Burlington, Vermont

We had barely arrived in the North-East Kingdom, or Perry would haul us off to visit an old friend, Big Al, in Burlington. Burlington is in the Guinness league, twice, for being the largest city of Vermont (more than 10k inhabs), and for being the cloudiest city of the continental US. It borders on the Lake Champlain (pictured), which is widely held responsible for the microclimate.

I had never seen the sun in Burlington before, but it did shine upon our arrival for dinner with Big Al and Helen, his lovely wife, whom we had last seen in December of 1988, when we had been invited to her perfect Christmas Dinner. Nothing had changed, of course.

Al is an emeritus of the University of Vermont, and we could not resist the invitation to his alma mater.

The University is home to the Dudley H. Davis Center, where the university's coop is located (T-shirts, Maple syrup), and where the Value Hall enshrines the values of the university. Respect, Openness, Integrity, Innovation, Responsibility. "Why not Justice," a Senior Vice President of Academic Communication must have asked during interminable Power Point Presentations. Was she fired? No, justice was duly added to the value spectrum,  and is missing only from the picture because our Samsung travel camera does not do wide angles.

We however, are in a spiky mode. Why Justice, we ask Big Alk, even though we know the answer already. Stay tuned.

Hilton Head

We had been invited by Lesley and Cory---not for the first time, we should add, they had invited us to a place in the Alpilles in the Provence region in 2005 (after a week that they had rented out house), and to their condo in Chicago in 2007. This time, it's Hilton Head, South Carolina. Another condo of theirs.


We have barely arrived or are hauled off to a dinner at a delicious restaurant (pictured above, under Live Oak trees covered with Spanish moss).

Cory	Lesley

Hilton Head has a rich history. It was a major outpost of the Union Army in the Civil War, and became a settlement area after the war for emancipated African Americans, the Gullahs, who developed their own language, still spoken locally.




Its main attraction is the beach, possibly the best beach I've ever seen, warm, luscious, breezy, sexy, with long stretches for solitary encounters, and wild life to match. The finest sand in the world.

Columbia, South Carolina

Located on Congaree River's fall line from the Appalachian Mountains (fall line: the spot where rivers become unnavigable for vessels sailing upstream, and simultaneously the spot farthest downstream where falling water can usefully power a mill), Columbia serves as the long-suffering capital of South Carolina. As we are following the Two Point Rd. from our hotel in the direction of downtown, we expect traffic to intensify. Instead, traffic calms down to a mere trickle. On a Saturday, the business district is completely quiet. Situated at its heart, the Convention Center provides interesting views over the Congaree Valley.

(The place appears to have had a historic downtown which was destroyed 1865 in a fire at the end of the Civil War, etc. wiki. etc. wiki.)

Hyatt Harborside Boston

We arrive at the Hyatt Harborside next to Boston's Logan airport at 3:30 in the morning (our time). With a valet parking price tag of US$ 36,00, this must be a good hotel. We are tired and plan on a quiet room service evening, but Chang reads the fine print of the room-side menu: "All Room Service orders are subject to State and Local taxes, a Delivery Charge of $3.00, a service charge of 15% and an administration fee of 3%. Only the service charge is given to service personnel."

View of downtown Boston from the Hyatt

Why is the "Delivery Charge" in large caps but the "service charge" in small caps? We are getting suspicious of the Room Service, and descend to the Hyatt Harbor-Side Grill, where the outside patio with a view of downtown Boston across the harbor is closed because of smog ("Air Quality Alert"). Only minor confusion arises as we enter the grill --- stop, we do not enter the grill where we would burn on freshly ground charcoal, we enter the Grill --- enter the Grill at the wrong entrance, and only one waiter is irritated.

Chang reads the menu backwards but cannot find a dish below $36.00. I read the winelist backwards and cannot find a bottle of wine below $36.00. Thirty-Six Dollars is the lower bound of the financial algebra of this hotel. They must have hired a marketing psychologist from HBS across the Charles River to figure this out. "Why not $40.00," a pugnacious junior executive must have asked pointlessly during interminable Power Point Presentations. Was she fired?

Chang declares his lack of hunger. I declare a certain lack of alcoholism, and settle for one glass of Mondavi Chardonnay, an utterly pointless white wine served in an utterly smallish carafe.

Jihad

"Voltaire is a village in Switzerland," the Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander once helpfully explained to his fiancéeeee, the lovely Maxima, and to the amusement of the Dutch chattering classes.

The proud burghers of Ferney-Voltaire, a lovely town on the border between France and Switzerland---located right above the CERN quantum ring where brilliant scientists (that we know personally) will soon create vicious Black Holes---the proud burghers of Ferney-Voltaire, not amused by the Dutch bien-pensants thinking, and furthermore used to name changes anyhow, re-christianed their town "Willem-Voltaire" on the spot.

More recently, Willem proclaimed helpfully to his lovely wife: "Allah is great" (Educational Content: unlike other members of their family, Willem and Maxima are happily married now). The proud burghers of Willem-Voltaire took the hint, and opened a new minaret on the central square of their lovely town, this in defiance of a national referendum against such architecture.

Jacky, the African Prince, de Lempicka, steet fighting, and the washed-up scriptwriter

Jacky, the other famous film producer, left the hill and returned to Hollywood, but on the way back she dropped by at Buckingham palace, where the African Prince (remember?) suggested a look at our blog---this was after he suggested to Jacky to change into a checkered kilt, which she gracefully declined.

De Lempicka on our blog, however, meant immediate inspiration.



The picture on this wall is possibly real (as real Jacky is herself---she also owns a large farm and raises sheep in Devonshire), and the more I look at it, the more I think that the Monaco de Lempickas were possibly not.

We hear from Jacky via email, and tell her about the desperate fate of the washed-up scriptwriter. No problem, she is producing action movies herself now (trailer below); she'll have a look at his work.

A sample script is posted at the page Feature script: "Justice" at the top.

Washed-up scriptwriter (reposted)

While we were strolling on the Croisette in Cannes the other day, a man approached us right in front of Hotel Martinez, a huge stack of manuscripts in his hands.

"Allow me to introduce myself", he said. "I am a washed-up scriptwriter, and I have been following your blog for quite some time. I am writing political satires framed as action comedies---think Lethal Weapon meets Dr. Strangelove---but I cannot find an agent, let alone a studio that would produce my work. I am at the end of the rope, I cannot carry on. I need your help."  

The washed-up scripwriter, after he handed his stack to us

Then he handed me his stack of manuscripts and continued:
"Here is my work; do what you need to do to get it into the Krug-lights."
"Get it into the Kruglights"---I was weighing his words---"perhaps you would have more success if you were to use better metaphors."
"It's too late now." he replied. "Promise you'll do what's necessary."  With those words he turned around (pictured), ran up to the jetty of the Martinez hotel (pictured), and jumped into the water (not pictured).

"Cool", I thought. Well, there we are. I sort of promised, and a blogger has to do what a blogger has to do. Here is an excerpt from his first script, titled "Promises and Consequences". Judge yourself (I refrained from any editorial input; agents, directors, whoever is out there, take note):

LustralBoy

We had met him the day before at dinner with Cliona, our neighbor, and Yael, a friend of Cliona. We are all invited over for drinks at his place and will have dinner later at l'Air du Temps, which is halfway between his house and the mansion of Pierre Cardin on the water.

Clockwise: Michael, Pierre Cardin's place, Michael's place, outside, with Yael and Chang

Michael ran a few advertising agencies and is now in charge of his own brand-positioning shop, London, Sydney, the works. The pacific rim is indispensable. The living room is pictured below, including Cliona.

mezzanine	candelabra in the kitchen

The place was a bergière. The shepherd would sleep on the mezzanine, and the sheep would sleep below. The fire place is new. The house is not as old as you think. It was built in 1942.

Michael is asked about brand positioning. It's about trends, preferences, worldwide, he replies. His left brain works and his right brain works, that's important. He gets a lot of vibes from Facebook and other internet sites. Trends, preferences, people are young.

His lovers are young, too. While we are taking in the view of Cannes, he relates the story of Yomin, this guy whom he met on the internet, 17.99 years old. The next day they would meet physically,  and Yomin's birthday wish would come true, and his virginity would be gone.



Michael knows about straight life, too. At university, he had been president of the historic society, the student's newspaper, and the nightclub. You meet people. He bedded at least 15 straight men, utterly straight men. I ask whether I can relate this on FF. Sure. Should I use a pseudonym for him. Why? 

Together with his present boyfriend, he runs an internet site, Lustralboy; have a look.

À propos internet: while dating on the internet, one of Michael's friends, a raving queen, finds his own picture used by another guy.

Mickey-Minnie-Pluto-Huey-Louie-Dewey-Donald-Goofy-Sacramento (Jacki)

She had been told the password had to be at least 8 characters long and include at least one capital.

Back from the races

The 7ème grand prix historique of Monaco is still on, while I am introduced to Alastair, the master of the black holes. Yes, he is a computer scientist at CERN, where the new quantum ring (located conveniently under the town of Willem-Voltaire that erected a minaret recently in the honor of Prince Willem’s sexlife)...where the new quantum ring was built to make newer and better particles.

Alastair	black hole

The problem is, some of these buggers might coalesce to form black holes---BLACK HOLES---ultra-dense objects that exert a merciless gravitational grip on their environment and could, once created, swallow up the planet in a nick of time. Alastair keeps his cool. "Don’t worry," he shouts across the sound barrier of the vintage cars below, "cosmic rays would long since have created similar black holes,"---the implication being that the holes would long since have swallowed the planet. That’s a comforting thought, and I tell everybody.

Ann-Carole in the middle	Rasender reporter

The glasses are filled again, and we dance to the sound of the vintage decibels to celebrate our new friends, the counterfactual cosmic rays.

Terry and Josie, another neighbor

De Lempicka in Monaco

We are still watching the 7ème grand prix historique of Monaco. (Click here for the first part of the story). The champagne flows, more up here than down below on the decks of the superyachts. Is this a good or a bad sign?

I suddenly realize (it must be the alcohol) that two suspiciously small paintings of Tamara de Lempicka, the art deco painter, adorn the room. I try to get the message across, but nobody is interested. Tamara had a run of auction records with paintings selling above US$ 7 million recently, much to the dismay of M&’s favorite art critic, Souren Melikian, who never fails to mention “Edelkitsch” in her presence. The paintings here on the wall should be worth millions, I tell the other guests. Still, nobody is interested. One, out of sheer politeness, mentions that one should never insure in France, what with those leaks at the assurances.

Are these de Lempickas real? One is signed, one is not. Closeup, they look suspiciously flat, as if printed. But they do raise interesting questions, like, “where is the kitchen,” and “is this the right or the left bosom?”

The 7ème grand prix historique race continues with a parade of vintage models, while an alien spaceship lands effortlessly on the shining Mediterranean outside, and then transmogrifies into the super cruiser, The World, the home of homeless billionaires.

No, I stand corrrected. It's not The World, it's just some minor cruiser of the Holland America Line, a hopeless outfit for the toiling masses.

Stay tuned. The story continues here.

Off to the races

Lavender not in our garden

Dirk informs us by email that our lavender picture represents the lavandula stoechas, which blossoms March - June. Sadly, he continues, it is often mistaken for the common lavender of the Mediterranean area, ie. the lavandula officinalis and the lavandula angustifolia, which blossom June - August.

lavandula stoechas	lavandula officinalis

lavandula angustifolia	The bard

While I am putting Dirk's helpful comments into this blogpost, Chang is looking over my shoulder. "you've got the wrong lavender," he says. "We could have had the official lavender. But we didn't. They f@#ed us again." (He means Rubinio, the local pépinieriste where we buy the wrong plants). "Ask our money back," he continues, "call them, they sold us frass." That's what he always says, but he has a point. The lavandula stoechas not only isthe wrong plant, it also sounds the wrong plant. Compare that with lavandula officinalis, which looks terrible, but surely enlivens the popal, I mean, papal gardens, and blossoms from June through August, while Benedictus naps in the sun and enjoys sweet lavender dreams. Didn't the bard already sing in his famous sonnets "Here's flowers for you: Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram." "Yes, he did," Chang intersperses, looking over my shoulder again, "but not in his sonnets, it's from A Winter's Tale."

I disagree, of course, so we have to google (in the past, you had marital disputes, but now you have googles; not you, not yet?...we provide marital google advice at competitive rates).

Google, Shakespeare, google, Shakespeare & lavender, google. And there it is. Chang is right. A Winter's Tale. But that's not all. The thing that jumps off the page is the lavendula spica. What is this? Shakespeare's lavender is not the angustifolia, not the officinalis, not the stoechas. Yet another lavender, the lavendula spica. What now?

Stay tuned.