Vladimir Kagan's Blog

My Swiss friends and their foibles

Are They Obtuse or Obstinate

Copyright Vladimir Kagan February 21, 2015

  

This Blog is written to entertain you and keep me from going stir-crazy…

 When groping for something to write, I go to the dictionary; the word OBTUSE had become a favorite word in my lexicon.

 

        OBTUSE

        [uh b-toos, -tyoos]            adjective

1.             not quick or alert in perception, feeling, or intellect; not sensitive or observant; dull.

2.             Not sharp, or pointed: blunt in form

        

Reflecting on the definition of ‘obtuse’ I thought the word OBSTINATE was missing in the description. So, like a good scholar, I went back to my Webster’s Dictionary and found OBSTINATE

 

        OBSTINATE

        Ob-sti-nate                        adjective

1. stubbornly refusing to change one’s opinion or chosen course of action, despite attempts to persuade one to do so.

  

I had thought that the Swiss were OBTUSE…. and so was my Slavica “Gloria”…(just the name Slavica sounded obtuse). However, I must beg forgiveness of both: I have maligned them –The proper adjective might be more appropriatly : OBSTINATE. 

 

Having enjoyed Swiss hospitality for the past two months, it is very ungrateful of me to criticize my hosts, but here are some examples of Swiss Obtuseness and Obstinacy:

 

• Obsessed with security:  The Swiss imprison themselves at night, secured behind impenetrable shutters. In doing so, they keep out one of the reasons for loving Switzerland, the fresh scrubbed mountain air. Dare to leave them open and you are immediately identified as a foreigner. Swiss obsessions with security and punctuality go hand in hand, both go to the absurd.

• I remember some years ago being invited to a Fondue fest on a ski mountain. The lift stops operating at 7 PM… Erica and I arrived one-minute late. The attendant gleefully announced “Fertig” - Closed! So we sadly watched as our friends in the gondola ahead departed cheerfully up the mountain and we were left behind in the cold.

• The Genovese have a propensity for destroying their beautifully groomed farms and vineyards, replacing them with apartment houses. This is ostensibly to provide housing for an overcrowded city.  But the housing they built is so expensive, locals seeking shelter move to France… 60% of Geneva’s Policemen live in France!

 

 

These luxury condos are often occupied by foreigners on lush expense accounts. In typical Swiss fashion, the buildings are beautiful with many balconies and amenities, security being one of the featured amenities. These beautiful buildings are clad with rich marble, burnished concrete or subtle glass facades. They are clustered in manicured gardens. However, should you want to visit anyone living there, access requires a hike, sometimes a city block or more. That is fine for hardy Swiss mountaineers but almost impossible for impaired old folks like me.

   

The exit from the garage spill out into the middle of the plaza - the ominous retractable cylinders block any vehicular traffic from entering the compound.

 

A very attractive central plaza connects all the buildings of the complex - you can't even park a bicycle there without being reported to the police. You must park it in the proper enclosure

 

They do recycle in Geneva and these are the attractive bins provided for careful separation of the trash

 

The bicycle prison

Try to approach any of these buildings by car and you must drive into their subterranean parking lot. There you find a neatly designated handicap parking space and grab it while available and hobble to the security gate. Naturally the gate is locked; accessible only by a coded electronic device. There is no intercom to find the correct tenant, that would impinge on their privacy…  So you climb the stairs to the street level, which expels you into the middle of the “garden.” On rainy days, (not infrequent in Geneva) you must scurry to the front door, which is again locked with a secret code – no names.  The elevator is designated as “0” or sometimes RC. But try to get into the building and you are stymied.

 

•Every street intersection is monitored by a security camera. Go through a yellow light and you are tagged for speeding as you obviously were trying to beat the stop signal. Whammo - a double penalty.

 

• Weekends are the time to go out with family and friends – perhaps even to a museum, have a nice dinner in a restaurant. Not in Geneva, the Calvinist spirit prevails. Restaurants are closed on weekends, only the museums are open.

 

   

Geneva's latest cultural addition, the new Ethnological Museum

  

The mysterious entrance to the museum - find it if you can!

 

Approach the mirror and it magically swings open

 

First stop: the cafeteria for lunch with our Swiss friend Krista Nyfenneger and my sister

• Geneva’s latest cultural attraction is the M.E.G. The Ethnological Museum. It is an architectural masterpiece, a perfect aggrandizement for the team that designed it. Practical? Who needs it? There is an entrance ramp to ease access, but should you by chance stray to its unguarded edge and you are in danger of falling off and losing your life. Get to the front door – it appears that there is none - only a huge mirror reflecting your approach. As you near this barrier, the mirror opens magically and you walk into a pleasant cafeteria. No museum in sight: the museum is subterranean!  The Swiss have an inclination to build things underground. (must come from their long experience of building masterful tunnels.) I love this museum, it was my second visit and I happily will go a third time. If the  M.E.G’s architecture deserves the title of obtuse, the exhibit is a gem. Arranged in beautiful display cases, exquisitely curated, the displays are also identified in that other language; English.

      

 It's a mixes" kettle of fish" but what else can you expect from an Ethnological Museum?


 

• A few days ago, I had the pleasure of visiting a dear friend in the Maternity Ward of the Cantonal Hospital. This was her fourth baby, so she was no amateur in producing these bundles of joys. Still with Swiss obstinance, the little boy decided to take 7 hours to materialize in spite of induced labor.

   

After nine months and seven hours, a beautiful baby boy - just minutes old

• To further illustrate the obtuseness of Swiss architecture, join me in walking down the corridors of this immaculate hospital. The walls are decorated with mock-graffiti, enough to make anyone dizzy – certainly not befitting a maternity floor.

 

The inappropriate wall decorations on the Maternity Floor

• Finally: Slavica aka Gloria: She is the sweetest thing that has happened to me since Swiss chocolate. She responds to my every whim. But asked to do one thing out of her routine and her face darkens, the charm evaporates. She gets morose and stubborn. Right or wrong, she is always right!  She tidies to perfection. I am somewhat messy, perhaps more than somewhat! Still I like to be tidy, perhaps not as tidy as she would like me be. I like everything in its place – but if it’s not HER place, beware! Some women waddle, others mince, but Slavica parades like a soldier. Hers is a distinct thumping with a rhythmic beat that is audible throughout the apartment.

Sadly, Slavica and I will soon be parting company as I return home and she to her family in Serbia…

I miss her already!

 

P.S. This Blog is a farewell and thank-you gift to “Gloria” as she and I had conceptualized it over a month ago when I first referred to her as Obtuse. The image stuck. Over the following weeks, the Blog fell into place - hope you were amused.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Valentine's Day

The Spoiling of Vladimir Kagan

Copyright Vladimir Kagan February 14, 2015

 

Syb-a-rite
Noun
Plural noun: sybarites

A person who is self-indulgent in their fondness for serious luxury
Synonym: hedonist, sensualist, voluptuary, libertine, pleasure-seeker, epicure, bon vivant, bon viveur

A Sybarite was a native of Sybaris, an ancient Greek city in southern Italy. Sybarites were stereotyped as seekers of pleasure and luxury, and "sybarite" and "sybaritism" now connote such sensualism.


The Sybarites never had it so good!

I came to visit my sister and console her after the loss of her husband, David. Two weeks, perhaps three… who would have guessed that I would still be here almost two months later? For someone who thrives on activity and diversity, this could have bordered on insanity; incarceration in a sanitarium. No one stirs in the house until 10 am

But, why get up at 7 or 7:30, my usual “rise and shine” hour, when we get to bed closer to one-thirty or two? My wake-up call is the muffled sound of the steel security blinds being electrically retracted to allow the morning to penetrate. My room has a picture window overlooking a wooded landscape and a grandly restored turn-of-the-century mansion. Each morning I am greeted with a different setting; one day covered with a blanket of white glistening snow, the next brilliant sunshine, all too often though, the day is a gloomy gray with a thick cloud cover with no chance of burning off. Consequently, the occasional bright sunshine is a special treat.

 

Breakfast at 11, lunch at 2:30, tea at 4 and dinner always after eight… and often considerably later. Breakfast can be served in bed or on a small table in the library overlooking a bucolic winter scene. We face east and west so there is never a time of day when streaks of sunlight, if in fact there is sunshine, cannot penetrate the rooms.

Lunch is set out on a beautiful dining table capable of sitting fourteen but graciously set for five or six depending on who will drop in unannounced. The table is always replete with fresh flowers. Like most of the furniture in my sister’s house, the table is early Kagan vintage, beautifully preserved and loved. That alone makes me feel at home.

 

None of this would be possible without my sister's devoted staff: Espy who hails from Peru and Albano from Portugal - my Gloria in the middle is from Serbia

And then there is my sister’s loving attention. Need a manicure? The next day a delightful Spanish lady turns up to trim my nails: feet and hands. Feel stiff? - A charming Swiss masseuse appears to ease the pain. Need a haircut? you don't go to a barber, she takes me to her coiffeur.

A selfie at the hairdresser 

The cook in the kitchen prepares divine meals, but my sister is an inveterate chef and cannot stay out of the kitchen. Her soups are to die for! The cuisine hovers between healthy and Asian, neither of which catch my fancy… but never mind, Tanya gives me a free hand to shop for my favorite food: “Schweinerei” – pig food: sausages, salami, jambon cru, prosciutto, cheeses galore and crispy fresh-baked bread… And of course after dinner chocolates. Have I gained weight? Of course not. Ha ha!

My favorite "Pig" food

To ease my anticipated tedium, Tanya wisely assigned Slavica Rnjak, better known as Gloria, to entertain me; keep me out of trouble and definitely spoil me. (Not in the biblical sense), But pampered I am. Every morning my clothing is carefully laid out – color matched from head to toe. It helped that my departed brother-in-law had a closet full of the finest polo shirt with Hermes labels; cashmere sweaters from Italy, and sweat suits in every color imaginable. My sheets are changed every other day… new linens bring new colors. The chest of drawers, now assigned to me, was originally built by my father, one of my earliest designs dating to the mid-forties. The drawers are carefully organized and tidied daily… open one and it looks like a display at Saks 5th Avenue or any high-class men’s haberdashery.

                                                    These photos don't need a caption!

I have a desk bigger than any in my homes in America. I have two screens for my computer to keep me in touch with my office and monitor new design development. I sketch, I scan, I write Blogs… why bother to come home?

She invites friends for fun musical evenings -Fabrizio Chiavetta is a concert pianist, who plays magnificent accordion... here is is playing both at the same time

When Tanya's daughter Vicki arrived from Milano, we went straight out for a great steak dinner... Do you see the family resemblance?

Polly Hering, Tanya's devoted daughter, who lives in Geneva,  at  Art Expo

 

We go out for lunches - Tanya makes certain that I have a pretty girl as my guest: Nadege Chambrier studies environmental engineering in Lausanne - Albano and Gloria joined the fun 

some afternoons are so sunny and warm that I can sit on the balcony and do designs

A frigid walk along Lake Geneva with "ice fences" created by the freezing name of lake fish dish in genevaspray

The reward for a frigid walk; a delicious Peche de lac lunch with my friends Marion and Jullius

A twilight stroll along the lake

On one of our cultural outings: a visited to the Fondation Martin Bodmer that houses a World class book collection. the exhibit space is purposely located underground not to obstruct the magnificent view of the lake. The Swiss architect  Mario Botta did a sensitive design inserting a modern structure into an historic landscape

 

How do I keep fit in such a sybaritic environment? It’s not easy. Gloria and I take walks in the neighborhood and photograph chimneys, iron gates, old buildings and gnarly trees. Friends take me walking along the lake. Geneva has diverse museums to visit on gray days. I have found a superb trainer who makes me crawl on the floor and works on my abs. When I do finally leave here, I will surely have the much treasured six-pack stomach muscles Arnold Schwarzenegger is so famous for!

Doing my abs in the gyms with my  trainer

Vladi the tree huger can't resist an ancient tree

And finally: a clear sign to curb your dog!

 

 

 

Thinking of you!

 

 

Happy Valentine to all my girlfriends 

See you stateside…sooner or later. 

A little Weekend Excursion

A Visit Across The Border Into France

BOUTIQUE BOTANIC

 

Copyright Vladimir Kagan February 1, 2015

 

 

This Blog is not going to be Earthshaking, but my life in Geneva has taken an introverted course. Trivia becomes important and so I will entertain you with an afternoon’s outing.

 

France is only minutes from my sister’s home. The border is unmanned but if you cross it as a foreigner, you’d better have your passport… just in case.

 

Gaillard is a none-descript town on the other side of the border. It is a bedroom community for a lot of foreigners who work in Geneva but can’t afford its housing.

 

A selfie with my friend Gloria at the entrance to the Boutique Botanic

  A

        Magnetized plant holders for the refrigerator

 Tanya’s favorite destination is Boutique Botanic – a supermarket for all things creepy, crawly, swimming or that fly. If it grows in the garden, on a terrace or in a pot, it is a gardener’s heaven. When Tanya gets into the doldrums, this is her destination.

    

Things Creepy crawly that live in the water

Bug eating flowers                        Friendly flowers

Bonsai trees - not the best I've ever seen - but good for starts

 

My sister Tanya with her adorable dogs - two miniature poodles and a chihuahua 

The mission: Buy dog food for her three adorable little yappy dogs; get some pots for repotting her plants; pick-up a fish or two for her aquariums. Yesterday she was the mid-wife to 13 guppy babies. It took her three hours to help the mother-fish through her ordeal. If ever there were a fish veterinarian, Tanya would qualify. She massaged the mother’s tummy until one by one they popped out into the fish-world. It is important to separate these babies from the mother and the adults in the tank as they are cannibals and consider their offspring’s a great hors d’oeuvre.

 

 

Thousands of fish and coral aquariums

Thai fighting fish in prison - if you put them into the same tank they'll kill each other

 

But I divert: Tanya can never pass a birdcage without acquiring just one more tiny member for her aviary. Selection is a delicate process; watching their flight, ferreting out the weak from the most energetic and prettiest.

      

Birds galore


...and for decorating your shelves there is an entire menagerie

Tanya's great friend, Isabella, choosing greens for the salad

An amazing selection of raw honey

On this visit we bypassed, the mice, hamsters, turtles, guinea pigs chinchillas, and rabbits. However, we selected a few more must-have fish for the aquarium, chose two pots for her plants and to fill the balcony, selected one more tree. I nearly forgot to mention: attached to this Nature Emporium is a grocery store selling only bio-foods. (None of which looked appealing to me) but Tanya stocked up a week’s supply…I longed for a French Crepe Suzette… not available at Botanic. But we did make them at home, loaded with sugar and flambéed Grand Marnier… not bad for an afternoon’s outing.

My Palm Beach Week

My Road To Stardom

Copyright Vladimir Kagan, January 11, 2015

 

If the Chinese New Year is the Year of the Goat, mine will be the year of Stardom. NOT that I have been beckoned to appear in a film or design a Hollywood movie set - though this is only the beginning of the year! However, my brush with Hollywood and bathing in its reflected glory is well on its way. I spent Christmas Day having dinner with Woody and Sun-yi Allen, their family and my friend Melanie Courbet.

 

Dinner with Woody and family

 

Most of you know that I spent a good deal of my winter in Palm Beach:

 

Palm Beach is la-la land. You know you are heading to the sunshine state when the airline gate has a dozen or more wheel chairs lined up for boarding…. I am amongst those fortunate people because we board first – have preferred seating and whiz through security like a racehorse!

 

Palm Beach has gorgeous sunny weather, warm waters, beautiful blue skies and is just plain boring.

 
The glorious empty beaches in Palm Beach

The effortless flight of the pelicans

The Serene view from the terrance of my apartment

A glimpse into Edwina Sandys private sculpture garden

The latest attraction - The Palm Beach Outlet Mall

To its credit, Palm Beach has an extravagant new shopping Mall that keeps the ladies occupied. For the boys, the beach is lovely but the sand is granular, not like the white stuff of the Caribbean that sift so gently through your finger. Nor is the girl watching a match for the bottoms-only bikinis of St. Barths.

 

To continue on my road to stardom, I arrived in Palm Beach just in time to attend an intimate “Sixth Day of Christmas Dinner”. A party seated for fifty of the nearest and dearest friends of Michael Kovner and Jean DeMonyaillou, Palm Beach’s glamorous party givers.

 

The dining room of the Palm Beach Yacht Club

 

This was only the start on my road to stardom! This week, I was nominated, (for the fifth straight year), for the coveted Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s 2015 National Design Awards, “Honoring excellence, innovation, and lasting achievement in American design. Your nomination is as an individual and pre-qualifies for excellence in the following category: Lifetime Achievement.” This is the Oscars of the design world!!!

 

 

The challenge in Palm Beach is how to overcome the doldrums? Simple: you import your own entertainment! Who better than an Oscar nominated movie Queen to liven up the party?  Our friend, Lilly Kilvert was nominated for creating the setting for the ‘Last Samurai”. Lilly has been a fixture in our Nantucket lives since she was a teenager. One of five children, Lilly went to Hollywood to follow her muse and became one of the most sought after Production Designers in the industry. (For other films that you might have seen, see list below.)

 

Lilly Kilvert on my terrace

Lilly is a great friend of my Daughter Jessica, (whom you have met in many previous Blogs). They thought three days in Palm Beach would be just the right tonic before Lilly returned to the wilds of Kazakhstan and to Budapest for staging the Vatican chambers and Streets of Rome, which Genghis Kahn was plotting to conquer.

For Jessica it was a respite from her blowtorches, gems, precious metals and designing her edgy jewelry. Needless to say, they needed a dinner party to help liven up their few days with me.

 

Lilly had just recently returned from Malaysia where she has spent the last ten months staging Netflix’s Marco Polo series. With the help of 400 staff artists, carvers, technicians and carpenters, she has recreated the Mongolian Desert in Kazakhstan, Mongol Palaces and Song dynasty on Pinewood stages in Southern Malaysia.  

 

Lilly Kilvert's set designs for Netflix's Marco Polo

Palm Beach is the playground for the rich and famous. Not to be outdone, I followed suite by hosting an intimate dinner party to introduce Lilly and Jessica to a dozen of my nearest and dearest. To accomplish the transformation of my apartment from bachelor digs into an elegant dining room, we needed new wine glasses, crescent-shaped salad dishes, extra-large soup bowls, a pair of Fu Dogs, dozens of roses, an electric mixer, a marble mortar and pestle, an extra-large new table cloth, napkins, dozens of candles, flowers, a new three piece pants suit for Jessica, a sweater for me and replenish the mostly empty liquor bottles in the bar…This essential shopping took most of the day. Finally home by four o’clock, Jessica started her magic cooking and was finished in plenty of time for our glamorous dinner.

Jessica not only acted as my hostess, but also cooked up the most divine dinner ever given in my apartment. My star-filled guest list included artist Edwina Sandys, Churchill’s granddaughter; Nat and Lucy Day, the most entertaining hosts in Palm Beach; Michael and Jean, without whom, no party is complete; Dale Coudert, Palm Beach’s intellectual soul and “custodian” of one of the finest examples of a 1920’s Addison Mizner mansion complete with original furnishings… hers home qualifies as truly elegant shabby gentility – as opposed to my apartment, which is just shabby. For glamour, we had the lovely Sherril Goggin of Los Angeles, Nantucket and Pam Beach and Suzanne Klein the belle of Loveland Texas, Houston, Santa Barbara and Boca Raton. She has been my beloved client for many years and is truly a dynamo. Her business empire, Richland Corp of Houston owns commercial real estate all over the South West; her oil explorations discover oil where others have failed. I recently introduced her to my friend Zaha Hadid at which point she contracted Zaha to build Richland’s Headquarters in Houston Texas. Suzanne is particularly proud of the fact that her company is run by three women and together with Zaha, these four women will build the first Hadid monument to modern architecture in the West.

  

"The Dinner Party"

At my apartment in Palm Beach

Jessica’s innovative menu started with an hors d’oeuvre of goat cheese marinated in garlic and spices, followed by a subtle pasta topped with rare bottarga caviar. The main course was in celebration of the recent detent with Havana; a spectacular Cuban Fish soup, elegantly spiced and served with saffron rice, topped with a piquant rouille. For desert we burned through all the garlic and spice with a Colonel; Lemon sorbet laced with Russian Vodka.

 

 Back home - flying over Manhattan

 

By the time you read this epistle, I will have joined the millions of souls suffering through the coldest week in the North …. Hey, maybe Palm Beach doesn’t sound half so bad!

 

 

 

 

Links to films for which Lilly Kilvert was Production Designer:

 

The Outlaw 

 2008

Valkyrie 

 2006

The Pink Panther 

 2003

The Last Samurai 

 2002

Hart's War 

 2001

Heartbreakers 

 1999

The Story of Us 

 1998

The Siege 

 1998

City of Angels 

 1996

Ghosts of Mississippi 

 1996

The Crucible 

 1995

The American President 

 1995

Strange Days 

 1994

Legends of the Fall 

 1993

In the Line of Fire 

 1993

Jack the Bear 

 1991

Late for Dinner 

 1990

I Love You to Death 

 1989

Worth Winning 

 1987

Surrender 

 1985

To Live and Die in L.A. 

 1985

The Sure Thing 

 1984

Deep in the Heart 

 1981

The Loveless

 

 

 

Architecture RevisIted

In Search of Meaningful Architecture in New York

My Christmas present to all of my fans - wishing you a happy New Year!

Copyright Vladimir Kagan December 20, 2014

 

Four years ago I scoured New York in search of architectural satisfaction and could only find relics of a glorious past. Nothing in modern spoke to me nothing was visually gratifying. * This year I gave it another whirl, really determined to find redemption in modern. The exercise turned out to be feeble but all is not lost.

 

 

 

*See my Blog   A Tour through New York Streets July 8,2010

 

*For a more jaundiced review on the subject, read the New York Times’ recent editorial

How to Rebuild Architecture

By STEVEN BINGLER and MARTIN C. PEDERSEN DEC. 15, 2014

 

 

This is my review of some of the city’s newest and sometimes not so new buildings, some that appeal to me - others that don’t. (In Nantucket it was a walk through the Moors). In New York it’s whatever I could see from the passenger seat of my car - a worm’s eye view of the city.

This, in opinion,  is still one of New York's greatest - The Empire State Building construction started in 1929

 

Big spaces do not necessarily produce great works. The Freedom Tower (It has been renamed 1 World Trade) is tall and impressive. After much political back and forth- and the ineptitude of getting the project going, the design was finally watered down and Daniel Liebeskind’s original concept was redesigned by David Childs of the architecture juggernaut SOM. Conde Naste became the first tenant to move into the building in November 

(Tall towers scare me… they are too nice a target for mischief). The building is located at the far end of the Freedom Park. Its architectural statement has set the tone for the latest craze in modern architecture: Create a tall rectangular box,  then take a substantial diagonal karate-chop off it, - more than one is even better. And there you have the latest genre in 21^st Century Architecture. This has already set the trend for a number of new wannabes in the city.

 

The transportation hub was to be a monument of gracious architecture. Santiago Calvatava, the most imaginative architect that Spain has produced in recent years, took an open site and gave us a beautiful vision of a white dove in flight. The Port Authority bought the idea and made it the most expensive train station ever built; over $4 billion dollars! However, this glorious structure is buried amongst tall, inconsequential buildings virtually hidden from view.

 

Downtown Manhattan:  Enterprising real estate developers did not wait for the Freedom Tower to rise. They turned it into a residential neighborhood Downtown is now called "fidi" by the kids. The banks have all but moved elsewhere and Wall Street is more of a tourist stop then a place of serious business. Hundreds of buildings both residential and office have gone up since 9/11. The blighted neighborhood rapidly rebounded. Bravo for the entrepreneurs who had envisioned the future. But as my friend Ele said, “It’s like a bowl of M&Ms you don’t know which one to eat first.” – inconsequential architecture defines the neighborhood.

 
The new Karate chop wannabees

Cruisn' down the FDR Eastriver drive to the portal of Brooklyn:

and now we cross into Brooklyn on the venerable Brooklyn Bridge

 

Brooklyn's new skyline - driving up Flatbush Avenue

The new Barclay Center, a marvel of technology but short on aesthetics

Driving over the magnificent Brooklyn Bridge you come upon the new Barclay’s Sports Center; Barclays was designed by SHoP architects- 5 young kids with big ideas. They make their work about understanding the capabilities if technology - how 3d software in the computer can streamline physically making a building. Barclays could not have been made without a computer. Fascinating as it may be, it reminds me of a huge rust bucket, that’s what Cor-Ten steel does: it rusts. Non-the-less it makes an impressive statement as we drove up Flatbush Avenue and marveled at the rapid change in that Borough.

 

Much of my architectural journey followed the East River Drive, a beautiful way to ogle at the city. The NYU Hospital complex on the East River is a potpourri of elegant glass towers presumably well suited to their given purpose. One is hardly distinguishable from the other; glass towers with donor’s names in two-foot letter over the entrance doors, but because of crowded space, the buildings are barely distinguishable one from the other.

Every architect's favorite gimmick: use lots of mirror to reflect the other buildings often camouflaging their own creations


This is my hidden architectural treasure temporarily exposed by the big dig where once stood the Con-Ed Powerplant.

Ooop, a bird's eye view of Tudor City - we drove by too quickly to photo it from the car

There is a huge hole between First Avenue and the River where once stood the mammoth Con-Ed Power plant (long a blight on the neighborhood). The lot has been empty for years and is sprouting an urban forest with trees and grasses. For the time being you can see the heroic Tudor City, built in the 1920s by Fred French as the first high-rise residential complex including a hotel and other amenities. Prior to that the neighborhood was a derelict no-man’s land of hoodlums and squatters. First Avenue was home to dozens of slaughterhouses and the vast Con Ed Power generating plant. My first factory was located opposite this squalor on East 44^th Street. But the neighborhood was soon to change forever with the building of the United Nations. If you slow down long enough, there is one building on Second Avenue that has always fascinated me; a corn-cob rising some thirty or forty floors with a splendid view of the East River all the way up Long Island. This is not a new building… it has been there for at least thirty years. Normally you couldn’t see it obscured by the power plant, but now, for a little while it has its place in the sun.

 

The view from my apartment: lhe latest skyline interruption: 432 Park Avenue - 1,396 feet tall

And here come the wannabees!

New York is the city that never sleeps. But someone was asleep on the switch when they permitted the construction of a monolithic tower standing 1,396 feet tall: taller than the Freedom tower, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, 432 Park Avenue. Rafael Viñoly designed  a 10 x 10 structural grid of concrete. This makes a strong shell and strong core so there are no interior columns – I can’t wait to get my first comission to design one of the interiors!  The building is touted to be the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere. Imagine the joy of living in a hermetically sealed building with a power failure! Don’t be fooled by the address, it is plunked into the middle of the block on 54 Street between Park and Madison Avenue where once stood the gracious but jaded Drake Hotel. Seen from my apartment window or a drive down Park Avenue, or approaching the city from New Jersey or Long Island you are greeted by this singular erection on Viagra. For me It flaunts the last vestiges of New York’s civility. There was a time were when a building in the middle of a block had to conform in height with its neighboring structures. This gave a harmonious silhouette to the street scene. However with clever manipulation of building codes, anything goes. Now that the civility mold has been broken, expect more of these behemoths. The other day, I drove on East 60^th Street between Park and Madison to find a hole in the ground announcing the next super monstrosity. 60th Street is one of New York’s busiest cross streets– the last street feeding into Central Park and 59^th Street – no right turn is permitted on Madison Avenue, it is always chucker-block full with traffic spilling into grid-lock on Park Avenue. Now envision a hundred story residential building with tenants driving in and out of their luxury garage. (Where was the city’s planning board???)

 

A fifties "Wedding Cake" Architecture along Park Avenue

 

As students, we scoffed at the proliferation of the post-war wedding cake architecture, mostly built in white glazed brick. The Genre was virtually owned by Emory Roth and Sons – Architect. These building sprouted up all over New York – East Side and West side. - In retrospect they weren’t all bad. Designed to meet strict building codes for air and sunlight; the many setbacks provided terraces and penthouses for dozens of tenants. And yes, sunlight did filter down to the street. The windows were bad and often leaking, the ceilings were low, the little square parquet floors were rather heinous. Air conditioning often came as an afterthought and these buildings now sprout hundreds of dripping units. Still, they respected the building code for height. Cunning builders sometimes squeeze another floor out by dipping the lobby entrance below street level. However, none of these buildings towered above the others.      

 

Redemption: Today, some the most pleasing architecture are those buildings that have been shoehorned into tiny spaces. Where once stood a modest brownstone between two apartment buildings, new low-rise building have been neatly inserted into their place - decent modern without despoiling the neighborhood.

           

                                                  

Not all great buildings are residential - here are a few others that I really like


A storage facility in the Bronx - a renovated warehouse downtown NY

I can't reist the "old" - I guess that I am a nostalgic octeneratian after all

A wacky relic of the good old days

The last vestige of civility at the Battery - the old sailors home and church

How did this one get left behind in 2nd Avenue?

Is this cheating? I do love the marriage of these two Metropolitan Museum building under one glass roof

 

 

New York may be the city that never sleeps… it’s certainly true of its architecture - More and Upward!

 

 EPILOG

New York is not an easy place to be an architectural trendsetter. Her are five Architects and their buildings that have filled the bill:

 

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Seagram building 1957 was a trendsetter; build in Bronze, clean, monolithic and monumental. Asked why Bronze, Mr. van der Rohe replied “Because I like it!”

 

In 1952 The Lever House by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owing & Merrill started the glass trend. It sits airily on a square block on Park Avenue. Mercifully it is Land Marked and protected from greedy development.

 

Frank Lloyd Wright defied the skyscraper and gave us the poet Guggenheim Museum in 1959. I was proud to have met Wright during that period. He was much defiled by his contemporaries for degrading 5^th Avenue.

 

The TWA terminal by Eero Saarinen, 1962 is one of my favorite building in NYC. I would fly TWA whenever I could just to pay homage to this lyrical, totally impractical masterpiece. (Saved by Landmark designation)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today, I am hard pressed to find any new candidates for this short list! (No wonder Mid-Century design holds us in such awe today!)

 

Memories

 

 

Three Years Ago Today

Copyright Vladimir Kagan, December 13, 2014

 

Erica Wilson as we've all got to know her with her cowboy hat and feather! 

 

This is my daily reminder of  Erica. Her hat and the Erica Chaise in my bedroom

 

Three yeas is a lifetime – Three years is within living memory – Three years is a life changer –  It was three years ago that my darling wife Erica left me.

 

Life has its cruel ways: here today and gone tomorrow, not planned, just plucked out of my life. Even as I was holding her hand, still warm and blood coursing through her veins she was gone. I held on for twelve hours not believing the enormity – the life changing moment. Three years to this day, my life changed forever. I was cast adrift as her spirit soared into the heavens and I was left holding a cold hand. This was not the script I had written for myself. It is traditional that the wife outlives the husband.

It was not to be. Life is a gamble and God deals a wicked card. You are expected to accept and carry on. You are not alone – that is of little comfort.  But God also doles out an opiate that lets you survive. It is buried in memories, in flashbacks, good times dominate –others diminish. I was not perfect but she was. What lingers in the mind is the harmony we enjoyed for fifty-five years. Me, the scrooge who loved to kill Christmas and she, who lovingly bought presents for one and all, the more was better. Our bedroom became the warehouse for piles of accumulated gifts. Wrapping never happened until the night before Christmas. Scrooge was sucked-up into the process and like Ebenezer, his heart melted and willingly, happily joined into the festivities. This, of all times, is when she left me. The unwrapped presents accumulating in the room and dinner parties to accept and decline. Christmas cards to be written and addressed and now tell the world that I was now alone.

 

She is gone. She left the dining room table filled with ancient family photographs that we were meticulously pasting into photo-albums. Her father, Colonel Wilson in Mesopotamia, little Erica driving a goat car in Bermuda, Major Spragge her stepfather, looking dashing in his uniform as the A.D.C. to the governor of Bermuda – Mummy England, Erica’s elegant mother, looking smashing dressed for a queen’s tea party. And there were photos of little Vladi and his sister Tanya, looking shy and demure as tiny tots in traumatized Nazi Germany. There were photos of my family braving it out in very difficult times. Those albums remained on the table for weeks until we realized the task was more than we could face and so once again they were swept into storage boxes, awaiting a second spurt of nostalgic energy and there was more; two thousand pieces of Erica’s needlework to be sorted, cataloged, appraised and donated to select museums. This is still a work in progress, three years after her death. Erica was amazingly prolific. A quiet plodder who got things done. Sixteen hard cover books, thirty-six television shows shown over the entire English-speaking world by WGBH and the BBC. She wrote a newspaper column called: “Ask Erica” distributed by the Chicago Tribune Syndicate. She designed hundreds of custom needlework projects for her students and clients. She designed the kneelers and vestments for some of the most important churches in America. And she had time to cater to her very demanding husband, we both probably ignored our children, who had to fend for themselves a lot of the time, but at least no weekend went by without a family ski trip or sailing outing.

   

Colonel George Wilson in the first World War and Drorothy "Mummy England" to all

Erica's parents

  

 Erica with her Dad

 

The dashing Major Basel Spraqqe, ADC to the Govenor of Bermuda - Erica's Stepfather

 
And on the other side of the pond, my little sister Tanya and me being very pensive



Annecy and Ondine Kagan the two clones of Erica

Her’s were the days of writing letters in legible monastic handwriting. She never learned to type, the computer was complete anathema. We had stored all her family’s letters in ancient wooden boxes and on visiting storage bins in Europe, we found an equal number of Erica’s letters written to her mother. A perfect subject for the book “Conversations with Mummy”. Erica had always wanted to write a cookbook, of course, heavily laced with needlework illustrations, the title: “Really Dull English Cooking for When you are Pregnant or have the Flu”. These books still await a willing historian to take on the task.

 

Erica's long-hand notes in her inimitable handwriting

 

Drawings from Erica's hundreds of sketch books

It is difficult to carry on in her spirit. She wore big shoes; I’ve found no one to fill them. My children each carry a good slice her genes. Our son Illya inherited her amazing artistic strain. She painted beautifully, so does he. Erica would draw incessantly, as does Illya. They both have an overwhelming love of nature.  Of all of my progenies, Illya’s daughters, blond and slender, most resemble their grandmother. Jessica, the oldest of our children, has inherited Erica’s endless energy and in her career as a jewelry designer and maker, uses so many of the needle work skills that her Mother taught her. She is a devoted embroiderer and often lays aside her blowtorch to pick up a needle and thread. Vanessa worked closely with her mother in her shops and now lovingly runs Erica Wilson Nantucket, one of the Island’s most iconic retail locations. Vanessa carries on her mother’s tradition and teaches needlework classes to small children, guaranteeing a continuation of Erica’s legacy. Vanessa has been blessed with Erica’s caring and compassion. She is the mother hen of the family.

 

Erica, teaching little Jessica to do Crewel embroidery - a lesson that she has never forgotten

Erica teaching boys and girls on the beach in Nantucket
 
Vanessa, following in her Mother's foot steps, teaching a children's needlework class in Nantucket

Kids, horsing around in Vanessa's needlework class at the 1800 House in Nantucket

 

Erica was a marvel, she touches our lives daily. She had a saying for everything and she was stubborn: “You can agree with me or you can be wrong!” She strived to be tidy and admonished us all with ”A place for everything and everything in its place” – she inspired me daily with creative ideas “don’t sit on a table – its bad luck”, so I dutifully designed sofas with wide backs for sitting. She was a pesky; when a bug hit her there was no escape. She was a mosquito buzzing around my head relentlessly until I would finally acquiesce. My Fettuccini chair took ten years to put into production. It was only her persistence that made it happen. She was a frustrated furniture designer and sketched her ideas on paper table clothes, napkins or envelopes and then persisted until I adopted them into my designs. She was the inspiration for so much of what I did.

 

Erica may now be teaching needlework to the angels, but she has left her imprimatur here on Earth!

 

Yes, my darling Erica – I miss you – but you have never gone away.

 

 

Erica and I traveling the world in her ubiquitous straw hat

   

Our happiest moments were those spent together in the Swiss Alps. Why not Nantucket, you might ask... because Nantucket is where we worked while Switzerland is where we vacationed.

 

 

The Quiet Season

Nantucket in the Quiet Season

Copyright Vladimir Kagan, November 27, 2014

 

 

 

This is Thanksgiving weekend. In years past, I shared our hilarious Thanksgiving festivities. This time I want to share the quiet season; the pleasure of seeing leaves floating in puddles, the thrill of seeing trees devoid of their foliage, showing off a filigree of branches and twigs.

“A Walk in The Woods” was one of my favorite books about the author’s trek of the entire Appalachian Trail - all 2,000 miles of it! For me a half- mile walk through Nantucket’s moors and grasslands is an unbelievable treasure. It is a quiet, serene experience. There is no longer fall’s vivid display of colors. Instead you see the majesty of barren trees, berry-laden bushes and golden grasses swaying like waves in the sea. Leaves die quietly on country roads turning from burnished reds and gold to mellow shades of taupe. Once flaunting brilliant colors, they are now shrived in size and reveal their delicate veins. You must look down at the ground to see the last leaves plastered onto the wet pavement or blowing past your feet by a burst of wind.

     

 

The landscape is transformed into a panorama of muted colors against a gray sky. Threatening clouds whisk across the somber heaven. I am in love with this time of year; it has its own special beauty. A tree that once bore leaves and berries has long since died; its barren stems become a sculptors dream. Dressed in shades of grey with white trimmed windows, the distant town lies quietly on the horizon, only the white church steeples reach above the roofs.

 

Fall in my garden has its own time schedule. First to drop are the leaves of the wild cherry and crabapple trees. The rose bushes have long ago shed theirs. Last is my Japanese maple, it holds on to its foliage through wind and cold, but overnight, like the strike of a conductor’s baton, all leaves drop to the ground and turn the muddied earth into a red carpet. These too soon drift away.

 

In other years a little snow had fallen to put a finishing touch on this idyllic scene. This year our temperate weather has eluded it. It will come sooner or later after I have left the Island. We have rain instead, lots of it - with blustery winds gusting to fifty, canceling all plane and ferries. We are once again an Island thirty miles out at sea, separated from the mainland by an angry ocean. Darkness descends early from the rain-filled sky casting a somber visage to my fall’s idylls. But even that has its allure. After all, what can be better than roasting chestnuts over glowing embers in the fireplace?

 

Me on a walk in the woods

My son Illya painted this picture of the same scenes in the fall

 

And finally, my friend Betsey, who encouraged me to walk every day and patiently carried my sit-stick for me to rest on when I got exhausted.

 

++++++++++++++

 

I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving

Vladimir Kagan Celebrates the end of summer

Just an Ordinary Summer on Nantucket

part 3

final installment

Copyright Vladimir Kagan, October 12, 2014

(posted from Geneva Switzerland)

  

PARTIES ON NANTUCKET

Vladi the party giver

 

This summer I hosted over a dozen dinner parties and entertained 100 guests mostly to uproarious chili dinners - al fresco in my garden. However, to celebrate my 87^th birthday I gave a sedate sit-down for twenty of my nearest, dearest and oldest friends, mostly octogenarians like myself, some of us hobbling on sticks, canes and crutches. A sumptuous filet mignon dinner was prepared by my clever, culinary daughter, Jessica, who drove up from Connecticut to wish me a Happy Birthday…thanks Jess!

One of the many dinner parties I hosted in my kitchen this summer

Bob and Ingrid Grueter, my old ski friends visiting from Aspen together with Lee Bordes another Aspen skier and myself - we've all skied together for over forty years

After their final recording session, the entire Coq Au Vin Band came for a Chili dinner: back row is Caleb Cressman the band's leader, Andy Harris the fabulous trumpeter, foreground Gordon Gund, Joanna Hay the violinist, Marjan Shirzad from the Whaling Museum, Lindsay, Caleb's wife and Anne Gund 

 

No room for the high and mighty - everyone in my house pitches in. Here is the world-renown art appraiser, Ellen Lake-Ewald and me shucking corm for twenty guests

The three musketeers, Jeff, Reed and Steven  flew up to 'Tucket for some fishing but first stopped to visit me for the BEST martinis on the Island - Vladi-tinis!

 

 setting up for an intimate Fondu Bouginion party

The party grew and grew until finally ten forks were being dipped into the communal fondu pot

Here are two of the bevy of beauties that usually gather in my kitchen: Tina on the left, my Serbian housekeeper with my friend Amy Lau, New York's hottest interior designer

 

After dinner entertainment in the living room with Australian virtuoso musician, Hugh McDonald Playing his guitar and Me tootling along on my accordion

The perks of being a party giver - you get to kiss all the girls!

The Nantucket Double Dip is not a dance… it is a typical Nantucket social weekend with two or more parties to attend. My most audacious Dip was a party I hosted, with my guests invited to arrive at 7 pm. I managed to escape with three lovely ladies, my houseguests for the weekend, to attend another party… just before my guests were scheduled to arrive. By the time we returned, my party was in full swing…we were hardly missed! Over twenty friends were on hand for one of my Chili fests. In

classic Vladimir fashion, dinner was served after nine and guests hung in till after mid-night.

 

 

ILLYA KAGAN’S ANNUAL ART SHOW

Illya Kagan's annual reception at the Westmoor Club

The unofficial end to the summer is not Labor Day; it’s my son Illya Kagan’s spectacular art-show extravaganza. This is THE event of the season… He plans it annually for the last week of August to give himself time to finish the forty or more paintings he creates yearly. It is a tour de force as he paints en plein air in all seasons; rain, sunshine, nights and sometimes snow. His show has become a “le must” on Nantucket’s social calendar. Hundreds of people crowd the Westmoor Club’s huge gym for an elaborate vernissage of delectable food and a generous open bar. The show takes Illya two days to install and another two to dismantle. It is a colossal undertaking but worthwhile when you see all those red dots embellishing so many paintings…Of course I am proud of my son!

A few of the forty or more paintings at the exhibitions

The party in full swing

....And finally the annual family photo of me and the granddaughter: Gabriella, Annecy, Sophia, Ondine and Olivia... Mallory was missing as she had to work

Two generations of Kagan painters: Illya giving his daughter Ondine some pointers on painting en plein air

 

DESIGNING ON NANTUCKET

In spite of my sybaritic summer, I actually find time to draw and create new designs for a collection of limited edition art-furniture for The Ralph Pucci Galleries in America and the Carpenter’s Workshop Galleries in Paris and London. Chris Eitel, my wingman for all seasons, interprets these designs into AutoCAD to feed into our new 3D printer. This machine is a wicked, cantankerous and disobedient gadget but gives us a significant leg-up on design development…I am able to study each design in miniature and make corrections before going into full-scale prototypes.

 

From sketch to 3D modeling

My freehand sketch of a potential daybed to be cast in bronze - part of my limited edition series

Chris' computer interpretation of my design

The bench as it comes out of the 3D printer with all of the debris that supports the delicate legs while printing

The 3D print of my original design

The intricate detailing of a new chair's arm done by Chris on his computer

 

My first love is still pencil on paper and then developing the new designs in clay.... there is a hands-on pleasure lost when the computer gets involved. I wish that I could show you the full repertoire of my new designs that I have created this summer, but for obvious reasons, they must be kept under wraps until their introduction in 2015.

model making

 

 

When 3D printing becomes too complex to prepare, I still make clay model of the project. Above is proposal for a "Sea Coral" lamp

 

Lectures

On a lovely sunny afternoon, I gave an illustrated lecture to an attentive audience at Audrey Sterk's Gallery... the bottom photo is Audrey thanking me for the talk... the bear-hug was worth the effort!

 

Scrimshaw

 


And on rare occasions I still draw and do scrimshaw on an antique whale's tooth... this is a friend's house




  

It was sometimes difficult to look at a cloudless sky with temperatures in the 80s, dreaming about the beach or a sail but continue to slog away on a sketchpad…  Chris and I welcomed the rare blustery day when we could work without regrets.

 

 

......Hey, it’s been a hell of a great summer!

 

 

 

A summer's oddesy continued

Just an Ordinary Summer on Nantucket

part 2

Copyright Vladimir Kagan, September 27, 2014

 

CRUISING THE BEACH

 

Nantucket is a small town with a huge moat around it! The nearest land is 30 miles to the North – and 3,000 miles to the East…too far for a drawbridge! Being surrounded by water translates into heavenly beaches. Depending how the wind blows, you can always find one that is sheltered or full of waves. Go to the South shore and it is inundated with robust boys and girls – men and women… dedicated to surfing the waves… plus the “camp followers” who just sit and enjoy the sight.

 I go to Coatue, a scraggy peninsula made up of five isolated sandy coves inhabited by gulls and the occasional family of sunbathers… it is pristine and only accessible by boat (or a grueling hour-long drive on the beach)….

 

On the Nantucket Sound side of Coatue, things are a little different. Five miles along a gracious curve of land stands Great Point Light House, warning mariners of the deadly shoal to the north and east…and the greatest fishing grounds of our island… It is also home to hundreds of unwanted harbor seals.

 

The beach offers great views of sailboats, regattas, ferries, fishing boats and luxury yachts gliding in and out of the harbor. Not long ago, we spotted a behemoth of a yacht serenely swinging on its anchor in the outer bay, too big to enter the inner harbor through the shallow, narrow channel.. This had to be a big one!… It was one that had to be investigated. In Nantucket we are used to millionaire’s boats and 150 feet doesn’t even deserve a turn of the head. This one was a 332-foot long ocean cruising yacht. On a gentle day, we ventured out of the harbor in our little 13’ Whaler to explore this marvel. The boat’s statistics were dazzling: She was originally built by a Taiwanese shipping magnet, who named her “Evergreen”. When Dennis Washington, a Montana billionaire bought her, he gutted the ship and rebuilt it from the hull up in a Vancouver shipyard.  Several feet were added to her width, she now has an owner’s master suite of more than five thousand square feet, two guest staterooms, and twin cabins for the grandchildren. The interior belies her sleek modern exterior… Furnished with plush furniture, chandeliers, and over-the-top decorations befitting a grandiose Riviera hotel. For your comfort, she has twenty-five in crew! – Should you want to charter her, look her up on the Internet: Her new name is: Attessa IV

The super yacht,  Attessa IV, too large to enter Nantucket Harbor, rides majestically at anchor a mile off shore

 

ON THE WATER

 

That's me racing my indian in fairly challenging seas

 

Sailing with my friend Ian MacKenzie on his Indian

I still manage to pour myself onto my sailboat… albeit with some difficulty… it’s a ginger-balancing act… On decent days I race with my son Illya, We are no longer among the fleet’s hotshots… but we are never DFL (Dead F---g Last).  The weather has not always been cooperative with heavy winds and thunderstorms that have forced us to abort some races. However, It is on these blustery days that I finally find a little time to write this Blog!

 

 A few weeks ago, after returning from our race, ruminating about the day’s tactics and mistakes, sipping dark & stormies on the yacht club’s porch, there appeared a black cloud of acrid smoke over the harbor. My friend Chuck and I took one look and guessed a fire at sea. We jumped into my Whaler to investigate. A 32-foot powerboat was engulfed in flames and the burning Fiberglas was spewing toxic plumes into the air. We were virtually the first spectators on the scene and stayed until the Coast Guard finally extinguished the fire…no one was hurt… just a typical day on the water.

   

No one hurt, but a messy, stinking fire

Returning from the fire, we passed my friend, Michael's 150 foot glamorous yacht - the largest boat in the harbor... no one even stopped to admire it... it was only half the size of Attessa IV

 

BIRDS AND HELICOPTERS

My house is in the flight-path of the Medi-vac helicopter to our local hospital.  (We are fortunate that our hospital is affiliated with Boston’s Mass General Hospital, one of the finest facilities of its kind in the world.)

There are often three or more of these flights daily…

As you may remember from a previous Blog how much I admire birds… I also love airplanes. So I thought it would be exciting to watch one of these giant birds landing… Little did I foresee that my granddaughter Olivia would become a “passenger” on one of these flights, several weeks later! 

 

These "birds" fly noisily over my house day and night

Nantucket is the epicenter for Lyme disease, a devastating infection transmitted by the tiny deer tick. Deer ticks are smaller than a pinhead and very difficult to detect on your body. If you live on Nantucket, sooner or later, you will find one imbedded on your skin. Several days later, there usually appears a telltale ring of red around the bite, but there is no guarantee that this ring will ever appear. Obviously for Olivia there was no sign. Olivia was diagnosed with one of its deadliest symptoms. Lyme Carditis, which attacks the heart and causes extreme arrhythmia. When not properly diagnosed, it can be fatal. Fortunately Dr. Timothy Lepore*, one of the country’s leading authorities on Lyme, was supervising the hospital’s emergency room that night and called the shots right. Within forty-five minutes of leaving Nantucket that night, Olivia was hooked up to Mass General’s electronics… Six days later she was back on Island, happy as a clam…(thought she required an Intravenous stint direct to her heart in order to administer daily medication for a month.) Today, she is fully recovered and enjoying her semester abroad in Edinburg Scotland.

 Olivia (center) enjoying October Fest in Munich

*An endearing book was written about Dr. Lepore: ISLAND PRACTICE by Pam Belluck of the New York Times

 

 

PARADISE FOUND ON NANTUCKET 

The path to the hidden pond in my back-yard garden

My garden is my secret haven. It is a jungle; not your typical flower garden. Though I live in town, my “back yard” is serenely private. Sitting by my pond the Koi fish lazily swim around an island, ducking under water lily pads. They anticipate my arrival by the sound of my footsteps and are most eager to be fed. A willow tree protects them from the ever-prowling eyes of osprey and herons. There is a little waterfall flowing down a hillside, it looks so authentic that many of my guests were surprised that there is a running streams on Nantucket (of course there isn’t)…

 

I should meditate here daily… I don’t

My Buddha prayer house, brought back from Thailand many years ago

I am visited by hundreds of twittering birds to keep me entertained… birdbaths and feeders keep them happily in my garden. On rare occasions, they sadly also become a picnic ground for preying hawks… the gruesome telltale of their visit is a cluster of small feathers in the grass. I am saddened by this sight, but nature takes its own, sometimes-cruel course.

 

Visiting friends from Switzerland, Professor Charles Jefford and his charming wife Susan



The final Instalment with follow soon... Parties on Nantucket - Vladi as Chef d'cuisine - Illya Kagan's annual art show and finally me at work in Nantucket! Believe it or not, I also work there! 

 

Just An Ordinary Summer On Nantucket

In three installments

Part 1

Copyright Vladimir Kagan, September 19, 2014

A panoramic view of Nantucket harbor taken from the Whaling Museum roof

 

 

The countdown to the end of summer starts on the July 4th and comes to an official end at Labor Day… but in reality it lingers deep into September, when we have some of the finest weather with un-crowded beaches, streets and restaurants.

 

Here’s a sampling of my “ho-hum” summer

 

INDEPENDENCE DAY

This year the fourth started with a bang. The traditional Fireworks display was usurped by a full-fledged hurricane – Arthur! (The only one that reached our Island so far this year.) We had no damage other than a few downed branches and some temporary lowland flooding due to storm surge.

 Nantucket’s summer folks are a hardy bunch. In place of the traditional firework’s party, we were invited to a laptop dinner to savor the storm in our hostess’ beachfront house. Sixty guests turned up to snuggle down while the wind was howling outside. When we finally dared to leave, the wind was still blasting at 60 mph as we waded through 6” of water to reach our cars.

Hurricane Arthur gave us a soaking and a few boats washed ashore on the sandy beach... but no major damage -                                     Photos courtesy of The Inquirer & Mirror - Jim Powers photographer

 

 

FUNDRAISERS ON NANTUCKET

Summer life on Nantucket is frenzied… The social calendar is mind-boggling. Over 100 official fundraisers are gnawing at your heels to relieve you of your surplus money. You have to weasel your way through all the invitations not to end up in the poorhouse!

 

 

I went to the annual Art & Artisan Show for a fun starter. Fifty local and invited artisans from the New England area and beyond were housed under a tent. Potters, jewelers, weavers, quilters, carvers, beachcombers who build handcrafted furniture all exhit at the show. The show was sponsored by Small Friends on Nantucket, a non-profit facility that provides day care and early education for infants from 3 month through five years old. It is an unsung benefit for Nantucket’s working parents, who otherwise could not go out and earn a living.

 

  

My favorite ceramist Barbara Toole, Clay Art Studio, makes hand-thrown mugs, bowl, canisters in colorful glazes

 

Karin Sheppherd weaves traditional rag rugs out of discarded blue jeans and Nantucket red pants - Island Weaves on Nantucket

Birdbaths carved out of granite make beautiful attractions in a garden by sculptor Andrew Mintz

 

The three Bratd sisters - all were pupils of my wife, Erica Wilson, when they were little girls. Erica used to call them the Bratlings - Today they are all involved with Small Friends

 

Ginny Brown is a designer and quilter and used a Kaffe Fassett textile (on the right) and quilted it

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope Murphy works in fused glass and created these colorful door and drawer knobs to freshen up any cabinet

 

THE LIVELIEST FUNDRAISER OF THE SEASON

The Nantucket Cottage Hospital has a lulu of an annual affair; the Boston Pops comes to town for one night, setting up a mammoth stage on Jetties Beach… The concert is a blend of patriotic music… every song that glorifies our flag and nation with a heavy dose of John Philip Sousa. After intermission, there is an abrupt change of pace…the music is replaced with a session of Abba replete with imported Swedish performers.

The band stand as seen from our center stage table

Super size screens brought the concert to the distant audience on the beach and in boats on the sea. Left: Nantucket High School student singing the Star Spangled Banner  Right: David Gregory NBC news host was the MC for the evening

Our lovely hostess, Marty With Chris and me enjoying the show

When darkness finally overtakes the breathtaking sunset, the orchestra ends with Tchaikovsky’s heroic 1812 Overture, followed by a twenty-minute display of spectacular fireworks. It is the social event of the summer. Virtually the whole town turns out for this Gala. Over 7,000 people crowd onto a small strip of beach; each paying $30 to squat on the sand with their picnic baskets and beach chairs… the hoi-polloi, pay anything from $15,000 to $100,000 for a table of ten… As an invited guest, I got to sit at a numbered table with tablecloths to eat tepid food served up by hundreds of adorable volunteers. The ‘beach-sitters’ bring their own picnic, frequently more elaborate and delicious than the catered food… Finally there is the flotilla of boats: many set out at sunset to enjoy the concert from the sea…. (For years Erica and I were a part of this floating audience). After the concert, the fleet, from dinghies, fishing boats to luxury yachts, grope their way home through shoals and jetties in pitch darkness to their moorings…. a hair-razing experience under the best of circumstances and terrifying when the fog rolls in.

 Fireworks accompanied Tchaikovsky’s heroic 1812 Overture

After the last boom of the thunderous fireworks and the concert is barely over, the throngs of people start slowly exiting. The “circus crew” is already dismantling the stage and tents that housed kitchens – bars – dressing rooms and the fifty or so porta-potties…

 

Even as the orchestra was exiting, the work-crew started to disassemble the stage

On land, thousands of pedestrians trudge home with beach chairs on their backs, tugging little wagons with the remnants of their picnic fixings and small children on their hands or riding on dad’s shoulders. Those of us lucky enough to have obtained parking permits, gingerly pick our way through the masses of pedestrians… it is all very orderly, and miraculously, without incidents or accidents.

By morning all is gone and the beach is once again left in pristine condition for the summer tourists.

 

THE COQ AU VIN BAND

I still chase my favorite “Gypsies”, the Coq Au Vin band. There is not a gypsy amongst them… All are wholesome American kids playing romantic music. This August they did a series of intimate (and sold-out!) sunset concerts to a packed appreciative audience on the spectacular rooftop of the Nantucket Whaling Museum, where they debuted some new songs and introduced their fun T-shirts! These gigs were a far cry from the usually noisy, boisterous evenings at the Pazzo restaurant where their fans congregate until one in the morning dancing on tables with yours truly leading the cheering.

 

The band on the roof-top of the Whaling Museum doing their twilight concerts

Ingrid and her friend Hebe introducing the band's new T shirts

The "fan club" touting our new purchase

Ingrid Feeney the lead singer sings in six exotic languages and has just completed her Masters in Anthropology. Every song has a history, which she interprets in a scholarly way to her appreciative audience.  

 

The band cavorting on Caleb Cressman's farm while being filmed for a Music Video

 

Caleb's farm menagerie - goats, sheep and pigs

 

Ingrid Feeney the lead singer with Lucy Van Ardsdale the base-fiddler - Joanna Hay, the violinist, taking a break in the recording studio

This was the band’s last week playing together… Ingrid went to Oregon to be with her boyfriend, who is getting a doctorate in Eco-sciences; Joanna Hay, the violinist, returned home to Louisville Kentucky to her daytime career of documentary film maker and her eagerly awaiting husband.

The Band’s popularity has spread beyond our Island; earlier this summer, a Hollywood team of cinema-photographers converged on Caleb Cressman’s farm to film a Music Video for release later this year. Caleb is the leader of the band. He is a very talented multi-faceted musician, who plays the violin and accordion and has written many of the band’s soulful melodious songs. In their final week together, the band recorded their first CD…  After their final recording session, the entire band came to my house for a hilarious farewell dinner of chili and ice cream.

 

  Hang in there - for two instalments to come!