March Madness

Last year, with the start of the pandemic, the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments were cancelled.  This year, I am glad they are playing the Tourney and it has been both entertaining and exciting to watch.  As usual there have been blow-outs as forecasted and upsets that are, obviously, never predicted but always happen. 

Gonzaga has a chance to be the first undefeated NCAA Champion since the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers if they win two more games.  They trounced USC tonight, 85-66, to advance to the Final Four.  I thought USC, which has looked awesome and unbeatable in the Tourney until tonight, might give them a game and maybe even beat them.  I could not have been more wrong which is probably why I can only be a sportswriter on my own blog.  Gonzaga came out on fire, scored the first points, and led the entire game.  They were up by ten within the first few minutes.  They are a very good team and join Baylor and Houston in The Final Four.

I am sitting in my easy chair awaiting the Elite Eight game between the University of Michigan Wolverines and the University of California Los Angeles Bruins.  Michigan should win and the pundits on TV think they will, but anything can happen.  UCLA has been playing awesome defense and hitting threes to get them this far.  I am confident in the ability of Juwan Howard to come up with a good game plan.  I believe pundits have underestimated two things:  the quality of Howard’s game plan and the Michigan defense.

We shall see.  Nothing is guaranteed.

A feature of this tournament is there is only one undefeated team after it is all said and done.  Each of the other 63+ teams will have a loss in the one and done event.  Everyone wants to win.  Everyone wants to make the Sweet Sixteen and the Elite Eight.  Everyone wants to get to the Final Four.  With each round, the numbers of teams are halved. Because of this, the level of play is simply more intense and competitive.

The Big Ten had two number one seeds:  Michigan and Illinois.  We had the most teams in the Tourney with nine.  All through the regular season, we were touted as the most competitive and best conference in the country.  We underachieved whereas the Pac-12 with only five teams has overachieved.  By the Sweet Sixteen, Michigan was the only Big Ten team remaining while the PAC-12 had four teams.  Was the Big Ten overrated?  Did they wear each other out during the regular season and Big Ten Tournament?  Probably yes, on both counts.

So far in this game, Michigan is playing sloppy and a bit out of sorts with eight turnovers.  UCLA just took a three-point lead.  Howard will have to do some calming of the troops and draw up some good adjustments at halftime.

Of course, I want to win.  Win or lose, this has been a great season.  Given where their ranking when the season started, they have overachieved by a large measure.  Given the recruiting class that Howard has assemble, the future is very bright.  The Michigan faithful are beginning to consider ourselves a basketball school instead of a football school.

Why can’t we be both?

Getting Lost on YouTube.

 

I am prone to surf around YouTube.  Most of the time when I do this, it is music related.  I watch favorites and explore pieces I have never heard before.  Time literally flies when I do this.  I think I have only been watching for a few minutes and always surprised that it has actually been more like a few hours.

This evening, rather than watch on my computer, I dialed up YouTube on the TV and surfed from my easy chair. 

I started out with the Persian song I should be playing and recording for the University of Chicago Middle Eastern Music Ensemble which is actually due tonight.  The more I hear this song, Rosvaye Zamaneh composed by Homayoun Khorram and sung masterfully by Alireza Ghorbani, the more I like it.  There is a school of thought that Persian music is the oldest and most organized music in the Middle East and that the Arab and Turkish modal systems are derived from the Persian system.

 

YouTube then selected another Persian song.  I actually thought it was Mexican band at first simply by the look of the fellow playing the classical guitar.  I quickly changed my mind when I noticed the setar and bendir.  The song Ahouhye Farari by the Hooniak Band was a pleasure to listen to.  As their website is only in English, I am guessing they might be UK or US based.  I like the singer Azadeh and how she plays to the camera.   

 

If I am listening to Persian music, I always have to listen something by Viken Derderian (1929 – 2003) the Armenian Iranian composer and singer who is credited with bringing the guitar into Persian music.  He is sometimes referred to the King of Iranian Pop.  My favorite song of his is Chera Nemiraghase which is wonderful toe-tapping 6/8.  There is an Armenian version, Heranum, that was recorded on Mid-Eastern Soul featuring Bob Tashjian and Souren Baronian.  Here is Viken’s version.

 

At this time, I needed to listen to music from Kharpert where three quarters of my grandparents came from.  There is a favorite YouTube of mine that I have not watched in at least year.  This was the perfect night for this music video.  There is or was a TV show on TRT called Ben Aladoluym.  This episode features the music of Kharpert.  The YouTube version is  titled Elazığ Harput Kürsübaşı Geceleri.

 

The music sounds very familiar in the melodic parts and less so in the vocal chants which sounds more Turkish than Armenian.  Of course, perception is all in the ears of the beholder.  The first song they perform is Elazığ Uzun Çarşı.  Darn if doesn’t sound a lot like Hele Hele that we attribute to Dikranagerd.

The video features Mehmet Şerif Çeçen on the clarinet.  He plays a style of the clarinet that is very similar to the style the Armenian kef.  Almost all of the important clarinet players in Turkey are Roma.  I do not believe Mehmet Şerif is Roma.  I am not sure if he is Turkish or Kurdish.  I am, however, sure that he is very good especially in the music of the region.  A Facebook friend from one of the villages of Kharpert informed me when Mehmet passed away a few years ago.  I wish I might have met him.  Here is an excellent video of him playing with the Harput Senfoni.   

 

The fellow playing the kanun in the first video is another son of Kharpert:  Turgay Coskun.  I have actually corresponded with him.  He is a pretty friendly fellow which is definitely reflected in his on-stage persona.  He is featured in a wonderful video of him leading a group playing music from Kerkuk that are also, from what I can gather, popular in modern day Kharpert.  (Someone more knowledgeable than I will have to enlighten me).  As far as I can tell, the 10/8 songs are popular in both cities.   Turgay sings a signature song of his, Kaladan Kalaya Şahin Uçurdum, on this clip as well.  

 

I ended the evening watching videos featuring or related to Ara Dinkjian.  The first was Ağladıkça based on Ara’s song Picture sung by the late Kurdish singer Ahmet Kaya whose wife wrote the words.  The second was another composition of Ara’s, Anna TolYa and Homecoming, performed with the NY Gypsy All Stars at Princeton in 2017.  I wrote the following on Facebook about Ara:

Playing at a high level is certainly admirable, composing exceptionally touching and memorable pieces is even more impressive. Doing both... well that is Ara Dinkjian.

17th Anniversary

 

February came and went.  I wrote twelve bloggy bits which is well above the average all the seventeen years I have been doing this.  But it was less than half of what I had done in December and January.

One thing I did not do was to write an anniversary piece which I do every year.  February marked the 17th Anniversary of This Side of Fifty.  

I began sharing my writing in February 2004.  It began with a monthly e-letter.  I had been keeping a journal in which I was writing a page a day, approximately 500 words a day, since June 25, 2002.  I started that journal, that regimen of daily writing, on my 49^th birthday.  The idea was to turn it into a book which I had what I thought was a rather catchy and clever title, An Attempted Midlife Crisis.  The premise was supposed to be a thoughtful, insightful, engaging, and comical documentation of a guy doing what he might to turn 50 on a good note.

That did not work out as planned.  There was no book.  The writing just wasn't thoughtful, insightful, engaging, or comical enough.  In February 2004, I did start sharing my writing on via a monthly e-letter which I sent to friends and family.  I modeled it after a more famous monthly letter inspired by the noted Armenian lawyer Aram Kevorkian.  I used to email these letters to a mailing list that grew about 350 people.  The e-letter was titled This Side of Fifty with a subtitle of A Monthly Letter of Musings and Meanderings.  My friend, morning commute train mate, and a natural marketer, Marilyn Zavidow, was instrumental naming the e-letter.  She The story is summarized nicely in the first e-letter simple titled:  February 2004. 

In January of 2009, I transitioned to a more convenient and easier to share blog format.  I kept the same name and subtitle, and continued to write a lengthy monthly letter through that year.  In 2010, in the depths of the Great Recession, I started to write more than once a month except for in June.  From 2012 – 2015, I wrote at least twice a month.  2016 and 2017, my writing really waned at the expense of “my day job.”  2017, was so bad, only 8 posts the entire year, that I really thought I was going to quit altogether.  It would have been a good thirteen-year run.   But, I got a second wind in 2018, which has lasted to this day. 

This past December, I was concerned that this blog is not really focused on a theme like many others are.  My writing was all over the pace. I was wondering if I should try to find a theme.  I do believe I completely forgot the subtitle, musings and meanderings.  I do have a theme and I am pretty true to it.  I see no reason to change.

This is my hobby along with playing music.  It has been fun and mind expanding.  Based on the feedback from people I respect, I believe I am an above average writer.  Most importantly, I am happy with my style.  I am also happy that I want more from this including constantly honing this craft and perhaps writing a book or six.

Thanks for all the support and encouragement these many years.

Contagion: The One Year Anniversary

It seemed like a good
plan back then...

 

It is hard to pick the anniversary date for when the pandemic “officially” started.  It was, after all, kind of a rolling start. 

For me, that slow roll “officially” started on March 2, 2020.  It was a Monday.  We had Faculty Senate meeting that day at 10:30.  I had been hearing about this virus of a couple months, but it was all in China and seemed remote much like the SARS scare in the early 2000s.  So, I was not taking it seriously.  During the last two weeks of February, there were reports that the virus was on the move internationally.  The first cases in the US were reported in Seattle and LA (l believe).  The first case in Illinois was reported about the same time.

It was beginning to look like we should be taking this thing a bit more seriously than we were.  I suppose this not so novel insight was the result of years of contingency planning in my corporate career.  The high point, or low point depending how you look at it, was in 1999 when I had the distinct honor of being on the Y2K Task Force at Colgate Palmolive.  I certainly got great training in contingency planning using probability of occurrence (sometimes called risk), impact on the business, and cost of mitigation all for amazing charade foisted on the world by the Gartner Group.

So, I am sitting at the Senate Meeting, which coincidently was the last one we had face-to-face.  I was reflecting on a report I heard on NPR that morning that brought this Corona, Covid, thing to front and center in my mind.  During the new business, unforeseen question, or “does anyone have anything else to say about anything” portion of the meeting.  I raised my hand, was acknowledged, and asked a simple question:  “This virus thing seems to be getting more serious press and attention with each passing day, are we doing any planning in this regard at the university.  As we have heard nothing, I am assuming that there has been no activity in this regard.  We should take a closer look at this.”  A colleague in the math department agreed with me.  The Provost was in attendance and said he would look into it.

Later that afternoon, I found myself in an email exchange initiated by the math professor or the Provost.  By the weekend, I was attending live face-to-face meetings with a newly established task force trying to decide what to do and when.  The decisions were not easy but inevitable as I saw it.  It took a while for everyone to reach consensus and do what practically every other university in the country decided to:  move all classes online.

Our task force moved online as well.  We continued to meet every weekday through the end of June, planning for the fall term.  Then we started to take a few days off here and there.  We have met at least three times a week for a year, with the exception of the Christmas holiday.  But, we have made it work without major incidents or risks.  It has not been easy and probably has been more difficult for some. 

Everyone wishes we could return to the normal campus life.

It is unclear if and when that will happen.  We have figured out how to have classes in what we call a hybrid mode.  That is where some of the class is in the classroom face-to-face and the rest are online using Zoom or MS Teams.  I do not think that will change.  This video conference technology for sure will eliminate a favorite of students and teachers of all ages, namely, the snow day.  If snows to the point everyone has to stay home, we will just have class online.  Can’t make the class because of not feeling well, sleeping in, doctor’s appointment, alarm didn’t go off, or whatever excuse?  No problem, we record every session.  Students can watch it whenever they want.  So, most definitely, the old normal will not be the new normal.

Of course, everything I have written about is nothing compared to the number of people who died from this virus.  This is the very sobering and very sad part of this whole thing.

It is hard to believe it has been a year. 

A Good Day

 

Today was the day scheduled to get my COVID vaccine.  My appointment was at a hospital 23 miles from at a hospital in Chicago.  I was like many others I know that were getting their vaccines wherever they could.  I have a friend in Detroit that somehow arranged to get his vaccine in Grand Rapids, clear on the other side of the state. 

My appointment was at 9:15 in the morning.  Even though it was Saturday morning, I left at 8 am as one can never predict how good or bad traffic might be in Chicago.  There was very little traffic.  It was a breeze driving and only took 40 minutes.  It was a gorgeous spring like morning to drive.  At a stop light in the city, I took the photo from the car of the impressive steeple behind a build out of the 1930s or 40s.  A simple pleasure. 

Just after I got my shot in the room with ten vaccination stations, a nurse asked for everyone’s attention.  She was standing next to a fellow and she said, “I would just like to announce that this gentleman, getting his first dose of the vaccine, is 101 years old.”  Wow.  That was awesome.  He was a veteran of WWII and looked amazingly trim and younger than 101.  I would have easily believed he was 70.  Another simple and special pleasure.

After the vaccine shot, as per the protocol, I waited with others in a room to make sure we didn’t have any adverse reactions to the vaccine.  It was no biggie, just time to peruse a section of the Wall Street Journal. 

It was time for the drive home… which, as it turned out, was kind of a nuisance.

GPS guided me to I-94 a few miles away.  Cool.  I would hop on I-94 West and head North (yeah, I know) home.  The on ramp, however, was closed for construction.  No problem, I just headed North on the next main street.  After a few miles of stop and go traffic, there was another sign to turn right onto an eastbound street to turn left onto I-94 West again to go North again.  This second on ramp was also closed for construction.  Are you kidding me?

So, I headed further east to the next main north bound drag.  I turned left and went few more stop and go miles, to the next sign that said to turn left to get on I-94 West.  I turned left and head home at something more than a crawl.  But, as you might have guessed, this third on ramp was also closed… for construction.

I repeated the go West, head North again, until the next que to turn right again drill.  Luckily, the fourth time, a full 40 minutes later, was the charm. 

My operations management sense of things was on full alert.  Who was responsible and how did they come up with the idea to close at least 3 successive I-94 West on ramps?  This seems to be a very Chicago thing to do.  It makes no sense.  Do every other one for crying out loud. 

Why do I say it is a very Chicago thing to do?  Well, there are like six exit ramps closed on eastbound I-94 in downtown Chicago.  Six exit ramps in a row are closed in the main freeway through the downtown of the third largest city in the US.  To top it off, it has been like this for like two years and they are still not done!  The words pork-barrel, graft, corruption, and ineptitude are bandied about in my head every time I drive through the city.  I hope the closures I experienced today do not last anywhere near that long.

Despite the delays and the inconvenience, getting the second dose of the vaccine, the beauty of the sunny springlike day, and the simple pleasures dominated and kept any frustration at bay.  I called my cousin and caught up with her on the way home.  I then called my friend and he invited me to his office for some tacos. 

All in all, it was a good day.

I’ve Been Reading… Some More

 

On December 14, 2020, I posted a piece:  I’ve Been Reading.  I had ambitious plans to read more during the Christmas break between semesters.  I had a book by William Saroyan, Rock Wagram, which Harry Kezelian suggested as the next Saroyan I should read.  I had bought a book that an article I read somewhere suggested as good holiday read:  Naïve. Super. by Erlend Loe, a Norwegian writer.   From having watched Ford v Ferrari several times, I became obsessed with learning more about Henry Ford II and Detroit during his time as the lead Ford Motor.  I bought two books:  Henry:  A Life of Henry Ford II by Walter Hayes.  Amazon suggested that I also buy Once in a Great City:  A Detroit Story by David Maraniss. 

I had these books queued up.  In other words, they were stacked on an end table in my study.  I read the Loe book.  It started slow and got better.  It was about a disillusioned graduate student that quit, basically everything, to find himself.  It had a refreshingly positive air about it.  I thought it was written recently and thus a commentary on the late 2010s.  I was kind of surprised to learn that it was written in 1996.  It could have been written in 1968.  In essence, it is a timeless book which why it seems to be so popular.

After finishing the Loe book, I started reading the Henry Ford II, the Maraniss book on Detroit, and Rock Wagram books at the same time.  Rock Wagram fell by the wayside quickly but still in the queue.  It was interesting to read the Henry Ford II biography and the Maraniss book on Detroit at the same time.  The Walter Hayes book is a good read but basically an homage, a tribute piece, on The Deuce.   This was not a huge surprise given that Hayes was a public relations executive at Ford Motor Company.  The Maraneiss book was not unkind to The Deuce and provided a good counterpoint to the Hayes book.

I loved the Marinass book.  He took just one year that he believed was pivotal in the history of the city and wrote about all the major events.  The year was 1963.  In actuality the book began in late 1962 and finished up in early 1964.  I was ten years old and lived in the city at the time. 

The book began with the fire that the destroyed Ford Rotunda in late 1962 and the demise of the Gotham Hotel a center of black culture and gathering in the city, the civil rights march featuring Martin Luther King, the rise of Motown, the racial tensions in the city, the Kennedy assassination, the failed bid to become the host city for the 1968 Olympics, and much more.  The city was riding high, the auto industry had a banner year, and the future looked bright.  But, 1963 was a peak year of the post-World War II history of the city.  The seeds of issues thatwould cause the 1967

While I was not born in Detroit, I lived there from the age of 2 until 37 when work took me to New York/Connecticut and then to Chicago where I currently live.  I lived in Detroit for 35 years and elsewhere for 33. 

My time in Detroit were special as they were my formative years, the years of adolescence, my entire education, my family, my friends.  I was married there.  My children were born there.  There were things I loved about Detroit and Southeastern Michigan that engrained in my memories and have contributed to who I am.  There are also aspects that I would have changed if I could.  I imagine almost everyone could make similar statements about where they live and where they grew up.  These books gave me a perspective on the era that my ten-year-old self didn’t have. 

In March of 1963, a report was issued by Wayne State University’s Institute for Regional and Urban Studies.  The study, “The Population Revolution in Detroit, was led Albert J. Mayer, sociologist.  The report, in retrospect, was ominous.  They forecast that Detroit would lose a quarter of it’s population in the next ten years.  “Present population trends clearly demonstrate that the city is, by and large, being abandoned by all except those who suffer from relatively great housing, education and general economic depravations.”  It foretold what would be called white flight from the city and the subsequent erosion of the city’s tax base that would lead to the near collapse of the city that culminated with the 2013 declaration of bankruptcy.  The report, per Maraniss, got little press coverage or credence.

Leaving Detroit was not easy.  In retrospect, it was the best thing I could have done for my career and thus arguably for my family.  I probably wouldn’t have had the corporate success I have had if I had stayed in Detroit and worked in the auto industry.  I loved working in automotive, but New York, Colgate-Palmolive, and the consumer goods industry was more suited to my personality and temperament.  Moving to Chicago, minus a couple of years in the depth of the Great Recession, was also a great move.  I fulfilled a dream of being a college professor.  It is the best retirement career or hobby, I am not sure which actually, I could ask for.

It is fascinating to be studying the history of the great city I grew up in.

Rediscovering the Moka Pot

 

Our Keurig and Moka Pot

In the midst of my recent blogging flurry in December, I posted a piece, A Lesson in a Cup of Coffee?, on December 13^th.  It was about the simple pleasures in life such as a good cup of coffee and how this pandemic has helped me appreciate the little things in life.

Recently, I found an old coffee maker that used for several years before we got our Keurig.  It is a classic stove top Italian espresso maker.  It is a simple design with a water reservoir, metallic funnel like filter that holds the coffee and nestles into the water reservoir.  A top pot with a handle screws on to the bottom, the water boils and, as it is designed on the same principle of a pressure cooker, steam is forced up through the ground coffee.  The infused steam is forced into the top part, up another spindle, and cools back to the liquid state.

I didn’t actually find the coffee maker; I knew where it was.  I rather found myself wanting to bring it out and use it.  I filled the maker with water, opened vacuum packed bag of Café Bustelo and scooped some into the funnel, screwed on the top and put it on the stove.  TheThe total time it took to prepare to pour it into a cup was not much longer than making a Keurig cup.  The taste?  Forget about it.  It was as good or better than the Starbucks Americano at even less than the k-cup cost. 

This wonderful little coffee maker was invented by Antonio Bialetti in 1933.  His original design was made of aluminum and essentially unchanged to this day.  It is called the Moka Pot after the city, Mocha, in Yemen where coffee is believed to come from.  The most popular size Moka Pot makes about three expressos.  As the design is relatively simple, you can buy one for around $30 and they last a long time with normal cleaning.  There are a variety of companies that make Moka Pots with some selling the two times the price using stainless steel.  Mine is black and, I believe, a generic brand.  I believe I bought for less than $20 at TJ Maxx.

In the 1930s, Bialetti’s company only sold 70,000 units.  Production was stopped during World War II due to a shortage in Aluminum and the high cost of coffee.  Afterwards, the marketing improved and people clamored for the Moka Pot that was considerably less money and took up considerably less space than traditional espresso machines.  Bialetti’s Moka Pot brought quality espresso into the homes of the common man. 

By the turn of the century, 220 million of these pots had been sold.  As of last year, 330 million had been sold.  I am on my second one and I have had it for fifteen years. 

There was an article in the New York Times published on January 26 for this year:  Why We Love the Bialetti Moka Pot.  I was unaware of the timely article until today when I was researching this piece.  How did I miss this article?  The author Sarah Witman tested the Bialetti using Café Bustelo against other Moka Pots.  She loves her Moka Pot.  As do I.  

 

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