huge in holland

The film that Chantal and I did with Nora is apparently screening in the Netherlands!

liveable cities

What strikes me about European cities in general, in comparison with American cities, is that they seem more liveable. Family-run businesses still survive. And not just corner convenience stores where you can pick up a 40 oz. There are boulangeries, fromageries, chocolatiers, boucheries, charcuteries, pharmacies, libraries, and the list goes on. The cities seem safe. It's not complicated to get around on public transportation. There are public parks for playing and picnicking and congregating and simply lingering. And even in remote country towns, there are historical points of interest, or small museums or charming restaurants, and usually even a public house or watering hole where people can gather and socialize instead of spending another night alone in front of the boob tube. It seems like in many parts of Europe, country folk are country folk, and city folk are city folk, and families choose to stay in cities or country towns and live there because the lifestyle suits them. Whereas, the trend among my friends is that once you have children, you have to move to the suburbs, because the schools in the city are bad, or the neighborhood is sketchy, or it's too expensive, or too inconvenient to get around with a stroller (unless you live in Noe Valley).

My dad forwarded me an article he read in the International Herald Tribune's Monocle magazine called Urban Manifesto: Factors that make a city great. Of their list of the 20 most liveable cities, Honolulu is the only American city that made the cut. Most cities on the list are European, with Melbourne, Syndey, Auckland, Vancouver (yay!), Montreal,
Singapore, Tokyo and Kyoto representing the rest of the globe. The writers' criteria for judging included a city with a thoughtfully designed airport (I love the Madrid and Brussels airports), low murder and crime rates (this basically disqualified most U.S. cities), pleasant temps and sunshine, and the ease of getting a drink after 1 am. Also, access to health care and education were factors, as well as good public transport, local media, access to nature or parks, and finally environmental initiatives.

San Francisco is a great place to live, but admittedly taxis are frightfully expensive and the Muni leaves much to be desired. Plus, compared with Europe, SF has a long way to go before becoming notably bike-friendly. And we can all agree that the local media sucks (even LA beats SF in this regard). Maybe it's because European countries signed the Kyoto Protocol and so they are already decades ahead in making cities more sustainable, or maybe it's because European cities already have gone through major transformations as a result of disease and overcrowding during the Industrial period or as a result of the devastation wrought by wars and the subsequent Reconstruction. Or maybe, as my pal Lilia put it, Europe is just better.

day of silence

KCRW is airing special programming today about the Internet Radio Equality Act, which has bipartisan support in Congress. If the Act is not passed and other efforts don't succeed, then webcasters will have to pay royalties for each song they air (which would limit the wide range of songs we hear, and could put some of the smaller webcasters out of business). The programming describes the effects that the new rates will have on their ability to stream and to serve audiences online.

and God said, let there be light

art event tonight

I might go to this tonight. I saw this artist (Felix Macnee) at the Hunter's Point Open Studios and was really impressed.

Matt Gonzalez, Felix Macnee, Paul Spencer
An artists' talk
Flood polygon
Friday, June 22nd at 8pm join the artists for a discussion of their work: the inspiration for the theme of the show, Flood, their working methods, challenges, and ideas for future pieces.
Party to follow ...

follow the day

Yesterday was summer solstice, the longest day of the year, and I spent the majority of it on a plane. Strangely enough, I mostly enjoyed the experience because on my flight home we were going backwards in time, and so I witnessed what appeared to me as the most expansive sunset in my life. It lasted about three and a half hours and covered the territory from Dallas, Texas to San Francisco, California. I saw the sun set over Monument Valley, where the plateaus cast immense shadows about 5 or 6 times their size. I saw the sun set over part of the Grand Canyon, where the magic hour further reddened the color of the packed soil and the light glistened on the waterways that snaked through the earth. I saw the sun set over the Sierra Nevada mountain range, where snow still capped the peaks. I saw the sun set over Half Dome in Yosemite Valley, where I tried to make out possible rock climbers (didn't see any), and also Yosemite Falls, which fell into the shadows at that hour. I saw the sun set over I-5, and counted my blessings that I don't have to live in LA anymore. And finally I saw the sun set over the San Francisco Bay, with a reflection of light from the plane onto the water below and onto the funky colors of the salt fields in San Jose. I wondered, after all of my travels of the last month, having my first impression of certain European cities from the air, what it would be like for someone to fly over San Francisco for the first time. What would their first impressions be? I would only hope that they are as much in awe of my ville natale as I am, even after all these years of living here. Each time I return, I am glad to call San Francisco my home.

By the time I retrieved my luggage and waited curbside for the Airporter to take me home, night had fallen, and the long day, and this long journey, was over.

films i want to see (updated)

Sicko, Michael Moore's new film about the health care system
L'avocat de la terreur, French doc that apparently blew Cannes away
La Vie en Rose, biopic about Edith Piaf
Lady Chatterley, new French adaptation of the D.H. Lawrence novel
A Mighty Heart, new Winterbottom film about the killing of journalist Daniel Pearl (starring Angelina Jolie!)

And how could I forget:
RATATOUILLE

que vive la Suta!

These are my last moments here in Spain, as I'm about to leave my hotel for the Madrid airport, bound for Florida and then tomorrow California. Last night, Suxata la Xara and I joined my dad for a gastronomic feast at a restaurant called Balzac near the Prado. The most notable dish was my appetizer, a white almond soup with tuna ceviche. Muy muy rico! My dad heads home tomorrow, however, Señorita la Xara has decided to stay in Spain for a year, and I applaud her decision. Though I am sad she is not moving to SF (yet), I wish her mucha suerte in her European adventures, and at the very least I can count on her to keep the bamboula flame alive!

high school reunion

When I first arrived in Belgium in the winter of 1987, it felt like God had simply spun the globe with his eyes closed and pointed his finger at a random location. I recall reassuring myself that six months among the cows and geese and sheep wouldn't be all that bad, let alone the climate, which in January and February alternated between days of snow or rain or both. And so it was that I lived in Grand Rechain, Province de Liège, spending 6 months with the Michels, my host family. I knew nothing of Belgium, only that I was there to live with a family and learn French for a semester. What I gained over the course of 6 months was far greater than an education in the French language.

Perhaps it was pure luck that I ended up in this remote funky little country village that no one outside of Belgium has ever heard of, and then grew to know a group of friends here intimately, some of whom are nothing like me, some of whom rarely leave this community. But every time I return, it’s always unique, and my visit reminds me of the limitless value of true friendship.

When I arrived on Friday, Annette and José and Annick had organized a giant dinner party. They had the table set for seventeen people. The table looked like a typical dinner you might see on a family farm in a Dutch painting. I accompanied my friend Bartho, the only one who escaped the country and lives in Brussels, on the stoop while she smoked, shooting the shit, and one by one, familiar faces trickled in. Some faces had changed considerably, others not at all. We drank Jupiler and Leffe Brune and it felt like the good ole days when I lived here in the 80’s, like nothing had really changed. A kid from the village who must have been really bored decided to perform pop-wheelies for us on his motorcycle. I took pictures of him as he passed by a half dozen times. He finally pulled over and asked to see how the photo came out. Maybe that’s what I like best about going back to Belgium. It’s like no other experience I would voluntarily seek out.

We were called à table for our pasta dinner. I sat in between Vincent, the ultimate dragueur, and my high school sweetheart Boris, now married with two sons. The food (as well prepared as it was) seemed to be something to do in between the bottles of wine we guzzled down, and apparently we finished off twelve bottles, in addition to Lord knows how many beers.

About midnight, Vincent proposed the idea of continuing the party at the local discothèque. We rallied the party crew (about six of us) and tried to motivate the group out the door. Vincent and Bartho drunkenly exchanged a piece of gum in the doorway, so we ditched the lovebirds, and I took off with Hervé, Boris and his wife Teresita. We arrived at the smoky club, and immediately hit the dance floor. After about a half an hour, the cuckold Vincent showed up sans Bartho, free once again to hit on any girl he pleased. Bamboula ensued.

You know how a song can remind you of an old sweetheart, and the moment you hear it, you’re taken back to that moment in time, and the way he or she made you feel? “Boys Don’t Cry” by The Cure will forever make me think of Boris (please say his name with a French accent, it sounds so much sweeter). So as soon as we heard the first riff, it seemed like fate that I was here twenty years later, at this random club privé in the countryside, hearing that song again with the person who made it heavy with nostalgia for me. Boris grabbed me by one shoulder and Hervé by the other, Vincent and Teresita somewhere in the mix, and we danced like crazy huddled together in a close circle, drunkenly loosing our balance as if we were in a mosh pit, falling onto the other people out on the floor, all of us singing the lyrics at the top of our lungs, transported back in time, to that moment when we were sixteen, when we became friends, or when we became lovers, in this very small place in the world at a very special moment in time.

Later on, I stepped away from the dance floor and watched my friends, now twenty years later, dancing and jumping and singing and hugging each other, and I thought how unique it is that I even know these people from this remote and unknown place, and that they know me, and that twenty years from now, we will remember this crazy night together and laugh.

We took off about 3 am and went to Liège in search of frites, but instead found pitas. Teresita was passed out cold in the car, while Boris, Hervé and I ate our pita sandwiches in quiet exhaustion in the plaza in front of the police station, with daylight making its grand entrance in the sky. By the time Boris dropped me off at the Michels it was after 4 am, so I quietly tiptoed upstairs so as not to wake my host mom and dad, and went to sleep to the sound of birds chirping.

one big thing

My friend Laura went to see Michael Wood, the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden, speak about his plan called One Big Thing, whose goal is to introduce Swedish companies involved in developing green technology to venture capitalists in the U.S. She says that, even though he is good pals with Bush, he spoke very intelligently and she was quite impressed.

nuits blanches

For those of you for whom the French language is not an integral part of your being, the term nuit blanche literally means white night, but figuratively the expression refers to a night without sleep, usually because you were out on the town partaking in debaucherous activity (a.k.a. bamboula), coming home in the wee hours of the morning when the sun is already rising. In Stockholm, the term took on new meaning.

By the time I arrived in Stockholm, it was about 10:30 pm and the sun was only just starting to settle into the horizon. My pal Laura met me at Stockholm Central, where I got off the Arlanda Express, an express train advertised as the fastest and most environmentally friendly way (leave it to the Swedes) to get to and from the Stockholm airport. The hour was already late for Laura since she hasn't been getting much sleep lately, the brand new mother that she is. Nils is her cherubic blonde 2 month old boy, who, like most newborns, wakes up hungry every couple hours. So when she and her boyfriend Gustav hit the sack, I took advantage of their wifi connection to catch up on e-mails and updates, and when I finally turned out the lights at around 1 am, the sky was a pale blue, just like at twilight, definitely not what we inhabitants of the 37th parallel are used to at that hour. The days I spent in Sweden, it never ceased to amaze me that the sun never really sets during the summer months, especially so close to midsummer. Nightfall is merely a suggestion. So I placed a pair of blinders over my eyes in order to avoid the sunrise, which arrived with a persistent vengeance at 3 am.

The next day, Laura, Nils and I set off on an adventure to the archipelago. Stretching 80 kilometers east of Stockholm, the archipelago is made up of 24,000 islands. Some islands are merely rocks, but big enough to fit a cabin, so many Stockholm residents head out there on weekends to enjoy the long days of summer (and warm weather). As we strolled Nils along towards the docks, I noticed that there appears to be an epidemic rampant in Stockholm called pregnancy. It felt like one in every 5 women were either pregnant or pushing strollers. There were even cafés in which every table was occupied with a woman with stroller. I imagine that because the conditions for parenthood are so favorable in Sweden, there's no reason not to have a baby. Laura and Gustav get a combined 15 months of maternity/paternity leave. And then of course, there's socialized health care and education, and Stockholm is a very safe and clean city, with lots of parks and bike lanes and places to stroll or picnic. It makes sense, but I was hesitant to drink the water!

We hopped on a ferry boat destined for an island called Moja and settled in for a three hour boat ride. It felt as if we were on a journey to the ends of the earth, where the land breaks apart into water, and civilization is scarce. It seemed like the bits of rock and land would eventually dissolve into the sea and that we would soon arrive at the very edge. When we finally docked, the song Once in a Lifetime by the Talking Heads came to mind: "You may find yourself in another part of the world... And you may ask yourself, how did I get here?" You have a feeling of going back into a very idyllic time and place, where blonde children frolic freely among wildflowers and trees, where birds chirp and farmers plow the land. All around us were little houses painted red with white trim weathered by the strong winds of the North Sea. I imagined that at any moment a gnome would stroll down the path and show us to our room. It was off season, so there were hardly any people on the island, with the exception (surprise surprise) of a couple mothers with their babies who were staying at our inn, which was above the bakery. Therefore we were treated to some delicious freshly baked pastries and hot cross buns.

There were no curtains on the windows in our room, so when we went to sleep that night (if you can call it night), I kept waking up to photograph the light in the sky at different intervals. It seemed surreal to me that at 3 am the sunshine streamed through the windows as if we were merely taking an afternoon siesta.

bato-bamboula, pt. 2