Spending Christmas holidays at Disney World with Ben and Gabby

There cannot be a better place to spend the Christmas holidays at the Disney World with the grandchildren of 8 and 6 years of age.

And we still didn’t forget the true meaning of Christmas while having a good time and magic moment.  Jo asked Ben how he was going to describe his experience of the visit.  He said he was surprised to find out that Disney World is not just one place.  It has Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Epcot; just like Bible has many Gospels such as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

And each theme park has many attractions just like each Gospel has many chapters.  There are God’s words in the Bible and the Disney World evokes wonder and awe just like God’s work.

The heavenly and out-of-this-world experience might have elicited the religious sentiment out of Ben.  On the “Star Tours—the Adventures Continue” 3-D (to just say it 3-D is an understatement) ride in Hollywood Studios, I was literary blown away when we’re heading for the galaxy in the setting of Star War universe.  I could see Gabby, sitting next to me on our space flight, was amazingly taken aback when we safely returned to the Earth.  Without buckling up we might have been thrown away into the dark outer space.

This attraction came to Hollywood Studios of Disney World and Disneyland in 2011 and Tokyo Disneyland in 2013.  The Europeans will have to wait until 2017 when it will go to Disneyland Paris.

 

A good beginning is half success: Brigham and Women’s Hospital was baptized by Dr. William Osler

Today (December 23) in 1954 the first successful human kidney transplant took place at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham and Women’s Hospital) in Boston  The surgeon, Dr. Joseph Murray and Dr. E. Donnall Thomas (of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington) shared the Nobel Prizes in Medicine in 1990.  Both died about one month apart in October and November of 2012.

During the five-day course of “Intensive Review of Neurology” at Boston in October, Dr. Martin Samuels (Chair of Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital) showed us a photo of the opening of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in 1913.

The photo shows Dr. William Osler and many of the “founding fathers” of the hospital, the likes of Dr. Walter Cannon, Dr. David Linn Edsall, Dr. Charles Minot, Dr. Harvey Cushing, Dr. William Councilman, Dr. Henry Christian.  Apart from Dr. Cushing, they may not be the household names; nevertheless, they are all great physicians.  A good beginning is half success.

Dr. William Osler (one of the four “founding fathers” for Johns Hopkins Hospital) went to Oxford University in 1905.  He was back in Boston visiting Harvard campus in 1913.  Dr. Harvey Cushing wrote, “It happened that Sir William Osler was in this country on a visit and though we were in no condition to have a formal opening his presence forced the occasion, for we wished his baptism even though the hospital ... was still in the stage of scaffolding and plaster.  His influence, indeed, even without this early blessing of our venture, was strong among us.”

Of the many books I have of or about Dr. Osler, this one (Osler’s “A Way of Life”) is a gift from my daughters many years ago.  I must have talked about him all the time in those days.  I should have talked about him more often.  Not only is he the father of internal medicine, but also he is my “model”  of what an internist physician should be.

I mention a few of his sayings to make a point.

“While medicine is to be your vocation, or calling, see to it that you have also an avocation – some intellectual pastime which may serve to keep you in touch with the world of art, of science, or of letters.”

“The young doctor should look about early for an avocation, a pastime, that will take him away from patients, pills, and potions…”

“The very first step towards success in any occupation is to become interested in it.”

“Make me a willow cabin at your gate” and the trip we didn’t make

More than three years ago when a two box sets of DVD of Jean Arthur was released, WSJ had an article of “The legend of Jean Arthur” who was less well known than the stars she starred opposite, the likes of Gary Cooper, James Stewart, Cary Grant.

She died at age of 90 in 1991.  Her last film was “Shane” in 1953.  I found it interesting in a short letter-to-the-editor to WSJ (see photo below).  “Exquisite” is the only way to describe when one hears a good actor/actress reciting the famous lines of Shakespeare plays.

Many years ago I was blown away hearing a soliloquy of King Claudius (Disney’s Lion King was modeled after him) played by, I recall, Kenneth Branagh.  Such a beautiful and powerful thing! I was then determined to read the Bard.

Bernard Shaw said of Laurence Olivier’s playing Shakespeare’s, “He picked words off the playscript page, flung them passionately into the dark and secured them in the minds of theatergoers.”

After attending Richard III in theater, Lincoln wrote to the actor discussing how the opening line should be uttered, “Now is the winter of our discontent.”

When we decided to take a side trip to Paris for 2 ½ days on our trip to London, we scrapped from the list many sites we initially intended to visit: Blenheim Palace, Windsor Castle, Oxford University and Stratford Upon Avon.

I even planned to sit inside the “Willow Cabin” locates in the gate for the Visitors of Stratford Upon Avon reciting “Make me a willow cabin at your gate”.  Of course, I won’t be lucky enough to have a duet with Jean Arthur.

Willow Cabin” in the gate for the Visitors of Stratford Upon Avon

The Majestic Closer—Mariano Rivera

While reading a book yesterday I “swiped” the page and the page didn’t turn; too much digital reading! I finished reading the iBook of DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover last week and more than half way through The Closer—autobiography of the Closer, who else? Mariano Rivera.

No discussion of Lady C’s Lover as I try not to talk about anything controversial, although I believe in DH Lawrence when he wrote Lady Ottoline Morrell , “About Lady C.—you must not think I advocate perpetual sex.  Far from it.  Nothing nauseates me more than promiscuous sex in and out of season.  But, I want, with Lady C. to make an adjustment in consciousness to the basic physical realties. . . .”

It is much less fun to watch Yankees without the majestic Mariano Rivera to close the game and Derek Jeter, the Captain.

If one watches baseball often enough, one cannot help but admire the strength and skill of the arm and hand of a pitcher.  I often time wonder how they can perform under the enormous pressure when the stake was so high.

Rivera apparently drew the strength from the Lord Almighty.  Standing alone on the mound he felt the overpowering presence of the Holy Spirit and that “He is the one who is all-powerful, not me”.  He writes as if he were a preacher.

Yankees picked the guitar riffs of “Enter Sandman” whenever Rivera was called to enter the field, he would recite his prayer,

“Lord, please keep me safe. Keep my teammates safe, and everybody safe. I pray that You will protect me and give me the strength I need. Amen!”

He said if he had his choice he would pick “Onward Christian Soldiers”.

FDR and Churchill singing  “Onward Christian Soldiers”.on the Prince of Wales 8/10/1941

When FDR and Churchill first met on August 10, 1941 they sang “Onward Christian Soldiers” during the service on boarding The Prince of Wales; it was reported that Churchill wept taking a handkerchief from his pocket.

Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter played together in Yankees minor league teams; Jeter was promoted to the Major League (MLB) a few months after Rivera did and they were sent back to the minor league the same day.  A star was not born overnight.  Rivera spent 5 years in the Minor League.

I am surprised to learn how he obtained his famous ‘cutter” (a cut fastball).  From a small boy in a small fishing village in Panama to the Yankees stardom.  What a career, what a life!

The Kindle book of The Closer is a gift from my daughters, who know the father best.

50 Brilliant Minds of the Last 100 Years?

I came across a new book of “50 Brilliant Minds of the Last 100 Years”; any one can come up with one’s own list. Besides, how one defines “brilliant” mind?

I agree with many of the choices, the likes of Max Planck, Einstein, Thomas Edison, Enrico Fermi, Stephen Hawking, Niels Bohr, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.  But, I would remove as many.

I have a neutral position on many, too. Noam Chomsky is on the list, I am sure, for his achievement on linguistics.  Only Edwin can appreciate him.  Understanding is the thing, one can only love and appreciate one understands.  Understanding intensifies and enhances the enjoyment.  I don't know enough linguistics to say whether Chomsky deserves on the list or not.

Chomsky is also one of the most famous and most radical American dissenters.  But that was not why he is on the list.

I have been talking about Lady Ottoline Morrell since I “bumped into” her house at Gower Street in London. Three of her frequent visitors are also on the list: D.H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes.  Pictures were taken by Lady Ottoline.

To say her house was the most intellectual salon is not an over statement.

Ottoline's house we bumped into

D.H. Lawrence

No country for old men: W.B. Yeats, Murray Gell-Mann, Cormac McCarthy and Ottoline

In the spirit of reading book whose author is still living I read Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men this week.  He was recommended to me by Janice last year.  I regret I cannot sing my high praise.  Knowing who McCarthy is; I wonder the problem probably lies in me.  Either I have to re-read or better yet try his “All the Pretty Horses”.

I have to say he writes well; the style reminiscent to Hemingway’s, using subject and verb only, let out adjective.  The plots are good in the first three-quarters, but the end disappoints me.  He leaves the psychopath Chigurh still at large and Sheriff Bell retires, sort of a symbol of “defeat”.

The plots and endings in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms are much more intrigue and powerful.

The book title of “No Country for Old Men” comes from W.B. Yeats’s famous poem, Sailing to Byzantium (by the way, Yeats—another Nobel laureate in Literature also frequented Ottoline Morrell’s house).  Nothing in plot, theme or ending fits the line of “No country for old men”—the opening line for the poem.  Philip Roth’s “The Dying Animal” also comes from the line of this poem, as does a book called “The young in one another’s arms”.

Cormac McCarthy and particle physicist Murray Gell-Mann are longtime friends, so he must be a man of something.  Gell-Mann was awarded Germany’s most prestigious Helmholtz Medal in September 2014.  Following the presentation at Santa Fe Institute, the toast was led by Cormack McCarthy.  Reading my post about Gell-Mann will be worth your while.

“Quark and Murray Gell-Mann, a Renaissance man in science”

http://doctorjytsai.blogspot.com/2012/01/quark-and-murray-gell-mann-renaissance.html

Murray Gell-Mann on 9/26/2014

 

Parliament, Banqueting House, Richard the Lionheart, Virginia Woolf and Ottoline

While waiting on the long line to enter the Palace of Westminster (House of Parliament) on September 21, I kept watching the statue of Richard I, Richard the Lionheart, in the old Palace Yard.  I wonder why, among so many kings over the ages, he was picked for this honor?

The statue (installed there in 1860) shows Richard I lifting his sword on horseback, an image consistent with this warrior king who is known as the Lionheart.  I didn’t watch the movie “Richard the Lionheart”, but then again I do not learn history by watching movie.

What is the irony to me is that Richard I only spent less than 6 months in his 10-year reign (1189-1199) residing in England; he was basically busy with the Crusade (the third one) and he probably didn’t even speak English.  He used England as the source of his taxing revenue to sponsor his crusade.  He reportedly said, “I would sell London if I could find a buyer.”

Yesterday news report the renovation of the Palace of Westminster may cost more than £3 billion.  The England kings had conducted the business of governing at this site since 11^th century, although the medieval parliament was destroyed by fire in 1834, only the Great Hall survived (we visited on September 21).  The current building that we saw was built 1840-1870.

Upon hearing the abdication of Edward VIII, Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary on December 10, 1936,

“. . . I will go to Westminster.  A bus took me to the top of Whitehall. . . Whitehall was full of shuffling & trampling.  People going both ways. . . A very beautiful yellow brown light: dry pavements: still lamps lit.   Lines of light at Parliament Squr. & the houses of Parliament in silhouette.  The lamp burning in the watch tower. Opposite the House Guards there was Ottoline, black, white, red lipped coming toward me. . .That’s the window out of which Charles the First stepped when he had his head cut off said Ottoline, pointing to the great lit up windows in their frame of white stone.  So my mother always told me.  I felt I was walking in the 17^th century with one of the courtiers [Ottoline]; & she was lamenting not the abdication of Edward but the execution of Charles.  It’s dreadful, dreadful, she kept saying. . .”

If you read this post; my sentiment is the same as that of Ottoline.
http://doctorjytsai.blogspot.com/2014/11/lady-ottoline-morrell-literary-hostess.html

We spent our first day (September 21) in the area where Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary.  She went to “Westminster” (the Parliament, where the action was), not the Abbey (to pray).  Whitehall used to be the Palace, which was destroyed in the Great London Fire, only the Banqueting House survived, in front of which Charles I was executed.

On the margin Virginia Woolf wrote, “Under which king, Bezonian? speak, or die”, which is from Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 2.  With the kingship changing hand, she was thinking about the lines in the Bard’s play.

 

 

Seeing Eiffel Tower every where in Paris

We saw Eiffel Tower practically every day during our 3-day visit to Paris.  It seems you will see it wherever you are in Paris; from street or roof top; far and near; day and night.  Turn around, there it is; no escape.  But, it was September 25 that we actually walked underneath it. 

The Tower puts on the sparkling evening gown when the sun goes to sleep.  It shines and sparkles seductively for 5 minutes every hour on the hour, just like a beautiful lady winking at me.  We watched it afar from Arc de Triomphe at 11PM before we called it a day in Paris.