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.