My First Blue-Footed Booby

My first blue-footed booby.

After this one, I saw a whole colony of boobies on a small conical volcanic island. ON the lowest shore were crabs, sea lions, and marine iguanas. Above them nesting blue-footed and masked boobies. At the top, swirling around, were magnificent frigate birds, getting ready to nest. I spied the red and engorged throat on one as he flew past the boat.

Cruise on the Luna Azul

We had a very long and rough boat ride across to the next island to the north on a fine boat called the Luna Azul -- max speed 37 knots. Finally, we arrived at the dock:
At the dock, sea lions and marine iguanas were resting -- together!

Also a pelican --
Our walk through the high country was very pleasant with light warm rain. We saw volcanic formations and caves (once used by pirates and whalers). We saw another breeding station for the Galapagos tortoises. And we saw lots of finches.


This strange Easter-Island type head might have been carved by European visitors or residents. Or maybe if you stretch the imagination by mainland natives who came from time to time by ship to take tortoises for oil and meat --

The water part of the trip after lunch and a hike had its points, though I admit I had a snorkeling panic and had to be rescued on the first try. The second try, I swam with a baby sea lion and heard the sea lion families calling hoarsely back and forth.

A Galapagos Finch

Darwin Research Station

First, a beautiful bird photo by Lenny. We had a spectacular walk to the Darwin research and breeding station just up the street from our hotel. It includes several buildings with maps, photos, and other explanatory material about the wildlife, and we were also accompanied by a very good guide.

Workers at Darwin rescue baby turtles, land iguanas, and other endangered animals and raise them in a natural setting. When the animals mature and their habitats on other islands are returned to a good condition (especially without introduced predators) they are returned to the wild. Baby tortoises can be eaten by rats, for example. We saw a group of men on a truck taking a tortoise down to the dock for return to the wild. The area is also full of birds: we saw several of the famous species of finch.

On the dock, the crabs and marine iguanas are wild --



The tortoises are quite amazing --


We did not get to see Lonesome George, the last of his tortoise species, as he was hiding in his corral. However, these three huge tortoises of a safe species are thought to be around 200 years old --

Flying to the Galapagos

To our surprise, our seats on the flight from Guayaquil to the Galapagos were in first class. Very comfortable. From the air, we saw the city --

And we saw the harbor from which we expect our various boat tours will depart during the next week --

We are checked into the Hotel Silberstein. So far so good. We are going up to the Darwin research station in a little while.

Hello from Miami

We are spending several hours in the "Admiral's Lounge" in the Miami airport, waiting for our flight to Guyaquil. So far so good. Lenny claims this is the first time he has read an actual pink paper copy of the Financial Times (he says he's only read it online). I seem to remember having read it at some point in my life. In Cambridge? I never found it very compelling on or offline.

If all goes as planned, we will be in the Galapagos tomorrow by around lunch time.

Marcel Duchamp's Chess Partner

I'm always fascinated by Marcel Duchamp, who spent years secretly working on art projects while claiming he did nothing but play chess. So of course I liked the reference to him in the N.Y.Times obituary of Andor Lilienthal, Chess Grandmaster, who just died at age 99:

Coffeehouses were natural haunts for many of the best players. In his book, “Chess Was My Life,” Mr. Lilienthal described encounters in 1929 with Mr. Capablanca, in the Café Central in Vienna, and with Mr. Lasker and Alexander Alekhine, the fourth world champion, at the Café König in Berlin in October 1929.

At the Café de la Régence in Paris, once the epicenter of chess in Europe, Mr. Lilienthal regularly played with great players like Savielly Tartakower, but also people better known in other fields, including the artist Marcel Duchamp, who Mr. Lilienthal said was “the most talented French player,” and the composer Sergei Prokofiev, who was of master strength, according to Mr. Lilienthal.

Thanks, Elaine, for the suggestion that I read this.

My Bizarre Day

This morning I needed to hem a pair of pants for Len, for our trip later this week. The sewing machine gave me all kinds of trouble. Finally after I hemmed one leg, the machine quit altogether. If it had quit on the first one I could have done both by hand -- but now I had to find a machine or they wouldn't match.

I called sewing machine stores. They all have no interest in helping a desperate housewife with a sewing emergency. Plus one of them moved to Florida but kept the local phone number. Is sewing an in thing to do or out of style? Subject for another time.

I started calling neighbors. No one was home except one other retired woman whose machine is broken too. My neighbors are all at work at 10:30 on a Monday morning. And probably too modern to own a sewing machine.

Finally I tried my neighbor Kathy. Here is what I thought happened: she said her machine was fine, and that I could bring the pants over and finish them.

Here is what really happened. Neighbor Kathy's number is ONE DIGIT away from ANOTHER friend named Kathy. The digits are 4 or 9 so they even look alike. Yup. I dialed my other friend Kathy, whom I haven't seen in around 2 years. She has caller ID so she knew right away it was me. I thought the voice sounded a little different than that of neighbor Kathy, but I arranged to use her sewing machine.

Thinking I was all set, I walked down the block to neighbor Kathy's house. She let me in, and said she would finish the hem on the second pant leg. What she was really thinking (I know now) is how strange I was to show up at her door and assume she would let me use her sewing machine. However we had a nice conversation about what was new in her life (two kids graduating from U of M with Obama speaking last weekend) and she said she would bring the pants back to me in an hour or so.

A few minutes after my neighbor Kathy brought back the pants, my friend Kathy phoned and asked when I was going to come use her sewing machine -- she had expected me right away. At this point, we straightened out the mix-up and had a long conversation about our last 2 years. And about how this was such a coincidence that such an odd thing brought us back in touch.

Then I called neighbor Kathy -- dialing very very carefully -- and explained why I had showed up unexpected at her door with my sewing project that she had done for me. She was relieved (I think) that I'm really not as weird as I seemed. And agreed that it was a really funny coincidence.

Happy Mother's Day

This is my present. Miriam and Alice picked it out for me on a visit to the Smithsonian. I bet they are cooking something for Evelyn this morning! Such thoughtful little girls.

Japanese Pottery at the Freer Gallery

Stoneware Tea Bowl with Plovers

Water Jar for Tea Ceremony with Plum Blossoms

Serving Dishes

Porcelain Bottle

Bottle in Tea-Whisk Form

The Freer Gallery on the National Mall in Washington is one of my favorite museums. Each time I return the displays include somewhat different parts of their extensive collection of Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and other Asian art. These Japanese ceramics were part of an extensive display of tea ceremony vessels. All date from the Edo period (1650-1670).

The Garden Grows

First (left), our garden last week; then, our garden in 2006. It was completely redesigned and planted in 2005. The trees have grown some, but it's pretty stable.

Absurdist Mona Lisa (maybe the best kind)

I always love it when they reproduce Mona Lisa in mirror image, too.

Fastest Mona Lisa

LARGEST Mona Lisa

According to "World's largest Mona Lisa appears at Shanghai Expo" 999 Chinese painters (who usually make copies of famous masterpieces for the export trade) created this 300 square meter work of gigantic art. Each small square is 30 by 20 cm. The work was unveiled yesterday.

"All the painters work in Dafen Cun Oil Painting Village, a famous village in Longgang District, Shenzhen, which produces copies of all kinds of art," the article explains.

Both the existence of the huge Mona Lisa and of the huge industry for copied paintings are amazing pieces of information.

New Car

Here is our new Ford Fusion. It has all kinds of great options like a camera that shows what's behind you. The image appears on one side of the rear view mirror. Very clever. We took a ride out in the countryside, where we took its photo.

Well Beyond Dada

One of the Marcel Duchamp mysteries that had occurred to me as I've viewed reissues of his works in museums throughout the world is this: How in the 1960s did he manage to find not one but quite a few urinals of the exact sort that he originally signed R.Mutt for the famous non-judged art show in 1917? The original work, titled "fountain" was rejected and then lost or smashed -- no one knows what actually happened to it. A photograph survived.

I speculated that the chosen object that he elevated to art status was so common that they could still somehow be found in men's rooms of antique vintage. But it seemed ridiculous, even in the light of Duchamp's statement that plumbing was one of America's contributions to the world of art (or something like that).

This article -- illustrated by the photo at right of the original and a reproduction -- has the answer:

“Fountain” was not a coveted art object until well after the second world war, when Duchamp became a cult figure among Pop artists. In response to the art world's desire to see his legendary lavatory, Duchamp authorised curators to purchase urinals in his name in 1950, 1953 and 1963. ... Then in 1964, in association with Arturo Schwarz, a Milan art dealer, historian and collector, the artist made the momentous decision to issue 12 replicas (an edition of eight with four proofs) of his most important ready-mades, including the urinal. ... One of the many ironies of the Schwarz urinals is that they are carefully crafted earthenware sculptures modelled on the Stieglitz photo of the “original”.

The article continues with a discussion of the locations and the mysterious appearances of other signed and unsigned urinal replicas that may or may not be authentic Duchamp remade readymades. Needless to say the concept of authenticity is elusive in this discussion. No surprise: Andy Warhol played a role. All the usual dada antics resurface as I love them to do. The article concludes:

Duchamp's relationship to commerce was not naive. Although he preferred to give away his work rather than sell it, he made a living as an art dealer for many years. Duchamp was also an able chess player who could think a good few moves ahead. One wonders whether the Dada master, who challenged the notion of the authentic artwork, might not be amused by the way these questionable “Fountains” muddy the waters of his current market. “My production,” he once said, “has no right to be speculated upon.”

Duchamp set up the art world and keeps playing tricks long after his death. What a pleasure for a lover of dada. Almost better than his most famous remade readymade, Mona Lisa with a drawn-on mustache. For more see Marcel Duchamp is Relevant.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi

In the museum in Toronto yesterday, I saw a fascinating work (left). It depicted a face by using bodies and depicted hands by using legs and feet. Obviously, this reminded me of Arcimboldo, who composed faces of many different things -- fruit, books, animals... The image was part of a depiction of the earthquake in Tokyo in 1855. The work, according to the label, is from an album of prints made by anonymous artists just after the quake, and depicts a carpenter with the tools of his trade shown on his kimono; in his hand is gold, suggesting that he was profiteering (I think). The image composed of faces is said to be directly influenced by by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861).



I found the original image of a man composed of human forms in an article about Kuniyoshi, "one of the great masters of the 'floating world,' or Ukiyo-e, school of Japanese art." The author says: "One of the most intriguing aspects of Kuniyoshi’s creative personality was his openness to ideas from the West. ... 'He Looks Fierce But He’s a Really Great Guy' [here, right] shows a grotesque human face formed from an assemblage of naked male bodies, which is uncannily close to the works of the sixteenth-century Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo. There is no actual proof that Kuniyoshi knew Arcimboldo’s work."

Why I hate New York

I never go to New York. Since my last time in NY I've been to San Francisco, LA, Washington D.C., Sydney, Wellington, Tokyo, Paris, London, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Venice, Hong Kong, Toronto, and a lot of other cities as well as other types of travel. But I feel like they always mistreat me in New York. Frank Bruni's articles about bad actors in the restaurant business often confirmed my aversion. Here's today's New York cheaters story from the New York Times:

New York Cabs Gouged Riders Out of Millions
Thousands of taxi drivers overcharged riders more than $8 million by switching the meter to double the rate, according to the Taxi and Limousine Commission. About 3,000 New York City taxi drivers routinely overcharged riders over two years by surreptitiously fixing their meters to charge rates that would normally apply only to trips outside the five boroughs, according to the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission.

Mona Lisa from my friend Marianna

Zombie Vultures ate my T-Top Part II

As I mentioned here, the big risk from vultures in the Everglades is that they love to strip out gaskets from cars.


Despite their evil ways, Len took this flattering portrait of one of the vultures:


The National Park Service has tried to deter the vultures by hanging a vulture corpse high above the parking lot. The vultures don't seem to learn from this example. If it would work to actually shoot some of them in the act, they will never know -- vultures are a protected species. The one depicted at left died a natural death, or so says the Park Service sign.

Best Birds

Most of the photos posted during our trip to Florida were the ones I took with my compact camera. Here are some favorites Len took with his SLR.

The anhinga is also called a "snake bird" -- see why?

The Morikami Gardens

Here are Jean and Jack, who walked with us through the beautiful Morikami Gardens near Del Ray, Florida today. Mr. Morikami was part of an agricultural settlement near here in the first quarter of the 20th century. After the end of the settlement (and its unconscionable confiscation in World War II) he remained in the area and acquired a large tract of land, which he donated to the state for a park and Japanese garden.

Other contributors have allowed development of a cultural museum, a large park building including a great restaurant and gallery, and virtually every type of historic Japanese garden. All the paths wind around a large natural pond, with some artificial streams and waterfalls. Fortunately from time to time the sun shone on us as we walked along these paths.

A Deer Scarer -- this long tube fills with water, over balances, hits the lower stone with a large noise (to scare the deer) and then tips up and fills again.

A classic stone garden is among the very beautiful and numerous gardens here. The garden does not include labels to tell the visitors the names of the plants. The idea of a Japanese garden is the whole, not the individual parts. I appreciate this philosophy!

Surrounding the museum building are a large number of Bonsai and other dwarfed trees and plants. I was especially fond of this one, because it was in bloom. Many are twisted and formed quite beautifully. They compliment the impressively formed trees in the full-sized gardens, which are often staked with horizontal round staves of smooth wood to retain a desired shape.

The museum displays change from time to time. Today there were several rooms from a typical Japanese house, such as this kitchen. Note that visitors are told to open the refrigerator and cupboard doors to see (behind plastic shields) the contents that might be present in a Japanese house. There were also other rooms: even a non-working example of an electric toilet.

Wakodahatchee Wetlands

This morning we took a beautiful walk on the mile or so of boardwalk at Wakodahatchee Wetlands between Del Ray and Boynton Beach where we're staying. The Palm Beach County water company recycles water through this artificial wetlands, where we saw a large softshell turtle, teal, moorhens, ibises, herons, alligators, a little palm warbler, a wood stork, and lots of other creatures. Unfortunately, it's kind of cold here, but still warmer than the Michigan high temps.