loveitallabove

The other day I woke up and look across at my dear wife who had a baby a year ago -- our son Emil. There she was, and she looked like the Venus of Urbino. It hit me like a bolt out of the blue. Then later that morning, I was reading my favorite dear Neva, and she writes: Standards of feminine beauty have changed through the ages, duh. We know this. Rubens' reclining, fleshy lovelies fade beneath a flourish of lithe, neo-romantic redheads. Marilyn Monroe goes on a crash diet to become Twiggy, who gets breast implants and collagen injections and becomes Pamela Anderson. Kate Moss staggers through it all, looking asymmetrically perfect and collecting paychecks and cute, drug-addled boyfriends. Yes, we know this. But occasionally something comes along that gets us talking about the female ideal's changing face as if it were a fresh discovery. What Dear Neva was writing about was a morphin' thing on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUDIoN-_Hxs or click here. . I didn...

The SF Chronicle reports -- Apartment titan Zell buys in Berkeley . The Chronicle goes on to describe Chicago developer Sam Zell's Equity Residential as "the biggest apartment owner in the country," noting the firm has now "acquired seven apartment buildings near UC Berkeley for a reported $150 million." The seven buildings were erected by developer Patrick Kennedy, Panoramic Interests. The buildings were erected between 1998 and 2004 by Kennedy and UC Berkeley Professor David Teece. The City of Berkeley will get a one-time windfall of about $2.1 million in property transfer tax payments as a result of the sale, according to Calvin Fong, an aide to Mayor Tom Bates. The 1.5 percent fee indicates that the seven properties sold for about $150 million. The future home of the MAGNES is like two blocks away, by the way.

There's a touch of truth we need to hear.....why ain't it elsewhere? So I go to check out Rosie's web site to see if she got material there to address this. And I find her with her girlfriends -- a god mother, or god sister or god cousin or something and they're all slaves to the video. And the thing is Rosie's beautiful. She's heavy and hangin' out with friends, dear friends. Here is Rosie who took herself from somewhere to nothing to somewhere to nothing again, and I am asking myself where is her make up. Then, the next movie to click thru @ Rosie dot-com is her putting on make up. But she is putting on make up while singin' to Amy Winehouse's song about not wanting to go to rehab...no, no, no. Rosie is beautiful, I think, now. Mainly, cuz she takes that cleanly clipped snot from the "V"iew and takes herself OUT, down a notch, sh*t, maybe she don't need nobody...'cept family, all them lady friends -- maybe only in her own m...

And NOW he's on the brink of one...

Came across this article on Frances D's Ghost Word -- not sure what to make of it... It was a big deal for me to get to Oakland and get dedicated to the simple pleasure of the Tribune - the Reopening of Fenton's Creamery as a cover story, and stuff like that... More though, the writer's coverage is real good, real Onion-like, funny and sweet. Like the Tribune.

I was recently invited to sit on a panel for the African American Museum and Library of Oakland (AAMLO) to help them work through some "identity" issues as the Museum/Library is due to reopen later this year. It seems like there is some infighting amongst AAMLO staff and volunteers. And, within my recent experience, that seems quite typical of most all non-profit organizations, especially community-based NFPs. In hearing the conversation around some of their dilemmas about whether they are a museum or a library or an archive, I kept thinking of this great article I had read in a cafe in Boston when I was at the AAM national conference last year about a new library in London. I will expand on this further, but for now I had to find the article, so I could share it with those who had invited me to participate in the panel. Right now, I have too much on my plate to be any more a-part than having attended their first meeting two weeks ago. I will pass this along to them, then...

Social networking on the innnernetz now reminds me of "social networking" in middle school. Maybe life reminds me of "social networking in middle school." An on-line mathematician writes, "When I went to high school, everybody complained about the ``clique'', a group of friends who all hung around together and seemed to dominate everything social. Consider a graph whose vertices represent a set of people, with edges between any pair of people who are friends. Thus the clique in high school was in fact a clique in this friendship graph." And there's that book -- All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten ?!... Fulghum , a retired Unitarian minister, does not express uncommon thoughts here: his thoughts are those we all wish were true. The book's tone is set by the title piece, in which the author sets out his credo, ranging from "share everything" to "hold hands and stick together." (quoted from Amazon). Fr...

The interesting and unexpected, thing is that gettin' all: father, Dad, being someone who's got a little somebody, is that you take a little more time asking, who you are? where you are? and what it means to be careening around the corner toward forty, forty?

Historic Significance: Woodlawn, A National Register Property, was built in the first half of the 1800’s. Threat: Development: Current plans call for the construction of a 74,000 sq. foot office building directly behind the National Register Property and the removal of all of its 200-year-old trees — the woods of Woodlawn. According to the Maryland Historic Trust, "Woodlawn is a two-story, stuoccoed stone house constructed in the mid 19th century whose design reflects the transition between the Greek Revival and Italinate styles. Woodlawn derives significance from its architecture and from its association with Henry Howard Owings. Architecturally, Woodlawn is unique in Howard County in representing the transition between Greek Revival and Italianate styles. Elements of the Greek Revival are embodied in the building’s square proportions, smooth stuccoed surface, and simple interior trim, while the central projecting bay and deep cornice reflect Italianate influence. Woodlawn is als...

O.k. I think that maybe my friend James and his wife Charlotte are the two most beautiful people in the world. It ain't jus' the way they look. It is jus' as much more who they are...and now they've brought a new life into being. No name yet. They keep changing the name of their boy. So who knows what happens with the girl...right now their first's called "BIlly," which is a little confusing cuz our other now-London-based friend's named BIlly. Here's what James reports: Hello Born May 3, 2007 at 9:25pm. Name: Still deciding (!) Both baby and mother healthy (and tired) James/Charlotte/Billy xxx

Uh, STFU, already...uh, French-sounding narrator... Oh, it's the end of the world as we know it...it's the end of the world as we know it...it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

James's Daily Virgo Forecast Quickie: Have faith that the worst is behind you, because it is. The future is very bright. Overview: You're fed up with compromise. Making decisions by committee results in mediocrity. Let yourself go and trust in the process, and you'll find some unexpected delight. Go from moment to moment and everything will be fine. Daily extended (by Astrology.com) Being forgetful can sometimes be a blessing -- remember that the next time you're in a rush and you can't find your house keys or sunglasses. The same brain that makes you forget where you put something also lets you forget about hurtful episodes from your life -- eventually. The pain or sorrow you've felt recently is fading slowly, but it's fading surely. Have faith that the worst is behind you, because it is. Keep moving forward, and leave the past behind. Not sure what this means, but I leave the internet to figure it out.

I grew up in Columbia, MD. My family lived on a beautiful estate, really. It was weird sort of, because a lot of stuff was broke. And it all broke more all the time. But I loved that house. So many things formed me there. And I look to them now, making me great in corners and highly flawed in pastures, feeling like some kind of rambling Capote kid from his first novel. My dad sold the house after my mom died and moved to a townhouse in Rockville. The whole things sorta gone into disrepair since then with a series of quasi- and absentee owners. It's all real literary. As a fundraiser now, I have come to know really rich people. And I don't think my folks were REALLY rich, but we lived on an estate. It was such an estate that there were "outhouses," including an ante bellum slave quarters. -- a Maryland that most folks'd dream to forget. ...all this in a dream town called Columbia that James Rouse designed in the 1960's. Now, Howard County resident...

AD Says: I like what you have written here billy, and would like to add a variation of my own comparing the old loser with the new loser: When i was single, I thought married people were dead, now married, i consider single people frivolous; When I had hair, I thought bald men were ugly, now bald, I consider hair to be an ugly atavistic relic when I had nothing, I hunted those who had. Now having much, I hide. When I was thin, I thought the obese as lacking willpower, now still thin, I consider the obese to be American Bush-loving slobs [hmm...] For an American portrait of Anthony go here . And his much more beautiful and interesting wife Anna, recently embroiled in the century's first major Houdini scandal.

Please see below the real smart writing (stolen'd from the innernetz) about Mr. Benny Hill (nee Alfred Hawthorn Hill). (Actually, it's just the Sunday Times.) "Benny Hill was born in Southampton in the south of England in 1924. His family was lower middle class, Hill's father being the manager of a medical appliance company. Hill was attracted early to the stage and saw many live stage shows at the two variety theatres in Southhampton. Hill saw army service in the later years of World War II and it was there that he began to perform as a comedian. After demobilisation, Hill began working in variety theatre where he slowly learned his craft. Part of this genius lay in his writing. Hill wrote all his own material, a grueling task which explains the relatively small number of programs produced." Thing is that I JUST blogged on my friend Billy Cometti's blog BillySmash about how my "associations" with Benny Hill -- the late night T.V., etc. -- may have...

I just noticed that videographer David Lawrence posted on-line the video he'd made for the MAGNES as part of fellow stretcher-ite Amy Berk's REVISIONS installation entitled re-Coverings . Please click below to go there. I came across the video searching for occurrences of "Magnes Museum" on myspace . I must confess, I have become obsessed. Myspace , that is. Now that myfriend Billy got me to activate this use of this blogspot.com address Frances Dinkelspiel inspired me to create... Now myfriend Gary Goldstein got me to get into myspace, and now I am now there a lot like now. Since there is so much "now," and the whole thing seems designed for cliques of teens and twennie-year olds, it is very interesting to me that there is a life there for thirty-to-thirty-five plus-ers. And when does it meet the needs of those who've reached a more advanced age? I mean my seven'y-something dad might be the most on-line guy I know. Where is he "hang...

BLOG POSTED: Mon Apr 09, 11:33:00 AM PDT " I am looking for my friend David Hantman. We grew up together in Columbia, MD . We both went to the Park School in Baltimore. We both went on to school in New York City. We have lost touch. " COMMMENT POSTED: Mon Apr 09, 03:18:00 PM PDT hantman said... " jim here i am how to i contact you " ESTIMATED TIME ELAPSED: 03:45:00 COMMENT POSTED: Mar 29, 2007 5:55 PM " Not surprised to hear about Hantman's success, although he always SWORE to be a republican! We'd always play pool in college & his losses basically funded my porn habit. " - David Leatherwood

Karen and I were at her cousin Jeffery's wedding last weekend. Then we went down to Maryland for Passover, followed by two days on Long Island with our friends Anthony and Anna ...well, actually, that's where we are now. And I'm blogging?!... Our good friend Tom Carter e-mailed us the link to the video posted @ NYTimes.com . The video's a fully-edited profile of Jeffery and Aislinn and their relationship, including what seems to be stock footage from ther Times, especially in the SantaCon section. To view the video click here or on the photo of Jeffery and Aislinn above. I have not yet watched the entire NYTimes.com video, but am just AMAZED that the whole "fifteen minutes" thing has become undone. We are all part of our own media blitz. blog on!

if there ain't one thing I was doing other than watching StarWars innumerable times, it was checkin' in on the Hammer...and now, here I is in Oaklyn' -- HAMMERTIME.