Category Archives: Around home

Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance

Around home, Cars, Photography

From Corvette Expert Jim Gessner, memory by Steve Stern

One of my first car memories and my first racing memory was watching a Mercedes Benz and Corvette race for the Del Monte Trophy on the winding, very narrow, town roads of Pebble Beach. (We were kids and, as the Corvette with the bigger engine lead the MB 300 SL, we said such pithy things as Nothing beats cubic inches, then when the much more expensive MB passed the Vet, we said Except cubic money.)  In those days, before actual racetracks, we all got to stand very close to the action. The Pebble Beach race has moved to the Laguna Seca racetrack and the attached car show has become the  Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, probably the best carshow in the world, with an admission of $250 which does keep the hoi polloi pretty far from the action (the VIP tickets cost $600 and do include lunch [which proves, once again, that there is no such thing as a free lunch]).

To make the cars more accessible, the organizers have started the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance. The cars that are entered into Sunday’s show are encouraged to take a tour around the area on Thursday. While they don’t have to tour, if two cars are tied in points, the car that has been on the tour wins. On Thursday, Michele and I went down to the Monterrey Peninsula to check it out. Once again, we are able to stand very close to the action.

1924 Rolls-Royce 20 HP Barker Tourer 

1955 Mercedes Benz 300 SL

1954 Ferrari 500 Mondail Pinin Farina Spyder

At the end, when all the cars are parked, unbelievably close.

1925 Rolls Royce Phantom 1 Baker Sports Torpedo Tourer

But out on the road, listening to the cars go by, for a car nut like me, is thrilling. Getting close and seeing the details just adds to the thrillingness.

1939 Delage D8-120 S Saoutchick Cabriolet

 

1937  Talbot Lago T150C Figoni Falaschi Cabriolet 

 To be continued….

 

 

 

 

Henry Hill died

Around home, Film, Psychological Musings

Henry Hill was a low level Mafioso in the Lucchese crime family. He became famous because, when he ratted out his buddies to the FBI, he ended up having two movies tell his story. Both Goodfellas and My Blue Heaven were roughly based on his life (My Blue Heaven more roughly). Goodfellas was Michele and my first date.

I once heard Pauline Kael  say that she would never date anybody who didn’t like the same movies that she did. At the time, it seemed like a good idea, and it still does. Our second movie was La Femme Nikita. 

A year or so later, still together and still enjoying the same movies, we went to see a revival of  The Wild Bunch at the Castro in San Francisco. Standing in line, we noticed two acquaintances we had met in Temenos workshops, Peter Kuhlman and Ophelia Ramirez, and we knew we would become friends.

 

Summer Solstice 2012

Around home, Current Affairs, Photography

Michele planned the return from her trip to Ireland so she could be there for the solstice (and spend some time with her step-sister). Yesterday, she went to see the Drombeg stone circle near Baltimore and liked it so much she went back this morning at 5 AM for the Summer Solstice Sunrise. Yesterday, it was clear and green and very Irish and this morning, after getting up in the middle of the night and driving for an hour, the sunrise was fogged in and – I guess – still very Irish.

Of course she had her iPhone and, of course, she had her handy App that tells her where the sun is coming up – or the moon, or Jupiter –  and, of course, it works in Ireland.

As an aside, I have never been to Ireland and have no connection with it but I do know all the Counties around Baltimore; County Cork, County Kerry, County Clare, County Limerick, County Tipperary,  County Kilkenny, County Waterford. I don’t think that there is any other place in the world where the names are that famous. Not Paris, not New York, not even London. It is very strange. End aside.

Twenty three and a half hours later, I was watching the Summer Solstice Sunset

 

cast its alpenglow on the buildings of San Francisco.

As the light faded, wisps of fog came in softening the scene and dropping the temperature. A very San Francisco Solstice.

 

 

 

Epiphylums

Around home, Cactus & Succulents

  We have had a couple of hot days, and – it seems like all of sudden – our Epiphylums are blooming. Epiphylums are epiphytic cactus.  Epiphytic meaning they are arborael; they grow in trees like some orchids and bromeliades, but are not parasites. The plants we have are  from tropical areas of the Americas and are not species but have been hybridized for their flowers which I am normally against (because I am a species snob).

The flowers are spectacular with flowers up to 4″ across.