Lazy Sunday

At my suggestion, Madeleine adds NaCOH3, wine vinegar, detergent and blue dye. We are off to buy some Menthos and two-liter bottles of Diet Coke.

Eitan sits the Hampton School entrance exam yesterday morning, 9AM sharp. I drop him off and recall my SATs in '84 - I had taken the exam at the American School in Geneve and my scores weren't getting me into any school I was going to. So I studied up and took it again. Only I was sick exam-day and it was pouring rain. I mumbled about taking the test another day but Grace ordered me in the car, which broke down two blocks from the house. Grace commanded: "sit!" and raced up the block to get Moe's Volvo (impossible to drive unless you are Moe) and somehow got me to the test center as the doors closing.

For his part, Eitan pretty relaxed - at least, he wants to get rid of me quickly given the other boys .. and me, the only parent with a camera. After the drop-off I take the dog to Hampton Palace to walk the path along the Thames and consider the kids growing up with their own lives. I call Sonnet and tell her we are lost and Eitan missed his test.

Saturday night: Madeleine over-nights with Dana and Nathan, who buy her cupcakes and spoil her mad. Sonnet and I have dinner in Chelsea with Arnaud (from France) and his fiancee Julia (from Lebanon) and their friends Lanna (Lebanon) and Mathew (England) who met at Oxford studying English and French literature; they are professors. Eitan watches TV with Anetta (Czech Republic). Rusty (Welsh) pees on the kitchen floor.

Me: "What's your homework?"

Eitan: "I have to write ten things about Ireland and I don't know any."

Me: "That can't be too hard."

Eitan: "The first letter of Ireland is 'i'."

Me:

Eitan: "The second letter is 'r' and the third is 'e'."

Me: "You're not seriously writing that down are you?"

Staying Focused

I am shooting these days with a Canon 50mm f/1.4 prime lens which is good for portraits and some landscapes. I am working up to 70-200mm IS f/2.8L but this will set me back a couple grand. The price says ouch but this is the lens my DSLR made for. The quality coatings and design of combined with a hood means less light bouncing around and diffusing inside the lens, and that means sharper, better contrast photos. I'm also contemplating a wide angle - maybe 20mm f/1.8.

Any ways, I am with the Shakespeares and we start our day at Richmond Park, pictured, where Madeleine finds a fort made of fallen branches. Eitan brings a football and I drag Rusty, who makes some friends and sniffs some ass. From there we go for more football at the common, then haircuts at the Turks (I hold back Madeleine recalling Sonnet's wrath when I took Madeleine, age three, to Jeff the Barber .. Jeff thought Madeleine a boy and so for the next two years many thought she a he). After the Turks we select olives, cheese and salamis at Valentinos which is the best shop on our High Street and have a picnic at home. Now the kids fight as I blog (excuse me, Dear Reader .. "KNOCK IF OFF. AND I MEAN NOW!" Eitan: "But she's not letting me pet Rusty!" Madeleine: "I'm holding Rusty!" .. and so it goes). I plan to wash the pooch and do some household DIY. Adding to our family scene The Archers on Radio 4. School begins tomorrow, 8:45AM sharp.

"A good photograph is knowing where to stand."

--Ansel Adams

Murder, She Wrote

Madeleine writes a story in her journal, below, which she reads on our way home from the V&A where I pick up the kids for the day.

"Murderers End," by Madeleine

Chapter 1: Death

It was Midnight. The full moon rose into the sky. A detective was on the lookout for a killer.

The detective had found a dead body outside his house two days ago. In the dead man's hand there was a piece of paper. The piece of paper was red with blood.

There was a message on the paper, it said: "death are there millions. The moon will shine. You must journey to the cave called 'Murderers End.' The journey is dangerous. You must find the murderer or there will be no more life. He will kill millions with the help of a murderer ghost called 'Hax.'"

The detective wondered who was the murderer and how he was going to get to Murderers End in time. He needed a crew of detectives if he wanted to succeed. Slowly he walked back to his house. He froze. The door was hanging open.

The detective walked in and screamed. His wife was dead on the floor. There was another note. It said, "Get out of here, detective, before I get you too."

The next day the detective set out to the police station to get a team of detectives and at the same time he gave his wife's body to the police.

"This is a mystery story and horror story combined."
--Madeleine

Moonbeam

Heeere's Jerry, California Governor. Again. As my business school friend Costa once quipped: "careers are a long thing."

Back in the '70s, Jerry wished to use some of California's state-surplus (yes, surplus) to fund a space academy and own and operate a communications satellite and subsequently Linda Ronstadt referred to Jerry as "Moonbeam" to Rolling Stone magazine. The nick-name stuck. Moonbeam somehow appropriate for his hippie-dippie style (he eschewed the Governors Mansion for a two-room apartment and drove a Pontiac to the State Office), though The American Conservative noted he was "much more of a fiscal conservative than Governor Reagan." Whatever your views of the Governor he has been on the right side of social progress, nominating the first openly gay man, and later, lesbian, to the state court.

Here is Brown's electoral history (from wiki)

1970: Elected as California Secretary of State with 51% of the vote

1974: Won Democratic primary for Governor of California with 38% of the vote

1974: Elected as Governor of California with 50% of the vote

1976: Lost Democratic presidential primaries to Jimmy Carter, finishing second with a nationwide 14% of the vote

1978: Won Democratic primary for Governor of California as an incumbent, with 78% of the vote

1978: Reelected as Governor of California with 56% of the vote

1980: Lost Democratic presidential primaries to Jimmy Carter, finishing third with a nationwide 3% of the vote

1982: Won Democratic primary for Senator from California with 51% of the vote

1982: Lost California Senate election to Pete Wilson, with 45% of the vote

1992: Lost Democratic presidential primaries to Bill Clinton, finishing second with a nationwide 20% of the vote

1998: Elected Mayor of Oakland with 59% of the vote

2002: Reelected Mayor of Oakland with 63% of the vote

2006: Won Democratic primary for California Attorney General with 63% of the vote

2006: Elected California Attorney General with 56% of the vote

2010: Won Democratic primary for Governor of California with 84% of the vote

2010: Elected as Governor of California with 53% of the vote

"Multinational corporations do control. They control the politicians. They control the media. They control the pattern of consumption, entertainment, thinking. They're destroying the planet and laying the foundation for violent outbursts and racial division."

"The conventional viewpoint says we need a jobs program and we need to cut welfare. Just the opposite! We need more welfare and fewer jobs."

"We have to deal with where we are. We have to create cooperatives, we have to create intentional communities, we have to work for local cooperation where we are."

--Jerry Brown

Silver Truck

We stroll past Southbank Center alongside the Thames and marvel at the volume of concrete. Man, this place ugly in a 1960s sort of way. Southbank's three buildings include the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and The Hayward art gallery and is Europe’s largest centre for the arts. It attracts three million visitors a year, including this hung-over lot following the New Year parties.

In college we had "the silver truck" parked, from Thursday to Sunday morning, at Wayland Arch nearby the Keeney Quad where I lived freshman year. Students stumbled home from the fraternities or late-night parties and waited sometimes for an hour or more in the sub-freezing cold for a grilled egg or steak sandwich - served in foot-lengths costing three bucks. It was a poor substitute for getting laid and, at Brown, a very popular destination. Those of us with cars sometimes went to Joan's, a trucker stop in downtown Providence opened seven days a week from 10PM until 7AM. Joan an unpleasant, grouchy, mentally disturbed host who swore at her customers : "sit down you fuck'n prick" she might bark at us. Of course we found this uproariously funny though none of the blue collar Joes laughing - Joan's one of the only late-night spots in Providence for a burger or hot cakes following a long day of work.

The other greasy spoon "Louie's Family Restaurant" on Thayer St near campus. Louie and his family deformed and retarded and we college kids always wondered if caused by genetic in-breading or the lead in Providence's water. Their restaurant open as long as any one could remember and during my summers painting houses I often began the day with black coffee and butter grilled bran muffin+jam, an awesome start though within an hour I was in desperate need for sugar or a cigarette. I was usually joined by Eric and Chas since we commuted to Barrington, RI, for the jobs - could those be my best memories? Probably not as I lost ten pounds from the responsibility and the "production vehicle's" engine fell out on the freeway during the height of the season forcing me to find a car in 24-hours which turned out to be an orange Volvo 244 which was a lemon and barely made it to summer's end. But that for another time. Louie's, as far as I know, still serving awful and unhygienic food to this day - keeping the community greasy, baby.

Zebulon

Zebulon in his first year of secondary school at Magdalen College School, associated with Oxford, and founded in 1480. Magdalen ranked the number-one secondary school in Great Britain two years running based on A levels. 

As Zebulon's family moved to Oxford with little notice on Alain's professorship, Zebulon sat the entrance exam with zero preparation which is like taking the SATs without Stanley Kaplan. Naked. He crushed it. Nita tells me Zebulon, in class, gets the hard questions right while suffering the unchallenging maths. His teacher comments on this. Such motivational concerns, I might suggest, a luxury. 

 The boy has a charming curiosity, easy in discourse, and mature for his years. We discuss his favorite subject, geography, and he tells me the regional topographies from last semester. Next year, South America and the Andes. Cool. 

Zebulon, his brothers, and Eitan and Madeleine get on famously and Zebulon treats Madeleine as one of the boys which is tip tops with her. Us parents marvel at their joy and I find them, last night, in their beds, jammed together, 10PM .. reading.

"The merry year is born
Like the bright berry from the naked thorn."

--Hartley Coleridge

1.1.11.11.11

Fired up and ready to kick some ass in twenty-eleven.

We walk to the Tate Modern to see the Gauguin exhibition before it closes this month. Behind me is Ai Weiwei's "Sunflower Seeds," the 11th in the Unilever Series to fill the Turbine Hall (Weiwei best known for his Bird's Nest Stadium at the Beijing Olympics). Sunflower is an inch-thick carpet made of some one-hundred million intricately handcrafted porcelain sunflower seeds, each with its own unique note, delivered to London by the craftsmen of Jingdezhen. When the exhibition opened in October visitors encouraged to walk on the seeds and marvel at the human effort required to complete Weiwei's vision and contemplate each individual seed in .. a sea.. of .. existential .meaningless. Unfortunately the stones rubbing together created dust and the city's health and safety experts suggested that prolonged exposure to the dust could exacerbate conditions like asthma. And I could get hit by a car walking to the Tate. Yet, two days later, the invitation to touch the art revoked.

Madeleine's shoelace catches in the escalator and she has to yank her foot free, twisting her ankle in process. Sonnet and I take turns sitting with her while the others visit Gauguin.

2011 Here She Comes

We spend New Years with Alain and Nita and their three fabulous boys Zebulon (one of the twelve tribes of Israel); Zakkai (In the New Testament, Jesus comes to town looking for an honest man and Zakkai the only one he finds); and Zephyr (The West Wind in the Greek mythology; warm and gentle). The family recently relocated from Tucson, AZ, to Oxford so Alain could teach at Oxford where he has a Professorship of Mathematical Modelling. Nita, meanwhile, earned her PhD in applied Mathematics at Arizona and before that, NYU for her masters in magneto hydro-dynamics - the study of charged fuels like plasmas found in the sun. Fluids can be shaped by magnetics (I learn). Nita, Sonnet and Catherine were "the Smith misfits" who found each other Sophomore year in "the quad" which is "the party center" of campus but did not make room for new comers. "This," Nita says, "why we bonded together."

Photo from AP.

Alex And A Class Action

Alex over-nights to each's amusement.

Moe and I discuss the class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart, the largest civil rights class-action in US history with 2 million plaintiffs and counting. The charge against Wal-Mart brought by Moe's friend Bud Seligmen who once worked for Guy (Bud is my age). Bud suggests that Wal-Mart has discriminated against women in promotions, pay, and job assignments in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Moe explains (Recall, Dear Reader, my father a labor lawyer). Everybody agrees, including Wal-Mart, that the representative case around which the class is built, is, without doubt, sexism. Heavy statistics back up the allegations. Unusually, following ten-years of back and forth trending against Wal-Mart, the case is with the Supreme Court who will decide if the the class action may proceed or broken into smaller regional grievances.

The Supreme Court unusual as a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed the court's class certification (a Big Deal in these case) - Wal-Mart filed a rehearing and a rehearing en bank ("by the full court" or "full bench" - in the Ninth Court's case, an 11 judge subset), contending that the majority committed legal error with regard to whether the grounds for class action certification had been met. The 9th Circuit then withdraw its initial rendering and "beefed up the case" while still supporting the class-action. In April, 2010, the en banc court affirmed the district court's class certification on a 6-5 vote. Wal-Mart's lead appellate counsel, Theodore Boutros, Jr., fumed "it violates both due process and federal class action rules, contradicting numerous decisions of other federal appellate courts and the Supreme Court itself," and indicated that Wal-Mart would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ted has and now the Supremes to decide. Not surprisingly, conservative commentators have criticized the lawsuit as an abuse of the class action mechanism.

Bud notes to Moe that if the Supreme Court rules against the class certification, his case goes from two million women to six.

Pembroke

We have lunch at the Pembroke Lodge which began life as the mole catcher's cottage in Richmond Park. Hunters wished to hunt without the threat of ..molehills .. tripping them up, you see. The mole catcher's cottage eventually extended into something bigger and given to Elizabeth Herbert, the countess of Pembroke, principal lady-in-waiting to George III. Elizabeth then built further, creating the building today more-or-less. There is a large dining hall with comfy chairs and a number of gardeners rooms and quiet places. In 1847 Queen Victoria granted Pembroke Lodge to prime minister Lord John Russell. In 1854 the Earl of Aberdeen's Cabinet met at Pembroke Lodge and decided to proceed with the Crimean War against Russia. The lodge offers lovely views of the park and Teddington and beyond and is also a lovely spot for a pot of tea.

Eitan: "Gracie, out of ten, how much did you like 'MegaMind' (a cartoon-movie we saw the other day)?
Grace: "About a six."
Eitan: "So you didn't really like it."
Grace: "It's a strong moral tale that blasts in your face. Do you know what a 'moral tale' is?"
Eitan: "It is a message that you should always keep trying and never give up."
Madeleine: "Be very good and not evil."

Grace: "Yes, those are good thoughts."

Eitan: "What do you get when you cross a dinosaur and a pig?"

Me: "What?"

Eitan: "Jurassic pork. Ha ha ha! I get it!"

Eitan: "Why did the crab blush?"

Me: "Enough already."

Eitan. "Because the sea weed."

Me:

Eitan: "I liked the other one better."

Eitan, hiding: "Boo!"

Sonnet: "Ah! Don't ever do that again! You scared the bejesus out of me!"

Me: "That was some excellent positive re-enforcement."

Sonnet: "Grrrr"

Preteen

Every now and again I get a preview of my teenagers. Already the battle-lines forming around their bedrooms - I want it tidy, they want a mess. Usually the cleaner provides the convenient middle-ground and I roll my eyes when their junk goes missing - not my problem where Maria puts their stuff.

Me: "Joe, does your dad do projects around the house?"
Joe:
Me: "Does he curse and scream and holler?"
Eitan: "Looking for a bit of inspiration Dad?"

Sonnet: "Did Eitan and Madeleine have dinner last night?"
Me: "It's a good question. Did you kids have dinner?"
Eitan, Madeleine: "No."
Sonnet: "Jeff!"
Eitan, helpfully: "I was waiting for Dad to make us something."
Me: "You could have asked the baby-sitter."
Eitan: "Busted."

The Curator

And, thank goodness for me, there is Sonnet. Here is Sonnet's professional photo+bio from the web: "Sonnet (Dear Reader) is curator of 20th-century and contemporary fashion at the V&A, a post she has held since 1999. Before joining the V&A, Sonnet worked as a fashion buyer in New York and San Francisco. Sonnet curated the V&A´s recent fashion displays New York Fashion Now (2007) and Ossie Clark (2003) and has coordinated a number of the V&A´s popular Fashion in Motion series, including the catwalk shows of Stella McCartney for Chloé, Hardy Amies and Christian Lacroix. Sonnet has lectured and been published on various aspects of contemporary fashion design and is the author of the book New York Fashion (V&A Publishing, April 2007)." I might add that she has done all of this with a couple of kids and she has met the Queen.

This morning I suggest a museum to get us (the hell) out of the house which receives squeals of protest from the Shakespeares so I give them a choice: we can go by car or we can go by train. They ponder this before choosing the car. To show that I am not without reason, I back off the early contemplated Dulwich Picture Gallery for the Sciences Museum. We park at the V&A and cross the street and have a blast. There is an exhibition on psychology and the mind for Gracie while I tell the kids I wish them to report on a thing with detail. Each has his/her trusty notebook and goes to work with determination. Eitan disappears for an half-hour and, unlike a year or so ago, he is perfectly OK with this (though Madeleine rings her hands in worry).

Madeleine tells me about the Apollo engine used to take the first voyage to the moon. Along with the one we see, the spaceship owned five more. The contraption with its pipes and plugs and chambers otherwise unfathomable. Moe notes that Wherner von Braun wanted to send into orbit trained chimpanzees instead of astronauts which pissed the astronauts off. We get a nice chuckle from this one.

Eitan does "Hackworth's Royal George Locomotive, 1827 (I copy from his notes); Timothy Hackworth (1786-1850); engineer to Stockton and Dartington Railways, 1815 to 1840; Built the locomotive Royal George; Believed Hackworth made 1:16 model to demonstrate to Directors of Stockton and Darlington Railway the soundness of his design."

Madeleine (in the museum's 'Industrial Era'): "Dad, if this was a yard sale, I would love to go."

Madeleine: "What do you think would happen if you licked the dogs face?

Me: "I don't know."

Madeleine: "Well I wouldn't want to do it."

Me:

Madeleine: "Can I watch TV?"

Capping Off The Madness

National Bird

This friendly fellow allows me a snap or two before darting off. He is otherwise a rarity inside The Palm House and makes me wonder : how so?

And, since you ask, Robins are one of the only UK birds heard singing in the garden on Christmas day. This because they hold their territories all year round, defending against intruders with .. song. Males often hold the same territory throughout their lives, and will attack their reflection, mistaking it for another individual. Their melodious voices, along with their "cocky little attitudes," have endeared robin red breasts to the British public, and in 1960 they were crowned the UK's national bird.

Not surprising given, well, that this is Great Britain, bird-watching a national past-time. I was not able to find the hard-data but serious bird-spotters number, easily, in the hundreds of thousands. Just go to the "Birding News" website to find "Bird Alert" where various species spotted and posted to your mobile or wherever - a Black Grouse, for instance, seen at 11:25:00 AM on 27-12-2010 by "Kilgo." Similar sitings noted for the Feldfare, Redwing and Jack Snipe. Nearby is the Barnes Wetland Center whose gift-shop allows the punter to own a full bird-spotting kit complete with camouflage fatigues, wellies and military-rated binoculars; the grounds supply the wooded blinds. Many a time have I been to The Wetlands Center, Shakespeares running amok, to be dressed down by an elderly spotter planted (no doubt) for hours. Who can blame them ?

Potted Plant

This sucker is believed to be the world's oldest potted plant and re-potted at Kew Gardens last year after, "once again," out-growing its pot (this one of 25-years). The huge Jurassic Cycad - or 'Encephalartos altensteninii" to those eccentrically smart Brits - is four-meters, growing 2.5cm a year. It was first "installed" at Kew in '75. 1775, that is. The relocation took three months of planning, five members of staff and a lifting gantry to move the old beast from one pot to the other. The life-expectancy is another 250 years. Do note the poles that prop the plant up - there are four of them.

Arboretum

We visit Kew Gardens, a favorite place, and this the Palm House, pictured, built between 1844-1848 from the cooperation between architect Decimus Burton and iron-founder Richard Turner. As the name might suggest, the building specialised for growing palms and other tropical and subtropical plants. It requires constant heat and built as status symbols in Victorian Britain; several examples of similar ornate glass and iron structures at Liverpool's Sefton and Stanley parks. Back then, the Palm House continued the glass-house design principles developed by John Claudius Loudon and Joseph Paxton (source: Kew Gardens). It was the first to first large-scale structural use of wrought iron : A space frame of wrought iron arches, held together by horizontal tubular structures containing long prestressed cables, supports glass panes which were originally tinted green with copper oxide to reduce the significant heating effect. The 19 meter high central nave is surrounded by a walkway at 9m height, allowing us a closer look upon the palm tree crowns below. We take a twirl.

If you are tired, Dear Reader, of the grey, bleached out, photographs on this blog - join the club. It has been, like, three months since any continuous sunshine. I have the kids on a Vitamin D supplement. Martian Chronicles, dude.

Me: "Chelsea hasn't won a game in their last six. What's up with that?"

Eitan: "They are pooing on their own guts."

Me:

Eitan: "Metaphorically speaking of course."

Madeleine: "Alex, just to warn you, sometimes Rusty humps people."

Gracie And Moe

The Sugar Hill Gang

After an early movie - MegaMind - we cross the street to a pizza joint in Richmond, pictured. I lament the closing of Berkeley's Pirro's, which was the best I ever had (excluding Napoli with Katie and Minoti). Pirro's Pizzeria on Shattuck Avenue opened in '73 and closed in '06 or '05. The same sad, friendly waitress there the entire time and the chefs tossed the dough into the air. The tables red-checkered with dripping candle wax. A coat pole took the over-sized jackets and there could not have been more than 12 tables. I always sat in the same, towards the back. As for the order : salami pie accompanied by blue cheese dressing, some chickpeas and a little green lettuce. Perfecto.

Britain's favorite not pizza. A recent UKTV survey suggests Spaghetti Bolognese, or "spa bol" as it is often stupidly called here, #1. Maybe not too surprisingly half of the Top 10 recipes foreign; celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver and Delia Smith have also influenced our pallet. Here are the remaining nine, in order:

2. Roast Dinner (Sunday family time)

3. Chile con carne (Weird. The British otherwise hate Mexican)

4. Lasagna

5. Cottage or Sheperd's Pie (Classic)

6. Meat or chicken stir-fry (Gross)

7. Beef casserole (Really gross)

8. Macaroni and cheese (Pathetic)

9. Toad in the hole (Anybody's guess)

10. Curry (England's night cap of choice)

You are what you eat.

Grandma

My parents look, well, like Grandparents to me for the first time. They move a little slower, the hearing is not always there and in other ways they are frail. This is not a bad thing somehow, mind you. With age comes wisdom.

I recall my mom with our Euclid neighbors Loraine and Horace Haynes; Horace debilitated when I knew him, age 10, and made me uncomfortable as his speech unrecognisable though his mind sharp and eyes clear. Grace never acted differently around Horace and, I noticed, used touch often (at the time, this about the last thing I wished to do - touch an old person). Before his stroke, Horace worked for Standard Oil. Loraine and her sister Murial Drury (who lived together) Berkeley stalwarts with stories of the early UC campus and Berkeley fire of '23, which destroyed 584 homes in the North Berkeley Hills, including theirs and ours, both soon rebuilt. Murial's husband Newton Drury involved with the Save-The-Redwoods League which has, since '21, established over 1000 redwood memorial groves in thirty of California's state redwood parks; one grove named after Newton, who served as the league's first Executive Director as well as being the fourth Director of the National Park Service. I have been to the Newton Drury grove in the South Grove of Big Trees State Park.

Me: "What did you and Moe talk about on your walk?"

Madeleine, building a Lego house: "I don't know. Nothing."

Me: "That's it?"

Madeleine:

Me: "You know, talking to your Grandfather is like a great short-cut."

Madeleine: "What do you mean?"

Me: "He can tell you things that will take you many years to figure out. Ever think of that?"

Madeleine: "No, not really. Like what?"

Me: "Well, that is for you to consider. What are the things you wish know? Then ask him."

Madeleine: "Ok. Can I play with my Legos now?"

Me: "Fair enough."

Christmas, Take Two