Thursday, May 20, 2010

No Fraidy Cat, He

Our great friend, the guy who introduced the two of us, and a former student of Bill's, Brian English, told us a remarkable story.

Every day, Brian drives the 101 to his job at the Herb Ritts Foundation in LA.   Yesterday he saw a school bus in front of him stalled, with smoke billowing out.  Though he could see the bus was on fire and could hear screaming, he did not know there were 23 third graders trapped inside.  As most every car continued to pass, Brian stopped, kicked in the door of the bus, grabbed a fire extinguisher and with another passerby got the kids off the bus.  No one was injured.  We saw a photograph of the burned out vehicle in today's New York Times. 

Zander, our oldest son called him, "a champion" and told us, "we really know some great ones but Brian's an awesome one."  We bet his kids are proud!

He's also a wonderful photographer having worked as Robert Mapplethorpe's last assistant as well as for Richard Avedon and now for the Ritts Foundation.  You can see his work  here.  His photograph Amos (above) hangs in the entrance to our home.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Vacation Plans

Our travel plans for Greece are made.  A strong dollar will provide us with a bargain this year but there is another reason for going--the economic crisis.   In 2001, our Greek friend, Kostis, flew here to be with us after 9/11 and now, it's time for us to make sure we make this journey for his home.  It's our way to take a small part in a recovery.

An American ex-pat living in Santorini sent us a video on YouTube which is a call to action to settle this crisis and halt the speculating and hypocrisy.  We were impressed by Daniel Cohn-Bendit's brave call to The European Commission and Parliament for real resolve. We hope it's a catalyst for substantive action.  To heck with the Tea Party.  Give us a German styled Green Party!

To view the video you can click here.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Mother's Day




Simon, our 16 year old, gave this to Andrea for Mother's Day.  What more could a mother want?
Happy Mother's Day.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

A Working Marriage


German Architectural Digest --one of the most beautiful magazines in the world-- just published the first story we've done together in 15 years.  Roughly translated as "Close to Poseidon" it's an exclusive feature on the 16,000 Euro per night Perivola's Hideaway in Greece and the result a brainstorm we had about working together.

When Andrea was a Contributing Editor to Martha Stewart Living, we worked on a number of stories--she writing and me photographing.  Once our kids were born, she began doing locations and while our freelance careers overlapped, it wasn't until last summer that we decided to try collaborating again.  We've planned a series of articles that we hope to continue this summer.  It's part of a bigger plan for the coming years as our kids start the moves to college and a return to our creative and collaborative roots.

We're both excited and proud.  Seeing the joint byline gave us a nice rush and yesterday we found out that two other publications--one in France and one in Italy-- will also pick up the story.  

If you'd like to read the text in English, let us know and we'll happily forward a copy.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Interesting....If True

Last Sunday, we saw a segment on CNN's Reliable Sources.  Hosted by Howard Kurtz, Reliable Sources is on after the Sunday morning talk shows. Among other things, it checks on the statements and stats politicians cite to help shore up the arguments they make.  Every statistic cited was either debunked or, at the least, could not be verified.

Last week, Cape Wind (the wind farm off  Cape Cod and that our family supports) was given the go ahead by the Federal Government.   Environmentalists celebrated but one NIMBYist, whose famous family compound faces the Nantucket Sound, called it a "$4 billion boondoggle and giveaway to big industry."  We wondered how, with the support of so many environmentalist organizations including the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and NRDC not to mention the editorial boards of all the major newspapers, could that be?

This morning, our friend from Maine, Ben Swan quoted his great uncle, Harrison Tweed (whom we are assured really had that name) who would always say, "Interesting....if true."

Reliable Sources now has us asking questions about figures that get thrown out so trippingly -- particularly when the benefits are clear and that we thought this was the kind of project we, in the environmental movement, were waiting for.