Late December, 2018

The recovery from Hurricanes Irma and Maria is continuing. There is progress, but there continue to be issues. Below I’ll give snippets of various topics. My information is from the San Juan Star, the English language newspaper here, unless otherwise noted.

Federal Government Shut Down

The Federal government is shut down as I write this. I’m not sure of all the effects this will have here. At a minimum, the forts in Old San Juan (El Moro and San Cristobal), operated by the National Park Service, will have shut down, as would El Yunque, the tropical rain forest on the northeastern end of the island.

The government here is watching carefully. An extended shut down might slow the flow of relief funds from Washington to Puerto Rico. For example, government officials fear delays in funds for the Nutritional Assistance Program, $40 billion for reconstruction, and $3 billion for the health program here. And there are probably other funds in the pipeline that could be delayed if the shut down continues.

Border Security

Puerto Rico attracts at least a few illegals. The US Coast Guard has primary responsibility for stopping them. Just last week, the Coast Guard stopped 41 nationals from the Dominican Republic found crossing the Mona Passage. A Coast Guard spokesman said they were traveling in unseaworthy makeshift vessels. They were all repatriated to the Dominican Republic.

In a separate incident, the Silver Wind of the Silver Sea Cruise Line came across a small boat taking on water. The cruise ship rescued 13 Dominican migrants from it. They were treated with a ride to the Barbados, the Silver Wind’s next port off call. There they were turned over to local authorities.

I hope President Trump doesn’t hear of this. He might want to build a wall around Puerto Rico. I think even an attractive steel slat wall would be a bad idea here. What do you think?

Death Toll

Generating an accurate death toll from Hurricane Maria proved more challenging than one would have thought. The governor, last February, acknowledged the difficulty when he commissioned a study by the School of Public Health at George Washington University. In August, the researchers returned with an estimate of nearly 3,000 deaths attributable to the storm and its aftermath. This was far more than the original, official estimates.

Governor Rossello created a 9/20 Committee to assist the government in revising death certification procedures. The goal is to improve information management regarding fatalities caused by natural disasters.

Coffee

The coffee industry here suffered greatly from Hurricane Maria. The crop was pretty much wiped out. But there is hope. Two varieties of coffee plants are grown here – Limani and Fronton – and plants have been germinated from seeds and are now in the ground.

In addition, the Starbucks Foundation donated seeds of a third variety, the Marsellesa, and the seeds have survived the required quarantine period. Soon the seeds will be distributed to nurseries and then, after they grow into small, sturdy tress, will be distributed to coffee plantations. It will be about three years before these plants begin producing beans.

I feel better now about getting my morning coffee at the Starbucks in Condado.

We went to an historic coffee plantation and processing plant a few years ago. Our good friends Marilu and Mundo took us. It was in the mountains north of Ponce. I had my camera but for some reason I don’t have many images of it. So the image below will have to do.

Street Lights

PREPA, the Puerto Rican Power Authority, is responsible for for about 220,000 street lights around the island. Other entities, cities, town, Department of Transportation, are responsible for others. Of the PREPA lights, 106,000 are still out. In a recent government hearing, PREPA acknowledged it did not have enough crews to do the necessary repairs in a timely fashion. PREPA stated it would start hiring contractors to help, and expects their efforts to start by February, 2019.

The reporter noted: “It was not immediately clear why it took so long to reach this realization.”

Indeed.

I did note local contractors working on the street lights in Old San Juan. They’ve all been restored and the old city looks very welcoming.

I don’t know who is responsible for the lights on the bus lane in back of our building. They still await repair.

PREPA

PREPA is for sale. The government issued a RFQ – Request for Qualifications – from interested parties early last month. The government here wants a company interested in managing and operating all facets of the energy distribution and transmission system. This will be accomplished via a public-private partnership. According to a statement by Governor Rossello, the winning company will be expected to transform and modernize Puerto Rico’s energy system. In fact, the government has a stated goal that, by 2050, all energy generated here will be from renewable sources. So the winning company will have to work with that expectation.

By the way, Puerto Rico currently generates about 5,500 MWs of energy, the vast majority from fossil fuels – natural gas, diesel, and fuel oil. Solar arrays account for about 140 MW, and hydro-power another 156 MW.

There are, as you might expect, many opinions about the power system here. In one initiative, the Rocky Mountain Institute, in conjunction with Save the Children, plans to install micro-grids to power 12 schools. The first, at an elementary school in Orocovis, includes a rooftop solar array (of about 15 kWh capacity) and a large lithium-ion battery. The whole system, including the expenses for rewiring the school, cost about $120,000. It is expected that excess energy will be sold to PREPA thus generating a revenue stream for the school.

On a larger scale, another group is advocating for the use of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), a technology being developed in the states. SMRs have a generation capacity of between 50 and 300 MW. In one proposal, the SMRs would be placed underground and thus less prone to hurricane damage. The fundamental idea, as I understand it, is that SMRs would be spread around the island creating a series of interconnected generation and transmission grids.

That would seem to be an improvement over the current situation. The largest generation plants are on the island’s south coast. That means the main transmission lines have to traverse the mountains to get to the more populated northern coast. The transmission lines proved to be vulnerable and suffered great damage during the hurricanes.

As might be expected, the mere mention of nuclear energy created a backlash. Representative Denis Marquez Lebron, of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), introduced a bill in the house to prohibit the ‘generation of nuclear energy.’ Those are apparently his words. I’m not exactly sure what he was trying to say. Marquez, in his speech, referred to the Ukraine (obviously Chernobyl) and Japan (Fukushima) as reasons to ban nuclear energy here.

In early December, the government revealed it had received RFQs from five interested companies, not yet identified. The government did note that they were regulated international energy companies, whatever that means.

Pork

Puerto Ricans love their pork. Many families travel to lechoneras outside of the cities, but especially in towns in the mountains. A lechonera is a pork barbecue – whole animals are cooked for hours over an open fire. When they are ready, you can choose whatever part of the pig you want. Pork liver? Give me a minute. Spare ribs? Not a problem. Kidneys? Coming right up.

There are numerous side dishes available: tostones (fried plaintain chips), amarilla (sweet yellow plaintain, arroz (rice), among others. And it is almost always swilled down with Medalla, the local beer.

But there’s trouble in trotter town. There’s a shortage of pigs.

This would seem to be an easy problem to fix. Put a male pig with a female pig (or two or three – I admit to ignorance when it comes to swine husbandry) and problem solved. So it must be more complicated than that.

My guess is the swine infrastructure was damaged, and therefore the growers missed some generations of little piglets. But, according to the paper, this situation is temporary. And that should make the pork-lovers of Puerto Rico happy.

Hotels

Many of the large hotels in Puerto were damaged, some extensively. Here is a list of some of the major hotels and their current status.

• Ritz Carlton Dorado Beach – reopened.
• El San Juan Hotel, Isla Verde – reopened June 1.
• Vendanza Hotel, Isla Verde – reopened August 1.
• Dorado Beach Hotel, Dorado – reopened October 1.
• St. Regis at Bahia Beach, Rio Grande – reopened October 29.
• Caribe Hilton, San Juan – closed until the summer, accepting reservations as of December 21.
• W Retreat and Spa, Vieques – reopens December 31.
• Condado Plaza Hilton, Condado – undergoing renocations, no opening date announced.

I walk past the Caribe Hilton a couple of times a week. During the week, a crew of workers is toiling away. Weekends, not so much.

Cock Fighting

This is not directly related to Hurricane Maria and the recovery efforts arising from it. But it is of interest (at least to me) and illustrates the difficulties of a one size fits all approach to regulations.

President Trump signed the so-called Farm Bill last week. One provision bans cock fighting in the US and its territories. Cock fighters here are livid, and promise they will take their sport underground.

Cock fighting is actually a pretty big business here. There are 70 cock fighting arenas around the island. One estimate suggests the industry generates $18 million annually, and is responsible for 117,000 direct and indirect jobs.

I wonder how one takes cock fighting underground. Do you create make-shift arenas in the mountains? Will they be close to the lechoneras? That would make for a nice day – watch (and bet) on cock fights, and then eat barbecue.

I’ve never been to a cock fight. Maybe I’ve missed my chance. I was in a bar one night and watched some cock fights on television. They were less bloody that I would have thought. When one bird established an advantage, the handler of the losing bird removed his animal from the ring. So it was not a fight to the death.

That I was in a bar, drinking beer and watching televised cock fights, probably shows just how much I have fallen. But its been a fun ride.

Background

The US  flagged cargo ship El Faro crashed into the bottom of the sea at 7 33 AM the morning of October 1, 2015. She carried all 33 crew members with her. A network of hydrophones picked up the sound of the impact. The hydrophone operators, a branch of the US military, were not sure what the noise was. When, some time later, they learned an American cargo ship had disappeared they realized the noise was the El Faro hitting the ocean floor.

The El Faro was an unusual ship. She carried both vehicles, cars and truck trailers, and containers. More modern ships carry only containers – those ubiquitous rectangular boxes you see every day on highways, backed up to loading docks, stacked two high on freight trains, even higher on container ships.

She also carried a Voyage Data Recorder, a ship’s black box.  The bridge was equipped with six microphones. The recorder captured 26 hours of dialogue leading up to the sinking. Rachel Slade used the bridge conversations in her compelling story of the El Faro. Her book, Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-three Mariners, One Megastorm. and the Sinking of El Faro, describes the precarious state of the US Merchant Marine, changes in the shipping industry, and El Faro’s fatal encounter with Hurricane Joaquin.

The Jones Act

The El Faro was assigned to the Jacksonville – San Juan trade route. As required by the Jones Act, all sea shipments from the US mainland to US states or territories have to go by US flagged and crewed ships. The Jones Act helps maintain a viable merchant marine, generates high-paying jobs, and allegedly raises costs.

The Jones Act, passed during the Woodrow Wilson administration, was clearly protectionist. One would have to think that the higher costs of American ships and sailors would be reflected in economic costs. Slade cites the World Economic Forum as stating the Act costs Americans at least $200 million a year (Slade, p. 141).

The results from other studies are not so clear cut. The American Maritime Partnership, in 2018, sponsored a study be economists in Boston (Reeves & Associates) and Puerto Rico (Estudioes Tecnicos). They concluded that transportation costs have no impact on retail costs on the island.  Their methodology included a comparison of the prices of consumer goods in Jacksonville and San Juan.

I wondered just who or what the American Maritime Partnership is. I visited their website (google it – you’ll find it). Here’s a quote from the Who We Are section:  The American Maritime Partnership (AMP) is the broadest, deepest coalition ever assembled to represent the domestic maritime industry. I’ll leave to you to wonder if the results might be biased in one way or another.

The Government Accounting Office, at the request of Congress, studied the potential effects of modifying the Jones Act. You can read it here.

The GAO noted that many foreign-flagged vessels visit the Port of San Juan. They carry things like Argentinian beef, Chilean wines, Peruvian mangoes, Korean cars, and Chinese steel. Since this is international trade, Jones Act restrictions do not apply.

The Jones Act requirements have created a discrete shipping market between the US and Puerto Rico. Four Jones Act carriers operate scheduled vehicle and container service between US ports and San Juan. They are Crowley, Horizon, Tote, and Trailer Bridge. They collectively offer both Ro/Ro (roll on/roll off, trailers and vehicles) and container service. Travel times from Jacksonville range from four days for the faster container ships to seven days for towed barges filled with parked trailers. The GAO report suggests that most shippers were happy with the service provided by these carriers.

The El Faro

The El Faro, then named Puerto Rico, was built in 1975 specifically for the Jones Act Puerto Rican trade. She was built by the Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Corporation in Chester, PA. (All Jones Act ships have to be made in US shipyards, of US steel, by US shipbuilders). As originally constructed, the Puerto Rico was a roll on, roll off ship, with three decks available for cars and trailers.

The Puerto Rico was the younger sister of the Ponce de Leon. They, with one identical sister ship, revolutionized the US – Puerto Rico trade. The three ships were large (700 feet long) and fast. They provided scheduled service back and forth for trailers and cars.

In 1993, Tote, her new owner, had her lengthened by 90 feet in an Alabama shipyard. As Slade points out, this was a major conversion and the ship should have been brought to then current standards. The new standards required enclosed lifeboats. However,Tote argued against this expense and the US Coast Guard allowed the Puerto Rico to continue sailing with the two open lifeboats (Slade, 94). After the conversion, the ship, now named Northern Lights, plied the Tacoma, WA – Anchorage, AK route, another Jones Act route. She also sailed under charter to and from the Persian Gulf carrying military vehicles and supplies for the Gulf Wars.

By the way, if you want to gain a better understanding of an enclosed lifeboat, watch the movie Captain Phillips.  The captain and three Somali pirates leave a hijacked container ship in one.

But the shipping industry was changing. Containers were more flexible than trailers – the boxes were removed from a truck chassis at the originating port, stacked on a ship, and placed on a chassis in the arriving port. Special cranes did the lifting.  Ports around the world adapted to the new world of containerization.

Tote responded by modifying the now-renamed El Faro. Starting in 2003, the top deck was converted to carry stacks of containers. Once again, Tote’s lawyers argued successfully to retain the open lifeboats and not install a more modern enclosed lifeboat, as required by regulation. Somehow, the load line was raised by two feet, meaning the ship could carry more cargo by being deeper in the water.  These and other changes escaped the notice of the Coast Guard (Slade, 174).

So, in 2015, the El Faro was 40 years old.  She had been modified twice but still had the obsolete lifeboats. Her replacement, the Isla Bella, was ready for testing and would soon replace her. The El Faro left Jacksonville during the evening of September 29, 2015, with a cargo of 391 containers, 118 trailers, and 149 cars – 25 million pounds of cargo. She was heading into a storm.

Joaquin

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami routinely tracks low pressure areas in the North Atlantic – Caribbean basin.  A low is initially named an invest, which can strengthen to a tropical depression, then to a tropical storm (when it is named), and then a hurricane.

The image above shows three numbered systems in the Atlantic.  Invest 96L brought drenching rains to the Carolinas. Tropical Depression 9 petered out. Tropical Depression 10 became Tropical Storm Ida, which meandered harmlessly about the Central Atlantic before dissipating. Ida, briefly a hurricane, was the ninth named storm of the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season.

The NHC  took notice of a low, named Invest 98L, on Sunday, September 27. It was in the Atlantic, east of the Bahamas, and southeast of Bermuda. Invest 98L strengthened and became Tropical Depression 11 later that day. TD 11 was over warm waters (the warmest in that part of the ocean since records have been kept), which favored strengthening. A high pressure to the north pushed it slowly to the west or west south west. The high generated wind shear, which works against strengthening.

The NHC (and other international agencies) use sophisticated models to predict the intensity and track of gathering storms. TD 11 was a forecasters nightmare. Some models predicted growth to hurricane strength. Other models showed TD 11 being sucked up by the high and dissipating.

In the event, TD 11 became Tropical Storm Joaquin on Tuesday, September 29. It was still a difficult forecast environment, but some models were now predicting growth to a Category 1 hurricane by Thursday. Other models predicted dissipation by the weekend.

The NHC issued a hurricane warning for the Bahamas on Wednesday, September 30. It was now clear that Joaquin would strengthen. In fact, on October 1, Joaquin strengthened from a Category 1 to a Category 3 storm in less than 6 hours.

The diagram above, adapted from Slade, shows the tracks of Hurricane Joaquin and the El Faro. The straight dotted line shows the usual Jacksonville – San Juan route. Captain Davidson steered the El Faro to the west, apparently hoping the small island of San Salvador would provide some protection from the storm.

The Coast Guard

Slade does an excellent job in describing the Coast Guard’s rescue efforts. That they were unsuccessful is no reflection on the courage and professionalism they displayed.

The National Transportation Safety Board

The NTSB investigates transportation accidents involving the loss of life. When available, voice recorders provide important information. However, the Voyage Data Recorder (VDR) was still with the El Faro, somewhere on the bottom of the sea.

Slade does an excellent job of describing the recovery efforts. It took three voyages, with specialized submersibles, to finally bring the VDR to the surface. The El Faro was in deep water, about 15,000 feet. She had broken apart, and her cargo – cars, trailers, containers – was strewn over the bottom of the ocean. Click here to see a video of El Faro captured by one of the submersibles.

Once recovered, the VDR provided useful information. NTSB analysts listed to 26 hours of conversation picked up microphones on the bridge. They were able to identify voices and, for example, learned of the concerns of some of the junior officers as to the course they were steering. These conversations are an integral part of Slade’s story.

The NTSB also conducted formal hearings. Slade attended these, and her account of the ttestimony of the TOTE executives is scathing. They noted again and again that the Captain, and the Captain alone, had complete authority to alter course to avoid foul weather. They did not, however, acknowledge the pressure Captain Davidson was under to bring the ship in on schedule. Nor did they acknowledge the awkward situation he was in, in wondering whether he would get command of the ship destined to replace the El Faro. Rather, the executives’ testimony showed an organization with unclear responsibilities and decision making authority. Click here to see a video of El Faro’s last voyage created by the NTSB. The video describes facts as determined by the NTSB, and makes no judgments. Those are left to the final, written report. If you want to see that, all 300 pages, click here. I found the first part, a narrative describing the sequence of events, most interesting. The report uses conversations picked up the VDR as part of the narrative. The voices are described as First Mate, Able Bodied Seaman, etc. Slade provides background on the voices and introduces you to some of the doomed crew.

Summary

Captain Davidson inexplicably sailed the El Faro into a Category 3 hurricane.  Consequently, the ship sank taking 33 lives with it. Slade’s account is far- ranging and compelling. Highly recommended.

Notes and Sources

Rachel Slade’s book is available from amazon.com. This link will take you right there.  It will be available in paperback in May, 2019. The image of the sunken El Faro is from the NTSB via the Jacksonville Business Journal. Click here for a slide show with more photos. The image of the El Faro in better days is from the web. Click here for more information. The weather images are from Category 6, an excellent blog by meteorologists Bob Henson and Jeff Masters. They are fully referenced there. Click here to see recent posts. I went to the Archives to review posts from late September and early October 2015. The map of the El Faro and Joaquin tracks is from Slade. I took the image of the Isla Bella.  

The Woman With the Green Face is gone – she’s been painted over.

The Head/Heart is gone. The wall it was on came down during construction near the Popular Center in Hato Rey. 

The dinosaur-like Monster Holding Infant/Meal? is gone as well. He once occupied an important wall, visible to anyone on Avenida Ponce de Leon and especially to drivers turning left (south) as they left the city. This is what that prime location looked like then, and now.

The warplane no longer protects the Sagrado Corazon neighborhood. The wall it was on was painted over.

I don’t understand much about the mechanics of Street Art.  I guess I understand that walls in abandoned buildings are considered fair game, and some of the efforts there rise above the level of graffiti. But who pays for the large scale efforts, like the Monster above? That filled a whole wall. The artist must have needed formal access and permission, planning and agreement, scaffolding and materials and time to create the final work. Who paid the artist? Where did the money come from? The owner of the building? If so, why? A city arts grant?  There is much I still have to learn.

Street art is clearly dynamic. If some works disappear, others appear. Here are some recent sightings. They may be new (most likely) or works I hadn’t noticed before.

This mural, on a wall in a small plaza at the end of Calle Tanca, replaces Big Bird. The plaza is a neighborhood meeting place – bars around the plaza sometimes host live music.

The Four Readers are on a shutter along Avenida Ponce de Leon, in Santurce. I suspect the information in the lower right is the artist’s Instagram address but I haven’t checked it out yet.

This couple is on a door near Plazita de Mercado, in Santurce. When I first glanced at it, I thought they were dancing. Now I’m not so sure. Combat boots? It does seem like they are sharing an intimate moment. What do you think?

Finally, a garage door visible from a side street in Old San Juan.

Notes: These are all my images. They have been processed (colors enhanced, etc.) in Adobe Lightroom and/or Photoshop.

Late March, 2018

Hurricanes Irma and Maria hit Puerto Rico last September. There are still people without power, and they may not get it until May. And the new hurricane season is just around the cornet. Early predictions suggest a season much  like last summer. There is, as I write this, a Category 5 cyclone in the eastern Indian Ocean.

The image above shows utility trucks at the port, presumably waiting shipment back to the states. Some contractors (PowerSecure, Fluor Corporation) have come to the end of their funding and, with outages in smaller and smaller sections of the island, are leaving the work to the few remaining utilities and contractors.

Every day the newspapers have stories about some aspect of the recovery. Some of the stories are bizarre, some sad. According to one recent article, the island’s suicide rate rose by nearly 30 per cent in 2017, with half of the suicides in September and November. Calls to various mental health agencies were at record levels in December 2017 and January 2018, after a lull in October and November caused no doubt by the disruption in telecommunications caused by the hurricanes.

Men 40 to 50 years old are the most frequent victims of suicide, and hanging is the most common method. Puerto Rico has very tough gun laws. I wonder what the suicide rate would be if guns were readily available, and how the rate here compare to US states with their spectrum of gun laws.

Another article noted that 6 per cent of the island’s population fled in September, October, and November, after Hurricane Maria, which equates to 184,000 people. This is a continuation of the recent population decline as Puerto Ricans have moved to the mainland to seek better job opportunities. Some demographers are comparing the population decline here to Ireland in the 1840s, when 25 per cent of that island’s population fled during the Great Irish Famine.

Puerto Ricans have taken it upon themselves to use social media to identify problems. For example, citizens point out the location of power poles leaning over roadways, an effort made more urgent after a pole fell on a passing car and killed its two occupants. That occurred on PR-124 in Las Marias.

PREPA, the local power authority, is undergoing a series of investigations related to bribery charges. US Representative Rob Bishop (R-Utah) seemed particularly incensed by reports that gentleman’s clubs in San Juan were energized earlier than other businesses after bribes were paid to PREPA supervisors. Bishop wrote Zulma Rosario, Director of the Government Ethics Office here and asked for a full investigation. Rosario said of her investigation: “It continues to expand. The investigations are booming . . ”  and claims they are “running smoothly.” It is alleged that some supervisors were bribed with cash as well as thousands of dollars worth of vouchers usable at the clubs.

Meanwhile, the 2018 hurricane is approaching, and various agencies are releasing their early forecasts for the season. Professor David Dilley of Global Weather Oscillations seems to be on a roll. It is claimed he led the only prediction service that correctly forecast the very active 2017 season, as most other services predicted a more normal season. For 2018, Dilley and his group predict pretty much a repeat to 2017. He said “You can expect 16 named storms, eight hurricanes, four major hurricanes, potential for four United States hurricane landfalls – two of which will likely be major-impact storms. And once again – some Caribbean Islands will have another dangerous season.” By way of comparison, the Atlantic basin, during an average year, experiences 12 named storms, six hurricanes, and 2.7 major hurricanes.

I’m not sure how Dilley can be this specific, especially as to landfall predictions. But it is true that there is already one Category 5 storm this year. The cyclone season has started in the western Pacific. Marcus is 2018’s first category 5 tropical storm. Marcus is no danger to land and will veer to the southwest over cooler waters, leading to her destruction.

So 2018 will be another interesting year for hurricanes. I hope Puerto Rico is spared – they have suffered enough.

And if you were wondering if I ran into any PREPA supervisors haunting San Juan’s exotic clubs, kindly disabuse yourself of that notion. I have not yet been to any exotic club here in Puerto Rico. I don’t even know where they are. I do see an occasional cab advertising one of them – Lips, if you can believe that. So I’m sure it would be an easy thing to hail a cab and get there.

As I write these words, however, I recognize that a visit to a gentleman’s club would be excellent material for a blog post or two. Trust me, my visit would be academic only, perhaps a cross-cultural sociological comparison of exotic clubs in San Juan, San Francisco, Dallas, New York, Washington, Montreal.

I feel a whole new research career coming on. If you want to support my scholarly efforts, or perhaps conduct a research trip with me, let me know.

 

Notes and Sources: The news sections are summaries of recent articles in the San Juan Star, the English language newspaper.

The cyclone image is from NASA, via a blog post at www.wunderground.com, an excellent source for weather information and discussions.

 

 

Mid March, 2018

We went to the final concert of the 2018 Pablo Casals festival the other night. It was a wonderful performance in a beautiful venue. We had talked about going several times but never got around to it. A friend enticed us to go, and even bought our tickets. We’re glad she did.

Pablo Casals was born in in 1876 in Catalonia, Spain, to a Spanish father and a Puerto Rican mother of Catalonian descent.  His father, an organist and choir master, provided his early musical education. At the age of four, Casals could play the violin, piano and flute; at six he played a violin solo in public. He first saw a primitive cello-type instrument when a traveling musician played in his town. Casals saw his first real cello at age eleven and decided then to dedicate himself to the instrument.

Casals’ talents were noticed, and at age 12 he entered the Escola Municipal de Musica in Barcelona, where he studied cello, piano, and theory. He graduated with honors at age 17. In 1893, the Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz heard him playing in a trio in a cafe and introduced him to Maria Cristiana, the Queen Regent.  She provided him a stipend to study composition at the Royal College in Madrid, as well as to play in informal concerts at the palace.

Casals moved to Paris where he made a living playing second cello at the Folies Marigny, but returned to Spain after a year and played as principal cellist at the opera in Barcelona. His international career began after he performed as a soloist with the Madrid symphony, with performances at the Crystal Palace in London and for President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington.

Casals was a passionate supporter of the Spanish Republican government and went into exile after they were defeated and vowed to stay in exile until democracy was restored. Not only that, he refused to play in any country whose government supported Franco’s totalitarian regime. He did make one exception – he played at the White House for President Kennedy, whom he admired.

Casals moved to Puerto Rico, and became prominent in the musical culture here. He started the Casals festival in 1955, helped organize the Puerto Rico National Symphony in 1958, and, in 1959, helped start the Conservatory of Music in Puerto Rico. In 1956, at age 80, he took as his third wife Marta Montanez y Martinez, then 20 years old. He remained musically active during his later years. He was once asked why he, at age 93, still played his instrument three hours each day. He replied: “I’m beginning to notice some improvement.” Casals died in San Juan in 1973, at age 96. Franco was still in power so he was buried here, but six years later, with Franco gone, his remains were moved to his childhood home of El Vendrell, in Catalonia.

So we were at the 63rd Casals Festival. It is a multiday event, with performances at different venues around the city. The performance we attended was at the Centro de Bellas Artes, which is to San Juan what Lincoln Center is to New York City. The CBA, as it is known, consists of a central plaza surrounded by three large performance venues. As patrons arrive, they are greeted by bronze representations of the Muses, representing the activities in the center.

The Muses, of course, originate in Greek mythology. One version has them as the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. There were seven of them, each with a symbol of their artistic endeavors: Calliope (poetry, writing tablet), Clio (history, scroll), Euterpe (lyric poetry, flute), Thalia (comedy, comic mask), Melpomene (tragedy, tragic mask), Terpsichore (dance, lyre), Erato (love poetry, lyre), Polyhmynia (sacred poetry, veil) and Urania (astronomy, compass). As the image below suggests, the statues here take some liberties with the traditional representations.

We heard the orchestra in in one work, Sinfonia No. 4 by Roberto Sierra, and the orchestra and San Juan Philharmonic Chorale in Mozart’s Requiem. Sierra is a contemporary Puerto Rican composer, currently on the faculty at Cornell. His piece was enjoyable – tonal, full of interesting rhythms, sometimes lively, at times sad. I’m glad I heard it but I’m not sure I will rush out and buy the CD.

The Requiem was wonderful. The chorus was well prepared, the four soloists were good (especially Joel Prieto, the tenor) and the orchestra was excellent. Combine that with an attentive audience in a wonderful venue and you had a most enjoyable evening.

I enjoy going to concerts like this though I must admit I sometimes become a bit wistful when  I hear a pianist. Everyone else in my family – wife, son, daughter – plays. I started piano lessons when I was in the first or second grade at the Kemble Street School in Utica. I did pretty well – I could see I was picking things up faster than most of my class mates.

But we did not have a piano at home. My mother had played as a child and probably wanted one, but we were in a small house and my parents were dealing with a growing family and aging parents. My parents, at a parent – teacher conference, learned of my nascent pianistic skills, and in the best traditions of parents everywhere decided to support my studies. My mother went out and found a small, used pump organ, small enough to fit in our house.

So I practiced on the pump organ. At the next conference, my parents learned that, while I was making good progress, I kept bouncing up and down on the piano bench, somewhat to the detriment of my emerging artistry.

My father was quick to recognize the issue and worked out a solution, in his very best Rube Goldberg fashion. He found an old vacuum cleaner, hung it from the cellar ceiling, and ran a tube from the vacuum cleaner’s exhaust through the floor and into the organ. Problem solved! When I wanted to practice, I went down in the cellar and plugged the vacuum cleaner in, and went upstairs and practiced.

There were two problems, one minor, and one major. The minor one: I could hear the whine of the vacuum cleaner, which did nothing for my ear training. The major one: the vacuum cleaner did not produce very much air. Only the notes above middle C sounded when I pressed the keys. As I’m sure you know, the notes above middle C are usually in the domain of the right hand; the notes below belong to the left. I got pretty good with the right hand, but the left, since I could not hear the notes, remained a mystery.

So when I watch a pianist I often wonder what would have happened if we had had a piano at home. Or a more powerful vacuum cleaner. Perhaps I’d have been a soloist at the Casals Festival.

It is funny the way things work out.

Oh, and we’re going to the CBA again this week, this time to see a touring company production of Les Miserables. Should be fun.

 

Notes and Sources: See Wikipedia entries for Pablo Casals and Greek Muses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mid March 2018

 

The Puerto Rico Tourism Company co-sponsors a half-Ironman event every spring here in San Juan. This year, it was on March 18. Most of the activities start or end in the park near our building so it is easy for me to visit and see what’s going on. In particular, I wondered if participation would be down this year.

In a true Ironman event, athletes start with a three mile swim, transition to a 112 mile bike ride, and finish by running a full marathon of 26.2 miles. The event here, a half Ironman, cuts each event in half to a total of 70.3 miles. So the event is called the Puerto Rico Ironman 70.3.

The event begins with a 1.5 mile swim, down and around the Condado Lagoon, under the bridge connectiong Condado to Old San Juan and ending near the still-closed Caribe Hilton.

While some competitors look pensive, for many it is a party atmosphere. Note the woman in the blue suit, with the 485 on her arm. She was, by my observation, the only competitor to come with full make-up. I wonder how it lasted during the swim.

The starters go off in waves, at 5 minute intervals. The elite men and women go first, followed by groups according to age and gender. When a group’s appointed time comes, they enter the water and wait for the horn to start their event.

 

The swim start is quite intense, as you can imagine, with 40 or 50 closely bunched swimmers.

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They are guided through the course by orange course markers, and volunteers in kayaks assist as needed.

The swimmers exit the water via a ramp up to the Paseo de Caribe, Volunteers assist them on the steep ramp.

After exiting the water, the swimmers run to the transition zone where they prepare for the 56 mile bike ride. They have previously arranged their gear to help make the transition as smooth and fast as possible.

The competitors use a variety of bike styles, most with aerodynamic frames and wheels. I’m sure some of the carbon fiber models cost well over $4,000. If you assume an average cost of each bike at $2,000, that means the value of the bikes in the transition zone approaches several hundred thousand dollars,

The bike event starts and ends at the transition zone. It was a good day for biking – warm for sure but only a slight breeze.

 

After the bike ride, which goes to Dorado and back, the contestants run into and back from Old San Juan. They do this twice for a total of 13.2 miles.

Later that afternoon, I went by the tent where the closing ceremonies were being held. It seems several of the sponsors are donating money for Puerto Rico recovery efforts. For example, one sponsor pledged $50,000 to help with solar installations. another $75,000 for reforestation efforts. In addition, 125 participants volunteered to spend Monday in Toa Baja, working on five different projects, including the restoration of a park and baseball field.

So it was a good day in San Juan. The event was very well run, there were participants from several countries, and everyone seemed to enjoy their time here. It was a welcome respite from the on-going issues surrounding the recovery efforts here. More on that in my next post.

Oh, and I think the name should be FerroCaballero, not Ironman. It has a nice ring to it. What do you think?

 

 

 

 

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Mid March 2018

 

As you may have noted from recent posts, I very much enjoy the street art here in San Juan. I’m writing today to share some recent sightings, and to share how I use some of the images I obtain of the art.

The image above is from a non-descript building in Pinones, a beach area just east of San Juan. There are many small bars and seafood restaurants there and it is a nice place to stroll along the beach before a lunch of ensalada de pulpo – octupus salad, a favorite of mine. Note the image is as taken from my camera and before any editing.  Still, it brings questions to my mind. The art, to me, evokes the Indian sub-continent, Now, to my knowledge, there are not very many people here from the that part of the world here. So why the Indian theme?

To be sure, there are people from the Indian sub-continent in the Caribbean. The British abolished slavery in the 1820s and sugar cane plantation owners needed cheap labor. Plantation owners on the British-held islands imported indentured servants from India, among other places. There is a substantial Indian population on, for example, Trinidad and Tobago because of that. But that did not happen in Puerto Rico, where slavery was not abolished until the 1870s. So I’m not sure why the Indian theme exists.

I have noted one other example of Indian-inspired wall art. That was on a wall in an alleyway in Vieques, an island just to the east of Puerto Rico, Note the image below is also as taken from the camera and not edited in any way.

Here is one more, again unedited, image from Santurce, near the Plazita del Mercado.

One more example. This is in Condado, and it is on a shutter that has been closed since Hurricane Maria. I don’t know if the painting was there prior to the storm or was created afterwards. The shutter is on the former Pinky’s, a popular breakfast place.

The images become a record of sorts of the wall art I see. The two examples below no longer exist. The large bird (note the ice cooler to give an idea of its size) has been painted over. The hat-bearing skull was on a building that has been demolished, part of the on-going gentrification of Santurce.

I’ve mentioned the images are unedited.  I do edit some of them. Below are two images, one as taken from the camera and the other after some judicious edits. The original was on a wall just off Calle Loiza, in Santurce. The images show the results of some modest edits – basically cropping, retouching and color enhancements.

Sometimes the editing is more involved. The image below shows five images taken of a large mural, and the final version after stitching edited images together. I use two Adobe products for this – Photoshop and InDesign.

So what do I do with the edited images? I use InDesign and create montages. Here are two examples.

 

 

I had one of these printed and framed and we use it in our San Juan apartment. I don’t know if I could sell them. I would have to research copyright laws. I have thought about using some of my images as post and note cards and hawking them to cruise ship passengers. Want to invest? Let me know.

Early March, 2018

We watched The Weather Channel’s coverage of Winter Storm Riley, the fierce nor’easter that pummeled the east coast the first week of March. I sat with friends drinking beer at an outdoor plaza and told and listened to stories of notable storms we had lived through. We were quite sure we were far enough away from Riley that we would not suffer any consequences of it.

We were wrong. I noticed on Saturday afternoon that the wind had shifted and was coming from the west. This was unusual.  Winds from the east are far more common during the winter trade winds season. The sky became progressively more cloudy and hazy, and the wind picked up. Sunday morning was cloudy and hazy, and the surf had picked up considerably, The image above was taken on Sunday morning, looking west along the north shore into Old San Juan. Hundreds of Puerto Ricans gathered on walkway along the shore. They watched the surf and took thousands of pictures and videos. I imagine many of the images were sent to relatives around the island, and maybe even to the states.

The high surf lasted from Sunday morning through mid Wednesday. The winds  caused thirty foot waves north of Puerto Rico, and there was heavy surf along the north and west coasts. It was said to be the highest surf observed here in over a decade, and  was worse than in either Hurricane Irma or Maria. The Coast Guard had to rescue a surfer who had suffered a fractured wrist, and had to rescue three other swimmers as well.

As you might imagine, the high surf brought out people to watch and in many cases record what they saw. Some posted their videos to Youtube.  Rincon, a surfers haven on the west coast, experienced 30 foot waves. Watch here. Limestone rocks provide a barrier to the surf at Vega Baja – watch here. Watch the high surf at Isabella, on the northwest coast, here.

As you can imagine, the west winds and high surf caused damages. The road from San Juan heading east along the coast to Loiza was closed because of the tons of sand pushed ashore. The ferry boat terminal in Catano was damaged. Ferry service from there to San Juan was suspended but has since been restored. The Paseo de Princessa, the walkway along the harbor outside the city walls, is now closed, awaiting repairs. The waves were high enough to overtop the walkway and strong enough to undermine the foundation, causing a partial collapse.

So we were not free from the effects of Winter Storm Riley, Still, I liked watching high surf a whole lot better than shoveling wet, heavy snow.

March 2, 2018

March 2 is now a holiday here in Puerto Rico. So while, as I write this, the Northeast is being pummeled by Winter Storm Riley, now undergoing ‘bombogenesis’, Puerto Ricans are experiencing great weather and a day off.

The holiday celebrates the anniversary of United States Citizenship for Puerto Ricans. The Jones-Shafroth Act was signed into law on March 2, 1917. One provision of the Act made Puerto Ricans United States citizens but did not rescind their Puerto Rican citizenship. The Puerto Rican statesman Luis Munoz Rivera participated in the drafting of the Jones-Shafroth Act and argued in favor of Puerto Rican citizenship. In a speech to the U. S. House of Representatives, he said “if the earth were to swallow the island, Puerto Ricans would prefer American citizenship to any citizenship in the world. But as long as the island existed, the residents preferred Puerto Rican citizenship.”

The fact of U.S. citizenship did come with caveats. Puerto Ricans cannot vote in the U.S. presidential elections, and have no representatives in Congress. The U. S. Supreme Court, in the 1922 case Balzac v. Porto Rico (as it was called then), ruled that the full protection and rights of the U. S. Constitution do not apply to Puerto Ricans unless and until they choose to reside in the U.S. proper. However, Puerto Ricans became eligible for the draft and 20,000 young men were drafted into service during World War One. Most ended up in infantry regiments guarding the Panama Canal. Puerto Rican representation in the U. S. armed services is certainly a story worth telling. Perhaps it will be the subject on my next post.

I wonder if, in view of the aftermath of Hurricane Irma and Maria, Puerto Ricans are having second thoughts about their relationship with the U.S. I doubt it. The people we talk to appreciate the fact we are here and are quick to distinguish between us and the government. I must say that Donald Trump is universally reviled here – in fact t-shirts with F**K DONALD TRUMP are a big seller.

The slow pace of the recovery here has much to do with Mr. Trump’s poor standing. Every day the local newspapers have stories detailing some aspect of the recovery efforts. For example, on February 28, the San Juan Star’s lead story described how contractors involved in power restoration are beginning to leave. This is in spite of the fact that 20% of the customers are still without power.

The US Army Corps of Engineers is in charge of the federal effort for power restoration. They let large contracts with two companies – Fluor Corporation and PowerSecure. This was after the Whitefish Energy debacle, which ended with the USACE cancelling a $300 million contract without any work having been done.

About 1,000 workers have left the island in the last two weeks. Fluor has already billed the maximum amount it can, $750 million dollars, and has told its subcontractors to pack up. PowerSource’s contract ends on April 7 so it too is winding down.

Officials overseeing the contractors’ work expressed disappointment with the performance of the contractors. In particular, Fluor was cited for sluggish work and ending the contract with less accomplished than had been hoped. Justo Gonzalez, interim head of PREPA, the Puerto Rican utility, said of Fluor: “We compared, and saw better work from other companies.” Jorge Gonzalez, the mayor of Jayuya, a mountain community with about 50% power restoration, said: “I understand they [Fluor] were slow – super slow. Now we don’t have anyone, slow or at all. We have no one.”

Of course, all of this is happening in the context of the ongoing fiscal crisis. Judge Juan R. Torruella of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston has suggested that a federal grand jury be empaneled to, in his words, ‘. . . determine if there are criminal cases against individuals and organizations inside and outside of Puerto Rico in relation to the economic crisis facing the country.”

Torruella, a native San Juan, received a Bachelor of Science degree from the Wharton School (I wonder if Trump was there at the same time) and a law degree from Boston University. He was appointed by President Ford in 1974 to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, and then by President Reagan, in 1984, to his current position.

There are other stories. The storm death toll is still unknown and stateside epidemiologists are helping to establish a firm figure for that grim statistic. The US Treasury, for unknown reasons, cut a disaster relief loan request for Puerto Rico by 60%. The police are owed millions in unpaid overtime accrued during and after Hurricane Maria. And on and on.

By the way, the images in this post have nothing to do with the content. So please don’t waste your time looking for deep symbolism. Trust me, there is none.