Rain stopped play

I was supposed to go down to Philadelphia this weekend. It would have represented the first time I've actually managed to get outside of New York City (apart from going home at Xmas) in the whole time I've been here. The occasion was an alumni game of the college which one of my friends here (Indian, for reasons that will become apparent) attended as an undergraduate. Not just any alumni game, though - a game of cricket. A rare opportunity to play on the American continent. The idea was to have been to head on down there and turn the arm over, maybe bat a bit.

Not to be, sadly. It rained all weekend. Ironic, I suppose, that this most English of games should meet an appropriately English fate - i.e., a watery grave. I would have liked to have seen a little of Philadelphia, actually - it's not a desperately attractive place by all accounts, but it has some history to it (the Liberty Bell and, uh...), and getting out of the Big Apple almost seems like an end in itself. Still, not to worry, there will be other opportunities - and considering I'd been drinking the night before, the call at 7 a.m. that confirmed cancellation was actually quite welcome.

Today, I purchased for the handsome sum of $10 a print remaindered from an exhibition held recently at Columbia of photographs themed around Hirohito. Not a great fan of the man (personally, if each had their own he should probably have been first against the wall after WWII), but there was a beautiful shot of the sunset on the last day of Showa, January 7th 1989 which particularly caught my eye. It's from the offices of the Mainichi Shinbun, and in the foreground was Edo Castle, the background a construction site. The play of light and shadow, old and new was particularly fascinating, as well as the poignancy of the setting sun considering the date. I will get a picture up as soon as I can figure out how to take a shot without reflecting the flash off the surface...