Interiors: Bulthaup kitchen party in Santa Monica

Chris Tosdevin threw a tasteful party for the opening of his Bulthaup studio in Santa Monica last night. Lots of architects, musicians, commercial real estate developers and the old lion of architecture, Ray Kappe and his wife Shelly. Lovely people. I could tell just from looking at Ray he "was" someone. The man was vibrating, radiating. This was the LA design crowd at it's best; uncrowded. Still, among the black clothing there were some stand out jewels, some Bottega bags, some Manolo shoes. The kitchens made me want to create a brand new kitchen. Bulthaup is the best. Once you work in one, you are hooked, and it is so visually pleasing, and so incredibly functional. Someone thought of a place for the dishwashing liquid so you don't have to look at that bottle, wasn't that thoughtful? Someone thought of a pullout drawer for the saran wrap and the aluminum foil, wasn't that thoughtful? And someone knew the refrigerator could just "go away" and look like another cabinet and not stand out like a thud in the middle of the room. That was brilliant. The LA drive there took an hour in rush traffic, the drive home 40 minutes through Beverly Hills, through Santa and his sleigh arched over Wilshire Blvd, through the twinkling blue lights up Canon Drive and it's row of packed restaurants, through the design section of Beverly Blvd, the sofas and beds and kitchens speeding by. It's fun to drive through LA. It's fun to live in this city.

Writing: "I had a farm in Africa...." one of the most glorious first lines in literature.

Karen Blixen, aka Isak Dinesen, is my guide & constant inspiration.

From the 1956 Paris Review, after she was asked: most of your tales are laid in the last century, aren't they? You never write about modern times.

"I do, if you consider that the time of our grandparents, that just-out-of-reach time, is so much a part of us. We absorb so much without being aware. Also, I write about characters, and they take over. They make the design, I simply permit them their liberty. Now, in modern life and in modern fiction there is a kind of atmosphere and above all an interior movement inside the characters - which is something else again. I feel that in life and in art people have drawn a little apart in this century. Solitude is now the universal theme. But I write about characters within a design, how they act upon one another. Relation with others is important to me, you see, friendship is precious to me, and I have been blessed with heroic friendships. But time in my tales is flexible. I may begin in the eighteenth century and come right up to World War I. Those times have been sorted out, they are clearly visible. Besides, so many novels that we think are contemporary in subject with their date of publication - think of Dickens or Faulkner or Tolstoy or Turgenev, are really set in an earlier period, a generation or so back. The present is always unsettled, no one has had time to contemplate it in tranquility...I was a painter before I was a writer....and a painter never wants the subject right under his nose; he wants to stand back and study a landscape with half-closed eyes."

photo by Peter Beard.

Edinburgh's Warriston Cresent in snow

We got out just in time. They closed the airport the next day. It's the first big snow of the season and the temperature went to 0 degrees, celsius, doubled plus 32 equals fahrenheit, ok, get it? It was cold, but I had my timberland arctic jacket, from the men's section, with the hood and the multi pockets. That coat kept me VERY warm and changed my relationship to the outer world in the UK. I just don't like the cold, ok? I do not like it cold.

Back to Southern California. As we walked out of the airport it began to rain and for LA was cold. The next day the sun was out and swept the basin clean, fresh, clear, the palm trees majestic in the light.

Poetry: BEFORE THE DAWN poem on L.K. Thayer's Poetry Juice Bar

I was guest poet last week on L.K. Thayer's Poetry Juice bar with my poem BEFORE THE DAWN. This is a poem of love, above all else, simply simply love.

The response has been so positive, and I am furiously mailing poetry to people.

Thank you LA for recognizing the communication of love from husband to wife, mother to child, friend to friend.

Love, Kathleen

Back in Los Angeles

Here we are in Hancock Park, and the traffic in LA has bloomed in such a way that one cannot leave their neighborhood. I mean NASTY trying to get across the 405 after 3 in the afternoon. Don't even try. Lots to do to recreate a home, but it's day 24 and it's working.

Interiors .... Last Sunday in Newport

Fast Forward through the end of the Scotland trip, up to San Francisco for the Meals on Wheels Charity Gala which raised 1.2 million for San Francisco Seniors, and right into packing for the big move to LA. Green boxes everywhere, and between Tom and me, there are 58 boxes of books. Does anybody care when you are moving? Oh no, everybody backs away, says call me when you get there. OK, I can deal with it. One more day.

Dining: Edinburgh

Ok, we bumped around Edinburgh on Wednesday, had lunch at Martin Wishart in Leith, down by the water, and what a lunch, oh what a lunch, so delcious, so other worldly, it's all so downhill after that. Could be anywhere in the world, and here it is in Edinburgh for us to indulge ourselves. My lunch was celeriac and saffron veloute with confit of organic salmon, (pictured) teamed with 2008 Pouilly Fume, J Pabiot, Loire Valley, France then steamed seabream on a bed of julienne of glazed vegetables, straw potato, warm vinaigrette, along with a 2006 Cotes de Provence, Rimauresq Cru Classe, France. I'm drunk by this time and of course I have to eat dessert, which I usually don't, but here, you must so I choose mango souffle with exotic fruit sorbet.

What do you say to a rainbow? A hurricane? The way the stars shine in the sky? How does one express the delicate nature of the flavors, the professional behavior of the very young adult wait staff? Superb, sublime, heaven.

Art class at Kellie Castle with Sheila Mitchell

Here she is, inviting me to add watercolor to the paper and make some marks that attempt to look like flowers. Such fun. Such terror. Such a complete other world apart while the oil is being spilt in the gulf, the ash is spewing from Iceland and the film festival rocks on in the Cote d'Azur. We make marks and discuss the upcoming UK election and weave our lives inside each others.

Tuesday, art day, settles everything down.

As they say in Scotland, lovely.

Yew trees & view at Hill of Tarvit

kellie easter eggs for sale

Imagine, driving up the hill to get your eggs, taking what you need, and depositing your money in an honesty box. That's the way to shop at Kellie Castle, Fife Scotland, and the drive back down the hill gives a spectacular view of Bass Rock, the Firth of Forth and the Isle of May.

What a gorgeous place Scotland is.

Beef dinner tonight.

Saturday evening on UK telly

OMG, here is a judged television show that certainly rivals American Idol. It's We're off to see the Wizard, with contestants competing to be THE Dorothy, judged by a panel, and the last word going to none other than ANDREW LLOYD WEBER, who sits in the foreground on his throne. Incredibly talented 18 year old girls singing major musical hits and selling it. Mr. Simon Cowles has NOTHING on ALW. This is like Oz on steroids. On the night of elimination, the loser sits on a moon and is taken away while the crowd waves goodbye. Only in the UK.

Late Spring in Fife

We made it. The journey was smooth, but long. Scotland had a very harsh winter, and the late spring daffodils are still out in full bloom everywhere. The apple trees are budding, which splashes the countryside with various levels of green. The sun shimmers on the water. Today we drove to St. Andrews to shop for food. The bleachers are up in front of the 17th & 18th holes on the old course in anticipation of the British Open this summer.

Jet lag city. Back to the bed.

Travel: Scotland

Taking British Airways 4 p.m. plane to London TODAY, then connect to Edinburgh & drive to Fife.

Fresh Air, golf and great food, along with

very peaceful sleeping.....

to be continued

Poems that cut the ice of the Heart Spencer Reece

Suvan Geer's drawing, like Spencer Reece's poem MARGARET from the February 2010 issue of the Poetry Foundation's monthly magazine POETRY is one of those, when read, immediately asks to be read again. Because of copyrights, I cannot insert here, but can only say, like Suvan Geer's work of art, there is a whisper in it, and the silence inside the whisper stays with you and gives you something only poetry can.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=238628

This is the address: I'll find out soon how to link things on these blogs, but you can copy and paste the address into your web browser and read the poem...sublime.

The City of our Final Destination

...is the new James Ivory picture that is not playing anywhere near here, so we watched SUNSET BLVD last night instead, and I got so into Gloria Swanson's rendering of Norma Desmond (we'll do another picture, and another picture) I forgot to blog. I forgot everything for the moment, like packing for Scotland where it's 60's and raining, like packing for my own Hollywood movie and my vision of 1930's Fred Astaire sets with quilted satin headboards, white walls and marabou, like packing the kitchen, the bedroom, the office. Oy, the office. There are at least 30 boxes of books, but that's ok. I'm taking them with me. I'm taking all of it with me, for the next installment in my movie. Cut. Print it. Next scene.

Write in the morning, blog at night.

April 24, 2010

The loft is filled with boxes. There are suitcases splayed in all directions and my closet looks as if someone or something has taken a big bite. I went on line and found a company who rents green boxes for moving. They deliver them, you fill em, stack em, move em, and they pick them up at the other end. Sounds good to me because the sound of tape tearing out of it's gun is all too familiar and makes me cringe.

Went to the theatre today to see THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE and listened to the permutations of the language of love. We could go deep into that. Suffice it to say for now, on a Saturday night, when REDS is about to come on TCM, that love is an on going topic of conversation.

The Move back to Los Angeles

April 23, 2010

I can't believe it. I have boxes, and I am using a tape gun. I didn't think it would happen so soon. So soon? I've been in Newport Beach for four years, and it's time to move back to LA. I packed my closet today. Well, the accessories. Oh God, I have so much stuff. While I was packing accessories, Michelle was getting her Yoga blog going. Check her out: Michelle McKAY YOGA. She teaches regularly at Yogaworks. And I'm trying to write and I'm trying to figure out who I should send my work out to and I'm reading Charles Bukowski who says and I quote: "sell as little as possible, save what you can. it's when you give it all to them that you are dead. don't be in a hurry to make it. it's more important to sit around in the sunlight or sleep. it will come along if you let it." Grounding advice. I wish I could be so confident. Here is a photo of my patent leather Prada shoes. Time to kick up my heels.