Just a soundbite- and a mutant goose...

This has been my first real lapse in blogs so far this year, for which I apologise and pomise a renewed effort on the posting front. The workload is beginning to ramp up, and I'm currently juggling the writing of my first ever full-length theatre script, a plethora of journalism assignments and of course the dreaded essays. There should be a blog about the Chinese Lunar New Year parade in San Francisco, and the evening I met a giant (no, really) coming up; but in the interim I wanted to make a quick note to say that two saturdays ago my Journalism class took me on a trip to the Lawrence Hall of Science to cover an event called an Open Make, which was essentially a showcase of some really nutty inventions. I saw some fairly wacky things there; a cardboard pinball machine; a completely functional computer game that was controlled by the player hitting a can of tinned tomatoes; and two really extraordinary girls called Annabel Dudash and Elsa Swanson.

My very own Mutant- provisionally titled Goosezilla.

The girls were exhibiting their Mutant Monsters business, which has become a huge hit in the Berkeley and Oakland area over the last three years. It’s the sort of artsy-kitsch project that could easily become a huge fad back in the hipster student zones of Norwich, and when I asked to meet the Makers I'd  expected a couple of edgy twenty-something’s with asymmetrical haircuts and ‘vision’: so couldn’t have been more surprised by the arrival of the two eleven-year olds; one in a white lab coat, the other in a huge fur hat with fox ears. They explained how they started Mutant Monsters by taking apart old toys and gluing them back together, handing their original Mutants out as party favors at Annabel’s ninth birthday. The toys were an instant success, and the two are now registered Young Makers, and a regular feature at the monthly Oakland Art Murmurs, downtown from Berkeley. Annabel wants to be an engineer when she grows up, Elsa an artist; and they have every intention of collaborating further in the future. Did they have a favorite mutant, I asked. 

“Well, we once took this Jesus,” Annabel explains, “and then we gave him some huge red thumbs,”

“And tentacles,” Elsa chips in,

“Yeah, and tentacles.” 

Watch this space, I think they're going to be huge. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Even the most embittered people won't be able to keep themselves from smiling.

Tonight, she skis with the trees..

The Laconic Australian, it turns out, is far less composed when you strap two elongated pieces of plastic to his feet and send him screaming down a mountainside. Me-time mark three was a stunning day of skiing in Lake Tahoe, at the Kirkwood Mountain Resort. There’s a superb ski shuttle company called the Bay Area Ski Bus that, for a mere $163, picks you up from Oakland or San Francisco, runs you down to Tahoe, includes lift ticket, ski hire, a day on the slopes, and then drops you home again with films and snacks to boot. 

The Kirkwood Mountain, from the parking lot.

 We got onto the bus from the Rockridge BART at half five in the morning. I was out cold instantly, on the shoulder of the bemused man next to me, and by the time I resurfaced we were in Tahoe. After the bus paused to put chains on the wheels we were heading up a mountain road- it had been snowing for two days previously and the trees were weighed down with a thick layer of frosting. Whenever you see ads for skiing or winter sports, it’s very easy to suspect the pictures are touched up, but out there on the mountain the sky really is that bright, china blue. Friends and family back in the U.K are sick of the sight of snow after a very bitter winter, but stateside the novelty had nowhere near worn off. 

Far side of the mountain!

The bus arrived at the resort at 9:30, and by 10am the Laconic Australian and I were making the first run of the day. A very fine, almost crystalline snow was still falling, and it was early enough that the runs were still very smooth. The terrain at Kirkwood is chiefly intermediate, with lots of blue runs full of unexpected inclines, and trees in every direction. It shortly transpired that the Laconic Australian’s favourite pastime was to vanish unexpectedly among thickets of pine. I’d never tried skiing among trees before, and for the first couple of runs followed enthusiastically in his wake, before eventually accepting that the narrow routes always left me face-down in a snowbank. 

The ski lifts run over to the far side of the mountain, which takes roughly half an hour, not including runs, and in the course of the morning the Laconic Australian and I skied as far as the resort’s border. A favourite route was the ‘Happiness’ trail, which had a perfect combination of wide runs and narrower twisted terrain; steep enough to get a decent speed without the imminent consequence of a broken neck. ‘Juniper’ and ‘Whisky Side’ saw us safely back to the base camp in the afternoon, and we spent the last couple of hours on the wider terrain that fed directly back to the mountain village. All in all we spent about six hours on the slopes, and looking at the terrain map I feel as though we barely scratched the surface. 

 Incredible value for money, a fantastic resort and a brilliant day. If time and money allow, I’ll definitely be going back. 

Laconic Australian, on a base camp run

A weekend in the City of Angels

Whenever I ask any fellow Berkeley students about Los Angeles I always get the same response- a sort of convulsive twitch that lingers around the eyes, and a question along the lines of ‘Why would anyone ever go there?’ The way it’s told, L.A. is a vast smog-filled nightmare of wide roads and stifling heat, and, as one classmate put it, ‘all the people there are assholes’. 

LA from the roof of the hotel on Sunset Boulevard

But as an outsider, there’s no escape from the romance that saturates Los Angeles. It’s the central hub of American filmmaking, it has the Walk of Fame, the opulence of Beverly Hills, and the Hollywood sign set firmly into the mountains. There are books, films, and my personal poison of Musical Theatre which revolve around the smoky City of Angels: and like Manhattan, San Francisco, or any other iconic American city there’s a pull to it that makes you think yes- I could step off the plane in this place and things would begin to happen. So, given the chance to spend a couple of days down there with my Dad I jumped at the chance, and flew down the coast on a clear Friday afternoon.

Coasting over the city towards the airport, then driving down towards Santa Monica showed me straight off: LA is huge. It sprawls in every direction from the ochre mountains to the bleached coastline. Oddly enough one of the places it really evoked for me was the roads that ran into Accra, the capital of Ghana. There was something so familiar about the wide tarmac roads, the dusty air and the constant gridlock, and it’s strange to think that, no matter how many worlds apart two places are they can ultimately end up looking very much the same. The shorefront at Santa Monica was like a scene from every coast-based sitcom ever made. Everywhere there were young, tanned beautiful people, jogging, rollerblading, exuding health and an overwhelming sense of my God we’re gorgeous. A late afternoon wind whipped sand up into the air, making the pier, with its Ferris wheel and dangerously rickety-looking rollercoaster look like a Polaroid photo.

I stayed on the Sunset Strip, much further uptown, a journey we foolishly chose to make during the rush hour. A fifteen-mile drive- in a straight line- took over an hour and a half as we crawled through the solid lanes of traffic. There was a lot to see as we went through, and the sudden contrasts in environment were amazing. Coming up on your left would be the turnoffs to Beverly hills, with palm trees and velvet lawns being thoroughly doused by industrial sprinklers; two minutes down the road on the other side would be a low concrete building, with a flashing neon sign advertising ‘GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS’ in lurid colours. Sunset Boulevard itself was much the same, different walks of life thrown into sharp relief against each other. There was a railcar-turned-restaurant opposite a hotel where scenes from Oceans Eleven were shot, a wooden-shack Mexican cabana and a glorified burlesque club all within a stone’s throw of each other. The sort of placed  that, if you lived in every day, would slowly strip you of any lingering grasp on reality. We ate on the front deck of  the SaddleRanch Chophouse- a saloon-styled steak joint with terrifying waxwork cowboys grinning down at you from the walls and a bucking bronco in the middle of the bar floor. Asked for spare ribs, received half a cow, which was followed by complimentary s’mores. We grilled them on the open brick fireplace, watching packs of Hells Angels go roaring down the strip.

The Universal Studios Globe

I was further removed from sanity the following day with my tour of Universal Studios. Described as the ‘home of entertainment in LA’, the studios have produced blockbusters such as Psycho, Jaws, Forrest Gump, Jurassic Park, and, notoriously, the Shrek franchise. As well as a working film lot, it is a thriving theme park, and one of LA’s biggest tourist attractions. I spent about four hours walking round the park, experienced some bone-shaking theme park rides (with non-existent queues); and the fascinating studio tour; which was ‘hosted’ by a televised Jimmy Fallon as we trundled around outdoor-sets and sound studios in open-ended trams. The whole experience was loud, bright, and left me feeling slightly hungover, but I couldn’t have passed LA by without seeing it.

Jaws looking washed up at Universal Studios

I don’t know whether I’d ever start twitching the way people in Northern California (NorCal) do; but then again I doubt LA would ever be a place I’d choose to live in long-term. Coming from a city like London where trains and buses can get you anywhere, the idea of a sprawling metropolis where a car becomes your lifeline is completely alien in concept. And I could see how living in an environment where the world of television, film and music bleed so closely into everyday life might start to drive a person insane. So, ultimately- as far as this year goes- Berkeley remains the place to be.