IN MEMORIAM  6/28/24 - 6/28/14

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The Cutlass Supreme

By Elliott Joseph

Copyright Elliott Joseph

December 2011

"Sell it? Great Car! Cutlass! What year? '69? '72?"

I hear the cry every day. It's actually a '71 and I am the original owner. I'll never sell it. "I'm saving it for my grandson," I say. I do not have a grandson, but it's a comfortable way to avoid a confrontation, and then I drive off on my errands.

I bought the Cutlass, a convertible, on July 17, 1971 at was then Van Ness Olds in San Francisco. It cost $4,500. I had looked at a very nice brown Mercedes, but it was $12,000 and did not have an automatic top. Since I now have over 300,000 miles with the original engine I think I made the right decision.

Yes, there have been repairs, and sometimes it is difficult to find parts, but I have a wonderful repair service, Union Garage, and they understand old cars.

The Cutlass is filled with stories. One day I was parked in the Marina. A man, accompanied by a man and a woman, approached me. Here we go again, I thought, but he surprised me by taking out a three-ring binder with pictures of his '71 Cutlass that he had at home in Switzerland. It is identical to mine in excellent condition. He showed a picture of his engine under the hood, immaculate and I think it was chromed. He asked to see under my hood, and I was embarrassed because it didn't look like anything like his.

I use my Cutlass every day. It's just my regular car and I don't exhibit it or take it to a classic car event. Yes I keep it in good shape and still have the original interior with the old but working AM radio. I'm on my third top, three paint jobs and three transmissions along with several renewed starters and brakes.

The thing about the color of the paint job is the quality of the blue. The original color is matched by computer and is simply gorgeous. It reminds me of the French expression, l'heure bleu, that time of day after the sun sets and before night falls. People respond to the blue almost more than to the car itself. Cars today are so much alike the Cutlass really stands out.

One day the Russian fleet was in, and they started taking pictures of the Cutlass. They wanted to have their picture taken sitting in the car with the top down. I think the Cutlass must be all over Russia by now.

The car drives beautifully and with its eight cylinders has a lot of power. It has no electrical systems except of course for the lights, and you have to roll up the windows by hand, which I like.

For about 38 years my wife and I were never in an accident. Then for the past two years we have been in two, one when a car went through a red light, taking out the front end, and another time when a man backed out of his garage and hit the passenger side. Both times my wife was driving and fortunately was not injured. Hayes Auto Repair did a magnificent job both times and the car looks like new, getting a lot of thumbs up. I am so cautious now when I drive, not wanting another accident. I'm very careful coming out of my garage. It's tight and the Cutlass when I bough it was called mid-size, but today, compared to most cars, it is big.

I know many people fall in love with their car, and with the Cutlass Supreme I am one of them.

# # #

The Manhattanization of San Francisco

By Elliott Joseph

Copyright 2011 Elliott Joseph

November 2011

Reprinted from California Living,

The Magazine of The San Francisco Sunday

Examiner and Chronicle

To the amazement of an incredulous world the island of Manhattan has actually begun to move itself to San Francisco. While many claim to have heard the rumblings of New York ideas in the fair city of the hills and bay, it is safe to say that no one ever dreamed that brick by brick, girder by girder, street by street, twenty-two whole square miles of concrete, give or take a few miserable acres of parks, would really pick up and physically transport itself 2470 miles across the country.

Considered the largest move in the history of the world, logistically outdistances such huge undertakings as The Great Wall of China, underground Atlanta, the Astrodome and Walt Disney World, it is matched in its daring only by the decision to complete the move by mid decade. Perhaps there was secret hope that it all could really happen. Perhaps New Yorkers thought San Francisco would balk at the move.

The popular 102 story Empire State Building, long the world's tallest structure, is being painstakingly transplanted to the Embarcadero where it will replace the pitifully inadequate Ferry Building.

Sixty-nine additional skyscrapers over thirty stories in height, led by the Chrysler Building, the seventy story Rockefeller Center and sixty story Chase Manhattan Bank, are being moved to the immediate vicinity. They will house the offices of the 104 major corporations making the move, along with the host of advertising agencies, printers, accountants, insurance agents and myriad others who service them.

The United Nations, destined for Russian Hill as a concession to a soft foreign policy, is coming back to The City where it all began. The buildings will be operated by The De Young Memorial Museum.

The famed New York theater district , the Great White Way, complete with its first run motion picture houses, peep shows, side street strollers and concomitant entertainments, is destined for Broadway and Columbus Avenues, elevating the area to that of the "Crossroad of the World." Elevation of a more literal kind is also in the making, since the new density will require North Beach topless and bottomless to move into the Transamerica Building. Word has it that the move would not be unwelcomed by the renting agent.

The need for vastly increased housing is anticipated for those of Manhattan's two million inhabitants who will choose to make the move with the city, as well as the countless others who will be drawn to the new San Hattan, Fran Hattan, San Franhattan, Manfrancisco, or whatever The City may be renamed once its transformation to the new position of the new National Center is complete.

Some feel there will be a huge need for jobs for all these people. But others have pointed out that there will be enough employment handling the move itself. This latter group calls over-cautious those who see the need for new jobs after Manhattan has been transplanted, emphasizing the endless cycle destruction-construction as sufficient in and of itself as a means of generating employment. The wrecking trades alone. the group claims, will account for fifty percent of the new labor force.

An army of bulldozers is in the assembly stage for the assault on the Redwood Highway as part of the plan to link all of Northern California with the new San Francisco. Oregon is building a 40-foot wall stretching to Klamath Falls to protect itself from "the hand at our throat."

One can only wonder how it happened. Some say it started a bit at a time. Some say Manhattan grew bolder as it perceived a change in the values of San Francisco, feeling the time was right. One view even held that San Franciscans were tired of losing. They wanted to win for a change. And here was their chance to play big league ball, make a place in history for themselves.

Some thought that San Francisco had been naive, unaware of what it had, without the courage to realize it had been where others really wanted to be San Francisco, they felt, a gifted city, a pearl.

And what of New York? Suddenly finding itself free, plans are now in the making for Grand Central Park, stretching the length and width of the island. Across the Hudson, in New Jersey, things are growing again, as roads and refineries are being plowed under.

It's quieter. At times, a certain stillness, caressed with soft, child-like laughter, fills one's ears. The other day someone came up with a new idea. It took hold at once, and a hundred and fifty men, women, boys and girls marched to Brooklyn, each with a little brush, to paint the Verrazano Bridge red.

# # #

The Search for Meaning

By Elliott Joseph

Copyright 2011 Elliott Joseph

October 2011

When I was teaching at The College of Marin in Northern California I gave a course called, "The Search for Meaning." While the other courses I gave were popular, I was surprised that over 60 people registered and showed up for this one, making it necessary to book an especially large room to accommodate the participants.

I should also tell you that the course was part of an adult education program at the college.

I had a good relationship with the participants (it's hard to call these adults students, considering their age and education). And so I didn't mind opening the session by saying, "It's remarkable that in only two or three hours we are going to learn the meaning of life." This got a bit of a laugh, as you might expect.

The reference I used for the course was an anthology from a series called Discovery Through the Humanities, sponsored by The National Council on the Aging, Inc., with the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The cover of the anthology was "The Thinker" by August Rodin.

The course engendered a great deal of discussion of the essays, articles, stories, poetry and photographs in the anthology, copies of which I was able to distribute to the class for use during the session.

So how does one find meaning? Actually, according to the compilers of the anthology, there are some interesting ways.

Foremost is Personal Relationships. And then there is being part of The Social Whole, being One With Nature, being aware of Truth in the Unseen, Accepting the Inevitable, and for some the concept of Life After Death. And finally, Creating Meaning through Art and Science, and Creating Meaning through Sacrifice and Service.

Some of the texts used to illustrate the authors' points were: "A Death in the Family" by James Agee, "I Have a Dream" by Martin Luther King, Jr., "Renoir, My Father" by Jean Renoir, "The Republic" by Plato, "Courage" by Anne Sexton, "Death Be Not Proud" by John Donne, "The Autobiography of Charles Darwin and Selected Letters" Francis Darwin, editor, and "Out of My Life and Thought" by Albert Schweitzer.

Magnificent writing to help us think about ways we might find in our lives for our own search for meaning.

For me, my search for meaning has primarily been Personal Relationships. I have had many friends and a rather large family with many cousins, aunts and uncles, a brother and a sister, and of course my parents. My parents divorced and my mother's new marriage was very successful with a man who adored her.

It was easy making friends growing up. Where I lived there were many boys and girls close to my age. We played many games indoors and outdoors and were very athletic. As I grew older more intellectual matters added to my development under the influence of my teachers and more mature friends.

I had several girl friends through the years, a couple more serious though I think it was my sexuality that was a driving force.

As my education proceeded, there were many other subjects of meaning, such as I have described previously in The Search for Meaning course I gave at The College of Marin.

Some of my friendships were very close and have lasted for many years from my neighborhood, my schools and college and my experience during World War II.

Meeting the woman at The City College of New York whom I married has been a profound source of meaning and happiness for me, a relationship of now 63 years.

Creating meaning has helped me as a writer and the appreciation of the mysteries of existence, through reading in science, religion and philosophy. I have also been influenced by Martin Buber's I-Thou concept, the antithesis of the I-It where one recognizes people are not things to be used. A relationship is not a separation but a meeting of the other, a give and take dynamic matter with rewards, surprises and perplexities. Physical intimacy, too, contributes deeply profound human feelings and meaningful understanding. Who can doubt this?

# # #

Being the Oldest in the Room

By Elliott Joseph

Copyright 2011 Elliott Joseph

September 2011

I'd like to get a little personal today.

Age is a tired idea, but I must say I suddenly realized I am often the oldest one in the room. By that I mean at the movies or theater or restaurant or certainly at a social gathering.

At 87 I am not the oldest in the world and surely there are a lot of gray heads except in the restaurants, where the clientele is so young. When I was young I couldn't afford these restaurants.

At 87 I sometimes think it won't be long that I'll be 90, if I last. That's a number. Time goes so quickly.

Fortunately, while I have some health issues I am basically OK. I haven't played golf for over two years and tennis is long gone. Getting out of a chair is a chore and exercise is always on the horizon, but though I realize walking is the easiest and the best thing for an old guy, I don't walk enough.

What else do I feel at 87? The news is so disappointing, all those unemployed, people losing their homes, the endless stupid wars, the killings on the street.

What helps is having a neutral corner. I remember a play, I can't recall the name, where this husband kept getting his wife pregnant until she declared a neutral corner. It was a comedy with a message.

What more does an 87 year old person think about? Cassandra. Remember her? Because of her beauty Apollo granted her the gift of prophecy. But when she did not return Apollo's love he cursed her that no one would ever believe her predictions. She told the truth, but because of the curse she would never be believed. It's a legend, but so true. The bright aware woman who recognized a financial crisis would occur. She was not believed and her name wasn't even Cassandra. Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, but the inspectors were not believed. Cassandra at work again. You can't win in Afghanistan. Nope, can't be believed what common sense can see. Cassandra. Apollo's curse.

Oh well, what's an 87 year old supposed to do in the face of such tragedy? As I've said before, can you live with it? Just don't call me Cassandra. Anyway, I'm not that beautiful.

# # #

Im Silber Gemacht

By Elliott Joseph

August 2011

Copyright 2011 Elliott Joseph

I was 19 in 1943 and in the ROTC, Reserved Officers Training Corps, at City College of New York. Together with other members of my class in the ROTC I was enlisted in the army in June. Since December 7th, 1941, we were at war with Japan and Germany, when the Japanese abruptly bombed Pearl Harbor.

At Fort Dix in New Jersey, where I was inducted, a sergeant in charge who had a heavy foreign accent, told us recruits, " You think you soldier-- you shit." Not too good an introduction to serving our country.

Basic training in the heat of a summer in Georgia soon followed. We were a bunch of college New Yorkers, new to the South and its racial prejudices. We mixed, however, and learned what we ultimately were in for as infantry officers.

After 17 weeks of weapons and varied arduous training, we were returned to the college for a short period of education in a program called ASTP. This was followed by transfer to Officer Canidate School in another part of Georgia.

It was rigorous, difficult, but not without some humor because my close buddy, who was a few weeks ahead of me in the program, tipped me off to what to expect, making me a star. The result was I was commissioned in July of 1944.

So there I was, a Second Lieutenant, not the best job to look forward to in the infantry as an officer in combat.

Luckily, I was transferred out of the 106th Division, which was practically annihilated in the Ardennes Forest when their lines were broken by a furious assault by the Germans in what became known as the Bulge. I would have been captured or killed as some of my fellow soldiers and officers were.

As a replacement officer I arrived in Holland, following being shipped across the Atlantic Ocean with 15,000 officers and soldiers on the Queen Mary, in January of 1945, and was transferred to the 75th Infantry Division.

And then another piece of luck. Because I spoke German, thanks to courses at De Wit Clinton High School and City College of New York, I was made the staff Intelligence Officer of my battalion. There was patrolling and combat, but mercifully not nearly as much danger as other officers and the men experienced.

A memorable situation was when I was flown in a Piper Cub to reconnoiter the other side of the Rhine River, which was occupied by the Germans, in anticipation of the crossing of our Ninth Army and the British into the heart of Germany. A patrol I organized investigated the far shore at night with heavily armed men in two boats and returned safely with information that was used by our forces in the crossing.

The war in Germany was ended in May of 1945. And in Japan, fortunately for me, although not for the Japanese, the terrible Atomic Bomb, dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed so many people, ended the war in Japan in August of 1945.

There followed a year when I was stationed in Rheims, France, in charge of processing German prisoners of war and returning them to their homes. I have to admit it was a pleasant, educational interlude where I learned about French culture.

In my function processing the prisoners I dealt with their officers, and happened to have been promoted to First Lieutenant and given silver bars. When I showed up at a subseqent meeting with the officers, they noticed the bars and suddenly shouted, "Im Silber Gemacht," recognizing that silver bars were the sign of promotion, evidently a matter of pride that "their" commander had been recognized.

I was returned home and discharged in July of 1946. With the support of the GI Bill I completed my education, receiving a Bachelor Degree in English from the City College of New York and a Masters Degree in the Teaching of English from Teachers College, Columbia University with the hopes of becoming a writer. With my wife, Roz, I then travelled to Paris and enrolled in the Sorbonne, where she and I enjoyed a memorable year.

I have been able to get some things published and have enjoyed teaching at the College of Marin in the Bay Area where I recently retired. And now I have my blog, Gray Matters By Elliott Joseph, which I hope to have its three year collection of pieces produced in a book.

# # #

Bronx Boy

By Elliott Joseph

Copyright 2011 Elliott Joseph

June 2011

I loved growing up in The Bronx. I had so many friends my age. We played in the streets, which were safe, hardly any traffic. The years were the thirties, another time. Somehow my parents were able to feed and clothe me in those difficult economic days. Corduroy knickers and colorful sweaters, soft shoes from the Army Navy store where I could also buy a pocket knife to play mumblety-peg in the gardens.

You never said you lived in Bronx. It was The Bronx, unlike the names of the other boroughs, Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island. It was, and still is, The Bronx.

The Bronx is a county with its own courthouse and executive. There are two stories of how it got its name. One is that it was named for a Swedish sea captain, James Bronck who settled there in 1639 and established a farm. The other story named for the Bronck family farm. As Google reports, "Many of the wealthy of Manhattan would come to visit their friends who owned the farm, and would simply say they were going to the Bronck's ." The name stuck.

The Bronx became the home to Irish, Italian, German and Jewish immigrants, of which my family was one from England, Poland and Russia, our neighborhood on the Grand Concourse being principally Jewish. For Italian flavor we visited Arthur Avenue where we got great pizza and Italian pastries and listened to Italian spoken joyfully. It was in Creston Junior High School and De Witt Clinton High School that I met non-Jewish students. P.S. 64, my elementary school, was almost all Jewish, which closed for the Jewish holidays, an extra vacation from our studies for us kids.

After school we played all the New York street games until dark and our mothers called for us to come upstairs. We played Ring-o-Leavio, Johnny-Ride-The Pony, Stick Ball, Salugi. Touch Football, Immies Hits and Spans, Catch, Slug Ball, Boxball, Skelly, Potsy, cards and lots of games.

We roller skated, played street hockey, threw what we called a pink Spaldeen rubber ball that had a high bounce. We talked and talked about what we'd do when we grew up. We roasted mickeys on a fire in the lot. We never fought except if a bully made his way into our group. He'd get the Bronx cheer, which would deflate him. When it snowed I'd sleigh down our hill belly-whopping on my Flexible Flyer while one of our gang watched for the occasional car or horse and wagon delivering milk or ice.

When I was fifteen my father and mother divorced and my beautiful mother subsequently married a very nice man who adored her. With my little brother and my big sister we moved in with them. My stepfather, whom I called "uncle," bought me a bicycle in Macy's and I pedaled safely on the expansive Grand Concourse, which was modeled after the Champs Elysees, to my old neighborhood and my friends. By then there were girls in our gang and new adventures trying to get a "feel."

There was a swimming pool and huge parks and the famous Bronx Zoo and exciting neighborhoods to explore. We rode the elevated train to high school and the subway to City College on Convent Avenue.

We listened to the radio for the baseball scores and stole our way onto a roof that gave us a view of the Yankee Stadium's games. We listened to the heavyweight championship fight where Joe Lewis knocked out the German boxer Max Schmeling in the first round, to much of the consternation of Adolf Hitler. We hung on every word of FDR's Fireside Chats after his stunning victory in the 1932 election over Herbert Hoover. We lost five dollars when our local savings bank failed after the start of the Depression.

What a time it was, so much an important part of a young boy's Bronx life, and the friends I made, which has stayed with me all this time.

# # #

Good Old Fashion

By Elliott Joseph

Copyright 2009 Elliott Joseph

July 2009

My friend Phil has loosened fashion's grip on me.

And not a moment too soon as I consider the frightening prospect of having to replace any part of my wardrobe.

He walked in the other day, looking like a million. He was wearing a smart, single breasted gray glen plaid suit, white cotton dress shirt with spread collar, deep red silk tie with tiny black dots and a pair of shining, wingtip black oxfords.

"New outfit?" I asked.

"Not on your life!" he said, smiling. "I got these clothes right out of my closet. The suit is Jacques Roy, Paris. Bought it at Barney's New York in 1986. The shirt is nine years old. The tie ten. And the shoes sixteen. That's years, man, years."

"Some of my trousers are tapered below the knee," I said. " Some are flared."

"And some. I'll bet, are straight," he said, laughing mischievously.

It was an exhilarating moment as I thought I might be able to wear those great clothes that I've cherished over the years. But it all weighed heavily on my mind. Could I stop believing that the day of my old clothing had passed?

Phil must have understood my dilemma.

"I say to those who feel they have to dress down. 'Go ahead if you feel you must dress to conform and forget who you really are.' Guys like you and me should dress for ourselves. You wear your Marty Sullivan. And I'll wear my Jacques Roy. We'll stay trim so we can fit into them, and we'll knock each other dead in the process.

"The alternative," he went on as he made for the door, "is to go out today and pay eight hundred and seventy-five dollars for an off-the-rack two-piece wool and synthetic blend suit, sixty-four dollars and fifty cents for a shirt that doesn't even have your exact sleeve length, forty-five for a tie and ninety-five dollars for a pair of shoes! Or worse, drop your self respect and get a pair of jeans and a tee shirt. Uhg!"

Flushed with excitement after Phil left, I wondered what it will be like when I come out with my old but in great shape Marty Sullivan suit , my old still crisp Ascot Chang custom shirt, the foulard I got years ago in Los Angeles and my brown English loafers, class of eighty-nine.

Will my age be showing?

So be it!

# # #

My Year At The Sorbonne

By Elliott Joseph

Copyright 2011 Elliott Joseph

May 2011

Actually, my year at the Sorbonne was a year in Paris without the Sorbonne. You see, although I was registered for a Doctorat d'Universite I never attended any classes for the simple reason

they were all in French!

The year was 1951. In order to qualify for my G.I. Bill monthly check of one hundred and five dollars as a married man, I had to establish a subject for my thesis. I met with my advisor, who fortunately agreed to conduct the interview in English.

"Blake," I said.

"You Americans," he said. "All you know is Blake. Why don't you do Washington Irving in Spain. He's American, a wonderful writer. You could go to Spain and do your research there."

Although I had been an English major in New York, and had a Master's degree, I was woefully ignorant of Irving's experience in Spain. I vaguely knew he was the author of Tales of the Alhambra and later learned he was the American Minister to Spain. At another time, when I eventually got to the Alhambra, I was sorry I had not done any work on that thesis idea.

Never mind all that. I liked all his other work, which included The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, A History of New York, Rip Van Winkle and a host of other writings collected in The Sketch Book.

My wife Roz and I were overjoyed to devote the year to experiencing the food, wine and culture of Paris. Hotel living was far from pleasant, however. But fortunately the student services of the Sorbonne got us a small apartment in the fourteenth arondissement near Montparnesse where we thrived as happy residents despite the lack of hot water. The public baths and heating up enough water on our two burner stove for a bath kept us fit.

We did not have a refrigerator, but I loved shopping every day in the neighborhood food and wine stores and learned enough French to get by. One day in a butcher shop it occurred to me to ask the patron, "How long would it take to eat a cow?" I don't know what came over me to ask such a question.

"What did he say?" asked one of the local customers who was there that day. When he relayed my question to them an intense discussion on the fringe of an argument ensued until one asked, "How many in the family?" I don't recall the final result, but most of the group was satisfied with the response.

The cafe night life with the gang that we got to know was ideal, just hanging out, having drinks and engaging in hours of discussion on just about every thing. We were living the free life of expatriates soaking up all that Paris had to offer us in our twenties. The parks, the neighborhoods, the sites. You cannot describe how beautiful it all was. Late nights and sleeping in the next morning was a fragrant routine, listening to the French radio with some tantalizing comprehension. Reading so many books. Trying to write.

How we managed to find a beat up VW Beetle we could afford in a newspaper ad was a miracle of sorts, which gave us runs through France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium and Holland, often breaking down but finding people who could keep it going for very little. Each trip a story, documented in four notebooks we kept religiously. So many memories. Always wishing, wishing the dream would never end until we ran out of money enough to supplement our G.I. checks and had to return home to the U.S. to find work and our changed lives.

To this day, so many years later, we have applied the rich lessons we learned during those glorious days in the City of Light. Paris, we will never forget you.

# # #

Exercise

By Elliott Joseph

Copyright 2011 Elliott Joseph

April 2011

I have several ways to exercise.

It's a serious endeavor, because everything I read about exercise says it is good for you. I do not like to exercise, no matter how healthy it's supposed to be.

I may be an exception in that there are a lot of people on the streets running, whether it is hot, cold, raining, or probably somewhere snowing.

There are also stores that have exercise machines in the window with people, mostly young sweating, who are the farthest thing you can imagine from needing to exercise.

Be it as it may, I try.

The first thing I do in the morning is go to the bathroom. Not to exercise, but to urinate or whatever. Then I have my orange juice, after brushing my teeth. There is some exercise there but not very much.

Before breakfast, because I don't want to upset my stomach, I stretch my legs then my shoulders. I have seen Asian people in the park throwing their arms around, so I try that a couple of times. That hurts my shoulders and my elbows, so I stop that pretty quickly.

Getting out of a chair is kind of tough these days, so I do that two or three times. It seems rather silly, but getting out of a chair can be important.

Don't misunderstand me, I know this is vital. I have a couch, and getting out of it is not that easy, but I don't want to become a potato.

Walking is the key to health, so I don't take the car to go a few blocks. We have a lot of hills in San Francisco, so walking isn't a piece of cake. I do not eat cake.

Diet is not exercise.

You think I'm kidding, but I know this is serious.

I used to play tennis. I enjoyed this even when I lost, which was more often than most. I switched to golf, which is as you may know, a game where one good shot brings you back for another try.

Drinking is not exercise, but it is far more enjoyable and not too bad for you if you don't do it to excess. Exercise in excess can be dangerous for your body. Joggers can overdo it to the point of losing their breath. That doesn't seem too bright. Swimming requires showering and risking athlete's foot in the locker room.

There surely is a point to exercise, and far be it for me to deny it, but how do you measure moderation? There must be a way to exercise without dread.

I am looking for that way.

# # #

What Are People Actually Thinking?

By Elliott Joseph

Copyright 2011 Elliott Joseph

March 2011

I've always wondered what people are actually thinking. It boggles the mind when you see what they do, what they say. Are they thinking? I took a course in psychology, way back when, to try to understand it. What I learned was when the environment of lab rats was put into turmoil, the rats went crazy. Is that our world today? Are people simply reacting to our nutty environment, the terror, the aggressiveness, the pace, the economy? Which came first, behavior or thinking?

You know what you are thinking. In the interest of trying to figure out what you or others are thinking, I thought I'd tell you what I am thinking.

I don't think you can surmise what goes on in a person's mind, one can't read their actual thoughts by simply noting their behavior. You can't overhear what they are thinking, as though they are doing a Shakespearean soliloquy.

I have to admit that in recent years I have started to think aloud, talk to myself. I am often alone for great periods, and suddenly realize that I haven't said anything for hours. My cell phone is just sitting there. Though I am married and have friends and family, I don't think aloud where others can hear me. So up to now no one knows what I am thinking, unless I tell them. When I write they may have some idea but writing is different.

A great many of my thoughts, I am sure, are not unique. I am a member of society and the human race, which is comforting, though I like to think I am me and no one else is me. My thoughts, as yours are too, were different when we were young, growing up, getting an education and at different stages of life.

So what are some of the things I have been thinking lately?

I have done a lot of reading in my time of philosophy and psychology and the classics. They are a part of me, but I don't think of them actively that much now, with some exceptions.

When I look in the mirror in the morning I sometimes talk to my image. Who are you I wonder? What do people think about you? They see my profile and the back of my head, which has to give them a different view of me physically, in addition to the frontal view that is familiar to me.

When someone calls out my name I am somewhat surprised, though of course I shouldn't be. I use their names, why shouldn't they use mine? My parents named me and for the rest of my life I have come to realize that is me. If I had changed my name, which I had thought of doing, would that also be who I am?

And what does it mean to be a senior, to have lived a portion of what others call history? I was "it" a while ago in a game of "Trivial Pursuits." I had to select a category. I was not up on sports or contemporary music, or so many other things. I knew something about history, so I chose it. Every question was about something that had happened in my lifetime. History!

To have lived through the Great Depression, World War II, The Korean War, Vietnam, all those presidents. Other people's history.

Have you ever thought about all the numbers in your life? Social Security, your land telephone number, cell phone number, your address, the phone numbers and addresses of the people you know, if you work, all those numbers, how much money you have, how much you have lost, your library card, your credit cards, pin numbers, checking account, passwords, license plate, driving permit, passport number, date of birth, wife's or partner's numbers, your combination lock, your safe deposit box, the temperature, the distance of the moon and the planets, how many days in November, your weight. You get the picture. Be grateful you are not on Roman numerals. How do you remember all those numbers?

I think a lot about my wife, of course, and my friends and family, and I'm sure they think about me, though one can't know exactly what they are thinking. Fiction describes people, some times going into their heads, added to the observations of behavior. Can that be utilized to understanding the way people actually think?

Psychologists, philosophers, do they know? The closest I can come to guessing what you are thinking has to do with the news, politics, family life, relationships, sports, the movies, television, the economy, healthcare, things to buy. We think about what we see and hear on the media, to paraphrase Will Rogers, who ironically said he only knows what he reads in the newspapers.

Kids, teenagers, adults, tomorrow's seniors, heads full of thoughts, some wise, some banal. Sex, children, survival, jobs, money, pleasure, health, joy, fear -- all those thoughts, the good and the bad. We may not know them, but as the Bard reminds us, "Thinking makes it so."

One of the little things I think about is what I should have for a drink before dinner. Or whether I should have a drink. I have heard that having a drink, as long as it is not in excess, say two or three, isn't harmful. In fact, a glass or two of wine with dinner is actually beneficial. And enjoyable. Eating, in excess, isn't good for you. Nor is sex these days.

What else do I think?

There is, of course, the world, our country, the suffering and joys, what it all means, if that were possible.

Sometimes I am not thinking at all, just reacting, living the day. But when I am not day dreaming, there are more things I think about.

Bob Herbert, The New York Times columnist, makes me think about the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer and the middle class losing that position in society that they have had since World War II. Are we losing our democracy, while Egypt and perhaps parts of the Middle East, may be gaining theirs?

Why do some people order Coke when they go out to dinner? Why do they order a hamburger at a good restaurant? Why do they dress down instead of up? Why do they shout and laugh so much in restaurants? Why is the music, if that's what it's called, so loud in restaurants? The French don't allow it. So much better for your enjoyment of a good meal.

Why do some people drive so fast, even in the rain? And so aggressively, without common courtesy?

Am I being too critical? I wonder about that sometimes. But not enough.

What do I like about some people? That they're nice, funny, interesting, look good whether they are good looking or not. Why don't I like Best Sellers, popular movies? Am I an elitist? What's so bad about being an elitist? Wasn't that once upon a time a distinction like a good education?

I think about my skin a lot. It's so vulnerable. Is that the word for sensitive? It cracks and sheds, gets so dry. It has lost its integrity, some one once told me.

I used to think about what people thought of me. No longer, though I want to think I still care, in a way. What are some of the other things I think about?

Security, relationships, what I should have said that time, the moon, the stars, the universe, evolution, faith, books I'm reading and have read, my education, money, death, my travels, my health, my garden, my 71 Olds Cutlass Supreme convertible, what's going on, where it's going, so many questions.

Enough about me. What are you thinking, right now?

# # #

You're Only Dead Once

By Elliott Joseph

Copyright Elliott Joseph

February 2011

To life!

Hey, wait a minute. This blog is supposed to be entertaining. What am I doing writing about death? Well maybe what has an absolute end can help provide meaning to what comes before.

Ernst Becker opens his Pulitzer Prize winning book, "The Denial of Death," with a quote from Samuel Johnson, "The prospect of death wonderfully concentrates the mind." As the realization came to me of its eventuality, whenever that may occur, I began to prepare information for those who will have the responsibility of taking care of matters after I am gone.

What started this for me? Besides my own natural thoughts, I was faced with all those tragedies and disasters in the news, floods, tornados, storms, shootings, war, disease, the ever presence of obituaries.

But what sealed it for me was deleting the names in my address book of those friends and family members who have passed away. What a terribly sad and painful thing to do! Everyone dies, but how to accept it? If I could retain the names of the dead, perhaps their ghosts would comfort me.

There is so much being written about death these days. The media, the literature, the films, the theater. It's hard to escape it.

Live forever? Jonathan Swift cautions us about that, as you may recall from that part of Gulliver's Travels about the Struldbrugs.

"Happy notion where every child hath at least a chance for being immortal...their minds free and disengaged from the continual apprehension of death." What advantages I would acquire if I lived forever, I thought.

"The question," Swift writes, "was not whether a man would choose to be always in the prime of youth, attended with prosperity and health, but how he would have a perpetual life under all the usual disadvantages which old age brings along with it.

"Loss of teeth and hair, no distinctions of taste, eating and drinking without relish or appetite. The diseases they were subject to still continue. In talking they forget the common appalation of things, and the names of persons, even of those who are their nearest friends and relations."

And so Emerson writes, "As the bird trims how to the gale, I trim myself to the storm of time, I man the rudder, reef the sail, obey the voice of eve obeyed at prime; 'Lowly faithful, banishing fear, right onward drive unharmed; port, well worth the cruise, is near, and every wave is charmed.'"

And John Donne. "Death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so."

For some, I guess, like Donne, "One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and death shall be no more, death, thou shall die."

Every creature, from the beasts of the jungle to the tiniest insect, does everything it can to avoid death, and yet there are men and women and boys and girls who come to welcome it, though in truth, others embrace it tranquilly, if not eagerly.

Death?

To life!

# # #

You're Only Dead Once

Ten Thousand Words?

By Elliott Joseph

Copyright 2011 Elliott Joseph

January 2011

On Christmas Day The New York Times published The Year in Pictures 2010. To say they were remarkable, eloquent and breathtaking would not be an exaggeration. On the same day the San Francisco Chronicle published an article reporting that Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas, the last lab in the world processing Kodachrome color film, will discontinue its service at the end of the year.

Also reported was "The Last Kodachrome Photograph Show." The photographer Pat Willard, who will have four Kodachrome photographs in the show, refuses to use Ektachrome film and will revert to black and white.

My wife Roz Joseph, also a professional photographer, has refused to go digital and has given up taking pictures, leaving some thousands of color slides and prints in her collection.

With page after page of color photographs in the paper, especially in the Sunday Magazine, it is shocking that the Times has announced it is dramatically reducing (believe it?) the publishing of photographs starting the first of 2011, in an effort to bring back some of the ten thousand words that even one picture represents.

Words will continue to appear in the paper for those intrepid readers who wish to go beyond the captivating images brought to bear by a host of talented shutterbugs.

So what's going on? It is the development of the digital camera that may be behind the return of the printed word. Rapid technological advance of the camera from the days of the old Graphlex encumbered by its outlandish flash, has transformed photography to today's convenient digital devices which not only do away with film, but which, with alarming alacrity, backed by the extraordinary manipulations afforded by Photo Shop, produce frightfully gorgeous results, such as raising a model's awkward eyebrow and putting a sports car on the top of Mount Everest.

I am a victim as well as a beneficiary of this ease of producing good color renditions heretofore requiring the most careful attention to format and subject, and without the need of utilizing painstaking studio work aided by brilliantly creative lighting.

In a recent three week trip to Portugal, one of the world's most photogenic countries, I shot, without any particularly professional ability, over 700 not bad photographs with a pocket sized digital camera I bought for less than two hundred and fifty dollars. Gone were the heavy, expensive Nikons and their array of lenses with there countless boxes of transparency film, to shoot dozens of guesswork slides that I could show to no one without a projector and a dinosaur of a screen, while they dozed off in boredom. Furthermore, each of those friends and relatives, with their digital cameras could now produce rather excellent pictures, making my own unnecessary.

I must say I have taken some pretty good pictures myself in the past, have gotten some awards, and have been the subject of photographs by some excellent pros, such as the one shown here by the renowned travel photographer Carl Purcell, who had led the safari trip to Kenya that my wife and I took twenty-five years ago. Because of his talented eye he was able to make a snapshot look thought out, and it proved good enough to be published in newspapers across the United States and abroad, demonstrating that you don't need a digital camera to do a great job.

In my early career in advertising I learned to respect the agency's art directors and photographers whose now ancient equipment could produce outstanding work. Who read my words of copy that I labored over?

So it's actually the quality of the photography these days that is behind The New York Times possible thoughts about questioning the proverbial statement that a picture is worth ten thousand words. And the word may be spreading. Amazon is back to selling books. With Kindle, your average consumer is reading more, and turning from the thrall of the image.

Sports, travel, advertising, arts and leisure, Sunday styles, even The Week in Review, have been dependent on the photograph to grab the attention that only a glaring headline used to produce.

If the Times ever does cut back its photography, will you miss the ease of all those amazing pictures to tell you their story? Will it try to make you want to know more with the word?

"Taking photographs," writes Susan Sontag in On Photography, "has set up a chronic voyeuristic reaction to the world which levels the meaning of all events."

Will I lose my former love of the photograph? Is it too seductive, too easy to relate to? Has it become too time consuming to think? Too difficult to ignore? Will I miss the words?

# # #

Alameda Sand Sculpture

By Elliott Joseph

Photography By Roz Joseph

Copyright 2010 Elliott Joseph

December 2010

I met a traveler from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read."

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that marked them and the heart that fed,

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing besides remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Who can explain the compelling anti-Ozymandias passion to create beautiful sculptures and castles of sand, only to see them washed away within hours by a relentlessly approaching tide? This curious and highly vulnerable art form can be seen on countless bathing beaches around the world each summer, yet nowhere is it more poignantly and expertly practiced than at the Robert Crown Memorial State Beach in Alameda, California where each June several hundred serious men, women and children compete in the Annual Sand Sculpture and Castle Contest.

They come well prepared to this broad expanse, with its handsome view of the San Francisco skyline. They bring home-made tools, shovels, containers for carrying and spraying water, a sketch of their planned sculpture, warm clothes for protection against the wind, and enough food and drink to sustain them during the feverish work session to meet the deadline and beat the water before it erases their painstakingly constructed achievements from the memory of mankind.

The sculpture must be made of sand, with trimming of wood, rocks and shells found that day on the beach. That's the only rule before they go to work, singly or in groups, on the small plot of beach assigned to them at the low tide morning registration hour. By mid-day their sculpture will have to be completed so that the judging, and the all-important picture-taking, can take place before the inevitable.

# # #

Fading Fast

Painted Wall Signs Are Disappearing

But Is Restoration The Answer?

By Elliott Joseph

Photographs By Roz Joseph

Reprinted From Online Preservation

Copyright Elliott Joseph

November 2010

In the heart of Chinatown in Oakland, California, there is an old advertising sign that looks just like new. In fact, it is. The "MJB Coffee Why?"sign, prominently displayed on the side of a century-old building was first painted in 1906, but was redone 15 years ago.

The owners of the building were able to get a grant from the MJB Coffee Company, through the Oakland Museum, to repaint the sign in its original colors. The sign was one of dozens that had been painted on walls throughout California for the company, which wanted to pique people's curiosity about their java.

Across the bay in San Francisco, on a building that housed the Victoria Theater, another old advertising wall sign was revitalized 25 years ago. The 1920 "Albers Flapjack Flour" sign had deteriorated so much that painters had to find photographs of the original wall from the Carnation Company, which owned Albers. Although the black-and-white photographs showed the miner's facial expression and other details on the ad, painters had to guess the mural's colors.

These renewed signs are among the exceptions, however. Thousands of others in cities, towns, and rural areas across America are not as fortunate. They are doomed, either by destruction of the buildings that are their canvasses, a covering coat of paint, or weather and time.

For instance, San Francisco's "Get Kist for a Nickel" sign, whose provocative message promoted the soft drink for more than 40 years, is gone. In the otherwise beautifully preserved town of Nevada City, California, the landmark "Rose Fashion Shoppe" wall sign can barely be read. Exposed to the elements for almost a century, it is simply fading away.

Created for commercial purposes on brick, concrete and other canvasses, old painted wall signs may have lost their power of persuasion, but they have taken on a value of their own as American artifacts.

One of the companies that painted walls was the California firm of Foster and Kleiser. Before it was purchased by another company in 1953, when the service was discontinued, the company had painted walls in hundreds of cities in the Western states. The service was called the "Special Paint" department, says Joseph Blackstock, director of research at the Patrick Media Group, Inc., the company's current owners.

"The term 'Special Paint' was probably more accurate in the years following World War II," Blackstock says, "because we painted on other surfaces as well as on regular walls. We might paint designs on water towers or reservoirs or indeed do murals in commercial establishments."

Almost all outdoor advertising companies offered a wall-painting service in the early years. The paint was usually brightly colored, and signs were painted once a year, sometimes twice or more. Affectionately known as "wall dogs," the painters had to work with many kinds of surfaces.

"Some of the surfaces were so bad," Blackstock says, "they would wear out good brushes in a day or two. Another factor was the weather. In Seattle and Portland, much of the painting had to be done in the rain. In Tucson and Phoenix, it was often in temperatures of over 100 degrees."

The cost of painted advertisements was surprisingly low. In 1929, they ranged from $15 to $50 per month for a three year contract in heavily trafficked areas, with exceptionally busy locations going for $100 per month. Ten years later, the company sold advertisements for as little as $9 per month and as much as $250. More than a few new products got their start on wall ads: Coca-Cola, Signal Oil, and Canada Dry were prime examples.

In addition to using walls in cities, enterprising tobacco companies sent their representatives to rural areas to convince farmers to allow the sides of their barns to become advertisements. One of the most successful companies to do this was Mail Pouch Tobacco: "Treat Yourself to the Best" started to appear on barns everywhere.

"In the early days, the farmer was offered his choice of being paid subscriptions, says Mary Ruth Whorton of the Helme Tobacco Company, which now owns the Mail Pouch brand. Whorton tells the story of a British celebrity arriving in New York who was asked what he thought America was most famous for. Without a moment's hesitation, he replied, "Good looking women and Mail Pouch Tobacco signs."

At first, local sign painters were given the rural jobs. Later, by the 1930s, the firm of William and Ed Burner were handling all the contracts -- as many as 17,000 barns, walls and billboards. The 1965 Highway Beautification Act forced Mail Pouch to paint over many of its ads, since signs within 660 feet of interstate and federally aided highways are now prohibited. In former days, it took about three years to cover all the territories.

Currently, Helme employs one part-time person to paint signs in Ohio, West Virginia, Western Pennsylvania and Western Maryland. They are repainted every five to six years, and new locations are rarely added.

Painting walls is a tradition as old as Pompeii. In old wall signs a time is conveyed that can never return, when milk was delivered at the door, when flappers danced the Charleston and a penny bought a salted pretzel or a jaw-challenging gumball. Is restoring them an option? Some say that those who attempt to restore these ads change them in the process. They look too new, too crisp, too fresh, and too out of place, as if we expected to take their original message seriously. There is something to be said for keeping those that remain in a state of arrested decay.

"I loved those old wall signs," Blackstock says, "and was greatly disappointed when our company discontinued them."

# # #

Six Days in The City

By Elliott Joseph

Reprinted from California Living

San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle

Copyright 2010 Elliott Joseph

From a diary found under a bench in Washington Square

MONDAY

11:10 a.m.

Up after nine and a half hours. Feeling good. Better wash T-shirt. Hair coming along.

Noon

Breakfast at Jim and Dora's. Saw Kim and Charles. Fog burning off.

1:00 p.m.

Almost succeeded in controlling left nostril after twenty-five minutes of concentration in Washington Square.

2:00 p.m.

Observed some suits. Wasted lives.

3:00 p.m.

Read "Walden." Really dig Thoreau. Wind coming up.

5:00 p.m.

Hunza's for a shake.

7:00 p.m.

Gold Spike for dinner. No wine.

9:00 p.m.

Cold tonight. Double espresso at Trieste. Rapped about war and photography.

Midnight.

Felt stiff neck coming on. Practiced concentrating on the left nostril again. To bed at two.

TUESDAY

11:25 a.m.

Up after nine and a half. Neck OK.

Noon

Bumped into Maggie at Jim and Dora's. Said she's going to buy some belts and set up a blanket at Embarcadero Plaza. Asked me if I want to go into partnersip. Baba says, "All life is an effort to attain freedom from self-created entanglement."

1:00 p.m.

Held breath for three minutes in Washington Square.

2:00 p.m.

Hitched to Golden Gate Park. Got a ride all the way in a new Ford pick-up. Golden Gate Park was designed by one man. Why does man foul the nest?

5:00 p.m.

Took three hitches to get to North Beach. Bumped into Red Ed. Said he was going to Oregon. "I love a broad margin to my life." Sky bluer than blue. Bought some groceries.

7:00 p.m.

Beef stew at the U.S. Saw this groovy chick. Great teeth. Libra. Would you believe, a lawyer!

9:00 p.m.

Walked. Glad I didn't sell my black turtle neck sweater.

Midnight

Smoked. Resolved never to shave the beard for anyone. Thought I was getting a headache, but it passed.

WEDNESDAY

Noon

Ten hours. At this rate, I'll live to be a hundred.

12:30 p.m.

Breakfast at Jim and Dora's. Should take coffee black.

1:15 p.m.

Tried the right nostril at Washington Square Got a dog's mess on my left leg. Surprised I didn't get mad.

2:30 p.m.

Walked to Bank of America building. All bombing is insane. Peace has to start with each of us. Sorry I sold my camera.

4:30 p.m.

Watched the commuters running. To eat their meals? Play tennis? Make love?

6:00 p.m.

Napped.

7:00 p.m.

Liver and onions at Little Joe's. The way he sweats!

9:00 p.m.

Peeked into three pornos. Do our bodies think?

10:00 p.m

Picked up this girl. Sally. Works for an advertising agency as a secretary. Has an M.A. in English, but didn't tell them so she could get the job. Inglorious man.

Midnight.

Three times.

THURSDAY

9:30 a.m.

Phil, Mark and a guy named Bob crashed pad. Hitching all night. Mark going back to get his degree. Went back to sleep.

Noon

Called Sally. Crab meat salad at Mama's. Sally paid. Wondered whatever happened to Ruth Moore.

1:30 p.m.

Left nostril exercise at Washington Square.

2:00 p.m.

Wondered what I'll be like at thirty. Not all that far to go. Felt the warm sun under my skin. Bob made me laugh this morning. Said he'd come to San Francisco to make it.

3:30 p.m.

Walked to Cala Foods. No opening yet. Checker cum laude. The dears don't know what they're missing.

6:00 p.m.

Letter from mom. Herb got a raise. Her hints used to be more subtle.

7:00 p.m.

Everybody to the U.S. Had to wait twenty minutes for a table. Maggie there. Said she's got the belts. Told her I'm not cut out for business. Now how would I know that?

9:30 p.m.

Browsed through Tower Records. Shot pool at the Sport.

Midnight.

Alone again.

FRIDAY

11:00 a.m.

Registered at Opportunity Personnel. Why is filling out an application so degrading? Should be called a supplication.

1:00 p.m.

Changed back into jeans.

2:00 p.m.

Dim Sum at Hang Ah. Wondered who is going to rent all that office space going up.

3:00 p.m.

Cable cars filling up. Must be the weekend again.

4:00 p.m.

Fell asleep on a bench at Washington Square. Hit by a frisbee.

6:00 p.m.

Walked to Henry Africa's. Didn't go in.

7:30 p.m.

Ham steak at the U.S. Mixed with the tourists on Grant. Called Sally. Out.

9:00 p.m.

Saw Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood. Couldn't believe it!

Midnight.

Irish at Buena Vista. Not one face made me happy. To bed at 1:30.

SATURDAY

Hitched to Tam. Thick white fog bank off the coast. City absolutely the most beautiful sight. Raced a dog. Hitched to Stinson Beach. Alive at last. Should go back to Mendocino one of these days.

# # #

The Russians of California

By Elliott Joseph

Reprinted from The Voice of America

Copyright 2010 Elliott Joseph

September 2010

The other night I had smoked fish, pelmeni and shashlik for dinner. My wife recently made borsch, piroshki and beef Stroganoff. A few weeks ago we spent the day at Russian Gulch State Park. Last week we toured the Russian River. One of our favorite magazines has published a new recipe for Kulebiaka. I sometimes go to Irinka for a glass of tea, or browse in the Ananie bookstore. On the bus I saw a man reading a newspaper called The Russian Daily Life. I live on Russian Hill.

Where am I? Moscow? Kiev? Saint Petersburg?

Not at all. I am in San Francisco, California, and it seems that a day can hardly go by that I don't see or hear or touch or taste something Russian. Russians are all over the world, of course. Through the many years of their great history they have traveled, they have traded, they have hunted, they have planted and settled. Some have remained, some have returned to their motherland. Some have settled in other countries and then moved on to other lands.

But a certain number of Russians have come to California. Here, too, some stayed and some left. And the process still goes on as Russians continue to come and go from all over the world. It was natural, even inevitable for the first Russians to have come to California. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the west coast of what is now America was the next step for Russians who had made the trip to the Aleutian Islands and Alaska. At that time the Spanish and Mexican governments in control of California felt threatened by what they regarded as Russian expansion. To prevent this, the Spanish increased their own colonization of California, and enacted restrictive legislation against the Russians, who were engaged in fur and whale oil trade, agriculture, shipbuilding, cattle raising, fishing and forestry.

The Russians formed a colony at the Russian River, north of San Francisco, called Slavensk, now known as Fort Ross. Meanwhile, the Spanish established missions up and down California to provide a sort of barrier against the Russians. The northernmost of these was the Mission San Francisco Solano, founded in 1823 at Sonoma, butting up against the Russian settlement.

Not all of the Spanish were hostile to the Russians, and there are many stories of friendship and mutual assistance. There is even a famous, if unfortunately tragic, love story. Nicolas Petrovich Rezanoff, a Russian government attache, and a celebrated sixteen year old beauty, Conception Arrilaga, daughter of the Spanish governor of the territory, managed to secure official approval of their betrothal. But Rezanoff, journeying across Siberia, to make a report to his government before the wedding, developed a fever and died. It was 35 years before Conception learned her Russian lover had not abandoned her of his own free will. In the meantime, she had taken church vows, and was to remain faithful to Rezanoff all her life.

Because their people were beset with physical and economic hardships and the mounting hostility of the Spanish, the Russian authorities ordered withdrawal of the Russian colony from California, selling all Russian properties in Decembeer 1841 to Johann August Sutter, a Swiss then living on the Sacramento River.

Today, there are about 50,000 Russians in California, most of whom live in the San Francisco Bay Area. They arrived in periodic waves starting around 1900, except for 50 families who came as early as 1869. Some were Molokani or "milk drinkers," pacifists who drank no alcohol. Others were "Spirit Wrestlers," sometimes called Doukhobours. Some were Subotniks. Many came by way of Turkey, Iran and Siberia. Many came after the revolution of 1917-1919. In the 1930s many came from Manchuria. The last big group to come to California were displaced persons from parts of Eastern Europe, just after World War II.

And what about today's Russians of California? What are they like? How do they differ from other Americans? Seeing how strongly their influence is felt, I became fascinated with the subject. I had to learn more, because in doing so I would learn more about California, San Francisco and myself.. And as I did, I felt I wanted to tell you about it.

# # #

The Widow of Nob Hill

By Elliott Joseph

Reprinted from California Living

San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle

Copyright 2010 Elliott Joseph

August 2010

San Francisco has changed. It's so sad. Of course we've managed to save a few things. It was a lovely performance tonight, wasn't it? Verdi, Verdi, where would we be without you, Verdi? So passionate.

I'm fourth generation San Francisco, you know. But I've told you that, haven't I? Strange. Very odd being part of the hills, so to speak. I certainly am as old as the hills. Oh yes, I am. You'd rather walk a young beauty, wouldn't you? Oh yes, you would.

You are a perfectly charming young man. A perfect dear for taking me to dinner tonight. And the opera. How should I ever have gotten out of the house without you, Jeff? Jeff, that's a lovely name. So masculine and assertive.

My husband's name was Arthur. Now that's a substantial name. Arthur. Oh he had a good life. He did so much for The City. A really splendid man, Arthur. It's a good thing he's not here to see what those Vulgars are doing. Vulgars -- that's my descriptive for people who have no taste. Taste, cultivation, they're frightfully old-fashioned and unhip ideas, aren't they? Everyone in blue jeans and work shirts and trying so desperately hard to look hard up. It's such a bore.

I have always worn what I thought was beautiful, whether or not it was in style. I wish some of those little dears would have the courage to dress individually, instead of in that pseudo-individual look, which is getting positively sickening in its repetition.

Ah, but San Francisco's elegance is a thing of the past. We're relics, my dear Jeff. Anachronisms, living in a city that could be first-rate if it would only take itself in hand.

Now, I have never for a moment believed that a beautiful woman couldn't be interesting. Why should one expect less from a city? Here we are, the major cities of the world abdicating their responsibility for greatness, our civilization virtually peeling and crumbling, and San Francisco is primping and dolling itself up as though beauty were more than skin deep.

But I'm raving, simply raving, my dear sweet Jeff. You're probably thinking how awful it is to have to think about how awful things are. Your whole life is ahead of you. Ah, I should have been born a man. I envy you. I'd show the world what San Francisco could do. I'd do battle for my fair lady.

As a woman, a widow, I do what I can. But it's nothing. Nothing. I am not the grande dame of San Francisco. All I can do is my bit for the opera and the ballet and the symphony. Yes, and the museums, and my charities. At least, I tell myself, I can help keep our institutions alive. I meet with my friends. We talk. We decide. We do.

I think, if I were younger I'd rebel. I'd do what the young women are doing today. Run for congress, fly a plane, start a business, become a surgeon. My daughter and her friends, they're active, every one of them. Busy doing real things. My grandchildren will do even more.

I was a rebel in my time, you know. I wore short hair. I drove a car, I was violently against Prohibition. I fought intolerance wherever I encountered it. People knew where I stood.

What is a tired old woman with an annuity supposed to do -- backpack with the twenty year-olds? I'd look even more ridiculous than I do now. Yes, it's true. I am ridiculous. But what are we doing standing at the door. Come in, Jeff. Come in. Let me fix you a cup of coffee, or a drink.

There, that's better. You like the view? It's even more beautiful during the day. Views help us see outside of ourselves, don't you think? That can be a disadvantage, too. It's so good to come home. I am comfortable among my old things. An antique with her antiques. I like them because they are the only things I know that are older than I am.

Sit down. Sit down. We are deliciously alone. My housekeeper doesn't sleep in any more. She's wonderful to me, comes in every morning. She keeps this place so organized. It's much easier to take care of than the house on Jackson Street, but still there's much to do. She is a very good cook. Not as good as Felice was, I'm afraid. But then who could be?

Felice was marvelous. She could prepare Filets de Soles Orientale, Langue de Boeuf Choucroute, Ris de Veau Bonne Maman and mince pie as good as Escoffier himself.

Oh, but it's obscene these days to think of food like that, isn't it, with the prices so astronomical. I don't know how people do it. I have been so lucky. Daddy and Arthur took care of me. I have tried to be worthy of the pains they took to see I'd be comfortable.

Those are my grandchildren. In those little gold frames on the piano. They're much bigger now. Those pictures were taken two years ago. Good children. Not a bit spoiled like I was. Irreparably spoiled.

What shall it be? Coffee, tea -- or brandy? You're a dear. It's right over there. Just seven little drops for me. It's unbecoming for a relic to get drowsy, and that's what too much brandy does to me. It used to make me sexy. How sad to think of those bygone days!

Sometimes, to keep myself from falling asleep right in front of my guests, I play the piano or sing. Don't look so frightened. I'm not going to torture you with that.

I had a little training. Some talent, I suppose. But not enough to pursue. Just enough to appreciate what an artist must do to develop her art. Have you heard the new opera finalists? The winner is a genuine talent. So effortless. Such depth of understanding.

It's clear tonight. My, how the lights sparkle. The skyline has changed so, I can't tell you what it does to me. No, I'm not for preserving a glorious past. The past was not always that glorious. But it's frightening to think how quickly things move today, how much power can be brought to bear on this fragile city. It can be transformed in no time to something altogether different.

Life was so much easier for my great grandfather and my grandfather. All they had to do was pit themselves against the elements, test their strength and wits against the land and against other men. It was like a sort of club in those days. Everybody out for the same thing. There was no question that it was right. It was only a matter of how to accomplish your goal.

But today everything is so much more complicated. The whole world is a tightly related little village. You can't ignore the consequences of what you do. People must work. People must live. You can't dictate what should be done, what can't be done. You have to work it out.

Do you think it will work out, Jeff? You're so young and handsome and strong. You've got hope and faith and confidence, don't you, Jeff? You don't believe that we should cultivate our garden, do you?

Are we in a spiritual depression? It isn't all pleasure and self-indulgence, is it? Life can't be simply a matter of easing pain and having fun, can it? Everyone wants to go sailing or walk the beach. That's all very well, but we need a clashing together of ideas in San Francisco, don't you think? There's such a desperate longing for tranquility. Except, of course, for those who are angry. But anger isn't very inspiring, is it?

It's all so difficult to comprehend. Oh dear, I am getting far too philosophical. Look at the time! And you have been sitting there so patiently, listening to this monologue of mine. I'm so glad we were introduced, Jeff. I'm so glad we've had this opportunity to get acquainted. We're going to have other opportunities. Of course I have my box for the season. Next week I will be going with my little group, though. But soon the symphony will open. Then the ballet. Then, of course, the Spring Opera and Stern Grove concerts.

Tomorrow I'm going to my Mozart group. Then in the evening to hear the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. I just keep running, running, as long as my strength holds out.

Perhaps, if you're free, we can arrange to spend another lovely evening. Meanwhile, I must plan my trip abroad. There is so much to do you wouldn't believe it. I really should have a secretary.

The brandy is getting to me now. It's such a bore getting tired. I'll be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow. There's the flower show, if I can squeeze it in. I suppose I shouldn't be greedy and try to do too much.

Once again, dear Jeff, thank you so much for a lovely evening.

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Portrait of Tracy

By Elliott Joseph

Reprinted from California Living

San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle

Photo By Roz Joseph

Copyright 2010 Elliott Joseph

July 2010

Sometimes I wish I never wanted to paint. What about photography? Ansel Adams. Imogen Cuningham. You could be the world's greatest woman photographer, age 21. Hold up the camera, and click! A work of art. If only there weren't so many photographers. Everybody, I mean everybody, has a camera. Click! Click!

Who cares about painting today? I like that little part. What else was she wearing on her right wrist? This will work. You're a genius. Forget photography. You don't know which end of the camera to look into anyway. Just keep on painting. You're the new Picasso. Age 21.

There's Jerry. "Hi, Jerry." He's so crazy. Cute, but crazy. He paints circles. Soft circles. He says they're not circles. Canvas after canvas of circles that are not circles. I can't believe it.

Do you have to be crazy to be an artist? I hope not. I am so hopelessly sane. So deliciously lucid. I think so clearly it's positively frightening! Loony bin, next stop. Paint, paint. Never give up. If we give up, art will die. Die, die, die. Dead, dead, dead.

Paint, paint, paint, you super gorgeous genius, and save the world, the Bay, the Mission District, and let's hear it for Yerba Buena!

There's Gordon. I can't stand that man. "You can go into advertising," he said. A fine thing for an instructor in Fine Arts to tell a fine, Fine Arts student. The pimple! Do I have to develop a heavy set of arrogance to defend myself from people like that? I am easily bruised, you inferior superiors. Oh, look at that blue. It's so wrong. It's so wrong! Maybe Gordon is right. Maybe I should go down to Batten, Barton, Honig, Harrington and Thompson. After all, some of my best friends are in advertising.

Is that all we are, illustrators, bartering our ideas for food? Is that what I am going to be, an illustrator? Is that why I came to the Institute? Is that why I paint until I think I am going blind?

Oh, oh, here comes Esposito. That man frightens me. Oh my God, he's looking at my painting. If he says anything, I'll die. I'll just die. I am not going to look at him. I am not going to acknowledge his presence. There he goes. The monster, he didn't even say a word!

I NEED ENCOURAGEMENT!

Thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Yes, my instructors lavish praise on me. You are so kind. Oh, it really isn't that good. It is? You're just saying that. You really mean it's the best thing you have ever seen in your entire life? Thank you, Mr Frankenstein, thank you Mr. Fried, you really are outstanding critics.

I am such a phony, such a sick, sick phony. I searched for a garret, and found a two bedroom flat in Pacific Heights. I force myself to suffer. Send me no money, father. I shall steal the little clothing I need. If I am hungry I will shoplift. Don't worry, I can take care of myself.

I hate my job. I hate making Cafe Borgia and cappuccino. I will never drink coffee again as long as I live.

Tiny, tiny stroke. Once over very, very, very, very lightly. Careful, dammit. That's all right. Painted with an eyelash. What am I saying. What am I not saying? Don't think. For God's sake, don't think.

I could always go back to selling waterbeds on Broadway. At least that was fun. That freak and all those people from Nebraska. Why do they come to Broadway anyway? A waterbed in Nome? No, that's Alaska. The time that guy tried to get me on that waterbed. "I just want to see if it's possible," he said.

Why couldn't I sculpt? Because it's a silly little word, sculpt, that's why. And besides, I'll be able to go to Los Angeles or New York, and sell this canvas to a forger for a very small fortune, who can then auction it to the People's Republic of China, so that Avery Brundage can be so impressed that he will switch to collecting young, beautiful painters from the San Francisco Art Institute, and the world of art will say, "Lo and behold, Tracy What's-Her-Name, she'd be all right if her painting wasn't out of date ten minutes before the canvas dried."

Actors are the only people in San Francisco who are worse off than painters. I am going to do something about your eye, changing lady of my portrait. I have looked at your two eyes, your one sad and your one happy, your one mad and your one glad, your one lost and your one won, your one tossed and your one fun, and I am going to do something right this minute.

What are they looking for, those galleries? Why do they tempt us with success?

That eye. That eye.

Lady of my painting, can I feel your body through your blouse? Are you warm? Are you breathing a little more heavily than usual?

Bessie walked to Vista Point. Twenty-two shades of gray in the silver sunset. She wouldn't have done it unless - but who knows why they do it? You're dead now, Bessie. Dead. What does that mean, anyhow? Some want to live. I want to live.

You've got to have luck. Maybe it's all a matter of luck. Ben painted Aunt Lara twenty years ago as Mother Earth, a nineteen-year-old girl. And now Lara has become Mother Earth. That's genius.

If they don't buy it, it's not important as not letting me paint. You don't have to buy it! Do you hear me out there? No offense. If you don't want it on Union or Geary or Sutter, I'll simply take it to 57th Street and have John Canaday insist that I get a Guggenheim.

That boy was kind of nice. I told him I was going one block. He got out of the car, took a long, disbelieving look at me and said I should be ashamed of myself. Then he took me by the hand and walked me up the hill. Will he call me?

Everybody at Perry's says they never go there, and they never dress like that. What was that story? "A Clean, Well Lighted Place." Why are we so afraid to be alone? We are the topless generation. No head. It's weird. Four out of five people I meet are from the East.

What if I made both eyes happy-sad-happy?

The library upstairs is so clean. Books are so clean. Ideas are so crisp when they're written down. Look at this place. Nothing crisp about Studio 116. "Do not remove!" "Paint for Jesus!" You could put a frame around this floor and get a fortune for it. Oh look, somebody's painted the bulletin! "College of the San Francisco Art Institute. Offering the Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in filmmaking, painting, photography, print-making, and sculpture/ceramics." Ah, the fun life of art. "Abandon all hope, ye that enter."

There's Ted. He's really good. He doesn't look like an artist. The enemy of art is the artist who looks the part. Do I? Am I too happy? Sometimes not knowing why or how I am alive tears me apart with fear. So why am I so happy? Wait, there's plenty of time. You won't always forget so conveniently.

Wipe the extra paint on your sleeve. Mix and match, not so precisely, not so exactly. You used to get less paint under your nails, when you bit them.

"Hi, Ted. What? Do you think so? Thanks. I like the thing you're working on now. Really good. True, we are all geniuses. How can a genius not get a passing grade? Even from Esposito. Keep struggling."

I'll bet Ted would be a great teacher. Another year to get my degree. Is there life after graduation? There's something about getting a degree in painting that's silly. Where would I have gone if I didn't come to San Francisco? They say this is the best part of your life. So why not end it at twenty-one? Technique, technique, technique. The message, the message, the message. Whatever happened to the happening? Art. What is art? That's for the critics and the teachers to decide. That particular changing moment of that particular life is for you to decide. They decide if you decided right. They judge. You are the judged. Will I play an imaginary zither to my paintings, like that old woman I saw on Beach Street? Let's sing to the canvas and the glory of art.

Where would I take my dear little brother if he came here? What would I show him? Pretty little Union Street? Ghirardelli Square? Things all nicely decorated to sell? Is that the only answer to filth and poverty? Am I getting all this in that eye? No, that's what a background, an environment - you should excuse the expression - is for. The socio-psychological-cultural milieu. When you put it that way, you don't put it. So just paint your mistresspiece and then go to your friend's concert on Maiden Lane and stare at the hat on the sidewalk so it will fill all the way up with money. One person, one single person listening is enough. Play your heart out. Keep your beat. Count if you have to, but keep on playing. Never, never open that valve to nothingness, the way they did at that party. That can't be the way. That's what beer used to be for, and now the new way is faster and different, but not so different.

If Jack would only put some paper in the printer when he writes that novel. But there will always be Wendy who can play so that you wonder how it all can happen, and be grateful that your egg was swimming at the right time. On Maiden Lane and at the Faire she plays in her sandals and flowing robe. On the stage at San Francisco State, pardon me, Cal State San Francisco, she's neat and formal and her hair is civilized. And she's part of a bigger sound that speaks to many people one at a time. And her eyes dart up at the conductor and back at the music.

I can't get up in the auditorium and tell everyone how she helped me, when I kicked the bed and cut my hair, telling me not to say anything when Tim said he was leaving. He was going to stop working for praise, and was going to Los Angeles to get on a TV series about a successful young beautiful actor in San Francisco. Then he finally said that he didn't study Chekhov and Shakespeare to do that.

Why does a man need victories, so many victories?

What did I study? Where did I look? Music and Art High School. Visual Arts. The Brooklyn Museum. The Whitney. Modern Art. The Metropolitan. The Louvre. The Rijksmuseum. The National Gallery. The Prado. Venice. Florence. Rome. The fields of Arles. The faces of my mother and father. This woman, this lady of my painting. This changing woman. The olive trees of Toledo. The stones. The woods. The inaccessible light. The walls. The blues, rich, trumpeting, blinding. Soften them. Soften them. Just beyond control. A wildness that isn't wild. Confusion that isn't confused. We are both witness and victim.

"Light, more light," said Goethe. Just enough on the canvas. Not one bit more. It travels fast enough itself. You are not being painted to be hung, my lady of the painting, but to remain on the easel. You are never quite finished. Your blood is on my arms. You comfort me. You satisfy me, when I don't understand. You feed and house me. I don't need to worship or escape into the noise or oblivion of shock and tastelessness. You are my medicine, my law, my social service, my Ph.D. You free me, and I am grateful. Lady of my painting, soon I won't know you as I think I know you now. I won't know what it is that we want from each other. You are different every time I look at you.

Here comes Esposito! Who is that with him? They're coming this way. The four of them. They're coming here. They're all going to look at you, my lady of the painting. They want to see you, my candidate for the museums of San Francisco. Are you ready?

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