Horses Like Lightening

The Rubin Museum did a reading/book launch yesterday for Horses Like Lightening a new book by Sienna Craig. I really had to go to see and briefly meet Sienna because she edited my book about travelers in Tibet, Phantom Voices in Tibet, but our work was by mail and telephone. She was then in California and I here in NYC. She sent some of her writing about the horse culture in Mustang [in Nepal] that had been a part of her thesis. That interested me in Mustang so I soon went there -- one of the high points of my life. Horses were the only non-shanks-mare transporation at that time in Mustang. I walked and loved everything about being in Mustang.

Sienna had ridden as a high school student and loved horses and then came to love Nepal and Mustang as well. Her book is part memoir and part about the importance of horses, their care and role in a society that is rapidly changing as a road is being built. She had many friends and some relatives there so I only introduced myself. We spoke very briefly. But I she played a bigger role in my life than she knows besides helping me finally understand why Tibetan prayer flag picture a horse and are called "Wind horses."

I didn't stay for the signing part. I had been torn, because I wanted to hear the broadcast of the Met. concert in Prospect Park with Angela Georgieu and Roberto Alanya [I may have mangled spelling], a soprano and tenor, married and wonderful singers. When I got home I rushed to the radio and heard the duet from Lucia De Lamamoor which was magnificent, and the last of the first half of the concert, and then I heard the lovely second half. For the midsummer night concert some 50,000 people had gone to Prospect Park. I was glad to combine two events in one full and beautiful evening.