Coming Up For Air

Hard to believe, I suppose, but there it is… my last entry was posted on April 1 (All Fools Day), and despite my best efforts to ignore my blog and devote myself to reading, people have kept visiting this site, and to my amazement (and confusion), I’ve even gained a couple of followers during my self-imposed exile.
I also discovered recently that a blog called Eleni’s Blog in Ikaria recently featured The Compleat Traveller as her blog of the month. In keeping with the focus of her own blog, Eleni has specifically chosen to feature my numerous entries about the Greek island of Ikaria, my ancestral home in the Aegean Sea.
I had hoped to return to Ikaria this year, but I have decided instead to make my third trip to America, so Greece and my island ‘home’ will have to wait for another twelve months or so. Meanwhile, thank you Eleni for the honor, and I commend my readers to Eleni’s Blog in Ikaria and hope you enjoy her writing and mine.

Apple iPad 2
Apart from continuing my reading streak, I bought a 64Gb iPad 2 at the start of June, and I have been discovering its many joys and features ever since. In fact, I am rarely away from it, and amongst other things, I have been testing its potential as an eBook reader. To that end I have downloaded over a hundred free eBooks from that wonderful repository of public domain books at Gutenberg.Org, and already read a dozen of them. I have also bought and read one other book, Peter Bergen’s Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search For Osama Bin Laden.
I finally made the move to iPad and eBooks after my bookshelf began to fill to capacity, and I realised that I just had to make the transition from physical books to digital reading before my passion for books got totally out of control.
It seems to have worked.
Since purchasing the iPad, I have only bought a couple of physical books and the more I use the device to read, the less I feel the need to buy ‘hard copies’ of the printed word.
Of course, the iPad has many other functions and uses, and I am planning to make it my main digital companion on my forthcoming trip to America. On previous trips I have lugged a heavy laptop around with me, but I am going to see how I can get by with my new purchase. I am hopeful that I can do pretty much everything I will need to do while on the road, and where it does not suffice, I will use internet cafés.
Anyway, I’m alive and well, and looking forward to travelling again, and making the occasional blog post here. Oh, and it’s good to be back. I think.

The Travelling Bookworm

I have been consuming books at a great rate over the last three months, which accounts for the lack of entries on this ‘travel’ blog. It also reflects the fact that I haven’t been travelling much over the past year – although I did spend five weeks house sitting in Melbourne during January and February. In fact, my Melbourne stay has been responsible in part for my return to reading. The city has some great second hand bookshops, and on my return to Adelaide, I carried with me a carton of 22 books that I just could not ignore as I trawled through my favourite stores.

I used to have a collection of several thousand books, but five or six years ago I sold my house and have been living in a series of rented accommodations ever since. As a result, I got rid of the bulk of my collection, with the rest packed in boxes, which are in turn stacked in my niece’s shed.

The previous collection of books covered everything from folk music to folk tales, history to fantasy, fiction and non-fiction, politics and art, and much more. Sadly, I never seemed to have time to read most of the books I bought. They just took up space on the bookshelves waiting patiently for the day when I would finally find the time to devote to them. Unfortunately, that time never came.

However, now that I am pretty much retired, I have plenty of time to read, and that is what I have been doing. Most of my new, small, but growing collection of books deals with 17th and 18th century history as it relates to the United States and Europe. I have also become interested (in a very general way) with architecture, art, and philosophy. To lighten my reading list, I try to mix non fiction titles in amongst the serious tomes, and I must say, I have found my renewed enthusiasm for reading quite addictive and of course stimulating and educational.

I can’t imagine why you would be interested, but here for the record is a list of the books I have read to date in 2012:

Books Read in January

1.      At The Edge of a Dream: The Story of Jewish Immigration on New York’s Lower East Side 1880–1920

2. Imperial City: The Rise and Rise of New York, Geoffrey Moorhouse
3. The French and Indian War, Walter R. Borneman
4. Will Rogers, by Ben Yogoda
5. Winter’s Bone, Daniel Woodrell
6. To Reach The Clouds, by Phillipe Petit
7. Bird Cloud: A Memoir, by Annie Proulx

Books Read in February

8. City Life, by Witold Rybczynski
9. Architectural Details, by Marcia Reiss
10. Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy’s Guide, By Joseph Epstein
11. Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig
12. How The Industrial Revolution Changed The World, by Thomas Crump
13. All That Follows, by Jim Crace

Books Read in March

14. The Way West, by A.B. Guthrie
15. History of Pirates, by Charlotte Montague
16. Midnight in The Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt
17. Red Silk: The Life of Elliott Johnston QC, by Penelope Debelle
18. The Potomac, by Frederick Gutheim
19. An Australian in America, David Dale

Roosevelt Dime

“In these troubled times, everyone needs a Roosevelt Dime”

One of the great things about travel is the chance to discover new music and exciting venues in the cities and countries you pass through. I don’t much go for hanging out in bars and clubs, but music venues, yes.

Friday 13, August 2010 turned out to be a lucky day for me. On that day I was wandering through Greenwich Village’s Washington Square Park during my New York City stay when my attention was caught by some of the happiest, liveliest music I had heard in more years than I care to recall. It seemed to be a mix of jazz, old timey music, folk, and that modern musical marketing segment known as Americana.

The group turned out to be Roosevelt Dime, an outfit I had never heard of, but which I immediately fell in love with and became a big fan of. They were in fact, indulging in some good old fashioned audience building. That is, they were out where the people were, playing for them live and for free. They were also promoting that evening’s gig at one of my favourite New York venues, The Bitter End.

Of course, I had to see catch their show. As it happens, I already had a ticket to see another one of my favourite American singer-songwriters, Steve Forbert, who was performing at Joe’s Pub on Lafayette Avenue that same night. However, as soon as that show finished I raced around to the Bitter End, and was delighted to find that Roosevelt Dime had only just taken to the stage.

The band is building its support base, one fan at a time. It is slow, hard work, but Roosevelt Dime seem to in it for the long haul, and know that there are no easy fixes on the road to bigger and more appreciative audiences.

If like me, you like what you hear, buy their music, and support their gigs – especially if you live in New York City and near abouts. Their website lists upcoming gigs in the New York area. Foot tapping fun for everyone is pretty much guaranteed.

"A perpetual crowd-pleaser, Roosevelt Dime often has commuters soulfully stomping their feet in the subway and passersby lindy-hopping in the park."

Tze Chun - The New York Times (June 7, 2010)