CHASING HISTORY AT NIGHT

AT LARGE IN THE FAIRMONT

WITH AN IPHONE

     It is an icon of 20th Century history in San Francisco. Built after the turn of the century, it survived the 1906 earthquake and fire and prevailed as a symbol of the new San Francisco and evolved over the years to become one of the world's leading historic hotels.

    I roamed around with an iPhone breathing in the history of a place that hosted meetings that established the United Nations, where Tony Bennett first sang "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," where every president since Taft has stayed, where world leaders convene, where show business greats perform, and the setting for several movies and television series.

    These are just quick photo notes, dark, shaky, soft focus and all, that will go into my writing file "scene bank." Please consider these "working notes", shot on the quick simply to capture a mood or moment that I can later conjure in my writing. Here's a quick look, starting with a view of the Bay and Alcatraz from our room.

 The Grand Ball Room where history has been written.

 The roof garden where secrets have been shared.

 THEN, THERE IS THE TONGA

Opened in 1947, the Tonga Room is a premiere Tiki motif

that has entertained and fed generations for 65 years.

It remains a popular spot for tourists and devotees. 

This room is near capacity or with waiting lines most nights.

The Island Boys, the most recent of entertainers who perform on a moving boat on what was the hotel's original pool.  The evening is complete with several thunderstorms and rain showers each evening.  Here kitsch meets history.

THE WEEKENDER-GETS MY VOTE & WHAT A CLOUD

ADAPTABILITY & GRACE

      As we endure the final weekend of this campaign year we offer a video of a truly courageous man with real grace. 

ARCHIVE SNAPS

      

 REEL THOUGHTS

 CLOUD ATLAS

    Wachowski sibling films; Matrix-trilogy, V-for Vendetta and now Cloud Atlas have something more than an exotic locus, dynamic story arc, rich characters, tense drama and large action.  Their cinema realities, full of fantasy, have a coiling truth quest that make the films seem to be springboards for discussions of theology, spirituality, meaning and purpose.

    Cloud Atlas is many things, including a venue for extraordinary acting. Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Susan Sarandon, Bae Doo-na, Keith David, Ben Winshaw and Zhao Xun all play multiple roles and do so extraordinarily well augmented by mind-boggling make-up, wardrobe and special effects departments. 

     The film is a kind of cross between a Rorschack test and a Terrence Malick epic.  You can see many things in a directorial weave that requires you to pay attention. Fascinating, dazzling, intriguing, inspiring and just plain entertaining even if some leave confused while others believe they have been given one more clue to the purpose of life and the meaning of the universe. I leave wanting to talk with my philosophy major buddy and friends who are PhD's in theology. It would be great to have beer with 

Andy and Lana Wachowski and Tom Tykwer. What were they trying to say?

     It is a stimulatingly great 164 minutes that seem to fly by. There are precious few film makers who can hold you there for almost 3 hours, without an awareness of the hours going by. 

A TRIBUTE NOW TO THE 

EFFECT OF THOSE POLITICAL ADS

See you down the trail.

HOW MUCH? FOR WHAT? & HANGING WITH HARD HEADS

IS THIS NAIVE?

   $350 million is serious money, even by government standards.  The AP reports at least that much has been dumped into political ads on California ballot propositions alone. 

     A couple of examples- AP says Molly Munger has spent $44.1 million in support of a prop to fund education and early childhood programs.  The California Teachers Association has dropped $31.4 supporting or opposing two props.

     $350 million to create ads that get junked, or that fly by on screens already jammed with political spots! 

     Instead couldn't that money be applied to programs, initiatives, foundations and the like that actually work to achieve the objectives of the propositions?  Munger's $44 million could go a long way to establishing early childhood programs.

    Simplistic? Common sense? Perhaps. But why not try it?

JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED THIS

     A volunteer for P E T A, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has asked Irvine California to put up this sign where about 16 hundred pounds of saltwater bass spilled from a truck as they were being hauled to market. 

     I'm an animal lover and supporter of wild life conservation, but...

     I wonder if anyone has explained to volunteer Dina Kourda the fish were on their way to market, not to dance as extras in a movie, but to find their way to dinner plates after a nap on ice.

      She argues the sign would remind drivers that fish value their lives and feel pain. An Irvine spokesman says there will be no fish memorial. 

      Is this an entertaining Republic or not?

HANGING WITH HARD HEADS

Shadow Bath
(from Lana's Feathered Head series)

King of Schnozola
(a garden sculpture by Lana)
See you down the trail.

LETTERMAN ROCKS & ANGLES AND LINES

LETTERMAN LEADS THROUGH SANDY

    It was the sort of thing you may see only once in a lifetime.  David Letterman filling an empty Ed Sullivan Theatre, and an untold number of American homes with his unique humor and personality as nature did its worst to the East coast.

     Only a skeleton crew made it through the hurricane, and there was obviously no audience so the rhythm was pure Dave with input from Paul Shaffer and live reports from outside by  "I'm no weatherman" Biff Henderson.

     Production lacked all the niceties and slickness of graphics, bumps, voice overs and the usual stuff, but the spareness of it and Dave's demeanor demonstrated a kind of resilience and toughness in the face of the super storm.

      Denzel Washington appeared as a guest, and entered wearing a yellow slicker and walking as though through a gale as Shaffer and the band played "Hurricane"- Bob Dylan's tune.

     There was something classic in the unusual show.  Maybe  a bit like Fiorello La Guardia, the mayor of New York, reading the funny pages on the radio in the midst of a 1939 newspaper strike.  In those dark days, the funnies lifted people's spirits.  

     David makes people laugh as well and on a night when an unprecedented storm took aim at millions of Americans, he took up his place, and did what he does so well, made us laugh and lifted spirits.

     I've known Dave since our college days.  Those memories and his video tribute at my retirement, along with Biff's  "Hey Tom _ _ _ _ you!" are treasures.  But his personal and sparse performance last night is a moment that is exceedingly powerful and memorable. It was also courageous and encouraging. 

     Dave-as our old pals Bob and Don would say-"Here's a boy howdy for you!"  Well done!!! 

                                        day file

SHOOTING ANGLES

 Morning Drama

 Lots of Angles and Lines

A Spider's Patch

     See you down the trail.

REFILLING THE LAKE & SURVIVING SANDY

REFILLING THE LAKE

     An extraordinary story of our age is playing out in the vast expanse of the Mono Basin of the Owen Valley in

the Sierra Nevada range.

      It is a story of short-sighted decisions rescinded and precious resources repaired.  It underscores the effort of  conservation ideas prevailing over economic power in the courts.

   The satellite photo captures the lake basin's shrinkage.

     Like many, my first vision of Mono Lake was the exotic Tufa sculptures.  The otherworldly towers began to appear as the surface of Mono Lake began to recede. They are a limestone type of carbonate substance.

    Mono lake is a terminal lake- there is no outlet to the ocean and by its composition is a saline soda lake. It has high salt content.

     In 1941 the city of Los Angeles extended their aqueduct system hundreds of miles north into the Mono Basin where it began to drain the lake. 

 As the lake level dropped the Tufa Towers were increasingly exposed. 

     Big changes are underway at Mono Lake.  These frames 

   of exposed Tufa were shot on one of our first trips in 2008. 

    The frames that follow below were shot in early October this year.  You can see the towers are less prominent and that more grassland surrounds the lake. 

     In 1978 conservationists and environmentalists launched a battle to stop what would have been the eventual draining of Mono Lake.  Since 1941 the lake dropped by 50 vertical feet and shrank in volume by one half.  

         Court action ensued.  In 1990 LA was ordered to comply with Fish and Game Laws and in '94 the California courts ruled that Mono lake must be raised 19 feet.  25 feet less than where it was in 1941, it is enough to save the lake. 

    Recently this was exposed beach.  In the past it was under water, as it will again be. 

     The marker indicates the water level in 1963.

  This marks the 1941 water line when the draining began. 

   Negit, the black island to the right in the frame below was once separated from the shore by two miles of water.  You can see the vestige of a land bridge, created by the draining.  It was that bridge and the coyote and other predators who traveled it to nesting gull colonies that helped spur the fish and wildlife regulatory support which bolstered the efforts to force LA to stop killing the lake.

   

  Mono Lake may never get back to this level, but the water is rising and good sense prevails. 

    SURVIVING SANDY

     This may be THE monster storm in current history, at least it has that potential.  It is worrisome that unprecedented-at least in our modern historic records-weather events continue to accumulate.  In this case natural elements have combined to amplify the power and severity of the storm.  There should be full inquiry as to how human activity contributes or exacerbates, but there should also be a concerted global study of what can be done.  And, as the first concern now is safety and security of those in the storms path, we need to begin to address how we can effectively survive without casualties to humans and our lifestyle.  Are there better ways to transmit  power than by lines, hung on poles?  Can the grid go underground?  Can builders and architects design and construct with built-in emergency generation systems? Should we be more prudent about where home's are constructed and where populations settle? 

       These are tough questions, but ....

       And a final thought---can't we watch weather coverage

without people standing out in the wind, or wading in water or snow?  Just show the footage!  Allow photographers to execute their skill.  Watching someone hang on in a gale is just silly and maybe even stupid.

      See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER-THE DOG THAT WONT MOVE

LAZY OR STUBBORN

   Pal Will, a retired journalist with globe trotting tales and a penchant for nuance, supplies this week's video wonderment.  

    Maybe you have felt so listless or just simply didn't want to be bothered.  Here's a weekend chuckle for you.

UP WITH THE SUN

    Rising for an early morning tennis match, I was distracted by the sun and the morning clouds.

 YES THE FRIDAY LUNCH FLASH MOB 

IS AT IT, STILL.

     We've had an inquiry or two about the weekly gathering at San Simeon.  Still going strong.  In fact, this week's "theme," courtesy of Jeannie, is Autumn Harvest.

The set up before the big kids at play arrive.

Have great weekend.

See you down the trail.

GOD, RAPE & POLITICS

WAY OVER HIS HEAD

     Mitt Romney's campaign is trying to put distance between them and Republican Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock.  The Indiana right-winger, who sadly beat Senator Richard Lugar in the May primary has created a firestorm by something he said in a debate last night.

     The issue was abortion.  Mourdock said 

“Life is that gift from God. I think that even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something God intended to happen"

    Think and say what you wish about abortion, as inappropriate as that discussion may be, however when one begins to assume to know the mind of, or speak of Divine intention, you are way out of line. As eminent theologian Walter Brueggemann said

"When you begin to think you know the mind of God, you are on a slippery slope."

       Mourdock, like fellow right wing Republican Todd Aiken of Missouri who spoke of "legitimate rape," represent a frightening trend of right wing ideologues who frankly are not very intelligent. In their mind they may be moralists and they may even believe they are being religiously faithful with their views, but they remind me of zealots from history who would trample liberty, freedom and our constitutional way by their self righteous ignorance.  There is nothing about rape that is ever right.

      That "slippery slope" Brueggemann spoke of leads, by extension, to things like sharia law, fascism and totaltarian regimes.

      One would hope there is enough common sense to see these right wing "true believers" for the fringe extremists they are.  Our democratic republic demands debate and the full expression of all view points, even if noisy and rancorous, but it also demands respect for constitutional liberties.  

      American politics is full of a history of buffoons, blow hards, crooks and zealots, but also the leveling influence of common sense, decency, philosophy and a sense of history. There is a tipping point though.  The more Mourdocks or Aikens who think God is on their side, the more we could trample our way to our own version of sharia law. Americans need to pay attention.

       The Mourdock incident is even more tragic when seen in the light that this clown got more votes than a truly rational and intelligent public servant, Richard Lugar.  By the way, the post A Lion Goes Down is one of this blogs most read with a readership around the world. I hope voters will understand that yes their vote is sacred and they may cast it as they wish, but understand one must apply a sense of totality and thoughtfulness. Your individual vote is part of a path toward a workable and better future. Otherwise you might just as well throw rocks.

HOMETOWN DEMOCRACY

    Our little village, tucked between the Pacific and the Santa Lucia mountains is caught up in election fervor.  Most of the candidates turned out at a local brew house last night to mix and mingle.  It was a snap shot of local democracy at work as the rooms buzzed with earnest conversation and questions and answers.  In lieu of a town board or mayor we have the CCSD-Cambria Community Services District, so our issues really are local.

     Not as an endorsement, but simply from an aesthic point of view, Amanda's yard signs win.

     Over the years I've made hundreds of speeches or presentation about journalism and reporting.  One of the truest things I said was a line from Will Rogers

      I don't make jokes.  I just watch the government and report the facts."

     Can I get an Amen?!

     See you down the trail.