I ran into Mike Cobb the other day and mean to follow up with him regarding my campaign for Council 2014, and my thoughts on Cubberley; in truth I am not current with what the Cubberley ad hoc group led by Mandy Lowell are recommending. I respect Mr. Cobb, who I first met at a Cubberley advisory meeting when I was producing concerts there in the 1990s. Further, although I was shocked to learn that Mandy Lowell was Mrs. Charles Munger, it is still unclear to me what to make of that: I am not completely writing her off as a potential Democratic citizen. People I admire respect her. More to come. Note that the first segment is more organized than the subsequent two, that being the nature of communicating by email. Not sure where this document was filed, other than Reklis said it would be included.
Of the top of my head, I would keep Cub as a community center rather than let it be developed for housing. I wonder how it fits in with the proposal to stop Sobrato from turning Fry’s into more housing: I favor half-housing and half-park.
I am on my way to the Cubberley meeting at 7:30 tonight. While checking the time online, I became perhaps the last person in the room to learn that Mandy Lowell is also known as Mrs. Charles Munger (the Mungers who gave millions to defeat Prop 30 — I voted for Prop 30 — in Palo Alto you never know which billionaire or multi-millionaire in the elevator you will meet).
Usually when you meet a billionaire you should pretend you don’t know they are billionaires. I remember the time that Nelson Rockefeller came into the newsroom to ask us to cover the drinking games / fundraiser he was hosting at his fraternity and I of course knew who he was — maybe we had met once before, exactly, he sat to lunch with us at the cafeteria, he rowed with one of my hallmates — and he said “Hi…
The Chronicle teed me up and the New York Times online hit me home about some noise out of Arvada, Colorado where a school board wants to revise U.S. History so as to produce a citizenry that is less likely to protest. Huh?
Reminds me of the effort in recent years to discourage musicians from gathering at Lytton Plaza, in payback for the unruly protests during the Vietnam era.
This will take a few more readings and writings to get clear on, but I wanted to mark the discussion so far.
From Matt Bowling:
The leftist Midpeninsula Free University (MFU) first took advantage of Lytton Plaza’s in-between status during the summer of 1968. After staging a series of rallies and music concerts there — some of which had resulted in police intervention — downtown business had grown weary of the new MFU scene at the plaza. The Palo Alto Times reported that summer that 63% of downtown merchants wanted the plaza closed and 86% favored the police stopping the demonstrations.
Lytton and his bank responded to business concerns by posting a list of rules at the plaza. Reiterating that the land was owned by Lytton Savings, the poster stated that music and crowds over 25 people were prohibited except through the permission of the bank. The poster was soon graced with an expletive-laced response.
By 1969, Saturday night rock concerts with live bands were commonplace at the plaza, many sponsored by the “Free People’s Free Music Company” run by Paly teenagers. One summer concert devolved into mayhem when a motorcycle gang began numerous fist fights and scuffles with the largely hippie high school crowd.
From Jack Healy’s Times report Sept. 23, 2014:
So far, nothing is settled in Jefferson County. The board put off a discussion of the curriculum-review committee until a meeting in October, and Ken Witt, the board president, suggested that some of its proposed language about not promoting “civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law” might be cut.
“A lot of those words were more specific and more pointed than they have to be,” Mr. Witt said. He said that the school board was responsible for making decisions about curriculum and that the review committee would give a wider spectrum of parents and community members the power to examine what was taught in schools. He said that some had made censorship allegations “to incite and upset the student population.”
But on Tuesday, those allegations were more than enough to draw hundreds of students into the sun. They waved signs declaring, “It’s world history, not white history,” and talked about Cesar Chavez and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Leaders of the walkout urged others to stay out of the streets and not to curse, and sympathetic parents brought poster board, magic markers and bottles of water.
“Occupational Hazards of Democracy” by Lynn Stegner in the Chronicle, November, 2011, and the inspiration for an Etsy-sold work of art by Evelyn Markasky:
Ok, I admit this is not very good writing, in that I am merely stringing together a group of sources or excerpts from such.
A dayworker and artist in Mountain View, calling him or her self Art Work, recommends via this yellow edifice that Palo Alto and its ARB retain and ratify its 50 foot height limit
As I started to write this, waiting for my breakfast burrito, my table overcrowded with books and papers, I knock the plastic case of my reading glasses from the high top to the floor, and bending over I notice that the stool on which I set is metal painted as wood and not wood per se.
“Damn right, I’m no body” I woke to, as my inner monologue emerged from whatever accompanies the REM-stage; I heard Nick next door, left-handed Nick, grew up in Palo Alto and Woodside, baseball pitcher at Stanford and Colgate, my coach covered, moving around something, making himself useful, at 7:15. Chores around our home delayed my launch until about 10 a.m. I timed it at about 6 minutes to drive to Cafe Zoe — “Hi, Kathleen!” — from Downtown North. I went South on Middlefield rather than North because of a back-up, counter-intuitively or experts.
(Oddly, as I revisited this later that evening, having missed the Shields lecture in San Jose, I realized the pun in the headline in that Richard Stern had recently passed away).
Live 105 had a song, in that interstice, that I thought fit. Sublime Badfish the green light say. It’s about identify. I am really channelling Salinger, or Shields and Salerno’s version of. Shields is in San Jo tonight but I have a date with the City Manager, and his assistant, Janice Sherwood or Janice Shields. Svendson. Shields David also has a nooner on Thursday, with Evan Bishovshy ethan nosowsky or someone. Jesus took my money, poured my O.J and explained that a “Chuy” is probably also a Jesus, the way Memo is actually a Guillermo. Fijate. Jesus, is telling another customer that he just had a son about a year ago. Mazel tov. (The machine wants to change it to “Mazel Gov” — government luck?)
Wed Sept 24
wait, back it up, rewind to Tuesday, my unfinished call list: Baer, Young, Garston, Goldberg (some of these were not urgent, I just didn’t want to lose the number if I lose the card), — I just did a rare thing, for a blogger, for Plastic Alto, I edited and changed the punctuation; John Seeley aka John Paige; Booker,
NEWS FLASH
WE INTERRUPT THIS POST FOR A POST-WITHIN-A-POST:
NAOMI THE KLEZMER ACCORDION IS CURATOR FOR A QUILT SHOW, NOW AT CAFE ZOE IN ON MENALTO, FEATURING ART WORK OF DAY WORKERS, OF MOUNTAIN VIEW. (Meanwhile, she also had the out card for my converso with Jesus: his name is Yeshu. Photo TK
Naomi the Klezmer and curator accepts kudos from Shachi she says her Hebrew name, at Cafe Zoe, in Menalto, September 2014 for the day worker quilts
(Shortly after I bid adieu to “Shachi” the guy from Cal Voter Guide called and we talked for a few minutes and he said he would send me a hard copy of what they do and I said I would call him back when I got it — this would only run me $800, to use their service, for my campaign running for Palo Alto City Council, this is real, you know — and then at the end of the conversation I said “Fuck you” and he laughed. — Payback for him writing me yesterday and calling me a “nobody”, because I wouldn’t use his service. That some weird passive aggressive sales shit. Also the photo I found online and sent to him as a link is another guy with same name, but he thought it was supposed to be me. He is, literally, -30-)
What is the best, most interesting thing going? Stern, Richard Stern via Shields, David Shields has continually asked since being a “tyke”. He does not mind being in the shadow of greats, like Philip Roth.
I admit I am still processing the fact that a guy called me to sell me some sort of service that candidates in elections might buy or use, then got frustrated and wrote me an email calling me a loser and a “nobody”. Is he saying that they target such? For some reason I am channeling Borat: Do you have the yard-sign with the pussy magnet? (And that is not a Burt joke, it’s a Borat, brat). “Damn right I’m somebody” sounds like James Brown.
There were about five other names and numbers on my call list and log.
Today: maybe Rotary with my Dad, in Cupertino. Maybe A’s-Angels nooner; I wrote “Lytton Plaza” for no discernible reason. Maybe follow up or keep trying with Michael McFaul — the Richard Stern folds into that. Maybe Shields tonight in San Jo, especially if San Jo Merc has a preview that is irresitisible; City Manager: there is email from Janice Svenson, close but no cigar even try 3; more architecture: Dartmouth buildings and, um, Shields; I have the book of Book of Mormon Broadway cd to read and then return. Over due. Speaking of latter days. Trevor Noah is a South African comedian recommended by Palo Altan Rob Mori who is a bike enthusiast and also writes apps for droids.
Thurs Sept 25 is a blank page. Get out my sunglasses as Joan Rivers told Ricki Stern, no relation to Richard Stern or I am certain they are different people at least. I just sneezd as I wrote that and a man across, who kinda looks like an Arab said “bless you” a minute ago he was straddling somebody’s large curly haired dog. he knows them? None of my business. I am that Emersonian eyeball seeing all. — which reminds that I am trying to reach David Perez our County Poet Laureate if I have not scared him off, or scarred him, with my bad channeling of the greats. (What do I mean “blank page” if 16 hours ahead I am already salivating for my nooner in San Jose with David Shields — talk about short attention span, only 1,800 words).
Fri 26 Sept LWVPA survey due
Cristina Velazquez at PA Art Center 7 p.m.
Gunn football?
maybe the famous La Para breakfast klatch
Sat 27 Sept
Stanford Washington –I kinda want to go, accept I’m broke. My classmate and friend Chris Strausser all league for the Titans at QB is new Huskie offensive asst coach, with Chris Peterson from Boise State.
I have “Dartmouth in Ashland” a guy can dream can’t he?
Sun 28 Sept
football
Mon 29 Sept
Daily News 1 p.m. candidates meetings with Mario Dianda Jason Green — I think I saw Brenna or Breena Kerr of the Post not News at Policy and Services meeting yesterday but we’ve never met. I am boycotting the Post and the Weekly even if that seems counter-productive. Jim Newton of the LA Times bit on something I copied him on, if only to question why I had copied him. I think there is a story here, in PA about leadership that might be of statewide interest and not just because Jim was editor of the Campanile. He wrote about Lev, the LA council member (whose name is on Wall of Hollywood Bowl, I have the photo to prove); Michael McFaul, if I ever update my coverage of his excellent address, said that in 1991 there were delegates from LA and other U.S. cities as part of glasnost visiting civic officials in St. Petersburg and that is were he first met Vladimir Putin. I also am toting The Economist “The long game” chess and Putin to skim thru for future bluffing on what little I know about Russian. Damn right I know nothing as Shultzie the comic actor in Hogan’s Heroes with Bob Crane and not the former Princeton football hero with a Tiger tattoo on his high thigh with the Yalie Bush-leaguer might say. McFaul’s mentor is Condi by the way, he says. Nothing wrong with a little McFaul envy or obsession, for a no body. I am tempted to print out the 10 articles that reference him here and drop them off at the Tower.
I also taped a local news segment on Peter Thiel speaking of Tower, Lord of Rings: don’t they know that Palantir was a force for evil, sued by Sauron and Saruman? They seem to be gong more elemental: silver, gold, what nuggotnot.
thielian architecture themed
Beyond merely negating the ego, maybe I can cloak myself in an alter ego, Neal Young Jeezy, or Neil Young Jeezy –he’s so breezy, he’s our saviour, on his best behavior; first it was Tim who channeled NYJ because a rapper joined his folk song set, then later I stepped up and spit a few rhymes on that riff.
Monday the 29 Sept also has an opportunity to have coffee in the morning with Preston Metcalf of Triton museum 8 to 930 in Santa Clara.
Tuesd 30 September
League of Women Voters Forum, 7 to 930 p.m. at Etz Chayim, the former YWCA on 4161 Alma, although the site is also on the Housing Element and the developers are salivating about destroying the temple, forcing the Jews of Ari Cartun branch to dispora-ate and building building building more homes homes homes. Shana tova indeedy.
Wed Oct 1
rent is due. new lease on life, for only 200 bump. My rent has gone, I said this in a public forum, from $2,200 in 2008 to $3,1000 in October, 2014 a 40 percent jump in six years, which I calculate roughly as 6 percent per year or at least twice the CPI consumer price index, for a 1BR. I asked in a forum: Does the assessor re-price this as often? And Greg Schmid later that night, at a different meeting, or in the hall outside such, said in passing that they did gloss that, although I didn’t sit still long enough, nor was it the place — we were in Council Chambers, for a art commission meeting — to get on same page, but I hope to squeeze him in here, Plastic Alto and God’s green spinning mush, soon enough.
the very next day
Thursday Oct 2
PAN Palo Alto Neighborhoods forum at Council chambers hosted by Sid Espinosa our former best mayor — Wesleyan grad, from Salinas or Gilroy, Kennedy School, Clinton speechwriter, clog-dancer, old movie buff, lived at 365 Addison or what-not, head of philanthropy at Microsoft, he who walks the oxymoron with moxie, 6:30 to 9p.m.
and if I make it to Friday Oct 3, it is written and sealed, dayeinu it is enough
up to 81 reviews
and as i type this into the tag bar it starts to list as “reality unger” and I think about a Dartmouth classmate, Rob Hunger, a Canadian and rugby player, I hardly knew beyond that, and that Carol Hegna, Stanford 1981, aka Carol Milton (friend of Milt McColl and Cindy Swenson McColl) sent me a post card from Kenya or East Africa, where they might have safari tourism to see she met Rob there and mentioned me to him. Howzit, Hunger? Howzit, Hegna? I’m also flashing to Richard Freed arm-wrestling with Carol’s sister, younger sister, more of a Wyoming cow-girl than Carol was, Carol who skateboard across White Plaza, I was just telling a young lass the other day, and was nearly a Dolly. But alas I cannot pull, even in an Aquarian fit, the younger Hegna’s first name.
And that’s my hour.
Thank you Terry, my Terry, Terry Acebo Davis, for all your help on my campaign and on wardrobe. Luv ya (and this is a business blog, not personal, please note. I am saying that to make money, in a Walter Mischel Marshmellow-differed kind of way).
Shieldsian addendum watching “Auto-focus” the Bob Crane biopic with my mom and texted Steve Cohen of Ally McBe fame: who plays Newkirk?
Michael e Rodgers as Newkirk to kinnear as hogan right says cohen
Chapter 224: What Does It Mean for Hospitals, Health Plans, Consumers, and Clinicians? (Blue Shield, that is, not David Shields, but close enough for Plastic Alto)
and as I am typing that, while watching the Giants tangle with Clayton Kershaw, 1-1, and typing the gratuitous coda about Blue Shield, a Dignity Health spot comes on with Secret Sister Tomorrow Will be Kinder, which was also used in Hunger Games:
Sam Amidon is a young artist on Nonesuch and, according to Mark Christman of Philly’s Ars Nova series, is touring with Bill Frisell as a sideman.
Sam Amidon is also married to British folkie Beth Orton. Ok.
Sam Amidon is from Vermont area. Cool.
But where does this leave Jenny Scheinman? Same instrument.
We saw Bill with his normal new quartet, Wolleson Scher and Leisz, in Napa, weeks before the big quake. We got the ok to try to say hello but somehow missed our cue.
Nothing in life perfect.
edita: reminds of: Sam Amico, printer, near Felicia Rose Rice
McFaul is closer to getting Putin than I am to him in this photo. Getting meaning understanding.
Terry and I caught an excellent lecture by Michael McFaul, of Stanford’s Hoover Institution, and the former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, for the World Affairs Council, at a private residence in Atherton, California, in September, 2014.
McFaul is a Rhodes Scholar and 1985 Stanford graduate, originally from Montana. There is a peculiar kindling effect in my mind apropos of Dr. McFaul in that I met him a couple times in 1982 and 1983, then with the successive press announcements (Rhodes, Hoover, Obama Security council, the ambassadorship) his name and story stuck with me. (I would estimate I keep little mental files and sometimes corresponding analogue or real-world files — clippings, ephemera, posters and notes — on at least 10,000 similar people, things, places and concepts; heck, the blog, 925 posts in, probably name-checks 1,000 or more).
McFaul is an impressive guy. The moderator said he liked but did not get to my question wondering about how being a music aficionado prepares the air for sorting thru the talk of demagogues, statesmen and shysters. (McFaul’s father is or was a music teacher and musician, clarinet? Actually today Beth Custer and I discussed trying to get her score of “My Grandfather” a Georgi
edit to add: regarding the Grateful Dead and professor ambassador McFaul, half of my ten previous postings about Michael have to do with our having attended a Dead Show, Greek Berkeley 1982. I sussed, while listening to the above pictured lecture that Julia Ioffe of Foreign Policy in a serious treatment of the man “The Undiplomat” unearthed that Michael says that freshman week of Stanford he met a guy with 100 Dead tapes and was fascinated by the abundance and enthusiasm not necessarily the music per se. Maybe we went over this in the car either to or fro, at the time; I cannot recall if I or he drove; probably me, especially if he hitch-hiked or walked to The Farm from Big Sky. He actually left almost immediately after the lecture and before the reception because he said it was his wife’s birthday celebration. I have some notes beyond the photo and the moldy fig recall.
When I called our mutual friend to tell her that I read or heard of McFaul being tapped by Obama, my friend said that her father had already given her the Head up.
For the record I saw about 10 Dead shows, and about half that many post-Jerry or related-events. I’m a pseudo-Dead-head. (Real Deadheads have seen 100 or more shows, and taped them). I’ve seen easily 1,000 other concerts; I’ve produced more than 200 shows, easily, rock, jazz and folk. Closer to 500? In 20 years; when I met Michael McFaul I never would have guessed that years later I’d be in the music biz. Or a politician.
BLUF: diplo talk for “bottom line up front”
Beth Custer and I hope to gift him a DVD of “My Grandmother” a Soviet-era banned film from Georgia (about bureaucracy) she wrote a new score for, and is playing New York coming up. We’d love to do a show for the Hoover scholars. Who knows, is there something in this cultural artifact that gives a McFaul some insight into the gestures of a Putin? Oblique strategy and long way home.
I hope to edita with more content of the actual lecture.
HOLY WILLIAM SAFIRE: I just search-injuned “michael mcfaul” and “bottom line up front” and it yields only seven (7) cites. Whoah! or Wah-hoo-wah.
and here as an outro is not Franklin’s Tower but trailer to “My Grandmother” in hopes of bringing world peace:
The Journal of the American Institute of Planners (July, 1969) outlines “Eight Rungs of Citizen Participation” (See below). I perceive the latest “visioning” exercise to lie on the lowest two rungs. If we want real power (i.e., to stand on the eighth rung) we’ll need to create a parallel process with greater public support.
1. Manipulation
Officials place residents on rubber-stamp advisory committees to “educate” them, engineer support, and “prove” that “grassroots people” are involved.
2. Therapy
Under the guise of engaging residents in planning, power-holders bring them together to adjust their “values and attitudes” to accept harmful change.
3. Informing
Information flows primarily in one direction, and is often presented at a late stage in planning, after residents’ opportunity for influence has largely passed.
4. Consultation
Consultation without guarantee of influence remains just a window-dressing ritual.
5. Placation
Residents may be awarded token concessions, but are still being planned for by others.
6. Partnership
Residents and powerholders share planning and decision-making responsibilities, and ground rules are not subject to unilateral change.
7. Delegated Power
Residents achieve sufficient decision-making authority to assure accountability.
8. Citizen Control
Residents govern a program or an institution, in full charge of policy and managerial aspects, and negotiate the conditions under which “outsiders” may change them.
David Schrom a Stanford teacher and co-founder of Palo Alto’s Magic Incorporated Community (not to be confused with his protogee, David Muffly, also an arborist) posted the above on Palo Alto Weekly website, apropos of a discussion of the disaster known as Alma Plaza or Alma Village, “planned community – PC- zoning” and the “Comp Plan” or “General Plan” and general gutting of such.
I found it while sitting thru, fairly randomly, a Policy and Services meeting where it will be discussed Karen Holman’s (of Budget subcommittee, she’s not here) question of why we charge $100 to rent the “community room” if the room is part of a public benefit (in letting builder over-build and be up-zoned). Fred Balin has also written extensively on this Giant White Elephant. And he’s in the room.
I have the opposite stance, and will probably say so, in about an hour — thereby foregoing chance to plug Ventura Park at Parks atari starting shortly next door. I think the project is such a mess that we do have to keep the vigil up.
Atari means “i attack you” — ghosts in machine seem to want to tell us here. (I was writing “start” and they changed it to “atari” maybe this is something Nolan Bushnell circa 1970 while in Utah snuck into all future Matrix I mean spellcheckers)
I am also thinking “sausages” or even “sausage” the rock band, for no obvious Plastic Alto reason.
Jason-
Sorry if I was abrupt on the phone, if you called while things were happening and I was rude.
I think there is a shift, fairly abrupt, from office etiquette , where people have receptionists answering the phone and following a protocol, to now, with cellphones and virtual offices — I cannot afford an office here any more — so there is some weird shakeout.
Which is distinct from if I knew exactly who you were, your firm, or org, and their service, and then decided not to work with you.
Any further advice on getting over my self? is that like Jerry Salinger going vedantic between “Catcher in the Rye” and “Great day for Bananafish” (Seriously; I am going to a lecture tomorrow by the leading analyst of Salinger, David Shields).
And you think a guy who went from 800 votes in 2009 to nearly 6,000 in 2012 (out of 24,000 cast) is now cocky?
I am thinking I am Walter Mischel “Marshmellow” — actually, excuse the digression, but that is my next “get” — is Mischel of “marshmallow” fame the Mischel from Stanford, i.e. I know him or them or the family? What I am saying: I think I am pretty darn patient.
Is your job that unsatysfing that you need to take the jab at people now and again?
Namaste, bra.
Mark Weiss
Plastic Alto blog
Earthwise Productions
running for council in Palo Alto or as I sometimes say, peddling just fast enough to not fall down
I also think about “Chris Ryan” real or fictional in the De La Salle movie taking a knee on the last three plays of the season: In certain ways I could no literally nothing in the run up to Nov. 4 and still feel I got something down so far and any more would be overkill.
but just for yucks, what do you suggest? What is the full-Cal Voter buy?
DUDE WHERE’D YOU PARK YOUR ARB APP: David Carnahan of City Clerk office is asking me, Mark Weiss Council candidate yet ARB wanna-ARB as well
1. point(David Shields, I am thinking “Pete Maravich”)
2. shooting(faux Filseth, and I am thinking “Jerry West” and being generous or atoning)
3. small forward (Gervin, Ice man?
4. big / forward (“John Havlicek”? although it was about Cazzie Russell or maybe Kent Lockhart or that poor May guy — this game doesn’t really pan out; it is worse than Errol Morris Fast Cheap and like that thing about hoops and soccer on same pitch, in Mexico)
5. big / center (“Bill Walton” or “Bob Lanier” because he shoe so big — trisha brown, walking on buildings or maybe Willis Reed because that’s where I came in and Trish and Architecture is very NYC Big Apple)
Although we didn’t use the term “big” to describe 4 and 5 in my day, and Hans was “Hans” and not “Del” or “Coach Del”
I am not sure if this is my fifth post of the day, making me a post man, of sorts, or continuation of previous play.
There is a Policy and Services Committee (a subset of council, discussing somewhere Alma Plaza bugaboos) and Parks and Rec at 7, where I want to talk again about Ventura Park. So I have another hour to finish my day.
I ran into Janice who is the City Manager’s assistant who recognized me and reminded me of the continuation of Candidates Briefing on City Hall How it Works. We are both Aquarii it turns out and I used that as explanation for how I pull information rabbits out of my hat.
I flipped thru the Trisha Brown book and snapped “sweded” versions of “Man Walking Down the Side of a Building” from 1970 which I am claiming is relevant to my desire to be on ARB or to be ARB. It’s arbitrary, sure. (It would be more relevant of course if Trisha Brown the creator of “MWDSB” wanted to ARB).
Also: The Global Office by Noam Dvir, in Art in America (June/July 2014) I wrote about and discussed at ARB, about “Fundamentals” a part of Venice Biennale, and “Absorving Modernity” and “Monditalia”. And “OfficeUS”. Dig?
(Also: Elvis Costello supposedly said: writing about music is like dancing about architecture, plus the pun on “about” meaning to circumnavigate or approach indirectly, my forte; my 40. I am drunk on ideas).
I can paste in a photo of David Carnahan, our Asst Clerk.
The five-member ARB earmarks 3 seats for architects or “design” professionals; I am arguing that designing a concert, especially a a site specific event, like “!Taylor Ho!” September 20 at Lytton Plaza, might be comparable to being a design professional. (Previously I had gotten Steve Staiger to agree that my writing on Plastic Alto and my pseudo-residency at PAHA would qualify me for one of the earmarked historian seats if I applied to HRB; the incumbents reapplied, I know that much and when I called the Clerks office yesterday Kim Lunt said the deadline approaching was “one minute” away, meaning closing, 5:30 yesterday to my 5:29.
I am doubtful that any of the other 12 (or 9) council candidates would double-down on commission/board apps, yet so far they are generally way ahead of me on picking up tricks. (Like the ballot statements on NEW Measure D, about council composition).
I did RSVP for a meeting at the Maybell group (that endorsed a pseudo-slate of 3) but not sure how to do that AND Parks and Rec unless I want to just do the oral communication. I guess I should keep my word, face the music.
I have a backlog of photos from earlier in the cue to post, when the Peet’s wireless seemed to get squirrelly.
Meanwhile, I just and about 10 minutes of our current host, J.P. Coupal and want to interview him for Plastic Alto. If nothing else (!), being on the ballot makes me that muck more avid a blog-poster.
And I can circle back to block out the hoops reference above.
(And this is a very David Shieldsian riff, methinks).
I also owe Mike Cobb something about Cub, Le Levy something about song and several others. (I made a list of calls to make).
Beth Custer, one of my collaborators in music, wants to do a jingle for the campaign; that would rock. Not sure if I have the budget or can I somehow steer clear of it being a campaign expense? I told her that when Scott Rafshoon and I (plus my dad, Paul Edward Weiss) toured the Carter Library in Atlanta, in 1992 (in town for World Series, Braves-Blue Jays, we thought the world -series — was coming to an end), he could not help but sing the Carter for President jingles, because he was 10 at the time they were new — 1976 — and his dad, Gerald Rafshoon wrote them; he has a signed picture of Carter, actually it is a young Scott with a jew-fro sitting on Jimmy’s lap, in oval office – and it says SCOTT, THANK YOUR DAD FOR GETTING ME ELECTED PRESIDENT. YOUR PAL, JIMMY CARTER.
It would be neat to pick Gerald Rafshoon’s brain on any of this, although in truth I’ve only met him a handful of times. Scott, Ellen, Jerry and Eden and I or maybe no Eden (Mark Donohoe’s widow) saw “Russian Tea House” by John LeCarre the movie on New Year’s Day in 1993, a carry over from being in Raleigh area for Rich Durante Brooke Baker nuptials; we also eat, the Rafshoons and I, at Mrs Simpsons, the thing about the English crown and their monkey business. Mr. Rafshoon treated. I owe him.
Running for public office is an interesting excuse to ring (by phone) or ring (doorbells). Which reminds: I need to update my endorsements. Maybe T the potential intern can work on that, confirming previous commitments. Or offering yard signs. You read that right, you spies. It is funny how the backers of the 3 never also have a sign for any of the incumbents.
It is weird but totally off topic that when I start to write “han” for Hans they suggest “Eric Hanson” and “Matt Nathanson.” interesting dinner conversation, that would be.
Does library have “Christ”: A Pattern”?? Is it in print? How well did I read it?
So that’s another 1,000 words, probably up to 3,000 for the day, maybe…wait for it…5.
-30- (and it’s 5:30 exactly, and now I’m channeling the weird artist guy Ray Johnson and his obsession with numbers, drove him cazzie firshir#
Nathan Oliveira’s Windhoever was named by a visiting artist who was fond of Gerald Manley Hopkins
Ok, I admit. I’m spread a little thin.
Partial remedy, I gave away a book. A new book. Recently procured. Having carried the clip, the review around for a couple years. Harvy Araton’s book about the great Knicks teams, of 1970 and 1973. Willis Reed and all that. Actually Hans got seven or eight Knicks and three Lakers: Bradley, Frazier, DeBusshiere (I prompted him: played baseball), not Monroe, Wilt, not at first Elgin Baylor, Goodrich. Et cetera.
I ran into Hans Delannoy my old coach, at Peet’s near Cub, near his father’s home. I gifted him, because he is recuperating or rehabbing from double knee surgery, the book. I wrote: Thanks for making me a champion.
While he took a call confirming the arrangements of his rehab, I read half a page, about Cazzie Russell, catching up to his teammates not Salt Lake City neutral site game against Phoenix Suns but the next stop, and Cazzie arrives very upset because back in Michigan, where he starred for Ann Arbor, the Wolverines, the police pulled him over and cuffed him and put a gun to his head; mistaken identify, even Cazzie Russell. The book says he took it out on May, one of five white teammates.
Kent Lockhart, our teammate (leader; no, the team) was drafted by the Knicks, in 1985, but broke his arm and played in Australia for 20 seasons and coaching, at various levels until just this year retired (he also taught middle school art, at Murdoch school, or a Murdoch School, the rupert type). Kent was coached in the CBA the U.S. minor league, and incidentally the NBA had fewer jobs and fewer teams in his era (although more rounds of draft) by the same Cazzie Russell, and the other year down there (distinct from Down Under) by Phil Jackson. For his part, Kent coached, albeit briefly, Andrew Bogut.
I am actually on my way home to “do” (make, fold, form, delegate) laundry, but stopped for a quick salad and to potentially say hello to a new potential friend, Director of Operations and Student Union Jeannette Smith-Laws (I kept wanting to say Anna Deveare Smith) who, like Russell, is from Michigan and more specifically like potential next governor, Mark Schauer, from Battle Creek. Jessica the assistant kindly gave me a card to facilitate a moreb-business like and less-kismet like meet.
I met Ms. Smith-Laws at Windhover, Stanford’s Nathan Oliveira contemplative facility. A bird flew over him the rest is his story. To rest to sleep to dream. Like a phoenix.
I’m actually stalking Michael McFaul. Beth Custer and I want to gift him a copy of “My Grandmother” a Georgian film, to which she wrote a current score, on DVD. (BLUF bottom line up front, McFaul the former ambassador to Russia and son of a music teacher, maybe like Beth a clarinet player, should hire Beth and Band to do live version of their “My Grandfather” — who knows what insight into Putin and them this 1930s formerly banned film might offer, dish out, like Cazzie floating thru the morass.
I was carrying three books (fished from my trunk, the portable library) to potentially — I have used that word three times, and am shying away from coining a nicked version “pot_”–give away, her choice one of these:
1. Girl With Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier (as opposed to Phil Chenier, the former Cal star and Bullet or Bull)
2. Marx For Beginners, by Rius, from 1976, from Vince Derillo’s yard sale;
3. A Beautiful Mind, by Sylvia Nasar, about John Nash, although I do want to someday suss out Nash w. PJC, which I bought at a yard sale yesterday on Byron. Ali of Byron is a budding film make her.
Like I said, thin too spread.
p.s. Hans was wearing the same Robert Indiana-esque hoops love shirt I shot him in a few months back. L BALL V E.
I have photos of Ali and Jeannette (and I) to post. Check back. Hand check. I thought we fronted Paul Fortier and they lobbed over, for those 16 second half-points, but Hans says it had more to do with the penetration off dribble by Jeff Thiltgen, who further his education, hoops wise and otherwise, thanks to we the people and UC, don’t you?
check out Ali and Corwin’s sale today RIGHT NOW and for the next two hours at Byron and N.California, near Jordan (David Starr Michael of the Tar Heels and Bulls); I was gonna say something about this being a still from “Palo Alto” with Nat Wolfe and Sophia Coppola
Two hundred fifty patters by “Christ” to 618 shields of reality by “King” David.
Ten titles, or volumes, pulled somewhat hastily from my shelves, and then stacked neatly on a table at Peet’s about three hours and two posts ago:
1. Hiroshi Sugimoto & Jonathan Safran Foer, “Joe” about Richard Serra and Ando, in this case;
2. Art in America, June/July 2014 for article about architecture at Venice Bianalle,
3. Off The Wall!: A Guide to Greg Brown’s Murals in Palo Alto;
4 Trisha Brown, So That the Audience Does Not Know Whether I Have Stopped Dancing — if and only if it has the photo of her site specific piece of people waving flags from rooftops;
5. Scott Meacham, Dartmouth College: The Campus Guide;
6. Almanac Chapple-Mazinani-Thomas which I think is about recent grad students at Stanford, and something in a tower, ala Ann Hamilton tower at the art colony up in Petaluma I toured a whiles back; which reminds me to look for content I created or documented when John Barton had some cute young French exchange students talk in a compelling way about 27 University; and further about John Barton, who said, at the time, I could ring him>
7. Al’ America, by Jon Curiel, the former Chron writer and friend of a friend thru the dear Charlotte Gerstein (Dartmouth 1986, from West Hartford, CT, whose father made a film about the fact that Mark Twain deliberately made his house there face that of Harriet Beecher Stowe, to annoy here) the connect being that Barton and Carrassco here build a lovely mosque;
8. From Bauhaus to Our House by Tom Wolfe;
9. Fodor’s New York City from 1983 back in the good old days (and very avid Plastic Alto readers or close personal friends my recall that I spent February, 2001 that is in the final seven months of Western Civilization in New York, or Brooklyn for you sticklers and bums;
and lastly a 10. Frank Lloyd Wright Field Guide Clayton, Running Press Cyclopedia, this fits in my pocket although I shlepped all ten, plus David Shields Realty Hunger and a Linda Ronstadt cd in a canvas bag from SXSW 2009;
I regrettably sold off my Christopher “Christ” Alexander, “A Pattern Language” which I bought in 1988 because Rob Bagot had it, Rob a future Howard Gossage winner, compared to Dan Mountain the 1988 Howard Gossage winner, Dan and HISWIFE, who Terry and I saw in July, Clay Kershaw was on the mound and the tv, in Venice Beach, an Abbot Kinney kind of thing, you know.
This is my way of announcing that beyond or technically before in some ways running Mark Weiss me that is for Palo Alto City Council — and again, since we are on topic, exactly 26 years after conceiving of an actualizing and presenting the 1988 Goose Gossage Award for copywriting-reading to Jeff Goodby– I am also concurrently little poMo and yes “pomp” (my computer is now ghost-writing this part, on auto-Pilot the pen) that I am applying for the appointable position or seat for Architecture Review Board. Not being an actual architect – although Matt H. Porteus and I, in Clay Leo’s 1978 HisGoBAM/APB History and Geography of the Bay Area Metropolis slash American Political Behavior did once design a lovely little piece of fiction, and fishin’ for that matter, Port Weissius, somewhere between Escondido and San Diego or in another dimension, an architect. But I have a good eye for music.
More to comb.
(Do I get bonus points, in some universe, parallel or on a different plane, for bridging, like the grandfather of a nice lady from Michigan in Old Palo Alto, Claytons Kershaw and Leo?)
edita, ten minutes later: I also shot on my Moto Android a group of 11 photos of works on paper (and in one case tin) of architectural themed art works, that I hope color, shapes, supports and bulwarks (if that is a verb) this application, or essay, or exercise, from a private collection; a private collection of a person who, in my humble opinion, badly needs to get to a wash and fold service, perhaps run by an amiable if Reubanesque, Korean woman. Will add later. Yeah, sure. We’ve heard it all before. Check: Reuban.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 