As a teenager, I idealized Agnetha from ABBA and Farrah Fawcett Majors, the glamorous one in Charlie's Angels, as she was known then. Both are/were powerful, attractive women who reached for the stars and achieved.
And then life gets busy and one moves fully to inhabit one's own life as one should and the crushes and people who inspired them are forgotten.
Last week, I watched Farrah's Story and I was struck again by the woman--not this time because of her head of golden hair and huge American smile, but by how human she was, how vulnerable, how strong and compassionate, how full of life. And her spirituality and deep faith--Roman Catholicism--astonished me because we don't really associate that with people living in Hollywood. It was astonishing to see her wheel her rosary beads in her fingers and watch her kiss the crucifix as my mother would
Having been brought up Roman Catholic, I knew intimately this woman's visceral need to continue believing in a benign God and last minute possibilities as she rested her head on her balcony and talked to God and said she's seriously in need of a miracle.
Her unflinching bravery as she allowed us to view the most intimate periods of her fight against cancer, her bouts of tears that weren't self-pitying, her desire to shield her aged father--a plain-talking Texan with a huge heart--from yet another death that would obliterate the last of his immediate family, the last moments when her son came to visit and she didn't recognize him, the medical peaks and troughs she traversed as she searched in Germany and the US for a cure, all showed what a truly remarkable woman she was and had become.
Michael Jackson's death--in itself a great tragedy--overshadowed this woman's last day on this earth. But she will be remembered.
Farewell Farrah and rest in peace.
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Monday
Reconnecting
Out of the blue, I got a call from someone I haven't seen since I was 21 and living in Germany. The call came just as I was helping Larry hoist a brute of an aluminum ladder up on the roof so he could reattach a cedar shingle that had come loose in a recent storm.
Susan and I attended the Collegium Palatinum in Heidelberg--me fresh out of law school. Then, I had plans to become a bureaucrat and work for the European Commission--the group that oversees the business of the European community--in Brussels and I needed fluency in a second European language. Susan was a journalism major.
She and I and a bunch of friends spent many evenings in Heidelberg kneipes throwing back bootfuls of cold frothy beer (that's the German yard of Ale). I remember her sitting in a bar wearing a huge quilted maroon jacket writing furiously as the erst of us drank ourselves silly.
When I asked her what she was doing, she replied, "Writing a letter to a friend back home."
It struck me as very funny then.
I met Susan and her hubby Eric at the Starbucks in town. Eric's an alum of the The Solebury School and they were down for the alumni weekend. We'd arranged to meet in front of a shop called Taste of India and I recognized her immediately. That pleased me. I ahte it when people change so much, you don't remember them.
A pleasant hour was spent drinking coffee and eating bananas on the Starbucks veranda watching the people stroll by. Our conversation wasn't about the past--well, other than asking about some people both of us had lost contact with straight after the course ended. That's when I learned neither of us are nostalgic people.
She and her hubby run a magazine out of Southampton, Long Island and they do a clown show which the local kids love.
It's great to reconnect. Highly recommend it.
Susan and I attended the Collegium Palatinum in Heidelberg--me fresh out of law school. Then, I had plans to become a bureaucrat and work for the European Commission--the group that oversees the business of the European community--in Brussels and I needed fluency in a second European language. Susan was a journalism major.
She and I and a bunch of friends spent many evenings in Heidelberg kneipes throwing back bootfuls of cold frothy beer (that's the German yard of Ale). I remember her sitting in a bar wearing a huge quilted maroon jacket writing furiously as the erst of us drank ourselves silly.
When I asked her what she was doing, she replied, "Writing a letter to a friend back home."
It struck me as very funny then.
I met Susan and her hubby Eric at the Starbucks in town. Eric's an alum of the The Solebury School and they were down for the alumni weekend. We'd arranged to meet in front of a shop called Taste of India and I recognized her immediately. That pleased me. I ahte it when people change so much, you don't remember them.
A pleasant hour was spent drinking coffee and eating bananas on the Starbucks veranda watching the people stroll by. Our conversation wasn't about the past--well, other than asking about some people both of us had lost contact with straight after the course ended. That's when I learned neither of us are nostalgic people.
She and her hubby run a magazine out of Southampton, Long Island and they do a clown show which the local kids love.
It's great to reconnect. Highly recommend it.
Tuesday
German 'green' ingenuity
Today, the 462 foot cargo ship MS Beluga left the port city of Bremen on its way to Venezuela. After it arrived in the open sea, it unwound a giant sky sail (a kite, really) measuring 462 square meters from its bow that can fly 600 feet above the vessel and power the ship.
If the experiment works, the ship will cut its carbon emissions by 20% for the entire voyage. It should be noted that there are about 100,000 ships carrying 95% of the world's cargo from country to country and the cargo companies use the dirtiest fuel (diesel)to power their fleets.
The kite device is the brain child of 34-year-old Stephan Wrage and the experiment has been financed in large part by the German government. Computers manage the mechanics of flying the kite. Reduction of greenhouse gases and saving our planet is the catalyst energizing the trial.
The cargo industry is very conservative (with a small 'c', probably a large one too) but they are watching with interest. Already orders for the kite are coming in. If it works, a giant kite measuring 5000 sq meters will be devised for the huge tankers and emissions could be reduced by 30 or 40%
If the experiment works, the ship will cut its carbon emissions by 20% for the entire voyage. It should be noted that there are about 100,000 ships carrying 95% of the world's cargo from country to country and the cargo companies use the dirtiest fuel (diesel)to power their fleets.
The kite device is the brain child of 34-year-old Stephan Wrage and the experiment has been financed in large part by the German government. Computers manage the mechanics of flying the kite. Reduction of greenhouse gases and saving our planet is the catalyst energizing the trial.
The cargo industry is very conservative (with a small 'c', probably a large one too) but they are watching with interest. Already orders for the kite are coming in. If it works, a giant kite measuring 5000 sq meters will be devised for the huge tankers and emissions could be reduced by 30 or 40%
Monday
A buying frenzy
Well, it was inevitable, wasn't it?
Now that the dollar is sinking fast--it hurt when I was in the UK two months ago and the exchange rate then was 2 dollars to the pound, but now its 2 dollars ten cents--there are plane loads of Brits, Irish, Germans, French, Italians, etc. arriving at JFK and Newark to buy us out of our increasingly probable recession . They're coming armed to the teeth--with Euros and empty suitcases, of course. And they're not heading for the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building.
Apparently they're heading for some obscure town up state where there's a huge complex of outlet stores--DKNY, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, etc... One guy from Dublin was interviewed on the telly this morning, gleefully telling us that he can buy 5 polo shirts here for the price of one in Ireland. And the stores are accommodating them cheerfully, offering them discounts for every $100 they spend, because Americans have their wallets tightly closed this season. The chains here are stating they're going to have a miserable Christmas season.
I wonder how long it's going to take the European Community to realize they should be collecting taxes on all this booty that's a comin' westward.
Now we hear China's considering dumping some of its huge dollar reserves, though we did also learn last week that the size of their burgeoning economy has been grossly overstated and the US will remain dominant for many, many years to come.
There's even talk that the Euro might become the world currency.
The only good side for us is that American exports are up and our deficit is shrinking. I am a bit cynical here because, given the trend in America for the past ten years according to the Gospel of Lou Dobbs to send all our manufacturing overseas, I'm wondering what American products we have left to sell. And it's not just physical goods I'm talking about either, because people from India call at night trying to get me to take out a mortgage, swap my phone service or try a new credit card.
Now that the dollar is sinking fast--it hurt when I was in the UK two months ago and the exchange rate then was 2 dollars to the pound, but now its 2 dollars ten cents--there are plane loads of Brits, Irish, Germans, French, Italians, etc. arriving at JFK and Newark to buy us out of our increasingly probable recession . They're coming armed to the teeth--with Euros and empty suitcases, of course. And they're not heading for the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building.
Apparently they're heading for some obscure town up state where there's a huge complex of outlet stores--DKNY, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, etc... One guy from Dublin was interviewed on the telly this morning, gleefully telling us that he can buy 5 polo shirts here for the price of one in Ireland. And the stores are accommodating them cheerfully, offering them discounts for every $100 they spend, because Americans have their wallets tightly closed this season. The chains here are stating they're going to have a miserable Christmas season.
I wonder how long it's going to take the European Community to realize they should be collecting taxes on all this booty that's a comin' westward.
Now we hear China's considering dumping some of its huge dollar reserves, though we did also learn last week that the size of their burgeoning economy has been grossly overstated and the US will remain dominant for many, many years to come.
There's even talk that the Euro might become the world currency.
The only good side for us is that American exports are up and our deficit is shrinking. I am a bit cynical here because, given the trend in America for the past ten years according to the Gospel of Lou Dobbs to send all our manufacturing overseas, I'm wondering what American products we have left to sell. And it's not just physical goods I'm talking about either, because people from India call at night trying to get me to take out a mortgage, swap my phone service or try a new credit card.
Tuesday
Gorgeous Ibiza
Gates to the ancient city of Ibiza
What a wonderful vacation destination the island of Ibiza is. It lies off the coast of Spain and is one of Europe's real holiday destinations because it's full of Germans, Italians, Spanish mainlanders (of course), a smattering of French and no Americans. I was truly astonished by the latter reality, so used am I to encountering American accents.
Of course the dollar is performing so crap against the Euro and Pound this past few weeks that's it's hardly surprising Americans aren't flying overseas this summer--but while painful, this doesn't fully account for the paucity of my fellow countrymen I was told by some of the tourists residing at the hotel Larry and I stayed at. Apparently, while it's an open secret that it's a hotspot for Europeans, it really isn't known or been discovered by Americans...as yet.
A fascinating island, the main city bears the same name as the island and was established by the ancient Phoenicians who built the old city on top of the hillside. (Indeed, a friend informed me that the Phoenicians were marvelous traders who created salt flats using plumbing that is still in use today and that much of the salt is sold to Britain for use on their roads In many respects it's similar in outlook to Dubrovnek in Croatia--meandering streets, museums, Roman ruins, spectacular views of the shimmering bay below, but the restaurants are of a better quality and the buildings better maintained more vibrant in appearance.
We met up with our friends Niall and Poul who'd flown in from France for a 50th birthday party of a good friend and spent the following four days in their company. Days were spent at the beaches and, as a result, their friend David (the birthday boy) and his partner Domingo invited us to join in the celebrations, including a delicious Paella lunch cooked over an open fire by the seashore and a marvelous BBQ at their sunwashed 'Can' (which means 'house') just outside the city of Ibiza. There we met a great number of their friends who'd flown in from all over Europe (and even a few guests from Boston).
Only downer of the whole trip was the dispiritingly sour attitude of one of our middle-aged German hosts at the hotel. The chappie was a wee bit mutton dressed as lamb due to a foppishly boyish haircut and a penchant for clothing far too young for him. Constantly on unblinking surveillance, he prowled the common areas from morning to night as if expecting us to pee on the patio when present or perhaps move a table, umbrella or rickety chair out of precise alignment or even imbibe a second cup of cheap coffee over our unchanging continental breakfasts. (I never want to see another razor thin slice of fatty schinken (ham), grayish leberwurst or a previous night's hard-boiled egg in my life...at least for the next twenty years. What was most annoying was how his attitude changed when he knew a guest was German--then his face creased into an unnatural smile and he laughed and giggled and chatted, even joked in German, totally oblivious to the fact I could speak it, which I made him aware of on the last day. I also left him a little note in their guestbook. Maybe it'll work wonders--though probably not.
Monday
The bees have AIDS
A few years ago I became really interested in the subject of genetic engineering when I learned how much GMO foodstuff crap is on our supermarket shelves here in the United States and how quietly it has been allowed to become part of the American diet despite our absolute lack of consent. Supermarkets here say such corn and tomato products do not differ in any way from the natural varieties--also official USDA policy--and they have no means of preventing it from coming on the shelves. This is a lot of bullshit because an American supermarket chain doing business in the UK, for example, is not allowed to stock GMO products on its shelves over there and is able to take action to comply with the law.
Well, now from Der Spiegel comes an article about the mass number of deaths occurring in the bee populations and how it could become a world crisis because we need bees to pollinate our plants and create food, etc. The bee population in the United States where thousands and thousands of acres of land are given over to the growth of genetically modified plants is also being decimated; some are referring to it as the bee AIDS.
Now researchers are looking to see if it is genetically modified corn and other plants introduced into our environment that are causing these deaths, that a poison has been created from the "Frankenscience" that is proving fatal to bees.
No doubt big agribusiness will try to obfuscate the facts if this proves the case and we will have to take action to end the 'experimenting' on Mother Nature. When I read articles like this, I am glad the European Union for all its problems and flaws is growing in power. I think Europeans are more aware of the dangers in this area than we are and will, through their actions, move us away from our dangerous indifference.
Well, now from Der Spiegel comes an article about the mass number of deaths occurring in the bee populations and how it could become a world crisis because we need bees to pollinate our plants and create food, etc. The bee population in the United States where thousands and thousands of acres of land are given over to the growth of genetically modified plants is also being decimated; some are referring to it as the bee AIDS.
Now researchers are looking to see if it is genetically modified corn and other plants introduced into our environment that are causing these deaths, that a poison has been created from the "Frankenscience" that is proving fatal to bees.
No doubt big agribusiness will try to obfuscate the facts if this proves the case and we will have to take action to end the 'experimenting' on Mother Nature. When I read articles like this, I am glad the European Union for all its problems and flaws is growing in power. I think Europeans are more aware of the dangers in this area than we are and will, through their actions, move us away from our dangerous indifference.
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