Travel Possibility

The art scene in Nashville has been picking up steam over the past few years, and although it’s very much still dominated by the music scene, there are some very welcome signs of life. Not that the music scene is anything to turn one’s nose up at, because the history here is pretty exquisite, and some of the landmark names in music have origins or experiences here. It continues to be a thriving place for musicians and music lovers, and there are hotels right here to help make any visit here more than nice, and often you’ll want to come visit twice.

It’s difficult to avoid the fantastic choices available in live music here, and there’s no real good reason to avoid it. People exploring all genres are finding niches here in Nashville, and there’s something exciting to listen to every night of the year. But there is an interesting performance scene here as well, and the visual art scene is awfully interesting, and in the case of people like David Hellams , performance art and visual art come together to make fascinating and confounding works that interrogate how we structure our realities. His body of work has elusive and disparate elements that all come together in an uneasy part of the consciousness, and this seems to be precisely the point.

Or perhaps it’s one point among many. There are detailed sketches of Richard Simmons and other pop iconographies, and performance works where he goes through the streets at night holding a chair as if he’s just about to sit down or stand up. It’s a brink point, or an edge, a moment before something is about to happen. He bases his ideas on the symbolists, remixing them with a more contemporary definition of symbol to move it into the realm of representational art. The notion that the work is representational might be doubly confounding for some, and reassuring for others, but at the very root it’s extraordinarily interesting, and it will be even more interesting to see how his work develops in a city that is open enough to make room for new ideas.

I have learned a few things in my time spent in Hawaii. The first thing I learned is that there is no such thing as street food around here. That isn’t to say that we don’t have the types of food that you buy at some little tent and can eat on the spot standing up, but rather to say that we don’t have any street vendors. We put our street food altogether in one place, in a parking, every Thursday in the evenings. It’s a small event called the Kailua Farmer’s Market and is usually only inhabited by locals who are in the know. The funny thing about that is, I bet more tourists off the Hawaiian cruises would come in and buy a lot of stuff if they knew it was going on. The food in particular is really amazing.

Wander around there and you may find some interesting things, such as the disk jockey Tom Purdy sells what he calls Taro Delights. The one he pushes the most is his Oh Wow Laulau. This is a special dish he made on his own and consists of taro chunks and salmon belly wrapped in “plenty leaf”. The best part is that while it may seem a little expensive for street food at seven dollars, it is big enough to fill you up. If you are still hungry after that, I would suggest finding something small and saving room for dessert. My suggestion is that you find some fried Arancini. It is not native to Hawaii, but it a great dish and is usually there. Arancini is a Sicilian style rice ball. You start with a mushroom risotto with some mozzarella in the middle. You roll it in bread crumbs, and fry is to a golden brown. You can get them for two for three dollars and they are made right there. You can finish off your meal with the best ice creme you’ve ever had. Gerry Nakashima sitting behind his ColdFyyre booth makes ice creme that day from the products being sold around you. The apple bananas and sea asparagus come from various local farmers and were bought right at 5pm when the market opened so you know they are still fresh.

I know it can be hard being a tourist who has to get back to the Hawaii cruise ship you came into the island on, but if you ever have a chance to be on Kailua after five this is the happening place to be. It’s not that there aren’t other activities in Hawaii, but I suppose I just like experiencing a new place through their street food, and this is the only place in the area I know about where you can really do that.

This morning, I gave my presentation to Mr. Baum’s calculus class in Wichita, I thought it went really well, but I did notice that some of the students were dozing off. I put as many pictures in my presentation as I possibly could without overdoing it, I think visuals always makes things more interesting and is a good aid. Afterwards, some of the students thanked me for a great presentation!

I was talking to Mr. Baum after class, and Mr. Kilmer came by to join in our discussion. Mr. Kilmer is the physics professor at Hesston. Mr Baum mentioned to him that I did a great job, and thought Kilmer’s physics class might want to hear the presentation as well. I didn’t mined if Kilmer didn’t mind, and he was delighted to have me over to his class tomorrow morning. I went back to my room at this local hotel I booked online. I was only planning to leave tomorrow morning, but now that I get a chance to show my presentation to other class, I booked the room for one more night. I didn’t know if Kimer would want to continue our discussion further, so I wanted to play it cool, like it was no problem.

The next morning, I drove to Hesston and I noticed that there were some students in his class that were at my presentation yesterday, so I made sure to change up my presentation a bit. Plus, this time I showed a YouTube video demonstrating my formula car. I had just put it together before my trip to Wichita, and I think it turned out pretty good for such short notice. After the presentation, I was right, Kilmer did want to discuss things with me some more, he took me around campus and showed me a new building. He updated me about some recent changes in the media services. I attended the Hesston Mennonite church for a chapel service and notice that some of the people I went to college with were now faculty members. It was great to catch up with them after the service, we even went out to lunch.

Everyone had to get back to Hesston, so we all said goodbye and exchanged emails. I’m thinking that I might just be asked to become a faculty member, maybe, not sure, but who knows?

My whole family and I were on our way to Grand Rapids, Michigan. I was a little sad about leaving my dog all alone, I mean, someone will be checking up on her, well only be away 2 nights and 3 days, but my dogs never been without us. I hope she fares well.

So, I was sitting back, relaxing and enjoying the car trip to Grand Rapids, I watched the beautiful scenery pass by, then my Mom got hungry, so we stopped at McDonald’s. We got back in the car and heading back on the road again. After 3 hours, we saw the mile signs to Grand Rapids, 30 miles away. We were are eager to arrive and get settle in our hotel rooms, we had to book 2 rooms because there are 6 of us. My mom found the Grand Rapids Hotel, where we will be staying, on the Internet, she’s not one who great online, but she found this page: hotelsgrandrapids.com and the site made it very easy for her to book two rooms.

As soon as we got into Grand Rapids, my folks headed straight for the Community College Restaurant, it’s called The Heritage. The food there was excellent; it’s all prepared by students, and I give them an A+! After that we found our hotel, which was nicer than we expected. We called up my cousins to let them know we arrived. It was her Quinceanera tomorrow. That’s why we are here. Quinceanera’s are a big deal in the Mexican traditions. It’s when a girl turns fifteen and is considered a woman. But, I was really looking forward to all the great Mexican food that will be served.

The next day, when we arrived at the Quinceanera, we stuffed our faces with great Mexican food, while great Mexican music was playing. My cousin finally got to dance her waltz, while everyone else danced the salsa, the cumbia and the merengue. We started doing the traditional Chinelos Dance, which is a traditional dance from the Aztecs to scare off bad spirits. This dance lasts about 5 minutes, and we keep repeating the same 4 steps over and over.

We found the DJ to be not of this era, someone needs to tell him that there’s new music! When the party ended, we all went back to our cousins house, so we could all catch up and relax with one another. We didn’t get back to our hotel until 5am! Now that was some Quinceanera!

After arriving here at the San Francisco airport, we collected our bags and found the train the heads into the city. The ticket machine was pretty complicated, which we found unusual, because usually how most of the ticket machines around the world are where you put in your money first and then start reducing the value until you get down to how much the fare is. Fortunately, the ticket machine always has a staff person on hand to aid with people like us, foreigners.

We got on the train that goes to the Union Square area, which is in the northern part of the city. We walked to the cheap hotel in San Francisco, where we had made reservations on-line. We really liked our accommodations and the location. After checking in we, headed right back out and walked around the Union Square area, then we went back to the area around our hotel and had dinner at this great little cafe that was next door. The food was pretty good.

Then we headed out to see what San Francisco’s night-life is like. We found a very funky and trendy bar not for from our hotel, The Owl Tree. The bar’s not big, but it’s very nice. After having a few drinks, we went to another bar that seemed liked it belonged in England, a pub, but it was too quiet for our tastes. We walked a bit more and came upon Lefty O’Doul’s Irish bar. There were tons of baseball pictures and we ended up spending the rest of the night there. We chatted with a couple of women from Australia and a ton of New Yorkers. The one man band, on keyboard, was rather funny and very entertaining, we really appreciated his non-PC sense of humor. When we left the bar, we were really glad not to be driving, we were pretty sloshed. We did make it back to our hotel without incident. Not bad for our first half day in San Francisco.

Las Vegas might be a city of sin and decadence, but there is law and order there. There is also the CSI show there too, and though Jay-Z might consider New York the city of sin, others think that Las Vegas made the patent. But there are people there trying to fight that perception, and not just the cops and lawyers fighting the problems with drugs, murder, stealing the kind of crimes you turn on the TV for to watch on the news for the true experience of reality TV or on those crime shows that range from the docile, Murder She Wrote and Blues Clues, to the intense, Southland and The Wire and not just on those TV shows you might see time to time when you are tired and watching the TV, waiting out the hours until the alarm rings or the radio turns on and wakes you up.

I know a guy who fighting in a Las Vegas, Nevada law firm. He has had to work hard to get into the position he is, especially saddled with his name, Saint-Exupery. He works with primarily soon to be divorcees and prenuptial agreements, which might seem like a disparate connection but not really. Besides, it helps him to do the kind of work he really likes to do. He likes to volunteer his services to those that cannot afford them normally. He takes to heart the saying that America wants you to give her your poor and needy, in the good times, and in sickness and health.

He also has a soft spot for libraries. He likes to volunteer as a reader to children. These children love to hear the stories he picks out for them. He read The Little Prince the other day and then asked the kids to draw their own versions of animals outside and inside. He chose to an elephant that the children all instantly recognized but that the adults just thought was the top part of a hat, a fedora to be precise because that is the kind of hat that my friend likes to wear, whether he is lawyer garb or not. The children are smart enough to know the difference between a hat and elephant but a lot of adults do not. That is why they liked the little Prince so much. That is why he likes them so much.

Our bus took us through New Jersey and what really surprised me was the farming land. I guess that’s why they call New Jersey the Garden State. We passed horse farms, produce farms, some very lovely trees and exquisitely kept yards. I do hope though, that New York is vastly different. We past Trenton, through the Holland Tunnel into Manhattan and onto the Port Authority Bus Terminal, which was perfect, because we had reservations with a boutique hotel in New York City and that was only a few blocks away.

After we cleaned up a bit in our hotel room, we headed out to Times Square, which wasn’t too far from our hotel either and purchased tickets to go on another bus! A tour bus that took us around New York City. Our driver, Mike, seemed really thrilled to be doing his job and Mark, our tour guide was an absolute joy and great guy. He was born in the Bronx, so we really enjoyed listening to him talk, his accent and attitude really made us feel like we were getting a genuine experience of New York. We were on the special bus lanes, right in the middle or rush hour, and Mark, our tour guide pointed out that most of the vehicles had one occupant. We just looked at each other, knowing that back home, we are the only ones in our cars too.

Later, we took the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, and hopped back on the tour bus, let me explain, the tour bus is like a ‘hop-on and hop off’ bus, we can catch it almost anywhere in New York City. We took it to Ground Zero, which is still under construction, and we could feel the new energy surrounding this important project. We then walked to Battery Park, and to South Port docks. We ‘hopped-on’ a tour bus from there and went to the Empire State Building. ‘Hopped-on’ the bus again, but this time the traffic was horrendous and it took us almost an hour to get back to our hotel. What a terrific first day in New York City. We highly recommend purchasing the tour bus tickets to see New York, it’s really worth the cost.

When you are spending some time in the city of San Antonio, and you are looking for some night time entertainment, you will no doubt be overwhelmed with choices.  For the hottest and trendiest of dance clubs, to a wide selection of live music venues, to comedy clubs, this is one Texas city that really does spring to life when the sun goes down.  Recently, many “enotecas” or classy wine bars have opened, as well as places to get an ice cold beer or to find a vast collection of every kind of tequila there is on the market.

From the quick and fast paced party, to the laid back glass of wine with friends in the lounge of an historic and incredible hotel in downtown San Antonio, you will have plethora of options when it comes to that perfect night out.  On my first visit to the city, my friends took me to a pub called, “Around the Bend”.  This was my kind of pub, as there was no loud techno beat in the background, it was just a neighborhood joint filled with people who had known each other for many, many years.

The next evening, desiring a bit of local food and fare, we had a meal and mojito at the Neuvo Latino bar, Azuca.  There are two buildings separated by a beautiful patio, and the colors and the contemporary designs were enhanced by replicas of the glass works of Chihuly.  It was an incredible atmosphere, and the fine food of Rene Fernandez was a bit of the traditional combined with, as the name implies, nuevo cuisine.  On the weekends, live salsa bands perform while people strut their stuff on the dance floor.

One of my favorite places was called the Blue Star Brewing Company.  While I loved the bar, I loved the area more, as it is set back in an area filled with the artists and the galleries of the Blue Star Arts Complex.  The feel was a bit industrial, but the company, the spirits and the food created a warm atmosphere that is most inherent in the restaurants and the pubs situated in artistic communities.  Nights out on the town in San Antonio have haunted my memory a bit, and I am looking forward to my next visit, with anticipation and with delight.

One of my best friends moved from Minneapolis to Brooklyn at the end of the 1990s, and it was good news for me.  We’d always liked each other’s company, growing up on opposite sides of the Mississippi River, and talking about our own world views.  At the time, we thought that Saint Paul and Minneapolis were so radically different from each other, and our experiences made us rugged individuals.  We’d get together and fight it out in conversations about who was more correct about politics, girls, good food, and good films.  As the years went by, I began to see that there were many more points of view in the world than we’d ever imagined, and that we were both pretty similar in almost every way.  I missed the arguments, though, because we always had something to agree on at the end of the day.

So it was a welcome change of fortune, when we both were living in the same city.  For a few years, we made it a regular practice to meet at one of the excellent www.newyorkrestaurants.com and talk about film.  We could argue about the other things, but when it came to politics and girls, we thought the same, so it was never very deep.  Two men talking about things they agree on can sometimes begin to resemble drunk gorillas happy that the sun was rising another day.  But movies.  Movies were a whole different matter.

I won’t get specific here, because he can’t defend himself, but his tastes have always been a lot stupider than mine.  I like the refined things, and in film, I like the stuff that comes from Italy and France.  Occasionally something good comes from this side of the ocean, like I’m Not There, but most of the time, the things I see in theaters make me depressed.  He, on the other hand, is very easily amused.  Films where people get shot for holding the wrong bag at the wrong time appeal to his very limited imagination.  I’m starting to sense, however, that it’s becoming apparent that he won our last disagreement, and I’m harboring bitterness against him.  It’s been 6 years since Genhawk lived here, and I have to confess that I miss the dinners, and I miss the arguments.  I miss them so much in fact that I hope he reads this and it makes him angry enough to track me down so we can do it all over again.