Photographs I made of some of my favorite cities...
London
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Amsterdam
Rome
Athens
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Florence
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Hilo, Hawaii |
Nara
New Orleans
San Francisco
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Monday, March 23, 2015
Remembering Delphi and Athens
Delphi
Journal-1985
This morning, waking with the sun and the crowing cocks, John and I took our usual bread, cake, and marmalade, then drove to the walkway to sacred Delphi. Few were there when we arrived before eight. An elderly woman opened a gate that could easily have been circumvented. Yet her opening took on ritual feeling as I spoke " Kalimera," and she answered me in French. Following the path on which she forced us, we saw first the gymnasium before arriving upon the temples of Athena. The latter took on the hallowness of early morning as sunlight streamed in shafts through the resurrected columns of the tholos. Wandering alone among the shrines, I found the Castalian spring, drank of it, and anointed my head in its cold cascade. Anemones the color of fresh blood trembled from crevices in the morning air. A tending gardener, cutting the wild grass with an old scythe, paid me a compliment as I left Athena's grounds along the sacred way: he asked me, when I had said good morning to him in Greek, whether I were Greek, myself.
From the temples of Athena, from which we had watched the sun move in a clear line to light the mountain shrines above, we climbed to these temples of Apollo and to the center of Delphi, where the Oracle once spoke. Tourists began to arrive: German, French, Spanish, Dutch dominated the few British and Americans. John and I were able to avoid them for the most part, and were able to stop in silence before the shrine of the kings of Argos, the Athenian treasury, and the standing columns of Apollo's temple. The treasury, well preserved, holds only sparrows now, whose cries are those of protesting spirits emerging from holes and crevices of the treasury walls, flying in the face of the tourist onslaught as if to check the armies of Darius.
We climbed on, beyond the amphitheater, few tourists following. The path rises vertically, dissuading all but the true pilgrims. There, pine trees overhang the path, as does an ancient fig tree whose old limbs reach nearly to the ground. Anemones and other purple and yellow wild flowers color the tranquility, which the choruses of singing birds complete. Beyond a final bend of the upward path, the stadium opens in level expanse beneath the rock peaks of Delphi. From this quiet, highest reach, we gazed back over the ruins below descending in grandeur to the distant gulf of Corinth.
The sun-- Apollo, as I realized in revelation -- shone warmly upon the navel of the Earth. We returned to the lower temples past the throngs of people pouring through the gates. We visited the chambers of the museum, like a tomb itself, its rooms echoing as if through centuries. I looked longest upon the living face of the charioteer, whose gemstone eyes flashed in the light of the room in which he stood alone; And upon the face and body of Antinoos, last of the gods, lost to the Nile, Hadrian's vision of Beauty and Eros .
Keats' lines from Endymion seem appropriate here,
We climbed on, beyond the amphitheater, few tourists following. The path rises vertically, dissuading all but the true pilgrims. There, pine trees overhang the path, as does an ancient fig tree whose old limbs reach nearly to the ground. Anemones and other purple and yellow wild flowers color the tranquility, which the choruses of singing birds complete. Beyond a final bend of the upward path, the stadium opens in level expanse beneath the rock peaks of Delphi. From this quiet, highest reach, we gazed back over the ruins below descending in grandeur to the distant gulf of Corinth.
The sun-- Apollo, as I realized in revelation -- shone warmly upon the navel of the Earth. We returned to the lower temples past the throngs of people pouring through the gates. We visited the chambers of the museum, like a tomb itself, its rooms echoing as if through centuries. I looked longest upon the living face of the charioteer, whose gemstone eyes flashed in the light of the room in which he stood alone; And upon the face and body of Antinoos, last of the gods, lost to the Nile, Hadrian's vision of Beauty and Eros .
Keats' lines from Endymion seem appropriate here,
...Full in the middle of this Pleasantness
There stood a marble altar, with a tress
Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
Had taken fairy phantisies to strew
Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire
Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
Of brightness so unsullied, that therein
A melancholy spirit well might win
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
Into the winds...
ATHENS
Journal 1985
Beginning and end, city spreading its white houses and buildings into the haze of the mountains and sea, Athens still lies beneath the two towers of the past: the ancient Acropolis and Mt. Lycabettus, symbol of Byzantium. As I sit sipping a pint of German beer, surrounded by olive old men smoking and drinking the sludge of Greek coffee, as the fumes of Omonia Circle waft into this sad, deteriorating interior of a once grand cafe, I look out at the noise of the city, over the accumulated trash of the election, the tourists, and the indifferent Greeks. Where is the civilization, the wisdom that was worshiped here?Even the Athenians need refuge. It lies in the adjoining parks of the National Gardens and the Zapion. The limbs of Orange trees with as much ripe fruit as leaves weigh over the walks. A dozen species of birds swoop and chirrup through the tall pines. I sit on a carved bench cracking pistachio nuts, watching afternoon strollers: the families, the lovers, the casual businessman taking a siesta. Roses, bougainvillea, and countless flowers I cannot name fill the parks with their fragrances. The parks open to two other worlds: the plaza where a band gathers to play bouzouki music across a space that includes fountains, statues, sculpture, and a view of the Acropolis; and named after Herodes Atticus, the road lined with trees that passes the Royal Palace and the gates of the Parliament, where skirted guards march their odd goosestep, exchange places, and pretend to ignore passersby.
John and I are staying in the old Plaka section at the base of the Acropolis. Less than a block away are the Arch of Hadrian, gateway to the city in the First century, and the temple of Zeus, largest in Hellas, which took 700 years to build. At night, Artemis, Zeus' daughter, gives the Temple her ghostly moonlight. We stand reverently gazing through the Arch at the lost splendor, behind us a rapid river of autos, buses, trolleys, and taxis speed past, reverent only to modernity and to Pluto, god of money.
The base of the Acropolis is my favorite area of the city. Up the steep, narrow streets cars rarely ascend. Rather, there are walls of honeysuckle and bougainvillea, numberless cafes and roof gardens, and quiet views of the Roman ruins, the Agora, and elegant if slightly worn homes, their French windows opening to balconies above untended gardens along the broken towers. It is a world ruled by cats lying on every ledge.
On our last night in Hellas, John and I ascend Mt. Lycabettus. Our walk takes us into Kolonaki Plaza, like a Paris park, a fountainhead in the midst of elegant European boutiques and cafes. Unlike the rest of Athens, Kolonaki is the domain of Athenian aristocrats. I experience again, as I did fifteen years ago in Paris, the grand European manner --the leisurely evening meal or drink, the intelligent conversations, cosmopolitan people of fashion.
Above Kolonaki plaza the street climbs to a dead end where a series of steps recall San Francisco. At the top of the steps we look back over a vista of white city at the foot of the tree-lined street below us. Above is the funicular, a cross between subway and cable-car that lifts us though the rock of Lycabettus to the peak.
Atop the mountain, we watch as Apollo sets over his once adoring city. We sit respectfully as armed guards lower the blue and white flag and goosestep away. Reverently, we tiptoe inside the Byzantine church of St. George, filled with polished silver icons to the dragon-slayer. Most impressive, of course, is the view of the expanse of Athens white from sea to mountains. As the day fades, the city becomes a shimmering galaxy of moving, twinkling lights. Athens becomes Mexico City: hideous, awesome, and sublime. Only a brief display of lights on the distant Acropolis below distinguishes Athena.
In Athens, the values of ancient Greece are in the same state as Athena's temple, the Parthenon. The ruin stands as monument to ideal form, to mathematical harmony, to the design and embodiment of reason. Yet it is a ruin, nonetheless -- as much a ruin as the high consciousness of Pericles and Phidias who conceived it. That bright morning when John and I mounted the worn steps of the Acropolis, I felt for a moment the shade of that high consciousness, knew the cosmos of the Timaeus and of Aristotle's De Caelo. How swiftly that shade fled as daylight brought the gesticulating, clicking tourists; and with them, the lizard looks of suspicion from the Parthenon's present guardians.
Civil Union Summer
(photo by Jack)
Summer Itinerary:
- San Diego, San Antonio, Kennebunkport
- Asheville, Savannah, Chattanooga
- Amherst, Burlington, Vermont
- N. Conway, N.H.
- Woodstock, Vermont
- Brattleboro, Vermont
lobsters in Maine Singing "Rock Lobster" with the B52s in Piedmont Park to celebrate Gay Pride Day, looking from our balcony over San Diego Bay, taking in the Pacific at La Jolla, where we had seafood overlooking the ocean at George's Cove, or strolling the Riverwalk in San Antonio and eating fresh avacado and steaks at Boudro's, we have had a delicious summer so far. Then there was Kennebunkport, dining on Lobster Napoleon at the Colony Resort, watching the full moon rise over the Atlantic.
We've also hiked the Blue Ridge with Starr and Bruce, Pamela and Bob. We dined in
Asheville with David and Tricia, and went twice to the Laughing Seed. There was a visit with the Killians at Tybee. And for the 4th of July, we attended a party in honor of Paula Gately Tillman and Joe Roman from Baltimore. The weekend of July 21, Starr and Bruce cooked us a feast and we had a fine party on Lookout Mt joined by Pamela and Bob on the eve of our Civil Union.
Civil Union and Tennis in New England July-August 2000
On July 29, we were wed by Civil Union on a sunny morning in a garden gazebo in Essex Junction, Vermont. Cecile Tougas was our witness. From nearby Burlington, we traveled to New Hampshire for a week of tennis on the red clay courts of the New England Tennis Club. We rode the cog rail to the top of Mt. Washington and hiked the White Mountains. We continued on to Woodstock, Vermont where we visited the Billings Farm, and ended our trip in colorful Brattleboro.
Roses and rings: click to enlarge
(photo by Cecile)
Darryl at the New England Tennis Club
(photo by Jack)
Crossing Lake Champlain
(photo by Cecile)
In all, Summer 2000 was just ducky.
(photo by Jack)
Letters from Iceland
Hi, there ...Eric, Jennifer, and I have found our way to the Top Cafe, an Internet coffee house in Reykjavik, and are taking this opportunity to send our greetings. The flight last night from Boston was tiresome but exciting at the same time. We arrived at 6 a.m. Iceland time -- about 2 a.m. Atlanta time! -- so we´ve been a bit disoriented all day as a result. It was a long but beautiful drive in from the airport... the sun rose as we arrived and illuminated the eerie-looking landscape. Our hotel is simple and clean ... quite wonderfully located, right in the middle of things and just a block or two from the harbor in one direction and from the famous ´lava´ church in the other direction. Today, we´re planning our adventures ... it looks likely that we will take the Golden Circle Tour of the waterfalls and ´geysirs´and we will definitely go to the Blue Lagoon spa and mineral baths on our way back to the airport. Surprisingly, the weather here has been spectacular... in the 40s, bright and sunny, clear clean air ... and we're surrounded by sweet-faced and sweet-tempered people. A ton of babies everywhere ... but all very quiet and well -behaved! The sun sets today at 6 30, so we will have plenty of sunlight. Well, Eric and Jen are sighing at my long-windedness,so I had better sign off. See you soon.Love,
Darryl
Letter 2, Iceland, Oct 21, 2000
Yesterday was amazing. Another gorgeous day of around 50 degrees F. We left the hotel Skjalbreið at 9 30 am and by 10 the three of us were astride our trusty steeds ... the unique Icelandic horse, strong, short, sweet-tempered ... for a couple hours of riding around
the countryside. The group consisted of about 20 people maybe, and our guides led us through fields with clear views of the surrounding volcanoes and glaciers. We traveled at various speeds ... from a slow walk to a near gallop, bouncing up and down on the backs of out horses ... mine was named "Stone," or whatever the Icelandic word for that is.
Then we had lunch ... a buffet of lamb chops and vegetables, soup, bread, and cold beer. Then we were off to spend a half hour exploring Gulfloss, surely one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the world. We had amazing views and were able to get very close. I hope my pictures turn out OK .. there was so much
spray from the falls that the lens protector was constantly having to be wiped dry. then we drove further to look at the famous Icelandic "geysirs" ... these are where our word geyser come
from, and the granddaddy of them all is properly named "Geysir" .. it hasn´t been active for many years, but following a series of earthquakes this past June .. measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale! ... it is now erupting again! Geysir is surrounded by other, smaller geysers that also steam, burble, and erupt on a regular and frequent schedule. Oddly, the sulfuric, steamy geyser plains are encircled by glaciers. You´d think one of them would give, the ice or the boiling water churning right beneath the surface!
After a much-needed coffee break, it was off to look at the very spot where North America and Europe are drifting apart! Yes, the place where the continents are divided, still moving at a rate of 2 cm a year, our guide said. One can still jump across the chasm, jumping from North America to Europe and back! ... and the mini canyon travels miles up into the hills until it disappears from sight. Some day, after many more years, the split will be complete and Iceland will be two separate islands.
Other highlights: beautiful lakes, a huge caldera formed by the explosion of a volcano eons ago and now containing a "bottomless" lake in the center. Parents tell their children here, when they misbehave, that they will toss them into the lake and send them to Australia! A nice tour of the Icelandic greenhouses .. where the nation grows its vegetables and fruit and flowers. We saw banana trees, orchids, corn stalks, royal blue roses, etc.... a nice solution for a nation that can´t farm, but only has 270,000 people to feed. Eventually, tired, we made it back to the city ... 9 hours in all on the tour. After cleaning up and resting a bit, we were off to dinner at Rex, a stylish, ultra modern-looking bistro with burnished aluminum tables, chairs, napkin rings, etc., and multicolored glass embellishments. We opted for local foods ... Eric had salmon, Dar had tuna, and Jen had scrumptious local lamb. Dessert was chocolate sushi! The day was just getting started! Back to the hotel again, to change into our club wear, have some drinks in Jennifer´s room (where we shouldn't have turned on the TV!! ... the things they show on the TVs here would cause pandemonium in the States!) After much giggling and blushing, we were off to Spotlight, the city´s premiere disco, where several bands were playing ... Möa, XXX Rottweiller, Bellatrix (great, all-girl band), and the campy Paul Oskar, sort of an Icelandic Cliff Richard, if that makes any sense. Everyone is the place knew the words to every song of his (all in Icelandic, so we were clueless), and there was much merriment and dancing and laughing, everywhere. The Icelanders really know how to club.
Afterward, we turned down an invitation to go to some little town outside the city and watch a Mike Tyson boxing match (huh?) with these guys, and instead went to a late club ... Thomsen Klub ... and danced in their downstairs disco until 4.
OK, *then* the night was over. Luckily, we weren't more than a 5-10 minute walk from the hotel, so we stumbled happily back, complaining about how sore the horses made our butts, how tired we were, etc., and off to bed!
--dar
Darryl and Jennifer
(photo by Eric)
2000
the photo above (by Darryl) is of Guanajuato
2000 began with a New Year's celebration at David and Birgit McQueen's party. A couple of weeks later, we flew to Boston. Then, after the winter ice storms, and after the WebMD-sponsored party and private performance at the Fox by Sir Elton John, we began a series of spring and early summer trips: San Diego, San Antonio, Kennebunkport, and Darryl to Chicago. We spent Memorial Day in Asheville with Bob and Pamela, Starr and Bruce. We even hiked through Craggy Gardens.The highlight of summer was --
Our Civil Union .
More Summer 2000
In November, we had a warm visit to San Miguel (we stayed at Casa Luna) and to Guanajuato (Casa de Espiritus Alegres).
the photo above (by Darryl) is of Guanajuato
click it for the Mexico page.
And don't miss Darryl's Icelandic adventure (read his letters from Iceland).
The Christmas holidays gave us a whole new set of adventures:
Photos of X-mas and New Years.
January 2001 on Miami Beach (NY Times article on South Beach):
We slept to the sound of the ocean waves beneath our open windows and dined on seafood at cafes in South Beach.
The blue water and sunny beach formed the perfect contrast to the wonderful, snowy New Year's celebration at Fall Creek Falls state park in Tennessee with Starr, Bruce, Pamela, Bob, and other friends. From walks through the wintry woods to the waterfall to poetry and fiction readings in our spacious lakeside cabin, it was a great way to end our vacation.
We also enjoyed theatre and art in New York . We appeared on the Letterman Show and saw such exciting Broadway plays as Cabaret and Copenhagen.
Our neice, Maggie Vivian Miller, daughter of John and Donna, entered the world on Dec. 11, 2000.
More Summer 2000
In November, we had a warm visit to San Miguel (we stayed at Casa Luna) and to Guanajuato (Casa de Espiritus Alegres).
the photo above (by Darryl) is of Guanajuato
click it for the Mexico page.
And don't miss Darryl's Icelandic adventure (read his letters from Iceland).
The Christmas holidays gave us a whole new set of adventures:
Photos of X-mas and New Years.
January 2001 on Miami Beach (NY Times article on South Beach):
We slept to the sound of the ocean waves beneath our open windows and dined on seafood at cafes in South Beach.
The blue water and sunny beach formed the perfect contrast to the wonderful, snowy New Year's celebration at Fall Creek Falls state park in Tennessee with Starr, Bruce, Pamela, Bob, and other friends. From walks through the wintry woods to the waterfall to poetry and fiction readings in our spacious lakeside cabin, it was a great way to end our vacation.
We also enjoyed theatre and art in New York . We appeared on the Letterman Show and saw such exciting Broadway plays as Cabaret and Copenhagen.
Our neice, Maggie Vivian Miller, daughter of John and Donna, entered the world on Dec. 11, 2000.
Recalling 1999
Dec. '98 - July 1999
More photos from Greece 1999
Below: Arizona, New Orleans, and Greece
Darryl at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West.
Photo by Jack
We spent the 4th of July in Arizona,
residing in a suite at the Arizona Biltmore and paying a visit to Taliesin West.
New Orleans and Greece: We spent Christmas '98 in New Orleans, went to Savannah after New Years, visited Paula and Joe in Baltimore in April, and spent two weeks in Greece in June '99. For the 4th of July we went to Arizona.
Mom takes the cake...at the Palace Cafe (photo by Justin)
Starr's niece Natalie on Santorini, June '99
photo by Jack
Mykonos: second visit, June 1999
Photo by Jack, 1985 Recently Scanned Photos
including Jack in New Mexico and both Paula and Jack
in Baltimore,
Recalling 1998
Summer 1998
Jack and Darryl's Excellent European Adventure
We also went to Mt. Pisgah and Asheville with the Killians and brother John just before our trip to Europe in August...
Article on Darryl's participation in the 1998 Games in Amsterdam:
All Aboard for Amsterdam!
Atlanta will be well-represented at the Gay Games in the Netherlands August 1-8
by DAVID GOLDMAN
The fifth Gay Games are still nine months away, but lots of Atlantans are already planning trips to Holland for the week-long August celebration.
More than 150 people have signed up so far with International Travel Center, according to Joop Petiet of the Marietta travel agency, which is making arrangements for the Atlanta Sports Association, a gay and lesbian sports alliance. Petiet, a Netherlands native who will accompany the group, said he has gotten "a very good response" from Georgia athletes and other community members as well as from people in Florida, Alabama and elsewhere.
"Pooling our resources to go over and represent Atlanta is very exciting," said Christopher Lee, a member of ASA and the Atlanta Rainbow Trout. "The idea of standing up on a block and swimming at the Gay Games gives me goosebumps. It's a total acceptance of who I am. I grew up swimming while I was still closeted. This brings the two parts of my life together," Lee said.
According to Lee, ASA has signed up approximately 18 swimmers, 20 tennis players, 18 soccer players, 12 runners, 30 volleyball players and 20 basketball players. As of the July 31 deadline, 6,587 athletes had pre-registered worldwide for the Games. Registration on an as-available basis will continue through April 30, 1998, according to the Games website.
One of those pre-registered is Darryl Gossett, a writer and editor with Emory University and a member of the Atlanta Team Tennis Association who recently played in the Peach International Tennis Championships here. Gossett is planning to make the trip with his partner, Jack Miller. "Any excuse to get back to Europe is good," said Gossett. Tennis matches at the Games will include players whose ability ranges from novice to professional, he said.
Like the Olympics, the Gay Games have a cultural component, and there, too, Atlanta will be well-represented. According to Nina Gooch of the Atlanta Freedom Marching Band, the 20 members scheduled to make the trip account for almost half of those from the United States now committed to perform with the Gay and Lesbian Bands of America. Gay bands from around the world will take part in the opening and closing ceremonies as well as other special events. Lavonne Casey of Rainbow Traveller said the package the agency has assembled for AFMB members is also available to individuals and other groups.
More than 2,200 vocalists from gay choirs are expected to attend the Games choir festival. David Puckett, managing artistic director of the Atlanta Gay Men's Chorus, predicted that his group will be one of the largest. Approximately 100 AGMC members will already be in Europe to perform in a special Paris concert with the French gay chorus Melo Men. "Hopefully, we'll have the same number in Amsterdam," Puckett said.
Marilou Mycko, publicity chairperson of the Atlanta Feminist Women's Chorus, said that while the chorus has no plans to go over as a group, individual members may participate.
Other cultural events will highlight the visual arts, theater, floral arrangement and other arts. Visitors can also help create and star in a lesbian and gay soap opera.
Gay Games details
All indications are that Amsterdam plans to roll out the red carpet for the fifth Gay Games. The official brochure opens with a welcoming letter from the city's mayor. The Games will be the largest international sports and cultural event ever held in the Netherlands, with 15,000 participants and 30,000 visitors expected to take part each day. On the Games' final day, more than 100 boats will cruise the city's most scenic canals in a spectacular boat parade.
Many events will take place in the Amsterdam ArenA. This futuristic facility, which opened last year, will hold 50,000 spectators during the opening and closing ceremonies and features a retractable roof for all-weather enjoyment.
Beyond Amsterdam, millions of people are expected to follow the Games via television, radio, print media and the Internet.
The 30 sports that make up the Games include some familiar from the Olympics -- track and field, swimming, softball and cycling -- as well as numerous interesting additions like bowling, contract bridge, chess, and dancing -- including wheelchair dancing.
The Games are open to all, according to official publications, "regardless of race, gender, physical ability or sexual preference." The Netherlands have no restrictions for visitors with HIV/AIDS.
The Gay Games governing body is the Federation of Gay Games. The Games were first held in San Francisco in 1982 and were the brainchild of gay American Olympian Tom Waddell, who died of AIDS in 1987. Held in New York in 1994 to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion, the last Gay Games drew 12,000 participants from 40 nations.
Tickets for all events will go on sale Dec. 1. Order forms will become available from the Games website on Nov. 15. Visitors passes -- which include entrance to non-final events, public transportation and opening and closing ceremonies -- will also go on sale Dec. 1. The website includes information on ordering Friendship Magazine, the Games' official publication.
All about Amsterdam
Amsterdam's long history of social liberalism makes it especially suited to host the Gay Games. The Netherlands legalized homosexuality in the 1970s, and the age of consent is 16. Prostitution is legal in its famous Walletjes district, which tourist materials proudly promote alongside the city's canals and museums.
The Amsterdam Gay Tourist Map distributed by the Netherlands Board of Tourism includes notices for "jack-off" parties and an "S&M group for women," and ads for bath houses and teenage escorts sit side-by-side with ads for diamond dealers and travel agents. Marijuana and hashish enjoyed "condoned" status and are sold openly in some coffeeshops.
The Netherlands' 1814 constitution established a hereditary constitutional monarchy, which remains the nation's form of government. Holland's horrible occupation by Nazi Germany -- 1940 to 1945 -- is memorialized in the Verzetsmuseum (museum of Dutch resistance) -- and in the Anne Frank House, where the young diarist and her family hid for three years in a doomed attempt to avoid the death camps.
The Amsterdam region has been inhabited for more than 2,000 years. Because much of the Netherlands lies below sea level, its residents were building earthen dikes to hold back sea water as early as 1000 A.D. In the 13th century, the windmill was invented to pump excess water away from farmlands. Today more than 3,400 miles of canals crisscross Holland.
Fifty miles of canals fan out through Amsterdam, whose 70 islands are connected by 1,000 bridges. In the 17th century the city became one of the world's richest, an economic powerhouse of trade and banking. Wealthy merchants built grand homes along its canals and commissioned portraits by artists like the great Rembrandt. Hundreds of the master's works are on view in the Museum Het Rembrandthuis, his home and studio for 20 years.
Visitors to the Gay Games will be among the last to have the opportunity to tour the city's Van Gogh Museum prior to its closing for six months to undergo a $15.5 million renovation and expansion. Built in 1973, it attracts more than one million visitors annually.
Contemplating an adventure in Amsterdam? Here are some sources for more information.
Toll free: (888) GAY-GAMES
(888) GOHOLLAND
Websites: www.dds.nl/~gaygames
www.goholland.com
For a free CD-ROM: e-mail Go2Holland@aol.com
(888) GOHOLLAND
Websites: www.dds.nl/~gaygames
www.goholland.com
For a free CD-ROM: e-mail Go2Holland@aol.com
1998: A very good year.
Jack
Jack
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Going North
Thursday, January 08, 2015
Holidays in New Orleans and Savannah 2014-2015
Joseph Mydell and Alfred Corn: Georgia Actor; Georgia Poet...
Eight days into January and I feel at last that we are home and the holidays complete. The drive to New Orleans, especially the 8 hour return in the rain, wore us out; but did not diminish the fullness of culinary excess we experienced at Galatoire's Restaurant - New Orleans, the Gumbo Shop, Tujague's Restaurant, and especially Susan Spicer's Mondo. The art we saw, beginning in Atlanta with the Cezanne and post-Impressionists show and the exquisite photographs of Gordon Parks at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, continuing with the Basquiat show at the Ogden Museum, and art galleries, continued on to Savannah, with the innovative interpretation of Dante's Divine Comedy (click) by several African artists. In New Orleans, Joe purchased a painting at the Antieau Gallery (click). We also visited Longue Vue House and Gardens where we saw and purchased some of the gorgeous jewelry of Mario Villas (click).
If food and art were themes of the holidays, so too was camaraderie. Despite Darryl's ducking into and hibernating in our luxurious suite at the Place D'Armes, there was much walking the Quarter, hearing music, and good conversation among Joe, Starr, KT, and me. Starr, Joe, and I took the St. Charles Streetcar uptown for a look at Tulane, Audubon Park, and the grand houses from the Garden District to the Camellia Grill, where we stopped for a late lunch or a piece of Coconut Cream Pie.
Starr and Joe on the
St. Charles Streetcar
In Savannah, Alfred Corn joined Joe, Effie, Darryl and me for walks downtown, a sort of VIP visit to the Flannery O'Connor Childhood Home, provided by Jane Fishman, and a stroll on the wind-swept beach by Dar, Alfred, and me-- before joining John for the traditional fresh shrimp at CoCo's Sunset Grille. Conversation was always lively, whether over a game of Scrabble or sitting on the Jasper House balcony having breakfast. On our walks, I pointed out Savannah's key houses and gave a few stories of clandestine trysts therein. On our final evening in Savannah, John, Joe, and I attended the classical performance at the Unitarian church featuring Effie and others. We followed the music with our own reception; then dinner at Vic's on the River.
The concert this past Sunday was glorious, featuring pianists Sanford Jones & Marvin Keenze, soprano Stacey Stephens, & violinist Effie Mydell. What a warm and welcoming crowd we had, too - even with a tornado warning outside!
Unitarian Universalist Church of Savannah
Dad and Dar can Dance
John and Dar also joined me for a riverside get-together with Dad, now a doting 93.
Darryl accompanied me to a celebration of Albion's Voice, where I spoke along with Bill Strong and former Mayor and activist Otis Johnson.
Connect Savannah published an account of the reunion: http://www.connectsavannah.com/savannah/shouts-from-the-underground/Content?oid=2517150
For New Year's Eve, John, Alfred, and I walked to the river where, just as we set foot on the plaza near the Waving Girl, the fireworks show burst into action. 2015 has arrived.
Enjoy our Photographs of our Holidays (click):
https://picasaweb.google.com/106057231025325213398/Holidays20142015
Christmas Day: Jackson Square and St. Louis Basilica
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