Posted in Uncategorized on October 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Lorrie met M, a prominent Iranian economist and diplomat, when he was still a graduate student at Syracuse University. Although they apparently met only once after that (not for lack of effort on the part of M), they continued a correspondence that spanned the following two decades.
January 1, 1959, New York
Dear Lorrie,
It is so good to [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Portugal on February 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The Tower of Belem at the mouth of the Tagus River represents what a child, coerced by that instinctive and perpetual drive for order, silently tries to create at the seashore from sand, shells and ropes of seaweed. Begun at the end of the fifteenth century it rises from the Tagus River as a tribute [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on February 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
June 5, 1968
Dearest Mom,
It isn’t a good day for writing. I feel very upset. Everyone seems to be. And yet I suppose they will slip back into their lethargy soon.
I am busy writing an article on Henry Adams (the grandson of John Quincy Adams and descendent of the famous John Adams). I find him the [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Turkey on February 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Turkey—one cannot begin with sequences of time. Writing is a sequence—it has beginnings and endings—but life is complex. Writing about life in Turkey requires another framework—one without beginning or end. My beginning is on this page. At the moment of this writing I am in a Turkish bath in Bursa, a Turkish town not far [...]
Posted in Letters & Journals, Uncategorized on February 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Aboard the Orsova, November 23, 1967
Time Magazine
Letters to the Editor
Sir:
The other day aboard ship en route to the U.S. I picked up a copy of your international edition (November 24). Coming directly from another culture I found it a shock to read. The key article was the review of a book, The American Challenge, by [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Hawaii, Maui on February 2, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Honokowai, Maui, Hawaii 1976
On the Hawaiian Islands there are still areas in the mountains and along the coasts where there is no sign of man nor of the twentieth century. These areas are diminishing. There are so many ways in which the outside world can intrude. But it is just those intrusions, sometimes, that [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on February 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In 1974 Lorrie accompanied her husband on a six month sabattical to the Hawaiian island of Maui. During that time she replied to a help wanted ad in the Honolulu Advertiser
Re: Correspondent Wanted in Honolulu Advertiser
Dear Sir/Mme:
I am responding to your advertisement even though I am not quite sure of what is required of a [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on January 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
After 13 years, Lorrie returned to Portugal for her final visit in the fall of 1982.
September 12, 1982, Lisbon
Dearest Joe – My fourth day here. I feel as if I’ve entered another dimension of life—if not another planet. In a way, its as if I had left one self here and have rejoined or reentered it, [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on January 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
May 26, 1984, Athens, Greece
Dearest Joe – I wasn’t intending to write you any letters—but I miss you—and even if you don’t read them, just by writing I have the feeling of talking to you.
The plane ride wasn’t too difficult this time and my only jet lag symptom is that I feel sleepy. I felt [...]
Posted in Letters & Journals, Uncategorized, tagged Greece, Turkey on December 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
September 1983
Bodrum, Turkey
To understand an alien phenomenon requires an effort not only of the intellect but of the imagination. George Orwell
Reason and emotion—One must feel Turkey first. I arrive by small boat from Kos—almost in the wake of tradition, reversing the Western flow. The cool sea breeze, the salt on ones lips, clear skies without [...]
