I am enjoying my aerie time. This will be our last night at this hotel. Tomorrow we move to the Hyatt on Quivira Basin which is also a tall building so we may still be elevated.
Carol’s conference did not end until 5:30 yesterday and since 4 is the new 5 I poured the last of our mediocre bottle of wine into a glass at 4 pm and sat looking out our window listening to David Shemer play THE GOLDBERG VARIATIONS on the harpsichord. I don’t recall if I have mentioned this before, but THE GOLDBERG on harpsichord seems a completely different composition than when played on the piano. Not better or worse, just different.
As an aside the speakers on my iPad Pro—there are four—have a surprisingly good sound. I now often listen to music from the iPad Pro directly rather than connect to the Boom 2s. Although the Boom 2s definitely have superior sound, they require a few extra steps and the iPad is playing music instantly. That is what I was listening to last evening. A caveat: this is coming from an old man who wears hearing aids.
Outside the window, a handful of sailboats were heading back to their slips. Military helicopters back to their bases. A colorful kite with a long graceful tail was gliding a hundred yards away and a story or two higher than our 13th floor. As the sun set the sky became bands of blue, peach, rust, red, black, all blending together as though colored with smudged chalk.
A very pleasant hour.
The good thing about bad wine is that is becomes less bad as you drink it.
My friend Jay, who sails the Olson 34, SHOE STRING, has compiled, or has had compiled, a video of this year’s Chicago Beer Can Series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiwdoPeo4jU&feature=youtu.be
Chicago from the water is beautiful.
The ship that appears in the second minute serves as the club house of the COLUMBIA YACHT CLUB of which Jay is a member and where I once gave a talk.
While I enjoyed the video, these people sail too damn close to one another for my taste. But then I am known to like several hundred miles between me and the next boat.
I thank Jay for permission to post the link.
In IMMORTAL POETS the other day I came across none other than the poet who named himself after one of my boats. Or maybe it was the other way around. I’m old and easily confused.
You can find the poem on the lists page of the main site under ‘quotes I have used in front of my books’, all of which are worth reading.
http://inthepresentsea.com/the_actual_site/lists.html
While on that page I observed that I had not added the GANNET voyage to the list of my circumnavigations, an omission now corrected.