Endangered Species: The Pub...and the Cafe

This piece in the New York Times of the endangered species, the British pub, harshly reminds me of all the changes in free-time occupations I once thought were normal.

In New York City, I had my favourite spots to lunch, brunch, drink coffee or have the occasional drink.  Many are gone.   But they were often my life savers.  I could stop after work or perhaps during a long lunch hour somewhere, sit a wee bit and stop the brain from churning and burning.

New York City

I even had a favourite "crying bench" on Astor Place opposite one of the agencies I frequently visited, an organisation I always had to fuss with and about and even occasionally shed tears over.

Northampton, MA Main Street

In Western Massachusetts, I had several stops, one just a set of stairs leading to a candy shop that sold excellent coffee, and had small tins that I fancied.

Amsterdam, the Netherlands Cafe-Pub

In Amsterdam, I generally went to the Stedelijk Museum for coffee with friends.

Here in the Upper Delaware, there are too few cafes and I only go when passing them on the highway or when I am desperate for a total change of environment.

I miss the cafe, and the pubs.  I miss them because they were congenial, and most of all I miss them because it is where I did my best writing.

This is how I feel.....more snow!

Alphonse Mucha 1897

Alphonse Mucha 1896

Mornings and early evening are the worst.  Temperatures are so low in the morning, I creep out from under my two quilts, and race to the warmest room in the house.   I put one foot after another into the warmest trousers I own, over long-janes and grab those socks.  Even in the house I am wearing boots.

Will it never end?

I try to remember other winters that seemed so cold, so long, so treacherous for the front wheel drive automobile.   I know they existed. 

Was it the winter I commuted, first by car, then by bus, from Providence to Boston?   I remember one night arriving at the bus terminal to find my car, literally buried.  After digging her out, it seemed I was the single driver on the roads of the City.

Was it the winter of my first wedding anniversary when the snow was so high we walked rather than rode downtown in the road because it was the safest, and was absent of cars?

Or was it the year I was four and have a photograph of snow up to my waist, enjoying it!

Trapped but can Waite

With more than one foot of snow, and snow still coming down, I am trapped until I can slowly dig myself out.  I did try around half past six, but suddenly as my shovel hit the packed mounds, more snow came and I came back inside.

Facing the first road from my house ©

Shovel laying idle and still more than 40 feet from car ©

But yesterday, no internet, and not boredom but that trapped feeling I watched some old "Bones" episodes and who should appear but Ralph Waite as FBI Agent Booth's grandfather.   My watching came directly on the heels of reading that he had died on Thursday (February 13, 2014) at age 85.

Ralph Waite

I was not a frequent viewer, but definitely watched Ralph Waite in his landmark television program, The Waltons.

I am, however, a frequent NCIS viewer and always found some strange tingle that Mr. Waite was Gibbs' (Mark Harmon) aging, but lovely father.   The casts that shared Ralph Waite with younger television audiences honored him together.   The obituary in the New York Times appears to be the most complete.

Pelikan Ink - Circa 1990s

I suspect I bought this ink in Providence (RI) on College Hill at Morrison's when I bought my Pelikan M200.  It cost $3.50 plus tax.

I filled a Waterman Phileas with it today, 20 years later, and it seems just fine.

For most...it is too late!

This trove of artwork in the hands of Cornelius Gurlitt is a great find, but for most of those who left behind their artwork, and all those whose lives were lost, this revelation is painful.

Lugano (Switzerland)

I had friends who spent most of the post War years living in Lugano so that they could overlook Germany.  Neither stepped foot in their country of birth again.  They were among the affluent and fortunate to have escaped with their lives and with a consideration portion of their wealth but not their art collection.  I visited them in 1967 and although this part of Switzerland is breathtaking, it was also heart stopping to realize the pain that Tamara & Gerald felt in their retirement years.

Gurlitt house

I also know a little of the Hanau family story and it remains clear that no restitution is possible for a family who had a town named after them but did not fully survive the war.  The father escaped Franfort with some cash, leaving his wife and two children behind believing they were safe.  Safe is a relevant term and his wife and two children suffered greatly with their mixed religious status, hiding and then leaving for Israel.  The father was caught in southern France, interned, concentrated and exterminated.

Work by Otto Dix of Glazer Family

The Hanau family had a large art collection, but no relatives with knowledge of the art work are alive to claim them. 

Who will directly or indirectly benefit from the collection 70 years later, 70 years I consider too late.

Yo te quiero mucho, Valentine's Day and e.e. cummings

In 2009, I made a promise to myself that I would do a series of collage entitled, "yo te quiero mucho."  It has taken me all this time to establish a routine to keep this personal commitment.

Thus far, I've completed six of 19.  I had hoped to call the project "finished" by the end of January but numerous technical problems kept interfering with that deadline: acrylics too old or too cold, no local shop to photocopy images, bad weather, and my own slow process in a not very ideal work environment.

TB, Zurich, Switzerland, 1967 © Z. Hecht

I've left three of the collages for last of the those people who had the most profound influence on my love life, something in line with e.e. cummings poem:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

 

The poem remains under copyright to the e.e.cummings estate

After the Safari, Why not be Metropolitan

All the disappointment with the Hero 359 is all but forgotten when compared to the Pilot Metropolitan, an equally inexpensive fountain pen  which I bought at Goulet Pens.

Although I bought it with reservations and hesitated to push buy in July, I now find it in my hand and on my person often.  It is smooth to the touch, easy in the hand, neither heavy nor light, and a respectable shape.

It has a satisfactory converter which in my opinion can be a make or break for a pen and is an essential in any c&c fountain pen.

Pilot Metropolitan Closed ©

Pilot Metropolitan Open ©

It's single draw-back, the pen appears to only come with a medium nib.

Vanishing Landmarks, erasing my past

This month alone I've learned the fate of the Folk Museum on 53rd Street, the library on the opposite side of the street, and today about Rizzoli Bookstore on 57th Street.  Yes, it takes me that long to read the Sunday Book Section!

Rizzoli Bookstore, 57th Street, NYC

Why does New York City have so little respect for an historical perspective on its buildings?

Sixth Avenue became the Avenue of the Americas and one long corridor of glass.

Coney Island was torn down and replaced with rubble.

The East and West Villages have lost much of their charm with the University's enroaching grab at one building after another.

The list is endless and mind boggling.

And Rizzoli is where I bought my first over-sized art book on Rodin more than 40 years ago .

The Dangers of Certainty

It is unimaginable to think I may have to give up reading on line when a piece like this hits my daily inbox.

It is never too late to listen to a man like Dr. Jacob Bronowski, and really pay attention to his sensitive gestures and his words.



"The Ascent of Man," was available in the United States.  I believe i saw all 13 episodes when it was released here, but I was a different person then.  I feel certain that working in science I often made the error of thinking I knew when really I was just learning.

And today, too few recognize the difference between the act and the result.