Fright Night

Madeleine, pictured, in costume #1. Underneath the mask, her "Chinaman Tache" for round #2 , when she hits the unsuspecting neighborhood for a second time.

Sonnet hosts Eitan and Madeleine's friends, who join us for dinner and to change into their costumes (I stay home for the 'trick or treat).

Eitan: "Somebody knocked over all our Candy Corns!" (bowl set out front so Dad does not have to answer doorbell)
Madeleine, matter-of-factly: "Teenagers."

Eitan sits next to me at the kitchen table counting up his loot as I blog: "Look, Dad, I got 12 chocolate bars, the big ones, too. Four Haribo's, one Dairy Milk Buttons packet. One packet of Skips crisps. Um, I'm counting my lolly pops .. I got eight lollies. One drum stick. Ten sucking Fizzer tablets. Actually make that 21. I got loads of these (Fizzer tablets). I hate these, I should have given them to Luke.  ..  Um, 11 Bon Bons Pinballs (small round candies that look like pinballs). Two Mayoan Fruit Strips. 11 chocolate Mini Celebrations. .. .
Madeleine: "Eitan! Do you want to do trades?"
Eitan: "Two Chewy Fruit Refreshers. . .. "
Madeleine: "I got a packet of raisins. Like, right."
Eitan: "Can you add another Fruit Strip?"
Me: "Sure."
Madeleine: "Can I have a packet of Skips?"
Eitan: "Add another three Fizzy Sherbets."
(Madeleine munches on her Skips, watches Eitan count his candy)
Eitan: "Two more Chocolate Mini Celebrations."
Madeleine: "They're horrible."
Eitan: "Three Chocolate Eyeballs. One pack of mint gum. One Zombie sucker. .. ."
Me: "We're on the drags now, huh?"
Eitan: "A wine gum. A piece of chocolate- I don't know what it is. And some Grape Nerds."
Me: "How about you Madeleine?"
Madeleine: "What?"
Me: "What did you get."
Madeleine: "Stuff. A lot of it."
Me: "So it was a good night?"
Madeleine: "Yes. The best Hallowe'en ever."

The Great Trade now in progress.. . .

Cafe Flesh

Madeleine gets busy with her pumpkin.

Both kids, and therefore all of us, have a sporty weekend starting Saturday in Epsom, Surrey, for the Wandsworth Swimming Club gala used to qualify for the Surrey Regional swimming championships.  Madeleine swims 200 meter breaststroke while Eitan competes the 400 and 200 freestyles, 200 individual medley and 200 backstroke, where he is disqualified for an illegal turn.  Otherwise the boy qualifies in everything while Madeleine inside five seconds on her race - she will get hers next year.

Elm Grove play Kingstonian Youth and the floodgates open for us: 7-nil, which is cathartic after the last three weeks of disappointment.  Eitan, playing a new position, defensive back, gets a header on a corner-kick which has everybody whooping since the team practiced this move yesterday. His first goal for the All Stars.  ManU chips in, defeating Everton 1-0.

Madeleine: "Look at all the flesh."
Me: "Gross."
Madeleine: "For a pumpkin."

Me, listening to Every Little Thing She does Is Magic : "You've heard of The Police, right?"
Kamila, our au pair, born in 1991. "No?"
Me: "You've never heard of The Police?"
Kamila: "No, who are they?"
Me: "Now I'm really feeling old."
Kamila: "They are good. I like."

Naked Yuf

I am as shocked , and titillated , as Bill Murray to meet Alexis Dziena, pictured, in the movie "Broken Flowers" - Dziena plays "Lolita", the daughter of an ex-lover with whom Murray re-connects (Murray BTW, upon seeing Dziena, freaks, leaves house). This has particular relevance as I research content-filtering programs (according to Family Safe Media, the average age of first Internet exposure to pornography is 11).

So how are things different from the '80s , or when I was about Dziena's age ? For one , young people know each other online , which takes care of the first number of dates. The web offers an enormous local sample size which is quickly screened and leads to an active portfolio of ten to 20 active , possibly sexual, "leads" . I know this from the Associate pool at one of my venture funds. Privacy, or its perception, stems from the anonymity and scale of the web+every young persons' bubble. Definitions have changed, too, thanks to Clinton : my idea of 2nd or 3rd base will be different from my kids. And how to react when "a significant minority of 13-14 year old boys schedule their social time around viewing porn with male friends" ? (Univ. of Alberta study, Online Pornography, 2007)

As with every generation, mine will be caught out when it comes to our kids. Our only defensive : open communication. While awkward for the Shakespeares , I pay it no mind.

Cardinals Win The World Series

The Cardinals win the 2011 World Series, defeating Texas in seven, which makes my Dad happy as he is A) from St Louis and B) A Cardinals fan, along with everybody else from there.  I have been to a Cardinals game , too, when they played at the old Busch Memorial Stadium (replaced, in 2006, by the New Busch Stadium) itself replacing Sportsman Park and where Moe would have seen games , if he could sneak in , on a week day afternoon.  It is an experience - baseball as it should be played , where it should be played : in the Midwest , without the glitz and glam of the East or West Coast clubs and their $8 hot-dogs and Jumbotron replays. Guys like Whitey Herzog, Bruce Sutter, Jackie Robinson and Ozzie Smith played for the Cardinals. Their rivalry with the Chicago Cubs goes back over 100 years.

The Cardinals joined the National League in 1882 as the St. Louis Brown Stockings, taking the name from an earlier National League Team, and known as the Cardinals since 1900. This city loves the team, oh boy, no matter what it's ups and downs. In recent years, it has been mostly downs so last night's World Series victory a nice thing to happen.

"Pressure is a word that is misused in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure, it's because you've started to think of failure."
--Tommy Lasorda, Manager of the St Louis Cardinals

"My theory of hitting was just to watch the ball as it came in and hit it."
--Tommy Lasorda

Photo from the Associated Press, 2006.

Madeleine's Pumpkin

Madeleine and I sneak out to get a few pumpkins, pictured. "Sneak" , I say, as Eitan does a practice exam. The half-term week comes to a close.  These little people are a joy to be around.

Rocky

Last night we watch my all-time favorite film "Rocky" which I have been waiting for with Eitan and Madeleine. This the movie that inspired my entire third-grade to, well, be Rocky for Hallowe'en in '76.  Yet my hopes dashed as Eitan non-plused and Madeleine gives it a "Thumbs-up but sort of near the middle". 

How can it be?  Perhaps boxing not the central entertainment it once was : Mohamed Ali in the ring with anyone was a Big Deal and I remember the Leon Spinks fights, Ken Norton and Joe Frazier. Or perhaps the "underdog story" does not sell in Britain. In the US, any bum like Rocky thinks he can strike it rich, succeed, given his chance and hard work. In the UK, people accept what they got and get on with it.  Or maybe the kids have yet to face adversity, which they will, and cannot relate to the protagonists' struggles.  Who knows?

On another note, judging Stallone on his endless, horrible , sequels missing the point : he created two of America's most indelible characters with Rocky and Rambo.

Me, running, with Eitan: "Do you know what 'redemption' means?"
Eitan: "It's when somebody makes himself better."
Me: "Bingo. Do you think Rocky was redeemed in the end?"
Eitan: "Yeah, I guess so."
Me: "Was he the only one to be redeemed in the movie?"
Eitan: "We're not going in this direction again, are we Dad?"
Me: "Just tell me what you think."
Eitan: "I think only Rocky was redeemed."
Me: "What about his manager? What about him? Waiting 50 years for his chance?"
Eitan: "But he was only in the movie for like 1/100th of it."
Me: "It's not about the time. How about Paulie? The mean drunk, Adrian's brother?"
Eitan: "Definitatelyi not him."
Me: "But he let Adrian into the ring. At the end of Rocky's fight."
Eitan: "Yeah, so?"
Me: "So even people with bad knocks have redeeming qualities. They can be redeemed."
Eitan:

"It really don't matter if I lose this fight. It really don't matter if this guy opens my head, either. 'Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody's ever gone the distance with Creed. And if I can go that distance, ya see, and that bell rings, ya know, and I'm still standin', I'm gonna know for the first time in my life, ya see, that I weren't just another bum from the neighborhood."
--Rocky, 1976

Tourists

Hidy ho since we live in London here is a tourist shot on Parliament Sq near Big Ben,  Westminster and Abby Cathedrals , St James's Park, Downing St and the Churchill War Bunkers, where we visit the other day. The kids enraptured. Please print for your refrigerator.

Me: "So I understand you're going to a disco party?"
Eitan: "Huh?"
Me: "Imogen and Harriet's birthday. And there will be girls."
Eitan: "Yeah, so? They invited the whole class."
Me: "Well, are you going to dance?"
Eian: "No. I told mom, me, Cyrus and Joe are going to be standing in the corner."
Me: "Twiddling your thumbs no doubt."
Eitan: "What's that mean?"
Me: "Don't worry. You will figure it out one day."

Woman In White , Thameside

Beads

Me and Sonnet and that is all she wrote.

I take Madeleine to Covent Garden to buy some beads since I want to make a strap for my new camera.  She pulls over her hoody and follows me dutifully. My idea something 'native American' so I bring patterns for The Sun, Rain Man and the Dragon Fly.  Michael, the friendly gay dude with tattoo's , helps me out: "This ("thith) will take you ages." Since neither of us knows how many beads I need , Michael sends me to storage where I choose bags of black, red, yellow and turquoise .. beads.  I also buy a loom and Madeleine perks up: "We can weave together!" which I am all for assuming, of course, I can weave at all. My project becomes an expensive project but, hey, in for a bead , in for a . ..

Me: "What do you think is the most important decision you have ever made?"
Madeleine: "Me?"

Me: "Yeah."

Madeleine:  "I don't know."

Me: "You gotta have one. How about the dog??"

Madeleine: "I was thinking about that but it wasn't, like, life changing."

Me: "Oh, really?"

Madeleine: "I guess I had to tell everybody so it was an important decision."

Me: "Anything else?"

Madeleine: "Choosing Tommy."

"When I'm sampling from your bosom
Sometimes I suffer from distractions like
Why does God cause things like tornadoes and train wrecks?"

--"Swimming In Your Ocean", Crash Test Dummies, 1993

A T & T

I visit the V & A's exhibition "Postmodernism," a movement from 1970-1990 covering style, design, architecture, music and fashion from Italy to Las Vegas (meanwhile Sonnet takes Madeleine thru "The Power of Making" which Madeleine loves). This period, which covers a good part of my conscious yuf, includes David Byrne's over-sized suit in "Stop Making Sense"; Grace Jone's angular features and Annie Lennox's androgyny.  The ultimate expression of postmodernism : Ridley Scott's dark film "Blade Runner."  Manhattan's AT&T tower, pictured, gets a nod and, since I walked by it almost every day for four years, merits a missive.  The tower part of the new "Midtown" which, by the early 1980s, offered a sexy alternative to Wall Street's gloom and doom and ancient infrastructure.  AT&T, along with PAZ , the Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Tower, the Chrysler Building and the MetLife Building defined the money movement - financiers wanted to be closer to their lifestyle : shopping, theatre, museums, discos.  Usual stuff.  So here is the building :

The AT&T Building (now Sony), is a 647 feet tall, 37-story, highrise skyscraper by Philip Johnson , and completed in 1984. It became immediately controversial for its ornamental top (sometimes mocked as "Chippendale" after the open pediments characteristic of the famous English designer's bookcases and other cabinetry), but enjoyed for its spectacular arched entrance way, measuring about seven stories in height. With these ornamental additions, the building challenged architectural modernism's demand for stark functionalism and purely efficient design. The effect the building had on the public at large has been described as legitimizing the postmodern architecture movement on the world stage. Sourced: Wiki (edited)

Post card image by Judith Grinberg for Johns Burgee Associates, USA, 1978

Tash

Madeleine and I do"Party Palace" for Hallowe'en : She has been begging me the last couple of weeks. Madeleine will be a 'murderer' so we buy fake blood, a white mask, a plastic knife and "a scary mustache", pictured, or, at least, scary to a 'Chinaman' (I love the white dude who models the "tash" - I can hear him going "Ah - so").   Madeleine's goal to fill a pillowcase with candy and she has a plan: Two costumes, allowing her to hit the same block twice. Smart kid.

"If you bow at all, bow low."

--Chinese Proverb

Smiffy's "Chinaman Mandarin Tash" scanned from packaging

Katie Chillaxing In The Bahamas

Police Academy

An old stadium at Imber Court, pictured, on the training grounds of the Surrey Police Academy, where Eitan in action yesterday against the Esher Wizards.  The academy has pitches for rugby, cricket and football - all well maintained and ready for sport. The boy has played a couple tournaments here, before, and I am always struck by this particular stand, slowly rusting, on an unloved, outer , pitch, with hand-painted plates providing long-ago scores, posted on a lopsided shed.  Once, this was a modern structure, the pride of the compound I imagine.

Madeleine and I walk Sonnet to the bus station, 7AM.
Me: "Rusty cannot control himself. Everything is a new smell."
Madeleine: "What do you think he smells?"
Me: "Imagine if your smell was 2,000 times stronger, which is Rusty. He's probably checking out other dog's, you know, pee and stuff : 'woof woof woof : Fred was here last week...."
Madeleine: "Do you know who has a good sense of smell?"
Me: "Who?"
Madeleine: "A mole."
Me: "Yep."
Madeleine: "They can't see and so they use their smell to avoid predators. And a tree. Or a pole."
Me: "Good thing about that, huh?"
Madeleine: "Yeah. And pigs are really smart. Once, they put pigs in paint and they walked all over a piece of paper and made a painting."
Me: "Did anybody buy it?"
Madeleine: "Uh, no. But they really liked it. They only made one 'cuz it was an experiment."
Me: "What happened to it in the end?"
Madeleine: "It went on display at the Barnes Wetland Center."
Me: "Cool. Nice one, kiddo."

That's Rusty

Paolo Veronese depicts "Four Allegories of Love" which are on permanent display inside the National Gallery : here is 'Happy Union' that I happen to like because it looks a lot like Rusty in the lower right corner of the portrait. The other three (and far more interesting , really) are 'Unfaithfulness', 'Scorn', and 'Respect'. Veronese painted the set in 1575 for a private patron's interior walls (NB I got a dressing down for my photo since No Photos Allowed at the museum.  I chat with a friendly guardsman about this as I do not use a flash nor harm the painting.  He notes the rule for "security purposes" but agrees there may be a "commercial reason" as well so I buy a few post cards).

Jack And Eitan

Jack and Eitan before football practice and after the SM game v. Collis School, which SM loses 4-nil.  We have two hours to kill and end up at at cafe on the Thames across from Hampton Court.  The boys are a pleasure , too, wrapped up in , well, football and about nothing else. They can discuss clubs and stats for hours. I try to introduce something, anything, new and am shut down instantly.  I pry about class room gossips , who is going through their growth spurts and what the girls are up to. Eitan gives me a blank stair. Jack shakes his head - girls, right. They crank up the volume with hot chocolate and chocolate croissants.  I watch gratified to be in their presence and, while not really on the inside, not on the outside, either.

Sonnet and Madeleine spend an extra night in Oxford while Eitan and I return early so he can play the Esher Wizards (Elm Grove lose 2-nil this morning - bummer ).  The boy and I watch Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho' - he has been begging to see the film since Jaws, which left him non-plussed.  At the famous shower seen he covers his eyes : not from the blade nor fear, Dear Reader, but Janet Leigh naked. The end does get him, though, esp. Norman Bates : "I wouldn't hurt a fly." He asks me to join him upstairs, you know, not because he's scared or anything, then, later, I find him in bed, fast asleep. All the lights on.

"People always mean well. They cluck their thick tongues, and shake their heads and suggest, oh, so very delicately."
--Norman Bates

Rockets '78

A blast from the past. Me and Todd, pictured, my neighbor for eleven-years on San Ramon , and five-years older.  He was all that. Todd taught me how to to make a proper paper airplane. We spent hours watching Star Trek then drew posters of the Enterprise phasoring some Klingon or getting sucked into a worm hole. He built tree forts - serious ones, that covered two trees. Once he dug a deep hole, maybe six feet, in the backyard. Why not? We found large pupae with jaw-claws that we paired off against each other. We patrolled neighborhood backyard passageways unknown to adults and explored an off-limits canyon at the bottom of the road. We collected bugs (killing them in a jar with kleenex soaked w/ ethenal).

And, then, there were the model rockets.  Two hobby shops, one on Telegraph Ave at 45th in Oakland and the other on Salano Avenue in Berkeley (both long gone), provided the kit:  walking in was like the smell of napalm in the morning. I saved my allowance for months to buy the Big Bertha or Mercury V (which , the first time, ended in tears) , engines , igniters , wadding etc &c.  Todd and I built the launch platforms ourselves, which you can see , Dear Reader, painted black, in the prior blog.  Our launch zone Golden Gate Fields, a Berkeley horse track between the Bay and the 580 highway. The parking lot gave us plenty of room but on a windy day the lance might carry over the Bay's marshy bog which would require a search party (car parked precariously by the freeway).

Today Todd lives in Chico, California, where he is a fireman and father of two boys.

Pre Launch

We are at the local common to blast off Mercury,  Excalibur, and Tomahawk and I am 11 years old all over again.  The thrill of seeing these babies accelerate to 1000 ft/ sec. is , well, magic.  The Mercury by far the best launch : we put her up seven times and she falls to bits: first , the antennae needle gone, then the red tower, followed by a fin and finally, on the last launch, she goes up 250 feet then does a slow U turn for the ground , parachute ejecting on impact , tube snapped in two. I will fix her up new. The Tomahawk, meanwhile, my lightest , goes highest: : a C8 engine jammed in the rear takes her 2,000 feet : the parashoot fails to employ so that is that.  The Excalibur loses a couple fins and she, too, back to the shop. A top-ten day.

From some math book : A model rocket is fired vertically upward from rest. Its acceleration for the first three seconds is a(t)=60t, at which time the fuel is exhausted and it becomes a freely “falling” body. Fourteen seconds after the fuel is exhausted, the rocket’s parachute opens, and the (downward) velocity slows linearly to -18 ft/sec in 5 seconds. The rocket then “floats” to the ground at that rate. Find the position function s and the velocity function v for any time t, then sketch the graphs of s and v.

Jungle Gym

We are to Oxford to see Nita and Alain and the three Zs , pictured, in front of their new house which they are making over. I catch up with Zebulan , who "in to " maths which  is not surprising since Nita a math PhD and professor while Alain is a Professor of Mathematical Modelling and Director of the Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics.  Zeb is crunching calculus in the 8th grade.  I wish he was my Analyst when I was an Analyst. He would have been better at it. We talk about unusual planetary shapes since he reads Sci Fi:  if earth were a giant donut, he contemplates aloud, we could see China. Unusual thought and I go with it : could life exist on in our galaxy? Maybe. Universe? Most definitely. Zeb adds helpfully that life might be in our solar system now but we do not, you know, have the sensors to detect it.

Dead

Gaddafi meets his end.

"Badly injured but conscious, the former dictator, 69, was bundled on to the bonnet of a pick-up truck, his shirt stripped from his torso and his body dragged along the ground."

--The Times

New Friends!

Here is my new friend on Facebook, pictured. Who says technology cannot expand one's horizons, even @ my age ?

Eitan invited to join (yet another ) sports training thingy , this time requiring Tuesday afternoons for five weeks. He is adamant about joining, too, which Sonnet and I against given his many various after-school commitments.  Rather then argue , I shift tactics and pass the buck : Eitan's swimming / football coach can make the decision re Tuesdays. This raises the boy's anxiety , oh boy .  So, after some bedtime rumination, I relent : this is Eitan's year to do everything while next year's Hampton School will apply its own discipline .  The only condition : Eitan's exam preparations and sleep do not suffer. He agrees and I get it done.