Three cheers for Iris
My shopping cart this evening
Does advertising work? Sure. How much? Hard to tell. It was JC Penney, supposedly, who said he new that half his advertising was worthless, he just didn’t know which half.
Nonetheless, good businesses advertise, so I was happy to see the above display card on my shopping cart. We need more players, and Iris is doing what she should to get them.
The art of giving
An artist named Ken Hepurn made the gate at the top of our driveway. And the gates on the walkway. And the “totem” in the front yard. We wanted him to make us a mailbox, but he had sold out to corporate America and was designing for The Gap, so we had someone else make a knockoff of his style.
Then he went into the custom door business, and he made our front door. You could say we are big Ken Hepburn fans.
Now he is on to another adventure–he has started a web company called givigiv.com, which is in the business of facilitating gift giving by offering the ability to send drinks and appetizers at popular restaurants to someone via their smart phone. Your recipient gets an email which contains a link to the gift certificate, then goes to the chosen bistro and shows the link to their server. Two drinks and two appetizers coming up, no charge.
This is an easy gift–it fits everyone, it should offend nobody. No shopping, no wondering, just a few clicks and your social or business obligation is taken care of. The restaurant gets a new customer, who will likely order more than just the first round of drinks, possibly dinner. Everyone is happy.
At least, that’s the plan. The world is full of internet start-ups, some get rich, some sink without a trace. We’re hoping our friend is in the former group.
Ken has this business going in the LA area, and is moving towards SF. He sent us a givigiv test for a place called Serpentine in the city, so tonight we went and tried out both the system and the restaurant.
Serpentine is not downtown, it’s in Dogpatch, an honest to God neighborhood, at 2495 3rd Street. I think that’s the Potrero district.
The building is old and industrial, like the area. Inside, things are pretty industrial as well, but I liked the decor.
We got there at opening time, so the place was empty. It didn't stay that way long.
I tried to make an Opentable reservation, but they were booked, so we just walked in at the stroke of 6, when they open. I could see that they had a ton of reservations on the screen, but they shoehorned us in anyway.
A tiny table, a chair out into the aisle for the big boy. The cute redhead is grand-daughter Tessa.
When we got a waitress, I showed her the givigiv certificate on my iPhone, but she had no idea of what I was talking about. Her manager came over and made it work, though. We may have been the very first people in San Francisco to try this system out.
Gail had wine, Tessa the adored grand-daughter had a champagne cocktail, I had iced tea. We had appetizers–olives, and pickled veggies. Then, proving the concept, we ordered dinner.
A seriously beautiful piece of steak.
Gail and Tessa split the steak, which was sitting on a bed of mashed potatoes and, and, and, we never figured out what else. Some kind or root vegetable, maybe parsnips. Whatever they were, they were gone before long.
Seared ahi.
I went for the seared ahi, which came perfectly cooked on a bed of Himalayan red rice with a green curry. The rice was delicious, the curry was way on the hot side for a sissy like me.
The dessert card offered a lemon buttermilk pudding, and who could resist that?
Lemon buttermilk pudding with huckleberry sauce, topped with vanilla whipped cream.
It was like having just the good stuff from the middle of a lemon meringue pie, with whipped cream on top. I loved it.
So we had a double winner tonight—the givigiv concept worked; Ken sent us drinks and appetizers as easily as sending an email. We ordered dinner, so the restaurant made out. The meal was great, so we’re happy. Everybody wins, but I won the most–that lemon dessert was one to remember.
Ambivalance
At Berkeley Rep, Christopher Liam Moore (center) stars with Tyler James Myer and Bill Geisslinger in the world-premiere production of Ghost Light, written by Tony Taccone and directed by Jonathan Moscone. Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com
There’s an old joke about the doting mother watching her son march in a parade, who notes “Oh look, everyone is out of step but my Fred.” Maybe I need to change my name to Fred.
Last night we saw Ghost Light at Berkeley Rep. It’s the story of Jonathan Moscone, son of Mayor George Moscone who was killed by Dan White. Written by Tony Taccone and directed by Moscone, it’s as real and personal as a play can be. The acting is tremendous, the staging and set design are absolutely first rate. Every loves it.
Except me. Not for the first time, I’m out of step with the universe. I willingly concede the excellent parts of this play; I was laughing as hard as anyone at the wittiness, as emotionally involved in the serious parts. Christopher Moore is a tremendous actor who learned an astonishing amount of dialogue. Still, I found myself not liking the post-modern anti-structuralism, the theatrical pyrotechnics, the “look at me, I’m really cool” way in which the play was put together. Maybe I’m an old fogey. Okay, they give me the senior discount at the grocery store, I am an old fogey. I still like to know when a dream sequence is happening, not feel like a fool when I work it out 12 minutes later. I think the importance of a speech should be shown by the words, not by their over-amplification blasting out from the walls.
Is it possible to be too close to a subject to write about it well? Of course the 10 year old Jonathan idolized his father, but does that make for good history? Some of what we saw last night just seemed like so much self-actualization claptrap, some of it was egocentric poor-me-ism, some of it was a really interesting take on how George Moscone was a strong supporter of gay rights before it was cool or common and how that has been lost in the Harvey Milk hagiography.
All this leaves me in the middle. I didn’t love the show, I didn’t hate it. On balance, I suppose I’d recommend it, but it’s closing today and you can’t get there anyway. That’s either good or bad, I just don’t know.
Exploring Lake Rippey
Mike Rippey plays bridge, runs a large company selling radiators and other car parts all over the country, is president of the board of directors of the Ruth Bancroft Garden, has a gorgeous sweetie named Gretchen and, more than anything else, loves his fish.
Yep. Fish. Orange, silver, blue, finny friends of the wet variety.
At his office building in Benicia, he has build an large fish pond, heated year ’round to keep his tropical pets cozy. We went up to see it today.
Inspecting the troops
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These aren’t your basic goldfish–those are too stupid for Mike. He only likes smart fish. These are chichlids, of various types and varieties. He has one with a flock of baby fish swimming under it under they get bigger. Another one carries the tiny babies in its mouth for a couple of weeks until they can fend for them selves.
One of the big boys
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There are turtles and frogs, too. The turtles are so slow that even if he drops food right on their heads, the fish will snatch it away faster that the turtles can get to it. The frogs are mostly nocturnal, but we managed a rare sighting–he was a big old boy, and disappeared in a flash.
Hard to get real flamingos in California, so this plastic on will have to do.
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Scientists studying the fauna
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Mike has an important manager, Derek, who is the most senior employee of the company. His real job is the fish–if the pond isn’t just right, he’s in big trouble. Managing the staff and making the business run are secondary.
Head fish wrangler Derek
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The maelstrom of activity when you feed the herd.
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Apparently the secret to a great pond is to feed the fish rarely–they manage to live anyway, and more food leads to more fish poop in the water. Nobody wants fish poop. Mike got out a little food, though, just for the fun of watching the feeding frenzy.
I’ve always said that inside every bridge player is someone really interesting, if you just got through the weirdness. Players are smart, educated, interested, involved and passionate. And sometimes, fishy as hell. Turns out that’s interesting, too
A Priceline winner
Not bad at all for just the one night. And the price was really right.
Micky asked me to play in the morning Swiss, which means I need to be in Santa Clara at 9 am. Given Friday traffic, I’d need to leave the house by 7:30, maybe 7:15, to get there in time. That means getting up by 6:30. Not gonna happen.
But the Marriott hotel is not only sold out, it would cost an arm and a leg even if I could get in, and that extra 90 minutes of sleep is worth a lot to me, but not $150. Fortunately, there is Priceline to the rescue.
Hotels in the Milpitas/Santa Clara area were listed from $79 to $329 a night for Thursday, so I went to the “name your own price” section. You pick an area and a quality of hotel, name a price and put in your credit card info. If there is a hotel willing to take the offer, the deal is sealed and then you find out the name of where you are staying. If nobody is willing to take you at your bid price, sometimes they will tell you how much it will take, sometimes you have to just increase the price and keep trying–but you can only bid once a day unless you add more area or lower the quality of the place you want.
In this case, I bid $39 for a 3-star quality hotel in the Milpitas area, and Priceline said I would have to bid at least $52 to get a room. That worked, and I got a room at the Beverly Heritage Hotel, just off the Montague Expressway, for a total of $66 with all the taxes and fees. As you can see above, it’s a decent place, clean and modern and with free internet. I asked when I checked in what a room would cost if for someone just walking in off the street, and they said their best rate tonight is $189. Not a bad deal at all, I think.
Priceline isn’t perfect–for the San Diego NABC I had a hotel supposedly “downtown” which was 2.5 miles away. But if you can live with a little uncertainty and the occasional clinker, it’s a great deal.
The return of Frank and Elizabeth
Frank is busily watching out for danger as Elizabeth scarfs up the corn
They’re back!!!
My favorite migrating ducks, Sir Francis Drake and Queen Elizabeth I, are stopping at our house and pool for the fourth time, arriving today for their annual visit. I think the point of their stop is to lay some eggs and make a few ducklings, but I’ve never actually seen a baby bird. Either they’re not very good at it or the hawks and raccoons are too fast for them.
We feed the chickens cracked corn, and the ducks like it just as well. They already come when I go out to feed them, maybe this year I’ll get Elizabeth to eat out of my hand like the chickens do.
I don’t know how long they will be here, or if they will be back next year, or why they chose our house. I just like them, and plan to enjoy them while I can.
The Iranian Job
A guy just wants to take care of his dad, and the roof falls in on him.
That’s Job, as in the bible, not job as in work.
We went to see A Separation this afternoon, and think you should go see it, too.
I look up movies on Rottentomatoes, a web site that aggregates the reviews from all the major newspapers, magazines and blogs, giving them a score on the “Tomatometer” that is the percentage of good reviews vs bad reviews. Perfect would be 100%, and A Separation managed to score 99, which is the highest I have ever seen. The Artist, this year’s runaway hit and Oscar favorite, got 97. Even my personal favorite, Shaun of the Dead, only scored 92 on the Tomatometer.
Back to the subject. Here’s the precis, snitched from the web:
Morally complex, suspenseful, and consistently involving, A Separation captures the messiness of a dissolving relationship with keen insight and searing intensity.
I didn’t see this as just the “messiness of dissolving relationship”, I thought that there was much more than that involved.
A woman wants to emigrate from Iran, and her husband, although originally in favor, is now refusing to go because he must take care of his father, who is in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s disease and cannot function without constant supervision and care.
She sues him for divorce, so she can leave. He is willing to grant the divorce (his agreement being required in Iran), but is not willing to allow their 11 year old daughter to leave. The wife won’t leave the country without the daughter, but decamps to her mother’s house nonetheless.
The man hires help to take care of dad during the day.
Bad things happen, the caregiver has a miscarriage, the man is charged with murder (the way Rick Santorum thinks the world should be), and then things get really messy.
The man is not a bad person, nor is his wife. They are just a couple of people trying to make the best of an impossible situation with no easy answers. The caregiver character is deeply conflicted between doing what her religion demands and what her family needs. The 11 year old daughter (who looks more like 15 to me) is torn between her parents and doesn’t know which way to turn. Even the caregiver’s 4 year old child has issues she is incapable of understanding to deal with.
If you need car chases, gunfire and sex to make a movie interesting, this isn’t the flick for you. If you like deep moral ambiguity, existential angst, no-win situations and an ending with no answers, hurry on over to the Dome and see this movie. You don’t get a 99 on the Tomatometer for nothing.
Trivia night at the Temple
Temple? Moi? Yes.
Mike called me Saturday afternoon, and when he found out we had no plans he invited us to Trivia night at Temple Isaiah.
So there we were, having dinner in the temple hall with our friends.
Micky and LInda. Current temple president Lisa on the left.
Gail and another Linda. Danny was playing bridge.
Dinner was pretty good for this sort of thing–chicken that was properly cooked and not dried out. Pasta and veggies, fresh bread and a decent salad.
After dinner/socializing hour, came the trivia contest. This is a big annual deal, last night being the Fifth Annual. It’s a fund raiser for the temple youth fund, and I thought it was very impressively done.
The format was good, but too long. Each of the 17 tables comprised a team (which explains why Micky wanted us there–I have the world’s foremost collection of useless knowledge, and he knows all about sports. We’re a formidable combination). Then there were 4 rounds of 20 questions each, which is just too darned much trivia for one night.
Very professionally done event
Some of the questions were easy, some were impossible. Nobody could spell the word that won last year’s national spelling bee -cytomatrichous, or something sort of similar. We knew what onomatopoeia was, but we couldn’t spell it, either.
Micky knew that “Sweetness” was Walter Payton’s nickname.
I knew the words to the song from “Wicked”.
We didn’t win, but we weren’t last.
After the second round, they brought out the dessert, and people rapidly descended on the food line and ravaged it.
Those plates were full 60 seconds earlier.
When you think of a rabbi, do you see this guy in your mind?
This is not the Rabbi at Temple Isaiah
Me too, and I should know better. This is Rabbi Forrest:
Rabbi Alissa Forrest
Rabbi Forrest announced her engagement last night, too. Mazel Tov!
I was raised Catholic, was even an altar boy occasionally. Don’t go to church unless there is a wedding or funeral. Between my friend Mike and Gail’s son Toby (who was bar mitzvah’ed there while Mike was president) I’ve spent more time in Temple Isaiah than I have in any other religious institution in the last 40 years. I’m not likely to become a dues paying member, but it’s a good group of people and a great place to lose a trivia contest.
Coming home
Orlando sunrise.
We’ve had about all the fun we can handle here, so we’re in the way home. Orlando to LAX to SFO, back by three this afternoon. If there’s wifi in the plane we may just play bridge all the way.
American Airlines is announcing 13,000 layoffs and I still see that the planes are always full. Are the people in first class going to have to bake their own chocolate chip cookies next?
Hugo
Asa Butterfield in Hugo, Sasha Baron Cohen inside.
Accepting his award for best director at the Golden Globes, Martin Scorsese said “my daughter wanted to me make a movie she could see”. Hugo certainly fits the bill.
A fantasy, a morality tale, a homage to the origins of the movie business, Hugo is a visual delight that is both a child’s movie and a love poem to an industry.
Asa Butterfield stars as an orphan living in a Paris train station, trying to finish a project his father started before his untimely demise. Ben Kinglsey (who is so heavily made up that I couldn’t differentiate whether it was he or Patrick Stewart) holds the secret, and only the help of Kingsley’s adopted Goddaughter (warmly portrayed by Chloë Moretz) makes it all happen. Sasha Baron Cohen plays the Station Inspector for both laughs and drama, although 20 minutes of his part could easily have been cut to the benefit of the picture.
The sets are incredible; I was unable to tell what was real and what was CGI. The movie had the look and feel of the late 1920’s, fully supported by the costuming and makeup.
Trying to satisfy both an audience of children and an audience of movie history lovers is a difficult task, and Scorsese sometimes spends more time amusing the young set than I would like–the dream-within-a-dream sequence was too much for both me and Gail.
Gail also notes
“A good chase sequence is the best thing in the world. A bad chase sequence is the worst thing in the world.”
While that may be an overstatement, the chases in Hugo were not all that interesting.
I liked this movie, and I think it will become an important part of the Scorsese canon. But when Best Picture time rolls around, it can’t hold a candle to The Artist.
Totally Unauthorized 