November was a fairly busy month. On two different occasions, friends from out of town came to Philadelphia. Holly and I had a nice Thanksgiving and tried a new brewery with my brother the next day. If felt like a good way to follow-up our annual Staycation.
One friend came to town for our 40th elementary school reunion. I wasn’t particularly interested in the reunion, but he and I and my brother got together one afternoon. We had a leisurely lunch at Iron Hill Brewery and enjoyed catching up since I hadn’t seen this friend in a few years.
I didn’t take any pictures of us, but I take some lovely autumn photos along my travels.
Some with my Samsung Galaxy S9+
And some with my Nikon Z fc fitted with my Nikkor 18-140mm f/3.5-6.3 lens
A week later, I had a friend I used to work with at the UNLV’s Lied Library come to town for a conference which was conveniently held at the library where Holly and I currently work. I did get to see him briefly during the conference, but we got together one night for dinner. We met for a cocktail at his hotel before having a wonderful meal at Oyster House. After dinner, we wandered over to Abe Fisher for a nightcap.
Of course, November means Thanksgiving. As is our tradition, Holly and I order out a couple of times for Thanksgiving sandwiches, getting the Triangle Gobbler from Triangle Tavern (turkey, rosemary mashed potatoes, stuffing, mushroom gravy, cranberry sauce) and the Turketta Sammie from Porco’s Porchetteria (Herb and lard rubbed roasted turkey breast, slice of savory bread pudding, romaine lettuce, Heirloom Tomato, cranberry mustardo, Turkey gravy all on a Broiche roll.). Both were delicious and a great way to lead up to Thanksgiving.
Holly and I cooked at home for Thanksgiving. Since it was just the 2 of us, we opted to roast a chicken instead of turkey. (We did pick up turkey let at the same time we got our chicken for a future dinner).
We made Jamie Oliver’s chicken in milk, cranberry sauce with Cherry Heering, root vegetable gratin, cranberry stuffing, and green beans with a mushroom gravy.
We used our leftovers twice: once as a repeat of our Thanksgiving dinner plates and once when we made our own Thanksgiving sandwiches.
The next day, we went to visit my brother and to try a new brewery in Jenkintown. It was an interesting situation in that Human Robot did not serve food but the are associated with Herman’s at the Haus. We were able to walk up to the bar to order drinks but then used a QR code to order food from Herman’s. The food was good but not great. However, the beers were excellent.
We took the train up so I was able to get a picture of the Christmas Tree in 30th Street Station. I also took a couple of pictures while we were in Jenkintown. Jenkintown is a fairly nice area with a lot of stores and restaurants along a main thoroughfare. I would like to go there some time with more than my phone camera for a photo walk.
A surprising turn of events was that the Phillies ended up in the World Series. Although they lost the series, we thoroughly enjoyed their unexpected adventure getting there.
Photography
I’ve been trying to get caught up on posting about some of my recent photography outings, and finished a couple posts in November:
I still have several more posts in the works and hope to get caught up before the end of the year. I don’t mind having a bit of a backlog since I haven’t been out very often to take new pictures.
I started an Adobe Premiere Pro Essential Training tutorial through LinkedIn Learning. I’m curious about making videos, which I guess is in someway an extension of photography. I’m not sure what I want to make videos of but wanted to get some familiarity with editing. I really enjoyed working through the tutorial. Now I just need to figure out what I want to make videos of.
Reading
Books
I re-read a couple of books in November and finished 2 new ones.
As with Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, I’ve read Tropic of Capricorn enough times to not be sure how many times I’ve read it. I feel like every time I read it, my opinion of it changes. I last read it 6 years ago when I started, but never finished, an intended thorough re-read of all Miller’s books. I remember at the time thinking that I liked it better than Cancer. This was not the case this time.
When Tropic of Capricorn is good, mainly during his reminiscences of his youth and his critiques of American culture, it is outstanding. But at other times, it can be a bit difficult to get through. I suspect that given the response to the sex in the first book, he tried outdoing himself in this one and strained credibility in that attempt. Much of the sex in Capricorn is ridiculous and unpleasant.
The other book I re-read was Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass in anticipation of the final season of His Dark Materials. I love The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife but always had a lukewarm opinion of The Amber Spyglass. It’s a bit of a mess and isn’t as tightly constructed as the first 2 books. Pullman throws around a lot of ideas but not everything makes sense. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy The Amber Spyglass. I just don’t like it as much at the other books.
The two new books I read were Vanessa Hua’s Forbidden City and Patti Smith’s A Book of Days.
Forbidden City wasn’t something that I was planning on reading, but I saw the Kindle version on sale. Reading the description intrigued me enough to give it a try. Although I found it a little slow at parts, I overall enjoyed this story about a teenage girl who gets caught up in China’s Cultural Revolution.
On the contrary, I was eagerly awaiting the release of Patti Smith’s A Book of Days. I loved both Just Kids and M Train so I pre-ordered her latest which is a collection of her photography. Well, mostly her photography. Some of the photos were taken by other people, most obviously those taken of her. Being a book of days, she included a photo for each day of the year. Some photos are tied to historical or biographical events. In the absence of her own photos, she included photos by other people. It seemed odd at first but the inclusion of these other photos helped give the book some thematic cohesive that might have otherwise been missing.
Books Read in 2022
So far in 2022, I’ve read 34 books:
- The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
- Book, They Might Be Giants, Paul Sahre, Brian Karlsson
- All About Me!: My Remarkable Life in Show Business, Mel Brooks (Kindle book)
- The Photographer’s Eye, John Szarkowski
- Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead (Kindle book)
- Our Country Friends, Gary Shteyngart
- My Name Is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
- Crossroads, Jonathan Franzen
- South of Somewhere, Robert V. Camuto
- The Promise, Damon Galgut (Kindle book)
- A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
- After New Formalism, Annie Finch, ed. (Library book)
- The Candy House, Jennifer Egan
- The New Woman Behind the Camera, various authors
- Sea of Tranquility, Emily St. John Mandel
- Joan is Okay, Weike Wang (Kindle book)
- East of Eden, John Steinbeck
- Free Love, Tessa Hadley (Kindle book)
- Bleeding Edge, Thomas Pynchon
- Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
- Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
- The Trip to Echo Spring, Olivia Laing
- Crudo, Olivia Laing
- As You Like It, William Shakespeare
- White Noise, Don DeLillo
- The Art of the Travel Journal, Abbey Sy
- The Sweetness of Doing Nothing, Sophie Minchilli
- In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City, Imogen Sara Smith
- At the Quiet Edge, Victoria Helen Stone (Kindle Book)
- Well Behaved Wives, Amy Sue Nathan (Kindle Book)
- Tropic of Capricorn, Henry Miller
- Forbidden City, Vanessa Hua (Kindle Book)
- A Book of Days, Patti Smith
- The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman
This Creative Midlife Posts in 2022
- December 2021 Update
- Canon AE-1 with Ilford Delta 3200
- Canon Rebel 2000 with Kodak Color Plus
- Christmas Light Box Photos
- January 2022 Update
- Minolta Autopak 450Ex with Lomography Lobster
- New Nikon Z fc!
- Schuylkill River Trail Outing with my Nikon Z fc
- E.M. Cioran on Aging
- February 2022 Update
- Long Birthday Weekend 2022
- Year Two of Pandemic Life
- First Film Photos of 2022
- March 2022 Update
- 2022 Camera Inventory
- Minolta Hi-Matic 11 with Ilford Delta 100
- Canon Rebel 2000 with Lomography Color 800
- Planning a Vacation
- April 2022 Update
- Minolta XE with Lomochrome Purple
- Olympus XA in Carmel California
- May 2022 Update
- The Arizona Part of Our Vacation
- 2022 California Vacation Part 1
- 2022 California Vacation Part 2
- 2022 California Vacation Part 3
- Did My Olympus XA Survive Vacation?
- June 2022 Update
- Canon AE-1 with Kodak Pro Image
- Favorite Photos from the 1st Half of 2022
- August Walk with My Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
- July and August 2022 Update
- Olympus OM-1 with Fomapan Classic
- Olympus XA with Kodak Pro Image
- Minolta X-700 with Kodak Tri-X
- September 2022 Update
- Two Medium Format Rolls
- Setting Up My Traveler’s Notebook for Staycation
- October 2022 Update
- Early Morning Walk with the Nikon Z fc
- Minolta Hi-Matic with Kodak Pro Image
Disclaimers: Comments are moderated. Some links, such as those to Amazon, are affiliate links, through which, I may gain a small commission.
Khürt L Williams
I enjoyed reading the recap. FYI. Human Robot aren’t new. They’ve been around for several years. The Jenkintown location is new.
Tom
Thanks. I knew there was a Human Robot in Kensington but had never been there so it was all new to us!