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Letter From New York 04 22 15 From robotics to singing in the rain…

April 22, 2015

Last night, on a balmy New York spring night, I went at 5:00 to Junior’s Deli on 45th Street in the heart of New York’s theater district and met Cathy, my middle niece, her husband and their two daughters, Clare and Isabel, for a pre-theater dinner. They were off to see “Matilda” and I was off to see “It’s Only A Play.”

Cathy and Michael live in Portland and my brother is there watching after their two sons who had just accompanied he and his wife to Machu Picchu. I don’t get to see Cathy and her family very often so it was a cheery visit and then we went off to our respective performances.

Amazingly, after the performance, as I threaded my way through a hideously congested Times Square, I ran into them on the corner of 44th and Broadway. We laughed and hugged and then moved on.

I curled up in bed and started to read a Peter Wimsey mystery but soon feel asleep, Kindle in hand, only to wake later to turn out the lights.

This morning I had breakfast with David McKillop, who recently stepped down as GM of A&E and stepped into the role of Chief Creative Officer at a new production company called Propagate, which is being funded by A&E. He’s partnered with Howard Owens who used to run Nat Geo.

It was a glorious spring morning and we walked around Union Square for a while after breakfast, strolling past all the vendors that form the Union Square Farmer’s Market, then walked over to 7th Avenue where we parted. He off to a meeting and me to day of talks called “Imagination,” being held in conjunction with the Tribeca Film Festival.

The morning was devoted to robotics. While Elon Musk is terrified of intelligent machines, all these speakers were gung-ho enthusiasts of artificial intelligence and robots, as long as every one followed Asimov’s Three Rules of Robotics.

It was fascinating. The demonstration of Watson, IBM’s Supercomputer, was impressive. The video they showed reminded me of “Star Trek.”

Tim Armstrong, CEO of AOL, spoke in the afternoon about the technology advances they are making in serving ads and video content to their 250,000,000 users and that was impressive, too.

After the 3-D printing talk “Eating Your Way Into 3D Printing” I had to leave to go view a cut of a sizzle reel my friend Todd’s company is working on.

While I was involved in all these fun and rather joyful activities, the world ticked on.

Yesterday the Saudis said they’d stop bombing Yemen but this morning bombs were still falling there, with the country lurching toward a humanitarian crisis as supplies are floating out at sea because of the Saudi embargo.

When I was in India there was lots of news about a land development law that the Modi government is attempting to pass. It would ease the government’s ability to expropriate land belonging to farmers for other uses. It is hugely controversial and hotly debated and stridently opposed by the Congress Party, the opposition to Modi’s BJP.

Today there was a rally in Delhi protesting the bill. At it, an Indian farmer committed suicide, hanging himself from a tree. He left behind a suicide note saying the recent extraordinary rains and hailstorms had ruined him. Rahul Gandhi raced to the hospital and the PM, Modi, is said to be “shattered” by the incident but probably not so much that he will withdraw the law.

Britain, which is facing elections on May 7th, is working overtime to figure out what is going to happen if the Tories lose. If the Scots become the power brokers in the formation of a new government, there is a concern about the results. “Constitutional crisis” is on the lips of a few.

Thousands of Ethiopians have taken to the streets to march in protest against IS’s killing of thirty of their countrymen for being Christian.

Prime Minister Abe of Japan paid slight attention to Japan’s wartime responsibility in a speech in Jakarta, which raised the ire of Japan’s neighbors but not so much that Xi of China wouldn’t meet with Abe. The two had a thirty-minute meeting and stressed their determination to continue working on their relationship. It almost sounded like an estranged couple continuing their therapy sessions.

The Vatican announced today that Pope Francis would stop in Cuba while en route to the US for his visit here. Cuba will probably go mad for the Pontiff.

The bright spring morning turned to afternoon clouds and rain, which has now stopped though the grey continues. I am off to dinner tonight with my friends David and Annette Fox, celebrating my return from India with take out from Indus Valley, our favorite neighborhood Indian restaurant. Will be a good time.

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Letter From New York 04 21 15 A city in sunshine instead of rain…

April 21, 2015

The very first thing I did today was look at the Weather Channel app on my phone. It told me that New York was going to have a rainy morning and cloudy afternoon. Well, all day the sun has been pouring down joyfully and relentlessly upon the city, to my great delight. I hope it stays that way.

Just now, it was announced that the Saudis are stopping their month long aerial attack on Yemen’s Houthis, called “Operation Decisive Storm” and replacing it with “Operation Restoring Hope.”

Yemen needs some hope. Its feeble infrastructure has been overwhelmed by the attacks and food and medical supplies are in short supply due to the Saudi sea blockade, holding up ships to make sure they weren’t carrying arms. Yemen is desperate for hope.

However, while the bombing is over the fight may not be. The Saudis are still determined to keep the Houthis from power.

In Egypt, former President Morsi has been ordered to spend twenty years in jail. He still faces several more trials on accusations against him from his year in power.

In 2005 a then 83-year-old German denounced Holocaust deniers and spoke of having seen the gas chambers and the ovens with his own eyes. Today, at 93, Oskar Groening, went on trial in Germany for his role as a bookkeeper for the Nazis at Auschwitz.

He has told the court he feels morally guilty even though he did not actually kill anyone personally. It is, he said, up to the court to find him legally guilty or not.

Italian courts will decide if the captain of the migrant smuggling vessel that capsized this week is guilty of human trafficking, reckless homicide and causing a shipwreck. He was one of the 28 survivors; as many as 950 may have perished.

In the last six days alone, almost 11,000 people have been pulled from the Mediterranean, attempting to reach the Italian coast.

The European Union will now play a bigger role rather than leaving it to Italy to shoulder this burden alone.

Almost all the human smuggling originates in Libya, which is in chaos and where IS has made some gains even as they have had to pull back in Iraq. There are conflicting reports today regarding Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-styled Caliph of the self-styled IS Caliphate. He either was or was not gravely wounded in a March air attack near Mosul.

Whether he is gravely wounded or not, the war with IS grinds on and there is fighting around Ramadi with residents torn between returning and staying away. They fled by the thousands as IS entered the city’s center. Now Iraqi forces seem to have retaken most of the town but there is still fighting going on.

At least six died in Mogadishu, Somalia as a result of a car bombing. Al Shabaab takes responsibility.

Certainly not dead or wounded is Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, who turned 89 today though the country celebrates her birthday in June. There has been a royal tradition that if a monarch is born during the winter months, celebrations will be in the summer, when the weather is better.

There were numerous gun salutes today while Her Majesty celebrated quietly with her family at Windsor Castle, where she has been in residence the past month.

Crowds are already lining up outside the hospital where Kate, Duchess of Cambridge and wife of Prince William, is due to give birth to their second child. Some people have already been there for two weeks.

While the overall popularity of the British Royal Family is not in question, the popularity of the American President has not been so good of late. However, it is up right now, back in positive territory for the first time in months. As is the public’s view of Obamacare.

And in the world of entertainment, if you were a fan of “Full House” which ran on network television from 1987-1995, it will be returning for 13 episodes on Netflix, interestingly described in one news article as an “online network.”   Not all cast members are signed on; some are, some are still in negotiation. But with or with out the full cast, “Full House” will return to Netflix.

Since I never watched it on network television maybe I will have to see what the fuss is about when it reaches Netflix. But that will be awhile in the future. Tonight I am off to the theater to see Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane in “It’s Only A Play.”

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Letter From New York 04 20 15 Thoughts from a Pain Quotidian…

April 20, 2015

It is a chillish, greyish, rainyish day in New York City. I am delighted I remembered to bring an umbrella into the city today when I left the cottage. It was drizzling as I left for the train and when I got off in New York, it was pelting down. Good thing I had only a short walk to my meeting from Penn Station.

Now I am at a Pain Quotidian having just spent some time with an old friend of mine, Fred Silverman. He’s in the process of selling his tech company and we talked about all things digital.

An old school journalist and filmmaker, he is troubled by the lack of fact checking in today’s digital sites, a thing which concerns me too. It also troubles him that many sites are paying low wages to their young workers, building very profitable businesses on the back of low wages.

It was an interesting talk; heightening the concerns I have about both journalism and the American work scene. All of it will work out, I’m sure, though probably not in my lifetime. There are probably some bumpy years ahead.

Fred is very attuned to the number of college students who are coming out of college saddled with heavy loans and without great job prospects. He has children in college and employs some shortly out of college.

It was, in fact, a subject that was covered in an interview with Martin O’Malley, a former governor of Maryland, who will probably challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Presidential nomination. He was on NPR this morning, talking about how students were coming out of college with loans that have interest rates of 7% when interest rates in general are at historic lows.

He gave careful, thoughtful answers to the questions asked him. I was impressed. I doubt he has a snowball’s chance in that warmer climate to get the nomination but I think it will be good his voice will be heard.

Jeb Bush is flying off to Europe right now in advance of his expected announcement about seeking the Republican nomination for President. He has a slight lead in polls but is no means in the position that Hillary has with the Democrats.

While Jeb jets, Hillary and Bill are facing the publication of a book called “Clinton Cash” on May 5 that tears them for their mixing of politics and philanthropy. The author is Peter Schweizer, a voluable conservative but the liberal press seems to think the book could be trouble.

The EU is scrambling to meet the needs of the immigrant crisis in the Mediterranean. Before this, it has been mostly left to Italy but the loss of 700 in the last week has stirred a regional response.

Another region that has heightened tensions is the area around Yemen. The US is sending warships there right now to intercept Iranian vessels potentially carrying arms to the Houthis. It could be a powder keg.

Ethiopia has declared three days of mourning for its citizens slaughtered by IS in Libya.

Six Minnesotans have been detained by authorities who believe they were attempting to join IS.

The US has started training the troops of Ukraine to bolster them in their fight against the rebels even while the ceasefire is marginally working.

Kim Jong-un of North Korea, the young and pudgy dictator of that country, claims to have climbed the nation’s tallest peak. Since the photographs of him at the top show him wearing pristine leather shoes and a slight overcoat, skepticism abounds over the validity of the claim.

In the British election, currently coming down to the wire, Nicola Sturgeon, Head of the SNP [Scotland’s National Party] has been indicating that if they are part of the coalition that governs with the Labour Party, they’ll be the ones calling the shots at Westminster. Ed Miliband, of Labour, disagrees.

Today stocks are higher on the news that China is stimulating its economy while the Euro is under pressure because of, what else, worries about Greek debt.

The Hubble Telescope is 25 years old and has provided us with some glorious pictures of the universe.

The rain seems to have departed and now it is time for me to depart from Pain Quotidian; the dinner crowd is arriving.

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Letter From New York 04 19 15 At the end of a weather glorious weekend…

April 19, 2015

The weekend is winding down in Claverack and it’s been good. Dinner at the Red Dot with my friend Paul, his daughter, Karen, and her fiancé, Andrew on Friday, followed by yesterday’s lovely lunch with Jack Myers, which itself was followed by an evening of glorious violin and piano music. Yevgeny Kutik was on the violin; Dina Vainshtein on the piano. It was two hours of music by luminaries such as Prokofiev as well as lesser lights such as Cesar Franck. Everyone in the audience was appreciative of the music coaxed from their instruments.

In the afterglow of the concert I went for a cocktail at Ca’Mea where I ran into a couple of people I knew as well as a lady who had, too, just been to the concert. We both liked the Prokofiev the best.

Then I wandered home and curled up with a few more episodes of “The Unbeatable Kimmy Schmidt” on Netflix, binge watching until later than I should have.

Morning brought church with a good sermon by Mother Eileen and a quick bite to eat before getting paint samples for the living room. It’s looking stale and so it’s time for a change.

Walking around the circle, I listened to the news on my iPhone, off my Newsbeat app, and soaked in part of what has been a weather glorious weekend.

While it is perhaps antediluvian of me, I still have an AOL email account. I have had one since something like 1992. Can’t read any messages for the last two days. Every time I try to open an email, I get a technical error message. And their help desk is pretty thin unless you pay the monthly charges, which I quit doing years ago. So I’m a little frustrated.

Frustrated, too, is the gentleman who flew a gyrocopter onto the Capital lawn, resulting in a full security review. Doug Hughes wanted to raise awareness about the need for campaign finance reform. He brought with him 535 letters, one for each member of Congress. Instead of focusing on the message he was carrying, news media have been focusing on his security breach.   He is unhappy his campaign reform message has been lost in the din.

In another Mediterranean tragedy, another boat capsized north of Libya with perhaps as many as 950 on board, with hundreds said to have been locked in the hold and unable to escape. So far only 28 survivors and 24 bodies have been recovered. If the numbers hold, this will have been the worst single tragedy for refugees seeking a better life in Europe. 3,500 died last year attempting to make it from Africa to Italy or Malta.

Many of these refugees, including the ones on the capsized boat, are setting out from the Libyan coast. On that very coast, a new video has been released purportedly showing IS members beheading 16 Ethiopian Christians while footage later in the video captures IS shooting 12 more Ethiopian Christians in the back of the head out in the desert.

The ugliness of absolutism beats on.

It is also raising concerns about IS finding a good foothold in Libya, not all that far from the Italian coast.

Back in India, Rahul Gandhi, heir apparent to the Congress Party, has returned from a two month “sabbatical” and is locked with current Prime Minister Modi in a battle of words to proclaim how “pro-poor” each one is.

In Yemen, the Houthis mock suggestions they will surrender under the air barrage led by Saudi Arabia. In Iraq, the Kurds have pushed IS out of an oil refinery and have broadened the buffer zone around Kirkuk, an oil rich city. Iran is seemingly determined to make it as difficult as possible to get a deal done by June 30, a deal being made even more difficult by Putin selling missiles to Iran. With western sanctions, Russia needs the cash.

Needing to perhaps hit a restart button is the Director of the FBI, James Comey, who published a piece in the Washington Post that suggested that Poland and Hungary helped the Nazis during WWII, quietly complicit in what was going on. Poland was not amused. The US Ambassador was summoned this afternoon for an apology.

Unapologetically, the sun is beginning to set and the day is fading to grey. I have a few tasks to do around the house and then I am going to curl up with a good book or may be a few more episodes of “The Unbeatable Kimmy Schmidt.”

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Letter From New York 04 18 15 The most beautiful day yet…

April 18, 2015

Today is the most beautiful day the year has given us yet. A cloudless sky, warm but not hot with a soft, gentle wind blowing across the landscape.

This morning, for the first time this year, I saw the hedgehog that makes my property his home. I watched him out the window for a while and then he ran off, quickly, as if he sensed me watching him.

Returning from an errand and before I left for a lunch, I stopped and introduced myself to the people who have moved into the house just east of me. John and Stacie, with two German shepherds. I think the dogs are the reason the deer have found a new route and keep away from my land. They stopped crossing the creek at that point once the dogs arrived.

Down in Rhinebeck, I met Jack Myers, an old business friend, at Market for lunch and we spent a couple of hours catching up and mutually ruminating about the media business, which is, as almost everyone knows, going through tumultuous changes.

Returning home, I closed my eyes for forty minutes and then got up to write, feeling invigorated and interested. On my way down to Rhinebeck, I was thinking how much I am enjoying this time in my life and how I am interested in seeing what comes next.

This morning, as I do mornings at the cottage, I read articles from the NY Times and from my BBC app, looking to see what was going on in the world.

A phalanx of Republicans is in New Hampshire, working to make their mark and stake a claim to the nomination. From Jeb Bush to Marco Rubio to Lindsey Graham, they are there to see what impact they might have and what momentum they might pick up. Rather than attack each other, they have been focused on their ire at Obama and sharpening their political swords for Hillary.

In Washington, DC there was a rally today for Earth Day, which is actually this coming Wednesday. There was an announcement from Earth Day officials and executives at Rovio that there would be an in game experience in Rovio’s Angry Birds game to raise environmental awareness. Angry Birds has been downloaded 2.8 billion times.

IS, seeking to grow its influence, has carried out an operation at a bank in Afghanistan that has killed 33 people. They also carried out a suicide attack in Iraq that killed two Turkish nationals.

Australia has arrested 5 young men, accused of planning an IS inspired attack on Anzac Day, celebrating the first military co-venture between Australia and New Zealand at Gallipoli in 1915. The Australians believe 150 of their countrymen are in Iraq and Syria fighting with IS and that 200 have been prevented from leaving Australia to join them.

Google’s regulatory problems in Europe could be pretty severe and alter the way the company manages search. The EU is thinking of attempting to break the company up.

Apple has pre-orders of over two million of its watches, surprising some tech pundits who didn’t think the watch would go this far this fast.

It appears that in the UK, Labour is slipping behind the Conservatives in the polls. Elections are May 7th and it is going to be a rough slide to get there for all concerned.

Migrants are flooding into Italy from Africa and the Pope is calling for the international community to help with the crisis. Prime Minister Renzi of Italy has stated the solution to the migrant problem rests with finding peace in Libya, which is absolutely true but it’s a far way off at this moment.

South Africa’s President Zuma cancelled a trip to Indonesia to stay home and deal with the anti-immigrant riots that are racking the country.

And now the afternoon is coming towards an end and I am going to get ready to go down to the Hudson Opera House to see if I can get a ticket for a young Russian exile who is going to appear tonight, playing contemporary and classic Russian composers on his violin. It should be good. I’m looking forward to it.

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Letter From New York 04 17 15 Clouds billowing, going north…

April 17, 2015

Stepping out of the apartment this morning, I encountered a world that was grey and filled with the promise of rain. Luckily, I had found an umbrella squirreled away so I faced the world with some verve, with a bit of jauntiness to my step.

It was cool but not chill, feeling a bit more like a fall day than one in spring but not unpleasant. Walking over to Amsterdam, I picked up my favorite pair of shoes from the cobbler and headed down to my friend Todd’s office.

He and my godson, Paul, are friends and the three of us went to lunch with another one of their mutual friends, Nick. It was good to see Paul again, for another farewell before his Sunday return to Los Angeles.

I had a couple of conference calls and then headed for the train, crowded with folks heading north for the weekend, now that the weather is better.   The sun came out, teasing us with hope for a fair weekend.

As the train travels north, I am perusing the news of the world, a rather grim pursuit, I’m afraid.

The market plunged today by 280 points. Greece’s woes are rearing their ugly heads again, rattling markets. China is working to temper its runaway stock market. Adding to the concerns, Bloomberg Financial Terminals went offline for two hours, causing the British government to delay a sale of bonds for a week because the terminals are so central to trading.

Not that I am sure I object, the Time-Warner/Comcast deal seems to have run into some serious obstacles. Certain sectors are giddy with relief; I am sure that M&A lawyers are in a funk.

Al Qaida is tightening its noose in Yemen with 150,000 now displaced.

Iran, as I recall no great fan of the UN, is appealing to that body to do something about the Saudi bombings in Yemen.

In Iraq, things happened: a car bomb went off outside the US Consulate in the Kurdish capital and Saddam Hussein’s #2, on the run for all these past twelve years, was killed today while forty more were killed in bombings in Baghdad. Despite the loss of Tikrit, IS continues to control much of northern Iraq and part of Syria.

China, flexing its muscles to the dismay of its neighbors, is building some artificial islands in the South China Sea. On them it is building a significant airfield. The Spratlys are also claimed in whole or part by Viet Nam, Malaysia and the Philippines. China seems to be operating on the “possession is 9/10ths of the law” rule.

The British elections are hotting up, with no clear leader right now. Labour has declared the Tories “in a panic.” However, the Tories are feeling a bit bolstered by some good economic news. May 7th is the election.

Anti-immigrant attacks have now spread to Johannesburg in South Africa, drawing rebukes from both within the country and without.

Two weeks after a “framework” for a deal with Iran was announced, the gaps between the two sides seemed to be widening instead of narrowing. Obama will sign a bill that would allow the Senate to reject the treaty if more than 2/3rds disapprove, another wrinkle in the process.

There was a moving ecumenical service in Cologne’s Cathedral today for the 150 victims of the Germanwings crash. 500 relatives attended. The city stopped to mourn.

And as has been for days, there is a war of words going on over whether the Turks committed genocide on the Armenians a hundred years ago. Some in Congress want to officially call it that but doing so is complicated by Turkey’s role in the current fighting going on in the Mideast. The Turks have hardened their stance in recent years about the events of a century ago, defiantly denying that there were any acts of genocide committed.

The sun is setting through billowing grey clouds over the Hudson River as I move north. Everyone is working or sleeping, winding down from the week. At the end of my trip is a dinner with friends at the Red Dot and then home to my own bed and a weekend full of activities.

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Letter From New York 04 16 15 Just a little inspiration…

April 16, 2015

This is a day in which I have been, in some ways, remarkably unproductive. Deep into reading “The End of Your Life Book Club,” I am nearing the end and have carved out hours today to continuing reading it. I dallied over my morning cup of coffee to give me more time to read it. On my way to a friend’s office to do a little work, I stopped and had lunch at a coffee shop and used up more than my fair share of time on the stool at the counter, whipping through the pages of the book. My Kindle Fire tells me I now have only 13% of the book left to read and I am anxious to finish it and desperate for it to last.

It’s inspiring me and we all could use a little inspiration. I don’t want to say much about it. I just suggest that you think about getting a copy and reading it. Sarah, whom I have known since I was three, called me up and suggested it to me in no uncertain terms.

I am so glad she did.

In an effort to be more present, I have been working to see things, really see them, the way I sometimes do when I am traveling. Today is a beautiful day in New York and while it is not the riot of color that is India, it is an incredibly textured city. I was particularly noticing how yellow the cabs are. Have I just learned to gloss them over and not really see the vibrancy they bring to the city’s streets?

These are the kinds of things I have been attempting to notice.

And I have been also attempting to notice what is going on in the world, despite a distinct aversion to wanting to know. I realized yesterday I did not want to read a story about Ukraine. I wanted to go straight to other, less threatening pieces of information. But I forced myself to go back to the article and read how difficult it is for the sick in the rebel held part of Ukraine. There are no medicines to be had.

In Kiev, two men, both pro-Russian, one a journalist and another a former Parliament member, have died of gunshot wounds. Two men shot the journalist dead in broad daylight from a passing car.

In Durban, South African thousands of immigrants fled to shelters for safety after an anti-immigration riot left five dead.

Africans attempting to cross to Italy have died in the hundreds in the past week. One set of Muslims threw twelve Christians overboard because; well, because they were Christian.

In Yemen, where it is hard to keep track of the players, President Hadi, who is in exile in Saudi Arabia, has named Khaled Bahah, who is also in Saudi Arabia, as his Vice President. Bahah is well liked and respected across many sections of the political landscape in Yemen. He hopes that a Saudi Arabian land invasion can be avoided though it is looking more likely every day as the rebel Houthis gobble up much of the country.

Meanwhile, five ships with food are being prevented from unloading their cargoes until they are searched stem to stern by the Saudis to make sure there are no guns coming in with the food.

Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island is indicating he’ll run for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

In news that I find heartening, the Vatican has completed its investigation of American nuns, begun under Pope Benedict XVI. The final report is quietly burying a controversy that has plagued Francis since his ascension.

Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens debuts in December of this year. In California, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher were present for the first screening of the film’s second trailer. Not present was Harrison Ford, who is still recuperating from his March plane crash. Looking forward to the film.

In another piece of news I appreciated, the little town of Lindstrom, Minnesota [my home state] is getting the umlauts back over the o in its name. They were taken away by the Department of Transportation and ordered returned by Democratic Governor Mark Dayton. A third of Minnesotans have Scandinavian heritage. [I’m half Swedish.] The town was quite upset about the umlauts disappearing and is rejoicing about their return.

Tonight, I am off to the New York Video Meet-up, a chance to explore some new things in digital video. After that, a little bite of something and then home to finish “The End of Your Life Book Club.”

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Letter From New York 04 15 15 An Indian Reprise…

April 15, 2015

Yesterday, I emailed out a Letter From New York. I have been writing one nearly every day since mid-November but I don’t email many of those out, not wanting to clutter email inboxes.

If you’re interested, you can see them at www.mathewtombers.com. I realized yesterday that I hadn’t emailed one about the trip to India. I have been there and back again.

India is still not the easiest of trips but it’s certainly different from the India I first visited twenty years ago. Delhi is changed, and most westerners would think it for the better. The acrid smell of burnt rubber doesn’t cling to the streets as it did twenty years ago and the streets are no longer lined with people living in tents. The city has been freshened and is more colorful than I remember.

They still drive like madmen and I found the only way I could really deal with the four different road trips I took while in India was to close my eyes and surrender my safety to the universe. Whenever I opened my eyes it seemed death was rushing at me at sixty kilometers per hour.

I was in India to give a speech at the Indian Institute of Technology at Roorkee, one of the five branches of the IIT. It is a four-hour drive from Delhi, generally to the northeast. I was riding with another gentleman and he asked the driver to be a little more careful as he was scaring the American guest. I didn’t notice much difference but, at the end of those trips, I am alive and now back in the States where people, mostly, obey the rules and drive on their side of the road.

On the Saturday of the Conference at which I had been asked to speak, I went with another American speaker, Ron Eglash, an ethno-mathematician whose specialty is fractals, to Haridwar, one of the seven holy spots in the Hindu religion. I strolled along the edge of the Ganges, near where it flows into India, watching people bathe in its holy waters.

The speech went off without a hitch. I was pretty good, if I say so myself. The speech was to last for 60 minutes with questions and they were still being asked after 90. Shortly after that I told them to go enjoy themselves. It was great fun.

For the three days I was there I had two “minders” whose job was to see that I was fed and cossetted and had what I needed. They were the ones who arranged for Ron and I to go to Haridwar.

Returning to Delhi for a couple of days, I shopped some and rested and walked around Connaught Place, a central shopping area in Delhi that I had visited when I was first in India.

Twenty years ago it was pretty run down; today, there is a new coat of paint and the stores have been upgraded. Every third store was an international brand. Once, like all of Delhi, it was crowded with beggars but now there are few. My friend, Raja, who has now lived in Delhi for eight years told me they have all been moved out of Delhi into some other area, far enough away that they’re not visible. Another friend said that was more work and so fewer beggars. The difference was notable.

India though is still India, with wrenching gullies of poverty. Road trips take you past buildings that could never have been new and new ones that were old before they were finished. India has had a building boom and bust, too. Structural skeletons pockmark the landscape, looking as if they had been abandoned.

In Jaipur, I had the best meal I had in India at the Royal Heritage Haveli, a royal villa converted into a boutique luxury hotel. I wandered the Amber Fort and the City Palace and stared up at the Palace of the Winds.

In Jaipur I had a night of discomforting “Delhi belly” that came and went swiftly but left me tired.

India is a riot of colors, a visual feast if you can and are willing to take it all in. As I was driven to the airport to depart, I remember noticing the curbs were painted mint green.

Returning to New York, it seemed everything was beige. I felt color deprived.

It is comforting to be home, splitting my time between the little apartment in the city and the cottage upstate, where the brown of winter is beginning to yield to the green of spring.

It was my fourth trip to India. If the opportunity came, I would go again. I still would like to go to Goa and to the mountain town of Mussoorie, a hill town populated during the Raj by Brits fleeing the deadly heat of the plains.

It is a land that is both mystic and a bit mystifying. After my first trip I described the adventure as the most wonderful, horrible, awful, magnificent, transcendental experience I had ever had. It is less horrible and awful and still wonderful, magnificent and transcendental.

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Letter From New York 04 14 15 Working to see with tourist’s eyes…

April 14, 2015

All around me the city of New York is thrumming, filled with the sounds of a city growing, being alive. Sitting in the office of a friend doing some work for him, the street below is filled with the clatter and the clanging of building.

This morning, as I was waking and sipping my first cup of coffee, I decided that I wanted to look at the world a little differently, as if I was a tourist in spots that were well known to me, to keep my eyes and ears open for new sensations and experiences.

Walking to the subway, I noticed the play of grey light on the sidewalk, through a cloudy sky that was hinting of rain, which didn’t seem to want to come.

There is a plastic milk box between what was the Radio Shack store and the upscale mart for sports shoes. Every day there is someone sitting on that box, begging. But it’s often a different person and today it was someone I’ve never seen before. I wonder if it is first come, first seated or do they change shifts during the day?

Certainly, it’s been an interesting day out there in the world. I’ve attempted to keep up with the world while I’ve been hunched over my laptop, doing research for my friend/colleague Todd Broder.

I have discovered that we haven’t discovered any other life in the hundred thousand galaxies we have been searching. We thought that if some civilization had advanced enough that it could have a galaxy wide imprint, we might be able to detect them but no such luck. But there are more than a billion galaxies out there and a hundred thousand is just a small fraction of the possibilities.

It is also noted today that it’s Equal Pay Day though it remains to be seen if employers will step up to achieve equal pay for equal work for women. But we have a day to mark the effort to that goal.

And also today is the 150th Anniversary of the shooting of Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth, the first assassination of an American President but not the last.

150 years – an amazing amount of time and a huge chunk of American history has happened since then. The Republic wasn’t yet a hundred years old when Lincoln died.

The somber visage of Lincoln stares out at us from those haunting photographs, a window into a time long gone and just beginning to be chronicled by photography.

In Washington, Obama wants to set Cuba free by lifting its designation as a state sponsoring terrorism. If that happens, the floodgates will open. There was also a story of how ubiquitous the American flag has become in Havana, flying everywhere and on t-shirts and painted on jeans.

Currently at the Acela Club in New York, there was a huge delegation of important people heading out on the 6:00 Acela to Washington. There were police guarding the doors and the group and then they slipped out and down to the train. One was a military figure from some European nation. Everyone seemed to be paying a great deal of attention to him.

A great deal of attention is also being paid to what is happening on the first steps taken on the campaign trail. Hillary has driven to Iowa and is doing her listening. Paul Rand is back from a five state tour and Marco Rubio is facing scrutiny about his immigration and tax stands. No news of Ted Cruz today.

Today Space X successfully sent another capsule toward the space station, carrying supplies. Its first stage attempted once again to land on a platform at sea. It hit the platform but too hard.

Still, to me, it’s a step forward. Have to admire Elon Musk and his steadfastness to his vision.

The markets today seemed to do well though Google will likely face anti-trust charges in Europe.

The world in the Middle East is still very complicated. A drone attack killed a leading Yemeni Al Qaeda cleric. Russia is planning on selling missiles to Iran. Iraq’s PM was in Washington, where he got some money and a warning that Iranians in Iraq should be reporting to Baghdad.

And now I am going to go out into the streets of New York and do my best to keep my eyes open and see what I can see, with open eyes. I am off to get a martini and a bite to eat, while I continue reading a very good book, “The End of Life Book Club.”

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Letter From New York April 13, 2015 With a bit of spring in my step…

April 13, 2015

Yesterday, half way through writing my blog, I stopped and quit. I didn’t like anything coming from mind to fingers to the sheet of digital white paper in front of me. Every word felt flat and unexciting and, worse, devoid of meaning. In a funk, I gave up and took a nap.

It may have been that yesterday was a bit of a funky day as it was the day that Lionel and Pierre departed for Baltimore. They arrived safely, checked into their hotel. We texted back and forth but their physical absence could be felt.

I woke up this morning in not such a funky mood and am now on the train, heading south, for a week in the city. I have a few things to do, meetings to attend and my godson, Paul, is in for New York from LA for business and we’re having dinner on Wednesday evening.

The sun is out and the sky is clear and it’s a warm, lovely day, with hints of blue green in the Hudson River as we roll along it. The dark steel grey of winter seems to be relinquishing its hold on the river. Tankers and barges are gliding south, unhampered by ice. While I was in India, it all disappeared.

Sipping coffee this mid-morning, I feel refreshed and relieved and not so gloomy. Not that the world is less of a gloomy place. But I am shrugging off those feelings and focusing on the brighter parts.

The light is sparkling on the river. Spring seems to be actually arriving and I am choosing hope this spring morning.

Even the Kardashians are giving me something to feel hopeful about; they have been in Armenia from whence the family once came and they have brought a spotlight on the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, which occurred in 1915-16, as the Ottoman Empire was beginning to disintegrate under the stress of World War I.

Pope Francis also commented on the Armenian Genocide, calling it the first case in the 20th Century of genocide, thereby infuriating the Turks, who deny that it ever happened – or, that if it did, it wasn’t all that bad.

Yesterday, the thought of another Presidential campaign was giving me dyspepsia. Today, I am choosing to think of it as an interesting intellectual and educational exercise for the body politic.

Yesterday, as everyone who is literate in the Western world must know, Hillary Clinton has declared, officially, she is running for the nomination – not that I think there ever was any real doubt.

It will be an explosive eighteen months. Let us hope that it will be at least a little amusing.

Republicans have already begun attacking her in tweets and videos. Ah, yes! Let the games begin!

And while Hillary is off to some low-key meetings in Iowa, driving there in her van named after “Scooby Doo,” Marco Rubio has thrown his hat into the ring and is now the third Republican to declare he is running for President after Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. After this it will be a little harder to keep track. There are a lot of Republicans in the wings.

It is also fascinating to me that Apple is beating its own estimates on Apple watch orders. I wasn’t sure anyone but the diehards would really want one but it seems to have struck a nerve with the public. Almost a million were pre-ordered the first day.

In another interesting turn of events, at least some in the world think a deal will be made with Iran on its nuclear activities. Investors, according to the Iranian press, have started to approach Iran about investments in their stock market, including some Americans.

John Boehner is touting “titanic” reform he hopes to bring to Medicare [something I am suspicious of from the get-go] but he is using gifs from the movie “Titanic” to explain his reform. I find that confusing and a little off-putting. May be a little amusing.

Right now the train is slowly rolling through a patch of woods, struggling to catch the spirit of spring and turn to green. Sharp shadows play across the landscape and with a springy step; I look forward to arriving in New York.

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