is his knife. with this he can eat beef, castrate cattle, and slit throats. he is naked without it.

after the gaucho museum, i parted company with jan and bob. their destination was an all-you-can-eat vegetarian restaurant. my destination was an octopus at a parilla in the port market.

the fate of this octopus was to be grilled, to be chopped into bite sized pieces, to be coated with papricka and oil, and to be served with lemon and a delicious salsa of tomatos, onions, garlic, and oil. i included my usual roasted red pepper and washed it down with sparkling water. superb!

i observed the black cod my neighbor was eating and resolved to return at least one more time. i reflect that, if there is a god of all creatures, he or she must be cruel indeed to have created predators like us. we prey upon cod, octopi, langostinos, cattle, lamb, and pigs, among others.

to be devoured must be awful. to be ripped and cut into pieces, to be dismembered in every way, and then turned into excrement cannot be a rewarding experience. i remember the pile of langostino shells and heads from yesterday. i hope i stay on the winning side so that i can continue to enjoy it.

with a cool coca cola light, i concluded my second successful day of eating at the port market. i walk in the heat of the early afternoon to the end of the harbour breakwater. a ship passes near. it is on its way to the open sea. men with no shirts, uruguayan versions of evita's descamisados, fish from the breakwater. no one catches anything. the sun is hot. i go home to the hotel and take a nap.

i awake refreshed and the night is young. in argentina and in uruguay, the night time activity really does not start until nine. it was nine.

i resolved to do something i had never done before. i would eat a mcdonalds cheeseburger in a foreign land.

mcdonalds are everywhere in argentina and in uruguay. they even exist in france. such pervasiveness hints that perhaps we americans are unfairly prejudiced against our own foods. so i marched off to the nearest mcdonalds. it was not far.

i ordered a simple cheeseburger and an orange juice.

i defy anyone to criticize the orange juice in argentina or in uruguay. it is uniformly good. it tastes as if it were fresh squeezed. it is sweet and it tastes like oranges. even when it comes in a carton, this is true.

i took a bite of the cheeseburger. i analysed it as one would a fine wine. it was clearly different from the united states version. after all, it is made of uruguayan beef. that means it is grass fed. it is less juicy but it tastes better. it seems more like the real thing. i gave it a passing grade.

on the whole, i disagree with those americans who automatically rate anything made by mcdonalds as lower quality than its foreign counterpart. there is some bad food out there. foreign food may taste bad. it may have no nutritional value. worst of all, it may contain enough microbes to put you in intensive care.

the late frank peterson, an acknowledged gourmet, was willing to grant that mcdonalds fries were acceptable, if barely. he understood that mcdonalds fries were inferior to those fries which you can get from a stand on a french highway. but he thought mcdonalds fries were okay.

it is a mistake to pit mcdonalds against the foreign best. the best is usually expensive, can be hard to find, and it is usually not fast food. time which you do not always have may required to find it and to savor it. the best foreign food serves a different and higher purpose. on this last point even the most committed food adventurer can agree.

since we know the evils that mcdonalds does, i will not list them here. they are akin to those of wal-mart. these evils existed before wal-mart. it has been conclusively shown that a steady diet of mcdonalds is not healthy. but it takes a long time to kill you.

i have known even the most ardent anti-mcdonalds people to break down in a foreign land and to take advantage of their antiseptic bathrooms. i venture to say that mcdonalds' food and bathrooms are both a result of their business model, to consistently live up to expectation.

i concluded my outing with an ice cream cone made in the traditional argentine-uruguayan way from dulce de leche. it seemed mandatory to have one. it was okay.

the following morning, i decided to complete my research at mcdonalds by having breakfast.

mcdonalds has created exactly one culinary masterpiece, the egg mcmuffin. it consists of a poached egg, canadian bacon, and processed cheese food, all surrounded by a toasted english muffin. there is absolutely nothing that can go wrong with this simple breakfast food. i resolved to try the uruguayan equivalent. the only change is the substitution of an inferior bagel for the superior english muffin. the mcbagel starts with a disadvantage.

the mcbagel and coffee were not bad. indeed, the unwise substitution of a bagel for a muffin made the uruguayan product slightly inferior. but the uruguayan coffee was slightly superior. and, as always, the orange juice was terrific.

my comparisons of national styles of mcdonalds was now complete. i conclude that there was no clear victory for either side.

as i returned to the hotel, i met jan and bob. they invited me to join them for a buffet breakfast at the fancy radisson hotel where their tango lessons were given. as you know, i already had a breakfast, but, since this included the opportunity to spend some time with them and to have a view of the whole city of montevideo from the top floor of the hotel, i decided to join them for a cup of coffee.

the top floor restaurant of the radisson hotel has a panoramic view of the city and its harbour. this impressive view takes place in a setting of marble and crystal chandeliers. it is a fancy place.

it is ironic that the radisson hotel chain takes its name from a french canadian fur trader who would undoubtedly not be welcome in this hotel. radisson and his friend grosseliers were early fur trappers and traders who explored much of canada, including the hudson bay area and lake superior.

think of the two of them dressed in smelly hides which they have not taken off for months. they would not be welcome in a fine hotel.

the coffee at the radisson, while not ascending to the level of capuchino at the cafe tortoni, was fine.

the bill arrived. jan and bob assumed that the bill would come in uruguayan pesos. in that case, their fancy breakfast would cost 16 pesos each, approximately 80 united states cents each. that would be low for a fancy hotel. in fact, the cost was 16 dollars each. they were lucky that the price was not in euros or pounds!

jan and bob decided to improve themselves by visiting a museum devoted to the works of a famous uruguayan painter. since i currently had no such desire for self improvement, i decided to walk along the shore until i reached the major beaches of montevideo.

i had prepared by wearing crocs and no socks. i took off my long pants to reveal a baggy swimsuit below. i was prepared for entry into the atlantic ocean.

one walks along the high seawall looking at the ocean and the rocks below. basking on the rocks are various specimens of humanity, all tanned and more or less attractive, in various stages of undress.

more interesting are the birds, white egrets and black cormorants, fishers all but with different techniques. the egrets stand around and spear. the cormorants swim and dive. these cormorants seem to spend most of their time resting on rocks and drying their wings.

hot and tired, i reached the first white sand beach, the playa ramirez. it was littered with sexy bodies, some exposed to the sun and some in the shade of umbrellas. i waded into the ocean but stopped well short of full immersion. i had to protect my camera from the salt water. but partial immersion was refreshing and fulfilled my goal of sampling the southern atlantic.

as i continued past this beach, i was paralleling a golf course. i sensed a change in the neighborhood. the tourist police had long since disappeared. there were joggers. there were two young men practicing tai chi. there were private fishing clubs. compared to the shirtless fishermen on the breakwall near the old city, these people had more money. there was no need for any tourist police here.

even the shoreside gas station was upscale. it sold cold drinks and had a grassy area with tables and chairs shaded by large umbrellas. i purchased a bottle of cold orange juice. as always in this country, it was excellent. it gave me renewed energy to walk further.

as i reached the second beach, the larger playa pocito, there were shoreside restaurants and, across the shore road there were high rise luxury apartments.

i had reached montevideo's approximation to palm beach. actually, the nearby punte del este is a better approximation, but this was close enough.

the side streets even had bookstores on them! this combination of beach and literacy is a sure indication of an upper class neighborhood. satisfied, i decided to return to the old city and the old port market.

on the boulevard de brazil, i saw a bus with the label "old city." it went off in precisely the opposite direction. i therefore splurged for the price of a taxi to the old port market. in primitive spanish, i told the taxi driver that my purposes were to rest, to become cool, and to eat fish.

next to the old port market were docked two really impressive cruise ships. the one called the star princess had six decks of observation balconies. these were atop an equal height of unbroken hull. the effect was massive, like one of the immense government buildings in buenos aires. on top of it all was a huge glass or plastic bubble. without having seen it, bob made the plausible guess that the bubble covered a huge swimming pool. what made it all more impressive is that stability probably required an equal depth below the water line.

it is obvious that it takes an immense sum of money to build such a ship. it is equally obvious that the passengers must pay large sums to sustain them.

the old port and its surrounding relatively poor neighborhoods juxtaposed with the cruise ships and the flow of tourists through the attractions of the old city was the explanation for the ever present tourist police.

having arrived at the old port market, i seated myself at a parilla well known to me. on a whim, i bypassed the merzula, or black cod, and i ordered lenguado, or flounder.

my spanish is halting at best. there was some miscommunication over the salsa. i wanted to specify that it be grilled and come with a side salsa of tomatos, onions, garlic, oil, and vinegar. while i was saying this, the waiter stopped me in midsentence and assured me that he understood exactly what i meant. i believed him.

somehow, the salsa ceased to be a side. it became a sauce that covered the whole fish. but, since the vinegar had been omitted, the dish succeeded on its own terms. it had a more spanish orientation than i had requested.

the waiter made clear that he was proud of his ability to create exactly what i had requested. i did not have the heart to tell him that i wanted to order something different. the most important thing is that the fish was excellent.

i returned to the hotel where i rested until about nine. then i went out to the ice cream stand in front of the cathedral. i ordered a dish with two flavors, a tropical peach ice cream on top of a melon sorbet. since both flavors were exactly true to their origins, it was perfect.

the only significant drawback of our hotel is that, after dark, the neighborhood is infested by beggars. these are not the truly needy kind, but the ones who do it for sport. it is unpleasant dealing with them. it could be much worse if they were not content to quit after two refusals.

this weekend seems to be special. it is some kind of carnival. at the end of the day young people are painting each others faces in clever clownlike designs. it is quiet until 4 in the morning. then this neighborhood where nobody lives is filled with loud and not particularly cheerful human noise. our hotel is across from a bar which is filled with people. the sounds of police sirens are heard. quiet returns and then the noise level slowly increases, more restrained this time.

for the remainder of the night and into the morning, a crowd of rowdy revelers sweeps by at intervals of approximately every half hour. whatever is going on, it is an aspect of real south american life and it is not being done for us tourists. the hotel staff says that it is just an ordinary saturday night in montevideo.

montevideo is the capital of uruguay. it is a characteristic of capital cities that they are filled with huge monuments. in montevideo there is the plaza of independence. it has a huge equestrian statue of a man called artigas. he led uruguay to independence from the spanish. he and his horse are enormous. they are atop the underground tomb where his ashes lie. the tomb is a sacred place. it records the life and achievements of the immortal artigas and it is guarded by soldiers in seventeenth century uniforms carrying automatic weapons.

south american liberators like artigas often have a period of exile in their life. paraguay is a popular spot. in buenos aires you will find the huge monument to san martin, the leader of argentine independence. at the time, the spanish were in control of many parts of south america. therefore san martin liberated many parts, present day argentina, chile, and peru. he too went into exile and died far from argentina in france. the argentines then had the problem of retrieving his sacred remains. they did so and put them in the cathedral in buenos aires. in the past century, they also retrieved the remains of his parents.

after the retrieval of the remains of san martin's parents, a reporter from time magazine made the snarky comment that they still had to retrieve the remains of san martin's horse. this comment was regarded as extremely disrespectful.

the leading figures in the history of the united states are a mixed lot.
not all of them are associated with military victories and thus with horses. pens were the preferred weapons of adams and jefferson. one does not think of the great lincoln on a horse. but washington, grant, and the traitors robert e lee and stonewall jackson are all classic men on horseback.

the remains of lee's horse traveler are buried with respect and honor. jackson's horse little sorel has his hide mounted in the museum at the virginia military academy. little sorel shares that honor with another famous horse, the immortal trigger in the roy rogers museum.

this reverence for the remains of horses is part of a much more extensive common bond between puffed up military cultures such as the united states, especially the southern states, and south america. the root is that both cultures had a structure of rich landowners living off the work of oppressed peasants and slaves. it breeds an arrogant type, sensitive to insult and putting a high value on the remains of horses.

it is sunday morning. our neighborhood which is ordinarily bustling with tourists is completely closed down. even our mcdonalds is closed. there is not a cup of coffee in sight.

minus breakfast, i head out with jan and bob to a sunday open air shopping fair. this is not just for tourists. it continues for block after block. vegetables and fruit are stacked for this single day in remarkably artistic arrangments.

there are uruguayan cheeses and sausages which can be purchased to take home or to eat right there. vendors are making empenadas which they will fry for you.

tables are filled with used books, mostly in spanish but a few in english. you can get a copy of "el ultima mohicano" by james fennimore cooper.

you can get old photographs, both of unknowns and of 1930s celebrities. charlie chaplin, greta garbo, and the omnipresent carlos gardel are quite popular still. the cast of gone with the wind is still selling the movie.

since we are near argentina, you can purchase and old biography of adolf hitler. the graf spee was a german battleship which was scuttled outside the port of montevideo after being trapped by the british navy. its sad story lives on in old books sold at the market.

if you need inexpensive shoes, they have many types. t-shirts bear the likeness of che chevara and or marylin monroe. you can get belts to hold up either long and short pants. we can also buy the pants.

and for the ladies, there are gaudy undergarments in bright colors like purple and red. guaranteed to produce results!

for the repressed gaucho, they have knives designed to cut and slash. for the handiman, there are old and new tools.

there are old and new fixtures, like doorknobs and fuacets.

it short, it is a flea market on a large scale. we saw one young man being hustled away with his wrists handcuffed behind his back. probably, he was a pickpocket.

in the end we purchased little. jan and bob bought some spices for their hotel cookery. bob bought some metal hooks for a coat rack. i bought nothing.

our purchases were few but the visit was worth the insight gained into the ordinary lives of the locals. it reminded my of maxwell street in the chicago of my youth.

we concluded the first half of the day with lunch at the old port market.

jan had grilled shrimp with oil and garlic. except for the fact that the shrimps were shelled, it was similar to the langostinos i had had a few days ago.

bob had a chorizo sausage and some rice.

i had baby beef. they called it ribeye but it was more like a tenderloin. accompanied by a local beer and a salad of tomatos and onions, it was an appropriate last meal at this temple of grilled food.

i cannot not mention the wonderful and simple side salsa which i use to accompany grilled food. it consist of tomatos, onions, garlic, red peppers, and parsley, all chopped together and in a bath of vinegar and oil. you can add a little salt and pepper to taste. it improves most everything!

we parted with handshakes with all the waiters. over my four days of eating, we had become friends.

9. far away in patagonia

we left montevideo on a bus headed to the small uruguayan town of colonia. the countryside looked prosperous and populated with many animals destined for the grill. the people here lived a far better life than most people in appalachia.

the united states thinks of itself as an island of prosperity in the sea of the third world. when you visit mexico you see the truth in this.
but in canada and in europe you see its falsity. i see the falsity now in argentina and in uruguay.

argentina and uruguay resemble europe. the streets are no more filled with urchins than the streets of the usa. buenos aires has tall office bulidings. these are emblems of economic power. there is no reason to believe that the american people are a particularly gifted and chosen people. i have taught american youth for a long time and know this firsthand.

the americqn life style will decline as the american educational level sinks. instead of correcting this, americans, democrats included, continue to be satisfied with a bad educational system with an overemphasis on sports.

american infrastructure continues to be impoverished by a bloated military budget. in uruguay, the roads seem better maintained than those in upstate new york. this is not to mention the superb upkeep of german roads!

we arrived in colonia, gateway to buenos aires. we deposited our luggage in a delightful hostel in the center of town. they kept our luggage securely locked up while we explored this little town which was founded by the portuguese. it was a uruguayan version of niagara on the lake, which is a tourist town but still nice.

it began to rain. the streets became shallow white water creeks. we retreated under the awnings of a cafe. i had a coffee. it was pleasant to be out of the rain. the little town had an unhurried feel which was a contrast to the more hectic pace of montevideo and especially of buenos aires.

colonia was a treat. when we went to retrieve our luggage, the hostel refused payment of any kind. it would be a nice place to go back to. jan has tentative plans to take her berea students there on the way to or from montevideo.

we took the ferry from colonia to buenos aires. since we had lost some little pieces of paper, we had to pay a tax of 25 dollars to leave the country. it was something involving documentation that we had payed some taxes. bob found his little piece of paper and escaped the 25 dollar charge. we felt some resentment that we had not been told how valuable the little pieces of paper were. but it was a small enough fee.

the ferry was crowded. there were many children and few bathrooms. it was not as nice as the previous ferry. but it got us back to buenos aires. we said hello to eduardo and claudia, went up to our rooms, and immediately began to pack to leave for patagonia the next morning.

patagonia has more altitude than buenos aires. and it is nearer to the south pole. it can get cold there even in the summer. thus, packing for patagonia requires hard choices. there is a desire to not take too much and there is a desire not to freeze.

jan discovered that we are allowed forty four pounds of checked luggage. the argentines allow this weight to be in several pieces. they care only about the total weight. this means that we can take enough to be warm. the extra fleece jacket goes in!

we arrive in patagonia after an uneventful flight. as alison had warned me, the winds are very strong here. the town of el calafate sits on a plain which is next to the mountains. we have come to the argentine national park called "the glaciers." the glaciers are spawned by the vast patagonian ice field, the third largest in the world, surpassed only by those in antarctica and in greenland.

the differential in altitude must be the cause of these strong winds. the cold air on top of the ice field spills down into the warmer valleys. thanks to alison's warning, we all have goggles here to protect our eyes from blown sand. so far this has not been necessary.

we have a pleasant hostel with wireless internet in el calafate. we need to arrange guided walks on the nearby perito merino glacier. the staff are very helpful. but the big tour on the ice is impossible to schedule. it involves a three hour glacier walk. their insurance company forbids this to anyone over 45. that excludes me and even bob who is 48.

in bob's case exclusion from the hike is extremely unfair. bob is very fit. to maintain his investment in a power dam he regularly does heavy labor. for example, he manhandles huge metal gates which protect turbines in the kentucky river. so bob is disappointed. we shall be reduced to doing the glacier tour which involves only a one hour glacier walk.

but my opinion is: if you spend one hour on a glacier, you have spent all the time you need to spend on a glacier.

el calafate is a pleasant little town. it has a definite jet set feel. that being said, it is on the edge of the wild. there are some serious outdoors people around, for example, climbers on the way to climb the serious fitzroy tower.

dogs are plentiful in el calafate. these dogs lead a good life. there are bright eyed intelligent dogs exploring the town. they are independent of owner and leash. this town must have many things which make a dog's life interesting and fulfilling. for example, there are many restaurants, half of which are meat grilling parillas. most of all, there are many jet set tourists who like to feed dogs. this makes dogs happy.

it is a contrast to buenos aires. there the dogs are walked on leashes. there the sidewalks are strewn with dog poop. the sidewalks of el calafate are devoid of dog poop. in their freedom, the dogs of el calafate have found other more discrete places to poop. therefore, humans are not bothered by dog excrement. people and dogs are happy.

the dogs of el calafate are very polite. they are not aggressive. i would surmise that they are for the most part descended from a very sociable sheep herding dog.

the terrain here is similar to that of northern california. it is wilder and bigger but it has the same dry golden vegetation one finds just east of san francisco. there are dry barren hills which preface the coming of the green forests in the mountains.

el calafate sits on the edge of lago argentino, a turquoise gem of a lake. the turquoise color comes from the glacial silt and the sky. the lake is quite shallow. i believe it is not over 10 meters deep anywhere. it is obviously much shallower in many places. there are sand bars far out into the water.

lago argentino may be argentina's largest lake but it is actually a rather small body of water. the far shore is always less than 15 kilometers away and is never out of sight. my impression is that it is smaller lake than, for example, lake champlain on the border of new york state and vermont. the strong winds here create whitecaps on these turquoise waters but they lack the power of waves on really large lakes.

the next day we took a bus. it took us to a boat launch on an arm of lago argentino. a boat carried us across the arm to near the foot of the perito merino glacier. we hiked through green forest. then our group put on crampons for a guided hike on the glacier.

this glacier was not flat like the columbia glacier in canada. this glacier was broken into many, many tall seracs. some of them were ready to fall and, while we were there, some did.

our competant guide led us on a carefully chosen path. we stepped over narrow safe crevasses. she avoided the worst of the crevasses. when necessary, she stood between us and the abyss.

we gazed into ice holes. glacial melt water rushed down these holes into the depths. with our crampons on we went easily up and down ice hills. crampons make footing secure on ice. you just have to be careful not to trip over them.

our guide was an athletic young lady named rosanna. one of the advantages of getting old is that rosanna paid special attention to my well being. she kept me right behind her lead. she made sure that i was stepping properly and would not trip. she also gave me a steadying hand whenever she thought i needed it. thus, she gave first class service. she completely deserved the generous tip i eventually gave her.

the guides had set up a table on the glacier. our ice trek ended there. glasses of excellent scotch whiskey were served over ice. even though it was a blended scotch, the whiskey tasted good. the alcohol was provided at the end so that we only had a short walk afterwards to get off the ice. everyone was steady enough to make.

one of our party was accompanied by his 13 year old daughter. the cute kid clearly had earned her drink of whiskey. she did not get it.

as we left i saw one of the guides washing our glasses with cold glacial water. her fingers must have gotten quite cold.

we took a short trip back across the water to the bus. it took us to observation balconies overlooking the glacier. we had a fine view of the vast extent of the glacier and of its parent ice field.
we could watch and hear the thunderous calving of the glacier into the lake. this glacier is one of the few in the world which is advancing. it is miles across and its square miles exceed thos of buenos aires. it is huge.

the bus then returned us to the town of el calafate. our day had been quite full enough of ice trekking on a glacier. three or more hours on the glacier would have been way too much. it was good that the insurance company had forbidden us.

today we transfer to el chalten to see the immense tower of rock which is the fitz roy. the plan is that we will hike up to a view of it. then jan and bob will continue higher to camp for two days while i return to our hostel. i plan to take it easy and hope to take a boat ride on lago viedma ending up at for dinner and overnight at an estancia. i may even ride a horse. we shall see.

then i plan to return to the hostel to rejoin jan and bob.

this morning we began the transfer from el calafate to el chalten. we decided not to take a taxi. this meant that we had to carry all our luggage from the hostel to the bus station. i had three bags to carry and the last part was uphill. it was heavy work. it probably was a mistake not to take a taxi. i felt that i had done the equivalent of a major hike.

the three and a half hour bus ride went smoothly. as we neared el chalten we could see the impressive height of the towering mount fitz roy. fitz roy is a pillar of rock in the shape of a giant tooth set amidst ice and snow and surrounded by lesser towers and seracs.

i am told that fitz roy is difficult to climb because it requires frequent switching from ice to rock and back again.

as we stepped off the bus, the wind hit us. it was full of power. walking into this wind was tiring and slow. we had to walk two blocks into it carrying our heavy luggage.

we arrived at our hostel, the rancho grande. this was a crowded and noisy place. it was filled with many trekkers and climbers. it was the most popular place in town. the buzz of activity showed that it was not going to be a restful night.

we saw a heavy pack and other gear in our room. we were going to have to share the room with a complete stranger! who knew what sort of monster he or she could be? traces of feminine products indicated it was a woman. but no picture was provided.

furthermore, bob and jan planned to camp and abandon me for two nights out of four nights there. hence, i would have to sleep in a dorm with even more unknown people, probably with three of them. again, no pictures were provided. the prospects were frightening.

all of this was going to cost me 50 united states dollars a night. this might be a reasonable price for a room of your own but it is not for a bed in a dormitory in argentina.

so i was unhappy. jan, bob, and i went on a search for new lodgings for me.

i had four nights scheduled at the rancho grande. but it was clear that they would have no trouble replacing me if i cancelled my reservation. there were so many travelers in town and our hotel was the most popular place in town. it was ideally located on the main street in just past the bus station. the internet had made it well known to all arrivals. it had more customers than it knew what do to with.

our first try at relocation was a new, fancy place high on a hill. it dominated the town. it was a smaller imitation of the grand hotel built in banff by the canadian railroad. it was loathed in all the guidebooks.

faced with this bad press, the clerk there seemed overly eager to get my business. she even promised free dinners and free massages. she did not specify who would be giving the massages. but she gave me a special deal of only 500 united states dollars for two nights.

this was a steep price for a room in patagonia. in most places, 500 dollars can buy more than a massage. i decided to pass on the free massage unless she could guarantee that it would be given by nicole kidman or naomi watts. she could not guarantee either.

we continued our search down a side street into an area off the main road. there was a just opened place, the hosteria lago viedma. the manager said that he had a room. he would be glad to rent it to me. but he did not seem to desparate to rent. he was just content to rent. his quiet manner won my confidence. since the room was quiet, clean, and inexpensive, i realized that i had won a trifecta and decided to stay here for four nights.

jan and bob were envious of my good fortune. they decided to join me at this hotel.

thus, all of us abandoned the rancho grande for the lago viedma. we knew that the rancho grande would have no difficulty filling our rooms. the rancho is well publicized on the internet while the lago is unknown. this is why one is filled to overflowing at high rates while the other has available rooms at lower rates.

the manager explained to be that he used to have satellite internet. the company had upgraded to fibre optic cable and now the internet rarely works here. since he pays for it, this is a source of frustration. but he feels that all of this is part of the strains of modernization and is preparatory to a future time of profits.

the main advantage of our new place is that it is tranquil. it is a hotel with just 4 rooms and at most 8 guests in them. in fact, a hosteria is a small hotel in a house, what we would call a bed and breakfast. it is neither a hotel with a lobby and a clerk nor is it a hostel with dormitory beds. in these quiet surroundings, i will take a few short day hikes. nothing too strenuous. it will be relaxing for me. of course, i will eat well at the local restaurants.

meanwhile jan and bob will be hauling uphill the freight of their tents, packs, food, and bodies. thus, they will demonstrate the equivalence of gravitational mass and inertial mass. einstein will be pleased.

jan and bob will add boiling water to packages of knorr's soup and subsist on that. don't get me wrong. i like knorr's soup but some cooks can do better.

the dogs of our new town, el chalten, enjoy the same leash-free life as the dogs of el calafate. but they are more aggressive to each other and not as friendly to people. these dogs bark sporadically and angrily in the night. they poop on sidewalks. it is enough to indicate that they are unhappy about something.

since the dogs of el calafate and el chalten are of the same breed, i suspect that the difference in temperment is caused by the lack of jet setters in el chalten. visitors to el chalten are serious trekers. they have no time to waste on being friendly to dogs.

in addition, the national park staff request that trekers discourage dogs from following them up the trail. these dogs harass an endangered species of argentine deer. thus the park rangers wish to limit the freedom of dogs. alison, as a curator of a westchester park who values birds, is like that too. thus the rangers inculcate a sense of hostility.

perhaps influenced by this, the manager of our little hotel is also anti-dog. when an unaccompanied dog walks by the hotel, he rushed out to shoo it away. he considers dogs running freely to be a blot on the town. he swears that they sometimes attack people, even tourists. it is bad for business.

all this hostility lessens the quality of life for a dog. it must have a negative effect on their personalities.

we ate dinner at a bistro. i had roast lamb. it was delicious. lamb is very traditional in patagonia. bob had something even better, a nicely poached patagonian trout. jan had a wonderful vegetarian mix with beens and corn. all selections were great. i ended with a chocolate mousse.

it was a pleasant meal to end a hectic day.

in el calafate, i had bypassed my chance to eat lamb. i saw lamb being prepared in the traditional patagonian way. the lamb is gutted, the meat and the skeleton are flatteneed into a sort of plank, this is put on a cross like frame, and it is placed next to a hot fire until it is cooked.

you must feel a deep sympathy for this now dead creature. it has been disemboweled and crucified. there is no dignity in the cooking. no being who is not the founder of a major religion should be forced into such a position.

this method of cooking does not give a consistant result. it is too difficult to control the heat distribution over the whole corpse. so i postponed my lamb dinner. this day in el chalten is the day of my first consumption of roast patagonian lamb. they had roasted it in an oven. i felt better about it.

later i may try the more barbaric method of preparation.

today i hiked up to the lake called lago capri. i had the company of jan and bob for the first part of the hike. they were loaded with camping gear and i had only a light backback. still, their pace was a little quicker than mine. i would have preferred a slower pace. but it was not so quick that i could not keep up. since i would not have been able to do so with a heavy pack, i was happy not to be camping.

we arrived at the viewpoint mirador. here, we got our first close view of mount fitz roy. it was often obscured by clouds. the clouds would part to reveal brief glimpses of this imposing pile of rock and its surrounding ice. it was easy to see lots of opportunities for climbers to get themselves killed here. many have.

i ate lunch, drank tang, rested, and took in the view.

while i rested, jan and bob left me to continue to a higher camp for two nights. i got up and caught up to a stalled jan and bob. after an brief conversation, i turned off on a side path to my destination at the lake. with no racing younger folks in the lead, i had the great pleasure of setting my own pace.

lake capri was beautiful. the view of fitz roy was still superb. it was a good place to be. but the pleasure of the lake was slightly spoiled for me by lack of solitude. at the ideal spot for enjoying the view sat a group of four people who were, to say the least, a distraction.

two adolescent girls were fencing with hiking poles. they did quite good imitations of errol flynn in his prime. their play was nice but had nothing to do with the surrounding view.

the girls and their two boy friends kept up a constant stream of chatter. without ceasing, they began a lunch of sandwiches. instead of paying homage to some of the best mountain scenery in the world, they concentrated on photographing each other eating. these photos were not set up to include any of the stunning background. the emphasis was entirely on the sandwiches entering their mouths. the chatter continued with no break.

this group might as well have been in a school cafeteria. they were oblivious to everything but their usual pleasures. they did not care who they bothered.

such narcisism is strongest when it is reinforced by a group. this was the case here. the presence of figures of authority tends to dampen narcisism. there were no such inhibiting factors here.

narcisism is not peculiar to the young but it is strong in them. it sometimes needs to be curtailed.

after a little while, i thought that i had had a sufficiency of both the view and of the adolescents. i headed down and back to town.

on the trail back, i met an interesting fellow named will. will was from edmonton, alberta, canada. will was a trucker. he had abandoned his job and the canadian winter for two months to visit chile and argentina. when his bosses told him that he was crazy and that he might not have a job when he returned, will replied: "i have to be crazy to work here. i am leaving for two months."

so here he was in patagonia, hiking and nursing a sore knee. for the future he had an offer to tend sheep in argentina. i had to admire his courage.

will was an older fellow, about my age of 60 or so. so it was slightly troubling that he was overly focused on the physical attributes of young ladies. and he enjoyed sharing his mildly licentious observations. as several attractive young ladies passed by, he would comment to me in detail on the quality of their breasts and nipples. some of them were fine indeed. but it seemed unseemly for two old guys like us, who had just met, to focus our conversation on this subject.

not that the girls, particularly one with a light blue shirt which she filled out well, weren't interesting. the male of our species is wired to take an interest in them. but, believe it or not i try hard not to be a dirty old man. i think that means that you do not stare at young ladies, much as you might appreciate their charms. and you comment on such charms only to trusted friends. marty bendersky comes to mind as a kindred spirit who can be trusted.

in short, while in the presence of attractive young women, one tires to behave with courtesy, what used to be called "like a gentleman."

will was staying in the rancho grande, the hostel which we had just abandoned. he was thrilled that he had an attractive young lady sleeping next to him in the dorm. well, i might be too. to judge, i would have to see her and to hear her. otherwise, it is a difficult thing to evaluate.

will was proud that his setup at the rancho grande was a great deal for 50 pesos a night. no, i said, it is 50 dollars a night. no, he said, 50 pesos. he was right! just to be sure, i checked with the staff at the rancho grande when i got back.

jan had gotten the rates wildly wrong! she got it wrong over the internet and also yesterday in person while talking to a clerk who was fluent in english.

but still, the luxury of private rooms and baths at our new lodgings was worth the increased price. the best part of it will be in the telling of jan about her mistake!

but i will always be troubled by the thought that i might have missed the chance of sleeping next to a young version of nicole kidman or of naomi watts for 50 pesos a night.

in the absence of nicole kidman or naomi watts, i will be content with a young patagonian trout. it is more reliable and the flesh is as tender and as sweet. trout, the young cousin of salmon, is almost always good.

this morning i arranged for a bus ride to and back from the hosteria el pilar. el pilar is 18 kilometers north of the town. the bus driver was also a tour guide and spoke incessantly in spanish. he would ask if their were any english speakers, hear si or yes, and respond with more rapid and louder spanish. he had a very piercing voice. it sounded like scratching enamel. i took an intense dislike to him.

the driver made it clear to me that, if i wanted a return ride, i absolutely had to be a the pickup spot at 1:30 pm. under no circumstances would he wait even a minute. i liked him even less.

i arrived at el pilar. it was a charming place. but it was closed for the morning. it is supposed to serve a nice lunch. but to wait for it to open would be boring. i decided to walk back and enjoy the scenery. this would be a 5 hour walk but it was a great decision. i was not going to have to be on time for the bus! i was not going to have to listen to the same driver talk! happiness and calm settled over me.

i set off through the forest of lenga trees. the lenga trees grow only in chile and argentina. pride in this tree is one of the few sources of agreement between these two countries. lengas are a sort of overgrown labrador tea bush. the leaves are similar, small, tough, triangular, and waxy. lengas are able to survive the high winds of the andes. the winds bend lengas into shapes that would give joy to a japanese gardener of bonzai.

my first treat was a view of a splendid hanging glacier. this glacier falls off the base of fitz roy and spills into a gorgeous glacial lake.
the weather was beautiful. the sky was blue with just enough clouds to enhance the view.

the best view was of fitz roy itself. there were no clouds to hide it. on this day every photo of fitz roy was of "screen saver quality."

with the assistance of my initial bus ride, i was near the valley near where jan and bob had camped the previous night. but they had left. no matter, the valley was beautiful. it had lots of little glacial ponds. best of all, it had spectacular views of fitz roy and its attendant ice.

this hike was one of the best hikes i have ever taken. great views of a legendary rock, a beautiful glacier and lakes, and an attractive meadow.

everything was perfect except for one thing. on the descent back to town, i really missed having a hiking pole. the third leg of a pole gives stability and cushion when taking big steps down. my knees no longer enjoy descent. i descend like an old man, carefully and slowly with no joyous skipping down. the joy is only in the heart!

i enjoyed a dinner of argentine beef stew. it was immersed in a curry-like sauce to which you could add a spicier curry. i made the addition and what had been bland became delicious. i washed it down with a locally brewed pilsener. i did not know that my sense of well being was about to be shattered.

when i returned to my hotel, i sought for two guidebooks which had been entrusted to me. they were nowhere to be found! i unpacked and unpacked all my luggage. i did this several times. i even got out my headlamp and looked under the beds. i reasoned that i had checked every place in the room where i could have put them.

guidebooks are important. trips can be ruined without them. without them one might not find good places to eat! one might be regarded as an idiot by jan for losing them.

it was only 10:30 pm and businesses in argentina stay open late. in desparation, i retraced my steps through the town for the last two days. i asked everywhere i had been if they had found two guidebooks.

i went to the restaurant i had eaten at the day before. they remembered that i had been reading the books during dinner. but no, the books were not there.

i had bought a t-shirt at a shop next to the restaurant. perhaps i had laid the books down while contemplating styles and sizes. i could have easily forgotten to pick them back up.

the lady now on duty at the shop was not the one who had waited on me. she knew nothing about the books. she seemed to know nothing about the shop. when i asked her when the other lady would be back, the gulf in our spanish was too wide to cross. we both got totally confused. as near as i could figure, she was saying the other lady would never come back. i suspected that was not what she meant.

i regarded the t-shirt shop as the most likely place where i could have left the guidebooks. i needed to talk to the other lady! i went back to the adjacent restaurant and borrowed a bilingual member of their staff. with her help, i was told that the lady who had served me would be back at 10 the next morning.

at 10 in the morning, i went to the shop and was happy to see the lady who had sold me the t-shirt. she remembered that i had been carrying two books but, alas, they were not left there. my hopes were crashed.

i knew that i had gone directly back to the hotel from this shop. since the books were not in the hotel, i must dropped them in the street on the way back. the books were irretrievably lost!

dreading jan's judgment concerning my unreliability, i attempted to buy substitute guidebooks in our small town of el chalten. that would make everything well.

finding guidebooks to all of argentina or patagonia seemed a forlorn hope. el chalten is a very small town with a few restaurants catering to climbers. it sells food, climbing gear, and little else.

or so i thought. i was told of a bookstore in a recently developed part of town. i went there and discovered el chalten's small oasis of literacy.

they had, in english, shackleton's account of his epic antarctic vogage.

they had, in english, st. exupery's "little prince." st. exupery had been a pilot on a mail route over the andes and even had a local mountain named after him.

they even had, in english, a completely uncritical short biography of evita, complete with nice photographs. distracted for a moment, i decided to buy this!

most of the books were in spanish. but, best of all, they had exactly the guidebooks i had lost. and they accepted credit cards! it was almost as if replacing the books cost nothing.

i bought the biography of evita and the two guidebooks. i experienced a sense of complete redemption. i would not be the subject of jan's scorn.

hence, i walked happily back to the hotel. once there, i happened to look into a drawer. i had never gone near this drawer before. but lying there out of sight were the two lost books!

i discovered that the wife of our hotel manager had cleaned my room and put them there.

when i said that she had given me a fright by putting these books out of sight, she asked: "do you want to live in a world of chaos?" i answered: "yes, i do provided it is chaos created by me and understood by me!"

i sensed that my spanish was not good enough to convey such an abstract concept. a deep concept sometimes requires fluency in language. so i acted it out. i took my room key and hid it under a tablecloth and said: "bad thing, no?" she reluctantly agreed that it was a bad thing to put a valuable room key in a place where she could not find it.

i had a pleasant lunch of motzarella cheese and prosciuto made from local wild boar. washed town with a pleasant pink grapefruit flavored tang.

in the evening jan and bob returned. independently, we had met the same set of two men on the trail. and they had booked at our hotel. we joined up with them for dinner. they were both meat eaters. with bob and me, that made four of us.

jan ordered her usual salad and vegetables. but us four meat eaters ordered the mixed parilla for four. the pile of meat and sausages was the argentine version of the british mixed grill. the argentine version was a much more substantial thing. the quantity of meat was huge. i chose a lamb chop, a chorizo sausage, and the most wonderful blood sausage. a bottle of agua con gas completed the successful meal.

today is our last day in el chalten. i purchased some churros and a sweet roll from the local bakery. the excellence of the pastry in the out of the way town of el chalten convinced me that i must have more argentine pastry.

i visited the little chapel dedicated to climbers who have died in expeditions to local peaks. the chapel is called the "toni eggar memorial." he was an austrian climber who was one of the first two to succeed in climbing the cerro torre in 1959. but he died on the descent, taking the camera and all proof of success with him. there were doubters.

for years there were no successful attempts on cerro torres. his companion went back. he drilled many bolt holes and used these to climb cerro torres again. thus he proved that it could be done. unfortunately, using these bolt holes was criticized as an unfair method. sometimes it is hard to win.

there is a name which preceeds toni's in the memorial. a french climber named poncenot drowned crossing the fitz roy river. he was a member of a the first successful climb of fitz roy led by the great lionel terrey. for his effects, poncenot has his name in the chapel and on the adjacent peak.

i returned to the hotel, retrieved my luggage, and walked to the bus station. the wind was a fierce resistance.

i arrived with plenty of time to catch the bus to el calafate. the bus ride was uneventual except for a brief rest stop where they sold amazingly good plum tarts. once again, argentine pastry proved its excellence.

after our return to our old hostel in el calafate, we headed out to a bird sanctuary on lago argentino. in the marsh we saw ibis, white swans with black necks, and a large flock of very pink flamingos. it was nice to see these pink creatures fly.

after the birds, we went for a grilled lamb. this lamb was cooked in the barbaric style where they flatten the skeleton, crucify the remains, and prop it up next to a fire.

the lamb was fantastic! the meat was tender and juicy. the best i ever had! the vinegar salsa with tomatos, onions, parsley, and garlic was a perfect enhancement of the taste. the french fries were crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. perfect! i washed it all down with a cold quilmes beer. the meal ended with almond ice cream and coffee.

the lamb was a wonderful way to begin a temporary vacation from meat. now we go to puerto natales, chile. it is on a fiord of the pacific ocean. i will switch to seafood. i look forward to conger eel, king crab, among others.

over and out,

joe n

10. it is chile south of fifty

we left el calafate on a bus early in the morning. our goal was the chilean town of puerto natales in southern patagonia.

we turned onto route 40. route 40 is argentina's version of the alcan highway as it used to be 20 years ago. services of any kind are scarce and the road is unpaved. flying gravel has given most cars shattered windshields. thank god for safety glass! might as well wait before rushing to replace the windshield. it will only be shattered again.

that being said, route 40 is a major road and is well kept up for an unpaved road. i am told that the primary fear of driving route 40 are the fierce patagonian winds. they can and do blow cars off the road. since services are hard to find, this is a bad thing.

we finally saw an abundance of larger animal life. first we saw sheep, domesticated of course. then cows, also domesticated. at least we were seeing larger forms of life in abundance!

finally, we saw wild things, a flock of rheas, the ostrich-like bird which roams these parts. the rheas ran away from us. but they neglected to use their signature zig-zag moves. if we had been expert with the bolas, they would have been dead meat! i bet they have huge drumsticks!

then we encountered real nuisances. i refer to the chilean border guards. the had orders to systematically search our luggage. everything had to be opened and displayed.

the guards confiscated a selection of products. juice was permitted entry. cheese, nuts, and any form of meat, even cured, were forbidden. these must to be immediately eaten or they would be seized.

the chileans have an especially strong prejudice against any product made in argentina from deer. we had to eat our smoked venison, even if it was vacuum sealed. since they have the same deer on both sides of the border and they cross freely while alive, i do not see the reason in this.

many of the people on the bus gave away food rather than waste it. and, since the border guards were nice about their confiscations, it was not a bad experience. but it did take a while to be allowed into chile. 2 hours in total. someone pointed out that this was less than the usual holiday wait at the united states-canadian border. so one cannot be too critical!

a sign said that the importing of semen was forbidden. logically, this means that every man should be barred from crossing the border. alternatively, before being allowed to cross, the men should be given a picture of nicole kidman and sent to a small private room.

at the border crossing there were photos of escaped criminals and of missing children. i noticed a large portrait of the lady who is the current president of chile. probably, the latter is a chilean reaction to the fact that argentina also has a lady president. chile cannot bear to be behind argentina. the spirit of hillary clinton is really blossoming down here!

safely across the border and into chile, we arrived at the town of puerto natales. puerto natales is a port town located on a fiord of the pacific ocean. it is 51 degrees lattitude south. that is rather far south. for example, edmonton, alberta, canada is 53 degrees north.

60 degrees south would be the antarctic circle. the only land inside this circle are small islands and the continent of antarctica. thus, we cannot on this trip achieve more than inside of 50. we will not see the inside of 60.

on this trip, we will reach as far south as ushuaia at 56 degrees south. ushuaia is the port of departure for antarctica. we do not go there.

we checked into our pleasant hostel in puerto natales. i have an single room with a private bath. it is approximately 20 dallars a night.

jan and bob are departing immediately for the national park torres del paine. they will hike and carry heavy packs. i will not. it is raining.

here is a report of the dogs of puerto natales. there seem to be more dogs than people. i am happy to report that the puerto natales dogs have as much freedom to roam as the dogs in argentine patagonia.

despite the fact that these dogs often congregate in little packs, resting and alert on the street corners, still they are as welcome here as the dogs of el calafate are there. these dogs often trail a person to see if some food is forthcomming. if you whirl around, they quickly retreat. so they must have had some bad experiences.

except for the fact that the dogs of puerto natales are more oriented towards obtaining food, these dogs seem to lead a good life. but they might be a little hungrier than the argentine dogs.

we abide in this area for six days. my plan is to stay in this hostel for two nights, then to switch to a hosteria in the park for two nights, and then to return to this hostel for two more nights.

i have two motives:

one, to spend some time in puerto natales and to sample its seafood.

two, to hike in the park, to see some wonderful views, and to not camp. in my old age, i avoid carrying large weights for long distances.

i should be able to do what i plan. but it has been curiously hard to pin down that i actually have a reservation at the hosteria in the park. jan tried to call for me. after the words, "do you speak english?", they hung up on her and thereafter no one would answer the phone. this is not a good way to get customers!

i got a little help from the jan and the hostel manager. finally, with my own primitive spanglish, i got a reservation.

i should add that the hostel manager here in puerto natales was totally on my side in my plan to abandon his hostel for two nights. this is so since i have made it clear that i am willing to pay him for 6 nights even though i only use 4 of them.

for our first dinner in puerto natales was to be special, the best fish restaurant in town. the restaurant called "the glacier fish" was down at the waterside. the guidebook raved about how fresh the fish was.

unfortunately, the glacier fish had transformed itself. it changed from a solid basic seafood restaurant into a mediterranean restaurant. in southern patagonia, one does not seek out mediterrranean food!

the chef and/or the owner had acquired pretensions. he sought to improve or mask the flavor of his crustacions and of his fish by sauces. this was a very bad idea. he was missing the main point, the wonderful flavor of fresh seafood! he was throwing it away. he would not be the first or last to do so.

such an attitude, the absence of any customers, and the pervasive jazz musack convinced us to walk out of there.

fortunately, we passed by the restaurant, "el ultimo esperanza." the guidebooks had also rated this highly for seafood. we liked the look of the place. there were customers dining there, a good sign. and they looked happy. and the menu had everythine we wanted.

we had, for a surprisingly small price, a delicious dinner of conger eel, king crab, and abalone. you can't get much better than that! all of it was simply prepared, no frying or sauces. the seafood taste came through!

the king crab was fresh king crab, sweet and succulent> enough said! after all what can you say about the taste of crab or of lobster which has not already been said?

the abalone had a subtle taste and it was tender enough. it was not beaten flat the way they do it in california. the californians worship abalone and therefore devote a maximum effort to tenderizing it. tenderizing it pays off.

in patagonia they just eat abalone without the pounding. it is good enough that way. most important, it is plentiful since it has not been fished out here like it has been in california.

the conger eel was a new food for us all. it is a marine eel with a taste similar to cod and a texture similar to lobster. it is supposed to have a nasty disposition. it likes to steal food from other fish.

conger eel tastes like a muscular cod and is superb with garlic!

later we would discover that the best way to have conger eel was in a soup with spices and vegetables. you must add lemon to get the right taste!

the male conger eel has a curious ending to its life. before spawning, its gonads swell to become one third of its body weight. afterwards it dies. i am unable to evaluate whether it is a good way to go.

this feast was seasoned by the excellent accompaniment of a salsa. the salsa here in south america adds something to almost every food, meat and seafood included. it is a simple mixture of tomatos, onions, garlic, and parsley immersed in vinegar and oil.

we also had some frites, a mixed salad, and a plate of sliced avocados. all the ingredients were simple and good, even the frites!

we washed it down with some agua con gas. dessert was an ice cream made from calafate berries. in argentina, calafate ice cream is very expensive. it is a bargain in chile and just as good.

in fact, the above meal was very reasonably priced, a feast at approximately 15 united states dollars a person.

in our hostel, i met "alaska girl." alaska girl is a middle aged woman, muscular and chucky. she is divorced from the cqptain of a crab boat. this crab boat and the captain appear on the cable television show "the most dangerous catch."

alaska girl was both wife and the cook on the crab boat. when her captain husband left her for another woman, she was awarded a half interest in the crab boat. this legacy allows her to lead a life of leisure and travel.

alaska girl is accompanied by a teacup yorkie which she expertly smuggles through customs without papers. it is a small and quiet dog, easy to hide in a purse. she was outraged that some british lady had once turned her in to customs. she had a hassle getting the necessary papers.

alaska girl seems to be looking for a hookup. the first thing she asked me was "are you traveling without a woman?" i said yes and no. i was traveling with a married couple. she though that was weird. maybe it is.

following in the footsteps of jan and bob, i took the bus out to torres del paine. i arrived at the hotel in the park.

i had explicitly requested a mountain view. they said there was no problem with that. when i arrived, they gave me a so-called garden view. the garden view faces away from the mountain! only after insisting did i get the mountain view i had contracted for.

i discovered again and again that the chileans are a friendly people, eager to please. but they are a sloppy people. they do not get it right the first time. to get what you expect, you have to be persistent. chileans and russians are similar in many ways.

on the day of my arrival, i hiked up towards the best view in the park, the close up view of the torres del paine. i had already seen these torres after which the park is named. i had seem them from a distance and they were spectacular.

but, on my hike up to the great view, when i reached an intermediate point with a good but partial view, the clouds were rolling in. i had to forgo the close up view. no matter, the far away view was great too.

i decided to skip dinner at the hotel. i needed to eat my trail food. i had chorizo sausage and swiss cheese. it was tasty enough.

i had a local pear as a dessert. the natural taste of the pear seemed to include a faint taste of brandy. very nice.

all i could get to drink was a curious form of reconstituted peach juice. it was made by adding water to a powder. since it was really fruitlike, it differed from something like tang. i liked it because it seemed real. but i also like the taste of tang which i know is not real. by the way, in chile they have an excellent pineapple flavored version of tang.

before my hike, the hotel was kind enough to lend me a walking stick. this pole helped my old knees survive. but the knees still hurt enough that i began to analyze the problem.

when you get old, you get to be too careful on the descent. in your caution, your steps become too small. you are always stopping, always jarring the knees. you have no flow.

in an effort to be safe, you are always stopping your momentum. this causes pain in the knees. hence, it is far better to be less careful and to flow down the mountain. this is what most young people do. and they are as safe or safer than us older guys.

in the evening, the clouds had become rain. i decided to take the so-called "full paine tour." if any visibility was possible, then, in one car ride, i would see the whole park. and i would stay dry. and my knees would not hurt.

i was in luck the next morning. the day was bright and clear. there was no rain, we had fantastic views of the torres del paine. to be sure, these views were from a distance.

we had great views of the cuernos, the rock "horns" which are the symbol of the local beer, austral.

we visited a roaring waterfall. it was a torrent of gray glacial water, very cold. the wind at the crest of a hill by the waterfall was the strongest i have ever felt.

gravity is the only force holding you down. hence, it did not matter how strong you were, if you had nothing to hold on to, you could not stand up in this powerful wind. you would be blown away.

you could not look into this wind. the wind would sandblast your eyes. alison's warning of the need for goggles in patagonia had come true at last!

the best part of the tour was the animal life we saw. it goes without saying that we saw large herds of guanacos. they are common in the park.
they are smaller relatives of the llama. they are very graceful and flexible. they run like a cross between a camel and a giraff. and they can twist their legs and necks like they are a pretzel.

one guanaco allowed us to approach within ten feet. it was completely tame. i guess it had learned that, in the absence of vicious bola wielding gauchos, it only had to watch out for pumas.

in the park and often outside of it, we saw flocks of pink flamingos. the flamingos become pink because of the crustaceons they eat. i cannot see how this pink coloring can have any survival value. i would think that evolution would devise a less noticeable coloring. this must mean that pink flamingos have no significant predators. maybe they taste bad.

we saw many condors soaring overhead. with wingspans in the neighborhood of 9 to 10 feet, they soar effortlessly in the andean wind.

we even saw a condor nesting 300 feet away on a cliff side. we could see clearly the white feathers on its wings. it is a majectic bird.

the guide explained that juvenile condors cannot fly for a full year after they are hatched. until they can fly, the young condors are fed by the adults. but since condors live up to 50 years, this time span is not such a burden on the adults, at least by human standards of 20 years or more of feeding the young.

we saw a tufted bird which looked like a giant carnivorous parakeet. it was just eating some vegetation. but it looked like it had an attitude. the guide said that it liked to steal the eggs of other birdsl

in the yard in front of the hotel, horses were grazing on grass and ibises were using their long beaks to probe the ground for something, probably worms. they seem to get along.

the full paine tour ended with a boat ride to see the glaciers calving into lake grey. once again, there was an intense wind. the resulting waves made boarding the boat very challenging. it seemed to even be dangerous.

first you walk out onto a floating 60 foot pier with only an intermittent railing. the waves make the pier bob up and down with a 2 foot amplitude. keep a wide stance and focus on your sea legs!

then you step off the pier into an equally unstable zodiac. the zodiac takes you out to a larger boat. you step off the unstable zodiac onto the fairly stable boat.

the boat drives through the wind and waves. when the boat is in motion, going outside would mean an instant soaking. eventually the boat stops near the glacier. it is not a very active glacier but the water has a few ice bergs which have calved off it. since the ice is very blue, it is a pleasant sight. but this glacier is not in the class of the perito merino!

the boat heads back. to disembark from the boat, you reverse the process of embarking: go from boat to unstable zodiac to unstable pier and walk the 60 feet back to dry and firm land.

one of the virtues of having bright sun and also the threat of rain is that we had so many gorgeous rainbows on this tour and at other times. this park is indeed a park of rainbows.

at the hotel i had a dinner of grilled conger eel. it was served in a nice mustard sauce. but the chef had placed entirely too much emphasis on the sauce. he used the excellence of the sauce as an excuse for not properly cooking the fish. in short, he overcooked it, the greatest sin in fish cookery!

the result of overcooking this muscular fish is to make it very tough, even chewy. my judgment of the chef was confirmed by other diners who had something different. they said the chef overcooked lamb also, so much that it was dry and chewy.

this confirms my conviction to stick to restaurants which get the preparation right. they concentrate on simple preparation of good ingredients. they do not overprepare food. they do not try to hide overcooking with a sauce. they let the real taste come through. that is the current universally accepted definition of the best cuisine.

my stay at the hotel ended with examples of typical cheerful chilean sloppiness. they get it wrong, they keep on smiling, and they fix it in the end.

first, they added a 19 percent surcharge which they could not explain.
this substantial charge was not included in the price. if you paid in dollars, it was not charged. but, if you were a foreigner paying in chilean pesos, it would be charged. they claimed it was an unspoken rule.

if necessary, they would convert the price in chilean pesos to dollars and the 19 percent surcharge would be eliminated. on the other hand, they converted chilean pesos to dollars by charging another 19 percent surcharge. so they won either way.

some dutch tourists were particularly upset over this.

guests leaving the hotel are entitled to a free shuttle to the connection with the bus to puerto natales. this shuttle left at one. the desk clerk was telling everyone that it left at two. fortunately, enough guests were well informed and corrected her several times until she understood that she was wrong. so no guests would be stranded. or so we thought!

some college age students from the united states were staying at the hotel. they were exchange students, mostly from southern california but with one from princeton. they wanted to catch the shuttle to leave. the male students had no problem but the shuttle refused to believe that the female students were legitimate guests. understand this much, none of the guests had any proof that they were guests. only the young girls were disbelieved!

only the united support of all of the departees convinced the shuttle driver to let the girls on.

as the girls said, "we're just girls. how could we be hotel guests?" it must be something about latin america!

the exchange student from princeton was an obama look alike. he was a student at the woodrow wilson school and was studying economics abroad at the university of santiago for one semester. he said that most people he met in chile would complement him on his resemblence to obama.

this princeton student has everything going for him. he is a good looking guy. he has the same lighter coloring of obama. he is not a really, really dark skinned fellow. in american society do not underestimate the advantage of coloring!

the princeton student seems to come from successful parent. he has a confident expectation of future success for himself. best of all, he is a smart princeton undergraduate with a strong work ethic. i do not think he needs to have great luck to be successful in this life. i think he would need very bad luck to fail. would you have been able to say that about any black student 30 years ago?

i returned to the hostel in puerto natales and then went out to a pharmacy to buy some necessities like toothpaste and a bic razor.

in the pharmacy, i encountered a disturbing american. he was an older man, definitely well over 60. he did not seem totally coherent. he said he was from alaska. i will call him "alaska guy." i told him that there was a woman in town who also was from alaska. he was totally uninterested. too bad. hooking up might have made both of them happy or, at least, happier. he definitely needed someone or something.

alaska guy spoke very loudly to everyone, always in english, even if he was speaking to someone who understood not a word. loud as he was, he still adopted a conspiratorial tone as if he were telling important and dangerous secrets. he often shielded his mouth while communicating in a stage whisper.

he said to me, "i have a secret. we all have secrets!" he thought everyone in the pharmacy should hear this. i do not know why. i do not know why he was in the pharmacy at all. he made no attempt to buy anything. he just kept talking to the pharmacist about how she did not know anything about him. he might as well have been speaking to a wall since she understood no english. he seemed surprisingly content to have any audience, even one that ignored him.

the next day, i went to get a bowl of conger eel soup. this is the way to have conger eel! it was delicious in a spicy soup with potatoes, carrots, and onions. a little added salsa and lemon juice made it just right.

while i was eating, alaska guy came into the restaurant. he stood in the middle of the floor and shouted to the staff, "damn it, just give me some food! i don't care what it is! i want food!"

when a waitress handed him a bread roll, he said, "this is sure food alright!" but then he must have reconsidered and thought that he had settled for too little. so he said, "i can see that john (his name must have been john) is not wanted here!"

"i know i am a tramp! but i am the best god damned tramp in the world."

before he left, alaska guy came over to me and, in his stage whisper, said "we used to be warriors!" then he left.

if what alaska guy said was true, he must have been a former member of the united states military. since this military no longer had a use for him, he had no purpose. he had no settled life. like blanche dubois in a streetcar named desire, alaska guy wandered the world depending on the kindness of strangers. who knows what damage his military service had done to his mind. his mind did not seem to be all there.

jan and bob returned from their hike in torres del paine. we took the bus to punta arenas. the first few kilometers out of puerto natales were marred by a great deal of litter. it was in the form of plastic bags caught up in the vegetation. i was speculating whether this was a terrestial version of the island of floating plastic that sits in the pacific ocean. then it ceased and the landscape became neat and unspoiled.

as we neared punta arenas, i got my first sight of the straits of magellan.

three thoughts occurred to me.

one, the straits are a wide and significant body of water. it would have been difficult for magellan to miss them. he almost had to turn into the straits. but that does not diminish his courage in continuing to go through the straits until he came out the other side.

two, at least at punta arenas, the shores of the straits are low and sandy. in fact, punta arenas is spanish for sandy point. often the shores of the strait are described as rocky and mountainous. i think this is true further along in the straits. the sand here is much more inviting. magellan could easily have landed here. so his journey seems a might less perilous.

three, the tip of south american is called tierra del fuego, land of fire. magellan saw fires burning on the coast. the natives wear little clothing and use large bonfires to keep warm. it is significantly different to imagine those fires on a sandy shore rather than on a rocky one. it somehow seems less supernatural.

when we disembarked in punta arenas, our walk to our hostel involved hauling all our gear up a long and steep set of concrete stairs. this is what i was trying to avoid on hikes in the park torres del paine!

we made it to the hostal only to discover that they did not have room there for all three of us. they had room but at another location. the other location was nicer and would cost me twice as much. that meant that the cost per night was still only 34 united states dollars per night. not bad.

we walked to the main square. a heroic statue of ferdinand magellan graced the square. foot planted in front, he looked boldly up at the sky, the classic pose of a farseeing hero.

i let myself be distracted from my main goal of eating krill at one of the best restaurants in punta arenas. i had king crab salad for lunch and garlic soup for dinner. both were great.

but tomorrow for lunch it will be krill. the chef insists that he has it on the menu. the food of the whales is difficult to get anywhere but here.
i cannot miss the opportunity.

it would be nice to have some sea urchin also. i hear it is a specialty here and it should be in season. but i have not seen it on the menu anywhere.

it is getting progressively colder as we go farther south. when we reach our final destination of ushuaia, we will be over 3000 kilometers south of buenos aires. it is hot and humid there. it is not so here. we now wear warm hats and a layer of fleece under our jackets. jan has even begun to wear long underwear.

today we will take a boat to see penguins on isla magdelena, an island in the straits of magellan.

first, we will eat krill!

krill is nothing but a very small shrimp-like creature. the main obstacle to mass human consumption of krill is that it would be tedious to shell all the little fellows. but a restaurant here has some means of doing so. the results are terrific!

bob, jan, and i decided to share three things.

one, we had an appetizer of various forms of tempura. tempura sweet peppers and tempura carrots were superbly done. but the stars of tempura were the krill, hake, and chilean sea bass. i have never had tempura that was this good. i have never had any other form of fried fish that was as good. it was all simply melt-in-your mouth good! crisply coated and totally juicy, the apotheosis of fried food.

two, we had hake and krill baked in a thin pastry crust. this was perfectly succulent in a sauce of pureed zuchini, parsley, and lemon.

three, we had lox, goat cheese, and watercress. it was as good as any lox and cream cheese. and that is good indeed.

i closed with a mate flavored ice cream. this was good but sad to say it was not as good as its japanese green tea flavored cousin.

then we boarded a boat to see the penguins. the boat was a cross between a small ferry and a large military landing craft. you got on the same way you got off, through the open ramp at the front.

the boat took us out into the straits of magallen to the isla magdelena. two months ago, 300 thousand magellanic penguins had nested there. many had departed. there were only 100 thousand left. it was enough.

the penguins did not seem to mind us walking among them. they looked at us with interest.

we were warned that, if the penguins started waggling their heads side to side like charlie chaplin, it meant that we were too close. they might bite us with their powerful beaks. to my knowledge, no such violence occured.

the boat returned us back across the straits to the dock we had departed from. it was cold, dark, and windy. it was like coastal alaska. we were indeed a long way from hot and humid buenos aires.

the man who was supposed to pick us up was not there. we stood in the wind and the dark watching all others leave. eventually we took a collectivo, a small cab which plies a regular route for a cheap price. it took us back into the center of town.

we walked into the hostel. there was our delinquent driver, the husband of the manager of the hostel. he claimed that his wife had forgotten to remind him to pick us up.

she offered us supper. somehow, this offer changed. we were driven to a buffet which was said to be both excellent and cheap. it turned out to be an attractive but not so cheap place. so we walked home and stopped for some salad, fries, and a roast beef sandwich on the way.

tomorrow, we get up at six in the morning to catch the bus to ushuaia. this is a 12 hour bus ride involving a ferry across the straits of magellan and a border crossing. but it will be our last bus ride on this trip!

joe n

11. beyond the straits of magellan

we leave chile to go back into argentina. i must report a disturbing discovery. our small sample indicates that george bush is popular with the common people of chile! a traffic cop gave a two thumbs up gesture as he mentioned the name of our expresident.

and our hotel maid said that she liked him for his character and personality!

i remember that this is the country that was ruled by pinochet. pinochet is a role model for republicans. when i asked our maid if she liked pinochet, she smiled and said, "no, but he brought order."

i asked the maid about allende. she said she liked him. but he was too far in the past for her to know much about him.

in argentina, bush is despised by even taxi drivers. they blame him for the economic crisis which is hurting their lives. chileans do not seem to be aware of the global economic crisis. argentines are more cosmopolitan.

i have heard a rumor that george bush is going to buy a farm in paraguay. chile has the same right wing tradition as paraguay. it might be a good place for him.

chileans are clearly superior to argentines in their appreciation of fish. the argentines are an excessively beef oriented society. even in argentine patagonia, beef is prized over every other food, even native lamb.

argentines say, "why should we eat fish when the beef is so good, when we have so much of it, and when it is so cheap?" the love of beef is an obsession with argentines!

our bus went on a ferry across the straits of magellan. at some time in the past the chilean navy took complete possession of both shores of these straits. at points the chileans only have a thin strip of land but the argentines have no possession of any shore. this is a clear demonstration of navel dominance. if i were an argentine, i would be more upset over this than over the falkland islands, the so-called malvinas!

after crossing the straits, we reached the border. going from chile to argentina was much easier than going the other way. the chileans stamped our passports and were happy to let us go. we crossed a surprisingly long no-man's land. these two people do not get along. they need to be separated by kilometers!

the rivalry between chile and argentina has bitter roots. it is similar to that between france and england or to that between france and germany.

over time, neighbors tend not to like each other. when we asked what filling was in a cookie, a chilean shop girl would say, "it is like dulce de leche, but it is chilean so it is better."

unlike the chileans, the argentines did not seem to care what agricultural products we brought in. they let us in without searching our luggage for seeds, meat, or even semen.

our bus went through the argentine town of rio grande. rio grande has a huge trout sign to signal its entrance. it has a legitimate claim to being the trout capital of the world. early residents brought rainbow and brown trout to the rivers. the fist went out into the atlantic. they ate much good seafood and returned in record sizes.

the town of rio grande is a surprisingly sprawling industrial town. it is set in boring golden dry plains. yet its trout have lured movie stars and ex-presidents to it. it is a long way to go to catch a fish.

the landscape and climate changed dramatically when we passed by rio grande. the trees became greener. there were more of them. lumbering became a major industry. soon we were driving through real mountains. it became colder and damper. from the dry plains we had entered a wilderness which resembled parts of the canadian rockies.

we arrived in ushuaia. it was raining. this is often the case in ushuaia.
we took a taxi to our hostel. the owner, the indomitable alba, immediately took charge of us. she told everything it was possible to do in ushuaia.

alba is not only a vegetarian but also cannot eat most grains. jan formed an immediate bond with her. jan's good friend keela also has these dietary restrictions.

alba divided ushuaia into two parts, one part where tourists eat and one part where locals eat. her knowledge was mostly second hand since alba could not eat anywhere except at home. thus, i did not regard alba as a reliable guide to culinary excellence. but she meant well.

the first night in ushuaia i resolved to let jan have her way. she needed a salad. so we would all go to a restaurant which would have salads.

inspired by alba, jan and bob led us to a take out place. when it is cold and damp a take out place is not the best of choices! it also seemed to have run out of all their stuff.

so jan agreed to try a restaurant i had selected. it claimed to have salads. in fact, what it had was an all you can eat lamb parilla with a salad bar. when jan explained that she did not want the lamb, the waiter proposed that she only eat salad. for this, she would get a microscopic discount.

this too did not seem like what we wanted. so we wandered off into the cold damp night. by this time, jan's spirit was broken and she agreed to try one of my top two selections of a fish restaurant.

the restaurant did not fullfil jan's desire for salad but it did have good pasta. jan was happy. even bob was happy. prices for these things were not too high.

jan and bob seem to feel that food should cost almost nothing. otherwise, they feel that they are being cheated. my mother was that way. but my mother had the excuse of living through the great depression. in my mother's mind, prices were forever set by the prices of the 1930s.

most important to me, my fish restaurant made me happy. i had a black hake in a lemon cream sauce with bits of king crab and mussels. not bad! but it wasn't cheap. all in all, it was good value.

unfortunately, all the wandering in the cold and damp night had brought on the beginnings of a cold for me. i bought juice and cough drops on the way home. once there, i put on a hat and went to sleep. i have discovered that sleeping with a hat and being very warm often can cure a cold or lessen it.

jan programs little robots to search things out. it is based on a random search. it ends eventually in finding what you want. jan has unwittedly programed herself. so jan charges off in an arbitrary direction and adjusts to find the goal.

bob is more organized. he generally has some idea where he is going. but he is a very fit walker and really doesn't care how much out of the way he walks. jan usually keeps up with him. jan and bob are often about a half block ahead of me, charging ahead and immersed in talk between themselves.

except for the too rapid pace, i like the solitude i get on these walks.

this time even jan could not keep up with bob. she asked him to slow down. bob came up with an original explanation for not doing so. he said that he could not do so because it would hurt his knees. true, going slow can be hard on the knees when going downhill. but we were not going downhill all the time. so i fail to see the logic in bob's explanation.

the next day the cold infection had arrived in me. we had scheduled to take a boat trip on the beagle channel. this was not to be missed.

we begab with a visit to an island with comorants and seals. our boat was a catamaran and, without landing, brought us very close. both birds and mammals did not seem to mind. the seals continued to play their game of king of the hill. the largest ones secured the highest points, got lots of sun and the best views.

we continued down the channel, green mountains on both sides. we passed the chilean naval base of port williams. ushuaia claims to be the southernmost town in the world. port williams is actually south of it. but it has only a few navy people and the last remaining aboriginal woman.

we made a quick visit to a penguin colony. this was the second time we saw magellanic penguins. megellanic penguins migrate north from here up to warmer parts of chile and argentina.

we saw another species, one that migrates south to antarctica. except for its pecular vacation ideas and a yellow beak, it looked almost the same as a magellanic penguin.

our catamaran landed us at the historic estancia halberton or halberton ranch. the founder of the ranch, thomas bridges, was an english missionary to the aboriginies in tierra del fuego.

bridges made the first and only dictionary of the aboriginal language. since the aborginies have all died off of starvation and disease, his dictionary is not much used now. but he seems to have had a genuine respect for them. at least one of them is buried in the family cemetery.

as an english missionary in argentina, thomas bridges was a well connected guy. when he asked for an estate so that he could have something to leave to his children, the argentine government gave him a large one, maybe 80 thousand acres. it is complete with sea shore, a protected harbour, mountains, streams, and lakes.

bridges' argentine friends lent him the money to get started, for example, to build a house. it cost a lot since it was shipped from england. they did not expect to be paid back. even dick cheney would have liked the deal that bridges got. but at least bridges earned his good fortune by sincere missionary work with the aboriginies.

the bridges estate is quite isolated in the coastal mountains. for years, the only access was by sea. but now there is a road. it was built in the 1970s by the argentine government. there was a near war with chile at the time. the argentine government wanted a good road to send troops. it might be necessary to repel a chilean crossing of the beagle channel. that is similar to the way that the alaska-canada highway got built. the japanese were invading the aleutian islands at the time.

the bridges raised sheep and cattle. the sheep are gone now but the shearing sheds and equipment remain.

the cattle remain also but they have gone wild. every once in a while, the staff goes hunting for beef. some unsuspecting creature is blow away and hauled back with a tractor. some of i the beef is turned into a delicious vegetable beef soup. they sell it here in the tea room. i had some.

by the way, the staff prefers to hunt bulls. bulls are both more tender and less wary. otherwise said, the male of a species is often lazier and more stupid than the female. in one way or another, males pay a price for this.

we had gone to halberton ranch by catamaran. we were to return to ushuaia by bus over the road built by the government through the wilderness.

some silly canadian had an idea. he would to make a fortune by importing beavers into the wilds of tierra del fuego and trapping them. since beavers have no predators here, they do quite well. as jacques lewin will testify, the result of beaver infestation can be devasting. streams are dried up and valley are turned into swamps. we saw one of the little creatures. he was busy as the proverbial beaver.

just before town, we stopped at the world's only center for patagonian huskies and dog sleds. the argentine owner was particularly proud of the breed. they were able to withstand cold well. since alaska and siberian huskies can presumably do that just as well, i did not see the reason for developing a new breed.

most of the huskies were attached by chains to posts. they walked in circles around these posts. it was the repetitive pacing seen in zoos.
these dogs did not have the freedom that other dogs in patagonia enjoyed. this was a dog prison, a dog andersonville. this civil war reference was obscure enough not to draw any criticism from jan.

the huskie owner was proud of the fact that he had once run his dogs in the iditarod. in order to create dissension among his staff, i told one of his women assistants that there is a saying in alaska:
"alaska! where men are men and women win the iditarod!"

after never winning the iditarod for many years, women have become dominant. they are tough enough. they seem to take better care of their dogs. the dogs love them. since the dogs are the real athletes, that counts a lot.

the woman assistant did not think that her big strong argentine boss would like to hear that.

when we got back to town it was raining. this was not good for my cold. but i decided to join jan and bob for pizza. we had two pizzas. they were not bad. most important, the crust was good. you cannot mess up mozarella cheese. but the boiled ham on top of one and the diced hard boiled egg on top of the other were not inspirational.

i walked home through the cold rain. sensing my fragility, dogs barked angrily at me in the night.

i drank a large quantity of a liquid called multifruit. it consisted of a mixture of orange juice, peach nectar, and apple juice. this concoction was all i could find at the supermarket. pure orange juice is sometimes rare in patagonia and in tierra del fuogo.

i put an extra blanket on the bed. i put on a winter hat. thus fortified against the cold, i went to bed.

i woke up the next morning feeling better than i expected. my voice sounded bad. i was coughing up phlegm. but the energy level was not too bad.

i stayed at the hostel while jan and bob went out to see the prison museum. ushuaia had been founded as a prison. i reminded jan and bob to think of the patagonian huskies while they were there.

near our hostel there is an all purpose medical clinic under the sponsorship of the metalworkers union of argentina. it proudly asserts that it was founded by eva peron. its sign even has a picture of her on it. i am pleased that the military and the oligarchs have not succeeded in wiping out all traces of evita.

i read that some republican congressman, zach wach, from tennessee asserts that health care is not a right, it is a privilege. it shows how far the republicans have retrogressed. they are far behind where evita was in the 1940s!

i walked into town and up a hill to what the guidebooks call the best fish restaurant in ushuaia. the view of the harbour is spectacular. so was the patagonian sea bass with black butter and capers. this fish, also called patagonian tooth fish, is very slow growing. it lives in very deep water. it has a great flesh, moist and flakey. it is so popular that many fine restaurants will not serve it anymore lest it be fished out. i figure that, if you can't eat it here south of patagonia, where can you eat it? of course, the logical answer is nowhere. forgive me, i am unlikely to ever have it again.

the owner of the restaurant is a lady who speaks fine english. as an educated argentine, she is delighted to see bush go. she agreed that the economic recovery is going to take a long time.

also consistent with her being an educated argentine is her mixed feelings about evita. she does not approve of evita's methods. she gives evita credit for doing something for the poor. she feels that evita bought the votes of her supporters.

i ask, "what politician does not buy the votes of his supporters?"

the chef pointed out a ship in the harbour whose next destination was south georgia island. south georgia is 66 degrees south. this is very far south, well inside the antarctic circle.

south georgia island has a pub with a famous collection of women's bras. a woman can get a free drink there by exchanging her bra. since this pub was founded to serve lonely british sailors, i suspect that the bras of transvestites or transsexuals are also acceptable currency. you can probably also get a drink for a jock strap.

it is not so far south here. nevertheless, it snowed here last night. in the wintry north, that might not impress you. but recall that early march here is the equivalent of early september there!

12. last tango in buenos aires

we fly from ushuaia back to buenos aires tonight. we should arrive at one thirty in the morning.

as we leave behind patagonia and tierra del fuego, i have some final reflections.

since buenos aires, i have not seen a macdonalds, not in el calafate, el chalten, puerto natales, punta arenas, or ushuaia. there seem to be no macdonalds in all of southern patagonia or in tierra del fuego.

but i have seen a carrefour supermarket. europeans know the name carrefour. carrefour exists in portugal, spain, and france, among other european nations.

there is a carrefour in ushuaia. it is not too small, either. thus, carrefour has a branch in the southernmost town in the world. and macdonalds is not even close. somewhere south of buenos aires, macdonalds ceased to care.

there is a monument in ushuaia to the poor argentine sailors and soldiers who where killed in the malvinas-falklands conflict. these boys were left out to die while their generals and admirals sat safely in buenos aires. the evidence suggests that even the captain of the belgrano did not go down with his ship. only the sailors next to the exploding torpedo were blown to bits.

but people never learn. the monument shouts that "the malvinas are ours! we will return!" and probably get whipped again by a superior military force.

i have mentioned that evita's work lives on here in the presence of a medical clinic. today i saw a tribute to her, almost a shrine, on the main waterfront street. the hands of the oligarchs reach here but they cannot squeeze too tightly.

today i visited the old prison which was the reason for the town's founding. it is bleak place. the cells are small. it is cold and damp. the stoves are far apart. the guards were sadists. books and mail, even sunlight, were often restricted. i think that even the chained up patagonian huskies have a better life than those ushuaian prisoners had. the prison was finally closed by juan peron.

for my last meal in ushuaia, i choose to have (tierra del) fuegan lamb. this lamb is prepared in the patagonian style, a method which combines the best of crucifiction, flaying, and being burned at the stake. a juicy and tasty piece of meat is the result.

i began with a thick piece of leg. this is a very luxurious cut. no effort is required to love this.

i continued with some lamb ribs. one feels very carnivorous eating ribs. lions must feel this way. but with a little bit of work, ribs have overtones of taste which the leg cannot match.

completely satisfied with my meal, i walked back along the waterfront, past the huge cruise ships amsterdam and star princess, and returned to the hostel to rest and further recover from my cold.

i phoned alison using skype. skype is very cheap. i know alison liked her visit to ushusaia many years ago. i thought she would like a call from ushuaia. i was eager to set a new record for distance.

alison told me that i had missed the main attraction of ushuaia, which is the town dump. alison is a birder. the town dump is where the rarest gulls are to be found. since i was nursing a cold, i had a good excuse to miss the town dump.

our taxi driver to the airport was a lady. she told us that there were many women taxi drivers in the south of argentina. but women were not allowed to drive taxis in the north. it is supposed to be too dangerous for them. i do not know why the south is safer than the north.

we were near the edge in terms of weight allowance for luggage. carry on pieces do not count as weight. so jan and bob suggested that i detach the small backpack attached to my main pack and take that as a carry on. brilliant! it made me so little above my weight allowance that the check in agent decided to ignore it!

but as i went through security, the x-ray detected a swiss army knife in that small backpack. swiss army knives are strictly forbidden in carry on luggage. they are dangerous weapons! far more so than two bottles of gasoline masquerading as bottles of calafate liqueur! this is allowed.

i had to take the knife back to the check in. fortunately, the agent there recognized me and remembered the large backpack. he quickly retrieved it and i stored the weapon there in checked luggage. this is a good example of argentine efficiency.

we were prewarned that there would be a two hour delay in our takeoff. no problem! we just arrived two hours later than planned.

once on the plane, we were told that all electronic communications were down. hence, there would be a slight delay until we received the clearance to fly.

new extensions of delay were periodically announced for two more hours. this is a good example of inefficiency. i was somewhat relieved. i had an unbroken record of 4 years of travel with always an airplane screw up. my record remained intact!

there was a stewardess who looked much like evita. many blondes in argentina look at least a little like evita, especially if they pull their hair back tightly. if they also possess a characteristic argentine look which flickers between a stern seriousness and a bright smile, it can be quite a turn on.

after every announcement of a new delay, this stewardess would walk up to my seat, lean over, and patiently explain to me in english the reason for the delay. she had identified me as the worst spanish speaker on the plane. i clearly needed help.

my stewardess was pretty. she wore a blue skirt uniform which was slit for flexibility. and she happenned to be wearing white nurse stockings. i bet she could do a mean tango in that uniform. i looked forward to our little chats.

evita has been described as a cross between a fantasy of the bedroom and a saint. the same may be said of my stewardess!

the last announcement before takeoff informed us that the national airport in buenos aires would be closed by the time we arrived there. we would land at the international airport. we would have the option of taking a bus to the closed and empty national airport.

we chose instead to take a taxi directly home to eduardo and claudia. we arrived at a dark house at 4:30 in the morning. we removed our noisy boots, let ourselves in with our key, and quietly went up to our rooms.

i was surprised to find that my room was a mess. although she was not there, it was clearly being lived in by a woman. feminine items of clothing and personal care were strewn all about.

the mystery was solved when i discovered a sign pointing to a new and better room. the sign said "jose" which is spanish for my name.

i quickly went to sleep. when we woke up, eduardo and claudia were gone. we took a taxi for a final shop at the fairs at recolleta cemetery and at san telmo.

after buying some gifts, including a purse for lindsay's graduation from high school, i took the opportunity to visit evita's grave in recolleta one last time. as before, there were many flowers.

i remarked that evita was the only really important person in this cemetery. the remainder were all useless oligarchs. i was overheard. someone pointed out to me that general roca, the man who exterminated most of the indians of argentina, was also there. it is unfortunate that evita's corpse is forced to keep company with the corpse of such a man.

after a quick salad at san telmo, i returned to eduardo and claudia's.

i met the exchange student who now occupied my room. her name was claire and she looked to be about twenty. she was studying here for six months. she fully realized how lucky she is to be able to stay with eduardo and claudia.

after a while, eduardo and claudia returned. it was good to see them. quiet as we tried to be, they knew that we had returned at some awful hour in the morning. i told claudia that i missed hearing her english. she did not believe it when i said that hers was the best english i had heard in all of argentina. i was sincere. claudia's english is has a caring quality to it. it feels good to listen to her.

in the absence of my vegetarian friends, i went to the local parilla. i ordered fries, which were exceptionally fine, and bife de costilla, which is a sort of beef chop. with the standard salsa, it was a classic argentine meal, beef to the core and very good.

the next day, bob and jan went off to see the famous race course called the hipodromo. kentuckians just have to pay respects to horses! but i do not. i planned an independent day.

i went back to the same parilla and ordered mollejas, sweetbreads, and frites. a perfect lunch, very difficult to get in countries with a restricted culinary tradition, such as the united states.

then i took out my old battered subte pass and attempted to use the subway. it would not work. but the guard saw that it was still valid and passed me through.

i got off at the plaza de mayo. veterans of the malvinas conflict were there. there motto was "south of 42 it should be ours!" if so, they have a beef with both britain and chile. since the navies of both britain and chile seem superior to the argentine one, the situation is bleak.

just off the plaza is a large equestrian statue of general rocas, heroic exterminator of indians. argentina's achilles heel is that too many of their early leaders are on horseback. the achilles heel of the united states is that we were founded by lawyers. but lawyers are preferable to generals. lawyers have a less efficient process for killing people.

i walked to the cafe tortoni. i took another look at the statues of the author borges, the dancer gardel, and the poet storni. the actor robert duvall has a photo there. i had a capuchino italiano. very civilized.

i walked back home to eduardo and claudia's house. this is a long walk. it took me two and a half hours. of course, i stopped for an excellent orange sherbert along the way.

the street rivadavia goes past the impressive congress building. the majesty of the congress would make one think that argentina had a long tradition of government by legislation.

afterward the congress plaza, rivadavia is a pleasantly commercial street all the way home. i had ample opportunities to buy shoes, shirts, underclothes, groceries, ice cream, and pastries.

just before reaching home, i purchased a carton of orange juice and, to take back to the united states, another bag of yerbe mate.

we gave to eduardo and claudia presents to thank them for all they have done for us, fine kentucky bourbon for eduardo and fine soaps and incense for claudia.

i did intensive packing for the plane trip home. one is allowed two pieces of checked in luggage, each not to weigh more than 50 pounds. if either piece exceeds 50 pounds, draconian fines are imposed!

the problem is to distribute the weight properly. the large bag with wheels can easily carry more, perhaps even a 100 pounds all by itself. the large backpack cannot carry nearly that much. it is hard to make it carry 30 pounds.

the large backpack has a useful feature, a way of encloding the straps so that they will not catch on the luggage conveyer belts. eureka! that creates an enclosed space which can be filled with clothes. weight problems solved!

on this note, i end my last communication from argentina. i may write again. it will be from the united states when i have had time for digestion of the whole trip. over and out! i need to get a steak before i leave.

13. the way we were

when i was growing up in chicago, every few blocks had its own church, its own saloon, and its own bakery. in my neighborhood, the churches were catholic, the saloons were dark with most room being taken up by a bar, and the bakeries emphasized bread but some also sold pastries. wonderful plum tarts were available from the german bakeries on the north side. german butcher shops sold wonderful cold cuts like head cheese, blood sausage, and a warm liver meat loaf called leberkaese. trust me, leberkaese was very good. my late cousin pat remembers that leberkaese was reserved for adults and never given to children. she was not totally correct. i got my share.

there was even a place on the near north side of the city where you could pick out a live chicken and have it killed and gutted. plucking was optional but most had it done.

those days are long gone now. they were part of a varied life. the churches, saloons, and bakeries were what the society most valued. they were valuable and honored places, shrines to aspects of life. if the food was less consistent than now, it was often fresher and better tasting.

in buenos aires, every few blocks has its own parilla, its own empanada shop, and its own bakery. those religious places still exist here. jan would argue that the milongas, the places where tango occurs, should be included. but the milongas seem to be too widely spaced. every time someone goes to milonga, they seem to have to go far across the town of buenos aires. claudia tells me that there are no more than 30 milongas in all of buenos aires!

so i conclude that tango in buenos aires is alive and well. but few people practice it. in old chicago as well, there were dance ballrooms. there were places to hear jazz. but they were few and far between. ballroom dancing and jazz were only a tangential part of most lives.

fans of tango like eduardo, claudia, jan, and bob must be content to be special people. they are not part of a vast majority consisting of tango fanatics. they are like antelopes mixed in a herd of water buffalos.

since tango is like religion, the newer converts are the most fanatical.

the true religions of argentina are the empenada and beef. if the empenada is the religion of the common people, then beef is the religion of the middle and upper classes. evita's decamisados, the shirtless ones, must have eaten empenadas. evita herself certainly must have enjoyed a good steak now and then. she did not deny herself the good things in life!

in argentina, those who die young live on. evita and carlos gardel are good examples. in the united states, elvis lives on. but i think his image is fading. nonetheless, he retains the largest current income of any dead person.

i know that charles schultz and albert einstein rank high in income among dead people. the comic strips and calenders continue to sell. but neither died young. i suspect that richard feynman's estate has a good income. but his is not a mass market.

if buenos aires is the big apple, then montevideo is its boston, only smaller. montevideo has the same things that buenos aires has. in fact, montevideo's parillas in the old port market cannot be matched. but montevideo is so much smaller. in size, it is more like a large suburb, albeit a suburb with class. and better beaches.

except for food, there is a complete disconnection between buenos aires and southern patagonia. beef and empenadas still reign but lamb begins to be a major competitor to beef.

the new element in patagonia is the wind. even on an ordinary day in the right spot, the wind can have the power to blow you over. it happenned on the ridge between lago nordenskold and lago pehoe in chilean patagonia. it is not a question of strength. when the only thing holding you down is gravity, you cannot increase that. you blow away.

to look into this wind was to be blinded by flying grit. alison's suggestion of goggles proved itself!

that was a strong wind!

thirty years ago, i encountered strong winds, as strong as the winds of patagonia.

i crossed the cabot strait from sydney, nova scotia to port aux basques, newfoundland. i and my car were on a huge ferry carrying both cars and trucks. we were in a high gale, one step below a hurricane. i went out on deck. the waves were twenty feet high and the wind blew the tops off the waves. the cars and trucks were chained in place. except for the pitching of the ship, it did not seem very windy.

i drove off the ferry and out of port aux basques. i saw a sign saying, "warning! winds occasionally in excess of 100 miles per hour." after experiencing the high gale, i did not believe this! then i felt a powerful force pushing my car off the road.

for safety i pulled into an unfinished motel. many others had done the same.

i saw a pet dog running loose. the wind lifted him off the ground. he was carried 60 feet through the air. the dog hit the ground running and continued into the nearby woods. i do not think his owners ever saw him again.

a camper was blown over by this wind. the woman yelled that her baby was inside. i leapt out of my car and ran to the camper. the woman's older daughter was already inside. she was calm and in control. she handed out the baby to me. i handed it to the mother.

later, this woman had no memory that i had been the one who handed her baby to her.

that wind was probably as strong as the winds of patagonia!

back then, i could hike many miles without stopping, say 20 miles over rough country and carry a full pack.

i hiked in the hoh river valley on the olympic peninsula in washington state. i hiked two days in a row, mostly up the first day and mostly down the second day. i hiked up to where the trail to the glacier was washed away. the threat of death made me stop and camp. the next day, i hiked out. 40 miles in two days made me quite tired and sore. but, despite heavily blistered feet, i could do it.

i believed that i would never tire completely. after a short rest, i could keep walking forever. it did not matter how heavy the pack or how difficult the terrain. i was young and very naive to believe this even then.

if i was not carrying a full pack, then i could hike more miles and do more uphill. for example, i could start late in the morning and still go up and down mount katadhin in a single day.

west of jasper, alberta i did a 15 mile hike to berg lake, back and forth in a single day. i slept in the car until 4 am, hiked past a perfect mirror of a lake, into the valley of 10 thousand waterfalls, and up to where a glacier spilled off mount robson and caved into berg lake. i had lunch. with my bear bell tinkling, i hiked back before nightfall. that was probably the hardest and most beautiful day hike i ever did.

those days seem gone. age, too much weight, and a dissection of the aorta have slowed me down. now, in torres del paine park in chile, i avoided carrying a full pack. now, i never do too much uphill in a single day. so i never get the very best views. but i get some very good ones!

my friend chuck mcgibbon is an inspiration to all older hikers. older than me, he ascended last year to within 100 meters of the summit of everest. i can hope that the loss of 40 or more pounds will enable me to do better than i do now. but i will never do everest!

i grew up in chicago with frugal parents. we ate some fish. in the midwest, the fish i ate were all fresh water fish. but they were good fish.

we could catch our own perch from the chicago shores of lake michigan. sometimes it was slow and required patience but sometimes it was quick and exciting. we used simple bamboo poles with a line and bobber attached.

sometimes we would use a multihook device called a trolley. hooks on weighted wheels slid down a rope anchored to the bottom. a bell signaled a strike. the bait was sometimes worms, sometimes minnows, and sometimes the tails of crawfish.

from commercial fisherman came delicious and succulent smoked chubs. these lake fish were far better than the drier and more expensive smoked sable. they were sold from a fish store located next to a bridge over the chicago river. luckily, the fist came from the lake and had little to do with the river!

my mother loved whitefish. she went to a market downtown, the so-called stop and shop, to buy these fish. i now think that lake trout is superior to whitefish in texture but both fish have succulent flesh that lends itself to baking.

on vacation, we would go to wisconsin and catch walleyed pike. the bait for walleyes was always minnows. a rod and reel were used in a boat with a bobber. there was almost no casting. my parents way of fishing was to sit and wait.

walleyes are really a large perch, very succulent, tender, and flakey. unlike northern pike, it has very few bones. fresh water fish often have a delicacy that slat water fish lack. walleyes are great that way. so are all forms of trout.

i did not have salt water fish until i went to college. i think david eisenbud introduced me to the noble striped bass. striped bass are very rare now, almost totally fished out. but it was a superb fish, tender, very succulent, and nicely flakey.

striped bass was fully the equal of the chilean sea bass. until recently, chilean sea bass was known as patagonian tooth fish. the marketers changed the name. unfortunately, it is so excellent a fish that it too is getting rare. and it is a deep water fish which grows very slowly. once threatened it will take a long time to come back.

in ushuaia i had chilean sea bass. i was great! i felt guilty since i know that it is being overfished. i had to have it once on this trip. and no more!

conger eel was the fish revelation on this trip. not overcooked, it tastes like cod with the texture of lobster. it makes an exceptional fish soup. i have never seen it in the united states and may never see it again. i will miss it!

the taxi ride to the buenos aires airport is one of the most frightening rides in the world! high speeds, high density, cars frantically switching 4 lanes at a time, it has everything required to be a gran prix race. and more. at the toll booths, there is incessant honking which has no purpose. this loud honking is a traffic version of wagner's ride of the valkerie!

nonetheless, we arrived at the airport with no problems.

i had to pay a 150 dollar penalty for overweight luggage. it was a flat fee, not a prorated charge. being unwilling to throw away large amounts of stuff, i had to pay it.

we arrived in lexington, kentucky with no major problems. we were completely exhausted. nonetheless, before going to sleep we were to have two good meals, a buffet at an indian restaurant in lexington and then some thai food in berea. our main idea was to stay awake. but the good food reminded us of the limitations of south american cuisine.

argentines would improve their food if they would be more adventurous with spices. their ingredients are superb. they know how to cook. they do not overcook. but their preparation can be a little bland. they limit their seasonings too much, mainly to salt, pepper, garlic, and oregano. they add a nice salsa. the results are consistent and very good. but there is a sameness in the tastes, a lack of adventure which can be a little boring. they could do a lot better.

for example, consider hash browns. argentines know that salt and pepper help hash browns. but hash browns are much improved by the addition of some onions, even onion flakes. and if i dare say it, hash browns soar with the addition of ketchup. argentines should reflect on this.

after a good nights sleep, it was time to head to columbus, ohio and to see my old friend paul panomarev. the route to columbus goes through cincinnati. i stopped for a 5 way cincinnati chili and was reminded of how good it is. i had it the right way, with regular shredded cheese, not the halepeno version, and with minimal hot sauce. in short, i had it in the good old classic cincinnati midwestern way.

the classic midwestern way fits with the argentine way. both are suspicious of overspicing. none of the hard stuff for either. but cincinnati chile is spiced with cinnamon and maybe even a little cocoa. it is a cincinnati version of mole.

i drove past a sign for the cincinnati zoo. alison and i had visited that zoo once. that was long ago and far away.

i called alison on my cell phone to remind her of it. in turn, she reminded me that we had seen the play evita together. her wallet was stolen during the intermission.

i cannot understand why the braodway play evita asserts that evita did not do much. evita had 33 years in her life and 6 years as first lady of argentina. among the things she accomplished were:
1) to get women the vote,
2)to establish a system of health clinics which still exists,
3)to cause to be built a community of houses called evita city,
4)and to found a social security system.

much but not all of evita's work was dismantled by the oligarchs after the overthrow of peron. except for joanne of arc who was burnt at 17 i cannot think of any woman who did more than evita in less time.

i met paul at a nice coffee shop in columbus. he was explaining some mathematics to a dance instructor named nichole.

afterwards, the three of us went to a restaurant. we had a late snack of fried pita, eggplant, hummus, and chardonnay. the food was terrific, once again reminding me that argentine food had some weaknesses in spicing.

paul frequents this restaurant, nichole works there, and we were served by paul's friend tony, the wine steward. tony appreciates fine food and looks down on cincinnati chile. it is his blind spot. but nichole understands cincinnati chile and appreciates it.

as nichole pulled her hair back she looked like evita. nichole has an intense liking for anthony bourdain, even more than i do. after all, i am just a guy.

paul is a descendent of cossacks. he has their ruthlessness.

my companions at the restaurant, nichole, tony, and paul seem to mirror the icons of my trip. icons such as evita peron, anthony bourdain, and che guevara have their mirror images in real life.

the temple of grilled food in montevideo, the place of fired up parillas, had its mirror image in a final dinner at the columbus whole foods. the columbus whole foods is a special place with a sit down food bar. i had an appetizer of mussels and a dinner of halibut with a mushroom risotto. the wine was a chardonnay.

life goes on. evita, anthony, che, and the temple of grilled food are replaced by nichole, tony, paul, and the food bar at whole foods. it is not a bad exchange.

14. the suppressed jan and bob letter

this is the one letter i had the good sense not to send during the trip. i am sending it now but i have removed one of the addressees. i decided that, if you spend 6 weeks with someone and this is all the irritation you express, the situation must have been pretty good.

one day as we were about to leave the house of eduardo and claudia, i happened to say to jan something like "we are ready to go now" or something like that. i spoke it in a normal voice. it is true that i have been told that i have a lecturer's voice. anna ravenel has told me that my voice makes it embarassing to eat dinner with me. i think i am just speaking in a normal way. but her mother agrees with anna so there must be some truth in the accusation.

the projection of voice is something that one fosters over years of performing in front of calculus students. it keeps them awake. together with a few jokes and a little clarity of thought, it is the key to being a popular teacher. but it is true that the voice can become too loud without the speaker being aware of it.

jan hushed me in a very unapproving tone. she said that i would disturb eduardo and claudia who were, as far as i knew, sound asleep up on the second floor. jan said that sound travels up a stairwell.

what is ironic about this is that jan is a math lecturer too. especially when jan is straining to speak spanish, she has a very loud and expressive voice, akin to that of a middle level singer of lieder by shubert. in an attempt to make her spanish be understood, jan speaks large. her version of spanish is similar to the way english is spoken by maurice chevalier. jan's voice is a form of light opera and impossible to ignore if you are in the same house.

jan now has the company of bob. bob is a takeover type of guy. for example, in the bed and breakfast situation at eduardo and claudia, he goes to the supermercado, purchases eggs, potatos, and onions, and, as far as i know, without asking permission, marches into the kitchen and cooks breakfast for everyone. to paraphrase what woody allen said of his crazy uncle who thought he was a chicken: we could cure him but we like the eggs.

bob is now talking about cooking in the hotel room when we get to montevideo. while climbing with tony bahri and chris stretch in the french alps, our group cooked its own food.

cooking meant heating cans of lentil soup and combining this with french bread, sausage, and cheese. it was not a terrible diet but i rebelled then. at least i succeeded in getting a nice coq au vin in a french cafeteria. even then i realized the folly of cooking your own food in a country with a culinary tradition. this is especially true in france. but it is true in other places too.

the great anthony bourdain is an apostle of getting to know a country by eating and enjoying its food. i am one of his disciples. subsisting on a diet of club sandwiches and mcdonalds hamburgers are not the only sins in the religion of anthony. camping out in a city comes a close second. it is permitted only if this is the local custom, or if you are a pathetically poor student traveler. in our case, neither is true. we should sample and enjoy the food.

bob has other ideas. he comes fully equipped with a camp stove and a pot.
he has already bought nuts and dried fruit and tomatoes for trail food. it not clear whether this is for camping in patagonia or the hotel in montevideo.

in montevideo, i at least will not cook my own food. i hear that montevideo has a parilla which serves marvelous grilled meats in the port market. i will go there. together with a capuchino and some medialunas, that is, croissants, for breakfast, i will eat fine.

i hope the hotel does not throw jan and bob out. hotels tend to frown on cooking in the rooms. it encourages pests such as rats and roaches. and, as we get nearer the rainforest jungle, who knows what other pests might be nearby? the creatures in the rain forest exhibit in the zoo give one pause. they are large and look ferocious.

cooking can even burn down the hotel. the hotel might object to that.

gesammelte swiss melange

2008-08-31T05:34:00.000-07:00

Subject: gesammelte swiss melange

geneve and arolla:

hello folks from the hotel mont collon in arolla, switzerland, the sun is shining and all of my troubles are now behind me:

i began this trip by going to the rochester airport with a feeling of deep forboding. for three years, i have not had a flight without a major problem. what would the airlines do this time to screw me up?

last fall, on the way to my cousin's funeral, they made me sit in a plane on the tarmac in philadelphia for 8 hours. could they top that? no, they could not. but you have to admire their consistent efforts to do so.

this time they cancelled my flight to boston twenty minutes before it was to depart. all the checking was of no avail. there was no notice. first they said it was weather. then it became mechanical problems. since it was the start of a three plane trip to geneve (rochester-frankfort-geneve), this had the potential of a real screw up, a cascading of disaster. even though i had allowed a 4 hour interval in boston, it was not enough for their first attempt to fix the situation. but i give credit where it is due. usair got creative, sent me to washington to connect with a functioning flight to boston and into the relatively safe hands of lufthansa. but i boarded the plane with great fears for my luggage. i was right about that.

this is a message from geneve where i am waiting for my wayward luggage to arrive. with the great start that usair gave it, it ended up in munich. this is interesting since my plans did not include munich, only frankfort. oh well, at least the country was right.

wait a minute! i am in switzerland, the country is wrong!

but i have to give lufthansa credit. they tracked the luggage without difficulty and promised to have it at my hotel by 2 o'clock local time.

i still have faith in german efficiency. but that can be crushed too. my luggage arrived at 4 after i went back to the airport to see what was going on. not too bad, at least, i had it now.

yesterday night i ate in a restaurant in geneve called "at the foot of the pig" , in other words, "au pied du cochon."  i find it amusing that a restaurant called "at the foot of the pig" sits at the feet of the palace of justice." this proves that the swiss do indeed have a sense of humor and a keen perception of society.

i had the signature dish of the restaurant, roasted pigs feet stuffed with mushrooms, accompanied by roasted potatoes, some very nice zuchinni stuffed with a tomato concoction, a white wine kir, and some sparkling water..  i enjoyed it immensely. first of all, the feet tasted like good roast pork, if maybe a little richer and fattier than our current obsession with lean. but the texture was very different, it had a warm gelatinous quality that most americans do not like, reminescent to me of head cheese. in other words, it was pickled pigs feet without the pickling and it brought back warm memories of my german-american roots.

as anthony bourdain says, the best food is often made from the "nasty bits", those things which some cultures throw away but which the great cuisines of the world learn to love and to turn into something wonderful. such were the roasted pigs feet in geneve. and i am pleased that anthony would be proud of me since i sought out this food! granted, it did not take the courage that he showed when he ate the roasted warthog anus in the kalihari desert.

oh yes, i had a dessert of creme brulee made with grand marnier. it was accompanied by the coffee with creme that the swiss call renverse. it was very good, but it stopped well short of being wonderful since the creme brulee was only a little warm.

despite my tendency to lapse into english, the ticket agents in the train stations have been favorably impressed by my french. this will surprise jacques who expressed the opinion that i would never learn french properly because of all the unpronounced letters in the words. what jacques did not take into account is that i am learning from the tapes of the late michel thomas, the language teacher to the stars, the man who taught both woody allen and princess grace to speak french. woody doesn’t lie and i trust any man who can get an endorsement from him. besides that, michel thomas is the man who taught doris day to properly pronounce “que sera, sera.” he is very proud of that.

what michel thomas does is focus on two things, proper pronunciation and then verbs and their tenses. even when you take account of the exceptional verbs, the latter is rather mathematical. it emphasizes the structure of the language. vocabulary is important but is a secondary issue. after all, since the time of william the conquerer, english has had a lot of french words in it. all you have to do is learn how to tranform them and you already have a large active vocabulary, “une vocabulaire activ.”

a few remarks about my impressions of geneve. geneve is something like paris but less grand. i especially liked the bust of piaget in the park.  recall that piaget was famous for his early studies of child development. and there seem to have been multple founders of the red cross, all of them with busts in the park.

you see many biracial couples and children here. it is almost as if europe has passed into a new millenium which america has yet to reach. no wonder barack obama is very popular here.

there seems to be no black-white racial tension and, in geneve at least, little european-arab-turkish tension. this latter may be a false facade. i certainly know about some such tension in european places like france and germany. and i even am fond of the spanish “festival of the moors” wherein they blow up an effigy of mohammed in memory of the reconquest of spain. the festivities date to the 1500s. after all, the spanish have the right to do it. the bastards were invading their country. maybe some day the iraqis will have similar festivals.

i note that the russians have captured the town in georgia called gori. since gori was the hometown of someone called joseph stalin, maybe they have a right to it. and my friend paul panomarev points out to me that old joe had a lot to do with enlarging georgia by the forced addition of some provinces filled with people who are not georgian and do not want to be. i myself must admit to some prejudices against a country that was, until recently, proud of having an avenue named after george bush.

i note that our esteemed president, just back from fondling the american volleyball team in beijing, is delaying his new well deserved vacation a few days to keep up with the developments in georgia. it is indeed true that the american people have gotten the government they deserve. indeed, since they elected the guy or at least made it close enough to steal, they deserve the guy more than the romans deserved nero.

by the way, does anyone really believe that a small country like georgia is going to prod the russian bear with a stick without first clearing it with its major ally? there are only 3 possibilities, they are stupid, or they are lying, or they have a very bad major ally, or any combination of these 3. they remind me of the poles, of the government, not of the people. or since they have close ties with the israeli government, perhaps they are taking lessons from them but without the political capital to get their way.

if i may be permitted the observations of an over the hill, post aortic dissection male, i must say that geneve is full of very attractive young ladies and, i suppose also, attractive young men. i certainly never encountered such density of pulchritude when i was young. the place is alive with life and, i suppose, is getting continually more so. for example, some young ladies in dresses ride bicycles to work with all the good that that implies.

by the way, the internet is lousy in geneve. 5 euros for 30 minutes! and they have to be consecutive! bummer! for wonderful and free internet access, give me the paris mcdonalds anytime. i wonder if they have a macdonalds in geneve?  i have not seen one yet.

i have arrived in arolla. nothing to do there except think about mathematics, work on a paper, hike around, and practice a little french. i will enjoy it and learn somethings about homotopy inverse limits. what precisely are they anyway? it seems that they are the actual inverse limits of diagrams where, according to some yet to made precise laws, some or of all maps have been replaced by fibrations. there should be people who know here, people like bill dwyer, and i look forward to becoming enlightened. i am thinking of putting an informal description of homotopy inverse limits in my book, nothing fancy but something which summarizes the essense of them. done well, the accumulation of such relatively little things can be major selling points.

halleluyah! the hotel mont collon has entered the modern world! they now have wireless connection to the internet! this is now the perfect hotel.

unfortunately, my ipod seems to have encountered nonresponse problems. this is evidently a standard disease of ipods and can be cured over the internet. but the price is a temporary wiping out of all your ipod stuff. since i can still hook up the ipod to my laptop and play my language tapes, i don't want to wipe it all out at this time. it will have to wait until my rochester based desktop is available to act as backup.

a lazy day:

it is snowing in arolla, 10 centimeters the last time it was measured. hiking is curtailed. naps to cure jetlag are always welcome and i spent my waking time calling up my credit card companies to verify that the lastest email message is a fraud. it claimed that my account had just been billed 8300 dollars and i don't even have that much in there. it is just some scheme to get me to reply to them and send them useful financial information. i thought so but now i am sure.

i was happy to hear from jacques that the internet had a cure for frozen ipods. it worked like a charm and caused no loss of data. so i can, while walking around, commune with the ghost of michel thomas concerning the mysteries of the french language.

the hotel must feel sorry for us in this snowy wilderness. they are offerring a choice between fondue and raclette for dinner tonight. i like fondue better. the wine helps the cheese a lot.

i am feeling better concerning kathryn's prohibition of my going on the glacier walk. old and out of shape as i am in this post aortic dissection world, i was still feeling that i was going to miss something. now i can enjoy the schadenfreude of hoping that the weather continues to be lousy tomorrow, lots of rain, sleet, snow, fog, and clouds, perfect mountain weather for staying inside.

i contemplate unsuccessfully how to prove that the inverse limit of a tower of fibrations is a weak homotopy invariant. it is not that i have real doubts but the proof is elusive.

by the way, i am leaning towards choosing cambridge over the ams as the publisher of my book. the attractiveness of the cover, the offer of being in a series which also has a book by bombieri, the fond memories of frank adams, and the traditional lure to americans of british class are the perhaps shallow reasons for this leaning. no matter, both would be good choices.

it is the next day and the sun is shining so i guess that i will be forced to take a walk. today is actually beautiful.

i think that i have over night actually figured out how to prove that the inverse limit of a tower of fibrations is a weak homotopy invariant. it is rather clever. for the experts, it involves playing the hurewicz notion of a fibration against the serre notion.

a not so lazy day:

to paraphrase lewis carrol,

"you are old, father william, and a little bit fat.
yet your trade you ply in the mountains up high,
pray what is the purpose of that?"

yesterday, i hiked up to and back from the "cabane des aigelles rouges", the "cabin of the red eagles", a mountain hut to which i have been before in previous younger years. it took 7 hours to complete the hike. although i have been doing 6 hour hikes in rochester, there are two major differences up here. one, the air is a little thinner. two, the hike here consisted of 4 and a half hours of uphill and 2 and a half hours of hard downhill. the hikes in rochester were on canal paths and exceedingly flat. believe me, it makes a difference!

for me this was a difficult hike. i barely made it back to the bus stop before the last postal bus. if i had missed that, i was threatened with a long, flat walk on the highway back to the hotel. i knew i didn't want that. i was forced to increase the speed of my downhill descent. and without poles! as several swiss told me, they knew what my next purchase would be, poles to check and steady the descent. as i told them, i already owned very good poles but they were home in rochester. in fact, though i did not like to be so rushed, it was good to have to revert to my younger days when descent involved careful placement of one's feet on solid rocks so that one did not slip. no poles then!

"brave mountaniers! we always were untroubled by time." (song by gordan lightfoot)

anyway, i caught the last bus back and arrived at the hotel, much to the relief of madame anzevui. she was threatening to send out the mountain rescue corps if i didn't return on the last bus. actually, as i told her, i had discovered that i had two options. one, i could have phoned my hotel from the small restaurant at the bus stop. madame would have gladly picked me up. she and kathryn seem to have formed some conspiracy to avoid the possibility of having to ship my body back to rochester.

but much better was the second option. on the trail i had agreed to take a somewhat artistic picture of 8 young frence ladies who had arranged themselves in a pinwheel lying on the ground. there was much giggling. let your imagine fly, you can imagine it if you try! when they saw me waiting for the bus, they asked if i needed a ride. at that moment, the bus arrived to whisk me back to my hotel.

by the way, i had endeared myself to the young french ladies by apologizing for our current president. together we expressed strong wishes that obama win the election and rescue the american political system from the abyss. i pointed out that, with the american electorate being so stupid, things could easily get worse. they suggested that we take zarkosy if we needed him. they were not fans of him either.

let me add that my acceptance on the trail is much increased by my newfound ability to reply with french sentences which are not minimalistic, not just the simple , " tres chaud, ne pas?" but something like "c'est tres difficile pour moi. je suis trop vieux pour le faire." i mean that my sentences are complicated enough and have enough meaning to have been composed by an adult.

since i had arrived back in time for dinner, i went in to join the other topologists for dinner. i enjoyed the salad and soup, but unfortunately, when the main course of port arrived, i was just too tired to continue eating. this was sad to me since pork is ordinarily one of my favorites. i skipped the rest of the dinner and just took a large bottle of sparkling water back to my room. lots of liquids were clearly what i needed.

i did not discover exactly what the dessert was. it was something called "pavlova" and, despite my suggestions that it consisted of pieces of the corpse of the most famous russian ballerina of all time, perhaps jumping out of a cake, it probably was some concoction of sorbet topped with grand marnier. sorry to have missed it.

joe n

grumpy observations:

after all these years of going to conferences, i have finally learned a very important lesson. the most important and valuable thing is who you eat your meals with. it is vital both for enjoyment and for learning, the only two purposes of going to conferences.

breakfast, lunch, and dinner conversations are far more useful and enjoyable than most lectures. therefore, it follows that extreme care should be taken in getting a good spot at a good table. carelessness here can lead to being trapped at a table with an extremely boring clump of people.

in my case, i was completely surrounded by a trio of totally narcisistic englishmen. they filled the air with boring conversation. it was totally centered around themselves. they chose to discuss personal things with roots in their youth, not things of broad general interest. only they could possibly care about this trivia. they had no wit to speak of. i was being driven out of my mind. it was far worse than silence could ever have been.

a disastrous dinner can happen in the following way. you see a cluster of interesting people around a table. you therefore choose to sit at the corner of that table. but what you saw was just a temporary clump. the interesting people disperse and the table is left available for colonization by others.

you may take this as a reflection on your own social desirability. it might well be. or, to be more kind to yourself, you may realize too late that the potentially interesting people had in fact previously acquired seats at distant tables which they have now returned to.

into this vacuum, a person appears with whom you have been acquainted for years. he takes possession of all the seats which surround you. he is accompanied by two of his long time friends, people who you do not know. they are a small swarm with little, if any, connection to the conference. you are soon immersed in a sea of vapid conversation. you are slow to realize your true danger. your acquaintance, while known for his nonstop talking, has been bearable in the past. that was because you were always able to escape.

i lasted through the first course of pickles, ham, and the swiss version of ham that is made from beef. it was quite good. but, during the wait for the start of the fondue, i realized that i was approaching insanity. i stood up, looked around for an empty seat that would provide escape. the nonstop blathering was torturing me. i found no empty seats. i decided that, since i had had fondue 4 days ago and since i had some oranges back in my room, my preference was to just leave. i did so.

i got my computer and used skype to call michelle ravenel. i had a far superior conversation than the one i had escaped from. i regained more equilibrium by taking a walk in the night along the dark road which went past the hotel. madame anzevui was terrified for my safety and was relieved when i finally returned.

all should be well tonight. i have ran levi's promise to save a place for me at dinner.

back to mathematical things. one of my old friends told me that he thought that mathematics had entered a new phase where the emphasis was no longer on solving problems but was now on formulating new ideas and programs. being a cynic, i feel that this is the easy way out. in fact, i think it is true more in algebraic topology than in other, more healthy areas of mathematics. it is more a sign of decay than renewal. it is better than nothing. but give me real problems solved anytime. this includes the traditional areas of application of algebraic topology to things like manifolds and and groups. of course, the crown jewels are things like the poincare conjecture, fermat's last theorem, and the riemann hypothesis. transcendent problems all.

the names of some of the new areas of study seem to have been chosed by people with strong understanding of the principles of advertising. "sell the sizzle, not the steak." some topologists are selling the sizzle. new areas have names like "topological string theory" and "topological quantum field theory." they incorporate the ideas of cobordism and monoidal categories but the names are meant to imply that they are important for the development of physics. this may be doubtful.

i recall a conversation i had with an eminent physicist who just happened to be chuck mcgibbon's father-in-law. i asked him what he thought about the new work in gauge theory that was being done by mathematicians of the high caliber of atiyah and bott. that work was held in high repute at the time. he smiled sagely. he said that he guessed that it was a good thing that the mathematicians were getting around to looking at these things. but it was his honest opinion that the mathematicians were studying only those cases that the physicists thought they understood well enough already. he thought that the mathematicians were avoiding looking at the cases that the physicists still wanted to understand. the point is not that either side is completely right or wrong here. the point is that both sides probably have some portion of the truth and it is rare for either side to see the truth of the other.

and, striking at the heart of physics itself, recall the words of richard feynmann shortly before he died of cancer. "i am an old guy now and you should never ask for the opinions of old guys, but what the hell, my opinion is that string theory is junk." or words to that effect. feynmann believed that the ultimate test of physics was experiment and string theory did not pass that test. in fact, it had not even taken the exam! nor, absent access to the energy of a small star, could it.

perhaps some of these observations are caused by the fact that the sky is gray and it is starting to rain.

on a positive note, i am extremely pleased that i have learned some solid things about homotopy inverse limits from people like bill dwyer, wojcieck chacolski, and jerome scherer. you can't get better experts than that in this area. the resulting references to their papers have completely answered some debatable points in my book. i now feel no need to make an attempt to include a treatment of inverse limits in the book. it is enough to have the references and to understand the proofs.

so that is not being grumpy.

joe n

grumpy observations continued:

in relation to the importance of finding a good seat at meals, the subject of the mathematics conferences at oberwolfach was brought up by paul panomarev.

since oberwolfach had a mandatory seating arrangement, randomly shuffled by the staff, there was no choice involved. but the seating plan used at oberwolfach is fraught with danger. under the appropriate circumstances any methods, legal or not, are justified to avoid the conference equivalent of waterboarding.

i have not been to oberwolfach in a very long time. i remember little about it, except for the german preoccupation with the hard boiled eqqs at breakfast and who was entitled to them. you had to reserve an egg to have a legitimate right to one. the pushy americans were always appropriating eggs which were the rightful property of others, usually of germans. many raw feelings were the result.

at most conference meals, paul panomarev's suggestion to dawdle on the periphery would a good way to minimize loss. but the best choices often go quickly. don't wait too long or all the good choices will be gone. obviously, if you are certain that an attractive dinner companion has firmly planted her butt in a specific spot with an adjacent empty seat, then you would be a fool to delay.

i am getting strong agreement with the comments on the changing nature of mathematics, at least in topology.

most of the talks here in arolla are "satz frei," that is, no theorems. at best, we are being told that one thing that we know nothing about is the same as another thing that we know nothing about. such knowledge can be quite important. i remember donald spencer describing the atiyah-singer index theorem in precisely those words. so it is not always a bad thing.

but, what we are getting in arolla are descriptions of large abstract machines for which there are no known applications to traditional problems. the machines include in their formulations references to grothendieck algebraic geometry and to maclane categorical coherence. that is their world. the air is thin up there and it is a long way back to earth. our departed colleague, david anick, would not be pleased. his work was always clever and tied to real problems.

even very abstract work like that of bill dwyer and emmanuel dror farjoun can still be tied to real problems. it is all relative.

in this land of the mountains, the old quote of george mallory is relevent. when asked why one would want to climb everest, he said "because it's there." and no one has ever come up with a better reason. in fact, it is not a bad reason.

so, when i ask why i should have the slightest interest in the tangent space of some moduli space related to ring spectra, perhaps mallory's answer has validity. after all, lots of interesting things like algebraic groups are blended into the structures. something interesting might come out even if it hasn't yet done so.

but i am suspicious. i recall an quote due to von neumann: "the chief danger in mathematics is that it will become baroque." baroque mathematics being that which has grown far from its roots in the soil of experience and tradition, in the soil of physics, geometry, and number theory. such mathematics tends to get more and more complicated, more and more abstract, less and less connected to other things, and less and less interesting.

the baroque era is in full flower around here. it seems firmly planted at such major centers as harvard and mit and is spreading rapidly. princeton seems less infected with it as yet. perhaps princeton received an innoculation in the solution to fermat's last theorem. tons of abstract machinery were used but in the service of an important, venerable, and central result. princeton could be protected by pasteur's principle of vaccination.

there are national histories and national styles in mathematics. there is the classic german style exemplied by gauss, riemann, hilbert, and others. in fact, riemann with his simplicity and brilliance seems to have a little russian dna in him. the french define the modern world of mathematics. they have poincare and leray to reflect the russian style. they have weil and serre to reflect the german tradition. but they also have this totally french creation of grothendieck who may very well be the antichrist of mathematics and destined to lead mathematics down into the depths of abstract hell.

in closing, there is something honest about number theory, geometry, and physics. there are fools there too but they seem to be more quickly found out. maybe string theory is an exception since it has lost its roots in experiment.

this is the last conference day and i am looking forward to hearing about model categories. at least, i think i will understand most of the words!

tomorrow, weather permitting, i will take a walk down into the town of les hauderes, have a coffee and snack, and take the bus back up. no strain involved.

best wishes,

joe n

conference summation:

…

i walked down to the village of les hauderes today and found this little metropolis on sunday to be even more shut down than the little tourist clump that is arolla. but the walk was pleasant. i encountered a french couple, not very young, who were bicycling up the trail. they told me that the bicycling was "heavy." they eventually gave up and i saw them whiz by me onto the road. it seems that spandex is not sufficient to make a champion.

by far the best athletes around here are the cows. i have always been very impressed with the athletic ability of swiss cows. i am sure that, if olympic runners had to carry gallons of milk while competing, the cows would beat them every time. no matter how high you go in the alps, never think that you have surpassed the level of the cows. just as you think that it is safe to drink the water, you will hear the sound of cowbells coming from the stream above you.

the cows in this valley are exceptional. they actually fight for dominance in the herd. and the swiss encourage this behavior. they hold festivals to determine the champion fighting cow. these cows are certainly not meek. they look you straight in the eye with a look that says that you should be the one to give way! on one of my hikes, a cow chased a dog over a bridge. i think it was just to show the dog who is boss(y). sorry, i couldn't resist that pun!

ran levi"s graduate student nora is really very sweet. i think she is very overwhelmed by all the mathematics here. i try to be encouraging and tell her to take into account that even an old fossil like me, especially an old fossil like me, cannot understand most things. the way to be is to not worry about it, ask lots of modest questions, and then some enlightenment will eventually come to you. in fact, i seem to recall that this advice goes way back to some french or swiss mathematician of the eighteenth century, perhaps l'hopital. "go on and faith will come to you." in which case, it would be l'hopital's rule, which for those who never took calculus, is a mathematical pun!

anyway, if i ever get to aberdeen, nora has promised to make me "plaumekuchen", plum tart. i happened to mention that i loved it as a child. nora is german, and knows how to make it. this should go well with the haggis that ran has promised me if i come to aberdeen. so i will have to go. there is a convenient occasion next summer, a conference planned on the isle of skye.

nora cemented her sweetness credentials by giving presents to the conference organizers, flowers to kathryn and very nice collapsible hiking cups to jerome and christian. kathryn was touched by the flowers but i think that the next day she may have been a little disappointed to have impermanent flowers instead of a sturdy and attractive hiking cup, a gift that will last forever and refresh you on the trail.

speaking of flowers, i am very impressed by this model category stuff. there is a lot of real homotopy theory embedded in there. for example, the model category experts prove very general results on weak equivalences. when i tried to prove even the special case that a bouquet of weak equivalences is a weak equivalence, i had to haul out the van kampen theorem and an old result of ganea. it is not hard but it involves at least one classical result, that of ganea, which not every professional knows. i will have to look more carefully, but these experts seem to get the general case without using any classical results. magic? it is all included in the mantras that homotopy colimits and homotopy limits both preserve weak equivalences.

i was listening to nick kuhn giving a lecture on v_n periodic phenomena in the unstable homotopy groups of spheres. at one point, he said "this result is so old that it is in joe neisendorfer's thesis." i immediately told him that vengeance would be mine!

at the end of the talk, i asked him whether all this fancy machinery could compute the homotopy groups of an eilenberg-maclane space. the answer was no, except for the case of a circle. next i asked if all this fancy machinery could compute 4 times the 2-primary component of the homotopy groups of the 3 dimensional sphere. again, the answer was no. the point is that, in both cases the answer is essentially zero. it is an imprecise mantra, but there is a lot of truth to the mantra that "properly understood, all good theorems in homotopy theory compute zero."
it means that, instead of not knowing how twisted and tangled up things are, you know when they let go.

by the way, i prefaced these questions by saying that i had two questions related to v_2, not in the modern sense,but in the sense that the germans used it in world war 2. in those days, v_2 meant vengeance weapon, version 2. needless to say, this joke went way over everybody's head and was not well received! doesn't anyone know any political or military history around here?

i do not pretend to know the answer but it is not clear to me which will be easier in god's eye (as einstein used to say), unstable or stable homotopy theory. since more people live in the stable world, more people seem to thing that the stable world is easier.

i am biased the other way. since the beginning of my career, this has never been my experience. my thesis was aimed primarily at stable homotopy theory and included unstable machinery only as a afterthought. so far, the stable stuff has proved fairly useless and the unstable stuff has made my name. it is rather near the end of my career. i do not expect the situation to change in my lifetime.

tomorrow i catch the 10 o'clock postal bus to the train station in sion, then on the train to overnight in geneve, and onto a plane the next day. 3 planes later, i should be back in rochester.

joe n

last swiss thoughts:

michelle ravenel says that i must not care much for swiss food since i do not write about it much. that is not exactly true and yet there is truth in the statement. first of all, let me say that the last conference dinner at the hotel mont collon consisted of totally properly cooked duck a la orange and a wonderful salad with goat cheese. it was superb meal and, in many ways, a departure from the usual swiss food.

i love many swiss consumables, such as yogurt, milk chocolate, the form of dried beef that is native here, and the excellent, subtle cheeses like appenzeller and a nice gruyere. all these are swiss foods not to be missed. notice that they all have their origin in the cow. much of swiss cuisine is defined by the cow. it is both the strength and the weakness of swiss food.

as an aspect of the cow cuisine, the swiss love to put their meat in a cream sauce. i am not fond of that. for the conference banquet, the hotel roasted a whole calf and served veal. it was a superb meat, not overcooked, but, alas, in a cream sauce. the swiss will never learn. i know that the swiss don't always immerse their meat in a cream sauce but there is no denying their tendency to do so.

the swiss share many characteristics with the jews. both are a tribal people who were conquered by the romans. but the swiss have never been a hot desert people who had to learn to be cautious about milk. the swiss have no caution when it comes to milk. they would benefit by adopting some of the principles of kosher, in particular, the law against mixing the milk of the mother with the flesh of the offspring. on the other hand, i see no real reason to adopt the prohibitions against pigs and crustaceans. i have to admit that i love some cream cheese on my cold roast beef sandwiches. add some lettuce, mayonaisse, and pepper too, please.

madame anzevui's mother lives in israel. so i am baffled as to why kosher principles have not infiltrated the hotel mont collon.

this morning i took the bus to sion and then the train to geneve. an uneventful trip since i decided not to stop in lausanne, hike up the steep hill to the chocolate shop, buy some chocolate, and return to the train to geneve. kathryn is a feirce partisan of lausanne chocolate but, after all, the big brother city geneve is also known for chololate and i could certainly get some good stuff there.

i spent some time contemplating the weak homotopy invariance of homotopy colimits, the two main cases being pushout diagrams and infinite increasing unions of cofibrations. the second follows directly from the fact that homotopy commutes with such direct limits and has no difficulties.

the weak homotopy invariance of pushout diagrams is harder, even in the easier cases like bouquets and suspensions. when the spaces are simply connected, the theorems follow from the mayer-vietoris sequence in homology. but if the spaces are not simply connected or even connected, the game is much more subtle. for example, the weak homotopy invariance of the suspension requires some thought on what exactly does the suspension of a nonconnected space look like. not hard, but subtle.

the difference between the old methods and the new model theoretic methods of proving the weak homotopy invariance is that the old methods require one to do too much. old methods require getting a tighter hold on the geometry. sometimes the tighter hold is a computational hold on the homotopy groups of these homotopy pushouts. for example, the van kampen theorem on the fundamentql group of a bouquet is such a hold. ganea's result on the homotopy fibre of the map from the bouquet into the product is another such tighter hold which is not computational..

the model theoretic versions proceed without getting a tighter hold.. these methods prove nonsimply connected weak homotopy invariance results for homotopy pushouts even when there is no such tighter hold. in particular, knowledge of the homotopy groups remains far away. remarkable.

upon arrival in geneve, i deposited my things at the hotel ibis and headed out on the town. a short distance from the hotel, i passed mike wong's "fast food asiatic" restaurant. as i stopped in stunned disbelief, i recalled the words that humphrey bogart said to ingrid bergman in the movie casablanca: "if you don't do this, you will regret it, maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow, but someday, soon, and for the rest of your life." what i now saw before me was the opportunity to try ice cream made from the fruit called durian.

durian is the fruit described by anthony bourdain as tasting something like rotten custard. it is beloved by some in southeast asia and detested by others, including most westerners. it is one of the ultimate acquired tastes. guests are not allowed to bring it into the finer hotels of southeast asia. it smells that bad.

bourdain is able to savor durian. he says that one should think of it as similar to a fine and very stinky french cheese. i think of the german cheese called limburger. anthony can swallow some awful stuff. recall his adventure with roast warthog anus in the kalihari dessert.

bourdain's dark clone, the bizarre foods guy, andrew zimmer, the guy who relishes rotten fish and worms which bourdain hates, cannot swallow durian. he has tried many times. he has failed many times. durian is a worthy test of food courage.

i resolved to try it. perhaps the ice cream would thin it out a bit.

the deal at mike wong's is that you have to buy two tubs of ice cream for 5 francs. you cannot not buy just one. i choose the durian and the coconut. it was interesting to compare them. the coconut was the stronger, with a perfectly acceptable coconut taste.

the durian had a much fainter taste. it was not unpleasant. it hinted at the potential to be truly revolting. it was in fact faintly reminiscent of rotten custard. but not in a bad way. i enjoyed the durian ice cream. i was slightly disappointed that it had not been more of a challenge.

but there was so much of the durian ice cream that i could not finish it. i closed the tub and took the remainder back to the hotel. since it was a hot day, i put the tub under the spare blanket that the hotel had conveniently provided, probably for some other purpose. i left the ice cream there. i went back out to explore the city of geneve.

several hours later i returned to my hotel and decided to finish the durian ice cream. in the interval, it had thawed considerably. this caused it to regain much of its power. the durian had not become totally disgusting. i still liked it. but it had woken up. it now had a much stronger taste of rotten custard. i was happy that i had been able to enjoy this powerful and marvelous fruit.

i cannot understand how richard and joanne kane could be in southeast asia, the home of durian, and not sample it. it ranks right up there with many canadian classics such as poutine. oh well, what do you expect when the kane's first meal in singapore was texmex food? i had suggested that they try the boiled shark's head and the chili crab. chili crab is made from crabs which fatten on the corpses in the ganges river. the kanes completely ignored my suggestions, even though these suggestions came with the enthusiatic endorsement of the great anthony bourdain. these are some of the reasons why anthony regards singapore as the food capital of the world.

as i wandered the streets of geneve, i discovered the swiss department store called "manor." they have wonderful foods in the basement. i bought a plum tart and a bottle of carrot juice. i passed up the salmon pizza.

up on the fourth floor of "manor" there is a cafeteria called "manora." i had a capuchino and a salad from the buffet. the buffet was piled high with sliced cucumbers, chopped beets, chopped celery, roast potatoes, and many other good things. i was doing well with food!

i looked at the chocolate available in "manor". it was excellent but i did not judge it to be so exceptional that it made sense to get it there. it was a hot day. the selection at the geneve airport is not bad and it has less time to melt before you get it on the plane.

by the way, like all foods of real character, the durian has a significant and lingering aftertaste.

joe n

wikipedia on durian:

The unusual flavour and odour of the fruit have prompted many people to express diverse and passionate views ranging from deep appreciation to intense disgust. Writing in 1856, the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace provides a much-quoted description of the flavour of the durian:
“
The five cells are silky-white within, and are filled with a mass of firm, cream-coloured pulp, containing about three seeds each. This pulp is the edible part, and its consistence and flavour are indescribable. A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid nor sweet nor juicy; yet it wants neither of these qualities, for it is in itself perfect. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat Durians is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience. ... as producing a food of the most exquisite flavour it is unsurpassed.[17]
”
While Wallace cautions that "the smell of the ripe fruit is certainly at first disagreeable", later descriptions by westerners are more graphic. British novelist Anthony Burgess writes that eating durian is "like eating sweet raspberry blancmange in the lavatory."[18] Chef Andrew Zimmern compares the taste to "completely rotten, mushy onions."[19] Anthony Bourdain, while a lover of durian, relates his encounter with the fruit as thus: "Its taste can only be described as...indescribable, something you will either love or despise. ...Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother."[20] Travel and food writer Richard Sterling says:
“
... its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.[21]

”

Hydrogen sulphide is one of the chemical compounds that may be responsible for the characteristic odour of durian

Other comparisons have been made with the civet, sewage, stale vomit, skunk spray and used surgical swabs.[22] The wide range of descriptions for the odour of durian may have a great deal to do with the variability of durian odour itself. Durians from different species or clones can have significantly different aromas; for example, red durian (D. dulcis) has a deep caramel flavour with a turpentine odour while red-fleshed durian (D. graveolens) emits a fragrance of roasted almonds.[23] Among the varieties of D. zibethinus, Thai varieties are sweeter in flavour and less odourous than Malay ones.[2] The degree of ripeness has an effect on the flavour as well.[2] Three scientific analyses of the composition of durian aroma — from 1972, 1980, and 1995 — each found a mix of volatile compounds including esters, ketones, and different sulphur compounds, with no agreement on which may be primarily responsible for the distinctive odour.[2]
This strong odour can be detected half a mile away by animals, thus luring them. In addition, the fruit is extremely appetising to a variety of animals from squirrels to mouse deer, pigs, orangutan, elephants, and even carnivorous tigers. While some of these animals eat the fruit and dispose of the seed under the parent plant, others swallow the seed with the fruit and then transport it some distance before excreting, with the seed being dispersed as the result.[24] The thorny, armoured covering of the fruit discourages smaller animals; larger animals are more likely to transport the seeds far from the parent tree.[25]

the end of the journey, a posting with the permission of av suvorov, and a bit of michael moore:

i survived the trip home with no major incidents, just the cancellation of a flight by my trusted lufthansa and the loss of my luggage by united airlines. both problems were fixable.

the cancellation was easily remedied by lufthansa. they rerouted me via british air to geneva-london heathrow-washington dulles-rochester, with the last leg remaining the same originally scheduled us air flight. or so i thought.

i had been warned to avoid heathrow. security delays were supposed to be very long. i approached this change of planes in heathrow with trepedation. it went well even though i was astonished that the necessary bus trip from the new terminal 5 to terminal 4 took one half hour of travel time. who in the world had designed this wide separation? the people, being british, were helpful even when they didn't know anything about where to go. so one felt content.

on the british air flight there was a safety video involving detailed instructions as to how to use a life jacket. it occured to me that i was not aware that life jackets had ever saved any lives during a plane crash. even in the case of the sinking of the titanic the life jackets were rather useless since the water in the north atlantic over which we were flying was rather cold. the survival time was too short unless you were in a life boat out of the water. i asked the steward about this and, after much consultation, he eventually came back with the claim that, once, in the middle of the indian ocean, 5 lives were saved by life preservers. the water was warm there and the sharks were not quick enough.

when i arrived at washington dulles, i made a minor mistake. as one must, i secured my luggage, went through customs, and looked for the place to transfer to the luggage to my us air flight to rochester. if there was a place, i missed it. i was told that i couldn't go back. i must take the luggage to the us air ticket counter. this was ok since i needed to convert the e-ticket to a real ticket anyway. i headed to the us air ticket counter. it was closed. and no one was there. from a baggage person, i eventually learned that my us air flight was actually being operated by united airlines. the airlines did this sort of switching all the time. they did not think that it was important for passengers to know it about it. since the united counter was open, there was no problem. with an hour to spare, i secured my ticket and gave them my luggage. all was well or so i thought. two hours later i arrived at rochester. my luggage did not. i filled out the lost luggage form. doug and michelle ravenel took me home late at around midnight.

the next day, i had a pleasant but misleading conversation with a confused baggage person. he was located in calcutta and had no direct knowledge of my luggage. but a computer told him that my luggage had been found, put on the plane and then taken off again for an unknown reason. he assured me that he would tell the people in washington to put it on the next plane to rochester. but, in fact , my luggage was already in rochester. it was delivered almost immediately afterwards. so the trip was finally over.

i close by relaying the following emails which i received from a certain av suvorov and from a certain michael moore. both are different points of view than usual. they are similar but one has more hope.

joe n

SUVOROV BEGINS:

O.K. Neocons, you have a major problem:

1) The U.S. military is bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan.

2) Most of the Muslim world, both Sunni and Shiite, hates our guts because
of our criminal invasion of Iraq and our mindless support of the Fascist
state of Israel.

3) The U.S. is the world's leading debtor nation and most of the debt is
owed to China.

4) Now Russia is calling your bluff and standing up for its national
interests - instead of giving them away like Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

5) You have a volunteer army consisting mostly of high school dropouts,
misfits and retards, who have to rely on massive air power to get anything
done.

6) But all the indiscriminate bombing mostly kills innocent civilians, so
the insurgencies get stronger and the U.S. is hated by more people around
the globe.

7) The American educational system is so bad that the electorate does not
have the critical thinking ability to make sensible political choices.

8) The corporations run everything - it's a "corporatocracy", not a
democracy - and the rich get richer as they piss on the middle class and
the poor (Reagan's real "trickle down theory").

9) The housing and banking sectors of the economy are being barely propped
up by the Federal government.

QUESTION: How long before the whole rotten system finally collapses?

Posted by AVSuvorov at 02:13 AM : Aug 29, 2008

SUVOROV ENDS

MOORE BEGINS

Friends,
I'm am speechless after listening to Barack Obama's speech last night. So I'm sending you something I wrote to you two weeks after Hurricane Katrina. It remains every bit as relevant today, on Katrina's 3rd anniversary, as when I wrote it on September 11, 2005. Please give it another look. Here it is in full:

A Letter to All Who Voted for George W. Bush... from Michael Moore

Dear Friends,

On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I'm just curious, how does it feel?

How does it feel to know that, the man you re-elected to lead us AFTER we were attacked, went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?

That's right. Horse shows.

I really want to know -- and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all due respect -- how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety? C'mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don't start ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or catastrophe.

I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.

Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that, after the horse show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have... zero experience in emergency preparedness (!), do you think we are safer?

When you look at Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, a man with little experience in national security, do you feel secure?

When men who never served in the military, and have never seen young men die in battle, send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a threat that was never there?

Do you really believe that turning over important government services to private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?

Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR BAD?!

With the nation's debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the rich are still a good idea? Will you give yours back so hundreds of thousands of homeless in New Orleans can have a home?

Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn't he say that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us? Hurricane Katrina came in and blew off the facade that we were a nation with liberty and justice for all. The wind howled and the water rose and what was revealed was that the poor in America shall be left to suffer and die while the President of the United States fiddles and tells them to eat cake.

That's not a joke. The day the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Mr. Bush, John McCain and their rich pals were stuffing themselves with cake. A full day after the levees broke (the same levees whose repair funding he had cut), Mr. Bush was playing a guitar some country singer gave him at some fundraiser with John McCain. All this while New Orleans sank under water.

It would take ANOTHER day before the President would do a "flyover" in his jumbo jet, peeking out the widow at the misery 2,500 feet below him as he flew back to his second home in DC. It would then be TWO MORE DAYS before a trickle of federal aid and troops would arrive. This was no seven minutes in a sitting trance while children read "My Pet Goat" to him. This was FOUR DAYS of doing nothing other than saying "Brownie (FEMA director Michael Brown), you're doing a heck of a job!"

My Republican friends, does it bother you that we are the laughing stock of the world?

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can't string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can't pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you've sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn't up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren't up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security, this has to be fixed. What do you propose?

I have an idea, and it isn't a horse show.

Yours,

Michael Moore

MOORE ENDS

joe n

what michael moore has actually said and some quotes from james madison

hello folks: since there has been some false testimony about what michael moore has said about the storm gustav, here is the actual message from him. you can judge for yourself whether he wishes new orleans to get hit by gustav.

i also include some quotes from james madison. these quotes may be summed up by: so much wisdom then, so little wisdom now. it is more convincing evidence that america is a society in decline. "the best lack all conviction while the worst are filled with pashionate intensity."

compare james madison with john mccain and sarah palin. this is not evolution, it is degeneration, comparable to ancient rome.

joe n

p.s. like albert einstein and richard feynman, i do not believe in a god who intervenes in the affairs of men. he is a mere metaphor and he is lucky to be that. yet people seem to take seriously these pleas which are sent off into the cosmos and called prayers. so it would behoove them to quote the prayers accurately.

by the way, george carlin pointed out that he got better results by praying not to god, but to joe pesci. he asked joe to intervene in the affairs of men with a baseball bat. and isn't it a good deal to get the credit for all the good things and none of the blame for the bad. according to traditional standards of evidence, there is sufficient evidence that our lives are controlled by aliens in a spacecraft in the andromeda galaxy. you might try addressing your prayers to them.

meanwhile, you can also judge for yourself whether this federal administration has done enough to avert another catastrophe for new orleans. they have had three years to fix the levees. that is 3 quarters of the time that the franklin roosevelt administration fought world war two. compare the results.

by the way, although i have much respect for the creator of our national parks, people should understand the the later of the two roosevelts is the greater president. the first one suffered from a severe case of being a war monger. our current administration and its chosen successor have adopted the bad half of the first roosevelt's motto to "speak softly and carry a big stick."

isn't it past time to say that the american people have proven themselves to be a stupid people.

An Open Letter to God, from Michael Moore

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

Dear God,

The other night, the Rev. James Dobson's ministry asked all believers to pray for a storm on Thursday night so that the Obama acceptance speech outdoors in Denver would have to be cancelled.

I see that You have answered Rev. Dobson's prayers -- except the storm You have sent to earth is not over Denver, but on its way to New Orleans! In fact, You have scheduled it to hit Louisiana at exactly the moment that George W. Bush is to deliver his speech at the Republican National Convention.

Now, heavenly Father, we all know You have a great sense of humor and impeccable timing. To send a hurricane on the third anniversary of the Katrina disaster AND right at the beginning of the Republican Convention was, at first blush, a stroke of divine irony. I don't blame You, I know You're angry that the Republicans tried to blame YOU for Katrina by calling it an "Act of God" -- when the truth was that the hurricane itself caused few casualties in New Orleans. Over a thousand people died because of the mistakes and neglect caused by humans, not You.

Some of us tried to help after Katrina hit, while Bush ate cake with McCain and twiddled his thumbs. I closed my office in New York and sent my entire staff down to New Orleans to help. I asked people on my website to contribute to the relief effort I organized -- and I ended up sending over two million dollars in donations, food, water, and supplies (collected from thousands of fans) to New Orleans while Bush's FEMA ice trucks were still driving around Maine three weeks later.

But this past Thursday night, the Washington Post reported that the Republicans had begun making plans to possibly postpone the convention. The AP had reported that there were no shelters set up in New Orleans for this storm, and that the levee repairs have not been adequate. In other words, as the great Ronald Reagan would say, "There you go again!"

So the last thing John McCain and the Republicans needed was to have a split-screen on TVs across America: one side with Bush and McCain partying in St. Paul, and on the other side of the screen, live footage of their Republican administration screwing up once again while New Orleans drowns.

So, yes, You have scared the Jesus, Mary and Joseph out of them, and more than a few million of your followers tip their hats to You.

But now it appears that You haven't been having just a little fun with Bush & Co. It appears that Hurricane Gustav is truly heading to New Orleans and the Gulf coast. We hear You, O Lord, loud and clear, just as we did when Rev. Falwell said You made 9/11 happen because of all those gays and abortions. We beseech You, O Merciful One, not to punish us again as Pat Robertson said You did by giving us Katrina because of America's "wholesale slaughter of unborn children." His sentiments were echoed by other Republicans in 2005.

So this is my plea to you: Don't do this to Louisiana again. The Republicans got your message. They are scrambling and doing the best they can to get planes, trains and buses to New Orleans so that everyone can get out. They haven't sent the entire Louisiana National Guard to Iraq this time -- they are already patrolling the city streets. And, in a nod to I don't know what, Bush's head of FEMA has named a man to help manage the federal government's response. His name is W. Michael Moore. I kid you not, heavenly Father. They have sent a man with both my name AND W's to help save the Gulf Coast.

So please God, let the storm die out at sea. It's done enough damage already. If you do this one favor for me, I promise not to invoke your name again. I'll leave that to the followers of Rev. Dobson and to those gathering this week in St. Paul.

Your faithful servant and former seminarian,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. To all of God's fellow children who are reading this, the city New Orleans has not yet recovered from Katrina. Please click here for a list of things you can do to help our brothers and sisters on the Gulf Coast. And, if you do live along the Gulf Coast, please take all necessary safety precautions immediately.

In memory of a time in which america had intelligent leadership, i quote James Madison (yes, these things were actually said by a man who was elected president of the united states! say them now and you will be sent to political oblivion. this is evidence of the growing stupidity of the american people.):

A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.

All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former.

By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt.

Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.

Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.

I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

In no instance have... the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.

It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.

Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Of all the enemies of public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded.

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.

The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home

War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.

Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

Republican playbook

2008-06-13T02:56:00.000-07:00

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, THE TRUTH IS THE GREATEST ENEMY OF THE STATE." -- Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945

2008-05-30T18:02:00.000-07:00

Albert Einstein

2008-05-13T23:18:00.001-07:00

Albert Einstein described belief in God as "childish superstition" and said Jews were not the chosen people, in a letter to be sold in London this week, an auctioneer said Tuesday.

The father of relativity, whose previously known views on religion have been more ambivalent and fuelled much discussion, made the comments in response to a philosopher in 1954.

As a Jew himself, Einstein said he had a great affinity with Jewish people but said they "have no different quality for me than all other people".

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.

"No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this," he wrote in the letter written on January 3, 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, cited by The Guardian newspaper.

The German-language letter is being sold Thursday by Bloomsbury Auctions in Mayfair after being in a private collection for more than 50 years, said the auction house's managing director Rupert Powell.

In it, the renowned scientist, who declined an invitation to become Israel's second president, rejected the idea that the Jews are God's chosen people.

"For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions," he said.

"And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people."

And he added: "As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."

Previously the great scientist's comments on religion -- such as "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" -- have been the subject of much debate, used notably to back up arguments in favour of faith.

Powell said the letter being sold this week gave a clear reflection of Einstein's real thoughts on the subject. "He's fairly unequivocal as to what he's saying. There's no beating about the bush," he told AFP.

yosemite

2008-04-25T18:45:00.000-07:00

rachel, lindsay, and gabby

2008-04-02T16:55:00.000-07:00

arolla mont collon

2008-04-01T21:40:00.000-07:00

linda and lindsay

2008-04-01T21:23:00.000-07:00

lindsay at niagara falls2

2008-04-01T21:19:00.000-07:00

lindsay at niagara falls

2008-03-28T15:08:00.000-07:00

historical potpourri

2008-03-28T14:49:00.000-07:00

Subject: HISTORICAL POTPOURRI from whence we came

GEORGE WASHINGTON

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.
George Washington

Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.
George Washington

The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure.
George Washington

THOMAS JEFFERSON

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.
Thomas Jefferson

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.
Thomas Jefferson

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Thomas Jefferson

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
Thomas Jefferson

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.
Thomas Jefferson

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
Thomas Jefferson

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
Thomas Jefferson

JOHN ADAMS

At some points during the war, Adams feared that the cause would fail because he saw too much greed and commercialism in the colonies. "I have seen all my life such selfishness and littleness even in New England, that I sometimes tremble to think that, although we are engaged in the best cause that ever employed the human heart, yet the prospect of success is doubtful not for want of power or wisdom but of virtue." During the revolution, Adams -- evoking the manner of his Puritan ancestors -- told his friend Benjamin Rush that the colonials would only have a chance of winning, "if we fear God and repent our sins." He even speculated that God might intend for America to be defeated so that its "vicious and luxurious and effeminate appetites, passion and habits" would be cleansed, laying the foundation for a more-deserved victory in the future.

Adams wasn't alone in seeing the events on the ground as a reflection -- positive and negative -- of God's assessment. One minister ascribed the Continental Army's difficulties to the presence of slavery. Noting the brutal winter, the poor crops, the loss of cattle, and the seemingly imminent collapse of the army, a Quaker farmer speculated that it was part of a divinely-ordained set of plagues. When on July 20, 1775 the Continental Congress called for a day of prayer, it was accompanied by a call for fasting, self-reflection and a unified effort to "unfeignedly confess and deplore our many sins."

As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen … it is declared … that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. … The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.

Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli (1797-01-04, which was carried unanimously by the U.S. Senate and signed into law by John Adams

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The war has gone on some twenty months; for the expenses of which, together with an inconsiderable old score, the President now claims about one half of the Mexican teritory; and that, by far the better half, so far as concerns our ability to make any thing out of it. It is comparatively uninhabited; so that we could establish land offices in it, and raise some money in that way. But the other half is already inhabited, as I understand it, tolerably densely for the nature of the country; and all it's lands, or all that are valuable, already appropriated as private property. How then are we to make any thing out of these lands with this encumbrance on them? or how, remove the encumbrance? I suppose no one will say we should kill the people, or drive them out, or make slaves of them, or even confiscate their property. How then can we make much out of this part of the teritory? If the prossecution of the war has, in exphe conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether"
Abraham Lincoln 1865

A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.
Abraham Lincoln

I can make more generals, but horses cost money.
Abraham Lincoln

I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
Abraham Lincoln

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
Abraham Lincoln

When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
Abraham Lincoln

FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Don't forget what I discovered that over ninety percent of all national deficits from 1921 to 1939 were caused by payments for past, present, and future wars.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars - yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

An atheist is a man who watches a Notre Dame - Southern Methodist University game and doesn't care who wins.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Don't think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?
Dwight D. Eisenhower

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?
Dwight D. Eisenhower

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

No one should ever sit in this office over 70 years old, and that I know.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

The purpose is clear. It is safety with solvency. The country is entitled to both.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

The sergeant is the Army.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

MARTIN LUTHER KING

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Feb. 4, 1968: "God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war. . . . And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place." King then predicted this response from the Almighty: "And if you don't stop your reckless course, I'll rise up and break the backbone of your power."

commentarimathhelv

2008-03-28T14:38:00.000-07:00

hello again:

to paraphrase arnold swartzenegger, i am back. or rather, i have ceased being back and i am on the road again.

today, i journeyed from rochester, new york, to lausanne, switzerland, by way of continental airlines, newark, new jersey, air india, paris, paris france, and the tgv. actually, it took two days and i was exhausted.

the trip began in the rochester airport where michelle ravenel had dropped me off. a rather mild rain was causing water to leak into their computer system. nonetheless, they were able to get it together and send me on my way.

in Newark, homeland security was in full force. the taking off of shoes, the policy of no liquids, absolutely no pocket knives, not even the dullest swiss army knife, is accepted by the american people. i had to mail mine back to my house at a cost of $9.99. i detect marketing here.

in the restrictions as to what you are allowed to carry, there is no thought, no discrimination. people accept the bush line that they must endure inconvenience, long lines and delays. they are totally cowed. they do not think to ask themselves if all this is necessary. if what is being checked is what should be checked. they do not ask if the dick cheneys of the world have to go through this too. the answer, of course, is no and there is already the beginnings of a security system based on class. yet the american people do not seem ready to rebel, not ready to even get a little nasty and sarcastic in order to insure equality of treatment. fear.

anyway, i left the american security paranoia behind and walked approximately 100 feet to the domain of air india. it was a trip back to the old indian culture. they felt the need to repeat the security check in their own very old fashioned indian way. this meant going through the motions for the sake of appearances, the only purpose being to create a long line to stand in. people wandered back and forth from the supposedly secure area to the supposedly insecure area. there was absolutely no way of distinguishing between those who had been checked and those who had not. it was not chaos. it was pointless obedience by the bureaucracy and uncomplaining resignation by the customers. fortunately, i had lots of time to kill.

the flight on air india was a revelation. it was as if i was in a different time, in a new culture which had more to do with the modern present than the colonial past. most of the people were native indians who were going on to mumbai. inside the plane, the crew and passengers seemed totally normal, that is to say, they seemed western, as if they came from the suburbs of rochester. 30 years ago, i knew some indians of a different sort. for example, i knew harsh pittie (his real name!), who was a totally sophisticated citizen coming from an upper-class indian family. harsh knew and was confident of his place in the world. he was certainly not typical. you could not find enough harsh pitties to fill up an enormous plane. i thought at the time that a more typical case was an indian mathematician at the institute for advanced study who was very insecure. he seemed to live in fear of being sent back to poverty the streets of calcutta. not so the people on the plane. they were just plain folks who seemed to have no hang-ups about their place in the world. perhaps this was because there was such a high percentage of indians on the plane. or perhaps it reflects the transformation of at least part of india to a modern society. if so, it seems to affect both the young and the old.

on the plane, i had a nice lamb curry and the chance to make almost final preparations on my number 5 and number 6 lectures. that leaves only numbers 7 and 8 to prepare. they are fairly well thought out and don’t have to be given for two weeks. so all that is well in hand.

i arrived in paris and was pleased to discover an air france bus which would take me directly to the gare de lyon and my tgv train to lausanne. no problems at all!

arriving in the train station, i paid 50 cents to use a toilet and to wash up. this was an excellent decision.

having time to kill and being hungry, i paid a culinary tribute to richard kane. i had the french version of a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, literally, a bacon, salade, et tomate on a baguette, a BST! tres excellent! especially when combined with a lipton’s ice tea with peach flavoring. it was less sweet that the american version. perhaps because of this, it seemed to have more of the essence of peach in it. ah yes, when it comes to ingestibles, the french seem to understand even the small things.

finally, off i went on the tgv, glad to just sit and nap for 4 hours. it was rather warm in paris but there was snow in the passes as we crossed into switzerland. then it was warm again in lausanne, even at 8 o’clock at night. i took the short steep walk up the hill to the hotel, pulling my luggage behind me. kathryn had told me that a young fellow named Jonathan scott had biked up the hill on his last day here. i couldn’t do that now. but i was reminded of a hill in the finger lakes of new york state which i had once biked twenty years ago. a workman saw me struggling up the hill and remarked that i must be hard as nails to do it. it was of course long before my aortic dissection and i must have been forty pounds lighter. but in my memory, it was a comparable hill, only longer. so i must get rid of those unwanted forty pounds!

i lecture tomorrow. tonight i sleep.

tomorrow has come and gone. the students and i seem to have survived the first two hour lecture. i have an audience of approximately 20. that is a lot of students for a class at this level. i had to leave a few things out but it all seemed to remain coherent. today i give the second two hour lecture and then we have time off for, believe it or not, approximately two weeks before another four hour bunch of talks.

i am still settling in. i need to figure out how to do laundry without paying the hotel the small fortune of 8 swiss franks per shirt. there must be a laundromat somewhere and i will find it. otherwise, i will start doing laundry in the bathtub.

up in the town square, there is a wonderful cafe where i plan to eat breakfast. the pastries looked great and i will sample them together with some cappucino. america has not caught up with europe when it comes to quality of pastry.

i have been paid. it is just like portugal. i have been handed over 4000 swiss franks in cold hard cash and must now worry about where to keep it. for the moment i carry it with me everywhere i go. i plan to learn to use the combination safe which is in the room and relieve myself of this burden.

today or tomorrow i must establish an internet connection. it is the usual situation. i can receive but i cannot send.

time flies! i have now finished 4 hours of lectures. it is hard to believe that, after 3 days here, i am half finished with all i have to present. i still have some preparation to do for the final 4 hours but not so much that i am worried that i cannot do it all in 2 weeks. the localization lectures are over and the chain models lectures are yet to begin. the latter is what they really know well around here and i must prepare it well if i am to survive. my only strength is that i have a different point of view then they have, less explicit, more conceptual, more princetonesque.

for lunch today, i had beef tartare and frites. it was much different than i expected. there was a lot of tomato sauce mixed in with the raw beef. that makes the raw meat much less exotic. kathryn assures me that this is a common way of doing it and it is a good way. her husband is fond of it. so i guess i have passed the beef tartare test. it is as easy as the sushi test. the dish is tasty and good in a quite normal way. it needs no courage or aclimatization to enjoy it. i expected more of a challenge.

i need something different to eat, something which is a true test of swissness. what could it be? like the tibetans, do the swiss have a version of rancid butter that they are fond of? mountain cheeses, while wonderful, tend to be tamer than the smelly lowland stuff the french love. so what is true mountain food? how about cows that die over the winter? or are those only eaten by wolves? there must be some food which will keep an entire winter, probably hard and dry. some food which modern swiss hate but which is still savoured by traditionalists.

they have very good yogurt here, mixed with good things like muesli. that is very swiss. and they have good bread, substantial and tasty stuff. since this is french switzerland, i have not yet encountered a good version of a bratwurst. however, there are hot dog stands and shops to get sandwiches. the turks sell kebobs and falafel which should be tasty.

hello again from the alpha-palmiers hotel in downdown lausanne, right up the hill from the train station:

i see from the BBC that the weather in the northeastern USA involves a massive return to winter. even at the masters golf tournament in augusta, it does not seem to be warm. oh well, it is warm here and that is all that counts for me.

sometimes i cannot see what is right in front of my eyes. how can one wonder what to eat in switzerland without recalling dairy products? all those cows up in the mountains are the foundation of a wonderful dairy tradition. it starts with wonderful yogurt, complete with the ultraswiss addition of birchermuesli, those little bits of fruit, nuts, and grain which are the foundation of good swiss breakfasts. and here is something which seems to be completely unknown in the USA, buttermilk flavored with fruit, strawberry, cherry, or my favorite, mango. this is a wonderful thing to do with buttermilk.

and of course, there is chocolate. but one cannot live by chocolate alone! you can however almost live on a diet of chocolate milk alone.

the swiss are also famous for melting cheese. in the winter, they do fondue. now begins the season for raclette, melted cheese with potatoes. kathryn tells me that one must distinguish between the two forms of melted cheese. i think it is similar to the fact that the inuit have hundreds of names for varieties of snow and we have so few because we don't really understand snow. this weekend, i am looking forward to having raclette at kathryn's home outside of lausanne. it is also nice that i have an invitation to do laundry.

today, i am headed off to a large park in the city. the map shows pictures of mountain goats there. maybe it is like a zoo. it is hard to believe that mountain goats could grow wild in the city. i plan to end the day at a bavarian brasserie with a plate of fois gras. great stuff!

yesterday, i spent the day contemplating an old paper of john moore on universal hopf algebras. it is amazing that the existence of bipolynomial hopf algebras boils down to the classical fact that all symmetric functions can be expressed in terms of the elementary symmetric functions. this stuff relates to my current theme. how do certain things stay hidden in algebraic topology but are there nonetheless. the most striking example is so-called neisendorfer localization but with a large assist from haynes miller, alex zabrodsky, and emmanuel dror-farjoun. the attempt to cut off the bottom homotopy groups of a finite complex does not in fact get rid of the memory of them. theory says that you can get them back by a functor. but, if you don't know beforehand what you are supposed to get back, know one knows what is going on. you only know that the machine makes sausage when you know that you put sausage scraps into it or that you are getting sausage out. at least one very competent person, aka clarence, has tried and failed to understand this.

a more elementary example is in the bott-samelson theorem. the loops on a suspension retains the memory of the coalgebra structure of the space which is suspended. the suspension remembers the something about the space that it is the suspension of. this is expressed more generally by observing that the eilenberg-moore models have the coalgebra structure in them. but it comes from the geometry of the eilenberg-zilber map, it is not just algebra. it can be hard to get your hands on. maybe i can make some contribution to the theory of the eilenberg-moore approximations by coming up with an effective way to get at this. the key word is effective, ineffective theory is not enough. but the book comes first.

as i typed the above two paragraphs, i realized that i was not addressing my whole audience. oh well, live with it. the truth is that i don't write these things primarily for you but to amuse myself in the hotel room. if you think about it, you realize that there are only a few things to do in a hotel room and, even in switzerland, some of these are illegal. so, in the absence of nicole kidman, i feel free to type some mathematical thoughts.

i have just returned from my explorations. i first went to the cathedral, a very impressive place with nice stained glass windows and a wondrous organ which was restored by, among others, the husband of our friend, kathryn lesh. she is a mathematician who finished at MIT at the same time as our kathryn here. the organ is spectacular.

i kept walking until the i reached the large bois de sauvabelin, a park with many hills and a small lake with boats and a restaurant. it is a very pleasant place which reminds me of the small lake in seneca park in rochester. our lake is actually nicer, but it is often under threat from our country administration who want to curtail it for various forms of corporate use and development. on the other hand, the lake here seems to a treasured and lively place with a cafe where you can get coffee, ice cream, and even fondue. altogether it was a pleasant day.

during the walk, i thought about what i shall say in my new lectures. mainly, the first question is: what is the appropriate chain model for a fibration? rather than choose the newer quillenesque notion, i choose the older cartan inspired notion of construction. the difference is that you are doing abelian homological algebra rather than the nonabelian version due to quillen. i have nothing against the quillen ideas and have even used them in my now ancient rational past. but the abelian version is sometimes much easier to compute. so that is what i will use. i have some convincing arguments that this is not a bad idea. the main theorem of eilenberg-moore is that they give chain models of homotopy pullbacks via cotensor products. and they have some of the formal properties of fibrations in the sense that cotensor products with these creatures is homologically invariant. oops! we are getting a little too technical.

since this is also the land of knives, as in the swiss army versions, i have begun to evaluate the selection of knives with the intent of purchasing an interesting swiss army knife. in the meantime, i have purchased an opinel, the primitive but very useful french knife which is great for cutting things to eat. you can never have too many of them and they are cheap.

by the way, i manage the basic tasks of life rather well with my primitive french. i can not discuss the finer points of philosophy in french but what i have is adequate for expressing what food i want to order, to thank them for it when i get it, and even to express my disgust with george bush if i so wish. le government de usa, c'est horrible, c'est fou, no? c'est vrai, oui? oui, oui!

kathryn tells me that my month's work entitles me to become part of the swiss retirement program. in fact, i am required to fill out the form and assured that i will receive a monthly payment if i bother to inform them when i officially retire. i suspect that it will not be a massive sum, perhaps enough to purchase one small bar of chocolate per year. one nice thing about the swiss is that they have rules which they follow. i suspect that it derives from all those cold winters in the mountains where you had to get along or go outside and die. but that does not mean that they are as cowed and repressed as the typical american. far from it! only in america does puritanism thrive in its peculiar southern mutation.

last night i returned from my visit to the home of kathryn and her husband felipe in the town of aigle. it is a half hour on the train from lausanne and very pleasantly located in the valley on the way to sion. there are mountains all around.  local trains will take you up to the mountain resorts. it is a very nice place to live and to raise their 4 boys, who are, by the way, quite well behaved. it is a warm place with good skiing a few minutes away up the mountains. the dinner of raclette (melted cheese with potatoes, mushrooms, and pickles) was excellent and was accompanied by a nice dry white wine of the region. i think i like the pure cheese of raclette better than the mixture of wine and cheese which is fondue. the town of aigle has a castle and it has the high school which was attended by the great mathematician georges de rham.

today is the monday after easter and, except for places to eat, everything is closed. tomorrow, i will buy an economical and attractive sweater so that i can impersonate a dressed up person. today is a good day to prepare some lectures.

after putting in a good start on the lecture preparation, i decided to meet up with a rhubarb tart i had noticed at the manora, the pleasant lausanne version of a cafeteria. it was very good with a renverse (= coffee with cream). afterwards, i walked up to the park in front of the hall of justice. the blue of the lake and the grey mountains topped with white snow were stunningly beautiful. it is quite a contrast to the continuing weather reports about the snow in eastern north america. the fact that there is enough snow to close the toronto airport makes me think that the situation in rochester is probably not much better. the big difference between here and there is that the snow here is all high up in the mountains and it is beautiful warm spring-like weather down here.

by the way, i have internet access from the university but not from the hotel. so that is the reason for the gap in messages over the long easter weekend.

is fonda fond of fondue?

just a little tongue twister in the title, no sense to it, although i am of a generation where many were fond of fonda. and you must admit that it is musical.

hello once again from warm and sunny switzerland:

just to let you folks know, i sleep with the window open.  it is that warm.

i noticed today that john milnor is giving a lecture in zurich on april 12. the occasion is to honor beno eckmann (it must be his ninetieth birthday). the subject of the lecture is “topology in the 50s and 60s.” it will probably be a great lecture and very interesting to me who was born as a topologist in the later part of this period. this was, after all, the golden age of topology. but i soon realized that, small as switzerland is, it would be a five to six hour train ride to get to zurich. this would not be easy. even though milnor is one of the great math lecturers of my lifetime, i am doomed not to hear him this time.

i consoled myself by having dinner at a swiss brewery with good beer and a nice strassbourg version of a pizza, a so-called flaming tart with onions, cream, smoked meat, and little cut up wieners on a thin crust. not bad but it will not replace traditional pizza.

kathryn gave me a delayed easter present, a chocolate egg filled with individual chocolates, sort of a chocolate box of chocolates. it is made in aigle, her home town. these are some very good tasting chocolates.

in contradiction to the above paragraph, i have returned from zurich where they were having a conference in honor of the 90th birthday of beno eckmann. it was good to see old friends like henry glover, guido mislin, peter hilton, and john milnor. at least i know them well enough to say hello to. lunch was at the eigennosishen technishe hochscule in the very pleasant rooftop cafeteria with a lovely view of the city and of lake zurich. at lunch, jean-pierre serre, perhaps the greatest mathematician of his time if it isn't milnor, happened to pass by, tripped over my knapsack on the floor and almost took a tumble. as someone said, "that could have been a career ender right there." not that i have to worry about that now. i did not even get a chance to reintroduce myself. after all, chuck and i proved a conjecture of his and he should be able to recall that.

beno eckmann, 90 though he may be, seems to be in excellent physical condition. unfortunately, the same cannot be said for peter hilton who is 86 and, while bright and alert, has trouble with his balance. as always, he was very gracious. i also stopped to say hello to albrecht dold. he is very hard of hearing and seems to have some of the symptoms of altzimer's disease. sad. i don't know what he would do without his wife. she remembered me much better than he did. when octavian cornea was my student 15 years ago, his work overlapped with some work of albrecht. in fact, octavian had better results then but there was no doubt that dold still possessed an agile and sharp mind.

the trip from lausanne to zurich and back was a very pleasant exercise in the swiss train system. zooming back along the lake by neuchatel is very attractive. at first, i thought the trip would take 5 hours each way but it turned out to be a pleasant 2 hours each way. the trains zoom through the swiss countryside with a rocking suspension system which the swiss call pendular. the view was not deep mountain scenery but it was quite nice, a mixture of cows and vineyards in different parts. in switzerland at least, the german swiss seem to have more cows and the french swiss more wine. but my limited survey could be wrong about that. in france, they certainly have a lot of cows.

i learn that the swiss have slightly different electrical outlet plugs than the rest of europe. the swiss plugs are 3 pronged and thus better grounded but otherwise they seem the same. my experience is that you can use a european plug in a swiss outlet but not the other way around. so i will wait until i get to france before buying some plugs.

i gave kathryn a quick outline of my last 4 lectures and she seemed pleased with the minor insights i am adding to the field. i think that one of the pleasures of mathematical old age is that you have the time to reflect on the best way of doing things. you do not have to restrict yourself to the quickest way of just getting the job done. it is a lot like sex in that respect. except that you get better at exposition as you get older.

the weather here is delightful. we just had coffee outside in the bright sunshine with the mountains and lake in the background, as pretty and idyllic as a postcard.

kathryn is really enthusiastic about one of my ideas. i had hesitated to tell her about these particular ideas because i thought she might find them too trivial and obvious. there is a simple way to express multiplication of loops in terms of maps of homotopy pullback diagrams. she is thinking about the ideas and has already come up with cute new things to say about them. she thinks more abstractly than i do and is going to incorporate the ideas into things i would never have thought of. more power to her. she is going to bring some life to the subject. i will just sit back and watch.

kathryn thinks that my questions about "change of rings" (whatever that is) are the right ones to ask and is confident that she can answer them in the affirmative. i hope so. i can use the machinery if it works. in the writing of my book, i have to do some handsprings to avoid this more natural way of doing things.

here is a friendly jab at bill singer. when i emailed him about this issue, he rightly pointed out that i didn't really need to do all this and that i could do what i wanted with constructions that were in an old cartan seminar. this is true but it is not esthetic. it only works since you can compute the algebra structure and you know that you have a hopf algebra structure. if you work over the integers, it turns out that this coalgebra structure is uniquely determined. so you get the coalgebra structure in a round about way. it is more esthetic if you can go directly at the coalgebra structure and that is what i want to do. i repeat, bill is right, but kathryn understands me. if you start with an algebra, then the homology of the bar construction should give you a coalgebra. getting an algebra and forcing the coalgebra structure is a form of rape and someday, if not now, you will pay for it.

i have missed my chance to have duck with olives at my favorite cafeteria. by the time i got around to it, they had sold out. instead, i had some nice trout filet with blanched cabbage. the cabbage was excellent. don't knock it until you try it. the blanching makes the cabbage mild enough so that it doesn't overpower the fish. it goes well.

i was at the main post office and i read a plaque which identified it as the site where, between 1783 and 1793, Edward Gibbon wrote large parts of his "decline and fall of the roman empire." john harper should pay a pilgrimage to the site even though it is now totally subsumed in a large post office building. if the building were out of the way, the view would be terrific, as good as the view from the park by the casino.

compared to the dark passions of portugal, the swiss seem to lead a more ordered life. kathryn tells me that this can be deceptive. some female olympic athlete was murdered by her husband in the mountains above where kathryn lives. it took a long time before they could find him. this is the dark side of mountain life, probably caused by being cooped up all winter with no way to get away from each other. like rats in a cage. somehow it is different from the wild passions of the south. and different from the loneliness of the fado singer in portugal waiting for her fisherman husband to return from the cod fishery. in fact, the husband has probably drowned. there is no need to murder him or to be murdered by him and he is fondly remembered.

i had some fois gras at the bavarian brasserie near the hotel. it was very good but with a slight taste of liver that was totally absent from the fois gras in provence. but it was a good sweet fois gras nonetheless. the only problem was that the waiter mistranslated my french into a half bottle of white wine when i really wanted just a glass. fortunately, there was no problem taking the unfinished bottle back to the hotel room.

this weekend, i will try to finish the preparation of my last 2 lectures. this should not be too hard. i have to do 2 things. one, i need to compute the mod p homology of the double loop space of an odd dimensional sphere. this is a straightforward application of the theory i have already prepared. two, i need to develop hopf invariants so that i can compute the bockstein spectral sequence and achieve the crowning glory of the fact that the integral homology has exponent p. my last lectures occur next tuesday and wednesday. in the words of woody woodpecker, 'that's all, folks!"

then i am thinking of running away for a weekend at the hotel mont-collon in arolla. i would spend the weekend at the foot of the glacier. this place i know well and i am known there. i should even get some kind of special welcome. if possible, it would be pleasant to hike up to the cabine des rouges aigles (= the cabin of the red eagles). but snow in the mountains may make that impossible. if so, i can be a vegetable too. arolla is the place where chuck mcgibbon discovered the joys of climbing. i am wondering how he is doing on everest right now. when he reads this, let him know that our solution to the serre conjecture was well received here just as it was in portugal last october. even though this stuff is old, it is attractive, understandable and it still sells.

once more into the breech:

the more i read about the albigensian crusade and the subsequent inquisition, the more i am convinced that bush and cheney are the pope and simon de monfort of our time. back then, a crusade was said to be needed to suppress heresy but in fact it was motivated by economic reasons. a very wealthy region of france did not believe in worshipping the relics of saints and in enriching the established church. so for economic reasons and for the sheer greed of confiscation a crusade was declared. hundreds of thousands were killed, poor and rich alike. properties were confiscated by the crusaders and became hereditary fiefs. the survivors were made public examples of, were forced to recant, and to make expensive and long pilgrimages. if it had not already been stolen, they often had to abandon their property. Once they reached the pilgrimage site, they had documents to be signed by the local church authorities to prove they had reached the appointed goal. This practice continues today in santiago de compostella but the documents are now signed by more lowly clerics. it is just like the republicans reaping the spoils of washington and of government contracts while preaching a morality they do not live up to. or you can pretend to drive out corruption from the world bank while using the funds to enrich your mistress. in short, we live in a time of hypocrisy, reminiscent of the albigensian crusade but with mass killings not yet in full swing.

i spent saturday in the deserted math building preparing some lectures and looking out the window at the sheep mowing the lawn with the mountains in the background. it was a nice way to finish up the preparation of lecture 7 of 8.

before that, i decided to sample the characteristic swiss potato dish called rosti. it is much like hash browns but served with, for example, mushrooms and veal in a cream sauce. too rich for me. i can do without it. maybe i will try it with fried eggs and ketchup. i think the swiss do a version of that too.

i just took a nice walk down to the lake. i discovered restaurants there which deserve return visits. for example, one place was advertising some mussels and frites. but my dinner plans were already made. all i had room for in my stomach were an expresso, and 3 boules of ice cream. i had this at the universal swiss ice cream restaurant chain, movenpick. the pistachio was astoundingly good. i returned to my hotel room where i had my planned dinner of salad, cheese, and fois gras. even though it was supermarket fois gras it was still rather good.

then i got down to work and finished the preparation of my last lecture. i develop hopf invariants and use them to compute the bockstein spectral sequence of the double loop space of a sphere. old stuff but with some new twists.

now i have no more compulsory work to do and can think in a scattered way. if i get a chance to give more lectures, i will trust that i can lecture on familiar stuff without further preparation. i can always leave out details i don’t remember. i think i remember these details well enough to know that i must leave them out. for example, i know how to get the generators of a kernel inside a free lie algebra but i probably would have trouble proving it works on the spot. instead i would justify it by analogy with the generators for the kernel of a free group. no proofs.

anyway, i have been virtuous enough and have done everything so far pretty much from first principles. if i lecture beyond this week, it is time for me and my audience, if i still have any then, to take a break. we can still talk but we will fly.

brayton has asked me a question about eilenberg-moore spectral sequences. at the moment, my passion is to avoid them by the use of small coalgebra models. then the homological algebra is computing what you want without any nonsense. in this style, you use spectral sequences only for comparison theorems to prove that two things are equal. then you use one of them to get the answer exactly. when it works, it is a joy. but you need to know the space you are looking at, or some of its properties, like maybe that it is the total space of a principal bundle. in this way, you might get a small model for it.

the alpha-palmiers is a fine hotel but i have one criticism of it. i think that i charges too much for an internet connection. it was wonderful to always have an internet connection in my room in portugal. it made it easy to send email, to phone with skype, and also to look up stuff on the web. it is not too bad to have to wait to go to the office and i will survive. but i miss the entertainment.

the office email has one other drawback. i had to change my sender to send. this means that no record is kept of the messages i send out unless i send a copy to myself. i have been forgetting to do this and so i have no record of what i have written except for my longer messages.

once again, cnn is issuing weather warnings against travel in the northeastern united states. i am glad i am not there. it is so warm and sunny here.

cnn does not seem to think that the weather on the top of everest is worth reporting. the closest news is that there is flooding in thailand. if the weather is bad in thailand, it probably is worse in the Himalayan. for chuck’s sake, i hope the weather is good in the mountains.

i am beginning to get worried that there is not enough about food and culture in my messages. this means that i am leading a narrow life with most of my interest being focused on mathematics. that is not a bad thing. i have learned things in preparing the lectures. it will help the book. and it is interesting to me. but somehow i feel i am not living up to the standards set by my hero, anthony bourdain. i don’t feel that i have eaten anything really weird or interesting. the beef tartare was fairly tame. maybe i should go get some more. i read that they can make it hotter. the food is very good but it is not adventurous. after all, how adventurous can yogurt with cereal be? and i actually am not very fond of having my meat prepared in a cream sauce. that is too much dairy. and, if i cared, i don’t think it is kosher.

i had a good pasta with salmon and mussels. but once again it had a sort of curry cream sauce! i will try the thai restaurant in the hotel. i want no dairy mixed with meat. i want some heat, some spice! i need a change.

what would anthony do? even he did not like warthog anus. but he ate it and it had no cream sauce. he also ate ostrich eggs scrambled in an ash fire. eggs are not dairy. chicken are not cows. i need to get something eggy, but without the ashes. do the swiss eat any insects?

what would be the swiss of equivalent of a canadian maple latte? would the swiss sink that low? no, a caramel machiato is their extreme in that direction.

i thought of something. the swiss have some kind of gluey nut cake with whole hazelnuts in it, it seems to be some sort of gargantuan swiss baklava. i will try it. i am desperate. i would even welcome a club sandwich, disgraceful as that would be in anthony’s eyes. seriously, they do have good sandwiches. the bread is wonderful. ok, here is the plan. get a sandwich for lunch and have a thai dinner. maybe shrimp.

another thing that is missing from my messages is a sense of sin. in portugal and spain, the sense of the middle ages was so present, so powerful, that your thoughts were filled with sin and lust. and there was fado. and there was crawling to santiago de compostella on your knees, and there was sophia loren tieing the body of el cid to his horse. all these things to remind you of the dark and forbidden passions. the swiss do not seem to have this. as orson wells said, “the italians have a history filled with murder and lust and they created the renaissance. the swiss have had an orderly life for centuries and the best they could come up with was the cuckoo clock.” maybe it would have been different if william tell had slipped and aimed a little bit lower. putting an arrow through your son’s brain should give a culture a sense of guilt.

but where is the passion? where is the abundance? where is the sophia? heidi just doesn’t cut it. maybe i am underestimating heidi. i don’t know her that well. could yodeling ever match fado? i don’t think so. it is hard to express yearning with a yodel. or any thought at all. and the zither is far too upbeat an instrument.

still i love this country. life here is more the way life should be than most other lives are. it is certainly more beautiful.

wait a minute! i am not that far from geneva! that is where that religious fanatic john calvin reigned. even though the passions are buried deep in calvinism and are not at all attractive, still they were strong, even twisted. i think you can distinguish them from the current southern bush version because they are less hypocritical. predestination is a harder road than republicanism. it is even harder than mormanism. by the way, has there ever been a morman democrat?

so let me see if i can fantasize about calvinism. let us see? first, sex has to be without taking your clothes off. well, that doesn’t help. but you could walk up to the most beautiful girl in geneva and claim that your union was god’s plan.

who could be the sex kitten of this culture? maybe bette davis? or, yuck, joan crawford? this is going nowhere! i hear that jane fonda has gotten religion. so maybe we could combine her past with her now. she would be ok.

what came so easy when you have the image of the smoking censor swinging toward the sky in santiago is so difficult here. and it is easy when you find the bones of an apostle just when you need them 1000 years after he died. this is good stuff! your history is loaded!

what happened to history in switzerland? hasn’t anything deep and disturbing, calvin excepted, happened here since hannibal crossed the alps? i read that julius caesar slaughtered a lot of helvetians but they were not on their home turf at the time. i think they were in provence.

provence and especially langedoc has a dark history, what with the albigensian crusades and all. greed, death, violent men, and poisonous women fill the history of france. and of spain and of portugal. and we don’t even have to talk about italy, the popes, and the medici! even the french thought that catherine de medici was a dangerous piece of work.
and the less said about the greeks, the better. the germans have had different sorts of problems. but they all have history, even the austrians. in terms of big events in history, switzerland is like gertrude stein’s description of oakland, “there is no there there.” people find refuge here, people like vladimir lenin. they run away to here.

don’t think i don’t like it here. i like it very much. right now, i am running away to here.

p.s. you should look up this spelling of the word “breech.” i did and i was surprised. what the hell did henry the second mean when he urged on the english, “once more into the breech!” maybe everything the french say about the english is true?

modeling of chains:

tomorrow i start my lectures on chain models. but first here is some history from wikipedia about how to forge your own chains:

“In 59 BC, Julius Caesar declared he was so shocked by the incursions of the dangerous Helvetii tribe into Gaul, and the suffering of the Gaulish peoples, that he had himself appointed 'protector of the Gauls'. By the time he'd finished protecting them, a million Gauls were dead and Julius Caesar owned most of Gaul.”

sound familiar?

today i took kathryn’s advice and ate at the thai restaurant at the hotel. i ordered a shrimp dish served with a green chili sauce. it was mixed with coconut milk and flavored with lemon grass. superb! this was what i needed. for a change, a meal with no dairy in it. i think that this is definitely a better thai restaurant than we have in rochester. and we do have at least one good one.

the haze had burnt off and the mountains were sharp and clear in the distance. there can be no prettier city than this. poor zurich! it has a nice lake but not lausanne’s nearby mountains.

i finished ina caro’s “road to the past,” an historical guide to a road trip through france. i enjoyed the first half but i am glad to be done with it. instead of the serious and deadly history of the albigensian crusade in the south and of the hundred years war in the middle, we end up in the north of france with the petty concerns related to pretty chateaux, elegant gardens, stylish furniture, and the frivolous intrigues and corruption of the french court in the time of absolute monarchy. such subjects are not worthy of the companion to the biographer of robert moses and lyndon johnson. those are two guys who would fit right into the middle ages.

ina caro seems fascinated by petty privilege and should be writing about the current crop of republicans. in contradiction to their name, our republicans want imperial rome or imperial france. the divine right of kings is their ideal. but bush and cheney are really an ineffectual medieval pope and an ineffectual simon de monfort. vive la revolution! things may have gotten out of hand, but robespierre had a point.

the first two hours of my second set of lectures went ok but this stuff requires more definitions and that takes longer. so i am behind schedule. i will probably have to make it up by assuming that hopf invariants are known and then just using them or by just skipping the use of them altogether. that would be a shame since they tie in so nicely to the computation of the mod p homology of the double loop space of a 2n+1 sphere. oh well, the students are going to soon get the perfection of the xerox of my lecture notes, the lecture notes do it all as it should be done.

i had some sushi for dinner tonight. not very swiss but good basic japanese stuff, just like you can get at the tokyo house in rochester. this is part of my current theme to remain kosher in the sense that i am not mixing meat and dairy. however, my form of kosher encourages the eating of most crustaceans! but not with cream sauce even though melted butter is acceptable.

the lectures are over. i had to rush through hopf invariants and gave only the quickest connection to the computation of bockstein spectral sequences. it could be argued that it was better this way. it was the shortest path to the application may have created the most clarity and interest.

now all i have to worry about are two things: what food to eat and how to get completely over this fluish bug that is wiping out most of my energy.

on the question of food, i plan to revert to more salads and also more sausages. i just want to minimize sauces. the sauces tend to taste too rich for me. some sausage and kraut would be a nice change. no sauce there so even sausage will be lighter. or a nice salad. for some reason, i can’t seem to find tuna sandwiches. in france, they were everywhere. maybe this unhappiness with diet has something to do with this flu. could it be that you need health and energy to properly enjoy food?

i think i am getting better. my energy level seems to be higher. and the phlegm that has been clogging my throat and nasal passages seems to be diminishing. until i get better, i will postpone by quick trip into the brisk mountain air of mont-collon. the presciption calls for hot drinks with honey and for my old reliable cure of submersion in hot bath water. i recall that i survived the pain of the night before the diagnonis of the aortic dissection by spending the night in hot bath water. hence, i have a lot of faith in this cure.

From: jnei@math.rochester.edu
Subject: deskyped
Date: April 21, 2007 11:47:53 AM EDT (CA)
To: michelle@ravenel.net
Cc: lewinjacques@bellsouth.net, norman.stein@wanadoo.fr, rkane@uwo.ca, Jan_Pearce@berea.edu, mbenders@math.hunter.cuny.edu, chuck.mcgibbon@gmail.com, tr@teammedia.net, dancefairy@cox.net, jrobin@math.rochester.edu, dharper1@frontiernet.net, harper@math.rochester.edu, and 11 more…

hello all: i was marveling at the fact that i seemed to be able to make an infinite number of skype calls without having my available credit decrease when,
all of a sudden, my skype ran out and now i am having trouble paying them for more time. bummer! i must wait for a reply from their support service.

i am only now being cured of my horrible chest cold by a product of the swiss pharmaceutical industry. it is called "antigrippine" which, i think, means that
it fights things that have a grip on you. i think that the stuff works. it must be powerful since you are allowed to take only 3 a day. anyway, i am less clogged up and more able to drag my tired body up and down the hills of lausanne.

i have been complaining to kathryn about the overuse of cream in the swiss preparation of meat. she claims that it is all the fault of the german swiss and that
she can make some of the very same dishes more palatable by substituting turkey for beef and by substituting coconut milk with lime juice for cream. in a weak moment, i accepted an invitation to dinner at her house in order to test this hypothesis. actually, i still feel under the weather and probably would have been wiser to just be a vegetable in the hotel.

but i have acquired a bottle of the wine, a white one, which is local to her town and will bring it with me on the train. kathryn makes this trip every day and the beauty of the town and its setting makes it worth it but she does live halfway to sion, 40 minutes on a fast train from lausanne. in my current condition, i regard it as a major journey.

now i have returned from a pleasant dinner at kathryn's. i have learned why kathryn splurges for the first class train ticket. on weekends, this train on frida, is standing room only. fortunately, i arrived early and got one of the few remaining seats. but when it is not so crowded, then you can enjoy yourself and even get some work done. no so on this particular train. it was crowded with college kids going home for the weekend and with italians going home to milan, 5 hours way. there even was an out of place old indian couple. they are much to late to get to aishwarya rai's wedding on time. (in case you haven't heard, this is a enormous event in bollywood!)

as kathryn indicated she would, she did a nice fusion dish of turkey in coconut milk with lime juice. except for fact that this dish was prepared in switzerland, there seemed to be very little that was swiss about it. it was quite good but i was not able to do it justice. i think that you need a certain health level in order to consume and enjoy food. but i could appreciate it abstractly. and the closing dessert of movenpick pistachio ice cream would be irresistable even at death's door. and it combines well with a little bit of movenpick chocolate ice cream. this is swiss dairy as it should be! with no meat in it!

as i write this, i am eating a beet salad. it is wonderful. all my life i have eaten overcooked beets and i have loved them nonetheless. i love these more! as far as i can taste, these have no marinade and certainly no thick harvard beet sauce. it is just pure beet goodness!

one more technical point conquered for the book! it is a simple and old thing but i really have worked out well how george whitehead's suspension operator works in the eilenberg moore game. very nice, very simple, and it proves things that are a mess to do otherwise. actually, i knew before several versions of how this goes. but not i know then in a consistent and integrated way. hooray! even though i am stuck in a time warp in the 1950s.!

and i am pleased also that i am going to add to the book a proof of bott periodicity. it is an illustration of the power of the eilenberg-moore game and also as an illustration of some of its hidden complications, namely the fact that the coalgebra structure, while there, is hard to predict by purely algebraic means. Maybe someday it will be possible. kathryn is inching towards it and it is part of moore's dream but it is a long way off. but it is nice to see that in many cases you can handle it by what harper calls generating complexes.

the bott stuff is old and pretty and historically important and it is nice to be able to do it fast.

i will close now. this is one of those days when the air has no haze and the mountains are sharp and clear. it is a shame i am not ready to walk in them.

best wishes,

joe n

happy birthday to me:

i celebrated my birthday by taking a walk in the park by the palace of justice. it has a wonderful view of the lake and the mountains. the best thing is that i felt healthier and stronger. it was nice just to sit on a bench in the warm sun and to think about how very simple the cartan seminar proof of the bott periodicity theorem really is.

i went to the palace hotel brasserie for a lunch which anthony bourdain would have enjoyed. it consisted of braised beef shoulder and bone marrow and root vegetables. i know now why anthony likes bone marrow. he likes fatty things. and this is a very fatty thing. the beef shoulder reminded me of the traditional irish meal of corned beef except that the cabbage was replaced by root vegetables. not that that is a bad thing. in truth, i enjoyed it and finished it off with an expresso and chocolate mouse. quite satisfactory.

i should add that i was entertained at lunch by a long carnival parade. it was a combination of mummers, astecs, and incas. the south american flute music was very nice as the imitation incas danced by. i was not able to tell whether this parade was the opening of a carnival or some lausanne festival which happens every year. either way, it was a good thing.

the french are holding a presidential election today. a main issue seems to be job security. some people think that there is too much of it, and since it is so hard to fire someone, businesses are very reluctant to hire young people. the result is that the young people are emigrating to, for example, england where they can get jobs.

my generation of mathematicians is aware of the downsides of too much job security. excellent people suffered from the fact that tenured slots were full. on the other hand, the people who are in charge cannot be trusted to make fair decisions. balance is required and, unfortunately, that balance is only maintained in a time of labor shortage.

the pub across the street from my hotel was offering a dinner of horse meat and frites. why not? i have never eaten horse before. it does not taste like chicken but rather like very lean beef. i think cows are better to eat but there is nothing wrong with horse and i do not see why it ever got such a bad reputation.

but the lunch of perch meuniere at university’s copernic restaurant was much better. the perch are from lac leman and are served with potatoes and a nice salad. simple and good.

i made my reservation at the hotel mont-collon in arolla. but i should have checked earlier since they are closing for a spring break and i will have to transfer to another hotel. actually, it couldn’t have been avoided since i really did not want to leave lausanne before friday. at least i get two days at the mont-collon before the transfer.

i will move to another nearby hotel before making the transition to france. all the train schedules are checked and worked. there is no reason not to go and buy tickets and make train reservations. i am ready for a new phase, especially since i have totally soured on getting skype to accept payment for more calls.

best wishes,

joe n

arollaing around the mountains and eating through provence:

hello from the hotel mont-collon, at least we start there:

let me begin with a message to two people that i feel somewhat guilty about
not communicating with. i speak of michelle ravenel and of kathryn hess but for different reasons. first of all, realize that i have been in an email dessert in the mountains and now in provence. so let me announce right here and now that i am well and happy and looking forward to my eventual return to rochester. let me take this belated opportunity to thank kathryn who was a wonderful host to me in lausanne. it was swell. and i found it to be a very productive pace to think about mathematics. kathryn; thank you again. and to michelle, i am truly sorry to be such a sorry correspondent. and, since i am typing this on a french keyboard, let me end now.

by the way, this is what typing on a french keyboard would look like if no care were taken: the auick brozn fox ju,ped over the lqwy dog.

i think that the french think that q is a more common letter than a and hence it needs to be more convenient to the fingers.

this message is being sent to you courtesy of norman stein's computer and you should not repy to this address. not that most of you guys reply much anyway!

the main text begins now!

i am now at my favorite hotel in the whole world, right at the foot of the glacier coming off mont collon. i have been suitably welcomed by madame. and she has informed me that this hotel too now has internet acdess. so this is still the perfect hotel even though it is going to close in two days until june. madame has promised to drive me up the hill to my new hotel, the hotel du glacier, where they have promised to prepare trout mauniere so everything has worked out.

i think i will take some short walks and begin to write more of the book. i need to finish chapter 10. that is the immediate project.

i start by turning into book form some classical computations of homology of loop spaces which were the subject of my lectures in lausanne.

i am perhaps inspired to add something to the book which may seem out of place in a book on algebraic methods in unstable homotopy theory. but one should always remember that the division into unstable and stable is artificial.

the paper of rene thom on unoriented cobordism is surely a landmark among the papers in homotopy theory in the 1950s. among other things it is a major illustration of serre’s localization theory and of the usefulness of the computation of the cohomology of eilenberg-maclane spaces and of classifying spaces.

i hope i am not being overconfident but i am estimating that a nice coverage of the heart of the thom paper can be done in approximately 20 pages. for example, one can compute the additive structure of the oriented cobordism ring very quickly. with modern methods to determine which modules over the steenrod algebra are free, that is just a question of ranks. surely, the inclusion of this into the book would be a contribution.

i had hoped that milnor’s work on the complex cobordism ring would provide a clear way to determine the ring structure of a cobordism ring. alas, milnor only wrote part one and never got around to writing part two which would have included the ring structure. so there is no version written by the master of exposition. it is possible that this question of the ring structure is so intrinsically hard that no one can write a beautiful treatment.

one should always remember that the two most important classical groups are the orthogonal and unitary. ok, maybe the special orthogonal and special unitary are contenders, but after all they have a special relationship to the first two.

anyway, it is worthwhile focusing on their properties and those of their classifying spaces. it is rather easy to get hold of the cohomologies of these groups and of their classifying spaces.

what seems to be a little difficult in both cases is to identify the cohomologies of the classifying spaces with the symmetric functions in the cohomologies of maximal tori.. from this identification can come the product formulas of Whitney and Chern. so it needs to be gotten. and at the moment i am having some difficulty recalling this part. i see a way to do it but it is convoluted, uses a bit of algebra and some might not like it. probably, this will be remedied instantly in the presence of milnor’s characteristic classes but for now it is frustrating.

thom’s work is a paper in stable homotopy theory which was born before the creation of stable homotopy theory as a separate subject.    thom’s results are certainly geometric. for that reason, this paper has its unstable aspects. nonetheless, this paper has a claim to being the paper that established that stable homotopy theory has a connection to reality.

thom’s results were created early in the 1950s and it took years for homotopy theory to catch up. only in the 1960s do we see a major return to the subject of cobordism from a homotopy point of view.   thom’s paper had already had strong geometric influence way before that in the geometric work of milnor and others. ironically, milnor was one of the people who restarted the homotopy aspects of this work.

i just had a realization that any treatment of the eilenberg-moore materail is incomplete and downright flabby if it does not contain a clear and concise treatment of the suspension.
so that is what i have thought out today. i will write some text tomorrow.

i took a short walk up to the glacier today. i saw skiers who had just come off the glacier. that is one mean glacier and you do not traverse it lightly. the glacier spills off the mountain. it is quite steep and very broken up. you could die there. easy! crampons and belays are required lest you disappear into a crevasse never to be seen again. and, after you get off the snow, you have to walk an awful long way on a narrow downward path carrying skis until you reach a road.

the weather here is beautiful mountain weather, warm and sunny in the afternoon and cool in the evenings. perfect.

i walked down to the village of les hauderes. it was approximately a 2 and a half hour walk, mainly downhill so not tiring at all. then i took the postal bus back. very civilized.

i have to add that one can see the effects of the imminent shutdown of the hotel in the quality of the food. the kitchen staff is cut way back and the menu is just not up to what i am accustomed to here. but it is not terrible. just uninspired. or perhaps it just was bad luck on the lamb. this lamb was done in some gravy, seemd a little tough, and really could have used some kick, perhaps some garlic and thyme or even some mint jelly. the english are not total food idiots. and they do understand lamb.

perception of the quality of food also suffers from the comparison between lausanne and the mountains. in lausanne, the quality was usually high, even if it was not often exciting.

one of the dangers of having all the time you need is that you will use it in reflection and speculation. i am contemplating what is the purpose of this book. in a way, a book at this stage of my career is a sort of biography. you write about the mathematical life you have lived. so you write about the way things were but you also get a chance to correct some things to the way things should have been. those corners you cut in life can now be fully filled and rounded. there is no reason to write such a book unless you are going to do it right. but most of all you get a chance to write about those things which you have loved and respected. one leaves a legacy in the sense that, whether or not these things are popular now, there is now a level of knowledge about them which should be recorded lest it be lost.

by the way, i am now in a situation which is common with internet in european hotels. i can access the web and i can receive email but i cannot send. oy vey! tomorrow i move to the hotel du glacier and perhaps i will have better luck there. not bloody likely! i suspect that it all has something to do with hoss’ overwhelming desire that no outside person be allowed to use the u of r internet. it is difficult to believe that everyone has this same problem.

sorry there is not more about the food and culture. frankly, both have not been that exciting lately.

the internet situation has improved. i am not sure what has been wrong but things are definitely better. i will try to send this message out by bringing my computer near to the internet transmitter for the hotel. we shall see.

this may seem trivial but i have discovered that the restaurant at lac bleu makes a great mixed salad. it has lots of chopped celery root, tomatos, and shredded carrots. and the dressing is great. this makes up for a disappointing trout mauniere.

now we have seen the internet situation and the culprit seems to be, at least in large part, the server at the university of rochester math department. the evidence for this is that the math department website and my own related website is unreachable, totally shut off. this is coupled with a shut down of the email server since yesterday.

oh well, i am resigned to no internet. after a while, it gets frustrating to worry about it too much. it is a waste of time, time which is better spent taking walks and thinking about mathematics. it is a good feeling to be doing precisely the mathematics that one wants to do and to know that, whatever the result, the credit or the blame all belong to you. coauthors have always been a mixed bag. i have had some great ones who contributed a great deal to the joint projects and some not so great who did not pull their share of the load.   on the whole, in the absence of the mathematical equivalent of nicole kidman, it is nice to be working alone, especially on a book where the main point is to do things in a way that one finds intellectually honest and attractive.

i just finished writing up the treatment of the homology suspension. it is nice but more difficult than i had at first imagined. but now the path is clear to the end of chapter 10. in chapter 10, there is only one section left and it is devoted to giving some classical examples of the theory so far developed, the homology of the double loops on spheres and the homology of the loops on some classical groups.

after that, there will remain to be done two short computational chapters. all the background is done to finish off the exposition of the exponent theory, which has been the guiding principle of the book.

the last chapter on classifying spaces should not have great difficulties and will finish off with the fireworks of a quick treatment of bott periodicity for the unitary group (a cinch!) and a quick computation of the unoriented cobordism ring, at least additively. then there should be a trumpet fanfare! the book will be done.

i think that chapter 10 was the last big obstacle. a lot of theory had to be organized and presented. i am especially proud of the fact that i have given an honest and original treatment of products in the eilenberg-moore models. even such an expert as kathryn thinks i had something new and useful to say on this subject.

i just read milnor’s introduction to his collected papers on differential topology. in it, he makes the remarkable statement that his simple purpose throughout much of the 1950s was to understand manifolds which were connected up to the middle dimension. and out of that simple purpose came a revolution! he was and is a smart fellow.

well, i am not making a revolution with this book. but i will present:

homotopy groups with coefficients, the most general theory of localization which includes completion and so called neisendorfer localization, a basic theory of particular homotopy limits, hilton-james-toda hopf invariants and their application to exponent results, samelson products and homotopy bockstein spectral sequences, lie algebras and universal enveloping algebras with applications to higher order torsion in the homotopy of moore spaces, the theory of chain models for loop spaces and the eilenberg-moore spectral sequence, the application to the odd primary exponents of the homotopy groups of spheres, chain models for classifying spaces with applications to bott periodicity and unoriented cobordism.

that is not a bad list.

today, may 2 in arolla, we have a snow storm, heavy wet stuff coming down hard. if you look out the window, the landscape is becoming all white, it is a good day to stay inside and work more on the book. tomorrow, i will get up early and travel most of the day to end up in ste-cecile in provence. i hope it is warm and the sun is shining there.

I am in rochegude, one town away from the steins at ste-cecille, settled at my gite. last night, the steins treated me to a nice roast veal. today, it is raining on and off. it is rather chilly. But the food is much improved.

I have at last found a form of rabbit that i really like. rabbit pate made by the local butcher is really good. and he makes an excellent head cheese. he makes a lot of excellent things, such as a mousse made with zuchini, a calamari salad, artichokes in olive oil, and some sort of meat loaf with a green chopped vegetable in it.

tomorrow judy will take me to the market in ste-cecille. more good food is there, maybe some cheese or another nice pate. i have to remember to get some fresh vegetables. with vegetables and eggs and a little something extra like a provencal stew, i will eat well. it is good to have something to say about food again.

the washing machine here was made in italy. washing machines, like military hardware, should be made by germans. even the swiss and the steins agree with this. my italian machine seems to have a mind of its own. it decides on its own that i really want to leave my clothes soaking in water. i would really prefer the spin cycle to get most of the water out. so i am reduced to hand wringing the wet clothes and hanging them out to dry. it is a little better than doing laundry in a hotel room.

the gite is very nice and so is the scnery. it is all very provencale, yellows and blues, like the flowers and sky. in this, it is chromatically similar to bavaria but has a certain style which is all its own, harmonius and distinctive.

a nice feature of the gite, which is run by judy’s friend sarah from england, is that the television here has access to the bbc and other british television. this is not fantastic but it is a great improvement over cnn.

the heat is on in the gite and it is making my life much more comfortable. maybe it will even dry out the wet laundry if i bring it inside?

jacques and margaret have arrived at the avignon tgv station. it is the beginning of a food festival, our very own festival as jacques cooks and eats his way through provence.

food starts with a trip to an enormous market in the town of vaison a romaine.

i bought a belt which i needed. my pants will stop falling down.

the weekly market had all sorts of stuff but the food is the center point. i got some excellent cheese of gruyere type. of course, the girl selling the cheese included a gift of some excellent goat cheese. it is a sort of goodwill gesture to induce return purchases.   it is my experience that cheese is always acquired in pairs., one piece you buy and one piece that is given to you.

we also bought a chicken which roasted up quite nicely, a very succulent and tasty bird which went nicely with asparagus and potato salad.

we cooked a duck for dinner and inivited our landlady, sarah, and the steins over for dinner. the food was simple and successful, sauteed duck, leeks, potato salad (with just onions, olive oil and vinegar added), and a some nice ice creams or sherberts to finish, pistachio, coffee, vanilla, and raspberry. we had wine but that does not interest me as much as solid food. after all, wine is just grape juice with alcohol. well, there you are, it was our best meal until the next one when we went out to the local one star restaurant.

at the local one star, i started with some foie gras and a very nice ris (= pancreas or kidney) de goat cooked in a wonderful brown sauce and served on a bed of green lentils. at a restaurant of that quality, they are always throwing in little extras, like some hordeaurves including caramelized olives and an extra dessert with a tiny creme brulee. my main dessert was a grand marnier souffle. but the surprise of the meal was the added extra of a sort of tuna ceviche (raw marinated in vinegar) topped with whipped cream infused with asparagus. weird, unusual. but rather good.

today, we go to norman and judy’s for another meal. but before that we bought some salade de museau, which is a sort of liquid head cheese, cheap cuts of pork in a light vinegar. it looks frightening but it turned out to be tamer than i expected. i like it.

meanwhile, i am suffering from a lack of mathematical information. there is no internet and no math library. norman stein shocked me by not having a copy of steenrod’s book on cohomology operations. he says that he used to know all that stuff and never felt the need to buy one! i could really use a copy right now. or a copy of a certain cartan seminar would be nice. but i am in the middle of a mathematical desert right here. even brayton gray in uzes lacks an adequate supply of mathematical references. how does he get any work done? he evidently does.

today jacques cooked some andouille. this is a sausage made of tripe. i am glad that i tried it but i am not a fan of the stuff. the smell of stomachs and intentines gives me a very slight gag reflex. so i am barred from enjoyment of this speciality.

here is an overall comment on french food. some of it is truly wonderful. in particular, the fruits and vegetables are great, fresh and with lots of flavour. some of the cooked meats are wonderful. a nice cog au vin is a very nice thing to do with an old and tough rooster to make him tender and tasty. and some of the stews are fantastic. it goes without saying that the high end of french food is incomparably good, things like braised veal cheeks and ris de veau are gifts from god. and a roast veal, which is not uniquely french, is of course wonderful.

but i am not a fan of all of french food. for example, on the whole the germans do sausage better. i do not think that internal organs always make good sausage. sometimes they do but not always.

and i prefer green asparagus to the white stuff that the french bury in the ground to keep it from developing chlorophyl.

and now comes the really controversial statement. wine is overrated. sometimes it is very good, but not always. it is like beer but without the mistique. i suspect that the reverence in which it is held has something to do with the worship of alcohol. remember that plants influence us by pandering to our weaknesses and that alcohol is one of them. sometimes a nice clear apple juice is just the thing. and this they serve in intensive care!

today i drove jacques and margaret to the avignon train station to pick up their rental car. the muslim attendent at their cut rate rental place seemed to have little interest in giving them a car, even thought they had arranged the rental in the states. his boss had a similar attitude. jacques even investigated the possibility of upgrading to avis but decided the cost was too high. eventually, the cut rate peope gave them a car which they had had all along.   jacques and margaret departed hastily, leaving me to back out of the very tight quarters that jacques had put my car into. i have to give credit to the muslim attendent. he helped direct me to back out without any damage to my car or to the cars in his charge.

with the departure of jacques and margaret, i purchased some boudin and cooked it on the grill. boudin is a sausage pudding made from pig’s blood and pork, flavored with onions. it is a warm pudding with a wholesome taste. i remember that my mother was fond of a german version but that she boiled it. it is good stuff, in taste reminiscent of haggis. i like it a lot, enough that i will search for a version that is available in the united states. by the way, my hero anthony bourdain loves boudin. but anthony is also fond of tripe and intestines. i cannot follow him there. anthony has even eaten warthog anus as a courtesy to the bushmen in the kalihari desert but you could tell that he was not fond of that. he said something about there being too much dirt and shit in that meal and he speculated on the possible need for some antibiotics. afterwards, he was overjoyed to get some roasted beetles. you sprinkle salt on them and suck the insides out..

the french make a yogurt flavored with bits of grapefruit. it is amazingly good.

i visited brayton and sophie in their wonderful house in uzes. there was a very nice leek soup. leeks are underestimated in america.

brayton has restored my faith in universal models for relative samelson products. brayton pointed out to me that i even referred to this faith in an introduction of one of my papers. but i had a crisis of confidence. in fact, i can no longer remember why i lost this faith. since i am now going to include a section in the book on these universal models, i hope that my current belief is the right one. if correct, it does make one part of the exponent splittings cleaner. it is just what john moore wanted me to do so long ago, but at the time, i found an ad hoc way around it.

last day in paris:

after a pleasant farewell pizza dinner with the steins and my landlady sarah at the local pizzeria, i departed the next day on the tgv for paris. as usual the tgv ride was smooth and trouble free.

i arrived at the ibis hotel next to the airport to discover that someone had stolen their computer and they now had no internet for customers at all. when i was here last november they at least had an overpriced version, 15 euros for something like an hour. i resigned myself to having no internet until i return to rochester in 2 days.

in the meantime, i have scheduled a day in paris.

it has been a long, long time since i last saw paris. the first time i saw it i had just finished my thesis. john moore was in those days always in paris in the summer and he was my port for breakfast in the morning. his hotel was too expensive for me to stay at but he pointed me to a more reasonably priced one. it was pleasant to splurge on the hot chocolate and croissants to have a better breakfast and talk to moore about paris and mathematics. i also ate most dinners at some simple bistro with moore. foodwise, it was heaven. and moore added to it by arranging one of his famous dinner parties at a two star restaurant. i was included on the guest list along with the last minute addition of claudine serre. claudine was so last minute that she was dressed in blue jeans and we all crowded around her so that the restaurant staff would not see her state of dress and eject her and/or us all. the particulars of that meal have faded from my memory but i remember that it was terrifically good. i do remember a whiskey sorbet.

at that long ago time, i visited some of the classic parisian sites, including notre dame, the louvre (saw the mona lisa and lots of rembrandt), the gallerie where they had the water lily murals of monet, etc. i went out to chartres and have always remembered the emotion i felt there. anyway, i can’t really explain why i never went back to spend more time in paris. foreign vacations tended to get planned around mathematics conferences. and there just were no suitable mathematical occasions for my specialty, algebraic topology. so i didn’t go back. i went other places, oxford, cambridge, aarhus, kyoto, durham, the list goes on and they were certainly good places. but they were not paris.

even when i went to france, it was my custom to go directly to and from where i was going, luminy near marseiles being one example. well, i am here to admit that this was a mistake not to see more of paris. paris is a wonderful town. the views, the history, the food are all terrific. i will never again plan to just skip this big city. it is always worth visiting.

I began by taking the train from the airport hotel into the city. in honor of the fabled yale full immersion language course, i got off at the luxembourg gardens, site of the fictional flrtation between mareille and robert and the site where her younger sister mari-laure was always having trouble with her sailboat at the most inopportune times. for those who do not know this course, it is still availabe on the internet by the courtesy of the annenberg media foundation. it has attained a cult status. a new generation has a running blog on this course and wonders about the fate of the now old and grey actors. of particular interest is the actress valerie allain who played mareille. many of these cultists are in love with her and with good reason. there was a distressing rumour that valerie had become a french porn star. it is a confusion. there is a french porn star by that name but it is not our valerie. the most that valerie has ever done is take her clothes off on camera. and that is practically mandatory for a french actress and in no way makes valerie into a porn star. you see, i am one of valerie’s fans. by the way, the actor who played robert has actually communicated to the blog. but the actress who played her younger sister has completely disappeared.

the luxembourg gardens have much to offer, including statues of all the french queens and a statue of saint genevieve. saint genevieve was not a queen but she did the nontrivial thing of successfully praying to god to direct attila the hun away from paris and towards orleans. evidently god didn’t mind if attila sacked orleans. anyway, according to the sculptor, saint genevieve was a very physically attractive young lady. this is more than you can say about some of the french queens. on the whole, the further back in time the queen, the prettier the sculptors made her look.

after leaving the gardens, i immediately encountered a macdonalds where i noticed people using laptop computers. hurrying inside and taking a seat, i took my laptop out of my backpack and i discovered that macdonalds was providing reliable and free internet! it was a lure to attract customers from the nearby sorbonne university. i could receve email and i think i succeeded in sending out some replies.

but since my battery supply was low, my computer shut itself off before i could completely research the mod 2 cohomology rings of the special orthogonal groups. oh well, you can’t have everything and i was truly happy to have found this brief internet connection. and it was free!

and i am amused to find that even people who hate macdonalds must admit that they have excellent toilets and internet.

i continued on my walk, passed the ruins of the old abbey of cluny, reached the seine with a lovely view of the cathedral of notre dame. unfortunately, notre dame had an enormously long line of tourists waiting to get in. i contented myself with taking some pictures of the exterior and with visiting a festival tent in honor of the making of bread. bread was actually being made and sold there. since i had already made plans to go back to a brasserie for some mussels and frites (= french fries), i passed up the opportunity to sample the bread.

my main plan was to walk along the seine and to see paris. wow! the louvre and the tuileries garden were just stunning displays of civilization and grandeur. paris is culture on a scale which makes it have no match anywhere else. and i am talking about just the outside of these things. what is inside takes longer to see. i did not have time to do that. i had to pass up the great art that is there. but the outside was enough for me.

i had formed a strange desire to see the palace of discovery. it is a science museum and my michellin guide to paris assured me that the math exhibit was high toned, not dumbed down, an exhibit for professionals. alas, this michellin guide was not written by a mathematician. the museum seemed most proud of the fact that you could find recorded there the current record for the number of digits in the computation of pi. i was devastated and decided to head back.

the museum was located at the intersection of the avenue franklin delano roosevelt and the rue de general eisenhower. ( i bet there will never be an avenue george bush except in various portions of brain dead america.)

by the way, there are monuments for charles de gaulle and winston churchill. the french are truly grateful for having their collective butts saved in world war two. but, in all fairness, there should be some monument to joseph stalin or at least to the russian people. the russians did more than anyone to win world war two. i won’t make the argument here but you could just look up the numbers of dead on both sides and look at where the bulk of the german army was.

the french love their holidays, even ones that mean nothing more to them than a day off. for example, while i was here, two holidays occurred. all the stores were closed. the first occasion was the aforementioned world war two victory. the french had nothing to do with accomplishing this.

the second holiday was the feast of the ascension. the french, having become for the most part secular, are celebrating the ascension into heaven of somebocy they really don’t worship much. but, as i indicated, it is the days off that is the true religion of the french. one sees this more in the small towns of provence than in the lively atmosphere of paris. the french should quake in their boots now that they have elected someone like zarkosy who believes in the mass of people working hard without excessive benefits.

as i walked along the seine, i discovered a new brand of homeless people. some young people had pitched some good quality mountain tents along secluced portions of the banks of the seine. they were living in them. i do not know where the nearest toilet facilities were. perhaps it was the seine.

I returned to the vicinity of notre dame and went in to visit the conciergerie on the ile de la cite (= isle of the city). this is the historic castle of louis the first. after the kings of france moved up in the world to fancier palaces, prisoners were kept here. and trials were held here during the french revolution. from small cells with beds of stone covered straw, people were carted off to the guillotine. i guess that was better than being burned alive at the stake the way the grand master of the knights of the templars was. king philip the fair noticed that the templars were very rich, a definite threat to the power of the king. he decided to suppress them. this means that he decided to kill all the templars he could find. he also decided to
confiscate their estates and all the templar gold he could find. there is a legend that the main part of the templar treasure survived along with many templars. the legend says that the templars disappeared into the heart of the swiss alps where they founded banks and became the gnomes of zurich. other evidence for this is that the swiss fighting ability suddenly became much more effective at this time. after all, the templars were warrior knights.

the conciergerie is a lovely medieval hall. it has big fireplaces where lots of meat could be roasted. off to the side, it has little jail cells where people, the high and the low, were kept before being guillotined. robespierre and marie antoinette were among the temporary residents.

to the side of the conciergerie is the chapel of sainte chapelle. this is a lovely chapel dating from the 12th century. it was built by the king siant louis to house the crown of thorns, the real crown of thorns, the one supposedly worn by the founder of a major religion. this was found on a crusade by a french nobleman who pawned it to the venetians and then appealed to louis to redeem his pawn. this louis did, being a saint or about to become one, and then he had to build a suitable housing for it.

it is a big chapel, with towering and beautiful stained glass windows. in a time when cathedrals took a hundred years or more to bulid, this place took 33 months to build in the 12th century. granted that a chapel is not as big as a cathedral, that is fast construction. i doubt if kellog, brown, and root or bechtel or any of the firms which our current administration likes to employ could do as well. but architecture in the middle ages, especially religious architecture, reached a peak that it has never climbed to again. so perhaps the friends of bush can be forgiven for not living up to these standards. and i think that they had such a thing as huge cost overruns in those days too.

seriously, there are two big differences between those guys in the past and our current crowd. one, in the past they were more competant. two, in the past they were sincerely ruthless. they did not feel any need to hide it with a smirk. similar to the romans in these respects. whatever else you might say about them, these guys understood the concept of “bottom line.”

i ended up at the brasserie where i had planned to have mussels and frites. although the waiter was young and slow, he came through with some wonderful mussels. the frites were good enough to add to the pleasure of the meal which i ate with a nice kronenbourg draft beer. it was excellent! the mussels were cooked in a liquid with onions, parsley, and carrots. i finished by eating the liquid as if it were a soup. it was a classic brasserie meal.

but the frites were disappointing. on the frite quality scale, i rank frites as follows. up at the top are my mother’s frites, browned and a little crisp on the outside with a soft tender inside, the best frites.

the frites you can find in stands on french or also canadian highways (even in ontario!) are almost the equal of my mother’s frites.

close behind them are the frites called new york fries which you can only buy in canadian malls.

in the days when macdonalds made their frites with true and unhealthy grease their frites were very good. even such a discriminating gourmet as frank peterson acknowledged that macdonalds’ frites were not bad. alas, macdonalds has given in to health concerns and their frites are just not as good as they used to be.

after all these frites come the frties i had with my mussels at the brasserie. but they are still better than most frites and they went well with the mussels.

so after a closing expresso, i said a fond farewell to paris and hopped on the train back to the airport hotel.

over and out,

joe n

message from portugal

2008-03-28T14:35:00.000-07:00

dear alison: enclosed find the complete unexpurgated messages that i sent from europe.
most of them were sent as emails to a collection of people. among my readership was included:

a mother superior of the sisters of saint joseph in hamilton, ontario
an author of several cookbooks, one with an introduction written by calvin trillen
an expresident of the canadian mathematical society
an exstudent of mine who is now an expert in programming little robots

in addition,

let me recommend here julia sweeney’s new cd called “letting go of god.” she is an excatholic who knows where all the bodies are buried.

love,

joe

dear alison:

i learn from the internet that: as of august 22, 2006, the grass is returning to marshlands conservancy. i am glad of it. the picture in the article is a good one, though you do look as if the sun has weathered you a bit. still there is a visionary look in your eyes which reminds me of the character aragorn in the lord of the rings. you may recall that aragon was the ranger who kept guard over middle earth until the time of the ring. in the great conflict with sauron, he was revealed as the true king. so it is on the whole a complimentary comparison. unfortunately i fear that you are still in the guardian phase. much toil and trouble is in that phase.

but, primarily, this is an attempt to give you a summary of my adventures in portugal and the flavor thereof.

first of all: the food!! it is very good and at times challenging.

the pastries with custard and or various combinations of cheese and raisins are not challenging at all.
they are simply wonderful and since portugal has this secret of wonderful coffee, dessert and breakfast time is
a little bit of heaven. it is a wonderful way to start the day. and a wonderful way to continue the day. several times during the day. but limits must be imposed.

but the star is the seafood. so far, i have had a thing for octopus, grilled in various forms and always good.
i have some leftover octopus in my refrigerator right now and i will use it as an appetizer for a light dinner of carrot soup this evening.

i know that cod, in the form of dried salt cod, is the central point of porfuguese cuisine. so far, i have always been distracted by other more
exotic culinary challenges, primarily octopi. they tend to be available in the same places and i have thought that there will always be plenty of
opportunity to have cod. i am learning that there is also plenty of opportunity to have octopus.

one thing disgusts even me and i wish that i could convince one of my hosts, maybe lucia
fernandez who is very nice and helpful,
to get it so that i could safely have a taste without the commitment to a full meal. resistance to this proposal has so far been insurmountable. but lucia has
a friend who she says i will meet and she has tried it. so perhaps she can be convinced to try it again.
my favorite restaurant has it in two incarnations, lampreia a bordalesa and arroz de lampreia. the second form probably requires less courage to eat
since the rice must thin it out a bit. in case you cannot believe it, lampreia does mean lamprey, the vampire of the ocean. it is a primitive snake like fish,
sort of a short hose with a round mouth with circular teeth in front which it uses to attach itself to a larger fish and suck the lifeblood out of it.
in my youth, i remember the horror when these fellows attached themselves to ships coming up the newly opened saint lawrence seaway,
proceeded to infest the great lakes and to devastate the lake trout population.

i must mention my favorite food: acorda, bread pudding with your choice of seafood, it could be mussels, scallops, or yes, yes, yes, fish roe.
it is great and anybody who thinks it is disgusting is just plain wrong and needs a trip to portugal to straighten the ignorant fellow out.

we just returned from the supermercado: lots of wonderful things are found there, including a nice pair of inexpensive light shoes to relieve my feet from the
boots that i brought. but of course the main thing in a supermercado is the food. for example:

varieties of sausage to die for. got a free taste of a lot of them, including the bird sausage that the jews ate instead of pork sausage and that john harper liked so much. excellent, much more delicate than mammal based sausage. would be excellent with a light dijon mustard. this sausage is lighter even than
veal sausage which my ancesters knew something about.

cheeses abound, maybe a little less variety than in france, but good cheeses with character.

piles of dried salt cod. it is not eaten that way. begin preparation with a long soak. but this way you can catch it in northern waters and get it back to
portugal in a still edible form. i think the portuguese prefer it to fresh fish. but they like fresh fish too.

in lisbon, i was focused on the portuguese discovery and exploitation of the world: people like vasco da gama whose tomb i visited (but whose bones may still be on his country estate because the family couldn't bear to part with them and perhaps substituted other bones).
whatever, his tomb is in a beautiful monestery
built by manuel the fortunate who just sat back and watched the money from the spice trade roll in. he is responsible for a style of architecture called manuelito which is a combination of gothic with seafaring themes. think gothic columns with beautiful white stone in the shape of braided ropes.

tomorrow, we go to a small town with a church (called bom jesus) and a great view. i think we walk 9 kilometers but it is flat.

lest i forget, let me mention the town of sintra near lisbon: hilly and mountainous, beloved of byron. you can see why a romantic poet would love the moorish castle and crags. i saw the disneyland castle built by some imported bavarian nobleman and clearly in the spirit of mad king ludwig of bavaria who built the
original model for the disneyland castle. this one is more like an elaborate wedding cake. i did not see the capuchin monastery with the tiny cork padded cells.
but i like what byron said: they prepare for heaven by living in a hell on earth.

i have given only one talk, that in lisbon. that went well.

now i am in braga where i talk on wednesday and friday, not until then. then i talk on wednesday and friday again.
i have this wednesday's talk totally prepared and i am over the hump on this fridays.
so the talks will be ok this week and next week things should be ok since
the wednesday's talk of that week will be similar to the lisbon talk.
that leaves only the last friday and i think i know what to do there.

it is the latin way, relaxed and without pressure. everything gets done
in its time.

yesterday we hiked in a national park on an old roman road. i suppose all roman roads have to be old if they are not in rome. their workmanship was good and has lasted 2000 years. we should do as well. we had coffee and pastry in a posado, which is an ancient structure converted into a fancy inn. very nice.

today it rained and that is a good time to prepare lectures. tomorrow will be the same.
maybe the weather will be bad on wednesday too but that is a lecture day and a fancy dinner day. ok

portugal has a tradition of music called fado, which is their version of the blues, but more light and refined.
in fact, fado in the town of coimbra was brought there by ex-university of lisbon students who were filled with sadness over the trials and
tribulations of life, failed romances and crushed dreams of various kinds, often they contemplate ending it all, but they do not do it.

anyway, here is mariza, portuguese born in mozambique, one of the leading lights of fado:

http://www.mariza.com/index.html

she is my choice for the new queen of fado, the old one being amalia rodrigues, deceased circa 1999 after a long reign.

you know what they say: you cannot know the portuguese heart if you don't know fado.

on thursday, we go to hear cristina branca in person. she is one of the heir apparents to the queen of fado. it should be great. by the way, i hear that there is a new fado song called "21 grams". they were surprised that i knew the theme of the song.
but i do know a lot about any movie that naomi watts has been in. you can tell why it could become a fado song, 21 grams being the weight of a soul. sometimes we americans are ahead of europe in spirituality, although in my case my interest in naomi watts is only tangentially spiritual.

it is on novermber 1 that i start my drive through spain. i have an added bonus. before that (this weekend) i will be given a two day tour of
santiago de compostella in spain by lucia who studied there and who knows it well. you recall that they have the bones of st john the apostle there and you can get dispensation for all sorts of sins, like lusting after naomi watts instead of contemplating 21 grams of soul. i wanted to visit there but now i will have done that this weekend and i can go directly into asturia, the mountainous region of spain where the christians held out until they could begin to expell the moors in the 9th century (or thereabouts). very beautiful, lucia was born there and will advise me on the best sites..
anyway. i get an extra day to fit in the guggenheim museum in bilbao and the beaches in san sebastien.

by the way, since i will be driving and on the move in spain, i am not sure that i will be able to send many travel notes at that time. i will probably have to enter a period of silence. but that is then and this is now.

somehow i still have not gotten my mouth around a cod. it has to happen soon.

in closing, let me relate to you that some kind of initiation is going on at the university here. the upperclassmen/women are clad in black capes with black tricorner hats, very stylish, they look demonic, rather reminiscent of some nightmarish scenes in don giovanni (i can't explain this, you have to see the movie amadeus).
anyway, in these stylish but demonic costumes, they order the first year students to do humiliating things, like doing pushups and standing at attention while they are scolded. there is also some martial singing involved. it is like the army but very stylish and, if you could see some of the upperclass persons (for me the young ladies) who are doing this torturing ,you would realize that it wouldn't be that bad to be with them in abu graib. black capes, black tricorner hats, black stockings, black high heels, stern discipline. it is a real turn on. only the whips are missing!

this all makes me feel that i really need that pilgrimage to santiago de compostella in the near future. maybe i need the full dispensation and should shuffle the last 100 kilometers to it on my knees. it is the traditional way. the most effective way.

ok, on that note, so long for now,

think fado, think cod, think eating kids (i remind all perverts that a kid is a baby goat except possibly when defined by some republicans), think of attractive and stern young ladies in black capes. it is all too much, it is all so portuguese. i can't say anymore. i am overwhelmed.

well, that is all for now.

take care and hope that the US does not declare war on anyone in the near future,

love,

joe

now finally i have had cod in portugal, that which started as a stiff salt dried corpse and was transformed into a totally palatable fish in a cream sauce. it was good but it had a shredded quality to it and i must say that i miss the texture of fresh fish. for example, i found the steamed halibut in the university cafeteria to be a preferable dish. it is genuinely moist and tasty, not overcooked at all, cooked by and for people who genuinely like fish. salt cod must of necessity be overprocessed. it is too much “fooled around with.” that is better than it rotting. and, over the centuries, the portuguese have grown fond of it that way. and it isn’t bad, heavy cream flavored with shredded fish is good. it is just that fresh fish is better. in my opinion.

i gave my first lecture in braga. i admit that i learned something from it, which is a different experience than lecturing to calculus students! i did not make a mistake in the lecture but there was something which i had not completely understood. the intelligent audience questioned the point. and, now from these good promptings from the audience, the thing is crystal clear and on a firm footing. it is satisfying.

i got paid today. now i am walking around with 2750 euros in my pocket. i feel nervous with so much cash. i will keep it on my person at all times. in deep storage in the belt pocket that i carry. and i will stop using my credit card while i am here. only cash from now on. it is difficult to spend so much money here in portugal. food is cheap, the hotel is already paid for, and my hosts don’t let me pay for much. the money just stays. but soon i go to france and i know the french know better how to extract money from you. substantial gallic subtractions will be made.

it is raining again, quite hard. it cuts down on the walking this tourist likes to do. i am confined and at the mercy of lucia who is always ready to drive me somewhere. but i am dependent this way. i can’t even walk from my hotel at the train station to the university. i can’t buy stamps and mail things at the post office. i can’t even visit my favorite pastry shop. what a horror! i have to subsist on the pastries you can get from the little grocery shop nearby. they are not as good as the fresh ones. i am tired of this rain and i want it to go away!

at least lucia has lent me an umbrella.

tonight we heard a live performance of fado by cristina branco, in the big city of porto. cristina bronco may lack a little bit of drama but she has a wonderful voice. she is playful, skipping barefoot on and off stage, a more joyous version of joan baez.

there could be a fado dedicated to rain. fado is suited to misery. it shares that with much other music, opera, country, blues, etc.

lucia shares a characteristic with doris harper.  she believes i should eat healthy food.  so she influenced me to buy the most tasteless and fat free sausage.  it is like shoe leather.  well, excuse me!   sausage should not be a healthy food! it should be filled with fat and other good tasting things.  all civilized cultures know that. all europe knows that. even north americans know that, although this knowledge is fading there. saint julia preserve us!  today, i purchased some linguisa, which should cure the problem.

i am going away for the weekend to santiago de compostella, the place where one can get massive dispensations for one's sins.
so i have to go to sleep right now and cannot write much. i will write more when we get back on monday. but let me say right now that of course i have gotten a fado cd, in fact, carla gave me one of mariza, in my opinion the greatest fado singer of them all, at least she is now, since the old queen is dead and mariza seems to get better with each album. let me also say that i have already supplied you with fado, even mariza fado, just click on the following and you will hear;

http://www.mariza.com/index.html

in the news over here: my understanding is that as the movie, marie antoinette, has gotten mixed reviews over here, bad ones in france, only fluff and gowns, but good ones in the rest of europe, much fluff and gowns. as for myself, i have always wanted to see a cheerleader type play marie antoinette, in fact, i think that probably is accurate casting, and i have always had a guilty passion for kirsten dunst, much like the one i had for a young debbie reynolds and for the same reasons. so of course i want to see it when i get back. oops! yet another reason i have to visit santiago de compostella!

love,

joe

best wishes from rainy portugal:

in attempt to cut down on my workload and leave a little time to prepare math lectures, i am sending this as both a combined email to some and also as a letter. i hope you are not insulted. but i am in a little bit of a pickle. i am writing a book and giving 4 lectures in braga. somehow i have contrived to spend 3 of those lectures on one chapter of the
book (localization) and have only one lecture left to summarize all 13 chapters of the book (how to prove all the exponent theorems in one easy lesson). some preparation time is required!

i just visited santiago de compostella, very impressive. you should see them swing that censor (= incense container)! this might seem a trivial thing to mention but i am talking about sending it up to the cathedral ceiling approximately 150 meters off the ground. in the course of a 1000 years, the monks must have killed a few people this way! when i saw it, the words "mein gott!" burst out of my mouth. i was not prepared for the magnitude of the event.

evidently a group of pilgrams from britain paid for this privelege. it is usually done only a few times a year.

the cathedral is a pilgrimage site, you can walk to it on the "camino de santiago" from france, a distance of approximately 800 kilometers. for this feat, you will get a rather complete remission of your sins, your bible stamped, a scallop shell, and a fine free dinner at the fancy hotel next to the cathedral. i hear you have to eat this dinner away from the regular guests. the pilgrims look like they have just come off the appalachian trail and they may stink a little.

the backpacks of the pilgrams lean against the walls of the cathedral, for some reason right next to the confessionals. these are serious backpacks, weighing 30 to 40 pounds.

although i did not walk much of the full distance, i am still hoping for forgiveness for excessive contemplation of naomi watts.

in case you are not familiar with santiago de compostella (saintiago = saint james the apostle = saint jacobi), this place supposedly contains the bones of the apostle saint james who came to spain to convert it and then went back to jerusalem where he was beheaded. two of his disciples returned his bones to spain where the bones were buried until the moors came.

for 200 years during the occupation of spain by the moors, the bones of santiago were kept hidden and either lost or misplaced. they were conveniently found near the beginning of the reconquest and a chapel was built by king alphonso who knew a good thing when he saw it. the legend is that santiago at times led the christian armies against the moors and a stature in the cathedral portrays him trampling moors and swinging his sword. he is sometimes called "the moor killer."

the plaque in the cathedral says "sante jacobi" and my first reaction was to think that this was a lot of veneration for a mathematician. but i was corrected by gustavo.

on the way back, we stopped at some seaside celtic ruins, your standard stone walls and circles by the sea, but very impressive nonetheless.

after some resistance, i have resolved to try one of the local specialities: lamprey. at first i was disgusted that anyone would eat such a fish but now, as i see how prevalent it is, i consider this an opportunity which i should not pass up. lucia says that i should try it only at a restaurant she knows. a cautious girl.
but i explained that eating this would be a major achievement in a long term contest with fred cohen to see who could eat the most disgusting food. chocolate covered garlic is trivial compared to this!

by the way, i think it has rained for a solid week while i have been here.

best wishes,

joe

hello to all: lucia has given me a day off so i resolved to go to the bem-me-quer restaurant and order lampreia a bordelesa.
i walked over with a sense of adventure and the small sense of dread which is a part of all true adventures. would i be able to
enjoy it, would i be able to even finish a large fraction of it? i did not know.

when i entered the restaurant, i informed the waiter that i had come for the lampreia. he sadly replied that it was out of season. only in january do they serve it when the creatures are caught swimming up the rivers. he made it clear that this was crucial to their taste. and he added that, even though he had been trying to like the taste of lamprey since childhood, he had never liked it, in season or out. but i said, i see it on the menu in other restaurants. he said scornfully, they get it frozen from france, from bordeaux to be precise. i guess every country has its culinary pride and, for portugal, lamprey is part of it, even if some waiters do not like to eat them. my waiter made it clear that he could only eat lamprey in season. and that it was a food destined to be either loved or hated.

what to do? the waiter suggested two house specialities, young kid and their version of dried salt cod. he assured me that both were quite good and i chose the kid, promising to come back for the cod at a later date.

the kid wasn't bad. it has a strong but not unpleasant taste. but, with tastebuds formed in america, i prefer the sweeter meats, veal being my favorite. as it is with meats, so it is with fish. the sweeter fish get my vote. but, all in all, it was a wonderful meal, the kid was excellent if you like kids, the potatoes, rice, and kale were
superb, and, last but not least, the salad was a joy, fresh, crisp, and with a perfect vinegar and oil dressing. with a local red wine. give me the simple life. as long as you add to it the dessert of the wonderful creme brulee that they have here. i swear that it is better than the french version. it is even better than the
catalan version.

i am in my home by the train station, relaxing from dinner, and feeling totally content that i have all my lectures prepared. i only have to give them, wednesday and
friday. and i must say that the totality of these lectures makes me feel good since i can see that i have actually made a small difference in mathematics while on this earth. blowing my own horn.

i also feel content that i have searched the internet and firmed up my travel plans. i think i will divert south into
central spain where they have the large castles built during the reconquest.
then i will visit the tomb of el cid. i suppose that charlton heston did a good impersonation and that
sophia loren did an equally fine job impersonating his wife, jimena. anyway, i have always been impressed that,
at his request, she tied his dead body to his horse so that he could lead his army into battle against the moors.
that alone is worth a visit. if jimena's tomb is there, i will visit that too out of respect for sophia.

i knew you could make hotel reservations on the internet but i hesitated for two reasons. i want to check with lucia that the
driving time between successive hotels is doable. my main worry is that it could be hard to find a specific hotel in a
large town. but i have had the revelation that one can book in smaller towns. or at a hotel right on the beach in san sebastien where you can't miss it.
i am less worried now about not finding a place to sleep. and hotel rooms (3 star) seem to cost approximately 70 euros a night, well within my price range.

so things are looking up.

in accordance with my new found taste for castles, motivated i admit by the incessant rain, i think that i will continue the castle experience in france,
emphasizing the last strongholds of the cathars as they were purged in the albigenean crusade. i will also visit the walled town of carcassonne.
it is back to the middle ages for me. with a side trip to some lesser known cave which has primitive cromagnon art said to rival that at lascaux.

then i will land safely in uzes with brayton gray and then in ste-cecile with norman and judy,

in the words of robert mcnammara (which could be repeated by donald rumsfeld), i see the light at the end of the tunnel.

best wishes,

joe n

dear norman: i have no memory of the brazillion joke from you. that proves nothing since i do have officially certified brain damage
as a result of my now far past ordeal of the aortic dissection.

but i do remember very well that you sent me the wonderful berlitz ad with the german coastguard
"what are you sinking about?"

as for the wonderful itinerary suggestions that you made, i hate to say that some of them are fatally flawed.

number 1, the altamira caves have a 3 year waiting list to get to see them. it is true that, like lascaux, they have built a very successful replica
and i may have a chance to see that. but maybe not.

it turns out that i only have 3 days in spain and some of that time has to be spent covering ground.
i intend to see the castle of penafiel which is on my route. because of their long history of battling the moors, the spanish have built many, many
castles. in fact, the land of castilla means in spanish "land of castles." it seems that centuries of moving the frontier with the moors to the south
required new castles to be built very often.

then, also on my direct route to the spanish-french border, i go to the town of burgos, where one of the
3 greatest gothic cathedrals in spain holds the tomb of el cid. el cid was played by charlton heston in the movie and, despite this fact, martin scorcese
calls it the greatest historical epic ever made. as you recall, el cid wins his last battle postumously, his dead body tied to his horse by his wife (sophia loren)
and leading his soldiers to victory against the moors. i can't resist saying that a young sophia loren could tie my body to a horse any time she wanted to.

then i go in the direction of santander where altamira lies and, if i have time
i will see the replica.

and, i will drive through the city of bilbao, probably have time to stop the car, get out my camera, and take a picture of
the guggenheim museum. only to see the outside, going in would take too much time. i have to get to san sebastian and get rid of the
car, find out how to get over to bayonne, france and get another one. there is no time. yikes, i feel like the white rabbit in alice in
wonderland.

when i get the new car in france, i have to hightail it over to foix, the last center of resistance of the albigencians (=cathars).
then i get my butt up to carcassonne, and maybe have time to drive over that bridge in millau. the town of albi and the bridge really should
wait until i return in the spring. especially since brayton gray has seduced me into spending one night in uzes before i get to
ste cecile (= as you may know, the name of the cathedral in albi, which does look very striking). actually, brayton said something like he would not forgive me if
i didn't at least stop by.

time is my enemy, but i console myself with the thought that, as arnold swarzeneggar said in the terminator movie,
i'll be back. probably in may. i realized immediately that 8 days for all of spain and france is not enough time, epecially when you
have to cover hundreds and hundreds of kilometers and also to switch cars midway.

it ain't easy. what one should do is, see one thing in spain and see it well, see one thing in france and see it well. but i can't get out of the fact that
i have to drive hundreds and hundreds of kilometers. if those roads are winding and twisting, that could take a long time.

but, anyway, i am pleased to say that my lectures in portugal are over and have been a mild success. people seemed to appreciate that
i made an effort to do the basic things about localization (including the jazzy "neisendorfer localization") and to explain them well. i even
put Hopf's nontriviality of the 3rd homotopy group of the 3 sphere into a broader context localized around serre's result concerning the
infinity of homotopy groups of a simply connected finite complex. and i proved everything in a way my audience could understand.
i did a good job.

by the way, i have already seen the swinging incense in spain's pilgramage church of santiago de compostella and i am pleased to have discovered that
the century old incense tradition is a result of the fact that these pilgrams actually stink and always have.

fortunately i have not yet left portugal without discovering that this is a land of great soups! the big meals can go to hell, it is soup for me as often as i can get it.

best wishes,

see you soon,

but i will try to observe the velocity laws in spain and france,

joe n

before i leave braga i should mention the large numbers of roosters who live here and
crow lustily early in the morning. remember that i live in the city next to the train station so that this is particularly impressive. i have never seen a rooster here but i have heard them crow right outside my window and i have heard the answers. since roosters must represent a larger number of hens, and since they must be kept for a purpose, i can only assume that braga, urban though it may be, is a major center of egg production. in fact i now remember that lucia made a delicious omelette like thing with roasted red peppers and that she said that she had made them with especially good eggs which were given to her by a friend. so perhaps the omnipresent roosters are the indirect source of these eggs.

lucia and all the people here in mathematics have been wonderful to me. with all the rain i needed many rides and they were always willing to give one even though it meant driving all the way across town and back. for this reason, not to mention the many trips she has made to vigo, beyond, and back, i call lucia the harmonic oscillator.

my only complaint is that we eat too much here and that it is the custom to eat dinner at 8, a rather late start for me. it is usually 10 pm before i get home. i know that the locals don’t do this all the time. but for guests, they feel the need to do it.

today lucia drove me to the train station in vigo to pick up my car. afterwards she kindly drove slowly and led me through the awful traffic in vigo until i was safely on my road to spain. i must say that the vigo traffic was tense for me. i needed to learn how to handle this particular car, especially when stopped on a steep uphill with a car right behind me. i was relieved once i was on the highway and pointed toward my hotel in penafiel, approximately 400 kilometers away. i am now in the hotel from which i have i fine view of the major castle up on the hill. that is what i came for and tomorrow i will go up to see it close up.

my adventures getting dinner deserve mention. i speak little spanish and therefore have to rely on the kindness of strangers, in other words, on the abilities of the locals to comprehend ignorant foreigners like me. last night i tried to get dinner at the hotel. the lady at the reception spoke a little english and informed me that i should eat in the bar. the girl in the bar informed me that i would have to eat in the restaurant. the lady in the restaurant informed me that i would have to eat in the bar. i felt like a ping pong ball and still do not understand these conflicting interpretations of the regulations. but in the end i had a wonderful dinner in the restaurant, sort of a ris de veau with artichoke hearts. it was a new and interesting way to do the dish, worth all the effort, and it convinced me that, in spite of the language difficulties, all would be wonderful in the end. only patience and calmness were required.

in the morning i went up to the castle. it was enormous, a real statement of medieval christian power in the 15th century. since it wouldn’t o pen until 11 am, i confined myself to gawking at it from outside its walls. very impressive.these days the inside is used as a museum of the history of local wine production and i didn’t mind at all missing that. though i would have liked to have looked down from the battlements, just to see the height. the view of surrounding countryside was spectacular and moorish army was in sight. all being safe, it was more important to get on the road to burgos, the cathedral, and the tomb of el cid.

so i headed north. i must say that i have never seen so much fog as i have seen in porfugal and spain. in portugal it could be explained by the proximity to the sea but in spain i was driving across a high inland plateau and its presence remains a mystery. it was not bad to drive through. i think one needs merely 200 meters of visibility on a major highway to be safe and i always had at least that.

so i arrived in burgos, saw signs for the cathedral which my hotel, the meson el cid, is adjacent to, and headed right there without any trouble. but when i got there i discovered that the major street leading to the cathedral was closed for repairs and, furthermore, once you got to the cathedral, it was necessary to drive the car up a steep set of stone stairs to get to the hotel. needless to say, i retreated to the outlying suburbs to try another tactic. the gods must have been with me since i wound up driving the wrong way through the old city on an unknown to me one way medieval street filled with pedestrians and, voila, arrived to my surprise in front of my hotel. i turned the car around and parked as quickly as i could.

having reached here, i must say that this is the perfect hotel. the cathedral is directly out my window and the view of the stonework is terrific. of course, by the time i reached the hotel, the cathedral was closed to tourists until 4 pm. i can’t complain. it has to be dedicated to religious purposes sometime during the day and i like the fact that they keep us camera toting tourists at bay for a few hours during the day. keeps the place wholesome.

besides, it gave me time to walk along the river to see the statute of el cid and his horse defending spain in the main square. very impressive and fierce stature. and the river walk is wonderful. on the way back, i had the tapas special in a small bar. tapas is heaven for gnoshers like me. i recommend the little anchovy and hard boiled egg on toast.

i am using this opportunity to have have tea at the hotel. i seem to have a slight case of the sniffles and the tea has helped that. but i should go to get some anti cold medicine just to be on the safe side. fortunately there is a pharmacy in the square in front of the cathedral and i need to go there to see it and the tombs of el cid and jimena.

ok, i am back. the cathedral is beautiful, inside and out. very gothic, lots of soaring ceilings and colorful stained glass windows. el cid and jimena have the place of honor in the cross of the transcepts. can’t complain about that. the tomb is a simple flat marble marker on the floor with writing on it. and it is directly beneath the high dome of the tower. definitely the place of honor. still there is no embellishment and some recumbant statues would have been nice. every minor figure connected with the history of the cathedral seems to get a tomb like this, high constables, their wives, and archbishops are seem to merit some kind of image. so why not the cid and jimena? still the cross of the transcepts is the most honored place.

i decided that i need a hat. after all, it is november. but the shops here all have names like ralph lauren and the cheapest hat i could find cost 88 euros. no way i will spiring for that. i will soon be in basque country and will acquire a basque cap.

hi folks:

in portugal and spain, i have been struck by the high level of intelligence exhibited in the labeling of floors in buildings. the ground floor is labeled 0 so that there is no waste of this useful number. more important, the floors below the ground floor are labeling using negative numbers, -1,-2,-3, etc. while this may seem a trivial thing, i recall a college class for future math teachers taught by fred cohen at the university of kentucky. a student there explained her inability to comprehend the solution of a math problem with the statement: "that problem involves negative numbers. i just freeze whenever i see a negative number."

if i remember correctly such things were one of the reasons fred did not want his daughters to grow up in kentucky.

before i forget, let me mention some things which occurred to me when viewing the museum of religious art in the burgos cathedral. there were representations of the torture of christ. but at least the romans were honest about it. they did not deny that they did it. they felt that there was a legitimate reason for torture, namely, to set an example to anyone who would cross them. this is at least based on facts about human behavior. they did not do it solely to obtain probably unreliable information. they would have no objection to doing that but their overwhelming purpose was intimidation. one wonders if the current torturers of the world might also have this motivation. they deny that they torture but, since nobody believes them, perhaps they also hope to intimidate.

driving from burgos to san sebastian involved passing through some ferocious fog. is the iberian peninsula never to be free of this fog at this time of year? it was dense enough to make me drive very cautiously through the mountains i was surprised to see. i thought that they were all to the west of me in austurias. perhaps these were prepyrennies. they reminded me of the appalachians or of the swartzwald.

anyway, i can understand how the christian communities could hide out in these mountains while the whole iberian peninsula was crawling with muslims. a place like this was the center from which the reconquest spread. those christians were really backed into a corner and it is amazing that they were able to get all of spain back. perhaps what lucia said is true: spain was very thinly populated at the time and the reconquest involved expelling rather few people.

today i arrived in san sebastian, called donastia by the basques. i found the hotel with little trouble at the plaza pio XII. the traffic was fierce, but i am beginning to handle this with more confidence. however, i will be glad that in france i do not need to drive into any more cities. i am going to stop at hotels on the outskirts. with no advance reservations. all my semi french friends tell me that reservations are not necessary at this time of year. and, although my french is bad, it is better than my spanish.

in san sebastian, i walked along the lovely river walk and reached the famous beach. a very heavily developed place but it retains an old world charm. i saw 3 people swimming in the atlantic. remember that this is november! but it didn't seem so cold. still i was happy to buy a hat, not the traditional basque one but a soft red version of it that seemed more practical and only cost 10 euros. a happy purchase!

in san sebastian the hills come right into the town and then down to the atlantic coast. sort of an appalachia by the sea. the story of "suddenly last summer" by tennessee williams came to mind. in this town, missus venable's (katherine hepburn's) son sebastian is chased up the hills from the beach and eaten by the young boys he was fond of. elizabeth taylor's character supposedly goes mad upon witnessing this. the place does have a feeling of degenerate sexuality about it. i can hear some evidence in the room adjacent to mine in what is certainly an upscale hotel. but it is decidedly heterosexual and indicates that someone is having a great time. in my previous hotels, in steamy portugal, land of fado, and in central spain, land of religious fervor, either the walls were thicker or the couples more sedate. oh well, no matter, i wish them well, not that they need it. they seem quite competent.

by the way, the inbox of my email is getting crushed by the evermore elusive spammers. the only thing that there is a shortage of is replies from friends. hint.
to those few who have responded, thanks from europa.

best wishes,

joe n

hello to all:

my hotel in san sebastian had the fanciest breakfast buffet i have ever encountered. the standard things were all there, excellent coffee, an extremely fresh selection of juices, yogurts, cereals, croisants, etc. but also there were two kinds of gravlax, salmon and something else which was a white fish flesh and very good. in addition, there were two kinds of cream pastries, a whipped cream puff and a custard thing. for me, such pastries were a new thing at a breakfast. truly, this was an upscale hotel.

after breakfast, i paid the bill, a bargain at 80 euros, and headed for the car return at the airport. i returned the car and took a cab across the spanish-french frontier (15 euros) to the hendaye train station. once at the station, i discovered that there was some kind of problem up the train line which required the use of fire trucks. no further coherent explanation was forthcoming. but for this reason no trains were running. there was no way to get to my hotel in bayonne by train, at least not in the predictable future. bayonne was 30 kilometers away, not too far, but too far to walk. so i took a cab, a bargain at 60 euros. it took me right to my hotel. i felt competant, i had succeeded in all my assigned tasks for the day.

after checking in to the hotel, i headed for the nearby bayonne cathedral. it was a nice enough gothic cathedral but not a match for the one in burgos wherein lies the tomb of el cid and his lady. but it was nostalgic for me to see someone sweeping and tidying the place up. many years ago, approximately 30 years ago, i had noticed an old lady tidying up the pews in chartres cathedral and, when she saw me looking at her, she shyly brushed her hair out of her face. i took it to be a bit of pride in her appearance, i was quite touched, and i have never forgotten it. after all these years, she still reminds me of my mother.

i kept wandering around the town of bayonne, a place of narrow streets and smart shops. eventually, i encounted a nice bistro-bar specializing in paella. since i had missed out on this speciality in spain, i decided to have it here. it was the most enormous plate of rice with calamari, shrimp, clams, mussels, and little pieces of sausage. i had a beer with it. the food was excellent but i wound up taking most of it back to my hotel for a late evening snack.

by the way, i have no complaints about the sausage in the paella but the american version which substitutes polish sausage is an improvement in that one item. those poles do understand sausage. this from a person of german heritage counts a lot.

after i left the bistro, i saw a stand selling fresh oysters in the market. very tempting but, on the whole, i prefer the paella, if
only because i hadn't had it. i encountered once again the limits of the size of the human stomach. fresh raw oysters are a perennial favorite of mine. it was hard to pass them by. ordinarily, nothing beats them in my book and these looked very good.

but what the hell, man does not live on raw oysters alone, although i suspect the couple in the room next to mine in san sebastian had had a full dose. have you ever noticed that pigeons outside a hotel room sound a lot like a couple having sex? without the climax, of course. pigeons are never satisfied.

jacques may find this next statement of mine unbelievable, but: "i find it much more relaxing to be in a french speaking country. compared to portugal and spain, my competence goes way up."

in french, speaking with much hesitation, i have a nontrivial chance of making myself understood. i can even converse with the cab drivers, admitedly only about trivial things such as: le pays de basques, c'est beau, ne pas?

but it is better than nothing. things are looking up. and i have no more need to drive into traffic crazed cities. in france, i will stay in hotels on the outskirts. and there are only two more nights of hotels until a safe haven. i called uzes and talked to sophie on skype, a wonderful piece of software. she told me that brayton and she are quite content to let me arrive late one night and then stay two. this saves me the aggravation of getting a hotel. of course, they do happen to live in the heart of the town of uzes, a place jacques described by the phrase "it has fierce traffic." and sophie says "there are pedestrians and bicyclists in the streets. if you happen to hit one of them with your car, you go to prison." this would be a fitting end to my driving adventures.

best wishes from la belle france,

joe n

p.s. on the last night in san sebastian i noticed that there were a large number of attended and unattended young children out on the streets. the following come to mind; 10 year boys playing football near the cathedral and a young girl walking home alone along the river.
this in addition to all the younger ones playing a short distance from not very attentive parents. clearly a society that works. and the same is happenning here in bayonne, france.
i also recall tarahumara indian children in mexico walking miles from their homes, little groups of 2 or 3 tiny children holding hands far out alone in the country, knowing exactly where they were going. so here we have two societies, one advanced and the other socalled primitive, and they both succeed in creating a secure environment for children. compared to these, i reflect on the fact that my grandniece, who is 15, is not allowed to walk the streets at night in phoenix. and with good reason. so what is it about the united states that makes us fail to provide a safe environment for children? could it be the overly competitive economic system with its extreme divisions of wealth?

hello again,

in bayonne, i detected a definite sign of being in france. a very fancy department store near my hotel has a lingerie display in one of its windows which is worthy of a fine bordello. i suspect that they could get a good rate if they decided to rent out those mannikins by the hour. the french certainly know what the purpose of fine lingerie actually is.

i must be getting old since i actually took a taxi to get my rental car. in the old days i would have carried my luggage for the mile or so that was necessary. not any more! after all, what is 10 euros more or less? with all the euros lucia gave me i can afford to be a big spender. and i must not forget that i am in the post aortic dissection part of my life.

i can see the pyrennies in the distance from the highway. wow! i had no idea that they were so big and jagged. i think some of them are about 10,000 feet high and they rise from near sea level. this is worthy stuff. i would like to visit them someday when it isn’t november. but down at near sea level, the sun is shining and it is quite warm. life is good.

iit is warm and beautiful. i have a chance to reflect on how happy i am to be retired and to be not teaching calculus. the teaching of calculus has really degenerated into a ‘’no child left behind’ philosophy. at least, there is a strong tendency that way. woe to the old fashioned teacher who actually expects students to study until they finally get it. these students will never cross that rubicon since they don’t have to. i had the old fashioned idea that all you owed to a student was a sincere attempt to explain your subject clearly. out of date!

i am particulary happy to be done with a university administration which chose to deemphasize mathematical excellence in the teaching of science. even physicists, at least those of national reputation and independent of local influence, were appalled. the president of the american physical society stated that, with this one action, our president had succeeded in reducing us to a second rate university. and, although we drove back the barbarians, it is like world war 2 and the graduate program is a bombed out city.

now we have a new university president and he seems much better that the old one. he is no fool, a politically astute character with a past history of taking some principled positions. but i note that it is still politically necessary for him to honor the old president, obvious failure though the latter may be. this person of limited talent will be honored by the holding of a fancy investiture ceremony as he assumes a new professorship created for him. since he cannot find another job, a suitable position was created. as far as i can see, his only field of expertise is bankruptcy law. he cetainly has done a lot to keep the university on that path.

i note that the university has named a street after the old president. you may know that kimmie meissner has a street in her hometown named after her. but she had to win a world championship in figure skating. her hometown officials had no influence over the judging of that event. so it is perfectly acceptable for the hometown to name a street after her. in the case of our president, no one outside this university has seen fit to propose him for a single honor and the naming of a street is an act of pure incest. enough of him!

i should add that i am fully aware that i owe my life to the university hospital and that the aforementioned administrators did encourage the doctors to save me in my hour of need. that does count for something. they certainly fail to qualify as pure evil.

i saw a sign for lourdes and was tempted to turn off and to find out how well they do on the cure of aortic dissections. or of sick universities. but i did not want to dilute my faith in santiago de compostella. any pilgrimage site which welcomes smelly hikers and still recognizes the need to fumigate the place has my undying affection. besides, i think it takes an apostle who has seen the world to handle material like i have to bring.

i arrived in the small town of saint bertrand de comminges which has a spectacular cathedral up on a hill. it is really huge and dominates the town. it is amazing that it is located there. as near as i can figure, a bunch of renegade cistericians called olivettis came there from italy and founded the place. where they got the money, i have not learned. anyway, i learned that it now has no clergy to tend it and that the guide service was not functioning in november. hence, the cathedral is closed to visitors. but it really is a spectacular cathedral from the outside. i did not regret seeing it even though it looked harsh and bare of ornament. that is its charm. it did not look like it ever had the permanent base of wealth to create lavish interior riches, such as lots of gold leaf, and paintings and sculpture by great artists that you have to pay to come to an out of the way place. on second thought, i bet the interior is equally impressive in the same way. now i regret missing the inside.

unfortunately, it being november, every hotel in this attractive little town is closed for the season. all two of them. i headed west hoping to find an open hotel. at first i had no luck or i was just too choosey.

at last, i found a hotel in the ariege valley of the pyrennie foothills. the room was modern, clean, and even stylish with featherbeds. the room even had a balconey. except for a bit of road noise, it was a very fine hotel. i was happy.

since it was only 3 pm and since dinner would not be served until 7 pm, i went to a supermarket i had passed looking for cheese or some other sustenance. but it was sunday, the supermarket was closed. i began to regret ignoring all those shops in the rest areas on the french version of the autobahn.

there was a macdonalds adjacent to the supermarket and i thought, what the hell, i have never tried a foreign macdonalds. and this is france where they invented french fries and where they really know how to do them well. i thought: the advantage of macdonalds is that it is always open! i went in and i stood in a line which did not move for 10 minutes. it started with only 5 people ahead of me and it ended with that many. hope died slowly. but i left without food and concluded that macdonalds had succeeded in making the french accept the concept of “le slow food.” eventually, i found a snack bar where a lady made me a cheese sandwich. the bread was wonderful!

the lady of the hotel, a thoroughly charming hostess, tells me two good things. one, the road noise will dissipate and go away completely from midnight to morning. in fact, it has lessened already. also, she tells me that the route to the last cathar stronhold of montsequr is well marked and easy to follow. in france the cathars, aka the albigensians, are my main focus. in the 12th century, those poor folks got pounded in the name of france and the church. in this case, pounded means burnt at the stake. and all your castles and wealth looted. simon de monfort was sort of the dick cheney of his time, probably even worse. and, unfortunately, simon seems to have been quite competant at persecuting heretics. it all goes to show that, then as now, leading a moral life is irrelevant, all that counts are that your professed beliefs further the powerful.

in the hotel, i had the classic french meal of steak and frites. with bearnaise sauce and a carafe of red wine. john moore would have enjoyed this. but i must say that my mother’s fries were better than this version, they were crisp brown on the outside and tender on the inside, just as they should be. the french are not always perfect. but i have had superb fries from a stand on the highway on france.

every once in while on my travels i think about mathematics. i do not think it is extremely productive. driving and abstract thinking were not made to go together. and my powers of concentration are not what they were. but i do believe that, despite or even because of the disadvantages of this type of thinking, nontrivial progress is made which could not be made in any other way. one is forced to get a change of perspective, less focused on detail and more focused on global orgainization. in line with my, i think, 4 successful lectures in braga on localization, i find it attractive to pick a short subject matter and to create a short series of lectures on that. right now, my focus is on homological aspects of loop multiplication. only a true professional could love this stuff.

ok, i just finished a productive day. i started with a visit to the chateau foix. it was closed but i am used to that and have mastered the skill of looking at castles from below and outside. sort of a beseigers point of view. so, a success.

i went on my way to the chateau de montsequr, the last refuge of the cathars. there it was on the top of its mountain. if you walked up the long steep path, it think it was open and that there would be noone there to collect the 4 euro fee. such an opportunity! but, i decided that i had so mastered the art of seeing castles from an outside perspective that i would skip the climb up the mountain to see it close up.

from a beseigers perspective, it was a very impressive place which it could only be captured by the major son of a bitch of his time, simon de monfort, the guy who makes even dick cheney look good. almost. so far. really, the concentrated hatred it shows that even such an out of the way place would be beseiged is truly impressive.

on i went through the cathar countryside in the foothills of the pyrennies. i was very impressed by the beauty of the place. it is sort of like switzerland with a french twist. wait a second! large parts of switzerland already have a french twist! what i mean is that this is more french, being actually french, and that the petite roblochon cheese is just heavenly with a little apple juice. by the way, i have decided that apple juice is often a superior subsitute for wine.

i am glad that i got to see this french version of the pyrennies and i wonder why it is not more celebrated in the rest of the world. the provencal publicity department seems to have the whole world sewed up, not that they don’t have a wonderful product.

by the way, the french all drive like assholes. they seem to love to tailgate and then, when they finally pass you, they swerve back in front of you with almost no clearance. ok, only the exceptional assholes do the second.

i arrived in carcassonne at 2 pm and almost immediately found a cheap and clean hotel near the walls of the old city. no internet, but otherwise perfect. only 40 euros.

i headed the short distance into the old city. those walls are impressive, 3 kilometers of them in all. because of treason, the son of a bitch monfort was able to capture the city and, of course, it became his private property. only an incompetant son eventually lost it for the monfort family.

what is amazing about carcassonne is exactly what they say about it. in large part an entire medieval city has been preserved, walls, castle, cathedral, narrow streets, and all. except for the fact that all the houses have been converted into shops, restaurants, or hotels, you would never know that you were in the twenty-first century. i believe the sanitation is better now too.

in order to be allowed to see most of the place i had to join a french speaking tour. the french was rapid and relentless. i understood nothing except once in a while i could make out the time period the guide was talking about. this made me focus more on what i was looking at and i count this as a postive experience.

now i am in my hotel trying to figure out what to do with my last day which ends at brayton’s.
i have sadly rejected norman’s suggestions. he is ignoring basic facts about distances. so albi, an important and beautiful place for the cathats = albigensians, will have to wait. as will the wonderful new bridge at millau. i cannot understand how judy ever managed to route herself near that place.

instead, i have proposed to myself two places right on my route. first, there is beziers, burned by the ubiquitous simon de monfort but still with an impressive cathedral. and, second, as a change of pace, there is the sea side town of sept, known for its seafood.
i may make up for passing up the oysters in bayonne!

once more from la belle france:

i headed out on my last day with high hopes for a successful day. my first stop was to be in beziers, where they have an enormous fortress cathedral. i headed for the center of the town and i could see in the distance high on a hill the cathedral. but i would up driving through a warren of streets in a relatively large city with no clear way to go towards the cathedral. i decided that this part of the day was a mistake and that i should head for my second planned stop, the seaside town of sete.

i discovered that a mediterranean beach resort was sensibly closed down for the winter and that i could detect no open restaurants which would serve wonderful seafood. what to do?
the day was still young. then i recalled the suggestion from norman, the bridge at millau. it is true that it was way out of the way. but i could combine that with a drive through the canyon of tarn river, which was highly recommended by my trusty national geographic guide to france. i decided to do it.

all i can say is: norman, forgive me for ever doubting your impeccable taste. that is one hell of a bridge! a real cathedral of transportation! over 2 and a half kilometers long, it is an elegant span of a deep gorge cut by the tarn river. i was very impressed and felt that i had just made the whole day into a success.

i next headed into the canyon of the tarn = gorges de tarn. wow! that is quite a canyon, more impressive because this narrow and deep canyon has been inhabited since time immemorial. clinging to the sides of the canyon are the road and a few towns and castles. most impressive are the isolated farms on the other side of the river. some of them are only reachable by hand operated cable cars. still functioning as a way of life. i felt that this was still primitive nature but it was clear that over the centuries a lot of stonework had been done to make it more livable. lest i forget, it seemed that in season it was a center for canoeing and kayaking. once more, i felt that i had been successful as a tourist and the only thing remaining was to drive successfully to brayton and sophie’s place in uzes.

that is when it started to get dark. i still had kilometers and kilometers of winding, twisting road to cover. whenever an oncoming vehicle passed me, i had to squint my eyes from the glare of the headlights and be very careful that, one, we missed each other, and, two, i stayed on the road. it was nerve wracking. the cars which came up behind me were a little better. all i had to worry about from them was the blinding glare of their headlights in my rearview mirror. but it seemed to me that i was being persecuted by an overwhelming number of french drivers heading home from work in the opposite direction from me.

when i finally reached the town of ales i got a little relief since the highway stopped twisting and turning, got wider, and well marked. i thought: it is all downhill from here! well, not quite true. the final approach to uzes was on narrow and straight roads, dark and still with cars coming my way to watch out for. but i made it to uzes. i stopped and uses my minimal french to ask directions. i got excellent directions and was soon in the immediate vicinity of my goal. at the end, i tried to turn around on the boulevard and was urgently advised against it by an aggravated frenchman who was walking his dog and knew that the boulevard was oneway. after i found a temporary parking place, the kind gentleman took pity on me and led me to the house of brayton and sophie. since i had neglected to buy a phone card actually finding the house was the only way to get there. i rang the bell, brayton answered and i was safe.

so i took brayton to where my car was badly parked, handed my keys to him, and asked him to take me and it to park it in a secure location. we got in the car, circled around a portion of the city, and came back on one way streets to the location of his garage. brayton said: this place is usually empty and there will be no trouble if the car is parked next to mine.

so we left it there and headed back to his wonderful apartment with the 3 story winding stone staircase.
hauling the luggage up a narrow winding staircase bulit in the medieval style was a real chore. but the bedroom was marvelous with a beautiful view of the cathedral and its illuminated tower.

the next morning we woke up to the return of an aggravated sophie. she had just encountered an angry french lady demanding that this strange car vacate her authorized parking space immediately. brayton moved my car to someplace that was free on the street. sophie headed out to buy some flowers to appease the angry lady. the lady disappeared, still consumed with legitimate french outrage over the impertinence of americans who appropriate parking places. sophie had to be content to use the flowers to decorate my bedroom.

we took a nice walk. we saw the source of the water that the romans conveyed to the city of nimes via the most wonderful aqueduct. this aqueduct is a wonder of roman engineering and goes 50 kilometers and over the wondrous pont du gard. i had already seen the pont du gard,which is an enormous bridge and aqueduct, an amazing construction, 2000 yearrs old and still stainding. but the really amazing thing is that the romans where able to construct a 50 kilometer long gravity fed aqueduct with a total drop of only 12 meters. astounding!
one wonders where they got these engineers. was there a roman mit = milan institute of technology which churned them out?

the highlight of my visit to uzes was the lunch of foie gras in a little cafe in the town square . i discovered that i had gone through life thinking that fois gras was some sort of chopped liver. not so! instead it is a divine white creation which totally justifies encouraging geese to overeat (= force feeding) and to add fat to their livers. i cannot believe that animal activists have convinced my home town of chicago to ban it as cruelty to animals. was this a problem which had to be dealt with? and i ask this as someone who no longer eats any eggs which are not cage free. i am not anti-poultry!

in the morning i headed my car on its final journey to the avignon tgv train station. this was to be my one final encounter with french drivers. somehow i missed the sign for the tgv. i asked for directions from someone who had no idea where it was. after circling the town once, i finally saw the sign gare tjv and i followed it to this enormous train station where it was not at all clear where the rental car return was. so i circled the train station several times, each time getting conflicting directions to the place of rental car return. eventually i saw a sign for rental cars and, as i was pulling up to the gate for the car return, there was my savior judy stein. i had made it and i would drive no more in france. at least no more on this trip.

judy had come to avignon to pick me up and also to do some shopping. she took me to a marvelous market filled with shops selling all sorts of glorious french foods, interesting mediterranean fish, tasty sausage and cheese, nice fruits and vegetables, and beautiful meat. i was pleased to see that the french had a high respect for liver, beef and veal. in america, liver is found frozen in thin strips but, in france, it lies fresh and chilled, still intact, ready to be prepared, enjoyed, and savoured.

a quick trip to the house of stein in saint cecile and i was pleased to see my old friend norman sitting in the sun on his patio.

it was warm, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, it was provence.

later we were to have brandade, a marvelous concoction of a roasted red pepper, olive oil, and dried salt cod. i must add that this is the first thing made from dried salt cod that i have really liked. portugal, please forgive me.

today judy helped me to make reservations at the hotel at the paris airport. later we will get the ticket on the marvelous tgv. the end is near. well, not so near. i don’t take the train until the 13th, 4 days from now.

but this is probably the last email message i will send before going home. since entering france, i have been sabotaged by the email. i cannot send out. if i were connected, i could receive. this last message will be sent courtesy of the steins. if you have read this far, you know that this is a vast collection of unsent emails and you now know the reason why.

goodbye from france, in the words of mark twain,

“rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

joe n

i write this from my seat on a plane which is taking me across the atlantic. i have left france and have even eaten an airline mcmeal, chicken mcnuggets with potatoes and a very good imitation of spinach. not bad actually. with a fine glass of seagram’s ginger ale to wash it down. i was tempted to ask the stewardness whether it was legal to serve this stuff before clearing french airspace.

i have left the steins in their cozy abode in sainte cecile. it was a wonderful, relaxing, and productive visit. first of all, their setting is very comfortable and we ate well. it started with the nice brandade i have already mentioned. it continued with a dinner out which included a wonderful appetizer of fois gras with lentils. this appetizer justified an otherwise excellent but disappointing meal. the main course was fish. it was of exellent quality but they had not done much with it. oh yes, norman picked a superb wine for that meal.

then there was a bean casserole made by norman lots of good thing and a blood sausage. to paraphrase w.c. fields, “it was a tasty melange” and the wine brought by the guests, wayne and lydie marshall, was even better than what we had had before. i cannot resist adding that lydie marshall writes cookbooks and that he one on soup has an introduction by calvin trillen. the steins travel in some high culinary circles. but they are rather good cooks themselves.

by the way, i had purchased an interesting sausage which included figs mixed with the meat. we returned from our restaurant meal to discover that the cat had eaten about a quarter of it. no matter. we ate the rest and it was excellent. because of this event i was motivated to return to the little grocery store and stock up on pates and fois gras safely protected in cans. i am taking those home with me.

the productive part of this visit is that i seem to have found a totally acceptable gite to rent when i return to france this coming may. it is owned by a friend of the steins and it even has a pool.

the rest of the visit consisted of norman and i telling stories of amusing mathematics incidents. believe it or not, there are many such stories. here is one with me as a bit player.

many years ago, i ran the topology seminar at the institute for advanced study. there were at the time three groups of mathematicians working on the same problem. we shall refer to them as groups x, y, and z. i invited a member of group x who resided in new york, in fact, he was one of the two coleaders of that group, to give a lecture at the institute and, being proud of my success, i informed a member of group y, in fact the leader of that group, that i had so done and that i hoped that he would be pleased that i had closely accommodated his interests.

but the group y leader said: “you do bad thing. you should not invite him.” i said that i had done so and that i was not going to uninvite him. the lecture was going to happen.

in approximately two weeks, the day of the lecture came and the group x person, aka the speaker, began by acknowledging the work of the group y team in the traditional way of writing their names on the blackboard near the upper left hand corner. the lecture continued on and the speaker reached the right hand side of the platform, some considerable distance from where he had begun. it was now appropriate to acknowledge the work of team z and to write their names on the blackboard. as the speaker began to do so, the leader of group y spoke up and said: “you should not write their names on board. that work not published yet. who knows whether it right or wrong?” the speaker paused and said: “oh, are those the rules?” and he slowly walked the long distance across the raised platform and then erased the names of the group y team.

as we mathematicians say, it is an exercise to fill in the values of x, y, and z. i will give the following hint: the leader of the y team is the central figure in a large number of amusing incidents that i have witnessed.

the time came for norman and judy to deliver me to the tgv station in avignon. the tgv is a marvelous train which quietly, smoothly, and swiftly wisks you from the south of france directly to the paris airport in approximately 3 hours. as i sped through the french countryside, i was much impressed by the fertility and beauty of it. i saw lots of cows. it was clear where all that good cheese came from.

i arrived in at the paris airport and began the process of trying to find the ibis hotel at which i had a reservation. it was right at the airport and required only a shuttle bus to get there. there was absolutely no clue as to how to do this.

but i was very, very lucky. a very nice french lady saw my confusion and said in perfect english: “are you lost? can i assist you?” well, it turned out she was going to the same hotel and she led me there. it should have been the beginning of a romance. she looked a little like celine dion. it was not to be. she was going to san diego the next morning. and it seemed that her interest in me began and ended with seeing me safely to my hotel. nonetheless, i shall remember her with great fondness. i wonder if she can sing.

at the hotel i was to endure one more disappointment. i had hoped that a paris hotel would provide free or at least reasonably priced internet access. it was not to be. the price was 10 euros for 45 minutes. since the hotel does nothing but provide a connection, i regard this as totally unreasonable and i decided to wait until i return to my friendly internet connection in rochester.

it is my sincere hope that the email transmission problem which has occurred here in france will miraculously cure itself upon my arrival home. but, if not, there is always the help of hoss.

still it would have been especially nice to have skype available to make long distance calls. a call to lucia to tell her that all was well would be a good thing. that has to wait. i realize how spoiled i was to have a free and solid internet connection available to me in portugal. the world was literally at my fingertips. i could talk to anybody provided that i paid some attention to the time of day. in the future, travelers need never be lonely.

i am always astounded when i think how much the world has changed since my parents left europe behind to cross over to distant america in the 1920s. the only communication back home was slow letters written on thin paper to cut down on the cost of postage.

in the youth of my parents, the railroad was still a new thing to come to come to their village. and farming was done entirely with human and animal power. even though two world wars had intervened since their childhood, my parents’ home towns had not changed that much when i saw them in the 1950s. that time seems closer to the middle ages than it does to the present. we are fortunate to live now. thngs are easier now and we did not have to pass through the trials of the great depression. our society is gentler now, at least to us, if not to others.

there has been an election and some people think it has turned out well. we shall see. there is another theory that things needed to get worse in order to turn around the electorate completely. the american people have shown themselves to be slow to respond, rather like a whale. nobody can claim that the little troubles we are having in iraq are the equivalent of a harpoon in the back of the american electorate. perhaps the probable future poverty coming from the fact that we don’t sell or make much anymore will be such a harpoon. or perhaps one can hope that the situation will respond to small adjustments.

it is hard to believe that this will happen in such a gullible and superstitious society.

joe n