HAIKU NORTH AMERICA

Many of your friends will probably say, "You're going where?", as you head for HNA 2015 and Schenectady. But, once you are here, you are bound to be asking where your new haiku friends live. Sean Kolodji has again produced a great Google map, which shows the place on the planet from which each of our registrants are departing for HNA 2015. Click on a little flag to see the person associated with the location, or search a person by name. You'll have to match names and faces when you are at the Conference (unless I've overlooked one more cool function). 

Many thanks, Sean, for bringing high-tech to the haijin universe.

 We are getting spoiled with beautiful October weather in Schenectady. I sure hope our weather muse has saved a few more of these for Oct. 14 - 18. It does look like the highs will be in the 50s and lows in the 30s, per the forecast as of today for the week. 

After the Local Gang loaded up your registration folders today, I walked around campus with my camera and monopod for my last Union College campus photo-shoot before the Conference arrives. I started at Gate 5, which is the Nott Street entry/exit for the Visitors Parking Lot, and ended at the Seward Place driveway to the Visitors Parking Lot. It was lovely, as this Slideshow will demonstrate. [Click here for the 3-page Union College Visitor Map.]

Get here safely, please, but please get here. 

You can find our latest HNA 2015 Conference Schedule on the Conference Schedule Page. You may also click here for a pdf. version of the 11-page Schedule. The remarkably few changes since the draft of September 5th are listed on the Schedule Page. 

The local coordinators want to thank each of the presenters for giving us such a full schedule. They will individually and collectively, along with another 100+ artful and curious registrants, make HNA 2015 a rich and varied experience.

Please come to Schenectady this week for a celebration of haiku and haijin. 

 If you're on the Union College campus a week from today (Thursday), you'll surely be climbing the steps to the main entrance of the Nott Memorial, as the students in the photo to the right did today. Unlike students who have already experienced the unique beauty of the Nott (see, for example, this posting), you're going to stop to take in the gorgeous tiled floor, and then look up at two levels of circular balconies, with dozens of stained glassed windows, and finally the grand dome that reaches 100 feet above you. Once reoriented, you're likely to check out the HNA 2015 Book Fair, before heading to the second level to enjoy Ion Codrescu's haiga exhibit at the Mandeville Gallery, which will whet your appetite for the Artist Lecture and Opening Reception, from 5 PM to 6:30 PM. 

​    Because it's likely to be twilight by the time you're leaving the Nott Memorial for dinner, I'd like to suggest you pencil in a very short stroll with a friend or two to Jackson's Garden before your ample buffet lunch break ends and you head to one of the three Conference presentations scheduled for 2 P.M. I've praised the oldest cultivated college garden in the nation elsewhere, at this link, where you will find photos and can take a video walk through the Garden. For now, here's a slideshow with a half dozen photos taken just before 2 P.M. today, in a portion of the Garden nearest the entrance. Not seen are trails along a lovely creek, a large gazebo, a field for frisbee, and more. In a week, there will be more fall colors to make the 8 acres of formal gardens and woodland even more inviting. 

  update: The Wednesday evening reception has been moved to   the handsome and convenient King Street Courtyard, but the     Saturday evening reception is still scheduled for the Koi Pond.   
. . . a few stragglers might still be at the Desmond Koi Pond marveling that the bright colors are a lot like the beautiful foliage we saw on the bus to and from the Clark Art Museum. Someone will point us toward the Town Hall, where we'll enjoy a read-around and hear Jim Kacian explain why "Realism is Dead."  It is a little daunting, but quite exciting, that Haiku North America 2015 will be unfolding at the Desmond in seven days, and spread quickly to Union College in Schenectady.

Our local committee co-chairs Hilary Tann and John Stevenson have been going non-stop for many weeks, to make this a great Conference, and I [David Giacalone] want to thank them, and the folks in the Administration at Union College, as well as staff at the Desmond, for putting an optimistic smile on my face as the Conference is upon us.

If you were here in Schenectady today, you might have sworn that Paradise must be a lot like Union College under a blue sky, with a temperature near 70º, and a bit of red and gold just starting to grace the trees. The photo at the head of this paragraph was taken at the main entry to the College about 4 PM today, and as was the photo below, looking down Library Lane to the Nott Memorial from Union Street. Click here for a collage of photos of Union College wearing its autumn wardrobe.

If you would like to make an online stroll around the downtown of our town, here are links to resources put together by DowntownSchenectady.com:

• Downtown Interactive Map  Browse Downtown Schenectady's shops, restaurants, services, lodging, cultural attractions, transportation and parking. ​
• Two Publications, which registrants will find in their Conference folders in hardcopy next week: (1) Downtown Visitor Guide & Map ; and (2) Schenectady Dining Guide​

Weather Forecast? We are all adults, so we know about how much faith to put into a forecast that is one week out, but I am pleased to say that temperatures look moderate for mid-October, and the chance of rain showers looks considerably reduced since a week ago. So, for what it is worth, to the right is the forecast map Steve Caporizzo posted this evening on WTEN, New10 ABC, for your arrival days.

No  matter the weather on any one day, Union Campus will be beautiful on the outside, as well as inside, in Hale House, the Everest and Milano and Lounges, Old Chapel, Emerson Auditorium, etc. etc. See you soon. 

Frankly, nobody on our Local Organizing Committee can promise great weather for HNA 2015 twelve days before it begins. But, yesterday, I wrote to Steve Caporizzo, our region's favorite media meteorologist, and asked him if he had a Fortnight Forecast for us for mid-October weather and foliage in Schenectady and Albany.  Here's what Steve wrote back:

• ​Mid October…Highs Mostly Near 60…  Lows Near 40……
• figure the coldest would be upper 20s to near 30
• and High Temps could still reach the low to mid 70s if we are lucky.

As for foliage, Steve wrote:

• Colors should be at their best at that time

Two weeks out, there is nothing suggesting that anything extreme is coming our way, such as the giant snowstorm we had in early October of 1987. And, I see no signs here in Schenectady that we need fear Premature Defoliation, with the foliage turning and then all descending before you arrive for HNA 2015. For example, here are two photographs taken this morning near my Stockade District home (about 0.6 miles from Union College). As you can see, only a small percentage of leaves have turned as of today.

On one weather topic, however, I will go out on a limb: The Probability of a lovely sunset, during HNA 2015, over the Mohawk River from my backyard on Cucumber Alley in the Schenectady Stockade is High. To the right is a photo I took from there yesterday evening (October 1, 2015.)