The site is running reasonably well again so I’ll celebrate with a link to an article on fountain pens from a Manila paper. If you read closely you may see a familiar name.
Just click here.
Back In Business
Happy Holidays
The weekend before Christmas a storm struck the East Coast and SW Virginia was in the thick of it. It dumped the most snow in over 10 years on much of the area here. We went up to the house of some friends so if snow bound we could at least keep each other company. Two days later we got dug out enough to head back home.
I spent enough of my life in heavy winter snow to hate a white Christmas nowadays. To share the joy of a cold nose and wet feet with the rest of you I captured it in pictures.
My Christmas was spent in the quiet of home for once. I received a wonderful surprise as some of my Filipino friends sent Christmas ornaments and other goodies from distant Metro Manila. Below is a picture of this year’s tree dressed up with those new duds.
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. I send hugs to all my friends close and distant and my best to those who I do not know.
The Pentom of the Opera
My father has had a few years of ill health (and all the baggage being a wee bit of a hypochondriac can add to that) so when some medical tweaks suddenly made him regain some vigor I was impressed. Since my father is at his craziest when in high spirits his purchase of a Porsche was only modestly shocking. Certainly at his age he should do whatever makes him happy and I’m all for indiscriminate spending on fun things, after all look what I collect! These events were a sign that it was time to get my father out and about doing something fun and far away after such a long period of him protesting he couldn’t.
Even though the weekend after Thanksgiving was very close the free from work Friday made the time ideal for this road trip and I went about quickly (OK, I procrastinated) making plans for it. Soon I found myself flying into Buffalo, NY and taking the wheel to move on down the road for 7 hours into the heart of Manhattan. It wasn’t all bliss, though. The expensive SUV didn’t have an iPod aux jack even though the cheapest Kia comes with such gratis. A few hours of driving and I was looking (and looking and looking) for a decent book on CD at Cracker Barrel to fill time on the boring concrete ribbon of the interstate. Learning to use the complex interface for the rather misguided navigation system also tried my patience. It worked like the partially decommissioned HAL did in near the end of 2001 a space odyssey and I was surprised it didn’t start singing “Daisy” somewhere in New Jersey.
Miraculously we made it to our Midtown hotel only to find our room was not ready yet. Actually, It wasn’t ready for two hours which normally would have perturbed me if it wasn’t for the fact that I got comped free stuff every time I went to the desk to ask “ready yet?” In the end through judicious choice of a different receptionist every time I went up to put forth my inquiry I had accumulated 10 free breakfasts and 4 slips for drinks at the bar. That was 4 more breakfasts than we needed for our 3 day stay but they started being distributed en masse towards the end of my pilgrimage to bug them.
The goals for the weekend fell into two general categories: Things with my father and things without my father. The latter was intended to help me keep my sanity over this period. The former included eating and the opera which was the point for coming to the city and we certainly had a good deal of both.
The Opera was Il Trittico by Giacomo Puccini and I was astounded by the stage presentation and voices presented by the Metropolitan Opera. It was long but that was justified by the final of the three single act operas called Gianni Schicchi. This was a very funny comic opera that won the heart of this most ambivalent opera listener. My father loved it all and even made a friend in an old woman who I found him discussing Czechoslovakia with when I returned from intermission. Below are some images of the event for you to take a gander at. The sets and stagecraft utilized for this were incredible and even utilized some tricks of perception to make the stage seem deeper than in actuality. Yes, I did put a tie on for the event which I felt was appropriate even if I’m not sure I didn’t look a bit like a tourist.
My father is a fine person but he has weird outbursts of angry old man at times. I’m pretty good at putting my hand over his mouth when this happens but my biggest challenge was to keep him from getting into trouble. In the end I am happy to say only 4 times did I cringe in either embarrassment or shock. At the opera he grumped at someone who got in front of him in the elevator which is par for the course. After the performance when cabs were scarce he wanted me to take proactive physical action to obtain a cab before others who had seniority. I will say here that he has some trouble walking and didn’t like standing around but I have two strikes against me in cab warfare: I’m polite and I’m rather small. Lastly, there was his outburst at a hostess at a German restaurant we ate at and how his inexplicable insertion of his hand in another person’s waiting food. I’m not even going to give details about that little incident.
Around all the other activities I did get to eat (and eat). One of my favorite restaurants is Les Halles whose executive chef once was Antony Bourdain. I go there for the boudin noir which in English has the less romantic name of blood sausage. Certainly not something you’ll find at the local IHOP but totally tasty if you can get beyond the ingredient in its name. Some giant German sausages at the Heidelberg, a prickly pear margarita at Dos Caminos, and some great Belgian beer at the BXL Café got worked into the trip as well. However, the only pictures of my general wanderings are of the environs of Rockefeller center. It was lovely as usual and the big tree was…well…big.
So, that takes care of the boring part of this all. Now I can talk about one of my favorite topics: pens and friends. I made a beeline Saturday morning for Art Brown International Pen Store which is a great place if you are of the pen, stationary, and ink mindset. An enjoyable time for me is wandering and ogling the contents of such a place, as you can imagine. I was picking up a few presents and some other items when I came across bottles of the now discontinued Montblanc Racing Green ink. I bought a bottle since it was low priced and now seemingly rare. I’m only mentioning this since I think I’m going to give it away on this blog in the near future.
Sunday saw me off on my own to visit MOMA. I wanted to see the Tim Burton art exhibit being shown but found after getting my tickets that you were assigned to a time slot when they would let you see it. Of course that time was 3 or so hours later than the when I arrived so I never got to view it. Still, all was not lost as I got to see a really fabulous exhibit on the Bauhaus school in prewar Germany.
After my fill of Deutsch modernism I had a terrific lunch with Dominique James, a pen friend. He is one of the original members of the Fountain Pen Network-Philippines group which I’ve blogged about before. Since I’m a distant acquaintance of a couple FPN-P members I’ve known that he lived in NYC and thought I’d see if he might want to meet up. I’m always stunned that someone would be nice enough to spend their valuable time with me but he agreed. The lunch was very enjoyable with much talk about pens interspersed with some interesting information on the Philippines and cooking. I stayed longer than anticipated so I was off in a rush to my next appointment.
Two people willing to see me in one day doesn’t come along too often so I hustled uptown to the Columbia University area. There another wonderful person who I knew from online interaction, but never met in person, waited. I, of course, was quite late to meet her and which got me off on the “now you look like a dimwit” foot. Mia was far nicer than I had a right to expect and my tardiness was overlooked. I got a highly enjoyable tour of the local neighborhood and a few places of sustenance. Food makes me docile and easily led so it was a good thing that I had great crepes for a pre-dinner snack followed by some wonderful croissants from a local French bakery. After the tour and picture taking I had an experience which reminded me of being on a childhood play date with a friend. We spread out pens, pads, and inks and spend time trying it all out. It ended way too soon as I had to go to dinner with my father who had spent a great deal of time watching football that day (yes, that’s my father). I left taking with me the two best tamales I ever had.
While on that neighborhood walking tour I did get to see a fascinating Church and fountain. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is very imposing and creepily gothic. In the gardens next to it is both the oddest and most interesting fountains I’ve ever seen. The Peace Fountain has a depiction of the battle of good and evil which contains (among other things) a giant crab, the sun, and an Angel. Not sure how to fathom what kind of aquatic/solar/heavenly battle is going on but it’s dramatic. Even more surprising was the albino peacock that wandered behind a fence on the grounds. That was the last thing I expected to see in New York City.
I think both my father and myself had a great trip to that little, sparsely populated island city. I’m hoping to get back again at least to check out more stationary stores and maybe catch another opera to try and stay awake during.
Ondoy
Like many people sitting here in the United States I’m exposed to the news of the world day in and day out. We see disasters and tragedies on a macro and micro level all the time. Most of it bounces off of the layer of callousness gained to protect ourselves from the emotional devastation we’d feel if our empathy was unchecked. It is when events touch you on a personal level that they creep under the barbed wire we’ve unrolled around our emotive centers and grab the ends of those neurons and twist.
What’s twisting me currently is tropical storm “Ondoy” which recently hit the Philippines with a vengeance. I know people in that country and specifically in Metro Manila and other storm affected areas where the devastation of the flooding is just starting to be dealt with. Currently there are still people waiting for help on rooftops. Newly rescued people are cold, hungry, and dehydrated while they wait to go home and see what ruins they will find. It seems there was woefully too little government response and as usual aid agencies like the Red Cross are doing their best to provide help and comfort.
It’s too easy to play the numbers game and say that there were too few deaths or too little devastation to make a disaster worth noting. “It’s not the Sichuan earthquake or the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004” some would think and dismiss things. Beyond viewing people as a cumulative grouping they are individuals and a small car accident can affect one as much as if a volcano erupts nearby. We can’t help every person nor financially support all relief programs in the world but contributing to recovery efforts in smaller disasters means that you will have a larger impact on helping people in need. Don’t forget those in distress because they are not getting the lion’s share of the news cycle.
For individuals here in the United States we can’t easily get clothing or food stuffs to the Philippines so it seems a monetary contribution is the most expedient method of providing disaster relief. I found two ways for us here to quickly contribute to The Philippine National Red Cross which is working hard to help out in this crisis:
This link takes you to their website and will allow you to contribute via credit card.
This link takes you to site that has a PayPal link for contributions. You’ll want to read the post before you choose this and judge for yourself if it’s trustworthy.
Update 9/26:
This link is for the GMA Kapuso Foundation which is currently collecting funds to help the victims. It’s a credit card donation system but takes U.S. dollars so does not require currency conversion.
This link is for a blog which is putting together a group donation via PayPal.
Update 9/28
This link is for the UNICEF page to donate to help the children who are victims of the disaster. This online form works with credit cards.
Update 9/29
Now that several days have passed I see many options popping up for people in the U.S. to donate to the relief efforts. If you google you’ll find some charity or organization to suit you preferences I’m sure. I’ve got one more link to post here and it probably will be my last one.
This link goes to the The Ayala Foundation which is a nonprofit development organization of the Ayala Group of Companies. This takes donations via credit card but in pesos so you’ll need to convert.
If you can’t help in this way I hope you spare a few seconds to think some good thoughts for all those who are rebuilding and trying to get their lives back to normal in the Philippines.
I’ve not mentioned in this post yet how I donated. The first day of the flooding I sent money to The Philippine National Red Cross. A day after that I did the same to UNICEF. As they say every little bit helps and I really hope that’s true.
The Grumbling Gourmet
I love to cook and I love to try new recipes from different cultures and countries. Learning about these different cuisines is fun and the pièce de résistance is making something that doesn’t make anyone turn green and double over. Of course I know that my endeavors may not taste authentic especially since I usually have trouble obtaining spices or ingredients you just can’t find in my gastronomically challenged area. Nothing gets in the way of my trying to make tasty things, however.
Until recently I kept myself busy with Indian, Pakistani, Spanish, Mexican and whatever other dishes caught my attention. Food from the Southwestern region of the U.S. is also great and might as well be foreign here (unless you count Taco Bell as food). Even with that track record I never thought that I’d be making dishes from a place that a year ago barely registered on my cooking radar.
This all goes back to what some friends of mine call “that Philippines thing you have” with a bit of befuddled amusement. What they refer to is that through my hobby of using and collecting fountain pens I’ve made friends with a number of Filipinos who have shared (or have been prompted by my incessant questions) a litany of information on their culture and food. Armed with this I usually spit out facts at a rapid fire pace when anyone gets snarky about me knowing people on the other side of the planet. “Did you know we were at war with the Filipino people and were de facto colonial rulers?” “There are over 7100 islands in that nation.” “Manila is both a city and a metro area made up of a number of cities with over 11 million people. It’s the 11th largest metropolitan area in the world and one of the most densely populated.” “Yes, they speak English there but also Tagalog and a number of other regional languages.” By the time I get to that point everyone is usually politely excusing themselves before being bored to death and leave me in peace.
Nonetheless when presented with a new culture or place I always go for the food. I learned early on that a food called adobo in the Philippines is not the Hispanic dry seasoning or tomato based sauce we are used to here. Over there it is a vinegary stew with pork, fish, or chicken as the meat component. So I looked up some recipes and discovered one thing after another about cooking Filipino staples. For example: Everything has a name I can’t remember. I have trouble remembering what things in Spanish are called and I’m a lot more familiar with that language. Additionally there are a lot of vegetables I’ve never heard of which pop up on ingredient lists. Bitter melon? Can I use any melon since I’m a bitter man? Using authentic cane or coconut vinegar when cooking this stuff really helps the flavor. See? You got one real tip out of this and you thought you were wasting your time.
The best part is that I like the dishes I’ve cooked a great deal. It took me two tries (and the aforementioned vinegar) to get the adobe to taste decent so there is a learning curve. Liver is something I seem in the minority enjoying in these parts so finding it in dishes such as menudo (not the same stuff we are used to here redux) and caldereta put a smile on my face (arteries say “no comment”.) I made a sugar free version of a baked meringue dessert called brazo de mercedes as well. Afritada and arroz a la cubana I’ve made with no regrets but major problems with getting up after eating.
What made this all possible was a few more of those kind presents that I accumulate from people who for no known reason send them to me. Yay for cookbooks directly from the Philippines! It is hard not to be incredibly grateful for such wonderful food enablers.
If there ever was a contest for the person who has put up with my curiosity for the longest time then the lovely and mega-talented Leigh would have been crowned Miss Answer Stupid Questions 2008 and 2009. She was the first to generously share her store of knowledge to satiate my many inquiries about her country. She also told me what adobo was then sent me a whole book of adobo recipes! Yep, there are a lot of variations. I’m making my next recipe (embutido) from the other cookbook pictured, which covers a wide swath of Filipino cuisine. It’s another wonderful resource Leigh sent.
My friend Hazel is another pug owner, avid fountain pen user and art collector but also a witty cultural resource. The book she sent me is an amazing amalgam of history, society, food, life, and more. It’s a fascinating book that really gives a feel for the way people lived in many regions of the Philippines. It also has more words that I don’t understand than a physics textbook. Still, there are some recipes included that I’m eyeing even if I have no idea what some of the ingredients are.
The item pictured last isn’t a cookbook but it’s a book I love. This is a pictorial panoply of the Philippines which has helped me visualized much of the beauty there. Taking the time to find and send this to me for no reason other than the fact I was curious is another example of unconditional giving I certainly don’t deserve. Jenny, who sent this, is yet another incredibly sweet person and I normally never, ever say that about anyone since I’m a curmudgeon and try to dislike everyone. I wish I could end here but this book had greetings and signatures in it from other folks I know there. Made me have to walk outside to regain my grumpy demeanor.
The first thing I say about my experience with those I know in the Philippines if asked (and before I get to the stuff intended to bore them away) is “they are way, way too nice.” I hate to say anything so hackneyed as “I live a richer life because I know them” but it certainly is true I eat richer food now. Oh, there’s lots of liver in many things I’ve made. Did I mention that?
Update:
Here’s the embutido I made. I certainly loved making and eating it.
Grateful To Not Be Listened To
This is another post about gifts that generous and (way too) nice people have taken the time and effort to give me. I have no idea why they bother to do so since as previously mentioned I’m just a distant curmudgeon who doesn’t really merit it. Still they gleefully ignore that completely and send things through my force field of grumps.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I took some bindery courses and actually bound a few books by hand (I’ve still got some). I know that this takes more art than science to wind up with results that are attractive as well as useful. Mona is a person that that can craft journals and other bound items of great beauty. She sent me the one below which I’m indebted to her for. The amazing thing is she just started doing this not very long ago. It’s a sideline to her other hobbies like knitting and fountain pen mania but I’m certainly happy she took it up.
My work hasn’t taken me far afield in quite some time but my friend Caloy’s livelihood takes him places I’ve both dreamt about and only vaguely familiar with. Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is the latter. At a conference there recently he picked up a locally crafted embroidered pouch for me. It’s the perfect size to hold the stack of postcards I keep and the postage for them. It’s also strikingly attractive.
I never know how to receive a token of friendship in person so I usually fidgit and make some inane quip about how someone else would be more worthy of the item. Use your imagination and insert that image here.
Wrap and Roll
This is the first entry in a series that could be called “nice things people have given me and I’m guilty about.” Getting a gift throws me off guard since I’m probably unworthy of the kindness. That doesn’t mean I’m not both appreciative and moved when someone thinks well enough of me to send something.
In this case one very generous friend hand made two pen wraps and another was considerate enough to ship them the great distance to me. If you don’t know what a pen wrap is let me explain. Let’s say you have a lot of pens (and I do) and transporting them somewhere is your goal. There are a few choices: You can put them loose into a container which could damage them (bad). Maybe you could fill your pockets with them (worse). If you have a lot of little one or two pen cases you could slip your pens into those and put the lot into your backpack (me).
Actually, the last time I needed to bring numerous pens with me I rolled them into an old stringy towel I had. That concept is really quite like a pen wrap where you have pockets that pens fit into, a flap that folds over the top, and a ribbon to hold it together when rolled up. I’ve never had a pen wrap…until now.
And what lovely wraps they are! Hand made out of some neat materials in lovely colors. As you can tell I was thrilled and remain so. I have used one already to take some pens on my recent trip to Chicago. This weekend I’ll use both to cart even more pens to the Washington DC pen show.
Thanks, May, for taking the time to create these totally unexpected wraps for me. Ack! The guilt! I don’t deserve them. I’m going to try and make the level of guilt unbearable for me by showing some more gifts in future posts.
New Post(card)
Until this year I don’t think I ever mailed a postcard. It’s not like I was unaware of them since over time I saw them so often in various places like tourist traps at Niagara Falls, state park welcome centers, and airport gift shops that I grew to treat them as a part of the background. A few months ago through the auspices of some friends I learned that in the internet age they are still alive and kicking even if reduced in popularity.
Getting told while chatting that someone “got a postcard from…” was my first reminder of the venerable card stock rectangles. The story involves a person who lives a very long way from me and was very excited to get this item from someone who lived a very long way from her. It took days and days to arrive, carried very little information due to space considerations, cost a moderate sum to send, and in all ways was inferior than just typing on your keyboard and pushing “send” in your email program. That, In a nutshell, was what appealed to me so much about the postcard idea.
Finding a postcard to send proved a lot harder than I thought. Living in one of the least interesting parts of the country you don’t find many postcards since this locality doesn’t have much to put on them. Come and Visit the Mediocrity!, A Remarkably Low Cost of Living!, Anyone with Low Ambition Will Love It Here!, People Flock Here Two Days A Year Before They Hurry Away!, and Traditionally High Unemployment! are not the kind of slogans that you’d want to mail off to a loved one. For a couple of weeks I kept forgetting to look for them in the larger nearby city I visit once a week or so. Finally on a weekend I asked a friend who had worked in a local civic organization if she could think of someplace I could find a postcard. To my surprise she suggested the area Visitor Information Center. In the back of my mind I remembered something about that recently being set up but promptly forgot about it since I have all the information I can take about the area. With that hot tip I drove uptown one lunch hour to see if I could drum up the elusive item I was seeking. The Center wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Some local arts and crafts were scattered around a woman who looked like knitting filled 95% of her work day. I asked about the cards and was told there were some on the wall and they were free! Excitedly I went over to a few hanging wire retainers that were replete with colorful items of the right shape and thickness. Yes, they were free but that was only because they were basically advertisements for a bird house builder on the Blue Ridge Parkway and the local NASCAR track. Oh well, you take what you can get.
Since then I’ve grabbed postcards whenever I see them and I have a nice stack. I try to remember to send them but my memory for duties like that is terrible. I even joined Postcrossing which is a website for people around the world to send postcards to each other at random. It’s a nice idea and promotes learning about other peoples and countries. So far I’ve remembered to send one postcard. I guess it’s a start.
But now back to my friends who send the little flat parcels of good cheer: Below I’ve shown some postcards they’ve sent from the Philippines. I’m not going to say too much about them since Google is at your fingertips. However I’ve learned a good deal about that country over the last year but the most important thing I’ve picked up is how kind and friendly people can be for no reason besides enjoying it.
Two very pretty volcanoes.
Boracay is a beautiful beach resort area. Banaue has incredible terraced rice patties.
IRRI Campus which does advanced research on Rice agriculture. Colorful costumes of the Masskara Festival.
Gazing over the water at the beautiful El Nido in Palawan. The last card was sent while a friend was visiting this country.
Nice bird stamps and the postmark. Pilipinas is the Tagalog name of the country.
Insert Lithp Here
It’s odd how the internet can extend your reach. I can buy goods from places I never heard about as a child. I read people’s thoughts from lands I didn’t expect to glean insights from. I see images taken minutes, even seconds, after events extremely remote to me. Beyond all that what still strikes me as the most unbelievable is I have friends on the other side of this planet whom I’ve never actually met.
How that happened is a long and rather boring story. Logic dictates that the underlying reason is that my likability is directly proportional to the distance you are away from me (Overfield’s law). If I lived on the moon the entire world would love me. What all of the people I know overseas have in common is using and collecting that odd throwback I love: fountain pens. Forming a small (but rapidly growing) group centered in metro Manila they meet for food, friendship, and fountain pens (is that the “3 Fs”?) How do I know this? After corresponding with one of the members I started following these gatherings online via Jenny Ortuoste’s blog or photos sent directly to me by people such as Leigh Reyes (blog plug). Now I can supplement that with quite a few picture galleries put up by attendees on Facebook. This happy band calls themselves the Fountain Pen Network-Philippines or FPN-P for short.
The reason I like this group so much (besides the fact that some members will actually put up with me) is their enthusiasm and camaraderie. It always looks fun when they meet at someone’s home, get a room in a tasty looking restaurant, or even take over a whole coffee shop to see pens, talk pens, use pens, and eat (not pens). Often they go out for sightseeing and pen paraphernalia hunts afterward. I’ve been at pen meets that were barely alive by comparison. The people are all ages and from all walks of life including a broadcaster, an award winning novelist/playwright, an advertising executive, professors, business people, creative professionals, writers, students, etc. etc. Certainly it’s a diverse and interesting group of folks. Seeing young people interested in what some think stodgy like fountain pens is rare, but there are some here. I never thought I’d use the term “young people” in a sentence…I am getting old.
This is leading up to my mention of another ritual they have at the meets: raffles. Members bring in items and all are raffled off to attendees for free. Last time they met there were so many items a second round of drawings had to be made. Everyone (or nearly so) seems to come away with a nifty doodad given out of the goodness of another person’s heart. Pens, notebooks, inks, and even panda shaped pens are put into the great redistribution pool. Next month is the meeting that will mark their one year anniversary and the raffle is sure to be bigger and better than ever. Also, odd as it might seem, I’ll be sending a couple things 8,000 miles for it as kind of a thank you for enjoying a bit of the fun remotely and being able to meet so many good people at the same time.
So….all gaze upon RAFFLESTEIN and his trusty helper PENCIGOR!!! (um…at the top of the page.) A more monstrous pair has never been seen in the pen world. I found just enough leftover parts for what may be my last Frankensnork class pen. It’s green, brown, and blue which I think is a nice color combination. The barrel comes from a desk pen since Sheaffer never made a brown pocket pen. Finishing it off is a Palladium-Silver triumph nib (fine) which has the script identification on it I find so charming. Pencigor has a top from a tuckaway pencil contrasting with a generic bottom assembly.
So congratulations to my friends in the other hemisphere on their 1 year anniversary. I hope there are many more. Oh, and whoever wins this owes me some adobo if I ever visit. 🙂
