Looking around our rented house here in St. Jorioz, I’ve noticed some pretty amazing photos on the walls. Linda did a little sleuthing, and discovered the house is owned by the daughter of the late photographer Ferenc Berko.
Berko is known for, among other things, his photos that make abstractions of scenes that he found in a life lived around the world, from his native Hungary, to India where he lived for nearly 10 years, to Morocco, Japan, Chicago and Aspen where he taught photography in his later years.
After looking closely at a number of his photos, particularly a couple of series of abstractions hanging in one of the bedrooms, I suddenly began seeing everything in a ‘Berkoesque’ way, like the corrugated metal barn roof, seen here.
This as sweet spouse Linda discovered a couple of mountain walks that I could do in nearby Bauge Regional Park, which is a spot much favored by parasailers (parasailors?). Not that these walks weren’t tough (for me), particularly the uphill portions (definitely ‘Heidi approved,’ we decided) – in all about 90 minutes of working on balance (on the downhills) and strength, on the uphill pulls. Then home to a lunch of cheeses, Black Forest ham, bread and Badoit – we had a very pleasant morning…
After early morning exercise (Linda jogged; I did a fairly grueling set of Heidi routines), we set off to explore Annecy’s fabled old town. We figured that if we got there by 10 AM, we’d beat the crowds in a country not particularly known for its early risers, and we’d checked to be sure that Saturday was not a market day.
Traffic was suspiciously heavy on the Annecy road and in the town itself. Indeed the municipal parking lot at City Hall was nearly full when we arrived. The narrow streets of the ancien ville were almost unpleasantly full, and the quai by the River Thiou was crammed with artists and merchants. As luck would have it, today was the monthly antique market.
After working our way through a book of 5 walks, we stopped at Brasserie St. Maurice for an excellent lunch. A charcuterie that looked very promising, didn’t open until 3:30, so we improvised another walk before settling in to a cafe for that quintesential French sport, people-watching. On our way back to the parking, we stumbled upon a joyous wedding at City Hall. We just finished the quiche roblechon and other marvels from the charcuterie for dinner, with a very nice dry rose…
A bicyclist pauses on the shore of Lac d’Annecy this morning as I walked a 3-mile circuit on the lake’s western shore, also known as the ‘Rive Gauche’ hereabouts. A pair of the lake’s celebrated swans or cygnes cruised by, and one of them agreed to pose picturesquely in the reeds (no doubt in the employ of the Annecy Chambre de Commerce).
Trainer Heidi extracted a promise from me that I wouldn’t take a vacation from exercise on this trip: Ms. Hubbard, Heidi’s proxy enforcer, dragged me screaming from the sheets this morning, yesterday’s 14+ hour journey being no cause for mercy in her mind. A breakfast of French yogurt, croissants and coffee was pretty good bait, though…
After the usual airport/airplane/airport/airplane//rental car marathon, we arrived at our rented house in St. Jorioz, above Lake Annecy a couple of hours ago, in time to buy fresh fruit and vegetables at a corner marche, and other staples at the local Champion hypermarche.
So here we are, barely arrived, enjoying bread, cheese wine and a host of local delicacies, with a view of the Alps thrown in for good measure. France is really fun…
So, we’re headed off to France, again, this time to a rented house near the town of Annecy, close to France’s Eastern border. Anticipating lots of reading time, I’ve loaded up my Kindle with reading matter, mostly dealing with the structure of the brain and the concept of neuroplasticity. As is usual for our French countryside visits, we’ll walk, maybe hike a little, and spend long blocks of time just enjoying the countryside.
As noted, I’m planning to read a lot, and maybe do some writing (thanks to Google Docs). We’ll, of course, be posting some amusing photos should we come across them. There is nothing, in my mind, more relaxing than a sejour in the French countryside…
Good article in the Sunday NYT about a Florida biology teacher in a conservative district who tries hard to reach kids who come to his class with preconceived notions of Creationism, sometimes groomed by years of teaching by their church. The kids arrive with lists of questions meant to trip up teachers of evolution, and even their own Creationist textbook. The teacher, David Campbell, perseveres, trying in creative ways to open some very tightly closed minds. Refreshing to hear someone pushing that particular pendulum the other way…
A host of serious neuroscientists and credentialed observers have weighed in recently on the topic of brain plasticity, the notion that The Mind can (physically) change The Brain. Faced with so much on my to-do list, naturally, my response is to plunge into a long-form essay on a completely unrelated topic like neuroplasticity. Unfortunately (or maybe, fortunately), my copy of ‘Train your mind, change your brain‘ by the WSJ’s science columnist Sharon Begley is buried somewhere under the physical inbox stack, and I’ve yet to pick up a copy of Norman Doidge’s The Brain That Changes Itself. Maybe next month…
True, I’m out of the 9 to 5 rodent marathon, but this doesn’t mean we’re not busy. Indeed, between a strict exercise regimen, meetings with friends and colleagues, trying to find time to read and write and a social calendar that is far more full than in my working days, I’ve barely had time to come up for air this past month.
Example: when I proudly announced to trainer Heidi Engel that I’d made my goal of walking 2 miles in one hour, her (not atypical) response was something like ‘Great, Chris. So when do you think you’ll be up to 3 miles?’ She also extended, in impromptu fashion, my one-hour weekly, supervised rehab session to 90 minutes (not to be confused with our other 5 unsupervised sessions a week).
My (physical) inbox is stacked 3 deep with untouched issues of New Scientist, The New Yorker and Wired: my ‘cloud’ inbox has 5703 unread messages. The battery of my Kindle died while waiting for me to open it. Don’t even ask how many books await my attention. Top item in inbox: ‘dig out inbox’…
So, I’m not in a league with Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, but my personal Olympics continue. In my world, the bronze equates to walking 2 miles in one hour; the silver is for walking 3 miles in an hour; and the gold is for a return to jogging, if slowly.
This past Saturday, we nabbed the bronze, doing the stop sign ‘dash’ in exactly one hour. Next in our sights: 3 mph…