Endangered Ark

I just received my shipment of Endangered Ark Playing Cards. I'm particularly partial to the six and ten of diamonds, as they were created by the lovely Claire Hummel, aka "Shoomlah." Will try to keep Rob away from them as they will be turned into magic tricks. Beautiful work, Shoomlah. (Click on images to enlarge)

CLICK HERE for the link to the Endangered Ark card website where you can buy a set for yourself!

Re-branding

I looked up the definition of the word "brand" and it's one of those words that can mean completely opposite things, depending on how it's used. It can mean forging a singular identity. And it can mean marking one as a slave. The word originally referred to a burning piece of wood, which I imagine was used for branding someone's possessions. And later it came to take on the meaning of the identity of a company or product. I don't know why that's interesting to me but it is. Maybe because my dad understood the importance of company identity, and did not really find it funny when someone offered him a Pepsi. His company loyalty was to Coke and Coke alone.

Rob's company is in the process of re-branding (the good kind of branding - not the burning stick kind). They bought some other companies in the U.S. and are bringing them all underneath the same name and logo. The name of the head company is Prime Focus, and the logo is a stick figure of a man. The inference is that the prime focus of the company is people. I like that.

CLICK HERE for the link to the article about Prime Focus in today's Variety. It has a picture of Rob and one of Namit, the founder. Both look very happy. (There is more to the article than the clip above.)

The Chief returns home...

Chief Yowlachie is going home. Since 1978 he's been residing inside the Tom Kemp Sr. house or later at the Kemp Mammoth house. When it came time to decide where he should go after returning from Mammoth, I suggested that perhaps the Chief belonged not only to dad, but to the 3 other brothers as well. Turns out I was one third right and two thirds wrong. It belonged to one brother - my uncle Dick. He said that he knew the artist, Loren Barton, and was given the painting when he was 12 years old. The artist gave it to him because of his love of Indians.

We all loved the Chief. When we were growing up, the Chief hung in the back room (dubbed "Siberia") of our grandparents' house, next to the most amazing, authentic Indian headdress you'd ever want to see. I'm not sure why, but grandpa and grandma didn't seem to mind as we'd put the headdress on and run around the house. When mom and I went through their belongings after they'd passed away, we never found the headdress. Or the typewriter. Mom always thought that they were stolen. (Mom loved a good mystery.)

The Chief also had a connection with Laguna that amused dad to no end. Astonishingly, he started his career as an opera singer and had a brief stint with the Laguna Players. A poster of the event hung in the "White House" restaurant that dad went to every Saturday morning for his strawberry waffles-with-no-whipped-cream and crisp-but-not-burned bacon.

Chief Yowlachie was from the Yakima Tribe in Washington state, and though he started as a singer, he switched to the movies in the 20's. His imdb profile lists 96 film and tv appearances, which is a pretty amazing accomplishment. Here is a poster from one of his movies.

The date on the painting is 1926, a year before the "Sitting Bull" film. The artist was the great-niece of Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross. She was born in 1873 in Clara's house, but then moved with her family to Los Angeles. She was known for her etchings, illustrations, and watercolors. In 1933 the White House (the real one, not the restaurant) commissioned her to paint the First Ladies' gowns. Her work is also at the NY Public Library, the National Gallery of Art, the Met, and the National Library of France, and soon, at the Dick Kemp home.

And so the Chief will end his odyssey, after hanging for 6 years in my brother Tom's bedroom, 15 years in dad's attic, and 9 years at Mammoth.

I have my own Chief. I had the original scanned by my friends, the Sahyouns, who own a fine art scanning company. I had them make me a full size copy, complete with brush strokes. He hangs high in our second bedroom, watching over our guests and the pups as they sleep. He is good company.

If my dad were reading this, he'd give a shout-out of "Powder River let 'er buck, a mile wide and an inch deep, eeeeeyippee!" Wrong tribe, but he wouldn't have cared. When the shout appeared, you could tell it was erupting from some primal place deep inside him that originated in the hills of Montana and South Dakota. He felt a part of that land, even though he was born and raised in Los Angeles. Connected not by direct experience, but by story. I don't think he had the slightest idea that the Chief belonged to Dick. But it would make him very happy that the Chief is going home where he belongs.

Lois and friends on the Academy screen

Emily saw that Rob appeared on the Academy's Facebook page. Three photos of the event were posted, which I will post here. Here is Rob along with his panel of cinematographers Steve Burum, Allen Daviau, John Bailey, and Caleb Deschanel. (Click on any of the photos to enlarge.)

I love this one (above) with an amazingly huge Oscar, Rob, and Casablanca. (Quick - what aspect ratio was Casablanca photographed in? Aw, no fair. He has it written across the top.)

The third one is my favorite as it's a summary of the talk, and shows a slide of Rob's mom (she's the one with the dog), alongside slides of Ingrid Bergman, Shirley Jones, and Vivian Leigh. It also has a couple of our vacation slides of Stonehenge and Monument Valley. The Taj Mahal photo is not on this image but it has shown up in his presentations since at least 1995, as cousin Jon reminded me. And if we play our cards right, maybe we'll get to see it in person soon. Seems only fitting that Rob is working for an Indian company, after using the Taj Mahal image for so long. I'm reading a book called, Dreaming in Hindi, and the author says that the Indian concept of time is circular, instead of linear like ours. She thinks it may have to do with their belief in reincarnation. The word for yesterday is the same as the word for tomorrow. They believe in the now. Rob says that might explain why they're so late for meetings. I think it is a perfect way of thinking about Rob's slide summary - a full circle.

In over my head

Most of the time when I'm practicing piano, I think I'm in over my head. But especially with Clair de Lune. It was my dad's signature piece, and I know that no one will ever feel the same way when I play it that they felt when my dad played it. My uncle Jack used to pop in the video we took of dad playing that piece at his recital. It was one way to feel close to dad. Joanne told me that Jack could play the beginning of that piece - the part that is harder than it seems, but also is a siren song, lulling you into thinking you might be able to go all the way with it. I never heard Jack play a note. But it makes me happy thinking that he and my dad shared a love for Clair de Lune.

I think the 5 flats in the key signature should have been a dead giveaway. That and the 9/8 time. The key of D flat is easier for me to wrap my head around if I think of it as two notes out of seven that aren't flats, rather than five out of seven that are. I just flat everything that isn't a C or an F and I come out of it okay. Feeling pretty confident. Then I turn the page and see myself approaching 4 sharps - a key of C sharp. And that's in the fast part.

Well, fortunately, I'm not playing the fast part fast. I'm not sure I'll ever play the fast part fast. My teacher, Jacqueline, wants me to play each note of those beautiful runs slow, firm, and strong. With the bottom note the firmest and strongest. It sounds quite ridiculous, and a very long way from sounding like Clair de Lune. I can't even hear the melody. But Jacqueline hears it, and I trust her. She points out which notes to push and which to pull back on. I have no idea. I do what she tells me to do. Most of the time.

And when I have a hard time discerning what I'm doing from a Czerny exercise (which Jacqueline doesn't believe in - hurrah!), she tells me that I'm building muscle, and laying the groundwork for speed. My hands hurt, so I think she's right on the muscle part. But to imagine how I will get from slow, loud, and strong, all the way to fast, "en animant," and beautiful is beyond me. But not beyond Jacqueline. She believes in me. She applauds me and shouts "Bravissimo!" She sits by my side and loves the music out of me.

Everyone needs a Jacqueline in their life. When your hands ache, you can't hear the melody, you feel you'll never be able to move quickly enough, when the sharps and flats tease and taunt you, when you know you should never have tried, there she is guiding you through the circles and lines and symbols and scribbles. "Don't worry. We'll find the notes together," she says. And you do. Slowly your fingers find their way to something that sounds occasionally, vaguely like something your dad played, what seemed like a long time ago.

Over my head. But not drowning. In fact, I might even be swimming.