Shane, Brukty and Tsehai

Our friend Shane Etzenhouser moved to Ethiopia about four years ago with the idea of starting up a puppet show. He met a gorgeous woman there, Brukty, and they got married. They collaborated on the show, a mixture of sock puppets and computer animation, which is now being televised to great acclaim. It’s Ethiopia’s answer to Sesame Street.

Today there were articles in the SF Chronicle and the Washington Post about them. What they’re doing is pretty amazing because illiteracy is a problem in Ethiopia and this show provides a way for kids to learn their alphabet and other important things without going to school, which many children aren’t able to do.

The show’s theme song is in Amharic and says of Tsehai, the charming childish giraffe who is the star of the show, "She asks a lot of questions because she loves learning."

Most moving was the idea that the show might be shown on the big screen in a Times-Square-esque place in Ethiopia where hundreds of street children live. Who knows if seeing Tsehai could make the difference to one of those kids, beginning to arm them for success in a way that wouldn’t have been possible before.

Shane and Brukty, we are so, so, so, so, so proud of you. You are making the world better.

Creepier than a doctored photo

While continuing research on my witchcraft-accused ancestor, I found some discrepancy in different sources about various birth and death dates of her children. So I googled a bibliography source and found something chilling.

Apparently, the Church of Latter Day Saints has "baptized" my ancestors, at various dates in the early 1900s. I'm sure my Puritan ancestors would be delighted to think they'd be baptized in another faith 200 years after they died.

As if that wasn't wierd enough, it looks like babies that died as newborns were deliberately not baptized in the LDS church, while a child that died at six months was. What's their cutoff, I wonder?

Snuggle me

Someone I knew at Colby used to imitate the hideously-robotic fabric softener bear who would croon, "Snuggle me."
Unrelatedly, another Colby friend posted this video on his blog; I liked it so I'm posting it too. At first I was dubious because it seems a ripoff of that old commercial where the guy goes around hugging everyone, but the variety and surprise of the hugs won me over. It's great!

Wh... where'd that little girl come from???

My friend took me to Mills College, which she attended in the late ‘90s, to show me where some scary stuff had happened. She is convinced the place is haunted.

In one dormitory’s lounge, she showed me where she had discovered a hidden door in the wall – you can see it in this photograph. We pried it open once again. It’s boarded up inside but we surmise there used to be a staircase or other passageway here.

The ghost story for this dormitory is that people have heard a child in the hallway playing with her ball, but when you go and look there isn’t anyone.

I took a bunch of digital photos and didn’t download them immediately. No, I waited until I was sleepless at four a.m. when it suddenly occurred to me, hey, I could see how those photos turned out. I was convinced in the blue glow of my monitor, with no other lights on, that I was going to see spectral images within the photos.

I didn’t.

But that didn’t stop me from figuring out how to Photoshop in a little girl and emailing it off to my friend. Hope it makes her catch her breath!

Ancestral depression

Ah, the residents of Springfield, Massachusetts in the year 1640… how well I know your names!

I spent all day yesterday at the Sutro Library researching the early Parsons family history, part of my project to learn more about my ancestor accused of witchcraft. And my god, it is like skipping stones, to watch the ripples that fold out and out and out. It’s exhausting. Because my ancestor was not the only one accused of witchcraft, and in fact there’s a complex network of neighbors v. neighbors, and trials affecting other trials, and bitterness pervading through the decades until more accusations are raised…

When I left yesterday, I felt like all afternoon I had been in a dim Colonial cottage, subject to the whispers and suspicion myself. It gets into your blood, gives you a distasteful feeling.

The other day I found a website that listed all the inhabitants of Springfield in a particular year… there were only about 40 of them, and yet I recognized their names, some of them, as testifiers in my ancestor’s case. As I continue to research, those names come up again and again until I almost feel I know them.

Oh, yes, here’s Elizur Holyoke, the guy who wrote down all the testimony, and here’s his son born in 1641… well, and six months later Union Moxon is born; Moxon being a surname I recognize as that of the minister’s children who had fits and caused a woman to be accused of witchcraft, which trial in turn caused my ancestor to have fits… it’s all so insular and incestuous.

I pulled out my huge family tree chart (it’s three feet by two feet) and scanned names again. Sure enough, some of the people who testified in my ancestor’s case were also my relatives. What else could you expect in such a small town?

And most chillingly, but I have to better confirm this, it looks like the father of my ancestor’s accuser shows up on my family tree, by way of what would have been a sister of the accuser. How horrible.

The picture above is Mary Bliss Parsons, the woman accused of witchcraft that I'm related to. I found the image at www.downstreet.net/runoverpagecopy.htm.

Litquake 2006

I think I ... uh... spent five hours at Litquake today. Is that possible? Am I that much of a lover of literature (and a complete slug) that I spent that many hours in an auditorium watching writers read their work? That's like the equivalent of watching two movies or even three...

I did get up and perambulate, visited the gyro place across the street and later the coffeeshop since I was getting dozy... but yup, I think I was there all day.

I had to be there at 12:30 to watch my friends Melodie Bowsher and Kemble Scott read (alas, missed Melodie since she read first and I was a little late), then I knew Tamim Ansary was reading at 3. Doesn't that just seem manageable somehow? But the portion Tamim read in was actually 3-4:30 and then we sat around talking a bit. Actually, I just did the math and it's more like four hours. OK, I feel a lot better.

What Tamim read was incredible and made me resolve to buy his book, Story of My Life: An Afghan Girl on the Other Side of the Sky. (Tamim is male: he co-authored this book with Farah Ahmedi).

I read at Litquake yesterday and think it went fine. Litquake only allows you to read for six minutes (with six writers in a given hour, and then intros and etc.) so how much damage can you do? I was honored to be asked.

I love this week-long literary festival and think it's an incredible feat to pull off each year. Congrats to Jack Boulware and Jane Ganahl for coming up with this, as well as other incredibly hard-working volunteers like Deborah Krantz and Tara Weaver.

Melancholia (delicious!)

The air is so cold I put my coat on today. Scarlet leaves on the sidewalk. Cars using their headlights in the middle of the day. I LOVE IT!!!

Something brisk and wonderful... and solemnly sad about this time of year. In my car I was listening to Luka Bloom (Christy Moore's brother), an Irishman who sings lovely ballads. He did a cover of Joni Mitchell's "Urge for Going," which has the most exquisitely autumnal lyrics. I really love this song. Although: I've never heard the original! Just Luka's version.

My favorite lines are about the bully winds burying their faces in the snow, and the seasonal empire falling. Matter of fact, here's all the lyrics, courtesy of some website I googled to:

I awoke today and found the frost perched on the town
It hovered in a frozen sky, then it gobbled summer down
When the sun turns traitor cold
And shivering trees are standing in a naked row
I get the urge for going but I never seem to go

I get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
Summertime is falling down and winter is closing in

I had me a man in summertime
He had summer-colored skin
And not another girl in town
My darling's heart could win
But when the leaves fell trembling down
Bully winds did rub their faces in the snow
He got the urge for going And I had to let him go

He got the urge for going
When the meadow grass was turning brown
Summertime was falling down and winter was closing in

The warriors of winter they gave a cold triumphant shout
And all that stays is dying and all that lives is getting out
See the geese in chevron flight flapping and racing on before the snow
They've got the urge for going, they've got the wings to go

They get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
Summertime is falling down and winter is closing in

I'll ply the fire with kindling and pull the blankets to my chin
And I'll lock the vagrant winter out and bolt my wandering in
I'd like to call back summertime and have her stay jut another month or so
She's got the urge for going and I guess she'll have to go

And she get the urge for going when meadow grass is turning brown
All her empires are falling down
Winter's closing in

Oak to Ninth: for Oakland voters

When preparing for my radio interview today, I spent some time looking again at the chapter on the waterfront in my Oakland's Neighborhoods book. Our city lost control of our waterfront for its first 60 years, thanks to the scurrilous maneuverings of Horace Carpentier. Then, not long after we finally got it back, Borax Smith (who I otherwise admire) asked for permission in 1916 to take a 99-year lease on the waterfront. Mayor Davies' response was wonderfully fierce and passionate, and I read it on the air:

I will fight to the last ditch, if necessary, to prevent the voters of this city from entering into a lease which will take out of their control property for which I have fought a lifetime and lost a fortune to secure for them... Any man who would turn over municipal lands for this damnable purpose ought to be taken out and hanged.

The irony, of course, is that had Borax Smith won his 99-year term, we'd still be in it! We'd be in it until 2015. And Borax is long dead and his estate dismantled and all we've got are some mules in the backyard of the F.M. Smith Recreation Center...

So, 99 years have NOT passed, and poor Mayor Davies must be a'whirlin' in his grave... because our City Council AND our city attorney are doing exactly what he abhored: handing out public lands to private developers. Horace Carpentier is somewhere smirking! His legacy of keeping Oaklanders from their waterfront continues.

So what the heck am I talking about? The infamous Oak to Ninth project. The project stretching along the waterfront for which City Council voted to hand over municipal lands to private developers, forever ruining our chance to have waterfront access.

Back in early September, city attorney John Russo declared that the signatures collected by the Oak to Ninth Coalition were invalid. The signatures say that the Oak to Ninth project should be sent to referendum--that Oakland voters themselves should decide.

In a mere 30 days, the coalition gathered over 25,000 signatures (when they only needed 18,000). A monumental achievement --and one that clearly demonstrates that people are concerned and unhappy about this dirty deal.

John Russo said that attached to the petition was an outdated version of the city ordinance--although coalition members tried to get the ordinance from city staff and were directed to the city's website. There, a current version was posted, which was later changed as Russo continued to negotiate with developers after City Council approved a version.

The latest news is that a week ago the coalition filed suit against the city. This makes the third lawsuit against the city on this particular issue. Hmmm, maybe that's because the whole deal is illegal? And crooked and sordid?

KPFA

I was interviewed today by Denny Smithson on his program at KPFA. I was nervous but he was a great interviewer with a lot of interesting questions. KPFA is a Berkeley radio station devoted to the ideas of pacifism (the P in KPFA stands for Pacific, I think).

Here's a mark of how cool the station is: the soap dispenser in the bathroom was stocked with Dr. Bronner's, either peppermint or unscented aloe vera. Yeow! Brought me back to my Colby days, when I did laundry with Dr. B's, washed my hair with Dr. B's...

Do a little dance, make a little love

Alan gleefully forced me to watch this video of the Sony robots dancing, knowing full well how creeped out I am by robots.

He read somewhere that by 2012 people would be having sex with robots... and on a regular basis. That's six years away.

My new husband then pointed out that that would "not technically be considered cheating."

Back home with the ancestors

I've been asked to write an essay on my ancestor Mary Bliss Parsons, to be included in the back of HEXE when it is published next September.

HEXE is my novel about a medieval woman accused of witchcraft; Mary Bliss Parsons was my 1600s Massachusetts relative who was thrice accused of witchcraft and acquitted.

Acquitted!

Not something you hear too often. It's a fascinating story... it seems that her money and her looks had a lot to do with her ability to skirt the charge.

My parents have sent me some family history stuff, so I've been delving into that with great interest. And of course, as always when I'm researching, I've been getting waylaid, this time by stories of other ancestors. Tucked in with the Parsons family history is also the memoir of Benjamin Cressy, my seven-greats grandfather who fought in the Revolutionary War, as well as the autobiography of the seafaring orphan his granddaughter married.

Here's a bit from Benjamin Cressy's memoir of 1780, three years before the end of the war:

We were engaged that morning in putting our guns in as good order as possible, as they had got very wet the rainy night before. We did not run, yet marched a quickstep in order to gain the bridge that crossed a small river, but the enemy made their appearance on a rise of ground or hill directly on our right in less than gun shot. They hallooed and said, "Now you d-m-d yankees we will have you." Lieutenant Blake answered them and said, "Come on you redcoats, Black John is here." They understood this very well , for Black John had given them a number of dressings. We were then about half a mile from the bridge and the enemy formed a column of horse at the bridge in our front. There was an old mud fort breastwork within gun shot of the bridge and our brave captain Cushen marched us in there to rest our legs, as he said. [....]

When we had got into the old mud fort or breastwork we began a fire on the enemy between us and the bridge which continued for 10 or 15 minutes, and it was said we unhorsed eight of the enemy, but looking back on the road that we come up we espied a larger body of horsemen coming full speed in pursuit of us. Our Capt. ordered us to march out and every gun that would go off to load and not to fire before orderered; and being formed in a close column and the points of our bayonets for our flank guard we moved on a firm slow march a few rods and fired, broke the column of horse and they opened to the right and left and we marched over the bridge and drew off a number of the planks and every man of our party and prisoners, horses, &c got safe over and we gave three cheers.

Two of our men wounded, one Heath wounded by a ball that entered the bottom of the heel of his foot, one Andris wounded across the back of the hand. This small river had a very muddy bottom and the enemy could not cross it to pursue us and we returned to our regiment in triumph.

In another battle, he and his party were ambushed by the British, "and we poor fellows scattered like sheep without a shepherd in every direction, and with blood-hounds at our heels." That scene continues:

We run but a few rods when I was halted by "Stop, yankee, or I'll kill you." The first thought I had was that he had fired off his gun. I turned my head round when I was on the full run and had a fair look at his face, and he was not but a few jumps behind me and not one of our party to be seen. He was a large stout looking fellow, red face, red hair, and I remember his looks to this day. But I out-run him and turned round a small rise of ground out of his sight and crawled under a thick bunch of bushes or sprouts that sprung from a white maple stump. I lay there a short time and two of the enemy passed close by my hiding place on the other side. It appeared they were hunting up the scattered fugitives. The reader will better judge of my thoughts and feelings than I can describe them. When I could distinctly hear the shrieks and cries of the dying and wounded. When these two men were passed by out of my sight I shifted my quarters into a low piece of ground very thick with bushes and briers. There I lay till after twelve o'clock that day, but the course of nature seemed to be changed, for the sun was risen out of the southwest to me.

After the war, Benjamin's story is grim, with two wives dying young and the typical yet still heartbreaking loss of children in infancy, and a brother who continually tricked him out of money and property. Hard times!

I feel so lucky to have these records from the past. I'm also surprised how modern Cressy's memoir sounds, for having been written over 200 years ago. My parents have a painting of Cressy, one of those where because of the way the eyes were painted, anywhere you stand in the room it appears he is looking right at you. I used to get creeped out by that painting. But now that I know the sadness of his life, the next time I see it I'll give him a friendly nod.

Naptime for royalty

The effigies at St. Denis were incredible. Every bit as spooky and magisterial as you would expect.

Marie Antoinette is buried here (remains having been exhumed from initial burial site) under a fairly modern and bland plaque. No effigy for her or Louis, but there are two nice statues of them.

St. Denis also had something to do with Joan of Arc... she laid down arms here or something? I have to google it because I didn't understand the plaque in French on the door. Wish my comprehension was a hundred times better... but it is certainly improving! Since I've returned, I've watched two episodes of French in Action and I think I get it better than I did before this trip!

She's light as a feather

but stiff as a board.

Here's a tour at the St. Denis basilica, looking much like a slumber party seance. Unfortunately, all in rapid French, so I could only pine for information.

I'm back home in Oakland, still somewhat fighting jet lag five days later. It's great to be back; went to an A's game yesterday, walked down to my neighborhood cafe today, saw a movie at the Parkway last night, walked in the redwood forest... some of my favorite Oakland things to do.

And now that I have reliable access again, I am supplementing old posts with the photos intended for them, and adding a few more.

Hulk

Hulkster,
Visit my website www.erikamailman.com and click on "Contact" so you can email me. I want to confirm everything got to you, you green-skinned poet.
Thanks!
E

Last post from Paris

I ate dinner at a sushi place near Gaiete. Kitty korner from me was the "New Sex Paradise" peep show, which no one ever entered or exited as long as I sat there (maybe everyone was at the Old Sex Paradise). And directly opposite me was a hookah house. I watched a very large man smoke enough to stupefy a gorilla.

And now, I shan't post anymore. Even if the most exciting and outrageous thing happens to me in the next six hours before I go to the airport, I will have to only mull it over and tell it to my friends.

Oh, who am I kidding? I'll probably post at my layover in New York.

Musee de l'Homme

Despite being askance that there's no accompanying Musee de la Femme, I took the Metro over to Trocadero to see this museum. My guidebook had promised an anthropological extravaganza, with dioramas a plenty, and an interesting survey of the history of medicine. It also warned to go soon, because the museum might close and its contents distributed to other museums.

Well... maybe I was too late. The majority of its exhibits had closed, and they were only offering three measly exhibits with amorphous names like "Night of Man" and "All Parents, All Different." There was absolutely no information about what these exhibits might entail, and the woman at the counter was an abject diorama herself. She looked like she'd rather shoot me than tell me what those three exhibits were.

(And remember, I'm always trying my French here, so this wasn't a case of Disdain for Those who Won't Speak French.)

I took a cue from her miserableness and decided to give the museum a miss.

So let's recount:
Sewer museum makes me nearly lose my cookies, and I beat a hasty retreat.
Musee de l'Homme is a ghosttown guarded by a meanie.

What should any self-respecting traveler do but... shop? I had a great time clothes shopping. I bought three shirts, a dress and two naughty sets of gartered hose. I felt bad Kirsten was missing it -- she is really way more of a shopper than me, but she got a cute shirt and jacket in the short time she was here.

Maybe a clothing store is the equivalent of the Musee de la Femme.

WHY did I go to the sewer museum?

I thought it'd be kind of edgy to go to the Musee des Egouts (sewer museum), and perhaps helpful for my research.

But as soon as I was descending the stairs and the smell was already beginning, I started thinking, "Maybe this is a bad idea."

An English language tour had just started so another guide hustled me to it. I was just in time to hear the end of a very fascinating anecdote about a purple crocodile that is now in the Berlin Zoo. When the guide finished and we began walking to a new spot, I asked the woman next to me what the story had been with the croc. She said, "I didn't hear it myself. I just got a cochlear implant."

I smiled widely and said, "My friend has one and he wrote a book about it. Do you know Rebuilt, by Michael Chorost?"

She said, "I read it right before I got the implant."

Very intriguing and I wanted to learn more so I could report back to Mike, but the guide was already beginning her next spiel, an in-depth portrait of the machine used to clean the sewers. (actually, it was interesting. They use no motors in the sewers, only hand-pushed scrapers. If the men step in a bunch of congealed fat, it will release toxic gas and so they have 10 minutes of oxygen, to last until they get up their manhole, which are located every 30 meters. They used to use canaries but now have a little electronic device for detecting gas.)

And then, and then, and then.... man! We were looking at a flowing river of sewage and I had to walk away from the group, pressing my coat against my mouth to not gag. I tried to stick with the tour, I tried, but ultimately fled. I think I was only there about 10 minutes total. I can't believe I voluntarily subjected myself to that and paid for the privilege!

In short: sewer museum--not for me.

**** Post script.
I wanted to say what happened after I left the museum. I became concerned that I might've, in my short time down there, taken on the fumes and odors of sewage. I tried to find a smoker so I could perambulate in his/her cloud of smoke, but alas the one time I wanted smoke blown in my face I couldn't find it! And I worried that when I boarded the Metro, the hapless person sitting next to me would be overwhelmed by my "presence."

Ironically, I instead strolled a fancy street, walking past Dolce & Gabbana, Dior and Chanel. How fabulous to tremble past these places convinced one is reeking of sewage!

I saw Sephora and had the stroke of genius to go there and let 'em give me all the perfume sticks they wanted.

On the Metro, I thought, "Gosh, that person next to me has such a lovely perfume," and it wasn't until I was climbing the stairs to leave the station that I realized the loveliness emanated from me. Thank you Sephora!

Last thought: the pamphlet for the museum recommends that you wash your hands before leaving. In fact, as an escapee from my tour, I asked a guard for the bathroom to wash my hands and he agreed, "It's very important."
!!!!
Should such a thing exist if it is "very important" that you wash your hands afterward?

La torchiere

Here is the replica of the Statue of Liberty's torch, the exact size! It's at the Pont de L'Alma, where there is also some flowers and memorabilia around Princess Diana's sad death in the tunnel.

I forgot to blog about the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, but it was very much on my mind. CNN was going to replay its broadcast of the day, which made me think some poor mushbrain would think we were under terrorist attack again. I had a dream related to jumping. I'm so sorry for the families hurt that day, and I'm sure five years feels like a heartbeat away.

Le wifi ne marche pas

The agony of a spotty wifi connection! This was to be my last blogging session before I return to the U.S. first thing tomorrow... but blogger isn't loading my photos.

I suppose I can go ahead and post textually and then add in the photos once I get home.

Basilica St. Denis

I went yesterday (Sunday), on patrimony day, when all the monuments are free. A great idea, but it meant the ticket kiosk was unstaffed, so I couldn't get an audioguide in English: free but incomprehensible. Also, every bored little French child was there, wailing and complaining, blocking views for history geeks like me who would've really rather just paid full price.

But! This place is cool. Lots of kings and queens are buried here, many with wonderful effigies marking their spot. Here are the feet of Francis I and Claude de France.

Bonjour Dina, Olivier et Mister Book

Tonight I decided to take a different street, a promising one, near my hotel and it was wonderful. I saw a thousand restaurants I can try tomorrow. I also saw a brightly painted green-façade bar. I walked past it twice before I decided to go in. And I had a great time!

Inside, a couple was playing guitar and singing French songs (one I caught was, “it’s snowing in my heart”). The interior was fabulously campy: with disco balls and Christmas balls hanging from the ceiling, blood-red walls with all kinds of paintings on them, and a dog the size of a loaf of bread with a little barrette in his hair.

The couple stopped singing and did a kind of trivia quiz, naming characteristics of someone and trying to get people to guess who it was. By the time I caught onto the nature of the game, they’d already done two people, so I focused in on the third. Based on my convoluted sense of what they said, I wanted to guess Mata Hari, but the answer was Josephine Baker. Close!

They distributed lollipops to everyone who participated in the game and also to someone who understood every twelfth word they said (me). Then Dina, Olivier and Romain came in to share my table and we had a lovely talk, being very forgiving of my butchered French. They are on their way to California, so I hope we can raise a glass again on the other side of the world!

Cheers!

Bird by itself

Since I was eating an apple, I gently spat out a few bits for this bird to eat, but like a true Parisian, he only wanted bread. (That's not my apple next to him, but rather a spent match and god knows what)

Birds with kids

Notre Dame birds

See them hovering by the hands, wings all a blur?

Notre Dame silver madonna

Since my wi-fi (pronounced here in Paris as wee-fee) is finally behaving the way it should, I'll go back and post some photos I meant to with the original post.

So here's the Madonna from the treasury.

Techno Vache!

Satan's cow, this one's for you! (you know who you are)

confetti at techno parade

Neon cowgirls at techno parade

Saturday: secure your every bit

I did a walking tour of the Marais through Paris Walks. They are absolutely wonderful. I’ve done three walks, with three different guides, and they were all anecdotal, interesting and totally worth it. The best guide so far was Peter Caine, the one who runs the company with his partner Oriel. He was very British and funny.

Then, as I sat to eat lunch, I saw the police putting up tape to close streets. I asked the person next to me and she said there was going to be a Techno Parade! So I went a few streets over to watch it. It was formidable! Each “float” had a different DJ and dance crowd with it. I watched and danced for a long time. Although at times the parade was sparse (see the stilt walkers), the last float and its pushing overflow crowd made me feel a little Who-at-the-Riverfront-Coliseum so I took refuge in a doorway. This parade was to benefit No Famine, so I bought a pin.

One guy on a float threw me a condom. Labeled both in French and English, it says “Toujours un coup d’avance! Bit Defender: Secure your every bit.” I wish Alan was here to defend himself.

Friday: up again

After my glum dinner, I thought of going back to the hotel, but on a whim decided to see if I could catch the Eiffel Tower doing its sparkly dance. And I did! I love you, Eiffel Tower! You are super sparkly!!!

Then I walked along the Seine for a while. It was late when I got back.

Friday: down

By dinnertime, my high had worn off and I was sad that I was in Paris without Alan and now, without Kirsten, who had flown home. My friend Naomi termed this my “withoutmyhoneymoon.” I sat in a restaurant eating dinner, morosely staring out to the sidewalk, thinking I probably looked like the Absinthe Drinker we’d seen at the Musee D’Orsay.

Friday: still up

Went to the Conciergerie, where Marie Antoinette was imprisoned for a few months before her execution. They have rooms showing the three levels of cell available. Here is the pailleurs, lowest lovel, where the poor guys sleep on straw. The mannequins express how uncomfortable it is, although now that I think about it it’s tough to get a mannequin to look like it’s comfortable. They also have a mock-up of Marie’s cell with guards spying on her over a little fabric screen.

Friday: up

Friday started out great. I emerged from the Metro on my way to the Conciergerie, but there was beautiful old Notre Dame, and as soon as I looked at it the bells started ringing. I was overcome with joy, thinking “This is what I love about Paris… the ancient sounds, the sense of history that envelops you…” I sat down to eat my apple and enjoy the sight of that venerable edifice.

There are tiny little birds that live in the bushes in front of the church, and they will sit on your hand for bread. I had fun trying to capture this with my camera. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and a picture is worth a thousand words.

I went inside and was awed again at that eglise. For the first time, I paid the separate admission to enter the Treasury and saw some of the wonderful reliquaries and a silver Madonna and child.

Chapel at Versailles

Last installment of the Versailles pictures. (Scroll down; Blogger posts reverse chronologically).

This is the chapel that renders Versailles asymetrical; it towers over the right wing with no equivalent on the left.

And now I must draw this blogging session to a close. More later!

Relocation made easy

When you're Jeanne de Bourbon, queen of France in 1377, you are powerful enough to simply pick up pesky little churches and carry them around.
I guess this is why they call it Crown Relocation!

Bed versus bed

Here are Marie's beds from (a) Versailles, and (b) Petit Trianon. Which one looks more sleepable to you?

Marie's theater

This trip is really a working trip for me; I'm gathering info and atmosphere for a new novel. So I've been paying lots of attention to Marie Antoinetteisms both at Versailles and in Paris (next stop: Conciergerie).

I also saw the new Sophia Coppola movie here in Paris. It's hard to ignore subtitles even when they're in a different language! I enjoyed the movie but thought it glossed over Versailles: no one had fleas, no one was pissing in the hallways...

Anyway, I'd never before seen Marie's little theater where she performed for friends. It is incredibly lovely with the scenery currently on stage, a verdant woodland path that looks like one at Versailles. The theater is behind the Petit Trianon, Marie's refuge from the crazy court life at Versailles, and only holds maybe 50 people? I should have counted the seats.

Also on the grounds at the Petit Trianon are the Rock, a pseudo grotto with running water built for her. I loved that and thought of a scene I could set there. (It also reminded me of the fake cliffs at Parc aux Buttes Chaumont, if I spelled that right, which I also really liked. Why do I like fake natural things?)

She also had a tiny chapel and numerous pavilions tossed around the grounds... it was a total playground. NOT to mention... the hameau. Which makes me wild with envy. Why couldn't **I** have a tiny mill on a brook, and swans, and a little tower with an eensy, tiny winding staircase that encircles it, and goats and sheep of a certain size and cuteness?

At the hameau (which means hamlet), Marie pretended to be a peasant (ominous irony), dressing as a shepherd. I've heard that they perfumed the animals so the smell wouldn't offend her nose. I read in another book that although she enjoyed the playacting, selling milk, cheese and vegetables from the hameau actually raised money for Versailles and was a real enterprise. It bears more research.

Unfortunately, I have no photos of the hameau. The memory card was full and I was too zonked to review the pics and delete some.

F-f-f-f-fashion

Cue David Bowie.

Kirsten had me take this picture because apparently leopard print is again in vogue, and she thought this portrait was funny. I don't happen to remember the man's name or even where the portrait hung (in the Petit Trianon, maybe?)

Also got to love his lavendar cravat and cuffs... this guy's got it going ON.

Woman statue

I've no idea who this woman is, if she indeed is someone specific, rather than just "woman with flowers."

She is one of the hundreds (thousands?) of statues that dot the gardens at Versailles. There's almost so many you can't even see them anymore, if you know what I mean. Just one would totally enrich a garden and invite thoughtful repose...throw fifty at a visitor at a time and you just walk by them.

But I thought she was lovely and I did take some time to notice her.

My favorite statue at Versailles

I love the statue of Poseidon's horses pulling his cart up out of the water... the horses are half-submerged still, hooves rearing in the air, and the effect is really cool.

We paid a few euros extra to see the fountains turned on and hear music piped through the gardens. The water sprays are exceptional for the horse fountain, because they look like water the horses themselves are kicking up. Add in a rainbow, and I felt like the official court photographer.

We've found Marie's head

One of the questions I've had in Paris is: what happened to all the heads? I saw the mass grave at Picpus where the headless bodies went... but what about the rest? What does one do with 1,300 heads? (and that's just the Place de la Nation heads, let alone Place de la Concorde)

I saw some plaque I half understood. It seemed to say that people wondered if the heads were paraded on pikes but no one knows for sure. If only blogging existed back then!

Anyway... the friends we have stayed with several nights are ex-pats Karen and Dave and their child Elodie. Karen and Dave are ***wonderful*** and I wish I had known them better when they lived in San Francisco! Elodie is a true bilingual charmer and an incredible artist. Kirsten saw some paint/bleach print she made and vowed to uncover the technique for her own work!

Elodie has a head she got from a friend of the family who graduated from cosmetology school. Unknowingly, she named it Marie and her parents had a good laugh at that. I was there for the "big reveal," as they say on reality TV, but she seemed unfazed at the idea that her mannequin might be Marie Antoinette.

Her parents say they have been totally creeped out by Marie because if you glimpse her at night in Elodie's room, she really does seem to be another person in the room, just hovering at the wrong height.... ew!

Pray that my trip gets better

Well, after arriving in Paris to find that our rented apartment was a tenement, then spending a week unsuccessfully trying to find another apartment (alternating between staying with friends and staying in a hotel), then going to the emergency room, I think this trip could stand improvement!

Don't worry, I'm all right but sort of bedbound today, so what better to do than download photos and post to my blog?

By the way, the French ER was wonderful. We each spoke muddled versions of the other's language and mostly found satisfaction. I was seen immediately by very kind people. At the end of the visit, they told me to return the next day to pay my bill. I smiled a little bit at the amount of trust involved in this arrangement, compared to the PPO Reign of Terror in the U.S.

This statue was one of the ones in the long hall of kings and queens at Versailles. I didn't happen to catch her name.

I'm a married woman!

Still don't have official photos from photographer yet, but here's an image from the rehearsal.

Surprise!

So much has happened recently that I've really behind in my blogging...

but several weeks ago our friends Chris and Shelly surprised us with a wedding shower that was INCREDIBLE. Shelly machiavellianed her way into locating email addresses for as many of our guests as she could track down, and there they were gathered in the living room shouting Surprise!

It was such an insanely wonderful day that I realized even if the wedding sucked, I would still be happy from the shower. Besides the fab cake above, Shelly cooked our Oakland faves, chicken and waffles. She only has a single waffle maker, so she literally spent hours cooking those for all the guests. What a labor of love, and what an amazing friend. And all the effort: totally worth it. We all gorged ourselves (word is her patented sugar bacon made at least one Jew seriously consider breaking down....)

We lingered in the backyard, enjoying a summery afternoon at lavishly appointed tables with linen tablecloths and small, perfect bouquets. It was heaven, surrounded by such wonderful friends... thank you guys!

You know you're in Berkeley...

... when the bathroom graffiti compels you to write it down. This is from the women's room at Au Coquelet. Each color is a different, ahem, writer:

Don't ever antagonize the horn.
Pynchon references? Aren't we an erudite bunch.
What's erudite?
Pretentious fuck.

MP3s Killed the Record Store (sung to the tune of Video Killed the Radio Star)

Hunting for the Lovemakers CD to give my nephew back East, I parked at the nether end of Lakeshore Avenue and then walked down the row looking for the record store Earwitness Music. And walked. To the other end of the row.

Huh.

That can’t be right, I thought, and retraced my steps. Where I thought the record store should be was an empty shop with papered glass. I was just there! (Well, a few months ago). How did it die so quickly? Very sad: Earwitness was owned by the same guy who owns Walden Pond Books and we all know how well bookstores are doing these days (I’m wearing black crepe for Cody’s on Telegraph and A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books on Van Ness. But WP Books looks like it’s thriving and may it have a long life.)

Well, I thought, I’ll go up to Montclair and hit the record store on Mountain Boulevard, Village Soundz. Guess what? It is also closed. Also fairly recently: I remember popping my head in not too long ago.

Record stores are like blacksmith shops. Livery stables. Telegraph offices.

I got a little nostalgic thinking about the record store in Montpelier, Vermont, where I grew up, and how freakin cool I felt when I walked inside and was hip enough to order a Depeche Mode album. Fred, the owner there, was very, very awesome. So I just had to google Buch Spieler Music and thank you God it is still open!!! Yah Buch Spieler!

A house I can afford

Starting Sept. 1 there will be an exhibit at Ego Park Gallery, a group show about real estate. Guessing from the very cool postcard (scanned in here) of Monopoly-esque miniature homes, I think this show will be more useful to me than looking at Polaroids in a REAL real estate office. Sad to say, a two-bedroom home in a decent Oakland neighborhood is a half-million dollar home.

Lub Dub

Last Friday, Alan and I went to Oakland Art Murmur, where a dozen art galleries open their doors from 7 to 10 p.m. Equally exciting, Telegraph near 24th was completely blocked off to traffic, and twenty-somethings milled around drinking from their bottle-in-a-bag (you know, homeless chic) and there was a drummer’s circle and a fire dancer. It was so great. Oakland has so much creative energy: these kinds of things show it.

Jeff of Oaklandish was there broadcasting an HBO show “City of Rebels” about the A’s and the Raiders in the 1970s, screening onto the back wall of his tent where he sold Oakland love merchandise. Jeff’s a huge asset to Oakland, and he told me briefly about some of the things he’s tried to organize and how the city pushed back because they’re cautious and truculent and don’t get that people like him are good for Oakland. I’m going to interview Jeff at some point for the Montclarion about the events he is even now trying to organize with lots of resistance.

Anyway, back to the positive. We saw lots of fabulous art, and even two pieces I looked at the price list for. Someday when I’m a high roller….

Art Murmur happens every first Friday, so the next one will be Sept. 1.

P.S. I didn't even realize until I was creating a title for this post that Art Murmur is a play on "heart murmur." Those guys are so clever!

National Night Out

August 1 was National Night Out, a movement across the country for neighborhoods to throw small block parties. The idea behind it is that the more you know your neighbors, the better you can band together to keep the neighborhood safe.

This night was a mindblowing exercise in Let's see. I've seen this person getting out of their car a few times, and waved as I went by, but really haven't seen them very much. They must be new to the neighborhood. And then you ask them how long they've lived in the neighborhood and they say THIRTEEN YEARS.

And since you've lived there since 1995, you realize that you've been living, thinking, eating, sleeping, laughing next to this person for over a decade without even really recognizing them or learning their name.... and they live in the house that is kitty-corner to yours.
And this happened over and over again.

I grew up in a small town in Vermont where I not only knew everyone on my street and surrounding streets, but had basically been in every home many times and knew the floorplan. I guess it's different when you're a kid growing up on a block with many kids: when you're tired, you all troop into whoever's house and ask for kool-aid. There are kids on my block here in Oakland, and maybe (I hope) they too think of the neighborhood as their extended living room... but I kind of doubt it. I got the sense from Neighborhood Night Out that many of us were strangers to each other.

The police came by and gave us whistles and penlights... and best of all.... A's tickets! I didn't at first realize the import of the tickets. Since they were handed out to all of us, that means that when we all go to the game, we'll all sit together, yet another chance for neighbors to get to know each other. That game is tonight, and unfortunately I have a class to teach, but I passed the tickets to my friend Chris who USED to live in my duplex, so close enough!

The intent of the event was also to gather names and phone numbers to organize a neighborhood watch. I'm up for that. We are lucky in that our neighborhood is fairly safe. Crimes on surrounding streets have been car theft, but as far as I know, not on our street, and no break-ins or the like. My only experience of crime on this street has been that someone once stole swim goggles from my unlocked car. If you know of anyone in possession of black market swim goggles, email me.

And thanks to neighbors Sharon, Paula and Roger for organizing Neighborhood Night Out.

Go see Joe Quirk

My friend Joe Quirk will be reading from his book Sperm are from Men, Eggs are from Women in two days. Thursday, August 3rd @ 7:30 pm at Black Oak Books, 1491 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley. (510) 486-0698.

Why should you go?

• Because Joe is wickedly funny
• Because the book rocks
• Because Joe uses an easel when he presents
• Because that easel has funny flow-charts and pie charts he drew and labeled in his third-grade boy handwriting
• Because Joe is super nice
• Because how else are you gonna know about why the sperm come from men and the eggs from women?

Pressing buttons and burning rubber

I visited an acupuncturist for the first time last week. Along with a stick of mugwort I must light and hold next to my ankles every day, she put a little Barbie-sized band-aid inside my ear. Embedded in the “band-aid” is a tiny gold BB. When I am stressed, I am supposed to press and hold the BB for ten seconds. I really like having a tangible thing to do when I’m stressed. I’m sure my acupuncturist wouldn’t have predicted this, but I basically have my finger on that button 24/7 these days. It’s addicting.

Today, I was on the freeway, motoring along 70 mph-ish, when the driver of a huge van realized he/she was about to miss their left-hand exit. I was in the lane NEXT to the exit lane—the van, which was initially in the lane to my right, moved across my lane and over. The only problem was, there wasn’t enough time or space to do this.

I braked so hard the tires squealed (more like screamed) and the car shimmied in a desperate lurch, and laid on my horn HARD, but the van didn’t stop. It was going to exit there, by god, even though physics were not on its side.

We nearly collided. Had I not been absolutely alert, and had my brakes not worked really well, I would have been toast. After all, the van was large and I was in little Lewis, the van was aggressively moving across THREE LANES, and we were both pummeling along at 70 mph. This would have been the kind of accident that the airlift helicopter comes for.

The van exited (barely) and I continued on, shaking, smelling for miles the burning rubber coming in from my tires. I reached up and pressed my little stress button for all it was worth.

People! It is not the end of the world if you miss your exit. Take the next one and double back. It’s not worth killing yourself and others.

P.S. After I went to google and looked for an image to accompany this post, I realized my last post was ALSO about helicopters…. coinky dink?

Helicopter Dollars

If you come across a Helicopter DollarTM, it's from us! My stamp, Alan's idea. I hope our dollars make it to all fifty states. Report back if you would.

World, I'm wearing pants

My friend, and wonderful photographer, Gaby Laz came over last week to shoot me, both for Woman of Ill Fame and for Hexe. Since the two novels are so different in flavor (one’s a romp, one’s very somber), I wore different clothes. I’m really happy with the Hexe photo, which is outdoors and I’m wearing a simple white oxford shirt.

But for Woman of Ill Fame, I wore an ice-blue camisole with an empire waist and silky fabric flowing down from that …. I had thought it was flattering, but instead it made me look like I was happily making California cheese (i.e., a cow). Then one day I was digging around in a drawer and came up with a shirt I’d completely forgotten about, eyelace lace threaded with pink ribbon, which seems a little bit of a nod to Victoriana.

Gaby offered to come over and re-shoot, but she had been so nice and gone out of her way already, charging me a significantly reduced friend price, so I felt guilty doing that.

Instead, I prevailed upon Alan and our jerry-rigged digital camera. Can I just say, photography is very hard? You don’t think about things like shadows when you’re just looking with your eyes, because you adjust and discount that. And if there’s a big object looming out of the person’s head, you just focus on the foreground and it’s not a problem. Then there are things like… sheen on my forehead because the day is so hot, or my hair looks funny, or the picture is out of focus, or my smile is crooked… Alan was a champ and didn’t complain as I’d look at the current offerings on the computer, dismiss them all and drag him into the living room again.

Finally, we came up with one I could live with (top photo), except it is framed in such a way that you can’t see my jeans. Since the shirt is a little lingerie-ish, I really wanted at least a strip of blue jeans to let people know I wasn’t posing in my skivvies… and possibly one where my smile wasn’t crooked, basically an impossibility. Anyway, Alan’s suggestion is to tell the world I’m wearing pants, so that’s what I’m doing. And I’m also including a reject so you can spy with your little eye that that was in fact the case.

My author photo will undoubtedly run in black and white so this is a chance to examine all the doodads in the background. That's an encaustic painting by Kirsten Stolle behind my head and a swan and sperm whale carved by my dad. And California Art Tile in the fireplace.

Erika and Alan spare the air

When ground-level ozone in the Bay Area is projected to be very high, a Spare the Air Day is declared. All public transportation is free, and the hope is that erstwhile drivers will instead jump on a train, thereby lowering the smog levels.

Of course, these ozone days are connected to very hot days.

Fittingly, Alan and I decided to use our free BART train ride last night to go to a San Francisco theater and see Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Go see this movie; whatever your political bent, it conveys an important idea, that we are seriously, seriously effing up our planet. 

Drinking water which millions depend on is being dried up, animals’ symbiotic cycles are being screwed up, and most importantly major parts of Oakland will be underwater. Unacceptable! I do live on a hill, but I sometimes venture to the flatlands for my crack fix. 

Seriously, though, I’ve been concerned for a long time that we aren’t forward thinking. Nor are we backward-looking. Few of us think about repercussions, or study history for patterns. Part of our culture as Americans is just to enjoy now. And that’s great, that’s very zen of us, but we are just a tiny blip in our planet’s story – yet we have the power to type “The End.”

The great part about An Inconvenient Truth is that it talks about how revocable all this is, given that we jump on the problem. At www.climatecrisis.org, there’s a list of things each person can personally do to help out.

On a lighter note, when public transportation is free, it includes cable cars. Although it is a very touristy thing to do, riding cable cars is incredibly exhilarating and just makes you grin. Feeling the lurch of the cable beneath you as you surmount the steeps hills of San Francisco…. ah, it’s bliss. So we rode four times last night! We rode Embarcadero to the top of Powell, switched cars to go down Powell, transferred to go back up, and then switched again to ride back to Embarcadero. At each transfer, there was a cable car already waiting. 

We can’t figure out why our litigious society still allows the cable cars; you are literally holding on only with your clenched hands as SUVs and other cable cars whoosh by with only a hands-breadth between you and them. The girl next to me had to turn her backpack around so it was on her stomach because that’s how close you are to traffic.

When we switched at the bottom of Powell, the next cable car was already on the move, but I ran as fast as I could and jumped onto it, with Alan right at my heels. Unfortunately, no talent scouts were around to witness this and offer me a part in an action-packed summer movie.

Finally, we took BART back to Oakland, where ULEV (ultra low emission vehicle) Lewis Charles Honda III was waiting for us.

A special shout-out to CH. Hi old buddy!

Bear Attack at Malakoff

I made reference in an earlier post to seeing a bear at Malakoff. It was in the campground! In daylight!

Alan: Uh, Erika, there's a bear!
Erika: Oh my god, you're right!
Alan: [turns around and walks other way]
Bear: [watches]
Erika: [starts to do same as Alan, remembers you're not supposed to turn back on bear]. Hello, MISTER BEAR! [loudly] What's up, BEAR?
Bear: [turns around and runs away, terrified by girl's shrill voice]
Later...
Alan: Sure, you're terrified when you encounter a little tiny bug, but when you see a bear that could maul you, you're unaffected.
Erika: I'm not scared of mammals.

One thing I like about Alan is that he thinks of, and does, things other people might scoff at. Like, for instance, hanging the entire cooler from the tree. It didn't seem logistically possible, but it was! All night long the cooler gently swung and deterred bears from eating its contents. Forget renting a bear box from REI: this is the way to go.

Malakoff Diggins

Our camping trip recently was to Malakoff Diggins State Park, 20 miles north of Nevada City. Here is a "mini Yosemite Valley," carved out by miners enthusiastically directing pressurized water at the hillsides to make the gold run off. Since this flooded farms down the valley and was ecologically reprehensible, an 1884 court case ended the diggins. By 1940, the boomtown had shut down and in 1966 became a state park.
Malakoff Diggins has a really sweet little ghost town with about six buildings you can tour. It puts Goldfield to shame!
I was pretty much in ecstasy the whole time. Plus the campground itself (3,000 acres!) is really lovely. We had tentsite no. 27, which is closest to the diggins overlook. We had a great evening walk down to Blair Lake where we saw turtles, fish that swam in tight, fast, perfect circles, weird bugs, and best of all, really BIG frogs.
Here's Alan panning for gold. Gold flakes are terribly small, it turns out, more like gold molecules. We were told that the launderers would shake out the miners' clothes to collect up the gold dust.

Striking it rich at Malakoff

We panned for gold in a trough under the auspices of a ranger who was very nice and told us if we'd shown up 15 minutes later she would have seeded our trough with gold flakes from the gift shop. Our timing is always wretched.

Nevertheless, my friends, without the assistance of said seeding, I found several flakes of real, true gold. Alan did too. The ranger in this photo uses a plastic syringe to point to a speck of gold. Yup, that's how small it is.

Panning is really mind-numbing after a while. Initially, exciting. But when you realize you will have to find many, many specks to even begin to craft a necklace, you think that maybe it IS a good idea to aim a hydraulic hose at the hillside and let mercury float down to the San Francisco Bay.

For a quarter, we bought a little vial to put our gold flakes into. Upon subsequent viewings, I think some of the "gold" was mica since it is dark on one side... sigh.

Alan visits the brothel

First he looks around to see who's watching... then he drops trou and knocks. Hello, ladies!

Time flies at Malakoff

You can be M. Simon and own a men's furnishings establishment, but before you know it, the building falls down and grass begins to grow and all your clients are dead and the only way anyone ever knows about your store is that there's a wooden sign to mark where it was....

How to catch rats in the 1800s

This rat trap was on the floor of the kitchen in the main house in Malakoff Diggins. Can't remember the name of the family, but the father supposedly was a grubstaker. He'd seed land with gold, sell it to excited suckers, and then sit back and watch the land fail.

He also ran a saloon and let miners keep a running tab. Now and then he'd ask them to pay up the tab, and some of them would say, "Man, I don't remember drinking at your establishment last Thursday..." and he'd say, "Yeah, that's because you were drunk." Some people think he was dishonest in creating entries in the credit log...

Kashi said this house is reputedly haunted. An audio tape left recording apparently picked up a piano playing, when there is no piano in the house. Another recording has a woman adamantly saying, "Downstairs... downstairs," as if she is ordering a bad child to go downstairs. There's a legend that a child fell down the (indeed very steep) stairs in the house and died.

Malakoff drugstore

The drugstore has an incredible array of old elixir bottles and snake oil remedies. The tour guide said once a visitor pointed out the old-fashioned version of Viagra but she's never been able to find it since. My sister is a major bottle dump excavator, so it was fun to look at these and think of them at the bottom of a riverbed in Maine. I saw some Lydia Pinkham's bottles here, which my sister has found underwater. The bottles were really pretty with all the light shining on them.

Malakoff saloon

We had a great tour at the Malakoff Diggins with Kashi, the state park ranger guide. Here she is behind the bar at the Jack King Saloon, one of seven in North Broomfield during its heyday. Jack King gave the miners free drink tokens on payday, knowing they'd stay and buy more beverages. Kashi said the miners had a fifty percent suicide rate. You can still see the hops planted by those brewers.

Till death do us part... or a dingbat

In the early days of our relationship, Alan used to take off all my rings at night and put them in a little wooden trinket box he bought just for that purpose. It was very tender/sexy and I don’t know why/when we stopped doing that. Now the box is on top of my bookcase, and I just put my jewelry in a little cluster on the bedside table by myself each night.

Now that I have a fabulous diamond ring, I tuck it in to sleep back into its black velvet box, so it looks like I’m being proposed to night after night. The first thing Alan saw me doing that, he looked shocked. “You don’t keep it on all night?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. I don’t really know!”

I was going to ask the ladies of my book club and/or watch movies very closely to see who wore theirs to sleep, but never got around to it. I do know that I take it off to do dishes and to go to the gym: just common sense.

On our camping trip this weekend, we were tramping through the woods when this little dialogue happened.

Alan: You know how you take the ring off at night?

Erika: Yeah?

Alan: And sometimes you’re not wearing it?

Erika: True….

Alan: So you won’t be angry now and then if I don’t wear mine?

Erika: Sure, as long as you wear it when you go clubbing.

Alan: I’ll wear two just in case the dingbat I’m hitting on doesn’t know which hand to look at.

And then we saw a bear!

Actually, we did see a bear but that was on a different hike and deserves its own post.

Ed. note: Alan does not go clubbing. And it’s wrong to refer to women as dingbats.