Text (c) Robert Barry Francos Photos by unknown, unless indicated; from RBF archive
Later this month is my Aunt(pronounced Ant - Brooklyn-style) Elsie Rosen Laffer's birthday. Permit me to introduce the Laffers: Elsie married Albert Laffer (Uncle Al, who as a small youth I thought was "Uncle Lal" by the way it was prononced). They had three kids, Myrna, Marc and Ken. They went on to have families of their own, of course, including Ken's daughter, Kimberly, who recently requested if I had any pictures of her grandparents. My collection of pictures are a bit spotty as I have what I have, passed on through my family. Here, then, are some of my maternal-side family.
Oh, and hopefully, as I'm sure I have some of the dates wrong, the Laffers will be helpful and let me know where I erred, so I can update. Thank you in advance!
Elsie Laffer and Al Laffer in their original Lauderhill condo, 1970s [pic: RBF]
Marc Laffer, Myrna Laffer, Ken Laffer, during the 1970s. Myrna and Marc, around 1950. Myrna in the late 1940s. Ken in grade school, around 1960, in his troublemaker days. A more introspective Ken in a Dylanesque pose, mid-1960s. Elise and Al, Flushing, NY [pic: RBF] Helen Rosen Francos and sis Elsie [pic: RBF] Elsie, RBF, Al [pic: Helen Francos] A young Jody Laffer, Marc's daughter, looking so much like my mom, around 1980. Elsie and Helen whooping it up in either Miami or the Bahamas, late 1970s. Ken at my Bar Mitzvah party, at Hi Tulip Deli Restaurant in Bensonhurst, 1968 [Pic: RBF] 2005 BBQ at Ken's house: Ken fires up the grill [pic: RBF] Kim Laffer asleep [pic: RBF] Elsie and my dad, Leo Francos, the last time they saw each other [pic: RBF] Carol Laffer, Ken's wife [pic: RBF] Kim up and about [pic: RBF] Elsie and Leo [pic: RBF] Ken relaxes at Marc's house in Boca, Feb 2009 [pic: RBF] Marc [pic: RBF] Marc's wife, Patricia [pic: RBF] Elsie, my last visit to her, at her condo during the winter of 2009 [pic: RBF] Elsie and her youngest, Ken [pic: RBF] Me with my favorite aunt, who makes a kugel to die for [pic: Ken Laffer] HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AUNT ELSIE!!
Second Home? Astronomers say they’ve found an Earth-like planet 175 trillion miles away… which means getting there will take only slightly longer than it currently takes to get from Trenton to Piscataway on New Jersey Transit.
Stimulus Report The White House will release a report today on the success of the stimulus. The report is very long, but perfect reading for the millions of new people stuck on the unemployment line.
California Housing Foreclosures make up 43% of all California home sales... the other 57% are people just trying to move further away from Lindsay Lohan.
New Airline CEO Jeff Smisek is about to become the new CEO of the merged Continental and United airlines... as soon as his delayed connection comes into Atlanta, that is.
ADHD Passed On There is now solid evidence that kids' ADHD is genetic... which is why the number one family activity in America today is sharing a ridalin high with your kids.
October 1st
1795: Belgium is conquered by France… 215 years later, Belgium still can’t believe it either.
1946: Mensa International is founded in the United Kingdom. But ironically, all the members are unable to find the address of the meeting hall.
1964: The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of University of California, Berkeley… and we’re all still waiting for someone at Berkeley to say something worth hearing.
This is my contribution to James at Newtown Area Photo's meme called Weekend Reflections. Post a reflection during the week-end, log on to MckLinky via his site - and you're on.
2005: The day we moved from this apartment to the one we live in now. Photos taken by my friend Espen. 2006: Sølve and I hosted dinner for family and friends the night before our youngest niece's baptism. We started with these nibblies; tortillas with cream cheese, rocket and smoked salmon. 2007: I was in Moscow for work. 2008: Caption written on Flickr: After a good day at the office I walked home, made pasta salad (whole gain pasta, roast chicken, salami, red onion, sweet peas, cherry tomatoes and pesto) and hosted the film club's third meet up. We saw La Dolce Vita (chosen by me). 2009: I didn't take any photos on the 30th, so this photo of Sølve's stripes are from the 29th. We love Entourage btw. How about you? 2010: Supper with a view at Hanne's.
Those of you who follow me on Twitter, may have seen that I'll be off on holiday to Bali for two weeks! Even though there wil be free WiFi where I'm staying, I didn't relish the idea of blogging about the upcoming Tube strike while I'm lying on a sun lounger. It'd hardly be authentic too!
However, I know a lot of people visit the blog looking for help, advice & a general place to moan about the London Underground during strikes. So rather than leaving a gap, I've lined up a great guest blogger for you.
Photo credit to darryl853
Many of you might know IanVisits and I was delighted when he kindly agreed to step in for me. Ian's a perfect choice, as he knows more about the London Underground than I do. He's been commenting & sending me stuff to blog for many years now. As well as blogging himself, he runs a ridiculously comprehensive events calendar packed with interesting things to do in London (no idea how he finds out about good events so quickly!).
He's blogged and photographed some wonderful Tube related tours - including West Ashfield, Brunel's Thames Tunnel walk and a visit to the disused platforms at Charing Cross on 1938 Tube stock. I first met Ian at launch of London Transport Museum's Art of the Poster exhibition two years ago. He's also been following London Underground & union politics, so I'm happy to leave in his capable hands for two weeks.
I'll still be popping in from time to time and if you want see what I'm up to in Bali, I'll be tweeting and adding photos to my Flickr stream.
In the meantime please welcome Ian (he's IanVisits on Twitter) and I'll be thinking of you all on Sunday & Monday battling to get to and from work. Good luck!
When I started doing Men and Women at Work most Thursdays, I was looking for ordinary people doing ordinary jobs. It didn't occur to me the variety of both ordinary jobs and unusual jobs that ordinary people do. In another couple of weeks I will run out of picturesque jobs in British royal or historical (or both) locations.
We did not see the official changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace when a whole platoon exchange duties, but as individual guards change shift it is almost better.
Palace Guards at Buckingham Palace and at St. James Palace, London--men at work.
This is my go-to chocolate mousse recipe. It's quick, simple and really delicious. I got the recipe from my mom, who got it from... I don't know. I have adapted it a bit from my mom's original handwritten copy; I use very strong coffee instead of orange juice or some kind of other liquid, which could for example be cognac or whiskey or any other kind of liquor that goes well with chocolate.
Melt the chocolate with the coffee and let it cool down. Whip egg yolks with sugar. Add the chocolate. Whip egg whites until stiff. Whip the cream. Carefully mix it all together. Put it in the fridge for a couple of hours.
Pearl Jam: Under Review Directed by Alan Westbrook Narrated by Thomas Arnold Sexy Intellectual, 2010 90 minutes, USD $19.95 Chromedreams.co.uk.com MVDvisual.com
To tell the truth, grunge never did much for me. Yeah, I’ve liked bits here and there, but as a movement it just sounded like rehashed navel-gazing soft metal rock (nascent emo?). To me, the real balls of the 1990s Seattle music scene was with the women, like Babes in Toyland and Bikini Kill. But they were given a different name, Riot Grrrls, so they were historically segregated (even if the term came from them).
That being said, I was looking forward to watching this British documentary. Pearl Jam’s been around for 20 years and I’ve never followed them, so I wanted to learn what was going on. And I sorta found out.
What I mean by “sorta” is I have a bunch of issues with the talking head experts (no women, even though they did much of the writing about the local scene in fanzines back then) picked for this particular video. Usually director Alan Westbrook does a great job, but here he chose mostly mainstream music writers from around the country, contributors to - and editors of - publications such as Rolling Stone, Spin, and The Village Voice; there is a local Seattle writer that has published some grunge-based books, and all of them seem to be knowledgeable, but they are incredible sycophantic to the band and don’t just dabble in hyperbole, but immerse in it. Some quotes I pulled include: “[Pearl Jam are] holding the torch for good old rock’n’roll,” “There is probably no band in America more respected by fans and by other musicians, certainly,” and “Pearl Jam is one of the most important bands of the last two decades in American Music.” Really?
A bunch of Seattle bands are mentioned, such as Nirvana (duh), Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Mother Love Bone. Again, no women, not even Hole. Anyway, after the death of Mother Love Bone’s lead singer Andy Wood via OD on the cusp of their album being released (talk about bad timing, eh wot?), the band splintered and then took on some new members. With Eddie Vedder moving up from So. Cal to become lead vox, they transformed, after another name change, into Pearl Jam. Vedder himself is interviewed about the band in a couple of clips shown from 1996.
Ignoring local labels like the groundbreaking SubPop (not being critical about that; I have no problem with a band signing to a major), they broke nationally with their first album, Ten. As big as their first release was, their second, Vs. was even larger, selling over a million copies the first week (breaking a record). This was their first (and wise) association with producer Brendan O’Brien, who made their sound rougher, much to the glee of the critics on this film.
One area addressed on Under Review is the supposed feud between Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain and Vedder, and it’s pretty much trashed (Kurt started it by calling Pearl Jam “careerists”), with the blame going to the media who was looking to start a fight between the only major bands from the same town.
Their third release, Vitalogy is described by one critic here as better than the Who. Nah, don’t buy it. The Who were four incredible lead musicians; with Pearl Jam, and this is actually something I had a problem with in this documentary, pretty much all the viewer hears about is Eddie Vedder. The moody Vedder did this; the introspective Vedder wrote that. This is Pearl Jam, not Eddie Vedder’s Pearl Jam. I was interested in hearing about the band as a whole, not the 99.9% devoted to its lead singer and songwriter. I couldn’t tell you one person who was in the band, as each is usually mentioned by name once in the 90 minutes once they form as PJ.
The seclusion for their noble tout at the windmill called Ticketmaster is a key part of the center of the study, and rightfully so. I was so rooting for PJ on this, but even at the time I was not convinced it was going to succeed. If more bands would have stood by and taken the same stance, possibly, but no single band, no matter how big, could have stopped the money-grabbing monster that is TM, who set the model for all other ticket scam-artists – I mean sellers (and government officials, such as the dubious Mayor of New York, Mike "Buy the Election" Bloomburg, made ticket-scalping fees legal).
All the "official" Pearl Jam albums are covered in some detail (including comments by two of their studio engineers), but what interested me was their 120+ “bootleg” releases of every show on a particular tour, which was a brilliant idea; unfortunately, it is only lightly talked about here. This was a groundbreaking concept, and I wanted to learn about how it came about and how successful it actually was, but other than mentioning it happened in a passing moment, that was it for this DVD.
Now Pearl Jam have their own label (Monkeywrench) on which they released their last album, Backspacer. There are a bunch of side projects the band members have been working on, like Vedder’s solo Into the Wild, but not much is talked about there.
Twenty years after their first album, they are the only “grunge” band still around from that place at that time, and still selling out showplaces. Great for them, truly. What I came away with from this documentary is less than I was hoping, and it is certainly less critical than most of this British series (even with the albums that those here say were not as powerful as the earlier ones, such as No Code).
If you’re a fan of the band, well, there’s much to get off on, including a lot of live performance clips and some from their early videos (before they stopped making them, apparently), and detailed descriptions of Vedder’s role in society and to his followers, but I found it a little hollow, and a bit disingenuous due to the glorification of Vedder-er-er-er (supposed to sound like an echo).
The extras are slim, being the contributor bios and an only fair-quality audio interview with Vedder and drummer Matt Cameron (who does most of the talking, natch) while they were on tour in Berlin in 2009.
Well, one thing this documentary did do is inspire me to go to a video sharing site and check out some of their music. That's something.
...from Design is Mine sponsor Julianna Swaney of Oh My Cavalier. The brooch features one of Julianna's own drawings and hangs from a pretty French-made velvet bow, all packaged up in a box with a black ribbon. Isn't it just beautiful? ($25)
Helen Rosen Francos and sis Elsie [pic: RBF]
Elsie, RBF, Al [pic: Helen Francos]
Kim Laffer asleep [pic: RBF]
Elsie and my dad, Leo Francos, the last time they saw each other [pic: RBF]
Carol Laffer, Ken's wife [pic: RBF]
Kim up and about [pic: RBF]
Elsie and Leo [pic: RBF]
Marc [pic: RBF]
Marc's wife, Patricia [pic: RBF]
Elsie and her youngest, Ken [pic: RBF]
Me with my favorite aunt, who makes a kugel to die for [pic: Ken Laffer]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AUNT ELSIE!!
