New haircut

In preparation for our trip to Paris, I thought I'd better pay more attention to my appearance - my last haircut was in March, and I'd let too much time pass. So yesterday I went to Julianna and got a cut and highlights.

What do you think?


I like a hairstyle that's easy to take care of, because I'm no good at styling my own hair. Or anyone's hair, probably - not having any girl-children means I never had the opportunity to try.

Julianna's a good stylist, and she tries to teach me basic techniques so I can blowdry my hair at home. So I watch, carefully, as she twirls the round brush under the blast of the hot dryer, shaping the smoothly turned-under sides and lifting volume at the crown.

I always ask what product she uses, and sometimes even buy it from her, though I never actually use it.

And the blow-dry lessons? Well this morning I gave it a try.

My hair is less than two inches long. How can it be possible to tangle the round brush so badly I can't get it out?

Thematic Photographic - Aviation

Every week Carmi at Written, Inc. poses a theme for photographic inspiration. This week's theme is AVIATION.

A small airport in the big city. And a hidden secret getaway.

Here at the Santa Monica airport, you can sit on a restaurant balcony, sip a cool drink, and watch the planes take off and land.

There's something about the vast open space and the wide sky that makes it feel like you're a million miles away, right in the middle of the city.

Chill

Day-to-day life can sometimes be frustrating. Sometimes it's good to just chill out.

Kuchipudi dance rocks

Along with some friends, we were honored to be invited to a recital by the students of a renowned teacher of of classical Indian dance. Our friends are experts in Indian music - including our friend Arundhati, who is Bengali and studies women's culture in India.

Photo by Daniel Neuman

Srimathy Sumathi Kaushal is a choreographer, performer, and teacher of Kuchipudi dance. This form of dance comes from and is named for a small village in South India, in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

The dance form traditionally was practiced by village men and boys, but in modern times, it has become increasingly dominated by girls and women. Guru Kaushal says she first came to learn the form in the 1960s, and since then has taught hundreds of students in her Southern California school in Rancho Cucamonga.

This recital took place in a small auditorium in Duarte, California. The ensemble's costumes were wonderful, rich iridescent silk saris with gold sashes, and pleated aprons that spread like fans with the sweeping leg-work and arching steps. Each dancer's hands and feet were marked with red that emphasized the beautiful hand gestures, and they wore anklets of bells that jingled with their steps.

Photo by Daniel Neuman

The performance begins with short ritual pieces that are salutations to Lord Ganesha. Then, in a series of episodes or scenes, the ten descents of Vishnu are acted out onstage. The dancers mime the drama, which includes great powerful fishes and turtles, the disembowelment of a demon, fierce battles between armies, and the romantic idylls of Krishna. The dancing is expressive, athletic, and the principle dancers were almost constantly onstage, requiring considerable stamina.After the performance, Svetha, one of the lead dancers in the ensemble allowed me to take her photo.

She is a college student, about to go to grad school. She is interested in choreography, and in addition to her expertise in Indian classical dance, she also likes hip-hop.

Her skill and grace in Kuchipudi was unmatched. But what was even more interesting, and emblematic of Southern California's diverse culture, took place at the beginning of the show.

The performance began with one of the dancers singing the national anthem of India. The anthem is called Jana Gana Mana. It was originally composed in 1911 to be sung to the British King George V in honor of his coronation, and his assumption as the imperial ruler of the Indian colony. Many years later, after the struggle for Indian independence, the song was adopted as the new nation's anthem, and its lyrics evoke all the regions of India. The audience of South Indian ex patriots sang along.

Then, Svetha, in her gorgeous pink and green sari, her kohl-rimmed eyes, her traditional headress, stepped to the mic and sang the national anthem of the United States, "The Star Spangled Banner."

Photo by Daniel Neuman

Our national anthem sets a poem written about the War of 1812 to a popular British tavern song, and it was made the national anthem in 1931. Most nations' anthems are derived from European hymns, and most, when performed at official ceremonies, are pretty square.

But here in the U.S. - maybe because the song is now sung by celebrities at celebrated national events, it's no longer the thumping dull anthem it used to be. In 1968 Jose Feliciano famously sang a pop version of the anthem. Although Jimi Hendrix had performed a rock version at Woodstock, Feliciano's version was shocking because it was performed at a mainstream event, the World Series. Other artists followed, including Marvin Gaye in 1983 and Whitney Houston in 1991. They set the style of the modern pop version. We now have pop divas' voices soaring and trilling, with melismatic vocal elaboration derived from African-American gospel tradition and rhythm and blues styling.

So how did Svetha do?

Well, she rocked the house. She rocked it bigger than Beyonce at Super Bowl XXXVII. She nailed every note. She totally handed Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson and Mariah Carey's asses to them.

It made me smile, and it also reminded me to avoid pre-judging people and situations. What, I wondered, had I expected? A classical hymn? Sing-song Bollywood intonation? It's easy to look at an ensemble of exotically costumed practitioners of a traditional discipline and dismiss them as precious, naive, and not part of the modern world.

But these are young American dancers. And they know damn well how we sing our national anthem!

Young performers like Svetha - as much an expert as Darci Kistler in a particular, venerated ancient classical art - are also polished young professionals, poised to enter the entertainment industry, able to compete in the mainstream, skilled in multiple performance genres.

This is the face of today's all-American entertainment star. And she's a powerhouse of talent. Best wishes, Svetha, I know you'll go far, whatever your choice of musical style.

But you know what was equally surprising to me?

As we drove back to West L.A. with our friends, I mentioned how disconcerting it was to hear a full-blown 2009 American-style pop rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" from a costumed Indian classical dancer.

And our friend Arundhati laughed, and said that what surprised her was how non-traditional the students' version of the Indian national anthem was. It is normally delivered in a very official, British hymnal square style. At this event, it was delivered in the style of South Indian carnatic music - with its own elaborations and unique vocal stylings. Very unusual, according to our friend, and very different from what you'd hear in India.

Photo by Daniel Neuman

So that was another example of young people, growing up in a multicultural world, mixing, shaping and enriching their traditions to reflect the world around them. And it was something that, though unknown to me, added yet another layer of complexity to the interesting cultural mix of Los Angeles.

Don't you just love this place?

UPDATE: be sure to click on Dan's photos to enlarge them - they are really fantastic.

Thematic Photographic - Cloudy

Every week Carmi at Written, Inc. poses a theme for photographic inspiration. This week's theme is CLOUDY.

January afternoon, almost dusk. From the Topanga Canyon East Fire Road, hiking toward Eagle Rock. The pale winter sun bursts through the clouds, and lights up the meadow below.

Thematic Photographic - Cloudy

Every week Carmi at Written, Inc. poses a theme for photographic inspiration. This week's theme is CLOUDY.

Cloudy skies above a small town in East Texas. Dynamic and moving, while the town is in a kind of stasis.

The meadow

There is a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean where huge eucalyptus trees shade a grassy meadow. It's the perfect place to picnic on a blanket, bathed by the cool ocean breezes and sheltered from the sun by the dappled shade. Perhaps as you lie there looking up at the summer sky, your thoughts turn to the infinite magnitude of the universe, and how small a place we hold in it. Or perhaps you observe a blade of grass, and marvel at the complexity of the microscopic world.

In 1945, a young couple from the Midwest enjoyed picnicking in this meadow so much they decided to build a house here. It would be a modern house, affordable, and made of inexpensive industrial components. Their architect proposed a design with a cantilevered wing that stretched out over the meadow. Wartime scarcities delayed delivery of the manufactured steel parts, and while they were waiting, the young couple had second thoughts. Why destroy this beautiful meadow?

Charles Eames and his wife Ray redesigned the house together to make a more gentle impact on the site. It was built in 1949.

The house is tucked up alongside a rising slope at the north side of the lot, beneath a 200 foot long retaining wall. The house is really two boxes - a long oblong box with the living quarters separated by a paved courtyard from a square box housing the design studio. The facade is livened by an irregular grid of steel frames and panels, with blocks of color - it feels a little like a painting by Mondrian.

We were thrilled to be invited by a friend to the annual fundraising tour by the Eames Foundation, to support the continued preservation of the house. We were introduced to Charles's daughter Lucia and to her daughter, also named Lucia, who heads the Foundation and the Eames Office, which continues the designers' work. We also met film-maker Eames Demetrios, grandson of the designers.

Best of all, we were treated to a rare guided tour of the inside of the house and studio, now sixty years old.

The Eameses were much more than designers. They made a mark on every aspect of life. They designed comfortable furniture made to fit the human form. Ray designed fabrics and graphics. They created toys. They compiled slide shows from a collection of over 350,000 photographs of their works and travels, and made presentations. They created over 80 short films, including the well-known "The Power of Ten."

The Eames House site and exterior can be seen by appointment only - instructions are here at the website. A tour of the interior is offered only once a year to members.

Our tour started with the studio, which is being used today as an office by the Foundation. Because work takes place in the studio, it is not preserved in its original state, although most of the furnishings belonged to the Eames and were used by them both here and at their office in Venice.


We crossed the courtyard to the main house, which is kept as close as possible to the way it was.

Unlike the stereotype of a modern home being minimalist and sterile, the Eames home is filled with objects and items the designers found interesting. Ray in particular liked to display her things - tables and surfaces are covered with flower arrangements, arrays of candlesticks; collections of small dolls and figurines, toys, fabric throws and books. The house looks lived-in and loved. There are works of art and furnishings from artists - Isamu Noguchi, George Nelson, or the Indian folk art they loved. You can see Ray's style if you look at the images available at the Foundation's website.

A kitchen table is set for breakfast. The 50's era stove is backed with a wavy glass divider separating the cooking area from a utility area. Little collectibles are ranged along the backsplash.

A spiral staircase - purchased by catalogue from a marine supply company - leads to a sleeping loft upstairs. The double-height living room includes built-in cabinets as room dividers, and a cozy nook with built-in banquettes on one side. The windows are floor-to-ceiling glass, opening onto a patio sheltered by the overhanging roof.

When I spoke to Lucia she told me about the efforts to preserve the garden. Again, breaking with the stereotype of modern design as something spare and minimal - Ray liked displaying her flowering plants, and brought pots of whatever was in bloom to the front of the house. Plants out of season or in need of rehab were kept in the narrow pathway behind the house. Traditional flowers like roses, foxgloves, and geraniums cheerfully bloom away.

This is one of the geraniums - notice its unusually shaped flowers and deeply cut leaves? Yet another interesting collectible that must have caught Ray's eye.

Like the designers themselves, the Eames House is playful, fun, quirky and interesting. As Charles Eames once said, it "takes pleasure seriously."

Pink Saturday - Overblown roses

Pink Saturday - Beverly, at the blog "How Sweet the Sound" hosts Pink Saturday. Let the color pink inspire you!

My desk is in a little alcove off the kitchen, and in front of me hangs an oil painting of a vase of roses, against the deep blue wall. The painting is small - perhaps eight inches square. It depicts a small vase, brown pottery or perhaps old brass, stuffed with almost a dozen full-blown roses in shades of pink. On the table beneath the vase lie a few fallen petals.

I bought it years ago in an antique shop - really a flea market - and it is unsigned. I like the frame it came in. I also like the composition - I like the fact that the image is cut off at the top; we are looking at the vase from its own level, and we've lost the overhead. I have no idea who painted it, or how old it is.

The other day I picked a bouquet of roses that were in bloom in my garden. The June bloom is the second flowering of the year, less lush than the first in April and May. The deeper pink rose is a Meilland Romantica named "Comtesse de Provence", and the paler pink flowers are a David Austin rose called "Sharifa Asma."

"Sharifa Asma" has large, quartered flowers in the style of the old roses. And in my garden - at least in our foggy June Gloom - she tends to get a bit of mildew. But the special thing about "Sharifa Asma" is the scent - she is a strongly fragrant rose, with a sharp scent rosarians describe as "myrrh" - likening it to the strong, camphor-like incense of the ancient world.

The blooms I picked were a bit overblown, and just like in the painting, they dropped their petals onto the table.

In Grenoble, France, in 1836, a portrait painter and his Russian-born wife had a baby boy. They moved to Paris when the baby was five. As he grew up, he studied drawing and painting and as an adult he worked in several studios.

Henri Fantin-Latour hung out with Impressionist painters Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet, and an American painter named James Whistler, who was playing around with odd takes on light, shapes, and perspective.

Henri liked to paint small domestic still-lifes - often pictures of flowers in vases, particularly roses. Between 1864 and his death in 1904, he became famous for his lush, loose still-life paintings of flowers, sprawling and abundant, richly detailed and intimate.

You can almost smell the scent as you look at them.

Thematic Photographic - Cloudy

Every week Carmi at Written, Inc. poses a theme for photographic inspiration. This week's theme is CLOUDY.

Where we live, in the Santa Monica Mountains, a cloudy day comes pretty close to home. The fog rolls up the canyon, piles up in the hills, and rolls over the top of the mountain. Here, we are IN the cloud.