It seems like I don’t do much but blog these days. Mixed blessing: plenty to say, few readers. Do I need feedback for affirmation?
Talked to Terry. Our plan for day is San Jose Museum, which is open 11 to 5 on Sundays. I want to see the David Levinthal exhibit. I want to see the Willie Mays bit. But it also, according to website, has something about Holocaust. And as a Jew I am required to think about the Holocaust for an hour or more every couple months. Meanwhile, Terry had wanted to see a movie called “Ida”, and not just because she has a sister-in-law with that name. It references something “jewish” I hear tell. So I thought, in advance, and advance enough to tip my cultural plan, which is like the Cubs pitcher telling his coach that Will Clark had hit a curveball last time up so was going with fastballs, such that, Will, being a lip reader knew what was coming, and hit a gamer, such that now every single pitcher conference in MLB has men talking thru their mitts, why not look at the David Levinthal Holocaust stuff with an eye towards seeing “Ida” and then see, more to the point, “Ida” contextualized thru having just gone to the museum — the baseball stuff will melt away, like the line about sculpture being you take a block and cut away what is not your work. “Ida” is here in Palo Alto, at Palo Alto Square –where we saw “Chef” — but we will see it at famous Camera on South Second, and eat something (not too ambitious) in between.
My brain kinda flashed to having seen a new piece of sculpture down at the East extreme of Palo Alto University Avenue, past House of Bagels and Tamarine (the most Easterly culture haunts on my map), a large bronze of a life-size or super-sized or at least super-sturdy looking athlete, a runner, or maybe a sprinter. The man is hunched forward like he is in a sprint. He has a logo for the leading sports shoe manufacturer on his shoes. He also has the name of the business/tenant on a name-tag (in bronze) on his shorts and shirt. The sponsor of the work — somewhere between public art, sculpture, a statue and a monument — is a chiropractor or a sports chiropractor. And his name fittingly is Vanderhoof. (Hoof being a reference to “feet”, in my mind, maybe he is a podiatrist, as well, like my Gunn contemporary Amol Saxena). I was thinking of chatting up the guy about doubling down on monument but adding some kind of value like could the statue, the next statue, that he and I could co-produce, with some fellow travelers and art-sports-scene hoofers, be of someone or something more specific. Think John Carlos and Smith as seen by Rigo, at San Jose State. Think Major Taylor in Worcester. Think Heisman Trophy winners at not-much-else-going on large public schools in midwest and south. (Chris Wuelpher?) Think weird tribute to electronics pioneer, eugenicist and pseudo-inspiration to Silicon Valley mavericks in Cali Avenue Area — could this runner be the same artist – fabricator? I am also still looking for an outlet for my Harry Hillman or my Hillman-Robertson jones. I will edita with pic of runner. And hopefully some informed (shaped) comments on Levinthall and or “Ida”. Dr. Aaron Vanderhoof at 616 University.
I think 24 Mays has been floating around my desktop for a while I will try to drag him here
edit to add: We did make it to San Jose Museum of Art, to see David Levinthal exhibit plus recent acquisitions (Kara Maria, Stephanie Sujuco, Stanford’s Xiaoze Xie) and Landau on loan, but we kinda rushed thru for whatever reasons. If I don’t get back there, my Nov. 30, I would like to spend some time with Levinthal’s books, there are about six, and especially a recent book on Iraq and Afghanistan wars, called I.E.D., available from Powerhouse books, for $29.95. He has a version of Mein Kampf based on seeing and procuring a toy set from WWII characters that he says he saw in Austria — someone in Austria was selling an Adolph Hitler action figure or toy, and this is the Jewish American artists reaction to it. Some of his works are collaborations with Gary Trudeau, of Doonsbury fame. I don’t quite have the whole picture but I have a better idea of it all. They say he was an influence on Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince. (Did not make it to “IDA” the movie. Maybe I can be too clever by half and change my title from “Ida Levinthal…” to IED Levinthal…also, not sure if I am more or less likely to justify the juxtaposition of the Palo Alto statue of a runner I describe to Levithal’s work — it kinda fits if you can image taking photos of the runner and re-purposing them to make some point about worship of idealized forms of the human body.)
We also have a group photo of four of us posed next to a Ruth Asawa tribute installation: Terry, Mark, Scott and Michael. TK
edit to add, later than month: Terry and I finally saw “Ida” which forced me to watch the U.S. – Portugal World Cup match on tape delay. Sad movie, I will add more later.
Scott Gates, Chelsea Williams, Chuck Hailes (upright bass) of The Salty Suites
Rusty Croft and Kirk or Kurt, who is a SJS MFA circa 1972, and studied with Tony May and Sam Smidt, of Sand Guys International
Terry and I spent a couple hours Saturday down at the Sunset Magazine Celebration Weekend event. She is going back today for a second helping. It helps that we live walking distance away. Actually they comp us in to keep us from making noise complaints. Besides the band, The Salty Suites, and the art installation, Sand Guys, I liked the free pop cycles from Dreyer’s (I think) which featured fruit and veggie essences, or so they said. We also ran into Michael Szabo, the Gunn graduate whose art studio is in Sf, on Yosemite, and will soon install a fountain on Cali Ave here, in addition to his coil at Mitchell Park. Not to invade his privacy, but it appears he now lives in the same building as the studio run by former Paly footballer Joey Piziali, although the two don’t really know each other.
Here is a video of The Salty Suites doing what I think of as a Los Lobos song, but is actually, or so this magic box tells me, is a 1951 Peppermint Harris song, “I Got Loaded”. Bassist Chuck Hailes takes the lead. On the 15-track live album, from Castoro Cellars, there are nine originals and six covers. Of those nine, writing credit break down thusly:
Chelsea Williams (guitar, v): 3 and 5/6ths or 5;
Scott Gates (mandolin, v): 2 and 5’6ths or 5;
Chuck Hailes (bass, v): 1 and 5/6ths or 4. (that is, Hailes has writing credits on four tracks, either a half credit or a third credit in each case). It seems, from watching half a set, that they trade the lead vocals such that the singer is probably the main composer of the song.
You, if you are super-observant or know The Salty Suites, or you ARE the Salty Suites, that the photo I took is reversed. Hailes was stage right of Williams, is in the video. And I’m just guessing that Andrew the manager (on their site) is Andrew Gates, brother of Scott Gates, who also posts 160 videos on YouTube. Scott Gates owns the website, it seems. They play mainly Southern California although I would think they should try to get gigs at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass or Freight and Salvage or Crepe Place Santa Cruz. Chelsea told me that they went to Folk Alliance regional event.
Kirk Rademaker started Sand Guy then amended to Sand Guys when he took Iowa native Rusty Croft as junior member of the team. That Terry Acebo Davis and Kirk Rademaker shared some faculty members, a decade or more apart, at San Jose State led them to a little pow-wow on the Sunset grounds, although understandably Mr. Rademaker, after four days of building, in some considerable sunshine, only had so much energy left to schmooze. But her graciously posed with both Terry and I in front of the piece, which depicts Michael Jackson at Mandelay Bay Las Vegas, which I hope to add later. They are de-installing the piece Monday although they claim that the sand hardens to near-sandstone and could last months in a protected environment. They said that some muck-a-mucks in Kuwait owe them from a big-time installation there — that’s how it goes for artists, even among the best. And next time the Kuwaitis want American intervention, we will factor Kirk’s plight into the equation.
Terry and I noted the fine ceramics and paintings of Avery Palmer at Community School of Music and Art (CSMA) in Mountain View, the night we caught the Larry Vukovich tribute to Vince Guaraldi produced by Palo Alto Jazz Alliance.
Rob Syrett in passing, perhaps over coffee or a burrito, commented that he appreciates Avery Palmer. Likewise when I met Ivan Brunetti at Stanford the artist said that he and Rob corresponded.
So when I spied his name tag, at Bill Gould’s 20th art show at Artik Art and Architecture near the Fairgrounds in San Jose, watching as I was — maybe I was blocking his view, for a spell — Jimmy Dewrance blues band, I chatted him up.
Like the ghost in Shakespeare, he would be spoken to.
Check out the work in Mountain View while you still can, if you still can. There’s also something in Davis (a ceramics hotbed, thanks to Arneson and Gilhooly et al, and that lady I met at Paule Anglim in SF, although Avery Palmer, like about 50 people in San Jose Thursday, is a product of San Jose State’s underrated art department.
edita: not sure how I got from a 25-year-old sitting watching a blues act to Marcellus of “Hamlet” and the Ghost, but it is thusly:
MARCELLUS
Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio. [There was a folk belief that ghosts couldn’t speak until spoken to.]
BERNARDO
Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio. [mark it = take note of it; pay attention to it.]
HORATIO
Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder. [A harrow is like a rake. Farmers drag it over dirt to score the ground. Horatio is so scared, it’s like rake blades are digging into him.]
BERNARDO
It would be spoke to.
(the thing about the rakes and all that is from a Marcus Geldud from “directing hamlet” quora queer enough that it needs a citation. )
(ReCode says we can lift their art if we give credit. Thinks ReCode)
Duly noted.
edit to add: more to the point, Dan Ouellette and Bruce Lundvall have conspired to create a legacy project for Bruce, available here. “Playing by Ear”.
I got to this in a round-about way, in that I noted a little drawing of Don Was and clicked on it, on ReCode.
courtesy of reCode
In an astounding career spanning 48 years, Bruce Lundvall has been responsible for signing a wide array of artists, including Willie Nelson, Herbie Hancock, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Dianne Reeves, Richard Marx, Natalie Cole, Cassandra Wilson, Anita Baker,and Norah Jones. In the words of Dave Koz, “Without Bruce Lundvall, there would be a huge gap in the history of popular music.”
Author Dan Ouellette will paint the portrait of one of the most notable figures in the record industry through an exciting series of interviews with Bruce himself. The project will feature exclusive interviews with some of the most important artists of the last 40 years. Selected items from Bruce’s archives will also be available for online viewing, a library so extensive and valuable that the Library Of Congress has requested it become a part of their permanent collection after this project is complete.
This project will be unique in that it will be a multi-media endeavor that will present the legendary career of Bruce Lundvall through video, audio, and images in addition to the written word.
Mere surmiser. Which is actually now post 658, or six-hundred-thirty-nine posts later perhaps better.
Terry Acebo Davis and Elizabeth Sullivan, in front of a Tara Donovan masterpiece, at Pace Gallery, Menlo Park, May, 2104
Although the reviewer for ReCode says that the Arrillagas, “the largest landowner in Silicon Valley”, own 300 El Camino, other sources say that it is owned by the University. Some of us still make that distinction, between Stanford (and, by extension, the legacy of Leland Stanford Junior) and Arrillaga (John, Jeff, Randy, Laura, Marc et al). As compared to Tim Draper, who is founding his own university, offering certificates of entrepreneurship or something, a few clicks up the Royal Highway in San Mateo. Draper who is a cousin to Nat Wolfe, who plays the most Teddy Francoesque character in the movie, playing across the street. Three Hundred El Camino was until 2005 Anderson Chevrolet, one of 277 outposts for AutoNation, and before that, what we old timers would know it as, Ely Chevrolet. The Elys, related by marriage at least to the Wilburs, who ran the University for years, circa 1920-1940. The gallery director Elizabeth Sullivan, who is from a very nice part of Long Island (and I’m partly bluffing here) said that the concept of having a popup Pace Gallery in Menlo Park was due to a relationship with “a very important collector”, Nellie Bowles of ReCode (covers the Valley), outed Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen as that person. It says that second generation Gallery owner Marc Glimcher had the insight that since Gagosian did so well enticing Hedge Fund guys (Leon Black types, if not Leon Black himself: how would I know?), Glimcher thought to target the Social Media and PayPal Mafia types; for instance, they successfully in two or three cases used Alexander Calder mobiles and stabiles as hooks to land the big fish, or so it is said, if not in those words. Mazel tov. The image works for me.
It is some kind of oddity that the gallery uses the body shop and mechanics bays, built out with white walls, rather than the showroom per se, even with the Stanford and Arrillaga and or Ely connections. On the other hand it is not that obvious that once the thing is built they are continuing to sell art for 60 to 90 days or more or just they are slow cleaning up the elaborate event of April 17 or what not. (Which reminds me to some extent of the recent private function fundraiser at City Hall Palo Alto that masqueraded for whatever perverse effect as a free public event regarding Martin Luther King: the One Percent are getting cleverer and cleverer at flaunting their advantages over we wee 99.9s. Not that we mind pressing our noses to their windows from time to time. Thanks for sharing).
Decorating the weathered chyochin, (Japanese lantern), hanging at the edge of the lanai, (porch), is the kanji for “harmony” (another rejected working title for this, “XIX. Mere surmise slurs: now twenty percent more surmisier” which is a review of an art show and a movie, plus memoir, plus query)
Which I guess means even more of a surmise than the previous time I thought those thoughts, which was about 3 years ago, slightly more. There’s a footnote (or what I used to call “self-commenting” ) about Rob Syrett coming with me to the post office the day a Laurel Nakadate poster arrived. I thought about taking some kind of revenge of Laurel by claiming, in Plastic Alto, that she had a cameo in the James Franco film, as the history teacher, the one who receives a term paper co-written by Val Kilmer as a meddling step-father, with references to “Alexander the Dubious” (which is actually a part for Janet Song). The joke would be that Laurel Nakadate would fancy herself frolicking with the soccer nymphs not as one of the “grums” (although Amy Sedaris gamely plays along, as the librarian; Laurel Nakadate probably hates being mentioned in same graph as Amy Sedaris).
I am meaning to pump out 150 to 1,500 kinder words about Tara Donovan, who has about $2,000,000 worth of work in Menlo Park, in a former auto dealership body shop. Tara Donovan who turned a very large box of drinking straws into a miraculous wall hanging slash sculpture (pictured above); If I had about $50 million in assets under management I would definitely invest $850,000,000 I mean $850,000 in a Tara Donovan, who after all is a MacFound genius.
Vasna Wilson, Drew Altizer Photography Paul Allen, Lucy Page, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, Marc Glimcher molly glimcher wrote a book about oldenburg, elizabeth says. marc’s mother.
I met a Spanish lady named Paz (for “peace” not “piece” which you can almost get away with in an art gallery) who said that she is also a freelance conservator or preparator at Stanford’s museum, before breaking off our exchange somewhat definitively, as is appropriate for what her day rate must be. She, the gallery director and at least one of the two guards were moving handfuls of toothpicks from a pedestal to various boxes and containers, not unlike the famous “erased DeKoonig” that PACE actually showed a few years back but is in the SF Moma thanks to Mrs. Wattis (who most prefer to Ms. Wilsey, of the rival DeYoung, and the fact that anyone would confuse Wattis with Wilsey is like confusing Nakadate with the adults in “Palo Alto”).
I wanted to lead and even headline with:
Golly, Flip or his Ghost Author Wrote, what a Year of Random Bad Luck, 1965 which is an art reference if you think of motorcycles carving lines into the salt flats of Nevada, near Reno. All that is a Rachel Kushner reference. Rachel Kushner who I rank near Tara Donovan, probably ahead of Laurel Nakadate (of whom, don’t get me wrong, I am a fan, if afeared), slightly ahead of Paz from Spain (but who knows?), and Elizabeth Sullivan (the gallery director) — in my pantheon of Female Super Heroes. (The Flame Throwers, 2013, p. 23).
My problem with Laurel Nakadate is that if I ever met her or contacted her via email, like a fan letter or a query from a potential collector or patron or whatnot is that she, I fear, would immediately file me with her “marks”, the middle-age and out-of-her-league men on whom she prays. And to be clear, I am pretending to believe that Laurel Nakadate is Janet Song, from “Palo Alto” not to be further confused by Janet Fung, a character, like our “mere surmise sir” meresurmisers, Helen Hong, of Coen fame, not a Coppolater. And it took me a while to fathom that our poor Gia is the daughter of Gio Coppola, who died in a boating accident while she was in utero, which maybe explains a lot of this.
Janet Fung I mean Helen Hong
Janet Song
Reminds me that when Charlotte Gerstein and I heard Tom Robbins read or lecture, circa 1990 at Herbst Theatre in SF, a woman in the audience asked him how he could write so skillfully from a woman’s perspective (think Sissy Hankshaw, for one). Robbins who has a book out this week, a memoir, with a tiny bit about David Smith, I think, maybe Robert Smithson. I would love to read his art writings, if someone would compile them.
Reminds that I asked Tony May what he was doing in 1961 when Claes Oldenburg had his happenings in East Village. He said that he was a freshman in college, at Wisconsin, and didn’t start making or doing happenings until about 1965. (NB, Claes Oldenburg, Tony May and Yours Truly Mark Weiss share a birthday, January 28 — but I wasn’t happening at all, until 1964). Tony May Terry and I saw at Bill Gould’s art party. Bill Gould who is on a plane to Poland to install a piece of public art but not plop art called Maki which means “poppy” or so he thinks.
detail of a tony may
James Franco and Gia Coppola vehicle not to be confused with “Palo Alto” the movie by Bradley Leong (Paly ’04) and Tony Vallone or their website.
The person I link to, or gallery, in Lyons, Colorado, that sells “the cove” also sells work by Enrique Chagoya (who I note in yesterday’s Stanford Daily, that I read today, or the day after I posted the first version of this, is also curating a student show at Stanford), his wife Kara Maria (a piece called, fittingly “Hawaiian Punch” for $750), Luis Jiminez (of his famous blue mustang, I had seen or coveted before, which is $2,800). I have two copies of a Diego Romero print, not the Landfall one — maybe when my art budget really runs dry I could try to trade one for something like, note to self. John Yau wrote thusly about LN: You explore a more unstable terrain, always intent on making “a narrow escape,” the only option you see for yourself. Meanwhile, the middle aged, potbellied man is condemned to pirouette, again and again. It is his one true moment of beauty and tenderness recorded for posterity—you have given him his “narrow escape” and he knows it, as he does what he is told. LN, not at Pace here or in New York, except perhaps in spirit, according to Plastic Alto, and she is actually about 12 years younger than moi. And I only would stand being called “pot-shaped” if the speaker were Jody Naranjo or Autumn Borts-Medlock, although it is also true that I was recently taunted for my physique by a shapely and bikinied French new mom, I admit. Speaking of Kara Maria, I also noticed recently that she, Stephanie Syjuco and Stanford’s Xiaoze Xie were among the recent acquisitions on display at San Jose Museum. Stephanie Syjuco’s piece, about the anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge, is an installation piece that in some ways reminds me of Donovan.
I was also jonesing to ring Holualoa to ask Miho Morinoue about her edition of 20 lithograph that took her a year to draw, that features her cousin (we also met, this is in February, 2013) diving into a pond, and a lantern on the porch with kanji that say “harmony” — now that deserves it’s own post or domain, don’t it? And maybe $1,800. The cheapest thing in the PACE Menlo Park is not Jeff Koons (my bad guess — I chug) but Nara NameToKome 奈良美智(whose work we saw in Palm Springs and told Elizabeth so
Miho Morinouye of Holualoa Hawaii the big island above Kona, who is second or third generation artist, but also a dancer, and teaches or sets example at Donkey Mil center where Terry Acebo Davis dropped in to work, February, 2013
My friend the filmmaker/pathologist Dr. Brian Moore sent me, apropos of nothing, a quote attributed to Kojiro Tomita, a famous curator of Asian Arts at Boston’s MFA:
“It has been said that art is a tryst, for in the joy of it maker and beholder meet.” ~Kojiro Tomita
I wrote him back this terse not terribly clever slur:
I came I saw I concur
Meaning I agree with Mr. Tomita’s statement (which was new to me; HE was new to me) and I thought referencing the idea of going to a museum and seeing (or trysting, as the case may be); and referencing the famous “I came I saw I conquered”.
It reminded me, perhaps perversely, of the bit in Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man” in which Gopnick accuses his student of cheating and the student replies “Mere surmise sir.” (its funny, at…
The Beautiful Game is 1) nickname for soccer, especially Brazilian soccer, 2) coined by Pele and served as title for his autobiography and 3) above, forming a hat trick of memes or tropes, the opening number of a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber taking place in Belfast about soccer loving people with other things on their mind, but the title is taken indeed from 1 and 2.
Beautiful game indeed (4)
also known as “The Boys in the Photograph”, by Ben Elton (I almost read as Elton John)
There’s a big buzz in certain parts of South Barron Park, a part of Palo Alto, a part of South Palo Alto that I have, in previous posts likened to the Vieux Carre (a poetic and sometimes metaphorically useful part of New Orleans, if New Orleans is to beignets and funky piano what Palo Alto is to billion dollar apps), for a new potential-billion-dollar-exit-strategy app, called World Cup Buzz. World Cup Buzz, which you can find on that Google Play Store, was previously known, pre-launch, as HeadCount and Pow-Wow-Wow, before it morphed into something that would be fun (and propitious) for the thousands of soccer fans attending next month’s (next weeks’, starting in 17 days) soccer championship finals in that South American nation, famous for “the beautiful game”. Is World Cup Buzz “the beautiful app”? How will we know? How soon will we now? Or, how far from being “the beautiful app” (which basically means, one that can be quickly developed, launched, buzz-worthy, a mass appeal, you know for kids, bundled, shopped, and sold to the highest bidder, a bonus baby, a billion-dollar-bouncing baby, with or without its rubber baby bumper or App-ri-ca stroller, like a wheel-barrow on the way to the the bank, laughing, or whistling ey-away-away-away, ole, ole) is “World Cup Buzz”? World Cup Buzz started as something that, for example, would tell you how long the line is at Izzy’s Bagel. If you were hungry for a bagel, and lived 10 minutes from Izzy’s — let’s say it’s 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning — and planned on playing soccer at noon in San Jose –let’s say you played on an 0ver 35 men’s team, like as a sweeper or stopper, you are good on defense, you have speed and instinct and a team spirit, you are a soccer dad and entrepreneur with a track record for high tech — it seems like all your days are either
That’s kinda weird that I confused “…eats his shoe” with “Burden of Dreams” even in a soccer-themed post
coding, playing soccer, or driving one of your two boys to their matches — you use Waze — Waze, in a way, is precedent for World Cup Buzz, as is, truthfully, and you are lying if you claim that for your baby, your app, it is not, as is WatsApp (the nineteen-X-billion dollar app) — and you happen to play on a team with a anomalistic preponderance of Azerbaijanis, whether or not you caught the result of the friendly at Candlestick, whether or not you, being only 30 minutes by bike from their training ground for 10 days, caught any of the U.S. team’s training at nearby World Class University and Wealth Incubator (Named for or Created For Sadly Too Soonly Departed Son of Wealth — were Leland and Jane the first Soccer Parents? — where was I? — oh, yeah, Sunday morning, tasting bagel and watching my time. With this app, World Cup Buzz, formerly known as HeadCount or Pow-wow-Wow! you can tell how many other users — WCBuzzers?? — are there, at Izzy’s, and re-calculate, if needs be, how to use your valuable time. Time is money, right? Buzz gives you the power to beat crowds or join them – anytime and anywhere, with ease. The app, once a sufficient number, a critical mass, of users are also playing along, Brazillian-style, quick passing, no long balls necessary, are also using it, will tell you whether it is a long wait or a short wait, relative to the week before or what you might expect, pre-World Cup Buzz (I hesitate to call it BWCB like B.C. — too soon to shorted the new meme to a shorter meme — meme v. trope — and I wonder, if this is the right place, how many gigs did Stipes and Mills perform as Rapid Eye Movement before fore-shortening or circumcisioning to REM, or is it R.E.M.? ) You can also post comments about the site, for the benefit of the other users of the app. The comments are anonymous and stay visible for two hours.
Buzz blends location data with anonymous messaging to help you find the action or avoid long waits.
So, because the founders of the potentially-billion dollar app (or next-billion-dollar-app) are soccer lovers, and because the Gods conspired to synchronize the development with the 20th World Cup, he pivoted (which is jargon, but also conjures, to me, Beckenbauer in 1974, or even Andrew Jacobson in Pac 10 final at Berkeley in 2004, Jacobson the FC Dallas footballer from, coinkydinky or not, this same part of South Barron Park Palo Alto) and okay this is admittedly kind of like British style, kicking long, he moved an set of domains from places to eat within 10 minute drives and 10-20 minute weights near South Barron Park, to South America Following the international sensation of questionable musical value that was the vuvuzela – the multi-coloured, two-foot long plastic horn that became such a hit with football fans at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa that they were subsequently banned – the caxirola has been unveiled as the aural stimulant of choice at next year’s tournament in Brazil.This time the instrument, which has been created in a collaboration between the Brazilian musician Carlinhos Brown and the country’s ministry of sports, has been carefully designed to sound considerably less grating.Unlike the vuvuzela, which has historical cultural significance in South Africa, the caxirola has been designed especially for use in stadiums.A yellow and green percussion instrument, it makes a rattling sound when shaken, not dissimilar to the South American “rainstick”. (That’s from New Zealand Herald website, which somehow pops up via the search engines when you type in “world cup buzz” BEFORE this app; years from now we will be laughing about it and say “you know, there was a time when the New Zealand Herald article on caxirola versus zuzuvela would pop up before…” this). Another way to think about it is that World Cup Buzz, the app, seeks to be as popular as vuvuzela, it seeks to make noise, in a sense, like a buzz, but not be annoying. Maybe it wants to be like caxirola, assuming caxirola, actually pans out, becomes a phenomenon, there is money in it, and is not just hype. Too soon to tell for caxirola. Although we are counting on World Cup Buzz. Caxirola, relative to vuvuzela has the potential to be World Cup Buzz of in-stadium -analog- noise -making-devices, or ISANMDs. And not to confuse the tech-savvy, sports fan but: wonder if Smule has a caxirola–simulator, a digital-caxirola? (It’s a bell). World Cup Buzz has domains set up for each of the 12 stadiums that comprise the World Cup. Coincidentally, or not, I have fond memory of U.S. -Brazil at Stanford Stadium in 1994, with my Mom and Dad. I think we walked from Cali Ave. The stadiums are:
and Estadio do Maracana, in Rio Di Janeiro which hosts the final match, July 13, and was also where in 1950, prior to a recent facelift, and before there was World Cup Buzz, the App, Brazil beat Uruguay in an exciting final.
miraculously lifted from getty images and telegraph.uk
And this is probably a wee bit out of bound, even by Plastic Alto standards, which, after all, is a music blog, but I recently caught a tribute to Vince Guaraldi (“Linus and Lucy”) in which the musician explained that the famous Brazilian jazz guitarist Bola Sete was named for billiards (the auto-speller, especially here in Silicon Valley, and S0uth Barron Park South Palo Alto, wants to change “billiards” to “billions” and who could blame her?); in Brazil, and I believe this, the black ball is a 7, not an 8; i.e. an “eight ball” is a “seven ball”; the jazz guitarist was black. I should at least link in (but not, never, Linked In — I have a wordpress blog but otherwise do not engage in social media, and rarely refer to brands by name) if not embed a piece by him. I’m also flashing, because that’s how I roll, my synapses, to a Cape Verdean singer I met, friend of Larry Dunlap, who loves soccer and when I first attempted small-talk with him — and this was before the definitive book on small talk by Rob Baedeker and Chris Colin — I guessed “soccer” naturally — Cape Verde is a small island off of Africa that, like Brazil, is a former Portuguese colony — he pointed out that Eusebio once out-played Pele. I will come back later with his actual name and maybe a little blurb about the cite: although it was a European Club match perhaps not World Cup. I have watched parts of every World Cup since 1990, or avidly since 1990 when I lived in North Beach, San Francisco and would choose my pub based on the game; this was before World Cup Buzz, of course. This time I would have to say I am as excited by the launch of this App, World Cup Buzz as I am for the tournament itself. And I am not being paid to say this, although as a matter of disclosure it is true, to say the least, that I am often invited to join the founder at his home, for example, for well-grilled high-end meat products, like sausages or hot dogs and yes, the occasional choice cut of grilled meat. footie (I was waiting to say that, inside or instep joke): * when I wrote Manaus I made a mental note and am now letting loose of the fingers — which would draw a yellow card in soccer but is okay, so far, in the blogosphere, although I heard that someday the NSA will be able to tell if we are typing with our fingers or typing with our toes and may restrict use of fingers, some people will be forced for arbitrary reasons to only type with their toes — to mention, in a Plastic Alto joint coverage of tech and soccer summits — WORLD CUP BUZZ, the app — WORLD CUP BUZZ, The app — this is a good time to remember Les Blank, traveling to not Brazil but Peru with Werner Herzog, as documented in “Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe” and “Fitzcaraldo”; surely getting from a dozen users all related by blood or marriage to a couple million users, the next thousand or so related by soccer is easier than building a replica of a ship and hiring actual Indians to haul it across the isthmus? (if you can both grant me poetic license and in your mind at least picture as a form of substitution, which is limited to two per match for FIFA but virtually unlimited in the internet, to speak of Peru as if they were Brazil: don’t get me wrong, World Cup Buzz works in Peru as well). If you are a “Plastic Alto” subscriber / follower and are reading an early edition of this post with only about 1,633 words you can listen for about five minutes to Bola Sete and Vince Guaraldi here, while you wait for me to add the links to the other 9 stadiums. But also check back for other colorful links, not necessarily designed to create interest in World Cup Buzz, The App: World Cup Buzz, The App is as of this writing for android only although rumor has it that a highly placed member of the federation is secretly working on an IOS version. The term “android” incidentally is licensed for all of our use by George Lucas; he makes some money every time we say “android” even in Plastic Alto, although, did I mention I am not being paid to do all this? Tikkun Olam could also be seen as imaging the Buckminster Fuller soccer ball in a world with apparently a lack of glue, or thread and needle and we or people like me — I know I ‘m not alone — are trying to put the ball together, so that kids can play, and not fight over the lack of a ball. That’s my only motivation. (The Buckminster soccer ball is probably the most iconic soccer ball design throughout history. Originally created by Richard Buckminster Fuller, the Buckminster soccer ball design consisted of a series of 20 hexagonal and 12 pentagonal surfaces sewn together to make a nearly perfect sphere. Alternation of black and white panels helped players discern any movement in the balls trajectory. from this). By the way, Pele, and this occurred to me watching the Bola Sete video, is a contraction of his previous nickname “Perola Negra” (Black Pearl); his real name is Eduardo Something. Another thing, World Cup Buzz, The App is not “ambush marketing” or an unauthorized use of a trademark or someone else’s intellectual property — I’m not speaking for the owners or creators of the software, like I said above I just happen to root for them and am a longtime Silicon Valley insider and retired advertising executive and English major who follows these things. I think their tack is that they are commenting on the tournament so it’s fair use, they are not claiming to be the “(Valueable Trademark) of Apps” or something. If anything, developing a billion-dollar piece of software that enables soccer fans and makes the world a better place for soccer fans only enhances the value of FIFA’s World Cup, which features $1.4 billion in corporate sponsorship in 2014 event. And even better, after this FREE software enhances the spectator experience for thousands of FIFA customers, it will help soccer dads and weekend warriors time their visit to Izzy’s Bagels, or House of Bagels, or decide Izzy’s versus House of Bagels and all that. It’s a win-win-win-win-win to an infinite progression, perhaps also helping find the Riemann Primes on the zeta landscape. There’s absolutely no downside to World Cup Buzz The App reaching its goal of 19 billion users. What’s good for World Cup Buzz The Ap is good for you, dear reader. And another thing, game or not, a billion dollar, I mean, ahem, nineteen billion dollar idea or not, one thing that if you are of a certain age, like you can identify “Max McGee” and maybe know that “Richard Kimball” is “The Fugitive” it is simple enough fun and a challenge to, even if we don’t get thru, try to memorize the names and locations of all 12 Brazilian arenas and stadiums, and for bonus points where they are roughly on the map, relative to Cristo Redentor, and see if you can still do that in five years. Whether or not you, in 2019, have saved those 12 sights and domains on your World Cup Buzz. edit to add: I’m picturing an edit to add, an illustration, of a soccer jersey with the name SoLoMo on the back, as the player’s name. Also, something about the fact that World Cup Buzz, The app users can also comment on the various “kits” (uniforms) worn by the respective teams, while at the games or they (and we) can cheat and check it out here on the internet, thanks to Telegraph. Related: FIFA World Cup’s social media strategy, known as Global Stadium.
The more widely Buzz is used, the better Buzz becomes for everyone.
edit to add, 10:15 the next morning, Saturday or Shabbat:
2.
“Do you live with your daughters?”, I asked Maria; it was a stab in the dark and wishful thinking but sometimes I do have an uncanny knack for pulling facts out of the aether.
“No, I have no children”, Maria said.
Maria is an 81-year-old Mountain View resident, since 1968 and had flagged me down to get directions. She is heading to the Seventh Day Adventist in East Palo Alto. She is a congregant of the Mountain View chapter. I called the number someone had written down for her but there was no answer.
“They have already started,” she explained.
I estimated that she was about five miles from the church. It is on Beech Street, (at least, according to those directions), but I am not sure where that is. (I have lived in the area on and off since 1974, but rarely visit our neighboring community to the east, especially not on Shabbat).
Maria offered the fact (and I believe her, have no reason to doubt) that she was married once, briefly, but broke it off because “he wanted someone to Mommy him, and I wanted to be an independent woman.” I said “I can imagine” or maybe only “I can believe that.”
I apologized in advance but asked her if she would consider going home and trying to find the East Palo Alto church on another day, perhaps with a navigator. I couldn’t think of the word for “navigator” and as I stammered she said “I don’t like GPS.” She had revealed earlier that she had no cell phone either.
I could not think of what else I could do to help her but after she left I doubled back to see if she had pulled over again. In those few minutes I was pondering the fact that I could offer to drive her back to Mountain View and then take the train back to University Avenue.
I said “God bless”, shook her hand, and that I had enjoyed meeting her. Before that we traded what passes for my basic exchange of thoughts about Brazil; I said, referencing the above, that I had been trying to learn the names of the 12 stadiums.
“There’s one in the Amazon,” she offered.
“Manaus” we both said, semi-in-synch.
I thought about making this it’s own post, maybe “God as My Co-Pilot” but opted to addend (or “edita”) the 2,500 words from yesterday.
The U.S. tangles (tangoes?) with Portugal on June 22 in Manaus, in Group G action.
3.
As the technology improves, as more users add more buzz to World Cup Buzz, The App, we may soon get real-time info (comments) about how crowded this or that gate or cage is:
If your intended place, your goal, is too crowded, you may be able, with World Cup Buzz, to reboot and reroute to a location easier to access, per your unique needs
4. If mentions of Les Blank and Werner Herzog are not gratuitous enough, when I say “eats his shoe” above I am thinking of Errol Morris. There is always room for an Errol Morris reference in Plastic Alto; he looms over everything here like Cristo Redentor, a Colossus of oblique reference. When Errol Morris was merely talking about making his first film, “Gates of Heaven”, about the Cupertino pet cemetery soon to be relocating to Napa, and not making it per se — and remember, there were no blogs in those days, which legitimize all this talking about but not actually doing, even Chomsky would agree — Werner Herzog said, within ear shot of Les Blank — maybe they were all at Peets, the original Peets, in North Berkeley, and the “ear shot” was actually a “spit-take” — “if that guy finishes that film I will eat my shoe”. And the rest is history. Anyhow, Steve Cohen, who is a leading character in Plastic Alto and actually exists, or a factual version of the fictional character – He’s like the Dr. Gonzo of Plastic Alto — Steve Cohen told me yesterday via cellphones (and not Cohome, as I used to have it programmed) that he saw an enhanced re-issue of “A Brief History Of Time” with bonus material in which Errol Morris claims that rather than shooting on location they shot in a studio that featured reproductions of the various mundane settings, homes and offices of all the principal characters, Steve Hawking and his friends and family. Which I guess is kinda analogous to the suites and domains we can create via coding half a world away from the actual Estadios Beira-Rios and Das Dunas. I mean, yes, our goal is that in these 7 weeks, by halftime of the final match (I’m guessing Brazil v. Italia), there will be enough World Cup Buzz The App users that we here at wCBTA HQ in Palo Alto, watching on tv, can tell when someone makes a comment — “let’s do the wave” — and actually impact the game, but it will also be fun, even if we are short of 20,000 users in Brazil, for us in Palo Alto to feel we are there, to have created this imaginary-to-virtual presence via the miracle that is this technology. Stay tuned to see if we have iOS on line by then. Time by the way is getting briefer every minute.
Palo Alto’s Architectural Review Board unanimously approved Thursday morning (May 1, 2014) a giant green illuminated sign for the new giant building at the corner of Lytton and Alma.
The building is already controversial because of its size and its use of Planned Community (PC) zoning, a device by which developers push thru overly dense building and what most people (but not so-called leadership) would call up-zoning or changes to the established zoning, in exchange for purported “public benefits”.
So now the tenant, a privately held tech widget with a cutesy name and a ton of juice behind it in financial backers, wants an overly large and who are we to deny that? Which reminds of the joke about the 800 pound gorilla.
I am not sure if the giant green illuminated sign points North, South, East or West. I admit, although I’ve lived here on and off for 40 years, I forget which way, officially is West: I think of Menlo Park and San Francisco as North, but sometimes the maps declare things East that I think of as North.
In the case of 101 Lytton or Lytton Gateway (which is actually on Alma — see what I mean?), my question would be: does the giant illuminated sign face the residents of Palo Alto, in University North Neighborhood (what I would call the North and West sides of the building, compared to the South and East sides, which to my reckoning face office space and the train station)?
And because I am an English major I immediately thought of The Great Gatsby and the green light of west Chop, although I haven’t thought thru why exactly — close enough for the blogosphere and “Plastic Alto”.
My main point is: the giant illuminated signs to be installed at the giant new building face: Wall Street.
That is, despite whatever might have been said at the brief public hearing, by our commissioners, staff and the applicants (the developer and his minions, close to a dozen on this Thursday morning), the signs do not help pedestrians find their way. How many times can someone get lost looking for the corner of Alma and Lytton, and that giant oversized building?
No, the idea is to build up brand name for the privately held company, soon to go IPO.
By the way, a secondary tenant of the building is a “third-wave” coffee company, based in the Bay Area, also playing the IPO game – and who knows how many investors are in both projects. And as someone self-employed, office in home, who spends much of his days surfing our better coffee houses, I am pretty psyched about the new coffee house. (This missive would be twice as sardonic if not for that fact).
I felt the same thing about the giant and non-conforming sign at the Grocery Outlet on Alma: the company is actually pretty savvy and in my opinion is only running a Palo Alto store as a short-term loss-leader but they want that giant signage to market direct to the handful of venture capitalists who may drive by, shuttling their kids to soccer matches up and down the Peninsula.
Kara Swisher recently reported on the convoluted funding mechanism that our green light is apparently crucial to:
SurveyMonkey has raised a massive $800 million in debt and additional equity funding, which it plans to distribute in a tender offer, said sources with knowledge of the situation.
It is one of the largest private capital raises for an Internet company.
The move is being done to allow employees and early investors to cash out of the Palo Alto, Calif., online polling company, since it does not have current plans to go public.
That will presumably occur, though, with this financing valuing the under-the-radar SurveyMonkey at $1.3 billion, sources added.
About $450 million of the total will be from new investments from a number of key investors, including CEO Dave Goldberg and Tiger Global Management.
But one new investor is an interesting one — Google — and not through its Google Ventures arm. Instead, it is via a new investing vehicle that has been created at the search giant that is focusing on late-stage companies — like SurveyMonkey — which have a proven business model.
In fact, the company is profitable and has been funding its operations and expansion from current revenue.
But there was a feeling that early investors — such as Bain Capital and Spectrum Equity, as well as early employees, including its original founder — should be rewarded, since there is not an IPO in the near future.
That said, Spectrum, which bought the company in 2009 and brought the well-regarded Silicon Valley entrepreneur Goldberg in as CEO, will retain a large stake in the recapitalization.
I noticed you once or twice on University Ave in Palo Alto; actually, I saw you once only, driving past, and circled again to catch another glimpse. If I had ever seen you while on foot I would have stopped and watched and then chatted you up. I have met probably 50 street musicians this way.
I have a study of buskers, called “ICOBOPA”. I’ve also spoken at public hearings about the importance of street music.
This person, Gabi Holzwarth of Redwood City, was profiled by Nellie Bowles for ReCode, Nellie Bowles who also wrote about Pace Gallery Popup in Menlo Park (which I am writing about).
I still think the recent Palo Alto ordinance prohibiting amplifiers at Lytton Plaza is unconstitutional and am busking so to speak for a plaintiff to challenge the policy. I actually sent a little note about this to Bob Lefsetz, in response to something he wrote about the One Percent.
I was also recently back and forth with Jerry Hanan about doing some street music here.
Gabi Holzwarth by Asa Mathat for ReCode
Jonah Matranga at Lytton Plaza, Election Day, 2012
T-Rosemond Jolisant at Fete De La Musique Palo Alto, 2012
This is actually me, Mark Weiss, performing as Beat Hotel Rm 32, with Tommy Jordan (who took this), Dave Hydie, that guy with the custom painted congas, and Buttons, Dec. 2011
I met Maya Angelou twice; first, at the Clinton Inauguration, Brian Gaul and I stood among about 10,000 others, several hundred yards from the action, “marked the mastodon” creeping through our eardrums, penetrating our senses after a while.
The second time my then girlfriend and I discovered her at the bar of the Four Seasons in Philadelphia (at 18th and Benjamin Franklin Parkway) and we chatted her up only long enough to express our respect; maybe I said, like I am doing here, I claimed, that I was there “On the Pulse of Morning.”
The man is hunched forward like he is in a sprint. He has a logo for the leading sports shoe manufacturer on his shoes. He also has the name of the business/tenant on a name-tag (in bronze) on his shorts and shirt. The sponsor of the work — somewhere between public art, sculpture, a statue and a monument — is a chiropractor or a sports chiropractor. And his name fittingly is Vanderhoof. (Hoof being a reference to “feet”, in my mind, maybe he is a podiatrist, as well, like my Gunn contemporary Amol Saxena). I was thinking of chatting up the guy about doubling down on monument but adding some kind of value like could the statue, the next statue, that he and I could co-produce, with some fellow travelers and art-sports-scene hoofers, be of someone or something more specific. Think John Carlos and Smith as seen by Rigo, at San Jose State. Think Major Taylor in Worcester. Think Heisman Trophy winners at not-much-else-going on large public schools in midwest and south. (Chris Wuelpher?) Think weird tribute to electronics pioneer, eugenicist and pseudo-inspiration to Silicon Valley mavericks in Cali Avenue Area — could this runner be the same artist – fabricator? I am also still looking for an outlet for my Harry Hillman or my Hillman-Robertson jones. I will edita with pic of runner. And hopefully some informed (shaped) comments on Levinthall and or “Ida”. Dr. Aaron Vanderhoof at 616 University.
He has a version of Mein Kampf based on seeing and procuring a toy set from WWII characters that he says he saw in Austria — someone in Austria was selling an Adolph Hitler action figure or toy, and this is the Jewish American artists reaction to it. Some of his works are collaborations with Gary Trudeau, of Doonsbury fame. I don’t quite have the whole picture but I have a better idea of it all. They say he was an influence on Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince. (Did not make it to “IDA” the movie. Maybe I can be too clever by half and change my title from “Ida Levinthal…” to IED Levinthal…also, not sure if I am more or less likely to justify the juxtaposition of the Palo Alto statue of a runner I describe to Levithal’s work — it kinda fits if you can image taking photos of the runner and re-purposing them to make some point about worship of idealized forms of the human body.)
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 
