Today is Elizabeth Peratrovich Day in Alaska. In 1945, during the debate in the Alaska Territorial Legislature on a bill mandating equal accommodation for people of all races, a senator asked “who are these people, barely out of savagery, to … Continue reading Elizabeth Peratrovich Day
This is the first full moon of the Chinese New Year, the year of the Horse. That means it’s the Lantern festival. Sitka celebrated in style with a parade down Lincoln Street. The Dragon Dancers formed up under the totem pole and danced past the Russian Orthodox Church. The Celebration included performances by groups like the Celtic Kittens dancers. Hank, our local bluesman, learned a song in Chinese and sang it. Mt. Edgecumbe High School had its own dragon dance and students in the Chinese language program sang Chinese songs. A Mt. Edgecumbe student in a kilt sang Auld Lange … Continue reading Chinese Lantern Festival, Sitka Style
I’m back in Sitka now but on my last Saturday in Tbilisi I went to my favorite gallery to look at some gorgeous textile art on UN Circle (Known locally as Round Square) and walked back to the hotel for a couple of miles, mostly along Rustaveli Avenue. It was a clear, cold day and I took some pictures. The Cafe Elvis is in the Philharmonic Hall, I like that. At the end of Rustaveli is Freedom Square with the column with a gold St. George slaying the dragon on top. The Art Nouveau bank building is around the … Continue reading Rustaveli Avenue, Tbilisi
IREX is kind enough to put me up at the Marriott Courtyard Hotel on Freedom Square. The front rooms have a wonderful view. I get to watch the traffic circling around and around the monument in an automotive ballet of near misses and skillful maneuvers. The monument had the cable skeleton of a Christmas Tree. The lights were gone but the ice frosted the cables so they formed a delicate spiderweb around St. George’s column. I got to watch the workers climb on that latticework to take it down once the ice melted. I was able to watch … Continue reading Tbilisi Through My Window
I decided to post a few more pics from my walks through Tbilisi this weekend. It is such a nice town to walk through. Enjoy Continue reading A Walk Through Tbilisi
Tbilisi has had a lot of influences being the crossroads that it is, between Black and Caspian Seas, between Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Some people say the balconies come from the Arabs, but they look almost Spanish (which, thinking about it, could come from the Arabs.) Some of these are wooden balconies from the Old City. When I originally posted wrought iron balcony pictures on Facebook my colleague Tina took me to task saying Tbilisi was famous for its wooden balconies. She is right, but I also enjoy the hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of the wrought iron … Continue reading Tbilisi Balconies
These are some pictures from Tbilisi at street level. Please look at yesterday’s post for text. Continue reading Tbilisi in the Snow, Day Two
Tbilisi is trying to erase traces of the Soviet Union, but when the snow comes and you squint you can imagine this as a Soviet City. Women of a certain age (and some of their daughters) bring out their (or … Continue reading Tbilisi in the Snow
One of the problems with the lifestyle I have chosen is that I don’t always have access to a radio station when I need one. When I heard that Pete Seeger had passed on I really felt a need to be on the air, to talk about Pete, to play his music, to connect with my “tribe” of folkies and activists. Facebook and this blog will have to do. The first time I interviewed Pete Seeger was in May, 1972 after a concert at Mankato State University. I remember it because it was the day Nixon announced we were mining … Continue reading Pete
Every city has its Journalist hangout. In Tirana it was Fideli’s, a strange cross in décor and ambiance between Beethoven’s opera and Fidel Castro. There were few working landlines in Tirana at the time, and no mobile phones. If I wanted to meet a journalist I always went to Fideli’s and usually would find him or her. My office, effectively, was there. That bar is long gone, cleaned up when Mayor Edi Rama reclaimed Tirana’s parks. In Prishtina it was Tricky Dick’s, named after Holbrooke not Nixon, although there is a famous autographed picture of Dick Holbrooke being led into … Continue reading Frontline, Tbilisi
After a good night’s sleep in Freising, Germany (on my way to Tbilisi) fueled with two double espressos, I took off to see the oldest brewery in the world, Weihenstephan. This brewery has been in continuous operation since 1040. People have been brewing beer a lot longer than a thousand years and there is evidence of brewing at this site since the mid-700s, however the monks in this monastery kept records of their beer going back to 1040. In 1802 the Bavarian Kingdom nationalized the monastery (before Marx had the idea) and it is now part of Bayerische Stattsbraueri. I … Continue reading Weihenstephan Abbey, the oldest brewery in the world
This is another trip through my archives to Reims, France. The cathedral has some nice stained glass windows by Marc Chagall. These pictures are from 2001. Continue reading Reims, France
Strasbourg is one of the “Capitals” of Europe, every year the European Parliament packs up from Brussels and heads for Strasbourg, which is also the home of the European Court of Human Rights. I suppose it is appropriate, being on the border between France and Germany, and having changed hands several times in the past two centuries. We visited in 2001. I found these slides going through my archives. Continue reading Strasbourg
Our Ninja Bat Mobile sat at Chena Hot Springs for three days. When I went to start it on Saturday morning for the drive to the ferry at Haines I had no faith that it would start without assistance. The … Continue reading Alaska Highway, January 2014
Driving south on the Alaska Highway we stayed in a Yukon roadhouse on Destruction Bay that looks Northeast across the frozen Kluane Lake. We breakfasted with a collection of travelers while we waited for it to get light. One was a guy from Kenai who drives a big rig up the Dalton Highway to the North Slope, the type of guy featured on “Ice Road Truckers.” At one point he said “I don’t know why I do this sh*t.” “Money.” Suzi replied. “Yeah, but why do they need two of this type of truck in Alpine?” He was driving a … Continue reading Breakfast in a Yukon Roadhouse on the Alaska Highway
We hit Fairbanks twice. We spent the night on the way to Chena Hot Springs at a hotel between first and second avenue and on Cushman. I first was here in the winters of 1974 and 1975. It was pipeline … Continue reading Fairbanks
Yesterday I posted my letter from Chena Hot Springs and promised more pictures from the Chena Ice Museum. The ice sculptures were carved by Heather and Steve Brice and are lit by colored LEDs. There is a wedding chapel, … Continue reading Chena Ice Museum
Steam rises in the cold air and we cross a creek that is running freely, not frozen. We’re at Chena Hot Springs — off the grid, no mobile phone, no internet. Public radio still gets to places in Alaska where … Continue reading Chena Hot Springs, 2014
When I lived in Sitka I grew to like Anchorage. OK, when I first moved to Southeast I made all the normal jokes about “Los Anchorage” or “the best thing about Anchorage was that it was 20 minutes from Alaska.” … Continue reading Anchorage, January 2014
This is a second look at Old New Year. If you want more background please look at yesterday’s post. 2001, In Belgrade right after the fall of Milosevic: We’ve been dropped back into the holiday season after it has ended … Continue reading Old New Year, Serbia
This is Old New Year’s Eve, January 13. Today and tomorrow I’m posting about this strange holiday from letters I wrote between 1996 and 2011, today 1996 – 2000. 1996: “Old New Year” sounds like an oxymoron, but in Macedonia … Continue reading Old New Year, Macedonia and Montenegro
Here is the final set of pictures from the Anchorage Town Square Crystal Gallery of Ice competition. Although they didn’t win you can see how they were put together from the initial sketches to the finishing by fire. I love the chess piece, it’s transparency and finish, and the angel fish. The ice sea turtles were a favorite for me. The artist played around with different colored gels on the lights. White, green or blue? What a joy! The Next posts are scheduled for January 13 and 14. Old New Year. By then I will be in the Yukon, still … Continue reading Gallery of Crystal Ice, 2014. Everyone Was a Winner
The Second Place award in the Anchorage Crystal Gallery of Ice carving completion went to a team of Chinese artists who carved a dragon. The dragon won first place in the artists own balloting. The third place went to “Embrace” … Continue reading Crystal Gallery of Ice 2014, the Carvers’ Choice and Runners Up.
One of the Anchorage’s delights is the Crystal Gallery of Ice. Ice artists carve blocks of clear ice in Town Square Park each winter for the delight of Alaskans and to be judged by both a panel of judges and by the artists themselves. This winter I was able to show up when there were blocks of ice and watched design sketching on ice, rough carving with chain saws and the final finish work. On some of the pieces blowtorches smoothed the surface. Ten teams competed in the contest, three form China. The next three posts will be from the … Continue reading Crystal Gallery of Ice, 2014 Frozen Window Pane