[SF Gate]French vandals known as the Deflated target SUVs / Eco-guerrillas make tires go flat, smear doors with mud

French vandals known as the Deflated target SUVs / Eco-guerrillas make tires go flat, smear doors with mud

Ohio, part 4

The anticipated fatigue hit Granny today, the third day of radiation treatment. She said she felt just about like falling out of her electric wheelchair. She didn’t, but barely made it to her chair to watch some more “The Price is Right”.

I realized that Granny is all about games. I mentioned that she lives for Bridge, but she also enjoys other card games, most board games that involve thinking (as opposed to chance), and her TV shows are all gameshows. She’s not interested in drama, comedy, mystery or even really news (although she does watch news). I think she’s not that interested in people. The news she watches is the type where they tell you what to think about what’s happening in the world, and I think she watches to see what is going on that might affect my mother and her various parts of the world (or other close friends and family not here in Cinti) – the number of whom seems to be dwindling. I believe that she cares about her family, but I don’t think she cares much for other people (“Hell is other people” –XXXX). But over the years, everyone has a story about her choosing the play Bridge instead of help a family member in a crisis or meet an important new significant other, etc.

My mother and I have speculated about why she is the way she is, but we haven’t come up with a good explanation. She’s lost a lot of loved ones and experienced a number of other heartbreaks in her life. Yet we know that being close to other people is not only rewarding, it is also the only way to truly know yourself; the equation goes in both directions, as I am sometimes terrified by my own potential vulnerability. Maybe Bridge has felt like the only thing she could count on not dying or embarrassing her with socially “inappropriate” life-choices.

There’s a copy of Harper’s magazine in our room (probably left by me the last time I stayed here) dated November 2002. Over the last couple days, I have been reading and really enjoying it. Notebook, Audible silence, by Lewis H. Lapham discusses the political/national response to September 11, still fresh in the American consciousness at the time:

“The New York Skyline didn’t look the way it once looked, but the on-air company of talking heads (anchors, learned scholars, distinguished statements) held fast to the doctrine of American exceptionalism, and the bland certainty of their believe in the country’s innate goodness…. Max Frisch recognized as ‘the knack of so rearranging the world so that we don’t have to experience it.’ (pg 9) “… We know that what was said last week (on the news) will be said again this week, and then next week and once again six weeks from now…. Here we all are living more or less happily every after within the virtual reality provided by the news and entertainment media that can configure death as a sales pitch for a weapons budget, an insurance policy, or a face cream.” In Presidnet Bush’s militant speech to the UN the day after his benign appearance in NYC’s festival or mourning and during his visit to ground zero, “In neither setting did it matter whether he or anybody else understood what he was saying.” (pg 10) “The media were interested in mood and gesture, and so, on September 12, as on September 11, they directed their cameras and their questions to the presentation of an image rather than to the substance of an idea” and didn’t ask any questions about the speech as it was “so strong and brave and presidential – that no one wanted to spoil the effect by asking what it meant”. And finally, “but if it is disgrace for any country at any particular time in its history to rest content among the relics of a lost language and an imaginary past, it is a matter of some interest in a country that possesses the power to poison the earth without possessing either the means or the desire to know itself.” (pg 11)

That’s enough of someone else’s voice for one blog post, and there’s a whole lot there to think about. But as I spend a 3rd day in a row discussing my eyebrows (I exaggerate) I wonder if the thing about Granny is that she’s American. That is, someone who buys what the American media is selling. She sits up there in her comfy chair resting and watching [insert name of popular game show here], I can’t help but think that this 94-year-old cancer patient, with 3 of 5 children still living and several great-great-grand children taking their bottles, represents the both the foibles and the potential of our nation.

Ohio, part 3

The first radiation treatment went well, and Granny has been in high spirits. My mother is worried that Granny will offend absolutely everyone she knows and then be lonely bc when Granny is nervous she is grumpy and says mean things. Well, she doesn’t always wait until she’s nervous, but it certainly does bring unkind thoughts out of her mouth as well as anything else. Two nights ago she got tired and started saying unkind things to me – I think she needed an enemy and my mother wasn’t a good one bc she had just washed Granny’s hair and massaged her scalp. Now I’m back in favor bc I cleaned the kitchen floor after a glass of milk got spilled on it.

It’s an interesting lesson. My mother is exactly the same way. When she gets tired, she’s unbelievable rude. There’s nothing one can do about it other than just get away from her. I think I had this characteristic before I gave up coffee, but I haven’t felt the desire to say unkind things to people when I’m tired in many years. Thank Goodness.

This morning Granny couldn’t find her pain medicine, which made her nervous again. Well, it turned out to be next to her chair. So, all’s well that end’s well.

The other good news is that we don’t have to change rooms today. Granny made the reservations for September instead of October which meant that we could only stay in the room with 2 beds (the pink suite) until today and then we had to change to the room with one king sized bed (the green suite).* That’s another nice thing about the center: they have these hotel-style rooms that you can rent for $50/night in the same building when you visit a resident. It includes breakfast and, in this case, Granny is able to pay for it with the meal tickets they give her every time they show her apartment. (Her’s must be one of the prettiest bc they use it as a showcase for prospective residents.) They give her 3 meal tickets (value $5 each) every time they show her apartment and she must have close to $1000 worth at this point. Anyway, the point is that it is very comfortable and it works out to be free for us.

Sharing a room with my mother is another story. She becomes dead tired by 8 PM, is very bossy about use of the TV when we are both watching it. Forturnately there’s another TV in the common room around the corner where I can watch the huge screen all night long if I want – and again, fortunately, there’s nothing to watch despite 100s of cable channels. Last night I watched Veronica Mars and then 2 episodes of Sex and the City before bed. The night before, 8 mm (a movie). I’ve got mother watching CSI with me at 8 (as she drifts off).

Granny likes to watch Wheel a Fortune, Jeopardy and Fox News. It’s painful.

Depending on how much of a sleeping pill my mother took, she gets up between 5:30 and 7, leaving the light on when she leaves the room. So, yeah, I wouldn’t live like this forever, but I guess I can get by for now. It’ll be great to have my own space again.

Anyway, we’d better go visit Granny now before lunch (which they call dinner, dinner is supper), bc my mother and I are having lunch with her old friend Cathy at the Olive Garden. Strangely, none of the other friends or relatives are returning our calls/wanting to see us. I’m not terribly concerned bc I came here to see my grandmother. I only visit less than once a year. But it does seem strange to me since, if they are mad at us they might as well just tell us since they won’t get another opportunity to see us for a while. And if they aren’t then the least they could do is call back. Whatever.

* (sidenote) I’m sure this color naming is based on something arbitrary like the bedspread covers they happened to have anyway. Now, the rooms are neither pink nor green. The other thing that seems wrong about this is the traditional associations with these colors (both western and feng shui, which makes me think they are human-universal). Pink is associated with love and tenderness. Green is associated with youth, money, and nature. So, tell me, why would you make the room where people (presumably couples) share a bed green and the room where people don’t (presumably not couples) the color of love? Unless they are thinking that men (sons?) are more likely to stay with their female partners in the green room and daughters and granddaughters in the pink room (girly)….

Ohio, part 2

I live a very sheltered life, it’s true. I grew up in the People’s Republic of Berkeley. I went to Hampshire College, where I realized that I had some conservative political views (Of course now I have no idea what they were – maybe they’ve changed). I returned to Berkeley and then San Francisco. So, maybe it won’t surprise you that I just watched Fox News for the first time.

I was about sex crimes against children. The moderator interviewed 2 “experts”:
1) The father of a young boy who was raped (Granny asked, “How is a boy raped?”) and who is now a troubled young man. The offender was found guilty and given 6 months in jail for this crime and the judge on this case, who is an Asian woman, was shown on the screen and ridiculed by the moderator at least 3 times. He said things like “no action has been taken to punish this woman for her gross miscarriage of justice”.
2) A child psychologist, but I didn’t stay to watch the rest of the show.
I studied journalism for about 15 minutes, and the first thing they taught me was that the journalist is supposed to at least give the appearance of impartiality. I don’t care if you are covering the murder of children, it is always the journalist’s responsibility to withhold judgement and cover both sides of the story. I don’t know why the judge gave this sex offended only 6 months in jail, but the way the story was told, she was the criminal, not the sex offender. Was it because she is an Asian woman???

My grandmother doesn’t like to have people around her who don’t look exactly like her. One time one of the great grandchildren (the child of one of my cousins) brought a friend to a family party whose skin and hair was a shade or 2 darker than mine. She may have been Latina or she may have just had a nice olive complexion, but my Granny said “That girl doesn’t look like she belongs here – who invited her?” Granny is also known to point out people at her retirement community: “that couple is Jewish” etc. She also points out if there is something wrong with anyone’s hair or clothes or if they ask too many questions. She once said about my sister Ilana, “I like that kid even if she is half Jewish.”

Yesterday at lunch, we discussed the fact that most of the younger generation in my family haven’t married the person they have children with. I don’t know if it is too much of a commitment, they can’t afford it, or it just seems unnecessary, but they don’t seem inclined to do it. My mother speculated that, while all these Midwestern heterosexuals aren’t marrying, the homosexuals are fighting for the right to marry. I am delighted and shocked to report that my Granny said, “While why shouldn’t they get to marry if they want to? Someone ought to be doing it.”

I usually think of my Granny as the sort of quintessential dyed-in-the-wool-Republican American. She doesn’t think about the issues. She watches Fox News, where they tell the viewer what to think. She judges based on the superficial. So, you can imagine how much this last revelation surprised me.

The view from the airplane at dawn on Monday morning was also surprising. The weather had been remarkably clear and bright, and dawn over the bay reflected vividly with blue, yellow, pink and gray, sky and water and the occasional dark mass of land sneaking in. We watched the whole bay area recede from downtown Oakland, the Claremont Hotel, trails of Tilden Park, places I have played since a little girl drew away from the plane in clear angled sunlight. Meanwhile my mother wouldn’t stop talking.

I wonder who she would be without all the substances. She drinks a lot of coffee. She “needs” a drink at night. Every night that I have been with her, she’s taken a whole sleeping pill, which makes the circles under her eyes big and slack in the morning. We got Pete’s coffee in the airport before taking off, and slurped up as much of its dark muddy texture as we could before getting on the plane. It was almost instantly clear that a small size would have been more than enough (neither of us finished our coffee, tho mine was a decaf). So, I can hardly blame her for her yammering on like a speed freak.

Granny just got back from her first radiation treatment. She seemed in high spirits, tho I think she had been very worried about it, which may have made her grumpy. But today there was color in her cheeks and she had an appetite. I bought her some nutrition drinks for diabetics – high calorie, no sugar. She liked it and drank more than half of one along with the Chex Party Mix she was snacking on.

My mother wants to know how I think Granny is doing. I said she seemed to be doing well. My mother said “no, really….” But I meant it. I mean, maybe I can’t see her for the trees, for her spitfire personality, for her criticisms of my pants and shoes and hair, but she seems like the same old Granny I always had. What do I know? I have never watched someone grow old and die. Is it something that you see happening over a long period of time or is it quick? Are people themselves up until the very last breath or do they lose the strength to be superficial or wise or critical or funny or sharp like they always were? In the answer to those questions, I don’t know which truth to wish for.

Ohio, part 1

Ahoy there; it’s Lilia reporting from America! I’m not talking about any pantie-waist, sidewalk-walking, small-business running, local-produce-eating America. I’m talking about the real thing, where there is no sidewalk and you can only eat at Applebees or Arby’s, KFC or McDo. This is no “where the sidewalk ends.” This is where the wheelchair ramps lead up from the street into a complete lack of sidewalk.

I mean, I’m sorry to be dwelling on the sidewalk thing, but it is more than a pet peeve. My uncle said that they had been putting in sidewalks especially around schools (Federal Safe Routes to School money perhaps?) and expressed possible concern about how the townships were spending their money when no one ever walks. The price of gas is down about $0.50 a gallon (is it in CA?), but still hovering around $2.60.

I’m here to see my grandmother, who is 94 and has lung cancer that has spread to her bones and liver. She seems remarkably perky to me under the circumstances. But she says she’s in a lot of pain and won’t take her pain medicine bc she doesn’t want to get all dopey and lose her edge at Bridge. Keep in mind that this is the high school graduate who has never lost a game of… well, I was going to say Scrabble but really anything, to me or my mother, for as far back as I can remember.

The weather has been beautiful, not cold and not humid. The leaves are turning nicely, gently. We’ve really enjoyed watching the ducks and geese in the pond in the center of her retirement community, but have seen exactly 2 people out there or on their porches despite that fact that are more than 300 residents here, all with balconies, and all relatively mobile. I think it’s cultural, like the fact that my mother and grandmother were counting over lunch today the marriage proposals they’ve received in their lifetimes and I have never had any. I think that’s a cultural-generation thing.

Despite being in the deep exurbs of Cincinnati, I find this center to have elements of an ideal community. Granny moved here bc she could no longer drive a car – all of her needs are met within the building. She has a compact one-bedroom filled with her antiques, but her friends never visit her there bc there is a game room, a library, a dining commons, and several meeting rooms as well as tables and living spaces in many corners. She dines with her friends 3 meals a day. They play Bridge nearly every day, calling each other on the phone to arrange things. The center has various religious services, a pharmacy open from 1-2 PM every day, a shuttle to anyplace you may want to shop (Kmart, Kroger’s, Macy’s etc.), a beauty salon during certain hours each day, coffee, tea and snacks available at all times, and more than 300 other seniors with whom one could socialize, befriend, date or more.

My Granny lives for Bridge. I mean she really lives for it. When I call her and she’s feeling down (“I am going to die soon.”) I hardly have to ask anymore bc the answer is always the same “did you play bridge today?” (“No”). When she has played, she is full of pep and vigor. We’ve been trying to get her to play while we’re here but I guess she wants to spend her energy on us instead. She gets tired more easily now. She starts radiation tomorrow.

I have 2 uncles living here. Dick picked us up at their airport and noted that his brother Jim has had 3 new houses in his lifetime while Dick has had only had one himself. That’s the thing you do if you live in Ohio, you buy a brand spanking new house every few years, one that no one else has ever lived in. I am sure there are advantages to marrying a virgin, but eventually that becomes not the point and you’re left with who that person is, or in this case, that your house takes 3 days to clean bc it’s so big and you must travel more than an hour to get to the city center.

Nothing about me goes unnoticed here: my socks are discussed, my pants, my shirt, my hair, my facial features, my eyebrows, my hands, my feet, my shoes…. And even tho I left home… or I should say my mother abandoned me to travel Europe with her boyfriend-at-the-time nearly 20 years ago, she still doesn’t get that we are separate people. She just made plans for me to wash my hair tonight, in front of me, without consulting me. Likewise, I am volunteered to do chores as if I am not part of the conversation. My eating habits are even observed with hers (“we didn’t eat our buns”, “we didn’t like that side dish”, etc.). I wonder if she realizes that I actually can speak and make choices as an independent person. I’ve been practicing for 20 years.

Experience taught me not to say anything about these things in front of my grandmother. She takes my mother’s side, and we end up in an unpleasant row. This is another good reason that we don’t have a car here: my mother is a completely terrible driver. I mean seriously, her license should be revoked, but she uses it as a tool for dominance: she controls the car therefore she controls me. You can imagine how that doesn’t work.

Anyway, she just called to say that they are done washing their hair (I’ll wash mine in the morning when I take my shower) so I should come over and play Scrabble. If Granny doesn’t win then maybe she really is dying.

Matt stranded in Guatemala

As most of you know, I rarely read the news. It's not that I don't care about the world. It's that the news is always bad (does that make me a deeply superficial person?), and when it isn't bad, journalists will find something bad to write about anyway. Also, I rely on my friends with stronger consistutions than my own to tell me what's going on.

Well, today I learned about the Hurricane Stan's impact on Guatemala (and probably the rest of Central America) bc my dear friend Matt emailed from Panajachel. So, my google fingers found all sorts of photos and other writings about this natural disaster, and, my friends, I have to say that I'm worried. Here's what Matt said:

From: matt baze
Date: Oct 8, 2005 7:35 PM
Subject: the last gringo
well not really the last, there are probably about 12 still in town. so i´ll try to make this short. justine and i arrived in panajachel about 11 days ago. as soon as we got into town, it started raining and pretty much never stopped. i decided to take a few days of language classes and after that we agreed to head on to sunnier horizons. yeah right. on the last day of my classes the rain really picked up, torrential. and it really didn't ease up for about 72 hours. as a result, the river overflowed its banks, landslides were everywhere and rumors circulated and were later confirmed that the only road in had been completely washed away. at this point, it dawned on j and i that something big was happening. we took a walk to the river and that's when the magnitude of what was happening hit us. the river had tripled in size, walkways we had walked on days before were washed away, homes & business were being washed down the river right in front of our eyes.
more rumors of more severe damage around neighboring areas circulated. it seemed every 15 minutes or so the magnitude of wahat was happening grew. this is a full on regional disaster. gas is being rationed as is water and food. shelters are full, thousands are homeless and many have died in the region. aid is in short supply, because the roads in are destroyed and the helicopters can't fly in this visability. though some coppters have made it in. there are a lot of conflicting stories and facts are scarce, its like that game broken telephone, where somebody whispers a story to someone and it gets passed around until the end where the story is completley different from the original. doesn't help that my spanish still completely sucks!
regardless, j and i have been hanging out at the biggest shelter helping where we can, mostly slinging food and playing with the kids. i'm not sure how much help we are actually doing, but at least there is a novelty of a big ol´' hairy gringo hanging around that invokes a lot of smiles and a few hugs, mostly fromthe children. (oh yeah, i AM BIG here).
now to the last gringo part, there was a mass evacuation of all foreigners, prior info was short and again often conflicting (although, at least 200 foriegners got the memo) in the end j and i missed the boat, literally. ah well, we'll help where we can and hope the next storm isn't as bad.
one more thing, the people, the mayans are incredibly courageous and perservere with a lot strength and even smiles. its heartening.
i'm well, safe and sound as is justine.
hope this finds everyone well
mb

My weekend in London

There were a lot of events happening the weekend I spent in London:
• National Walking Day (the pictures tell the story best)
• The buildings were open (not sure what this was about exactly, but it was also true in Paris)
• Thames Festival (again, the pictures tell the story best)
• Some kind of Underground (Metro) celebration that I missed
I also had friends to see and compulsory activities like the theatre ;-).

I took the Eurostar after French class on Friday afternoon and arrived without incident (although the train was late). K and I went to see Pride and Prejudice (the movie), which had just been released and we were both wrapped up in the romanticism of it all. But by the next day, we had decided that Kera Knightly wasn’t very good. I thought the rest of the movie was lovely and particularly appreciated that they used the real, historic homes as the set. (There were materials available at the theatre, including a small movie poster, with this information.)

London did some really cute things with National Walking Day, like characters in costumes entertaining people in the square, free walking tours all around the city, and loads of free stuff if you signed a document promising to walk and bike more. Several local NPOs were there pushing their activities, and people seemed really excited about it (or was that just the free stuff?).

The Thames Festival was huge. I went over there in the evening after consuming some of the City’s magnificent art museums with a loose plan to meet my friends, but while I had K’s cel phone number, I am such a retard I didn’t feel like calling. Partly, this was bc despite there being literally a million people there, I was sure we would bump into each other. And I was right.

The festival had a few cool things like a professional sand castles and music and dancing. But most of it was people selling their stuff (“think of Christmas,” one sign read) and I am pretty turned off by street fairs that are all about consumerism. For dinner, I had some pretty terrible chicken tikka, and then noticed much better looking chicken at the next stand over. Alas. And yet then as I was watching, the woman chopping up huge quantities of chicken with plastic gloves on turned and, without removing her gloves, accepted a huge quantity of money from her colleague. She put the money down, now covered in chicken grease, and then returned to chopping the chicken (fingers dirty now from money), still without and change in her gloved status. I think it was God’s way of telling me I am doing OK (that I didn’t eat from that stand, and etc.). Later, I ate some much better Indian snackies which was a small compensation.

[There’s something there about separation of uses. Chicken grease is dirty. Money is dirty. You are always supposed to wash your hands after you use the bathroom even if you didn’t “get any on you”. And at the same time, you don’t want to touch money or chicken or anything after you have used the bathroom at the same time – dirty things need to be separated from each other....]

The stated goal of the visit was to check up on London’s transport system under congestion charging, and, from this perspective, it was relatively successful. I also wanted to see some art and freshen my knowledge of Michelangelo’s work given that I just finished his biography. And of course I enjoyed seeing my friends there. The following letters and journal entries describe the visit more.

Date: Sep 18, 2005 12:14 AM
Subject: art, rivers, tea, and whatnot
London is lovely. It used to be that when I came here, I'd stay but mostly do stuff on my own. Now it seems they have started to like me, and I'm almost overwhelmed with social events. This is a minor problem bc right at the moment K and her mother aren't speaking. Families are so funny. H and his sister weren't speaking when I first arrived, but he apologised, and she forgave him. It does appear that he still expects an apology, but maybe that will blow over. And all of these little spats are bc someone said or did something insensitive and the other person reacted strongly to it. The reaction, in all cases, caused the break, not the initial insensitivity. My family has its drama's, but they are different.

Speaking of family dramas, sort of, I just saw the Frida Kalho exhibit at the Tate Modern, compliments of L’s membership card. Kalho was quite an amazing woman. But I can't help but think that perhaps she, and definitely her audience (including her husband), encouraged/exploited/cultivated the "folk art" aspect of her work in a sort of colonial type of way. I am not sure exactly how to articulate this, but she was far from "folk". Her education (in art and everything else) was extensive, and she was wealthy.

But here's the point. L and W's mother, R, lived with Diego Rivera and Leo Trotsky for a while (she's a Marxist astrologer), and she had an affair with Trotsky. So, L wondered, "Mom, we're heard so many stories about that time in your life, why have you never mentioned Frida?" Well, apparently Frida wasn't there, and I think that would have been necessary since Frida also had an affair with Trotsky. He must have really gotten around.

I had a lovely cup of tea with L and D, and covered topics from Slovenia, R’s life, Frida, how much D loves his bus pass (I think I am going to use him as a case study for one of my presentations -- he used to always drive), to the various family feuds. Now, I am having breakfast with them tomorrow too.

[“The Oyster Card is the greatest invention since the zip lock bag.” –David Queen, Londoner. It works as a debit card but with a discount.]

Anyway, after that I went with K and the boys to see Journey's End about WWI, and it was completely emotionally devastating. I thought it incredibly well-acted and directed altho there were a few awkward parts (the boys pointed out) where people jumbled their lines, accidentally blew out candles or knocked over chairs. If they were really comfortable with the script they would have made that seem more natural. Despite that, I thought it some of the best acting I've seen, and the play and set are pretty good too.

We'd driven into the city center (crazy) and parked at a lot where they'd parked in the car (cars on all 4 sides) and didn't have the keys to a critical car in order to liberate ours. K and the boys waited, but I took off for the Tate Modern (and Frida). I found myself in Covent Garden and enjoyed a bacon and cheese pasty and did a little shopping (I need to buy a bag to put the panniers, they are impossible to carry on their own, and I have lost my body and foot scrubbies, and also, it appears, my jacket, but I didn't do anything about that today -- I just got the bath stuff. I am thinking I should steal a shopping bag from IKEA to carry my panniers.) It's the Thames Festival this weekend, so I walked along the river with about 1M other people. Lots of stuff going on, but nothing very interesting to me. Then the museum, which I already talked about.
...
….When most good storytellers tell a story, they start at the beginning and then move towards the moral or punchline while building some suspense perhaps with a few well-timed pauses. I don't do that -- or at least not naturally. My natural way of telling a story is to start with the punchline or moral and then explain it. I have worked hard to correct this, bc it doesn't actually work very effectively.

From my journal, Sep 18, 2005
I’m sitting here at the National Gallery, looking at paintings of 16th Century artists from Florence and Rome. I don’t know if this room is any representation, but while Michelangelo worked his ass off, Rafael (according to the book) partied equally hard; yes, this room has 2 *unfinished* Michelangelos and about 8 Rafaels. For example. But of course M was mostly a sculptor. However, it makes me conscious of how short life is to do our work. I had better get busy. (Alternate theory: M had trouble finishing things.

Maybe M was just one of those people for whom life was a struggle, while Rafael was not.)

Sept 19, 2005 (journal from the Tate Britain)
I am interested in stories – stories as told thru images, brushstrokes, words, stories that are told thru glances and calluses.

Date: Sep 19, 2005 9:41 PM (letter excerpt)
Today, I ended up puttering around until almost 1, when R was coming over. So, I stayed for lunch bc I like her. Then I went to the Royal Academy, except it's closed on Mondays. Then to the Tate Britain and saw lots of cool stuff, except I also remembered it all pretty well from last year. After that I walked to the Saatchi Gallery, which was closed for a private event (as it was when I tried to go yesterday). I took the bus back bc I wanted to ride on the top of a double decker bus, and I got the best seat in the house, on the top front right. Yay! (I guess that's 2.5 for 5, which not bad given the odds.)

PS, [I picked up a step counter a National Walking Day, and it read] 12,000 steps yesterday from 4 PM. Today it's 14,600 steps so far. I know you are the edge of your seat to hear how many steps I take tomorrow. (The goal is 10,000.)

(art) Americains in Paris

Thursday night, I saw some open studios: Americains in Paris around La Bastille (www.legeniedelabastille.net). My friend from NN, Michele King, is exhibiting her work as part of the event, but Jennifer and I saw about 4 other open studios. To use Mido’s words, I will call the art, in general, “dramatically bad”. That said, I particularly enjoyed seeing people’s studio spaces and the internal city of Paris – there is something really magical about the private and semi-private spaces of a big city, and we saw areas with creeping vines, bike sheds filled with bikes, random commercial spaces in odd shapes, rickety staircases and polished ones. I am hoping to see some more this afternoon if there ends up being time. However, about the art we saw, there are a few people’s work I would like to talk about (bc I only want to say good things). There are more than 33 open studios, each exhibiting at least one artist, so I also want to be clear that I am not judging the entire event.

The photographs of a French photographer whose name I can’t seem to find, were very interesting, and not just bc they were serving Champagne at his opening. His bio, which we skimmed, talked about photographing monuments (which he had done), and Jennifer was moved by the way he had managed to take pictures of Paris without the work seeming cliché (something she wrestles with). I particularly liked on of the Eiffel Tower (where he overlaid the tower against people sitting on the grass, presumably near the tower, and under its shadow, in bright greens, yellows and pinks) and another of, I think, the Grand Palace. Jennifer pointed out an interesting abstraction of the Eiffel Tower’s details, where the ornate details were not so much displayed but visible. Like the Golden Gate Bridge, I think sometimes these large monuments are best viewed in detail despite their scale (and I don’t mean that in an acid trip sort of way). All the photo abstractions used bright colors, and multiple exposures which worked well and probably matched people’s couches bc they were selling as we drank our free Champagne.

Ari Solomon has taken some interesting pictures in what looks like China with his panoramic wide lense. However, I couldn’t help but wonder if there is more to the work than what can be viewed thru that wide lense. It seemed almost like a crutch for him. I wonder if he was the guy in the corner picking his teeth at the exhibition.

The only other non-friend artist worth mentioning was Cheryl Finfrock of SF, whose strange animals made me wish for a chicken abstraction.

At Michele’s studio (where she is being hosted, with another American artist, by a young Parisienne artist), she has moved from large (or at least, human-sized) pieces to smaller squares (in 2 sizes) which she abstractly arranged on a large white wall. She was concerned that people weren’t wild about them, but I thought they were an interesting departure from her usual work. I wonder is this experiment will cause a shift for her.

They also worked nicely with Sonia Burel’s work (her local host; Muriel suggested her father may be a famous artist based on her name) who depicts places with multicolored squares. I was very fond of Sonia’s work after I spend some time with it – she uses color amazingly. (They are oil.) She has a breathtaking live-work space that we believe is provided by her parents. I spoke with her mother briefly and she mentioned that Sonia’s work had been selling well, but lately sales have slowed, possibly bc she is making larger pieces now (confidence?).

The other American sharing their space was Cheri Reif Naselli, who does strictly conceptual work about verbal abuse in an attempt to process her marriage (which ended 6 years ago). Her work involves gut-wrapped around Barbie dolls and twisted sweaters. It reminded me of Judy’s fiber are, and Jennifer of Lucian Freud, neither of whom Cheri knew. She also had tapes of conversations with her husband that she would share with anyone interested. Jennifer listened to them.

I found the gut aspect of the work interesting, and the idea of wrapping, containing oneself, esp since it reminded me of Judy’s work who didn’t have language. But in all honesty, I have no interest in conceptual art. Issues are important, don’t get me wrong, but my simple brain doesn’t process a relationship between the aesthetic and the intellectual. Tell me stories with meaning, but make them nice and sweet and simple or complicated, but don’t wrap me in your messages. They are your responsibility. This is why people like Joan Didion write essays: they provide a direct and clear why to communicate a message.

That said, you can have a specific idea in mind and still create art based in the visual experience. But to me, the 2 have to go hand in hand. I guess I hope to explore these ideas more when I am living in my own space in SF starting soon. The other lesson of the studios we visited was that, with exceptions, I can do that. Art isn’t something restricted to others who give themselves license. I can make art and once it’s finished, I can exhibit it. I am good enough.

[LA Times] 20% of California Seniors Flunk High School Graduation Exam

--- "Ng-Baumhackl, Mitja" (a friend from HS) wrote:
>
> I dropped out before it was trendy. Thought that should be known.
>

20% of California Seniors Flunk High School Graduation Exam Nearly 100,000 statewide are in jeopardy of not earning diplomas, a report says.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-exit1oct01,0,7413567.story?coll=la-story-footer&track=morenews

I have 2 reactions to this:
1) People have to pass a test to have children instead.
2) We already know, and everyone else should too, that you don't need to graduate HS to go to college. This would hardly be news if that information was better available.

(letter excerpts 2) On re-reading, productivity and collaboration, the complex and the simple, and (as always) relationships

Sep 12, 2005 7:48 PM
… I watched Lost in Translation again last night and had a completely different experience with it (than the first time). it reminded me of… how (when you re-read a book, it comes out differently, and) it isn't the book that has changed, it’s you who has changed and can then have a completely different understanding of the book (or movie in this case). I actually think it is more complicated than just you changing, I think we all change like the tides depending on what we ate for lunch, whether or not someone was nice to us on the train, or we got an email from our sweetie this morning ;-). Is it possible that my moods vary more in one week than my personality has in my lifetime? (I don't think I believe that, but it's another way to think it.)

Sep 13, 2005 4:02 PM
… all good ideas have to come from some kind of collaboration. Maybe it is just easier to credit one human brain rather than an entire community. This might come back to my point from long ago about what makes a thing great is that it is finished. Maybe that's not limited to art. Maybe what makes a truly great creation of any kind is that it is finished, and the "great" people in any society are the ones who finish those things and therefore get credit.
* On the other hand, looking at Picasso's work last weekend (at the Musee Picasso), I felt like many weren't finished (it was mostly later stuff on display in the few rooms that were open due to the upcoming exhibition on his drawing). I felt annoyed, and that he was sloppy, esp considering his obvious genius.
* On the same hand, the thing about Michelangelo was that he didn't get along with anyone, couldn't collaborate with anyone, no one else's work was ever good enough for him (and often his own too). I think that's part of what made him a genius, deep-seeded competence in a sea of incompetents (or is that just impossibly high standards?).
* On the other hand, (the fact that) Raymond Chandler(‘s wife and editor wildly re-wrote his stories for publication) supports the original theory. Maybe he would have been nothing without his wife and editor.

I don't know how Einstein or Feynman worked, but it might be worth knowing. I bet they talked with their colleagues regularly about what they were thinking, doing, and making. But they probably did the work themselves (like Michelangelo and not like Chandler). But who’s to say that's better? Maybe the ability to collaborate well is one form of genius. It just doesn't always get recognition bc the human brain can't function that way. This is one reason that in college I studied art movements, altho I didn't know it at the time. Would Hemingway have been great without Gertrude Stein and Fitzgerald? Would Zora Neale Hurston have been great without Langston Hughes? Would Monet have been great without Manet and Cassatt?

And what exactly is feedback anyway? Can I get feedback from Lost in Translation? (I think so.) How do these random geniuses rise up without a movement? It seems to me that there always has to be influences. Who edits their books and paintings, corrects their experiments, tells them an idea is good or bad or so over? How does anyone know when they are doing something great?

…my point (about Lost in Translation) was that I don't think I can identify any more closely with that sense of isolation depicted so well now than I did when I saw the movie the first time. This is going to sound silly and so live-journal, but I think I have always felt isolated. I don't think I liked the movie the first time because it wasn't anything new to me -- just the awful way I have felt most of my life. I don't feel more isolated in Bangkok than I do in Berkeley. This viewing of the movie, I related more to the character development, and I really liked that it is such a quiet film.
…

I had trouble sleeping last night despite not having had a nap or anything. Class was good today as usual. I pretended to sell this kinda annoying Israeli girl a car, but I made her pay a 1000 euro deposit and wait for 3 months while we built the car for her. She wears heavy bleu eyeshadow up to her eyebrow, has her jet-black hair streaked blond, and has absolutely no understanding of French grammar. But don't get me wrong, she's OK.

I've eaten 4 pastries today. I walked for a little bit after class and no one tried to talk to me. I think I'll try a short nap now despite having loads of stuff to do....

Sep 14, 2005 6:04 PM
I guess what I was trying to do was pull at the string of the lives of various specific artists, and look at how their specific communities contributed to their work. It's interesting that right now I am reading about Michelangelo bc, as his life and work are portrayed in this book, he was no collaborator. However, there's more to it than whether or not you let some other guy build the road (at the very least) to the new marble quarry which you have built to harvest marble for your sculptures (he didn't -- I kid you not -- he took individual creation to that much of an extreme). But he was heavily influenced by competition with da Vinci and Rafael. His jealousy of their success influenced him to do new things, a specific example being the Sistine Chapel ceiling (he started painting specifically to prove that he was a better artist than da Vinci, who mainly painted, of course).

It also ties in with the conversation about re-reading books. We are each the collection of our experiences and all that, whether it's the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings or a direct collaboration between individuals.... I was upset that I didn't get that job (years ago) with MTC but like in Dar Williams's song "Blessings", where she talks about how glad she is now that she had these painful breakups then, everything might just work out. Rafael is a great and famous painter, and I studied him in Art 100 I took at Smith College (a good place to study art history), but I don't think he's as famous as Michelangelo. Of course, da Vinci is another story all together. And yet, I just image-googled Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel came up more than any of his other works (the David is pretty famous too, but I was most impressed by the Pieta, myself. it really made an impression on me. Oh, I googled him bc I wanted to see the Leda and the Swan painting -- I didn't remember it. – it turns out this is bc it was lost almost immediately.) I guess I can imagine a world where Michelangelo wasn't driven by a mad jealousy of da Vinci to paint that ceiling (indirectly), but I don't think it would be the one we live in now.

All these names of artists -- they're just names to help us find and identify things, like you and your software capabilities -- tools to help us retrieve images or ideas. War and Peace is my favorite book bc Tolstoy's thesis he attempts to prove in those 1,424 pages of fiction is that nothing happens at the impetus of one single individual, but rather as a result of collective consciousness. Specifically, Napoleon didn't singlehandedly decide to take over the world -- the French people believed (and probably still do, with some reason) that they should run the world. Napoleon gave voice to that belief and began its movement (as told in War and Peace and in history).

I once made that same argument in a paper in grad school -- that the design of Market Street exemplified the city planning en-vogue method of each era. Unfortunately, the prof I wrote it for led the redesign post-BART/Muni underground, and he didn't like my thesis much. But the grade didn't matter much -- the point is that that is what I found, and realized (!) after talking about it with my friends (who hadn't even read Tolstoy) and colleagues. I guess that brings me full circle; so, I should try to talk about something else now.

I continue to have trouble sleeping. Class has been fine, but is more difficult when I am tired. I am getting pretty good about rambling on in French about CA politics or Choucrute Garnie. I know I still make loads of errors, but it's good practice. I made a list of things I have to do before I leave on Friday and how long each thing will take me, and it's about 10 hours of work. Not sure if I'll find time, but it's good to have goals.

Sep 15, 2005 7:41 PM
I agree that individuals and movements combine to create genius, but I also think that it also takes the initiative of those individuals. That's part of the "everyone is a genius" theory (which has more to do with medium than environment), bc when people are able to dedicate themselves to something over a period of time, they usually succeed. A good example from my life is my writing “career”. Before I left for my trip around the world (1994), I did a little freelance work. When I got back, all sorts of people called me to do this and that, but by then I didn't want to be a writer anymore. I was starting to want to be a planner. (I figured out that writing isn't very interesting if you don't know anything.) So, it surprised me that altho I was completely out of communication for 1 year, my career continued to advance. And of course, my planning career has been much the same, altho I have never been out of communication with planners bc of the internet.

The book indicates that Michelangelo worked much much harder than I ever intend to. And I think that discipline paid off for him. (Although he was also born with a great talent to draw anything and raised cutting stone.) This gets back to the "love, work, and friends, you can have 2 but never 3" issue that I think we've talked about. Altho it appears to me that Michelangelo only really had work with any consistency.

So, I would expand the statement that individuals and environment and environment conspire to create genius to also include medium and discipline -- which is kind of a subset of the other 2. I would display is visually as a square divided into 4 by one vertical and one horizontal line and arrows representing the flow between them. In this case environment becomes both large and small (who are your parents? Is the global political environment such that there is money available to pay you to make marble sculptures? etc. with your peer group resting in the middle, encouraging you and inspiring your jealousy). No wait, I think it is better as a triangle... Anyway, I just got tired of talking about this. (which doesn't mean you shouldn't add something if you want to.)

…Most "interesting" things are really very simple when you get down to actually doing them.

The best example I can think of right now is relationships. They're complicated and strange, and I don't understand them at all. But when you examine people in long-term happy relationships, it is really very simple. The Israeli girl in class had a problem with her boyfriend 2 days ago, and we got into a conversation about what makes relationships work. I tried to explain (in French, of course) about the relationships researcher at UW Seattle who did extensive research on marriages that last and found, to his surprise, that the single factor was that the men all said "yes, dear". Of course, the American and Canadian women in the class agreed. But the teacher didn't understand, probably due to the French culture more than my language skills. He dismissed me as a Feminist (which is a bad thing to be in France).

My point is that nearly everything can be seen as incredibly simple or incredibly complicated, depending on your prospective.

We continue to practice the future simple tense and possessive pronouns. We played Taboo again today, except this time it was the 4 best speakers (IMHO) against the 5 worst. We won 5-1. (Both times the Israeli girl was up, she said a taboo word in her first sentence.)

Jennifer and I had lunch, which was not great (the food, I mean, not the company). We talked about how tired we are and how we can't sleep and sleeping pills and a bunch of other stuff. Yeah, I still can't sleep. This English woman suggested it could be the changing weather.

Sep 16, 2005 11:20 AM
Didn't finish Michelangelo -- reading makes me fall right asleep these days. I agree with you about stories (that they bring and hold people together). Is that why I travel so much? (to collect stories?)

I told you the Israel girl was having trouble with her bf? Well, today she announced they're engaged. I wish them luck.

Art, food, architecture, food... (update for Aug 25-28)

[Written 9/15; I was originally reluctant to post this bc is seemed rather banal, but I will anyway for the sake of record keeping and continued motion.] I have this list of things to do, and I have now officially done everything on it except the blog entries: update and conference notes. Boy, I am really far behind on the conference notes.

So, here’s my gameplan: I am going to update you now, as best as I can, and then if I have time and stamina, I will start typing the conference notes. But the update is only for like 4 days, bc after that I haven’t really done anything interesting not described in the letter excerpts.

On August 25th, Eric and I decided to have any “easy day”, although it was not much different than how I treat myself normally. But then, I get to be in Paris all the time. We were exhausted. So, we slept in and lounged around the apartment until like 3 in the afternoon.

The designated activity for the day was the Pompidu Centre, which houses the modern art museum. I’ve been there several times, and, well, I hate to say this, but I don’t really like it. I can think of 2 possibilities: 1) I don’t like contemporary art or 2) I don’t share the curators’ aesthetic. Another possibility that isn’t different enough to merit its own number is that I don’t like the French aesthetic of contemporary art, and since the Pompidu Centre leads that, I think it’s pretty obvious.

If I may digress slightly, I want to say that I think the Pompidu Centre is awesome. I mean really. I love the building. I love that its there among all of those Haussmann apartment buildings. I love that people do crazy and wonderful music and performance art in front of it. I love watching the crowds. I love that crazy fountain. If I had the option on an apartment (that met my other needs) with that building as the primary view, I would take it without hesitation. I say this bc Mido, a seasoned Parisienne, doesn’t like it. She thinks it belongs next to La Defense (a suburb that houses the city’s financial center). (I think La Defense is horrible, inhuman, crass.)

But we were still exhausted. So, we took a break from art-viewing to write postcards, have a deca, and enjoy the view and ambiance from the restaurant. The restaurant is so cool. I wrote about it last year – it’s this stark-white, high-ceilinged, sterile-feeling room with one single red rose on each table and a magnificent view of the city. They play modern, sometimes techno, music, and have these huge white-silver pod thingies that remind me of burning man but serve to create some more private spaces or at least break up the huge space. The coffee was bad and expensive but worth the experience.

Yeah, so we looked at a little more art, and one thing I remember (I’ll have to ask Eric to add something about the art there, since he is our collective memory) is photos of short cut pathways. The reason I went into transportation planning is because of shortcut pathways in Nepal. I think I have talked about this before, so I won’t go into complete detail, but the main point is that I fell madly in love with them. These photos, on the other hand, like someone who looks like an ex-lover, but isn’t good looking like they were, were, well, not very good looking.

That night we bought a roasted chicken on the street outside Muriel’s magnificent apartment, and ate it with salad, baguette, and a couple bottles of wine. Life was good. (Of course, I had to make broth of the bones afterwards, and Muriel later said that she made a lovely, fragrant risotto with the broth.)

Friday will go down in history as the day that Eric was the taskmaster ;-). I had a little hangover from all that wine he made me drink ;-) and that made me feel sluggish. We started at Trocadero and looked that the view of the Tour Eiffel. Then we walked past the Palace de Tokyo where the City’s modern art museum is housed except that it’s been closed for like ever. So, we just looked at the gallery, which was cool. Another time, I hope to see the whole thing. The goal was the Musee D’Orsay.

Visiting the Musee D’Orsay is, to me, like visiting a group of old friends I don’t see very often. They’re magnificent. They’re brilliant. And if I really loved them, I would keep in closer touch. I mean, some of them I do really love, but they don’t reproduce well, and they don’t have that much time for me (i.e., I can’t buy them). But most of them are so close to perfect that I find them annoying. We did the museum right, and started with the Impressionists on the top floor. We also really enjoyed the art nouveau furniture. Alas!

From there we walked up thru the garden de Tuilaries, where we sat for a while in the sun, and then to have a chocolat chaud that wasn’t very good at a café nearby. Shortly thereafter, and at the very beginning of dinner for the French, we stopped at La Fresque, on the northern edge of Les Hales, and had a magnificent dinner. I felt much better as soon as I had my kir. (Alcoholics beware of the cycle you’re getting yourself into – you know who you are!)

Yeah, so that was a really good meal, and it was the same place that Jennifer recommended a while back that I’ve mentioned a few times before not going to. It was worth the wait.

The other thing that we did at Muriel’s magnificent apartment is watch all of Sex and the City season 2. I am not completely sure this is the ideal activity for the week that your new boyfriend visits you in Paris, so I don’t really recommend it, but I think we both enjoyed it.

Muriel said that she might arrive back at the apartment early, but we couldn’t imagine how it could be earlier than 11, so we set our alarm for 9 so that we could clean ourselves and the apartment before leaving it to her. Alas! We had a wrong interpretation of early. She was there at 7:30. But, we told ourselves, the good news is that that leaves us plenty of time to see Paris on Eric’s last day (suppressed sob). We moved ourselves to Montreiul (had a pastry or 2 with Mido) and then went to Monmartre. It started with a picnic in front of Sacre Coeur. We had ice cream. We walked all around, and it turned out I still haven’t learned not to talk to the artists in the Montmartre square. After a while, we went home for a nap (naps are yummy).

Mido made us this magnificent meal which involved pork (I think) and cream sauce. Eric appeared to be really impressed. They talked about music. It was a fine evening. But alas, the next morning, before I was fully awake, Eric slipped out of bed for the airport to return to SF. And that’s where you find me in the letter excerpts pulling myself together.

I spent the next week with my parents, trying to get my mother to write and catching up on my own blog posts.

Amphibious Houses: Answer for NOLA?

There has been a lot of talk on the various listservs about what to do with NOLA from a planning perspective (and which admittedly I have not read, so I don't know if they discussed this). From a broader perspective, what if it is possible to build on a flood plain or a crumbling cliff and NOT need the gov't to bail you out every time your million-dollar house falls off the cliff bc of technological advances? Will there be newer, even worse problems (like the fundamental heartlessness of the Republican Party)? (I'll stop my senseless ramblings and let you read the article.)

Amphibious Houses: Dutch Answer to Flooding: Build Houses that Swim
The Dutch are gearing up for climate change with amphibious houses. If rivers rise above their banks, the houses simply rise upwards as well. Such innovation could be good news for hurricane and flood-stunned America. But are water lovers prepared to live on swimming family arks? more at:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,377050,00.html