Home » personal (Page 33)

Category Archives: personal

My Japanese Years

Posted on by | 3 Comments
Mifune Toshiro in Hiroshi Inagaki’s Duel at Ichijoji Temple

Toshiro Mifune in Hiroshi Inagaki’s Duel at Ichijoji Temple

It all came back to me while I had a Japanese meal with Martine at the Aki Restaurant in West Los Angeles. When I first came to Los Angeles in late 1966 I quickly became a Nipponophile. I lived for a while on Mississippi Avenue in the middle of the Sawtelle neighborhood, the old Japanese plant nursery district. Even before I started my explorations of Mexican food, I started becoming a Japanese foodie. I even thought the little tofu cubes in my miso soup were shark’s fin. (I marveled at my sophistication in eating “shark’s fin” soup.)

Since i was a graduate student in film at UCLA, I made a point of seeing as many Japanese films as I could. I remember taking the MTA #81 bus down Wilshire Boulevard to La Brea and walking a couple blocks south to the old Toho La Brea theater. The first films I saw there were Hiroshi Inagaki’s Miyamato Musashi (based on Eiji Yoshikawa’s novel) trilogy: Samurai (1954), Duel at Ichijoji Temple (1955), and Duel at Ganryu Island (1956). I fancied myself falling love with the sweet Kaoru Yachigusa, who played the part of Otsu; and of course I hero-worshipped Toshiro Mifune as the hero of he saga.

The Toho La Brea theater had a clock over the left emergency exit that was illuminated with the words Sumitomo Bank. All features were preceded by an Asahi Shimbun newsreel in Japanese without subtitles. Although I couldn’t understand a word, I looked forward to the newsreels.

A few years later, I joined with my film freak friends in visiting the other Japanese theaters in town: the Kokusai and Sho Tokyo (both Daiei studio), Kabuki (Shochiku), and the Linda Lea (Tohei). Today all five Japanese theaters are gone.

By the way, ever wonder why I call this website Tarnmoor? That was a pseudonym I used along with two of my friends in a UCLA Daily Bruin column entitled “The Exotic Filmgoer,” which was mostly about these Japanese theaters.

Mexican Heartbeat

Posted on by | 2 Comments
¡Muy Delicioso!

¡Muy Delicioso!

Fifty years in Los Angeles, and I’m turning into a Mexican! So many of the foods I used to like before—like rice, potatoes, bread, and gooey pastries—are now part of my pre-diabetic past. Lately, I’ve been eating a couple of tacos for lunch, preferably nopalitos (marinated prickly pear cactus) or fish with raw cabbage slaw. And for breakfast, I like to warm up some corn tortillas over a flame, roll them up in aluminum foil, and pop them in the oven. Warm them for a few minutes, and they taste great with sweet butter and a dash of salt.

I have heard it said that the sound of women’s hands rhythmically slapping the masa de maíz into little round cakes the heartbeat of Mexico. Perhaps I am developing a Mexican heart. There are far worse things in this world—though at least one presidential candidate would demur.

Apparently, the tortillas are helping my glucose readings stay lower. They satisfy my appetite without sending my sugar into the stratosphere.

The Reluctant Saxophonist

Posted on by | 1 Comment
Not One of My Happier Memories

Not One of My Happier Memories

There are three things that I absolutely cannot do—and they are all connected to music:

  1. I cannot play music well.
  2. I cannot move in time to music.
  3. I cannot sing or carry a tune.

It took me ten years to discover these things, ten long years. It all started at a music store in downtown Cleveland (very near Prospect and Ontario). I was a little boy who was moderately interested in playing a musical instrument, say a trombone, for example. My parents and the sales clerk both agreed that a trombone would not suit me because I did not have buck teeth. Are buck teeth a requirement for trombonists? I wondered.

My parents talked me into choosing the alto saxophone. I was snookered into it, not even knowing what a saxophone looked like or sounded like.

I was soon to find out. The first thing I found out was that reed instruments like the saxophone are very mucky. All the gook in the mouth congeals around the reed, adding occasional squeaks from hell.

Then I found out I had to take lessons (with Jack Upson on East 4th Street) and practice half hour a day. And to make matters worse, my parents’ favorite piece of music was “The Londonderry Air,” which they called “Danny Boy” after the first line of the lyrics. My brother Danny was sure to add to my pleasure by smirking through the piece.

At Chanel High School, I was in the marching band. A marching band with only about 25 participants is pretty sure not to make a big impression, especially when the only thing anyone could hear was the drums. Because I memorized the scales, I was appointed First Saxophone, even though Chuck Matousek, who got Second Sax, was far better than me. He always played “Night Train” on the bus on the way to the football games. Me, I couldn’t play without the music in front of me. I had zero improvisational skills.

My big chance was in college. I was 600 miles from home, so I didn’t practice. I made a desultory attempt to join the Dartmouth Marching Band, but then said to myself, “Who’s going to know if I just quit?” And so I did. It turned out to be a good decision, though my parents were cheesed off when they discovered the truth.

The Raisin in the Oatmeal

Posted on by | 3 Comments
Sam: Johnson’s Bookstore in Culver City

Sam: Johnson’s Bookshop in Culver City

My doctor prescribed that I take long walks four days a week. Now that I am working only two days a week, it is much easier to comply. This morning, for example, I walked from Pico and Pacific down to where Windward meets the ocean—along two miles of “boardwalk” including parts of Santa Monica and Venice. My destination was Small World Books, one of the few remaining independent bookstores in West Los Angeles.

When I walk south, I go along Bundy to Venice Boulevard, where (not coincidentally) Sam: Johnson’s Bookshop is located. It is easily the best used bookshop for miles around.

Do I head west? Then my turnaround point is the three-story Barnes & Noble on the Promenade in Santa Monica.

Small World Books on the Venice Boardwalk

Small World Books on the Venice Boardwalk

Even with bookstores disappearing at an alarming rate, I have this book-buying habit that I have to somehow keep within reasonable limits. On my long walks, bookstores are like the raisin in the oatmeal. They give me a tangible reward for all that exercise.

When the temperature begins to heat up, I may have to join an air-conditioned health club that has treadmills and exercise bicycles. Hot weather is a powerful disincentive to outdoor exercise.

A Death in the Mountains

Posted on by
Tahquitz Peak Near Palm Springs

Tahquitz Peak Near Palm Springs

I used to have a good friend named Alex (or Iskander) Toubia, a Arab Christian from Nabatiyah, Lebanon. He married a cute blonde nurse from Cincinnati and had a daughter by her. Then something happened to the marriage, and the wife left with the daughter.

Then began a period of depression for my friend. He was in business for a while with his brothers in a manufacturing company that made parts for the auto industry. He bought a big house in Orange County. One year, he went to Rio for Carnival and engaged in some dissipation, bringing back some soft core porn videos.

Somewhere around this time, I lost track of Alex. One day, I decided to do an Internet search for his name and found out what happened with him: He had gone hiking on Tahquitz Peak in Riverside County wearing crampons (for the first time). He slipped and fell—fell quite a long way, striking his head against a tree, killing him instantly.

The website from the Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit that describes the attempt to recover his body is still up on the Internet and is well worth reading. One of the rescuers suffered a similar fate, hit his head against a tree, and went into a coma—from which, fortunately, he recovered.

The whole story sounded very much like Alex. He loved to go hiking, and he had become something of a loner. That’s not the best combination. I love to hike, too, but would not venture on a difficult trail on my own, especially in the mountains. Life is fragile enough as it is.

The Soundtrack of Your Boring Life

Posted on by | 1 Comment
Living in the Moment

Living in the Moment

There appear to be two types of people. A distressingly large number of younger people appear to be hooked up to a sound feed consisting of the dominant sound icons of current popular culture. Whenever I hear snippets of other people’s music, I feel chagrined. When I am attached to an MP3 player, say during a long flight to South America, what I listen to are the symphonies of Sibelius, Mahler, and Bruckner. (I may diversify into some Jazz classics when I get around to copying them.)

But pop music and rap music? Not for me. When driving, I like music that serves as a background to an increased situational awareness, not as a replacement for my consciousness.

Today, I rode the Expo Line into Santa Monica. Virtually everyone under a certain age was hooked up, listening to pop music and operating their smart phones at full intensity. Needless to say, these people were living in their own self-imposed bubbles, not looking out the window or paying attention to the announcements.

The other type of person is someone like me. I live in the world, not in a self-imposed bubble.My dumb phone does not have Internet access, nor is used for texting or sexting, nor even photography (though it has the capability). The only reason I had it with me was in case I needed to call Martine about our lunch plans.

Is there any advantage to living in the pop culture bubble? Perhaps it’s a form of escape from the world, with all its confusing signals that are so insistent for our attention. But is this escape not dangerous? And can a diet of Taylor Swift or hip-hop music dull one’s senses to the world around us? I imagine it’s a way to introducing oneself to peers, indicating that one is cool … one is attached to the good stuff … one is wearing the right clothes … has the right hairstyle … is, in a word, safe.

Maybe I’m a bit dangerous. At least I would like to think so.

Adjustments

Posted on by
Fountain in the East Court at the Getty Villa

Fountain in the East Court at the Getty Villa

Now that I am working only two days a week, I decided to take advantage of the extra time to see parts of Los Angeles with which I am relatively unfamiliar. Today, I discussed with my friends Michael and Julie the idea of taking the new Expo Line downtown to visit the Grand Central Market and the Bradbury Building, both of which I have never seen.

Beginning on Friday, May 20, there will be a light rail line connecting Santa Monica and West Los Angeles with downtown—for the first time in sixty years, when the old Red Line Cars were abandoned, as Roger Rabbit claimed, so that L.A. could become the traffic nightmare it is today. Connections could be made to lines that stretch to Long Beach, the San Fernando Valley, Pasadena and Azusa, and even El Segundo.

On Wednesday, I plan to visit the airport early in the morning and sign up for the TSA’s Pre Check program. For a fee of $85.00, I can fly for five years without removing my belt and shoes. No longer will I have to hold up my pants with my right hand while waddling shoeless to reclaim my personal belongings.

Afterwards, I plan to drive to a Metro information center and get cards enabling me and Martine to take a combination of light rail and bus lines virtually anywhere in the area. I’ll also pick up a day pass so that I can take an all-day light rail safari to downtown, Long Beach, and possibly Pasadena.

 

Dreaming of … London?

Posted on by
50327110. Tulum, QRoo.- Los voladores de Papantla y los Guerreros Mayas, dan la bienvenida a los más de dos mil turistas locales, nacionales y extranjeros, que día a día visitan la zona arqueológica, que es de un kilómetro, donde algunos prefirieren hacerlo caminando o existe a su disposición un pequeño transporte en forma de tren. NOTIMEX/FOTO/FRANCISCO GÁLVEZ/COR/ACE/

Totonac Voladores at El Tajin

Last night I had particularly vivid dreams. Was it because I had eaten watermelon before going to bed? If so, I might be in for more dreams tonight.

Martine and I were in London at a large museum. I noticed that a number of English dressed in red “Beefeater” costumes were flying in the air by their feet just like the Totonac voladores at the ruins of El Tajin in Mexico’s State of Veracruz. I mentioned to Martine that it must be a traditional English Maypole ceremony—though, God knows, the real Maypole does not involve anything quite so spectacular.

At the same time, I noticed that several large buildings in London were aflame. Since the fires were several blocks away, I didn’t particularly care. I was slightly miffed that Martine, as usual, was being too slow and meticulous about seeing all the exhibits. I, on the other hand, wanted to catch a particular train to the north.

Somewhere along the line, my desire to go was also to visit a particular bookstore. At that point, I woke up.

 

 

FlubFlubFlub

Posted on by | 2 Comments
Normal Eardrum

Normal Eardrum

The human body is a mysterious instrument. Whenever new symptoms arise—however innocuous they may appear—I try to determine their cause, if possible.

You can say it’s the influence on me of Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich, in which the hero dies horribly after a trivial household mishap. (The link is to the excellent Louise and Aylmer Maude translation, which you can read if you feel that things are going too well for you.)

About two weeks ago, I detected what appears to be my left eardrum pulsating in a kind of rapid-fire flubflubflub with occasional pauses in between bursts. It does not seem to correlate with my pulse (which the physician requested that I check), and comes and goes at random intervals. Needless to say, it didn’t act up in the doctor’s office.

The good news is that it is not associated with any pain, and it does not seem to affect my hearing. The hearing in both ears is symmetrical, with me hearing all the low frequency sounds normally, but not the very high frequency sounds. So don’t attempt to summon me with a dog whistle.

Thus far, the only anomaly is that my left eardrum is slightly pushed in compared to my right eardrum. My guess is that all this is nothing to worry about, but I’d like to be sure.

 

Cut Back

Posted on by | 1 Comment
A Step Closer to Retirement

A Step Closer to Retirement

Friends have been asking me when I’m planning to retire. A step toward that has been made for me: I am now working two days a week. The choice was not mine, but I realize that my accounting firm will probably not last much more than another year.

Today was my first day off under the new setup. I think Martine will have a harder time dealing with the situation than I will. Instead of hanging around all day, I plan to be on the go doing things, including (perhaps) lining up another part-time gig. I even checked the local Employment Development Department to see if I qualify for some unemployment compensation. (I don’t: I’ll still be making more than $600 a week.)

I have a number of pipe dreams I’m thinking of looking into, such as doing some teaching. My first goal in life was to be a college professor. Although I lack the academic credentials for that, I can possibly be a substitute high school teacher teaching English or even personal accounting.

Of course, Dan and I are still going to Ecuador this fall. This last weekend, we booked flights on Copa Airlines, a Panamanian carrier, from Los Angeles to Quito (via Panama City) and back.