“Baby It’s Cold Outside”. Snapped this picture on my walk back to the New York hotel on Thursday night/Friday morning. Another cold and unplanned week there for work. But I’m getting ahead of myself already.
The week got off to a great start with a Timothy B. Schmit concert at the Granada on Tuesday night. “I loved everything about that show”, said Diana. I think it was her best concert experience in a long time.
Schmit was a member of Poco in the late 60s and joined The Eagles in 1977. He typically plays sold out arenas with The Eagles and you could tell he really enjoyed playing his own songs for a more intimate audience of a few hundred. The band was excellent with the Beach Boys musical director on keyboards and high vocals, an excellent guitarist named Hank Linderman (produces for Keb Mo, Don Henley and many others), and three high energy backing soul singer ladies. Schmit took the most care we’ve heard in introducing the band – making time to tell us about their musical background and personalities – a very nice touch. The set list was nicely varied with Schmit’s originals, Eagles songs, and Poco songs and included solo acoustic, full rock band, and acapella settings. The sound quality was by far the best I’ve heard from the Granada’s house sound system. Here’s a video of “Love Will Keep Us Alive”, a song from the “Hell Freezes Over” Eagles album. There are a couple of other videos posted to my YouTube channel.
I left for New York very early on Wednesday morning for the remainder of the work week. As I said earlier, it was quite cold with snow and cold winds on Thursday morning. Thankfully I had the right clothing on this trip. There was a work Christmas dinner on Thursday night at Joseph’s Italian restaurant which was very nice. The appetizer plate of various Italian favorites was a great start. A long three hour dinner was followed by a quick visit to the Dead Rabbit, voted the world’s best cocktail bar a few years running. I can’t resist whenever I see scotch eggs on the menu and claimed that as my dessert since I’d been too full for dessert at Joseph’s.
Saturday began with a long overdue workout, coffee and crossword, and a trip to Best Buy and the hardware store. A new mesh home WiFi system was purchased at Best Buy and well received by the female occupants of Boulder Lake who have been complaining about slow and spotty WiFi for a while. All the home devices were updated to the new network and then I spent some happy time under the Christmas tree with ornaments getting stuck in my hair to wire up a new plug and finally get the lights fully operational.
A little relaxation time was had prior to the “2017 ClaraFlute Christmas party”. Alicia had around 15 (they come and go so much that it’s hard to get an accurate count) clarinets and flutes over for cookie decorating, sock exchange, Christmas games and general noise making. I did notice that a bassoon (who happens to be very adept at noise making) snuck in as well.
Sunday included the usual workout, coffee and crossword and football. The New Orleans Saints had a nice win and we saw an excited touchdown scoring player leap up into the stands with our friend Greg and his daughter. She had quite a surprised look on her face. The Cowboys don’t play until this evening. Half of Campbell’s housemates are Raiders fans and so they should have a good time watching.
Do you know what’s special about this Sunday? Don’t stress too much, I didn’t guess correctly either. It’s our 6 month wedding anniversary! I’ve been remembering having all those wonderful people with us in Cozumel for such a wonderful few days all day long.
I finally finished up the 866 page “4321” by Paul Auster this week. Remind me to avoid tomes like that in the future. I enjoyed the book quite a bit but needed a change of pace in my reading relaxation time. Apparently Auster worked on the book 7 days a week for 3 years and wrote it long hand. I’m sure he was ready for a change of pace after that as well. The novel was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker prize.
The book is the story of Archie Ferguson told at four different times, and in four different versions. Each chapter is divided into four parts (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4) which represent the different versions of his life. Ferguson grows up with the same Jewish, middle class parents, Stanley and Rose, as well as many of the same friends, including Amy Schneiderman, his girlfriend/friend. However, the relationships change with each Ferguson version. These changes cause his lives to take very different paths. The story follows his home life as well as college years, his love life and political ideas. The story is set in the Newark, New Jersey and New York City areas in the 50’s and 60’s. As Archie grows through young adulthood, events like the Vietnam war, Civil Rights, the Kennedy election and assassination, and white flight from Newark are covered.
The book received very mixed reviews. Michelle Dean of the L.A. Times was harshly critical of the book’s execution, referring to it as a “slog”, a “doorstopper,” and a “bad joke.” On the other hand, in The Seattle Times, David Takami praised Auster’s execution as “brilliantly conceived,” a “brilliant compendium of the tumultuous 1960s”, with many “descriptive gems” too numerous to name. My opinion lies somewhere in between. 400 pages in I was ready to give up on the “slog” but determined to finish after investing so much time. I did enjoy the differing historical perspectives. I highly recommend Auster’s book “Sunset Park” as a better place to start with his work than “4321”.
Wow. I had a bit more to say about that book than I planned. Suppose that’s what happens when you live with a novel for well over a month. Now for this week’s lagniappe – “Memphis Soul Stew” from King Curtis recorded live at the Fillmore in San Francisco in 1971. Bernard Purdie is on drums and sounds as precise and soulful as ever. I love the blend of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, blues, funk and jazz that King Curtis pioneered.
Curtis was born in Fort Worth, TX and started playing the saxophone at age 12. He’s played on many recordings – that’s him on “Yakety Yak” by the Coasters.
arrived on Friday afternoon and relaxed by the pool with books until Kris and Cat arrived. Dinner was at Seersucker in the Gaslamp district and it was fun to observe all the folks out enjoying the evening in their Halloween costumes. The fantastic Whiskey House was an after dinner drink stop on the way back to the hotel. Kristina had quite a time selecting a scotch from the extensive menu of over 1,000 choices.
The afternoon on Saturday was spent exploring the Pacific Beach area. A quick google search of “Best beach bars in San Diego” led us to the Lahaina Beach House which had a great patio right by the boardwalk with great views of the beach and the ocean. Again we enjoyed the people watching of folks with crazy Halloween costumes on for an early Saturday afternoon drink. A ramble along the boardwalk continued to provide entertaining sights including a gaggle of roller blading “Ducks” from Oregon. We laughed as the last rollerblader 
bringing up the rear had “Robertson” on the back of his jersey. There were several beach cottages and hotels along the boardwalk that we noted for future visits. After a snack at the Firehouse restaurant it was time to head back to the hotel to meet up with Campbell and Molly. The Firehouse food was very good with oysters, char-grilled Brussel sprouts and an excellent ceviche.
Campbell and Molly met us for a very enjoyable dinner at Roy’s which backs up to the Marriott hotel pool on the marina side. We sat outside and enjoyed the gorgeous evening weather and views of the marina. I had the San Diego sea bass and Diana the shellfish combination. Everyone seemed to enjoy their food very much. Campbell and Molly headed off to celebrate Halloween with friends and we made a trip to the Nolen rooftop bar in the Gaslamp district. This was a very fancy rooftop with great views of downtown San Diego and again lots of Halloween costumes.
Kelman, who was born and lives in Glasgow but has taught at both the University of TX in Austin and at San Jose State University. The book follows the travels of a Scottish father and son who go to visit the father’s brother in Mississippi. I’m really enjoying the tale so far and particularly the son’s descriptions of the American musical styles he encounters. There’s a great scene where he joins in on accordion with a Zydeco band and plays Scottish jigs for the Louisiana crowd.
week. I haven’t started it but chuckled at the continuing antique typewriter theme. The reviews are very good and I’m looking forward to pulling this one out of my growing “to be read” stack.
around pretty gingerly on her injured left foot. The pain is certainly a lot less than it was last weekend but she still can’t rotate her foot on its vertical axis at all (no yaw is possible in McD’s foot). One more week and then she’ll see the doctor if it’s not a lot better. I’m enjoying grocery shopping and a few other tasks that are normally in Diana’s domain while she tries not to walk too much.
On Saturday we made an impromptu decision to attend a celebrity cooking demonstration and lunch at the Granada theater. First time either of us had been to anything like this and we were very pleasantly surprised. Chef John Tesar was quite the character, with an endless supply of stories from his years in the kitchen and on shows like Top Chef and Restaurant Wars. The first course was risotto with duck confit and wild mushrooms. The duck confit preparation technique was quite interesting and the risotto delicious. Everyone’s name was placed in a hat for a raffle at the end of the event and I was lucky enough to be 
pulled out in time to claim a huge tray of the risotto. It has been a nice accompaniment to football watching today. The main course was Beef Wellington with dauphinoise potatoes – also very good but a huge palaver to cook. I looked up palaver just now to make sure I was spelling it correctly (it’s a West of Scotland word meaning a lot of fuss and bother) and was surprised at how many fake definitions there are published on the internet. Lunch ended with the pastry chef from Tesar’s “Knife” restaurant demonstrating his special technique for chocolate mousse – again very good but quite rich after the first two decadent courses.
videos of the devastation in the Virgin Islands. All the leaves and limbs have been completely stripped bare from what used to be jungle like vegetation and many buildings are completely destroyed. I really worry about the future of these islands as they are so dependent on the tourist economy and it looks like it will be many years before they recover. We count ourselves lucky that we were able to enjoy such a wonderful vacation on St. John a few years ago (see post from February 28, 2016 – https://www.keithjrobertson.com/?m=201602).
Cowboys Club for dinner. He’s a diehard Eagles fan but really enjoyed the club and a lovely sunset from the terrace. I collected another “small world” story – my boss was a chef in Bucks County, Pennsylvania before getting into IT. He ran the back of the house operation at several restaurants and on occasional nights was a guest chef at the Ottsville Inn which my Uncle Scott and Aunt Evelyn ran for several years.
where a watercourse has cut through a shelf of hard rock creating a narrow, steep-sided cut through which the watercourse runs. Now the name and logo make sense – the needle in the record grooves.
Saturday started with a workout at Cowboy’s Fit followed by a delicious lunch at Neighborhood Services Grill across the way from the gym. This location of NHS opened about a month ago and proved to be just as delicious as the original that we enjoy so much on Lovers Lane in Dallas.
I’m currently making slow progress (combination of being busy at work and the density of the prose) on Paul Auster’s book “4 3 2 1”. The book tells the life story of Ferguson in four different variations. The first couple of chapters show how small variations in the story line can start to have dramatically different impacts on Ferguson’s life. I think I’m going to enjoy getting into the meat of this one.
Tuesday through Thursday of this week was spent in New York in meetings with Microsoft. Their offices are next to Times Square which is filled with hustle and bustle at all hours of the day and night. The view from the conference room included the New York Times building and huge TV screens with advertisements and breaking news – quite distracting. I stayed at a hotel called The Sanctuary which is at 47th Street and 8th Avenue – half a block off Times Square but a quiet and modern boutique hotel which was a nice find.
Much of Friday was spent working from AutoHans while Penelope was attended to. She needed an oil change and new brakes. I did find a very nice neighborhood bistro only a five minute walk from the garage called Astoria. I was able to sit outside in the nice summer transitioning to autumn weather and enjoy lunch, the newspaper, and good coffee.
outside and finished the book “Bruno, Chief of Police” by Martin Walker. This was a light, quick and thoroughly enjoyable read. Martin Walker was born in Scotland and moved to the Perigord region of France in 2006. He published the first Bruno novel in 2007 and has been pumping out a new one each year since. I enjoyed the local village characters and the food and wine descriptions – life in St Denis sounds perfect.
The weekend was spent catching up on some exercise, relaxing by the pool, finalizing the wedding albums, and pulling together information for our estate plan – nothing very exciting. I did watch most of the movie “Gentlemen prefer blondes” starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Mansfield (a native of Dallas). I’d never watched more than a few minutes of this before and McD was entertained by my constant chuckling at what is a very silly but quite funny movie. It’s maybe best known for the song “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend”.
I finished “Bel Canto” by Ann Patchett this week. Given how much I enjoyed her most recent novel, “Commonwealth”, this was a disappointing read to me. The first section of the story where a world-renowned soprano sings at a birthday party in honor of a visiting Japanese CEO in an unnamed South American country and is then taken hostage, along with 58 other visiting dignitaries, in the vice-presidential mansion was quite engaging. The middle section where the hostage situation drags on for weeks and then months becomes slow moving and struggled to keep my attention. Interest peaks again in the last few pages as the hostage situation is resolved but it was too late for me to give this read anything above an average rating. On a positive note, the descriptions of the operatic aria performances and piano accompaniment are very well done.
The cocktail menu was very cleverly constructed as a multi chapter novel and had lots to choose from. My favorite was the “Doctor Zhivago”. The place had a Cuban theme including décor and menu options. A highly recommended stop for a great craft cocktail and good views of the Statue of Liberty from outside.
Clorinda went to watch Sophia’s first performance on Saturday night and so we tried a restaurant that Diana had picked from those participating in New York restaurant week named “Batard”. This was our best dining experience in a long time. The place is located in Tribeca and has one Michelin star (not that you would know from their advertising or menus – it’s just a small award in the window). We had foie gras and steak tartare to start and both were phenomenal. Then duck and lamb to follow – Diana’s lamb was the best I’ve tasted. The service and atmosphere were just what we like. We’ll certainly be back as soon as we can.
A picnic in Central Park was our plan for Sunday afternoon. We got off to a dodgy start as the subway train didn’t stop where we expected at 81st street and our next option was 125th street in Harlem. We quickly came back down to Columbus Circle on the next train, picked up some sandwiches and headed into the south area of the park for our picnic. A short ramble after lunch took us past the carousel, baseball fields and “Library Walk” which features statues of both Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott.
Birdland jazz club was our destination on Sunday evening. We saw the Birdland Latin Jazz Orchestra which was in the midst of a five week Sunday residency. The music was excellent – mambo and salsa style and the band was very well rehearsed and together. Here’s a video of the rhythm section getting a workout. I hadn’t been to Birdland before and was very pleasantly surprised by the white table cloths, food, service, sound and room to move around the tables.
across from the club. The craft cocktail performance making the “Smoking Sipper” was quite something as was the presentation. We met a few interesting characters at the bar – a former McKinsey consultant from Dallas and a couple from Canada who had owned and worked in the “Horseshoe” – 
apparently the most famous music club in Canada. The club owner was named “X-Ray” and told us a story about the Rolling Stones playing his 180 person club.
I finished the book “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles this week. Amusingly the lady across the aisle from me on our flight home was reading the same book and was at about the same place. We had a nice chat about how much we were both enjoying being transported to Russia in the early 20th Century. The book details the exploits of Count Alexander Rostov after the Russian revolution and his “house arrest” in the Metropol hotel. The Count spends more than 40 years in the hotel and finds ways to pass his time, ultimately becoming the head waiter of the excellent restaurant in the hotel. This was a very interesting view into a period and location in history that I don’t know a lot about. A couple of favorite quotes:
I keep in the car for a quick and light read if I stop for coffee or have to wait for someone or something for a few minutes – titled “The Olivetti Chronicles – Three Decades of Life and Music” by John Peel. Peel was a late night Radio 1 DJ in England when I was growing up and I love the walks down memory lane that his short stories provide. Here are a couple of snippets:
and her parents, Tad and Terri, joined us. First stop was the Tablas Creek winery where Tad had arranged a private barrel room tasting for us. We liked a few of the wines but nothing jumped out and grabbed us. Our hostess was a wine student at Cal Poly who really knew her stuff and could answer all of Tad’s 
various questions with ease. Madi wasn’t dealing with the twisty roads too well and so we chose close wineries for our next stops. I was amazed at how mountainous the region was – much more varied than Napa valley and more difficult to navigate.
stop – sweet and fruity wines for the most part. The views from the mountaintop were very good with a straight line view to the Hearst ranch where the famous castle sits. We finished up at McPrice Myers which was the smallest and friendliest of the wineries. Our hostess invited us to bring in our meat and cheese 
and enjoy it on the counter during the tasting. I made friends with the house Westie. A couple of the wines at this stop were quite pleasant.
Bloody Mary’s and bagels and lox. In the evening John and Madi took us over to Morro Bay on the coast for dinner. The water front looks directly out on Morro Rock, a 581 foot volcanic plug that is connected to shore by a causeway. It is the last peak of the Nine Sisters which extend from San Luis Obispo to Morro Bay. It was named by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo (a Portuguese explorer) in 1542 – “Morro” in Spanish translates as crown shaped hill.
enjoyed them all. Tognazzini’s was our first stop where we had oysters and calamari on the deck with a good country singer for entertainment. Next was Morro Bay Wine Seller where champagne flights were sampled by all but me along with the “ultimate” crostini and some very pleasant live music. We captured this silly boardwalk picture on the walk to the final progressive meal stop at Windows on the Water where I sampled some yummy risotto. Some shuffle board and pool at 
Whiskey and June and then it was off to bed.
theme is the attempts by the pop star to create a school in Africa and the challenges that ensue. The book was very well reviewed and was a quick read but didn’t really do a lot for me. Some of the references reminded me of things I had forgotten all about – “I ventured into the kitchen to get two beakers of Ribena”, “I sometimes sang for him – the theme tune to “Top Cat”” – now I can’t get that tune out of my head.
“Bodyguard” musical at the Fair Park Music Hall just south of downtown Dallas. The venue is quite old with a nice art deco flavor and lots of room to mill around before the concert started. We had seats in the balcony and were able to move to better seats as it wasn’t very busy upstairs. The musical is based on the movie starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner from 1992 and has 20 songs – mostly popularized by Whitney Houston. The big number is “I Will Always Love You” towards the end. The story didn’t completely follow the movie – particularly in the second half. The singing was fine but not quite as good as we were hoping for.
some welcome air conditioning and a delicious cocktail and steak tartare (served with a quail egg). Next was dinner with Patty and Brent at the Meddlesome Moth. We shared several delicious appetizers and then I had a wonderful rabbit pot pie. It paired beautifully with my Firestone Walker Velvet Merlin Nitro beer.
on a very enjoyable show. We had been concerned about echo in the venue based on a lunch we attended on the field, but some very large curtains took care of that nicely. The highlight for me was Bonnie’s cover of the “Angel from Montgomery” by John Prine – so soulful and heartbreaking. James Taylor highlights were “Fire and Rain” followed by “Sweet Baby James”. It was nice to have dinner at the Cowboys Club and use the private “Jones family elevator” to get down to the concert. Diana actually went back up to the club to get her drinks rather than waiting in line in the venue – and beat me back to the seats.
and mother about his family. He weaves together tales of the various generations and relatives very cleverly and sometimes with just a bit too much detail. Chabon is right up there with Ian McEwan as one of my current generation favorites based on his wonderfully clever and descriptive similes and metaphors. “He had maybe two minutes before the rocket of his anger burned up its fuel and fell back to earth”. “Inside the airduct was a smell like the taste of a new filling”. I didn’t enjoy this as much as the last of his books I read, “Telegraph Avenue”, but would definitely recommend it.
