Troubleshooting Tips for the Technically Challenged
Some tips for when your computer makes you feel like an idiot and no help is in sight.
Incidental Kids
This is something I wrote while I lived and travelled in Brazil in the early 1980s. I met the children in these pages in Brazil but they could be from anywhere, they are the kind of kids that you see every day and rarely notice. They fill up the nooks and crannies of our world, but unless they are unusually cute or appealing, they pass us by unnoticed. These five kids weren’t unusually cute but for one reason or another they each had an impact on me. Months later, I was still thinking about them, remembering their faces clearly and wondering why. Now I’ll pass them on to you.
25 Brazilian Cartoonists
In my late twenties I set out to go around the world in two years. After three years, I hadn’t made it past Latin America, but I ran across a cartoon contest, bought a camera, (should have got photography lessons), and interviewed 25 Brazilian cartoonists. I hoped to be a writer, and this is the first of 8 articles I wrote back then. There are links below the cartoons for as many of the cartoonists as I could track down.
How do you say “pep talk” in French?
Maintaining morale is the secret to learning languages. Keep believing it is possible, despite all evidence otherwise, and eventually you will improve. That’s what I tell myself.
Québec Questions
We spent August this year in Québec City taking French classes and wandering around. Distracted by my mural obsession it wasn’t until three weeks into our month in Québec that I started researching the interesting questions that had come up. Here are some of the more interesting answers I found.
Why are these dumpsters upside down?
At first I thought the upside down dumpsters were being cleaned.
Road Trip Mural Maps
Everyone loves a road trip. At least that’s the way people reacted when my Mom and I went driving from Southern Californian to Reno, Denver, Kansas City, and Wichita to see family and friends, then back through Albuquerque and Phoenix.
Part of the deal was that I’d look for murals along the way.
Kanazawa Questions
We recently spent almost three weeks in Kanazawa, on the west coast of Japan across from both Koreas and Vladivostok. We took trains from there almost every day, including the Shinkansen, or “bullet train.” They were very easy to get used to, being prompt, clean, and fast. The train pass let me forget about the cost.
This article is about questions but I love this sculpture so it gets included.
Querétaro Questions
Some questions occurred to me while visiting our son, who is working in Querétaro, Mexico. Some of the answers surprised me, and some of them led to other questions.
What is Querétaro’s altitude, and how long does it take to adjust?
My wife and I were out of breath just walking 100 feet while we were there so I wondered about Querétaro’s altitude.
Learning French in France
It’s annoying how often my wife is right. When she suggested that we spend the first two weeks of our month in Aix-en-Provence in a French language school, I was against it. The idea of sitting through three hours of classes every morning for two weeks appalled me, even though my French definitely needs improving. Taking private lessons instead was too expensive so I finally (some say inevitably) acquiesced. …
The goal of the course was to get everyone to talk French as much as possible and making mistakes was definitely encouraged. And they did a good job of making us feel comfortable even while making mistakes.
8 Croatian Books
In September 2018 we took a two week tour of Croatia and these are eight books I read before, during, and after the trip, along with a couple bookstores and an artist I found along the way.
Girl at War - a novel by Sara Nović ©2015, 316 pages
This is the first novel I read about Croatia or the Balkan war. It was written by Croatian American, Sara Nović, and though the novel seems as if it might be autobiographical, it isn’t. It came out of stories she heard from relatives while visiting Croatia after the war.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to read how a young girl, Ana, loses her parents in that war and how she survives. But as with any good writing I was surprised.
A Month In Moorea
Moorea (which means yellow lizard in Tahitian) is an island next to Tahiti and both are in French Polynesia, as is Bora Bora. Tahiti is more well known than Moorea but many Tahitians take the 45 minute ferry over to Moorea for the weekend to enjoy the beaches.
Many years ago we stayed briefly in hotels on Bora Bora and Moorea but this time we rented a house on Moorea for a month.
6 Books from Moorea and Tahiti
Moorea is an island just like Tahiti and both are in French Polynesia. (Local websites end in .fp.) Tahiti is just more well known than Moorea and has a far busier airport. But many Tahitians go to Moorea for the weekend and holidays because of the beautiful beaches and more relaxed atmosphere. It’s only a short ferry ride between the two islands.
Here are six books I’ve read so far in the month I’ve been here, that tell a bit about life on both of these islands.
- Breadfruit by Célestine Vaite ©2009 368 pages
- Frangipani by Célestine Vaite ©2008 307 pages
- Tiare in Bloom by Célestine Vaite ©2009 260 pages
These first three books are a trilogy, written by a Tahitian woman living in Australia. While pregnant, she was homesick and started writing down stories about her family back in Tahiti.
I dare you to read this book.
The book is RACE - How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession by Studs Terkel ©1992 - 335 pages.
Maybe, like me, you think you are pretty aware of most things racial, and while you rarely speak up, your heart’s in a good place. And you think you’ve been paying attention. Boy will you be surprised.
Studs Terkel, who died in 2008 just before Obama was elected President, had a talent for getting people to talk to him (and his tape recorder) about all kinds of deeply personal things. This book is taken from interviews he did, mostly in Chicago, on the subject of race. And though it is 26 years old, it feels very, very timely.
Chicago Surprises
After a month in Chicago recently, here’s what surprised, delighted, or interested me. This isn’t at all representative of the best of Chicago, it’s just what I happened across.
Murals
There were many murals; in the Loop downtown, in other neighborhoods, and even along train embankments. The train embankments are cool because the concrete blocks are almost set up like frames in an art gallery and my impression is that the city offers them to students or young artists. …
Art Institute of Chicago
It was a fascinating museum, and I very much enjoyed wandering through it. And I passed an excellent time talking with one of the guards. The interesting thing is that Marc Chagal windows exhibit, I learned was inspired by Picasso and Miró statues
14 Japanese books
On a recent trip to Tokyo, I was delighted to discover Kinokuniya, a bookstore chain with a very good English section. Usually I prefer to read authors from countries we visit, but in this case I ended up with a mix of books by foreigners writing about Japan and novels and short stories by Japanese authors. In some cases the covers probably influenced me more than they should, so I’m including them here. Plus I’ve included some notable books I read awhile back.
Musashi - An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era - Eiiji Yoshikawa (English) ©1981 970 pages (written in serialized form 1935-1939)
This novel is based on the life story of a real historical figure, Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645), who was famous for using two swords at once, winning 61 duels, founding a martial arts school, and writing the Book of Five Rings. This novel has been called the Gone with the Wind of Japan and is said to give a “romanticized slice of Japanese history.” I highly recommend it.
I spent months reading this ten years ago and found myself engrossed all the way through. And I kind of like the idea that it originally came out serialized in a newspaper in Japan. It was made into a three-part movie in 1954 by Director Hiroshi Inagaki and starring Toshiro Mifune. You can watch the trailer with English subtitles.
What kind of American are you?
At a Helsinki airport bookstore I asked if they had any books in English, by Finnish authors. I was directed to a small shelf with some mysteries and a collection of ancient Finnish poetry and then this book by Finnish journalist, Anu Partanen, comparing the social safety network of Finland, and other Nordic countries, with the United States. I was hooked.
As a world-travelled Finnish journalist, fluent in English, Anu Partanen happened to fall in love with a New York writer and decided that moving there would be easier than getting him to learn Finnish and move to Finland. After four months in New York, the Finnish government sent her a notice that she was no longer eligible for Finnish health care. Her big shock came when she started looking into American health insurance. At first thinking it was her nanny-state mentality that was causing her all this stress, she quickly realized that her American friends were equally stressed.
She was surprised that the U.S., which she considered the number one country in the world, by most standards, was so behind in many of the things she took for granted back home in Finland. This book is by no means a rant against the U.S. She’s a fan of many things about this country, (and eventually became a citizen), but she is appalled at many others. And she thinks Americans should be too.
Non diplomatic ex-diplomat
I met Judy Francis a couple years ago at a monthly French language conversation group here in Los Angeles, and I would love to speak French as well as she does. She studied at the Sorbonne, which helps.
With a long and varied career, she has retired from the U.S. State Department and says as an ex-diplomat she no longer needs to be diplomatic. But she is friendly and funny, and has fascinating stories.
The questions, and Judy’s answers below are the first in what may be a continuing series of remarkable people, to give us a chance to learn a little bit of their story.
Elis - movie about the amazing Brazilian singer
If you know anything about Brazilian music, you’ll have heard of Elis Regina, and you should go see this film from 2016, ELIS, directed by Hugo Prata, and starring Andréia Horta.
If you like Latin music, Elis Regina won several Latin Grammys in her lifetime, so you should go see this film.
If you want to see what a dictatorship feels like to a famous singer, you should go see this film.
Water Buffalo School
Water buffalo schools were mentioned in passing by our tour guide in Thailand. They sounded interesting, so here’s what I’ve learned so far.
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One tip is to stroke the buffalo’s chin and nose for him to learn your smell and show that you are gentle. The farmers also learn how to care for the buffalos when they’re ill, operate rice farms and keep financial records.
Federico Manuel, I read you and I feel less crazy
This poster on a door in Barcelona was easy enough to translate but at first I thought it was in homage to Federico Garcia Lorca. I was wrong. Turns out that Argentine artist Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos (1939-1992) was a famous philosopher, poet, and artist as well as an eccentric who made himself his artwork. On the night of an exhibition commemorating Federico Manuel’s work, Argentine artist Ale Giorgga created this poster and pasted it up and down the streets of Buenos Aires where the artist used to wander.
Boys on the Bus (and off)
The other day on a bus in Paris, we were stuck in road construction and the bus was moving very slowly.
A young boy with a schoolbag got on with a friend, and another friend ran up laughing and yelling through the door. I thought at first he wanted to get on, but he backed away, still laughing as the bus moved on.
Then he was there again, still laughing and yelling at his friend on the bus, who was making signs like he didn’t understand. Or maybe he was signalling back, I couldn’t really tell.
Our Ancestors Were Pretty Smart
A visit to the windmill Moulin des Gués in Mayenne arranged for us by the Walnut Grove Cookery School brought home to me the ingenuity of our ancestors. For the life of me, I am not sure I could have come up with even one of the many innovations in that windmill.
Originally built in 1824, this windmill has been in his family for over four generations, and Louis grew up hearing the sounds of the windmill, watching and helping his grandfather use it to grind buckwheat, or “farine de sarrasin” or “blé noir.”
Windows to the Past
Avignon, France, has paintings in upper floor windows scattered around the city.
I’d been seeing them around the city, and a local friend told me she remembered them being there for over 20 years.
Two Nights in Athens
I was in Athens a few weeks ago for two nights. I had very low expectations. I was very pleasantly surprised (and want to go back).
First of all, Athens has an excellent subway system. The kind that makes it very easy to get around, and for a visitor, it’s reassuring to know that if you can find a subway stop, you can get back home.
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Apparently there’s a lot of street art in Athens. With only two nights there, I was very lucky to find this online street art guide As seen on the streets of Athens: a street art guide by an Italian woman named Guilia Blocal. It had actual neighborhood maps and photos of street art throughout the city. I went walking both nights with a particular mural in mind as a goal, to see it for myself.
Back in Avignon
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Found this on a bar of chocolate at the Monoprix today. “Cette tablette deviendra peut-être une œuvre d’art.” which translates as “This tablet may become a work of art.”
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Back in Avignon and it feels like coming home. Knowing we’ll be here a month changes our point of view, I guess. Now I’m looking forward to riding a bike around town and exploring a bit. Though it also meant we went to Ikea for the third time in 10 days. That’s one way to avoid tourists, I guess.
This and that on the Tarn
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It was quite a surprise to see this sign on the highway yesterday. I didn’t manage to get a shot of it, so this is from a newspaper article, and the fellow is the mayor.
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There’s a big difference between having short conversations in French and realizing I’m only understanding bits and pieces of the boatman’s description on our way down the river in Les Gorges du Tarn.
Oslo Murals
Here are some murals and wall art I found in Oslo. Where I can find it, I’ve listed the artist and title. And I’ve left the GPS info in the image, so you should be able to find their locations around Oslo.
And, please, if you know anything else about any of these, or know of any other murals in Oslo, please add it to the comments. Thanks.
Norway Photos - Oslo
Here’s an interesting view from the Opera House in Oslo. We walked by this every evening. Though this was probably 11 pm or later with the sunset being so late in the summer. And while I didn’t get a good photo of it, here’s a link to an article about the floating island sculpture out in the water in front of the Opera House.
Norway is Amazing
Norway surprised us. It’s amazing. We were looking for someplace to go for a couple weeks in late June that wouldn’t be too hot, and that would be interesting and scenic. Norway is all of that, and so much more.
A long time ago I was advised by Robert Hogan, the editor of the Dictionary of Irish Literature, to always read writers from the countries I visit. That led me to look up Norwegian writers, and in my local library I found The Seducer by Jan Kjærstad, the first volume of a trilogy. I read enough to be sure I was interested, because though I always take books with me on trips, I don’t usually take 600 page library books. But this turned out to be an excellent choice.