Presents

Eli leaves for college next month, taking with him a new violin which he will play in the Carlton Orchestra. He and Orhan went to the violin shop a few weeks ago and he took home two instruments to try out. Yesterday Orhan and I went back to return one, trade in his old one, and finalize the purchase of the new one.

The shop was gorgeous, and while I don't have the skill to see the difference between the trade-in and the new violin, I look forward to hearing the difference in sound quality -- Orhan said it is noticeable even to a non-violinist.

I took a few pictures of the place, and of the violins. Their web site does a better job of showing the space than my pictures do, but here is Eli's old instrument:


And the new new one (closer to the camera) and the other one he tried out:


While Orhan talked with the shop folks I wandered around a bit with Dev and we admired some of the artwork (Dev being a major art fan).

This is the poster we were given as a thanks-for-buying-a-violin gift:


The other choice, which I didn't like as much:


Some sculptures:


Some... things?

Not art, strictly speaking, but Dev wouldn't have minded climbing in for a hobnob (or a hoedown  -- Dev is not completely clear on the difference between a violin and a fiddle):


Later we had lunch in Berkeley and I gave Orhan a present of his own.







I think he liked it.


Comments

  1. Sara JamesonJuly 20, 2016 at 3:19 PM

    Yay for Dev and violins and art!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sarah & OrhanJuly 20, 2016 at 4:36 PM

      :-)

      Delete
    2. ClaireJuly 28, 2016 at 1:36 PM

      I like it too. I like the tractor and I like the blog. This is fun.

      Delete
    3. Sarah & OrhanJuly 29, 2016 at 10:13 AM

      Sara, meet my mother, Claire. Mom, Sara is a friend and colleague who just retired from Oregon State University.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UWP 018: Style in the what?

Image
I have taught  UWP 018: Style in the Essay  once, in Fall 2014, and am looking forward to having it again. As you can see from the official course  description , it's pretty poorly defined, both in general (so many goals!) and in specific parts (e.g. "Students should be familiar with the general principles of good writing upon entry into the course," whatever that means). Even the topics are hard to pin down, especially "the essay." It's vague enough that Phillip Lopate's anthology  The Art of the Personal Essay  covers 2000 years (starting with Seneca) and several countries and languages (with translations from Latin, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, and Chinese). Round 1 (2014) Given this range, I thought for a long time about what  the essay  is before teaching UWP 018 for the first time. I thought back to what I read during my MFA in nonfiction writing, not only essays but also books and articles about the various forms of nonfiction prose. I also ...
Read more

Some architectural comments

Image
Some Vancouver locals call it The Rainy City, or Raincouver. I call it the City of Balconies. The city has extremely high population density, achieved in part by having lots of high-rise residential buildings -- and by lots, I mean all over the place, with more going up all the time if the number of cranes and construction sites are any indication. This is part of downtown Vancouver: And this is the view from our hotel window, out in Burnaby (part of the metro area): Some of the buildings are fairly bland. Some I like because they are reflective, and I enjoy taking pictures of things reflected at the scale of an entire building, especially other buildings. Some of the buildings were lovely and unique. We saw the Woodward's Building from several angles, starting with noticing its rooftop grove poking up from behind another building: When we got closer, we saw the lovely exoskeleton: It turns out the building was torn down and rebuilt just a fe...
Read more

Moray Coast, Day 2: Findhorn to Hopeman part 2

Image
I was pretty bushed by the time we stopped in Burghead; we'd talked about resting a mile or so before town, but there was no shade, so we pushed on. Dev, of course, has ridiculously long ostrich legs and therefore was not fatigued at all. (Also, he rode in my pocket, though he prefers I not point that out too often.) He found some interesting items in the cafe, such as these ship-building tools used by Daniel Young Hopeman: This is the boat Dev would like to have built if he had Dev-sized versions of Mr. Hopeman's tools (and the skill to use them). We didn't have time to look up Mr. Hopeman at the time, but later investigations revealed that he was a fireman on drifter (a kind of boat, I assume) that sank on June 10, 1931. The Glasgow Herald reported: Dev also was intrigued to learn that Rhubarb! (And, of course... Custard!) Our next stop was a local shop where I attempted to buy a sun hat. We were ready for rain, but we were not ready for so much...
Read more