Pittsburgh in Pictures

End of Summer

As the summer draws to a close, here are some pictures of flowers in our neighborhood to mark the end of the blossom season.

This one is special. From our front garden.

It’s not over yet, folks!

If you looked at the busy streets and choc-a-bloc restaurants, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s all over. That the virus that changed the face of the earth in the last year and a half is gone for good.

Unfortunately, that is not the case.

The 7-day average of new cases in the US that touched a low of 4,111 on June 11, 2021 was back at 39,155 on July 16. That is a substantial increase in numbers. The global situation is not great either. The 7-day average stands at over 550 K cases a day. Indonesia is the latest country to be devastated. Horror stories are emerging of full hospitals, oxygen shortages, and people dying in their homes for lack of medical care.

While the vaccination rates have been good in some countries, there is still a large part of humanity that hasn’t been vaccinated. Even in the U.S, only 49% of the population has received both the doses. Globally, only 26% of the population has received one dose. The number is as low as 1% for low-income countries.

So why is there this disconnect between the pandemic and the human reaction to it? Are we so fed up of being at home for such a long time that we don’t care any longer?

Top Ten Writing Idiosyncrasies of famous authors

#10: Roald Dahl had strict writing timings. He wrote for two hours in the morning from 10-12 and then again for two hours in the evening from 4-6 – never deviating from these timings.

#9: Haruki Murakami was inspired to write fiction after attending a baseball game. Even though he had never written a novel before, Murakami intuitively knew he could write a great story as he watched Dave Hilton bat a double. He started writing Hear the Wild Sing that very night.

#8: D. H. Lawrence is rumored to actually climb mulberry trees totally naked to help stimulate his imagination.

#7: When asked where she came up with the plots for her famous murder mysteries, Agatha Christie said she liked to think out her stories while eating apples and relaxing in a warm bath.

#6: Truman Capote only wrote while reclining on a sofa. He wrote in pencil with one hand and used his hand to smoke a cigarette, sip a cup of coffee, or pour a sherry. Capote also steered clear of starting or finishing his writing on any given Friday. If the phone number of the hotel room he was staying in had the number 13, he would change rooms.

#5: Jack Kerouac wrote ‘On The Road’ in one feverish burst, pouring his soul onto paper in one long strip — a composition  he believed lent itself particularly well to his project, since it allowed him to keep up  his rapid pace without having to pause on order to reload the typewriter at the end of each page. After completing the manuscript he went into his editor Robert Giroux’s office and proudly spun out the scroll across the floor.

#4: Sir Walter Scott wrote most of his epic poem Marmion while on horseback. Scott was a member of the Light Horse Volunteers, which were preparing for a possible French invasion of the British Isles. Most likely Scott drew inspiration from the horsemen he saw around him in Marmion‘s description of the 1513 Battle of Flodden.

#3: Lord Byron always traveled with his dozens of animals. Just a few of the pets that made it from Byron’s English estate to Venice include ten horses, three monkeys, three peacocks, eight dogs, five cats, one crane, one falcon, one eagle, and one crow.

#2: As a souvenir from his trip to the Middle East, Gustave Flaubert brought home a mummy’s foot and kept it on his working desk.

#1: John Steinbeck preferred writing in pencil and had a specific ritual. He would begin by sharpening 24 pencils and placing them point up in one of two identical wood boxes. As soon as a pencil became dull, he would place it in the second box tip down. After all 24 pencils had been used, he would resharpen each pencil and begin the cycle again, sometimes four times or more in a single day.

Chincoteague Island

Sharing a few photos from a weekend getaway to Chincoteague island.

Republicans and Trump

Me – trying to understand why Republicans are sticking with Trump

It doesn’t happen often. The vanquished candidate of a Presidential election generally makes way for another emerging leader to take over the stewardship of the party – be it Democrats or Republicans. Hillary Clinton stepped down after 2016 as did Mitt Romney in 2012 and John McCain in 2008. And before them, John Kerry, Al Gore, Bob Dole and George H.W. Bush did the same.

But then, everything is different with Trump. He has broken all previous patterns and is set to break this one too. However, it’s one thing for him to want to lead the party, but quite another for Republicans to stick with him.

Is it because they want to continue with his brand of politics – populist, majoritarian, and espousing half-truths? After all, that style served the party well for a certain period and if it wasn’t for COVID mismanagement – may have given them another term. But if that brand of politics is what they are after, why not flock around another candidate who can wield the same sword. They would have the advantage of the same brand of politics minus the considerable baggage of Trump’s personality.

Even harder to understand is the phenomena of their sticking to Trump’s story that the election was unfairly stolen from them. Surely they don’t really believe in it?

I am sure there are a number of aspirants waiting in the wings. Perhaps, they are waiting for Trump to make one fatal error that demolishes him politically – so that they can then stake the claim for his legacy. They are not great choices, but surely they are all better than him?

The Books that made you laugh

Humor is probably the most difficult of art forms; it is easier to make people cry than laugh. Humor seldom works for everyone. What I find funny, you may find banal. So, the writers of humor deserve an extra pat on their back when they make the world laugh.

My earliest memory of a book that made me roll with laughter was Jerome. K. Jerome’s “Three Men in a Boat.” J, George and Harris are all delusional in their own distinctive ways and their boat trip down the Thames is full on unexpected accidents and difficulties that are just hilarious.

Charles Dickens also had a knack for humor. In books like “Oliver Twist” and “Nicholas Nickleby”, he creates humor scenes to offset the more somber ones. “Pickwick Papers”, his first novel, however, really showcases how funny he can be. Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller go through a number of trials and tribulations together and the reader can’t help but laugh at Dickens’ witty writing.

Joseph Heller wrote perhaps one of the greatest satire of all times. “Catch 22” is incredibly funny – a blatant mockery of patriotism, discipline and war. Catch-22 is a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

You cannot not mention P. G. Wodehouse in a post on writing humor. Bumbling, well-intentioned young aristocrats, smart butlers, damsels in distress, cunning secretaries, and comical situations. There was certainly a formula, but it worked most of the time. Even the names of the characters could make you smile. Remember Monty Bodkin and Gertrude Butterwick?

Amongst contemporary writers – I particularly admire two: David Sedaris and Jenny Lawson.

David Sedaris is irreverent and can be laugh out loud funny when he pokes fun at what he’s not. The conservatives, the people with shirts that say expletives – he can go ballistic at them and make you laugh hard. I love the way he describes random people he meets – we have all met them – but he brings them to life beautifully.

That the funniest people sometimes tend to be the saddest in their real lives. Jenny Lawson suffers from depression but makes a conscious effort to live it up when she is in a good phase. Her endless musings. paranoia and exaggerations create images and situations that are hilarious.

Several TV/film personalities have written humor books too. Tina Fey’s “Bossypants”, Amy Poehler’s “Yes Please”, Mindy Kaling’s “Is Everyone hanging out without me” and Jim Gaffigan’s “Dad is Fat” are notable examples. They are all good books – ranging from a moderately funny “Bossypants” to a hearwarming “Dad is Fat”.

What was the last book that made you laugh out loud?

A brief encounter with an anti-vaxxer

When you hear an antivaxxer on the damning effects of the vaccine.

Yesterday, my wife called a friend. As is the case these days, the conversation turned quickly into the status of vaccination. My wife told her friend some of us in the family were done and some were half-way there. She asked her friend if their family had gotten vaccinated yet. The friend told her that they did not have any plans to get vaccinated because the vaccination was all a ploy to get the entire population sterile!

My wife, who lost a nephew to COVID-19 a few months ago, told the friend that the havoc the virus was wreaking across the globe was real, that there had been a death in the family, and any potential side effects of the vaccine were clearly not significant compared to the dangers of the virus. The friend argued that COVID hadn’t killed anyone. It was just like flu (reminded one of another infamous person who said the exact same thing). Crying over the phone, she beseeched my wife to save those of us not fully vaccinated yet!

We were shocked when my wife recounted the conversation to us. We have known the family for a long time: a regular, suburban family in northern Virgina – with aspirations, dreams and fears just like us. It was hard to understand that they actually believed this.

It’s as if we are living in parallel universes. We access and believe the information that we want to believe and these two parallel Americas are drifting further away from each other. Trump deepened this rift and his four years in office have pulled the two Americas apart like never before. But how will this end?

Spring in the Neighborhood

It’s a beautiful time of the year. Of tender green buds and colorful flowers blooming overnight. Here are a few pictures of spring in my neighborhood.

Superstitions

Truman Capote steered clear of starting or finishing his writing on any given Friday. If the phone number of the hotel room he was staying in had the number 13, he would change rooms.

Every culture has its share of superstitions. Don’t know what poor number 13 has done – but superstitions related to it transcend cultures. The thirteenth floor goes missing from the buildings across the globe – from Indonesia to Arab world to the west. As if the people on the 14th floor don’t really know that they are actually living on the 13th.

In India, we probably have more than our fair share of superstitions. A black cat cuts across the road and you are supposed to turn back from wherever you are headed. The same if you sneeze stepping out of the house. Whatever you are going for isn’t going to get done anyway. A spoon of yoghurt is the reverse. It would add that extra dose of luck to an exam or a job interview. Lemons and chilies hang from households and vehicles to ward off the evil eye. Clean the house after sunset and you are sure to annoy the Goddess of wealth. Itching palms can mean different things depending on which one is itching. If it is the right one, money is on its way, but if it’s the left, money is going out.

Growing up, I found these superstitions ridiculous and did my best to not follow them – sometimes against my parents’ wishes.

Surprisingly though, some have actually stuck. I don’t wash my hair on Thursdays and not allow any metal objects to enter the house on Saturdays. Not sure how that happened – if something actually went wrong when a pair of scissors entered the garage.

Are there any superstitions you follow despite knowing that’s all they are – superstitions.