Cup of Tea?

Boston is proud of being the cradle of liberty and freedom, the most important American values; even the license plates of Massachusetts say “Spirit of America”. One can say that it was here that the history of independent America starts. Indeed, one of the founding myths of the country is about the Boston Tea Party, the iconic moment of the resistant movement. In 1773 as an action against the British government, heavily taxed tea was destroyed and thrown into water in the Boston Harbour. Today we are witnessing another kind of a tea party movement growing in the USA, but I hope this one is not leading to a revolution.

The replacement of the late Ted Kennedy by the hard-core Republican Scott Brown in the senate was a shock in the state that is considered as one of the most Democrat and liberal in the USA. Together with the rise of the Tea Party movement, it has been one of the big political topics of the year. I had been quite comfortable with the observations of my political environment (Obama ‘08 bumper stickers, Harvard intellectuals, legacy of the Kennedys) until I read about the contemporary Tea Party (see article in the New Yorker). Even when ignoring the goofiest climate change sceptics, creationists, and pro-life activists of the movement, it presents ideas difficult to understand from a Nordic welfare state perspective as they are against all kind of social spending.

Last Saturday, a day before yesterday’s exciting vote on the Obama health bill, some people had gathered in front of the Boston city hall to demonstrate against the health care plan that would guarantee health insurance for millions of uninsured Americans. At first, it was an entertaining sight, but eventually the horrifying reality behind it shocked me: the man carrying the sign “don’t spread my wealth, spread my work ethic” was actually being serious. What kind of people would spend the beautiful and sunny Saturday in order to manifest against everybody’s right to health care? Something I learnt already during my first year of social policy studies was that the health care system in the USA, excuse my French, sucks: it is the most expensive in the developed world and has huge gaps in coverage. Taking away universal access to health care in Europe would be unimaginable; here 50 million people are without health insurance. Hard to imagine how it is to call your parents: “Mum, you need to sell the car and the TV, I broke my arm…”

New York Times reported a Republican asking the Democrats yesterday: “Are you so arrogant that you know what’s best for the American people?” I’m out of words and I shouldn’t even bother because the whole health care discussion has been so unbelievably stupid and frustrating that no logical arguments seem to work (it’s like following the comments on newspapers' on-line discussions). Call it arrogance or elitism, but yes, those people not needing to sell their house in order to cure cancer in the future will be better off.

Here's Mike Peters' cartoon (in the New York Times) mocking the country's possibly greatest idiot, the conservative libertarian Glenn Beck who hosts a TV show (Fox News Channel, of course) where he presents his dilusions about a maoist-nazi-stalinist plot that is taking over the USA in the form of Obama government (What more do you need as proof than a proposal for almost unversal health care? Of course, discourse on social justice leads to dictatorship.) Jon Stewart dismantles his arguments using Beck's own corrupt logic in Daily Show (a part of it shown below), it is hilarious. Or actually, it is pretty shocking, because Glenn Beck really exists and lots of people probably believe in what he's saying (and not just probably because his book "Arguing with Idiots" is a New York Times #1 best-seller, though, I don't know if the title is referring to himself and his followers in the Tea Party movement) even if he sounds more like a parody in a sitcom.

F**king Matt Damon

I'm embarrassed (but also slightly proud because I know this will make anyone, or at least any girl, jealous) to admit that the highlight of our visit to New York was spotting a celebrity. But not any kind of celebrity; as we were crossing Central Park on our way to the Metropolitan Museum, Matt Damon jogged around the big pond on the same path. I missed him as he passed us the first time (I was busy taking the photo above), so we waited for his second round to see him again (naturally, he was fast!).

Matt Damon, oh, Matt Damon. I thought I was above this kind of Hollywood euphoria but no, seeing Matt Damon made my day and during the rest of our trip I just hoped to see more famous people (I understand how sad this is as I write it down). While the huge posters of Matt Damon, advertising his new film Green Zone, hunted us all over the city, the only glimpses of celebrities we got were those of the Oscar ceremony. Matt – I think it is appropriate to call him by his first name by now – was there as well showing his big white smile (we couldn't stop singing the Sarah Silverman & Matt Damon duetto during the rest of the day, the video is below).

You could think that visiting a museum after seeing Matt Damon couldn’t possibly be interesting. For a moment I was hesitant as well (“couldn’t we just go hang around near the Hollywood actors’ places?”) but visiting the Metropolitan Museum proved to be an excellent occasion to remember that there’s more in life than Matt (yeah right, I still prefer having Matt in my living room than a Rembrandt…). Honestly speaking, the MET is probably one of the greatest museums I’ve ever been to. It has an unbelievable collection of European 19^th and 20^th century art – actually, you almost feel annoyed that an American museum should have such a huge collection of the painters that you are happy to see every now and then in the European museums. It is overwhelming and the four hours we spent in the museum were certainly not enough to explore even some of the collection’s masterpieces. I have to say that I enjoy discovering art in smaller quantities; like the Louvre, the MET just exhausts you and you feel frustrated that you cannot contemplate each painting with the concentration it deserves.

Later, we also visited the Frick collection, an interesting private collection of Mr. Frick in a beautiful house next to the Central Park. While the size isn’t as impressive as in the MET, you can carefully go through the collection with the help of an audioguide and without an immediate museum fatigue.

Instead the Guggenheim museum was (again) a disappointment. The architecture of the museum in itself is exciting (above) but there’s hardly anything on the walls. There were no Kandinsky’s or Miro’s works on display (and that is obviously the reason why visitors go there), instead we saw a boring performance of a young couple doing some kind of a sexual interaction dance on the main lobby. So 15 dollars for seeing Frank Lloyd Wright’s white walls… I missed Matt.

Added 13 March: Reading today's New York Times, I realised what we actually paid for in Guggenheim. When we entered the museum, a young boy of around 8 years old came to talk to us: "Do you want a guide?" he asked us in his slightly shy way. We refused his sweet offer and continued the spiral way upwards thinking how courageous he was to ask us. However, it wasn't just some kind of a school exercise but the most talked-about artwork of the season (according to the NYT). After reading the article this morning I understood that we had missed Tino Seghal's artwork where visitors are supposed to discuss the idea of progress with child, teenager and adult guides in the museum. The show has apparently been extremely popular, gathering more than 100 000 paying visitors: I just wonder how many actually understood that they were part of an artwork. We weren't the only ones to turn down the unexpected offer, as one of the guides put it in the article, many visitors replied: "I think we’re here for the art". Unfortunately, the walls were emptied for this particular interactive artwork. Instead of Kandinsky, you got a philosophic discussion with an 8-year-old (I'm sure all the parents were excited about this exchange...).

Grass is greener on the other side...

Harvard University has developed its ecological policies in a creative way. In an effort to reduce its greenhouse gases by 30 percent by 2016, the university’s landscape services have started replacing the lawns with organic grass. This means that no fertilizers or pesticides are used as the ecosystem is basically self-sustaining, the microbes in the soil make the grass green. The initiative has also reduced irrigation by 30 percent. Going green has thus meant also economical sustainability.

Harvard also helps others to become green, the instructions for organic grass can be found at: http://www.uos.harvard.edu/fmo/landscape/organiclandscaping/

I could easily think of some other ways in which Harvard could decrease its environmental footprint starting obviously with my daily headache topic: paper cups and plates (used in the lunch seminars). As 20 000 students walk around the corridors and yards of Harvard, the university should use its influence to make the area around Harvard Square a little bit greener (and I don’t just mean organic grass!). I’ve become increasingly aware that we shouldn’t put too much faith in the global politics of solving environmental problems, instead we should really focus on small steps taken on the local level (I know that someone before me invented this). Pushing the local business to more ecologically sustainable production seems like the only way to go forward.

I’m not saying that local action is easy either. I tried to convince my local café owner to change to real mugs instead of paper cups, the old Asian man didn’t understand me and was first offering me another paper cup. The problem was at first the language but I guess the real problem was purely conceptual: “what is wrong with paper cups?” Pronouncing “ecological” didn’t seem to ring a bell in this man’s head. Instead of trying to explain him my rationale again, I think I just walk a bit further to The Biscuit at 406 Washington Street in Somerville . They have real mugs (they also have "Helsinki" sandwich) that made my coffee taste so good that I was inspirited to send them an email thanking them. The Biscuit replied:

“Thanks for your input! Yes, in addition to our use of real plates & mugs, we also recycle the majority of our plastics & cardboard, we have a compost program for our food refuse, and we use organic produce, dairy products and flour products, when available. We are members of a Maine food-co-op program that encourages locally-grown products in much of what we do, and during the Framers' Market season (April thru October), we not only participate in a large number of markets, but we actively encourage "product swap" with farmers and other local producers. Given the large amount of product that we do use to produce our pastry goods, it is not always possible to "go local", but we do what we can, when we can. Thanks again for your interest!”

I guess I'm off to The Biscuit now...

Lost in the non-metric system

As I’ve never been interested in learning to move my ears or eyebrows or, let’s say, to whistle, I also have never got the zest to memorise quotations to entertain my family or friends. I do appreciate people who have, well, moving your ears doesn’t impress me so much anymore, but I enjoy hearing somebody reciting me a Rimbaud’s poem or quote famous speeches. At the age of twelve I however learnt by rote a passage from Pulp Fiction, the great Tarantino movie that weirdly appealed to my pre-teenager spirit. I still remember it, though I might mistake with some words.

-Do you know what they call Quarter Pounder with cheese in Paris?

-They don’t call it Quarter Pounder with cheese?

-They wouldn’t know what the Quarter Pounder with cheese is, they have the fucking metric system. They call it Royale with Cheese.

-Royale with cheese… What do they call Big Mac?

-Big Mac is a Big Mac, but they call it le Big Mac.

I was very proud to play this scene (less useful in small talk situations nowadays) and it came to my mind today as I was calculating the prices of fruits here. 3 pounds of mandarins were 6,59 dollars. It took me awhile to understand this ridiculously expensive price: 3 pounds is less than a kilogram. Pound is one of the few measures I’ve learnt so far, but I have no idea what an ounce is even though I pay 45 cents for 1 ounce of salad in the university restaurant. The USA is one of the three countries in the world that have not adopted the metric system, the other two being Burma and Liberia.

I don’t know what is yard or how much do I have to walk for 100 feet. I’ve survived so far, even though mile is always much longer than I think. The most difficult is probably Fahrenheit. I see that it’s 39 F but I can’t estimate if I should wear hat or not. The only point of reference I have is holidays in Florida in 1992: 90 F was hot. And there is no use in knowing how to translate Fahrenheits into Celsius, you need a calculator: °C = (°F − 32) × 5 ⁄ 9.

I actually decided to check the conversion rates: pound is quite a bit more than I thought: 454 grams (so 3 lb would be more than a kg, not less) and ounce is 28 grams. Oh, the beautiful and logical metric system – I am a fan!

Valentine's Day Escape

In order to send my Valentine's Day greetings over the sea to Europe I took the train 50 km north of Boston to the village of Rockport in Cape Ann (email is so overrated!). I was extremely happy to smell the sea and stroll around the cute little fishermen's town that mostly reminded me of some Swedish towns. During the summer it must be full of tourists but in February it was relaxing and calm even though the long weekend and blue sky had attracted also some other tourists with their cameras hanging around the neck.

After an amazingly delicious carrot cake and coffee in Bean & Leaf Café (I would highly recommend this nice café by the water, just the place you want when you're travelling) I started my hike along the coast of Cape Ann to Gloucester, south of Rockport. I didn't really manage to escape into the wild nature as I was never very far away from the road or the houses but the walk was pleasant and served well as an out-of-city experience. Actually, the first smaller path I took (below in the photo) already made me think of some American thrillers so I guess getting completely lost in the wilderness would have incited my imagination a bit too much (weird that the American films affect me much more here and I see myself as a character escaping a murderer in a forest even though in Finland this wouldn't even cross my mind). And come on, the path was paved so it wasn't like Jack Nicholson was waiting me behind the corner with an axe...

Above all, the path was finished after around 50 metres so I continued on a road.

On my way, there were some really amazing houses in the most beautiful places. The architecture and landscape made me think of (if not "Shining") John Irving's novels.

The ocean wasn't frozen but some small ponds allowed people to practice ice hockey. Irving's characters however always do wrestling...

Half way through my walk, I arrived at Long Beach (my telepatic destination because of it has clear connection to Europe, however, I also used phone). Off season, all the holiday houses were closed and instead of sunbathers, people walked with their dogs there. I had my picnic and started to be somewhat bored of walking; my Converse shoes were not made for such a long trip. I made the next 5 km though and enjoyed a lemon-poppy seed cake and a tea in a café in Gloucester (pronounced "gloster" as I learnt when asking for the road). I thought I deserved the second cake of the day spending the Valentine's Day alone and walking more than 10 km. Hmmm, I should really write more about the American pastries, cookies and cakes; I'm a big fan - but I hope I won't literally be big fan after 4 months here...

The Institute of Contemporary Art

After a nice walk around the Boston Harbor, I arrived at my day's cultural destination (I've decided to explore Boston's neighbourhoods and/or sights each weekend): The Institute of Contemporary Art. I almost failed to recognise the building, the lonely modern cube in the middle of huge parking place, as its most photogenic side is facing the sea. The area around is going through a major transformation from a poor neighbourhood to a trendy area; the choice of ICA to have its new museum here is part of the face-lift of Seaport District. However, the parking slot around the museum is obviously still under construction.

I got lucky to get on a free guided tour and learnt that the magnificent building was finished just four years ago (2006) by the architect studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro (their website is by the way pretty cool). Our tour guide mentioned that I as a Finnish should probably know their work in Switzerland - I don't. I wonder what kind of a geographical understanding she had of Europe or maybe she just overestimated my architectural knowledge. As a Finn, I also had the chance to teach her to pronounce some Dutch names... The idea of European unity is well taken here...

The museum's own collection was quite small but still very interesting consisting of three rooms: one for paintings, one for sculpture and one for photography. I especially enjoyed the paintings by Dutch-South African Marlene Dumas. Her works have been sold for millions of euros so I am not the only one to appreciate her dramatic and vivid close-ups of faces or bodies and watercolour reproductions of photos of people like Brigitte Bardot.

Jule-die Vrou 1985. Image from ICA's website.

The Painter, 1994. Image from New York Times article on Dumas.

Die Baba, 1985. Image as above.

The views from the museum are great. However, according to my tour guide, the architects actually thought that this view was "pornographic" in a sense that it reveals too much, fortunately their decision to partly cover the view wasn't accepted. More about the building, see http://www.hughpearman.com/2006/32.html

Impressions from Harvard Square

I haven’t even come close to completely cover our trip in Egypt but now that I have already undertaken new adventures in another continent I can no longer reminisce about snorkelling in Dahab, excellent sea food in the backstreets of Alexandria or the first rain in years in Sinai. I have immersed myself once again in the academic life and for two weeks now I’ve been savouring the atmosphere around Harvard Square. While I immediately felt like home in Boston, I have to say that some aspects of American culture and life surprise me as much as Islamic Egypt.

One day, just after my arrival, I started talking to a Romanian-French associate professor who had been living here for years now. I doubted if I could ever live here for a longer period and he assured me how I would find it eventually better than Europe (at the moment, I’m still doubting). At least there is one object to my absolute daily satisfaction rate: paper cups. Now I’m more prepared for this ubiquitous waste and I’m carrying my own thermos mug with me in order to avoid the paper cups in the cafés (however, paper cups being just one example of the ecologically unsustainable life style here).

Another “ex-European”, a German economics professor at Harvard, told me that while he enjoys his life enormously, he also misses the healthier balance between work and leisure in Europe where people actually have time to have a Sunday brunch with friends. I observed this work addiction very soon after arriving here. People carry their take-away coffees around the campus looking busy, eat their lunch during the classes and try to multitask the day through. Are they really more efficient in their work like this, not having a real pause to calm down? I don’t know but if I remember correctly, some economists argue that the productivity is around the same in Europe even if we work much less. Anyways, if our more easy-going work rhythm is not improving our economic growth rates like in the USA, I think it must be correlated with the well-being of people.

So, even though I’m very impressed by the Harvard University and nice and polite people (working for their tips?), I’m still not ready giving up my European identity and pride of being European. I’ll keep you updated on my sentiments of European superiority on the one hand, and my positive observations of the American culture on the other. I’ve already abandoned some of my arrogant prejudices about the Americans, but however, only premised on the non-representative sample around Harvard.

Felucca down the Nile

One of the highlights of our trip in Egypt was a two-nights felucca trip down the Nile from Aswan to Kom Ombo (about 50km north of Aswan). The prices given to us in Aswan for similar trip were again sometimes ridiculously expensive, even 1500 pounds (around 180 euros). Luckily, after asking around along the Nile corniche, we finally met Mohammed who set his price immediately at 350 pounds (40 euros including everything, that is only 20 euros per person). Obviously, we were very suspicious at first: Why such a low price? What's wrong here? However, Mohammed kept his word, he arrived with his friend Assam and his boat "Nile Dancer" to our agreed meeting point and we set off to our little trip.

Felucca is a traditional fishing boat used in Egypt. There are supposedly around 3000 feluccas only in Aswan.

Swimming in Nile is not necessarily a good idea, as bilharzia parasites are common there. While the locals even drink the water, we decided to take no risks.

Captains fixing the sail.

Although we were a bit disappointed that we actually didn't sail that much (probably you could make it in 5 hours or so to Kom Ombo), we had excellent time on the boat just watching the views, eating well as Assam cooked us delicious Nubian specialities and relaxing after all the hussle in the cities.

Mohammed, our captain, was a big fan of Bob Marley like many other felucca captains in Aswan. He was a nice and relaxed guy and passed the evenings smoking cannabis.

Assam cooked and took excellent care of us during the trip. But more than two nights on the boat with him could have been too much. When we left him and Mohammed in Kom Ombo, he declared: "Maria, I love you." Well, was nice to meet you too...
"Sudan", the boat on which Agatha Christie travelled during her trip in Egypt and where her "Murder on the Nile" is set is still sailing along the Nile.