Areas of Unrest

1 October 2006 - A Single Footprint in the Sand

This was a pretty quiet week at work, since both our director and his deputy were away and three other people were out at a conference. I certainly had enough to keep me busy and actually felt like I was reasonably productive. Alas, I was less productive after work, so the Poland travlogue is still unfinished.

The major event of the weekend was going into the city yesterday. I had been wanting to see a photography exhibit ("Streets of New York") at the National Gallery of Art. I managed to keep myself from indulging in the finest art at the Gallery (the gelato in the East Building) and looked at a few random other things, including their current exhibit of drawings. The photography exhibit was a bit of a letdown, actually. Not that there was anything wrong with it, per se, but there weren't any surprises. People on the subway, boys in a Brooklyn street gang (circa 1950), bathers at Coney Island, crowds in Tinmes Square - all of it is the familiar New York. Still, the museum is free, so it doesn't matter so much if I'm not blown away by things.

My other reason for going into the city was to go to the National Book Festival on the mall. That was more satisfying. I had gotten a late start on the day so missed a couple of authors I would have liked to have heard. But I did get to the most important one - the ever entertaining Alexander McCall Smith. He spoke amusingly on various subjects, including mistakes made by famous writers. Notably, Daniel Defoe has Robinson Crusoe discovering Friday after seeing a single footprint on the sand - kind of odd evidence for a two-legged man to leave. The funniest part of the talk had to do with having sold the movie rights to the Mma Ramotswe books years ago, but just having had lots of lunches with the director and no progress on the movie. He said that next time he will just sell the film rights directly to the restaurant.

Since I mentioned Robinson Crusoe, the book is, of course, based on the story of Alexander Selkirk, who was (voluntarily) marooned on an island off Chile. And I've been doing vacation planning, which involves another Chilean island. Yes, I am going to go to Easter Island! It's not until February (so I can go to the Tapati festival, but it is still exciting. I also have some time on the Chilean mainland, which I need to do more planning for. Santiago is just a city, though I'm sure it's worth a day or two. And one can apparently easily take a day trip to the winelands. What I am debating about is whether to go north for a few days (to the Atacama desert - the driest place on the planet short of Antarctica) or to go south to Chiloe (where there are both Humboldt and Magellanic penguins). I need to do a bit of research to see which makes more sense. Good thing I think travel planning is fun.