There are no coincidences

Oscar Wilde's Grave - then and now

headstone in 2003, photo by Steve Adams

Recently in the New York Times, we read an article about Oscar Wilde's grave in Pére Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.  During our visit in October, 2011, we noticed that Wilde's grave was shrouded in plastic, and appeared to be undergoing renovation.  We have since learned that the renovation in question includes the installation of a large plate glass box surrounding the headstone, which has been cleaned of all the lipstick kisses.  Apparently Wilde's descendents feel that the marks left by fans are acts of vandalism rather than expressions of admiration. 

Tomas van Houtryve for The New York Times, 2011

Guys Cook Night

Newly dubbed the "Guys Cook Night" by our friend Bruce Lowry, Saturday night's event at our house was a smashing success.  When we, the Carpenters and the Lowrys got together last November, Walt mentioned that he had a special half bottle of 1980 d'Yquem to open sometime soon.  It was determined that in January all six of us could reconvene at Chez Adams and celebrate the new year with this particular after dinner wine.  Which meant that a dinner was in the offing as well!

butternut squash gnocchi, from Bon Appetit Magazine

The men outdid themselves with recipes both old and new and the meal was quite the gourmet accomplishment.  It started off with Walt's warm homemade salt cod brandade spread on Bruce's homemade bread.  Bruce also made homemade sweet potato crisps as well, and all was washed down with a little prosecco.  At the table we sat down to Steve's homemade butternut squash gnocchi in a browned butter and sage sauce.  That was followed by two kinds of Walt's homemade sausages (chicken and pork) in an apple reduction sauce, with homemade pear chutney.  What better on a wintry night than  a rabbit cacciatore with rhubarb chard?  The salad course was a crispy, crunchy delight of sliced Granny Smith apples and celery root with a light dressing.  A cheese course was offered and rejected because we were so stuffed.  But we did have a dessert:  two kinds of oranges sliced with zabaglione. 

My apologies that this photo is not of the dish we actually had, but the resident photographer went off duty that night.

Movie Review time

Four movies in four weeks, or something like that!  We're on a jag. 

First up was The Descendants, with George Clooney.  Nice scenery, interesting story, George Clooney being pretty much George Clooney, have to give it a thumbs up. 

Second movie not the same as the first.  The scary and violent story of The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo should bring award nominations to its female star, Ronney Mara . We've read the book, seen the Swedish movie version, and were prepared to think the American version would not live up to either one.  But it did! And surpassed!  The story was even slightly improved, the cinematography was gorgeous, the violence there but not gratuitous. 

The third movie we saw was totally up our alley:  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  What's not to like?  Set in 1970's London, a thoroughly engrossing mystery, incredible acting from a lot of well known British actors, but especially Gary Oldman who disappears into John Smiley, it's everything a quiet thriller should be.  There's no going to the bathroom during this movie.  It's not that the action is so fast, it's that the clues are coming so stealthily that you have to watch and listen carefully.  Loved it!

Lastly, and most surprisingly, was a small French film called The Artist.  It's a silent black and white movie set in the late 1920's just when film was turning to the "talkies."  You won't believe how charming this actually rather simple story is.  As they say in Sunset Boulevard, it's all about the faces.  Plus a cute little dog almost steals every scene (even I thought he was adorable). 

Christmas past and present

Lots of changes happened in the last year, and so we changed up Christmas.  But in point of fact, it was not so much a change as a reversion to Christmases past, but with a twist.

We had not spent Christmas Day in Carmi since Max was
one year old, which puts it at 1981.  When Emily arrived in 1983, we declared that our family would have Christmas at home, and whomever wished to join us were warmly invited.  That meant two sets of grandparents were automatically on board from then on.

This year, though, Emily was in Gettysburg, PA, with Steve H.'s family.  Mary Lou is sadly not with us, and my mom and dad did not feel like making the trek to Webster Grove having just been here for Thanksgiving.  So we packed up and went over the river and through the woods to their house, with Papaw Jack in tow.  He also felt the circling of life, as he and Steve A. went to church in his  hometown, Galatia, with his old friend Buddy Peyton in the pulpit giving the message. Max and his girlfriend, Jen, were the "youngsters" and it was jolly time with my two brothers, Bill and Rob.  Bill's family including Aric and April made our table complete.

Christmas Eve dinner was an homage to all the Christmas Eves of my childhood spent at Big Mimi's house.  Cheeses, tuna salad, a nice pork pate, gingersnap cookies - all reminders of lovely past Christmases.

Temples and tombs

I think the look on my face in the picture at left captures all the awe and delight that I felt on our recent trip to Egypt.

The temples at Luxor and Karnak, Edfu and Abu Simbel were all simply amazing and breath-taking.  One of my most vivid memories, though, is of this crypt in the Temple of Hathor at Dendera.  To reach this crypt, you had to climb down a very steep stairway, and then double yourself over at the bottom of the stairs to half crawl, half wiggle through a small opening to emerge in a dimly lit space.  The hieroglyphics on the walls are spectacularly detailed.  On many of them the original colors are still visible.  This is the closest I came to feeling like Howard Carter discovering King Tut's long-lost tomb.

King Tutankhamen

Speaking of which, we did indeed get to view King Tuttankhamen's treasures at the Cairo Egyptian Museum.  We were also able to view King Tut's tomb and mummy at the Valley of the Kings.  When you see the treasures and think of the fact that King Tut was really only a minor Pharaoah, you can only imagine what treasures were stored in the Great Pyramids that were ultimately plundered and robbed.

An Egyptologist that rocked our trip!

Hesham Abdulla was our guide and Egyptologist during our entire trip to Egypt.  I can say without equivocation that Hesham made our trip the spectacular experience that it was.

Hesham is a consummate scholar of Egyptian history.  He is enthusiastic about his subject.  He is personable and charming.  And he is incredibly patient with his group of 24 tourists.  Some of us asked tiresome questions.  Some of us got lost from the group at times.  Some of us were slow walkers.  All of us mispronounced his name frequently, some up till the very last day of our eight days of togetherness!  Always Hesham was perfectly calm and imperturbable. 

Hesham Abdulla on Lake Nasser, near Aswan

We had two particularly memorable experiences with Hesham.  One was our felluca ride around Kitchener Island in the Nile near Aswan.  Originally scheduled to be a one-hour tour, it lasted about three hours because we became becalmed near the end of our sail.  Hesham used that time to answer any and all questions about Egypt and its history, the revolution, the current election and other recent events.  The time passed by and we were all entertained and informed at the same time.

The other was our visit to the mosque of Sultan Hassan in Cairo on the last day of our tour.  Hesham gave a mini lecture about the Muslim religion, its history and its beliefs, and made us feel perfectly comfortable to ask anything we liked about this subject.

Inside the mosque of Sultan Hassan

All this, and everything you ever wanted to know about Pharaohs and temples and tombs!

Mysterious and Magical

The ancient pyramids, and the Sphinx – they belong to the world, not just to Egypt.  So romantic and mysterious – I am completely amazed that I am viewing this landscape in person.  The Sphinx has held an unwavering gaze toward the east for nearly 5000 years.  How many sunrises have bathed it in a glowing light?  Over a million and a half.  Think about that!

The three pyramids are arranged in the pattern of Orion’s belt. Each one is the burial place of a single powerful Pharaoh, and they are the only one remaining of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. 

Almost equally amazing is our very short and bumpy ride on a ship of the desert – a camel.   Equal parts kitsch and comedy.  So what if we are not Marc Anthony and Cleopatra.  I would say we are two American tourists who are as pleased to be here as the Egyptians seem to be pleased that we are. 

Tradition, tradition

Traditions are lovely, and making new ones is nice too!  Last year we were in Geneva, Switzerland, with Emily and Steve H. for Thanksgiving, so my brother Rob hosted the rest of the family at his house for his very first Thanksgiving dinner event.


It went so well, and his guests loved it so much, that Rob said he'd do it again this year!  Emily and Steve joined us, and we had a ball.  Rob's got his turkey dinner down pat, with help from Trader Joe's.  Unfortunately I had pumpkin pie failure, so that part of the meal needs to be improved for next year.

A rousing game of Cranium capped off the day's festivities.  Fun!  I like this new tradition.

The turkey's revenge

Lovely video from Paris Metro

Watch this full screen, please!




A film by Sarah Klein and Tom Mason
Concept by Jennifer McClory
Locations by Yoann Casals
Music by Duke Ellington
Finishing effects by tracevfx.com
Special thanks to Anne Labro

It's cooking in Barcelona

Yes, after looking at Miro’s art, and Gaudi’s magnificent architecture, it was time to have some hands-on experience with Barcelona’s wonderful food.  A cooking class at Cook and Taste was good way to learn a little something, enjoy a nice meal, and meet fellow travelers. 

If you are a novice, there is nothing that will really be beyond your capabilities at this class.  If you are already skilled in the culinary arts, it is still fun to share in the communal experience of meal preparation.  Our instructor, Lluis, had just the right amount of charm combined with seriousness about teaching his craft to our class of twelve students from the USA, Canada and Australia.  We opted for the one hour visit to the market prior to the class, but really we had explored that market on our own the day before, and found it to be one of the best markets of its type.  Though smaller than the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, it reminded me of that one all the same.    

The menu items up for preparation were a tomato soup with pesto and aioli garnish, a seafood paella, tomato and garlic toasted bread, and a creamy mildly lemon dessert with a burnt sugar top, reminiscent of a creme brulee.  

A fellow student, Dave from Philadelphia , and I rocked the tomato soup.  Evidently Lluis recognized that Steve was the best student for helping with the paella.  He was in front of the class for over an hour, helping Lluis with chopping, stirring, etc.  

The course took almost five hours, and seeing as how we had no food for the first three hours, nor even a glass of wine to keep us going, all of us were more than ready to devour the feast we had made. 

If you don't use it, you lose it.

Is exercise of our Constitutionally guaranteed right of peaceable assembly and free speech going to be met with pepper spray and truncheons?  As Rosa Luxemburg so perfectly put it: “Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.”

Occupy - Clayton?

Heretofore I haven't written about this event, but as Occupy Wall Street goes on, I am taking a little exception to my personal ban on political items on my blog.

As the summer's wrangling over raising the debt ceiling went on and on, I thought "this is no way to operate a country."  The debt ceiling had been raised many times under Pres. Geo. Bush, without comment and seemingly rubber-stamped by Congress.  Frankly, I hadn't even heard anything about these things till summer of 2011.

Two things seemed obvious:  that it was detrimental to our nation NOT to raise the debt ceiling, and that Republicans were doing this to make Obama look bad.  The debt situation is bad, for sure.  But not raising the debt ceiling was only going to make things worse, not better.

Therefore, on the day of the vote, Aug. 1, I responded to a Move On email to appear at Sen. Roy Blunt's office to protest the way this whole thing went down in the weeks leading up to the vote.  It was one of the hottest days of the summer, a melting one hundred degrees or so.  I took metrolink from the studio into Clayton and walked to the office building housing Sen. Blunt's offices arriving exactly at the noon time set for the protest.

Unsurprisingly, there were only a handful of other "protesters" on the scene already - less than 10 of us.  Old hippies, I guess - only two people were younger than myself.  There was a black woman of in her forties, along with her twenty something son.  There was an older man with walking stick accompanied by his gray haired wife in a denim jumper.  There was a fit looking older woman with a backpack.  There was a woman about my age who said she'd never attended such a thing, but was upset about how things had evolved.

Here's the surprise.  As I walked up to the office building, I was met in the lobby by a Clayton policeman who asked me why I was there.  I responded that I was going to Sen. Blunt's office.  He said I would not be allowed on the elevator.  In fact, I would have to leave the whole building.  It was "private property" and I had not been invited to enter.  I was trespassing, to quote him.  And he had back-up, to keep me out.  There were a total of roughly twenty uniformed policemen in the lobby, lining the steps of the building, in cars parked on the street, all armed with weapons and walkie-talkies. 

Yes, it did surprise me.  My right to speak my piece as a constituent of a duly elected public servant was deemed worthy of a phalanx of policemen to deny.

Money talks, and the voices of regular people are stifled.  I don't know if Occupy Wall Street will have any effect or not.  I didn't think my appearance at Blunt's office would have any real affect.  I wanted my voice heard, regardless, tiny and puny though it is.  Is that too much to ask?

Halloween Eve

Jim Morrison's Grave

Pére Lachaise – this is an enormous Parisian cemetery that has become a sort of pilgrimage destination for many people.  Jim Morrison, lead singer for The Doors, died in Paris in the late sixties when I was in high school.  He is buried here and his grave is a shrine to many.  Flowers and liquor bottles constantly adorn his grave.  A small crowd seems to be gathered here at almost any time of the day. 

Other famous graves are those of Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt, Moliere, Heloise and Abelard, Chopin, and more.  Wilde’s is also a shrine now, as he has become an icon of the gay community.  On the day we visited recently the headstone was covered up completely as it is undergoing restoration. 

But you don’t need to visit this cemetery just to see famous graves.  It is beautiful in its own right.  The mausoleums and headstones are quite distinctive in their architecture and design.   The plane trees in the autumn were losing their leaves, forming a pretty gold carpet on the cobblestone paths.   It's also home to ravens that perch picturesquely throughout the grounds.   

Happy Halloween!