a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
Francesca Forquet reports for the New York Times from Palm Springs, California:
When Marilyn Monroe sang “I Wanna Be Loved by You,” she would have never expected that one day, 1,037 people would gather beneath her giant statue in downtown Palm Springs to dress as her in celebration of her 100th birthday.
In doing so, they set a Guinness World Record in the very place where her career began. Palm Springs — whose identity is inextricably linked with the star — likes to claim Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Mortensen, and the feeling was mutual.
“This was always her escape,” said Mariah Pryor, a Palm Springs resident who was carrying a Marilyn-themed handbag she once rescued from a lost-and-found box.
I took the No 8 bus to Westlake Avenue and walked up along Lake Union, hoping to still catch Mark Zuckerberg’s megayacht there.
Alas, she was gone.
Someone there told me she was out in the open waters of Elliott Bay.
“For those who either missed the four-hour-and-53-minute piece of art, in which Fonseca rallied from two sets down to upset Novak Djokovic, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, 7-5, in the third round at Roland Garros — or for anyone looking for a cheat sheet on why they should be excited about this 19-year-old Brazilian whose matches draws some of the biggest crowds on the ATP Tour — watch the 5-5 game in the fifth set.”
– Ava Wallace writing for The Athletic in The New York Times
She goes on to explain that while João Fonseca has a sledgehammer of a forehand, he broke Djokovic’s serve at 5-5 by with deft drop shots that won him three of the four points in the game. He held his own serve to clinch the set 7-5 and with that, win the match.
Fonseca will play Casper Ruud (27, 🇳🇴) in the fourth round.
The 2026 French Open title is beckoning for a brand-new champion, with the injured Carlos Alcaraz (23, 🇪🇸) missing the tournament, and tournament favorite Jannik Sinner (24, 🇮🇹) crashing out in the second round with cramps.
Happy Friday.
I’m reading up about the stamps from Greenland that had I bought at the stamp show from a friendly guy from Nuuk, at the Greenland booth at the stamp show.
Issued Jan. 31, 2025
Perf. 13 | Design: Miki Jacobsen | 40 mm x 30 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark
01100788 19.00 Kr | Multicolored | SIRIUS Patrol with provisions and dog sled
The headquarters of the SIRIUS patrol is Daneborg, located on the east coast of Greenland, close to 74 degrees north latitude. The headquarters is completely cut off from the outside world. To get there, you have to fly in a small propeller plane from Iceland. At the station, twelve men and 80 sled dogs are each other’s only company for a radius of about 250 kilometers. There are not many distractions outside of work. There is mail from home six to seven times a year.
SIRIUS’ northernmost station is called Station Nord. Five men are stationed here year-round. The main task is to keep a large runway free of ice, but there are also many other tasks. On the patrols, the menu is freeze-dried food, powdered milk, chocolate and rye bread, but after arriving at the station, there is food in abundance, as well as videos, music and even a shower. Everything is in sharp contrast to the patrols’ harsh living conditions. Station Nord is therefore a very popular place to stay for the patrols.
In a modern era, when surveillance of Northeast Greenland could easily be carried out using satellites or aircraft, the SIRIUS patrol may seem redundant.
However, the fact is that, according to international conventions, sovereignty can only be enforced by entering the areas that a country possesses. So the unique Danish military unit will probably continue to operate in Greenland’s northernmost regions in the future. [Sources: stampworld.com, stamps.gl/greenland-collector, Google AI]
Issued Jan. 31, 2025
Perf. 13 | Design: Konrad Nuka Godtfredsen | 56 mm x 33 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark
895 AEK 3.00 Kr | Multicolored | East Greenlandic sled
896 AEL 38.00 Kr | Multicolored | Greenlander with East Greenlandic sled
[Sources: stampworld.com, Google AI]
Issued May 26, 2025
Perf. 13 | Design: Maya Sialuk Jacobsen | 30 mm x 40 mm, 40 mm x 30 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark
902 AER 25.00 Kr | Black and white | Boy with animal skin clothing from the Thule culture
More:
Qilakitsoq is an abandoned Inuit settlement on the Nuussuaq Peninsula on the West coast of Greenland, about 450 km north of the Arctic Circle. The settlement is renowned for the discovery of eight mummified bodies from the Thule culture in 1972. The discovery was made by two local reindeer hunters, Hans and Jokum Grønvold. In two graves were the mummies of six women and two boys. They comprise three generations with close familial links across the graves. Although the causes of death are unknown, they probably died at the same time in the Autumn shortly after arriving at the Winter settlement. They were wrapped in animal skins and fully clothed. They were equipped for a long journey to the underworld, carefully prepared according to ancient, traditional rites. They had extra skins and clothing to afford them a safe journey and a good life in the realm of the dead. The five oldest women have almost identical facial tattoos that can express both kinship and social status. The youngest woman of about 20 years is not tattooed. Perhaps she was either unmarried or childless. Tattoos have been in common use among Inuit women for thousands of years. There were amulets on and among their clothing. The Inuit probably employed these amulets to muster strength and protection from evil spirits. The mummies from Qilakitsoq have since afforded valuable insights into the life of the Inuit who lived in the area some 500 years ago. The stamp reproduces the most recognisable and most iconic of the eight mummies. It is presumed to be a small boy of about six months. While the gender is based on the clothing, the age has been ascertained from the development of teeth and bones through radiographic examination.
903 AES 28.00 Kr | Black and white | The Kingittorsuaq rune stone
More:
The Kingittorsuaq rune stone was found in 1824 by a man called Pelimut. The discovery was made on top of the mountain on the small island of Kingittorsuaq about 20 km north of Upernavik. At the highest point of the island, he saw three collapsed cairns placed in a triangle formation. Near the largest of the cairns, he spotted a stone with several markings that he did not recognise. The stone, which is known as the Kingittorsuaq Runestone, bears medieval rune inscriptions. It is conclusive evidence that Norsemen in Greenland on their fishing trips along the West coast of Greenland reached as far North as North of the present-day town of Upernavik. The stone, which currently resides in the National Museum in Copenhagen, has been dated to the Middle Ages between 1250 to 1333 AD. The last part of the runic script remains undecipherable as it appears to be a group of meaningless characters. However, the first part of the writing on the runestone translated from Old Norse reads: “Erling, son of Sigvath and Baarne Thordar’s son and Enriði Á’s son, on Saturday before Rogation Day raised this stone and rode…”
[Sources: stampworld.com, europe-stamps.blogspot.com, Google AI]
Issued Sep. 12, 2025
Woven cloth with embroidery | 100% Recycled polyester | 55 mm x 42 mm | Mfg. by Hämmerle & Vogel (Austria) | Self-adhesive
909 AEY 75 Kr | Stylized, white-and-blue embroidered dove carrying an olive branch
Part of an international joint initiative where multiple postal services worldwide issued identical embroidered stamps. It features the exact same dove motif across over a dozen postal organizations (including the UN, Switzerland, Austria, and the Faroe Islands) with only the country name and local currency varying.
[Sources: stampworld.com, Google AI]
Issued May 23, 2026
Perf. 13 | Two stamps in minisheet (140 mm x 80 mm) | Design: Martin Mörck | Stamps 40 mm x 30 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark
01100819 25.00 Kr | Multicolored | Leif the Lucky’s discovery of Vinland*
01100820 37.00 Kr | Multicolored | Thor Solberg’s flight aboard the Leif Eriksson biplane**
*Leif Eriksson, also known as Leif the Lucky, was a Norse explorer who is thought to have been the first European to set foot on continental America, approximately half a millennium before Christopher Columbus did.
Vinland is the coastal region of North America (Newfoundland & eastern Canada) explored and temporarily settled by Norse Vikings around 1000 CE.
**Thor Solberg was a Norwegian-born aviation pioneer who made the first successful flight from the United States of America to Norway in 1935. He made the journey, which started in New York City, in an open-cockpit single-engine aircraft with no landing instruments.
[Sources: stampworld.com, stamps.gl/greenland-collector, Google AI]
Sunset is now at 8.55 pm here in the city.
It was summery today, with the high at 81°F (27°F ).
Clouds are moving in for a cooldown and a little rain tomorrow, though.
One can see Mark Zuckerberg’s megayacht on south Lake Union from the Melrose Avenue & East Harrison St overlook at Interstate 5, where I was.
Built in the Netherlands by Dutch luxury shipbuilder Feadship, the yacht is 387 ft (118 m) long and goes by the decidedly unromantic name (in my opinion) of Launchpad.
I’m going to have to find another way to get my summary of the day’s calamities, now that the Stephen Colbert Show is over.
(Background: The cancellation announcement in July 2025 closely followed a legal settlement in which CBS paid Donald Trump $16 million over a controversial 60 Minutes interview. Because Colbert was a relentless and high-profile critic of the Trump administration, many media critics and fans speculated the cancellation was tied to political and corporate dynamics. At the time of the announcement, CBS’s parent company, Paramount, was navigating a complex, multibillion-dollar merger that required government approval from the Trump administration — Google AI Overview).
Here is how Edward Norton (American actor and filmmaker), described the difficulty for the individual following the news, on the Stephen Colbert Show, Mar. 18, 2026.
“The anxiety of these times is particularly intense right now.
We know the world is effed up in ways that are unprecedented in our lifetimes.
We live in this unbelievable onslaught of information.
We see genocide being livestreamed to us.
We see American citizens being killed by paramilitary people in our own streets for standing in solidarity with their neigbors.
We’re seeing Epstein’s abuses titrated to us on a daily basis.
And it is such a conundrum, because we know –
we know there is a value, we know that it is good in some ways to know what is exactly happening,
to know what is happening in Gaza,
to know what is happening in Ukraine and Sudan and Minneapolis,
but at the same time it is very difficult to know what we as an individual person can do about all of that while moving through our day.”
I had a blast at the stamp show but it’s great to have made it home.
Ar Boston Logan airport, my checked bag weighed in at 48.5 lbs, 1.5 lbs shy of the weight limit. The medium size suitcase was stuffed with packs of stamp album pages and a giant binder to put them in, along with brochures and other papers.
These pictures are from yesterday, taken in and around Boston Common— the oldest city park in all of the United States.
The building with the iconic gold dome overlooking the Boston Common is the Massachusetts State House.
The next world stamp exhibition is in Prague, in the Czech Republic in March 2028.
It is Memorial Day here in the United States— the day dedicated to honoring and mourning military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.
The site of the Boston Tea Party incident is a short walk from the Convention Center.
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest on December 16, 1773, where American colonists, frustrated by British “taxation without representation,” destroyed 342 chests of tea. Led by the Sons of Liberty and disguised as Mohawk warriors, the group dumped $1.7 million worth of British East India Company tea into Boston Harbor.
The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum had already closed for the day when I got there last night.
I took a few pictures and then walked to South Station at 700 Atlantic Avenue. It is a large train station that serves the MBTA Subway, bus lines and an Amtrak line.
I attended the opening ceremony of the Boston 2026 World Expo stamp show, and spent the best part of the day looking at the displays, and checking out the offerings from the vendors. (And making a few acquisitions— nothing too extravagant).
Happy Friday.
I landed in Boston at 6.23 pm local time.
My hotel is right next to the Convention Center— the venue for the Boston 2026 World Stamp Show that starts tomorrow.
Pictures:
Stepping on to the Boeing 737 MAX 9 at SEA airport’s North Terminal;
Checking for cruise ships at the piers in Elliott Bay Boeing 737 MAX 9 (Norwegian Joy, Voyager of the Seas, Celebrity Edge);
Alpine lakes in the mountains in northern Washington State (our flight path skirted the Canadian border to the south, all the way to Boston);
Approaching Boston Logan airport now, with the Nahant peninsula, a one square mile residential community just north of Boston that is connected to the mainland with a narrow causeway called Nahant Road;
Landing at Boston Logan airport;
Baggage claim area ‘Welcome to Boston’ at Boston Logan airport;
Display signs at the Thomas M. Menino Convention & Exhibition Center and the night scene across from the Convention Center.
Here is an hour before sunset (now 8.47 pm), with the sun behind the clouds at the top right.
I am looking out towards the Olympic mountains from 13th Avenue E and East Mercer St.
From today’s Seattle Times.
I did not know that this was a thing: racing up to the mountain’s summit, and back.
I have plans to travel to Boston on Friday*, and I see there was a severe thunderstorm over the city today.
Temperature highs had spiked up all the way to 96°F (36°C), a new record for May 19.
*A conference billed as the Boston 2026 World Expo starts there in the convention center on Saturday. It is the 12th international philatelic exhibition of the United States and serves as one of the world’s largest global stamp and history gatherings.
[caption and image from nbcboston.com]
Ebay is the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to searching and buying or bidding for postage stamps from all over the world.
Still, to complete some of my sets for South Africa, I had to resort to South African sellers that listed their offerings only locally, on a South Africa-based website for collectors.
I’m going to have to do the same for Japan, but there are additional challenges.
There is the language obstacle of Japanese language-only websites, and many times the seller would ship only to local buyers.
Enter Buyee Japan: a proxy shopping service that lets you bid for, or purchase outright, Japanese products that are listed on local Japanese websites.
It was mostly sunny today here in the city, with a high of 63°F (17°C).
The flower du jour here from Seattle’s Capitol Hill is a rock rose (the shrub’s genus is Cistus), with its crinkled ’tissue paper’ petals and bright yellow stamens in the center.
Rock rose flowers are short-lived, and once out of the bud, most last only a day or two!
Mr. Woodpecker (Northern flicker, Colaptes auratus) pecked on the tree trunk for a few minutes, then gave up and rested on the branches of my fir tree.
After preening his chest feathers for a bit, he took off.
Happy Friday.
Trump is back from China, where he tried hard to undo the catastrophic damage of his trade war— the one that he had started last year in April.
The headline of the order for 200 Boeing jets looks good, but the article mentions that Boeing was hoping for an order of up to 500 jets.
I asked Google AI to summarize the trip for me— what is publicly known about it, anyway.
At the bottom: “Highlighting deep-seated paranoia over Chinese surveillance, White House staff immediately confiscated and threw away all Chinese-issued credentials, delegation pins, and burner phones before anyone was permitted to board Air Force One to return to Washington.”
No! It’s cold! Go back and put your thicker jacket on, I thought, as I headed out the door tonight for a quick walk.
The high today was 61 °F (16 °C), and it was only 53 °F (12 °C) in the early evening hours.
