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A Sailing Cruise Exploring French Polynesia
We're not generally cruise people, but when our friends Leif and Taylor tempted us
with their plan to tour Tahiti and the French Polynesian islands on a smaller
cruise line with a 150-passenger sailing vessel, it did sound like a great way
to explore that part of the world. We didn't know all that much about it, actually.
Was Tahiti even a country? It turns out that the "country" of French Polynesia comprises
a bunch of tropical islands in several archipelagos. (I put "country" in quotes, because
while semi-autonomous, it's actually a territory of France.)
Tahiti is the largest and most famous island,
but there's also Bora Bora and Moorea, names that conjure images of
South Pacific paradises of palm trees, warm clear seas, jagged mountains, reefs,
and friendly locals wearing a lot of floral prints. Our picture of the place was
mostly informed by South Pacific the musical, and by the artist Paul Gauguin.
What we saw in real life not only met but exceeded those fantasy expectations.
In some ways, Polynesia is like Hawaii, the lush tropical green islands, the
clear aqua blue water, beautiful sandy beaches with palm trees. But in other ways,
the Polynesian islands are quite different. They're all volcanic, but the Hawaiian
islands are younger geologically, and their volcanos are still evident as conical
mountains. Apparently, as volcanos age, they break down leaving dramatic jagged
fragments behind, and the remnants of the broken-down volcanos accumulate in rings
around the island that eventually become barrier reefs and form lagoons around the
islands. That's how the Society Islands (the chain that includes Tahiti, Bora Bora,
and Moorea) are now. We also visited another Polynesian chain called the Tuamotu Islands.
Those are even older. Eventually, the volcano completely breaks down, building up the
barrier reefs to the point that they form atolls — ring-shaped islands that are
miles long and very narrow, with a vast shallow lagoon in the center.
Our itinerary was filled with beauty and adventure. Our first call was
Fakarava, an
atoll in the Tuamotu Islands, comprising a scant 9 square miles on land stretched across
a very long skinny ring enclosing a 429 square mile lagoon. We did our first snorkle
in water no more than 10 feet deep, filled with brightly colored tropical fish, and we ate
lunch at a café right on the water with tables literally in the water.
The water was warm and bright blue, and we were assured that the nurse sharks swimming by
were all vegetarian.
On the island of
Taha'a,
we did a drift snorkel where the current carried us through the coral reef, and
we picnicked on a private "motu" (lagoon islet).
We lingered for a few days in Bora Bora, which is rightfully legendary.
We tried a
helmet dive,
in which we wore these steam-punk looking helmets with air hoses connecting us to the surface
as we wandered the ocean floor 20 feet down. It was an unexpectedly great experience — easy,
comfortable, and a bigger screen view than a normal diving mask.
We did a
coral garden snorkel,
and we swam amidst
reef sharks and stingrays.
We dabbled with an intro to
SCUBA
(where we saw an octopus),
we explored
Vaitape town,
we enjoyed a small boat
sunset cruise
around the lagoon, and we had an amazing barbecue feast on another private motu with
fire dancing
after dinner.
On the island of
Huahine,
we had a fascinating land exploration learning about the flora and fauna, visiting a
pearl farm and a vanilla farm, and meeting some sacred eels.
On the beautiful island of
Moorea,
we had some photography lessons as we visited scenic spots around the island.
At the start and finish of the cruise, we were hosted at the
Tahiti Intercontinental Resort,
which was lovely.
We surprised ourselves at how much we enjoyed the cruise experience. Our boat, the
Wind Spirit,
is a 440' four-masted sailing vessel, carrying just over 100 passengers and about the same
number of crew. Tom expected to get seasick but never did, and never even needed to take
any of the pills and patches we brought. The service onboard was impeccable and personal,
and by the second day the dining room staff knew all our names and preferences, and looked
after us like family. We were there with Leif and Taylor, but we met other people during
excursions, and by the end of the cruise we had established a
group of ten
whom we all really clicked with and enjoyed hanging out with (and are still in touch with).
(You can see all of our French Polynesia trip photo albums
here.)
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Day-To-Day Life
In our day-to-day between travels, George continues to enjoy his retirement with long walks
around the neighborhood and Elysian Park. He's gotten to know many of our neighbors
(and their dogs). He also keeps busy finding projects around our home.
Recent projects included painting
our front fence and front door (formerly just natural wood, they're now "Galway Bay", a
grayish blue that we also used on our pergola).
Tom still goes into the office in Manhattan Beach Monday through Thursday.
He plans to work a few more years
(1185 days, according to the countdown clock on his desk at work), but he still enjoys the
work and the people he works with.
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Finding World Heritage and Family History in Croatia
Tom has long wanted to visit Croatia with his longtime friend Mark Karmelich,
whose grandparents all came from islands on the Dalmatian coast. That trip finally
happened this summer, when Tom and George traveled with Mark, his wife Heather,
their kids Katie (our goddaughter) and Alex, Mark's brother Brian, his wife Nancy,
and their son Gabe. Not only was it a great opportunity to spend time with our friends,
but it also gave us a unique experience meeting their Croatian cousins and going to
places away from the normal tourist path.
We began our trip in
Dubrovnik,
a well-preserved medieval walled city jutting into
the sparkling blue waters of the Adriatic Sea. Its baroque churches and limestone
streets will be recognizable to Game of Thrones fans as King's Landing, the fictional
capital of Westeros. The historic core of the town is completely encircled by
fortress walls,
and one morning we walked the whole circumference with great views over the town.
During the hot afternoons, we took advantage of the beautiful sea. One day our whole group
took a
private boat tour
to nearby Koločep Island where we swam in blue and green grottos,
and got to inspect the city walls from the sea side. Another day, George and Tom went
on our own to find a secluded beach on nearby Lokrum Island. In the late afternoons,
we all met up at the
Buža Bar,
a bar with a series of patios built in to the rocks above
the sea outside the city wall, where you can have a drink and watch braver younger people
jump off the high rocks into the sea. ("buža" is Croatian for hole, as you enter this
bar through a hole in the city wall.)
One evening we took the gondola up to the top of Mount Srđ where we dined with
breathtaking views high above Dubrovnik, and then checked out a city history museum
in a repurposed Napoleonic mountaintop fort. Mostly it was a wonder just to meander
the streets and alleys of the historic town, with no cars inside the city walls,
and the streets made of limestone blocks, worn shiny from years of foot traffic,
that gleam in sunlight or moonlight.
From Dubrovnik, we picked up a car and drove up the "Adriatic Coast Highway" and
caught a ferry to the island of Brač and the charming fishing village of
Bol,
where Mark and Brian's father's parents had come from. We enjoyed a few days there,
eating fresh seafood, swimming at the beach, meeting cousins, and exploring
family history. Nearby Zlatni Rat ("golden cape"), a sand bar that juts out into the sea,
is said to be one of Croatia's most photographed beaches, and the small village of Bol
has given itself new life as a beach town. Some of Mark's cousins even run a
beachfront business renting sport equipment like paddle boards and sailboards,
and giving windsurfing lessons. The Vučičić family (cousins on
Mark's father's mother's side) welcomed us very generously, giving us a walking
tour of where their grandmother and other ancestors had lived, and hosting us all
at a dinner at their home, which ended with slivovica (plum brandy) and singing
of Croatian folk songs when Mark got hold of a guitar.
One evening we met up with some cousins from the Karmelić side and had a nice
visit with them.
We got to go into the
parish church dating from the 1700s where the Karmelić grandparents were married
over 100 years ago. We searched for family graves in the jam-packed seaside cemetery
there, and saw many Karmelić, Cvitanić, and Marinković graves, but
couldn't find any specific ancestors.
After a few relaxing days there, we caught a ferry, drove further up the coast,
and caught another ferry to
Dugi otok,
the island where Mark and Brian's mother's parents came from. This island was a bit
more remote and much less touristy, but very scenic and charming.
There were a few small fishing villages, some rocky but beautiful beaches,
and even some old
submarine bunkers,
a curious relic from the Yugoslav era that looked like something out of an old James Bond film.
In
Veli Rat,
the ancestral village of the Uglešić family, we attended Sunday mass
in the church where Mark's mother's parents were married in 1935.
Even though the mass was all in Croatian, much of it was sung, and we really enjoyed it.
Mark had connected with one cousin in advance, and that cousin introduced us to
all sorts of other cousins. Most people in this tiny village are related one way or another.
We were shown the homes where Grandma and Grandpa U had grown up, and a bunch of us
went to a café where cousins enjoyed finding themselves in photographs Mark
had brought from when their family had visited over forty years ago.
We also discovered that a town on the other end of the island was having a festival,
so we drove down to
Sali
to see the festivities, including donkey races, the return of the sailors,
women in traditional costume dancing, and men playing "donkey music" and marching
right into the sea. It was great fun.
From there, we returned to the mainland and explored several fascinating historic
towns along the coast, a "pearl necklace" of UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Zadar's
historic core is on a small fortified peninsula, and boasts the ruins of a Roman
forum and the pre-Romanesque church of St Donatus dating from the 9th century,
as well as a beautiful Romanesque cathedral (12th-13th C) and several other Baroque
churches. The modern is mixed in here as well, including some
remarkable sculptural installations—the Sea Organ, which produces musical tones
generated by the motion of the sea, and the Sun Salutation, a giant round photovoltaic
pad that charges up by day and produces a light show by night.
Down the coast is
Trogir,
a small "stepping stone" islet between the coast and a larger island, that exploited
its strategic location to build a prosperous town via alliances with the Venetian
Republic. Its walls, palaces, churches, and towers are beautifully preserved,
with a gorgeous Romanesque cathedral in the center.
Further down we reach
Split,
whose historic core is dominated by Diocetian's Palace, built by one of the last great
Roman emperors, who was born here and returned to spend his later "retirement" years.
Significant chunks remain of the Roman palace but an eclectic mix of adapation and
infill from later eras is evident as well. What was intended as Diocletian's mausoleum has
been repurposed as the Cathedral of St Domnius (celebrating one of the saints that he martyred),
and the Temple of Jupiter has become a baptistry.
It was fascinating to visit Bosnia-Herzegovina, right next to Croatia, yet so different.
While coastal Croatia was influenced by Europe, Venice, and Catholicism, just a little ways
inland was the Ottoman Empire, with its Turkish culture, food, and Islamic religion indelibly
marking the Bosniaks long after the Ottoman Empire receded. Here minarets are prominent
in the skyline and the call to prayer is heard several times each day. The streets are filled
with crafts and shops like a Turkish bazaar, and the air carries the aroma of ćevap
(traditional seasoned ground beef logs), baklava, and Bosnian coffee.
Anyone who visits
Mostar
will be captivated by its iconic bridge. There's of course the
aesthetic beauty of its graceful arch and clean lines spanning the clear cold waters of
the Neretva River. And there's the impressive engineering of limestone arch construction,
a design nearly half a millennium old that stood for centuries. Most of all, there's the
symbolism of reaching across to bridge two sides of a city where Muslim Bosniaks,
Catholic Croats, and Orthodox Serbs have lived together; where political polarization
tore the city and country apart and destroyed the bridge; and where those same people
came together and committed to rebuild it, using the same design and materials as were
used when it was first built in 1566. Here we enjoyed the opportunity to visit inside
a mosque, something we'd never done before.
On the road, we visited a couple of other sights in
Hercegovina
including Počitelj, a scenic and historic town along the
Neretva River with mosques, minarets, and bathhouses, and a large tower and fortification
on the ridge above the town; and Blagaj, where a historic Dervish monastery is built
into a cliff at the source of the Buna River.
We enjoyed a scenic drive through dramatic karst limestone mountains and pastoral green
valleys in the Srpska Republic as we headed toward Montenegro and our last stop.
At the furthest end of an Adriatic fjord, a long inlet surrounded by high mountains, lies
Kotor,
a medieval outpost of the Venetian Empire.
It is another charming fortified port town, though this one has walls that not only surround
the town but rise up to defend the mountain ridge above it, like a smaller version of the
Great Wall of China. We hiked a ways up those walls for a great view over the town and bay.
While the Croats are Catholic and the Bosniaks are Muslim, the Montenegrins are Orthodox,
so the primary churches here are Orthodox, including the 12th C St Luke's church and the
grander 20th C St Nicholas church. We took a boat tour around the
Bay of Kotor,
the highlight of which was visiting Our Lady of the Rocks, a chapel built on a manmade
tiny island in the middle of the bay.
(See all our Croatia trip photos
here.)
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Watch This Space For Year-End Updates
Coming soon: 2023 in review in food, movies, books, stage, art, politics, and technology.
(Well, not so much stage, movies, or art this year, but lots to say about the rest!)
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2023 In Food
In 2023, we continued to revel in the foodie paradise that is Los Angeles.
On the high end, we got to Chef José Andrés'
San Laurel
in the new DTLA Conrad Hotel, where the Spanish cuisine meets California produce
and culinary innovation, and molecular gastronomy informs the bar program.
Tom's favorite cocktail there is the Foggy Hill, blending Del Maguey Vida mezcal,
Yzaguirre 1884 Gran Reserva vermouth, cynar, aperol, and an aromatic cloud of orange and thyme
dramatically delivered tableside to scintillate you with aromatics even before the first taste.
Though we never got to Vespertine, this year we made it to
Meteora,
Chef Jordan Kahn's amazing reimagining of paleolithic food, mostly cooked over flames you can see
flickering from the kitchen. Servers grind and grate freshly hunted and gathered ingredients in
front of you to generate aromas of anticipation as well as visual excitement.
On regular weekend date nights, we explored new openings like
Bar Chelou serving unique flavor
combinations in a cool space next to the Pasadena Playhouse,
Dunsmoor cooking
rustic southern food over an open hearth in Glassell Park,
Jewel
bringing creative vegan Asian food to Virgil Village,
Dal Milanese
for distinctive northern Italian flavors (the peppercorn steak!) to Los Feliz, and
Entre Nous
for classic French bistro fare in Pasadena.
The Frogtown neighborhood along a scenic stretch of the LA River has seen a
blossoming of new places including Loreto for Mexican seafood,
and the Just What I Kneaded cafe. We've enjoyed
Lingua Franca
serving creative market-driven dishes right on the river.
In our own neighborhood, not new but new again, we were delighted for the revival of
Elf Cafe
serving Middle Eastern-inspired food to Echo Park.
DTLA continues to evolve, with
Cafe Basque
which brought innovative Basque cuisine to the Hoxton Hotel on Broadway,
Baar Baar
for modern Indian cuisine in a mod space,
Que Barbaro
by Chef Ray Garcia serving Argentine-inspired fare in the new Level 8 complex, and
Per L'Ora
has taken over the grand space in the Hotel Per La (what was the NoMad).
Abernethy's on the Music Center Plaza continues to do an innovative rotating
chef-in-residence program. When Chef Lenora Marouani was there, that's how we
learned of her delicious Tunisian-inspired restaurant
Barsha in Hermosa Beach.
We occasionally ventured out for lunch on off-Fridays, exploring the brand-new
Perilla in Victor Heights
where you can make a whole meal of Korean banchans, and
El Haurachito,
a longtime family-run Mexican restaurant in Lincoln Heights where you can get a good bowl of posole.
For Sunday night family dinners in North Hills,
Buon Gusto
continues to be a favorite, but we also checked out
Mercado Buenos Aires
for meaty Argentine fare.
When we're not eating out, Tom still cooks at home four nights a week based on what he's found
at the Hollywood Farmers Market on Sunday morning. The rains made this a good year for chanterelles,
among other things. In our own Elysian Park, wild mustard was coming up all over, and when we
saw a Korean couple foraging it, Tom decided to check it out. George was a bit horrified at the idea,
but Tom found that
spicy foraged mustard green pesto
was delicious on roast chicken!
We were saddened by many closings this past year, which seemed an especially hard year for restaurants.
The worst blow for us was the loss of Breadblok, our fantastic gluten-free bakery cafe,
which had been the source of George's daily gluten-free bread.
Our favorite local Cuban spot El Cochinito closed after decades in Silver Lake.
We often enjoyed Petty Cash, Chef Walter Mantzke (of Republique) creative taco spot, alas Mantzke and his
wife also closed Sari Sari, the Filipino stall in Grand Central Market.
Here in Echo Park, Mohawk Bend and Konbi closed this year, and up the street in Silver Lake,
Chef Ricardo Zarate's Causita flickered out. Downtown, the new Cafe Basque didn't survive the year,
and the 15-year veteran Nickel Diner (maple bacon donuts!) also shuttered,
as did the much beloved Off Vine in Hollywood after 34 years.
We're mindful to support our favorites as much as we can, so we returned repeatedly to
Botanica,
Honey Hi,
Guisados,
Wife and the Somm,
Triple Beam Pizza,
Mazal,
Bacetti, and
Bowery Bungalow,
as well as reliable DTLA venues like
Asterid and
Brera, and
Bistro 45 in Pasadena.
And we're also very defensive and supportive of our beloved
Pazzo Gelato in Silver Lake, whose lease is not getting renewed
after the landlord invited a Salt and Straw expansion right next door.
(Salt and Straw was itself a very innovative ice creamery in the Alberta neighborhood of Portland, Oregon,
where we've visited the original. But sadly it has sold out to
big private equity investors
and is expanding like crazy.)
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2023 On Screen
This year the movie industry tried to get its rhythm back, and despite long strikes by writers and actors,
a quieter-than-usual start built up to some blockbusters in the summer and a lot of good films by
year end. With Oscars only slightly delayed to March this year, we started off seeing a number of
nominees.
In Living, best actor nominee
Bill Nighy gives an exquisite performance as a dour elder manager in the 1950s British civil service who,
when confronted with his own mortality, struggles to find meaning in his life.
In The Banshees of Inisherin (multiple nominations),
we watch an inexplicable and astounding falling out of two friends on a remote Irish island.
The Belgian film
Close (best international film nominee)
is a vivid, tender, heartbreaking coming-of-age story of two best boyhood friends
whose friendship is tested by the social crucible of starting middle school.
The Quiet Girl (best international film nominee, in Irish language)
shows a young girl from a big poor family who spends a summer with an aunt and uncle who had lost their
only child.
As usual, we enjoyed doing a screening of all the
Oscar-nominated Short Films
in animated and live action categories.
Aside from Oscar contenders, early in the year we enjoyed Tom Hanks' moving portrayal of
A Man Called Otto,
a punctilious curmudgeon whose heart is melted by some new neighbors in his townhome complex.
Of An Age,
an Australian film about a fleeting romantic encounter that leaves indelible marks on the two lives
even 11 years later, was reminiscent of Richard Linklater's
Before Sunset.
In the spring, we started weak with
Moving On,
a fun but ultimately forgettable dark comedy where Lily Tomlin helps Jane Fonda get revenge.
Things picked up with
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret,
a lovely film version of the beloved coming-of-age story (our Laemmle was filled with women of our
generation who'd read the book in the 1970s when they were 13).
Chevalier was a beautifully filmed
amazing story, drawn from actual history, about a Black musical prodigy and swordsman who
thrived for a time in the court of Marie Antoinette.
In You Hurt My Feelings,
a canny observation on honesty and white lies in relationships,
Julie Louis-Dreyfus portrays a writer whose world falls apart when she overhears her husband
confessing to a friend that he doesn't actually like her latest book.
Past Lives
followed childhood sweethearts who intermittently reconnect over very long gaps of years,
also separated by shifting identities, international migrations, and learning how to trade
giving cherished things up for the opportunity to gain new things.
We kicked off the summer with
Asteroid City,
in which Wes Anderson goes meta to explore artifice in a film within a film about random
people stuck in a small southwest desert town when aliens land. We not only enjoyed the film,
but also a whole display of sets and costumes in the newly renovated Landmark Sunset.
While we were sad to lose the Arclight Theaters during the pandemic, and to see the Laemmle
chain of art theaters shrinking, it's been nice to see Landmark Theaters stepping in to fill
some of the void, revitalizing the Sunset and the Pasadena Playhouse moviehouses, and here even
recapturing a bit of the glamor of Arclight premieres.
The summer roller coaster got going with
Joy Ride,
a raunchy comedy along the likes of The Hangover and Bridesmaids, featuring Ashley Park (of Emily in Paris fame),
and exploring themes of Asian identity.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
was a rollicking E-ticket ride from beginning to end, and a marvelous way to send off the beloved but aged professor-adventurer.
The delightful, creative, and thoughtful
Barbie
took the summer by storm, fully reclaiming Hollywood's mojo while packing theatres
with women and girls (and even some men) all dressed in pink.
After our summer vacation,
Cassandro was a lone bright spot
in the September doldrums, with Gael Garcia-Bernal in the based-on-a-true-story about an unlikely
campy gay champion of Mexican wrestling.
Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 was a big fat heap of
retread jokes and an unsavory moussaka of contrived and tangled plot lines.
October picked up with
The Blue Caftan,
a sensitive Moroccan film exploring the relationships between a fine tailor, his wife, and a
young apprentice; and
Red, White & Royal Blue,
a fun secret romance between the son of the first woman US president and the Prince of Wales.
A Haunting in Venice
was another excellent Kenneth Branagh take on detective Hercule Poirot, this one with beautiful
Venetian scenery and spooky atmospherics perfect for Halloween.
We also enjoyed a special screening of
Serving In Secret: Love, County, and Don't Ask, Don't Tell,
a documentary on gays in the US military, featuring our own friend Tom Carpenter (Naval Academy grad and
Marine aviator turned gay rights advocate).
From the serious to the saucy, we guffawed and jaw-dropped our way through
Dicks: The Musical,
as raunchy as it sounds, but also as delightful as you'd imagine anything with Megan Mullally,
Nathan Lane, and Bowen Yang (not to mention Megan Thee Stallion) to be.
As we came into the holiday film season,
The Holdovers delivered some true holiday warmth
by way of a curmudgeonly old teacher looking after the wayward kids left to stay at a New England
boarding school over the holidays. (It reminded me of
Dead Poets Society and
The Cider House Rules.)
Our holiday films took a turn for the wonderfully strange with
Saltburn
(a wild cross of
Brideshead Revisited,
The Talented Mr. Ripley and
Something for Everyone) and
Poor Things in which Emma Stone
plays a young woman recreated by a brilliant but unorthodox surgeon who explores
a colorful steampunk world in a series of Candide-like experiences discovering the meaning of life.
Both must be seen to be believed.
Slightly less strange but certainly wonderful, we were charmed by
Wonka,
with Timothée Chalamet enacting the young magical chocolate maker.
On the small screen, we binged a number of serials, but the standout of the year was the excellent
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story,
which gives us the extraordinary back story to the queen imperiously ruling over the
Bridgerton series, as well as the fierce Lady Danbury. While it has all of the beautiful period costumes
and sets we've come to expect of Bridgerton (and even more so, as this is palaces and royals),
this goes well beyond the lighter Austen-esque romances of Bridgerton, plumbing the emotional
depths of a young woman coming into an arranged marriage in a foreign country, facing
political intrigue that may undermine her, a husband who is charming, handsome, but inexplicably
aloof, and ultimately dealing with incurable mental illness. It was exceedingly well done.
Beyond Charlotte, we mostly enjoyed continuing seasons of previous favorites.
We eagerly followed the off-again on-again romance of Simon and Prince Wilhelm in season 2
Young Royals
(and eagerly await the 3rd and final season coming soon).
We continued to enjoy season 3 of
Emily In Paris,
mostly for the characters, fashion, and Paris scenery, even as the romantic and professional
relationships gyrated like a kaleidoscope, it was pretty.
We swooned over the second season of
Heartstopper,
as school jock Nick finally comes out, and the romance between he and Charlie develops,
as do interesting relationships (or not) among the other cast of characters.
We look forward to the third season coming next year.
Tom also enjoyed the final seasons of a couple of his shows.
The fourth and final season of
Never Have I Ever
saw Devi through her senior year to leaving home for college, well written to the end
and nicely wrapped up.
The sixth and final season of
The Crown navigated Princess Diana's
divorce, death, and its aftermath, as well as Prince William coming into his own,
the passing of Princess Margaret, and Queen Elizabeth contemplating her own mortality.
While I've enjoyed the well-written and finely produced series from beginning to end,
this is probably my least favorite season, as it seemed to dip more into
tabloid sensationalism and uncharitable speculation.
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2023 On Stage
In 2023, we enjoyed a good dose of live performance including opera, theatre, and concerts.
We began the year with opera, when we joined our friends the Godfreys, the Linds, and the Borks to see
The Marriage Of Figaro
at LA Opera. This was special because a friend of our nieces from La Sierra College,
Anthony León,
is a rising young tenor who had won Placido Domingo's Operalia competition and was a
young artist in residence at LA Opera for this season. We enjoyed the charming production
of the classic opera and got to visit with Anthony after the performance.
For Tom's birthday in February, he was very excited to see
Sunday In The Park With George
at the Pasadena Playhouse, as part of their Sondheim festival. We'd never seen it before, and enjoyed it
immensely. The Sondheim music and lyrics are brilliant, as the play dissects art and love while
assembling a tableau of the famous Seurat painting "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte".
We returned to the Mark Taper Forum for the first time since the pandemic, where we saw
a fascinating retrospective reprise of
Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,
the Anna Deavere Smith play based on interviews in the immediate aftermath of the Rodney King beating and subsequent riots.
Then in June our Pride month celebrations included attending
A Transparent Musical,
billed as a "timely new musical that's delightfully queer, unapologetically Jewish, and radically joyful."
What really gave the play some great color and power was the array of actual trans and non-binary actors performing
in both trans and cisgender roles. The Playbill was a panoply of pronouns and it gave the show an extra dimension
that underscored its message.
We were very happy to have caught this show before it ends.
Just after the end of this show's run, the Center Theatre Group announced that programming would be "paused" indefinitely
at the Mark Taper as the group struggled to regain its financial footing after the pandemic.
We were struck and saddened by this news. It has been
a seminal part of the Los Angeles theatre scene. While the Ahmanson features larger Broadway and popular productions,
the Taper has always been about been more adventurous in a more intimate theatre setting.
Over the years, it has been a launching pad for playwrights like August Wilson and Terrence McNally,
and was the world premiere stage for Angels in America, Children of a Lesser God, Master Class, and many others.
They did productions that spoke directly to Los Angeles, like the Anna Deavere Smith "Twilight" that was reprised
this year, and "Chavez Ravine". They worked with innovative local troops like Culture Clash and Deaf West Theatre.
We really hope it doesn't remain dark for long.
Pride celebrations continued (along with our friend Charles' birthday) as we saw the
Gay Men's Chorus of LA Disney Pride concert
at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It was a wonderful show full of fantastic numbers.
In July, we marked our 22nd wedding anniversary by recreating our first date with dinner
at the Inn of the Seventh Ray and seeing a play at Theatricum Botanicum, the outdoor theatre
founded by Will Geer in Topanga Canyon. That first date was George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan;
this time we saw Terrence McNally's
The Perfect Ganesh,
about two women traveling in India, each healing from having lost a son.
Wanted to support the Center Theatre Group, we bought a full season to the Ahmanson, which began with
Peter Pan Goes Wrong,
an uproarious farce about a bad community theatre production of the children's classic,
with Neal Patrick Harris in a featured role.
Traveling much of the summer, we'd missed getting to the
Hollywood Bowl,
but we made up for it
in September by going twice. Our friend Nelson invited us to an evening of Bach
(Orchestral Suite No 3, and Violin Concerto in E Major) and Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony,
with a pre-concert picnic. Friends Fred and Jay invited us to their box to see
Gustav Holst's The Planets, Philip Glass' violin concerto (featuring Anne Akiko Meyers),
and a world premier LA Phil commission of Adam Schoenberg's Cool Cat.
(And we got to see our friend Lyndon on stage, who is the LA Phil's principal 2nd violin.)
In November, we got to BMO Stadium for our first time, to see an exuberant rock concert by
Queen with Adam Lambert.
Those old guys still will rock you! And Adam Lambert is the perfect one to fill Freddie Mercury's shoes.
(BMO Stadium lesson learned: parking at the stadium requires getting there 2 hours in advance and
paying $50. Consider Uber or Metro.)
Back at LA Opera, we were delighted to see
El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego,
a very colorful new opera imagining the ghost of Frida visiting Diego one last time during the Dia de los Muertos.
Once again, our young acquaintance Anthony León was in the cast and we got to catch up with him afterward.
That evening was a special treat, as friends Fred and Jay had invited us to dinner in the Founders' Room
at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (a private club in the opera house), to celebrate Jay's having joined
the LA Opera board of directors.
Finally, at the end of December we enjoyed our second Ahmanson play,
A Christmas Story: The Musical,
an adaptation of the 1983 film set in 1940s Indiana about a boy who dreams of getting a BB gun for Christmas.
With music by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (Dear Evan Hanson, LA LA Land) and live dogs on stage,
it was a classically charming holiday play.
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2023 In Books
This year we didn't have nearly the long road trip "reading" time of last year, but we did have one trip to Lodi
and we took advantage of it to listen to
Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More.
This was a memoir about a remarkable woman, not only dealing with gender transition, but in the context of being mixed-race,
a child of divorced parents (both flawed and not entirely reliable), with her Hawaiian mother in Honolulu and her father in
Oakland and Dallas. Her life was so different to ours on so many levels, and it was fascinating to follow her
and what she went through to get where she is today.
Cognizant of the rising wave of right-wing book banning, Tom thought it was important to read the most banned book of 2022,
Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maya Kobabe,
just to see what all the fuss was about, as well as to gain more insight into what it means to be non-binary
(especially as we have a growing number of people in our families identifying as non-binary).
Kobabe (who uses the pronouns e/em/eir) is a talented graphic artist, and the book is a graphic memoir,
presented in comic book style, so Tom couldn't do this one on audio, he had to buy the physical book and
read it the old-fashioned way. He found the graphic aspect quite an effective communication style,
telling the story through illustrations, captions, dialog, and thought bubbles.
Eir story was so interesting as e really struggled to figure out eir identity.
(Yes, I had to type that sentence haltingly. This pronoun thing doesn't come easily to anyone,
including the author, who talks about struggling with it and messing up emself. But e also eloquently
describes how e felt when eir pronouns weren't respected, and how much it meant to em when they were.)
The book is a candid and direct depiction of eir experiences and feelings, told in a simple and accessible
way that would be perfectly appropriate for a teenage reader (and incredibly valuable for one who was
experiencing similar struggles). Eir story is much more emotional and social than physical, but does
include some candid scenes of eir first menstruation, eir first pap smear, and eir first tentative
sexual encounter, which is what the book banners will point to. I didn't find those few parts to be
the least bit prurient, erotic, or in any way inappropriate for a teenager. An 8th grader wouldn't find
anything here about sex or anatomy that they hadn't already seen in health class, but they might
learn much about empathy for the variety of human experience.
Aside from those two books, reading was scarce and light this year. At the start of the year,
and on the heels of our New Zealand trip last November, Tom read
The Whalerider
by Witi Ihimaera, a charming Maōri folk tale that also provides a view of
traditional Maōri culture. And we both read
Just By Looking At Him
by Ryan O'Connell. We first became acquainted with O'Connell through his great 2-season Netflix series
Special about a young man in comtemporary LA, mostly comfortable with being gay,
but also dealing with cerebral palsy and "coming out" as differently abled. George later met him IRL
walking past our house, as he'd recently moved into our neighborhood. (Tom has since met him too.)
We were eager to check out his new book when it came out. Elliott, the protagonist in the book, is also
"Ryan-like" in being young, gay, sassy, and with CP, but neither character is exactly the author.
Elliott is a bit darker, has some addiction issues, but ultimately gains some insights into
"internalized ablism".
Beyond that, most of Tom's "reading" time was taken up with language lessons, first learning
Croatian for our summer trip to Croatia, and then quickly switching gears in the fall to Hindi
for our upcoming trip to India. He really likes the Pimsleur courses, which work well into his
weekday commute time. Tom says "Ab main thodee hindee bolata hoon" (now I speak a little Hindi).
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2023 In Art
Our art year got off to a great start when our friend Steve invited us to an event at
Frieze LA 2023.
We'd never before attended this pinnacle of the LA art scene (tickets sell out despite very high prices)
but it was amazing. They fill several hangars at the Santa Monica Airport with exhibitions from all
the biggest name galleries, so there is an abundance of great art to see. And the people-watching
is off the hook. Some of the fashions being worn by those attending are art statements in themselves.
One particularly striking set of works by Narsiso Martinez featured ink/charcoal portraits of
migrant farm workers done on cardboard produce boxes, with gold leaf background giving them the
tone of eastern Orthodox icons. Also intriguing were Chase Hall's "coffee and acrylic" imaginings
of what Bruce's Beach might have looked like in its heyday. So many fascinating works!
Introducing George to the small gallery experience, one Friday we took in a showing of
Zoe Walsh and Milo Matthieu at M+B in WeHo.
I was intrigued by a description of non-binary Los Angeles artist Zoe Walsh as "interrogating notions
of what it means to both look at and live in a queer body." Walsh starts with inspiration found in
the ONE Institute gay and lesbian archives, looking at 1960s photos of amorous men in places like
Griffith Park. Using layered silk-screening technique that superimposes silhouettes in negative or
alternate color space, they have created large canvases with a collation of Los Angeles parkscapes
and bodies, some obvious and some more concealed (which of course is a perfect analogy of what all
goes on in Griffith Park), in muted dream-like color.
Milo Matthieu is a New York artist whose Haitian roots inspired his latest works.
These are more abstract than his earlier works, but evocative in color and form.
Some of the shapes may suggest certain objects or ideas, not literally but more like a Rorschach test,
in an intriguing way.
For our friend Nelson's birthday, we took him to see the
Keith Haring retrospective at The Broad.
The show was comprehensive, covering every phase and aspect of the famous graphic artist's too-brief life.
It was so interesting to see the development of different themes in his work, from anti-commercialism
to anti-nuclear war and of course reaction to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s/90s. There was an
impressive array of his works, mostly murals/paintings of very large scale, some sculptures,
and also photographic documentation of his life and his process. We also enjoyed a quick pop in
to Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room, since we were there.
For Tessa's birthday, we took her to see
Made in L.A.: Acts of Living at The Hammer.
The biennial "Made in LA" exhibitions highlight local artists and, while lacking the glitzy crowd
of the Frieze show, has no less a spectacular cornucopia of creative art reflecting our city's diversity.
In one stunning work, El suelo que nos alimenta (the soil that feeds us), Jackie Amézquita
took soil from 144 different LA neighborhoods, mixed the soil of each place with masa, salt, rain,
limestone, and copper, and fashioned 144 baked mud slabs into which she etched scenes from those
neighborhoods. Akinsanya Kambon created ceramic sculptures and high-relief wall plaques that
depicted African-American history lessons. Marcel Arcalá showed brilliant paintings such as
Édouard Manet might have painted if they were transgender and lived in Hollywood in 2023.
There was just so much to see here.
We pleasantly stumbled onto an
Adam Ianello photography exhibit in Marian Harlow Grove
that was literally put in our path. Along the trail in Elysian Park where George walks daily, a unique
outdoor art installation was set up, presenting black-and-white photographs of Elysian Park and other
nearby environs, mounted on or suspended from trees around the grove. It was a novel and
intriguing presentation.
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2023 In Politics
Domestically, 2023 rung in the 118th Congress, with Republicans newly in control of the House
by a slim margin. We got a preview of how this Congress would go when they spent their first week
just trying to elect a speaker. While most backed Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for the post, a recalcitrant
group of 19 had enough votes to deny the gavel. The holdouts converged around Jim Jordan (R-OH), who
in his 16 years in Congress had not passed a single piece of legislation.
McCarthy eventually won the speakership after a record 5 days and 15 votes, but only by conceding so much power
that he couldn't survive the year.
As the dysfunctional House drove the nation to the brink of default (estimated to occur in early June),
McCarthy negotiated with Biden to achieve a compromise, raising the debt ceiling into 2025 (past the next
presidential election) while agreeing to a largely flat 2-year budget deal, along with other Republican
goals including new work requirements on food aid and cuts to the IRS. While the compromise
passed the House with support from 149 (of 220) Republicans and 165 Democrats (and passed the Senate 63-36),
a substantial minority on both sides felt that no loaf was better than half.
When it came time in October for budget negotiations, McCarthy reneged on the budget agreement
he'd just made with Biden in June in a desparate but ultimately vain effort to appease the
unappeasable in his own party. When the near-universally disliked Matt Gaetz (R-FL) stuck in the first
knife with a motion to vacate, the Republicans then voted to plunge themselves into chaos once again.
After selecting then rejecting three other would-be speakers, the gavel was eventually handed to
the Mike Johnson (R-LA), said to be practically like Jim Jordan but quieter and less disagreeable.
(His background with the anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund, and his having advocated for criminalizing
homosexuality and actually co-sponsoring legislation to criminalize abortion nationally,
pretty clearly establishes his extreme right cred.) Despite his stated opposition to doing any
"continuing resolutions" (CRs) or budget compromises, when faced with a government shutdown
just days after becoming speaker, he did craft and push through a CR to fund the government a few more months.
So he does appear capable of some practicality. The CR was passed only with Democratic support,
which was McCarthy's big sin in June, but Johnson seems to have come in with enough good will to carry
that off, at least for now. We'll see what happens in January when the CR expires and the circus
starts again.
The speaker soap opera basically took up most of the oxygen from Congress for the whole year,
with their chief accomplishment being simply averting government shutdown or default. The only other
actions of note were actually expelling the flagrant fraud George Santos (R-NY)
(which, honestly, good for them!), issuing a few censures, and officially opening a Biden
impeachment inquiry (they can't identify anything he's done wrong,
but they aim to find something, or at least to appear to their base like they're doing something).
The other big domestic political news is that Donald Trump became the first former president to
be indicted with criminal charges. Four separate cases, which had been working their way
through the system for a long time, all finally landed this year. The first indictment
came in March, in New York state court for campaign finance charges related to "hush money"
paid to Stormy Daniels. In June, a federal grand jury in Miami charged Trump with unlawful taking
and willfully failing to return classified documents after leaving the White House.
In July, special counsel Jack Smith filed federal charges for 2020 election interference.
And in August, an Atlanta grand jury indicted Trump and 18 others for state charges also connected
to 2020 election interference (including the notorious phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State
asking him to "find" just enough votes to change the outcome). Two of the cases are nominally
scheduled for trial in March, one in May, and the Georgia case proposed for August, but the
complications of pre-trial motions (including some that would likely go up to the Supreme Court)
could alter that. The Georgia case is the only one with indicted co-conspirators, several of whom
have plead guilty (including Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro),
agreeing to provide evidence against Trump.
Bethlehem lies in the Palestinian West Bank. Christmas there was basically canceled due to the
conflict, and a Bethlehem church created this nativity scene of Jesus, swaddled in a Palestinian
kafieh, lying in a pile of rubble. It's a stark message as well as a stark reminder of how
troubled was the time and place that Jesus was born into.
In related news, Rudy Giuliani was ordered to pay $148
million in damages to two Georgia election workers whose lives he upended with his defamatory lies
about them.
Meanwhile, this unprecedented barrage of criminal charges has had little
apparent effect on Trump's popularity with his base,
he appears to be on a glide path to the Republican nomination,
and recent polls on a hypothetical Trump-Biden rematch are mixed or slightly in Trump's favor
(though with potential third party candidates in the mix being a wildcard).
Who knows whether actual trials and testimony will have any impact, and if Trump is actually
re-elected while in the midst of criminal trials, we will be in completely uncharted territory.
Globally, the biggest political earthquake this year was the Oct 7 Hamas massacre in Israel,
and the subsequent Israeli devastation wrought on Gaza.
The Hamas-led attack was well planned, astonishing in scope, and brutal in its execution.
An initial large-scale barrage of rockets gave some cover for an incursion into Israel
by nearly 3,000 Palestinian forces at over 30 different border breach locations,
using pickup trucks, motorcycles, tractors, speedboats, and paragliders. They targeted
several Israeli communities and a music festival, as well as an IDF base. Ultimately
1,139 were killed and about 250 taken hostage. The attacks were brutal, intentionally
targeting civilians, killing people in front of their family members, and
raping and sexually assaulting women.
In response to the attack, Israel has declared all-out war against Hamas,
with an initial aerial barrage phase followed by a ground offensive in northern Gaza
and moving south, as well as a near-total blockade.
Israel has attempted to hold with its traditional policy of warning its targets in advance,
so that civilians can get out of the way, but with an offensive of this magnitude being carried
out in a narrow strip of land housing 2 million people, the shrinking and constantly shifting
"safe places" are just not practical, and the civilian casualties have been immense.
As of year end, it is reported that
22,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, with 70% of them being women and children.
Worse, there is mounting starvation and disease due to the blockade, with insufficient aid supplies getting in.
The situation is bleak, and
it's hard to imagine any path forward to any good outcome for the Israelis or for the Palestinians.
We can only hope that this crisis creates an opportunity for a hard reset on both sides,
and that enough people of bold imagination can find the way to a just and sustainable peace.
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2023 In Technology
While we can't point to any notable new gadgets, apps, or technologies in our own household and
daily life, I think we should acknowledge that the technology that jumped to prominence in 2023
is artificial intelligence (AI). While forms of AI have been in the works for a long time,
this last year saw a quantum leap forward in systems like the OpenAI Project's ChatGPT and DALL-E.
AI hasn't taken over the world yet, but it has taken over the national conversation as we begin
to see the possibilities (and the threats). ChatGPT has evolved to the point where it can
pass the bar exam and medical licensing exam, as well as provide cogent answers to all sorts
of questions. It's far from perfect, and sometimes convincingly makes stuff up (just ask the
attorneys who have used it for research only to find that it
invented some of its cited cases).
But it is also an astonishing leap forward from a Google search. Tom has tried it a few times
recently and was blown away. He asked about suggestions for vaccines and medical concerns for our
upcoming trip to India, and was presented with an
impressive response
(appropriately caveated with "ChatGPT is not a doctor, and you should discuss this with your real doctor").
Likewise when asked about suggestions for packing for the trip. You can have a conversation with it,
and it functions best as a sounding board, to generate suggestions you may not have thought of,
and to explore them. It even gave a fairly good response when Tom asked it
how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
There are obviously a bunch of issues to be worked out yet,
not the least of which is the use of intellectual property that has gone into the training of the models.
Hey, wait a minute.
Did Tom even use ChatGPT to write this whole year-end reflection? He's not telling.
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