On Third Avenue in Pittsburgh

Katy Buchanan

Among the contributions that immigrants created in Pittsburgh is this. Many years ago, a former co-worker from China, in a lovely gesture, invited his Pittsburgh Post-Gazette coworkers to a reception here that followed his child's wedding. The people he worked with at the time were his family, far from home. He and his wife were so nice at the party, and so gracious. I think it speaks a lot to how welcoming America can be that my former colleague felt comfortable enough to allow coworkers to stand in for family and friends far away. (In the background is Duquesne University, on what is known as The Bluff). 

Between worlds

Watched "City on the Edge of Forever," the Harlan Ellison Star Trek award-winning classic a few nights ago. Apparently H.E. hated it. But in reading reviews of the episode, it struck me that the character of The Guardian (who lives where McCoy, Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Scotty, et. al, land in a place in-between), is very similar to The Wood Between the Worlds in "The Magician's Nephew" episode of C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia."
A place in between, where choices, and pasts and futures, are made and, maybe, changed.
Here is Pauline Baynes' illustration of the Wood Between the Worlds from "The Magician's Nephew." Polly & Digory meet one very interesting character in one of their leaps from pond to pond in the Wood Between the Worlds. And there are rings involved. And by the way Pauline Baynes was an extraordinary illustrator.

Pauline Baynes

Happy Thanksgiving

                                                     Tucker Good/Unsplash

 I am grateful for many things, and wish I remembered that fact more often. Today, Thanksgiving Day in the United States, I took a short walk around my neighborhood before heading off to visit with friends and family. There is a church tucked into my hilly, suburban Pittsburgh neighborhood and during my walk this morning, it's bells were ringing out quiet music. Despite the gray skies (which seem to be a permanent fixture these days), the music made for a lovely atmosphere.
Happy Thanksgiving, to friends and family present and absent.

Mystery at 33rd Street in Pittsburgh

I've been meaning to write about this for a month and just have gotten distracted. In late September 2018, I had to be in Bloomfield for a doctor appointment.

On my way back home, driving through the Strip District, I saw these statues. They were sitting at the corner of 33rd Street and Penn Avenue. It's an off-the-beaten-track kind of place.

The statues are right there visible to passing traffic. The property at 33rd appears to belong to Blue Diamond Vodka. There were also picnic benches and a vegetable garden across from the offices at the dead end of 33rd.

But where did these statues come from? And why are they watching traffic on Penn Avenue?

Katy Buchanan photos

For Book Nerds

If you are a dinosaur or dinosaurette who still reads paperbacks, or even hardbacks (and, yes, I do read on my phone and laptop occasionally), you may have often noticed that as you get to the center of the book, the inner margins get a bit tight. 

You have to push down on the book's spine to read it. You have to torture your book. (What do authors think about this, I wonder?)
 

Pages 168 and 169 of "The October Country" from 1996. Look
how nice and airy the inner margins are. (Katy Buchanan photo)

This book pictured, (I've posted previously, it's one of my very favorites, a soft-cover of Ray Bradbury's "The October Country") actually looks to have been well planned. It's a Del Rey Book, part of the Ballantine Publishing Group (part of Random House, part of Penguin, yada yada, which, come to think of it, should be a publisher, too).

There is a thing in book binding called, I think, 'creep' which means that pages laid out flat, with identical margins, do not end up even once the book is bound. The center pages have lots of space on the outer edges and very little at the spine.

But here is this book. At 338 pages, it has a lot of room for page creep. But at the very middle, the spread of pages 168 and 169, the inner margins leave the reader plenty of comfort to read without squashing down (torturing) the spine.

The margins are the same throughout the book. It has a very comfortable feel for a book of such strange tales.

I would love to know who was behind the production of this  October 1996 book. The text design was by Holly Johnson. For a mass market paperback, it's pretty neat. 

Happy reading.

i remember 100 percent

memory. distinct. sexual harassment.

yes, i remember certain things distinctly.

and not just about being harrassed, which is just a condition of being female.

i remember my beloved dog coming out, finally after weeks of hesitation, from a tunnel during an obedience training class and looking up at me with trust.

Best dog ever. (Katy Buchanan)

i remember sharing a brief moment with a stranger asking for directions on penn avenue in pittsburgh and laughing when we both realized her destination was about 10 feet away and in plain sight.

i remember being angry during a winter drive in massachusetts with my sister suzanne and her two kids in a scary snowstorm.

i remember a man walking past me on a Cleveland street in the early 1980s and saying at me "nice bouncing boobs." i remember what I was wearing (knee length, pink knit dress, quarter length sleeves), but not what he looked like, just his words.

i remember a mainstream television network science reporter, also in the early 1980s, at a press conference at the University of Pittsburgh, telling me he would like to "take a nap" with me.

i remember a man named Peter who was in my Ohio State karate class helping me 'caress' his private parts in a corner of the natatorium. he told me he was teaching me certain blocks (me, very young, inexperienced and without knowledge to convey my ... discomfort?) .

i remember parts of lots of things. being in NYC as a young woman in the late 1970s with a college friend who wanted to sample a dish at a restaurant in Chinatown ... really rude, she just helped herself to my plate.

i remember being rude myself, when a roommate was smoking in our dorm and i told her to "put it out, it offends me." (this was also in the late 1970s when people still smoked everywhere, freely.)

i remember the taste of ripe tomatoes and crusty french bread at summer camp in the French Alps in the early 1960s.

i remember many years ago, also early 1960s, when our young family was traveling, sitting at a motel pool somewhere in North or South Carolina ... or maybe Virginia, and being hit in one eye with a hot pepper.  painful and blinding. someone did that to me. i remember that distinctly.


i don't remember all the specific details of any of these life events, i just remember those moments. and isn't it interesting that these memories were formed when i was very young.

  
my point is, that I think certain things sear themselves in our brains. maybe we don't capture everything about events, but the important, memory-making details, never go away.  maybe the brain just captures what's most important (how does brain know? i have no idea. brain has it's own secrets). i'd be willing to bet combat veterans have a lot to say on this subject.

so, yes. i believe dr. ford.

Lamps

So. Many years ago, husband and I bought these lamps.

They are lovely, but past knowing where we bought them (someplace off Rochester Road in the North Hills of Pittsburgh) I have no knowledge of their provenance. No info on the works at all about who created them. Then there is this. I love the similarity of what lights our living room and what lights our movie screens. Here's a link to the Pixar lamp

There goes the sun

First day of fall. Cool temps, but gloomy skies in Pittsburgh after a rainy night. Last bouquet of summer (mint, calla and papyrus) is fading in my kitchen and quince fruits are ripening, but I have no idea what to do with them. Rats.

Bouquet in a crystal vase. (Katy Buchanan)

Quince from my garden.
A long time ago, I had a lipstick named "Clear Quince."
At the time, I had no idea what that meant,
but looking at the rose tint on the fruit, now, I get it.
(Also, I would never wear that color again,
lovely, but not me anymore.) (Katy Buchanan)

In the words of Charles Schulz's beloved character Linus, "Summers always fly, winters walk."

Even though the days are getting shorter (ugh, I hate when it gets dark by 4 o'clock) the light of the fading year is really pretty. Something about the way the sun's rays slant and how they bounce off those pretty red and gold leaves in the green grass. 

Only eight-ish months to go til Memorial Day.

Wonderland

So, reviewing some of my work at the Pittsburgh Post-
Gazette. What I can take credit for here is the typography and the photo illustration. The native art for this story was the geeky guy wearing VR gear from the company selling it. That was it. Thankfully, my employer had a subscription to a stock photo/image service. So it was pretty cool to meld the VR guy with the stock illustration. Also, I love stretching type. Also, credit due to  istockphoto.

Addendum to this post on 09122018; I like the art, but upon further review, the layout needs more work. That sidebar did not need such prominence, but story placement is an ongoing issue in a world where the print product is shrinking. So, my insecurities as a designer, coupled with the section editor's (imposed from above) priorities for front page story count equal .... erm ... something that could have been better. Anyway, I still like the photo illustration. If I had a do-over, the sidebar would vanish, the headline would be centered and there would be nice white space around the type of that centerpiece package. It would be a much more interesting cover.

I guess I'll just go ... crazy tonight

Weird Northeast summer in 2018.

Totally soaked in June, parched and hot in July, kind of a mix in August and now bizarro September, which has gone from a muggy 90-or-so degrees on Wednesday to  a dreary, rainy 55-or-so degrees late Saturday and early Sunday
. I hope we get golden fall with clear blue skies. Lord knows there will be more than enough grey and gloom from November through February.

Mt. Lebanon, PA, September 8, 2018

And yet, late afternoon, kids playing on the street in the downpour, yelling and shouting. 

Puts me in mind of this lovely song, featured in the 2011 movie "Bridesmaids." But this is an earlier artist, Irma Thomas

And, lastly, thinking of the people in the Caribbean islands, Puerto Rico and Houston who suffered so much at this time last year when Maria, Irma and Harvey barreled in south of here.

Coda to summer, Dormont Pool

This photo is from 2017, the Dormont Pool, Pittsburgh, PA

Didn't make it to the pool on Labor Day 2018, even though it's one of my favorite places in the world. Have been swimming there since the early 1980s when we bought our first house, in Dormont. Interesting to see how it has changed over the years. For example, now it seems lifeguards are hired outside; I don't know, but they are very professional, not high school kids sitting on tall chairs. They stand, with rescue equipment.

Dormont Pool, Sept. 2017

The diving boards are long gone, but there's a fun slide and a kind of giant mushroom thing in the kids' end that has a water spray coming out of it. There are two old, heavy turnstyles when you go in, with a check-in counter in the middle of them. $7 if you are not a resident (as I am these days). Behind that is the lifeguard’s room. Usually you can hear them chatting.

For a long time, there was a woman who swam there, older than me, who had the oddest crawl stroke. Her right arm was always fully extended, but her left never made it above water. In the winter, I would see her doing laps about the time that I did, early morning, at the South Hills JCC. Haven’t seen her in years; she seemed so dedicated. I found out at the JCC that her name was Sue, but never met her personally.

Despite the updates over the years, the women’s locker room still has that cavernous, chlorine-y, concrete-y kind of feeling. The ceiling is low. There are a few changing booths, a couple of bathroom stalls, a couple of shower stalls, a bunch of 25 cent lockers and two benches. Two sinks with raggedy mirrors. Fluorescent lighting that is not great. Almost always when I'm there are moms with kids, trying to figure out getting dressed or un. And then you walk out to the pool, through of this kind of cool, short tunnel to the main patio, with the gorgeous blue expanse of the water waiting for you.

The beach, green grass and clover, is long but not deep. There is also a second beach, which is the sloped descent into the pool, all parallel to Banksville Road (fortunately there are hedges). Lots of pool goers just park themselves on the second beach and enjoy being cool with toes and legs in the bright water. I like it for doing leg kicks after my laps are done.

One other change over the years, lots of people with tattoos. Lots.

I’m glad Dormont has been able to keep this going. Given how wet the summer of 2018 was, I’m sure the borough lost money on it.

The mural in the women's locker room at Dormont Pool was added within the past 10 years. http://friendsofdormontpool.org/

-->

Cat Who Won't Sit On My Lap, But Happy To Park Himself On The Sunday New York Times ... Print Edition!

Just a few words ... I love print and will never stop loving it. To those who say it is dead, I say you are not creative enough (and I am aware of the irony of making this statement in such an ethereal medium). My cat enjoys the Sunday paper, too. He is most comfortable enjoying it in his own way (that is, parking his furry behind on a four-page NYT spread for a very pricey real estate development, something RH). 

Cat who won't sit on my lap tromps on the Sunday paper.

Lorain County, Ohio

Not a fan of the place my family landed in the late 1960s. I didn't have a choice, because I was a youngster and Dad and Mom were looking for a place to settle, after years of the Army life of moving, moving, moving. We had lived in interesting places -- Washington, D.C., Orleans, France. Not that I could take advantage of what those places offered, but my parents could, and did, and did so for us kids, too.

When we did end up in a northeast Ohio auto factory town, I was at the age to go to high school. My peers all had known each other since birth, practically. I was an outsider. That didn't make me special ... anyone could have been an outsider. But me it was, sibs, too. I did not enjoy the experience and, after college and one year back, left with no regrets.

Black River view at Bur Oak in Sheffield Village, Ohio.
August 19, 2018. (Photo by Katy Buchanan)

My family, Mom, Dad and some sibs, stayed and it turns out that this little town, though I will never live in it again, has grown in ways that I care about (I know, why does my opinion matter?). Lorain County, Ohio, has a remarkable parks system. A beautiful marsh at Sandy Ridge, a gorgeous walk at Bur Oak and a deeply satisfying wood experience at French Creek.

Every time I come home, I enjoy these places.

Turns out (Mom tells me) my family almost might have moved to Oregon after Dad retired from the Army in the late 1960s. That might have been great, but the smaller 'green' story of a Lake Erie county in Ohio is pretty cool.

I'm a fan of public transit

Regarding the Station Square derailment on Sunday 8/5/18 in Pittsburgh

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2018/08/05/Freight-Train-derails-Pittsburgh-Station-Square-South-Side/stories/201808050144

There was a recent photo essay in the Guardian, posted on FB by others, about the "melancholy" jobs of Pittsburgh parking lot attendants (Search 'melancholy isolation'). It started with these words: "Given Pittsburgh’s poor public transport, many commuters choose to drive. Tom M Johnson photographs the city’s parking attendants in the confines of their booths." A commenter to that article described the Light Rail system as "going nowhere."

Now we have the reality of an awful lot of nowhere and nobodies being affected for a long time. I did not respond to that comment, but as someone who has used the Pittsurgh transit system consistently since the 1980s, and who recognizes its drawbacks, I really dislike the Guardian article's description of the public transit system as "poor" and of the commenter's description of Light Rail as "going nowhere."

I'm not up on the funding, though I have read that a lawsuit over fees that the PA Turnpike must pay to Port Authority and SEPTA is delaying some revenue, but I can't help but think that anything that gets more cars off the road is worthwhile.

I agree that travel by bus with various transfers is time consuming and draining. (Would I do it to get from South Hills to Oakland? No, not now. On the 44U express, though, I most definitely would have. That route is history, unfortunately, as is the PATrain). But I'd appreciate a discussion of how that is less time-consuming and draining than sitting in endless traffic jams of one car, one person. 


One advantage of the transit system here (and elsewhere) is the East Busway and the Light Rail operate outside of car traffic. There are problems (disoriented driver on the EBA), and near disasters, (like Sunday's on the LRT), but in general, they serve well to keep a few more cars off the road. And I always appreciated the time to read, study or just watch the passing scenery without having to focus on the traffic around me.

 There is a giant rabbit hole of laws passed by Congress adressing transportation funding, starting with Ice Tea, (at least in my memory) but it's hard to figure out what they have to do with double stack trains (fewer trucks on the highway. Sounds good, but what about safety?)

(Written but someone who hates to drive.)

Perfect summer day

Finally, after a wet winter, a wet spring, a wet early summer and a beastly hot June, the weather has turned. Today, July 8, 2018 in Pittsburgh was about as perfect a midsummer day as anyone could hope for. Temperatures in the low 80s, no humidity and a sky so deep and drenching blue it seemed you could swim into it until eternity.
I took a long afternoon walk under a sky empty of clouds, split only by the contrail of a distant jet. At some point, I heard the sound that divides summer in two, the deep-pitched burr of a cicada. May and June are such quiet months, marked only by the chirps of young spring birds and the flickers of fireflies. When the cicadas start to sing, you know summer is into its richest time, with daylight lasting at least until 9 and kids playing in the street until dark.
Pretty soon, the days will get shorter and the sunlight longer. For now, we are saturated in shadows and blue.

Design, life & music

I didn't really know this about myself, but I was in a design mode before I actually did it for a living. The Bizarre Love Triangle and the arrow (pointing to love) tell me I was problem solving and communicating. Oh, and the music! I don't know what happened to this cassette but am so glad I saved the label. My most favorite of this compilation? KD Lang's cover of 'Black Coffee."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Gba61V2nQ

Short space of time

I'm growing old. Five full decades on this earth and closing in on six. Trying to figure what I have learned, what I have accomplished, whether I will leave our lovely planet a place better for me having been here. As with all of us, I arrived with no say in the matter.

But once I did arrive, even if I could not immediately appreciate it, I was lucky. What does it mean to have an extraordinary, safe childhoood, full of love and adventure? How does that experience define us?

Blue thoughts

Mom and me in 1995 at what was then known as The Jake. We had season tickets then so it was a nice confluence of events that the Cleveland baseball team made it to the World Series that year. Can’t afford it now.
Anyway.
This is a picture of a picture but what strikes me is how the color skews toward blue. Admittedly this is a more than 20-year-old photograph but what is it about either the film’s composition or the development process that makes blue the color that survives? Not just this photo, but if you look back on old pix, old advertisements, everything fades except the blue. I’m sure there is chemistry involved too.
Perhaps Kodak has the answers.