Blogging Brent

brentdsmith1's photostream

2011-11-29T22:05:00.001+07:00

brentdsmith1's photostream on Flickr.

I just added photos from Napa Valley

Indian Lake and Shimek State Forest was magical

2011-10-15T06:06:00.000+07:00

Preparing for the Anniversary Party

2011-10-15T06:05:00.000+07:00

My Parents' 50th Wedding Anniversary Party

2011-10-15T06:04:00.000+07:00

Fall leaves are so amazing...

2011-10-15T06:02:00.000+07:00

Bentensport, Iowa

2011-10-15T06:00:00.000+07:00

Just spent a week in Iowa...Fantastic Fall Colors!

2011-10-15T05:59:00.000+07:00

brentdsmith1's photostream

2011-08-29T08:41:00.001+07:00

brentdsmith1's photostream on Flickr.

The first of my photos from recent trip to Tokyo.

A perfect $50 Eggs Benedict at the Capitol Tokyu! Haha...

2011-08-17T20:54:00.000+07:00

With my yakuza friends having ice at Ouka Ice

2011-08-17T20:39:00.000+07:00

Completely decadent Truffle Omelet at Au Gamin du Tokyo

2011-08-17T20:38:00.000+07:00

Tempura Kisu at Karasawa-san's shop

2011-08-17T20:37:00.000+07:00

The most incredible dinner at Cucina Hirata

2011-08-17T20:36:00.000+07:00

Exterior Benz pop up shop

2011-08-17T20:35:00.000+07:00

Had a great pizza made by a geeky otaku pizza guy...

2011-08-17T20:34:00.000+07:00

Steaming Hot Tokyo....

2011-08-17T20:22:00.000+07:00

The Imperial Gardens were lush and maintained to within an inch of it's life!

2011-08-17T20:21:00.000+07:00

Gorgeous Panini at a cafe

2011-08-17T20:18:00.000+07:00

The umbrella room at the National Museum

2011-08-17T20:17:00.000+07:00

Amazing Mercedes Benz pop up shop in Roppongi

2011-08-17T20:16:00.000+07:00

The most amazing door handle at the Reed Krakoff store

2011-08-17T20:15:00.000+07:00

Amazing graphics at Y3

2011-08-17T20:13:00.001+07:00

Not a church but a shopping area and cafe behind Prada...

2011-08-17T20:12:00.000+07:00

Rode thru Aoyama Bochi every morning on my way to Yoyogi Park

2011-08-17T20:11:00.001+07:00

The greatest little cafe in Aoyama

2011-08-17T20:00:00.001+07:00

The hotel was kind enough to organize a bike for me for the week!

2011-08-17T19:59:00.000+07:00

Kaoru-san, my Japanese brother and soul mate.

2011-08-17T19:57:00.000+07:00

Tsunaba soba in Akasaka...perfection.

2011-08-17T19:56:00.001+07:00

Japanese wallpaper at the Ritz-Carlton

2011-08-17T19:55:00.000+07:00

Karasumi Pasta at home.

2011-08-17T19:54:00.000+07:00

M.C. Ginsberg...where I worked during University.

2011-07-04T20:40:00.000+07:00

www.mcginsberg.com

Chanintr Living Summer 2011 Journal

2011-07-01T14:54:00.002+07:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More baker

Ralph Lauren Paris

2011-06-09T08:42:00.001+07:00

Ralph_Paris_001
Originally uploaded by brentdsmith1

Thinking about Ralph Lauren in Paris this morning. The blue of the doors and the attention to detail inside. The RL machine is amazing how they can put together retail concepts.

Japanese Breakfast

2011-05-26T22:08:00.002+07:00

Gardenias from my balcony!

2011-05-26T22:08:00.001+07:00

At 9/11 Memorial, Name Placements Reflect Bonds Between Victims, Thanks To Algorithm | Co.Design

2011-05-11T09:57:00.000+07:00

At 9/11 Memorial, Name Placements Reflect Bonds Between Victims, Thanks To Algorithm | Co.Design

Added photos on flickr.com

2011-05-08T19:17:00.001+07:00

brentdsmith1's photostream on Flickr.

I've added photos of Paris and Lake Como to my flickr account.

Barbara Barry: Inspired In Asia

2011-05-03T16:55:00.000+07:00

Kravet : inspired news — Inspired In Asia

Added Photos to my Flickr Account

2011-04-24T23:32:00.001+07:00

brentdsmith1's photostream on Flickr.

I've added photos of NYC and Iowa to my Flickr Account.

Tsunami warnings, in stone and very old

2011-04-21T21:07:00.000+07:00

From The International Herald Tribune:

Tsunami warnings, in stone and very old
BY MARTIN FACKLER

ANEYOSHI, JAPAN — The stone tablet has stood on this forested hillside since before they were born, but the villagers have faithfully obeyed the stark warning carved on its weathered face: ''Do not build your homes below this point!''

Residents say this injunction from their ancestors kept their tiny village of 11 households safely out of reach of the deadly tsunami last month that wiped out hundreds of kilometers of Japanese coast and rose to record heights nearby. The waves stopped just 100 meters, or about 330 feet, below the stone, and the village beyond it.

''They knew the horrors of tsunamis, so they erected that stone to warn us,'' said Tamishige Kimura, 64, the village leader of Aneyoshi.

Hundreds of these so-called tsunami stones, some more than six centuries old, dot the coast of Japan, standing in silent testimony to the past destruction that these lethal waves have frequented upon this earthquake-prone nation. But scholars say modern Japan came to forget or ignore too many of these ancient warnings, dooming it to repeat bitter experiences when the recent tsunami struck.

''The tsunami stones are warnings across generations, telling descendants to avoid the same suffering of their ancestors,'' said Itoko Kitahara, a specialist in the history of natural disasters at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. ''Some places heeded these lessons of the past, but many didn't.''

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/world/asia/21stones.html

Brent

from iPad

Hecho en Dumbo: The Website

2011-04-11T08:57:00.001+07:00

http://www.hechoendumbo.com

Hecho en Dumbo: Amazing Food in NYC

2011-04-11T08:57:00.000+07:00

NYC breakfast

2011-04-10T20:27:00.000+07:00

David So is HILARIOUS!

2011-03-21T06:54:00.000+07:00

Chanintr Living Spring 2011...dedicated to the people of Japan.

2011-03-17T18:26:00.003+07:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More baker

Turned on by blue rooms these days...

2011-03-07T20:09:00.000+07:00

Made fresh pasta last night...

2011-03-06T17:31:00.000+07:00

Played tennis this AM

2011-03-06T17:30:00.000+07:00

Cool new cam!

2011-01-29T11:36:00.000+07:00

Davos 2020: A topsy-turvy world

2011-01-26T21:09:00.000+07:00

From The International Herald Tribune:

Davos 2020: A topsy-turvy world

DAVOS, SWITZERLAND — Imagine it is January 2020.

International summit meetings have largely been replaced by virtual meetings on the secure iPowow. But one annual gathering is still going strong. …

The U.S. president's surprise visit to the World Economic Forum got off to a bad start.

It was not just that the Dagong Global credit rating company of China reiterated its B rating on U.S. Treasury notes this week, and that Litchi, the company formerly known as Apple, served dim sum rather than hamburgers at its much-attended Davos reception.

Insiders said President Bill Gates stormed out of a tense backroom meeting with investors here, furious that even bankers from the Paris union of countries that no longer use the euro demanded a 10 percent premium on U.S. debt.

Mr. Gates, a former entrepreneur, philanthropist and Davos regular, took a break from the fierce election campaign raging at home in a bid to drum up foreign investment and turn the page after a decade marred by rioting and near-default.

''The U.S. is back in business,'' the (Oval) Office MSM messenger proclaimed last night.

Six months after China officially became the world's biggest economy, U.S. officials insisted that things were looking up for the once unrivaled superpower.

''Being No. 2 is so much easier,'' one presidential aide remarked. ''Do we have any troops to spare to help secure the Chinese-Indian border? Nope.''

U.S. debt has declined to 110 percent of G.D.P., down from its 150 percent peak in 2014-15, when the United States narrowly avoided restructuring and made a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan. The 2016 youth protests, which helped the 64-year-old Mr. Gates win office as an independent by mobilizing the gray vote and intensifying voter disaffection with Democrats and Republicans, are beginning to fade from the headlines as long-term unemployment among young adults appears finally to have turned the corner.

It took a while, but after the euro zone was reduced five years ago to a Germanic core of six and a half members (including northern Italy), sending the euro to record highs, U.S. exports have made a remarkable comeback. Parity with the renminbi helped, too.

China has been monitoring the dollar's decline closely, urging Washington to keep its currency within the boundaries agreed by the G-40 and pegged to the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Rights. The I.M.F., which relocated to Beijing in accordance with its founding statute when China became the biggest shareholder in 2018, has not had to impose any sanctions on members so far. But the fund's managing director, Zhu Min, said in Davos this week that it would not hesitate to do so.

Others noted that the weak dollar was going a long way to end the painful deflation that had turned the once free-spending U.S. consumer into a Ben Franklin-like penny pincher.

''You only have to study Germany's distant and China's recent history to understand that there is nothing more important than price stability,'' Axel Weber, the president of the newly independent People's Bank of China, said in the forum's keynote speech. ''There is only one thing worse than inflation, and that's deflation.''

After a stint at the helm of the European Central Bank, where he presided over the breakup of the euro zone, Mr. Weber was poached by a Chinese leadership struggling to tame soaring inflation the same year that China Investment Corp. bought Renault-Nissan and became the world's leader in electric cars.

For all the financial squabbling, the mood in Davos this week among the Chinese, Indian and Brazilian executives who now pay most of the bills was remarkably warm. Almost as warm as the weather.

In the hottest January on record, chieftains of politics and industry roamed the snowless Davos Promenade in summer jackets, while a delegation of New Luddites pitched their tents in the gardens of the newly remodeled Congress Center, which seems to get a facelift every decade or so.

Only one ski run was open, with artificial snow courtesy of Tata-G.M.

Among the 2,500 leaders rubbing shoulders with Mr. Gates this week were President Vladimir V. Putin, who in the middle of his fourth term is lobbying for Russian entry to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization amid fear that China will annex the depopulated east. The aging rock star Bono, now adviser to Africa's powerful Food and Commodity-Exporting (FACE) countries, also attended, as did the Bollywood studio chief Angelina Jolie, with her 16 children.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who had been elected the president of France on a platform of merging France and Germany and winning re-entry into the euro zone, an effort so far rebuffed by Berlin, had to cancel his attendance at the last minute to deal with countrywide strikes against a bill to raise the retirement age to 75.

In his welcoming address, Klaus Schwab, 81, founder of the World Economic Forum and the world's first recipient of a brain transplant, emphasized that he remained as committed to improving the state of the world as ever and urged all participants to ponder the compelling Davos theme this year: ''Change and continuity.''

Opinions in Davos diverged as to whether the world economy was headed for a less disruptive decade.

Joseph E. Stiglitz, who just published his latest book, ''Climbing Back Out of the Hole,'' expressed hope that the United States might at least partly reverse its slide on the U.N. Human Development Index to 25th place.

Timothy Garton Ash, the Oxford academic, predicted that the worst of the European decade of austerity was over, but with radically slimmed down welfare states.

Daniel Yergin, head of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, now headquartered in São Paulo, welcomed the fact that technology had outrun energy shortages and brought the price of oil to a decade low.

And Simon Johnson, author of the recently published ''3 Bankers,'' pointed out that China had proven to have less sharp elbows than many had expected a decade ago.

But not surprisingly, Nouriel Roubini, the economist whose New York apartment is now worth only half the $5.5 million he paid for it in 2010, did not share such optimism: ''It's all going to go terribly wrong,'' he growled. ◼

Brent

from iPad

Carmen is gorgeous

2011-01-19T19:03:00.000+07:00

Making Pesto last night

2011-01-18T18:47:00.000+07:00

The Bounty from Ortorcor this week

2011-01-18T18:46:00.000+07:00

Enjoyed lunch at Genji today

2011-01-13T13:33:00.001+07:00

The Long View: Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Kitchen

2011-01-12T09:19:00.000+07:00

I found the following story on the NPR iPad App:
Beloved chef Madhur Jaffrey prepared for a life on stage and screen as an actress -- but her longing for the food of her childhood led her to her other career. She looks back on her days in film and in the kitchen with NPR's Renee Montagne.

- More at http://www.npr.org/2010/12/27/132207213/the-long-view-madhur-jaffreys-indian-kitchen?ft=1&f=1053&sc=ipad

To learn more about the NPR iPad app, go to http://ipad.npr.org/recommendnprforipad

Brent

from iPad

'Downton Abbey' Creator Julian Fellowes On His British Hit Coming To PBS

2011-01-11T22:37:00.000+07:00

'Downton Abbey' Creator Julian Fellowes On His British Hit Coming To PBS

by Linda Holmes

NPR - January 10, 2011

Everything you need to know about Downton Abbey, which aired in the UK last year and begins its run on PBS on Sunday night's Masterpiece Classics, can be found in the early reaction of a maid at the titular estate to news of a major tragedy: "It's worse than a shame," she says. "It's a complication." That's what the series is about: that feelings and humanity are important and real, but they tend to take a back seat to avoiding "complications" -- things that upset the order with which both the Crawley family and their servants live their lives. Sadness is bad, but chaos is worse.

On Sunday's All Things Considered, Guy Raz talks to Julian Fellowes, the Oscar-winning writer of Gosford Park, who created and wrote the series, which was a smash with audiences and critics both. It features, among others, Dame Maggie Smith, for whom Fellowes says he wrote the part of Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham. (After all, if you're going to write the part of the Dowager Countess of Grantham, you might as well write it for Maggie Smith and aim high.)

In addition to Smith, the cast includes Hugh Bonneville as the Earl of Grantham, Robert Crawley, and Elizabeth McGovern as his American wife, Cora, from whom he got a lot of his money. Fellowes gives a wonderful and wry explanation of American heiresses and their significance at the time -- just before World War I -- when the story takes place. He points out that "in Europe, to get an heiress, you need everyone else in the family to die," which made European heiresses rare, whereas American heiresses could be created by any rich person dividing up wealth among children.

Ultimately, Fellowes says, he created the highly successful series precisely by avoiding the trap of trying to figure out how to please every demographic. Because the quest for the safest possible bet for something everyone will like tends to lead to disaster. "You wind up with Son Of Easy Rider," he says, "which no one likes."

It's worth noting that there's been a dust-up about whether PBS is substantially cutting Downton Abbey for American audiences -- some reports have claimed that it's being cut down from eight hours to six. This, please be assured, is not true. It will run roughly six hours on PBS without commercials; it ran eight hours in the UK with commercials. And there were a lot of commercials. In fact, there were enough that the heavy load of ads was its own news story.

On a personal note, I absolutely loved this series. Loved it, loved it, from lines like "Wake me at the dressing gong" (when it will be time for dinner, naturally) to withering insults expertly delivered by Smith, who really knows her withering insults.

I am often not a period-drama person; if anything, I require convincing when it comes to tales of bustling skirts and servants on a large estate. But here, in the story of the Crawleys -- Robert and Cora, their three very different daughters, and their staff -- you'll find touching scenes of friendship and romance, genuinely giggle-inducing banter, and fabulously executed takes on soap staples like jealousy, scheming, star-crossed lovers, medical emergencies, and, of course, The Keeping Of A Terrible Terrible Secret.

I'll put it this way, if you want to know whether I was gradually sucked into it: the notes I took early in my viewing of the series say things like, "Mr. Bates struggles with some of his duties." My later notes say -- and these are real quotes from me theoretically talking to myself -- "Oh no, don't do it!," as well as "OMG RUFFIANS." True story. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]

To learn more about the NPR iPad app, go to http://ipad.npr.org/recommendnprforipad

Brent

from iPad

The importance of being astonished

2011-01-11T22:34:00.000+07:00

From The International Herald Tribune:

The importance of being astonished

NEW YORK — Lady Bracknell, that unbending arbiter of social correctness, would surely not approve of Brian Bedford, who portrays her in his new production of ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' at the American Airlines Theater here.

It's not just that Mr. Bedford, born to an English postal worker and an Irish factory weaver in a Yorkshire market town, grew up far from anywhere Lady Bracknell might consider a fashionable address. Her Ladyship, you see, likes people to fit snugly into categories, and Mr. Bedford is quite unclassifiable.

He is perhaps the finest English-language interpreter of classical comedy of his generation, and he seems to pick up a Tony nomination every time he steps on a Broadway stage. Yet he is as likely to be found on a cruise ship, performing a one-man show about Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde, or in Prague, in high summer, appearing in a supporting role in a traveling musical production of ''A Christmas Carol,'' starring Kelsey Grammer. Raised in poverty, trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and subsequently part of a glittering West End clique that included John Gielgud and the all-powerful theater mogul Hugh Beaumont, Mr. Bedford, 75, now lives in Ontario, where he has been a member of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival for 27 seasons. He wound up at Stratford, he says, because ''while I wanted to live in America, I also wanted to have a British actor's career.''

To say Mr. Bedford's existence has been worldly is an understatement. Yet he retains the open, delighted mien of a provincial schoolboy newly arrived in the wicked big city. As he recounts the diverse chapters of his life, he still seems astonished by the turns it has taken. ''My life has started in very, very different ways, again and again,'' he says. One could imagine Lady Bracknell's rejoinder. ''To begin life once,'' she might say, ''is an unfortunate necessity. To do so repeatedly recalls the worst excesses of the French Revolution.''

Mr. Bedford would like you to know that he takes Lady Bracknell very seriously in his ''Earnest,'' which he directs as well as stars in. (A Roundabout Theater Company production, which also features Dana Ivey and Paxton Whitehead, it opens on Thursday.) ''Of course Oscar was a precursor of the theater of the absurd in that play,'' he says of ''Earnest,'' Wilde's last and greatest comedy. ''What makes it funny is the seriousness.''

Lady Bracknell had been Mr. Bedford's follow-up role at Stratford to King Lear (which he also directed). Des McAnuff, the artistic director of the festival, who describes Mr. Bedford as ''our most vital link to the illustrious past,'' recalled the actor asking him, ''What do you do after King Lear?'' Mr. McAnuff's answer: ''Play Lady Bracknell.'' He added, ''I wanted Brian to do 'The Importance of Being Earnest' not only because I looked forward to his delicious interpretation of Lady Bracknell, but because I very much wanted the emerging actors of the company to have direct access to him the way he had to Gielgud.''

The last time Mr. Bedford played a woman was 62 years ago, when he was the Virgin Mary in a school pageant; though he points out that his character did die wearing a wedding dress in the 1968 Tennessee Williams play ''The Seven Descents of Myrtle .'' Now Mr. Bedford is donning the full regalia of a doughty Victorian dowager. Well, except the corset. Tight undergarments give him claustrophobia. ''I do think I act as if I have a corset on,'' he adds obligingly.

Mr. Bedford is pleased that, in full Bracknell drag, he finds himself ''looking rather pleasantly'' like his departed friend Brooke Astor, the doyenne of New York society. ''Brooke wasn't really Lady Bracknell at all,'' he says. ''She was just innately, frighteningly grand. But through her I did meet some real Lady Bracknells, mad Englishwomen who looked as if they'd made their own clothes — big flowered stuff — and lived at hysterical houses in England.''

Consorting with Lady Bracknell types was not something his childhood prepared him for. ''The house I was born in had no hot water,'' he says. ''The loo was about 30 yards outside.'' (He pauses to observe that he is sounding dangerously like the Monty Python sketch in which prosperous men swap competitive accounts of childhood adversity.) ''There was an atmosphere of terminal illness,'' he says. With two of his brothers dying slowly of tuberculosis, he spent a lot of time alone in the bathroom, ''pretending to be a radio,'' softly speaking lines he had heard in broadcasts. He says he wanted to be an actor ''before I knew there was such a thing as the theater.''

He left school at 15 and joined an amateur theater group in Bradford. Among the people he met then was a ''stage-door Johnny'' named Brian Epstein, who also wanted to be an actor but became the manager of the Beatles. ''Brian gave me my first record player,'' he says, ''and my first classical album, which was the Sibelius violin concerto.'' His education was well under way.

Mr. Bedford was subsequently accepted at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, that most venerable cradle of actors, where his classmates included Peter O'Toole, Albert Finney and Alan Bates, who was ''the first person I ever lived with'' and, ''though that didn't work out so well,'' became a lifelong friend. ''Unbeknownst to us,'' he says, ''we were part of a historical moment in theater, because we were all working-class boys.'' It was the mid-1950s, the age of the ''angry young man'' and the New York school of Method acting. Mr. Bedford remembers going several times with Mr. Finney to see Marlon Brando in ''On the Waterfront.'' He says, ''To this day I still see the influence that Brando had on Albert in every performance.''

It wasn't Brando whom Mr. Bedford channeled in his 1956 West End debut, an American import called ''The Young and Beautiful,'' based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story. ''I sort of copied Noël Coward, which was rather audacious,'' he says. As it turned out, this was appropriate training.

Mr. Bedford caught the attention of the theater impresario Hugh Beaumont (known as Binkie) and his companion, John Perry. ''They really kind of adopted me,'' Mr. Bedford says. ''They were the parents I always wanted.'' He entered into what he describes as a ''most rarefied world,'' of sumptuous country houses and gilded repartee. He remembers once visiting Beaumont, who announced ''a couple of friends'' were coming over. They turned out to be Coward and Marlene Dietrich. ''So I am sitting there listening to Noël and Marlene talking about, 'Remember when we had to change into evening clothes in a taxi?' I could have sat there for weeks. What I was for these fancy people was the perfect audience.''

His most influential and enduring mentor was the great John Gielgud, whom Mr. Bedford met at 18 by ''using all my sly finagling'' to get invited to a dinner party. He remembers walking Gielgud home that night, and the older man saying to him, ''Do you mind being so small?'' (Mr. Bedford is 5 foot 10 inches, or 1.8 meters); Gielgud was about four inches, or 10 centimeters taller.) When at only 21 Mr. Bedford played Hamlet at the Liverpool Repertory Theater, Gielgud sent him a 10-page letter (''on both sides of thick note paper'') of advice. At 22 Mr. Bedford portrayed Ariel to Gielgud's Prospero in ''The Tempest,'' under the direction of a very young Peter Brook.

It was Gielgud who directed Mr. Bedford in Peter Shaffer's ''Five Finger Exercise,'' the play that brought him to Broadway in 1959. Mr. Bedford says he knew even then that he wanted to stay in the States: ''I found England dreary. I suppose it's understandable if your childhood was as mean as mine.'' And he had always loved American films: ''Even the Doris Day movies. I thought, 'Yes, I should be in that kitchen.'''

Mr. Bedford says it was also time to break from the life he had been leading. ''I felt I was becoming a little Binkie, or a little John, a little bit of all of them,'' he says. ''I knew that wasn't me. I didn't want to be a social creature, always trying to be witty.''

And so Mr. Bedford has remained on this continent. He has appeared occasionally in films (including the splashy 1966 racing movie ''Grand Prix'' and the 1974 animated film ''Robin Hood,'' as the voice of the title character, a fox). And he has memorably created roles on Broadway in Richard Nelson's ''Two Shakespearean Actors'' and as the effete, dying bridegroom in the fabled flop ''The Seven Descents of Myrtle,'' a rudderless production he describes in hilarious, harrowing detail. (''I didn't know what to do, so I just did an out-and-out imitation of Tennessee.'')

But he is best known as a classical actor of uncommon emotional transparency and hair-trigger timing, particularly in plays by Shakespeare and Molière. (He won the best actor Tony in 1971 for Molière's ''School for Wives,'' over competitors who included Gielgud.)

On Broadway he was a heartbreakingly disenchanted Timon of Athens in 1994, a blissfully fatuous old fop in Dion Boucicault's ''London Assurance'' in 1997, and a touchingly gullible Orgon in Molière's ''Tartuffe'' in 2003. ''I do like playing totally blinkered, deluded people,'' he says. ''I find them funny.'' He has regularly added to that gallery in Stratford, where he shares a house with the actor Tim MacDonald, his partner of 25 years, who plays the manservant Merriman in Mr. Bedford's ''Earnest.''

Mr. Bedford remembers visiting Gielgud toward the end of the older actor's life. ''There he was, sitting on a little outside terrace, in the sun, and he'd got himself up in a tie and suit and everything, but he could hardly move. I'd never known his spirits so low. I said, 'John, I know it's your birthday in two weeks, and I'd like to come and have lunch with you.' He said,'' — and here Mr. Bedford's voice becomes a faint but exact replica of Gielgud's — '''That would be very nice, but I'm filming.''' It was only at that mention of work, Mr. Bedford says, that the infirm Gielgud showed a spark of the old animation. ''All he cared about was acting.''

Is that true of Mr. Bedford as well? ''Well, I'm most alive when I'm acting,'' he says. ''No, I can't deny it. It's where I belong.'' His father, who committed suicide when Mr. Bedford was a young man, was ''a neurotic, complicated man, and I've consequently inherited a few, very wonky genes.'' He smiles reassuringly. ''But I'm O.K. I'm especially O.K. when I'm working.'' ◼

Brent

from iPad

Loving Downton Abbey!

2011-01-11T22:33:00.000+07:00

#10: Going to Japan with friends

2011-01-01T14:15:00.000+07:00

#9: Going to Maine with friends

2011-01-01T14:11:00.000+07:00

#8: Going to Iowa for the harvest of vegetables

2011-01-01T14:10:00.000+07:00

#7: Enjoying early evening walks in the park.

2011-01-01T14:08:00.000+07:00

#6: Going to the World Cup in South Africa

2011-01-01T14:07:00.000+07:00

#5: Ushering in a birthday with a Polo Chicken lunch

2011-01-01T14:05:00.000+07:00

#4: Escaping BKK in May and going to the beach

2011-01-01T14:02:00.000+07:00

#3: Going to Iowa in the Spring

2011-01-01T13:58:00.000+07:00

#2: Dining in NYC at Jean-Georges

2011-01-01T13:56:00.000+07:00

2010 in 10 Photos: #1 Jan 1st Brunch

2011-01-01T13:51:00.000+07:00

Friends always love to go to Ortorcor

2011-01-01T13:48:00.000+07:00

New Year's Eve Photos, the highlights

2011-01-01T13:47:00.000+07:00

Played cards with my brother and his wife this afternoon

2010-12-28T22:48:00.000+07:00

Breakfast at Ortorcor

2010-12-28T22:44:00.000+07:00

Hamaguri in white wine w/ garlic, cilantro and thai basil.

2010-12-26T22:44:00.000+07:00

I'm reading, Reading Jackie

2010-12-26T07:49:00.000+07:00

Merry Christmas, a few of my favorite pix from this year...

2010-12-25T23:37:00.000+07:00

Back in BKK and enjoying the fresh, local produce...Fraise des bois.

2010-12-18T10:28:00.000+07:00

Illumination on Keyakizaka

2010-12-18T10:23:00.000+07:00

In Harajuku, a new candy shop that makes the candy on site...very clever.

2010-12-18T10:21:00.000+07:00

Was cold in Tokyo so stopped into a chocolate shop for hot cocoa

2010-12-18T10:19:00.000+07:00

Returning to Tokyo

2010-12-18T10:18:00.000+07:00

Kyoto Station on Platform 11 and 12, the BEST egg salad sandos...fresh!

2010-12-18T10:17:00.000+07:00

STAND, a great local watering hole in Kyoto.

2010-12-15T22:34:00.000+07:00

Gonbei a soba shop in Gion where the Maiko have lunch...

2010-12-15T22:30:00.000+07:00

Blue & White: Shin-san the Master Potter

2010-12-14T20:48:00.000+07:00

The ice used in Japan continues to amaze me...

2010-12-14T20:43:00.000+07:00

Saw some old friends, made some new friends and just had fun.

2010-12-14T20:42:00.000+07:00

In the mountains of Kyoto before we threw pots

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Nothing like a Japanese bath

2010-12-12T06:44:00.000+07:00

First stop in Kyoto, Inoda Coffee Sanjo shop!

2010-12-12T06:32:00.000+07:00

Off to Kyoto for a few days

2010-12-12T06:21:00.001+07:00

Spent the entire afternoon in the Imperial Palace Gardens.

2010-12-10T08:00:00.000+07:00

What a night in Tokyo!

2010-12-08T22:39:00.000+07:00

Finished the day with Ice Cream at Ouca Ice

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Took a brisk walk after breakfast...

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Woke up in Tokyo this morning!

2010-12-08T17:23:00.000+07:00

DEC 5, The King's Birthday Video Clip

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DEC 5, The King's Birthday

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We were very fortunate to be asked to join friends on a boat for the King's birthday celebration. All of the boats were representative of the provinces in Thailand. I'm not for sure which we were representing, but we definitely had a good time. There was a small group of us...15 people in all. The fireworks, the music and all of the festivities made it a truly memorable evening that I will not soon forget.

The boat is operated by Asian Oasis and is spectacular for dinner cruises on the Chaopraya River.

Barbara Barry in Bangkok

2010-12-07T10:22:00.000+07:00

We had a VERY FULL week last week with Barbara Barry in town promoting her designs in Thailand. We hosted numerous brunches, lunches, dinners, cocktail parties etc. Barbara was perfect throughout with the VERY busy schedule that we had for her. She doesn't make it to Thailand very often so wanted her to get as much exposure as possible. I told her that if she doesn't want to work so hard next time, she has to come back to Thailand more often!

Here are a few photos of the various events:

Thank you Barbara...

And then it was back to The Chedi Chiang Mai

2010-12-01T07:52:00.000+07:00

A quiet oasis of tranquility in Chiang Mai. Really perfection...

Of course, Belle knows EVERYONE and always meets friends everywhere she goes.

Never one to quit...

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After lunch, Barbara, Nat and I then hiked 2 1/2 hours down the mountain through the jungle and past waterfalls...I've done this trip before, but it was amazing to do it again and to be able to show Barbara another aspect of Asia. We actually made it down in 2 1/4 hours...a little sweaty, a little tired but totally exhilarated.

The always glamorous Barbara Barry in the middle of the jungle!

We did NOT stay here...but could have been fun for a few minutes.