July 29-30 -- Unplanned Water Related Activities

I had told you that the next post would be from the cruise; but pleasant things happened.

I walked to an outdoor amphitheater on Corlear's Hook, (south of the Williamsburg Bridge between the East River and the FDR Drive) for a free daylight performance of Euripides "Iphigenia At Tauris", written more than 2400 years ago   Iphi was replaced by a deer through divine intervention from being sacrificed by her father (shades of the binding of Isaac by Abraham) and assigned as the ritual preparer of men for sacrifice in Tauris (Crimea). By Taurian law, anyone who enters must be sacrificed -- an immigration policy that is harsher than ours!  Her brother. Orestes, who had killed his (their) mother to avenge his father (shades of Hamlet), was ordered to come to Tauris to bring a statue back to Greece, and was captured and hence must be sacrificed.  But all the blood was shed before the story, off stage.  The siblings eventually reveal themselves to each other and plot to escape and return to Greece together. But wait; where is the water? Well the round trip from Greece was on a "well oared boat' lying protected in a cove. But the winds and tides thwart their escape, and threaten to drive them on the rocks until the intervention of everyone's favorite trickster, the Goddess Athena. She also had helped Ulysses and Iphi learns from her brother than while he has not yet gotten back to Ithaca from Troy, he is on his way.

Next day I visited the New York Historical Society for their show about the Hudson River, illustrated

in part by many paintings of the Hudson River School.  The arc of the story was from primeval natural beauty, exploration by Henry Hudson, use as a highway for commerce, murder by industrial pollution from tanneries, sewage, dynamiting of the Palisades for rock to build Manhattan and PCBs from GE, to gradual rebirth. The word "ecology" was coined in an 1860's book. preservationists and land owners on the east bank wanted to preserve their view. The Palisades Interstate Park and Bear Mountain Park were created, partly by the influence of Teddy Roosevelt before he was President and by the Museum of Natural History (located across the street from the Historical Society). "Silent Spring" in the early '60's and the 18 year legal battle against Con Ed's plan to turn Storm King mountain into a kilowatt producer, the enactment of many state and federal conservation laws are all described. Even to the reintroduction of oyster beds after hurricane Sandy. Sadly the exhibit closes August 4. One of the best pieces of art in the society's collection was the five views of the same scene by Thomas Cole. We know it is the same scene because of a prominent oddly shaped peak toward the upper right corner.  Its five paintings likewise trace the history of the place from nature through "Empire" and its ruin. These paintings were relocated from their normal place of honor to the anteroom of the exhibit space
This post was written aboard ILENE, before the first passage of the cruise.