Jim Schrempp's Web Home

The end of summer is near. But let's be truthful, in this part of the world summer doesn't really end until the first cold days of November. Until then it's still beach weather.

Ray's place sold, so he's now loose upon the world. We see him and the Coulters and Brent quite a bit these days. Our camps make a convenient jumping off point and I'm always glad to have old friends make use of my place. Sometimes we just get a few fleeting moments, but other times they stay a few days. It makes for a great life for us.

Erling's opera Mordake opened in SF, around the corner from the EFF offices, and we were there. It was a stunning stage setting. Dual rear and front projection screens transformed the small setting into a trip through the protagonists decent into a personal hell. At times the rear projection of a bedroom spun as the character wandered dazed and confused. Other times the front projection lit up his profile in a burst of fiery energy as his manic self took over. All with Erling's music showing the way. Truly a good show.

Then there was Thom's sonic installation at a performance of the Debra Slater Dance Theater. He lined a 100 yard long corridor with speakers, each playing their own riff of ambient sounds. Entering this gauntlet we were assaulted with clashing urban sounds that actually propelled us ahead. As we moved along the sounds became more accepting to us and of us. When we reached the end we were bathed in the sound of harmonious strings and the tinkle of a music box. Thom tells us it was intended to take us from our outdoor urban setting to the quiet interior of the dance theater. And the dance was excellent as well!

The first week of July had me at Indian Lakes, just North of Vermilion Bay. It was a repeat of last year's walleye shootout; this year the results were equally satisfying. I have some photos on Facebook to peruse. Jon came along this year and so did Jim E from Colorado. We met up with Kim and Pete in Winnipeg for the drive out. This year the weather was colder and wetter than last. Jon brought in some nice sized fish, but Pete took the champion spot with a huge walleye that he returned to the lake to breed. Jon is a fishing machine and was out no matter what. I followed him into a couple of downpours. Some worked into nice sunny floats. Others turned into such torrential downpours that we headed back after only an hour with our lines down. On one notable return, our last chance to fish, we stopped at the little islands near the cabin for one more drop. Low and behold we found a ledge with some good size fish. The rain was filling up the boat but the fish were biting so we kept repositioning and drifting over it. After unhooking a fish we'd look at each other, rain running off our hats, mean black clouds in the sky. We'd glance to the cabins on the shore and say, "well, one more drop can't hurt." And then we'd laugh like idiots. It was a blast.

Barely back and dry, we helped James celebrate his graduation. Good Lord man. You've done it! We met a number of his family and friends and sister's friends (it was a dual graduation). We love a social party like this and had a number of fun chats. His aunt from Germany set up an easel and everyone was invited to apply some acrylic paints as a gift to James. I did the best I could - sorry James.

Then it was off to Laguna Beach for our almost regular Pageant of the Masters. To our horror, Eiler's Inn is now in transformation to a $500/night kooky looking spa hotel. Damn. We were back to By The Sea Inn. Under new management it has been remodeled to a much nicer style. They've also replaced the desk hag. We actually enjoyed the staff this time. The POM show was good, as expected. And the food was overly filling - also expected.

Back to The Rep for Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking. I called early and we sat center stage, row 2. There was a slight panic before the curtain opened as we were warned that "Ms Fisher often likes to interact with the audience in the front two rows." Super! Oh shit! We negotiated to remain on my firm promise to protect against any embarrassing stuff; it worked out fine. The play itself was interesting. Funny at times. Awfully sad at others. It was like spending an evening with a very open, very entertaining addict who is off the junk - for now. Overall I enjoyed it. It is not for the faint of heart. Not for strong language or inappropriate humor (although there is some of that) but more for the sadness that grew over me as I realized how painful so much of her life has been. Still, the end result seems cathartic for Carrie and I think she says more than once, "better to be alive than dead." (I think wikipedia gives a good bio of Carrie.)

Then back on the road for five days at the Engelhorn family reunion in Branson, MO. We flew into Little Rock so we could see some of the beautiful Ozark Mountains. We managed a quick visit to the LR historic museum, which has some houses from the 1820's on their original foundations. We also spent hours at the Clinton Presidential Library. This is worth a visit. On our way to Branson we saw the "Grand Canyon of the Ozarks;" it was a nice valley. Branson itself is the country music capital of the world, if you don't count Nashville. But, of course, you do have to count Nashville. And it is complete gridlock for most of the day. At one point some family members spent two hours locked in traffic on the way to the store and they just returned empty handed. The parts we saw were 100% white - all the shows, all the audiences, all the wait staff, all the actors; that surprised us.

The family gathering itself was a huge success. Gary and Esther did a wonderful job hosting. The planning was fantastic and the food was heavenly. Ann and Blu made big contributions to a smoothly running show. We had fun getting to know them, I hope to see them before the next reunion. We had about 60 family members attend. What a crowd. You can see photos of it on our family site. You can also visit their web sites for Anniblu Farms and MrC's Caps.

We managed to see The Presleys (a good show), The Baldnobbers (an ok show), and The Sheppard of the Hill (a bad show). The shows didn't cost much, so we were not expecting Vegas, but the shows just didn't deliver. The Presleys were good musicians and made a big deal of how many family members were on stage. We enjoyed their show. The Baldnobbers had a lot of family up there, but they didn't trade on that. As a result I'd expect them to replace the weak performers with better ones. And for our show the sound engineering was terrible. TSOTH was just bad acting. It was overly emotive, the pacing was slow, the dialog uninteresting. TSOTH needs a new producer.

On the advice of Craig and LaVon we took a day trip to Eureka Springs. It was raining so we only drove the town. It has a long history as a heath spring, at one point they put the water in milk cans and shipped it all over the country. They have a nice little museum that took us an hour to see. I'd like to spend a few days at one of the old hotels in town. On the way back to Little Rock we drove past a large farm machinery building on its side. Houses had tarps on their roofs. At one spot trees 24 inches in diameter had been snapped in half. We later came to believe we were seeing the aftermath of the season's tornado that ripped through Arkansas.

This summer the Filoli Jazz series had some good shows. Le Jazz Hot of San Francisco was fabulous. I love that Django Reinhart sound and they do it so very well (if you go to their web site you can hear a sample). We also saw Darrell Grant and Dmitri Matheny. Grant was spectacular on the piano. He lightly danced across the keys in a way that brought each note out as he played. Dmitri plays the flugelhorn, too bad his was broken. When the valves worked he sounded brilliant, but too often he'd just blow air. He apologized right off for having an old, but cherished instrument. Unfortunately he lost 10% of the audience at the break. I felt like I needed to apologize to my guests. I hope that he's now using a new horn and the cherished one is just for studio work.

Looks like I'm off to England again for a few days of business. I hope I'm coherent after the red eye lands.

Read my previous journal entries

If you read this drop me an email... ... and just say, "hello."

Here's a list of some sites I've enjoyed

Who am I?

For those who want to know, I've put together a whole page, just chock full of the trivia that comprises my life.

Friends

I'd like to link here to the home pages of all of my friends, however few of them are networked enough or interested enough in this web stuff to have a page. (Of course, some are!) So, I've put up a few pages for my friends.

Genealogy

Some family names that we research (well, if someone writes we write back):

Engelhorn
Englehorn
Kolm
Hopkins
Lewis
Bernitt
Schrempp (of course!)

Mentions for no reason except that they want a search engine hit:

Jennifer Vanya or Jen Vanya

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