Thoughts In Between 2011 and 2012

                                                      
                                                    FAREWELL 2011


I probably ought to be thinking about resolutions as 2011 fades into the historical time line. But I resolved not to make any resolutions back circa 2004, particularly the one about losing weight, although forgive the pun, that lost resolution weighs upon me! 


As I know it has been for many of you, 2011 was an interesting year (a la, "May you live in interesting times" offered by some toast that has its roots I have heard in Chinese philosophy) for me.  Like you, I am likely going to be sorting out the remnants of 2011 into 2012 as life is a seamless garment, albeit one with a few pulled threads. One of my pulled threads has had me musing over the trajectory of my life. When I am toasting with a fizzling glass of champagne over Auld Lang Syne in a local glitzy restaurant, I will be holding my breath, just a little.


What is the measure of any of our lives, those of us who toil, comparatively anonymously (compared, say, to the Real Housewives of New Jersey. Just joking) for what we realize, perhaps too late, despite the surfeit of literature on just the subject, is beyond transient, so much so we are stunned by its predictability?


I have been thinking a lot about that, even more than usual, since finding out how dispensable was my career painstakingly developed (when you count college and law school and the work itself) over 40 years of a life that statistically ends (if lucky) at 78. I almost titled this entry, "If I died tonight. . . ". If I am objective and I have come to realize that is probably impossible, and I had no more chances, what would be the final tally as of midnight tonight?

"Regrets, I've had a few" isn't that how the song goes?  Let's start there. I never married. I knew, even as a child, I probably would not. Self-fulfilling prophecy? Maybe. I have been told by many women that it is "easy" to meet a man, and even to fall in love. It never has been for me. And, I have to accept that I was the problem in the few short chaste relationships I did have. Three of the men married and each had children, so they certainly managed without me and it is hard to say, "it was because of them." I am happy for each. I don't know about the fourth. I did what I thought was my damnedest to change that trajectory, including years of therapy which I still hold as life saving in a multitude of other ways. The man who counselled me was an incredible soul who did his damnedest to help me see I could change. I clearly did not channel his optimism enough.


I never had kids. "Well, you could have adopted".  I could have. If I did not, there were good reasons and less valid ones, but it is what it is. But losing my job reminded me that I put all my eggs in one basket, the achievement basket.  And then, both basket and eggs were taken away. 

I have been afraid almost all of my life, of things that existed and of things that I anticipated with or without substantive evidence. 

I made choices, that I must own, although along the way it often did not feel that way.

But the fact is, I had it good!  I live in a country where I have been well educated and well fed (back to weight again!). And while I worry that freedom here is seeing its last days, I have been its beneficiary to date. I had parents who came from difficult circumstances, who were scarred by those circumstances, but managed to create in me a reasonably well functioning member of society. I have already lived longer than so many deserving beings who never had a chance in places where they were born and died in quick succession, without anyone caring or even noticing. The environment in which I was formed, and the people who directed that formation were gifts I received (in my world view by Providence) through no effort of my own.


I would not say that I have a crowd of friends, but I have some good and long time ones, at least three from the time I was 5 years old and a fair number from high school and college and law school still.  They have blessed me with their support during tough periods (like Dad's death). I had an extended family on both sides of the familial tree, but unfortunately neither mother or father cultivated them, and most of them remain strangers to me. On the other hand, I have a few stalwarts in the group, cousins and a couple of aunts and an uncle (shout outs, you know who you are). Most of these devoted characters know that I have a tendency, despite my apparently outgoing nature, toward being a recluse, and shake me out of it more often than not.  In the last few months, I have made a few new friends, although I realize when I meet a man or woman of a certain age, I am now one of them.

I may not have had children, but I have been blessed to know a couple who have been kind enough to let me be "like an aunt" to them. I am as proud of them as I could be of any of my own.

I am afraid to fly, but despite that I have travelled to Italy, to Canada, to Bermuda, and to some 18-20 states (ok, I am counting New York, and New Jersey). Once blown out of my safety zone, I am passionate about anything and anyone I encounter. I am always glad that I went, even if I am delighted I have returned to my Los Angeles abode and my cadre of cats.

Speaking of cats, I have saved more than a few, and if there is credit given in heaven for that, then I am a shoo in! I take the Aquinas (is it?) view that animals have souls.

I have been blessed with a good voice and a good vocabulary and I have been able to use both for my pleasure and to assist others. 

I lost, and then found again, the religious faith of my youth. I have found another father in the retired pastor of my parish, he who treated my dad, who died after a long good life at 90, as a brother.  

I may no longer have my career, but I can manage comfortably enough while I decide what is next in my life.

And if I get a few years past this Midnight, as is devoutly to be wished and prayed for Lord, in Your Good Wisdom and Will, I might become less afraid, and more open. If the good outweighs the "bad" this year, the entry for next year will even have more of a recitation of how blessed I have been in this life. And maybe, if I get that additional time, I can take the few things in the regret category and join them to the blessings. Who knows?  Anything is possible, eh?

Wishing you and yours a Happy New Year!


                   WELCOME 2012!

Christmas, and Christmas Adjacent, Thoughts

I was just sitting in my favorite swivel and rocking chair cup of coffee in hand, looking out my apartment window at the splendid foliage of the ficus against the most always blue Los Angeles sky. It is very quiet even on this mid-city street, as our denizens are still vacationing. At least few people are working.

I woke up very very late (I shall not say how late as it is truly embarrassing), and remain in my memory foam slippers, and mismatched jammies. I suddenly thought "Shouldn't I write something about Christmas, in general, and my Christmas in particular?"

I did have another entry ready to go, about a recent movie viewing "Young Adult" but I had some trouble with the google blogger automatic save and wrote the whole thing only to have it gone. Somehow, days later, it just doesn't seem worth re-creating, which brings me back to what shall I write about?

First, I hope that you who celebrate the season, secularly or religiously, or both, have so far had a most excellent experience of merriness!  Those celebrating Hanukkah---thank you, for your ancestors are the reason that monotheism survived and this holiday was their effort. (Thank you Dennis Prager for bringing this to my attention). Those celebrating any other holiday, or will be, I hope that you have shared or will share a wonderful time with family and friends.

Djinn's Christmas Door

Secondly, I want everyone to know that when greetings were exchanged, I wished everyone I encountered, "Merry Christmas!"  I keep hearing how non-inclusive it is to say that. After all, the person might not celebrate Christmas. Or might be an atheist.  But to this unimportant writer, that's not what inclusiveness is about primarily. It is about everyone getting to do his or her thing, whatever faith or philosophy is yours in a tolerant country. It does not require the phrase "Happy Holidays" although if it is said, it is quite nice and is certainly a phrase appropriately used if one feels like it in covering the pantheon. So, if someone said to me "Happy Hanukkah!"  I would be delighted as she is offering me the joy of her season. Similarly, when I say "Merry Christmas!" I am offering my love, my affection, my joy, my good wishes to the other. It is extending to them the best for them and their families. It is the inclusiveness personified. Whoever you were that I wished "Merry Christmas!" to, I thought with love and affection about you even if I had no idea of your history or beliefs and may never even see you again.

Third, is what it means to me, this Christmas, and I think to those who do celebrate it. I like the material stuff, the secular sidebars, the lights going up and down every tree in the city (noticed more of that this year), the Santa cottages in all the malls, the fake snow spritzing from towers in malls to the crooning of some old time singer, "Let it snow, Let it snow. . . ", the enormous selection of cards and wrapping paper, the 50 percent sales (yeah!). But, perhaps more as I am getting older and closer to my personal reckoning, the idea of God chasing us out of love to the extreme of becoming one of us in the most vulnerable of ways, as an infant, is about as magnificent a thing as could be given, as Handel's Messiah reports "unto us".  So, I went to two masses, one at Midnight, and the other during the day, and helped on the altar and read the extraordinary words of the Bible, and received God, body, blood, soul and divinity under the appearance of bread and wine. Hopefully, I am guided by the physical presence within of the "New Adam". That, of course, is a choice, for I have free will. I accept the love or I run from it. I have to think about that because my tendency is to run.

Fourth, it was a quiet lovely evening of Gelson's prepared honey baked ham, scalloped potatoes, veggies, cranberries, at the home of Len Speaks, whose preparation and presentation skills were without peer. We will actually have another gathering in January when one of our number presently in the East visiting his relatives is back to make a from scratch meal.  And tonight, I celebrate "boxing day" with two English friends, which for you literal Americans out there, has nothing whatsoever to do with pugilism.

Well, it wasn't that quiet, I guess, cause we played the home edition "Password". A couple of things in that regard. I learned that suspenders are a synonym for "braces" in proper British English. And courtesy of my Thesaurus on this very computer (all reference books), I have confirmed smarty pants Mr. Anonymous from the deluxe furnished Barbara Judith apartments that "alot" is an alternative to "a lot"! 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all among my group of family and friends and to all of you who are delightful enough to read my ramblings. 

We Are All Broken People

Just so you know, despite the title of this entry, and the substance to follow, I am not depressed. 


Been thinking a lot about the face each of us presents to the world, and the reality of that with which each of us copes, either physically or psychically, or both. How many times have you met someone, and to all intents and purposes, she (for purposes of this entry, I shall say "she" to avoid the annoying he/she in my sentences), seems the most together person you have ever met? She dresses "to the nines". She has this terrific job making oodles more money than ever you have or will and she always has advice aplenty for you on how to improve one or another thing about you. It has not failed, at least for me, except on the rarest of rare occasions, that once I got to know this paragon of apparent social competence, I was embroiled in a cascade of crises. My problems, which were barely manageable, were now mutliplied. But then, in for a penny in for a pound, and we try to help.

Years ago, probably on some greeting card, I read the statement, "A normal person is someone you don't know well yet."  Here's a verion of the card, I think.

Lately, everyone I hear about or deal with, once become more familiar to me, is in the throes of some self-imposed and/or externally imposed sturm und drang. She looks to family and friends to assist them, but when you come down to it, Uncle Harry and Aunt Martha turn out not to be the most sensible of solution finders, as they are about to lose their house because they haven't paid the mortage and ignored the past due notices, "hoping that something would turn up." Some people are able to maintain the facade better than others, but have a few more visits than the occasional dinner at a nice restaurant where everybody is selling an image of themselves, and suddenly that person of wisdom and authority seems more like a candidate for the local funny farm. Was it another person who was wise and helpful? Because this guy in front of me is delusional and is trying to convince me he is absolutely making sense.

I'd like to think that it is an epidemic just thrust upon us, but I have a feeling that it is just we are more aware of it given the instant nature of technology, which allows gossip to spread like a tsunami. 


Some years ago when I had illusions I might still avoid spinstershood and manage at least one child, I joined the Catholic Singles Network. I figured it would be nice not to have to worry about a harmony of faith, which always seems to get in the way of a couple AFTER they are married.  Most of the people I met were way too voluable about the Virgin Mary over drinks, and while I fancy myself a marginally good Catholic, I am between lapsed and charismatic, the two extremes I tend to meet or know. People know I am Catholic and I will talk about my faith when it is appropriate, but I rarely bring it up say, at the movies.  I met this interesting fellow in Culver City at some Starbuck's. It was all going fairly well until he told me 1. he had lied on his application for the Single's Network and wasn't Catholic at all, which would have been ok but 2. he had a criminal record for burglary. I think he had a weapon while he was at it. You can tell that things with my prior dates had not gone so well that I actually did not run screaming away. And it turns out the guy was well read and we got into quite the philosophical discussion. At the end, almost wistfuly, he said something I have never forgotten, "We are all broken people."   I sent him a book on contemplation by Thomas Merton, but I was rather glad he did not call again. I have never forgotten that. And have found it to be true, publically and privately--really, we are broken.  Some of us just creak along better than others. 

On the public front, think about all those gurus who tell the rest of us how to fix ourselves. I used to love listening to Dr. David Viscott giving advice on the radio. It was firm. It was clear. It was not just that he was giving good objective advice and practical gimmicks for living but he made it sound like it was something he was doing himself. And surely I could do what he did. Only he wasn't doing what he said I could do and should do. He died alone and it sounded like his life was a series of unending unresolved issues. Same thing with the man who wrote one of my favorite ever pop psychology and ethics books, "The Road Less Travelled".  While he was telling people to beware of the "People of the Lie" he himself was living a way less than authentic life. 

Do I have a point in all this? I don't know, maybe "take what everyone says to you with a grain of salt."
Or, "the advice may be good but don't overly admire the person giving it."  Or "me too, I am broken and I am just trying to find the right glue."   Maybe I am saying be gentle with yourself, and with others.  The guy or lady who looks like they got it all going on, they don't; we are all just trying to get through the day.

Risk Management and the End of Civilization

I was listening to the radio the other morning and a representative from the Salvation Army was on the air with the host. I was expecting the comforting Christmas pitch something like, "When you see our red kettles outside your local commercial establishments, give generously". It was a little of that, of course, but when the host asked what was different about charity work today than 40 years ago, the man said, "risk management." Well, stores are afraid to allow this charity, and others, because of liability. Something happens, and the store will get sued. Like what the host wondered, as did I? Tripping over the red kettle? Well, that would be hard because it isn't on the ground; it hangs from a discreet holder. The tone inside the bell that the volunteer rings?  You know the little ringy thingy inside. Maybe if the volunteer is over exercising in his ringing gyrations, the tone will fly off and hit a Ralph's shopper in the eye. Guess it is not impossible. Or maybe the volunteer is a wild eyed escapee from San Quentin whose life of crime included ringing bells at a supermarket to collect dollar bills for the needy.


I don't know about you, but I am getting sick of it. I am ashamed of my own profession that has made every accident of life the responsibility of some other poor soul or conglomerate, private or publicly owned. 


We are so busy trying to protect ourselves from getting hurt that we seem to forget that it is unavoidable for the flesh and blood among us--which means everybody. A few years ago, a small plane crashed into a residential building. A man, in his bed, was killed. How do you manage against that kind of risk?

So, now, the outcry is that the laws against distracted driving with cell phones is not enough. We need more. We need to ban the use of cell phones entirely in the car. Aside from the fact that people won't obey the law, there is the uncomfortable fact that people do a million other things in their cars that will remain permissible, at least for now. Like eating in the car. Like drinking beverages in the car. Like listening to the radio, the CD and/or the Ipod, including changing channels and checking labels. Perhaps a law should be passed banning radios, CD players and MP3 connections in cars. And while we're at it, banning Uncle Harry, who chatters to and from whatever destination you are driving to until you want actually to crash the car! There should be no passengers in a car. You shall also be forbidden to daydream, because then you don't notice where you are going or where you have been. And, if you are on any legal medication, you are not allowed to drive (that'll clear up the freeways).  Oh, and if you have cataracts growing, or are nearsighted, with or without glasses (as some people with glasses don't see any better than without them) you are not allowed to drive.

Meanwhile, the obsession with being green will allow a bicyclist on the roads with cars, wobbling with ear buds neatly planted in their ears so they cannot hear the honking of a horn. (see earlier diatribe in these pages about bicyclists on the city streets). I think there is a law against driving a bike while drunk. Anybody enforcing that? 

You can't go near children any more because we have so effectively educated them that a touch on the wrist could be interpreted as sexual in nature. They can't play dodgeball anymore, or ride a seesaw, or hang upside down from monkey bars (well they had to go too since climbing is dangerous). 


Risk is being managed so intensely, so fascistically, that we are raising a generation of potted plants, or cyborgs, since most every kid is attached to something electronic. But of course, they too are dangerous, since they emit something or another. We may need some kind of special earmuffs that allow the sound and block the rays.


We should not worry about being conquered. We have made ourselves so weak that all we'll be able to do is to wave the white flag in surrender. But don't stand too close, you might get hit by the flag.

By the way, we are all going to die. That's a risk no one can manage.

P.S. Here's something to ban. Lawyers.

The Ties That Bind

Pardon to Daphne Du Maurier, if  you would. "Last Night I dreamt I was at (the State Bar) again. " It wasn't a dream, and it was not the Bar, but some of the people of the Bar that I saw again.


It has been nearly six months since, as an at-will manager, it was somebody's "will" that I no longer work where I had for 25 years. I have nearly made my peace with that unfair (from my point of view) ignominious end to my hard won career because I see that, as my former pastor used to say, "with God there are no accidents". I am where I am supposed to be at this time of my life, though for now, while I dabble at voice over, and write things, like this blog, and do some charity work, it is not entirely clear what my part of the cosmic puzzle will be revealed to be. Maybe I'll never know. I just have to let it go, something my "type A" personality resists, and say, "Not my Will, but Thine be done."


One of my colleagues, Robin, retired this week, and so I was invited back among them, those still toiling there and those not, many of whom had begun with me, when we were all very young. It was held at the festive upper room of J Lounge across from the former ATT building, formerly TransAmerica, where I had an office and responsibilty only a blink of an eye ago.  I did not know how I'd feel after all the time in which I have adjusted to my new pattern, but I wanted personally to recognize a fellow traveller of the same number of years who is off to another phase of her life. I was a tiny bit afraid. And, there is a bit of a gauze, a haze, over what used to be the largest part of my life, my work.


In some ways, despite the extended period of my life in which I went from young to over middle age, it seems like it never happened. But then, what I realize, what I realized  in particular tonight, it is the people that make me sure it did. And makes me grateful, it did.


The work, yes, I guess it was important. Still, there will always be someone to do it. But the interactions of this group of people, now, this time, this place, that will never come again. And they were what made often mind bending craziness in the work place tolerable. They were the ones that banded together in a crisis, shared joys of births and marriages, of small occasions and large. Amid changes and changes back and changes again, they kept plugging along. There may have been some grumbling, but mostly there was laughter and sharing.


I don't miss the work as it happens. Been there, done that, and in some ways, it was becoming soul killing. But I see I do miss the people. Luckily that is a choice we each have, to stay in touch, to share the next part of our too quickly passing lives, to count ourselves lucky that we met in an improbable confluence of circumstances doing a sometimes improbable job of holding people who don't want to be so held, to their ethical responsibilities.


I have a tendency, despite my apparently outgoing nature, to become reclusive if I am not in a structure outside of my control. But tonight made me realize, that would be terrible. We have, we current and former staffers at a difficult task, ties that bind us together.


So, get thee onto Facebook and friend me; let's call each other; let's have lunch, or dinner; let's not let the ties loosen.  We don't have all the time in the world. Now is the time. . .




Delores Faile and our recently departed friend and colleague Nancy Bollaert.



Bye Bye Bodhi Tree Cause Nothing Lasts Forever Even if We Wish It Could

For pretty much five months I have been carrying around five bags of mostly hardcover books, probably most in the area of psychology, intending to try to sell them to one of the few remaining individually owned bookstores in Los Angeles County, specifically in West Hollywood.  It's been there since 1970, which to give perspective, was my sophomore year in high school back in the Bronx. All these years later, it still has the feeling and scents of the Age of Aquarius. You walk in and first view is of many hanging chimes and a plethora of incense. The books, they are about everything, psychology, philosophy, Eastern Religions, Western Religions, mysticism. I particularly always loved the well used wood floors that creaked as you went from one stack to another. Probably many of the books I wanted to sell back to them, were ones I had bought there in the first place, or in my other favorite bookseller, Book Soup.

I got the name of the used bookseller maven at the store when I went by there one time unannounced. By then they had closed the actual annex for the used books. I did not think much of it.

Finally, the other day I got back there and spoke to him. Not only were they not buying used books any longer, but the long established and surviving Bodhi Tree Bookstore, a fixture in our community, is closing. The owners sold the building. They are "hoping" for a new location.



To Bodhi Tree Bookstore Friends,

Good Gifts, Good Cheer

Holiday Sale 15% Discount on all items.
Purchases $200 and over receive
an additional 5% discount.
Come visit us. This will be our last Holiday Season
in this location.
We will be open to the end of December.We are continuing to talk to people interested in
the Bodhi Tree Bookstore legacy.
We are hopeful for a reincarnation of a physical store
in a few months in a new location.

Phil and Stan 12-7-11

I took my five bags and wended my way to Goodwill where I donated them and got a tax receipt. I admit, my sense of charity about books was not quite what it is for other things. I was hoping for cash for my hardcovers. I suspect the deducttion won't begin to cover what I spent, like 20 to 20 dollars on average, a pop. Oh, well, easy come and easy go. But now a days, I have to be less of a spendthrift for the obvious reason that my incoming cash flow just isn't what it used to be.


Driving around town that same day, along Sunset, I passed another place that "used to be". Back in the early 80s, it was a really hip restaurant, Scandia. I ate there once. After many a year in business, it went by the boards and now is just another building with a history people may or may not remember.

Places are memory joggers. If they haven't changed for a long period, you get the feeling they never will. And that is comforting when you see your life speeding by. It is tomorrow what it was yesterday when you were there. And then when it's gone, a sense of safety for a solid frame of reference, is gone also. And the loss even chips a little bit at the memory.


I began thinking of various places that are gone now, that I thought would always be there because they had been for so long. Markers of my life and many before mine. You know that moment in Back to the Future when Marty McFly notices that a picture of him and his family is disappearing piece by piece until only he remains? It is kind of like that. As defining places of defined moments disappear, a little chill goes down my back, along with a sense of final loss that no new memories will be made in that location in its former incarnation.


So, I guess I want to pay my tribute to those places about to be lost to the next generation, and those that already are:

The Hamburger Hamlet in Beverly Hills off Sunset. Gee, this is where I saw my first Los Angeles celebrity, Michael Callan, in a discrete corner. About to close.

Carlos and Charlie's also once of Sunset Boulevard had this really amazing tuna based dip. I saw one of many performances of Joan Rivers there, in my early years as an attorney in Los Angeles. I used to make sure to take out of town friends for a kind of nouveau Mexican. And great Margaritas.

Also on Sunset, Tower Records. Big barn compact disc and movies. Both sides of the street. My friend Mr. Anonymous of the Deluxe Furnished Barbara Judith apartments saw my fave Pierce Brosnan there flipping through titles. One side is rented. The other languishes still may years later.

Perino's on Wilshire. A nice old style cozy ristorante. Now it's an apartment building and not a very stylish one at that. It is NEXT to a stylish old building.

The Fairfax Theatre, corner of Fairfax Avenue and Beverly. They tried to keep it, that old movie house, for a while it was kind of an art film place. But it is more important to have another pre-fabricated condo building near the Grove.

The Pan Pacific Theatre on Beverly Boulevard.  By the time I moved to LA in 1981, it was really a shell, the last major thing that had happened to it was the filming of a really bad movie, Xanadu. This, I saw in New Rochelle. I admit to liking the title theme. In the days before I had a car, I was walking down the block as it was burning down, surrounded by a black smoke cloud. It was arson.

Back in the day, probably before I moved there, but I remember passing it, was Flipper's, a disco roller rink that Cher owned. Corner of LaCienega and Santa Monica. Today it is a more traditional item, a Rite Aid.

More recently, my dad's (and uncle's) favorite supermarket, Jon's on Fountain and Santa Monica, was closed, not because it did not have really good business, but because, yes, they are building a new condo building on the site.

Oh, I probably have ten or twenty more, but you get the picture. Nothing lasts forever. Change is the order of things. You wish the change is for something better.  Sometimes, it is. Often it is not.

Either way, there is a little sadness.

Well, Book Soup also has a comfortingly creaky wood floor. Maybe I'll go over there tomorrow and rustle about. I think it will make me feel better.

Hugo, and Finding Our Place on the Walk of Our Lives

According to Robert Barron in the book about Catholicism called "The Strangest Way", our "existential choice is not between having a story or not, but rather between acquiesing to one's role or resisting it" (p. 134). He adds, "(o)nly when the whole plot is unfolded do we see how each finds its place in the story" (p.141) We do not know as we are walking through our days, where our movements and interactions ultimately fit. My sense is that this is the existential choice for all human beings, at one level or another, the difference being how each of us sees the ultimate cosmic painting, with or without God.

As I was watching Martin Scorsese's foray into 3D, the new movie "Hugo", it was this observation in Barron's book which came to me. I had not thought much about it of late, though it is a favorite. So really and truly, the movie was a catylst propelling it back to my mind much like the silent film pioneer George Melies propelled a fictional rocket into the eye of the man in the moon!



A little boy, Hugo Cabret, is the son of a master clockmaker.  Father, a kind and sensitive man, and son, together seek to repair an amazing piece of machinery, an automaton, its body wire and gears, its face robotic, but oddly peaceful and sweet. In its original incarnation, and set in motion by a special key of which they do not have possession, the automaton could write. Before they can complete the repairs, the father is killed in a freak fire accident. Hugo is taken in to live in the dismal heights and bowels of a Paris train station by a bullying and drunken uncle who is the caretaker of its many large and small clocks. The uncle disappears. The boy simply continues the work meanwhile attempting to find (meaning steal) parts with which he hopes to finish the repairs on the mechanical man so that he might, in his heart broken fantasy, receive some communication from his dead father. He is constantly chased, particularly when he grabs a bit of food, by a manic police officer in charge of the law orderliness of the station. This is a sad soul himself, once an orphan, with a leg in a brace, who seeks, but seems unable to find love or companionship, although he has his eye on a pretty flower girl.


A curmudgeonly old toymaker, with a kiosk in the train station, becomes Hugo's most pressing nemesis when he catches the boy with the errant parts he has gathered. He not only takes the various gears, but also a notebook with intricate mechanical drawings which the boy treasures, a handbook to the repairs of the automaton. The old man seems mesmerized by the notebook, and not only refuses to give it back, but initially and cruelly gives the boy ashes to prove that he has burned it. Hugo is persistent and follows the man home. A child there, a ward of the old man and his wife, named Isabelle befrieds Hugo and with him seeks to unlock the reason for the old man's interest and his cryptic behavior.


At first Hugo is reluctant to admit Isabelle into his world, one of which nearly no one knows. But Isabelle is an adventurer, grabbing the gusto of life and she is enthusiastic about her role in helping Hugo. He shows her the automaton. It being a world of synchonicity, Isabelle has a necklace in the form of a key that precisely fits the mechanical man. When finally it re-activates, it turns out not to write, but to draw and what it draws is a picture of a man in the moon with a space capsule in one of its eyes. The signature is all it writes, "Georges Melies".


The children go to the large library and discover that Melies is a long forgotten pioneer filmmaker of its earliest years. History records that he is dead, but the children discover evidence that in fact it is the deeply sad old man who has bedevilled Hugo and is raising Isabelle.


Another twist of fate brings the children into acquaintance with an admirer of and expert in all things Melies. This man has what he understands to be the only extant copy of any of his films, the film that is represented by the drawing of the automaton, an invention of the same George Melies.


When they all appear at the home of Mr. Melies, now living under an assumed name, Melies wife, fearful of dredging up the pain that has left her husband emotionally broken at a career that ultimately seems to have meant nothing, nearly sends them away. But beckoned by a chance to see the one remaining film in which she appeared--she was usually the star of the Melies films--she allows them to flicker it in another room, so as not to disturb the old man.


His ears are sensitive to the sound of a projector and Melies has attended the brief screening without their awareness. He laments the act of impulse that caused him to destroy his sets and his copies of films, and the loss of all including an automaton that he built many years before which had been lost to him.


Hugo, now having the full secret of the machine that so connects him to his late father, runs back to the train station to bring it to Melies. Waylaid by the inspector who has found out that the boy's uncle died in a drunken stupor and drowned in the Seine, the boy is slated to be sent off to the orphanage. But moved by the love of his flower girl and the entreaties of other denizens of the station's kiosks, the sad inspector lets the circle close joining all these disparate stories and people and bringing them into a holistic community of love. 


Hugo's love of his father, the passion for something they shared, though seeming futile at times and unlikely to be requited, fit into other lives and into other stories, all making one tapestry. He pressed forward though he knew not where he would end, and in so doing, he found himself, and helped others find themselves for their posterity.


The movie has received mixed reviews. I found it to be a splendid infusion of well crafted optimism. I do not usually like 3D movies, and I heard my friends next to me commenting that it was unnecessary, but it seemed like a perfect extra brushstroke to me. When the boy ran down the steps and corridors of his maze like hideout, I was carried with him, I felt his heartbeat, his urgency, his intensity and his fear. I wanted to touch, and felt that I might be able to do so for REAL, the books, and the face of the automaton. I was in their world.


Every moment is precious because there are no accidents. It is just as true perhaps that there are no accidents because every moment is precious.  Let us pay attention to the moments and remember that whether we realize it or not, we each have a role to play with and for each other.

Bohemian Delight

As I wrote in my last entry, I am very slowly getting used to having the freedom to construct my days as I wish. Or experience them as they unfold.

When I woke up late this morning, I remained in my bed surrounded by the cats. I stretched long and leisurely. I had a call from a colleague/friend at my former job, and arranged to meet her and a few others a week or two hence for lunch. I called my aunt to be regaled with stories of the various power outages from our Santa Ana of last night. Then I got up. I made my coffee. I fed the felines who had trailed after me into the kitchen, I  sat in my favorite swivelling and rocking chair, and watched the still strong winds bending the tree outside my window and worried that it would break. It was already 12 noon.

I returned to the non-fiction memoir. I hate it. I love it. I can do it. I can't. I have new found respect for the professional writer, who makes, or tries to make a living with words.. There is nothing quite so difficult, and truth be told frustrating. I felt something of it when I wrote briefs and could not quite find the turn of words that conveyed my thought, but creative writing, whether about real or fictional events, is a torture.


Let me digress for a second. What about blogging? How does that fit in between brief writing and working on a memoir that someone will publish one day? Blogging is more like a casual conversation. Yes, you have to think about it. You have to have a beginning, middle and end. Maybe you have to even have a point. But because it is more informal by nature, and the urgency to edit is not (at least for me) there (perhaps it should be), it is less of an anxiety to do it. But this thing I am trying to do, this making a book, is in a unique category of life efforts. I now understand the old cliche, "I hate writing, but I love having written!"

But also, there is this moment, maybe even endorphins do kick in as they do with a runner,or when a trial lawyer, which I used to be, has that "Perry Mason" moment, when all the fear about whether it is worth doing, it is being done well, it will ever be received well if it is seen, just doesn't matter.


Two hours went by and it was only when my back hurt (this is going to be a problem I see, I may need a real chair for this work) that I stopped. I decided to print out what I have done so far, and take it with me to Starbuck's where I would have a Venti hot chocolate and take a few moments to see how it was flowing, maybe make a few edits. 

Today's working location, pen, paper and a hot chocolate!

I got there about three. One of the things that has truly amazed me about not having a regular job is that there appear to be a whole lot of people in the same circumstance. And they do not seem to be suffering the trials of the unemployed. They are ordering up all sorts of desserts. They are parents with kids. There are computers on every table, with people making cell call after cell call. It was like the proverbial Grand Central Station in there. I barely found a place to plant myself, but happily it was in one of those deep leather chairs that they have now. Mostly the constituency around me changed. A father and his son chirping in a mix of two languages he is learning.  Said the father "I have no idea what he is saying."  Several well coiffed tall young women with their perfectly matched outfits, and their soy lattes. Across from me was a man who I think was working, and e mailing various things to potential consumers of whatever it was he did. He'd call someone. He'd get up and go outside for a cigarette, asking me in a most friendly manner if I would be there a while and would I keep an eye on his computer. (I did). I had never done this, in all the years, be in a Starbuck's for more than a few moments on my way to somewhere else. But I was seeing the regulars greet each other. This was indeed a destination and one that people inhabit for a long time during a day.


I found myself, well, working on the pages I brought with me. I found myself revising, as well as editing. There was something pleasant about the substantial beginnings of a book by the Djinn.The sun went down and the shades went up. It had been dark for an hour or more when I had finally finished my now cool hot chocolate and I found myself tired from concentration. I said goodbye to my new and passing acquaintance across from me. "Take care", he said.


I had been WORKING in this social environment, but also feeling comfortable amid the noise and the interactions which surrounded me.  It is not what I am used to but it has its own rhythm.


I always wanted to live a bit of an unconventional lifestyle, and here it is, my version.. I want to learn to embrace it. I am in the unusual position to be able to do so, without danger to my very existence. I am most fortunate and grateful, in between the anxiety.


The key for me will remain not imposing old ways of being upon this new way of living. And today I experienced a little of its delight, if only I would tame the type A personality that has been mine since I can remember. I think, also, it is important to this new way of being that I have no expectations of the day, or of myself, except to go forward and to learn, and to live, indeed, as if it were my last day.