James Lockhart Perry's Blog, page 18

Paris

We regret to announce that you can no longer recklessly lather up your lips with lipstick and kiss Oscar Wilde’s tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery. In an unusual gesture for Paris, the authorities have chosen public sanitation over romance in erecting a plate glass barrier around the grave too high for even the tallest of human lips.

The cemetery authorities actually made the change in 2011, but Lockhart wasn’t blogging then. If he were, he gladly would have warned any last-minute smoochers to literally get in their last licks before it was too late. Sorry about that. The monument looks pretty drab these days without the fan decoration, but maybe hospitalization statistics have improved???

Filed under: Travels Tagged: France, Travel

Terminal Island

Lockhart prefers two of the older names for this island in Los Angeles Harbor–Rattlesnake Island or Deadman’s Island (after the latter was dynamited and added to the landfill here)–considering one of the more infamous episodes of its history.

The fishing Japanese-Americans who settled here called it Fish Island and, without bridges to the mainland, developed an odd culture and even dialect that never completely landed them in either country. Not that it mattered after December 7, 1941, and Pearl Harbor. The entire adult male population was immediately rounded up by the FBI and sent to prison without trial. The rest of the inhabitants were shortly thereafter bussed off to interment camps for the duration of World War II without the slightest excuse other than pure hysteria. Everything has to start somewhere, and this operation gave rise to President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 and the instant dispossession of an entire race of American citizens.

After the war, the stolen island was taken over by various maritime enterprises–all safely in Caucasian hands–which have nearly all gone bust by now. The road out past Al’s Boatyard and all those empty yards, rusty cranes, and dreary hulks leads to the immaculate Federal Terminal Island Correctional Facility, home of the Manson Family during their 1970 trial. Karma indeed.

The statue in the photo was erected in 2002 by descendants of the lost fishing villagers. The dignity of this memorial at the entrance to the island says everything about the victims and nothing about the perpetrators.

Filed under: Travels Tagged: California, Travel

Tehon Pass

For the uninitiated, The Big One refers to a magnathrust earthquake predicted by some geologists for the San Andreas Fault in Southern California, to occur sometime in the next century.

What makes the event particularly threatening is the string of finger faults that feed off the main fault all of the way from Los Angeles into Orange County. The LA Basin contains more than eleven million souls and a sizeable percentage of American productive capacity. Within minutes, the story goes, a rupture in the San Andreas could trigger these finger faults, kill all kinds of people, and destroy the work of centuries.

The Northridge quake of 1994–a minor tremor by comparison–lasted just 20 seconds (in the main rupture), killed 57, and caused $20 billion worth of damage. It burst Lockhart, wife, and children out of bed at 4:31AM more than fifty miles away, an experience no one is in a hurry to repeat. Friends nearer the epicenter were thrown five feet into the air and watched refrigerators careen across kitchens and through walls.

The photo shows the San Andreas Fault where it crosses Interstate 5 in the Tehon Pass north of Los Angeles. Beautiful for something so deadly, isn’t it?

Filed under: Travels Tagged: California, Travel

Venice-Boothville

Everything has to end somewhere, and the Mississippi River, The Great River Road, and the peninsula at the very tip of the State of Louisiana all peter out near this magnificent Black Cormorant bayou in the famous Mississippi delta. The mighty river and its road arrive here after flowing and running through ten States and 3,765 km, all the way from the Canadian border.

Speaking of endings, these cormorant trees get their looks from the bird droppings, which are slowly killing the roots. The cormorants will nest and pollute here until the last tree collapses, then fly off to lay waste to another forest somewhere. But they are an ancient species, vaguely related to the pelican, and have been doing this since the time of the dinosaurs. Human policies have ranged from extermination to protection to taming of these expert competitors for the fish population.

We don’t recommend traveling here during hurricane season. Georges, Katrina, and Irene all flattened the area.

Filed under: Travels Tagged: Louisiana, Travel

Paris

One of the many great pleasures of Paris in nearly every season is the impromptu classical string concert put on Sunday mornings in the colonnade of the Place de Vosges. The passageway’s acoustics are superb, and the students who form the bulk of the pick-up mini-orchestras take full advantage. The ensemble changes constantly and with it the pace and character of the music, but these are serious artists, and this is one show not to be missed.

Filed under: Travels Tagged: France, Travel

Julian

Lockhart first arrived in the California desert expecting to find Lawrence of Arabia–all romantic, pristine sand dunes with wisps of dust devils trailing off into the air. The reality was more of a trash heap, at least in the more accessible areas, with all manner of household and industrial waste strewn across the landscape.

Nowadays, he realizes things are a little more nuanced than either impression. One thing is certain–as this photo from the Anza-Borrega Desert shows, nature isn’t taking the human invasion lying down. Sooner or later, everything gets swallowed up. It might take decades or even centuries, but the desert is a living, breathing organism that has been around for eons longer than we have and will remain long after we’re gone.

Filed under: Travels Tagged: California, Travel

Ciudad de México

You never know whom you’re going to meet in Mexico City. Here, Lockhart and wife were minding their own business at the Aztec ruins off the Zócalo, when they were swamped by the Miss Universe pageant.

The contestants do these side trips to provide local color for the eventual show, but actually seemed to enjoy themselves this afternoon. Like everything else in this fabulous city, they made for a splashy and colorful entrance. Miss Japan won that year (2007), by the way, even without our intervention.

Filed under: Travels Tagged: Mexico, Travel

Bruxelles

Everything has to start somewhere, and the European crusading frenzy started here on the Place Royal in 1201 when Godfried de Bouillion, the first so-called King of Jerusalem, leapt onto his steed and raised his standard to incite the attending mob into joining him on the 1st Crusade.

Godfried was something of a stalking horse for the Pope and various European and Byzantine Kings, each of whom had their own reasons for putting him up to the job. He was actually a pretty good guy by Crusader standards and less inclined than most to confuse ethics with personal ambition. He refused the famous (or infamous, depending on your choice of religion) title, but history has saddled him with it anyway.

Filed under: Travels Tagged: Belgium, Travel

Barcelona

One of the sillier arguments we’ve heard concerns where Cristoforo Columbo is pointing from atop this statue in the harbor at the end of Las Ramblas in Barcelona. Supposedly according to tradition, he’s pointing at the New World and hoping to talk the Castilian Monarchy into financing the trip. Revisionists claim that no, he’s pointing nostalgically back at his home in Genoa, Italy. But any child with a compass and a map can tell you in a matter of seconds that Columbus’ bronze finger is in fact pointing straight at Algeria.

The true puzzle for Lockhart is why the Catalans would want to erect a monument to an Italian in the employ of Castilians who discovered the Bahamas while looking for Indonesia. Yes, he reported back to Ferdinand and Isabella here, but given local history, the connection looks a little tenuous. Nevertheless, build it the Catalans did–with Spanish money, of course.

Filed under: Travels Tagged: Spain, Travel

Genève

The first time Lockhart and wife landed here together, it was in the middle of a black night with some of the foulest weather either had ever seen in Switzerland. The only room left in town–or so they told themselves–was Princess Grace’s old suite overlooking the lake at the Hotel de la Paix. The next morning, they awoke to this astonishing sight out the windows.

The Jet d’Eau, as the Geneva geyser is known, spews around 130 gallons/second into the air to a height of nearly 500 feet, well into the ground-hugging clouds that morning. It has been gushing away every day since 1886. It makes such a cool sight that no one wants to spoil the party by asking why.

Filed under: Travels Tagged: Switzerland, Travel