California Academy of Sciences

So we only had one hour, but at least we got to see it: the California Academy of Sciences. We had just enough time to take in the Rainforests of the World exhibit and the Living Roof exhibit. The dome that houses the rainforest is interesting but surprising bare of plants. I was expecting more of a greenhouse feel with abundant foliage and that wasn’t the case. The exhibits and information provided were great, just that I sensed more concrete and glass than foliage. The last part of the rainforest is the Amazonian flooded forest and that was interesting.

The Living Roof was the highlight for us. It’s still pretty new, just about one year old this month but it looked great. It makes you ask why more buildings aren’t doing this. Yeah, I’m sure cost is a huge driver…but aesthetics should trump that, right? There are docents up on the Living Roof to explain how the roof is put together so make sure to ask them lots of questions.

Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language

Front cover of "Lost in Translation" by Eva Hoffman.

Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language is a memoir by Eva Wydra Hoffman. Hoffman as a teenager emigrated from Cracow Poland to Vancouver Canada in 1959. From there she goes to school in Texas followed by Harvard and then eventually settles into the New York literary world. As she describes this journey, Hoffman talks about place and belonging, about being different, about being in exile. And when she finally settles into her American “life” she encounters yet another sense of exile from her childhood friends from Cracow. One aspect about her story that foreign language students may find interesting are her observations about adopting a new language, expressing yourself in that language, and about “translating” yourself honestly in the new language. About two thirds through the book Hoffman writes:

I have to translate myself. But if I’m to achieve this without becoming assimilated – that is, absorbed – by my new world, the translation has to be careful, the turns of the psyche unforced. To mouth foreign terms without incorporating their meanings is to risk becoming bowdlerized. A true translation proceeds by the motions of understanding and sympathy; it happens by slow increments, sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase.

Anyone who has spent more than a few weeks immersed in a foreign language (in a country that speaks the language) can appreciate this concept. 

I found her style – particularly, sentence structure - a little hard to read at times. And, there were turns of phrases that I found myself having to research to puzzle out the meaning of (e.g. I Love Lucy is a TV madeleine – that is, something that evokes a memory, not a small cake). Perhaps I should spend more time in the New York literary circles? Anyway, I like books that introduce new concepts so overall the sentence structure and phrasing was not too big of a deal. What some readers may not find acceptable or appreciate are Hoffman’s critical descriptions of North American, and specifically, American culture. She does seem to come out a little negative, but, her observations are interesting and accurate enough to allow her the space to do it. It is her memoir after all.

Back cover of "Lost in Translation" by Eva Hoffman.

Been Here a Thousand Years

Been Here a Thousand Years is an Italian novel by Mariolina Venezia and translated into English by Marina Harss. It’s a story about five generations of the Falcone family and in particular, the strong women in the family. There is a handy, drawn genealogy chart in the front of the book that you can refer to as you read. The story is told by Gioia (at the end of the 20th century) about the generations that came before her. The book starts on March 27, 1861 (the day Rome was declared the capital of modern Italy) in the town of Grottole, a small town in Basilicata. The opening of the book is about a birth where the mother screams so loud that she breaks storage jars of olive oil which then runs through the streets of the small town. And so the first boy in the Falcone family, Oreste, is born. We later find out that is a bit of a f(l)op.

Venezia’s story bounces along a quick clip and she periodically gives a tantalizing peek into some quirky aspect of a character and then leaves it up to the reader to work out possible interpretations and plausible subplots. An example of such a peek is in Chapter 5 when Candida (one of the long line of strong women in the family) finds her uncle in a compromising situation. You are given the sketch but never again is the situation mentioned.

“Quietly she went down the stairs to the basement where she shared a bed with her aunt. There was a sudden flash. She opened the curtain and saw her uncle Oreste lying in a languid pose in front of a camera mounted on a tripod, wearing aunt Angelica’s clothes, as well as eye shadow and rouge on his cheeks.”

Comparison to Christ Stopped at Eboli are apt here because both stories cover the same region and time frame, but the styles are different. In Eboli, more or less autobiographical, Levi spends time fleshing out characters, giving back stories, and describing in detail the relationship of characters to the land. In Thousand Years, Venezia does the same but at much less of a scale assuming readers are familiar with the territory: poor Basilicata farmers dragged into modernity, suffering Fascism, Communism, and 1950s land reform. Venezia's goal, it seems, is to move the plot ahead to sketch out five generations of a family and to reflect on what changes and what doesn’t for the family as they pass through 150 years of tumultuous Italian history.

Seattle Jade Plant @ 18 Years

While listening to a story on NPR about an airline for pets called Pet Airways I was struck by someone interviewed in the story who mentioned how his pet was an old family friend – or something to that effect. Well, I’ve grown this jade plant (Crassula ovata) from a leaf cutting and it’s about 18 years old now. Does that qualify as a family friend? It doesn’t lick me or get me up in the morning, but I’m okay with that.

This jade has trunk circumference of about 11 inches at the soil line. The height and breath are about 3 feet. It suffered through one winter outside (not a good move, but it was during a remodel) several years ago and one year of absence when, now in retrospect I realize, I gave our plant caretaker bad instructions and it was a bit overwatered. The plant usually spends the 'winter' season (October to April) inside and 'summer' season (May to September) outside. We place it outside in a location that gets some sun but not all day sun. In the picture above it’s on the north side of the house where it gets morning sun and then shade for the rest of the day.

Music Recommendations: Wooden Arms and Précis

Two new music recommendations from Travelmarx are Patrick Watson’s 2009 release Wooden Arms (listen) and Benoît Pioulard’s 2006 release Précis (listen).

Wooden Arms we first heard of on NPR’s Best Music of the Year So Far feature. The segment of the show played the track Beijing and we were hooked. The style of music? Indie pop and chamber pop with a dollop of dreamy sort of describes it. Check out Watson's site for more info.

Précis is a little harder to grasp on first listen. As the review on AllMusic.com notes “Superficial as it can be to judge an album by its artwork, the shimmer and shadow on the cover of Benoît Pioulard's first full-length (and Kranky debut), Précis, aptly depicts the music inside.” The first track La Guerre de Sept Ans is a 3 minute noise experiment that’s sort of a test to see if you can handle the rest of the album. Check out Pioulard's site for more info.

Growing Amorphophallus bulbifer in the Pacific Northwest - Outdoors

We’ve had Amorphophallus bulbifer growing outside for 6+ years now in Seattle. The location is south-facing but with not that much sun due to the neighboring house blocking much of it. We have them arranged in two different 'patches' that roughly experience the same conditions. The plants grow slightly under a house overhang of about 2 feet. The ground is just regular old dirt and the top is covered with hazelnut shells. We water and apply fertilizer during growing season and then don’t do anything off season. We leave the bulbs in ground all year. They keep spreading too - each year more plants show up – due to the bulbils that grow at various node points on the one leaf. We’ve never seen the bulbifer bloom.

In one of the photos above there is a plant with a leaf looks like a pinwheel with 10 arms. We don’t know for sure what that is, but our guess is a voodoo lily (Sauromatum venosum). It blooms in late April and then a leaf comes up. The matured inflorescence is pictured below, bent over and hanging close to the ground. Would love to know what it is for sure.


Update 06/22/2010
A reader (see comments) pointed out that the mystery plant with the pinwheel leave is probably Arisaema consanguineum. I have picture of this year's bloom below and I think that Arisaema is correct. Thanks!