Indonesia, Part 1: Kalimantan

15 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by in Travel

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

The Sekonyer River. Kalimantan.

The Sekonyer River. Kalimantan. All photos by Julie Seyler.

BY JULIE SEYLER

To get to Indonesia from New York City takes about 24 hours door to door. It is a small sacrifice because this country, which is composed of over 17,000 islands, delivers everything from Komodo dragons to golf courses; fine art museums to volcano treks; the cleanest of seas; the nicest of people. In a little over two weeks, Steve and I managed to cram in five different destinations on four islands.

The first destination was Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo, and a boat ride up the Sekonyer River through Tanjung Puting National Park to Camp Leakey to see the orangutans:camp leakeyCamp Leakey was established by Birute Galdikas in 1971 to protect and rehabilitate orangutans that were being poached and killed for a profit. Today they thrive!

The viewing conditions are somewhat staged by the preset 10:00 and 2:00 feeding times, when bunches of bananas are dropped on 12-foot high viewing platforms. Slowly, on cue, the orangutans emerge from their hidden haunts, and the performance of their dining process commences:

Feeding platform for the orangutans.

Feeding platform for the orangutans.

But, the predictability does not in any manner diminish the fascination of watching these grand primates, and their endlessly expressive faces, change from anger to docility as they play with their buddies, entertain themselves, and protect their young ones:

angry guy

hanging guy

They are the great ape most like us, and to the extent we are a culture that loves selfies, the orangutans present different, but familiar images of who we are at our core: moody, playful, hungry and protective:

Playing.
Playing.
Eating.
Eating.
Protecting.
Protecting.

And of course, the excursion into the rainforest was not just about the orangutans. There were so many other things to take in: luscious vegetation in every shape, variety and texture that hugged the meandering curves in the river, plants shaped as pitchers, and trees so dependent on each other they grew into each other:

sekonyer clean

Pitcher plants. Tanjung Puting National Park. Kalimantan.

Pitcher plants. Tanjung Puting National Park. Kalimantan.

Tree on tree

Tree on tree.

There were long-tailed macaques, and probocis monkeys with Cyrano de Bererac noses, huddled in groups in the tree tops, swinging from limb to limb, solitary gibbons and wild boar:

Check out the nose.

Check out the nose.

A long tail.

A long tail.

A gibbon watching us watching him.

A gibbon watching us watching him.

A wild boar crosses the road.

A wild boar crosses the road.

But this vista, and these animals, which have been part of the earth for millions of years, are at risk for demolition and destruction. It should not be surprising that the battle for preserving the world’s natural heritage is not confined to the debate over the Keystone Pipeline. In Borneo, the ever expanding palm oil estates are winning over conservation efforts and the Sekonyer River – once pitch black and clear – is now more dank and muddy – a perpetual reminder of the pollution from upriver mining:

Off the main stream of the Sekonyer River. Tanjung Puting National Park. Kalimantan.

Off the main “road” of the Sekonyer River. Tanjung Puting National Park. Kalimantan.

View of Tanjung Puting Park from plane.

View of Sekonyer River and Tanjung Puting Park from plane.

So I was left with one thought: Don’t let these guys down, and made a donation to the Orangutan Foundation:

Compassion

Compassion.

A smile.

A smile.

Cyrano de Bergerac

Cyrano de Bergerac.

Grooming.

Grooming.

Billy Crystal’s Book for Boomers: Buy It. You’ll Like It

14 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by in Men

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

I think that one of the aims of this blog should be to point out things that we over-50s are likely to enjoy. Along those lines, Billy Crystal has written a book that I think perfectly captures what life is like after 50. It’s called, “Still Foolin’ ‘Em: Where I’ve Been, Where I’m Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys?” I recommend it to everyone who, in Crystal’s words, “can still do everything they did at age 30 if only they could remember what those things are.”STILL FOOLIN' 'EM cover

If you consider aging Baby Boomers to all be occupants of the same classroom of life, then Billy Crystal is our class clown. He has been the voice of our generation through his memorable years on Saturday Night Live to his classic movies like “City Slickers,” “When Harry Met Sally,” and “Forget Paris,” to his brilliant stints as host of the Academy Awards. Now at age 65, he is the prototypical Baby Boomer – having grown up in the New York suburbs watching Officer Joe Bolton on Channel 11.

Like the writers in this blog, Crystal pulls no punches when discussing the effects of aging. He tells us, “During the past year, things started to grow on me where they shouldn’t. My ass looks like the bottom of a boat.” He says that he still is interested in looking at 20-something women, but now they’re out of focus and, “by the time I get my glasses on, they’re gone.” He laments that these days when he says, “dinner’s on me” he means it literally. He notes that age has made him feel cold most of the time, and he’s starting to think that global warming isn’t such a bad thing.

Billy spends an entire hilarious chapter on senior sex (you’ll have to read the book for details). I’ll just say that he is as candid about this aspect of life after 50 as any other. He also spends some time talking about the after-50 problem of staying awake at the movies or at Broadway shows. Ultimately, I found myself nodding my head in agreement while listening to the audio book. By the way, if you’re into audio books, that is the best way to experience this work because Billy reads it himself and the entire book is like a long stand-up comedy show.

I think the most surprising thing about this book is how well-written it is. It is not hyperbole to compare the writing style with Mark Twain’s. It’s that good. Billy’s line that, “I sleep like a baby. I’m up every two hours,” could have come from the pen of Twain. But ultimately, what makes the book so attractive to the over-50 audience is its sincerity and truth. When Billy talks about his insomnia, it’s something that most of us can relate to. And that’s the key to good humor writing.

For example, Crystal spends a chapter on what he worries about these days. Among many other things, he says, “I worry that someday my kids will look down on me and say: “‘I changed him last time. Now it’s your turn.’”

The truth can sometimes make you wince, but the trick is to always stay positive. We can draw inspiration from one of Billy Crystal’s famous characters. No matter the effects of aging – “You look wonderful!”

My New Kitchen is “Cookin'”

11 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by in Concepts

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, ,

kitchen

No room for a broom, but aura-aplenty.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

I’ve lived long enough to accept that change is assured. Not the kind of change that comes about from restlessness – as it does when we are younger, when we choose change with abandon and ardor – but midlife change that can come with less renewal, and more fallout. Losing the sustaining comfort of familiar to the uneasiness of foreign can now hit with a punch-in-the-gut force that can sideline the most resilient among us. It could be the death of someone you love. Or divorce. Independence and self-reliance can be snuffed out because of illness, or reduced physical capacity. Unwelcome adjustments may have to be made because careers are dwindling and the financial safety net has been pocked.

Midlife is a letting-go part of life. There’s much saying goodbye to familiar.

A month ago yesterday, I moved from my beloved family house to my own apartment. A lot of my familiar has been plucked and tossed since that move. For the first time in 30 years, I’m living in space that is less mine. (I have to share stairways, elevators, walls, floors, a laundry room, the front door … toilet flushes.) In the beginning, time would sometimes stand so still at random moments – I could be driving, walking my dog, sleeping – that I would be jolted into an uneasy awareness at the reality of all that was, and all that is no longer – the familiar was conspicuously absent.

But I am also a lover of change. I will throw myself into the deep end, and find my way up – smiling. So, while my recent move (and accompanying fallout) has been unnerving at times, I’ve been adjusting spectacularly to the new everything …

… except the kitchen. Yes – you can mess with my familiar. Take my marriage! Bye! to my beautiful (big sniff) babies. Who needs a back yard? I no longer need shovels. And privacy is for the dead.

But don’t take my big old kitchen. My old kitchen owned my aura. It was my nimbus – hanging over me with “home.” It’s where my children would rush to after school. It’s where their scraped knees were bandaged, and stomaches nourished. They would do their homework in the kitchen, and recently, as young men, would gather with their friends over a beer. There was a corner the size of a closet for the shoes of a family of four. It’s where the party began, and usually stayed. It could be set aglow with a dozen candelabras on the counters. Holidays, birthdays, summer nights, winter storms – all kitchen-bound.

My new kitchen is the size of my old broom closet. And I’m OK with stacking and piling. I don’t care that my fancy, etched glasses are in the second bedroom armoire. Love my wine rack in the hallway! And so what that my cool, crystal, just-for-party-plates are in my car?

It seems, though, that it’s the little things that have been looming big in loss. I can’t blast music and do my joyful cooking-twirl with my wine in hand without crashing into a wall. There’s room for one stool, and it only fits in the corner, with room for only one elbow on the counter. I can’t gather more than three (I have squooshed five) people in it at once. (We can’t sit down.) I’m the bandaged one these days, because if I leave the cabinets open, I’m pierced in either the head or ankle. To cook and eat and drink requires a lot of turns sideways.

But a month in, I’m beginning to feel huge of heart in my small kitchen with a (newly) big aura. Yes, I can only hang there in bursts of time, instead of hours. And yes, it’s the old oven that burns these days, not candelabras. I’ve left the small square space right outside its doorway furniture-free for my wine-infused cooking-twirls (OK, more like twists). Adjustments, all. But little gems, each, that remind me that letting go means more space for letting in. That living large is about hugging change like your bursting-with-zeal-20-year-old self. My new kitchen may be narrow of space, counter-challenged, and twirl-free. But it’s found its aura. And it’s become familiar.

I’m a Scammed Artist

10 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Art

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

"twisted 2: Josie & David's Lovers"

“Twisted 2: Josie & David’s Lovers.”

BY JULIE SEYLER

Hello from Bali. Steve and I fly home on Saturday, October 12. We arrive Sunday morning around 7:00, and the post–vacation routine commences. The mail is retrieved; the bills are sorted; the bags are unpacked. And the dirty laundry is washed. That first night home, you go to sleep with a different feeling because the illusion of being an unemployed vagabond without a money care in the world is replaced with the dread of obligations that have stockpiled on your desk over the past two weeks. The unfettered bliss of suspended reality is dashed to smithereens in about 24 hours. So, in anticipation that real life is about to descend, I shall tell you the tale from August (which is still on my mind), of Kimberly Collier.

On August 17, I received an email from Kimberly Collier:

Hello,

My name is Kimberly Collier. I am interested in purchasing an artwork from you. Kindly write back with your webpage so that I can view more of your recent works.
Thanks.
Kimberly

That was cool. She had seen some samples of my work on the website Artsicle. I sent her the link to my personal website, julieseyler.com, and the next morning, I found this message waiting in my Inbox:

Hi Julie,

Thank you for the email. I am interested in making an immediate purchase of the work “twisted 2: josie & david’s lovers  oil  52” x 30””. Can I have a detailed information about the work, its availability and pricing?  As soon as we reach a concrete agreement on pricing, I can instruct my p.a to  process a cashiers check to you for the payment of the work so that my mover can have it picked up along with my properties that are to be moved to Munich.

I await your email soonest.

Regards,

Kimberly.

This was even cooler, so I sent her the requested information, and received a reply:

Hi Julie,

Thank you for the mail. I am ok with the price of the work but I want you to deduct the shipping charges from the cost as my mover will take care of the pick up and delivering to my new resident in Munich. He has other properties to pick up for me so he would get the work along with other boxes. But before then, your cash must be at hand. Can you provide me with your full name as you want it appeared on the check, your full address which includes(street name, house number, city, state and zip code) to ensure safe delivery and your working phone number where my mover can easily reach you at. As soon as I get these details, I will fwd it to my p.a so that he can go ahead with the issuance of the check to you after you must arrived back on Saturday, August 24.

I happy to have this piece purchased as it would look good on the walls of my guest room.

Thanks.

Kimberly

But there were a few logistical problems in getting the painting to Ms. Collier. I was down at the beach in Allenhurst. The painting was in a warehouse in Union. And the keys to the warehouse were in Manhattan. Even if we did get it, I could not get it home because it would never fit in the roadster, and the schedule for the next seven days was crazy. Somehow, we had to get the painting back to New York City that Sunday.

Steve had his van, but he preferred keeping it in New Jersey, rather than dealing with parking in the city. But after numerous back and forths (and back and forths), the only option was to drive the van back to Manhattan, then back to Union to pick up the painting, then back to Manhattan. Two trips in, and one trip out, of the Lincoln Tunnel in a period of three hours on a Sunday afternoon in August is not anyone’s idea of fun. Plus, I kept fretting that Kimberly Collier would change her mind. Steve, always my supporter, said, “Don’t worry. Of course she wants the painting.”

Monday morning I e-mailed Kimberly Collier that I had the painting, and we could start making arrangements for her to send the money, and pick it up.

Two hours later, I received this email from Artsicle:

On Saturday, a variety of you received an email via the new messaging system from “Kimberly Collier” requesting more information about your work. Sadly, this is part of a known scam involving fake cashiers checks. I recommend you do not respond to this request – or simply delete the email chain if you already have.

What a bummer. But after talking to the people at Artsicle, it was confirmed that the scammers really do want the art – they just want it for free. To me, that was better than being taken just for the money.

In retrospect, there were lots of little hints this was a scam. No one pays for anything without knowing the return policy.

You Can Dress Me Up Like a Lobster Timbale (or a Sea Urchin on Pedigreed Pea) …

09 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by in Food

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Lobster timbale at Le Bernadin

Lobster timbale at Le Bernardin.

BY JULIE SEYLER

… but you should not take someone like me, whose favorite food is sourdough pretzels with aged cheddar cheese, to haute cuisine restaurants. The appreciation factor for sea urchin on a pedigreed pea with lemon zest is not going to fly high. Nonetheless, for years I have tried to be more of a gourmand rather than someone who is a repetitive orderer of spaghetti with tomatoes and basil. I am, by my own admission, boring to dine with. Plus I think people with refined palettes are more sensual than the plebe that goes for sirloin. On the other hand, one could make a good argument that nothing is sexier than a rare steak.

Steak, albeit not rare enough for some

Steak, albeit not rare enough for some.

Anyway, this summer I had a chance to dine at Le Bernardin, one of the premier restaurants in Manhattan – or so say the pundits of the food world: Le Bernardin. To a great degree, the dishes live up to their reputation (charred octopus, Alaskan King Crab “Crabouillabaisse,” and lobster timbale appetizers), but to me, a reveler of simple grilled fish, I was slightly underwhelmed by my Dover Sole, where the restaurant tagged on an $18 supplement to the $130 prix fixe. It arrived seared and tough – as in dried out – although the “Brown-Butter Tamarind Vinaigrette,” as it was described, sang rapturously. Nonetheless, the balance of the experience left me more convinced than ever that the best restaurants are not on any media lists.

Christmas Decorations: I Don’t Want to See You in September

08 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by in Men, Opinion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Frank xmas

Too soon to be awash in evergreen and sparkly lights.

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

OK. Now they’ve gone too far. Christmas advertising this year began in September! Some stores are now beginning the holiday season as soon as they take down their back-to-school decorations. The Hallmark Channel is advertising its Christmas movies already.

Now, I love Christmas as much as anyone, but do we have to celebrate it for the entire fourth quarter of the year? There was a time, not too long ago, when Thanksgiving was the Christmas firewall. Nobody dared begin Christmas advertising until the turkey was cleared from the table. All this pent-up Christmas demand soon erupted into a media-created shopping holiday – Black Friday. And as soon as that became established, it became necessary to advertise the pre-Black-Friday sales beginning just after Halloween.

Halloween held up for many years as the new Christmas advertising firewall. In fact, all the attention that Halloween received as we focused on it as the prelude to the Christmas season transformed it from the kid’s day it used to be to a sort of Fall Carnivale. It’s much more popular as an adult holiday today than it ever was when we were kids.

But now it seems that the Halloween firewall is giving way as well. Oh sure, the Rockettes don’t open their Christmas show until just after Halloween, but especially in the online world, Christmas in October and even September is a reality. Think I’m exaggerating? Have a look.

The commercialization of Christmas is nothing new. In fact, it was the theme of, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” nearly 50 years ago. But what we have today is simply out-of control capitalism.

Religious Christians have long complained that American society has secularized Christmas to the point where it is no longer recognizable as a religious holiday. I think that the fact that many American children of Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist backgrounds hang up stockings and await the visit of Santa Claus every December 25th is a testament to the fact that there is no longer any Christ left in the Great American Christmas. And I think that’s OK – as long as we recognize it for what it is.

American retailers have created a winter holiday that, coincidentally, corresponds with the date of the religious observance of the birth of Christ. It’s not the Christmas of Silent Night – it’s the Christmas of Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Religious Christians have to accept that their holy day has been co-opted. They need to think of their religious Christmas as a separate, parallel-track holiday that they can observe in religious ways separate from the Santa Spectacular.

But even the secular Christmas has to have its limits. Christmas sales are becoming as unseemly as those Going-Out-of-Business sales that last for months. I know that there is no hope of rolling the commercialization back to after Thanksgiving. That ship has sailed. But can’t the honchos of television agree not to show Christmas ads until November? And while we’re at it, can we perhaps not begin the 2016 presidential campaign for a few more months?

Smile! Probing Pictures Are Being Taken from Space

07 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by in Concepts, Men

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

Bob's Universe.

Bob’s universe. By Julie Seyler.

BY BOB SMITH

Sitting at breakfast recently reading a magazine, I came across a photo taken by a NASA spacecraft called the Cassini probe, which since 2004 has been orbiting Saturn, exploring the planet and its moons. The entire upper portion of the photo is dominated by the dark arc of one portion of Saturn, and to the right of that, a greenish-gray swath of the planet’s rings. The tightly concentric black and green-gray lines comprising the rings resemble the grooves on an old vinyl record, except that the rings appear to be glowing gently against the black background of space. That dark expanse dominates the center portion of the photo, and at the bottom there’s a ghostly horizonal white stripe that’s either light from an unseen source to the left, or a distant slice of the Milky Way. The image is majestic, peaceful, and kind of eerie.

The sobering thing is that, as explained in the accompanying article, it’s actually a photo of earth from approximately 900 million miles (1.4 billion kilometers) away. I thought, at first, that the object just to the right of center was a fragment of the english muffin I’d been eating. Indeed, a toasty crumb had fallen on the magazine, so I brushed it off to reveal a minuscule white speck – 1/100th the size of my bread crumb. It looked like a nick in the ink, or a dust mote, but I couldn’t wipe it away. According to the article, that irregular speck is the earth and the infinitesmal bulge on its side is the moon, both as seen from Saturn’s orbit.

Two thoughts came to mind: We are nothing. And we are not alone. If an infininte number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters, and an infinite amount of time could eventually write the entire works of Shakspeare, then there must be untold numbers of other planets with Earth-like life forms spread throughout the inconceivable vastness of the universe. I decided to have another fried egg. What the hell.

But the earth photo was nothing compared to the news a few days later, when NASA made the ultimate “Elvis has left the building” announcement: after 36 years of hurtling through the void at 38,000 miles per hour, the Voyager space probe has exited the solar system and entered interstellar space. It’s now nearly 12 billion miles away, and still sends back minute radio signals using a transmitter with about the same amount of power as a refrigerator light bulb. It takes nearly 17 1/2 hours for the signal to reach Earth, and when it arrives, the wattage striking the antenna is only about 1 part in 10 quadrillion. By comparison, it takes 20 billion times more power than that to operate an electronic digital watch.

Aside from studying the planets and the far reaches of our solar system, Voyager also carries a message for any intelligent life that may find it someday: the Golden Record. This 12-inch diameter, gold-plated, copper audiovisual disk includes 115 images and sounds representative of life on Earth as well as musical selections and spoken greetings in 55 languages. Of course, to play the record, you’d first have to build a record/video disk player, speakers, and display screen. I guess they figured that any life form intelligent enough to snatch this probe from its race through space would be able to figure that out. And the NASA engineers were thoughful enough to include a cartridge and needle you could use to play the record once you’d built the machine to play it on – a good idea, since it’s hard even now, right here on Earth, to get needles and cartridges to play old vinyl LPs.

I thought back to the Cassini photo: if the entire planet is a speck from 900 million miles, aren’t we surely invisible from 12 billion and counting? Compared to the universe, our solar system is smaller than an electron oscillating in one molecule of a hair follicle on the ass of a flea. And if we’re invisible and barely detectable, who’s ever going to find us, even if other intelligent beings are out there? And if they really are out there, why haven’t they sent us their Golden LPs, begging for retrieval and playback?

Keep your eyes open, kids. You never know. And let’s just hope that if the aliens send an 8-track tape with information about their planet, they include the whole device because working 8-track players are even scarcer than record needles.

Bad Luck be Damned. I’m Now “Armed” with a Four-Leaf Clover

04 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by in Art

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

BY LOIS DESOCIO

This is my inner arm:

arm redo

This is my inner arm on …:
clover arm

… not drugs. But upon waking up this morning. See what popped up overnight? It’s a four-leaf clover. On my inner arm. Is a bruise? Is it (Geez!) an age spot? What is it? Keratosis Pilaris? Psoriasis? Stage-One Melanoma? Or even worse – Keratoacanthoma?

None of the above. Because I said so. I don’t know what the scientific term or reason for artwork mysteriously appearing on flesh is, but I’ll take it. My arm is now right up there with that tree stump in Belfast, where an image of Jesus mysteriously appeared, and the infamous apparition of the Virgin Mary in the bush in Philadelphia (which ironically turned 60 this year).

(Plus, see how my arm now matches my ottoman in the background!)

I have had a steady slew (the list is as long as my arm) of bad luck for some time now. But the rough patch has been slowly smoothing – things have been looking up. And now thanks to this recent shot in the arm, I’m metaphorically thick-skinned. Impervious.

I’m not religious. But I am half-Irish. And given my dermatologist’s clinical, yet now prophetic, comment after an exam a few months ago (“You’d be surprised at what can pop up on the skin overnight, once you approach 60”), I am raising my arm up in acknowledgment to whomever – whatever – reverse-tattooed me with a (hopefully) permanent good-luck charm in the dark of night.

Thank you. Because according to Irish lore, the four leaves of the clover each represent the intangibles we live for: Faith. Hope. Love. Luck.

All things, not unlike the four-leaf clover itself, that are hard to find, but pop up when we’re not looking.