Proposed bicycle trip on the upper Danube in July, 2009

December 18, 2008

The following is an exchange between my friend, John W., an older gentleman about my age, and me regarding a proposed bicycle tour this summer in Germany:

Dear T.:

I am not a biker but of course willing to undertake whatever regimen is necessary to get myself in condition. It sounds easy enough as you describe it- "flat, scenic and not very expensive" --"on buke trails." Is "buke" something between bike and puke? The latter might be my forte if it gets too tough. But knowing you, T., you are not going to do that to yourself. And as long as we are bicycling down river, with the flow, how difficult can it be? My only reservation is the German language. Yes I know they all speak English and therefore no problem communicating. It is simply that the German language is anathema to me. It is World War II and many Nazi movies as a child. I have never owned a German auto or for that matter a Jap auto either. I suppose your Frankfurt friends would not consider bicycling in France where I feel at home. But don't think that Germany puts me off such that I wouldn't go. I would not forfeit yours and Dare's company for that reason. Just a suggestion. How long is the trip and when in July? I expect to walk in France in the Spring. I would like to coordinate. One more thing would you consider moving the trip to earlier in the year to get the benefit of the cooler weather and less people? I look forward to this. John W.

My answer:

Re the proposed bike trip on the upper Danube:

1. Don't worry; you won't puke or buke.
2. We are booked up earlier. The weather will be fine, and there won't be many people in July. The departure date won't be fixed for a couple of months. Stay loose.
3. You have many more Germain traits than pansy French traits. You will feel right at home in Germany with the Germans. They are far and away the best people in Europe, no matter how badly Hollywood slandered them.
4. Everyone speaks English. Furthermore, my German is at least as good as your French - which may not be saying much.
5. You will love our friends. Bodo the lawyer is on your wavelength politically. He is past president of the Harvard Law School Association of Europe.
6. Some exercises in advance will be required. Your legs are in good shape, but I'll bet your butt isn't. I can suggest simple exercises that will prevent your trip from being ruined by sore-butt-itis.
7. The trip will be one week. It starts in a town called Donauschwengen and ends in Ulm. You fill fly to Frankfurt. We will already be in Berlin. We can meet you in Frankfurt. Also, you can combine this with a few days in Berlin and stay with us if you wish.
8. You like beer, don't you?
9. One gauges the difficulty of a bike trip by the color of the hair of the riders coming the other way. If it's grey, the ride will not be a problem. You will see a majority of old folks coming the other way. You will rent a bike as part of the tour. You could even room with Bodo to keep the cost down.
10. Good news: Our German friends insist on wine for lunch. Bad news: They won't pay more than five or six Euros per bottle. We don't do wine, so cheap stuff from the supermarket tastes good to Dare and me. Germans of their immediate post-war generation can't bear to part with cash - another trait you have in common with them.
11. The highlight of the day is the lunch on a grassy knoll along the river or, if we're lucky, a public picnic table. Dare and Hannelore, the other lady, will take turns shopping every morning before we pull out. You will have to pay for one lunch, but the total cost usually comes in under 20 Euros, including wine, for six. You can't believe how good German cold cuts, pate', cheese, gerkins and rolls taste after a morning of biking.
12. Dare gets out of control occasionally and wants to bike at the point with the men. I try to restrain her because I think it's bad manners. She is the best athlete in the bunch, however.
13. The other guy, Ulrich (PhD in physics and ex executive) used to be a bike racer, and he can fix anything that goes wrong. He once changed my tire on the platform of the Venice train station.
14. This will change your life. You voted for "change," didn't you?

Sincerely, T.

Next comment/query from John later on December 18:

T.: Buttitis is a definite malady I hope to avoid. When do I do? But those leather pants? and Italian shirts? How about a padded seat? Something more than those dreadfully hard leather, self-flagellating, ball busting, excruciating, you know what I mean. Are these road bikes or mountain bikes? How many hours a day? I think I like the idea of wine at lunch, something to anthesitize my nerve endings. I know I am probably ahead of myself but is one's bag shipped ahead or must one carry it. I am definitely one who belieives in carrying the minimum and let some one else do the heavy lifting. Is this a large group effort or just us and your Frankfurt friends. Who makes the bookings and when, along the way or before we start? Etc., etc. John

My answer:

15. Padded seat won't do it. Pain is not caused by the seat but by flabby butt muscles.

16. No leather pants or Italian biking jerseys. Khaki shorts or touring shorts with real or faux chamois in the crotch and old tee shirts will do. You should get a helmet at home and bring it with you. Also, biking gloves are desirable, particularly since your hands are no doubt soft from all that walking. An old, comfy pair of running shoes will do also.

17. Light, easy to ride and steer touring bikes. Wide, but not too wide, tires.

18. We ride about five hours a day at moderate speeds, but with stops and lunch it stretches to about eight hours. Our friends find it hard to pass up a coffee or beer place, and they drink Radlers. You will be expected to drink at least one. It is about half beer and half Seven-Up and when drunk cold can hit the spot. The Germans have to have a pastry at about 4pm. I generally have ice cream. Dare and you will have mineral water.

19. A van picks up your bags in the morning and delivers them to the destination hotel/pension. You will have a saddlebag for your extra jacket or sweatshirt, your poncho (a must), water bottle. Breakfast is usually a big treat and is included in the price. Some tours include dinner and some do not.

20. There will be only six of us. Other people might be on the same tour and staying at the same hotels, and sometimes we ride with them.

21. Ulrich will make all the arrangements. The tour company makes the hotel reservations and rents the bikes. You should have some kind of brochure, maps and other info before you leave home. This will be a simple ride because we will largely follow the river. The bike paths should have a smooth surface and on a route like this are well marked.

22. If anything starts to hurt, crying is not allowed. Dare will give you a dirty look if she hears any whimpering.

Sincerely, T.

Bad thought re the San Francisco Giants

December 13, 2008

Heard on Sirius XM Radio Hot Stove radio this morning: If you were a pitcher, why would you sign with the Giants when the left side of the infield has two guys* who can't move to either side? The person commenting is with a national publication. He called the Giants "a bad team."

*Renteria at short and Sandoval at third

A curious encounter with a Frenchman

December 13, 2008

Yesterday morning I was on my regular morning run to the Peets coffee store in Potrero Center in San Francisco. As I was parking, a new Honda speeding by stopped abruptly beside me. A trim, well dressed, possibly sleek young black man who looked like a forward on a professional soccer team, alone in the car, rolled down his right front window and asked crisply, "Are you from Biarritz?" I was both perplexed at the question and by his accent. I quickly realized that I was wearing a bright red sweatshirt by Kappa, a popular European sports brand that I had purchased in Portofino about three years ago. "Biarritz" was emblazoned in large white letters trimmed in blue (tricoleur) across my chest.

I replied "No. Why do you ask?"

"I'm French," he said. "I was wondering whether you are from France."

I told him that this was just a sweatshirt, that I had not been in Biarritz since 1957 but that I wanted to go back badly. Visibly unimpressed by my remark, he nodded, closed his window and drove off as abruptly as he had stopped without further comment.

Ara Peterson sculpture shown at NADA fair in Miami

The latest and possibly greatest.

More Stelios Faitakis

November 27, 2008

New painting by Stelios Faitakis, to be shown at the booth of The Breeder Gallery, Athens, at the Supernova section of the Miami-Basel Art Fair in Miami Beach on December 3 ff. The painting is entitled "Valley," 2008:

Stelios Faitakis in San Francisco

Faitakis [pronounce the first "i" in his name as "ee"] is an extremely interesting new artist from Athens. Two of his works are in Ptolemy's loft in San Francisco. One, a screen that is 6 feet by 12 feet, is pictured here.

Also, you can see the works on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOje7Yfy2O8.

Certain Events and High Class Problems of the Spiritual Life

November 21, 2008

Liturgical Notes: The End of an Era

We have been attending the 7:30 a.m. Sunday service at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, for approximately ten years, since leaving the parish of the World's Greatest Christians, Christ Church, Portola Valley. The liturgy has been Rite I from the Book of Common Prayer, without music. The service has been celebrated in the Grace Chapel, a small, neo-Gothic gem of the style that in my youth was called a “lady chapel,” but with perhaps a 30-foot ceiling. The Chapel is pictured above.

Retired clergy have taken their turns as celebrants every five or six weeks or so. What these priests might occasionally have lacked in vigor they more than compensated for by incisiveness, terseness and organization in their homilies, qualities worshipers prize more greatly as the years pass. The services proceeded under a cloak of anonymity. I never learned the names of the celebrants because they were neither published nor announced. It was our impression that one was an Englishman who had been the principal of the Grace Cathedral boys school and who had rowed probably at Oxford, another a long time teacher in San Jose who was once spotted in the checkout line at Trader Joes in a heavy, black leather jacket and who hikes the highest Sierra every summer, and another a former engineer who had grown up in a fundamentalist Texas Gulf town and found rational refuge and Christian love in the Episcopal faith as a priest later in life.

We were usually out by 8:15 before the organist in the great nave of the Cathedral began his warm-ups for the 8:15 service. There were generally anywhere from ten to twenty five or so souls in attendance and always a good mix of travelers from far away places such as Ohio or Maryland.

Last Sunday without warning the axe fell. Reverend Forbes, the celebrant advised that in two weeks the lonely outpost of the 7:30 service would be held no more and that the 7:30 and 8:15 services would be combined in a new 8:30 service with music in the Grace Chapel. What to do in the yawning chasm of empty time each Sunday morning from awakening at 6 am as older folks are wont to do to the new time?

I then inquired of Reverend Forbes about Rite I. He replied that the new service would probably discard it in favor of Rite II, to our ears the bland, simplified, basic English version of the Holy Communion service invented 20 years or so ago that jettisoned the best language early 16th century liturgical style of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury at the time of Henry VIII and translator of the Psalms as they appear in the Book of Common Prayer, albeit that some miraculous prayers from the early Greek Church Fathers were allowed to infiltrate.

Alas my more or less faithful attendance at what are commonly called eight o’clock services these past thirty or so years has been based on certain not insubstantial stirrings of duty and love of the Church - which I have come sadly to view as not at all the same as being a Christian - but also on a great nostalgia for the words I heard in my youth at Gesthemane Episcopal Church in Marion, Indiana. I had once won an award for not missing Sunday school for four consecutive years. At the age of twelve in 1944 I had been commissioned to schedule the acolytes. The wonderful priests and lay Sunday school teachers of that time were, excepting my family, the most important people I have known. Manifestations, intimations, emanations and even imagined revelations of the Holy Trinity as I perceive them are inexorably tied to recurring evocations of Mary and Mabel Cole, Al Spurgeon and Ed Curtis, my Sunday School teachers, and Fathers Croft and Sheridan (Episcopal) - not to mention Father Archadiou from South Bend (Orthodox), something of a complication - and the language later incorporated into Rite I that was the air we breathed. Now this vital tie to the foundations of my life is to be severed by fiat coincident with a pending management change at Grace Cathedral and Heaven only knows what exigencies of the economic downturn.

All this hardly seems conducive to a stable and happy ending for a couple of seniors. I am citing the tiniest of vibrations on the sensors of the Church at a time of threatened Schism and all the conflicts threatening disruption. A move to Nigeria or a remote village in England appears problematical, although we occasionally find some comfort when we are able to attend the English parish, St. George's, in west Berlin or St. Paul's in downtown Athens, where an amazing panoply of enormous, spiritually dominant Africans can be found worshiping every Sunday.

Accordingly, we will stiffen our upper lips, continue to hope for the best and trust that God will heed our entreaties under the new regime. But no more will our worship expressly be marked as “meet, right and our bounden duty” as, in the olden days, we proudly proclaimed in the Rite I opening to our Eucharistic prayers.

For more lamentation: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2002/02/27/do2701.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2002/02/27/ixop.html

Football crazy - Sunday November 9, 2008

Mrs. Ptolemy and Ptolemy attended a superb football (soccer) match this evening in the Berlin Olympic Stadium. The Berlin team, Hertha B.S.C.,* defeated Heffenheim, a small town near Heidelberg, but never mind, 1-0. The crowd of 58,000 plus cheered, sang and chanted loudly and endlessly. A good time all around. We are indebted to our talented banker, Richard Giessel of Frankfurt, for the "50 yard line" tickets and for the blue and white scarves that helped us stave off the dampness, not that they were needed, given the warmth of the crowd.

*Most European football clubs have names that are strange and shrouded in history.

An old friend doing great new technology stuff

Ptolemy ran into his old friend, Markus Schneider, at the lavish opening of the Capitain Petzel Galerie on Karl-Marx-Allee in east Berlin on October 31, 2008, and this is what Markus and his new company are doing: http://www.thismedia.com

Nifty.

E-mail to a young lady working in an art gallery in the Bowery, New York

October 29, 2008

Dear Maggie:

Aren't you wonderful to think of us? (1) We already have a VIP package for the Basel Miami Art Fair, and (2) I don't think we'll be going this year. I think we have attended every one since Miami Basel started, and I don't think there is much new to see. Every year the Rubels go over the top, and every year makes it more apparent that there is more striving for a thin shock of the new rather than new discovery. But don't let THAT dampen your youthful enthusiasm.

We were VIP's at FIAC [at fair in Paris] last week. The fair was only C+, although incredibly elegant, but the peripheral shows (Picasso and his Masters, Nolde, Futurism meeting early Parisian cubism, Lee Miller, etc.) were terrific. This weekend we are VIP's in Berlin, and Friday late afternoon I am appearing on a panel on trends on collecting and the market (the answers are none and none).

I see you have a Sam Lewitt show starting on November 2. I will send you a jpeg of our installation of the piece we have. It looks good.

Also, please be advised that I am probably the only client of the gallery that has read about two thirds of Badiou's book on set theory ontology. I will try to finish it. I can't stand it that these brilliant Frenchmen still fret about communism, particularly since we might be replacing it with something worse.

s/ Ptolemy

Concerns of younger folks (continued):

Announcement for an evening of video in Chelsea, lower Manhattan, to wit:

NADA VIDEO NIGHTS
Wednesday 10/29
6:30-8pm

at John Connelly Presents
625 W 27th Street (between 11th and 12th Avenues)
NEW YORK CITY

Feature program: The State We're In - A selection of videos from the collection of the Artist Pension Trust (Dubai) that in different ways and via a wide variety of references seem to offer pertinent reflections on the accumulating states of global turbulence, and the resulting feelings of indecision and confusion. Curated by November Paynter, Director of APT Dubai, and independent curator, the program features work by Fahrettin Örenli, Ergin Cavusoglu, Ahmet Ögut, Vlatka Horvat, Basim Madgy, Loukia Alavanou, Wael Shawky, and Mario Rizzi.

Invitation to a party for launch of new edition of a spirited, avant magazine

This invitation arrived in Ptolemy's mailbox from John Connelly Presents, a first rate young Chelsea (West 27th Street, New York) art gallery. In case you were wondering what many "artistic" young people are concerned about. The Magazine is called "K48."

Dear Friends,

On October 28th from 11pm to 4am, join your fellow K48osmonauts at Santos (100 Lafayette St) as we escape the Earth's problems and celebrate the launch of K48: Starship Couterforce, issue No. 7—NYC's most awesome artist's fanzine. There will be music and dancing all night as we countdown the last minutes before take off—put on your space suits and bring favorite aliens.

Live performances by Come Rad Comrade, Brother Bruno, Tha Pumpsta, Living Days, Popular Science—featuring Tobell von Cartier and DJ set's by NYC's Kingdom, Michael Magnan, Atomly, Telfar and Fatima Al Qadiri.
_______________________________________________________________________

Press Release:

K48 is proud to announce the launch of its seventh issue: Starship Counterforce.
In this edition, K48 explores space, science fiction and our race toward the future.
Our planet is dying. The world faces environmental and economic collapse, consumption continues at even faster rates and governments wage war to feed corporate greed and oil dependency... we feel more and more imprisoned by the forces of gravity and wish to break free of our oxygen bubble—this spaceship Earth.

Today it's hard to imagine what the future might look like... one example that has inspired K48 from the start is George Lucas' student film, THX 1138. In his film, which he calls "an artifact from the future", what's left of life of Earth is sedated and confined to living in a subterranean world under constant surveillance and where emotions are against the law. There's no more love, only work to build a robotic police state and to consume —"buy more now," and "be happy".

We're not that far off from Lucas' vision. In the late 70s and through the mid 80s the pages of OMNI made the future seem glamorous. Today, however, in light of the very real and practical space station, deep space exploration and the search for other habitable planets has lost some of its magic. Nevertheless, the idea of space still resides in our culture as a means of hope and escape. The clean geometric constructions, spectral patterns, cosmic powers, and quantum physics associated with space let us turn away from our human problems and desire to imagine a world uncontaminated by our presence.

Excursions within the issue include photos by Marco Boggio Sella that bring news of the moon landing to a small West African village in Burkina Faso, a fashion spread of Telfar Clemen's 2008 ECO Society collection abstracted by Jason Farrer, prose by Amir Mogharabi theorizing the meaning of a last breath in The Cosmogony of Deceit, and an interview with Klaus Schulze the father of electronic music by editor Scott Hug. The issue's cover is a specially designed gold-embossed spacemetric construction by Jonah Groeneboer and each issue comes with a sculpture of light produced by Anne Koch and a soundtrack CD compiled and mixed by Samuel KkLOVENHOOF of led er est.

Special events include a preview exhibit at the 3rd Annual New York Art Book Fair, a launch party with band performances at Santos Party House on October 28th, an exhibition at Rekord in Oslo, Norway and a satellite launch party at the Aqua Hotel in Miami on December 5th. Further events will be posted on thek48bullet.blogspot.com.

K48#7 Artists/writers:

Jarrod Anderson
Fatima Al Qadiri
Marc Andreottola
Hrafnhildur Arnardottir (a.k.a. Shoplifter) w/Erez Sabag and Edda Gudmundsdottir
Hackworth Ashley
assume vivid astro focus
Brian Belott
Matt Bua
Michael Bilsborough
Jesse Bransford
Coley Brown
Bureau V
Christophe Chemin
Telfar Clemens
Ryan Compton
Claire Corey
Brent Cowley/Asher Penn
TM Davy
Will Duty
Chris Duncan
FACE
Jonah Freeman
Jack Goldstein
Jonah Groeneboer
Andrew Guenther
Wade Guyton
Jonathan Hartshorn
Brandon Herman
Hood by Air
Timothy Hull
Xylor Jane
Craig Kalpakjian
Shaun Kessler
Anne Koch
Terence Koh
Jeff Konigsberg
Michael Lazarus
Paul Lee
Severiano Martinez
Gloria Maximo
Keith Mayerson
Justin McAllister
Josh McNey
Robert Melee
Nicholas Messing
Johnny Misheff
Amir Mogharabi
Slava Mogutin
John Monteith
Mary Nicholson
Micki Pellerano
Misaki Kawai & Pete Pezzimenti
PFFR
Scott Reeder
Tyson Reeder
Theo A. Rosenblum
Samuel de la Rosa
Ezra Rubin
Borna Sammak
Justin Samson
Desi Santiago
Anja Schwörer
Marco Boggio Sella
Hiro Sugiyama
Robert Sumrell
James Swain
Mungo Thomson
Donnie & Travis
Jan Wandrag
Pete Watts
Grant Worth
Will Yackulic
Yemenwed

K48 Music by:

Fatima Al Qadiri
Der Räuber und der Prinz
Nacho Patrol
led er est
Medio Mutante
Brother Bruno
Living Days
Tha Pumpsta
Atomly
Kingdom
Popular Science
Come Rad Comrade
Tobias Bernstrup
2vm
Jeffrey SFire
Grackle
Frank Alpine

Race relations in the pre-Obama era

My son, George, is 46 years old, unmarried, living in Tacoma and a pretty good basketball player, by his own admission. By general agreement of his peers, he was in his time the best player at the Harvard Graduate School, faint as that praise might be.

One on his pastimes is playing pick-up basketball at playgrounds or occasionally a public gym. Until recently he was living in Pacific Palisades, and most of his basketball activity was in playgrounds along the Santa Monica or Venice beach area or elsewhere in West L.A. The regulars at these games are of all races but mostly black, good players and generally friendly and accommodating. If you want to get into a game, you get in. The only taboo I have ever heard of from George is the strict prohibition against wearing any clothes with a logo or a recognizable derivation. Pro or college t-shirts are not allowed – a Laker logo, for example, would incur instant banishment. One could wear a t-shirt from Southwest Kentucky State Teachers College.

A day or two ago, having some time to kill before a job in a wet and dark wooded area somewhere in the Tacoma environs, he chanced upon a schoolyard game. All the players were black. Upon asking if he could play, a tryout was put in play that required George to drive on the basket. After negotiating the drive with some success, a player was heard to remark, “See, I told you he was hard and dirty.” That sufficed to let George into the game.

For a while, all went as well as could be expected. The leader seemed to be the point guard, and George was fed the ball in normal order. After a while, George was not getting the ball. A black observer shouted to the point guard from the sideline, “Why don’t you feed the white guy; he’s your best player. Nothing doing. George was frozen out.

In the meantime, the patter among the players was becoming increasingly exclusionary in tone, although George did not report that it was directed toward him. George derived the following: White language is derided. Whites are soft and incapable. The blacks are intensely tribal. The whites are the others and worse. Conclusion: The period of desegregation is over. In urban areas, taking into account that in areas like Tacoma live men in the manner of left-over loggers, we are now back in South Africa. My guess is that Venice Beach integration is increasingly illusionary.

Luca Trevisani - young Italian artist

Trevisani is an Italian, about 28 years old, living and working in Berlin. Probably the next Olafur Eliasson.

The white painting is by the Viennese artist, Heimo Zobernig, and the small piece in the lower left is by the Frankfurt artist, Andreas Slominski.

Site is the loft of Mrs. Ptolemy south of Market in San Francisco.

A play read by Internet bots

I saw and heard this play performed at the Lab (Mission District, San Francisco) recently. Very interesting.

http://mark.antsclimbtree.com/

An all female percussion group called Morse SL also performed a "musical" piece based on Sartre's "No Exit," which affected the strained hopelessness that is the subject of the play. The performance was very well done.

Berlin techno band

Photo taken with iPhone at 1:30 a.m. September 6, 2008, at the Club Mighty, 15th and Utah Streets, San Francisco, during performance of the Berlin techno group, Modeselektor:

Start

The blog starts today, October 4, 2008. Thanks for looking in.