Sonnet a natural in el lay (July this year).
In 2018 Sonnet did a Fellowship at the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA). During this time she lived in Venice Beach, joined by Madeleine and Madeleine's friend Willoughby (ages, 16) who had never been out of the UK let alone the West Coast. The two of them enjoyed un-parented days of skateboarding and surfing for an endless California summer.
We stay at the Prosper Hotel complete with sun-soaked rooftop pool and bikini bar.
And what a swim. From the git go there were the icons - The Brooklyn Bridge ! The Williamsburg Bridge! The Manhattan Bridge! - within the first hour. Then the Empire State and the Chrysler building and the United Nations. Eventually things string out on the Harlem River (NB NYC resides in a tidal estuary and the East River and Harlem River are tidal and not rivers) while 15 of the 20 bridges cross here. Finally the mighty Hudson's flow brings me home, ending beside Wall Street lit-up like a 100-story Christmas candle.
Sonnet, Kate, Brad and Deborah follow me around the island, notably at the Washington Bridge connecting NY to New Jersey where they hoot and holler from the little red light house. Then, 8 hours and 30 minutes later later, Sunday Midnight/ Monday morning, Sonnet and I find a strictly saw dust and cheerful Irish pub for a Guinness and an intimate celebration.
The cut man at the Little Odessa boardwalk, pre swim
I met Barney in Maida Value, W9, the neighbourhood of our second flat, in 1999. Barney had completed his B.S. at Stanford (Symbolic Systems) and Ph.D. at Cambridge in computer science and AI.
And what does one do with such credentials ? Work at NASA, of course, where he was the Software Architect on the Remote Agent, the first s/w agent to fly onboard a deep space probe during NASA's Deep Space One Mission, and widely considered one of the top achievements in the history of AI and awarded NASA's "software of the year" in 1999.
From there, Barney founded PowerSet, a neural networking application, backed by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, and sold to Microsoft becoming Microsoft Bing. A fellow has to make some money in his 20s, afterall.
Barney has gone on to found and fund over 200 AI-related start-ups in SV. We frequently see each other, and I am always refreshed by his ideas. Back in the day we agreed to form a venture firm together but that would have required my relocating to the Bay Area, which Sonnet and I were not ready to do then.
I can't not reflect on time-gone-by given I met Ant in 1999 at eZoka.com, my ill fated Internet 1.0 start-up (and what a ride). Before eZoka, Anthony was a host at the original Soho House, swagging with celebrities and models, before it became a global phenom w venues in Manhattan's meat packing district assuring the meat packers could go somewhere else to pack their meat. Repeat in other cities. Today Anthony lives in North London, has a daughter and an owner of a bar-inventory management company. As far as it goes, I would describe his lifestyle as "alternative".
Speaking of alternative, I meet Andy at the party who owns the club and two others in similar edgy-cool locations. I'm intrigued and wonder, at 58, if there is yet a few late nights left in me ? I tried, last year, with Madeleine, then at Manchester University, to go clubbing until sunrise yet, despite her willingness to engage - combined with an open bar tab for her friends - I was done by 1pm.
