We were most fortunate to spend a second 4th of July on the bay with Poulet and Dr X.



The Pods and I had spent most of America's birthday in the studio shooting images for their book. Afterward, we quickly chowed and skipped off to the wharf. We joined the hordes at the quayside and soon set out to sea. The fog had swooped in earlier in the day and refused to budge. Maybe it just wanted to stick around and see the fireworks.



Though the rocket's red glare was obscured, and looked more like candy colored lightning, it proved exciting in the end, as the fiery trails rained down through the marine layer.



Disembarking presented a problem/opportunity as we were enveloped by the masses yearning to go home. Herded into neighboring North Beach we spied a still open cafe and drained a couple of bottles of red waiting for the other patriots to clear out.

Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded all our religions and composed our masterpieces. Never will the world know all it owes to them nor all that they have suffered to enrich us. We enjoy lovely music, beautiful paintings, a thousand intellectual delicacies, but we have no idea of their cost, to those who invented them, in sleepless nights, tears, spasmodic laughter, rashes, asthmas, eplepsies, and the fear of death, which is worse than all the rest.



Proust

We actually left the island of San Francisco for an evening! It's been so long that, by venturing across the Golden Gate, we could be accused of having acted dangerously out of character. We visited the land of houses with yards. A novelty for us hardcore urbanites. The yard pictured, as nice as it was, was a work in progress: eg the lack of hot tub. Lucky thing there's plenty of space to add one for next time.



Also, our neighborhood was cold and foggy that day, and our destination, a scant 20 miles north, was sunny and warm. Damn micro climates.





On the wood burning grill were rabbit sausages, free range buffalo cheeseburgers, and salmon fillets.





And here are the real hosts of the house, Milo & Lilo, in their native environment.

I spent the past week in a French language intensive. I signed up impulsively on the Friday before it began. I've been meaning to take French for years, but recently the idea has become more interesting to me for a number of reasons. For one, I have long been more influenced by European culture than American. This has always been an unconscious gravitation and not a statement against my native culture. Among my heroes of brush and canvas are Delacroix and Gericault, and I feel it would be a gesture of respect to their legacies for me to be vaguely conversant with their language. Particularly Delacroix since he wrote so extensively about art and himself as an artist. Sadly, most of his writings, and other material from period, have not been translated into English. It frustrates me that, in my ignorance, it is all unreachable.



Another reason is that I am naturally more European in my social mores. Admittedly, an abstract and grotesque over-generalization. Keep in mind that it is not a political statement, nor is it a sexual confession, it is a casual observation about interpersonal interactions. Speaking one of Europa's languages isn't going to change how I engage my surroundings, or promise to expand them in any way, but it might, at the very least, reveal an occasional voice that concurs with my point of view.



To take this class I had to cancel on my weekly appointment with a A. who delightfully surprised me by signing up for the class as well. Mon Dieu! Though it was only 3 hours a day it still managed to dominate the whole week. Mostly because I remember almost nothing of French from elementary school. Primary school French? In the States? You're right to be suspicious. You need to remember that I went to a rather different grade school than the other kids in the neighborhood. While everyone else got to wait until High School I was burdened blessed with both French and German as a wee tot (I don't remember much of the latter either). In the photo are the exhausted students after the final class, a French dinner at Jeanne D'Arc, and a few celebratory toasts at the Lodge.



Of course now the hard part begins: not forgetting everything I just learned.