Cultural Commentary – TalkingGrid

Posted on February 14, 2015October 9, 2016 by Frau Kolb — 2 Comments

13 Reasons to Celebrate Valentine’s Day

Mixed Media on Canvas, Painting by Frau Kolb, 2010

For the Romantics, out there, celebrating Valentine’s day comes as naturally as a bodily function. The Romantic simply oozes LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! They have buckets of red paint at the ready. They are intent on hitting the streets, this Saturday, 14th of February, year 2015, their pubes freshly waxed, to PAINT THE TOWN bright crimson, vibrating vermillion, luscious labia incarnadine, throbbing rose, and scintillating sienna.

You know the type: they got up early, last week to ensure that all their Lovers got long well-worded, heart moving, gut wrenching, LOVE letters written on top quality stationary. They own and are not afraid to use a fountain pen. Their hand writing proves they went to art school and the content of their letters shimmers with allusions to the voluptuous works of English poet, John Donne. Nothing is too grand for this type of being. Helicopter rides, no problem. Couple’s massage, with cinnamon oil and brisk strokes, assured. Red velvet cake and capes, required.

For those that LOVE, love the day is infused with a glow of giving and receiving, not so much cheap chocolates and factory made cards, but attention, affection, and erotic thumbs up from other sexy souls that seek any opportunity to connect and express emotions not often celebrated by the general population.

For Others, Valentine’s day is just another day. Perhaps the last time that they sent out a Valentine’s greeting was when they were in Kindergarten and the little kid they especially liked failed to get the message and just threw their little paper card away… Since then, they harbor a distrust for the holiday and don’t hesitate to express their lack of enthusiasm for Valentine’s Day. “It’s a Hallmark Holiday,” said one women, meaning that it was a bit of capitalist fluff, commercial hodgepodge holiday meaning nothing to Nobody.

How sad!

Stuffed Cloth Heart A Valentine By Annabella Kolb

It is for these downtrodden Lovers that Frau Kolb writes the following:

Talkinggrid List of 13 Reasons to Celebrate Valentine’s Day

1.) LOVE ROCKS!

Sorry, if you haven’t experienced this for yourself, yet, but if you have ever felt the sting of baby Cupid’s arrow, you know the poison propels paupers to the realms of princes, lifting one UP to new heights. It is wonderful to feel energized, charged, and ready to reach for the moon, fearless of falling into a pit of cliches, trusting.

2.) Celebrating Secures Sweet Memories

By investing time and thought into planning and producing a special sensation in another one creates a lasting impression, a memory of goodness shared. These memories hold couples together through difficult times in hospitals and under duress. Making dinner, setting the table, a single rose… candle light, it all adds up and get stored in that reserve of goodwill from which we draw when work, obligations, and personal difference threaten to erase our bonds with Loved Ones.

3.) Art you my LOVE?

Drawing on your infantile art skills or masterly verve with pen and ink; you can touch another’s heart and create that scrap of sunshine to warm up winter’s coldest days. YOU CAN! Allow yourself to find a good piece of acid-free paper, a scissor, some glue, glitter and BABY you can make your LOVE swoon.

4.) Pump UP the HEART Valve!

We are here now. We may not be here tomorrow. We owe it to ourselves to create a feeling of fulfillment in ourselves by expressing our fuzzy FEELINGS! Nothing will give you more JOLT or excitement than running up the temperature of your heart with warm words and woozy feelings! Expressing LOVE is a workout for the soul. Stay fit! Keep your soul from becoming a floppy blob: find yourself a LOVE worthy of words, wine, and worlds of wonderful exchanges, priceless endearments.

5.) It is good for the economy!

Think of all those chocolate makers, rose farmers, and vendors of paper products (cards, stickers, and trinkets) where would they be without Valentine’s Day to make February, an otherwise dull month, something snazzy. Valentine’s Day is indeed a commercialized holiday and you have a choice if you want to buy into it or not. You can celebrate with homegrown flowers, stinky little buds, preferred. You can make your own cards (see number 3) and write your own sonnets.

Some decide to splurge on jewelry, jets, and fireworks… Over-the-top? Yes and great for the providers of diamonds (always a rip off), charter plane flights to Maui, and explosives. HURRAY!

6.) Distinguish Yourself

You could be one of those cranky, irritable, sad, and sometimes lonely people that resist and resent LOVE in its throbbing pulsating glory. Or you could rent a white stretch limo and ride around town listening to “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” by Richard Wagner. The choice is, again, yours.

7.) BEHOLD THE WHITE ELEPHANT!

Valentine’s Day is a great opportunity for secret loves to throw caution to the wind and FLAUNT their LOVE! Go ahead invite your Other Man/Woman over for dinner with you and your official partner. Who knows you may find that polyamory or pure honesty are not as foreign to you and yours as previously envisioned. YOU can use this day to reveal your real feelings and thus release yourself from artifice and arrive at a more authentic being. (Or, you may become part of an scandalous triple murder suicide and thus earn your fifteen minutes of infamy.)

8.) Quality and Content Matter

This is your chance to state, affirm, and expose your true feelings for the ones that are either in your life or you would like to attract and attach to. The gift(s) you choose (or don’t) say a lot about the type of love you feel and what you have to offer and what you wish for in exchange. For all the women getting boxes of silky nothings… you know what is desired in return. For all the men that discover lovingly deforested females… on this magical day… well, you know you are LOVED.

Valentine's Day 2015 — Valentine’s Day 2015

9.) Keeping UP with The Kolbs

Observing tradition and flowing with the yearly calendar of opportunities to celebrate our bond is of the greatest importance to us. This year we celebrate our sixteenth year together. My husband has never failed to surprise me with roses red and sweets of various types. I’m pleased to say that I think we are just at the start of discovering the texture, color, and many shapes our love can take.

10.) Keeping up with The Kardashians

Just kidding.

11.) Friendship is worthy of Celebrating too.

Do not underestimate how much it will mean to your grandmotherly pal to get a card from you today. The other mothers in your mothers group will also feel appreciated if you send of an electronic or paper missive listing sweet qualities and good times had.

12.) The Jehova’s Witnesses Disapprove!

This may be my absolute favorite and strongest reason for celebrating Valentine’s Day with gusto; the Jehova’s Witnesses (an international door-to-door christian spirituality cult promising eternal life to the select and destruction to the rest) insist that Valentine’s Day is a Pagan holiday and that celebrating it is … blah, blah, blah… whatever. I grew up going to meetings three times per week. Thanks to them, I’ve read the King James Bible (in Spanish, no less) from cover to cover more than twice, yet I don’t understand why they think themselves better, more worthy of salvation, than anybody else. So… please pass the red heart staple gun. Thank you.

13.) Why Not?

Seriously, what are you afraid of? Eternal damnation? Revealing LOVE and being rejected? Spending too much on overpriced roses?

Get over it and get ON with the Party that is LIFE!

Happy Valentine’s Day, 2015!

Posted on July 31, 2014August 4, 2014 by Frau Kolb — 4 Comments

Race to the Top of The Eiffel Tower?

What a Huge Turn ON!

What is it with humans and our “sky scraping,” towers? WE crave heights! PEAK experience(s), which should be, theoretically, mired by the fact that everyone else on the planet seems to agree about the arch significance of the ever present, “Bucket List,” a standard compendium of minor glories, subtitled, “Travel Triumphs That Must be Experienced by All Humanity.” Every nation’s monuments appear to be made to be seen, recorded, and spun into Profile Pictures, galore! Take for example, visiting the Great Wall of China or the Egyptian Pyramids… If you make it either of those important sites, you will want to celebrate by taking pictures and posting them to the zippiest internet site available so your “friends,” will ogle and envy your good fortune. Right?

The same is the case with a virgin visit to famed Paris, petty travel glory ignites envy. Just yesterday an on-line friend confessed to being “jealous,” that Frau Kolb is in Paris, the famous City of Lights. Who can blame anyone for a pang of jelly-feelings when faced with another’s APEX moment, a glorious moment during which time stands still and we appreciate reality? Yet, there is nothing to envy. We’ve all had such moments and looking around I could see countless others having their photo opportunity, memorable moment, a golden instant pressed like a butterfly between book pages, a preserved out-of-breath, orgasmic arrival. However, those that know my secret… are aware that when life-threatening advanced breast cancer returned last year… there was no guarantee that I’d live long enough to hold hands with my husband to climb UP and UP and UP to the SUMMIT Level, to this immortal PEAK, a magical point, from which you can see far and wide over all of grand and intricate, studied and admired, cherished and enjoyable, Paris. To envy my ticket, which is an ongoing relationship with mortal illness, a grand motivator, indeed, a spur toward worldly milestone counting, daily writing, and well…no one really envies the price I’ve paid, for the life I live, because that would be insane.

You get on line, to pay, and wait your turn to start going up,up, up… everyone is more than happy for the privilege of scaling France’s most prominent national symbol, a monumentally scaled architectural art object, and space-age cash cow (the tower is the world’s most visited paid monument). My husband and I are sporty people and despite my swollen foot, I am faster than most tourists, bellies bulging, and all that jiggly jazz, but NOT faster than the fascinating Tattooed French Lady. She was very thin and had very short hair. Tattoos in the pattern of leopard skin and high-end Fashion brand logos (CoCo Chanel, Givenchy, and so on…) covered her arms in permanent sleeves. Her Lover, perhaps her husband, an adoring pierced man, a few inches shorter than her (and she was not tall) was one step, just, behind her. They waited on line with us and climbed at almost exactly the same rate. By the time we reached the first platform level I felt as though I knew her, them, a little. Perhaps… this feeling was illusionary. But, I was feeling connected with humanity as we reached higher levels, together.

The couple, I observed, without thinking if they noticed me noticing them. It seemed to me that they were Parisians. They were among the few locals among the mostly international tourists. She was more emotionally reserved than him and kept quiet as he nibbled on her neck and we all waited to buy our tickets. I noted how much more demonstrative couples in Paris are, not only were the pair behind us on line comfortable engaging in loving touch while waiting to race us up to the first and then to the SUMMIT Level, near top, where a little room, houses a funky little instillation of dummies dressed up in period costumes representing Monsieur Eiffel and his big hat wearing corseted daughter and a phonograph bestowing mustached and tweed wearing mannequin representing the celebrated American businessman, Thomas Edison.

We looked in, along with everybody else. We took our pictures, perhaps no different than any others, perhaps better. Who knows? Who cares? We marveled at the expansive views and the gathering crowds behind us. We were ecstatic to be there, having climbed The Eiffel tower along with thousands upon thousands of others and still feeling special to be there. (It doesn’t matter that almost seven million others, per year, make the same secular pilgrimage, to the heart of Romantic Ideation, The Eiffel tower is impressive and I now consider it my favorite national symbol.) This blissful “special,” feeling is replicated over and over, day in and out, each group of people, individuals, routinely loud Americans, every type of Asian combination and permutation, Europeans, lots of determined Germans, focused Russians… all the people of the world, except perhaps Australian Aboriginals and Native Amazon dwellers, were in redundant evidence. All gawking, photographing, and snatching at a moment so significant that it blurs into utter meaningless imagery bought and sold all over the world, little trinket Eiffel tower totes, tee-shirts, towels… every possible object can be bought with Eiffel Tower or Mona Lisa print on them, at Walmart, I am sure. I’ve seen such things. You have seen the same junk for sale. You may have Paris, Eiffel Tower, Wallpaperin your bathroom, perhaps.So… do I, feel that it cheapens me or The Tower, that everyone agrees it is a place to kiss a beloved, pop-the-question, and bask in the absolute Must See emblem of the much visited and celebrated city of Paris? No, not at all! The Eiffel Tower is perfect. It is a dazzling structure, “after all these years.” Its capacity to withstand the onslaught of projection, massive idealization, dreams, and desire projected upon it. La Tour amazes me by standing up to all the attention! I’m convinced: The Eiffel Tower must be a LOVE Magnet. It must be catching and emitting all the waves of lust and desire that circulate the world’s streets, channeling all that flirty energy to France, the WORLD’s (Erotic) Fantasy (Romantic) Capital!

I’m convinced that The Tower is emitting a special frequency which excites in humans a sexy turned ON, feeling. You will note its effect particularly in and around Paris. The closer one is to the Tower in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, in either location or sentiment, then the more likely one is to feel this BUZZ, this sacred electricity which radiates from the groin, the head, the heart… it is entirely human. It is: concentrated Romance, in its purest form. To prove my theory, I observed and counted and photographed countless couples kissing, curled up together, a pile of arms and legs mingling on lawns park benches all over pretty Paris. I would post my records, findings, but I fear that such action might result in trouble for someone that doesn’t want to be identified on their afternoon stroll and make-out session with someone else’s main squeeze. So… I demonstrate self control.

Whatever the reason, it is plain to see, that “Romance and Conquest,” are in every tourist’s eager eye as they climb or ride the elevator up to the summit of the world’s most celebrated and replicated radio tower and phallus symbol since The Tower of Babel was leveled by punishing confusion, dispensed in a sudden gaggle of new tongues. Just as, the post-coital looks of satisfaction etched on the faces of the fortunate visitors as they exit the monument in droves is easy to decipher. The code of conquest, over the desired object, in this case imaged as a woman, built to be explored, endures.

Posted on July 27, 2014July 27, 2014 by Frau Kolb — 1 Comment

Upon Arrival in The Paris of Frau’s Dreams!

On Thursday… I think this is the first day I was here. I arrived early and exhausted, having guzzled entirely too much Champagne on the plane and barfed several times before landing. I even left my hot pink mobil on the plane and had to turn around when I was already on line to customs and the man, my seat mate, travel buddy, who may have kissed me on the lips, after my first few glasses, departed leaving me his telephone number scribbled on his plane ticket.

Fortunately, I got my phone back, took a taxi, and made it to sleek and immaculate Hotel Pullman, in view of the Eiffel tower. At first the room looked tiny; the balcony, a joke. I began to unpack and put my swollen right foot (which ALMOST caused me not to travel, to chicken out on this seminal voyage… which would have been really terrible) up. In contrast to my expectations, I waited for Hartmuth to arrive before venturing out. As I rested the room grew bigger, unfolding into a lovely well-furnished space to spend a few days. I read one of the many guide books, short stories, and novels I’d hauled cross country and the Atlantic Ocean. I floated off into jet-lagged sleep and when my husband arrived I was dressed and ready to venture out.

Frau Kolb Loves Paris — Frau Kolb is in bliss/shock to arrive in Paris!

Slipping out of the Hotel Pullman, onto the Paris street, “Gustave Eiffel,” we walked like jet-lagged in love zombies, hand-in-hand to the monument. Seeing it up close for the first time is quite the shock. It is so beautiful. She is perfect. I love grids and she is the grid going to town. She is divine. She. “La Tour,” they call her because she is undeniably a lady, a lady that loves her visitors, and welcomes all from every corner of the planet to drool over her long and lovely legs. We did not have the strength to climb La Tour immediately. Our bodies demanded nourishment. Thus, we pushed forward a few steps and went to the Cafe Champs de Mars.

We ordered, “Deux Coupe Champagne,” pate, and escargot. Tears of joy, washed down my face as I took my first sip since barfing on the plane to Paris. I was HOME. I was living the dream, inside the picture, which I’d carried in my head of Paris, made complete by the handsome French waiter, in white dress shirt black vest and neck tie, everyone dresses better in Paris…. even the homeless show so traces of style. My husband squeezed my hand and kissed me. I relaxed and took a sip of sparkling water, feeling blessed to finally be an American in Paris. I’ve dreamed of this very thing, my entire life. So far, there was nothing but bliss in being here. Puking and swollen foot aside… Frau Kolb has arrived. Paris embraces. Frau melts into a happy pat of Parisian sidewalk joy, nibbling on a chewy (delicious) snail (thank you snail for giving me your LIFE) in butter and herbs.

Merci!

Posted on July 26, 2014September 6, 2014 by Frau Kolb

On the Flight to Paris, France, July 2014

Newark Airport and The Flight to Paris Business Class Seat and a glass of Champagne or sparkling wine upon boarding, followed up with another and another and… well one thing led to conversation with my new seat mate, a married man on his way to work. This man, however, was very different than Claus, the American Executive on the previous flight from San Diego to New York was, friendly but not… flirty.

“To ensure the safety of our passengers,” droned on the Stewardess in the bored tones of stewardesses everywhere, and then she switched to FRENCH and it was marvelous smooth sounds and rolling words, soothing to my brain, I sipped my bubbles and thought, “I don’t understand what she’s saying, but I dig it.” I realized that the French language was as promised, better. Sexier.

I don’t remember what he said to me but I am certain that he and not I started our conversation. He asked lots of questions. One or two Bubblies into the flight, I was feeling open enough to answer his many questions and having conducted an informal interview of Claus, in his black running attire, on the first leg of the flight from monstrously bright and ever-sunny Southern California, to the perpetually charming and mysterious OLD WORLD, I felt I owed the universe to subject myself to questioning with the same easy going grace that Claus demonstrated, hours before.

“First trip to France?” he asked me. “No, actually, this is to be my first trip to Paris but, I’ve been to France before. I visited the South, Cote d’ Azure and St. Tropez.” He smiled and said, “It is nice in Nice, but what is truly lovely is Biarritz.” He went on, “It is where the tourists do not go and it is just as fine, the dining is divine!” He looked convinced, certain. I promised myself that I’d look into his statement. I had my notebook on my lap, so I was going to make myself a note, but I wasn’t sure how to spell, “Biarritz,” so I asked him to write in my journal.

He took my pen, looking at it said, “What a nice pen!” Then he wrote in my book, commenting, “What very excellent paper!” “Yes,” I agreed with him. “I bought this diary years ago, and it is a treasure to me. I saved it for this trip. The paper is handmade Japanese rag with threads of gold tossed in for good measure.” At that he laughed and he asked me, “So… what do you do?” “I write.” I said. “Actually, I blog. I’ve got a blog. It is called, “Talkinggrid.” He positively snickered at that one. “What do you write about?” This is, the obvious question, I answer this one a lot, but only recently (thanks to the note worthy contemporary artist Nobel Sounds of San Diego) I have a set answer for this common question. “Well,” I said with a sip and feeling rather important, I was giving an interview, after all, “I write about culture, life… food, art history, art… and spirituality. In other words, I’m a Cultural Commentator!” He looked at me like he did not know what I was talking about, so I said, “I recently wrote about Othello, and the actor Blair Underwood’s smashing performance in the Bard’s best tale,” or something like that. Now, he was impressed.

“OH OTHELLO!” he exclaimed and told me of how much he loved Shakespeare’s most famous play and how well it was put on, in France. He was aglow over the thought of Othello. I know the feeling. I feel much the same about this classic play on race and envy. I watched and enjoyed his pleasure. I commented on what a joy it was to witness the beautiful Underwood strut his manly stuff in the role. His appearance… skin dark and gorgeous, smooth, a father-god kind of perfection brought a lot of value to the production that I enjoyed twice at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego.

“Did you know that Othello was a real man? His story that of a Moor… of course with some adjustments… it was a warning for black men everywhere!” He laughed, with a very naughty sparkle in his eye. Curious, I asked him of his ethnic background, but I could see that he was like me, a happy child of mad colonialism, a mix of captured Africans and free booting Europeans, perhaps strands of golden everyone… Asian, perhaps… or not… he was like me. We laughed, discussing our respective features and color as only two people of very similar looks can. We talked of his freckles and how very French they were. I’m in some way, clearly Spanish. This is a fact that is redundant to those that know. Between us there was no reason to be guarded since we have a very similar sense of self and history. I’d found another type of instant rapport. This one a little steamy. The bubbles kept coming, the friendly Stewardess having decided that she “LIKED,” me and that I was funny, and that… well… she kept pouring, we kept talking, and that I got sick on the plane is no surprise.

That my seat mate proved friendly when I emerge from my voyage to the W.C. was a good outcome, everybody knows it is a BAD idea to imbibe Champagne on the airplane, I was grateful he didn’t think me an idiot. This interaction, left me feeling optimistic about the pending arrival in Charles de Gaul Airport. He made sure I was, “Ok,” before departing, into the crowds.

(Thank you HM for the editorial support. You are the very best!)

Posted on July 24, 2014August 17, 2014 by Frau Kolb

ASML Executive, Thunderstruck by Malaysian Plane Tragedy

On a flight out of San Diego, I spoke to Claus, first, I’m sure. I don’t know what precisely about him said to me that it was OK for me to break the ice with a little conversation. He had a friendly air, even though he appeared engaged with work on board the cross-country flight to Newark, New Jersey, where I would was to connect to my flight to long awaited, romanticized, and idealized PARIS. He was busy being productive, clicking screens, texting with the air of business drive. We were seated in the business section, after all. So I felt compelled to write about my departure and surroundings, noting every fluctuation in group mood and seat mate’s work flow. Charts and graphs, very important looking, lit up his lap-top screen. I watched him work with growing fascination. Taking a few notes about, “productivity,” and “dynamic people,” inspired by watching Claus blaze from file to file, taking in what looked like highly complex information, at a super quick rate. I’m always curious about fellow travelers. Yet, I don’t always engage others in conversation. This was special.

He was wearing the black sports uniform of an affluent man. He looked ready for a run in any of San Diego’s frightfully exclusive neighborhoods. I felt an instant kinship with this man. He being a “Road Warrior,” as I am well acquainted with his ilk of being constantly going, moving, creating, leading, and facing the ups and downs that life hurls at us all. My husband is such a man and this man’s energy was much like that of my beloved Dr. Hartmuth C. Kolb.

In our initial banter, Claus made the following comment: “The stock market is where the world decides what is important.” He was referring to his company’s performance as a world leader in high-tech semi-conductor business (forgive me if I failed to understand Claus’s business exactly, I’m sure that there will be corrections made to this initial draft, thank you for understanding). His savvy comment really got my full attention. I enjoy (for conversations sake) a good, solid blanket statement! I thought to myself, “What an interesting person! I’d like to know more about him,” Thus began an unofficial, off-the-record interview with this tall, fit, senior executive at ASML.

I asked:

“How old were you when you built your first computer?”

In a blink and with a boyish smile, “Eight!” He answered and then his grin broadened and he said, “but it did not work!” with a laugh, he continued… “I just loved building things, taking things apart.” We both laughed appreciating the beautify of assembling and disassembling, creating and erasing.

Then I asked Claus,

“So how old were you when you built your first working computer?”

“Over 18, in college, it was an assignment or something… but that was easy, by then I really had a sense for how these machines worked.” Listening to him a felt a familiar rush of admiration, because I have nothing but affection and respect for intelligent people, the ones that invest their youth in learning, becoming social leaders and thereby providing jobs, products, and services to the world.

So, feeling this way, I asked him, “What three acts define you?”

Easily he answered, “One is building machines, the second is exercise/sports/fitness, the third is fuzzy… but clearly, his relationship to wife and child… filled the plane with warmth for his work, recreation, and family. I felt myself to be in the company of a man much like my adorable husband. Therefore, I mentioned to Claus, that he reminded me of my Dreamboat. They have much in common since my husband built his first working computer at age 18, while in the army, inside his private locker, for relaxation. Ha!

Then I asked him, on a lark, “IF you were to get a tattoo what would it be?”

“I’d want a crude dagger henna tattoo, noting permanent!” We both laughed again at his quick reply.

Then he gave me a HOT San Diego Tip: Go to Whole Foods in Del Mar at 1pm on Saturday, during the Del Mar racing season, which is now, and prepared to be amazed by all the BEAUTIFUL WOMEN!

Being that I love looking, I made a note of that and everything else Claus said. He was funny, entertaining and then he went on, “These are not first wives…” Hah! “This are the second and third wives, the Mistresses, they are AMAZING!” I thought, “WOW! I really have to make a point of seeing this spectacle of fine females on parade while organic grocery shopping in one of Souther California’s most desirable locations.

“You know how you can tell that they are second and third wives, not the first time around?” He asked me. I answered, “Because they are way too beautiful to be affordable by young men, these are the trophy wives of the triumphant males.” He seemed even more amused that I was not under any illusions about the facts of youthful beauty and its exulted status among those that can command dreams and shape the world to fit their fancies. We laughed a little more, savoring the fact of knowing a thing or two about life and yet not feeling cynical about our own lives, observing the patterns of others. Then he went on, “They say that the first wife is for love, the second for hope over experience, the third is a choice between rental and retail.” Again we chuckled, because we have in common knowing these facts to be true for many, yet not having fallen for the social traps, since we are both happily married to our one-and-only first spouses with whom we have our respective children, a source of pride and outstanding joy.

Thus, he told me of his son’s computer building antics and the boy’s delight at bossing father, Claus, around.

I enjoyed every second of our jovial conversation. Yet, just as we were parting, having turned on our phones to communicate with the world, Claus’s entire demeanor changed. The Malaysia Airlines flight had some of his companies’ employees on it. Claus was immediately crushed by the news. I was there to witness his sudden encounter with life’s bitter, cruel, edge… taking notes and talking come naturally to me. This person’s pain hurts me, too, and brings home the fact that we are all connected, involved, and politically intertwined ONE people of the world, wherever our location our lives are intertwined with those of others, around the world, through commerce and culture.

I send condolences to the Dutch people (I have family in Amsterdam). I send condolences to all those affected by this senseless tragedy.

Posted on July 16, 2014July 16, 2014 by Frau Kolb

OH! Othello! Bewitched by The Bard’s Blackest Hero! Blair Underwood ROCKS!

So… What do you do when you see a great actor, Blair Underwood, in San Diego for a limited engagement, for example, perform one of the world’s great plays? Well, IF you are Frau Kolb then you GO BACK and see it again. Of course!

The second time I saw Othello, last week, at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, I had my children and a Mystery Muse in gentle tow. We floated into our seats, rather high and dead centre upon the stage action. When, I saw the production, two days earlier, we had third-tier seats closer to the musicians, which I loved because the musician closest to me was a pleasure to behold. He banged the big drum, tapped the silver cymbal and scratched the violin strings to create an appropriately throbbing and eerie sound, thereby supporting the cast in their Friday night rendition of the play. His golden red mop, flopping in time with the well chosen musical accompaniment.

With no further ado, two actors jump on stage and again, the cycle of intrigue and deception was springs again. Roderigo, storms in, brimming with frustration, accusing Iago:

“Tush! never tell me; I take it much unkindly

That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse

As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.”

I took it in as much as I could, without drowning, as the words washed over me. I was even further afloat. I was buoyant, buoyed by The Bard’s Words and I was lost. Castaway. The sea of meaning enveloped me and I lost my bearings. I forgot about my children. Fortunately, they were next to me, tucked into their costly seats for their very first experience of TRAGEDY, Comedy, Drama! Ah! We soared together touching the clouds, visible above our heads, outside… an occasional horn honk.

I wish I could tell you that I arrived at t better understanding of the play having seen the same production with the same actors, TWICE in ONE WEEK. Yet, I can not say that. In fact, I’m more confused about the story and about Shakespeare’s intention. The lines that stung the first time, clung to me now like algae clings to those that intend to swim. Othello went by so fast the second time. Perhaps, I fainted! Perhaps I wasn’t there.

It was strange, but I remember more clearly, that…

We met a little early, as though by chance, in the

Garden before the Globe, and we strolled around

And into our seats we fell and were transported.

Oh Othello! What a pleasure to witness, Mr. Blair Underwood, chest exposed in crucial scenes, thrilling the audience with his mighty acting muscle. This was a play I had to have my children see. They had to witness Underwood, in his prime, strutting the glorious metal of a seasoned solider of the stage. He plays the military hero with August POMP, all blistering with hot pride and JOY at having captured Desdemona’s heart, he crumbles at the, powerful implanted by Iago, suggestion that she deceives him. Death ensues.

At THE END: “Not everybody died!” Said my daughter (Ever the optimistic).

My son, older, wiser, said, “Yes, but Iago, will have to live with his crime, alone, forever.”

How deep is that?

If you haven’t made time for Shakespeare, lately, get to it. It might remind you, how that the vital waters of eternal undoing rage without stopping to check with Time’s compass. Let the winds of curiosity whisk you from Caliban’s secret Isle to Othello’s marital demise.

Thank goodness for Underwood’s powerful performance which anchored my interest. The iron core of his skill maybe more than an onyx six-pack of charm, which motivated me, to take the children, A Mystery Muse, and myself to San Diego’s Globe Theatre, to see Underwood in Othello, Twice in ONE WEEK!

Incredible!

Frau Kolb

Posted on July 16, 2014July 16, 2014 by Frau Kolb

“Who’s NEXT?” A Barber Shop with Class in La Jolla, California.

You can judge the quality of a community by its Barber Shop(s). Take for example, actor Seymour Cassel’s, memorable rendition of the ideal Barber/Father to the young genius, Max Fisher, astutely played by Jason Schwartzman, in Wes Anderson’s brilliant film, Rushmore. In the film, Rushmore the Barbershop is portrayed as what is should always be, a place of comfort and paradoxically of stark revelation, transformation. It is where the beloved actor, Bill Murray, playing a whiskey drinking, divorce-bound Sad Dad, is transformed, redeemed, rescued by the honest embrace of a thickly padded Barber’s Chair, a pile steaming hot towels, and the razor’s ready edge.

In fact and fiction, good traditional Barber’s Shops are a refuge for men. Seeking this ideal experience we have, at times spent BIG MONEY. For example, there was a periods of years during, which we paid for Honey to have his haircut at The Shave in Beverly Hills. After a while, we stopped it because we realised we were being fleeced. A haircut for a half-bald Honey should not cost $$$$! No way! Yesterday, at “Who’s Next?” which is a welcoming little nest for shaggy fellas, we confirmed our experience. Hartmuth got a quick haircut. By a beyond efficient, masterful Barber. Haircuts with clippers, buzz cuts with stubbly edges, all the fuzzy feelings of joy that do with good grooming! We can all agree: men LOOK so Good, after a fresh haircut!

Have you ever had the pleasure of hanging out in a classic Barbershop?

Have you ever met a refined, sensitive, highly educated Barber? Well, meet Mr. D. He is the most friendly, competent, immediate confidant, trustworthy man with a sharp tools, I’ve ever met!

An excellent Barber listens, laughs, and, he treats each guest with the respect he clearly has for himself, if a perfectly groomed Barber is to be taken as proof of good training and self mastery. His easy, earnest conversation is a soothing example of how humans are supposed to connect and confide, confer and create bonds which sustain others and the self. After visiting, “Who’s Next?” one is left with a sense of excellence. In meeting a man that clearly values his connections to family and friends, his fiancé, his son who also clips the hair of men of others, part-time, as he prepares for college. In this way, father passes on to son, an honest trade which is always and forever in demand, thereby reveals the core of masculine strength, nobility, passed from one generation to the next, which inspires. Ah!

Return to the comfort of “Who’s Next?,” a quality barbershop in San Diego’s upscale paradise, La Jolla. It is a real place.

Small. Cosy. Friendly. Prompt. Service! I love good service.

Former Navy Man,* Florida native, happy San Diego transplant success, Mr. . runs a tight ship. The shop is immaculate. Two giant scissors decorate the wall, evoking crossed swords in a symbol of chivalry. In an informal interview Mr. D revealed that “Who’s Next?” is a family business. He inherited the skills and the passion for creating a quiet, manly retreat, from his uncle. He says, “My Uncle always knew that I would continue working with hair, that I liked it.”

Mr. D’s smile, speaks volumes about his standards of conduct. The great haircut my husband received proves that Mr. D. is a no-nonsense small business owner, the kind of man whose conduct and true character shine brighter than the best and most sparkly, stiff, pomade.

*(Correction: in an earlier published draft I wrote that Mr. D was a Marine, not the case, I made that up. Sorry.)

Ah! To be transported to the living age-of-chivalry, yesterday in a cute little barbershop, via good-old-fashioned slow and thoughtful conversation we arrived at that place outside time, where everything slows down, allowing for a few ernest moments of sparkling laughter. Served fresh, humour is the best medicine and laughter is the most potent health tonic.

Take time, My Friends, to connect, to arrive at the small pleasures. So… I advise you go get a haircut. Go to a neighbourhood spot, where you are recognised and treated like a close and cherished friend upon arrival. If you happen to be in San Diego, I highly recommend that you visit Mr. D. at “Who’s Next?”

Big hug,

Frau Kolb

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Frau Kolb — 1 Comment

For the LOVE of Underwood! Actor Rocks role of Othello in San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre

For the LOVE of Underwood! Actor Rocks role of Othello in San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, July 8th, 2014

Thank you, regular readers of Talkinggrid,

I can’t get over how happy I am, how much gratitude I feel for all those that continue supporting this wacky, homespun, and about to massively improve, alternative art news and cultural commentary web-site. In gratitude I will tell you of LAST NIGHT’S DELIGHTFUL theatrical experience. Yes! I will share with a fast glimpse, a peek into the pure pleasure witnessing actor, Blair Underwood rock the role of Othello in San Diego’s one-and-only Globe Theatre.

The hunky-super-handsome actor was beyond dreamy, in a driven and moving enactment of Shakespeare’s blackest of black comedies in three acts. Underwood embodied the most tragic of British Literature’s, arch tragic heroes, the-one-and-only, Othello . Underwood, a powerhouse actor was supported by a tight, vivid, and on-point performance by Richard Thomas as Iago, whose lucid demonstration of evil, calculating revenge, and pure malice evoked chills of recognition, fear, and excitement from the audience. The two lead actors pushed the story forward with their muscular acting talent. They delivered The Bard’s oft quoted lines with the light lips of a lover’s undying sincerity.

Last night, I shared a blanket with my best friend, near the orchestra pit. I watched the skilful musicians beat out the rhythm of Shakespeare. I let the music of the words sink into my soul and the stars above added the needed sense of connection to a larger world, placing this FEMALE FORWARD reading of Othello in the world of today. Every act, played upon the other, and led brilliantly to the inevitable demise of the protagonist and his intimates. Yet, actresses really brought the play home with a smashing, intensely womanly understanding of what it is to submit to, and what it is to resist, male domination. Kristen Connolly plays a striking Desdemona, no cowering flower, she faces scandal, paternal wrath, and death with chiseled dignity. Yet, it was Angela Reed as Emilia that most intensely captured the voice of the abused and betrayed woman. She dies for and with her mistress in a visceral representation of loyalty, delivering her final speech with the fearless passion of total understanding.

Barry Edelstein’s Othello is refreshing and inviting into a renewed intimacy with the simple mechanical and emotional perfection that is Shakespeare’s later work. Edelstein, author of two books on Shakespeare, has succeeded in creating a memorable departure from prior stagings and to arrive at a noteworthy addition to the world’s perpetual fascination with the violence, the passion, and the innocence that Othello ensures.
In short, Bravo!

>Special thanks, to the wonderful staff at the Globe Theatre and even more special WARM & FUZZY Thank you to E. and her Crew of Lovely Ladies.

AND, a GIGANTIC THANK YOU to ACTOR, Blair Underwood, for allowing us to take his picture, signing a birthday autograph, and assisting celebrating my best friend’s keynote birthday! His warmth and open-hearted, easily approachable demeanour, made it a snap to create a little memorabilia of the marvelous evening. Visiting the theatre was never more meaningful, than last night surrounded by my friend and her friends, which are now, thanks to the bonding experience of seeing and meeting such a marvelous specimen of human perform, are my friends, too. But more than anything, thank you, to all that have gone to hell and back, to bring to life the glorious Othello.

Thank you for continuing to visit this lowly wayward self-spun masterpiece of self discovery: Talkinggrid. Years ago, Frau Kolb changed her personal art web-site into this wordy mess you keep returning to, a feast for some word hungry souls, requiring contact with another ravenous appetite. I understand, because I’m addicted to blogging. It is true that I have neglected to sleep, at times in my bunny’s desire to hop to it and write-right-now!

The intense need to express one’s self, as an artist (painter/music player/noise maker/performer) renders communication the unwavering focus. We read. Often we write. Many of my best friends have their own blogs which I support. Yet, my entire life, I’ve preferred the small-homespun look of transition and unfinished experimentation. I shun much of what is POPULAR Culture today. The slick hard look of music makers, their tattoos all in order and SHINY… Yuck. Sorry, but commercial television, mainstream Hollywood films, junk foods, and other less than wholesome advertising rich sources of spiritual pollution leave me looking for the bookstores, the good museums, off beat and curious art galleries, the analogue, the antique, the unchanging enduring SILENCE which is the core of enjoying life in the long term. Ah!

Yesterday, one of my on-line buddies made a comment that hit home. He said that gardening is a “positive addiction.” Well… I like that. I have a number of “positive addictions,” which make my life sweet. I dig walking, talking, reading, writing, laughing, loving, learning, music, and DANCE.

I love the movement of the sea. I am “positively addicted,” to life near the ocean, the beach, the sand. Of course

Loving LIFE is my hobby and I’m becoming an Expert on being at ease in the turbulent crunch of TODAY.

Merci,

Frau K.

Re-Thinking Talkinggrid

Dearest Readers, Contributors, and Supporters,

I’d like to thank you for your attention and donations. You have given me reason to write and get out looking for art adventures on which to report.

You have shared the links and sent in money. You comment and you help me edit this blog. I appreciate your help very much and really you have encouraged me. I’ve become a person that writes, regularly, fluidly, thanks to the knowing that you might read what I wrote today. I find that prospect alone very exciting. Moreover, when you click the DONATE button on the side bar you send Frau Kolb soaring, literally! I’m always planning my next trip, the NEXT big art adventure!

I confess: I am an ambitious woman. Yet, my goals are private, personal. I don’t want to be a politician or an attorney. I don’t want to be a judge. I’m happy doing what I do best which is caring, loving, and living in awe of all that is. I’m lucky that I can see the sunlight and feel its warmth on my skin. I’m blessed that I can read and write and share with you some of my quirky ideas and perspective. You inspire me.

Thank you for reading and please be aware that I’ve a long term vision for Talkinggrid and that your donations, contributions, comments, LIKES, and shares all give Talkinggrid reason and the means to continue.

Best regards,

Frau Kolb

“Positive Addictions,” Time for a NEW Attitude Toward Being

Darlings, Lovely Humans,

Posted on July 16, 2014July 16, 2014 by Frau Kolb

SEVEN DAZE A WEEK

FONDLING FRIDAY: 25 APRIL 2014

Oh Friday!

You, Friday, Famous in Faux Fur!

Fifteen minutes is not enough for you.

Fourteen Centuries will the curtain call, endure.

Chiseled in Forever this Friday, will last.

Come lay here under the shadow of this

Red blanket with me… see… you feel…

SONNTAG /SUNDAY

¡Santa, es la cuidad que celebra el Domingo!

Sunday smooth knit lace of Chai Tea and gently folded

Passion flowers blooming in the pages of the novels

Competing for eye, clicks, with scented history books

filled with saintly images and narratives of knights

Men ready to kill the… villagers… near the church…

the chicken, organic, rolled in a quail’s egg and herbs

From Frau Kolb’s private poolside garden.

SAMSTAG: 26 APRIL 2014

Sacred Saturday (¡Sabado Sagrado!)

Behold: the little pancake of silence

Cut from a loaf of the roasted, twisted

Brains; bent under the wait of… WALT DISNEY!

Work loaded; Seventh Day weakness.

A “Winner,” losing sleep.

Baked in reek of shattered dreams and broken

Recovery in a lingering cup… Shabat morgen

We walk, after the sun rises:

Kona Kaffee… Schwarzt mit Zuckenberg, Bitte.

IT IS THURSDAY

I am constantly surprised by how quickly the days… evaporate and time leaves behind coffee rings and bagel bulges… on some bottoms… others: not so much. Hah! Thursday: you are a day everybody welcomes. You are beloved.

Recycled WEDNESDAY

You are standing. You are soaked in blue WISDOM!

This Wednesday is a flowering, towering, dazzling

Reality: you hear the birds, see the butter flying, and

SING along with the i-tunes streaming elevator jazz.

YOU throw back a couple leggy numbers in the

steaming spring rain passed lightly over wise men

Wearing candelabras in their wasted coats. WOW!

I’ve arrived at a destination I dreamed of. I am home. Finally…

I roamed. I went everywhere. I came here before and found it alien.

Now I hang my hat by the door and I adore that we have finally …

Arrived at this simple now that I wish everyone would find

the fine and simple armpit smell they LOVE and TRUST.

I met my match. He’s handsome! He is taller than me.

I feel very much a “she,” next to him; which helps me feel safe. Yes, he’s my muscle.

He’s the brains of this operation. I’m just show and fireworks. AWE.

He delivers. I’m just his top distraction and consul. I am the gate keeper.

I pour the wine my X sent us to celebrate my 41st. Thank goodness.

WHO’S TUESDAY

This Tuesday belongs to the Muses; an amusing bunch.

They lunch, yet prefer brunch because Champagne

And Muses go together into the Grove; a Mall at the edge of Vine

And Passion: the Muses dance together, barefoot, fingers and toes…

Entangled sister Muses; Molly wrote new code for the web that

Stretches into a pinprick sized rod to aid in dividing time

and saving ours: to be wasted, elsewhere, in a flurry of action!

Posted on July 15, 2014 by Frau Kolb

Painting as Release and Memorial: Creative Healing Strategies for Wayward Artsy Types

Below is the finished watercolor painting, I started a few days ago in Marsberg, Germany and finished here in Playa del Rey, California.

Walking OFF Emotional Pain, On Losing OUR Dear Mother, Christine M. Esch Kolb, in Marsberg, Germany

Los Angeles California,

Playa del Rey.

6th August 2013

(8:57 am)

Today, I am back in Los Angeles after an emotionally intense trip to Germany. We buried our mother. We are torn inside and feel like crying buckets of tears just to prove that our pain is BIG, BAD, WORSE than any other…

Yesterday, was my first real day in Germany. Of course, I’ve visited my husband’s homeland many times before. At least ten times…. I think. But never have I had a day to myself here, since family obligations, and domestic duties, a myriad of un-worded demands commanded my every moment spent in this richly attractive and powerful, relatively small, nation.

I had a healing, IF, pensive hike. After an intense week of social formality, all conducted 100% in German, defined by deep, potentially life altering, conversations with closest family and cherished older-generation, family friends, including the family’s 88 year old brilliant Protestant pastor, a married man who spent part of his youth preaching for the German speaking community in Manhattan, my beloved hometown, New York.

It was TIME for ACTION, movement, exercise… at least. It was urgent to get inside myself, hear my own voice, and YES, remember how I’d arrived at this crucial junction in my personal history. Every step was toward understanding, meditation. Every moment was draped in the dappled sunlight of heavenly grace, which is a flawless summer day in a place with harsh winters. Yes.

After the death and burial of our beautiful mother, the beloved, Frau Christine Kolb, I had a lot to think about. What is LIFE for? Why are we here? Where are we going? What do we really want? What is worth fighting, or better yet… what is worth surrendering for?

These and many other questions burst forth in noisy mind chatter. On the onset of my walk, I was feeling a flood of emotions. I reflected gently on some intense talks I’d had with my family members, ancient and dazzling family friends, my dashing husband and his two tall intense brothers… Can you imagine… The boys, now men, adored their MOTHER! The pain radiating, at times, was thick ass rotten cheese. I had to find my silence, my stillness, my joy in a hike toward my silent center.

After about an hour invested in silence, together, at Mommy’s, Grave with my, very European, tall and slim brother and sister-in-law, they left and I took another chunk of time and used it to really LOOK at, listen to the buzz of bees fluttering around, and thereby draw the once triumphant, now fading flower arrangement, that marked the, waiting to settle, burial mound. Then I walked, down the hill and into the small town, where my sweet and loving husband grew up.

Marsberg is a place ripe with natural beauty. Traditionally, this fruitful, furtile, land is what we think of when reflecting on representations of rural Germany: hills, farms, and triumphant summer green define the place. The people of the town vary from the sophisticated, highly educated town’s people to recent immigrants without the advantages of German education, destitute depressed burn-outs addicted to social services, prostitutes and their clients, and every other kind of person a little city, including, Germany might breed. There is also a population of drooling/stumbling yet NOT drunken but “geistes Krank und körper behinderte leute,” being that Marsberg is home to at least three mental institutions. Walking in the town past all these and other types of people I felt a curious solidarity with the folk around me. It was an intense, full of feeling.

Before the visited the grave, we had hiked a steep and winding path, up to the tower of Marsberg, which over looks the city, the walk is punctuated by scenes from the fourteen scenes, known as the Passion of Christ.

It hurt when Hans told me of his pain. I felt every word like a lance, piercing my milk chocolate heart. Empathy is not recommended as a sport or hobby, IF you don’t want Swiss cheese to be made of your main organ, its four thumping arteries torn asunder, a series of holes where wholesome obliviousness once lingered. I could taste the grief, the hard baked solid HATE which years of battle, war, envy, rivalry, and LOVE have transformed into a multi-layer CAKE of bitter-hard sufferings molded into a sculptural mass of fetid misunderstandings and continuous strife which is a slice of life, he’s cut for himself.

Thank you, god or goodness that despite our issues personal issues we managed to bury our mother with the appropriate dignity, well deserved, honest earned, deep LOVE and undying admiration, our the gifts we lay before Christine’s Grave. Yet, we can not allow grief over DEATH, which is essential to LIFE, to derail us. We must stay focused on living progress. Life continues.

Today, for example, despite the cloud of grief, which threatened to break into torrents of negativity, there was a happy mood just outside, our potentially gloomy home. A wedding took place the day before and the voices of a cheerful circle tempered our ability to wallow in a tepid pool of predictable and necessary grief; the clensing routine, post-sorrow.

A guitar melody tickled my ears as I made my way up the small hill to our family driveway. The light-hearted sound of backyard jazz, in rural Germany, no less, as I arrived HOME, from my glorious—thoughtful—revitalizing walk, through town, and up the hill where houses curl around in an affluent maze of residential structures, welcomed me. Tired, sweaty, I felt as though I’d taken an meander through time and space, from place to place I had ambled, from the graveyard, where we visited Mother’s freshly flower bedecked “final resting place,” to a re-invigorating stop for Mother’s favorite ice-cream treat: a “Spagetti Eis,” at one of the only two places open Sunday on the town’s short center street.

Ah! I felt privileged to have let into me, via the music and ice-cream, the drawing and the walking, the blessed beauty of a Sunday in a (traditionally) Christian nation. Just as I’m sure it is a pleasure to enjoy a Sabbath in a Jewish state… I find it marvelous and truly helpful to be in a place where the weekly calendar includes time for stepping outside of routine and thinking about the steps taken and the future course of one’s tracks.

Ass you may know, shops are mostly closed on Sunday in Germany and I had to go to a Tankhalterstella to buy wine. I bought a bottle of tröcken oder “dry,” “Reisling undeine flasche Rot wien, bitte,” from a blond girl with the name, “Johanna,” tattooed on her inner arm in Gothic Script.

(I wonder who Johanna is. Is she living? Is she dead? Is she a girlfriend, a forbidden love? I know that some people get tattoos to commemorate the dead. I learned that recently, at Sprouts, a grocery store near my home in Southern California, from a young man, with luminous eyes, that works there. He explained to me, that he had tattoos because his best friend of childhood committed suicide via heroine overdose. The young man’s eyes were so shiny, brimming with life and intelligence. His arms were covered in tattoos which, tightly packed, intricate stories of his life, his values, which he’d decided to have woven in ink into the fabric of his young beautiful skin.)

So…Today, I invite you to create your own Sabbath or holy Sunday, take healing time OUT for yourself and go out for a thoughtful walk. Make a drawing, perhaps… so that you really LOOK and see the buzz and squirm which is real life, miracle, all around you, let yourself feel, allow yourself to think. Allow yourself to take a further step outside yourself, walk away from who you think you are, step by step finding what is ancient and pure, LOVE within which like a well can quench every thirst, love for our brothers, sisters, (and NUT JOB Jehovah Witness mother(s), too,) walk away with yourself to the true Center, that which does not change, of who you really are besides the YOU you have invented, and cultivated, sharpened, and honed you of professional life and public interactions. Step away from who you were told you had to be and come into the place of knowing that YOU have arrived, at your real you, right now. FRONT and CENTER! Peace.

Sincerely Yours,

Frau Kolb