Not much to this other than to bemoan the rapid passing of summer. July was beastly, but August has been nice, and I’m looking forward to pleasant weather through October (call me optimistic). Karen’s about to enter her last year at Cleveland Institute of Art, Katy just started her second year at Bowling Green, and Lylah’s now a junior at Beaumont—and working: She got a job at Chocolate Emporium, a kosher confectionery virtually around the corner from our house.

Off Provincetown, Mass. this August—whale watching is great!

Lylah, Karen and Katy: my beautiful household.

Read a great book: Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky. Also reviewed a book of his travel writings for the Boston Globe, and for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, reviewed Driving Home, a collection of essays and memoirs by the fine British writer Jonathan Raban. I’m still reviewing jazz CDs for Jazz Times and a little bit of rock for Hearsay.

Invisible Soul is vexing. I applied for a Creative Workforce Fellowship to the Cuyahoga Partnership for Arts and Culture and will know by Oct. 12 whether I got it. It’s for $20,000, which would help me a lot and pay for some research help. In the meantime, I already have an outline and am gearing up to just plain write the thing, or at least parts of it that I have under my belt. Poring over old newspaper stories and display ads is fascinating; there’s so much oddball, uncovered history here. In the meantime, I have another book out (sort of): WIXY 1260: Pixies, Six-Packs and Supermen. Published by a subsidiary of Kent State University Press, it’s credited thus: “Mike Olszewski & Richard Berg with Carlo Wolff.” Basically, I edited it. It’s fun.

One last item: My first wife contacted me through Facebook. I haven’t seen her/been in contact with her since 1983. Amazing how the lines of your life connect—far more easily than they used to.

On another front, Invisible Soul, the Cleveland soul music book project I’m developing, is moving along. I’m encountering some resistance—some key figures are hard to reach and/or simply don’t want to be—and there might be competition. If there is, I hope it turns into coopetition. Seems I’m treading sensitive waters; meanwhile, I’ll continue to post occasional, Cleveland soul-related stories on ohioauthority.

The book reviews are dwindling, probably because a) newspapers continue to cut back, b) bookstores are dying and c) book publishing is shrinking—or at least morphing. Such change is the reason I want Invisible Soul to be a book, an e-book, a soundtrack, a DVD, and maybe more. Gotta be multimedia these days; it’s the only way to market to a wide audience.

On the home front, Katy got a 4.0 in her first semester at Bowling Green and Lylah won high honors for her academic and artistic work in her sophomore year at Beaumont.

Karen’s working hard on updating her book, “Thick Through the Middle,” as a senior project.

A year from now, Karen will be a Cleveland Institute of Art graduate, armed with a whole new skill set. Reinvention is challenging and continuous.

Tokyo is Blade Runner scale, but much friendlier. The streets are broad, the scale unexpected. Tokyo itself is said to have a population of 29 million, Metro Tokyo 35 million. Unlike New York, while it’s similarly tall and skyscraper-heavy, Tokyo is layered. So the subway stations lead up to multi-leveled commercial complexes byzantine to the point of bewilderment. Even after four days, I had a hard time ascending from Shimbashi Station to Shiodome, the gigantic structure cluster housing the Conrad Tokyo, the four-star hotel where I commanded a gorgeous suite overlooking Tokyo Bay.

It’s not just the scale that overwhelms, it’s the civility. Tokyo is quiet and clean. While it’s packed with cars, one rarely hears a car horn. And while it’s overrun with people, the crowds, even in Shibuya, the city’s retail heart, are polite. Crossing an intersection with a good 5,000 people in it involves a kind of social ballet, a grace unimaginable in western cities, most of which are much smaller.

Seating sections with orange straps and signage are reserved for the elderly on Tokyo’s efficient subway. People are friendly, if reserved. Thanks to Daniel Fath, a fabulous public relations person who squired our group around Tokyo, we learned how to stand in the train, how to give way in a crowd, how to say thank you. Civility is critical in a region in which space is the primary, most priceless value.

The first day began before 5 a.m. with a visit to the Tsukiji Fish Market for the tuna auction. Cold, wet, enthralling, it took two hours and was an appropriate introductory immersion in Tokyo. Some fish were enormous; the auction decides the volume and quality of tuna distribution in the area. Word is local titans of industry want to move the market from its present spot on the Sumida River to make way for casinos and condos. There is resistance. The market is very much worth visiting.

A riverboat ride brought us to Asakusa, a tourist town where I encountered the Buddha I’ve always visualized and ate a fabulous rice cracker. Fatigued and jet-lagged, I nevertheless enjoyed the first day.

The day I remember most vividly was the third, when Daniel and I walked all over Shibuya, the most vibrant area I saw. Highlights were visits to Tower Records and Tokyu Hands. Americans would recognize Tower—Tokyo’s is the only extant one—but would find Tokyu Hands a very different kind of department store. It sells all kinds of cell phone accessories, wacky games, tchotchkes, clothing, kitchen ware. It’s a smorgasbord pulsing with animation and the exotic. Tokyo teen boys took pictures of us. We took pictures of them. That night, I took pix of the Ginza, a shopping district crossing Times Square and Madison Avenue. Lotsa fun. More soon.

I’m depressed about the elections, though oddly confident that Obama will now learn to lead the country, particularly since all the GOP seems wont to do is continue to say no to anything he tries. That’s not a program, and even when it’s hard to discern, Obama has one. So maybe there’s hope.

On the CJO: This was the first time I’d encountered several members of the board since I quit in August over its hiring of a communications person other than me. I don’t like some board members, so encounters were prickly. The show featured Cleveland stars Bob Fraser, guitar; Dominick Farinacci, trumpet; Ernie Krivda, tenor sax; the storied blind organist, Eddie Baccus Sr., rocking the Hammond; Ki Allen, vocals. It was a little lurchy and long, but basically nifty, even communal. Ki—my favorite Cleveland singer for sure—was terrific; Ernie was big-toned and expansive, particularly on “Laura”; the Frase made a lovely pass of intricately chorded variations on “Norwegian Wood”; and the restrained, suspensefully soulful Farinacci turned in a gorgeous “Manha de Carnaval,” from the film “Black Orpheus.” The show didn’t quite sell out, but it felt good. I’m still hostile toward the organization but miss the band.

Tomorrow I travel to Vancouver for a Best Western conference. I’m looking forward to a brief visit to a city that years ago was the stage for the wildest week I’ve ever spent. In 1975, I flew there on recommendation of a sometime girlfriend in Burlington who suggested I stop over there on my way to San Francisco and hook up with two of her friends, Jane and Carla. Did I ever: I spent a wild, stoned week there, enjoying myself immensely, profligately, bawdily. I leave the detail to your imagination.

And on Nov. 16, I’m flying to Tokyo for six days, courtesy of Hilton. I’ll stay at the Conrad at the Shiodome, tour the new Tokyo airport, and inhale as much as I can of a city I’ve always wanted to see. More soon.

So I pull into a Lexus dealer who tells me to go across the street to Metro Toyota. I’m looking to pull in, get the problem solved, and be on my way. It’s a very cold call.

At Metro, I tell the service desk my problem, and this tall guy says no hassle, he’ll take care of it, he won’t even write it up, go into the waiting room and he’ll be back to me. Long story short, 20 minutes later, he tells me my car’s ready. The tires were woefully low on pressure, they need to be replaced by winter, two valve stems were missing (I’d forgotten to put them back on after my ill-fated inflation attempt), he’d had the car washed, no charge.

Unreal. I didn’t think service like this existed anymore. Maybe it’s because Toyota is trying to repair a public relations image its recalls have badly damaged. Maybe it’s because Toyota wants me to remain loyal. It didn’t feel calculated at all, however. It felt genuine. That’s why I want to go on record thanking Bruce Schad, the service manager at Metro Toyota, for what he did. Service like that should go on the record.

I miss my parents lately, particularly now that I’ve read The Orientalist, Tom Reiss’ biography of Lev Nussimbaum, a tortured intellectual and prolific writer who lived while the great empires—the Ottoman, the Hapsburg, the Russian—died and totalitarianism took over. Nussimbaum was also known as Essad Bey and Kurban Said; he was a Jewish Orientalist whose greatest talent was self-invention.

Nussimbaum was born five months after my mother, in Baku, Azerbaijan, a city where there were oil fires above ground when he was a child. Baku, in Reiss’ telling, sounds like it came from The Arabian Nights.

My mother, who was quite a party girl, might have known Lev in the ‘20s when both were living in Berlin, a city Reiss captures with extraordinary vividness. Berlin in the Weimar period must have been a delight. If time travel were possible, I’d be there.

Nussimbaum’s is a story of displacement and exile. The book unearths history I had never imagined and helps explain why my parents, like the fascism-prone, Bolshevik-hating Nussimbaum, fled Germany for Italy in the early ‘30s (Italy wasn’t officially anti-Semitic until 1938, the year of the Anschluss, when Germany annexed Austria and Hitler and Mussolini formalized their alliance).

One of the most original works of history I’ve ever read, Reiss’ book—which he developed because he’s the “child of German-speaking Jews trapped in Nazi Europe” (I’m the son of German Jews who got out just in time)—documents a fantastic man negotiating perilous, challenging times. We live in interesting times now, with the world collapsing economically, forcing political accommodations that will be strenuous indeed. But Nussimbaum’s short career—he died, gangrenous and in great pain, in 1942—celebrates a degree of ingenuity and inventiveness rarely called for these days.

It also makes me very happy my parents made it to America, where you can breathe relatively freely. I wish I’d recorded more of their stories.

Also, visit Tom Reiss’s website.

Antonio Gaudi's Sagrada Familia in Barcelona is Catholicism on LSD.

I’m with friends on a hotel trip that’s deeply wearing but stimulating, on a continent that seems to be imploding but is still vital, authoritative and elegant. Here, trains are high-speed, cars are efficient, you can walk the cities, health care isn’t a fight. Shows you the U.S. has a long way to go.

A week later, however, Europe’s troubles are dragging down the world, stymieing what looks like an embryonic U.S. recovery. I don’t understand how a continent so apparently progressive can be in imminent danger of collapse. Too much community, it seems. It’s great to be all for one and one for all when the economy is on the way up, but one drags down all when it’s tanking.

But I ramble. The trip went from April 22 to May 1. We visited Belgium (Brussels was much more attractive than I expected), France (a day in Paris was expectedly delightful and Provence was ravishing), Spain, and Munich, Germany. I spent less than two hours at Dachau Concentration Camp, just long enough to chill at the recognition that it’s not just the evil the Nazis did, it’s how systematic and efficient that was.

Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp, a model for all the others.

I hope I go back. Each major city I visited—Brussels, Paris, Marseille, Barcelona and Munich—is a world of its own. I’m a Europhile.

In mid-December, my wife suggested I e-mail as many people as I could think of to tell them I wanted to engage more. Being semi-retired can be lonely, even when there’s work at home; I’ve been looking for part-time work outside home for a while, and haven’t gotten that. Part of that is the economy; a bigger part is that when you apply online—the only way to search for a job these days—you’re very likely to disappear into the digital void. It’s a buyer’s market, an impersonal one. Anyhow.

I e-mailed about 100 people in my various circles and got a gang of invitations to lunch and coffee, some virtual get well cards (“sorry about your situation; I’ll keep my ears open”) and some good work. The best was an assignment to write the history of rock and roll in Cleveland from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum for its website. I’ve already turned in my intro; it should be online in about a month. I think this will become an ongoing relationship. I might also get some museum-related work in the future. My outreach e-mail was a winner.

Other catch-up: Lylah and I went to New Orleans in January, arriving the night the Saints beat the Cardinals. The city was cool; it’s great the Saints won the Super Bowl. Now the Cavs have to do something similar for Cleveland. Traveling with Lylah was fun; she had a blast photographing scenes from that very scenic place, one of the best in the country for architecture. It’s becoming one of my favorite cities; if you go, be sure to eat at Domenica, in the Roosevelt, and at Acme Oyster House, in the Quarter.

At the Cafe du Monde

A fellow New Orleans tourist snapped this for us

Pleasures of the season: the snow is beautiful but getting old, like the cold. Walking the dog is a pleasure; Pearl likes the snow, likes getting her coat frosted. In the next three weeks, Karen, Katy and Lylah all have their birthdays, so I’ve been busy assembling gifts and the money to pay for them.

Recommendations: Avatar in 3D; the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man (very Jewish, very weird, quite interesting); Crazy Heart (Jeff Bridges is better than the movie, which works despite itself); Jimmy McDonough’s biography of Tammy Wynette; The Nels Cline Singers’ Initiate, and Reclamation, by the Stephan Crump Rosetta Trio.

Arizona State was gigantic—69,000 students at four separate Phoenix-area campuses—and the Tempe campus is very attractive. It’s the kind of place where you can create your own career, it seems. The facilities were excellent, the weather the week of Oct. 19 gorgeous. The Tucson campus was more logically laid out and more manageable; that city is probably a fifth the size of Phoenix, too, so the scale is easier to handle.

We must see whether Katy gets into either school or both; she has also applied to Ohio State University and Denison, a private school in southern Ohio. Our trip—our first together—was a lot of fun. We stayed in three different hotels—including two nights at a modern Best Western in Phoenix, where we wound up so I could cover a Best Western convention—and got along really well. My favorite memory is of stopping at the Tom Mix Memorial in Florence, where we met Jim and Mary, a motorcycle couple from Phoenix.

Never exchanged addresses but we did exchange kindly words. The encounter made the desert feels less deserted.

I’m also writing debut columns for a yet-to-be-announced, Cleveland-based news portal that will debut in November. My first two will be about the head of the Civic Innovation Lab and my friend Dave Pech, a photographer who happens to make Ping-Pong paddles.

I just returned from a trip to Phoenix for a lodging conference. I stayed at the Arizona Biltmore, one of the nicest hotels in the U.S. The conference was by no means upbeat—occupancy and rate are way down—but it was great to be warm for a few days after this chilly summer.

Oh, yes. Sunday night, Karen and I are going to be reading at Wise Up!, a benefit for the Cleveland Heights Public Library. I’m going to tell very short stories about jazz—fitting for Nighttown, where Wise Up! will be staged.

What’s happened to Obama, who as a campaigner was the best politician I’d ever seen? Apparently, he can’t lead, only synthesize, only accommodate. God knows I’m no fan of Republicans, but as Jon Stewart said, they had the discipline to sell the public on a disastrous war. Maybe Obama’s working health care reform like a wimp to appease the center right the polls say rule the country. Maybe he’s doing it because of a grander scheme he’ll unveil after midterm elections next year—if the Democratic majority holds, which it may not because of health care reform waffling.

I voted for Obama because I thought he was a liberal ready and canny enough to spearhead major social change, including health care reform that would result in a system similar to those in much of Europe and Canada. I’m not so sure anymore. I hope he pushes back Blue Dogs and ignores Republicans (except for those Maine ladies). I hope he has the spine to match his intellect and the will to move the country forward.

People complain he has bitten off more than he can chew. I hope Obama has the courage to bite down even harder.

Only this one puts vendors and beggars into competition—in China, they were somehow separate—so the main feeling a spoiled western tourist like me has is of being put upon, harassed. I don’t want to buy a Taj Mahal snowglobe or one of those thick red bullwhips vendors keep thrusting at me.

I’m heading across a short bridge and the tour bus is in sight when I see a man on all fours with a hand out toward me. He’s on all fours because that’s how he’s built. I can’t really see the man. All I see is the deformity.

I don’t speak his language, I don’t know what to do, even though I have some rupees on me. I feel ashamed, privileged beyond my right. I wonder how the man got this way and what could be done/what he could do to change a condition so extreme it seems no amount of money in the world could fix it. Helplessness and anger and shame roil me.

I ask our tour guide why that man was that way. There were others in the area like that, too; one wasn’t on all fours but had similar stick, scuttling legs. It was phantasmagorical.

The guide told me it was about education; those men didn’t know enough to go where help, available under India’s system of free medical care, was available.

No matter. I can’t get the image of the man on all fours out of my mind. Taking a picture of him would have been blasphemous.

I got into India very early a.m. July 13 after nearly two days of flying and layover. That first day was a blur, largely consisting of meeting various Leela executives including its remarkable chairman C.K. Nair, who is in his 80s, has seen it all and remains enthusiastic.

On July 14, we went to the heart of one of the many subcities of Delhi, to old, old markets where I and another journalist on this fascinating press trip occupied a narrow, hard seat in a bicycle rickshaw. Our driver took us through the narrowest, busiest streets I’ve ever seen. I can’t recall ever being this hot ‘n’ sweaty (hey, the heat’s dry in Phoenix and Dubai) or as saturated by atmosphere. The streets were so tight no way anything motorized other than auto rickshaws (covered Vespas seating four thin folk) could work them. The cost of the ride was covered by the PR agency that sent me to India, but at the end, the driver, who pushed a sickly beggar kid off me during it, wanted a big tip. We gave him 300 rupees (about $6.25) when Pamela, my seatmate, added 100 to my 200, exceeding the norm. The guy was demanding and shameless and I didn’t like his attitude. Then I thought to myself, where the hell do I come off begrudging someone who just nearly worked himself to death pampering me? I want to kill my inner Ugly American.

The next day our band of 10, half of them journalists, rode four and a half hours south to the state of Uttar Pradesh, home to Agra, home to the Taj Mahal. Our bus driver was a hero, dodging bullets mechanical and animal over iffy roadway. We arrived around 11:30 a.m. and the sun was relentless as we entered the site, which is much bigger than I thought it would be. Like Beijing’s Forbidden City, it’s massive; that’s why it’s called monumental. It’s also dazzlingly white, even radiant, its calligraphy and gemstone marble inlay gorgeous, its shimmer and magnetism undeniable. I now understand the term “mogul” and am beginning to glimpse how complex and challenging are the area’s politics.

Before I descend into fatuousness, I’ll cut this short. India makes you reconsider your viewpoint, your conceptions, your preconceptions. I’ll write more about the trip to Agra next time I blog. I have to get ready for a trip to Atlanta today (it’s July 20) so goodbye for now.

On Jan. 16, when I first heard of US Airways flight 1549 landing in the Hudson River off Manhattan, I called my wife into the bedroom to watch the news. It was good. She agreed, and she’s had fear of flying for years. Maybe from now on she’ll travel lighter in her head. I want to travel with her. No problem for me with travel.

 No need to recap the “miracle” of the plane that landed in the Hudson, in a perfectly executed maneuver with no lives lost. But there’s need to underline its significance, especially for Karen, who’s been scared to fly since 9/11. I suspect she’ll be better about flying after the story of flight 1549. Everything worked just right. What happened attested to competence, care,. concern, training and expertise.

 Which brings me to Tuesday, when Barack Obama becomes president. I watched Dubya’s “farewell address” and begrudgingly acknowledge his discipline and spine. But I’m so glad to see him go; I plan a double toast on Tuesday (at least), heralding Bush’s departure and Obama’s arrival.

 The Obamas and Bidens are on the train right now, reprising the journey Abraham Lincoln took to the presidency. God speed. God willing, they augur a fabulous administration. The cabinet choices are good (Geithner seems shaky, however) and what Obama has been saying about what he wants to do rings true. And he has enormous goodwill going into the job, which I’m sure he will do well, remaining human and accessible and true to himself and a family man and eloquent all the time.

The landing of  flight 1549 is perfect prologue to what I hope will be a time of uplift, progress, evolution. We’ve been backsliding for years, certainly during the Bush administration (and even, to some extent, under Clinton). Now it’s time not only to catch up but exceed, bringing health to all, an end to discrimination, meaningful work for those who need it, a meaningful, purposeful, environmentally responsible and politically impeccable life to all. Not to mention the closing of Guantanamo, the conquering of AIDS, the end of genocide, the transformation of our penal system…I could go on. I’ll be watching. And, hopefully, visiting the strange with my wife without fear.