The Airports: Newark, Porto and Lisbon

Already I have had tours of all the major airports in Portugal. Well there are only two, Porto and LIsbon. Porto's is brand new and almost empty. Lisbon's is bustling and modern. Let me bring you back a little. I was in New York City.
I gave myself three hours to get to the airport from my hotel. Despite the little "airplane icon" on the map at Grand Central Station, I had to take a shuttle and subway from there to Penn Station to get the train to Newark Airport. Security went smoothly. The part of the airport where I sat, the TAP Portugal wing, was tiny and reminded me of the Palm Springs, California airport. As I sat down to wait for the plane I hear the distinctive "Shhhw" sounds of Portuguese. Families sat around me. Then a young lady sat next to me and asked if I could get an Internet connection. I said, "Only if I pay for it." We started up a nice conversation- and my sincerest apologies if she reads this, but my first impression was that she was about 13 years old. I said as much to her and she said that her mother looked young and she thought that it was a good thing. Miranda studies art at the technical college in Rochester, New York. Often she visits Portugal with her extended family. She said that this summer her dad is playing drums on a cruise. "That's the kind of gig that I want." I said.
As seems usual these days when I arrive at the airport very early, the plane is late. I'll spare you the details but we left Newark about 9:30 PM, an hour an half late. TAP left the lights on for about the first two hours and fed us. I watched "Alice in Wonderland". (no comment) The plane landed at 9:15 AM, just 15 minutes after my connection to Rome left. As I walked toward the passport check in Porto, I was approached by two TAP agents. "Mr. Lynch, we've made a flight change for you. You will take this plane to Lisbon. Then from Lisbon, you will take another plane to Rome." "Lisbon!" I said in disbelief. "I'm sorry there are no other plane to Rome from here... Also we have provided you a breakfast voucher."
The 10:30 plane was uneventful. Well, I have been eating well on Portugese airlines- dinner last night, breakfast on the plane, breakfast with the voucher, lunch on the plane to Rome- a hotdog this time served with your choice of wine.
The view of Lisbon was gorgeous- a big beautiful city on hills by a large bay, like San Francisco's. The plane from Lisbon was not to leave until 2:40 PM. My chief concern was to contact my host who was to meet me at 3 PM in Rome with the keys to the apartment. Stop here if you are not into hearing about telephone and Internet problems.
I first tried my European cell phone. Riccardo had warned me that the chips automatically stop working after several months of non use, and so mine did not work. I tried a couple of public phones that ask for change or a credit card. Our US credit cards do not work with these phones. My Euro coins were buried deep in my "man purse" somewhere. I decided to try the Internet. First I paid 2 Euros with a credit card to get a half hour of service. I wrote Giuseppi and email. Then I tried to use Skype. Everything on Skype seemed to work well, except when it came for paying for the call. My little laptop screen made it difficult to put in information to pay by Paypal or credit card- and the last thing that I remember is a spinning ball and lock icon with the words "contacting the account of Edward Lynch". After 20 minutes I gave up and shut down my computer. In desperation I went to a TAP ticket agent, since they were the ones who got me into this. The agent said that they could not call because they were all internal phones. But she came up with an idea- buy a phone card and so I did. After some jiggling with the payphone I finally managed to contact Guiseppi. We would meet in front of the apartment in Rome at 8 PM.

And so it happened. I am here in Rome.

New York- the Museums

(Starting today I will upload all of my photos to my mobile.me account and keep a link here for all those that want to see. I take too many photos to publish the all on a blog. It appears that I am having trouble placing photos in the middle where I want them.)


I visited three museums on my two days in New York, the Museum of Modern Art, the Frick and the Whitney. Here are a few of my reflections.

Wednesday, June 10, 2010

(The three Picasso's here are quite large and you can click on them for detail. My apologies for the reflection.)







The Museum of Modern Art

Again my love / hate affair with Picasso was challenged once again. On and off I have thought that he is by far the greatest artist of the twentieth century. I idea lized him as a youth perhaps just because he was universally thought the greaest artist of the time. In 1973 on my first trip to Europe, France and Avignon, I saw an exhibition of the last paintings that he did when he was alive at the Palis de Pap. I was entirely enthalled by the exhibition- big canvases full of color and energy as I remember. In the late 1980's I saw a film Le Mysterie de Picasso. We watch as he paints for two hours and it is brilliant. He paints on glass, so we can watch his painting change before our eyes. He works in fast assured strokes. He creates materpiece after masterpiece and proceeds to erase it once its done. Now out on DVD I highly recommend it. Then in 2001 I visited the Picasso Museum in Paris. I expected to be enthralled once again. As I gazed at peice after piece I became a little weary. I knew of course that he was a notorious womanizer, but I got the impression that he was actually a woman hater. Some pieces had nails driven into female genitals. Some comments were openly misogynistic. Yet I knew that he had tempestuous affairs with many women, it never affected me with such emotional power as it did in that museum. Can one be a macho Spanish ass-hole and still be the greatest artist of the twentieth century? There is no doubt that on a sensual level, he is without equal. He presents male and females - children and animals naked with an uninhibited freedom. Now I have seen a great exhibit of prints from his entire life in art. It begins with early twentieth century, to near his death. I expecially loved several peices where he does three or four with a theme. See the Minitar at the top of the page. Also some great creations of bulls. I think that he’s back on my good side.
Just a few other high points of the the Modern for me: lucscious landscapes by Cezanne. The beauty with which the man uses paint is unequaled in my opinion, just lush gorgeous paintings. Jackson Pollack is represented with a wide variety of painting styles. Also he had a lovely drawing in another part of the museum. Only in a small part of his life is he know for those splatter painting- with which I am not so impressed. There was a Japanese painter who was doing much the same at the turn of the century. Speaking of the turn of the century, on one big wall four large Kandinsky’s sat. The Russian, Kandinsky, was doing these large abstracts at the turn of the century, long before anyone else could be so daring.
There was the famous Motherwell- the man who along with Clement Greenberg, the New York Times Art Critic pretty much created the New York modern art scene after World War II when all of Europe was on its knees.
There was a lovely painting of a pregnant woman by Klimt; two of Rousseaux’s puzzling pieces, the works of the Italian futurists always beautiful.

The Frick

Of all the museums in New York City one of my favorites is the Frick. The last time that I was there was probably eight years ago. I remembered it as small, but it is really not so small. Perhaps small in comparison to the Modern or the Met. Within its wall are some of the greatest pieces of the Renaissance to the nineteenth century art. Frick, an iron and steel magnet at the end of the last century had an eye for beautiful ladies and he collected some wonderful Van Dyke's, Gainsborough's and Reynolds. He also has three lovely Vermeer's, two Rembrandt's, two Turners, two David's, three Corot's, some by Goya, Hogarth, Ingres and one Degas that I noticed. In this collection is also the one most stand out beautiful portrait in the entire history of art (in my humble opinion) : Sir Thomas More by Hans Holbein, the Younger.

Memory is a strange thing and I held what I now consider a false memory from my last visit to the museum. In the entry way is a long hall, still there, and I thought I that I remembered a collection of small Carot landscapes. On the wall were two of the Vermeers, but no Corots.

Here are a sample of the collection:








The Whitney

I had meant to give more space to Whitney. I was frankly a little disappointed. Really the Whitney is the museum most responsible for promoting the modern New York Art scene. It is also the museum most avant gard in presenting works by innovative young artists. One of the pieces that I loved on exhibition was "Watermellon Woman" a totally fictionalize photo essay of a black celebrity woman to have grown up in the the twenties and the thirties. It follows her career as an actor in plays then in motion pictures playing the usual stereotypical rolls of black women. I found it totally believable and beautifully done.

One room of the archives lets readers browse though the fifty years of Whitney Shows and the hundreds of artists that it has featured. My pet project has been to help my uncle's name known. Then I see the hundreds of New York artists who have had a brush with success at the Whitney. So few are famous. One of my peeves is that New York is at the center of famous modern artists- because of all the money backing art. Looking through the books I saw hundreds of New York City artists, a few from New Jersey and Pennsylvania and perhaps 2 from California. Art is a strange business.

One last thing- In the Whitney sits one lonely and seemingly out of place painting by Edward Hopper. It is off in a corner and many have missed it, I am sure.

Listening In

The entire day I spend doing last minuted details including applying for a couple of Santa Rosa Junior College jobs. Anna's friend Eva had arrived from Alaska with a San Francisco friend, Casey, just a half hour before I left. I had already said my goodbyes to Truckee and Joey. Donna and I had a sweet dinner at a little Italian restaurant in San Rafael on the way to the airport. She dropped me off at the airport a good 2 hours before the scheduled 10:25 PM flight. I had the privilege of a random frisking- he actually called it a free massage courtesy of homeland security. I compared my home printed boarding pass with the one that I got at the airport. My new flight time was 11:25 PM. At 11:25 finally the plane came in, soon followed by an ominous announcement- "We have having some mechanical difficulties with the plane..."
American Airlines then switched gates and issued all new boarding passes. Most people were calm and polite, but a few freaking in their own way. One guy, maybe 30, spoke greatly amplified to everyone that looked at him. His partner would come over, they would argue a little and she would walk away. She came back tried to put her hand over his mouth, but it wouldn't stop. They eventually booked a different flight with Jet Blue. Finally the plane took off at 1 AM.

Five hours and four hours of sleep later we landed uneventfully. Waiting for the train I heard a gentleman say to another- apparently a stranger, "Where do you live?" He answers with a slight hispanic accent, "I don't have a place to live. I am only home for a couple weeks a year. I stay with friends." "What do you do?" "I give one week workshops all over the world. I travel a lot. I just came back from South Africa and Brazil before that. I teach people about destiny, try to get them in touch with who they are.... You know destiny is a different concept to Hispanics..."

I took the subway into the city. A young lovely black woman sat down across from me. Then a pilot asked her if he could sit next to her. She had a broad warm smile. He hard had emotion as he talked, but they were hitting it off well. I didn't here a word but her expressions were full of joyous emotion as she gesticulated when she talked. She would react with a charming facial expression with each comment of his. It was great to watch her.

I now sit in my little room in the Pod Hotel. More later.

Looking toward NYC

Thursday was technically my last day of teaching high school. I worked until 7 PM grading papers and doing grades, then came in the next day and spent the next two hours grading papers. By 11 AM I had finished grades and set up moving out of my room (actually two rooms). By six in the evening I was exhausted, with piles of recycling in the halls. I still had some work to do in my English room and had not touched my computer room. Nevertheless I joined some colleagues at local HopMonk Tavern for a beer. Today I spent four hours cleaning my computer room, maybe 100 pounds of curriculum went to recycling.

Tuesday night I fly to New York. I was faced with the chore of finding a reasonably priced hotel in New York City. I could have gone straight to Newark, but I love New York. I knew that I held on to a card from several years ago when I used to go to New York City on a regular basis. A friend there told me about a place that was a little old fashion, but clean and inexpensive. I stayed there one night and liked it very much (maybe $100 per night at time- that's with the old fashion shared bathroom). But I couldn't find that card. Suddenly the name flashed into my head: The Pickwick Hotel. I looked it up on the Internet and sure enough it was still there.

I compared prices from several agencies and snagged a reservation for $135. It is now called the Pod Hotel- I suppose for a modern touch. It was done over and you can charge an ipod and the rooms are also pod sized. It is a friendly and safe place and perfect for me. I will arrive in the city in the morning and should have a couple of hours for a good walk and one or two museums and dinner. I plan to go to the Museum of Modern Art. I have not been there since they now have a new location. Also the Frick has the most wonderful collection of landscapes by Corot.

The only catch is that I have an 8 AM flight to Portugal in Newark. I will have to get up at about five in the morning. I think that I can handle that.

Retirement

I really don't believe in retirement, yet officially I retire next year. I started my teaching career in middle age, albeit a young middle age, 36 years old. I have been teaching for 23 years- not counting 3 years teaching adult education in the seventies. I have decided to take a $20,000 incentive to "retire" early from this district. Beyond that I am looking to teaching some classes at the Junior College level, play and perform more music and do a bit more painting. Along with a modest pension I hope this will be enough to bring me though the next - how many years? It's a mystery.

Last night was our retirement dinner. One woman, now in her seventies, had been teaching kindergarten for 44 years. Another man went to the same high school where he had taught for 40 years. Only six years of his life from the age of 14 to 60 had been in the same county to get his degree and teaching credential. I cannot imagine having my life take place all in one place. Part of the reason I took retirement was to force me into another change. Another part of it was the desperate lack of funding for education in California. This lack of funding places more and more pressure on teachers to grade more papers, to manage larger classes and to dip into their own pockets for the odds and ends of teaching.

I applied for my first new job yesterday. Empire College has an Information Technology Program and my hope is that I can teach one of their information technology classes. I will look into other programs also such at Santa Rosa Junior College and University of Phoenix. I have some music skills, some artistic skills and some technology skills. Perhaps I will piece together some combination of those to supplement my income. So beyond my trip to Europe this summer the future is an adventure and a mystery.

My Voice in the Press

(Bruce Robinson)

Yesterday I got a phone call from Bruce Robinson at KRCB radio (Click here to listen- Airing Friday, May 21st broadcast)in Santa Rosa. He interviewed me as the President and chief spokesperson of the West Sonoma County Teachers Association. He first interview Keller, our superintendent, then me. He started with a question about our "free day" tomorrow. It is a more complicated question than it appears at first glance. Our teachers voted last year to work a day without pay as a contribution toward balancing the school budget. This year at negotiations both the superintendent and our teacher's association agree to have this day specifically to demonstrate the problem of budget cuts. The day because a day "off" to help balance the budget as opposed to a day when teachers worked for free.

Bruce asked if teachers liked the idea. I said that teachers don't like the idea of their pay being cut. In fact we have negotiated for both this year and next five fewer days to work. It amounts to a pay cut of 5.5% for next year and the year after. I also brought up the fact that with increased work loads because of bigger class sizes teachers are working harder than ever. At the same time few days means that teachers must teach the proscribed state mandated curriculum in less time. He then asked if students like it. I said that I am sure that students like a day off, but I am not so sure that their parents like it.

He asked if I saw education in California getting better in two or two and half years. I said that I didn't see that coming and it was one of the reasons that I decided to retire so early. I said that there were political forces out there out to destroy public education in California. Of course after the interview I think of all the things that I could have said. I could have told him that we have seen a progressive rollback in funds to education until now. In 1978 when I arrived in California, Proposition 13 that cut property taxes, was passed. California had a model school system at that time: kindergarten through University. In K-12 California is 48th or 49th. Mississippi generally fares worse.

A week ago our local paper, the Sonoma West Times and News, interviewed the superintendent, a representative from clerical union and myself. The story at first blush was to be about the cooperative way that the unions pitched in to help relieve the budget crisis. The downside, of course, is the severity of the budget crisis. Since our district opened the books for us this year, we saw that there indeed was a severe deficit. Everyone including administrators took a cut to relieve this crisis.

War in Afganistan

I just showed two excellent pieces from Frontline about the war in Afghanistan. Obama's War shows how the Taliban both in Afghanistan and Pakistan have a great deal of public support. In Pakistan the security services actually support the Taliban. Yet many of the people from the countryside appear just to want to be left alone. Many of the spokespeople for the military talk about building connections with the people. But the then I see the military with their guns and uniforms trying to communicate with the poor of the country, and getting angry when the people do not understand. They are worlds apart and standing next to each other. None of the Americans speak Afghan. They have weapons and a translator. It appears to be a futile exercise.

Two American opinions emerged from the show. Some in Washington and in the military believe that the United States can actually defeat the Taliban and have a Western style democracy that has the support of the people. Another view states that if the majority of Afghans want the Taliban in power, they should be allowed to have it. But this radical form of Islam suppresses a woman's education and a woman's rights. Their fundamentalism seeks to destroy anything culturally valuable that they deem conflicts with Islam. Witness the destruction of the giant and ancient Buddhist statue in 1999.

The other film, Behind the Taliban Lines, shows the war from the Taliban side. They look pretty much like the Afghan people, speak the language and treat the people in villages with respect. As fighters they are committed, even if their goals are radically opposed to the way I see the world. As technicians and organizers they appear bumbling with lots of infighting. I strongly recommend both of these films and they can be watched on line.