Mutai

Kenyon Geoffrey Mutai ( pictured, from web), is 30-years-old and sets today's NYC Marathon alight in 2:05:06 , breaking the course record by over two minutes. Seven-months ago he runs Boston, known for its Heartbreak Hill and uneven course, in an unsanctioned world best of 2:03:02, which is 4:43 miling. Mutai the odds-on favorite for the 2012 Olympics and we will be there.

In 1999, the last time I am to Nairobi, I go to the African Cross Country Championships , sponsored by the military, which, I think, about equivalent of the Super Bowl. If you are an African. The games begin at 8AM which makes sense with the 30-degree summer heat but, upon arrival, the horse track , which hosts the event, empty. I sit around for a couple of hours contemplating how to get back to my hotel when I bump into a German exchange student who tells me not to worry it should get under way by noon, give or take a couple of hours. 

Kenyon President Daniel Arap Moi arrives at 1:30PM and the race starts shortly after. I see David Chelule, who runs a 27:55 in the 10K that year and Paul Kosgei, who does Chelule one better at 27.45. Also at the line:  The great Daniel Komen, whose 1998 indoor and '96 outdoor records for 3,000m still stand while he remains the only man to run back-to-back sub-four-minute miles;.Komen also the second man, after Said Aouita, to break both the 13-minute mark for the 5,000m and the 3½-minute mark for the 1,500m. Then there is Paul Tergat , who held the world record in the marathon from from 2003 to 2007. This isn't the All Stars, it is one of the fastest cross country races ever assembled. And there I am, front ringside seat.

So the exchange student I mention is an assistant cross-country coach for a nearby village and she introduces me to five or six marathoners who have gone sub-2:15. If you meet , in your lifetime, a runner under 3-hours for the marathon it is a Big Deal - this would put him in the top 2% in today's NYC race. I learn that, to join the military team, a paid position, a Kenyon marathoner must be sub-2:10 for consideration and these guys, all under 120 lbs, embarrassed that they have not made the grade.

At 3PM the race ends (I do not recall who wins) and I observe the masses, who arrive now ensemble - maybe 200,000 people - walking and dancing towards the stadium, beating drums and celebrating their athletes. It is a joyous occasion , too - so what if they do not see the race. It is the participating, not the winning, that matters.

Barnes

Elm Grove defeats the Barnes Eagles 5-2 in an exciting match with the lads down 2-1 before storming back in the second half and the game tied  at the middle mark.  Eitan assigned middle-back, a new position, and Jack (pictured) the sweeper. Together, they are the All Stars' defense and, with the job, comes the pressure:  The Dads yell and shout if a ball gets by and Alphie, the goal-keeper, quick to blame. Still, Coach heaps praise on the boys , and appreciates that the back-field cedes glory to the strikers and wingers, Eitan's natural position. I ask him if he wants to return to the left wing but he is happy to go with what Coach says best for the team. And , besides, his way not to question authority.

Me: "What time did Kamila come in last night?"
Sonnet: "5AM."
Me: "You heard her?"
Sonnet: "Yes."
Me: "Just like a mother..."
Sonnet: "I am a mother."
Madeleine: "Can I practice my trumpet?"
Sonnet: "Let's let Kamila sleep a while, shall we?"
Madeleine: "But I will play softly."
Me: "You'll play softly."
Madeleine: "I can, Dad. It's only the trumpet."
Me: "Like yesterday when you were blasting away at 8:30AM."
Madeleine: "It was not blasting. I was practicing Jingle Bells."
Sonnet: "We know, honey, but let's wait for a little bit."

Marcus, Madeleine, Billy and Doug

The gang over for a play-date, which finds them at Helen and Martin's trampoline. Billy's hat BTW on his head all year round including summer.

Last night, at a dinner party, Sonnet and I meet Doug, a tall, thin, bald dude with statement glasses. He is from eastern Ohio "near Pittsburgh" and none of this marks my attention other than another neighborhood American from a place I do not wish to know about. Over the course of the evening I learn that Doug graduated West Point, was an infantry officer and strategic planner for the US Army, then eight-years at McKinsey Consulting.  In 2009 he founded non-profit "The Challenge" which brings together 16-year-olds from diverse backgrounds , who design and deliver community projects of their making.  From the first program of 150 kids, The Challenge picked up the by the Tory agenda and now backed by government. Next year, Doug expects 30,000 kids to graduate from The Challenge.  Oh, and he is also a Rhodes Scholar.

"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week."

--General George S. Patton, West Point '09

Brown Football

Rather then suffer Cal, I decide to follow a winning team: Yes, the Brown Bears are second in Ivy League football with a 6-1 record losing only to Harvard. Tonight they play Yale.

I spent some time at the Brown stadium, pictured, watching games or using the quarter-mile track for cross country with Greg Whiteley and Seamus. To be honest, I never cared for the football since, well, it doesn't compare to the Pac 10+the social anxiety accompanying the games tiresome. Somehow it brought out my deepest anxieties : You were either all in or all out. I couldn't compete with the Euro trash nor the frat guys.

Brown's stadium, dedicated in 1925, built completely by subscription. The stands expanded with new aluminum seats (opposite side of pictured) in 1978 marking the 100th anniversary of Brown football - this where the visiting fans located. The stadium's capacity 20,000, although a record crowd of 33,000 watched Brown face Colgate on Thanksgiving morning, 1932, with portable bleachers brought in for the game.

Seattle Coffee Co.

Richmond Park. Photo from Kamila.

We see Mary for dinner : she is now Senior Vice President, Global Strategy, at Starbucks reporting to CEO Howard Shultz. She made the transition from Boston Consulting and the East Coast, relocating her family to Seattle. Her intelligence demands a Big Platform and she has it : 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, and over 130,000 employees.

When we first arrived to London, 1997, many of us newbies looked around and asked: what can be done better? Or, at least, what can we copy from the United States ?  Scott Svenson , who arrived two-years before Sonnet and me, founded the Seattle Coffee Company which was bought, shortly later, by Starbucks for a cool £55 million , setting the expat scene a twitter, believe you me.

Scott arrived in London with his wife, an i banker, and had to find a job so, being from Seattle, he asked Starbucks if he could open their first non-US franchise. Starbucks declined so he set up Seattle Coffee instead, borrowing heavily from Starbucks, and quickly reaching 19 stores in  London. The logos looked suspiciously similar. When Starbucks ready for Europe , Scott played hard-to-get and got all-he-wanted. By strange coincidence , the Head of Starbucks Intl a friend and, long after the deal, we clucked about how over-priced the purchase was.

And The Seattle Coffee Company today? Well, she still exists on a few chipped coffee mugs and perhaps in a memory or two like mine.

"China traditionally has been a tea-drinking country but we turned them into coffee drinkers. "
--Howard Schulz

Cooper

Gary Cooper, the guy every guy wants to be. At least I do.

Cooper renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, individualistic, emotionally restrained, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made. He received five Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, winning twice for Sergent and High Noon , which inspired me to perform Kit Kat Cowboy in Madeleine and Eitan's class, the poor dears. I can freely admit that dressing up as a gay cowboy is not very Cooper-esque, but still, Cooper's influence strong (for the cowboy, not the gay).  His frequent theme, of standing up to the enemy against all odds, resonates. It must have, too, when Cooper first becoming an actor during the Great Depression (Nb, he failed as a salesman of electric signs and electronic curtains).  There was no back-stop of home equity nor family wealth. Most women did not work. Men got on with it. Will they do so today in our Great Depression? Can they?

Cross

The New Zealand War Memorial , located at Hyde Park corner, pictured, honours the fallen soldier in WWI and WW2. The official dedication took place on Nov. 11, 2006 (Armistice Day) by Queen Elizabeth II, in her capacity as Queen of New Zealand.

From Nov. 1, inside the Commonwealth, red poppies are found on many lapels anticipating Remembrance Day , 11 November, to recall the official end of World War I on that date in 1918; hostilities formally stopped "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month" of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice.

The red poppy is from the poem In Flanders Fields. These poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their brilliant colour a symbol for the blood spilled in the war.

Breakfast of Champions

Bacon bap anyone?

How fitting, then, that Sonnet purchases tickets for the Olympic swimming trails which will take place in March 2012 at the new pool. Despite being pre-registered and online 10AM, sharp, when the box office officially opens, many of the sessions sold out : secretly I am delighted to see the acquatics supported. Lord knows I appreciate how hard these kids train. Britain has some contenders too: Team GBR collected 13 medals at the FINA World Cup one-day competition in Berlin last week and includes Liam Tancock, the world champion and record holder in the 50 meters backstroke , and the great Rebecca Adlington, winner of two gold medals in 2008 in the 400 and 800 m freestyle, breaking Janet Evan's 19 year-old world record in the 800 m final (NB Adlington is Britain's first Olympic swimming champion since 1988, the first British swimmer to win two Olympic gold medals since 1908 and Great Britain's most successful Olympic swimmer in 100 years).  Family tx are a steal and the atmosphere as intense as the games (for us swimming geeks).

"To be
the eyes
and ears
and conscience
of the Creator of the Universe,
you fool. "
--Kilgore Trout's reply to the question "What is the purpose of life?", Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut

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