A CHANGE WE HATE TO SEE AND A METAPHOR IN AN ICON NEIGHBORHOOD

TOUGH GOOD BYES

    Life in the village truly is idyllic. That's not just a fanciful idea. People are active, they live long lives, most of us develop our eccentricities or particularities and there are indeed many characters. Living between the Pacific and the Santa Lucia mountains on ridges, valleys, beaches, Monterey Pine and California Oak forests we often say this is not like the rest of the world. So when life, like every where else intrudes our romantic sense of delusion is shocked and saddened.

      Peter Wolff was one of the characters in this charming and curious drama of Cambria. A big deal international business executive and thinker, Wolff has been one of our leading men, not because of his professional resume, but because of his one of a kind personality.

      The first time I met Peter he said, "So I hear you were really a big deal journalist.  Everybody here has a life like that. The only thing that really matters now is how good is your serve?"

      Peter had a brilliant mind and usually gave you 3 or 4 answers to any question you asked and usually had you chuckling. Peter and his foursome played at the other end of the tennis complex, but you would always hear him. 

      Over the years I've been fortunate to study with him, share committee work with him, relax and enjoy his company. Usually he had me laughing with his dry wit, sardonic humor and insight.

      Something went wrong after a surgery and after a rough go Peter left this party Sunday. His family was with him and we are told he was being his usual feisty and funny self.

      Phil, who's history with Peter goes back a couple of decades said he never thought anything could take him. A lot of us thought that. 

      Peter played regularly with John Brannon, the colorful newspaper columnist whom we enjoyed even years before our move here.  Peter and John could be, well, feisty and not always in agreement on a play or a call and so their matches gained a degree of notoriety. Brannon just left for a new life in Southern California and now Peter is gone.

      As if to remind us that we can not control change, yesterday was the day we bid farewell to another longtime village couple.  Barbara and Paul are wonderful and joyful people who depart to be closer to a daughter who can attend to their needs. Barbara, a local gal, seemed always to smile. She had a wicked cross court shot though, even if it seemed out of character to her gentle, California girl manner.  Paul is a retired Wall Street Journal man and a fount of knowledge and a crafty tennis game. He is in every sense of the word, a true gentleman.  They are delightful people.

      As some of the crowd gathered at coffee this morning we were heavy hearted, certainly for those who are gone or departing, but also because it reminds of how fleeting it can all be, even here.

STILL A TRACE

     Remains an ancient tree devolve in front of a Warren Leopold post house. The tree likely sheltered the maverick architect as he sat in his mobile work desk or perhaps camped while designing and building the house in the last century.

    It also shaded a Dome home.

        Another tree now stands tallest on an icon corner in Cambria.

      A few blocks away, an opportune intersection and another memorable building, perhaps with aspirations.

   See you down the trail.

JUST PLAIN FUN- MR. AT EASE, LOVELY LUNCH AND MISSING COLUMNS-THE WEEKENDER

PLEASANT

    Spring strengthens its presence on the California Central Coast and so a leisurely lunch in Harmony offered opportunities to breath deeply and enjoy the ambiance. 

    I was struck by the texture of the setting and especially with the sun light filtering through Diane's hat. Kind of Monetesque?

   Fortunate to share a Mediterranean moment discussing art and food. 

  and captivated by the sun play. Boomers, taking it easy.

THE MASTER OF TAKING IT EASY

  and finding the perfect balance of shade and sun.

WEEKENDER PUZZLE 
MATCH SHADOW WITH COLUMN

    Two shadows without an appearing matching column.

       All columns are present, but a couple of shadows are missing.

      And so it goes.

AN HONORABLE EVENING

    Lana's recent SUNRISE ON BUD BREAK received an Honorable Mention in the most recent juried show in Cambria's Allied Arts Association exhibition.

See you down the trail.

OUR INTRUDER , 2 SURE BETS, A LOSS OF THOUGHT and PACIFIC SPRING

FRESH

VARIATIONS ON A RIGHT FRAME

THE INTRUDER

    A midmorning call by one of our neighborhood Bobcats.

      This guy is considerably larger than Hemingway and Joy who were napping on the porch, or perhaps hiding under the deck.

THEY'LL MAKE YOU THINK

    If you like real life intrigue and are fascinated by science PARTICLE FEVER and TIM'S VERMEER are two documentary films you'll want to see.  Both are in general release, but if your art house or cinema doesn't offer them, they'd be great views at home.

       Particle Fever, directed by Mark Levinson is a brilliant, entertaining and even amusing suspense as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN comes on line and seeks evidence of the Higgs particle.  6 brilliant and charismatic scientists are your guide.  They are extraordinary and the drama is real.  

      Tim's Vermeer follows brilliant inventor, millionaire Tim Jenison on a six year quest to learn how the Dutch painter Vermeer (Girl with a Pearl Earring) captured light, glow and painted so realistically.  The film is produced by Pen Jilette and Teller. It features Martin Mull, British painter David Hockney and professor Philip Steadman.  It is a fascinating journey, amazing in what lengths Jenison will go to pursue the riddle.  

      I took personal pleasure in the viewing of both because they reaffirm the best of humanity, our desire to seek answers, learn, quest and take on mystery and to delight in the challenge.

     Which brings us to an however....

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF REASON

    Shouting into the wind or standing at the shore and telling the surf to subside may have the same efficacy as this, but here we go. It is appalling at how rapidly western culture is disposing of its once guiding trajectory of reason.

    Intellectual diligence, study and learning were either foundational expectations or the normative behavior of a culture that moved from superstition and ignorance to harvesting the benefits of knowledge and science.  Along the way we bipeds were encouraged to think and to wrestle with conflicting or opposing concepts or points of logic. Not so much anymore. 

    Knee jerk reactions threaten to become the norm. In social psychology they call it a rigidifying of the self concept.  People hear an idea they disagree with, feel threatened by it and throw up a defense, often launching  a response that doesn't seek conversation and in turn the other person responds in kind.  It's a bit like launching missiles back and forth. No diplomacy, or seeking an understanding, just an escalating scorched earth belligerence. 

    It's all over cable current affairs programming, in politics, especially posessed by zealots both in the public square and in religion and even in our little village.  Everyone seems to have adopted the "I'M RIGHT-YOUR WRONG" mind set.

     Had our forbearers been so inclined we'd still be hunting with stones and hoping for the invention of fire. We may never have learned to talk.

The New Blooms

With apologies to my pal Griff, who believes this blog is too heavy on California flora.

   As my friend Bob Foster, who's bone marrow transplant and battle with Leukemia I chronicled here over the last few years, said as he called today "Life is so good."  

    He was calling from Minnesota after driving from Northern Iowa, where spring is still only a hope. He said he has not felt this good in years. And he is especially grateful for the return of his quick and facile mind.  

   To paraphrase the old military cliche' "If you've got'em smoke 'em," if you've got a brain, use it.

   See you down the trail.

KONG OR NEANDERTHAL and CAT'S EYES

DO YOU SEE THE SKULL?
Diversions while you watch your NCAA Brackets implode.

    How fertile is your imagination?  Look at the far point of the bluff. Does a gorilla brow and flattened nose come into view?

   A chunk of boulder seems to reside in an eye socket at the top of a long jaw.

   The "skull" is on the bluff near Lampton cliff, Cambria.

 Here's one more shot where "Kong" seems very apparent. 

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
Hemingway and Joy

   Ever try a close up of a cat?  Good luck with that!

   And good luck with your brackets.  I wonder how many
people had Duke going to the final 4?

THE WEEKENDER VIDEO

BIRDS ON A WIRE

   See you down the trail.

RECOLOR

RECOLORING

 Cultivated 

Lana E Cochrun

Oil 8X10  

     Drought is tempered by views as green season begins a bit reserved. Renewal is pleasing, even when late.

 TWILIGHT FOG

     Evening fog is mysterious.  Sifting into the valleys and grazing slopes it can just as quickly ghost away leaving an ascending full moon. The moisture serves a slight blessing and refresher. 

    California's spring light energizes the palate. 

Newly Plowed

Lana Cochrun

Oil 12x16  

Tilled

Lana Cochrun

Oil 8x10

     Enjoy your bacchanal celebrations as well.

    See you down the trail.  

THE AIRLINER MYSTERY and A THUNK ON THE HEAD

THE WORLD'S ATTENTION

    It's the kind of mystery most of us connect with. We could imagine ourselves or a loved one being on board. We are surprised to learn despite, our presumptions, it is easy to lose an airplane. Those transponders, radar blips, engine tracking computers, air control towers, radio frequencies and etc. are more tenuous than we might like to think about.

    Coffee chatter in Cambria is no more informed than anywhere else, but we are populated by pilots-civilian and military, airline employees, engineers, frequent travelers with well used passports and some well informed folk. So the local buzz is hot.

    "It was an inside job." 

    "Someone knew how to cut all of the plane's signals." 

    "It landed somewhere before the search began." 

    "Some one hacked into the guidance systems."

    "It went down in deep water."

    "Maybe it was like a Bermuda Triangle thing."

     And on and on and on.  

     It's odd how some things grab the world's attention.  Ukraine, Russia, Crimea, violent weather, Venezuela, stock prices and more are there to occupy our minds, but the missing plane trumps them all.

     An unresolved mystery can not be ignored, even if we supply, mostly, conjecture, guessing and whole cloth fabrication. It keeps the talkers talking and the listeners wondering.

THE EUCALYPTUS ATTACK OF SAN SIMEON

     Frequent readers know about our Friday lunch flash mob that assembles each week below the famed Hearst Castle. It's like a continuing lunch hour confab.

    Notice those Eucalyptus trees in the background?

    Well, one of them decided to offer up a branch to the assembled luncheon mob. 

   Trouble! It came down directly on Lana's head and Diane's face and Ruth's arm.

  Lana has a knot on her head and a headache.  Diane may end up with a shiner. She thinks the cut on her lip could limit her kissing time.

   And then at a neighboring table, temporarily unoccupied, food left in the basket, a thief swoops in and makes off with a sandwich while an accomplice ends up empty handed, or beaked, as it were.

    Some of life's turns are easier to take than others. And in some, you find gold.

   See you down the trail.