Dear everyone,
In my last letter I was about to go see Bullet Train with Andy. We did so after a delicious Chinese meal dinner
at Lao Sze Chuan, famous for their
cumin lamb. I had too much water to
drink which made watching the end of the movie uncomfortable for me, but I couldn’t
tear myself from the screen. I don’t
know if you need to see this movie on a big screen (I definitely missed
subtitles), but it is worth streaming or renting it when you can. It’s an action comedy that takes place on a
Tokyo-Kyoto midnight bullet train. There
are seven different assassins on the train, each with different agendas that
collide with the other. This is from a
novel by Kotaro
Isaka, and the movie was good enough I requested another of his books
(Three Assassins) out of the library.
I won’t be able to tell you if this book is any good,
however, because in about one week Cindy and I are travelling to Holland and
Belgium for a boat canal tour. We were
thinking of doing some travelling, and a couple of months ago I got some
pre-reunion email (my 45th from Exeter is next year) about the
availability of some cabins on this canal boat that holds about 15-20
couples. The price was good, with the
added convenience of someone else planning the trip for us. They had another tour offering of a sailboat
around Sicily, but I was afraid I would be seasick all the time. We are actually leaving a little early to see
the Floriade, a big decadal international
horticultural exposition that is in Amsterdam this time around. So I may have a short letter next weekend
before our trip, but afterwards you can expect a number of longer entries.
Yesterday Cindy and I took the Wallochs to see a Cubs
game. We bought super primo seats from
Jon Feiger. I was a bit worried because
the weather forecasts for Saturday had been dismal for days. Indeed, it rained Friday night, and there was
some rain Saturday morning, and as we drove in to the city it started to rain
again. It was coming down moderately
when we parked in the “Camry” lot a block north of the field (parking was
included with the tickets), and as we walked out of the lot one of the
attendants told us the game had been delayed.
We went to the Mordecai Bar
across Clark Street in the Hotel
Zachary, and had some drinks and snacks while we waited the extra 40
minutes (2:00) until game time. The
weather began to cooperate. It was shady
and not too hot. There was some more
rain around the 6th inning, but afterwards it cleared up for
good. We got lucky! (There was evidence
of heavy downpours in Hinsdale) Also
kind of nice was the Chicago Air and Water show going on south of us; fighter
jets (the Blue Angels) flew past the stadium a few times in the early innings.
The first seven innings of the game were actually not that
interesting. Marcus Stroman was pitching
for the cubs, and he and the Brewers’ starter were both doing a good job. The Cubs were up 2-1 in the eighth, when the
relief pitcher came in. The Brewers went
up by two. The Cubs tied it up in the 9th,
so we went to extra innings. I did not
know there was a rule change from last year in that each team now got to start
the inning with a man on second base. It
made the 10th and 11th innings much more intense (it also
helped that the relief pitching for both teams was not that good). The Cubs finally won in the 11th
6-5. It was a great outing. Afterwards, we went back home and had Mexican
food in some hole-in-a-wall place in Darien.
Reading wise I have been looking over some histories of the
Dutch Republic. This one, Amsterdam:
A History of World’s Most Liberal City by Russell Shorto was a pretty good
read, but while it has great style, it lacks a lot of context - - The wealth of
the Dutch in the age of exploration and afterwards was based on slavery and
exploitation of Africa, Asia and the New World.
I have also read a few books on internet scammers by Kevin Mitnick. There are a lot of ways people can get into
business or your own personal accounts to either get information on you or
steal assets from you. It’s a bit scary!
Fiction wise, An Honest Living
has terrific ‘noir’ chops, but there isn’t much of a mystery. I read How To Live Safely in
a Science Fiction Universe. I
skipped this when it came out years ago, and now I know why - - I didn’t like
it very much.
Love, H
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