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A Morning Walk with Rozzie
Today, I walked with Rozzie in the park. Listened to the Irish novel called Bee Sting. A Luke recommendation. I enjoy Irish novels, mostly due to the brogue on the audiobook. It’s about two teenage girls in Dublin. Both are wealthy, though one, the main character, is on the downslope. The other is a superficial pretty girl. Hijinks ensue.
A Visit to One Vanderbilt Summit
One Vanderbilt
As part of our GRE meeting, the Council did a little field trip to a new skyscraper called one Vanderbilt. It is described as an “immersive experience.” When you arrive, you are herded through some lines into a dark tunnel. You watch a loud video on a surround screen that shows the construction of the building. You wait in another line for an elevator and the immersive experience begins.
The Elevator
The elevator has mirrors all around, walls, ceiling and floor. As it ascends,there are loud sounds and flashing lights. The motion of the elevator is barely perceptible, but it must be moving fast since you get to the 91st floor in less than a minute. You exit the elevator on to an observation deck that is all mirrors and stainless steel….and people. The view of New York City is spectacular.
The Observation Deck
You walk around wide-eyed, trying to orient yourself. Your brain has trouble processing what you’re seeing. There are a number of rooms and levels. One room is full of silver balloons that people are batting around. Another exhibit is a huge screen depicting rolling clouds that form into the faces of the people viewing the exhibit. That one’s pretty creepy.
It was a great experience. I found out later that it cost $46 a person. Good as it was, I would never have paid that out of pocket. But it was a good take and I got some pretty good pictures.
The Best Artist Interview Ever
Steven Colbert’s interview of Paul Simon was the best interview of an artist I have ever seen or heard.
I came across an interview that Stephen Colbert did with Paul Simon yesterday that really moved me on a number of levels. It is posted above. It is worth watching in its entirety.
Colbert starts out asking Simon about his artist inspirations. Simon talks about the song that introduced him to Rock and Roll at 12 years old. Then he talks about his effort to educate his father, whose musical tastes were very sophisticated, about early rock and roll through the song Earth Angel.
I love watching Paul Simon. He is clearly a genius, but he has such a humility about him. It’s very touching.
Then Colbert asks him whether, in the process of writing a song, the song goes in a different direction than he intended. At that point, Simon describes the process of writing a song called Darling Lorraine, a song I’ve never heard. It was beyond brilliant. He starts out light and by the end of the story, Colbert’s audience was in stunned silence and i could feel tears welling up in my eyes.
The next high point was when Colbert described an incident when he was 13 and a Paul Simon song gave him a profound insight into his mother’s life based on her reaction to it.
Finally, and appropriately, the interview ends with the most profound question of all, ‘Do you believe in God?’ Simon answers the question as mostly yes, but turns it on Colbert and Colbert gives an answer for the ages.
Just watch it.
Storytelling by David Sedaris
https://images.app.goo.gl/6kCVBswoxGveR6rS6
I love listening to David Sedaris. To the extent I ever imagined myself to be a writer, I would want to be like him. He tells brilliantly funny stories that are full of self deprecation and insightful commentary.
On a crazy whim, I bought a subscription of MasterClass for Christmas. I justified it to myself by taking advantage of a special deal that got you two subscriptions for the price of one. And I gave one to my daughter, Bridget. She just left her job at Soccer Without Borders and was entering a period of change, self improvement and reflection. I thought she might benefit from classes taught by famous people. It’s only two months into the subscription, but I think I was wrong. I don’t think she’s watched a single one. And I haven’t watched as much as I thought I would.
Tonight, I watch two classes by David Sedaris and I really liked them. He has inspired me to write more to this blog….at least temporarily. I do got through ebbs and flows when it comes to writing. Mostly ebbs. But maybe this time it will be different.
My plan is to write little stories about things that have happened in my life. That should give me some material. And I’ll try to incorporate David’s sensibility. The way he finds the humor in every day experiences.
Maybe I’ll get a rhythm and also post photography.
We’ll see….
A Visit to the Udvar Hazy Air & Space Museum
I went on a field trip to the Udvar Hazy Air and Space Museum near Dulles Airport yesterday. The main purpose was to expose my grandson, Kieran, to the wonders of human flight. It turned out better than I expected. They have a truly impressive collection of equipment, from the origins of flight on bicycles with wings to the landing on the moon. It is kind of amazing that the time distance from one to the other was about 60 years.
In any event, here’s a gallery of pictures from the visit.
My Friend Samer
In the late 1990’s soon after the Oslo Accords that provided some hope for peace in the Middle East, I participated in a program designed to teach political communications skills to young political leaders from Israel and the Palestinian areas. We met in Paphos, Cyprus, followed by visits to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. There were eight “delegates” from each side drawn from the Fatah Party for the Palestinians and the governing Likud Party from Israel. It was an extraordinary group of young people who were willing to explore the possibilities that Oslo provided. The whole experience was life changing for me.
The leader of the Palestinian group was Samer Sinijlawi, a truly extraordinary young man in his twenties, wise beyond his years, who showed a zest for life and a world view that was both realistic and optimistic. His leadership skills were very apparent, even at that young age. Let’s just say that the group of Palestinians were very passionate and he had his hands full as their leader. He seemed destined for great things in the new circumstances that Oslo promised. I haven’t seen him in decades, but I’ve often thought of him while watching developments in the Middle East. Frankly, I worried about the safety of him and his family. And I wondered if he had maintained his positive attitude in the face of so many set backs since we’d last met.
Then, last week I read the attached op ed in the New York Times, bravely written by Samer. Like anyone who cares about the people in Israel and the Palestinian areas, I grieve deeply about recent developments. The suffering on both sides is unimaginable. It is a horrific situation that has, I assume, caused many people in the region to simply give up on peace. But apparently not Samer. His extremely well-written and courageous column actually gave me hope. And reminded me of my deep admiration for Samer. He remains a true leader. I hope and pray that his voice is heard by all people of goodwill who can still see the light in these very dark times.
Fuller Bike Adventure 2023 Take 2
This is the first time I’ve done two Fuller Rides in one year. As I write, I’m on the train from Boston to New Rochelle, NY to join the ride.
I honestly don’t know what pulls me back to these rides. The cause, the “living simply” experience, the camaraderie of my Fuller friends all play a big role. Honestly, the riding itself, while enjoyable (mostly) plays a smaller part of it.
This ride is different in a number of respects. It’s shorter than others. I usually do two weeks. This is only one week. Three hundred and fifty miles. I will be riding through my home region, New England, though not close to Boston, sadly. One big positive difference is that I don’t have to pack my bike in a box for air travel. I’m joining and departing the ride by Amtrak. Packing the bike is literally my least favorite part of these rides. It’s a huge relieve not to have to disassemble, pack, unpack and reassemble the bike twice, which was the case for almost all the other rides.
Storyworth: How Did You Bring Peace to the Middle East – Chapter 2
Two years after our experience on Cyprus with the Palestinians and the Israelis described in a previous chapter, my friend Jay F. came back with a new project related to the earlier one. Jay was working for the Peres Center for Peace, named for Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shimon Peres, whose executive director was a man named Uri Savir. Uri was Israel’s chief negotiator for the Oslo Accords, a peace agreement from the early ‘90s between the Israelis and the Palestinians. He was portrayed in the movie “Oslo” as a slender, dashing, charismatic and irreverent diplomat, a characterization of him wildly at odds with the man I got to know on this project. He was in fact smart, irreverent, funny and charismatic. Other qualities in the portrayal in the movie seemed exaggerated for dramatic effect. But that’s another story for another time.
Jay came to me with a project called the Millennium Peace Calendar. It was a large poster-sized calendar that the Peres Center had created with young Israelis and Palestinians from the West Bank who drew pictures about their dreams for peace. Those pictures decorated each of the months in the 12 month calendar. The calendar was signed by the Pope, Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela and other world leaders. It was designed to be a fundraising vehicle that would provide financing for computer centers that the Peres center would establish both in the West Bank and in Israel that would allow young people from each community to communicate with one another and build relationships across the two communities. These relationships would break the chain of hostility by developing a generation of Palestinians and Israelis who had friends on the either side of the Jordan River.
I had been at FleishmanHillard for two years by that time. I was a little more established and so I had a little more ability to get the company to approve this project. Of course, unlike the previous project, this would have been a paying client. But payment was somewhat contingent on the success of the project. In other words, we had to sell calendars. All FH asked was that we don’t LOSE money on it. I only had to break even. In the end, we never came close.
The first meeting with Jay and a woman from the Peres Center was on a Monday in early September of 1999. Since the calendar was for the year 2000, there was no time to waste. Once my general manager at FH approved the project, we had to move quickly. In fact, I had to be in Tel Aviv by the following weekend for a meeting at the Peres Center for Peace that following Monday….with Shimon Peres, the former Prime Minister of Israel. Less than a week away. And, I had to have a plan for the project by then. Yikes.
I wrote a plan in my hotel room in Tel Aviv that forecast that we would raise $10 million dollars from the calendars. We would sell them for $100 a piece. Our chief targets would be the American Jewish community.
I presented the plan to Shimon Peres and the Chairman of the Board of the Peres Center, Dov Lautman, who was the head of the Sara Lee company in Israel. They approved the plan, but before I left the meeting (after getting the picture with Peres below), Lautman pulled me aside and said, “This project HAS to work. The Peres Center is struggling financially right now and if this effort fails, it could destroy the organization.”
Me and Shimon immediately after I told him I was going to raise $10 million for his non-profit with the Peace Calendar.
Continue ReadingStoryworth: Who has been one of the most important people in your life? Can you tell me about him or her?
So many people. I could write a book about the people who had major impacts on my life. For purposes of this question, I’m going to set family aside, since by definition, they have had the most impact on my life. But that’s all of our jobs, to positively impact members of our family. Non-family members who intervene positively on our lives are, I think, a special breed. So I’ll focus on that category. And I will start with a list and finish with the person who had the greatest impact.
Continue ReadingThe Fuller Center Ride – Catchup
It’s been a month since the conclusion of the Fuller Center ride and I’ve been tormented by my commitment to do a conclusionary post. My tendency of procrastination is at its peak when it comes to writing. It is only the point at which the pain of guilt from resisting writing something I need to write exceeds the pain of actually writing that I finally succumb. So, here I am. I’m going to begin trying to catch up. The picture above is the end, but I’m going to pick up where I left off and see if I can establish some record of the ride for posterity.
Actually, I had planned an extensive project of retro-posting a day by day account of the ride. Yeah, right. That wasn’t going to happen. Instead, I will recount the highlights and lowlights in a single post so I can get this off my conscience. And I’m just going to write stream of consciousness and go wherever it takes me.
I left off on Day 2 in which the trailer needed repair. So, I’ll pick things up on Day 3.
DAY 3 – June 15th
Glendale to Louisville – 59.4 miles
It was a relatively short jaunt from Glendale to Louisville. Unfortunately, it was a day of flats for me. I got three. They were all slow leaks, so I didn’t realize my tire was going flat until one of other riders pointed it out to me. All lot of the riding that day was on the shoulder of busy 2 or 4 land roads with a good number of trucks. The flat was caused by a wire from a retread from one of the trucks. I pulled over in a clearing to fix it. It turned out to the site of a fatal accident that killed two people, Donald and Sheila Williams. As it happened, our stop was one day before the 38th anniversary of the accident, as you can see from the monument. Sorry about the bio break being taken by the rider in the background who helped me with the flat. Didn’t notice when I was taking the picture.
We didn’t get the whole wire out, which caused two more flats before I finally fixed it permanently that evening. No more flats for the rest of the ride.
DAY 4 – June 16
Louisville – Build Day
Showers at the the Louisville Fire Department. Firefighters working out. A couple of riders took advantage of the cold plunge.
Day 5 – June 17th
Louisville to Warsaw
Today’s ride was 81 miles, so not nothing. We were challenged with a passing thunderstorm that required us to take cover at a gas station. The timing was pretty perfect in that this was our scheduled rest stop. The rain continued a bit even after the storm passed. So, we had to dig out our rain jackets from the trailer. But it did cool things down.
There was one big hill at the end before a nice down hill glide into Warsaw, a very nice resort town on the Ohio River.
We had a nice dinner at a restaurant on the Ohio River.
OK, I’m going to post this and continue posting updates subsequently.
