Dimly Lit candidates and Persian exhibit in zug
I hope that you are healthy and wonderfully joyous as September, the month of my birth, arrives. Here in Switzerland, we take a dim view..
“Dim view, Dan? Why are you always so negative?” Nazy asked.
“I’m talking about light bulbs, dear.New eco-friendly bulbs will last ten years...”
“I won’t last ten years if I have to use those stupid bulbs.”
“I know! I don’t want to endanger the planetary eco-system, but these ‘light’ bulbs fail all measures of effectiveness.”
“The color spectrum is cold.”
“I hadn’t noticed that,” I replied - shivering. “My complaint is much simpler: the new bulbs do not generate light. Photons are unable to escape the environmentally friendly surface of the bulb. Packaging says that the bulb in my study will produce the light of a 78 watt (normal) bulb even though it uses only 8 watts of energy.”
“And?”
“I have experimentally shown that the bulb has a Martin Family Rating (MFR) of 7.5 candle power.”
“How did you do that?”
“With a candelabra. The bulb is also rated at 54 match stick equivalents.”
Note: the initial thrust of this week’s edition of The Weekly Letter has revolved around dim rooms that are poorly illuminated. For some reason, this brought the American political process to mind. I unexpectedly found myself defending the Republican candidate.
“It is not fair,” I said, “to conclude that just because he is a rich and successful businessman, he must favor policies that screw the middle class.”
“Dan?” Nazy asked - dumbfounded.
“And, he says that he paid at least 14% taxes.” I continued. “14% of what?” I thought.
“What percent did we pay?” Nazy thought.
“But I do wonder about the track record of businessman in politics. Herbert Hoover, a Republican, was in charge during the Great Depression.”
“That turned out well.”
“And Robert McNamara, a very successful automobile executive and a Democrat, ran the Defense Department during Vietnam War.”
“Consistent, bipartisan ineptitude? Did anyone succeed?”
“Mayor Bloomberg, Republican in New York is okay. But, as an investment prospectus might say: ‘past performance is not an indicator of future performance’. We can’t conclude that since some (okay ‘most&rsquo
businessman were wretched, abject political failures, Mitt would be a complete disaster.”“He could be even worse.”
On a brighter note (I lit some candles), Nazy and I decided to ‘visit Switzerland’ last weekend. We got in the car and then asked Claudia, the navigation automaton, for advice: in particular her estimates of the time we’d be in transit. Chur, Rigi and Appenzeller were too far, so we settled on a drive to Zug.
Zug is a pretty little city (population about 25,000) that is mostly famous for favorable tax treatment of international companies. (Roche and Johnson & Johnson both have European headquarters in Zug.)
Nazy and I had lunch at a picturesque restaurant on Lake Zug and we walked through the old town. Like most Swiss cities, including Solothrun depicted in last week’s letter, Zug has a plethora of fountains (see example above) and colorful buildings.
Back in Zurich, there was a spectacular sunset. In the past few weeks, we been blessed with lots of beautiful sunsets. In California, the moon was well-placed to complement the setting sun. That didn’t happen here in Zürich. We didn’t even have the variety of colors that often accompany a sunset. (See end of letter; Note: it began raining that evening and has been raining ever since.)
I took advantage of the opportunity provided by the rainy days to (re)read some of the classics. It turned out that my High School memories were, eh, somewhat..
“Somewhat, Dan? You thought that Heathcliff, from Wuthering Heights, was a shy and withdrawn man...”
“ ... when, in fact, he is the embodiment of evil: a bitter, haunted and malicious scoundrel .”
“In short, you..”
“ ... didn’t read past the first half of the book in High School. I now understand my ‘C’ in sophomore English. I also reread Treasure Island.”
“Did you have a better memory of that one?”
“The only thing I remembered was that Long John Silver had a parrot and only one leg.”
“What else do you reviewing?”
“I was considering the Iliad - except that I liked Hector and his team lost. Maybe
i am ready (!) for poetry
without rhyme or reason
(punctuation free)
rationality unwound
“Stick to prose, Dan - and clear narrative.”
While we’re on the artsy topic. Nazy was invited to a local gallery which had an exhibit of Persian art. There was a mix of styles and approaches - some of which were based on old Persian myth. Charmed by Nazy, the gallery owner invited us (and many others) to her home for dinner. Her home was, itself, an extensive gallery with a variety of styles. I particularly liked the..
“... full size, silver, i.e. chrome plated, Vespa motor scooter,” I explained.
“It was gold,”
“No, the gold one was a watch-encrusted clown riding a bicycle.”
“Did you see the bubble sculpture?”
“The bird? Of course!”
“It was a dog.”
“It had wings.”
“Those were ears.”
“So it was a flying dog?”
“Maybe you should stick to realism, Dan.”
“I’ve always been realistic.”
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