Sunday, October 27, 2013

June 2013


JUNE 2013 


SATURDAY morning June st  Up early watering everything.  Concert evening in Burque went off well.  Lisa and her new beau Robert Miller and his daughter Lydia are getting married this July in Montgomery, Alabama---hometown of Daddy-D.  Full circle of some sort.  Son Ryan seems ok.  Same age as Lydia and the families have been friends for a number of years.

Unitarian church new enough looking, twenty years old? but amazingly dusty and dumpy looking and feeling.  And stifling air.  Roy closed the only open door into the sanctuary from the street when the concert started at 8 and by 8:40 I was hardly able to breathe.  Maybe my dinner at Padilla's was too much, with two Cokes, but Patsy Duforne and Willow were fanning themselves.  Rick's music sounds lush and beautiful and contemporary.  The Magic Mountain Light piece one of his best.  Also one called Luna something.  But after an hour and ten it starts to bore and sounds very repetitious.  Single composer concert/recital needs to be short and focused, shaped.  Rick had a good time and had a small and attentive crowd--without the family party maybe twenty people. 

Wildfire last three days two canyons to the east of us.  We saw the big spume and cloud yesterday and winds kept the fire over there. 

Evening.  Napping Va.  Bad mood all day in spite of good sleep and good walking around the federal building and nice lunch at Santacafé with the hyper snooty waiter with two ear diamond studs and a wagon full of busboys and other waiters all standing around.  Guess they were just anxious to take off on a saturday afternoon.  we arrive right around 2:15.  Split a pretty good chicken salad and then plumped for unusual desserts---coffee ice cream with piñon crisp and cajeta sauce.  I had the Daffodil cake --- heavy angel food (tres leces style) with delicious lemon custard and lemon sauce with fresh berries.  Pretty yummy.  Whole Foods to buy thank you cards and salad and stuff for dinner here. 

Quiet night and dinner we put together here.  Strange how you look forward to Not going to a restaurant.  Two months on the road with high-end bistros strewn behind you.  Tomorrow the big reading in Dixon and then we go home on Tuesday. 

Petie brought a college student named Juan from Honduras with her.  He's staying in her house for a summer course until July.  Also a member of her Fellowship.  Had never heard them calling it that.  He's very gung-ho, maybe he converted two or three years ago.  Raised by his divorced mother and her mother, sees his father and his new wife and two other children from time to time.  

Rode around the hood and snapped more photos.  Kigers house definitely stands out not just for crowning one of the prominent hills but for doing so in pale yellow with red roof tiles, arches all around and looking pretty Italianate vs the other adobe and territorial on- good-behavior brown and sand colored houses all around them.  Harris's house sets out from the prow of the hill in beautiful wrightian fashion.  Low overhanging beams and two large sets of windows but not at all obtrusive or ostentacious---just the opposite.  Louise is Indian from Santa Clara so why didn't she want an adobe house???
Maybe her sense that the santa fe style is very much an invented gringo style not at all like whatever her ancesters might have had or used.  The viga style ceiling in this great room off the kitchen is their bow inside to local housing style and much more like the old house in Dixon that Robert Templeton renovated and lives in. 

Sunday  June 2

Strange evening.  We ate our Whole Foods salad and left-overs here and then drove down to see the gang at Tortilla Flats.  Cold on the patio, moved inside.  Told Juan Mayen he should read Moby Dick and The Confessions.  He had asked about best novels the night before.  Gatsby got the first mention.  Maybe that is the easiest answer to that question. 

Willow nervous about her presentation today.  Robert Templeton has done an incredible amount of work for the whole event.  We're taking our crew to Pink Adobe this evening, hoping thundershowers don't mess things up.  50% chance for part of the late afternoon. 

Started barely into Durrell"s Alexandria Quartet.  I can remember it and not remember it.  I read the whole thing one time in college or after but I was in a daze and did not get it or did not comprehend what I was trying to slug through. 

Monday night 3 June

Lunch with Roy and Rick on the plaza, salads from Beestro.  Fly tomorrow. 


Wednesday June 5

Lunch at Chase while going to and fro the bank to deposit the Doctorcita checks.  Ice cream--terrible--at the ice cream place.

urban word of the day which gives me a chuckle because it suggests just how far the language on the lower level keeps managing to circumvent the official moves on the higher levels such as the philosophy prof at Univ of Miami who just agreed to leave because his email affair with his grad assistant were deemed disturbed by the woman prez and the victim who sealed the emails from all review except by her boyfriend and the prez.  A philos colleague did come to his defense in public but the star philos (Brit) has signed the departure agreement.  In other words the Playbook follows the same outline as our own Leroy Young Case of twenty years ago.  Anyhoo---our
wandering over for a while.  Re-entry in progress. 

justice boner






June 3, 2013 Urban Word of the Day
The feeling of excitement when exacting petty revenge, or simply witnessing someone get what they deserve.
1:
- "Hey, did you hear about the Westboro Baptist Church picketing a soldier's funeral this weekend?"
- "No, what happened?"
- "The police formed a
barrier around the cemetery
and arrested the ones that
 tried to get in. Gave me a raging
 justice boner."

2:

- "Remember how Jeff has been stealing my lemonade on his lunch break?"
- "Yeah, why?
- "Well, today I filled the bottle with my own urine instead, and I saw him try to drink it, then run into the bathroom and puke. HUGE justice boner."

June 3, 2013 Urban Word of the Day
The feeling of excitement when exacting petty revenge, or simply witnessing someone get what they deserve.
1:
- "Hey, did you hear about the Westboro Baptist Church picketing a soldier's funeral this weekend?"
- "No, what happened?"
- "The police formed a barrier around the cemetery and arreste
around the cemetery and arrested arrested the ones that
 tried to get in. Gave me a raging
 justice boner."


2:

- "Remember how Jeff has been stealing my lemonade on his lunch break?"
- "Yeah, why?
- "Well, today I filled the bottle with my own urine instead, and I saw him try to drink it, then run into the bathroom and puke. HUGE justice boner."


Hugh Howey in Salon April 4, 2013
"Self-Publishing is the future and great for writers. 

These tales of literary woe will include all the people who simply wrote and published a book to tick off a task on a bucket list. Or those who wanted to share a memoir with family and friends. Or those who only had a single book in them. Or those who gave up after completing that first novel. Or those who chose to write in a genre that has a very limited readership.
I celebrate writing for any of these reasons — I wish more people wrote more often. But what fascinates me as a self-published author are not those who publish a single novel but rather those who approach this as a major hobby, a second job or even a career. Those who take their writing seriously, who publish more than one title a year and do this year after year, are finding real success with their art. They are earning hundreds or thousands of dollars a month. I’ve watched several online friends go from publishing their first books to hitting the New York Times bestseller list. I’ve watched even more get themselves out of debt while pursuing a lifelong dream. There’s a silent mob out there making hundreds of dollars a month while doing something they love, and this should be celebrated.

============

Tuesday evening  after we went to see What Maisie Knew with Ken and Carol at Red River.  Snack at Panera after.  Home in time for the French Rendevous at Common Man. 

Hi

Skimmed through the Cumberland video.  Since Macy couldn't or wouldn't shave and cut his hair for the piece (contract for his
HBO series I guess, the one called "Shameless"), I thought he really didn't do Cumberland much of a favor, no matter how
big his name might or might not be these days as our only Hollywood star.  Jeez, couldna you got Henry Louis G instead??

Otherwise I thought it was ok.  Maryland PB didn't go out of its way to help the poor old town out west.  Give the yokels some
webcams and edit it down as best we can.  

Now that I'm an expert on all things Berlin and German, I've been pondering the truly Bavarian roots of Cumberland and speculating
on the post-war (WWII) mood and backlash that was probably in effect when we were, say, 10 years old--1944-1954.  All the stuff
about PTSD for individual soldiers and such say that recovery takes 5-10+ years with all sorts of back and forthing, so the
same sort of thing had to be happening to the western world as it denied and remembered just what the war had been like and
all about.  Shame, disgust, depression, horror at what the nazis accomplished in such a short time.  

I somehow always knew St Pat's was Irish and St Mary's Italian but I never realized SS Peter &Pauls was really Bavarian in its history---I
thought it was French I guess because of the Ursulines and the Brothers at La Salle.  

Wo when Old Export and Old German breweries closed in ? 1960? it may have been market factors but I wonder too if there was
not a hidden veil of shame about all things german in the ether of the country and the region/city.

Howsoever, Macy looks just like the west viginia hillbilly white trash that baltimoreans imagine western md to be full of. And
I didn't think he had much to say or add of much value.  

Why didn't Ed Mullaney have you do it ! ! ! 
========
now Weds.  so I publish the first 200 pages of Chromenos papers in book form with Create Space and at the end I give the address and password of the rest of the "book" in blogspot format--available and stored for eternity in the Cloud

Marga wants to hear about our trips so why not get a start on that?

here goes.   Could send it to Donald too.    First I want to see how far his hotel there is from our hotel there.    It was south west of where we were---maybe the area where we went for the radiology test. 

Dear Donald

You are in SL, no?  We're back from Santa Fe.  Just saw "What Maisie Knew."  Have never read the story!
Great movie, though.  At least 4 stars.  Friends we went with gave it only 3 but the were Ed professors.

Just looked up your Hotel Atrium on Prager Platz.  We stayed in the Angleterre because it had a great 
bathroom---no steps up or down into the shower, room for a good shower chair, that sort of thing.  Trip
Advisor traveler's photos a great help here.  Building dates from early 20th, remodeled of late but
in basic core reminded me so much of International House at Chicago---something about the red carpet
in the hallway, the terrazo flooring on the stairs, the metal handrails, the door frames, maybe the scale
etc.  An uncannily familiar feel to to.  Very comfy bed with twin duvets.  

We were lucky---a week with no rain until the last day when we went to get a flight back to France.  Not
exactly warm but not too cool either and silvery sunlight most every day.  Early greens on the trees in
the parks and boulevards.  

Santa Fe was sunny every day.  Last week or so there were two wild fires in canyons to the east and west.
At first the winds kept them away from the town but by the third day the air had some smell and dust
and smoke haze.  

Come see us this summer to get out of the heat there.  Kids are due around 20th of July for two weeks.
Emma now calls me short form of "granpa Bob" which is  "Pabob."  

Did you open the photo of the middle child I sent you?  
--------------

Dear Marga--

We had a great time in Berlin, loved seeing the city, which is so rich in textures now----history, pieces of the wall still there, so much new building going on, so many young people, galleries, bistros, cafes and of course the museums. 

The two big hits of our visit were the Pergamon Altar in the Pergamon Museum and the Neue Museum where Queen Nefertiti, alone in her own cupola-covered vermillion chamber took away our breath with her beauty.  The newly re-0pened Neue Museum is stunning in its own right----a profound architectural meditation on time and history and beauty.  Only one room has been restored  to being exactly as it was in 1900.  The rest has been renovated with some elements restored, others replaced or expanded, some old walls kept, some areas re-used in new ways.  In all a brilliant work by the British architect David Chipperfield.  In addition to Nerfertiti, the Babylonian gate astonishes, as do the Egyptian collection, the Roman temple pieces and statuary, and other works I can't name at the moment.  The best museum shop anywhere ever for design and display. 

We took the city bus tour, got off and on for the three days the ticket covered.  Long afternoon and evening enjoying Potsdamer Platz, the new buildings, a dinner and a movie.  We looked up one of the Spanish bookstore cafés Pedro had sent us a link to.  Also  enjoyed a Vietnamese restaurant, a vegan one, and an Indian one and some German food. 


We stayed in the Hotel Angleterre.   It had a great 
bathroom---no steps up or down into the shower, room for a good shower chair, that sort of thing.  Trip Advisor travelers' photos a great help here for finding this.

The building dates from early 20th, remodeled of late but
in basic core reminded me so much of International House at Chicago---something about the red carpet in the hallway, the terrazzo flooring on the stairs, the metal handrails, the door frames, maybe the scale etc.  An uncannily familiar feel to to.  Very comfy bed with twin duvets.  Nice breakfast buffet and busy with lots of different sorts of travelers.   The whole city kept making me think of Chicago as the best rough analogy. 

It is just two blocks south of Checkpoint Charlie on Friedrichstrasse.  Right across the street we found a new cafe called Westberlin, and one day had a great chat with the new owner, a young architect about 40 yrs old.  He got tired of working in a large firm and wanted to try something different.  His cafe is very sleek and elegant, minimalist, with tables for looking at great collection of new magazines and using your laptop.  He chose the name and location because the east berlin has been so fashionable for twent years now that all the good locations are taken and remodeled so now the old west part of Berlin is even more fashionable and cheap for the time being. 

We were lucky---a week with no rain until the last day when we went to get a flight back to France.  Not exactly warm but not too cool either and silvery sunlight most every day.  Early greens on the trees in the parks and boulevards.  One day in the Tiergarten after taking pictures at the Brandenburg Gate we took a ride in a veloped bicycle cart through the park.  The very strong young man who peddled the bike for us turned out to be Spanish, a Basque from Bilbao, so we had a good time talking with him about Spain and Berlin. 

Lots of Turkish people in Berlin, lots of young Spanish and Middle Eastern people too.  Young Germans, those under 40, are really tall, lots of Germans are big in general (but not obese in the current american mode). 

The two big hits of our visit were the Pergamon Altar in the Pergamon Museum and the Neue Museum where Queen Nefertiti, alone in her own cupola-covered vermillion chamber took away our breath with her beauty.  The newly re-0pened Neue Museum is stunning in its own right----a profound architectural meditation on time and history and beauty.  Only one room has been restored  to being exactly as it was in 1900.  The rest has been renovated with some elements restored, others replaced or expanded, some old walls kept, some areas re-used in new ways.  In all a brilliant work by the British architect David Chipperfield.  In addition to Nerfertiti, the Babylonian gate astonishes, as do the Egyptian collection, the Roman temple pieces and statuary, and other works I can't name at the moment.  The best museum shop anywhere ever for design and display. 

We took the city bus tour, got off and on for the three days the ticket covered.  Long afternoon and evening enjoying Potsdamer Platz, the new buildings, a dinner and a movie.  We looked up one of the Spanish bookstore cafés Pedro had sent us a link to.  Also  enjoyed a Vietnamese restaurant, a vegan one, and an Indian one and some German food. 

The Jewish museum has great exhibits, both contemporary and historical.  The building itself is profoundly irritating and later in Denver we saw the other museum building in the same Anglular style by the architect, Daniel Liebeskind.  I rank him with Calatrava.  Both publicity-hounds know well how to make designs and models that will win the competition but the experience of the building is not so great.

Much better building in Denver is the new Clifford Still museum but more on that later. 

======
OMG  the Kirkeby show is still UP at Bowdoin College.  Wow.  How exciting.  We could go this weekend, couldn't we??  Why not.  Friday the gallery is open until 8 pm.  We could pull in Greg and Gerri and or Barb and Ed or all four.  So exciting that I will (finally) (again) get to see Kirkeby in person.  Real life painting.  So much more exciting than seeing the one painting by Steven Alexander in Santa Fe.  He does wall decorations, for sure.  Very safe, very muted, very controlled, very safe.  Color, yes, but color reined in so securely than you would almost rather have the pieces be in black and white.  Well, that is too harsh, but really, his tight template just leaves me cold and seeing the work in person confirmed that.  Tight squeeged surface, tight edges, tight color relations.  Marioni and his flowing drips in lush monotones much more sensuous. 


--------
Phil rightly dismisses my speculation about Cumberland's hangover of world war guilt and shame

I'm nore tolerant of Macy's appearance than you are.  At one point, he explains his appearance is due to his role on "Shameless" but he could look that way all the time and I wouldn't care.  I guess part of me is still living in the '60s.  Or maybe it's just the "hair envy" that I've had ever since I realized I was losing mine.

I also thought he interacted with the camera better than others who just "spoke at" the camera.  Of course, he should.  He's a film actor.  On the other hand, if you go to the "extras" there are two segments by Macy that tell you far more than you ever wanted to know about him and his career.  Fortunately, all those takes were left out of the main program.

As for that program, I, like you, found it "okay" but not very good.  Waaaaay too repetitive.  Just a bunch of people saying how much they liked Cumberland and shots of Baltimore Street and the Episcopal church.   Ho hum!   The program was edited in Baltimore, but i think the editors probably did the best they could with what was provided by "the good citizens" of Cumberland.

In the extras, there is more about Frostburg and those folks were more imaginative and interesting, perhaps because of the college.  The people and videos are more interesting - a couple who are poets and a few people who are far more interested in the area's ecology, a guy who is keeping a bookstore and film theater alive.

War and German/Bavarian aspects of Cumberville.

i think there was much less PTSD after WWII because people died of wounds rather than recovered and those who did recover were just shoved back in the lines until they did die.   Survivors of that process had to be tough cookies, both physically and mentally.   A few probably had "shell shock" but I bet it was rare.

Anti-German feelings began - and were quite strong - in WW I.   My aunt owned the Old German brewery in those years and had to change the beer's and company's name to "Queen City Beer."   She lost ownership of the brewery in the late '20s because of Prohibition so I don't know what happened during WWII, but I'll bet that name changed again.

The breweries in Cumberland went out of business strictly because of economics.  As Bruce Bibby, one of the last managers of Old Export explained, Budweiser could buy in such bulk that it could get grain and hops for much less money than small breweries could.  Moreover it could get the best hops and grain, leaving the crap to companies like Old Export and Old German.  Small breweries ended up paying high prices for inferior ingredients.  For a while,  Old German stayed alive by making "Fischer's Beer" for a supermarket chain in Florida.  The beer sold for about two cents cheaper per six pack than any other beer, and that two cents might as well have been 20 dollars to all the cost-conscious retirees in Florida.  But eventually that deal fell through, and Old German was sold to Iron City beer in PIttsburgh.  IC made Old German for a few years, then, as far as I know, stopped it for good.   Old Export just stopped brewing when it couldn't make a profit.  No one bought the plant or the name.  It just went totally belly-up.

Personally, I don't remember any anti-German or, in fact, any genuine  ethnic prejudice in Cumberland when we were growing up.   Some people were Italian, others Irish, others Jewish - it really didn't matter, except for blacks.   The KKK wasn't in Cumberland but "blacks knew their place."   In my grandfather's time, however, there was a real awareness of religions.   Catholics weren't quite American.   The fact that my father brought a Catholic bride back from Philadelphia, where dad attended medical school and did his residency, must have been quite a shock to his parents.  But as far as I know they accepted her.  When my brother was born, however, mom sent him to public schools.  Only when she was 14 years older and more secure in her place in Cumberland did she dare send me to Catholic schools.   Dad didn't much care, one way or another.   And I was the one who told my parents that I wanted to go away to prep school, preferably to the school that Dad had liked attending: Exeter.  Dad has also attended Mercersburg but didn't like it.

Phil 

Phil










> Subject: Macy
> Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:26:28 -0400
>
> Hi
>
> Skimmed through the Cumberland video. Since Macy couldn't or wouldn't shave and cut his hair for the piece (contract for his
> HBO series I guess, the one called "Shameless"), I thought he really didn't do Cumberland much of a favor, no matter how
> big his name might or might not be these days as our only Hollywood star. Jeez, couldna you got Henry Louis G instead??
>
> Otherwise I thought it was ok. Maryland PB didn't go out of its way to help the poor old town out west. Give the yokels some
> webcams and edit it down as best we can.
>
> Now that I'm an expert on all things Berlin and German, I've been pondering the truly Bavarian roots of Cumberland and speculating
> on the post-war (WWII) mood and backlash that was probably in effect when we were, say, 10 years old--1944-1954. All the stuff
> about PTSD for individual soldiers and such say that recovery takes 5-10+ years with all sorts of back and forthing, so the
> same sort of thing had to be happening to the western world as it denied and remembered just what the war had been like and
> all about. Shame, disgust, depression, horror at what the nazis accomplished in such a short time.
>
> I somehow always knew St Pat's was Irish and St Mary's Italian but I never realized SS Peter &Pauls was really Bavarian in its history---I
> thought it was French I guess because of the Ursulines and the Brothers at La Salle.
>
> Wo when Old Export and Old German breweries closed in ? 1960? it may have been market factors but I wonder too if there was
> not a hidden veil of shame about all things german in the ether of the country and the region/city.
>
> Howsoever, Macy looks just like the west viginia hillbilly white trash that baltimoreans imagine western md to be full of. And
> I didn't think he had much to say or add of much value.
>
> Why didn't Ed Mullaney have you do it ! ! !

=========

Virginia off to her PEO book group extravaganza.  I hope she's not disappointed by the turnout or the event.  But then pulling off successes comes as second nature to her, so all will be a big smash hit.  Just like Dixon. 



Tuesday night June  18

note to Phil---
In terms of this key word and things like Kickstarter etc

this line caught my eye (on The Dish)  "Meanwhile, Charles Kenny argues that the Internet was oversold as a source of economic growth:"

one suspects that in five years we will all finally agree that the internet has been oversold on lots more key points.  As marvelous
as it has been, surely we've all been drunken on it and the depression and reality checks will continue to float in---as with all
other techno advances we've seen over the past five hundred years.  Things flatten out.  My Tweet for the day.  

Kickstarter in my limited experience is a slightly more polite maybe way of hitting up friends and family and acquaintances for
a "loan" of 5 bucks or so to get one of your pet projects underway.  Vanity publishing all over again in other words.  But
no one is knocking it---it is how Walt Whitman started out and many many others.  Advanced Capitalism just hasn't 
worked out how to fund Advanced Socialism.  Meanwhile we rats at the bottom scrounge around for whatever crumbs.

Another reason places like Santa Fe (Vail, Fairfax country) etc finally grind on one's soul unless one is secured to a fixed
residence inside such enclaves----the sheer scale of waste of mountains of money on mountains of dreck--artistic, whole
foods, granite counter tops, spa facials, chocolate coconut rose mulch, etc---just become beyond worth noting any longer.  

One note of progress:  maybe:  we talked with the manager of the only successful real bookstore within thirty miles the other
day and she told us the former "interest/diversity" groups no longer exist in bookstores.  People no longer ask for womens studies
books, or african american books, or native american books etc.  At least not in her knowledge and experience world.  That
is all now just grouped under "current topics."   Hooray.  I guess.  ======

All of the above applies as well to Sullivan's The Dish this evening where he's had a thread going about "what is a bi-sexual, anyway?" thread going.  Lots of good personal stories and then he sticks in a Poll run by Urtrak where "everyone" gets to pose the questions.  Problem with that poll is how as always it flattens things out into yes no and maybe or should-shrug how could one possible answer such a question with any one word answer. 

======
june 21 email from David---about the plan for him to be on Rob Azevedo and Dave Cummings radio show in Laconia. 

Good call, paBob! The deal is done : I'll have a full half-hour on Thursday, August 1st - cool! Rob said they kneel at the altar of Dr. Bob Garlitz, so I get the full treatment as your progeny :)  "

Rob---could say those darn catholic italian kids are always using inappropriate metaphors for stuff

but guess I'll just bask in it -- 

Monday

hot and humid all week.  Ben nicely came yesterday to help me lift open the garage door.  Ordered a new one today.  Called Bobby Dockrill to find out where the 20k is---had to specifically order that now.  Now that most of Va's fund is in the IRA. 

We had a good swim.  Bob Heiner was there.  He just joined the place. 
Colin is downstairs playing piano with Virginia. 

--------
could use this at start of book too

May 6   We Blackmail Ourselves
“In the last analysis a man tended to yield instinctively to a form of indirect blackmail exerted on him by his own personality.”
Bernhard  195 The Lime Works

May 10   One day it will all pour out
“ Like thousands of others before him, Konrad said, he too had fallen victim to a mad dream of one day suddenly bringing his great labor to fruition by writing it all down in one consistent outpouring, all triggered by the optimal point in time, the unique moment for perfect concentration on writing it.
. . . . .
. . . but he had lacked what was perhaps the most important quality of all:  fearlessness in the face of realization, of concretization, fearlessness, simply, when it came to turning his head over, suddenly, from one moment to the next, ruthlessly flipping it over to drop everything inside his head onto the paper, all in one motion.  "
240-241     The Lime Works
JUNE 27  late afternoon

Buckled and gave $200 to UChicago in our names. 

First line I'm quoting from the Norwegian writer---
"The only thing I have learned from life is to endure it, never to question it, and to burn up the longing generated by this in writing."
"Where this ideal has come from I have no idea, and as I now see it before me, in black and white, it almost seems perverse:  why duty before happiness?  The question of happiness is banal, but the question that follows is not, the question of meaning."
My Struggle 39  Knausgaard

better learn to spell his name---going to read a lot of him and probably cite a lot too


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