As any Californian will know, if a house ad says the property has been retro-fitted, it means that after it was built anti-earthquake reinforcements were added in the basement - a necessary move for many older houses put up before anti-earthquake technology developed to its present level (how good that is we won't know until it is too late, but that's another story).
This summer, the whole of Southern Californian culture seems to be retro-fitted - not earthquake-proof, but with a distinctly rear-view perspective. Comic-con, a San Diego get-together for addicts of everything from Batman to Star Wars, is attracting thousands. Movie retrospectives are on virtually year-round in Hollywood, culminating in Cinecon at the Egyptian next month. The Delorean car is making such a comeback that there are plans to restart production now John Delorean is conveniently in the great driving seat in the sky, and there will be a Delorean car convention at Universal Studios this week to publicise the fact that the Back to the Future ride is about to close ('Positively your last chance') after, ooh, 25 years of shaking the punters around. And I reckon that movies such as Transformers, Harry Potter and The Simpsons all have a retro feel about them. Potter is set in the 1950s, the Simpsons in the 1980s and Transformers - well, HG Wells wrote The War of the Worlds in 1896 (but don't tell Tom Cruise - and, oh yes, the WW film has been the excuse for one of the more spectacular new set recreations on the Universal back lot tour, just behind the Psycho house). And that's without the current mania for anything by the Bronte sisters. 'Ee, chook, it's reet nippy up eer in Howarth wi'out the movie royalties to keep us warm. Reckon we was allus born too early and now we're out of copyright, dammit.' 'Hush thy mouth, yoong Charlotte, or I'll 'ave that JK Rowling coom down from Edinburgh and belt you with her bank balance.'
I know that depicting the past is creatively more bankable than trying anything new, and the media seems to be going through one of its cautious phases at the moment, maybe because it is trying to assess the impact of the internet and things like blogs, but this business of looking backwards has been taken a little too far: I mean, even Berries and Cream....
Monday, July 30, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
acdc
The most dramatic moment of my last trip to Washington, for the International Monetary Fund meeting of September 1999, was sitting in my hotel room when the TV showed the US Ryder Cup golf team disgracefully dancing all over the last green to celebrate a victory that was still subject to a final putt across that badly damaged turf by the last European player, Jose Maria Olazabal. The US have paid for their hubris by being soundly thrashed ever since.
Last weekend had nothing to match that, unless you count Dick Cheney being President for a couple of hours while Bush was anaesthetized - no jokes, please. Instead, I witnessed two events that respectively gave a glimpse into the future and the past.
I saw the future on a Metro train, the stations of which rival London's new Jubilee Line stations for their striking designs. A young black couple were talking as casually as they could manage, having clearly met only shortly before. As she made to get off at a stop, he called out 'Look me up on Facebook!' It's the new substitute for exchanging vital personal information face-to-face. Instead, an entry on a social networking site, compiled and refined at leisure, becomes the business card for a possible relationship. I get a little out of puff catching up with all the messaging, texting and networking that moves from one new custom to another - I understand that email is now so old-hat that only oldies use it - but they all provide a new range of ways for the unsure majority to communicate and excommunicate. The networking sites leapfrog one another almost daily: friends reunited begat friendster begat flickr begat flirtomatic began faceparty begat facebook - and that's just some of the ones beginning with F.
The step back into the past in Washington was a sneak peek at how segregation must have felt. No longer by edict, that would be intolerable. But just as effective is the sort of economic segregation which put nearly all the white fans at a Washington Nationals v Colorado Rockies baseball game in the lower tiers of the stadium, and nearly all the blacks in the cheap seats up top.
My friend, Richard Adams, and I discovered this by accident. Not being sure about the ticketing system, I asked the booth for 'a couple of good tickets in the shade'. For only $25 apiece, yes that should have set off the alarm bells, we had great seats out of the sun, right behind the plate. Only catch? You couldn't see much beyond second base, and certainly not the scoreboard, so it was a little difficult to follow the game. So, after a few innings, we headed skywards.
The view was terrific, if a little vertigo-inducing. We could have got seats behind the plate again if we had bothered, this time with scoreboards galore. But, as the game went on I slowly realised that we were among the very few white faces on that level, where the ticket prices were $5-$14. I don't have any easy solutions to the de facto segregation, and everyone mixed quite amiably on the way out after the game, but it makes a myth out of any suggestion that American society has made significant strides towards integration - and that still looks a long way off.
Happily, Washington is stuffed full of free attractions, where such dividing lines dissolve in a mutual awe and admiration for the Capitol, White House, and the memorials to Washington, Lincoln and the dead from the Korean, Vietnam and 2nd World Wars. Iraq cannot be far off. I know of no other capital city that has so much for the tourist in such a concentrated area. Paris runs it close, and there is a strong whiff of Paris in Washington's wide boulevards.
Just as pretty well everyone stands to attention for the national anthem, so there was a shared respect inside the massive Lincoln memorial, with its Gettysburg and Second Inaugural addresses by the great man decorating the side walls. A few yards outside, though, there is one paving stone that many of the black visitors liked to stand around and admire the inscription. It marks the spot where Martin Luther King Jr made his 'I have a dream' speech in front of 200,000 people in August 1963. A dream that lives on.
Last weekend had nothing to match that, unless you count Dick Cheney being President for a couple of hours while Bush was anaesthetized - no jokes, please. Instead, I witnessed two events that respectively gave a glimpse into the future and the past.
I saw the future on a Metro train, the stations of which rival London's new Jubilee Line stations for their striking designs. A young black couple were talking as casually as they could manage, having clearly met only shortly before. As she made to get off at a stop, he called out 'Look me up on Facebook!' It's the new substitute for exchanging vital personal information face-to-face. Instead, an entry on a social networking site, compiled and refined at leisure, becomes the business card for a possible relationship. I get a little out of puff catching up with all the messaging, texting and networking that moves from one new custom to another - I understand that email is now so old-hat that only oldies use it - but they all provide a new range of ways for the unsure majority to communicate and excommunicate. The networking sites leapfrog one another almost daily: friends reunited begat friendster begat flickr begat flirtomatic began faceparty begat facebook - and that's just some of the ones beginning with F.
The step back into the past in Washington was a sneak peek at how segregation must have felt. No longer by edict, that would be intolerable. But just as effective is the sort of economic segregation which put nearly all the white fans at a Washington Nationals v Colorado Rockies baseball game in the lower tiers of the stadium, and nearly all the blacks in the cheap seats up top.
My friend, Richard Adams, and I discovered this by accident. Not being sure about the ticketing system, I asked the booth for 'a couple of good tickets in the shade'. For only $25 apiece, yes that should have set off the alarm bells, we had great seats out of the sun, right behind the plate. Only catch? You couldn't see much beyond second base, and certainly not the scoreboard, so it was a little difficult to follow the game. So, after a few innings, we headed skywards.
The view was terrific, if a little vertigo-inducing. We could have got seats behind the plate again if we had bothered, this time with scoreboards galore. But, as the game went on I slowly realised that we were among the very few white faces on that level, where the ticket prices were $5-$14. I don't have any easy solutions to the de facto segregation, and everyone mixed quite amiably on the way out after the game, but it makes a myth out of any suggestion that American society has made significant strides towards integration - and that still looks a long way off.
Happily, Washington is stuffed full of free attractions, where such dividing lines dissolve in a mutual awe and admiration for the Capitol, White House, and the memorials to Washington, Lincoln and the dead from the Korean, Vietnam and 2nd World Wars. Iraq cannot be far off. I know of no other capital city that has so much for the tourist in such a concentrated area. Paris runs it close, and there is a strong whiff of Paris in Washington's wide boulevards.
Just as pretty well everyone stands to attention for the national anthem, so there was a shared respect inside the massive Lincoln memorial, with its Gettysburg and Second Inaugural addresses by the great man decorating the side walls. A few yards outside, though, there is one paving stone that many of the black visitors liked to stand around and admire the inscription. It marks the spot where Martin Luther King Jr made his 'I have a dream' speech in front of 200,000 people in August 1963. A dream that lives on.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
anthem
US respect for the flag hit me like a thunderbolt last night. I was at a very run-of-the-mill event, a free hour-long concert given in Pasadena's beautiful Memorial Park by the Pasadena City College orchestra, in the embers of a warm, sunny evening.
The performance was preceded, or perhaps begun, by a performance of the Star-Spangled Banner. I had just got up from my seat to move to the back of the open-air auditorium to take a call on my cell phone. Happily, the call ended just as the orchestra struck up the anthem.
Naturally, everyone stood and stayed stock still throughout. Some, particularly a young lad in shorts, put their hand on their chest.
That much I was prepared for. But, as the music reached its last few bars I began to walk forward, back to my seat. What shocked me was that I was the only one who moved. Everyone else, in a predominantly white but pretty random gathering, stayed still until the music had completely finished before they sat down and resumed conversations.
This is in stark contrast to Britain, where the national anthem is treated very casually, if any attention is paid at all. At sporting events, people routinely talk through it and rarely sing it.
Years ago, British cinemas used to play the national anthem at the end of the evening. By the time I was old enough to stay up that late, the whole audience would normally ignore it in their rush to get out. Once, at the Gaumont in King's Cross, one man, probably in his 30s or 40s and wearing a trench coat, stubbornly stood to attention for the entirety of the anthem while everyone around him filed out. He was making a point, and so was everyone else. Now, as far as I know, no British cinema or theater plays the national anthem. It is regarded as a waste of time. Not in America.
What does this tell us? I think it is linked, though in which direction I'm not sure, with the greater US religious observance and church attendance. In England, the established church is in severe decline: only the Jewish and Roman Catholics have widespread support, along with those of the ethnic minorities.
But churches abound in America, to the extent that the people are derided by Europeans for an 'off-the-shelf' approach to religion, taking whatever suits. But they do adopt a religious belief system of some sort, rather than the none at all which is now normal in Britain. And I think that extends to lack of belief in the national flag and anthem.
Sure, the flag - especially the white-and-red English Cross of St George - is waved proudly at sporting events, but that is in the context of support for the England team and is partly an act of aggression towards opposition supporters. The British Royal family is still regarded with great affection, though it has to be admitted that it has been the butt of sniggers for 20 years or so.
That can be seen as a sign of greater sophistication and maturity, because there is no doubt that pride in Britain is as great as ever, as borne out by support for the armed forces in time of conflict, whether in the Falklands or the middle east. The British, and this goes to some extent for the rest of western Europe, don't feel the same need as Americans to bow to the symbols of that pride - the flag and anthem.
However, the American reverence for these baubles is also a sign, I believe, of a more ordered society. Mocking, ironic humor, of the sort propagated by Monty Python, is still thought rather daring in America, although the success of TV shows such as The Office show the mood is beginning to change. However, the US is still a long way from Britain's destructive reflex to bring down anyone who is too successful, to level out, cut the heads off the tall flowers, that has become such a pervasive pastime on the Atlantic's eastern shore.
All that is a long way from an open-air concert. But when that audience sat back in its seats, I think it did so with a greater sense of comfort and security than you might find in England. However, it may be significant that Scotland still bellows its anthem and salutes the blue Cross of St Andrew with a fervour that would frighten nearly anyone else exposed to it. That, though, is driven by an emotion that is more tribal than national.
The performance was preceded, or perhaps begun, by a performance of the Star-Spangled Banner. I had just got up from my seat to move to the back of the open-air auditorium to take a call on my cell phone. Happily, the call ended just as the orchestra struck up the anthem.
Naturally, everyone stood and stayed stock still throughout. Some, particularly a young lad in shorts, put their hand on their chest.
That much I was prepared for. But, as the music reached its last few bars I began to walk forward, back to my seat. What shocked me was that I was the only one who moved. Everyone else, in a predominantly white but pretty random gathering, stayed still until the music had completely finished before they sat down and resumed conversations.
This is in stark contrast to Britain, where the national anthem is treated very casually, if any attention is paid at all. At sporting events, people routinely talk through it and rarely sing it.
Years ago, British cinemas used to play the national anthem at the end of the evening. By the time I was old enough to stay up that late, the whole audience would normally ignore it in their rush to get out. Once, at the Gaumont in King's Cross, one man, probably in his 30s or 40s and wearing a trench coat, stubbornly stood to attention for the entirety of the anthem while everyone around him filed out. He was making a point, and so was everyone else. Now, as far as I know, no British cinema or theater plays the national anthem. It is regarded as a waste of time. Not in America.
What does this tell us? I think it is linked, though in which direction I'm not sure, with the greater US religious observance and church attendance. In England, the established church is in severe decline: only the Jewish and Roman Catholics have widespread support, along with those of the ethnic minorities.
But churches abound in America, to the extent that the people are derided by Europeans for an 'off-the-shelf' approach to religion, taking whatever suits. But they do adopt a religious belief system of some sort, rather than the none at all which is now normal in Britain. And I think that extends to lack of belief in the national flag and anthem.
Sure, the flag - especially the white-and-red English Cross of St George - is waved proudly at sporting events, but that is in the context of support for the England team and is partly an act of aggression towards opposition supporters. The British Royal family is still regarded with great affection, though it has to be admitted that it has been the butt of sniggers for 20 years or so.
That can be seen as a sign of greater sophistication and maturity, because there is no doubt that pride in Britain is as great as ever, as borne out by support for the armed forces in time of conflict, whether in the Falklands or the middle east. The British, and this goes to some extent for the rest of western Europe, don't feel the same need as Americans to bow to the symbols of that pride - the flag and anthem.
However, the American reverence for these baubles is also a sign, I believe, of a more ordered society. Mocking, ironic humor, of the sort propagated by Monty Python, is still thought rather daring in America, although the success of TV shows such as The Office show the mood is beginning to change. However, the US is still a long way from Britain's destructive reflex to bring down anyone who is too successful, to level out, cut the heads off the tall flowers, that has become such a pervasive pastime on the Atlantic's eastern shore.
All that is a long way from an open-air concert. But when that audience sat back in its seats, I think it did so with a greater sense of comfort and security than you might find in England. However, it may be significant that Scotland still bellows its anthem and salutes the blue Cross of St Andrew with a fervour that would frighten nearly anyone else exposed to it. That, though, is driven by an emotion that is more tribal than national.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Miracle - or Meeracle?
What is a miracle? That was the question posed at a recent gathering, and it set me thinking. As a child, I first encountered miracles in the Bible, water into wine, the feeding of the five thousand and other amazing feats of Christ. In modern day-to-day life, however, the word has become devalued. Nearly every week newspapers talk of a miraculous escape or a miracle birth when all they mean is that someone has been more fortunate than usual. And when people talk about themselves they are more inclined than before to talk of a life-changing development, or even just an unusually good event as a miracle - a new job, meeting someone who turned out to be a life partner. And we all want to join in the party: anyone in a group who has not been the subject of a miracle is likely to feel left out or somehow lacking. We all want our share.
Yet for someone to win a new job or meet a wonderful romantic partner, they have to breathe, to exist, have the gift of life and the health to express joy. Surely that is the miracle - but as it is a miracle we all experience, maybe everything is a miracle and at the same time nothing is a miracle. We are; after that, nothing counts. That, though, is not good enough: we too must be showered with glitter.
But miracles have no objective existence. They are a status we confer on particular events, having deemed them worthy of that description. Atheists, I suggest, do not proclaim miracles: they do not stand up to the test of reason. However they exist only within a belief system, normally a religion. Believers thank God for a miracle, and as such they are an important part of the deity-disciple relationship. Indeed, they are the means by which a disciple affirms the existence of God. Only God can grant a miracle; I have just experienced a miracle; therefore God exists.
The trouble is that this argument is circular, for it is the believer who calls an event a miracle, and the believer has a vested interest in the existence of his or her God. There can be no independent adjudicator.
So are miracles merely meeracles, identified for the benefit of me, to confirm that I am worthy of receiving a miracle and to confirm the existence of the God in whom I otherwise merely believe? Or do they have some higher purpose?
Yet for someone to win a new job or meet a wonderful romantic partner, they have to breathe, to exist, have the gift of life and the health to express joy. Surely that is the miracle - but as it is a miracle we all experience, maybe everything is a miracle and at the same time nothing is a miracle. We are; after that, nothing counts. That, though, is not good enough: we too must be showered with glitter.
But miracles have no objective existence. They are a status we confer on particular events, having deemed them worthy of that description. Atheists, I suggest, do not proclaim miracles: they do not stand up to the test of reason. However they exist only within a belief system, normally a religion. Believers thank God for a miracle, and as such they are an important part of the deity-disciple relationship. Indeed, they are the means by which a disciple affirms the existence of God. Only God can grant a miracle; I have just experienced a miracle; therefore God exists.
The trouble is that this argument is circular, for it is the believer who calls an event a miracle, and the believer has a vested interest in the existence of his or her God. There can be no independent adjudicator.
So are miracles merely meeracles, identified for the benefit of me, to confirm that I am worthy of receiving a miracle and to confirm the existence of the God in whom I otherwise merely believe? Or do they have some higher purpose?
party time
What is it about the American psyche that loves that particular form of a party that involves a public display? I have been to three parties this weekend, two in Pasadena and one in the City of Industry several miles east, and I could have gone to a lot more. Common to them all was that they took place in the open air, they featured live music and stalls selling food and drink - and, of course, it helped that the sun shone. A little breeze scattered sheet music at one point, but that hardly mattered.
What does matter is the love of congregating outdoors. I don't say Americans, let alone Californians, are unique in this - Mexicans and South Americans love parades - but it certainly appeals to a distinct streak in American society.
The first party I went to, on Saturday evening, was the 30th annual Colorado Street Bridge party. This is the beautiful structure, often known as the Suicide Bridge for the number of deaths it has inspired, which spans the deep V of the Arroyo River that snakes through Pasadena. The bridge was built in 1913 and has several times been in danger of demolition in the cause of progress - most notably in the 1950s when the 210 freeway was being planned. But local pressure saved it, and its rescue has been commemorated for the past 30 years by closing the bridge for an evening and holding a party.
Hundreds turned up, and there is something very liberating about socialising on a stretch of ground that is normally in thrall to cars zooming over it at 30 or 40 mph. For the new driver, it can be quite hard to find as the entrance is hidden around a corner, adjacent to the freeway entrance. So for this occasion a separate pedestrian entrance was created on the nearby Orange Grove, where some of Pasadena's more ostentatious millionaires like to parade their wealth.
It wasn't cheap to get in: $15, mainly to swell the funds of Pasadena Heritage, the worthy body that did most to save the bridge and many other buildings in the area. The bridge itself was lined down one side with food and drink stalls, bandstands and tables and chairs. Unusually, alcohol was freely available, and not just weak beer: you could buy anything from a premium wine to a watermelon martini. But before you were allowed your first sip, you had to line up to buy scrip, tokens costing $1 each which you then handed to the stallholder, presumably to cut down on pilfering.
Like all bridge parties - and I've been to some on the upper deck of London's iconic Tower Bridge - the shape of the structure has a big influence on the atmosphere, for you are encouraged to walk up and down rather than stand around, and you naturally keep passing the same places, if not the same people. However, the wonderful curve of the Colorado Street Bridge (combined with the alcohol) ensured that no one walked in a straight line. When it was time to go I had eight scrips left, so to the surprise of the stallholder I bought eight $1 bottles of water and carried them off in their case. Waste not, want not, and all that.
On Saturday and Sunday the annual Ticket to the Twenties festival was held at the quaintly named Homestead Museum in the City of Industry. At one end of the park there was the bizarre sight of men in tuxedos, bow ties and formal black shoes milling about in the 90-degree heat, while dozens of people in regulation baseball caps, tee-shirts, shorts and trainers were claiming places to sit among the nearby trees. All became clear when the tuxedo'd gents (and one woman) started producing from their cases guitars, drums, saxophones and a bass. It was the ten piece Ian Whitcomb & His Dance Band, getting ready in Ian's immortal words 'to play for listening enjoyment and for dancing'. Ian, a cultured, English former pop star who now rides Route 66, claims that his ensembles, comprising accordion, ukulele, banjo, slide guitar, violin, sax and horn sections, xylophone, piano, bass and drums, are the only ones in California playing specifically for dancers: waltzes, tangos, foxtrots, one steps, two steps and even early rock & roll.
Back along the path which was to serve as a dance floor, local charities sold shaved ice, kettle corn, sugared almonds and soft drinks. Other bands, twenties and jazz, did their thing amid the Homestead buildings and one table operated a particularly complicated lottery, with different tickets for different prizes and all sorts of combinations in between. Top prize was a particularly ugly chrome barbeque which would overwhelm all but the biggest patio or garden. Still, at least the winner could put it on ebay.
Meanwhile, people opened out their folding chairs and politely jostled for the best positions from which to see Ian's band. There was a bit of leapfrogging: if someone dared to block someone else's view, the blocked person would start squawking and move their chair in front of their antagonists. That could have invited retaliation, but luckily good sense and Californian goodwill prevailed.
Like bands the world over, seemingly shambling chaos suddenly turned into polished and professional music as if Whitcomb's Wanderers knew nothing else - though the truth was that they hardly knew one another, having never even rehearsed together, so he proudly told us. Impossible to tell, though, and as the twenties melodies started wafting through the trees some remarkably well turned-out and accomplished dancers began to twirl on the makeshift dance floor. This encouraged some of the genuine audience, who jostled in their casual gear with the colorful flapper dresses, flat caps and co-respondent shoes of their costumed counterparts.
What is it about the twenties that still exerts such fascination? I think it was an upbeat decade when dancing was of a pace that today's 50 and 60 year-olds can reproduce with comfort. The 30s and 40s were overladen with the gloom of depression and war, and by the 50s and 60s the prevailing dances were a little on the energetic side, even in the climate of eternal youth that pervades southern California. So I predict the twenties will continue to live on, at least until the horrors of the second world war become a sufficiently distant memory for the 40s to take over.
As Ian and his band took their second break, we drove back to Pasadena for yet another open-air party: the formal opening of City Hall after a $117 million renovation to shield it from earthquakes.
We had missed the formal speeches, and arrived at a lull. People were sitting in audience formation in front of an empty platform which blared out recorded music while they waited for the Pasadena Pops Orchestra to turn up. More stalls selling food and drink, but alcohol was strictly ruled out - not sure why, if people could drink it the previous day on the bridge. Different bureaucrat, I suppose. The oddest sight was youngsters desperately trying to get rid of red tote bags covered in the white target logo of the Target retail chain - 'please take some, I'm tired of trying to give them away', said one. Imaginatively, each bag contained a chequers set which you could play on the target logos on one side of the bag, which quite a few were doing. Jugglers juggled (not very well) and a stilt-walker twirled a twirler with a flourish that threatened to tie passers-by in knots. Despite the promise of a 'fantasy light show,' the air of lassitude got to us so we went home to cook a BBQ in what remained of the evening, reflecting on the American love of meeting to sit around in the sunshine enjoying overpriced snacks and drinks.
The weekend's activities seem to me to be directly connected to the American love of parades, exemplified notably by the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade every new year's day and repeated round the country at every imaginable excuse. It seems ingrained in the culture, and I'd welcome any comments suggesting why this should be so.
What does matter is the love of congregating outdoors. I don't say Americans, let alone Californians, are unique in this - Mexicans and South Americans love parades - but it certainly appeals to a distinct streak in American society.
The first party I went to, on Saturday evening, was the 30th annual Colorado Street Bridge party. This is the beautiful structure, often known as the Suicide Bridge for the number of deaths it has inspired, which spans the deep V of the Arroyo River that snakes through Pasadena. The bridge was built in 1913 and has several times been in danger of demolition in the cause of progress - most notably in the 1950s when the 210 freeway was being planned. But local pressure saved it, and its rescue has been commemorated for the past 30 years by closing the bridge for an evening and holding a party.
Hundreds turned up, and there is something very liberating about socialising on a stretch of ground that is normally in thrall to cars zooming over it at 30 or 40 mph. For the new driver, it can be quite hard to find as the entrance is hidden around a corner, adjacent to the freeway entrance. So for this occasion a separate pedestrian entrance was created on the nearby Orange Grove, where some of Pasadena's more ostentatious millionaires like to parade their wealth.
It wasn't cheap to get in: $15, mainly to swell the funds of Pasadena Heritage, the worthy body that did most to save the bridge and many other buildings in the area. The bridge itself was lined down one side with food and drink stalls, bandstands and tables and chairs. Unusually, alcohol was freely available, and not just weak beer: you could buy anything from a premium wine to a watermelon martini. But before you were allowed your first sip, you had to line up to buy scrip, tokens costing $1 each which you then handed to the stallholder, presumably to cut down on pilfering.
Like all bridge parties - and I've been to some on the upper deck of London's iconic Tower Bridge - the shape of the structure has a big influence on the atmosphere, for you are encouraged to walk up and down rather than stand around, and you naturally keep passing the same places, if not the same people. However, the wonderful curve of the Colorado Street Bridge (combined with the alcohol) ensured that no one walked in a straight line. When it was time to go I had eight scrips left, so to the surprise of the stallholder I bought eight $1 bottles of water and carried them off in their case. Waste not, want not, and all that.
On Saturday and Sunday the annual Ticket to the Twenties festival was held at the quaintly named Homestead Museum in the City of Industry. At one end of the park there was the bizarre sight of men in tuxedos, bow ties and formal black shoes milling about in the 90-degree heat, while dozens of people in regulation baseball caps, tee-shirts, shorts and trainers were claiming places to sit among the nearby trees. All became clear when the tuxedo'd gents (and one woman) started producing from their cases guitars, drums, saxophones and a bass. It was the ten piece Ian Whitcomb & His Dance Band, getting ready in Ian's immortal words 'to play for listening enjoyment and for dancing'. Ian, a cultured, English former pop star who now rides Route 66, claims that his ensembles, comprising accordion, ukulele, banjo, slide guitar, violin, sax and horn sections, xylophone, piano, bass and drums, are the only ones in California playing specifically for dancers: waltzes, tangos, foxtrots, one steps, two steps and even early rock & roll.
Back along the path which was to serve as a dance floor, local charities sold shaved ice, kettle corn, sugared almonds and soft drinks. Other bands, twenties and jazz, did their thing amid the Homestead buildings and one table operated a particularly complicated lottery, with different tickets for different prizes and all sorts of combinations in between. Top prize was a particularly ugly chrome barbeque which would overwhelm all but the biggest patio or garden. Still, at least the winner could put it on ebay.
Meanwhile, people opened out their folding chairs and politely jostled for the best positions from which to see Ian's band. There was a bit of leapfrogging: if someone dared to block someone else's view, the blocked person would start squawking and move their chair in front of their antagonists. That could have invited retaliation, but luckily good sense and Californian goodwill prevailed.
Like bands the world over, seemingly shambling chaos suddenly turned into polished and professional music as if Whitcomb's Wanderers knew nothing else - though the truth was that they hardly knew one another, having never even rehearsed together, so he proudly told us. Impossible to tell, though, and as the twenties melodies started wafting through the trees some remarkably well turned-out and accomplished dancers began to twirl on the makeshift dance floor. This encouraged some of the genuine audience, who jostled in their casual gear with the colorful flapper dresses, flat caps and co-respondent shoes of their costumed counterparts.
What is it about the twenties that still exerts such fascination? I think it was an upbeat decade when dancing was of a pace that today's 50 and 60 year-olds can reproduce with comfort. The 30s and 40s were overladen with the gloom of depression and war, and by the 50s and 60s the prevailing dances were a little on the energetic side, even in the climate of eternal youth that pervades southern California. So I predict the twenties will continue to live on, at least until the horrors of the second world war become a sufficiently distant memory for the 40s to take over.
As Ian and his band took their second break, we drove back to Pasadena for yet another open-air party: the formal opening of City Hall after a $117 million renovation to shield it from earthquakes.
We had missed the formal speeches, and arrived at a lull. People were sitting in audience formation in front of an empty platform which blared out recorded music while they waited for the Pasadena Pops Orchestra to turn up. More stalls selling food and drink, but alcohol was strictly ruled out - not sure why, if people could drink it the previous day on the bridge. Different bureaucrat, I suppose. The oddest sight was youngsters desperately trying to get rid of red tote bags covered in the white target logo of the Target retail chain - 'please take some, I'm tired of trying to give them away', said one. Imaginatively, each bag contained a chequers set which you could play on the target logos on one side of the bag, which quite a few were doing. Jugglers juggled (not very well) and a stilt-walker twirled a twirler with a flourish that threatened to tie passers-by in knots. Despite the promise of a 'fantasy light show,' the air of lassitude got to us so we went home to cook a BBQ in what remained of the evening, reflecting on the American love of meeting to sit around in the sunshine enjoying overpriced snacks and drinks.
The weekend's activities seem to me to be directly connected to the American love of parades, exemplified notably by the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade every new year's day and repeated round the country at every imaginable excuse. It seems ingrained in the culture, and I'd welcome any comments suggesting why this should be so.
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