About 2019

The year began, more or less, with my birthday, celebrated with Kathy and our daughter Elizabeth at Chez Panisse Café. A word about this restaurant, four blocks away. We've gone there for many reasons since it opened, including a memorable wedding reception. Alice Waters has been a fixture in the neighborhood for decades, her cookbooks in evidence in our kitchen. Corso, the northern Italian standby a few blocks south, is another local favorite. 

Kathy, shown with our son John at his wedding (see below), continues to lead the Berkeley Property Owners Association. She and our son Michael are in business together, with rental properties in Berkeley and San Francisco. In the fall, she went to Athens with our friend and neighbor Sandra Clement.

I was on a panel in S.F. with Erin Cullerton (right), Kenny Caldwell, and Sarah Young Magee (left). Erin lives in L.A. now, so it was great to see her. Kenny and I lunch seasonally at Chez Panisse, but we broke this tradition and had breakfast near his house on Lake Merritt in the summer. (Erin Hagopian photo.)

In February, Elizabeth and I went to a beer hall in Oakland to hear our friend Eva Hagberg talk about her new book, How to be Loved. She came back in March for another talk and I met her friend Chani Lisbon (with me, right), the NYC comedienne. I read Eva's book in one sitting and then raved about it on Amazon. The publisher just reprinted it as a paperback. Read it!

In March, I learned that Rosemary Stoller (above left) had died. I didn't know her well, but we had her over for dinner several times when our English friends the Wigfalls visited. I always liked her. Some people seem immortal - I thought of Sally Woodbridge (above right) that way, too, but she died in late November. Our neighbor for decades, Sally covered the Bay Area architectural scene as a critic, historian, and journalist. My friend Chuck Byrne surfaced the fact that she also appeared older-younger on the cover of LIFE in the early 1990s.

April's big event was the wedding of our son John and Sallyann Wright. They live near Birmingham, UK, in Dudley. Because she's a head teacher, the event took place over Easter on the Mayor's Balcony at San Francisco City Hall. 



My sister Alice Parman officiated. It drew family and friends from all over, including a large contingent from the West Midlands. Here we are below, spread across that balcony. Someone compared it to the events of the British Royal Family, but - as I noted - we're all still speaking.

In May, Eva Hagberg visited again to receive her Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley. Her dissertation is on Aline Saarinen, the wife of mid-century architect Eero. Eva's father, Garry Hagberg, was also at the ceremony at BAMPFA's theater, where I often attend public lectures on art and design. Last spring, I heard the playwright Stan Lai talk several times. I ran into him later at our local Apple Store, and we ended up talking and corresponding. My friend Peiting Li, who TA'd the class, said that Lai believes in being open to encounters. I benefited from that openness - as well as from his lectures.

In September, we hosted a birthday party for Kathy's sister Laurie Snowden, another family gathering that included their sister Lenore and husband Michael Opalak, cousins Laure de la Chapelle and Pierre Clement, and old friends Linnea and Bill Ehri. Laurie and I were on a panel in April to mark the launch of the Design Book Review online archive. The panel, which was filmed, also included Mimi Zeiger from L.A., Margaret Crawford from U.C. Berkeley, and Bill Littman and Keith Krumweide from California College of the Arts. Google kindly digitized every issue (1983 through 2002). Also in September, Caroline, daughter of our third son Ross and his wife Alison Powers, turned two. We all adore her. Here she is (below) at Easter dinner after Sallyann and John's wedding. (On the left is our grandson, Bojana and Michael's Conor, now 14; my niece Rachael Carnes, who joined us with her son Hugh Brinkley, is in the center.)

Elizabeth and I started an editorial studio in January. We have two book projects under way. I'm also helping with an oral history of my cousin Chuck Davis, architect of Monterey Bay Aquarium (and much else). Helen Degenhardt, Karen Fiene, and Laura Hartman are the organizers and interviewers. Chuck moved to Albany Hill a few years ago, and he and his brother Hal have been helping Michael with the "beautiful ruin" he bought and is restoring near Tomales Bay.

In November, I went to Melbourne (left), where I saw friends Anne Marie Davies and Ted Hochschwenden, and Jana and Rhys Ryan, and met the writer Joy Low, who took me to the older residential suburbs (below), dating back to a gold rush like S.F.'s. Then to Singapore, where Emily Marthinsen and I gave a paper at a conference. I saw friends Lisa Beazley and Steve Louie, and met the writer Sandy Chin, who took me to Chinatown and Malaytown (above right). We also heard a lecture at the main library on the way the city was depicted in art and maps in colonial times.

 

 

I saw my friend Vasilina Orlova one afternoon soon after I returned from Singapore. She was in S.F. again, speaking on a panel at an anthropology conference. We met at at the same conference three years before. Orlova is a Ph.D. candidate at U.T. Austin. I've read and admired her work for several years, and I cited it in an article I wrote for ARCADE in its latest issue.

We had 19 for Thanksgiving, including (from left) our cousin Gabrielle Clement, her mother Laure de la Chapelle, and Gabrielle's s.o., Nathan, down from Seattle. This was only possible because Michael figured out that our front main room could fit two tables (below). 

 

The book below arrived from Milan, edited by Paolo Ceccarelli. It includes an article on him that I wrote with Richard Bender. The book marks the centenary of Giancarlo De Carlo, an architect-planner whose most important work was the revival of Urbino - the town and its university. He also helped found Team X, an effort by younger European architects to revive modern architecture.

At Christmas, there were 10, so Laurie, her husband Chuck Smith, and their daughter Roz hosted. Here (left) are Bojana and Michael with Laurie at that dinner. He's raising a glass, and I do the same, dear reader, as we say goodbye to a "bumpy year," as Queen Elizabeth put it. Let's hope 2020 will be smoother.