All posts by Steve Stern

Tsar Validimer

Americana

There is an interesting article in the Economist that paints Putin as being more in the tradition of the Tsars rather than the Communist leaders (well, it came out in November of last year but I just got around to reading it). On the cover of the magazine is a photoshopped picture of Putin in a tsarist uniform made up of, mostly, military hardware with a heading saying A tsar is born. Inside is an article with the picture above above a heading saying: Enter Tzar Vladimir. It got me thinking Russia has never been democratic, the Russian tradition is of being ruled by the Tsar. Russia’s reverting back to the good old days is a reversion back to autocratic rule. 

When, as I read almost every day, about Turkey’s slide from Democracy as Recep Erdoğan consolidates his power or Poland and Hungary sliding into fascism, it seems to me that all they have in common is that they were countries that were born and prospered under autocratic rule.  Their institutional memory is not of being Democratic. The United States, on the other hand, has always been a Democracy; maybe not a Democracy as we understand it today with only white, male, landowners having voting rights but, still, a country with a history of Democratic ideals. I find that heartening.  

These kids are awesome

Americana, Local events

Michele and I went to Redwood City to see and listen to the speeches at our local Fight for our Lives. The speakers were children, committed, energized, articulate, children; doing a job that their elders should have done a long time ago. They were inspiring and they gave me more hope than I have had in a very long time. 

Mosaic

Television

Last week, we watched Mosaic by Steven Soderberg, a six part mini-series on HBO, and this week we rewatched it. I was ready to give up after the first episode, the first time around and, now, I have no idea why. Mosaic is about the murder and possible murderers of a beloved children’s author, Olivia Lake, played by Sharon Stone who is somewhat of a cougar. It did not get especially good reviews but I liked it a lot. Soderbergh is one of this generation’s best directors and, while he does mainstream movies like Ocean’s 11 – I think just to prove he can – he is often more experimental and, I keep reading, Mosaic is one of those experiments.

I also read that Mosaic is slow and the end is ambiguous, that was not my experience. It took us a while to get into it,  but once we did, we blasted through all six episodes in three days. The acting is great; Sharon Stone plays a famous writer and she just exudes star but the center of the movie is held by Devin Ratray, an actor I didn’t know, who is superb as a small town police detective, Nate Henry. One of the things that Soderberg does well is how he handles regular people parts with affection and Nate Henry is one of those parts. He is not a Brad Pitt detective, Henry is just a regular guy trying to do a decent job. Mosaic is a good way to spend six hours – twelve in our case – and I heartily recommend it. 

Shocking, just shocking I tell ya

Americana, Politics

path·o·log·i·cal, paTHəˈläjək(ə)l: compulsive; obsessive. Google dictionary.
 
By now, most people realize that President Donald Trump is a liar. What I didn’t know until last week is that he brags about it, as in: “Trudeau came to see me, he’s a good man, he said we have no trade deficit with you, we have none…I said, well Justin, you do. I didn’t even know. Josh, I had no idea. I just said you’re wrong. You’re wrong. It was so stupid.”
 
This shocks me. He was meeting with a foreign leader to talk about a trade deficit and he didn’t even bother to look at the numbers beforehand. The point of the meeting was to talk about trade numbers and Trump didn’t even know if we have a trade deficit or a surplus with Canada. That is a level of not giving a shit that would be shocking in a high school drop out.
 
Then he lied to a guy who did know the numbers. When I was in the merchant building biz – the development biz a little like Trump, really – I saw lots of people lie but I don’t remember ever seeing somebody lie to a guy that knew the truth. A purchasing agent might tell a sub his bid was high when it wasn’t but the sub had no idea. A salesperson might lie about the schedule of a house but the buyer didn’t know the real schedule. Here, however, Trudeau knew the real numbers and Trump lied to him. Maybe Trudeau gave him the benefit of the doubt and just thought, He must have been given the wrong numbers, maybe Trudeau just thought This guy is an idiot but, either way, he knew Trump was wrong. 
 
Lastly, in a public forum, sure to be reported, Trump bragged about being ignorant and lying. To me, this is the most shocking of all. Lying to a foreign leader about something that is checkable is stupid, bragging about it in public is shockingly idiotic.

A thought while trying to visit the new Apple building

Americana, Around home, Art

A couple of weeks ago, on a cold Saturday, Michele and I went down to Wolf Road in Cupertino to buy some pu’er tea. As an aside, Cupertino is pretty famous for being the home of Apple but, what is less known is that it is the home to a large Chinese population. Starting in the late 70s, Chinese immigrants started settling in Cupertino, drawn by its excellent schools. Now it is a haven for good Chinese restaurants. End aside. The turnoff on 280 to Cupertino at Wolf Road has now been enlarged to two lanes to accommodate the increased traffic to the new Apple Park, but that doesn’t mean that just anybody can get into the main building. It is impossible to get close enough to even walk around the outside (and I don’t think I know anyone who can get me in).But, just from driving around, it is easy to see that the attention to detail is extraordinary. Look at the perimeter fence in the two lower pictures above, the pickets are steel tubes, close to ten feet high, cantilevered up from the ground. There is no top rail, each one stands on its own and has to be strong enough to stop a big guy if not a small car from getting through. They were probably prefabbed in a shop somewhere with cheap labor, but, still, that is an extraordinarily expensive fence.

A couple of weeks after the tea run, I went back to Wolf road to go to the Visitor Center to get a better look. The Visitor Center, as well as the main building,  was designed by  Foster + Partners, mostly Norman Foster, really, and it is exquisite. The design and the detailing, or lack of detailing, is perfect for Apple. It is a great monument to Apple, and that is the problem.  I love architecture but, unfortunately, when a company builds a monument to itself it usually means that its best days are behind it. When General Motors built its magnificent  Technical Center – designed by the great Eero Saarinen – in 1956, General Motors was the biggest, most profitable, company in the world with 51% of the total auto sales in the United States. When McLaren built its spectacular Technology Centre – designed by Foster, like the Apple Headquarters – in 2004, it had been the previous’ decade’s winningest Formula One Team, last year it was second to last only beating out a Swiss Team that is run, more or less, as a hobby. Maybe that is the good news, the world keeps moving, sliding into a veiled future. Apple, like Sony, and IBM before, that once imagined their way through that vail into that future and changed the world. Apple, like Sony, will still be a major technological and design force but their world-changing days are probably over and this is a monument to that wonderful past.