I recently stopped to take this photo of my odometer. They don't keep track of tenths of a mile anymore, otherwise I would have waited until 88888.8

Whenever our family went driving when I was young, I checked the odometer to see whether an interesting number was coming up. For example, perhaps we were about to hit 45678.9 or 50505.0. My brother and I would get in position so we could watch the magic moment. If you read my previous post about numbers, you are already nodding your head in recognition.

Those of you who are a certain age will remember that automobiles used to have mechanical odometers—mechanical!—including a wheel for tenths of a mile. Because the tenths wheel was in constant movement, the precise number 45678.9 lasted only for the briefest moment, and then was over. Are we there yet?

The grand prize, of course, was when the odometer rolled over from 99999.9 to 00000.0. That only happened twice: once in our old 1967 Chevy station wagon, and once in my own car. These days, odometers don’t have a tenth digit, but do have a hundreds-of-thousands digit. This means that I’ll never have my car long enough to see the odometer reach 888888, and so must settle for 088888 (in the old days, I could have had 88888.8).

I’m not sure how to explain my fascination for symmetrical odometer readings when I have so little for seemingly symmetrical calendar dates such as 11/11/11. Part of it is that the date is really 11/11/2011, which isn’t symmetrical at all. Or that the same date is 14 Cheshvan 5772 in the Hebrew calendar, or 12.19.18.15.14 in the Mayan calendar, which aren’t symmetrical either. On the other hand, the odometer readout could be in base 8, in which case 88888 would be 255470, or in base 16, which would be 15B38. So the next time your insurance broker asks you what the odometer reading is, ask him “base 8 or base 16?”

I used to write down numbers.

Well, for a few weeks in fourth grade, I wrote down numbers until I grew tired of it. On a sheet of ordinary paper I simply wrote one number after another and kept going.

… 2371 2372 2373 2374 2375 2376 2377 2378 2379 2380 2381 2382 …

You get the idea. WHY THE HECK DID YOU DO THIS, I hear you cry. As Tevye once said, “I will tell you. I don’t know.” I remember classmates leaning over to watch me to this, especially when an interesting number was coming up, like 4444. Fourth grade must not have been that exciting if David’s numbers were the best show in the room.

One of Roman Opalka's early "details"

This whole episode flashed back into my memory this week when I read an obituary of painter Roman Opalka, who died on August 6th at age 79. Opalka wrote down numbers, only he kept at it for the rest of his life. He called each of his paintings a “detail,” and they all had the same title: “Opalka 1965 / 1-∞”. Each detail was the same size as his studio door in Warsaw, and the numbers on each detail picked up where the previous one had ended. As he painted each number, he whispered its name in his native Polish. He started the project in 1965, and painted about 400 numbers each day. By the time he died he was well over 5 500 000—he used no commas—though he had originally hoped to reach 7 777 777.

At first he painted white numbers on a black background, but in 1968 he changed to grey, and in 1972 he began adding 1% more white to the grey background each year. By the 2008 the ground was essentially as white as the figures: both the numbers and the visibility merging into infinity.

On 11 September 2001, Arlene and I boarded a plane for San Francisco at London’s Heathrow airport. The attacks on the World Trade Center happened about an hour into our flight. Here is what happened to us over the next several days, as published in the Nov-Dec 2001 issue of the Reel & Strathspeyper, the newsletter of the San Francisco branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society.

One of the women's klapa groups. The banner reads "25th evening of Dalmatian klapa and folksingers". Sudamja is the name of the festival, a contraction of the Croatian words for "Saint Duje"

We arrived in Split two days before St Duje’s Day, and discovered to our delight that one of the festivities was a klapa concert. It was to be held in the peristil, the central collonaded area in Diocletian’s Palace. No fewer than sixteen different klapa groups participated, almost half of them women’s groups (until very recently, klapa groups were exclusively male). This was very definitely a concert by and for Croatians: the audience was mostly friends and relatives of the various groups.

The Croatian crowd listening to the klapa concert

It was also a lesson in local customs. The audience was supportive, but also talked freely during the music, and didn’t care about blocking the views of those sitting down on the side stairs (even ignoring other locals who were complaining to the standees in Croatian). Smoking? No problem: almost everyone smokes cigarettes in Dalmatia. We even saw pregnant women smoking.

Klapa is wonderful music, but it’s nothing like the Croatian music I’m most familiar with. Why is this? A glance at a map of Europe reveals dozens of small countries, but most of them are composed of even smaller regions with distinctive languages and traditions. Over my folkdance career I’ve learned many Croatian dances, but it turns out that almost all of them are from Slavonia, the northern inland area of Croatia bordering Austria and Hungary. Our vacation was in Dalmatia, along the south-eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea: just 150 miles from Slavonia as the crow flies, but a very different place. We think of Croatia as an Eastern European country, but Dalmatia has a very western feel, much like Italy. This is not surprising given that the Republic of Venice controlled and influenced Dalmatia from the middle Ages until the Napoleonic Wars. Italy also occupied several pieces of Dalmatia between the two World Wars. All of which explains why klapa sounds so pleasingly western to my ears. If the words were in Italian instead of Croatian, I would never guess that the music wasn’t Italian.

Klapa Dalmacija, our delightful evening's entertainment the night we were docked in Korčula

We were treated to a second, more intimate klapa concert while in Korčula. Klapa Dalmacija, a group from the town of Vela Luka on the other side of the island, serenaded us during dinner. Later on, while they were having their own dinner, they kept singing. We bought one of their CDs and play it often as a reminder of our trip.

Read David’s other blog posts about the Croatia trip!

The Milky Way over Switzerland, (c) Stephane Vetter

Arlene and I just returned from three days in Mendocino, on the northern California coast. It had been foggy recently—a very common thing in Mendocino—but during our stay it was completely cloudless. And no moon! A stargazer’s paradise. I walked down the street to where there weren’t any nearby lights and looked up. And there it was! The magical mystical Milky Way: the combined glow of billions of stars in our own galaxy.

The Milky Way is magical to me because I can’t see it at home. There is so much artificial nighttime light in the Bay Area that only the brightest stars are visible. The Milky Way is still there, of course, RIGHT THERE, EVERY DAMN NIGHT, AND I CAN’T SEE IT.

My brother and I were both interested in astronomy at an early age. Every weekend we went around the neighborhood collecting used newspapers in the old red wagon, which we stacked up in our garage. Once we had accumulated a carload, we’d pile them into our Chevrolet station wagon and Dad would drive us into Oakland to the recycle yard. (I’m sure Dad spent more in gas, not to mention in his time, than we made selling the newsprint. He was generous that way.) After about two years, we took the money we had saved and bought a small telescope. I still remember the first night we used it and saw Saturn.

But we couldn’t see the Milky Way! Suburban Fremont in the mid-1960s already had way too much light pollution. Pretty much the only time I got to see the Milky Way as a lad was during Boy Scout summer camp, far from the city lights.  And as an adult, I still have to journey far to see it: this week was the first time I’d seen the Milky Way in several years. It’s one of the prices we pay to live in the city, and one of the reasons I often fantasize about living out of it.

Dubrovnik from the southeast

In 1929 George Bernard Shaw said “If you want to visit heaven on earth, come to Dubrovnik.” Hundreds of thousands of tourists take him up on it every year. We were there in May, before the summer hordes arrived, but it was still crowded during the morning hours when the big cruise ships were in port. Dubrovnik is very picturesque: you will be taking photographs around every corner.

View east down the Stradun from the walls near the Pile Gate

Dubrovnik boasts a magnificent wall completely surrounding the Old City, and for a modest charge you can walk the whole way around on top. I spent two hours making the circuit, wearing out my camera battery in the process. The walls have everything a castle-loving American could want: spectacular views, huge guard towers, 17th-century ruins, sheer cliffs above the crashing waves, and the chaotic geometry of hundreds of terracotta tile roofs.

Most of Dubrovnik was destroyed in the earthquake of 1667. It was rebuilt quickly, and so many of the buildings share the same architectural style, most notably along the wide main street, called Stradun (“big street”). Dubrovnik was shelled in the 1991 war that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia, an act that prompted widespread outrage. Almost all of the 1991 damage has been repaired, but I kept forcing myself to remember that this was only twenty years ago: all the adults here lived through that.

The island of Lokrum as seen from the city walls. According to legend, England's King Richard I was shipwrecked on Lokrum in 1192 on his way home from the Crusades.

For all its apparent livlihood, the most recent census counted only 1000 Croatian residents inside the Old City. Many locals fear it will become a ghost town, catering only to tourists—a sentiment familiar to the residents of Venice, 300 miles up the Adriatic coast from here.

Read David’s other blog posts about the Croatia trip!

Sheer cliffs down to the crashing waves

Terra cotta roofs and church domes

Whatever happened to “you’re welcome”? No, I’m not complaining that people aren’t polite anymore, far from it. But “you’re welcome” as a reply to “thank you” seems to be falling rapidly out of use. Instead, I hear people replying to “thank you” with… “thank you”. Huh?

I hear it all the time. I listen to a lot of radio shows and podcasts with interviews. At the end of every chat, the host says “Alice, thank you for speaking with us” and Alice usually replies “thank you.” My unscientific estimate is that this happens 80-90% of the time. The rest of the replies are almost usually some variant of “it’s been a pleasure”. But I rarely hear “you’re welcome”.

While I have various gripes about how Americans use the language (such as using “less” when “fewer” is called for), this one seems more perplexing than anything else. Saying “you’re welcome” hardly seems controversial, but clearly this has been a trend for some time. Back in 2004 I remember listening to Terry Gross interview former NPR host Bob Edwards on Fresh Air. At the end of the talk, Gross thanked Edwards for coming, and he replied “You’re welcome,” and after a pause he added “I’ve never liked it when people answer ‘thank you’ with ‘thank you.’ ”

Anyway, so you are welcome. Really.

Get your Marco Polo t-shirts here!

The Venetians hail famous explorer Marco Polo (1254?-1324) as one of their own, but Croatians will tell you that Marko—with a ‘k’—was actually born in the town of Korčula, on the island of the same name. For someone who died almost 700 years ago, he is in excellent health: Marko Polo house, Marko Polo restaurant, Marko Polo ice cream… the man is around every corner.

Marko Polo may have been born here. There's an admission charge, but not much to see.

Don’t let this deter you from visiting Korčula, however. It is a compact, circular walled town on the eastern tip of the island, overlooking the strait of Pelješac. It has charm and views in abundance. The distinctive herringbone pattern of streets was supposedly designed to permit airflow but to protect against high winds.

At the center of the walled town, at the top of the hill, is the cathedral of St Mark. The exterior is decorated with many carved faces: humans, mermaids, animals. The interior has a beautiful wooden roof which contrasts with the light grey stone. If St Mark rings a bell, it is indeed the same saint as San Marco in Venice—which makes sense when you remember that Venice controlled modern-day Dalmatia for several centuries. There are many buildings in Korčula decorated with the winged lion of Venice.

Fanciful carvings on St Mark's cathedral

I can also speak highly of Korčula’s pastries. The ice cream, not so much. Nothing we had anywhere in Croatia comes close to the quality of Italian gelato.

Read David’s other blog posts about the Croatia trip!

The walled town of Korčula as our ship approached the harbor

I’ve always liked climbing up to the top of tall buildings in Europe. It’s probably because I like stone circular staircases so much. St Paul’s in London, Notre Dame in Paris, St Peter’s in Rome, the Duomo in Florence. Typically I enter a doorway off to one side of the cavernous central space, and ascend the various claustrophobic staircases until I emerge at the top and take in the breathtaking view of the ancient city. The large domes are particularly interesting because the final ascents are sandwiched in between the inner and outer shells of the dome.

In the belfry of the church tower in Trogir, Croatia

The harrowing climb up to the belfry in Trogir, seen from the top

So when we arrived in Croatia, naturally I wanted to ascend the first belfry tower I encountered: Saint Duje’s Church, inside the Roman-era “Diocletian’s Palace” in Split. I paid my 10 kuna (about $2) and I headed up the staircase. Halfway up, however, I realized what I had gotten myself into: instead of a safe, windowless stone staircase, I was on metal stairs attached to the sides of the tower on one side. The other side was a sheer drop to the bottom of the shaft. It may seem contradictory that I both enjoy climbing towers and have a pronounced fear of heights, but there you are. It took every ounce of “when am I coming back to Croatia? Carpe diem!” that I could muster to steadfastly ignore the  chasm beside me and concentrate only on climbing the stairs.

So two days later, in the delightful walled town of Trogir, what I did do? Why, I climbed another bell tower, this one with an even rustier and more rickety staircase than the first. My friend and fellow musician Mary Lea was a big help getting me to the top. The last few steps were as steep as a ladder, and involved stuffing myself through a hole about two feet square.

Looking up to the Trogir belfry from the base of the tower

Two belfries were enough for me! Later in the trip, however, I did take a walk along the magnificent city walls in Dubrovnik, which were stunning and not at all acrophobic.

Read David’s other blog posts about the Croatia trip!