THE WEEKENDER-EURO STYLE

FRENCH, OR ITALIAN, OR CALIFORNIAN

    Admiring what I call the old "buck board bench" at Giovanni's Harmony Cafe, warmed by the coastal sun, reading a note from our pal Bruce about recipes from Provence' as we await the latest offering from our local master chef, the aromas of the kitchen mixing with the roses, my cocoon of well being is bumped by a realization. 

    Lana and I have been chatting about the joie d'vivre of the Susan Loomis book ON RUE TATIN as she recounts her move to France to write a cookbook as her husband rebuilds a centuries old home in a northern town.  It strikes us that our life here in what some have called the "American Provence'" is authentic provincial joy itself. The cafe for example, guests reflect that with the alfresco setting, the climate and cuisine they could be in Tuscany or Provence.  Indeed! The culture here is younger than Loomis's Louviers in Normandy, but it is unique, as in 

ART ON A LADDER

    Art Van Rhyn that is.  Artist, gallery owner, musician, founder of the whimsical 927 art show, cartoonist of the weekly From the Beach cartoon in The Cambrian and personality unique is one of the pantheon of  "Cambria Characters" this village is known for. Emphasis on "character!"

CAN YOU GUESS WHAT THIS IS?

     30 minutes down the gorgeous Pacific Coast Highway is the beautiful small city of San Luis Obispo.  Truly Mediterranean in look and temperament, S-L-O, as many call it, is a university town, full of playfulness, as in the scene above. Bubblegum Alley.

   Yep, that's all gum.  It's a changing work of art, as generations have created their own morphing images, words, messages and etc. Bet they don't have one of these in Normandy.

    So later I'll slip into my easy chair, crack open ON RUE

TATIN, peak out the window at the Santa Lucia mountains and start thinking about what we're going to do for dinner.

The whir of the mixer as I write this is the reminder Lana is making pasta.  We'll probably pick a few tomatoes from one of the raised beds and likely find the other items to round it out at the Farmer's Market underway in the village. Many of the characters will be there. In fact the longer one stays here, the more we all transform, or aspire to our niche in the ways of eccentricity.  

    Oh yea, we'll be using olive oil, but then, which type?  While this region produces great wine, we have a burgeoning olive oil market as well.  So, perhaps, there is a place for our version of this fellow---enjoy.  

Have a fun, delicious and sexy weekend!

   See you down the trail.

THE ROLLING STONE FIRE-TWEET TALK NOT ENOUGH & WALT DISNEY LIVES

SOME THINGS ARE MORE COMPLICATED   

Courtesy of Rolling Stone & Huffington Post 

    Mainstream and social media are afire with comment about Rolling Stone putting the alleged Boston Marathon bomber on the cover.  

  "Making him a star" some cluck. Phooey! As more than one respondent said, it's good journalism to probe as the sub title says, "How a popular, promising student was failed by his friends, family, fell into radical Islam and became a monster." I want to know and more than a few of my friends have asked the same thing, in some wonderment.

   And to those cluckers and tsk tskkers, the same photo has played front and center in a lot of other media since April.

   I love Twitter and it's almost instant presentation of events.  As I've written, it's like the new version of the old wire machines that filled the radio and TV newsrooms of my youth-a constant stream.  But, where the AP and UPI and Reuters wires were detailed and in depth, social media is brief and in the case of the Rolling Stone cover, the trend is fueled by personal comment, often snarky and usually always too brief on which to base logic or argument. 

    And Rolling Stone has published a few other "controversial" covers.

Courtesy of Rolling Stone & Huffington Post 

  In fact the Huff Post found a few other historic covers that generated talk, and sales!

Courtesy of New Yorker and Huffington Post 

Courtesy of New Yorker and Huffington Post 

Courtesy of Huffington Post and Texas Monthly 

Courtesy of Esquire and Huffington Post

THE WORLD CHANGED ON THIS DAY

     Sunny southern California was the site in 1955 when Walt Disney gained a kind of immortality, at least in part.

        DISNEYLAND opened on this day back then.  The Disneyland legacy is profound, more than just the amusement and wonder of the parks and entertainment complex. A virtual science of crowd management, logistics, marketing, concept development and much more has followed.  You know there is something magic about being the happiest place on earth.  Still works.

ANOTHER HAPPY PLACE

     See you down the trail.

WE ARE TWO COUNTRIES

THE SAGA OF TRAYVON AND GEORGE

    While the headline is not original it seems to stick. The great divide in reaction to the Zimmerman verdict follows the divide that has been with this case from the start. Merely the latest click in a seemingly endless revolver  of disagreements. Some of the divides are ancient like unhealed wounds, unlearned lessons rising now like a chimera to stalk our future. Armed and dangerous.

      A REALLY SWEET FILM

     SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN has been on my list of films to see since I got a call from my pal Bruce one evening "You've got to see Searching for Sugar Man. We just watched it.  It is incredible.  You've got to see it!"

       Finally got to it, having missed it at the theatre.  It is an extraordinary story, told in a magnificent and creative way.  You probably know the story line-An American musician from the late 60's with great expectations but who fell into obscurity while remaining a huge star and influence in South Africa and who played a key role in inspiring anti apartheid musicians is thought to be dead.  A couple of South Africans launch a search for the truth which leads them and the viewer to an extraordinary discovery.

       Film maker Malik Bendjelloul weaves a great documentary.  His own story is fascinating.  He scrimped to raise the funds, ran out of money when filming and finished it with an IPhone and a special app. He's now an Oscar winner as well as the possessor of many other awards.  His own creative odyssey paid off.

       There are many impressive aspects to the film, the character of the artist being searched for being the lead. That quality may be best reflected in the persona of his daughters.  There is something almost mystical that radiates from the screen as they talk of their life and their father.

RANDOM CALIFORNIA SUMMER

     See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER-ANOTHER WONDER

AMAZING

     Full disclosure here-I am a lover of Yosemite National Park and believe it is one of the truly amazing places on this planet.

     We are fascinated and thrilled by every visit. I wish everyone could spend time in this cathedral of nature.

      In the meantime, they provide marvelous videos that inform and provide their own wonder.  Enjoy this seasonal offering

      See you down the trail.

MEDITATION ON BUDDY MILES, JIMI HENDRIX AND DAVID BOWIE

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

     The great Buddy Miles wrote it first "My mind is going through them changes..." Hendrix did his version.  David Bowie created his own anthem to change with the lingering chorus, 
         Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes-Turn and face the Stranger
           Ch-Ch Changes-Time may change me...
            Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes-Turn and face the Stranger"
       The lyrics of both have been the score as I've settled into a rumination. Still thinking and haven't achieved a great cosmic break through. This I know, some of us handle change better than others. 
       Chaotic change is rampant in the middle east. The climate is changing. The efficacy of American government has changed so drastically in the life time of boomers as to beget a desire for revolutionary change. The economic climate has changed so fundamentally the middle class is disappearing, the poor are growing and the richest become more exclusive and insulated. Change often seeds even greater upheaval. Bigger changes are coming.
       Not all change is bad. Nor is it cataclysmic. But doing it, changing, adapting, learning new ways, even accepting it seems a mission impossible for some. I was the architect of a massive change in a large media company.  It was needed and it paid off positively in all ways, but oh boy was it difficult to manage the change.  Time and time again I heard myself saying, "some people simply cannot abide change."
      Some changes we can temper, manage, even attempt to direct-cultural, ethical, political, even environmental. If we don't, then forces beyond our control will be in control.
      We need to be proactive, or we will be pounded. 
      You can't run from it, you can't hide from it, you can't ignore it.  As a significant chunk of the population, the boomers, reach the approach to our dotage, we must live open to change, in all ways. There is never a path back.
The force of life is forward. We are curious, experimental and searching. We should harness those drives for positive change. Humans are destined to seek and offer greater individual dignity and liberty even when forces conspire against it. Repression sparks liberation.
      We tend to think of things only on a human scale.  This blue sphere, and the star nations in which it rides have yet another scale of change. We need to embrace the reality of a planetary awareness.
        Ch-Ch-Changes-Turn and face the stranger. 
        We are constantly a work in progress. Stay tuned. Heaven only knows where this thought train is bound!?

Training the Trellis

     After about year, it is time to introduce our front gate, complete with vine.

   It has taken a while to get that Cambria look.  Here's the proof.

Now the mission will be an occasional trim.

 See you down the trail.  

FRAMED BY LIGHT

ON SIMPLY BEING

    Some times a scene presents itself and leaves me awed by the wonder of it.

     This morning two fawns, spotted still, only days old, were bounding through the open space north of our house on the ridge.  They seemed to hop and leap on all four hoofs  as though flubber had been attached. I was so amused by  their fascination with near flight I didn't want to leave to grab a camera. They were like kids on a trampoline. I don't know a whit about cognition in deer, but it sure looked like joy.

SUN SET AT MORRO BAY

REEL THOUGHTS

THE LONE RANGER

     Note to critics-What do you expect?  The first and last thing you need to know is, it is after all, THE LONE RANGER!

     Director Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp have worked together so often, and so effectively when Depp is animating a costume with a character of his creation, it had to be good even if it was bad.  But it is not bad. 

     It is grand telling of American Iconography.  The big west, is BIG and gorgeous.  The action is big, huge and on a scale that could set the standard of western action scenes. The villains are classic renderings-sinister, nasty, vicious and BIG. In a way, they are the mold for such characters, despite that such tales have been around since the Lone Ranger rode on the radio.  There is an honesty too.  Big business hustlers riding rough shod, controlling land, abusing Chinese workers, lying and cheating to Indians, and using the Army for their own venal purpose. Ooops, how did some real history get so cleverly laid into this big, almost comic book entertainment?

     Arnie Hammer's Lone Ranger has that same "good guy" nobility of Clayton Moore's portrayal, though more human, quirky and real.  

    Depp's Tonto is indeed a masterpiece. Strong, not a subordinate or side kick, clever, witty and with his own tortured tale that makes his "back story" such a powerful motivation.  Without giving up too much, the scenes of the old Tonto are powerful. Depp took the icon to a complex, rich and proud new strength and standard.

     It's the Lone Ranger-true to form, as you may remember it from kid hood. But better, because it is more funny, more action packed, more beautiful cinema graphically, more nuanced, more honest, more political and BIGGER!

ROUNDING OUT THE EVENING

  See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER-FOREIGN TONES

THROUGH OTHER EYES

   We had the good fortune to entertain a couple of delightful Irish visitors the last two days.  Kate and Jack are completing a California odyssey, San Francisco to San Diego with side trips.

   Jack had fun asking our friends and other he met "if there was something special about the 4th of July?"  His humor belied an extraordinary knowledge of American history.

    And their very presence exposed what could well be an American assumption about the Irish.  In the course of our first dinner I apologized for not having any Guinness on hand, as I had finished my supply a couple of days ago.

    "I've never had a Guinness" he confessed.  The next day we were at a winery when the owner stopped by to chat.  Learning that Kate and Jack were from Dublin, he proceeded to sing the praises of Guinness.

    "I'm an Irishman who doesn't drink Guinness," Jack retorted as Kate chuckled knowingly.

     Friends who hosted a 4th of July party had stocked the chiller with Guinness. Seeing such Kate smiled and said in an aside comment "Guess we need to work on our reputations here."

     So easy to make assumptions isn't it?  While we hope we helped them record great California memories, Lana and I will recall and tell again how these two travelers knew more about the history of the US than A) we knew of Ireland and b) than many, many Americans know about their own nation's history.  Being a history nut, I was pleased to have such an affable, witty and knowledgeable conversation mate.

     We look forward to returning the pleasure with a visit to them.  With that wry sparkle in his eye, I expect Jack may offer us a pint of Guinness. And I need to read some Irish history.

HERE'S A GREAT VARIATION ON THE FLASH MOB

(thanks to Bruce for the forward)

Have a great weekend.  See you down the trail.