Two Hungarian Painters

This post is about two Hungarian painters we encountered on opposite ends of our vacation. On May 25 our Viking bus tour took us to the Budapest opera house, following which we went to the Müvész Kávéház, to sample some remarkable cakes. But the interior of the dining room also impressed us. On the wall…

A Hotel – Museum

Travel of course acquaints you with new places. But it also has a tendency to make you think about big ideas. In May  2017 we took a trip to Budapest to begin a week-long Viking cruise on the Danube. We reserved a two day extension with Viking and they put us up at the luxurious…

Rotation of Champagne

In 2012 my wife and I spent our vacation in France, staying a week each in Alsace, Champagne, and Paris. One day we took a winery tour at the Moet-Chandon headquarters in Epernay. A great tour, we highly recommend it. One of the interesting things we saw was a machine that is programmed to rotate…

The Armed Man – a mass for peace

The evening of May 6, 2017, I attended a performance of Karl Jenkins’ "The Armed Man – a mass for peace"  by the Albany Pro Musica Masterworks Chorus (José Daniel Flores-Caraballo, director) and the Pro Musica Orchestra (Anne-Marie Barker-Schwarz, director). A film by Hefin Owen containing many wartime scenes, ranging from images of medieval soldiers to nuclear blasts, was played…

A Tranquil Confidence: Four Women of the Belle Epoque

  I want to share with you an appreciation for the paintings of Marie-Therese Durand-Ruel by Renoir; Elisabeth, Countess Greffulhe, by De Laszlo; and two others, Lady Richmond and Jane de Glehn, by Sargent. To me they represent an essential characteristic of the civilization they lived in: a tranquil confidence. The Renoir picture of the…

Woman in Gold

My wife and I watched Woman in Gold on Netflix yesterday. How we missed this in the regular theater I cannot say. It is an excellent film, that depicts the efforts of Maria Altmann, a refugee from 1938 Austria, to recover the portrait of her aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, painted by Klimt in the early 20th…

Look Who’s Back

I happened to come across the movie "Look Who's Back" on Netflix the other day. Over the course of a few days I watched it, in little snatches, not because I did not have enough time for a single sitting but because I found it hard to take for more than a few minutes. Here…

Beach Bush, Sullivan’s Island

I took this picture with an Iphone in January 2015 on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, not far from the distinctive round beach house on the ocean side. I was amazed at the detail that came out when I had a 20 x 30 inch print made - so much so that I had it framed.…

About France

I have read about a couple of authors who have characterized the French as being disappointed and discouraged. The theory is that the idea of France as a leader of civilized life has suffered a check. The idea is that the French are envious of the role that English plays in today’s world. I hope…

A Failed Audition

I have been singing as an extra with Albany Pro Musica since 1990. This despite not being able to read music, at least not at the beginning. This failing of mine, that dates back to grade school when my parents and teachers allowed me to opt out of music class in exchange for doing more…