Apropos July 4th

My Feuchtwanger lecture today in Freiburg was well received, which makes me feel vaguely respectable. Also, I finally managed to find a phone access that works in the academic monastic quarters where I'm staying for the weekend, so I get to post this in time:

Things I Love About America,

or,

It's Not Always Criticism


- the spontanous friendliness and generosity I encountered in many Americans, again and again
- jazz and rock’n roll
- hiking to the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, and the view from same
- certain wonderful genre tv shows and the writers and actors of same
- swimming in Lake Erie, with waves that belong to the sea and yet have no taste of salt in them
- hearing stories of ghosts, crazy relations and tough Japanese women married to Cajuns in Louisiana
- mountains, ice, sea and woods of Alaska (but not the moose – ask honorh why)
- walking through Manhattan on a warm night after a good play in the theatre, watching all those lights
- Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim
- The much maligned Hollywood
- Having breakfeast in a New York Café
- The Universal Studios
- The enormous capacity for idealism and enthusiasm
- Skiing and living relatively cheap in a Nevada casino, of all the places (only in the US…)
- The fact Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey as the national symbol (“it is a noble bird”) and Jefferson wanted a dove
- The friends I found through personal encounters and through the internet.