Food Topics

Mae and the Green Snake with the Wood Tale.
Louis, Cashews, Urishol.
Jum, Naem,
UHT Milk
Miang Kam, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miang_kham

This topic, miang, along with phat pai kaprow, and Choke Chai probably should get attached to Jum.

The VFW in Korat and the Siri,
The Courtyard near Kun Ying Mo with the hot spicy food and the quiet.

HS9DEK Nam Voodoo, and Joy,
Maybe quotes from the journal and insidious intestinal irritants.

Som Tum,
The half life of Kai Yang at bus stations

How to avoid food poisoning

Ghost Gate Market, Talaat Nat today, and The Chicken Lady ,
The old woman and the roasted bananas , paper bags from used paper,

Ease of starting a business, Japan,

 

 

 

 

 

Uncle Bernie

 

Version 2 2024-06
Bernie

I woke up this morning. I became distraught somehow, maybe it was wifi withdrawl but I don’t think so, and it occurred to me that I should write about Uncle Bernie, while I could, while there are those younger than me that also remember him.

Bernard Katz, Uncle Bernie, could not be contained by these few names. He had pseudonyms. Likely there were many more than I can remember, but among them are Fatz Katz, used for his jazz, boogie woogie persona and music and El Gatos (a name I have also taken up, although mine is spelled L. Gatos), and Thumbs, for his imaginary second left thumb.

Uncle Bernie always valued my presence. It did not matter where or when, how busy he was, how many adults were near. At the very least I got a smile. Often when my parents failed to introduce me at his house to other guests, he took the time. While I miss others in my family who I have lost, I think that the space he left is the biggest and most profound.

I know too little of him, but it all comes rushing forth. Not a great editior I know that I must put these thoughts down in some sort of order or the editing will not take place. There is so much to say, likely I could write for days and work on it for month. I am going to leave out all the other great relatives I was lucky enough to grow up around. This includes my Aunt Grace who said I chased tennis balls like a gazelle, and my Aunt Charolette who seemed to understand who I was and always had a smile for me.

Bernard was the youngest of three children. The oldest was Bill, William. William was also the tallest. Bill was a biology teacher in the city of Detroit. But before that he was the eldest child of two immigrants. By the time he was in his teens his mother had become bedridden, I do not know the extent of this. As a child I was told that Bill raised my father (Joe) and Bernie. Most of what I have been told about Bernie’s life came from my parents.

There are always more resources for the eldest. You can be bitter about if you want, but it is the way of the world. The youngest tends to get the benefits of parental experience with children. That too, is the way of the world. Bill got piano lessons. He also became a cello player, something he carried into adulthood. I only remember hearing him play once. I remember it sounding good. I also remember him playing piano. But I have no memories of its sound. He could not possibly have been as fun to listen to as Bernie.

Bill had dry humor. Often when he was funny it was a play on words. He had fun with them. I remember in my early teens hours after he sad something finally getting the joke. I think he worked a lot of puns and other word humor into what he said and that for me this was always baffling. Unlike my brothers, and most the rest of the family I am not particularly gifted in English. I have to work at it in order to be able to write. People that pun all the time, sarcasm, other play with language easily gets by me. This is true at least to the standards of my family. His brother Bernie had what I call “wet humor”. Nothing was hidden. It could be crude but it was always right there. Between them in age, height and humor was my father.

Bill walked into the kitchen as a teen. Bernie, five years old or so was playing on the piano. Bill’s father ( my grandfather) said, “Bill, I thought that was you. Who is playing the piano?” Bill answered, “Bernie.” Bill’s father said, “Well we can’t afford lessons for him too. ” Already a prodigy, Bernie’s playing had been mistaken for Bill’s.

The next lesson, or at least at some subsequent lesson Bill took Bernie down the street to the piano teacher to show him off before his lesson. The teacher said, “He needs piano lessons.” Bill said, “We can’t afford them. ” The piano teacher said, “He’s free”. She stayed his teacher at least until he was 18.

Sometime around the time Bernie was 13 a friend of his father’s took him to a bar where there was a piano. Bernie played and earned tips. He went back frequently. His father was at first jealous that Bernie was earning as much money as he was. After a while he figured out that the family income had doubled. This was more important than his jealousy.

By his late teens Bernie had developed a problem with alcohol. He told me that it was affecting his playing. He gave it up. He kept playing in bars. I remember seeing him at “Scotch and Sirloin” a place near our house. Over his career he had several gigs where operatic singers would come and sing while he played. I did not like opera as child, but still liked to go and watch him play. Given a chance I always requested Kitten on the Keys by Zez Confrey. He seemed to enjoy playing it for me. He liked Zez Confrey. Zez’s music calling it “mad”.

When Bernie came over to our house he frequently brought food. He introduced us to “chocolate flavor licorice” also green licorice. He came over once with strings of dried Okra, dried on threads.He bought a can of French Truffles (the mushroom). My memory is that they tasted like dirt. He was not impressed either. My memories of this visit are very distinct. I am not sure that they are real. Some parts of the memory cannot be. He frequently came with Ice Cream. Often it was Neopolitan Flavor which had three stripes in the box, chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. On rare occasions it was Spumoni another layered ice cream but with candied fruit and pistacios. I expect it was expensive. He knew we kids liked it. He bought my brothers a subscription to “Mad Magazine”. I expect that I was not named because it had bits of adult humor disguised in it and I was the youngest. That did not keep me from reading it. That it was not also a present to me was not comfortable. But it was Bernie. With Bernie I knew. I was not deeply hurt by this.

Bernie would hold large parties for his friends. There is a video on youtube that has a sequence at its end from one of his parties. It features the legendary singing Allesandra Marc, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmH_-fLX49E&list=PLetZ5oCPmuekqO3hhElbguorQmS9Qeh-n&index=3 . He would cook for days for some of these parties. Once I was taught to make espresso on his machine and given the job of doing it. Usually children were not invited to these parties. I don’t remember much. He cooked gourmet food for the parties. Once it was steak tartar. We were amazed. He made us souffle for lunch one. He also taught me to make Turkish Coffee. We only ate dinner at his house a few times. I remember his mad dining room chairs being uncomfortable. But you know, “Who cares?’. It was at Bernies house. His friends were boisterous, smart, fun, interesting people.

At Bernie’s funeral, Dorothy Paul, who was a few years older than me said, “Bernie was everyone’s uncle”. I have no doubt this was true. He was a fabulous uncle. There was enough uncle in him to share widely.

I have no idea how or when which of his abilities developed but Bernie devoured music and internalized its sounds, patterns and emotions. There is a music show I sometimes listen to where you are supposed to determine the what composer’s style a piece is written in, and what the original piece of music it is based on. With Bernie, this sort of thing would happen on the fly. You could ask him to play a cartoon’s theme music in various styles, the one I remember doing this with was The Jetson’s theme song. “Bernie, how would The Jetson’s theme sound through the ages?”. He might start in some sort of chant style, working through composers like William Byrd, Pergolesi, Batch Beethoven, Brahms, boogie woogie and ending in Rock and Roll. He had no respect for Rock and Roll.

There were few things in life as exciting as visit from Bernie. Its so few that I can think of nothing like him visiting. One of our parents would say, “Bernie is coming over”. If it was soon we would get into the front hall closet, grab my dad’s felt hats and put them on. We? Ralph, David z’l Louis, the proceeding generation of three boys. We would run around like maniacs when he came with the oversized hats pulled down as far as they could be and still have our eyes poking out. He had a peculiar knock. Three loud flat hand thunks, about a second and a half apart. We would open the door. His eyes would be closed and his hands out. He would enter the house as Frankenstein. I loved it. Mad!

In about 1962 Bernie bought a Zuckerman Harpsichord Kit. Bernie, unlike most other members of my family, he was not “handy”. He got frustrated with it and gave it to my father to build. By the time “The Adams Family”, a single page New Yorker Comic, became a TV show in 1974, we had a Zuckerman harpsichord in the living room. I liked hearing him invent and play variations on The Adam’s Family theme music, normally played on the harsichord, but I prefered his boogie woogie to anything else.

One of Bernies skills was sight reading. You could, as far as I know, put any piece of music in front of him and he could read it. When I was playing often in my teens I asked him how he did it. He essentially said “eye hand coordination” but then started telling me tricks using music theory terms I was unfamiliar with on how to predict what was going to happen. But his eyes were always several measures ahead, as was his ear. I was his page turner once. I was young, I could not follow the fast music. He could talk to me while he read music. “Louis, the page turn was 10 seconds ago, turn two pages. ” This was while he was improvising or playing from memory from his read through earlier in the day. Best I could tell he would read, hear in his head and his hands would play what he heard. His memory for music was fantastic.

My theory is that he had a severe case of ADHD. People that are firm in thought of personal responsibility and consequence tend not to like a diagnosis of ADHD. I am not a psychologist, or psychiatrist. I have been told that I am a psychoceramist, a crackpot, but that is a different story. But what happens with ADHD is that many things with low short term motivation fail to stay in your thoughts. Say you have to clean up after dinner. But what comes into your head is Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 , or some other piano work. The signal saying “wash the dishes” then fails to stay active. The nuerotransmitters fail to carry it to the next neuron. It is gone. If the original motivation was stronger, more short term, maybe more fun, or the costs of not doing it bigger, maybe the strength of this signal in your brain would have had more power and it would have stayed up there, active. Instead it was lost in the sauce, gone.
On the other side of this, tasks with high motivation, intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, but strong, stay active. If you have ADHD and you are involved in a task, thinking about art, or say, Einstein thinking about relativity, you can do so with less distraction. Someone might start talking to you, and until they rattle your shoulder or shout, you don’t hear them. ADHD can in some cases and at sometimes, be thought of as hyper concentration disorder. It is a tool of many highly creative and productive individuals. It helps allow you to be completely focused on the task at hand. It keeps distractions from even being perceived.

Performers have to be able to be “in the moment” This is a space that keeps the distractions that are handled by executive function. You cannot perform worried about taxes or any other long term concern. You have to be in the moment and stay there. It is something not often talked about in music, at least not in my experience, but is in theater. In the visual arts, we don’t even grunt about it much. But we should. Theater instruction often brings up how you get ready to get on stage, to let the world go and bring the stage, the place in. Sometimes relaxation exercises are used. It seems actors often talk about their process. What they are doing is letting most of the concious controllable, logical, plodding part of their facilites go and get intuitive. Intuition is a very fast process. Logic is slow., too slow for on stage. It can be used in analysis, in preparation, but onstage things need to flow.

Its not like other fields do not need this state, that actually is called flow. They do. Some fields name it as do computer programmers. While you may need logic to lay out a great scheme for a complex programming task, it is intution that brings the method to it. It may also finish with logic, but middle is the creatiuve part where the code gets written. Intuition, like reading music, playing, runs in the intuitive part of the brain.Things happen too fast for anything else.The reason the task of playing complicated works, say even my bad Ragtime seems so amazing is that things happen faster than we can even dream of our concious brain working. It just does not have that kind of speed.

Visual artists often could use instruction on entering this state. Some stay up late at night. Executive control is dampened by fatigue. Some drink. Alcohol also dampens executive function. Some use other drugs. Better would be to find a routine that gets you into that state. For me, loud music often does, but so do noise cancelling head phones. Fatigue also use to work. In some ways it still does, but many of tasks need all my wits. Staying up late is no longer a good strategy for me.

The ability to keep long term needs, concerns, tasks, without short term motivations in our thoughts is at least part of what psychologists call “executive function”. If you divide what we think into two sorts of things, those that get our concious attention and those that happen “behind the curtain” as Malcolm Gladwell puts it, those we cannot directly delve into, much of what sight reading does, how it uses the brain happens without concious control. Our eye sees the music and our hands on the keys respond. This does not happen without practice. Done over and over again our brain decides when it sees an eighth note at middle C we should depress the key, deciding when and for how long to press and hold it. If we have to say to our self, “Aha! its a middle C, press it now, medium hardness and now hold it, hold it, we cannot even do that much thinking during the eighth note. We are lost. Sight reading has some conscious control, but that control is more like an orchestral conductor, “a little louder , faster, hold”, but even what this internal conductor says happens behind the curtain to. Our conscious control of it is less frequent and more generalized. You want to be a good musician? Practice Practice Practice you must pursue.

According to my father, Bernie would go to the Detroit Public Library and check out piano music, take it home, play through it, and then go get more. He had book cases of music when was a child. He had a “music room”. This was not the room he played in until later in his life. It was where his music was stored. He consumed new music like people breath. I believe that it was twice when I was growing up my parents got phone calls from him. “I am playing with the symphony tonight, there will be tickets waiting for you at 7:15 pm. We would get dressed up and go. Seats would usually be somewhere near the front and center.

What would have happened is that the scheduled pianist with the symphony could not make it. Bernie would get a call in the morning, “So and so’s plane could not take off due to snow. Can you play ‘yadaydadyada’ difficult piano music”. Bernie would respond, ” can you get me the sheet music? I will need my tux laundered, someone to go my Chinese restauarant and pick up my standard order and I will need a ride to the rehearsal at 6pm. “What ever the piece or peices were, he could play it. Where the scheduled pianist may have worked on it for a month or longer, he would have an afternoon. I doubt it was as good, maybe not even ever, but the show had to go on. Being a concert pianist was not where his talent or interest or ADHD layed. However, this talent did allow him to fill in at the last minute in a way very few people on the planet possibly could have.

I had music lessons kitty corner from that library, piano. The teacher was not right for me. To say I was not right for him, or maybe piano would also be accurate. Had he engaged my interest in learning ragtime it might have worked out better. But each week the library was there. When I ended up in Ceramics class in 11th grade, I started checking out books on ceramics from the library. Over the year I read one every few days, and scanned hundreds more. I should have seen what was happening, but I was still thinking “Architect”. When I got to the U of Michigan and transferred to the Art School I had read more books on Ceramics than anyone in my classes. I had a powerhouse of technical information, not really organized or that functional. That organization took longer. I transferred from Engineering school to The School of Art and Design, my second month in college. It was a good decision.

AS a child I loved visiting Bernies house. First, he always had some time for me. He would ask how I was doing, what I was doing. As I got older he would ask about music. He was not critical of my playing. He would ask me to play for him. Even at the time, I felt honored. He had a magnificent piano. It had belonged to the first conductor of The Detroit Symphony. I can still feel the keys, their weight, the action, and still have some sense of its sound.

But that was only part of what a visit was like. His house was, in his words, “Mad” as in wild and crazy. He lived in an old Duplex. It was in downtown Detroit near Bell Isle on East Grand Boulevard. All of the trim was hardwood as were the floors in his house. It had a split staircase with the stairs to the second floor splitting towards the front entrance to the house and into his kitchten. One wall had a large single piece sink with drainboards, maybe 7 or 8 feet long. He had an old gas stove. It was old enough at the time to look exotic to me. He had an espresso machine with a long hardwood handle and lots of chrome, with red enamel. I think that the handle was ebony. His kitchen always smell of exotic spices. There was no sign that said, “don’t leave your children here. We will feed them espresso and cookies.” Leave your children or not, they would get coffee and cookies. It might be Turkish coffee.

He had a wondrous beaded lamp that hung over his reading chair opposite the piano. It was cool. Like much of the rest of his house it could have been featured in “The Adams Family”. The scenes in the living room of The Adams Family could have been shot in Bernies living room. We used to be able to go into the attic. “Be careful up there, the floor is not in good shape. Don’t fall through”. This was not hyperbole. The roof was leaking or for a long time a window was broken. Up there he stored some treasures. I was heartbroken when he sold his old Edison Cylinder record player. I have his all mechanical Victrola. He also had a windup music box with a flat disk metal “record” and the funkiest wind up piano anyone has ever heard. Occasionally he had pump organs. These often ended up at our house where my father would restore them Ralph, my brother, still has the pump organ I first learned to play keyboard on. It was not my first piece, but nearly, I played William Byrde’s The Earl of Salsbury Pavana on it. It took me a month to learn.

In the 1990’s Bernie had a stroke and lost much of the use of his left hand. He could not walk. In rehab they told him that they were going to teach him to walk. He said, I need to learn to play again. They said,”no, we need to teach you to walk”. He told them to “F-off”. They cam back the next day with the same schtick. Bernie was desperate to learn to play again. I am sure he wanted to flip them the bird and say something clever, but instead he said,” I will do anything you want in the morning. In the afternoon we have to work on my piano playing”. They had reached agreement. Stories if you tell them often enough become replete with imagery. Memories you could not have witnessed develop images, sometimes with viewpoints that are too high, above the ceiling, in walls, and often in places you have never been. So take this with a grain of salt, except that the piano did happen, and a friend who is a tuner, is a true friend and great guy. He also brews a mean cup of coffee.

So, Bernie is doing everything they want in the morning. In the afternoon he has hand therapy. Slowly he is learning to walk, but he needs a real keyboard. To the therapist he says, “the recorded music to walk to is fine, but wouldn’t it be nice to do this to live music. We could use a piano player. The therapist humors him, thinking maybe, “the old man is delusional” and says, “Where would we put it?” . Bernie, “over there in the corner”. Therapist, “fine”. Bernie calls his therapist, ” Hey, I need a piano delivered to my rehab place so I can learn to play again.” Tuner, “Where do I bring it?” Bernie, “I’ll meet your at the loading dock and open the door. Hence, live music for therapy.

ADHD untreated and even if only partly dealt with with drugs and therapy is debilitating. Bernie could not take care of cars. Once after a wreck he could not get the hood open so he stopped checking the oil. I am sure he intended to get the hood fixed but it kept slipping his mind. The engine got destroyed. It was his last car. When Bernie was in the last few weeks of his life I was told to visit. I remember crying on the plane to Detroit. He was in a nursing home near my parents place. It was a place with loads of patients with dementia. He had a variety of problems. He had become diabetic, likely because he ignored advice. He had a hernia that could not be operated on because of diabetes. But what got him was late stage breast cancer. Likely he ignored the signs. But I do not know this, it just fits what I do know.

The last time I saw Bernie I visited him in the nursing home. I walked over from my parent’s house. He was perfectly there with his full self. He told a few funny stories. He said to me, “Louis, I am totally f—ed. I had passed a crappy piano in the dining hall on my way in. I asked if he wanted to go play it. I think he said “yes” only for me. I hope not. But afterwards I thought of him playing that crappy piano very said. What was not sad was that as he played the people in the wheel chairs who had been staring into space, seeming dead to the world, livened up, looked over and watched him and moved around some. One of the nurses, probably a gem of a human looked over at me and smiled. Bernie could not see any of this. After ten minutes he was tired, or sick of the piano. I really enjoyed hearing him play, but it was nothing like hearing him on a real instrument.

 

 

Version 1 (march 2021)
Uncle Bernie was everyone’s uncle. This was told to me by the child of one of his friends at his funeral service. It rang true. My friends called him “Uncle Bernie” my  parents, aunts and other uncles called him that, at least in our presence. It would not surprise me if they called him Uncle Bernie in his favorite restaurants.

Bernie was a pianist, but to call him that seems thin, it does not contain him. His house was “mad” a favorite word of his to describe things that are “over the top”. He had beaded lamp that could have been used to upscale the set for “The Adams Family”. He lived in a duplex across Jefferson from Bell Isle in Downtown Detroit for most of his adult life. The duplex was all hardwood trim and floors, the lighting insufficient. It was full of antiques. It had the smell of old hardwood, antiques, must, and cooking. There was an aroma of coffee that hung around and I believe I can still imagine the smell of his sink and dishwasher.

When I was young my brothers and I would go into the attic and play a cylidrical record player. It was scratchy and a lot of fun. He also had a Victrola. It was cool, but not like the Edison record player. For a while we were told to be careful in the attic.The floor was insecure. This was from roof leaks. Rent was inexpensive. There was not money for repairs unless he paid for them. At some point when my parents were helping to care for him my mother insisted on increasing the rent so that the owner would participate in upkeep.

He had a a canopy bed with curtains. It was short. It was a copy of a much older bed. It looked like it was from the 1500’s. His house was full of paintings and prints, tableware, pottery, and Mason Hamlin grand that was built special of Ossip Gabrolovich. It was a glorious piano. It had a bass that to my ear sounded both rich and brilliant. It was a dream to play. The action was smooth, and not has hard as Yamahas or even Steinways. My fingers could sail a bit more. It was the first piano that seemed to draw expression from my fingers without effort.

Bernie was generous. It was not just things or money. He wanted to hear me play each time I came over. He played for me and let me sing. But he also showed me how to do things when I was young. He had me make espresso at one of his parties and introduced me to Turkish Coffee.

There was nothing like Uncle Bernie coming to visit, nothing. He would pound on the door, Boom Boom Boom. The three of us Katz Boys would put on our father’s felt hats and run around like crazy as we fought over who would open the door! Bernie would be standing with his arms stretched out and wiggling slowly like Frankenstein and then shuffle in. He almost always had something special. These are the gifts that I remember. But you have to think back, this was in the 1960’s exotic food, was.

He came with Okra dried on thread. A few times he came with green or brown licorice. It was decades before I saw licorice in these colors again. He came for dinner and had a can of truffles (mushrooms), I was maybe 8 years old. I hated mushrooms but I tried these. I remember thinking, “These taste like dirt.” We probably ate the truffles with plastic silverware and on paper plates as they are hunted by pigs. In 2024 I had some truffle oil unknowingly. The food had an unusual taste, I thought it tasted of dirt. Then I found out,,, truffle oil.

He gave my mother a pound of paprika. My brothers once got a five year subscription to Mad Magazine. Spumoni Ice Cream was a frequent treat. Occasionally we ate at his house. Once he made us pizza. I do not remember what was on it, but it was unusual. For all I know it could have been a frog leg pizza. He often made souffles. Our house was full of paintings and antiques, mostly because of Bernie.

Bernie served us Steak Tartar. I wish I remembered more. He had great spices. He ate at fun restuarants. The owners knew him. He shopped at the large Eastern Market. His coffee was luscious. It was the first coffee I enjoyed drinking.

Bernie’s big brother Bill had piano lessons Bernie was about 5 or 6 years old.  Bill was in the kitchen talking with his father. “Bill, I thought that was you playing the piano. Who is it?” “Oh, that’s Bernie, he copies me.”. “You know Bill we cannot afford more piano lessons.”

Bill took Bernie down to his piano teacher to show him off. The piano teacher asked if he had had any lessons. Bill said “no”, we can’t afford them. The teacher said, “he is for free”.

When Bernie was 12 a friend of his father’s took Bernie to a bar to play. Bernie came home with more in tips than his father made in a day. The first day, dad, whose name I have, Louis,  was mad. After a week he got his head screwed on straight and realized that there was now more money.

About the time Bernie was 22 he recognized that he had a problem with alcohol and stopped drinking. It was affecting his ability to play.

Some people read music. Bernie devored it. He developed an incredible memory, and could fake anything, in any key. He could count seven against nine or any other odd combination of rythms with two hands.  A couple of times when I was growing up we got to go the Detroit Symphony and hear him play. The phone calls informing us went like this. I am playing with the symphony tonight at  7:30. Be there by seven and ask for my tickets at the box office.

At his end it would go like this. The phone would ring. “Bernie, the pianist got stuck in a snow storm, can you play XXXXXXXXXXX?. Bernie would say “yes”. Then he would say, “someone has to get my tux to the cleaners”, I need the music delivered, and dinner picked up at the Chinese Restauarant. It was near his house and had booths with walls and I think doors.  I at there a few times when I was young.

My parents were going on an international trip. They were working on a will in case something happened to them. The got the Katz brothers together and asked us, “If something happened to us which aunt or uncle would you like to live with. We had three choices. In unison we said, “UNCLE BERNIE”.

I tried out for Fiddler on the Roof. Bernie was the music director. I did not get selected. But during the tryouts he would accompany people. One person kept switching keys. After the second time Bernie would play ahead of the key switch modulating so that it sounded intentional.

Sometime, and I am not certain of the year, Bernie had a stroke and lost most of the function in his left hand. They told him that they would give him physical therapy. He was elated.
They came to take him and told him that they were going to teach him to walk. He said, I need to learn to use my hand. They said you have to learn to walk first. He told them to “xxxx off”.

They came back the next day and said that they would take him to learn to walk. He was prepared. He said, “I will do anything you want all morning long, anything”. In the afternoon you teach me to use my hand. ” They agreed.
After a few days of this he said, “You know, this is really boring around here, you need some music, What about a piano? They thought he was joking and said, where would we put a piano. He said “over there” and pointed. To get him off their case they said, “ok”.

Bernie could be a pain. But Bernie has friends. They are still his friends even though he is no longer with us. He called one of them up, met them at the back door in his wheel chair and suddenly, Physical Therapy had live music.

I was told to come into town. Bernie was dying. I talked with him for a while in a nursing home. It was a dismal place. I said, “Hey Bernie, do you want to play the piano in the cafeteria? ” He said , “yes”. It was a piece of junk. I move the bench and rolled up his wheel chair. There were about five people in the cafeteria just sitting in chairs staring off into space. He started to play. They started to act alive. Bernie played for about 15 minutes. I flew home. A few days later I flew back in for the funeral. Its been over 20 years. It is still a beautiful memory. I tear up.

There was no one in the world like Uncle Bernie. The lives of all that knew him are richer because of it.  He was a devoted musician, cook, friend, and an incredible uncle.

This video of am extravaganza at his house when Alessandra Mark was posted by one of his devoted friends. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmH_-fLX49E

 

 

 

 

Glues

Today I needed to glue some PLA plastic from my 3D printer together. The 3D forums all talk about how this is difficult, and I have had troubles. Unless you have a lot of surface or no need for strenght, everything I had tried up until today did not work.
PVA, polyvinyl alcohol, white Elmers® glue, requires porousity. Epoxy works sort of if you sand first but still is not very stuck. Plumbing cement does not work.
Just yesterday for another application I bought some Duco Cement. It is very similar to a “clear acid bottle varnish” recipe from “A Handbook of Chemistry and Physics” 1947 which suggests “dissolving ordinary toothbrush handles in acetone”. The question is, “What was an ‘ordinary toothbrush handle’ made of?” The answer is nitrocellulose. It makes a great finish and is still used on guitars. It is also, with less acetone, the basic recipe for Duco. It seems, at least at this short try, to work really well.
Given this success I thought that I should also try “Juice”. Juice is a mix that is used to stick ABS plastic to its build surface when 3D extrusion or additive printing with ABS filament. It is ABS filament dissolved in acetone. I am using this mix in a thicker consistency than I use for juiceing my build surface.
Please, please, acetone is not innocuous, vent the fumes and minimize exposure, use appropriate protective gear. Both of these glues are flammable and have low flash points when wet. Nitrocellulose is highly flammable even when dry and not safe to store dry. I am not convinced that the recipe using nitrocellulose is safe. There are many varients of this plastic. My suggestion for this sort of glue is to just buy Duco or another brand. But the Juice recipe seems great, and if you have filament in colors, you can have glue in the same colors.Just follow the warning label on the acetone and practice good hygiene. I am not a safety expert.

PVA Glues
Modified PVA Glues
Hide Glues
Epoxy
Polyester Resin
Weldwood Plastic Resin type glues Calumite.
Wheat Paste
Sodium Silicate

 

 

Glass ลุงแก้ว

พอเพียง Paw Pieng translates as “enough”, or “sufficient”. It is one of the mottos and goals for the Thai People put forward by Rama IX, HRH King Bhumipol The Great. When he came to power there was a great deal of poverty and he wanted development projects that would provide enough for the people. His plan calls for reasonableness (or wisdom), moderation, and prudence. He said that the underlying conditions for this must be knowledge and moderation. Over the years before and during his reign its often been clear that there must be an economy of self sufficiency, that the country should be able to live without the outside world, be able to shield itself from the valleys of the world economy. In my mind I have decided that the word “sufficiency” is a better translation of this idea than “self sufficiency” because it stresses “enough”. Learning a little about this philosphy gave a new context for an old friend of mine, one of my personal heros, ลุงแก้ว Uncle Glass .

Uncle Glass is a very funny, joyous man. He is fast to smile, crack a joke, pull your leg, and smile again. He is not “well educated” but is very smart, and it would be mistake to underestimate him. He has a bad leg. I do not remember how his leg was hurt, his calf broken, but it was when he was a young man, maybe in his teens. He was put into a cart and taken to the doctors. The doctor said that his leg below the break would need to be amputated. The monks from the local Buddhist temple said that they could heal the leg. They took care of him, bathed him, changed his clothes, and fed him. I was told how long this healing took, but I remember only that it was most of a year. Lung Gaeow (Uncle Glass) can walk, but for most of his life he found a bicycle a better mode of travel at least for distances more than about 20 meters.

Until he retired, Uncle Glass lived in what in the US we might call “a shack”. It had a tin roof over the old one made of leaves or grass and short posts, and a wood floor. The walls did not protect from the wind much. His first wife got ill and he cared for her until she died. He remarried someone that he knew from school. I think he was in his fifties when this took place. She developed diabetes and became bed ridden. He cared for her until she died. His third wife he married only so that the village would not talk. She was already in bad shape and he could not care for her without there being gossip unless they were married. She was still alive in 2008 if my memory is correct. The world could use more people like him. He is a mensch, a great human.

When I visited him back then (2014) he was going to the river every morning on his bicycle, maybe about a 1 km ride. He would park and climb down the banks. At the river he set some hooks with bait and then wash. He carried water up the bank (maybe 20 feet down) and watered his garden. After several loads he would pull out the fishing gear. When I was there he caught about 5 skinny 4 inch fish. Up on the bank he put them directly on some leaves he set on fire. Then he sat down, got out some glutinous rice and spicy vegetables, and a shot or two of whiskey his son in law packed for him. The fish, now cooked dry, were packed in paper and he rode is his bike off to the pottery to make water jars. A good person helps people in need. A great person does this again and again. I had hoped to make a video about him, but I started just as his physical productivity was failing from age.  As I write this he is still a joy to be around.

Lung Gaeow appears in my Thai Pottery Video in the height contest( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi_t0y5jFxM&t=409s 02:57 ). After I returned to the US I was asked to write for grants to bring Thai potters to The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts Conference in 1991 in Tempe Arizona. Suwanee was to deal with all the arrangements in Thailand. I first asked for Uncle Good. I thought that he was nice, and had a love for making pots. He had a nice way with the traditional forms. He decided that he could not come because he was afraid that we would not have rice in the US and he could not eat bread. The word “eat” in Thai is really “eat rice”. The bread they sold in his part of Thailand was used as a desert dish, sort of like ultra-sweet Wonder®-type bread. The second person on our list had no birth certificate so they could not get a passport. Suwanee asked around. Finally two men agreed to come, “Craftsman Shotglass” (Chang Jork), and “Uncle Glass” (Lung Gaeow).

Lung Gaeow and Chang Jork (now deceseased) had a problem with alcohol. They were not anyone’s first choice but they were brave enough to come. Had I known more Glass would have been first on the list. My sole job at the conference was to take care of the 5 Thais, Suwanee (who could take care of herself) her sister (who stuck close to Suwanee), Mae (mom), and Chang Jork and Lung Gaeow. My Thai was rotten back then, but things worked out. So the morning after they arrived I went to see them. Gaeow says, “Louis, great to see you!” We are talking,,, how was the flight etc. “Louis, the flight was very nice but the airplane was cold, they brought us blankets.” “And you know Louis, they do have alcohol on the plane, I was worried. But it is so expensive and bottles are so little. Is it that expensive everywhere in America?”. I said, “no” .”You know Louis, we have alcoholism. Could you take us to buy some?”

So, I took them to the local alcohol store about a mile from their apartment. They walked in behind me. Gaeow grabs my arm kind of hard, it hurt a bit, “Louis, (he swings his arm to point across the store) Is all of this alcohol?” I answered, “No, that case over there is soda and Coke”. He said, “Louis, America is a great country!”.

He said, “Which type should be buy?” We finally settled on cheap beer. I picked up a six pack. They picked up two each. I showed them how to pay for it and we took it back to the apartment.

A couple of days later I stopped at the apartment. “Louis, we need more beer.” So we went back and got more. Gaeow told me that Jork could not read. Jork said,”Gaeow can’t read”, show us how to do this, then we won’t have to bother you.”
A few days went by. I was looking for them. They were not at the studio, not at Kurt Weiser’s house and not at the apartment. Then it dawned on me, “They are at the liquor store”. So I drove over to get them.

I walked in and they were not there. I turned to ask the cashier. He recognized me, “Its you!Where are those to guy’s from?” “Thailand”. “What language do they speak?” I answered “Thai” although really talking with each other its the local dialect. The cashier asked, ” Do you know what they did?” I am half already amused and a bit fearful.
“The rolled a big cigar with newspaper and a bunch of tobacco I think. The do smoke tobacco right?” I nod. ” You know, you can’t smoke in here” . I said that I would tell them. “After they lit that cigar, they squated in the back of the store in that language, What language did you say that was?” “Thai”. “Yeah, thats it. After a few minutes they came up to the counter, put thier hands on it and said, “Alcoholism, Alcoholism”. “I sold them some cheap whiskey. “You might want to tell them that they can’t drink in the store”. I thanked the cashier. As I was leaving he said, ” tell them the should not drink on the street either”.

So I head back to the apartment. “Louis!” Gaeow says,” I guess you were looking for us” . I said, “yes”. “Did you go to the liquor store?”Gaeow looks at Jork. “Yes” I said.
“I guess that the clerk said to tell us not to smoke in the store” I said, “Yes, it might explode”. “And we’re not supposed to drink in the store either?” “yes”. “Why not?” . “They don’t want drunk people in the liquor store”. Gaeow says something like, “how do they expect to make any money”. I tell them not to drink on the street. “They ask, “If we do, how much do we pay the police?” I explain that it is probably a mistake to try and buy off the police.

Chang Jork stopped by at Umdang Pottery when I was there in the early 2000’s. He gave me his Saw Duang ซอด้วง. This gift was probably the most significant of my life. He was not long on possessions. This was a return gift for bringing him to the US. He died a few years later.

I tried to see Lung Gaeow nearly every time I went to Thailand. He is my elder. If I was to visit him I needed to bring a gift. Normally this would be fruit, but he is an alcoholic so whiskey is what is expected. I no longer bring a full bottle.
Anyhow, I went to visit him about 15 years after his trip and he said, “Louis, Thanks for the whiskey. The neighbors don’t believe I ever was in America. Do you have any pictures of me there? And can you bring them here tomorrow?

I did not really understand this request until I stopped for another bottle of whiskey on the way the next day.

I saw Lung Kaeow last in January 2026. He was nearly completely blind. He was still smiling and laughing. I recently learned that some called in “Kaeow America”. He died April 18, 2026 . There are a few great people whose being seems to stick really hard to mine. He is one. He was one of the poorest great people I have met and also one of the funniest people I have met. His life enriched those around him with laughter and humanity. He will be missed by all who knew him.

Pastime

There are manythings that might get listed as the Thai national pastime. It could be chit-chat พูดคุย. It could be music. But to me, the quintessential Thai Pastime is eating. It is an activity central to everything. Eating in Thailand is an art form. How to eat? What to eat? Where to eat? Why eat? With whom? When to eat? The topic was brought to mind by a Facebook friend whom I have never had an eyeball with, never met face to face. She is quarantining in Bangkok, on day three of fourteen. She has been posting pictures of her food. They deliver it to her room. I have been looking at it and it has been making me sad. It seems inhuman. The first question that comes to mind”How can you serve that kind of food to a Thai person?” Then when you realize that they are doing so in Bangkok, City of Angles, the impregnable city of God Indra, city of the 9 gemsฯลฯ. How can it be true that you serve cold breaded cutlets of some sort with gloopy sauce from a bottle? The pictures she has been posting on Facebook have been provoking a Thai response from her family, homemade food delivered. Half way around the world I am relieved. How could this happen? I teach at a university. We often have Thai students. I want to meet them. I cannot tell a Thai person from someone from Cambodia or Vietnam. But I want to meet Thais. In general they are happy to meet me. I have friends of over ten years now that I met on campus. We have helped each other. The first Thai I met was while I was in school. For various reasons, I have no way to meet them. Sometimes I don’t know that there is a Thai student until I see their name during graduation. But about five years ago it dawned on me. I can tell Thai people or at least often can by how they eat. It is rare to see a Thai person in our cafeteria eating alone. You eat with a pyan เพื่อน , a companion. You share food. This might be dipping sauces, it might be the main dishes, it might be fruit. Food is generally eaten by pushing it onto a spoon with the back side of a fork. That is, unless its Chinese food, in which case its eaten with chopsticks. Exactly what food is on the spoon, each spoonful, is likely arranged. A small amount of sauce might have been gathered first, there might be a piece of a vegetable, there will likely be rice unless its a noodle dish. Spoonfuls are not too big. As this happens you see hands moving around the table, like a dance. It can be quite graceful. Things are shared. Foods have very specific sauces, often have vegetables that accompany them and side dishes. One of my favorite dishes, in some ways a simple, plain dish, is Kao Man Gai. Kao Man Gai is served with some cucumber slices. The rice is cooked in oil and broth of the chicken. The chicken is served on top of the rice. There is some cooked chicken blood on the side and a sauce that is very flavorful but usually not too spicey. This sauce is specific to Kao Man Gai. Cucumbers are a frequent side in street cuisine. I think that this is because they keep well all day. The soup that is served on the side is usually very mild thin broth. It reminds me of my mothers’s matzoh ball soup. The broth for Kao Man Gai has very little yichus. Yichus are the solids in soups, like vegetables or lentils. But Kao Man Gai broth does have Chinese winter melon or in the US sometimes cooked daikon radish or something mild like that. There are often fresh vegetables at the Thai table. These can be quite exotic tasting, bitter, sulphury, astringent -like or just crunchy long beans and cabbage. The taste “bitter” is important in Thailand. Bitter foods are often seen as good for the health, maybe like cod-liver oil in the West. I would not know. I have never had cod-liver oil. I have had many of the bitter vegetables in Thailand. They are “interesting” to eat. It would take something to get Gail to eat any more of these. And she is an adventurous eater. Some times of the day ask for certain foods. Where I lived, at Chez Umdang, late afternoon was time for Som Tum, Green Papaya Salad, the favored dish of Isaan, the Northeast region of Thailand. Who made the Som Tum varied. Usually it was one of the wonderful young women helping around the house, Gaw Wow named for the song of a bird, or Fon whose name means rain. These women were helpful and gratious in a way that cannot be overstated. They made awful days bearable, and had thier hands in making our good times in Dankwian magical. Green papaya salad is an exercise in balance of flavor, spicey, sour, fishy, garlic, and some textural variety. It is hard to get right, but Som Tum varies a lot, and there seemed to be people whose Som Tum was prized. But usually Som Tum was made by Gaw Wow or Fon. Green papaya is full of enzymes, and papaya juice is used as medicine in parts of the world and my thoughts about it are that its daily consumption might be a way to keep intestinal parasites under control. They are a problem in the Northeast, and Som Tum is endemic. Some som tum each day keeps the doctor away. If you are leaving me food to eat when I am buried or a ghost, skip the alcohol and leave me som tum. I will be grateful. I got picked up at the train station. It had been a long day and there was no food on the train. I was hot, tired, thirsty, and there were 4 adults and two children in the car. There was no air conditioning but fortunately it was in the cool part of the day, ตอนเย็น, interestingly named “cool time”. I was asked what I wanted to eat, I said “Duck Soup”. Its one of my favorite forms of street food. This question being asked of me was in some ways an honor, a choice like this having some real importance. I don’t think I would have picked up on this on my first trip. Duck soup. “Oh duck soup is very good” . “Jum, who makes the best duck soup?” . “Certainly its the vendor on the Dankwian Road”. “I like the stand in the old market”. “There is a new place by the Seven (11) by the mall, Its pretty good”.” Well the Vendor on the Dankwian Road does not open until 10pm. But its really good. Maybe we should see if he opened early”. “No its too far to turn back, lets try the place by Ghost Gate Market”. We turn and drive towards there. “Jum, do you really want to eat that soup? The flavor is weak” “Maybe there is some by the night market, Some vendors open early”. We drove around for two hours looking but not finding. My “lets eat something else” was not apparently acceptable.

Gail

–
This is going to be hard to start. It is hard to know when the beginning really is. Like most of these, this has not been edited much

I walked into high school in 11th grade. If my memory serves me right, a social studies teacher, Chuck Domstein handed me my schedule. I said, I have to change my math class. He said, “we can’t change your math class. I said, “No! I have to change it.” He said, “We can’t change it.” … I can’t take math with this teacher. He said, “Look, I told you we can’t change it just cause you don’t like the teacher.” I said, “She’s my mother”. He said, come lets see if we can change it. ”

It was complicated, I wanted to take Electronics, I needed to take choir, there was not much flex. So I tried to get into Drafting. It was full. Metals shop, full. Welding, full. Every foreign language either did not fit the schedule or it was full. Finally I ended up signing up for something. I really think that I was not sure what it was, it was called “Ceramics”.

Once a week I was taking piano lessons. I did not like the music. The teacher was trying to turn me into a concert pianist. It was not happening. I was practicing Ragtime, or at least playing it daily. The lessons did not go well, but they were kitty corner from the Detroit Public Library and I started checking out books on ceramics. I started with 2 or three a week and finally started checking out the limit of 5 on one subject. By the time I was done with 12th grade I knew a lot about clay. Over the summer I worked at a Jewish summer camp with an endowed ceramics shop. We had a salt kiln. I became involved with atmospheric surfaces. I built a wood burning raku kiln in my back yard and a wheel in the basement.

I started college with the intention of going into architecture. I was going to The University of Michigan School of Engineering. I felt like I kept getting kicked for trying to hard to learn and not taking the easy way out of assignments. After a little over a month it was clear that I was not going to hold out for four years. I was confused. A very smart friend gave me a matrix to use to straighten out priorities in complex and difficult decisions. Since this decision was driven by future employment/vocation this was the first column. I suggest that you do this.

In the first column write down all the jobs you ever wanted; every one. This might include garbage truck driver, sledge hammer operator, ceramic artist, computer programmer, hair dresser. Anything and everything. It has to really include everything you ever wanted to “be”.

The second column a list of positive attributes like: makes a lot of money, gets to pull those cool garbage truck levers, my parents would like it, get summers off, work outside, varied work, not challenging, very challenging.

The third column are the negative attributes. Note that some positive attributes might also be negative, not challenging, too challenging, parents will hate it/love it. Makes little money, no advancement, smells bad.

Then you have to rank the positives and negatives. This is the hard part. You have to use your motivation, your ranking. If you think lots of money is important to your parents but not you, then rank it low unless how your parents feel is very important to you and add it as another positive, “parents will like the high rate of pay”.

Then do the negatives. Then associate the numbers with the jobs. Please don’t try to add up numbers or anything like that. Things are way too complex and nuanced for this to work. It will however clarify motivations. It helped me clarify motivations surrounding earnings and risks. I probably would have come up with other choices by age 30, but that was 12 years later, I could not have found those motivations at age 18.

At the University of Michigan in the Art Department I took a variety of courses. They all seem tied to my future now although outside of ceramics I wondered about why I was taking them. There already seemed to be a hierarchy,, but I was immersed in clay. Kurt Weiser was my first college ceramics teacher. I was a work study under Chip Clawson.

Kurt suggested that I check out the Kansas City Art Institute. Finishing my first Art History final exam, I had my backpack with me. The Art History Course was An Overview of Asian Art History taught by Professor Walter Spinks. For almost the entire course he used slides that he shot himself. The last test included in the final was on a traveling exhbition called “Recent Archialogical Finds of China”. I left the final and hitchhiked to Kansas City to see the Art Institute . They were still in session.

About this class, the first test could have been a killer. It was designed to get you thinking. You had to identify half a bizzilion ( I remember 12 carousels I think holding 1000 slides total) images of the head of the Buddha by style. It was impossible to do without actually finding stylistic similarities. By the end you recognized the style by the eyes, the ears, the hair, the shoulders, the chin, the libs, by every detail. This had a big impact on me, but the most important part of the course were the descriptions of the cultures that produced the art. The course was my first exposure in any significant way to Ch’an, Zen, Taoism, Hinduism(s) Jainism, and Islam. I was taken by the political impetus for the stylistic changes in Chinese painting between Northern and Southern Sung dynasties. I became a fan of Mu Chi, and Li Cheng, but there were so many others.

The class was taught in a huge room with hundreds of seats. Along with a group of others I sat in the front row.

On the way into Kansas City I told my ride where I was going and he decided to drop me off. As I had never been there before this was great. He dropped me off next door at The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. Over the limestone front entrance was a banner, “Recent Archaeological Finds of China”. I ended up giving a young woman my age a guided tour. The Art Institute Ceramics shop that year had 50 ceramics majors. Most were transfer students. Each brought with them experience, skills and knowledge. It was vibrant, exciting, energetic and expensive. I did not think that my parents would monetarily support my going there. I finished by trip and worked another summer teaching kids ceramics at camp.

The next year was my second at The University of Michigan. I was not an easy or model student although I worked very hard. I rarely worked on assigned projects. I was unable to work on things in ceramics where my intrinsic motivation was not really high. What I needed was a really good psychological examination. It would have turned up ADHD although I think it had a different acronym back then, and Dysgraphia (essay later) It would probably have turned up the frequent bouts of depression. They were still mostly seasonal back then starting in mid February but by then cropped up in small bits all the time. At the end of the year I decided that if I stayed at the University of Michigan I would not gain the skills I wanted or needed in order to succeed in the field. I do not know if this was true although it seemed to be and still does. The program was fine for others.

I told my parents that I want to go to Kansas City. They said I could if I earned the difference in tuition over the summer. I found a job that would come within $30 of earning the difference this if I spent nothing over thesummer. I went to work. The first day I came home asthmatic. My memory of this was that I was almost unable to walk home. I probably should have been hospitalized. I told my parents I was quitting. My father went ballistic. I started looking for other work. Nothing stood a chance of making the difference. A friend road her bicycle over to tell me that I was going to be offered an “Assistant Manager” position at Burger King. In one of those flash decisions that happen when you are really tuned in, I decided and told her that I was leaving town in the morning. I hitchhiked to a friends house in Cincinati.

I did eventually get to school in Kansas City under the arrangement that my parents paid tuition and I covered everything else. I learned to cook good food inexpensively using “The No Fad, Good Food, 5$ a Week, Cookbook” . I bought very little food that was not unprepared. Exceptions were non-instant dry powdered milk, margarine, and very occasionally cottage cheese. One schoolyear I kept track of food costs. Not counting some beer it cost $3.27 per week. 

Beyond the art history from the U of Michigan, thinking back a short lesson in 5th Grade with Ms. Cohen(?) seems important. We learned about the word ethnocentrism. It took root. The idea that how we see the world is controlled by how we are brought up, that from inside a culture cultural practices seem to make sense, that from outside the culture they often seem wacky. Its been important. 

This idea, ethnocentrism, really naturally occuring disease, was studied at the college level in the courses “World Ethnography” and “Language and Culture” taught by Professonr Anderson at the KAnsas City Art Institute. I am lucky to have had the ability to take these courses.

One of the interesting things about pottery, especially as taught in the 1980’s and perhaps before is that most of the models, stories, and information that we learned was about Asia. We learned about Japanese, Korean, and Chinese Ceramics. Its not that there were not a few strong European models, we and our teachers were mostly not interested. Consequently information was scarce and hard to find. The big exceptions were information about The Leach School, The Bauhaus, and some Mediteranian ceramics and Majolica. 

I became enamoured with wood fired raw unglazed surfaces. I did not know the Japanese word Wabi Sabi, but others would categorize my interest as paralleling this concept. We fired a low fire wood kiln using a very coarse brick clay. We decorated mostly with slips, and the glazes were volitle and sensitive to temperature and atmosphere. After a year of this you either were in love with these surfaces or hate them.

This section needs to be chronologically disentangled.

When we got to graduate school we met Poonarat Pichaiyapaiboon. He is Thai. His English was fine but I helped him when it seemed appropriate. It turns out that I had alot of experience by then talking with people from other cultures. It probably started with my grandmother whose English was iffy. My best friends mother spoke with a strong Cuban accent. Growing up in a 90% Jewish neighborhood there were loads of people from Eastern Europe. In high school I worked in a Chinese Restaurant. The cooks and the owners English was fragmentary and the pronounciation was poor. In KAnsas City I took classes from MAdame Chu. Students would ask me for explanations after class. I could understand every word.

Summers I worked at a Jewish camp for children. One summer after thousand of refusniks had been allowed to 

Poonarat, was short, friendly, had an interesting sense of humor, and clearly was from another culture. He was fascinating and we became friends. Over summers I often worked at a summer camp.

One January before the start of the semester I went to Kay’s Rockhill Bar. It was a small neighborhood bar. There were always a few locals. There was a pool table, and Kay, a friendly owner/bartender. The ceramics department had 60 students and many of us hung out at Kay’s. 

There was a girl with long hair, beautiful eyes, and stripe on her pants, cook’s pants. Shy, mostly, especially with girls, I did something unusual for me. I walked up to her, stuck out my hand and said, ” Hi, I’d like you to meet Louis”. She looked around thinking that there was someone else. Her name was Gail Busch. She had a nice smile. 

A few days later I was out in front of his office and Ferguson, the KCAI Department Chair, a large gruff man with a huge reputation, walked up and said, “Louie, come here, sit down.” So I sat in his office across his desk from him.

”Louie, you gay?”
Louis: No Ken.
”You want a girlfriend?
”Sure”. I was thinking , ‘what, you got one in the closet, whats this about/’
Ken: Clean up your act, you know the drill, comb your hair, clean clothes, you know. 
People sometimes think that I don;’t know how to take advice, but this is often not true. I thought, ‘nothing else is working’, so I gave it a try. 

I bought new jeans at the Levi seconds store downtown. I started combing my hair. I wanted a good scientific test. So I carried a comb with me. Every time I moved from one place to another I took my comb out. I brought a toothbrush to school. I decided to iron my clothes. Pants, shirt, underwear. My socks had creases. I polished my shoes, and my belt.

We tended to go to the bar on Thursday and Friday nights after school. Thursday was difficult as school started at 9 am on Friday Mornings. My pool game got really good. I was especially good at leaving the cue ball in difficult positions for the other player. I started beat Mac most days. Mac was the resident shark. But on some days, I played my old rotten game, like my cue stick had a curve in it.

One day I came in and cleared the table on my second time up. He had not gotten a single ball sunk. He looked at me, looked at Gail and then said, ” I know what it is, you can only play well when she is here”. He was right.
So Gail and I was working out well. We went out, drank coffee ate pecan pie late at night, and made pots all the time. I was not really allowed in her dorm room and the doors going in were locked so she would throw the key on a cord out the window. One time the cord it was on got stuck in a tree. I had to borrow a ladder from the janitor. He was highly amused. Gail made me ommlettes, I made her kasha. I kept ironing my underwear.

That semester Gail’s mother wrote her. “Gail, have you met anyone?”

“Well there is this guy, but I am not sure he is my type. He is so clean cut!”

cuts, edits, saves,
—————-

Hangouts evolved in my class of ceramics students at The Kansas City Art Institute. The first year I was there I could not drink unless I snuck into a bar. I got good at this, but.
The next year I ended up going to Betty’s Hall. “Have a ball at Betty’s Hall”. We listened to the Kings of Jazz and danced country swing. I danced with a friend fairly often, it was a kind of contest between us, fast, hard and if you let go, you would fly into the wall. I had already learned not to drink much. Betty’s closed over the summer and the next fall we started going to Kay’s Rockhill Bar. It has a pool table. I was not very good.

There was a new student sitting on a stool at Kay’s. She had some blue pants on with a white stripe up the side. I walked up, stuck my hand out and said, ” Hi, I ‘d like you to meet Louis”. She looked around for Louis and then figured it out.

I graduated and decided to stay in school a semester. I signed up for an additional 3 credits for the next fall so that I could stay in school with Gail. We decided to go get summer jobs in San Francisco. We stayed with David. I got a job as a bicycle messenger. Gail was working nights as a cook on Fisherman’s Wharf. I was not doing good in the job. I was never good at hills on a bike. We never saw each other. After a month, it was clear that something had to change. So I called up the summer camp I used to work at, Tamarack, in Ortinville Michigan, and asked if they had jobs for us.

They did. We had to arrive a bit late for the start. We left San Francisco a day later. Camp had a policy, “Staff caught in compromising positions should expect to be terminated. Everyone always wanted to know which positions were compromising, but I proposed to Gail that we get married in Reno Nevada on the way. Gail thought Reno was tacky. We got married in Lovelock Nevada by the Justice of the Peace. Gail worked in the kitchen at camp and I worked in the ceramics shop.

The Camp director, a great jokester, gave us a mobile home to live in. It was on a small island in the main road. It had big bay windows. He removed all the curtains from it.

Kinako Cerve Katz – きなこCerveכץ

This recipe is for an amalgam hot beverage recipe.
Fresh roast some soybeans as you would coffee. I use a heat gun in an uncoated tin can stirring with a very long implement.
I roast the bean meat to a traditional US light roasted color. I ignore the color of the skins.
Allow them to cool and grind them very fine in a coffee grinder. I do not use a bur mill, but one of those cheapo high speed mills I add one cardomom pod to about a 1/4 cup of the beans.

Using a #5 Cerve pot (AKA Turkish/Greek/Arabic/Israeli coffee pot) heat some water with 2 teaspoons of sugar.
When near boiling add 1.5 Tablespoons of fine ground kinako.
Bring to a boil and allow to froth up.
Let it sit 20 seconds and froth it up again.
You can do this a third time.
The Kinako settles more quickly than coffee so wait ten seconds and pour. Reserve some foam for each cup.
Top this off with coconut milk. I do not know if it is good with cream but most things are. It would be fine with me if you used butter.
The recipe is also good with a bit of cocoa added.

Chip, Arrival, Thonburi,

I met Chip at The University of Michigan where he was the support staff for Ceramics and I was a new undergraduate. I was his work study. He liked what I did for him probably because I worked. If my memory is right, he came in and told me to be ready to help him unload the truck and I said, “another one?”. I had already unloaded a truck, counted the bags and cleaned up.

Kurt Weiser was a graduate student at the time. I used to sit and watch him work. He was an innovator in the field. He was always looking for some new tool or process. I am not sure that there was a direct influence, but it would be easy to look at my work and infer one. I am certainly not sure that there was not a direct influence on me. If I had to guess, I would say that there was. Kurt took me aside one day and told me I should go visit The Kansas City Art Institute. When the end of the semester came I got ready to go. This was Spring Semester 1975. I was an art student, it was my first semester in art school, and was taking an Asian Art History Survey with the late Professor Walter Spink as well as a ceramics course with Kurt, a figure drawing course, a 3D design course with Professor Georgette Zirbes, and a 2D design Course with Professor Ted Ramsey. It could be that one of these courses was taken the next semester but 18 credits was a normal full load.

The Asian Art History course feature thousands of slides, all shot (except where noted below) by Walter Spink. These were from Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, China, Japan, Tibet, Nepal, and Korea. I do not remember images from other countries of Asia, but there could have been some. The course was special. It was personal, he shot the slides. He was an expert on the Ajanta Caves but I remember all the big sites of India. There was a lot of memorization. But he started any section with culture, and his explanations were those of someone who had a lot of experience trying to give the sense of a culture to someone with no experience in that culture. How do you explain Buddhism to someone or how people relate to a Hindu Sadhu to a young Jewish kid and make it not silly, comprehendable. He had a hard task and did a reasonably good job at it. He was also funny.

The final exam was on material that was not from his own slides. It was on a traveling exhibition, “Recent Archaeological Finds of China” . I was going to try and get to Kansas City before the end of the semester. I had only a few days to hitchhike there so I brought my backback to the final. In the backpack I had my normal gear. For food I decided to bring peanut butter, it was cheap. I also brought some homemade granola I had left over.
From Ann Arbor I went south to Indianapolis. Indianapolis was always hard to get through but still easier than Detroit or Chicago. I made it to Kansas City the next morning. I got dropped off in front of The Nelson Atkins Museum. On the front of the museum was a show banner, “Recent Archaeolical Finds of China”.

The Nelson Atkins has free admission. But the Blockbuster show was not cheap. I paid for it anyways. When I got inside I met a young woman my age. She was attractive, at least I was attracted. But she seemed to be on drugs, I stayed with her in the museum and ended up giving her a guided tour. About halfway through she said, ” I thought you were making all of this stuff up about the work, but what you say matches the labels.’ The exhibition was great to see. I remember The Flying Horse. It is spectacular.

Kurt fixed me up a place to stay. I remember that the guy I stayed with had girl friends. I liked the school.
But really walking in the studio, everyone’s work was better than mine. There were a bazillion people in the studio late at night.I did not meet the teachers.

I left Kansas City and hitched to Yosemite. I never hitchhiked out of Denver. It was illegal to hitchhike in Colorado so I would take the bus. I have a hard time detailing the trip because I hitched out west so many times but I think on this trip I took the bus south and got dropped of in Albuquerque. It was hot. People at the bus station told me the wrong direction for the freeway. I walked about five miles. It did not look right. I asked again. I was told another direction. It too was not right. This time I knew it right away. I had not crossed an east west freeway coming in from the north so I know if I walked south I would get there. I got picked up by a guy in a sports car and dropped off in 15 0r 20 miles, a much worse place to hitch from. Then a VW stopped and picked me up. The car was full so I sort of got packed into the back seat. There was a Spanish speaking man in and a woman in the front. The woman told me that she was a prostitute and that the man was an illegal alien. A we approached Flagstaff I started smelling gas and the prostitute said that the gas gauge was dropping and the car was running terribly. Some screw came out and gas was coming out of the whole. I thought we were stuck, but then I thought of how we used to fix canoes that had lost a rivet at summer camp with bubble gum, and that it got stiff in the cold. Well that would not work because gum almost certainly dissolves in gas, so I covered it up with aluminum foil and jammed and the screwed it into the hole. The first gas station was about 20 miles away. We pulled in, I showed him my repair. He said “This looks first rate, what do you need me for?” I said that they were driving into LA and gum was going to thaw. He said, “thats a real shame”. The driver and passenger spent the night in a hotel and I hitched in San Bernardino and spent a night on my Uncle Leonard’s coach. It was terrible hitching out of there. I went north. My peanut butter was really not in a very good container so I mixed it with the granola and it formed a sort of stiff peanut bar. At some point I mixed in a pound of rasins. It was really pretty good. I bought a cabbage. They keep well out of refrigeration, especially if you eat the outside leaves once a day.I do not remember if I went to San Francisco that trip or not. My brother Dave, and my good friend Dave both lived there.I htiched to Yosemite and spent the first night in Yosemite Creek Campground. In the morning I got a permit to go up the back of Half Dome.

I had crummy equipment and it was May. I think I stayed at Little Yosemite Campsite. There were some yahoos drinking beer there. I spent a night, left my camp set up, climbed the back side of half dome (its a walk up, not technical) came down and stayed the night again. In the morning there was snow on the ground and my cotton sleeping bag was insufficient. I left cold, and a little wet and hitchhiked to Berkely California. It was slow getting out of Yosemite and I remember sleeping in a field and waking up surrounded by cows. It was scary. and stayed the night I think anyways with my cousin Ellen. In the morning I walked to the REI store and spent nearly the rest of my money on a Polarguard sleeping bag. I left town and hitchhiked up the coast. I stopped in Fortuna and stayed a day with a high school friend Carmen. She was living in an old funky house in a grove of redwood stumps. There were people who had built houses on top of the stumps and were squatting on the land. I think it was all owned by Carmen’s husband. Carmen had a daughter who I was introduced to as Indigogo.

My memories from there are not very filled out. There was bees nest in the wall of the bathroom and you could hear them buzz if you banged the wall. There was a fridge full of frozen cider. I have a vague memory of picking apples, but it was May. Maybe we only went to look at them. Now I think Carmen described cleaning up the dead apples then shaking the tree. They had a little press and it was two fridges set to as cold as they would go, mostly frozen.

I think that Carmen drove me into Eureka.I left and hitchhiked up the coast. I did not get far the first day. I think that I had gotten too much sugar from cider,,, its hard to know. But I walked down to the beach at Eureka State Park and made some mussel soup and ate it for a couple meals. Noon the next day I packed up and walked out of the park. I had little money but I though that a cup of coffee would be good. I went into a restaurant that had a view of the park and ordered a cup. The man running the place brought me a coffee, and asked if I was the guy eating mussels on the beach. I said yes. He brought me a sandwich and gave me another wrapped up for the road.

Mid June each year 1973, 74 and 76-79 I worked at Camp Tamarack, a Jewish camp for children near Flint Michigan.

David

It is hard to know what life would have been like as an adult without David. He is so smart, energetic, stable, he taught me so much. My debt is great. He taught me how to make tofu and bread. He put the idea into my head to make miso. He got me interested in making food from scratch.

My second semester we lived in a “quad” in the dormatory at The University of Michigan. Four people in two rooms. We had our own bathroom. It was so much fun. We were on a corridor called “The Co-op Corridor” in Alice Lloyd Hall. In order to be in that dorm you had to be in a program called “The Pilot Program”. It was a living learning community. In order to be in the program you had to take a one credit course called “Pilot Program Theme Experience”. This class just required that you attend a series of “lectures” although one of the lectures was a cello recital. I hear a talk by Dick Gregory. He was a commedian but was on a world and self improvement campaign. He first talked about vegetarianism, then, worried about plants he talked about only eating fruit and seeds and what it was like to run across the country drinking only fruit juice. He said that his ultimate goal was to become an airatarian. It was very hard to know how serious he was about this.
He was incredibly funny.
According to Wikipedia part of one of his comedy routines contained this,
” Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I understand there are a good many Southerners in the room tonight. I know the South very well. I spent twenty years there one night.

Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant and this white waitress came up to me and said, “We don’t serve colored people here.” I said, “That’s all right. I don’t eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.”

Then these three white boys came up to me and said, “Boy, we’re giving you fair warning. Anything you do to that chicken, we’re gonna do to you.” So I put down my knife and fork, I picked up that chicken and I kissed it. Then I said, “Line up, boys!”
”
Anyhow, the second semester David, Roz and I took a pilot program course called, “An Overview of Low Energy Technology with Jim Burgel” . He lived in the dorm. The teachers of the Pilot Program courses all lived in the dorm. Also in the dorm at that time was Norman Hartweg who was one of Kevin Keasey’s Merry Pranksters. You can read a little about him in Electric Coolaid Acid Test. It was a very exciting place to live, there was always something going on.
Anyhow this is supposed to be about David. We both had 8 a.m. classes. We used to get up at 10 minutes to 8 and then run with our bicycles down the stairs and race to class. We left our combination locks open so that we would not be late. Then I got pleurisy and inflamation of the chest wall. I was told not to exercise. We got up a few minutes earlier. I walked down the stairs and he carried both bicycles. Then he would pull me to class with a rope.

David introduced me to “The First Rule of Money” from “The Book of Money”. If I remember all of this correctly the first rule is, “Do what you want and the money will come.” It seems glib, rather stupid but you have to put these words into the context of the author. “Want” seems easy. I want a new car, I want dinner. These are small wants. The want he was talking about was the want that is all encompassing. The want that contains all desire.The bigger the want the easier the problem of money is. If the want is big enough than money is not the issue. I am sure that there are exceptions. Only orthodox purists believe that rules have no exceptions.

I did not know it at the time, but my desire to visit Thailand to see potter was big enough that the money problem dissolved. By 15 months after Suwanee visited The Bray we had over $5000 saved up and I had gotten a Fulbright Grant.

 

Might need to go into a “David 2”

It was 1976 late May or early June. I was in Cincinnati for a month. I was working two jobs washing dishes. I was between colleges. My friend in Cincinnati’s parents arranged for us to accompany them to one of their friend’s house for dinner. It was the Rombauer’s house . We were to be “cleaners” invited to eat what was left after the feed of the ‘dults.

I remember the food as reasonably good plain cooking and thinking that my mother was a better cook. I knew that Irma was the author of “Joy of Cooking”. I had no idea at that point about the book. I knew it existed but had not cracked it. I had read The Settlement Cookbook cover to cover, the Book of Tofu and a couple other cookbooks by then.
I was really very poor in Cincinnati and was living in a house that had been occupied for sometime and had some large quantities of foods on hand. Unfortunately most of this was flour and alfalfa seeds. Bread with sprouts got old. The Rombauer meal was a good break from it.

Mae

Mae

Suwanee’s mother, who I call Mae“mom” picked up the phone. I needed to get hold of Suwanee so that I could get an invitation in Dankwian for Fulbright Grant application. Mae (the vowel here is similar to the “a” in Dad, and the syllable has a falling tone) did not speak English.

We had a converstation. It took a long time. She told me to call back in one day. I confirmed that I should call back in 24 hours, she said yes. The only word she used in English was bye bye. I was thrilled.

There are a few things that I feel like I have done really well at during my life. This phone call was really well done. I prepared. Prior to the preparation I knew how to count to ten, ask where something is, but not understand the answer, and a few simple words. I checked out a phrase book from the library ( there was no internet to speak of in 1987). A Googleplex was a large number, but the “Search Engine” had not been invented.

I got a very big sheet paper and wrote a chart. The first column was my introduction. I am calling from The United States. I do not speak Thai. Is Suwanee Natewong there? The next column had possible responses with key vocabulary underlined.”not here”, “who?”,”I don’t understand”, “Could you repeat yourself?” “please repeat” etc.

The next column was a list of vocabulary and phrases for my responses. I had a list of time terms, tomorrow, hours, week, and other phrases like different number. It worked. Suwanee’s mother was not particularly “well educated” but was smart as they come, but could read and write well, and raised incredibly smart children. While we are on this topic the phone call was quite expensive. I do not remember exactly how expensive the call was, but $8.00 per minute seems about right. It could have been $3. I really am not sure.

When we did get to Thailand Mae was very helpful. She had no idea what we knew and did not know so she showed us how to do many things. It was really rather amazing. She was in someways clueless and in otherways so full of welcoming gratiousness, nam jai, literally “liquid of the heart”. She showed Gail how to use hangers. She always smiled.

When we arrive Suwanee’s father was still alive. He grew up in a family of farmers. He was smart and was small. So instead of becoming a farmer he decided to study and studied law. He became a federal judge. It was a remarkable achievement to come from the Northeast in those days and rise to the level he did. Being a judge did not keep him from playing cards, gambling or drink. I have not asked about he met his wife, I have learned little things, but Mae was a beautiful young woman in her photographs she had delicate graceful hands, and her smile was penetrating and captivating. She was always busy until the last few years of her life, when she was just mostly busy.

It is such a different culture. There were people who had some international experience and people that did not. Some of them understood that we had different cultural norms, some did not. Some could deal with it, some could not. For Mae we were what we were. She was always nice, mostly tolerant, welcoming, and often amused by us. I said something off color once. She took my hand, held in in hers bracing on her hip, and brought the other one around in a long arc with a constant accelleration and smacked the back of my hand. It raised a welt. I think she really liked that I smiled. I thought it was funny. She probably thought I was practicing “mai pen rai”, the philosphy of letting go of things that you cannot change. I am not sure.

Mae, like her husband like to play cards, and talk with other women. While I was away, she was bitten by a snake. It was a white lipped pit viper,Trimeresurus albolabris, The Thai translates as “Green snake with wooden tail”. We went to visit her in the hospital. She was in a public ward. A private room would be too boring. When we got there she introduced us, and then went back to talking. The beds had been rolled to the middle of the room. The patients were enjoying themselves.

My best memory is supported by video. It was my birthday, and yes, a party was thrown. I was the excuse for the party. In the video she says, “Mom comes already”
Today is the birthday of Louis, Young Suwanee come translate for me, Ask for Louis and Family and child, progress or something like it, as a government worker (professor) and every kind, more riches, better than time past, much much. Do you understand? I said a little (its all easy now).Suwanee come translate so we can here.
Suwanee repeats the Thai, but she does not repeat exactly what was said, she includes “enjoyment”, but repeats success at work.

There is another video of he singing a song “come dance with me” at the botanical garden in Arizona.