Life of Wry

RIP Pete Seeger

May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014

Listening right now to a live stream of a Pete Seeger tribute and memorial concert going on at Berkeley’s Freight and Salvage.

The concert’s organized and emceed by Holly Near and features a whole bunch of musicians and groups who are taking the stage one at a time to do one song each… a steady stream of them. Very sweet.  I was eating dinner for the first hour and missed Ronnie Gilbert (and who knows how many others); hopefully she’ll come back.  Right now Holly’s called back a stage-full of banjo pickers and they’re singing, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” which is very moving.

And now.. “We Shall Overcome,”  whew!  Amazing.

And it looks like they’re finishing with “Goodnight Irene” with Ronnie Gilbert.. and the whole bunch.  Holly said Wavy Gravy was just off stage blowing bubbles.

And encored/ended with “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Goodnight, Pete, goodnight.

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Oh man, no. Not him. I loved that guy.

I was so struck by the news this morning of PSH’s death, and am so, so sorry he’s gone.

I didn’t really know him. Obviously. It’s not like I know anything about him, just what I’ve seen on the screen and read. But, there was something about him.. something about his face, his size, his unkemptness, that made me really like him. He seemed willing to be all in. Willing to be exposed. I may not really know him, but to me he was: Balls out. Smart. Vulnerable. Messy. Willing.

Acting, of course. I liked the way he nailed his characters. People called him a courageous actor. In real life, he seemed generous and gentle. Even in rage, there was a decency. Even in his intense weakness, there was a resolve.

But it looks like that resolve fell short.

He seemed brutally human, not in-your-face human, demanding you to take notice, but unapologetic. Not like people who make a living out of their neuroses, or whose personas are built around their vulnerabilities and insecurities and it’s all about them. He was just human, and flawed.  I felt like he was honest in his struggles, knew his demons, tried to shore himself up against them, especially the one.

But ultimately didn’t.

It just feels like.. damn. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t fight it enough, couldn’t fight them back..demon addictions. He couldn’t be lucid and present enough in that moment to say No, I’m not going to do that, there are people who love me. Maybe he didn’t love himself enough. Maybe he didn’t love his life enough. The good wasn’t good enough and heroin beat him.

He succumbed, he knew he might, he feared he might, or feared he would. He knew he might not be there for his kids.

Feel so bad for the people who must have loved him, especially his mom and kids, who were so trumped by his addictions.

He put himself out there, he was an insightful, nuanced, yes, courageous actor. He was intelligent, even brilliant, maybe even genius. He knew how to reach the darkness of his characters and express it fully.

I thought he was brave in his humanity, brave in his acting.

But he wasn’t brave enough.

It takes a special kind of courage to stay present enough to know the enemy, to recognize it when it comes bidding, to fight it off because there is a greater, sweeter purpose. Maybe the sweetness is a child, maybe the greater purpose is your own damn self. Maybe you’re worth fighting for. Maybe life is.

If there’s sweetness, why isn’t that enough? Holding your child. The feeling of warm sun on your face. The smell of pine in dry mountain air. The sound of a banjo. Slow dancing in the arms of someone you love. Whatever it is, what makes a person forget those things? Because, you know, it’s all there is, this is all we get, this one walk on the planet at this one moment in time.

Whatever makes a person forget those things, i’m so sorry.

People with addictions, I have a question: Is it not a choice? At any given moment, with clarity, can a person say no, if only in that moment, no, I’m not going to do that? And isn’t the challenge to just keep making that choice? Are they not the most courageous among us–those who manage to keep the demons at bay by saying, in that moment, no?

I just don’t know what a person who is addicted does if he wants to live.

I’m sorry because I really liked him.

It’s just achingly sad.

RIP PSH.

You start by layering filo dough into a buttered pan, alternating buttered layers with non-buttered layers. Every now and then, you add a layer of this–a mixture of chopped pecans and cinnamon. Did I say butter? Yep, lots.

After all the filo’s been layered and the nut mixture’s been used up–hopefully those two things happen somewhat simultaneously–you slice through the whole thing with a series of diagonal cuts.

That goes into a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes (I actually went 35 minutes, using convection).

While that’s baking, you heat up some honey, sugar, vanilla, water and butter.  More butter?  Uh huh.

It comes out of the oven looking like this:

Then you pour about half of the hot honey mixture over the top and let it soak in. Then more honey stuff until it feels sufficiently honey-soaked.  Then it sits and cools for a few hours and gets really sticky.  GORG, isn’t it?

Then you take it to that middle-eastern-themed dinner party you’re going to.

T’was a two-bridge view, as my buddy Elliot said, though in this picture, you can’t see the Bay Bridge.  With an iPhone, you can barely pick out the Golden Gate Bridge, but believe me, it was a stunning, two-bridge view.  This one is taken from somewhere above the Berkeley Rose Garden, along, as I recall, one of those Berkeley-esque, staired walkways, wedged between two rows of multi-storied, multi-balconied houses precariously perched on some steep, wooded hillside. Those Berkeley builders. What they do with space!  So many homes to add to the Wow, I Can’t Believe Where Some People Live! series.  Many to add to the People Are so Clever and Creative! collection, too. 

From this spot, it was very cool to look down on the Berkeley Marina, Berkeley pier and the Albany Hill. The whole big blue beautiful Bay, of course, was rather eye popping, as well. 

I am sorry, Iowa.

I swear, it’s not our fault. We are asking for winter, begging for weather, cheering when the clouds turn dark and unload a few drops, we really are. But this is what we’re getting instead.

Know what the hell those are?  Blossoms.

Yeah, clouds, too. We haven’t seen those for a while either.  But January, and the trees are already budding out. Crazy. Thanks Obama.

Both the sunsets and sunrises have been pretty… essences of clouds in wintry skies.  We’re dealing with some poor air quality, as well, which adds to dusk drama.

This is a shot of the sky i took while Peter was fetching a Subway sandwich after baseball practice. I decided to use this photo when my very cool shot of the Eighth Street water tower at sunset did not actually take.  Ah well.  This’ll work.

A couple days ago, a friend whom I’ve known for over fifty years said on my Facebook wall, “Happy birthday! If I were closer, I’d bring you meatloaf!”  I thought, huh, I had a favorite meal back then? AND my friends knew what it was?  AND they remember fifty years later?

Funnier still, when Jim asked me last week what I wanted for my birthday dinner, that is precisely what I told him. Meatloaf.

Got to share a very lovely birthday weekend in this charming place near South Lake Tahoe..

…with these fine folks:

Back row: hosts Marc and Carrie, and happy guests Darlene, Jim. Front row: the super sweet Bodie. The kid contingent will show up in a later photo.

Not only was it my birthday, but we were also going to be celebrating Marc’s and Reed’s. Yay!

So, on Friday night, we all met at the Shaw/Hoshovsky’s (minus Darlene and Jacob, who would join us the next day) and headed to In ‘n Out for dinner before hitting the road. Got to the cabin, unpacked, settled in, had some wine. The boys sat in the hot tub in 19 degree air under a starry sky, not that they noticed. I think everyone got to bed around midnight.

Saturday morning started something like this:

Then they took off to go sledding.

After breakfast, I decided to take a walk, if short, along the Truckee River… just out the back door and down the hill. Went looking for teen sledders–thought I’d take some action shots–but their sledding adventure, unbeknownst to me, had been aborted due to icy snow and not much of it.

Instead, I found them hanging out by the river, doing whatever guys do when they’re hanging out by the river. My presence was unappreciated, thus, the short walk!

Given the lack of snow, we decided the main event of the day would be a hike. Poor California, but lucky us. Marc suggested we head up to Echo Summit, which was a thrill for Jim, Peter and me because we spend so much time there each summer, but have never seen it in winter.

We found a reasonable place along the Echo Summit road to leave our cars, and walked down the rest of the unplowed road to the Chalet. The sight of the frozen, boatless marina under a bright, sunny sky was weird, but kind of exciting.

We hiked north on the Pacific Crest Trail, along the edge of Lower Echo Lake. The trail was largely free of snow and ice, and except for the frozen lake, everything looked very normal.

Here are Reed, Jack and Peter, looking serious…but only for a moment.

Here’s a lighter moment:

Marc and Jim had decided they would take the boys up Flagpole Peak (8363′).  Flagpole is on the ridge high above, with Echo Lakes to the west and Lake Tahoe to the east. There are incredible views up there of both lakes, plus Fallen Leaf, the Angora Lakes and the Desolation Wilderness just to the north. And more lakes, mountains, and everything else. It’s a great place for a ridge!

It was going to be a fairly doable, if challenging, off-trail hill climb with a stretch of class III scrambling near the top, and potentially some exposure. From the lake (7414′) to the top of Flagpole would be about a 950′ climb in a very short distance. The boys were all up for it. After about 3/4 mile, everyone pulled off the PCT and Marc asked the boys to visually pick out a route. After some discussion, and gentle guidance from Marc, they agreed on a plan and took off.

Here are Marc and Jim pulling up the rear.

Carrie, Bodie and I opted for a mellower hike along the lake. Carrie was dealing with an injury and needed to go back, so I decided I’d really like to hike up to the upper lake to see what it looked like in the winter and especially to see what the Ricker cabin looks like surrounded by snow. So I did that.  It became my birthday present to me, a bit of winter, Sierra solitude, a fast hike–all of which felt so, so good–and some amazing views. I just could not have been happier. Here’s a shot of Lower Echo from one of our traditional photo op spots:

Got lucky with good cloud action, too. This also is frozen Lower Echo.

Made it to the Ricker cabin. Here’s the deck we sleep on, on warm summer nights, and that’s the very frozen Upper Echo Lake on the other side of the cabin:

Here’s a better shot of frozen Upper Echo. That strip of land is the island a couple hundred yards from the Ricker dock, more or less equi-distant from the opposite shore, though the zoom distorts that fact:

On the way back, I got a great view of Flagpole. It’s the peak along the lake, just to the left of center in the photo, just to the right of that tree in the foreground.

When I zoomed way in, I could make out the flagpole, Jim (orange hat) and the boys at the top! That was great fun.

Here’s the photo Jim took of the boys at the top:

That’s Frank, Reed, Daniel, Jack, Peter and Jordon. (Jacob was skiing with the Davis High School ski team all day, so missed this hike; he and Darlene joined us for dinner that night and stayed for the rest of the weekend.)

I rejoined Carrie after a couple hours, then she and I drove down to Meyers to shop for dinner.  Dinner was underway when Darlene, Jacob and eight hungry hikers showed up.

We had a great lasagne dinner with the best garlic bread ever (made with rosemary chibata, try it).  Here are Carrie and Darlene.

Carrie had ordered (Freeport Bakery) and brought a most amazing chocolate cake with salted caramel frosting (best cut with a hot, dry knife). Awesome.

T’was a fantastic day.

Sunday, after a great french toast breakfast…

…we dropped the boys off at the South Lake Tahoe Recreation Center so they could ice skate–with helmets, no less (grumble, grumble):

And we five and Bodie headed over to the Taylor Creek, Baldwin Beach area to explore.

It was so pretty, warm, and largely snowless.. except on the forested walk back to the car…

At about 3:30, we picked up the boys, went back to the cabin, ate like crazy people, cleaned up, packed and headed down the mountain.  A GREAT WEEKEND!  Thanks Marc, Carrie and Reed for your hospitality.

The full set of weekend photos is here!  Captions to come soon.

Good ol’ winter.. made a good effort earlier in December … a week or two of sub-freezing days and nights to get all excited about … but, at this point, after weeks of 60s and 70s, I’m thinking we may as well just bag it. 

Our flowering quince is usually an early bloomer, usually in the first week in February, but I can’t remember a time it was this early. Before my birthday, for goodness sakes.