London, July 2019

I stalled on writing about this trip, but I enjoyed it so much and some people ask about it so I will post some photos and write briefly.

We often attend Metropolitan opera HD live preformances here.  I saw Javier Camarena and Pretty Yende in their performance of  Donizetti's Les fille du regiment (Daughter of the regiment).  It was a co-production of London, Vienna and NYC, so you knew it was going to be a memorable event.  Pretty Yende was so spectacular that she will forever own that role.  It will be hard to exceed her powerful voice, talent and acting.

Javier Camarena was her equal in owning his role as tenor.  The singing and whole production was so beautiful that I came home and immediately tried to order a ticket for the next performance in N.Y.  But, the broadcast one happened to be the final performance of that opera.  Then I noticed that the Royal opera at Covent garden would show it in July.  I immediately ordered a ticket and booked flights and hotels.

Being July, the weather was perfect every day.  My hotels were only a few minutes walk from Covent garden and in a great neighbourhood for a visitor.  I had a perfect seat on the main floor - orchestra level - in the 12th row.  The Royal is a really comfortable house in every way.  Many people who attend are seasons subscribers and a lot have been subscribing since Adam and Eve left open the space.  This matters because they constitute a good audience which is experienced and obedient in opera audience protocol- which is as important as the opera itself.

The performance itself was riveting from the first minute to the last.  Even the critics were sympathetic to the star soprano's dilemma as they wrote that for those who saw Pretty Yende in the role at the Met, almost any other soprano could not come close to her performance.  She sang and acted the role well.  But Javier Camarena was so spectacular that it was one of the greatest tenor roles and performances I ever experienced.  There was one aria toward the end in which he is begging the standard nasty and reluctant old lady to relent and allow him to marry The Daughter. It was just overwhelming.

I have told friends that I have read of performance where the appaluse was "thundering" but I think I had never experienced it.  But thunder in that opera house it did - truly thunder.  Tha audience went completely nuts as they did in NY every time he sang the  Ah ! mes Amis aria.  It was sincere and authentic and that aria for Bel canto lovers is the apex of musical beauty.

In NYC, in a v. rare gesture, the opera director allowed the orchestra to back up and re-play the aria and so Camarena could do an instant encore - and the same was allowed in London.  That role and aria requires a quick succesion of eight High Cs from the tenor.  With a repeat, he is blasting out 16 high Cs in a few minutes.  I have never known the equal of what Camarena did that night and again when I went back to exerience it a second time.  Even one performance of it was worth the time and expense of the entre trip. (In March, 2020 I will see him at the Met in NY starring in La Cenerentola).

I so enjoyed that I went back to my hotel and bought another ticket - best seat - for the next perfrmance in a few days.  It was an equally good performance.  But I had the misfortune of having newbie bozos in front of me and they ruined the evening. They were a well dressed young couple who were just too young and unaware to be there at all. They were bored and whispered loudly to each, she kissed him and laid her delicate head and curls on his sturdy shoulder.  All v. distracting for people around them.

What angered me was that they were also partly in front of a fine young couple to my right; he was in his early 20s and had just the day before graduated from The Royal Ballet school  - a huge achievement and honour.  Someone paid for his girlfriend to fly in for the occasion from their central Italy hometown. To be so young, and sit in the 12th row of the orchestra at the RoH is an expensive honour and was a gift from some family member - in other words, a major event for the young people.

By the middle of the 2nd act, I was so irritated - mostly for ruining my young neighbours' big event- that during a moment of applause, I leaned forward with my head right between them and said "We know you don't belong here, but could you try to act like adults for the rest of the opera?" That did not go down well with the young man in particular. They improved somewhat, but continued to whisper.  I felt so lucky to have already seen one performance with excellent neighbours in every direction.

I did many other things over nine days including returning to Windsor and Eton.  I also enjoyed Greenwich which I had not visited before. Greenwich is beautiful, historical (where time begins - the Greenwich Prime median at 0 degrees longitude - Greenwich mean time). There is a fine and extensive Maritime history and art museum. I am v. interested in fighting ships of old, and there are a lot of great maritime paintings - and who would want miss the blood-covered shirt Nelson wore on the day of his death.

One of the great and amusing pleasure of the trip was my hotel.  On a previous trip while staying near Russell Square and the Brit,. musem at the fine Montague hotel, I saw a 19th C. bldg under massive renovation and wondered what it would become.  Later I noticed on the internet that it was now a new Kimpton hotel named Fitzroy.  I stayed a couple of nights there to see what it was like - as the photos of the lobby made it look very grand ond original.

It is grand in parts.  The rooms are cleverly designed and of course as modern in every way as possible.  I have adopted a room res. protocol for myself:  I no longer want the so-called"standard room" which is today a shoe box. Instead I choose the room and rate at the next higher price (or more)  I did so at the Kimpton Fitzroy, but tho well designed it was so compact that there was still nowhere to put luggage.  It is an hotel  what were they thinking. I wondered where the maids would leave it after cleaning and they put it on the end of the bed.But it is also a part of the Holiday inn massive chain of many brands and is four white walls and not much more (altho it was quiet, nice bed, all the essential elements for comfort).

Then I moved down the street a few blocks for the rest of my stay at L'Oscar,  Wow.  This was a 5 story church bldg before renovation, to which the new owners added two stories and made 38 room in seven stories in a just new hotel in the grandest and most magnificient style.  One description said it is rich in silk, velvet, damask in red, green and gold with abundant peacock designs.  The peacock designs are something you might expect to see in a museum rather than a contemporary hotel  - in our day to day world where cheap, cheap, cheap is the mantra (L'Oscar is NOT that for sure - but not compared with most 5 star hotels in London - it is a deal).

My room was - for me - the epitome of what a hotel room should be and I felt the main room was the ideal apartment bedroom in stunning beauty and ultimate comfort. The mattress is one of those costing thusands, the comforter made from only Icelandic duck down, the furniture and fixtures all of the highest quality and custom designs.  Today, hotels really sell bathrooms and this was the king of all bathrooms.

To get an idea of this entire L'Oscar, you should look at its site or travel sites.  I am anxious to go back there in July, 2020.

 The Fitzroy at 8 Russell Sq.

 My room at L'Oscar

 great Lalique birds atop every lamp and fainting sofa at end of bed -should you faint,  or not

A remarkable new book & and interesting tribute to Yukio Mishima

Cambridge handbook of Knowledge 2019, Sternberg and Gluck et al

This is a scholarly psychology volume of about 800 pps.  Some of it is above my ability to comprehend, but there is a lot of accessible new and thought provoking information as well.  I must say that it is 800 pps and is a series of articles by many psychologists from many countries and universities and I urge you not to evaluate it by my abstractions here as they are a part of much larger concepts  - for the most part.

One of the most interesting essays states that in the XXth century, IQs in at least 12 developed nations rose about three points per decade.  The IQs in the U.S. are continuing to rise.  The significance of 30 points in 100 yrs is that 30 points is the difference between gifted IQ and average IQ, and between average IQ and intellectually challenged IQ.  In some of the dozen nations studied, IQs rose at a rate higher than three pts annually for the past 100 yrs.  No reasons are given, but being a scholarly book, we would need to comb thru dozens of referred books and dissertations to find that answer. (Canada is not mentioned among the 12 nations (Ha ha ha) altho they did say there are more.  From my experience, many Cdns know full well that as a people they are already far too smart and wise to need testing to prove it).

However, as to behaviour as a society and solving world problems, we see no progress at all.  The author notes many advances in the realm of things like cell phones, aerospace, autos, etc., but little in behaviour. "The state of the world today suggests that IQ has not helped much" . In fact she wrote "We are creating in our world a race to Samara: the destruction of our world as we know it.  (Note: This directly relates to the Henry Millier book I will mention below.  The Race to Samara is ref to a Somerset Maugham story about Death awaiting a man rushing to Samnara to avoid it).

The authors all try to define wisdom and how and when it is and is not acquired or lost.  They illustrate several possible states of non-wisdom such as Kinds of foolishness for example: unrealistic optimism, egocentrism, false omniscience, false omnipotence, false invulnerability, and ethical vulnerability.  (One category is my personal fav., which is Shallow knowledge which is one where deeper analysis or thought is avoided in favour of just accepting the believed wisdom of a leader or media).

One, or more, authors sifted through all known data published on wisdom and said it exists in two forms: lifeless, being stored in books and ...alive in the consciousness of man. (Einstein quote).  They used measurements like The Berlin wisdom paradigm (BWP - great name!) to distill a workable group of attributes of wisdom.  One consistent example listed for the acquisition of wisdom is transcendence  - or the ability to think beyond the self into a more worldly state.  Each of the conditions written are interesting and seem viable.  But I must say if you look at the above paragraph of non-wisdom and also at the list of attaining wisdom, there is one famous human who rates about 100 on non- or anti-wisdom and probably about 2 of 100 on the anti-wisdom scales - yes, the current president of the U.S.  Even now, it is genuinely shocking how he clinically rates as profoundly stupid on every metric on every scale.

However, it is amusing to me that an author mentions one method of learning beautifully named The Delphi method of ...going around recording opinions of experts in the field (which she used in her work - of course - what else).

If you have nothing else to do in your existence, or even if you select areas of personal interest,  the 2019 Handbook of Wisdom is for you.

Henry Miller, Reflactions on the death of Mishima, 1972.

This is a small book and has only about 40 small pages.  It happens that our Reference library rare books has the signed and numbered ( 200) version.  It is beautifully printed and a joy to hold and read as it is a virgin being protected in the rare book (lovely) bunker.  But it is still available in open ed. on Abe books for example.

Miller, as always, in this tribute to Mishima.   He said that the fatality of his life was his obsession with beauty, youth and death.  But he also wrote that Y.M.s suicide was in part, to emphasize his strong opinion that Japan ought to struggle to embrace traditional Japanese values instead of the dead-end Western values.

Miller believed that the West has it all wrong: that the true promise of obsessing on "...half-baked ideas such as efficiency, progress, and security is death.

The promise is death.  Death not only in litte ways but on a wholesale scale. The death of the individual, the collective...the entire planet... (This, in 1972 !!).

Recently I have been thinking of so many flat broke, hopelessly inept (economically) nations like No. Korea, Russia, Turkey, U.S. etc etc. spending so much potential wealth on armaments and creating trouble in the world  I have been frequently speculating on the state of their nations and even the world if all or most of that money was spent on their citizens and protecting the future of the planet.  But I neglected to realize that Japan is an example named by Miller.  He said that in military defeat and the lack of need for future military weaponry, the nation focused on Japanese values and rapidly rose from the ashes to an economically strong and widely wealthy nation and society.  The only other developed nation I can think of is Switzerland - where even the cows - I believe - have numbered bank accts.

Japan is always upbraided for its reluctance to admit foreigners.  But what Mishima and Miller have written ought to make us think in a slightly different direction.

Apologia:  I know the above has grammatical and probably spelling errors but I am too old and impatient to make this academically hygenic.  Anyway, I am not writing it for the Vatican or Library of Congress, only you.
 JKK

Old Queen Mary and sudden end to California drought

The Los Angeles container ship port is the 2nd largest, second only to the L.A. cargo port which adjoins it.  Most people know the port for the Queen Mary in its present state as a hotel, and as the city where millions of people go to begin their cruises to Mexico, Hawaii and the South pacific.

It was my intention to stop in Long beach mostly to take a ferry out to Santa Catalina island.  But you can easily see the reason I did not go.  In addition to the wild rain storms, the wind was very high and I am sure the ferries did not leave for most of two days.

Just because I like these

At a breakfast restaurant in Long beach of a morning.  I sit inside looking out toward the outdoor tables. A lady approached with a stuffed monkey toy, and a doll that looks much like its owner.  The lady reminds me of Lily Tomlin setting up some sort of skit.

After she sat down, she carefully arranged the monkey on the table to protect her from aggressors from the East, then equally protected against a monkey"s back, set made comfortable her mini-me facing west.  There is in the bottom photo, a champagne-like bottle which I think she also brought with her. In that photo you can see her immense turquoise fingernails which were so large, she had difficulty opening the menu.

While waiting for the waitress, she scanned the indoor tables and realized each one had a genuine fresh red rose on it  - and her's did not.  To repair this painful situation, she rushed through the door, seized a vase and rose and placed it just right on her table with the monkey, mini-me, bottle and fantastic fingernails.

This is not a matter of my joking about her.  It is not often you can compose a scene with so much depth, dense colour, competing forms, and contrasts. And not many casual restaurants are this attractive - although I saw more in California than anywhere else.

Harbor seals, La jolla, California

We see Harbor seals all along the Pacific coast.  But near San Diego they calve only on one beach; the Cove at La Jolla.  The shape of the cove provides considerable protection from White sharks - their only predator other than Orcas.  The beach is closed to humans from May for several months a year.  The mothers only tend to their own single offspring for 10 days and then return to feed in the ocean.  The kid is put into a "school" to be attended to by surrogates.


For whatever reason, seals have little fear of humans. These are the type that are used in circus and aquarium acts.  I was just reading the diary of a British explorer in 1008 who came across a creature he had never seen or heard of before. It was an 8' seal.  He walked right up to it and the seal showed no fear of him.  Unfortunately, he decided to stone it to death. So much for humans, as usual.

It was wonderful to watch the seals and babies so new that they were born just hours earlier.

I watched a real drama as a newborn that had not even been the water yet, was washed into the ocean by a wave.  The mother seemed exhausted - probably from the recent birth- and struggled to herd the calf back to shore. But the situation just worsened.  At one point, the kid discovered self-propulsion and zoomed off toward the danger zone.  As she tried to haul it back, it went under by some rocks where she could no longer help. Worse, it was dragged and slammed against nearby rocks.  Twice, for a a couple of minutes, it appeared she had lost her calf. It took about 20 minutes beginning to end, but she eventually won the day and brought the kid home.

There was one whopping male laughing (?) and maybe yawning about something.

The beauty of the juveniles - shown mostly in the pile-up above - is stunning. From a distance, you cannot tell them from the rocks along the coast they so resemble.  Up close they have many topical injuries, but are so beautiful.  In one photo, you can see one's blue coloration - resulting in the beauty of both the sea and the coastal rocks and sand.

Lorikeets, Long each California

The Long beach Lorikeets are in an outdoor, but large netted enclosure.  It opens to the public mornings at 10:30.  People line up to by $4.00 little plastic cups of nectar the birds love.  The birds know the time and start to make a lot of noise about one hour before people enter.  It is madness when they do enter.  People are instantly covered with birds.  They do not waste time on people without a little cup of nectar for them. The noise is almost deafening, but more beautiful than hip hop or like music.

Near the exit, where people have already donated their supply of nectar, I saw one bird all alone who did not seem healthy.  It was complaining loudly about no nectar. I told him that if he wanted to go with me, I would find someone who had a nectar cup.  He replied loudly and often.  I told him again and waited.  After about another minute, he flew to my shoulder and we walked back toward the entrance together where there would be fresh supplies of nectar.

Soon we found a little girl with the prized liquid.  I had to bend down in a C so the bird would lean over my shoulder to the girl's wrist.  The parrot really enjoyed the liquid.  But the girl's father said "This is no good. I want you to have your own bird on your hand, not on somebody's shoulder."

By this time, the parrot was so happy with the situation that it had jumped to my own wrist and was still drinking the nectar.  The father then said "Let's go.  I want to find  your own bird."  And he pulled the girl away while the parrot was still drinking.  But now the unhealthy little Lorikeet saw people arriving with new supplies and flew closer to the entrance to get what it needed.

And they all lived happily ever after,

My winter quarters

The Toronto public library system encompasses 100 libraries with 10 million volumes.  I constantly order books online which are sent from their home libraries to my neighbourhood one for pick-up.
However, the Central reference library is huge and holds books that cannot be lent or removed for any reason.  Hence, the book you want is always available and almost always is less marked up, covered in spilled and errant DNA samples than those that go home for a great deal of abuse.

Many books over 10 years old, are not held on open shelves. I always order them online before I leave home.  The books are collected from closed stacks and delivered to a 2nd floor station where I collect them, and then must read them in the library.  This is often onerous with a 300-800 page book and on the hard wood chairs in reading areas. Still it is air conditioned in the summer and gets one out of the house.

Over the past three years, the library - which dates from the late 60s -  has gone through something of a refreshment, and a bold and insane shifting around of every book and category in the place. The results are actually a welcome surprise and utterly practical.

I like the symmetry and angles which seem to the hills, valleys and detours of a natural woodland invaded by yard sticks and geometry gnomes.

Above, on the top left or sets of black units with blue tags on them.  They store periodicals and are motorized.  The press of a button moves each 18' set of shelves to the aisle you require.  The little squares on the bottom are tables on the main floor with a few humans seated. this was early morning and by 11 all the tables will be filled with far more humans.  In the right bottom corner, you can see rows of chairs along a bar table looking into the atrium.

Every floor has high speed computer access for laptops.  But behind those rows of books are reading  table and also dozens of fixed internet and research computers.

If you look at the top centre of this view, you can spot three chrome circles on the floor.  Inside of the circle are two comfortable chairs, and a table.  They are actually glass enclosed carrels that can be reserved for meetings, skype, or maybe a small family fight.  There are about 12 in the library and must have cost plenty as a donation plaque for the cost by some wealthy family is affixed to each one.

 Up at the big blue screen is where I pick up my reserved books.  I use a lot of 19th and 20th C. books and rare (delicate) books that are never on open shelves.
Below that on the main floor you can see a lot of computers - which need to be booked with a cardholder for a couple of hours at a time.  You can see another line of them on the steps - there are many more lines on risers.  There must be more than 100 in this area and probably nearly as many spread throughout the building.
On lower right - behind that table - is the stair down (and up too) the huge, comfortable and attractive newspaper room.  It is a favourite place for the homeless to sleep, wet their pants and discharge their  bed bug collections.  Due to the harsh summer heat and nasty winters, the homeless do frequent this otherwise fine structure - and amazingly those computers (how I don't know as you need a valid address to get a library card).

Of course, one sympathizes with their plights.  However, it evaporates pretty dang fast when you stand up from sitting on a hard chair (blond wood) and your pants are wet to your knees because the previous sitter urinated there before you sat.

The 5th (top) floor is almost entirely devoted to music, art, and theatre. On the left above you will see eight 20' rows of  musical scores from 18th C. to classical to jazz to Broadway.  They go on forever. Another huge section is all theatre plays, and larger than anything else, art and also fashion books.

At the far end is a new  heavy security, glass enclosed rare books, collections and delicate books room with many reading tables.  If I want to avoid people coughing (necessary for me) or urinating, or sleeping, I can retreat in there are they allow me to stay - usually I am alone or maybe one other person is there.  Somewhere behind there are a couple of grand pianos for practice.

In closing, I must mention that all these improvements were apparently approved before the infamous drunk and drug using pre-trump redneck Mayor Rob Ford came into office.  His campaign slogan was Stop the gravy train. Once in office, he found little to chop, and now that he is gone, many of the things he did chop need upgrades or repairs due to neglect.

But, being a genuinely ignorant redneck who probably never entered any library ever, the entire T.O. library system faced ruin.  He reminded one of Lisa and Bart Simpson riding their bikes past a building with the word library on a sign out front.  Lisa mentioned "books" and Bart said, "oh, so that's what they keep in there - books.  I always wondered what they were for."

But much to the credit of City council, the main library - at least - is actually better after the end of his tragic ( that is fatal ) terms.