At Easter in Catalunya it is traditional for a god parent to give his god child a cake... the Mona de Pasqua. Zoe's godfather lives in Berkeley and my various god kids are strewn throughout distant countries around the world so I guess we are all off the hook but the bakeries are full of giant chocolate paeans to age old themes and characters like Barca, Bart Simpson and Barbie. Last night Zoe had me stop at a candy store to pick up some nubes (clouds) which are for the most part marshmallows. Zoe picked 6 long cylinders of fluffy sugar and... I dunno, I guess sugar.
Today deary arose from a dream about chocolate cakes as today she will add her nubes to a collective work of bakery art created with her classmates. Tomorrow after school we all dig in.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
Evolution of a malady...
Food for thought.
I was surprised by my general state of mind when I got sick. I was quiet, spiritual, positive, appreciative, introspective and had a strange sense of humor. As I've gotten better to the point of being just about back to normal I'm finding that my sense of blind grateful euphoric optimism has done left. OK I've learned many things from this time but I lost my rose colored glasses. Maybe it's all part of the truth seeking process. OK the big positive things like my daughter continue to astound me and fill me with joy and wonder. And I am still often amazed at the magic of the smallest things, like a walk, a good conversation and, well, ironing. But the things in my life that are obviously just wrong... relationships, places, situations, things that don't work, bad designs, rude people... I feel that right now I can really do without anything but good things in my life. I wonder if this a common reaction. I wonder if euphoria often is part of being seriously ill. I wonder if recovery is often accompanied by intolerance of nonsense and hooey. Hmmmmm...
I was surprised by my general state of mind when I got sick. I was quiet, spiritual, positive, appreciative, introspective and had a strange sense of humor. As I've gotten better to the point of being just about back to normal I'm finding that my sense of blind grateful euphoric optimism has done left. OK I've learned many things from this time but I lost my rose colored glasses. Maybe it's all part of the truth seeking process. OK the big positive things like my daughter continue to astound me and fill me with joy and wonder. And I am still often amazed at the magic of the smallest things, like a walk, a good conversation and, well, ironing. But the things in my life that are obviously just wrong... relationships, places, situations, things that don't work, bad designs, rude people... I feel that right now I can really do without anything but good things in my life. I wonder if this a common reaction. I wonder if euphoria often is part of being seriously ill. I wonder if recovery is often accompanied by intolerance of nonsense and hooey. Hmmmmm...
Puedo Esquiar!!!
This just in. OK months on the couch. Hobbling around like Tim Conway's little old man. A cane. Mi dio! Well folks it's more or less over. I skied this weekend!!! OK day one was more of an exploration of the bunny slopes with frequent breaks for chili dogs but day 2 saw the return of old swivel hips! Booma, a couple of screamin' snow grabbing super G carve-o-matic descents told me that all was good down there. OK the knee ain't what it used to be but by and large I seem to be able to compensate for it. I just have to watch twisty falls because there just ain't a lot left cushion wise. I'm going to get one of those robo-braces for Mr. Lefty. Carbon fiber... stainless steel studs. Oh boy another guy toy to obsess over! Gracias dio, gracias Doctores Heuget y Alegre. As long as I'm taking the rat DNA I'll be doing fine. Going up again on Sunday!
Saturday, March 24, 2007
The end of the honeymoon...
OK... An announcement. After 7 years... My love affair with España is finito. Basically it was the process of buying and fixing and moving that finally drove the dagger in.
I would like to wax rhapsodic about little old ladies bringing us cookies but I'm afraid all I have is neighbors who scream about my daughter singing on the terrace at 4 PM on a Sunday, the presidente of the communidad and his bleach blond rubia mujer who have a business selling mustache waxing machines who find a way to skim whatever he can whenever he can... Sergi the evil real estate agent/executive of the communidad who lied about just about everything, Anna the distant upstairs vecino who spies through her curtains and whispers in the stairwell about things like singing 7 year olds... gotta make cookies... this rant will continue. Believe you me.
I would like to wax rhapsodic about little old ladies bringing us cookies but I'm afraid all I have is neighbors who scream about my daughter singing on the terrace at 4 PM on a Sunday, the presidente of the communidad and his bleach blond rubia mujer who have a business selling mustache waxing machines who find a way to skim whatever he can whenever he can... Sergi the evil real estate agent/executive of the communidad who lied about just about everything, Anna the distant upstairs vecino who spies through her curtains and whispers in the stairwell about things like singing 7 year olds... gotta make cookies... this rant will continue. Believe you me.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Tango Land
OK revelation time. I'm a sucker for just about anything with passion and Buenos Aires has it in spades. What is passion? Life. Love. Laughter. Sadness. Insanity. Sweat. Fear. Joy. Smells. Tastes. Success. Greed. Jealousy. Failure. Birth and rebirth. Passion is everything that is good about our species it's also what can really fuck us up too. The blind love I feel for my kid is passion. So is invading Iraq. This duality is so present in Buenos Aires. What a history... Except for a golden age of about 20 years these poor folks have just gone from one nightmare to another... and much of it was caused by themselves. Isn't that just so human. Military coups. Dictators. Economic crashes as that appear like clock work. Corruption. Murder. Fear. And a profound sense of homesickness.
Not wanting to be simplistic but the Tango and the history of tango really expresses all that is Argentina. And maybe all that is in being human.
I love this place.
Not wanting to be simplistic but the Tango and the history of tango really expresses all that is Argentina. And maybe all that is in being human.
I love this place.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Planes and Trains
So I flew from Madrid to Hamburg then Hamburg to Paris the to Buenos Aires. I lose track of the hours on long hauls like this. It becomes so abstract. I did watch 2 great movies... if only I could remember them... OK, sorry Steven Frears Queen and Clint Eastwood's, "Flags of our Fathers". "Queen" was terrific and I've had this Helen Mirren thing for a very long time. It's nice age with someone you love. Even if they don't know you exist. I'll say this about the flight... Air France's food was terrific, which is not always the case. And I really loved the dignified but attentive service. I felt so adult. It beats begging for another micro-bag of peanuts to go with your 4 buck mini can of coke.
Airports are all basically the same. They suck. OK there are a few exceptions, Barcelona being one of them and Portland, Oregon, my home town, being another. Why are train stations so romantic and evocative and airports so ugly and inhumane? Truthfully Barcelona Sants Station isn't exactly Grand Central and for most part has taken the best attributes of a Greyhound bus terminal, like sticky floors and dirty toilets, and just made them bigger and grimier. However Estacion de Francia (BCN's other station) is a modernista jewel, and hardly ever used. Go Figure. Having said all that Buenos Aires Airport is just another poorly constructed giant box with planes.
Airports are all basically the same. They suck. OK there are a few exceptions, Barcelona being one of them and Portland, Oregon, my home town, being another. Why are train stations so romantic and evocative and airports so ugly and inhumane? Truthfully Barcelona Sants Station isn't exactly Grand Central and for most part has taken the best attributes of a Greyhound bus terminal, like sticky floors and dirty toilets, and just made them bigger and grimier. However Estacion de Francia (BCN's other station) is a modernista jewel, and hardly ever used. Go Figure. Having said all that Buenos Aires Airport is just another poorly constructed giant box with planes.
Papas and Pampas
I leave for Buenos Aires today. I shall direct a commercial for an old German brand of all things potatoes. Mashed, fried, baked... snacks, balls, discs, shredded, powdered...
I've been doing Pfanni spots for the last 5 years or so. How? I dunno. Why? It's fun. The folks I work with are great. The ideas are cute. I get to go to interesting places and tell people in a very charming way, what to do. The money. I like potatoes.
This time we find our self jetting to Buenos Aires, home of the tango and "great meat." Well I can actually tango... or at least I used to be able to. And I like all kinds of meat. Except camel.
So to bone up on this amazing city and country I watched a BBC DVD on Astor Piazzola the self professed creator of, "EL Nuevo Tango." Listen I love his stuff with all my heart but...
Mostly it's a concert film and a good one but the it's the extras that get a little scary. OK Piazzola come off as great guy in the interviews. His Noo Yarhk accent is a little disconcerting... who would have thought that Mr. Argentina/Italia would sound like he comes from deepest Brooklyn (he and his family moved there for 11 years when he was 4). But it's the interviews with his family that are disturbing. First there is his son David, who looks a little rough around the edges and does not look like he gotta a lotta love when he needed it. Then there is his grandson who looks a lot like Dad and talks about how Astor would see him once or twice a year. Then his daughter appears and talks about her sainted mother and how she supported Astor whilst he was developing his nuevo tango and pressed his shirts to boot. But then she starts talking about this book she wrote about her Dad and how his only editorial request was that Amelita was not discussed. His daughter goes on to describe Amelita as one of his, you know, women. We then get an interview with Amelita who waxes rhapsodically about her time with Astor and God and their understandable eventual breakup.
Then there is another interview with another pretty heavily surgically modified older lady who was the wife of one of his musical pals and how she got invited to Astor's seaside retreat and his husband didn't. Hmmmmm.
The bottom line is Astor kind of came off as a not exactly saintly.
I hate it when your heros are just humans. Sometimes jerky humans. Perhaps more research is required. Yep. More is. The taxi is here, off to Tango Land!
I've been doing Pfanni spots for the last 5 years or so. How? I dunno. Why? It's fun. The folks I work with are great. The ideas are cute. I get to go to interesting places and tell people in a very charming way, what to do. The money. I like potatoes.
This time we find our self jetting to Buenos Aires, home of the tango and "great meat." Well I can actually tango... or at least I used to be able to. And I like all kinds of meat. Except camel.
So to bone up on this amazing city and country I watched a BBC DVD on Astor Piazzola the self professed creator of, "EL Nuevo Tango." Listen I love his stuff with all my heart but...
Mostly it's a concert film and a good one but the it's the extras that get a little scary. OK Piazzola come off as great guy in the interviews. His Noo Yarhk accent is a little disconcerting... who would have thought that Mr. Argentina/Italia would sound like he comes from deepest Brooklyn (he and his family moved there for 11 years when he was 4). But it's the interviews with his family that are disturbing. First there is his son David, who looks a little rough around the edges and does not look like he gotta a lotta love when he needed it. Then there is his grandson who looks a lot like Dad and talks about how Astor would see him once or twice a year. Then his daughter appears and talks about her sainted mother and how she supported Astor whilst he was developing his nuevo tango and pressed his shirts to boot. But then she starts talking about this book she wrote about her Dad and how his only editorial request was that Amelita was not discussed. His daughter goes on to describe Amelita as one of his, you know, women. We then get an interview with Amelita who waxes rhapsodically about her time with Astor and God and their understandable eventual breakup.
Then there is another interview with another pretty heavily surgically modified older lady who was the wife of one of his musical pals and how she got invited to Astor's seaside retreat and his husband didn't. Hmmmmm.
The bottom line is Astor kind of came off as a not exactly saintly.
I hate it when your heros are just humans. Sometimes jerky humans. Perhaps more research is required. Yep. More is. The taxi is here, off to Tango Land!
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