California Dreaming

People are often surprised that I enjoy visiting California on vacations. Oh sure, there's always some business involved, since I do manage to keep up with colleagues and previous business partners on these trips. But I just like spending time in California. Sure, there's a drought. And when you leave the coast, it can get hot, almost as delightful as Washington in July or August. But in Marin County, where I happen to be now, the views I pass almost everywhere are spectacular. The temperature is just about as temperate as in San Francisco, which shares with New York the distinction of being the only places inevitably referred to as The City.

Last night I saw Anna Deavere Smith perform her one-woman show at the Berkeley Rep, entitled Notes From the Field, etc. In it she portrays a series of about 20 characters, male and female, black, white, and Asian, concerned with how our educational system fails so many of its poorer students, who then end up in prison.  One of the characters she inhabited is a judge I met when assessing drug court at a Yurok tribe reservation in the northernmost part of California; the judge works as a municipal court judge in San Francisco but one weekend a month, drives many hours to the reservation to preside over tribal courts there.

There is a fine show of J.M.W. Turner's paintings and drawings at the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. If you managed to see the movie, Mr. Turner, a while back, you should make it your business to see this show. Turner is increasingly seen as a key influence in the development of modern art. His fascination with light, usually on water, presaged the Luminists and then, perhaps most significantly, the Impressionists: Monet, for example, derives much of his technique directly from Turner. Turner, in turn, acknowledged what he learned from distinguished forebears who included Solomon van Ruysdaal, the Dutch landscape master, and Claude Lorrain, the early French engraver and painter of landscapes who more or less invented the field.

When driving to see a colleague in Sacramento, I recalled my first time headed that way when my friend living there suggested I stop at the then-famous Nut Tree--a combination of a store selling things you don't need, mostly to tourists, and a restaurant--in Vacaville. The signs for the Nut Tree are still there but I never could put my finger on the enterprise amid the numerous shopping malls and other indicia of how the area has developed. I did feel that another vestige of the older California had become hidden from view.

Lastly and by no means least, I had the pleasure of savoring sand dabs, a small, delicate, delicious, fish found in these parts. It has adorned the menus of San Francisco seafood places for generations. Twice in one day may have been pushing it, but should you find yourself in Sam's Grill, an establishment dating back to the 49-er days--no, not the NFL team--order them before they run out. It even says (Limited) after their entry on the menu.

Management Information

Ours is now an information-dominated society. We supposedly all make our carefully-formulated decisions drawing on "evidence-based" findings. But is it really different from the way people have always behaved--and responded to requests for accurate reports? The current revival of interest in the greatest children's book author of our time, Dr. Seuss, with the publication of a recently-discovered manuscript reminded me in this regard of his questioning conclusion of The Cat in the Hat:

should we tell her

the things that went on there that day?

should we tell her about it?

now, what SHOULD we do?

well...

what would YOU do

if your mother asked YOU?

Oozing Charm From Every Pore

It was a day of loss--Theo Bikel and E. L. Doctorow dying on the same day.  But it's hard to be sad about Bikel--he was 91 and had had a very amazing life.  He had become known for playing all kinds of relatively modest roles on stage and in the movies, as well as for his folk singing. And he did originate the role of Baron von Trapp in The Sound of Music on Broadway--a show I've studiously avoided for decades but figure at least he likely contributed a bit of authenticity to its schmalz.

Many will remember him as the most frequent portrayer of Tevye in Fiddler, which is fine, although as with every role Zero Mostel originated, it's hard for anyone to succeed completely when following in those footsteps. But Bikel donned the dairyman's overalls more than 2,000 times so I figure he earned his recognition and probably would have told you that it was a most reliable payday.  And given how many other accomplishments he earned on stage and in film, this was no James O'Neill stuck playing The Count of Monte Cristo to the exclusion of all else.

Bikel lent a note of charm to anything he played.  Supporting parts are not supposed to steal from the leads, yet you were enraptured when he appeared. His history--growing up in pre-war Austria and disclaiming any interest in "Viennese heritage" in view of how the posturing "first victims" had behaved toward "my people"--featuring a start in performing in, of all places, Palestine between the wars gave him a worldliness few possessed.

Moreover, he was a true union champion. He rose to the occasion during Equity's 1960 strike and after serving on many committees, was the union's president for many years and then headed the actors' international, the Four A's, for a quarter-century. Wouldn't we have been far better off had he, instead of another supporting player who headed a theatrical union, become America's first President who had served as a union prez?

Doctorow's legacy is more complex but equally stupendous. He had a way of planting you in the era of his loosely-related historical novels, most notably Ragtime. But his most enduring one may turn out to be The Book of Daniel, his imagining of what a son of the Rosenbergs might have experienced. As with so many artists, he saw the craziness of the Rosenberg furor for what it was: yes, we know Julius Rosenberg was guilty, and definitely that even the prosecutors knew Ethel wasn't, but what Sam Roberts and others have shown is that far from being "the crime of the century"--J. Edgar Hoover's phoney assertion--the Russians likely already had received all the nuclear secrets they needed from Klaus Fuchs, who was sentenced in Britain to a brief five years and then high-tailed it to Moscow.

Doctorow had the ability to get you beneath the skin of his characters so you felt yourself the torments they were experiencing. I remember getting annoyed with some of his archetypes in Ragtime until realizing that he had caught a particular character perfectly, like Mother's Younger Brother.  He too was willing to speak up for what he believed--and what he believed made sense.