This was the busiest work week in a long time due to Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts. The campus buildings that house 3,500 colleagues were (and still are) offline due to significant basement flooding. Here are before and after pictures – the tall building is one end of the campus. To see the roads that I’ve driven so many times to work in Houston completely submerged really made an impact.
Some staggering statistics about the Hurricane – 51 inches of rain fell in Houston over 6 days, 37,000 displaced people are currently in shelters, 84,000 homes were damaged and 6,400 totally destroyed. The estimated economic impact is over $40 Billion. Most of my friends and colleagues in Houston have homes that remained dry throughout the storm – only one family had to evacuate to San Antonio.
The weekend was spent catching up on some exercise, relaxing by the pool, finalizing the wedding albums, and pulling together information for our estate plan – nothing very exciting. I did watch most of the movie “Gentlemen prefer blondes” starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Mansfield (a native of Dallas). I’d never watched more than a few minutes of this before and McD was entertained by my constant chuckling at what is a very silly but quite funny movie. It’s maybe best known for the song “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend”.
So far the Labor Day holiday has been spent on a troubleshooting bridge since 6am for an outage. It’s after noon now and so hoping the 6 hour marathon ends soon.
I finished “Bel Canto” by Ann Patchett this week. Given how much I enjoyed her most recent novel, “Commonwealth”, this was a disappointing read to me. The first section of the story where a world-renowned soprano sings at a birthday party in honor of a visiting Japanese CEO in an unnamed South American country and is then taken hostage, along with 58 other visiting dignitaries, in the vice-presidential mansion was quite engaging. The middle section where the hostage situation drags on for weeks and then months becomes slow moving and struggled to keep my attention. Interest peaks again in the last few pages as the hostage situation is resolved but it was too late for me to give this read anything above an average rating. On a positive note, the descriptions of the operatic aria performances and piano accompaniment are very well done.
I’m looking forward to receiving the new John Le Carre book this week. The New York Times review of this book by Dwight Garner is very well done:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/books/review-john-le-carre-legacy-of-spies.html?_r=0
“Among this book’s pleasures is a reminder that adults were once in charge of the destiny of the free world.”
“Le Carré’s prose remains brisk and lapidary. His wit is intact and rolls as if on casters. He is as profitably interested as ever in values, especially the places where loyalty, patriotism and affection rub together and fray. He wears his gravitas lightly.”
“Le Carré hauls out his greatest creation, the Yoda-like spymaster George Smiley, for a cameo appearance, as if he were taking a ’60s-era Lamborghini long kept in the garage — Smiley’s last appearance was 27 years ago, in “The Secret Pilgrim” — for a jaunty Sunday spin.”
Another excellent article in the NYT the week is “Charlie Parker and the Meaning of Freedom” – it discusses that even highly improvisational jazz has to live within a set of well-established musical rules.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/opinion/charlie-parker-freedom.html
On the music front I heard “Maybe Your Baby” by Stevie Wonder on the radio and don’t think I’ve ever heard it before. The funky bass and piano immediately grabbed my attention. This is from the excellent 1972 album “Talking Book” which also includes “Superstition” and “Tuesday Heartbreak”. The challenge of this album is the alternating schmaltzy ballads (“You are the Sunshine of my Life”, “I Believe”) with excellent funky soul.
I also heard the song “This is where I get off” from Robbie Robertson’s 2011 album “How to Become Clairvoyant”. It reminded me a lot of the song “Somewhere Down the Crazy River” from his eponymous 1987 album that was so amazingly produced by Daniel Lanois.