Month: September 2016

Myriad Experiences

Posted on by Nick Lewis

Judie is off touring America, stopping at various K&L Gates offices, including Boston and Washington, and ending up in Chicago for a conference. When Judie is not around, I have even less order to my life than usual. I tend to eat at odd times and get lost doing projects or watching baseball on my computer. It is actually sort of fun when she is gone for about a week, as she is this time. She returns on Wednesday evening and Alex arrives that morning for an eight-day visit. Alex has finished up with his Every Zip Philadelphia project (which you can see and hear on the WHYY website). It was pretty successful, although I think it was too much management and not enough creativity for him. It wasn’t renewed and he has been hired by Audible to co-produce a multi-part audio series about how Americans experienced World War II at home. He was given a number of books to read and will have access to lots of archive interviews etc. The process of creating his two sections is about to start in earnest, so he is taking this break to visit us.

“There’s no crying in Baseball”: That’s what Tom Hanks’ character memorably said in “A League Their Own”. But it turns out that sometimes there is crying. For some reason, the Mets have been involved in the two most emotionally fraught games in the history of baseball. The first was in 2001, when the Mets played the Braves in the first game played in NYC after 9-11. The atmosphere surrounding the game was incredible and it was punctuated by Mike Piazza’s game-winning home run, the single most dramatic hit I have ever seen and what has to be the highlight of his Hall of Fame career. I thought I would never see another baseball game to compare to that.

Then on Monday night, the Mets visited Miami and the Marlins for the first game after the tragic death of Jose Fernandez, a game that he was actually scheduled to start. Fernandez was incredibly talented, with a simply amazing life story and was supposed to be a wonderful person. There was a very moving opening ceremony, with both teams on the field, which concluded with the Mets players going across the field to hug the Marlins players. Most of the Marlins players were teary-eyed or crying. When they switched to the broadcast booth, Gary Cohen, the main Mets announcer, was so choked up that he could barely talk and Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling were sitting there with conspicuously red eyes. Then, in the bottom the first, Dee Gordon batted right-handed for the first pitch in honor of Fernandez and then switched to his normal side and hit the third pitch for a home run (his first home run of the season and the first time in his career he had hit the ball into the second deck). He was clearly crying as he circled the bases and came back the dugout where he collapsed into the arms of his sobbing teammates. It was just unbelievable on any number of levels. A once in a lifetime baseball moment. Travis d’Arnaud, the Mets catcher, said he was crying watching Gordon round the bases and I doubt he was alone in that. There is crying in baseball after all.

Abstract Expressionism: On Saturday evening, I went to a members’ private tour and party celebrating the opening of the Abstract Expressionism exhibit at the Royal Academy. As our guide/docent pointed out, the name is a bit deceiving, because many of the artists’ styles were neither abstract or impressionistic. It is sometimes called the New York School and NYC certainly became the center of the art world in that period, but many of the artists did not live or paint in NY. Tragedy was one theme as some of the most important artists died young, from suicide (Gorky and Rothko) to car accidents (Pollack). As you might imagine, there were some iconic paintings. There were some great Pollacks, including one huge early one he did on commission for Peggy Guggenheim’s apartment which was a breakthrough moment in that era. And there were great examples from Gorky, Klein, de Kooning (his series of paintings of women were amazing), Rothko (the early works were fascinating), Motherwell and Krasner (a highlight was the first painting she did after Pollack’s death). It was a wonderful exhibit and it was nice to have plenty of time to go back and wander through it after the tour, without being bothered by the usual crowds. For me, the great revelation was Clyfford Still. He became disgusted by the commercialism of the NY art scene and moved to Wyoming, where he painted the rest of his life. He sold practically nothing while he was alive, but now his work is in a museum in Denver, which I have to visit some time. There was a huge gallery of his work, which was breathtaking. See below for an example. There was also a party with a free champagne cocktail and a bar and a jazz singer, so it was all very festive, although I would have had more fun if I’d found someone to go with.

abst-exp

Immigration Detention Seminar: On Monday evening, I went to a meeting at the offices of Amnesty International (which it turns out is about four blocks from our flat) for a conference about the alternatives to Immigration Detention and role of civil society in making those alternatives happen. It was run by an organization called Detention Action. The audience seemed to be mostly immigration insiders–lawyers, advocates, NGO people and a sprinkling of government officials. It was too bad in a way, because some of the speakers were very interesting and for real reform to occur, they are going to need the support of a much wider group. There was a woman who is one of the leading immigration advocates in the Ukraine and, as you might imagine, they have some problems there that are hard to imagine, such as millions of displaced Ukrainians to deal with, in addition to all of the migrants, most of whom are really trying to get to Germany or somewhere. And there was a representative of Freed Voices, a group of former detainees, who spoke very movingly about how de-humanizing detention is and that there is no trust. I was given a big report, which I’m going to read.

Labour Conference: Jeremy : won his election by a landslide and this was followed by a Labour Conference in Liverpool in which the party tried to unify and to explain what they want to do. To me, what was most interesting about the process was the fact that the party out of government actually laid out a fairly detailed program. They take the whole idea of a party platform much more seriously here. It really is a nice political concept, where the opposition party must have a formal “shadow” government which says, with some specifics, what they would do if they were in power. The other nice thing about this system is that the BBC and the media in general (although maybe not the Murdoch press) really give deep coverage these kind of policy matters and engage in a real discussion and questioning about what the party is saying. It is a level of substantive and detailed analysis that is utterly absent in the American media (except on PBS and NPR to some extent). There are a lot of problems with the British system, but they really take politics and the issues much more seriously here, from Question Time to the Shadow Cabinet system to the media coverage.

London News and a Painting

Posted on by Nick Lewis

New Painting: I’ve decided that I am going to try having a portrait and another painting going at all times for the next month or more. I’ve just finished my first of those portraits. It is of Judie and it owes a lot to the style of David Hockney. As you can see from below, it’s not a bad painting and I suppose it looks a little like her. I guess that I’m not really displeased with it, but I am a bit annoyed that I didn’t really capture Judie. I kept working on it, trying to get it, until I finally realized that I was doomed from the start. I never had the head shape correct and trying to correct that made the hair wrong. So I decided to accept that it was a decent painting and move on. It was frustrating. But I have learned a lesson–that the initial drawing is the key in a portrait, so in the one I am working on now, I was much more anal in transferring the picture to the canvas. We’ll see.

portrait-judie

Bake-Off News: I don’t know if this news made it to the States, where the Great British Bake-Off is a big hit (I’m told), although it is two seasons behind. The producers of the Bake-Off have sold the show to Channel 4, away from the BBC, after the BBC was outbid by a substantial amount. What Channel 4 failed to do was make sure that the talent was coming along with the big tent and the ovens. This was huge news here, eclipsing even the Brad and Angelina beak-up. Last week, shortly after the announcement, Mel and Sue, the hosts and comediennes who provide the light moments to the show, announced that they were not making the move. This caused a great deal of outcry. But that was nothing compared to yesterday, when Mary Berry announced that she is staying at BBC. She is the heart and soul of the show. It is like you are cooking for your loving grandmother. She will criticize you “soggy bottoms” or dry cakes, but in a loving and gentle way. Now, for £75M, Channel 4 has got the tent and the name and Paul Hollywood, the other judge who needs someone like Mary to be a counterpoint. It’s a bit of a disaster for everyone concerned.

Labour Party Vote to be announced this weekend: There is no drama here. Everyone knows that Corbyn will win, maybe by more than he won the first time. He is utterly beloved by the mostly young, far left voters who make up the membership of the current Labour Party. Whether the membership represents the actually Labour voters int he real electorate is another question, one that is familiar in the context of U.S. primaries, which have tended to skew toward either extreme for the last decade or two. As an article in Friday’s NY Times explained, a lot of this is about taking the Labour Party back from the Blairites, who moved the party away from its socialist base and disenfranchised the activists. I get that, but it seems to me that you still have to have a credible a Parliamentary presence and pose an electoral threat to Theresa May and the Tories. I don’t that Corbyn can do either of those things, and what is worse, especially to the Labour politicians who care about such things, is that he doesn’t seem interested in doing so. This the party divisions will not be resolved by this vote and will grow increasingly ugly.

The Liberal-Democrats, a third/fourth party, which actually seemed like they might be relevant force a decade ago, are hoping to rebound from the brink of extinction, by offering to be the center-left alternative for disenchanted Labour MPs and voters. There is no sign that the Labour MPs are interested in this, although they might be if they are attacked from the Corbyn-loving left in the selection process and are faced with retribution and the loss of their positions for daring to oppose the sainted Jeremy. It is going to be ugly and depressing for most Labour supporter in the coming year.

Theresa May and Brexit, etc.: Because May never went through an election, no one knows exactly what she stands for. She makes Yoda-like statements like “Brexit means Brexit”, which everyone now agrees is utterly meaningless. She is promising to get a “good deal” for Britain in the upcoming negotiations, but what good deal is depends on which of the various wings of her party you talk to. The Brexiteers are pushing her to invoke Article 50 and start the process of leaving the EU immediately or at least very soon. It would probably be a stupid act, but she might get forced into moving too soon. Even if she holds out until late next year, these negotiations are going to be extremely difficult. The eurosceptic wing of her party (especially the ones who go on and on about sovereignty) are absolutely convinced of the importance of British trade in the EU and are convinced that the EU will fold in negotiations. They are almost certainly wrong. (A significant number of the Conservatives believe that once Britain leave the EU, the days of the British Empire will magically be restored. It is pathetic.) The Cameron/Osborne wing of the party are more supportive of a slower process, but Cameron has left Parliament and Osborne et al are pretty discredited and, of course, there is no serious Labour opposition, so it is easy to imagine May being pushed into a process that turns out very badly for Britain.

It is in the non-Brexit areas of policy that things could get very ugly. May and the Tories are very conservative and are now unrestrained. The attack and gradual defunding of the National Health Service will continue, with the idea of eventually privatizing it. They want to reduce the funding of the BBC! The want to go back to the old days of selective grammar schools for the best students (who, despite May’s protestations to the contrary, are likely to be “the right sort of people”). They clearly want to cut back their aid to poor countries and to continue to cut back on welfare benefits. They are absolutely committed to limiting immigration. Labor Unions will see a new wave of attacks. The real economic impact of Brexit has not arrived yet, since nothing has happened. But it will happen and when it does, lots of people will suffer and they will not be “the right sort of people”.

There is a chance that May may call a snap election, which makes good Machiavellian sense to me. Labour is so divided right now that an election might destroy them or at least worsen the divisions. If she waits, there is chance that she could overreach and anger the electorate and even give Corbyn a chance to figure out how to be a leader (although that seems unlikely).

New Medical Mystery: At the beginning of the week, I woke up with my left leg completely swollen. It looked sort of weird, so I went to see a doctor. I’ve ended up getting an ultrasound, a chest x-ray, blood tests and a CAT scan. They have discovered that I am completely healthy. My leg is still swollen and they can’t figure out why. But they have eliminated all the serious things, so maybe it is nothing and it will cure itself. I’m supposed to go back next week.

Surrey Down: Judie and I went to Surrey this week. (By the way, I have always love the song “Stoned Soul Picnic”, but never knew exactly what “surrey”meant. It turns out that no one knows and that there any number of web sites discussing this. Perhaps Laura Nyro knew, but has taken the secret to her grave.) Anyway, we went to a place called Pennyhill Park, where Judie was at a conference. It is a rather historic place that was purchased and converted in a resort with a little golf course and one of the biggest and most elaborate spas I have ever seen. It was very nice. I probably would have done more while I was there, but I was sort of being careful because of my leg. It was fun anyway.

Royal Shakespeare Weekend and More

Posted on by Nick Lewis

One of the things I really want to do while I am here is see everything that the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) does, at least in London. (Stratford is a bit too far away, unless one stays overnight. We’ll probably do that at some point, but you can see most of the RSC performances at the Barbican or the West End, so it isn’t an essential trip.) We bought tickets to the four plays they are doing at the Barbican as soon as they were released to members. Given Judie’s upcoming travel schedule and the change in routine generally occasioned by the change of law firms, we decided to see the first two RSC productions on consecutive nights.

“The Alchemist”: This is a play by Ben Johnson, a Shakespeare contemporary. As the programme points out, while Shakespeare’s plays were entirely set in the past, Johnson’s were contemporary and, indeed, “The Alchemist” is set in Blackfriars (a part of London) in 1610 and premiered at the The Globe that same year. So the characters would have been recognizable types to those audiences and the references to things like the plague would be things they were familiar with. It is also likely that the audiences of that time believed in the possibility of Alchemy. Unlike Shakespeare, Johnson oversaw the publication of his own Folio and was thought to have expanded the plays to make them seem more serious. This requires some significant cutting of the text to give it a proper running time and to maintain the pace.

The play begins as the master of the house in Blackfriars is fleeing London to his country home to get away from the latest plague epidemic, leaving his servant, Jeremy or “Face”, in charge of the house. The servant sees this as chance to make money and teams up with Subtle, an alchemist and con man, and his colleague Dol. They start a number of elaborate con games, most based on either turning base metals into gold or on creating a philosopher’s stone. (Neither the stone nor Nicholas Flammel were creations of J.K. Rowling. Flammel was a successful merchant who died in 1418, but in the 1600’s rumors began to circulate that he had found both the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of immortality.) The three of them attract an increasing number of victims and, in order for the their cons to succeed, have to string each of them along and try to keep them from meeting each other. It is really a farce, with the three con artists becoming more and more manic as they get closer to succeeding in their various frauds, but also are getting closer and closer to being found out. Of course, Jeremy’s master returns home just as things are reaching their peak. It is really a wonderful play and there is something timeless about con artists and the greed of their victims. It goes without saying that the acting was uniformly wonderful, although none of the actors were familiar to me. Ken Nwosu, as Face, Mark Lockyer, as Subtle, and Siobhan McSweeney, as Dol, managed to be simultaneously reprehensible and lovable. You were horrified by what they were doing, but sort of were rooting for them to succeed. The victims of the frauds were all memorable in their own ways. The unbelievably greedy and lecherous knight, Sir Epicure Mammon (what a great name), played by Ian Redford, was hysterical and Tom McCall, playing a rich country who was willing to pay Subtle to be taught to argue like the suave gallants of the city, absolutely stole several scenes. Judie loved the young actor, Richard Leeming, who played Abel Drugger, a tobacconist seeking magical help to insure his business’s success. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening of theater.

Doctor Faustus: The next night was a very different theatrical experience. Everyone knows the basic plot–Faustus sells his soul to the devil for a period of personal power. But I didn’t appreciate how terrifying the play would be. It was written by Christopher Marlowe, another Shakespeare contemporary, although the programme notes suggest that it was actually a collaborative work. Two actors, Sandy Grierson and Oliver Ryan, alternate in playing the two main parts, Faustus and Mephistopheles. (We saw Ryan as Faustus.) They were both wonderful, but seem like very different sorts of performers and I would think their performances would be very distinct. One of the interesting things that the production did was use a very dark palette in the sets and in the costumes, with the exception of Mephistopheles and a female Lucifer (the devil), who were dressed in bright white. While I think much of the original dialog was maintained, especially for Faustus, special “devil music” was added. The most memorable scene was when Lucifer appears to Faustus and introduces him to the seven deadly sins. This was done like a musical production number, with each of the sins in outlandish and grotesque costumes. One of the slightly surprising things about the plot was that Faustus used his power in a series of horrifying (one might say devilish) ways and one never got the feeling that he was getting real enjoyment from his power other that by the fact of having it. The programme notes observe that this must all have been especially terrifying to audiences of the day, who believed in the reality of dark arts and intervention of the devil in daily life. So the production stresses the creepiness and terror inherent in the plot. It was done without an interval, so the audience never gets away from the bizarre and horrifying series of events, which occur at an increasing pace, from the time that Faustus calls Mephistopheles to serve him, all the way to his increasing panic as the time approaches when the devil will take him and his soul. There is lots of blood and two great performers, surrounded by a marvelous ensemble cast, with clever direction and eerie music. It made for a memorable evening of theater.

Blueprint for Better Business: Earlier last week, I joined Judie at K&L Gates for a presentation and panel put on by Blueprint for Better Business (BBB), entitled “Uniting Corporate Purpose and Personal Values to Serve Society”. It argues that businesses should be “purpose-driven” and employ the sorts of morality that have been developed by faith and thought traditions. The corporate purpose, under BBB’s thinking, should be to respect the dignity and value of each person and to deliver value by serving society (which sounds a lot like UU principles). BBB seeks to be a movement and to attract a multitude of businesses to this approach. Each business would (1) be honest and fair with its customers and suppliers, (2) treat its employees with dignity, (3) be a good corporate citizen, (4) be a guardian for future generations, thinking of the whole, rather than in terms of self-interest, and (5) operate under a purpose that delivers and long-term and sustainable result for society and responsible investors. It all seems a bit pie-in-the-sky, but the presentation featured a panel of academics, who discussed the research that has been done on the efficacy of this sort of new corporate thinking and whether this idea of “purpose” can avoid becoming just another board of director buzzword, like “sustainability” or “corporate social responsibility”. It turns out that there is data that suggests the intuitively sensible point that such companies are more successful over the long-term. However, they also stressed the obvious point that this type of approach to corporate governance cannot succeed in which the leaders are thinking in the extremely short-term way that characterizes most business today. And it seems to me that here will have to be a fundamental change in the definitions of fiduciary duty and investment goals to state that success in investment is not defined by simply earning as much as possible, but by also figuring in the societal costs of the investments that you are making. It was all very inspiring and gave me something to think about. Theses guys are not in America, as they are a pretty small non-profit, but it seems like something that would make an interesting thing for organizations like the UUA to get behind.

Proms in the Park, a Party and Pinegrove

Posted on by Nick Lewis

BBC Proms: The “Proms” refers to a shortened version of “promenade concerts”, an English tradition going back centuries, which originally referred to music being played in parks and pleasure gardens, allowing people to stroll while listening to the music. In the late 1800s, it was formalized into a classical music festival in which a series of concerts are held, most of them at Royal Albert Hall. At some point the BBC became the sponsor. On the final day of the Proms, the last concert at Royal Albert Hall features easier listening classical music and concludes with a series of patriotic tunes. To make this last day more egalitarian, a parallel concert is held next door in Hyde Park, which also ends with the same patriotic spectacle. This has now expanded to Glasgow, Belfast and somewhere in Wales.

Judie and I got tickets for the Hyde Park event and bought hampers, so we could have food and wine. (I bought two hampers and discovered that each hamper was for two, so we had too much food and two bottles of wine. Guess which we finished.) Of course, it rained–either steady drizzle or serious rain for the first three or more hours. Londoners are used to this. The concert itself consisted mostly of old pop acts and some show tunes that were sort of advertising for shows currently running or about to open. James Galway did play a flute piece based on “Carmen”. Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber was there to plug “School of Rock” (coming soon) and Tim Minchin sang songs from “Matilda” and “Groundhog Day”. The pop groups, The Feeling, Rick Astley, ABC and Martin Fry and All Saints, were essentially unknown to me, although one or two of Rick Astley’s tunes sounded familiar. But, when we looked around everyone seemed to be singing along. There is a whole layer of English culture about which we know absolutely nothing. There were some strange moments: weird on-stage interviews by Anneka Rice, along-time BBC radio and television host who looked botoxed and face-lifted to the point of being creepy, and the performance by Martin Fry, whose clothes and hair accentuated that he was an old guy singing pop songs from his youth. Everyone was very friendly and there was a nice spirit, despite the weather. The Hyde Park part of the show ended with Frankie Valli and a set of backup singers. He is 82, but looks pretty good and can still hit those high notes, although he is remarkably stiff. The crowd sang along lustily. We left when the feed from Royal Albert Hall came on the video screens. We decided to miss the patriotic chest-thumping and avoid the crowds on the Tube. Some pictures follow:

Our Party: If any of you have visited, there is a decent chance that we took you to Vagabond’s, a wine tasting place in Old Spitalfield Market, featuring around 80 wines in machines. With a pre-paid card that you insert in a slot in the various machines, you can take a taste or get a glass of wine, with the cost of the wine deducted from your card. The amount varies, depending on the cost of the bottle. It’s a great concept and we wonder if there are any of these in the NY area. We decided to have our party there, since it is like having a wine tasting with very little work. All we had to do was provide cards and buy a few cheese and charcuterie platters and have some bottles available when our guests ran through their cards. It worked out great and everyone had fun. It was a mix of Bryan Cave lawyers, New Unity people and various couples we have met during the year. An eclectic mix. Everyone got along. A great success!

Pinegrove: On Tuesday night, we went to see Pinegrove at club called The Lexington in the Angel section of Islington. It is fairly small (200+ capacity), so it sold out very quickly, since Pinegrove is very hot right now. For those of you who have never heard of them, Pinegrove is a Montclair band led by two friends of Alex. Evan Stevens Hall is the front man, lead singer and composer, who we have known since he was very little. I coached him in Little League at least one year and he was a year behind Alex in school. He has always been obviously talented, which, of course, means nothing in the music business. He has been playing in bands forever with his long-time buddy and drummer Zack Levine, who also went to Northwestern with Alex. Evan and Zack’s bands and Alex and his friends bands were the two most popular bands throughout high school. Evan and Zack have been trying to make it in the music business and have come close to giving up at times, but, at the beginning of the year, Pinegrove released the album “Cardinal” to rapturous reviews and they took off. They have been touring ever since to increasingly large and enthusiastic crowds and getting great publicity. On their current tour, they are joined by another Montclair kid, Aiden Feliciano, a friend of James from drumming classes with Miss Maya and Reggie Workman, who plays the bass now (like James). The concert was good, if a bit short. They played all of the album with the audience singling along. The band is very tight and Evan has developed an appealing stage persona. They are off to the rest of Britain over the next month and then on to Europe.

Random Notes: After my last blog, I went and read the reviews of “Labyrinth” that appeared in the papers. They were more positive than I was. Most of them raved about how deeply researched it was. That’s true, but it doesn’t mean that it is a compelling plot. Ultimately, the biggest difference is that the reviewers liked the equivalences between that crisis and the more recent crisis and felt the fact that it keeps happening is instructive. I suppose so, but how many times do I have to see this point made? The staging was great and the cast was good and it had a lot of energy, but was it a story that needed to be told?

It has gone back to being summer here. On Tuesday, it was hotter in London than in Miami. Sauna like conditions prevail in the flat, although it is merely hot in the kitchen, where I paint, so I’ve been retreating to there.

Judie is involved with person to person lending (I can’t recall if she has a new client or speaking at a conference). So she asked me to try it and report back. I took $2,500 and opened an account at a site called The Lending Club. The idea is that people who need a loan but, for one reason or another, would have trouble getting one from a bank, can borrow money from other people to pay fora home improvement or for debt consolidation or medical bills. It’s like crowd funding, but it is an interest paying loan. The risk is higher (and varies depending on borrower) and there is a real possibility that a borrower might default. So what you do is spread your risk by loaning just $25 on many individual notes. In theory, I should get a good return even if a certain number of the 100 borrowers I have funded end up defaulting. We’ll see how it works in practice.

Plays and a Political Action

Posted on by Nick Lewis

“Groundhog Day”: In a case of life imitating art, I went to see “Groundhog Day” again on Wednesday, when Judie’s Women’s Group meeting took over the flat. If anything, I liked it even more the second time. While it is hard to watch it and not think of Bill Murray and Andie McDowell in those leading roles, one of the things that I came away after seeing it again is that the loss of those two stars made the production better in many ways. Some specific thoughts:

  • The musical’s exposition drags a little, despite a breakneck pace, partly because it takes so long to get through. That is because they have to show you that entire first day in detail, so that they can riff off of it and start the real action when Phil Connors wakes up to find himself reliving it again. And again. The exposition was less of an issue in the movie, because Bill Murray can make anything entertaining. (A movie could also probably accomplish a lot in a shorter period of time with cutting.)
  • There is nothing lovable about Phil Connors at the start of the musical or even for most of the first act. His reactions to the town and his situation are funny, but, deep down, he is simply a sexist asshole. This makes his eventual redemption much more satisfying and gives the musical a better story arc. Bill Murray’s character was much more likable from the beginning and the resulting feeling that you had for him did not go through the same sort of development.
  • The Rita in the musical is cute, but not a beauty like Andie McDowell. So in the musical, it seems to make more sense that Phil doesn’t really fall in love with Rita. At the beginning, hr barely notices her. He is really just trying to get into her pants until close to the end. Again this gives the musical more of a story arc than the movie.
  • I don’t think the movie gives you a feeling about just how long Phil is stuck in Groundhog Day. Do you think that the Bill Murray character goes through the day 50 times? Maybe 100? By the beginning of the second act of the musical, you get the feeling that this Phil has been reliving this day for many hundreds, if not thousands of time. He is utterly defeated and desperate. But then he picks up on something Rita says (sings, actually) and decides to live the moment and to try new things and to live for others and not just himself. It is then that we begin to root for this Phil, who was amusing, but never all that likable.

The combination of all of this makes the second act utterly redeem to slightly clunky moments of the first act. That act, beginning with Phil grabbing a shooting the groundhog and then himself, through to his astonishment at finding Rita in his bedroom that final morning is just about as perfecta piece of theater as you could hope for.

Saul Alinsky in Hackney: On Thursday, I went with some folks from New Unity to a meeting held by Citizens Hackney. They were having a meeting with the candidates for Mayor in the upcoming by-election. Citizens Hackney is a classic community organizing organization following the Saul Alinsky playbook and the meeting was a classic “action” that I’d learned about in classes and participated in when connected with Building One New Jersey. So it had an additional layer of interest as I saw them do the classic stuff, like start and end on time, make sure everyone introduces themselves (I represented New Unity in that role), Gave lots of people roles and did not let the politicians dominate the mike. Classically, they had met with the politicians ahead of time and knew what they were going to say. Citizens Hackney had a bunch of positions and asked each of the three candidates if they supported them. They asked about (a) a living wage for government workers and contractors, (b) a job program for youth, (c) more affordable housing, especially at the Olympics site, (d) a crackdown on bad landlords and (e) more consultation between the Mayor and the public (especially Citizens Hackney). They are big issues, but were phrased in non-confrontational ways, and all three candidates agreed to it all (which the organizers knew ould happen in advance). It turned out that the Labor guy is going to win by a mile, since it is a very safe Labor area, so the other two candidates had nothing to lose by agreeing. The Conservative candidate was this very earnest young women, who seemed to normal to be a Conservative and the Lib-Dem was an interesting radical type. The Labour candidate is actually the temporary Mayor already and had some interesting little quibbles to the Citizens Hackney position, based mostly on the fact that he had actually governed and knew how things actually worked. The one weird thing about the proceeding is that after each candidate agreed with everything that they were asked to agree to, a moderator would get up and go through the whole thing again, confirming each point. I’m sure that this was in their script, but it seemed odd–like they hadn’t been listening to what the candidate just said. Democracy in action!

 “Labyrinth”: The next night, we went up to the Hampstead Theatre and saw “Labyrinth”, a new play about the Latin America debt crisis in the 1980s. It looks at the whole thing from American bankers’ points of view, which was (and is) “Let’s make as much money as we can and screw the consequences”. One problem with the play is that it is hardly big news that American and Global bankers are horrible, rapacious, destructive pigs. There have been lots of movies and books making this same point, so there is no real revelatory aspect to the production, even if the plot involves an economic crisis that most people have forgotten. And I don’t think the fact that the world has largely forgotten a crisis of that magnitude (which is admittedly appalling) is enough reason for the play. The thing that almost saves the play is the central character, a very young banker who is swept along in the whole process, becoming increasingly rich and cynical. His father is a small-time con man, who has gone to jail for fraud in the past. I know that the play was trying to contrast the small con with epic fraudulent loans that made entire countries insolvent. But it didn’t really work. Maybe it was too obvious. However, I will say that the scenes between the father and son were some of the best in the play, mostly because they were the only recognizably human people. The other bankers were fast-talking and often funny caricatures. With all of that said, the production was fascinating, espcially if you wanted to learn about that debt crisis. The staging was extremely clever and the acting was compelling, if ultimately a bit pointless. It seems to me that one of the reasons you go to small theaters like this, away from the West End (or Off-Broadway in NYC), is that they take chances. Sometimes. they work sublimely, as most of what we have seen at Hampstead Theatre has. And other times, you leave thinking “Oh well. Nice try.”

 

A Painting, Taxes and The Dead Have Risen

Posted on by Nick Lewis

I’ve been distracted by my weird illness, discussed in the prior blog, and by the necessity to collect information for accountants on both sides of the pond, so that our taxes can get filed. Making this latter effort more complicated is the fact that that the British tax year ends on April 5th, which makes absolutely no sense to me. I looked it up and it is a predictably strange story:

In the old days, the new year in Britain and Ireland began on March 25th. It was called Lady Day and was supposed to commemorate the day that the Angel Gabriel advised the Virgin Mary that she was going to give birth to Jesus. Lady Day, Midsummer, Michaelmas and Christmas were the four most important dates on the old calendar, came along roughly quarterly and evolved to be the dates when debts needed to be settled and rents paid, etc. Lady Day eventually came to be seen as the beginning of the financial year.

In 1582, the rest of Europe switched to the more accurate Gregorian calendar, replacing the Julian one, which had lost ten days over the years. However, the British decided that they weren’t going to let the Pope tell them what their calendar should be (you may recall that they were not getting along), so they kept the Julian calendar. Fast forward to 1752, when the British finally decided that they had to switch over the Gregorian calendar. By this time, they were 11 days off, so to make the correction, September 2 of that year was followed by September 14th. The people were justifiably unhappy (to the point of rioting) about having to pay the same taxes on a year that was 11 days shorter, so to insure revenue collection, the British Treasury just moved the end of the tax year up 11 days to April 4th. And then in 1800, they moved up another day to the 5th, since there was no leap day that year and they wanted to be consistent. They have since dropped that practice.

The use of April 6th as the beginning of the new tax year was formally adopted in 1900. Oddly, the British government’s own fiscal year now begins on April 1st, which is also the beginning of the fiscal year for most businesses here. Curiously, April 1st is the beginning of the tax year for corporations and the 6th only seems to apply to individuals. (The Irish sensibly just had a shortened year at one point and have switched to January 1st.) You cannot make this stuff up!

New Painting: Georgian Skye: As you make recall, I was inspired by the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit at Tate Modern and decided that I wanted to try painting a landscape in her Ghost Ranch style. I picked a scene from the Isle of Skye. Like New Mexico, it is wild and bleak, but wet rather than dry. It was an interesting experiment and the top half of the painting went fairly well–not Georgia O’Keeffe, but pleasant looking. When I reached the bottom, I kind of lost my way. I tried a few things and didn’t like much of it. I finally gave up working on it. When I started painting some other things, I went back to this and made a few corrections. The last thing I did was add the sheep, which are decidedly not O’Keefe-like, but are quite Lewis-like. It would be cute to say that I learned how hard it is to paint like O’Keeffe, but I really already knew that. From the beginning, and increasingly  as I went along, I was drawn to the thought that I was not copying her, but trying to get some inspiration from her and adapt it to my style (such as it is). I still like the top more than the bottom, but I think I turned out OK. Here it is.

Georgian Skye

Tales of the Undead-The New York Mets: I gave up the Mets for dead about three weeks ago. It was the middle of August and they were even behind Miami, not to mention the Pirates and Cards and Giants and Dodgers. Wright, Duda and Harvey were out for the season. Cespdes, Cabrera and Walker were all hobbling around (and it turned that Walker was done for season). Matz was pitching with a big bone spur in his elbow and Syndegaard with a little one and Neise hurt his knee and went on the DL with Matz. The bullpen was exhausted. Bruce, brought over from the Reds wasn’t producing. They weren’t hitting in the clutch (last in baseball with runners in scoring position), had little team speed and were not great defensively. It seemed like one of those baseball seasons when, unlike the absurd run of 2015, the baseball gods were frowning on my Metsies. I figured, well at least I’ll get to sleep this October.

Then, out of the blue, Jose Reyes starts playing like it is six years ago, Wilmer Flores is hitting like I always thought he might, Cespedes comes back, Cabrera gimps around hitting home runs, and guys like Bruce and d’Arneau and Granderson finally show signs of life. Familia and Reed continue to be a shutdown bullpen at the end of games. Incredibly, even as de Grom joins Matz on the DL, minor league nobodies named Gsellman and Lugo and the failed prospect Montero are thrown into starts and pitch great. Bartolo Colon continues to defy time and even draws the first walk of this career at the age of 43. There is really no way this team should be winning, but they have somehow won something like 12 of 16 and are now a game out of a playoff spot with a month left. I’d still be skeptical, but it turns out that the Mets hardly play anyone decent for the rest of the year. Most of their games area against the Phillies and Reds and the Braves and Twins, and the final two are battling for the worst record in baseball and the #1 pick. It could happen. Hell, it should happen. Ya gotta believe. Terry Collins for Mayor!

Miscellaneous Notes

Posted on by Nick Lewis

Painting: I haven’t been doing much painting lately and it started to bother me. I realized that I really needed to get back to it. Of course, I had some good reasons for not painting, the primary one being that the flat was so damn hot for most of last week that It just wasn’t pleasant being there during the day. And I was distracted by the sermon, which is now over and done with. But, in thinking about it, I realized that I was sick of the painting I was working on, a sort of homage to Georgia O’Keeffe which had taken a wrong turn at some point and needed to be reworked. But my trip to the Royal Academy got me re-inspired and I’ve started a portrait (thanks to Hockney) and a landscape (thanks to a Nancy Prince photo from Facebook). So I am working on three pieces at once, which is good, I think. As I get sick of working on one (or need to wait for the paint to dry), I can move over to another. I think I’ll go with this approach going forward for a while.

We’re Having a Party!: To celebrate our first year in London, we are going to have a party and invite a bunch of people who have made the year special for us. We are having it at Vagabond’s, a wine-tasting pace in Spitalfields Market that has over 70 wines in special tasting machines. It should be fun. For various reasons September 11th was the only day that fit our schedules. It seems slightly odd to be celebrating the 15th anniversary of that day, but maybe it is good to get over it….

Bake-Off: I am normally not a fan of reality television or those contest shows involving performances by amateur singers and dancers, but I have to admit that I have been won over by “The Great British Bake-Off”. It is show in which a group of amateur bakers, who are just normal looking people, are challenged by the judges to make a variety of things. They are gradually eliminated until one of three is hailed as the winner. One season of it was ending just as we arrived and we watched the final show, when Nadiya, a Muslim woman wearing a head scarf, won, which I thought said a lot about how multicultural this country has become. (This was before Brexit.) We only saw the end of the next season, but yet another season has just started and we are going to try to watch it all the way through. I think there are a number of things that make this show appealing. The contestants are just regular people of all sorts of ages, looks and accents, who are competing because they really love baking. There is no big prize at the end (although Nadiya has become something of a celebrity now.) And the judges and the comedians who act as hosts are gentle and clearly rooting for the contestants. If the cake it too dry or the taste is all wrong, the judges don’t humiliate the person, but instead, gently point out their mistakes. It just has a completely different vibe from American reality contest shows.

 

Brexit Update: So, it has been to and half months and everyone returned from Parliament after their summer break to see what the May-appointed Brexit triumvirate had come up with. The answer: nothing. The only thing we “know” is the “Brexit means Brexit”, Theresa May’s major comment on it all, which could mean virtually anything. Of course, to be fair, I suppose we do know that we should not pay any attention to any of the promises made by the Leave leaders during the referendum. It is the grossest sort of incompetence to seek a result without the faintest whiff of a plan about what to do if you succeed, but that is where we are. You can understand why May wants to put off Article 50, which would trigger negotiations and set a two-year clock running, since her “Brexit brain trust” hasn’t the faintest clue of their position in such negotiations (or much else). The only positive for May so far is that David Davis, Boris Johnson and Liam Fox haven’t started back stabbing. But that is only because they haven’t done a thing, so just wait. The Eurosceptics are taking great solace in the fact that the British stock market is doing great and that the economy, especially manufacturing, is doing OK so far. Of course, they don’t mention that the pound has dropped by 10-15% since Brexit, which has made British products cheaper to export and has helped to prop up corporate profits. We are in the “quiet before the storm” period. (Meanwhile, at the G20 conference, May was treated more like the President of Mexico or PM of Australian than Winston Churchill…..)

Medical Mystery: Every once in a while, the New York Times runs a piece where they describe a real-life person with a series of symptoms that the doctors can’t figure out and ask readers to suggest the cause. That kind of happened to me this weekend. I woke up on Friday with my left cheek swollen, kind of like a spider bite. As the day went along, the swelling increased and I began to feel achy and tired. By the evening, I noticed that gland under the left corner of my jaw was swollen and tender. I figured I was getting the flu or something (aches and swollen glands), although the swelling was a mystery. By Saturday, the swelling was worse, extending to the side of my nose, which was also swollen. I had suffered with night sweats the night before and might have been running a slight fever. I occasionally had chills during the day. I looked awful, but I really didn’t feel all that bad and thought I might even be starting to get better. I still thought I had some kind of flu. Judie called Jim Winslow, who was at the beach in North Carolina during the hurricane. He suggested (a) some sort of dental abscess or infection, (b) a blockage in a salivary gland, (c) a skin infection, (d) a sinus infection, (e) some weird flu he’d never heard of , or (f) some other sort of infection. By Sunday, the swelling had taken over my nose (it hurt to wear my glasses) and had spread to the other side of my face. I was running a fever and was bright red. Judie found a clinic open on a Sunday, so I went over to Wimpole Street and saw a doctor at 11. She diagnosed it as “Cellulitis”, which is an infection of the skin under the outer layer, and prescribed two kinds of antibiotics to go after the two possible bacterias that cause it. Usually there is a break in the skin, although sometimes you can’t see it (as in my case). I went home and looked it up and the symptoms described on the web certainly matched. It actually can be pretty serious if not treated promptly. It’s now Tuesday. I’m still bight red over most of my face, but I feel fine. The swelling has gone down a lot and I can wear my glasses. I really could have gotten very sick, according the websites, so I’m feeling sort of lucky, despite my lost weekend.