The Cloisters

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Details: Written by: Richard_McKie; Parent Category: Travel; Category: North America; Published: 20 December 2010; Hits: 23978

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I was particularly keen to get to New York in time to go to the Cloisters in Fort Tyron Park before we returned the car at the Airport and flew out. This is best visited by car. Wendy was very dubious about my enthusiasm but was soon converted, proclaiming the Cloisters one of the best things she had seen during the whole trip. The Cloisters overlook the Hudson River and incorporate medieval cloisters from five French abbeys together with gardens incorporating plants mentioned in medieval manuscripts. They are the gift of John D Rockefeller Jr who also purchased a major collection of medieval art and artefacts that are housed there. The Cloisters provide an amazingly peaceful atmosphere, when there are not too many visitors, complimented occasionally by softly played Gregorian Chants.

They immediately bring home the attraction of medieval Christianity and a monastic lifestyle. It is easy to see how intelligent people in the Middle Ages would find this attractive in a time when all informed people still believed that this Earth was the centre of the universe and all creation was intended by its creator to culminate in humankind, formed in His image.

From this it is a small step to believing in that one is saved from the consequences of falling short of God’s intended design and hopes for us, one’s sins, by the sacrifice of His human son on our behalf. In consequence there was no higher calling than to spend one’s life in praise of the creator for His beneficence; through one’s every living act.

This cosmology may seem silly to day; when we know we are certainly not at the centre of, or the central object of, creation. We now understand that each of us is but one possible arrangement of cells following a structure evolved from our ancestors, in that way similar to all the other animals and living things on the planet; that life probably accidentally infected the earth 3 to 4 billion years ago and it is probable that many other galactic objects are similarly infected; that the earth is an insignificant planet that orbits the sun and our galaxy in an unimaginably vast universe; and that humans have existed in our present form for an infinitesimally brief flash of time, much less than a thousandth of one galactic orbit. One galactic orbit takes approximately 250,000,000 terrestrial years; our galaxy, just one of trillions, has already turned at least 50 times and is expected to go on turning for a lot longer.

Nevertheless there are few places more beautiful; or containing objects as beautiful; or as culturally significant to Europeans; as the Cloisters.

East Coast Photo Gallery

This is an edited gallery of my photographs from the trip - click on the image:

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Travel

Bridge over the River Kwai

In 1957-58 the film ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai‘ was ground breaking. It was remarkable for being mainly shot on location (in Ceylon not Thailand) rather than in a studio and for involving the construction and demolition of a real, fully functioning rail bridge. It's still regarded by many as one of the finest movies ever made.

One of the things a tourist to Bangkok is encouraged to do is to take a day trip to the actual bridge.

Fiction, Recollections & News

Australia Day according to ChatGPT

I've long been interested in the advent of artificial intelligence (AI). It's a central theme in my fictional writing (The Cloud and The Craft) and is discussed in my essay to my children 'The Meaning of Life' (1997-2017). So, I've recently been exploring the capabilities of ChatGPT.

As today, 26 January 2024, is Australia Day, I asked ChatGPT to: 'write 1000 words about Australia Day date'. In a few minutes (I read each as it arrived) I had four, quite different, versions. Each took around 18 seconds to generate. This is the result:

Opinions and Philosophy

Climate Emergency

emergency
/uh'merrjuhnsee, ee-/.
noun, plural emergencies.
1. an unforeseen occurrence; a sudden and urgent occasion for action.

Recent calls for action on climate change have taken to declaring that we are facing a 'Climate Emergency'.

This concerns me on a couple of levels.

The first seems obvious. There's nothing unforseen or sudden about our present predicament.

My second concern is that 'emergency' implies something short lived. It gives the impression that by 'fire fighting against carbon dioxide' or revolutionary action against governments, or commuters, activists can resolve the climate crisis and go back to 'normal' - whatever that is. Would it not be better to press for considered, incremental changes that might avoid the catastrophic collapse of civilisation and our collective 'human project' or at least give it a few more years sometime in the future?

Back in 1990, concluding my paper: Issues Arising from the Greenhouse Hypothesis I wrote:

We need to focus on the possible.

An appropriate response is to ensure that resource and transport efficiency is optimised and energy waste is reduced. Another is to explore less polluting energy sources. This needs to be explored more critically. Each so-called green power option should be carefully analysed for whole of life energy and greenhouse gas production, against the benchmark of present technology, before going beyond the demonstration or experimental stage.

Much more important are the cultural and technological changes needed to minimise World overpopulation. We desperately need to remove the socio-economic drivers to larger families, young motherhood and excessive personal consumption (from resource inefficiencies to long journeys to work).

Climate change may be inevitable. We should be working to climate “harden” the production of food, ensure that public infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams, hospitals, utilities and so) on are designed to accommodate change and that the places people live are not excessively vulnerable to drought, flood or storm. [I didn't mention fire]

Only by solving these problems will we have any hope of finding solutions to the other pressures human expansion is imposing on the planet. It is time to start looking for creative answers for NSW and Australia now.

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