Endless Knots

Roland Merullo: Importing common sense from Cuba

Roland, author of so many books including his recent Lunch with Buddha (as well as a novel about Cuba completely unrelated to this story, Fidel's Last Days), traveled "90 Miles From Home" (see Warren Miller's 1961 book by that title) recently on assignment for a golf magazine, picked up a few souvenirs (total value = $75), and had them confiscated at his port of re-entry, Burlington, VT. Irony aside that the only state with a "self-described democratic socialist" as senator should be the customs gate that enforces our antiquated embargo of Cuban imports, Roland, as usual, reflects thoughtfully on why it's time to change our policies in "A new path to Cuba: It’s time the US admitted the embargo doesn’t work." Note also that instead of doing what countless other visitors to Cuba likely do -- pretend that they were in Mexico or Canada, allowing custom officials to look the other way -- Roland went for the true story, which ultimately makes for a better one.

Here's the opening to whet your clicking:

On my way home from Cuba the other day — Havana via Montreal — I had all my souvenirs confiscated at the US-Canada border. I’d spent a week in Castro country and had loaded up on about $75 worth of T-shirts and small gifts. Instead of lying to the customs officials and saying I’d been in Montreal visiting friends, which would have been easy enough, I decided to tell them the real story: I’d gone to Cuba on an assignment for a golf magazine. Good-bye, T-shirts.

I’m not really blaming the rules-bound customs guys at the border checkpoint north of Burlington, Vt. US law says that any goods purchased in Cuba — with the strange exception of literature — must be confiscated. “You should have checked the State Department website,’’ one of them told me, and he was correct. But setting my own travel sloppiness aside, the law that says you can’t bring home a small bag of gifts from Cuba is absurd. If I remember right, we lost 58,000 good Americans in Vietnam, and 40 years later you can bring home just about anything from that nation. China, Russia, Albania, Burma, the dictatorships of Africa — please, spend some money there, bring home souvenirs for your kids.

But don’t spend a peso in Cuba...

PS: This makes me want to create a new category: Common Sense, but alas I fear it would lack for entries.

 

Entrained, entranced in Castleton, VT

I may secretly be a three-year-old boy. I love trains. Keen readers may recall my history of meeting people on trains, people being writers, that is. Writers are great (very great, she says modestly) but so far nothing beats the train station I left recently in Castleton (pop. 4717), VT, headed for Penn Station in New York.

Yes, there's a train from tiny Castleton to NYC and back every day -- the Ethan Allen. (In case your American history is as rusty as mind, Wikipedia tells us: In May 1775 Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys met in Castleton with Benedict Arnold to plan their next day's attack on Fort Ticonderoga, 30 miles (48 km) west, on the New York side of Lake Champlain.)

And so the train named in the patriot's honor, makes its way through peak foliage, along the Hudson, and even has a club car with Kashi cereal. But words can only do so much in a situation like this.

First passenger to arrive, I opened the door to this waiting room.

Next I notice the honor-system coffee bar.

And the Rutland Herald waiting on the bench.

A collection of things we used to use...

A quilt of old trains...

And the station door...

At which point, the stationmaster, Mary Ann Jakubowski, showed up to tell the story of this little jewel.

Short version: First used as a train station in 1850, the last passengers  came through in the mid-1940s; freight continued to pass through until the mid-'50s. In 1966, Jakubowski's parents bought the building and her father, Cecil Ducharme, opened a honky-tonk piano store there. After her parents died, Jakubowski and her husband Val, decided to rehab the building -- and appeal to Amtrak to reinstitute service in Castleton. Their campaign worked; they transformed the building to its current quaintness; and service was restored in January, 2010. Today the Ethan Allen leaves for Penn Station around 8 AM to Penn Station and back in Castleton around 8:30 at night.

And then...I, and about a dozen others, go to the platform and watch the train come in:

Very sweet. And for the record, I didn't meet any writers on this train. Instead I met a museum curator... and on the return trip, two friends. Take the train.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clipping Delta's wings

Look, I'm no expert on aviation or airport traffic but when the Boston Globe splays an above-the-fold headline like "Jets crash on Logan taxiway" and the airline in question turns out to be Delta, with which I've just had, shall we say, a rather inferior "user experience," I've got a bit to say. Briefly, perfectly good weather, before dark, and:

A large Delta jet preparing to take off at Logan International Airport for a trip to Amsterdam last night struck a smaller jet, slicing through its tail and leaving at least one passenger injured, authorities said.

Reading on we find that "two planes collided at New York’s Kennedy airport in April. One of the planes involved in that incident had just arrived in New York from Boston. That was also a Delta plane [that]...operates as Delta Connection, a regional partner contracted to fly certain flights."

Last weekend, returning from abroad, I attempted to fly back to Boston on a Delta Connection flight through JFK. I'm not a fussy passenger but I do think a few things make sense like:

1. Announcing the flight. No, I'm not being flip. Delta Connection was boarding THREE flights from the same gate and while they announced the Charlotte and Atlanta (forgive me if it was a different city but I think it was Atlanta) flights, Boston passengers never heard a call for theirs. Then as departure time drew near, we started asking and we suddenly were rushed to the head of the line.

2. Connecting the gate with the plane. Again, we're talking about an airline flying out of one of the world's premier airports. We walked down a rickety jetway, around a corner, down again, perhaps the equivalent of three or four city blocks, off of which there were various openings - sort of like a movie theatre - #1 for Harry Potter, etc. Finally there was a sullen attendant (I would have been more than sullen if I had that job) who pointed out the door. Into a bit of a torrential downpour. And the instructions to walk to the plane, which was another good city block or so away. Certainly a less customer-friendly approach than the one we'd had in the developing country that we'd just left.

3. Taking off. After more than an hour when we sat on the plane, we learned that we were returning to the gate where a "customer service representative" would tell us what was happening.

4. A customer service rep to tell us what was happening. There wasn't.

Sheer persistence (it's now 11 PM) on the part of perhaps 75 enraged passengers brings the rumor that the flight is cancelled (there's never an announcement) - and each of us individually is left to make new arrangements. Briefly, we were sent to an airport hotel (this took another hour), were given two meal vouchers (for dinner and breakfast - need I add that the hotel restaurant was closed by this point), and rebooked on a flight that would get us to Boston around noon the next day.

The meal vouchers were $6 each, not enough to cover the hotel breakfast.

The next morning's flight was postponed due to "technical problems."

And we finally landed around 2 PM the following day - but only because I insisted on being rebooked on a different flight. Why did I suspect that the "technical problems" on our plane might lead to another delay?

Delta. I posted to Facebook about this and got a bit of a dump from others about their Delta experience. My favorite from my friend, Rhodes: "As for myself, I swore off flying with Delta years ago."

My story is one of inconvenience and incompetence. What happened on the runway last night in Boston was dangerous. There needs to be a pretty large delta at Delta to get this airline right again.

 

 

 

Telecommuting goal to reduce carbon footprint in Hubei province

Remember my obsession with "green teams" and ideas generated by readers to use virtual meetings to clean up the carbon? Encouraging article in China Business News: "Telecommuting to solve Hubei’s carbon emissions problem." Check out the optimistic last paragraph about the impact of virtual meetings on carbon emissions. (My only nit is whether the virtual meeting carbon reduction is corrected for emissions of the IT infrastructure to support such meetings - a quibble, to be sure):

When the China Mobile Hubei Company recently called on other companies and the public sector to work together on a low-carbon smart city initiative, to turn Hubei province into a “low-carbon area” a dozen companies applauded the idea...

The National Development and Reform Commission selected Hubei, earlier this year, as one of the first group of bases in the country for low-carbon pilot tests.

It did not seem to be an easy job. The province is famous for its traditional concentration of heavy industries and scant regard for the environment, but, emerging telecom developments seem to paint a much more hopeful picture.

In fact, the telecommuting sector has the greatest potential for carbon emission reductions in China, and could save 340 million tons of CO2 emissions in 2020, Guo told the audience of environmental experts, local government officials and company representatives.

In the long run, he said, savings from virtual meetings will increase at a much greater rate – about 623 million tons of CO2 annually – by 2030, thereby cutting commercial aviation emissions by nearly 40 percent...

Two passages to India

Interesting blogs from two friends, one recently, the other currently, in India.

Bombayva is the work of Ava Shapiro, who's there on an 11-month stay on American Jewish World Service’s World Partners Fellowship.

Andi.in.India documents Fulbright Scholar Andi Edson's five-week tour of India's primary education system this summer.

Both blogs educational and delightful.

 

 

6 countries, 24 hours and a virtual team stat

I had occasion to chat with Colin Rainier earlier this week. (No, I'm not switching industries - if you follow the link, you'll see what I mean.) We'd had a bit of trouble scheduling the call as Colin was one of those whose travel plans were affected by that nasty plume of ash that was pouring out of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull (I love that word - should be in spelling bees) volcano.

Colin had to get to a meeting in Nice, or thereabouts, in fact a tiny village even more beautiful than Nice (Eze). To get there, he flew from his home in #1 Bermuda (below, the view from his office window, which he kindly sent) to #2 Newark to #3 Porto (Portugal) to #4 Geneva, where he picked up a car, swinging through #5 Italy and finally arriving in #6 Eze (France.) Right. Six countries, for a brief meeting, then turned around and came home, all within 24 hours.

His colleagues at the meeting had even greater adventures getting there - ferries, trains, cars, and such.

That the subject of our call was virtual working was not lost on Colin who went on to cite his experiences with same and this phenomenal stat: he figures that his "expense ratio is 40% of [his] competitors" due to his use of virtual teams, sourced for the need, then dispersed when the task is done. Well done, Colin, especially when you have the good fortune to be "assembling" those teams while looking out on this.

Virtual high school reunion?

My friend Bill writes, asking a question I'm also interested in as I can't make it to my important high school reunion this year. Anyone know?

Hi Jessica,
Have you ever heard of a H.S. class doing your virtual meeting kind of stuff in lieu of going to the expense of flying or driving from all over the place just to get to a disappointing town with few accommodations -- like Tenafly, NJ.?

Uptick in teleconferencing

Re: the volcano disrupting travel and thus promoting virtual working: One of many articles to come in the next few days, I'm certain, this, thanks to Amy Millman, "Stranded Travelers Turn to Teleconferencing," by Kevin O'Brien in the NY Times. My favorite anecdote:

In one case, a couple stranded in Dubai decided to televise their wedding vows over a Skype video conference to guests gathered for their wedding ceremony on Saturday in England, Ms. Milosevich said.

Saves on catering costs, never mind those costly centerpieces.

Eyewitness report from downtown Reykjavík

I've been concerned about my friend Jonas and his family who live in Reykjavík so was pleased to receive this report, peppered with Jonas's typical wry humor. (Meanwhile, one set of friends has had to postpone a work trip to Russia; another is grounded in SF and unable to get to the UK; yet another couple is mourning their lost vacation to France; one more, and daughter, are stranded in the Netherlands...and friends in the Caribbean are wondering when they'll be able to return to London.

Hi,

We're all okay so far and the south-west corner of the country (Reykjavík) has remained unaffected (until the wind changes direction, that is).

The odd thing is that after the Westman Island, or Heimey to be more exactly, was literally buried in ash overnight when I was a child, you tend to take these things in stride.

Unfortunately half of Europe is sore at us for upsetting their vacation plans, as if my Uncle Steini poured some potato juice down the crater by mistake and...

Tomas Eloy Martinez...

...has died. The Argentine journalist, who for a number of years headed the Latin American studies department at Rutgers, was also a novelist whose books played with reality, Santa Evita perhaps the emblem of the genre. What genre, I'm not certain, but Tomas did it masterfully. The story of an investigative reporter on the hunt to find Eva Peron's body, the book is carefully footnoted to the point that it's nearly impossible to distinguish what came out of the author's mind and what the reader can actually google.

I have two photos of Tomas, neither very good, taken at book club at our house in 2006. The backstory: as previously reported, I often take the train back and forth to New York. As some measure of my particular karma, I often meet a writer on that journey. As karmas go, this is a good one.

But sometimes I'm very tired on these trips and don't want to talk to anyone at all. Such was the case early one Sunday evening in 2006 when I was a little late getting on the train. There were only a few seats available and I chose the one where I anticipated the least interaction--a couple sitting opposite each other, both with their laptops running. I sat down next to the woman (Gabriela Esquivada, far right in photo), we exchanged smiles, and I settled in for a rest.

A few minutes later, Gabriela asked if she could get by, then offered to get me a coffee for disturbing me...and we were off and running. She introduced me to her husband, who was deep in concentration, watching some sort of thriller, as I recall...and then she explained who he was, one of the great Latin American writers, and soon all of us were talking. (It was from Tomas that I later learned that Carlos Fuentes loves bluefish, a phrase that will eventually make it into an essay about such train encounters, drafted so far only in my head.)

But why were they coming to Boston? Tomas turned the right side of his head toward me, a very large and red scar searing down the side, just behind his ear. Glioblastoma, he said, and he was being treated here in Boston.

We struck up a friendship and a month or so later, Tomas and Gabriela, also an Argentine journalist and editor, came to book club. I wrote a note about the evening for my friends on Zoetrope (see below). About two years ago, we lost touch. I was sad to see the news this morning but amazed that he lived for so long with this terrible disease.

From my notes:

Tomas Eloy Martinez came to our book club last night to discuss Santa Evita. So far, Tomas has written seven novels, I believe, and a whole lot of journalism down the years, but has not had as much exposure in the US as abroad, at 71 not as familiar as other Lat American writers, Carlos Fuentes, for example, whom he’s known since he was 18 (Fuentes is 10 years older).  One of Tomas’s books, unpublished in the US, The Flight of the Queen has sold 500k sales globally, many translations, best foreign book in China (dunno year), and on. I found this interview with him in Three Monkeys Online and it squares with what I’ve been learning from him, worth reading.

Tomas and Gabriela Esquivada-Martinez, his wife, have been here in Boston for past couple of months where Tomas is being treated for brain tumor. I met them in early March on the train from NY to Boston ten days after his surgery; they were traveling to Boston from their home in Highland Park, NJ, where he’s been heading Lat Amer studies dept at Rutgers. Mission: his first round of chemo and radiation. When I picked them up last night, I expected him to look haggard and ill. He looks great. His incision is healing and he spoke well and clearly for many hours.

Tomas focused on the line between fiction and fact, blurry, saying that the woman writing the intro to the anthology of his work being pub’d in Venezuela (hope I’ve got this right) finds the theme of his work to be “doubt.” I agree, caveat being that I’ve only read one of his books…but it is impossible to know, reading it, whether it is fact or fiction. How could this be a novel, I kept asking myself, but Tomas told us last night that only the last three pages are true. He entered the “black hole” of nine missing months in Eva Peron’s history and from it spun this book. Very dark, no redeeming characters, except perhaps the “I” who appears late in the book, relatively speaking, and is never fully revealed.

My book club has been meeting for 15 or so years, monthly, 190 books to date, primarily classics. This evening was in its own category and I encourage everyone to read Tomas’s work.