Did you feel like a mole or a gopher when the sun appeared last weekend?

I saw people squinting in the direction of the yellow orb as though they had been in a cave for months.

The Astoria Riverwalk on Saturday afternoon was a joyous setting for walkers and bicyclists. In an entertaining combination, a leashed dog pulled a young man on his skateboard. The dog population did not rival the human population on the Riverwalk, but canines were very much part of the scene.

Here is what struck me about Barack Obama’s inauguration. The quiet. It seemed as though the listeners were hanging on every word. The speech was rarely interrupted by applause.

My eyes were as big as saucers last Thursday during a farm tour at Fresno State University. The board of directors of the Capital Press – our company’s agricultural newspaper – spent two days on the FSU campus.

On Fresno State’s 1,100-acre farm, there are grapevines, almond trees, alfalfa, cattle, horses and olive bushes. FSU’s agriculture school has programs in viticulture and oenology.My eyes were like saucers as we toured Fresno State University’s farm. Students grow grapes, crush them, make wine, bottle, label it and sell it under the Fresno State University label. They also turn olives into olive oil and create dairy products such as milk, cheese and ice cream as well as almonds. The products are sold in a market on campus.

The farm also has a program in organic agriculture. We ate some of its arugula.

Not surprisingly, the school’s graduates are snapped up, especially those in the wine program. The director of the University Agricultural Laboratory, Ganesan Srinivasan, said his program attracts students from Southern California who have never been near a farm.

The great contradiction of our culture is how little contact the mass of Americans have with where their food comes from. Mass production farms such as feedlots gain attention for other reasons. But the smaller farmer is a forgotten figure.

Seeing Grand Hotel on a big screen was heaven. It was shown at the Liberty Theater Sunday afternoon. I had forgotten this is the movie in which Greta Garbo says, “I want to be alone.” In fact, she says it three times.

The prolonged close-ups of Garbo and John Barrymore are breathtaking. So are the intimate shots of Barrymore and Joan Crawford. My wife noticed that one shot of Garbo’s was lit so that the shadows of her eye lashes fell on her cheeks.

Next movie in the series is Top Hat, a Depression-era comedy and dancing extravaganza. The dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov has said that seeing Astaire on film was upsetting because Astaire’s dancing was so perfect.

When performance art combines with a political flashpoint, there is combustion. That occurs in Dr. Atomic, John Adams’ 2005 opera about Robert Oppenheimer and the first atom bomb test in New Mexico. The work was broadcast last Saturday from the Metropolitan Opera. The most profound moments of the opera are countdown to the blast at Los Alamos, a chorus of shrieking children and the voice of a Japanese woman.

– S.A.F.