Italics are mine

Year 2023 in Review

It's this time of the year... let's do a year 2023 in review. Here are some highlights:

1. I sold the novel I had been working on for the past ten years (I am so excited to have Holly Ingraham as my editor at Crooked Lane Books/Alcove Press for a publication this fall! her comments and edits have really pushed me to become a better writer and the book has benefited greatly) At some point I am going to share more details about my path to publication, but it deserves a post of its own. For now, I'll just say: what determines success in this business (as in many/most/all? creative endeavors) is not talent, although I like to think I am talented, but staying power. I decided many years ago I'd become a published novelist and I never let go of that goal. Do I wish I'd achieved that milestone sooner? Sure. Am I proud I never gave up? Of course. Do I have enough ideas now to publish a novel a year for the next decade? Absolutely. The years to come are going to be a lot of fun. Random fact: my agent (huge shoutout to the amazing Betsy Amster, who believed in me from the start!) sent my manuscript to Holly on the one-year anniversary of my mom's death. She didn't know the exact date, although she knew my mom had died the previous year, so it was a fluke that she got around to reading my last edits and sending the manuscript out on that very day (I had sent it to her for review several days earlier), but when she told me the book was out on submission, I knew my mom would watch over me to find the perfect home for my novel. My mom had always believed in my writing. 
2. I started and completed my first year in the low-residency MFA program at Bennington Writing Seminars (Bennington College) in Bennington, VT. (The picture above is of the impromptu pizza party we had with my cohort during spring residency when the fire alarm got triggered in the dining hall right before dinner.) I absolutely adore this program. Usually, I tend to think in terms of academic years because of my day job, but Bennington has both fall and spring cohorts, so I started in January. (I applied after my mother died. I wanted to do something I wouldn't have done if she hadn't died, and I've always dreamt to study writing more deeply.) By now, I've gone through two residencies, with three to go. The timeline works beautifully for my schedule because the residencies happen outside the regular semesters when I have to be in Dallas to teach. I also just find a low-residency MFA a much better fit for me than a "full-time on-campus" one. That is because, in MFA programs that are full-residency instead of low-residency, you spend a lot of time workshopping other students' material. In low-residency MFAs, you exchange packets (writing materials) with your teacher outside residencies, where you submit new writing pages and annotations on books you have read for the program, and you only workshop other students' work during residencies. I personally prefer focusing my time not spent writing on analyzing published novels for what makes them work or what doesn't resonate with me. Also, there is a much more diverse crowd in low-residency MFAs than in "full-time on-campus" ones, where most students are a few years out from college. In my program, some people are just out of college, some are retired, some never even graduated from college (it is a hallmark of Bennington that they don't require an undergrad degree for the MFA). My cohort and other Bennington cohorts have included retired lawyers, investigative reporters, university professors, rock band frontmen, HR specialists, marketing wizards, and more. It has been refreshing to be with other dedicated writers who have a day job. We understand each other in ways other people can't. 
3. I rescued a stray cat from the Dallas heat wave back in August. He'd been coming every few days for the past two years because I was leaving food outside for him but he wouldn't let me come close. Then, the heat wave happened and in two separate occasions he seemed in distress so I opened my door and aimed my cold air column at him and fed him rotisserie chicken from Whole Foods and Central Market and he decided to stick around. 
4. I went to Asheville, NC for Spring break. This had been on my bucket list for years, and I finally made it happen. (Years ago when I still lived in Pennsylvania I wanted to road trip down the Blue Ridge Mountains with a good friend of mine, but unfortunately our schedules never aligned and the trip didn't happen. I've been thinking of visiting Asheville ever since.) I struck up so many conversations with strangers during the long weekend I was there, and visited so many cool places, and ate at so many amazing restaurants. I initially had wanted to go for fall break last year but it didn't work out schedule-wise, which may have been for the best, because locals told me the prices for hotels and restaurants become prohibitive since it is peak foliage season. Instead, I got to see the "real-er" side of Asheville. It's a lot more expensive now than when I first thought about traveling there, but it's still a great travel destination.  
5. I got assigned my first CASA case with Dallas CASA. CASA stands for Court-Appointed Special Advocate. It is a nonprofit organization that trains volunteers to assist and advocate for foster kids through their journey in the foster-care system. I can't discuss details of the case, but I will say I have a phenomenal supervisor who inspires me in every interaction we have.
6. I completed the 200-hour yoga teacher training offered by Aligned Yoga (Briohny Smyth's online yoga school) and started the 300-hour follow-up training. I had already completed a 200-hour YTT with Dallas Yoga Center, which was good, but wanted something with more precise instruction for advanced yoga poses, and the training (which includes teachings on yoga philosophy, breathing techniques and so on) has done wonders for me. I may enroll in the 300-hour DYC YTT too in 2024.
7. I attended my very first writers' retreat. It was outside Los Angeles and organized by the UCLA Extension School. I learned about it last year because my friend Darren N., who I met through taking online classes at UCLAx, went last year and praised the retreat. Fun fact: I didn't know she was returning to the retreat this year, but Darren and I ended up rooming together in one of the chalets. It was a fantastic experience. 
8. I completed the Nanowrimo challenge. (If you don't know what it is: the goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel in a month. Ideally, you start from scratch, and by the end of the month, you have the rough draft of a book.) I now have a first draft of my third novel. I had never attempted the challenge before but wanted to push myself. At the UCLAx writers' retreat, someone gave me a demo of the Scrivener software, and that was instrumental in my completing the Nanowrimo challenge because I just started a file for each day I was writing and uploaded my word count after each session. I discovered that writing 1,667 words at a time wasn't hard (I didn't say they were *good* words). There was something about the challenge that helped bypass my critical brain and so almost every day I would sit down and write the required amount of words. I stumbled around Thanksgiving but there was no way I was going to fail so close to the finish line so I forged through and I succeeded. I created a new writing habit and was thrilled to have completed a major writing project in just one month.  
9. I roadtripped to Albuquerque, NM. The last road trip I took was to Marfa, TX, two years and a half ago. That was also one month before I had a bad car accident. It took me a while to find both the time and the inclination to get on the road. Driving ten hours solo each way was a bit out of my comfort zone, but I am glad I did — first, because challenging oneself is always good, and second, because Albuquerque is such an amazing city. It has a lot of street art and has a funky vibe that Asheville, NC probably had before it became super-popular. The main reason for my trip is that I've never managed to see the musical Hadestown (I had other shows lined up when I went to New York City, I had conflicts when the national tour made stops in Texas), and I decided I really wanted to see that show, so I booked a ticket on a Thursday for a Saturday matinee, and the next day I got in my car and drove west toward New Mexico. I stayed at the Hotel Andaluz, which I highly recommend. I also had time to see the river lights, do some sightseeing around the Old Town Plaza, eat what is supposed to be the best guacamole in Albuquerque at El Pinto and drop by the museum of art, which had an exhibition about Georgia O'Keeffe and Henry Moore.  
10. I kept learning Ukrainian and I brushed up on my Spanish too on Duolingo. I'm not sure how any beginner can learn a new language on that platform, but when you already know a bit of the language like me, a couple of minutes a day on Duolingo is a fun way to feel accomplished. And I've been earning multiple monthly badges although the number of quests to complete each month keeps increasing.
11. I went to Los Angeles twice. The first time I was based in Pasadena and the other time in Los Feliz. I did a lot of sightseeing, from LACMA to the Pacific Asia Museum and the Huntington Gardens (which is where I was when I learned Holly would be making an offer on my novel. You don't forget moments like these.) I love LA and it was a great opportunity to meet up with other members of my Bennington cohort.

Just in case you think my year was all peaches and roses, there were also some major downs. I may write about those one day but not now... Over the past four years, I've definitely had more downs than I wanted, but maybe they make the ups seem much sweeter.

Happy New Year! Best wishes for a fantastic 2024. I have a lot of plans for this new year and I can't wait to share what I do on this blog!

 

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New York City

A few weeks ago I went to New York City. This was the trip I was supposed to take the week when my father called to say my mother was going to die and I had to cancel. In fact, the trip I was supposed to take was much shorter -- a few days -- but when I was able to reschedule some time after my mother died, I decided to go all out and do what I love most, attending a lot of theater performances in New York City. 

It was a phenomenal trip. I stayed in three different hotels, each close to the performing arts venues I was going to visit at the time: first in Brooklyn close to BAM where I saw A Little Life and Hamlet (A Little Life in Dutch, directed by Ivo van Hove, the production was gorgeous but the topic is so depressing that I had, like many other attendees, to speed-walk to the exit at intermission, and Hamlet in German with a zany energy that was invigorating), then on the Upper West Side where I saw the NY Philharmonic and Don Carlo at the Met as well as Straight Line Crazy in midtown (the performances besides the Wednesday matinee were sold out, given that Ralph Fiennes was starring in the title role), and then in Midtown/Theater District where I had to get back to the Upper West Side to see the Paul Taylor Dance Company (hotel snafu) and I also saw the musical Into the Woods (definitely a Broadway staple, although it is more touristy than the sort of New York entertainment I usually seek), The Piano Lesson (with Samuel Jackson in a play directed by his wife and also starring the son of Denzel Washington, and I have been so out of the New York theatre scene over the past few years that I didn't even realize the woman with Jackson in her name was Samuel's wife and the man with Washington in his name was Denzel's son, until they made their entrance on stage and Samuel Jackson got a lot of applause but the man with Washington as his last name also got a lot of applause and it wasn't until intermission that I realized why), and Death of a Salesman, which was phenomenal although the review in the New Yorker tried to convince you otherwise.

I wish I could have found the time to go to the Whitney for the Hopper exhibition and to the Metropolitan Museum because I will love the Met no matter what is on display, but I already found myself lucky to take this trip after all the darkness that befell my family over the past few months. New York City theater exhibits a level of innovation and creativity that other cities just cannot display if they want to satisfy their customer base, and I always leave the City feeling refresh and exhilarated. I hope to be back in the spring/summer for a couple of key theater productions. We will see if I can make it happen. In any case, I went back to my daily life with more energy and creativity than I had had in years. I am so happy I was finally able to take this trip. My mother would have been proud.

2022 in review

UPDATED AT THE BOTTOM (Picture: pedestrian street in downtown Denver.) Now that 2022 is officially over, here are some highlights of the year for me. The biggest event was, of course, that my mother died suddenly back in May. I was extremely shocked and one day I may write about the details but not now. She died too early. Then two months later, her dog, whom she adored and who adored her back, also died suddenly after he realized she wasn't coming back. Mom and her dog were my favorite two-legged and four-legged people in the whole world, and navigating this grief has been hard. #GriefTwitter has been very helpful, though.

I wanted to do something I wouldn't have done if mom hadn't died, to honor her memory, so I decided to apply to a couple of low-residency MFA programs in fiction writing. (Low-residency means it won't interfere with my job, because the short residencies are all outside the regular semesters at the university where I teach.) I was admitted to my dream program and I am so excited. It is good to reconnect with that side of me because being Faculty Senate President during the pandemic was incredibly disheartening and I am not sure I can ever recover the old me but at least I can move forward. And it is good to develop a community of fellow creatives all over the country.

I also finished the next round of revisions to my novel (the one about the opera singers) and my literary agent sent it out recently. It was very exciting because writing this novel has stretched over way more years than I had anticipated and getting the book to this stage was an important milestone. That novel is also a key reason I applied to MFA programs -- I don't want my current novel to take nearly as long to be finished. I am really lucky to have the literary agent I have and I have plenty of ideas for more books, but I need to finish them.

(Pictures: LA cityscape, theater program in LA, theater programs in NYC). I started traveling more again. I always double-mask on planes and in the airports, and it has always been really important for me to travel, so I am glad I get to do it again. This year I've been to Denver, CO, Portland, OR, Los Angeles, CA and New York City, which deserves its own post (to come soon). I also traveled to Bayreuth, Germany with my father during the summer because my parents had tickets to Tristan und Isolde at the Bayreuth Festival (they would go every few years before the pandemic). T&I plays a key role in my novel and I wanted to cheer my father up so I took my mother's place. I had seen a previous production of T&I at Bayreuth with my parents but it was underwhelming, so I am really glad I got to see this production, which was excellent. Also, I was thrilled to realize that Catherine Foster, whom I had seen in the Ring as Brunnhilde both at Bayreuth and at the Washington Opera (different productions, both excellent, although the one at the Washington Opera was more my style), was singing Isolde. The hardest part was to see so many women looking older than my mom when she died, strolling around the festival grounds during the intermissions. Why couldn't my mom survive?  

What else? I was named an alternate for a Fulbright award to Austria (Vienna) but being an alternate means you only go if the people ahead of you in line for the same Fulbright award don't go, and they went. I didn't apply this year because I was too stunned by my mom's death, but I plan to re-apply next year. I did manage to graduate two doctoral students (one PhD, one DEEM), before my mother passed. The work accomplishment I am proudest of, though, was coming to the (academic, not literal) aid of a sick student. My mom had taught for decades at a technical community college outside Paris and she loved helping her students.

Another thing I did was to sign up for 200-hour yoga teacher training, also to get out of my post-Faculty Senate state, although that was before my mother died, so the worst was still to come (thankfully that part happened during the summer when I don't teach). The best part of the training was to have to take 30 hours of practice, and to understand what some yoga teachers are doing wrong in their sequencing, including yoga teachers who sell many DVDs. The issue with doing the sequencing wrong is of course that students may get injured. My life is always better when I have a regular yoga practice, and now I am doing two other online trainings to keep the momentum going. Doing yoga helps with my focus and energy.

I started learning Ukrainian on Duolingo after the Russian invasion in February. I am about to reach the 300-day mark: I have practiced Ukrainian almost 300 days in row now. Frankly the only reason I have been able to learn Ukrainian on Duolingo was that I already knew Russian. I don't know how anyone could learn it from scratch using that app only. A lot of the exercises are very repetitive and you can be asked the same question in multiple lessons, but sometimes it is downright funny, for instance when the app asks you to translate "What is my name?" (girl, if you don't know your own name, you have bigger problems on your hands than learning Ukrainian), and I love how it counts your answer as wrong if you spell Kyiv as Kiev (that is the spelling I learned when I was in school decades ago so sometimes it comes back, although now I am careful not to use what is in fact the Russian spelling.) 

I am slowly getting back into dance and this year I picked up an interest in musical theater because of my going to New York City. Last year and the year before that, I had already been taking online playwriting courses with a mostly Denver-based group and since I used to dance ballet many, many years ago and also have an interest in opera, I suppose it was always meant to be that I would look into music theater at some point, although I spent my college years in Paris watching straight plays and ballet and never musicals (they are not produced much in France). 

In June I was a keynote speaker at a workshop in the U.K. It was really good and I reconnected to my passion for research. Faculty members outside the U.S. have in general a much healthier attitude toward academia too, at least in my experience.

This year I taught engineering management both semesters (in addition to other courses) and I really liked it. The first time I taught the course, in Fall 2021, I used a previous case studies package that I hadn't developed in addition to a book that I selected but that a large minority of the students disliked. Their main reason was that the book basically only portrayed white males as managers, which was understandable given the historical period covered by the book (decades ago at NASA) but disappointed a large segment of those among my students who weren't white males, so I picked new case studies and new books and now the students like the new books a lot more.

Then in the fall, using recent academic literature about novel grading methods, I tried a different grading technique where I had the students write assignments about which letter grade they were going to go for, how they planned to achieve it and what may stand in their way, and the best part of it is that they got to share with me any potential problem they may face, such as a very heavy course load or an anxiety of public speaking (the course uses in-class discussions a lot). I had never felt so close to understanding my students before. Sometimes, when students are on their laptops in class, it is easy to assume they are doing something fun like online shopping while I try to give the lecture but in fact a lot of them have to deal with very intense course loads and they also tend to be perfectionists. Without that assignment, I would never have realized so many of them wanted to do well in the course but were anxious of public speaking, which was very important in the course. One of the two sections I taught had 55 students in it (the other had 36). That made difficult for all students to participate, especially students who have anxiety speaking in class. I am making some changes to address this in the spring. 

The assignment helped me get a better sense of the rigorous education engineering students receive at the university where I teach (every engineering undergraduate student must take the engineering management course before graduating, but before teaching it I only knew the workload of students majoring in my department). I have been so impressed by my undergraduate students this year -- the great things they do in their major, the many rigorous courses they juggle, the fantastic capstone projects they accomplish, the high standards they hold themselves to, the discipline they bring to their studies and the internships and full-time jobs they secure. (I know about the internships and jobs because they also have to write an introductory post on the Canvas discussion board to the whole class.) I joined this university because I love undergraduate teaching and it took me some time to figure out the fit because at my previous employer my strongest teaching contribution was in a quantitative senior elective course in operations research but it turns out that here my strongest contribution is in teaching that engineering management course. My mom would be so happy to hear I have great undergraduate students and they are set to do great things after graduation.

When I re-read this post before publishing it, I realize I've had several milestones in 2022 but my mom's death will always mean that 2022 was an awful year for me. I miss her. 

UPDATE: I forgot to write that I completed the CASA (court appointed special advocate) training and got sworn in! 

(Picture below: high-level view of Portland from a lookout point with a large tree on the right.)

Trip to Marfa

Recently I took my first trip since the pandemic by driving to Marfa. I am not sure how well-known Marfa is outside Texas but it is a wonderful small town with lots of art, and I just liked the idea of a road trip. (It is also the town where the 1956 movie Giant got filmed.) There is something about driving by myself for long stretches of time that clears my mind and helps me gain insights into my life. I took the scenic route, staying on I-20 until Pecos and reaching Marfa through Route 17. (Random fact: if you're going to stop in Odessa for lunch, I highly recommend the restaurant Cork & Pig.) Once I was on Route 17 I was often by myself for extensive periods of time with only the occasional oil tanker driving in the opposite direction and the experience was amazing. The backdrop of mountains was gorgeous too. Needless to say, I had taken some of my drawing and painting supplies with me to do sketches. Hopefully I will find the time to do full paintings using the photographs I took before summer is over. 

I stayed at Hotel Saint George, which I highly recommend. (It is right by the railroad tracks and the train makes a lot of noise when it comes by, including in the middle of the night, but that didn't bother me.) The hotel has a great gift shop where I bought books about Donald Judd and Marfa and great-looking glasses. In the picture below, I bought the Chinati book from the Chinati Foundation after I toured the outdoors spaces, and everything else is from the hotel's gift shop, called Hey I like it here.

I saw the Prada Marfa in Valentine, TX (basically an outdoors art installation using Prada merchandise in the middle of nowhere), which was another nice drive, about 35 minutes each way on a straight road - my kind of driving. It also took me past the gates of the "Little Reata" ranch from the movie Giant and cardboard cutouts of the stars. I stopped by Hotel Paisano, which was the headquarters for the crew of the movie Giant (I liked my hotel more, but not everyone likes contemporary hotels as much as I do), had lunch at the Water Stop, which was very good. The coffee shop The Sentinel was one of my favorite haunts (I also loved the Do your thing coffee shop), and the last evening after looking in vain for an open restaurant I discovered the pizzeria Para Llevar, which was excellent. (A lot of restaurants are closed during the week, apparently. Some were closed because of the pandemic.) The staff recommended the chicken pesto pizza and it did not disappoint. I bought more drawing supplies from the Marfa Art Supply (as if I did not have enough) and walked around. When I return to Marfa, I hope to try the Al Campo and Cochineal restaurants, visit the Judd Foundation, which was not open when I was there, and see more of the art galleries. 

It is funny how easily I struck up conversations with random people throughout my stay - maybe it was because I was happy to be on vacation, and proud of myself for taking the trip. That was a nice change after the past year and three months.  

Virtual New York City weekend

A few weeks ago I was supposed to New York City for a long weekend. I was really looking forward to it, since my kind of people are in NYC rather than in Dallas. (I like the things of Dallas, the museum, the symphony, the indie bookstores, the restaurants, but I need to go to NYC once in a while.) Needless to say, the pandemic put a brutal end to any hope I had of going. So I figured for this post I would daydream about what I would have done if I had gone. 

I was supposed to land on Friday afternoon, and on Friday evening I was going to see Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Booth Theatre. I've loved this play since I've seen the movie with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, although I was never particularly fond of black and white movies that are black and white on purpose when they could have been in color. The show closed during previews when Broadway was shut down, so it never got to premiere, but what a cast it would have been: Laurie Metcalfe as Martha, Rupert Everett as George, Joe Mantello directing. I hope they film it for television to recoup their costs. The play has so much to say about thwarted ambitions and pent-up anger and outright delusions.

The following day, I was going to go and see the Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art exhibition at the Whitney, and of course I couldn't be in that neighborhood without stopping at the Rubin. Maybe the Whitney show will be rescheduled (the website says "dates to be announced") but I'm not sure I'll be able to get back to New York any time soon so I got myself the catalog of the exhibition instead. Thank you, online shopping. That evening I was going to attend the New York Philharmonic concert conducted by Jaap van Zweden himself (the music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra before he got the NYC job) with Mahler's First on the program and Daniil Trifonov playing Mozart.

The next day I was going to attend a matinee at the Metropolitan Opera of Maria Stuarda. This was one of the last operas I saw at the Met before I moved to Texas and I was truly amazed by the set and the voices, so I wanted to see it again and relive the magic. This was not to be. That day I would also have gotten brunch and/or dinner  with local friends, or perhaps a friend down from Boston. I miss face-to-face interactions. Some other time, I suppose. 

Then on Monday I was going to see the Dorothea Lange: Words and Pictures exhibit at MoMA and attend the lecture at the New York Historical Society (Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition and American Complacency). None of that came to pass, obviously, but I ordered the Lange catalog in another round of online shopping from Dallas. As of this writing, the Lange exhibition is supposed to open online instead. 

I suppose I would have eaten on the Upper West Side at Irving Farm Coffee Roasters, Sweetgreen and Nice Matin. I suppose I would have had a wonderful time, if the pandemic had not struck. But with the pandemic of course the trip was out of the question. Better to stay safe, and read those museum catalogs from Dallas instead. 

New York City weekend

I spent a few days in New York City earlier this month for the final presentation of a student team I was advising in the Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness in Latin America program at Columbia Business School, and took advantage of the opportunity to enjoy a couple of the activities I loved most when I used to spend a lot of my time in the city (in those days I still worked at Lehigh).

I ended up catching three performing arts events, two from the Mostly Mozart festival in its closing weekend and a Broadway show. The All-Mozart program on Saturday August 11 in the David Geffen Hall was supposed to be sold out but I was tremendously lucky to land a ticket that a patron had returned, just twenty-four hours before the performance. This had me sitting very close to the stage and with a perfect view of pianist Stephen Hough's hands on the Steinway piano during the concerto part of the program (I love the piano and observing a pianist's hand is one of my favorite activities when I attend a recital).

I returned to Lincoln Center the following day for the Mark Morris Dance Group in the Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hal. In between the two, I dropped by the Ethel Barrymore theater on 47th St for a matinee of the Tony-winning Band's Visit. I also had time to swing by the Rubin Museum of Art for its spellbinding exhibition on the Second Buddha. The Rubin Museum of Art was always one of my "special places" when I used to be in NYC a lot and it gave me great peace to be able to return. (One thing I didn't have time to do that Sunday was getting lunch, but the breakfast at Nice Matin was delicious and I had a wonderful dinner at Sweetgreen and great cortado and conversation at the Irving Farm Coffee Roasters on the Upper West Side.) 

My favorite moments were Stephen Hough playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No 21 with Louis Langree conducting the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, "Love Song Waltzes" by the Mark Morris Dance Group, and every single moment of the Second Buddha exhibition at the Rubin. My least favorite moment was sitting through the 90 minutes of the Band's Visit, which I found mediocre. There is no character development and for a play about an Egyptian police orchestra stranded in a small town in Israel, one would at least expect some sort of increased understanding between two peoples at loggerheads by the end of the play. Instead, the main female character (the Israeli bar owner) vaguely chats more with the Egyptian orchestra conductor before it emerges she's having an affair with a married man, whom she is very upset to see with his wife (well, it's his wife, isn't it?), and then has a one-night stand with one of the other musicians in the Egyptian band. What in the world. People don't change, people don't grow, it is a play with music rather than a musical and why did I just waste one hour and a half of my life staring at this? The music was beautiful, but there is no doubt the Band's Visit wouldn't have garnered so many awards if it had faced stronger competition that year. 

Anyway, a funny thing happened while I was in New York. I realized I didn't care about moving there anymore. Maybe I will some day, maybe I won't, but it is not one of my goals anymore. It used to be, when I worked in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania and yearned for more culture in my life, more art, more theater, more literary events, more of everything that I like in life. Now that I have found all of that in Dallas, with its outstanding and abundant cultural events, I don't need New York City to fulfill that drive in me. Dallas is a lot more convenient to navigate as well, more affordable, and I find myself in awe of the amazing programs at venues such as the Dallas Museum of Art for its Arts & Letters series, the SMU Meadows School of Art for its performing arts events, the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture for its literary discussions, and of course the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Dallas Opera for their wonderful concerts and productions, all of them within 5-7 minutes drive of my home and with an extra 5-7 minutes if I come from work. It doesn't get any better than that. I don't know what life has in store for me - maybe I will stay in Dallas and maybe I won't. But as far as culture is concerned, Dallas has fulfilled my wildest dreams and some. I don't need to dream of moving to New York City anymore.  

Trip to Santa Fe 2018

This summer I decided to return to Santa Fe. I had only been there once before, back in 2011, for the opera and chamber music festivals, and this time around I decided to explore the area around Santa Fe rather than just the touristy, historic part of town, although I did return to the opera festival too, on the outskirts of town. (The chamber music festival hadn't started yet when I was there.)

The main reason I decided to go was to follow in the footsteps of painter Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), for whom I have tremendous admiration. She first discovered New Mexico in 1929 before settling there permanently in 1949 after her husband Alfred Stieglitz’s death in 1946, and spending the last 37 years of her life alternating between Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch depending on the season. O’Keeffe was a pioneer in many respects and didn’t fit an easy mold. She stood out even before she became famous: for instance as a young woman she taught in Texas at a time where people dismissed everything that didn’t happen in New York as unimportant and she wasn't afraid of raising eyebrows with her dark, austere clothing and her (much less austere) behavior with eligible men. She developed her own unique signature style (if you're still reading this post you're probably aware that she is particularly well known for her flowers) and yet also she didn't paint flowers forever and reinvented herself at multiple junctures in her life. She enjoyed alone time far into nature – and nature there wasn’t, say, the Hamptons outside New York, but the arid and unwelcoming Abiquiu area. She didn't follow fads or trends. She made her life work on her own terms.

Visiting the Georgia O’Keeffe museum again counted as a highlight of the trip. I had been very disappointed in the museum, nestled in the historic part of Santa Fe, when I had visited in 2011 because it showed very few paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe, but the museum curators have now developed a brilliant retrospective of O’Keeffe’s work (the new exhibit has only been open for a year or two), which gives an outstanding overview of O’Keeffe’s development as an artist. Perhaps O’Keeffe’s life resonates more with me now that I’ve moved to Texas. I also enjoyed her retrospective at the de Young museum in San Francisco back in 2014, but any exhibition of part of her works pales in comparison to what is on display in Santa Fe. The museum also has prepared a great timeline of O'Keeffe's life, which you can enjoy here.

Then, Ghost Ranch. The tour itself was quite good (it showed the landscapes that have inspired O’Keeffe’s paintings, and the tour guide had reproductions of the corresponding paintings as well so we could see first-hand the simplifications or slight changes that O’Keeffe made to focus on what was important in an image), but the drive to Abiquiu was even better. The picture above is one I took during the drive to Abiquiu. I recommend stopping by the Abiquiu Inn for lunch. I wonder how it must have felt to live so far away from most people, back in the 1950s and the 1960s.

The drive through Taos’s High Country also offered some stunning views of New Mexico and glimpses into areas of stark beauty but also stark poverty. I am not much of a church person but the church of Chimayo, famed for its holy dirt, was worth the stop. The Taos Pueblo also remains a highlight of that day. I also saw the Rio Grande Gorges, with very little water due to the drought. For lunch I recommend stopping at Bella’s Mexican Grill in Abiquiu. Both the salad (I think it was the elote salad with shrimp) and the tableside guacamole were exceptionally good.

I returned to the Santa Fe Opera as well. In a 2010 stunning production by the late Lee Blakeley, Madame Butterfly, which opened the festival when it was first launched in 1957 and when it re-opened after a devastating fire, had all the hallmarks of productions I love, with exquisite lighting, outstanding voices, spare sets and rather monochromatic props (in this case inspired of Japanese art), but in addition to the magnificent singing by Kelly Kaduce as Cio-Cio San (the tenor singing Pinkerton didn’t quite have her vocal range and the audience let it be known at the end that it wasn’t pleased), I loved most sitting in the first row of the mezzanine and observing the headlights of the cars go by in the far distance of the mountain range. The theater’s opening in the back on the range offered a spellbinding spectacle.

I also saw Doctor Atomic. I had never seen it (I usually don’t care much for operas sing in English) but the opportunity to see it next to the Los Alamos National Laboratory was hard to pass up. It was very good. I did like Madame Butterfly better. I also went on a backstage tour of Santa Fe Opera, which perhaps could have provided a few more insights and, disappointingly, didn’t allow the group to go anywhere near the performance hall or the stage because a rehearsal was in progress.  

For accommodations, I couldn’t have imagined a better place to stay than the Eldorado Hotel, with its back entrance just feet from the Georgia O’Keeffe museum. The breakfast restaurant prepared an outstanding egg-white omelet, although staff tended to be slow in the cooking and the service. Thankfully I was never in a rush. I loved that my room had a fireplace and a balcony. I got lucky without knowing it because I booked the trip with a check-out date that happened to be the day that the governors’ association was coming to the hotel for its big meeting, so guests couldn’t stay beyond that for security reasons, which meant a number of people staying in Santa Fe past that day had picked other hotels for their entire trip, leaving people like me with really pretty rooms in spite of my booking the trip a bit last minute. (I also appreciated the direct flights from Dallas.) For dinner I adored TerraCotta Wine Bistro. A glass of cabernet sauvignon and the best tomato, cucumber and watermelon salad I've ever eaten with the most delicious freshly baked bread: total bliss. Second choice was La Casa Sena, especially for its wasabi crab salad.

True to myself, I prepared for the trip by buying a lot of books about O’Keeffe and dusting off a volume I had about Santa Fe Opera as well as some books about O’Keeffe I had bought a while back. I also added a few O’Keeffe monographs to my collection during the trip. (See below for the book covers.) I came back with Native American artwork and artifacts, books about O’Keeffe, many remarkable memories and – after bringing my sketchbook and pencils to New Mexico with me for a few quick sketches – a commitment to start drawing and painting again on a more regular basis. This was a good trip.

 

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Prague 7

It was a beautiful morning in Prague, and also the morning of the marathon. I only had time for a leisurely breakfast at my hotel before heading for the airport early to avoid marathon-related road closures and traffic jams. My airport transfer driver was the same who had picked me up on Monday. He was glad I had had a great trip. I hope I'll come back to Prague some day. This trip was something I'd wanted to do for years and I was glad to have finally had the opportunity. Prague in the winter must look magical too, and I bet there are fewer tourists. Worth thinking about...

Prague 6

This was my last full day in Prague. The morning was cloudy and brisk but not cold. I strolled through the streets of Old Prague, went to see Frank Gehry's Dancing House (interesting sight but tourist trap), returned to Maitrea for a warm spinach crepe,  salad with Halloumi cheese and a glass of rose wine from the Czech Republic for a total of about 400 crowns, and then I had another apple-carrot-ginger juice (85 crowns) while I enjoyed people-watching. I hope it's clear the food in Prague was very cheap and very good (485 crowns is about 22 dollars). Also, the clouds vanished and the day turned out beautiful. And I don't normally care for the weather but the weather forecast for the trip had been so bad that every good day - which ended up being every day - seemed like a victory.

At times during the day I took the tram to go around. I love walking but it was becoming a bit much, even on my standards. Public transportation in Prague was very convenient. I got a one-day pass from a metro station and while the employee couldn't speak English, he was able to gesture that I had to stamp the ticket at the first use so I wouldn't get fined. There were stamping machines inside the tram. I was impressed by the modernity of the tram system. The tram stops displayed wait times until the next train, and most trams were very modern inside, telling you where you were on the line and what the next stop would be. At left (top) is an example of modern tram, and at right (bottom) an example of not so modern tram, which makes me think of the Soviet era. The pictures were taken with my back to the Rudolfinum, which has a transit hub nearby. 

In the evening I walked half an hour through Prague to the National Theatre (Narodni divadlo). Patrons lounged on the patios of cafes - funnily enough, the chairs reminded me of the chairs at Parisian cafes. A lot of people smoked. I've gotten used to the U.S. now so it always amazes me to see so many people smoking when the health dangers are well-known. But I suppose that's part of the differences between the U.S. and Europe. I went to the National Theatre for Madama Butterfly, and was delighted by its spare, original, modern, visually stunning production. It actually captivated me far more than the production I saw at the Met several years ago. If you'd like to see Madama Butterfly while in Prague, check out the next performances here. It was a wonderful way to end my trip.

Prague 5

I started the day by going to the Konvent of St Agnes, which was close to my hotel and hosted part of the Gerhard Richter retrospective - in fact it turned out, after I went to the National Galerie to see the main part of Richter's exhibition, that his best paintings were on view for free here. I found walking through the convent truly inspiring, although it is hard to imagine the conditions under which nuns lived a few centuries ago. Then I walked to the Klementinum Reading Room, but it turned out it is closed for renovation.

 This is when I went to the National Galerie for the Gerhard Richter exhibition, which was a huge disappointment. The retrospective at the Georges Pompidou Art Center a few years back in Paris was much, much better. In an alcove outside the National Galerie I saw a movie of Richter painting for free, which was the same movie I had seen for a fee in Paris during the Richter retrospective. That movie was a lot more enjoyable when I hadn't paid for it, although I'll admit I didn't stay for the whole thing. What I loved most about the National Galerie was the collection of Asian Art. That was remarkable. Without it I wouldn't have been nearly as happy about visiting the National Galerie. 

I had lunch at Maitrea, the sister restaurant of Clear Head that I went to yesterday. I got my favorite freshly squeezed juice (apple-carrot-ginger) for 100 crowns and a salad with avocado but without noodles for 235 crowns. (The waitress, after I had waited for 15 minutes, said the salad took 30 minutes to prepare. A salad, really? When I finally got my salad it had smoked tofu, sun-dried tomatoes and warm toasted tortilla, and was really good. So I suppose it was worth the wait.) There was jazz playing on the sound system. Maitrea seemed a lot more oriented toward Buddhism than Clear Hear. The Maitrea bookstore next door even hosts Buddhist programs. I wonder when Prague got interested in Buddhism. This was so unexpected. 

In the late afternoon I went to the Neoluxor bookstore on the street behind my hotel, in a nice-looking mall. I bought the bilingual edition of George Orwell's 1984 - I don't speak one word of Czech, but I figured it'd be a cool way to learn a few words... I've never been able to do things like everybody else - and a book in Czech by Vladimir Sevela about a KGB mole who infiltrated the CIA. The spy, arrested by the FBI, was ultimately traded with his wife on the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin and returned to Czechoslovakia a hero in 1986. He was given an apartment, a Volvo and a job at the Czech Institute for Economic Studies where future minister of finance and President Vaclav Klaus also worked. 

The day ended with the concert of a lifetime: Jiří Bělohlávek conducting the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Mozart's Turkish Concerto and Mahler's 5th Symphony. He passed away a month after I saw him conduct the orchestra. I've written about that elsewhere so I won't go into the details here, except to say he did look like he was recovering from cancer (he was half as big as in his pictures) but throughout the concert he maintained the energy and stamina that suggested he had beaten the cancer beast. His love of music kept him alive to the end, although he must have known when he gave the concert that his end was near.

I arranged the trip to be able to see him in person and I'm just glad I didn't postpone it. (I had been wanting to visit Prague for years and I could have easily given in to inertia and postponed it one more year.)  The concert was magnificent and will remain forever one of my most beautiful memories of a trip of a lifetime. I do regret not trying to reach out to Bělohlávek before he died, to tell him how much his music-making had meant to him. I hope he knew the impact he had on thousands of concert-goers.

Europeans don't give many standing ovations, unlike Americans, but when Jiří Bělohlávek returned for his third curtain call, I and a few other people got up and more and more attendees then stood up until everyone was on their feet. Bělohlávek was visibly moved. I remember how he brought his hand to his heart and bowed with a small, grateful smile.

Random observations from going to the Rudolfinum: the bilingual program cost 30 cr0wns, the Bohemian Sekt brut 65 crowns (it tasted ok, although Bohemian Sekt isn't nearly as good as real champagne). In the program I noticed how the Czech use the dot after a number to mean "th" (as in: 10th season, 20th year), like the Germans. The German influence is also obvious in the traffic lights, where the red and yellow lights shine together right before the light turns to green. Interestingly, for pedestrians, the light switches from green to red with no warning. There is no blinking green light, for instance, that would tell pedestrians to hurry across the crosswalk (and warn them not to start crossing if they haven't done so already).   

But I want to end this post with a remembrance of Jiří Bělohlávek, who did so much to raise the visibility of Czech music and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra throughout the world. His recordings of Antonín Dvořák are my absolute favorites. He left us too early, but had more of an impact on the world than most of us can ever dream to have. 

Musical accompaniment:  Jiří Bělohlávek conducting the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Dvořák's 9th Symphony, "From the New World", part of the "Complete Symphonies & Concertos" set.