My Heaven Revisited

A friend told me a sad but also hilarious story about a woman whose sister died. She dreamt about her beloved sister and in the dream, she knows her sister is gone and instead of asking what it's like on the other side or if her departed sister has any profound advice, she says, "You're dead. Can you walk through that wall?" That's exactly what I would ask. And the best part of the dream is that her sister said, "Yeah! I can walk through walls" and she did just that. What a wonderfully hopeful message.

I'm reprinting my idea of heaven from last year and adding those of some of my friends...

My heaven is Paris. I speak fluent French, smoke like crazy and wear couture that fits like on Anne Hathaway in "The Devil Wears Prada." Gorgeous three-inch heals feel like I'm walking on pillows and I have conversations with all the most interesting people throughout history and into the future so that I begin to understand everything about everything for eternity.

MK: My heaven is a never-ending beach vacation with delicious friends and family, fabulous food (that never gets sandy), endless stimulating and entertaining reading material, perky boobs and flat stomach in my bikini. I can surf with the big boys, my skin never gets damaged by the sun and evenings are full of bonfires and silly music jams around the fire. There, I'm a killer guitar player with a gorgeous voice who always makes everyone laugh and cry with my musical stylings. Every night I swim in the warm ocean, and as the moon shines it's face at me and a big wave crashes over me I understand everything about everything for eternity.

SB: sitting at the top of a mountain on a rock that is molded to my body, enjoying an incredible view and the warm sun penetrating my skin. Of course there would be no worry of wind or sun burn and the sun would never set. I might even have a good book with me.

SD: I guess my heaven would be being able to swim like a fish, breathe underwater, and dance like Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Gene Kelly all rolled into one.

What's your heaven?

Bluff Island Rescue Service

Los Angeles writer, Stephanie Hubbard, came to a book club meeting and delighted us with stories of writing her memoir about growing up in a volatile family. Her ability to draw you into the story of the precocious little girl who sees that she's in a pickle but is also pulled into her family's orbit especially by her bi-polar father who controls his family like a malevolent dictator when he's not charmingly disarming.

Stephanie was shopping the book to publishers just as the country was entering the worst recession since the great depression and the publishing industry was ringing the death knell on its own industry. True to the character we get to know in "Bluff Island," she didn't give up and self-published her memoir.

I loved this book.

http://www.bluffislandrescueservice.com/

Boo!

Dark and Stormy

Cry for Tyler Clementi

Lover Boys

Blade Runner Reboot

An article in the "Los Angeles Times" this week about "rebooting" movies got me thinking. (Rebooting is making the same film with different actors. It's another way for studios to squeeze every bit of life out of a property without coming up with a new idea or fresh screenplay. The script is tweaked and updated but basically it's the same movie.) What would my reboot film be? Don't groan, but my vote is for yet another version of the 1982 classic--and my favorite SciFi movie--"Blade Runner."

But who will play the iconic blade runner Rick Deckard so memorably portrayed with boozy sexiness by Harrison Ford? Or the perfect cold beauty Sean Young's Rachael (no last name necessary because she's a replicant)?

My choices: "Blade Runner: Reboot" starring Daniel Craig and Eva Green who were sexy and watchable in the 007 action-fest "Casino Royale."

Yes?

Citizen Science

There's a way for you to gaze at the stars and help advance our understanding of the universe. It's called Galaxy Zoo. The great thing is that computers aren't as good at recognizing patterns as people are. This program is very successful and people have identified anomalies and gotten recognition for it. A school teacher in Amsterdam, Hanny van Arkel, identified a blog-shaped object that they believe is the ghost of an "enormously powerful luminous accreting supermassive black hole" in a galaxy near us. The members of the citizen scientists named the anomaly Hanny's Voorwerp , or Hanny's Object. Fantastic!

http://www.galaxyzoo.org/how_to_take_part

For an interesting interview between Science Talk Host Steve Mirsky and the guy that runs Galaxy Zoo, Yale astrophysicist Kevin Schawinski, check out the Scientific American podcast below:

http://podcast.sciam.com/weekly/sa_podcast_090326.mp3

Animal Finance

CATS

Love is Rare, Life is Strange

All Kinds of Fun

I know. How do I get from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Boys in the Band to Amelie and Lars and the Real Girl? You can't spend that much time with George and Martha. I was at a dinner party last night and the wife said to the husband, "You incomplete me." Brilliant. Thank's Martha. Keep it sharp.

Cinema Magic

Lars and the Real Girl is a wonderful movie and Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner and Patricia Clarkson are all spot on. If you haven't seen it, do. Also, the soundtrack will cheer you on of you're down, another plus. Thank you writer Nancy Oliver for an extraordinary film.

Amélie.

Everyone could use a little magic these days.

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The Luck

Who's Afraid?

I was trying to figure out why I love two of the most vicious movies every written: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Boys in the Band. What I've come to understand after watching the movies dozens of times is that they are about people who are evenly matched. What I mean is that George and Martha are equals. At first you think George is put upon and Martha is in control verbally beating George to a pulp, but by the end George comes roaring back and the evening ends in a draw. Edward Albee's writing is spectacularly vivid. You could argue that Nick and Honey aren't at their level so are victims of their bullying attacks, but you get the idea that Honey and Nick's marriage is built on the kind of shaky ground that could turn them into George and Martha. All four actors were nominated for academy awards but only Elizabeth Taylor walked away with the statue. She and Burton are radiant as they verbally parry and thrust their way to dawn.
The same is true for Boys in the Band. You feel that you've entered a conversation that is so advanced and quick that you'll never catch up. It's a tough world with mean, self-hating gay men in the 1960s. Written by Mart Crowley the film centers around a group of gay friends but, in the end, boils down to just two: birthday boy Harold and party giver Michael. One accepts that he is gay and the other does not. It's not the self hatred I find riveting, it's how everyone is struggling to find their way. They verbally circle each other, stab, duck, hit and miss.

The other thing I love about both the films is that I always ask the same question at the end of the films. Is there a son in Woolf and is the ex-roomate really gay in the case of Boys. That's how strong an impression they leave after every viewing. I know there's no son and the ex-roomate isn't gay, but I still question because the film does.

Both films were based on hit plays from the 1970s. There's just not that much at stake anymore in films pumped up on visual steroids. We've plumbed the psyche and have turned to external forms of terror like serial killers, the fetish of mental illness, 24-hour crime and terrorism.

But a well-matched psychological bludgeoning on screen can teach us something about how people that love us are capable of real bloodless destruction.

Video Gay Ballroom Dancing - LA Times Magazine

Video Gay Ballroom Dancing - LA Times Magazine

California Dreaming

My dream is to bring a same-sex dance competition to television and this is why. How much fun is this?

Chris Beroiz

Denial is Not a Strategy

Babies

Blanche can never have too many babies. She has a duck and what once was a duck. If you get too close, she growls. After walking around the house for an hour trying to find a place to stash her babies, Blanche could only be pursuaded to give up her precious mouth full of toys with a treat. Caesar would be very disappointed in my parenting style.

Guard Dog

Caw! Caw!

Late Bloomer

Taupe Topiary

Patty Smith

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Patti Smith gave a "Bookworm" interview to Michael Silverblatt (my favorite big brain) on her book, "Just Kids." Every time I think Ms. Smith is going to be pretentious and silly she astonishes me with her raw presence. She's not false in any way. She just is. That state of being monks have been trying to get into for as long as there have been monks comes naturally to Patti.

Give the interview a listen. Michael can't help but be pretentious because he really is smarter and more knowledgeable about books than anyone. So his interview with Ms. Smith is funny and disarming.

She described herself and her art friends as "patrons of the spirit."

Stieg Larsson

I know this guy is supposed to be a feminist, but when his heroine, Lisbeth Salander, feels better about her self image when she gets a boob job, I have to question Larsson's self-proclaimed "feminist" ideals. Plus, what's with all the women who throw themselves at Mikael Blomkvist? His former baby sitter, Lisbeth--a girl that could be his daughter--and of course, the ultimate fantasy, a woman whose story he is protecting against his own ethical code can't resist him either. The very woman that babysat (is that even a word?) him as a child! Of course, she must come onto him like every other woman he meets. Practically every woman who gets to know Blomkvist feels compelled to have sex with him. They become uncontrollably attracted to this 50ish journalist. Let's not question that the babysitter also was horribly abused and that Blomkvist is keeping her secret. That wouldn't be any reason for a woman to compromise herself now would it? Where's his ethical code now?

Then there's the married co-worker that Blomkvist's been lovers with for 20 years. Her husband understands their arrangement and is fine with it. Who could get in the way of such a healthy expression of sexual desire between your wife and the irresistable Mikael Blomkvist? Everyone's ok with that. The wife, the husband, and Blomkvist. But, oh, Mikael is turned off by an intern at the journal where he works. I guess she's coming on too strong for the guy who sleeps with every female he encounters. And another thing... Everyone in Sweden is having sex constantly. Even those who are damaged so severely that they can't have normal relationship with other people. Lisbeth is an anti-social braniac who is emotionally damaged from sexual abuse. But, hey, she's up for all kinds of sex as long as she's doing the soliciting and she does a fair amount of that.

The Swedes in Larsson's world are into prodigious amounts of sex with multiple partners, partners of either sex and some at the same time, apparently. Larsson throws in complicated mathematics and economic shenanigans for the appearance of sophistication, but it's a simple book: All of the bad people die (or will in the next book) and all the good people live to have sex again and again and again.

The real question is: why am I still reading these books? They repulse and attract me at the same time. Genius.

Road Trip Los Angeles to San Francisco

Saw this dog in a cool car at a gas station on the way to San Francisco.

Crack Bread

It's called Amish Friendship Bread but we call it "Crack Bread" because it's full of sugar and yeast and you can't get enough of it.

Iron Man 2

Saw Iron Man 2 today. It's fun and a good way to forget the real world for 2 hours and 4 minutes. Robert Downey Jr. is the only actor who could pull off Tony Stark. He's funny and creepy and sexy and uber smart. But, I will say that the palms of Sam Rockwell's hands were so full of fake tanning lotion during a scene with Mickey Rourke's Ivan that it was as if he'd been groping a PA just before the cameras started to roll. What the F*%k?

70 Million

Vanishing Point from Bonsajo on Vimeo.

I read a blog Neu Black. This amazing and fun math-generated clip is by Takuya Hosogane.

Tavi Trouble

I don’t allow my girlfriend to have a Facebook account because as it is she doesn’t let a phone call go unanswered or an email unattended, even the crazy “Obama isn’t a U.S. citizen” ones. She must set the world straight and I love her for it, but Facebook would suck the remaining years of her life into nonstop communication frenzy.

That said, I am the link to Lynn’s family on Facebook. And that’s how Lynn’s niece, Emma, came to request my friendship. I have written about how I’m not good with kids. I’m not sure what they like at what age and when my own nephew played with tiny drink straws at a steak restaurant clashing them as swords into a violent X, he dropped one of the straws. I took up the lone straw and said, “Casey, look, it’s an ‘I.’” That landed like a dissertation on Emily Dickenson to the 8-year-old Casey and he looked away from me with pity in his eyes.

I was telling Emma she could Facebook Lynn through me if she wanted and Emma wrote, "awsome , how you doing anything up?”

I wanted to impress the kid. I’m thinking she doesn’t want to hear about my boring life but maybe she would be interested in another kid. Grant you, she’s one of the most precocious and influential kids in the fashion world right now, but she’s also funny and 13, Emma’s age. I wrote to Emma that nothing was up with me, but I'm keeping up with a fashion blog written by a young girl and she might like to read it, too.

The “Comment” button was clicked and I left Facebook to check Brian Eno’s “Oblique Strategies” for the day.

Something in the back of my head told me to check out Style Rookie. She’s freakishly smart and I should read it with an eye to a normal 13-year-old reading it. I checked what Tavi Gevinson had to say on her blog. Remember I have posted the link to my girlfriend’s niece’s Facebook.

Tavi had just turned 14-year-old. That’s safe territory. The next entry was a rail about a photographer accused of molesting under aged models. As I’m reading in horror thinking of Emma calling her parents over to explain the link Aunt Autumn sent, I click on a link in the rant and there’s a photo of a pre-pubescent girl looking distressed with her shirt off and a man’s fingers pinching the nipple of her still unformed breast. Hard.

Holy Shit!

I race back to Emma’s FB page and delete the link to Style Rookie and write, “Nothing much. I like the photo of the horse you posted.” I made a fast retreat to my lame but safe “Casey, it’s an ‘I’” kid talk. Even so, I can't shake the feeling that I dodged a bullet.

Eyes on the Ground

Animal Rescue

Who is rescuing whom?

The Devine Sarah

Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt by Alfred Stevens, 1885
Hammer Museum

On Guard

Penn & Teller Sin City Spectacular

Celebrity Sightings

I'm in Beverly Hills once in awhile because if you want the best of anything it's there. Unlike most Beverly Hills visitors, I never see any celebs and when family visits from out of state and we drive around Beverly Hills, I say what everyone says, "Beverly Hills is for tourists." Well, it may be for tourists, but a few days ago, it was full of celebrities as well.

Star sightings:

Larry King talking on his cell phone on Beverly

Road the elevator with Donald Sutherland

Kristen Stewart in her car and let her into traffic

Joan Rivers driving a Porche

How do you like those apples?

Goodbye Adrian

My sister's beloved pupper, Adrian, died a couple of days ago. It's a heartbreaker.

Riot

Stand and Deliver

e e cummings

When I was in my 20's and just starting to read for pleasure and not for school, I discovered e. e. cummings. His poems taught me how to live even before I knew who I was or that you could decide who to be in the world. I have read this poem for 20 years and am surprised and delighted by it every time. It also reminds me of spring because it's full of birds and hopefulness.

may my heart always be open to little

birds who are the secrets of living

whatever they sing is better than to know

and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry

and fearless and thirsty and supple

and even if it's sunday may i be wrong

for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully

and love yourself so more than truly

there's never been quite such a fool who could fail

pulling all the sky over him with one smile

e.e. cummings

Wedgwood

We've been watching "Upstairs Downstairs," the British series from the early 1970s, again. It's about the Bellamy family and their servants as they negotiate the changing world of the early 20th century. The two Bellamy children grow up to reject their parents values. The daughter is filled with upper class guilt and a desire to shake off the stifling restrictions on upper class women. The son acts like many spoiled second generation wealthy sons. He gambles, drinks, finds work boring, and knocks up one of the servant on his way to ruining his life. The servants have their own adjustments to make, but in some ways they have some flexibility to put their lives back together when change blows their lives open because there is no safety net and no rescue from a mistake.

The Wedgwood teapot reminds me of the refined and stratified existence in the Victorian England of the Bellamys. I have one cracked teapot that I love for its color and detail, but not an entire prestine set that Mrs. Bellamy would have possessed.

Sink View

Chicks with Sticks

Took the drum set out of the closet today. It feels good to beat something. Maybe I'll start a band called "The Lady and the Tramps."

"Keep on rockin' in the free world"

San Francisco

This is the building where I worked in the Embarcadero over 20 years ago.


My first job in San Francisco was as a receptionist for a computer programmer placement firm. I was 20 years old in the early '80s and had moved to San Francisco's Russian Hill with a roommate. Living in the city by the bay was my dream come true and I never got over the excitement of it. I'd wake up early in the morning, walk up Larkin Street to the top of Union and just look at the view. I walked to and from work, through China Town to North Beach.

Weird News

Cynopsis reported today: "Typically a film actress, Sean Young has signed on to join the cast of CBS' daytime drama The Young and the Restless as a bartender named Meggie who enters into a relationship with Victor Newman, played by Eric Braeden. Young will debut in her new role mid-June." "Blade Runner" is one of my all time fav movies and I know she went off the rails years ago, but "The Young and the Restless?" At least she's joining David Hasselhoff for his comeback.

Who says daytime dramas are dying...

Honey House

On Mission Street in South Pasadena, there's a new store called House of Honey. It looks intriguing...

Street Art

Mouth Piece

This is the view from the Marriott... Lovely, lovely, lovely.

I don't really want to be back from San Francisco. We couldn't have asked for better weather. We surprised my mother on her birthday. Saw "Wicked," walked the hills, ate at a terrific place called Delfina in the Mission and generally had a merry time.