What About Paris? ™

« April 2023 | Main | June 2023 »

May 31, 2023

Born Outlaws: Americans.

Posted by JD Hull at 10:09 PM | Comments (0)

May 29, 2023

Memorial Day

For Yanks, Memorial Day is about resolute if terrified men and women, innocents all, who died, often alone, horribly and in confusion, in American military engagements.

June 6, 1944. U.S. army officer watching Norman coast as his landing craft approaches Omaha Beach.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

May 28, 2023

I remember…

Posted by JD Hull at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)

May 25, 2023

REDUX: Perfectionism: The horror. The horror.

The Dorks. The Dorks. Perfectionism is the downside of Type-A. While a great starting point, and wonderful instinct, the drive to get things absolutely 100% right in every gory detail is also a curse: of eldest children, professionals, knowledge workers, most lawyers, all spouses, your Mom, and the geek classes, or the Techwazee. Ah, devil perfectionism. The horror, the horror. Too much, and you need rehab. Your colleagues start questioning your judgment. Listen up, Justin. Clients 99% of the time are not paying you to be perfect. They don't want it. Be excellent, not perfect. See, e.g., "Rule 10: Be Accurate, Thorough and Timely--But Not Perfect".

Original post: December 26, 2016

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

Bill Buckley interviews fellow polymath Anthony Burgess on Firing Line (1972)

Posted by JD Hull at 12:27 AM | Comments (0)

May 24, 2023

Statesboro, Bulloch County, Georgia

Mother died and left me reckless,
Daddy died and left me wild.
No, I'm not good lookin',
I'm some sweet woman's angel child.

--William Samuel McTier (1898–1959)

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

May 22, 2023

Stephen Fry: The Joys of Swearing

Actor, Writer, Renaissance Man, Polymath: London's Stephen Fry.

Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)

May 21, 2023

Robert Plant: In Praise of Taboo Admirers

Lips like cherries and the brow of a queen,
Come on, flash it in my eyes.
You said you dug me since you were thirteen,
Then you giggle as you heave and sigh.

--R. Plant, J. Patrick, Albion Inc.

Through the circus of the Buenos Aires queens.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:03 PM | Comments (0)

54 Rue Saint-Louis en l'Île

Hotel du Jeu de Paume, 54 Rue Saint-Louis en l'Île, 75004 Paris

Posted by JD Hull at 05:56 AM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2023

Pont Saint-Patrick, Cork

Posted by JD Hull at 08:59 PM | Comments (0)

May 19, 2023

Mountain Grove, MO c. 1905

Posted by JD Hull at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)

May 17, 2023

Happy 95th, Big John.

Best day’s work I ever did was marrying your mom.

- John D. Hull, III (May 17, 1928-December 27, 2012)

Posted by JD Hull at 07:57 PM | Comments (0)

May 16, 2023

William Beard Hull (1837-1929), C.S.A.

William Beard Hull (1837-1929). Born Augusta County, Virginia. In 1858, as oldest son, Bill, 21, on saddle horse served as his family's scout to move his parents Dan and "Mae" and his six brothers and sisters to Kansas. They were not super-rich but from strain of the Hull family of German Lutheran farmers who had been settled in Middlebrook, Virginia since 1750. They freed the three slaves they owned before the trip west. They took two wagons, including a special "contraption" built by Dan, and driven by one of their servants from Middlebrook. Although they were headed to Kansas, they liked what is now Mountain Grove, Missouri. They stayed there. In 1861 Bill went back to Virginia to fight for the Confederacy, and he ended the war with the Missouri 10th Infantry, or Steen's Regiment. Bill helped the family gets on its feet after it lost small farms in both Virginia and Missouri during the war. His father in law—John Holt—had been shot by bushwhackers while working his fields near Mountain Grove; John Holt died hours later by bleeding to death on the kitchen floor of his small house with his family around him. His son in law Bill died at 91 in Oklahoma at a Confederate Soldiers home. Bill must have seen amazing things and changes in the American South. He married. He had at six kids, including my great-grandfather, John Daniel Hull I.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

Melissa Jane Holt Hull (1845-1918)

Melissa Jane Holt Hull (1845-1918). She was my great-great grandmother. Several living Hulls have a resemblance to Melissa. Born and died in Mountain Grove, MO. Of English stock in America since early 1700s. Raised 7 Hulls, including my great-grandfather John Daniel Hull I. Lost her home twice during the Civil War. Her father John Holt (I am in effect in part named after him) was killed at age 48 working in his fields in 1862. Shot in the back. His murder was never solved but thought to be by either uniformed renegade Union or Confederate soldiers, or “bushwhackers.” Died amongst family on kitchen floor of his house. Bled to death. Melissa was 16. In post-war years, she helped get my family through its worst years since our arrival in Virginia from Germany in 1750.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:35 PM | Comments (0)

Bring Back Real Women: Annabeth Gish

Posted by JD Hull at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)

May 14, 2023

The Chekhovs, 1890

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

Mom, each year I try. I still don’t have the words.

July 1, 1950

My mother--to us, "Mom"--was and is that mom all the other kids in the neighborhoods we lived in wanted to be their mom. In Grand Rapids, Detroit, Chicago and finally Cincinnati. Before that, way before, she and her ancestors were part of one of the most romantic stories ever told. I imagine first thousands, and then tens of thousands, and then even more, of people out of Suffolk via Ipswich to Groton and other towns and slowly invading America, Massachusetts, Canada, and Three Oaks, Michigan.

But she never let on as we grew up that her family--and therefore mine--had been in America so long. We'd only heard about Hulls or Holles--German Protestant minsters and farmer stock in the Palatine who come over on a ship from Rotterdam in the just-yesterday mid-1700s. I had to piece it together myself with some colonial organization records prepared in the late 1940s (at the request of a patron great aunt in Jacksonville, Florida who threw my parents' wedding in 1950) she had kept from everyone and finally gave me; it's actually typed before my birth and condensed to 6 pages. And a little help from Google on the part of Suffolk they came from via Ipswich. It turns out Mom all along was a Colonial Dame.

Her family came from the still-tiny village of Lindsey, England, to Massachusetts in 1634. This is mainstream early Yank history. (I visit Lindsey, in Suffolk, in 2003. Her family's name is still on some of the stones in the churchyard, and in recent records of weddings still kept in the church.)

Exactly three centuries later, a photogenic only child is growing up in Chicago. It's the Depression. She starts working as a model when she is quite young. She's a bit quiet and sweet. And tall. Her own mother is strong, "well-raised", and with an Auntie Mame/stage mother quality she had until her death in 1970. In the late 1930s and 40s, the agencies love Mom's "all-American" girl next door face and smile. In photos, commercial or not, they jump off a page at you. Without makeup, she comes by a young yet "all grown-up" look at a very young age.

I am looking at one of them hung in my home right now.

Her face: Strength. Spirit. Fun. Femininity. A real but completely natural Charisma. In this one agency photo, that she's classically beautiful is nearly besides the point. At thirteen, she's an experienced model. Looks aren't everything--but in the 1940s they are still the pinnacle for a girl or woman. Times are hard. You're female? You're an off-the-charts pretty girl from Evanston? You've a natural figure? Well, use it, honey. She has some other breaks. She's good at language--and college bound. A pretty good athlete. A relative in the American South offers to pays for much of her education.

And then there's this one: she actually spends much of her teen and early adult years trying to gain weight. Milkshakes and candy bars. Anything is okay--and that continued. Here's someone put on earth to compensate for some of the rest of us: she has brains, smarts and charm. And an enviable--no maddening--metabolism. She can't gain weight. She even tries. I have the same gift/problem as a kid. I drink milkshakes with her. But I am 11 and she is 35.

But mainly, and here's The Gift: she loves people. I mean, she really, really loves them.

Today, in her eighties, she is still tall, almost 5'10", angular, with dark hair, and fresh, friendly, athletic, striking. In boarding school and college, she is always the homecoming queen, or "May Queen", or something--but that rare and somewhat quiet one without enemies.

All my life, I've heard both men and women remark how beautiful she is--and how nice she is to them.

People talk about the two qualities almost interchangeably--as if they go together. Usually, folks, they do not. With the exception of her, and just one other person, I consider humans without enemies as sad, low and worthless. They're either spineless soulless schemers or straight-up lily white wimps who must be 'liked' by everyone, and won't play in The Game of Real Life. But not Mom.

She is modest, and very private about her own needs, my brother and sister and I learn over time. The eldest, I am most 40 when I first see her entire modelling portfolio--scores of 1940s and 1950s glossies and pictures in magazines I heard about growing up. It is all stunning covering 15 years. Yet she quits it all early--because of us.

Still tiny rural Lindsey, England, September 2003. I first saw Lindsey then. Holdens left here in 1634.

A late-coming family beef: Sorry, Dad, and Mom--but why not haul out those pictures earlier? I love black and whites of my Dad playing Hoosier basketball and football, both at Shortridge and college. And then color came slowly to the pictures in the post-college 1960 pictures. Who would not love the glories of Tide, Jif, Bounty and Charmin? Who isn't glued once they start looking through them to our albums of fishing trips and Pointe Aux Barques years? Vacations with 3 cousins named McCracken. A few male Holdens from Michigan. The pictures show how few in number--but how amazingly healthy--the last three generations of our family had become. One aunt. One uncle. The neighborhoods in La Grange, Grand Rapids, Detroit, then Chicago again.

Finally lots of images of Cincinnati: the promised land and, as it turned out, a class act. A true City-State with real city government that attracted talent. True, Cincy's a bit stiff but hardworking. True, it seems like we're a "tolerated minority" again. In Highland Park, Chicago, we weren't Jewish. In Cincinnati, we weren't Catholic--or of the "old German 'Zinzinnati stock". But nothing beats these Indian Hill schools. Like Braeside, another life-changer. It's the teachers--and the kids. The luck on us. Even my grandparents (the youngest of the four was born in 1900) are lucky enough to graduate from college And Mom tells us to notice it all. And I do.

In the pictures, she always looks as if she is quietly celebrating. Is she in prayer?

There are even some some black and white photos of my first real home: Aberdeen Proving Grounds. G.W. Hospital. Washington Circle. Beginnings I can't quite see. Anyway, lots of images: places and people we met. Musical instruments. Tennis rackets. Teachers for both. Much later Marco Island. Naples. French Lick. Kiawah summers with a new grandkid each one. Even meeting in Paris (my parents and me only; they were my first docents and guides). The 50-year anniversary trip. A 100th birthday party for a grandparent in Springfield, Missouri. Hey, I was there, too. We all were. Great photos--and I treasure them.

But when your smart French-speaking mom men are whispering about all through high school and college looks, and talks, better than "either Hepburn", and so many people like her, show me that stuff at sixteen, okay? Why the silence? Because she's a Greatest Generation-era woman? Here is the main event and fact of our lives: Our mother, Mom, is never interested in herself. Not ever. (It bothers us all). The past-glories portfolio can stay in the trunks, she must have thought to herself.

Beginning at 25, things change. She now loves noisy children and sloppy dogs. Too energetic and too physical, she still does things too quickly. I got this from her: an odd mixture of athleticism and metabolism that yields accidents.

But she, unlike me, always moves too fast for the sake of others. Fond of the troubled, those with raw deals, the strays, she must get things done for them. This, to me, is drive at its purest. She sizes them (and the rest of us) up in seconds. Notwithstanding the judgment you do get, everyone gets a pass. Street people, the mailman, animals and executives and wives.

Yes, our animals, too. She thinks of them as friends. Real friends. Word's been out for some time that Mom speaks several dialects of American Dog.

Each of the above creatures, human or not, is part of Life. All are equally considered. At our house it is always Christmas Eve. "Here," her voice seems to say in our house, "we will consider you. That is what we do here? Got it?" And with a determined let's-go smile: "Let's get this done. Now, please." Or "We have a problem to solve."

She has a very private but active spiritual life, and a natural class and ease with others. She is comfortable with, and genuinely interested in, everyone she meets, anywhere in the world. She wants to know them. She interviews you--but only out of curiosity, genuine interest and an enduring love for humankind most of us lose by 25.

Bear with me. I like movies, and they are often part of my firm's work. Think for a moment of the characters in the 1939 movie "Gone with the Wind". Imagine in one person a fusion of Melanie's love and compassion with Scarlett's resolve and strength.

Are these gifts to us all? Or challenges? Is God throwing down a gauntlet here? It doesn't matter. I want to age that well. I want to care about others that much. I want my laugh, like hers, to ring with the joy and humor of unfinished growth and adventure.

She has put up with me, and my father, and I wish I could be more like her. As the eldest, I am far more of a pain-in-the-ass than either my brother or sister, even though we are all just 2 years apart. (Fair warning: If you eat with me, I may make you finish your vegetables. I will tell you what I think. Maybe who to marry. Who to divorce. Whatever will help you that day.) I compete with my Dad only for a mother-and-wife's worry and angst.

Mom's led a very charmed life, which she views with gratitude, humility and grace. Nothing is taken for granted. She knows. My father, also an American success story (hard work does work), was a big part of that.

We three kids were, too. And our friends, new neighborhoods, adult friends, other people's noisy kids, animals, the happiest dogs on earth, oceans, rivers, lakes, always perch and smallmouth bass, some less edible or less noble fish, ravines, Mountain Grove, Chevy Chase, Port Austin, Alpena, 8 Mile Road, Pleasant Ridge, the Braeside and later Indian Hill schools, Duke (all three changed my life), North Deere Park, church in Glencoe for us red-haired protestants, Drake Road, the Cosmos Club, Mr. Whipple commercials, tennis, basketball, golf, more animals, more dogs, 8 grandchildren, 3 great-grandchildren foster kids, even foster people--all manner of events and creatures including, of course, human strays.

But she. She lights up all rooms--not just ours.

Happy Mother's Day, Penny Hull. Chicago Girl. Boarding School Sweetie. Ferry Hall May Queen. DePauw Campus Crush. Fashion Model. Keeper of Cockers. Keeper-Carer-Feeder-Trainer of John Hull III. Athlete. Task Master. Social Worker. Patrician Role Model. Angel to Strays and Mutts. Colonial Dame. Last Hull with natural class. Super-Mommy.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

May 11, 2023

Partner Emeritus No. 5. PE Does 'Nam, Cassandra, others (Part II)

I guarantee you one thing. If you work for a peer firm, you will encounter me or someone very much like me. Either way, you cannot avoid the essence of my character if you aspire to succeed at a peer firm. I or some form of my embodiment will exist to make your existence as uncomfortable and unpleasant as it can be.

-- Partner Emeritus, New York City, September 3, 2009

Faithful Above The Law readers know that a 1967 polo injury two weeks before his deployment to Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia sidelined Partner Emeritus, later a celebrated patrician New York City law partner, and now revered Dean of the ATL Commentariat, for the entire Vietnam War. This deprived America not only of hundreds more enemy kills during the war's escalation years also of an early and victorious end to the war. "My endgame would have been to round up all the hippie stoners and opium addicts in the States and parachuted them into Vietcong territory," he recently explained. "I would have used the MK Ultra Program to convince the paratroopers that the Vietcong had stolen their drugs and that the opium fields would be their prize for killing every last member of Charlie." Like every great jungle fighter, major corporate exec and bet-the-company trial lawyer, and every generation of males in my own family in America since 1634, Partner Emeritus took the setback in stride and, in a word, improvised.

Here is a bit of military trivia for you. During the early part of the Vietnam War, I used to go to Fort Totten and Fort Hamilton when families and girlfriends were seeing off their "boys" getting shipped to 'Nam. I befriended many young nubile women under the guise that I was a returning veteran who just finished a tour in 'Nam. I almost feel ashamed to admit that I seduced many of these women. It was really easy, especially when I would tell them that the average American G.I. fornicated with diseased Vietnamese whores 3 or 4 times a week.

During an intimate interlude, "Cassandra" received a phone call from her G.I. boyfriend named John, who was on R&R in Singapore. She proceeded to have a conversation with John as she performed fellatio on me. Unfortunately, I could not discipline myself during climax and I exulted loudly in ecstasy. Well John heard me and angrily demanded an explanation. "Cassie" told John that her girlfriend "Jody" was visiting her and she was moaning over menstrual cramps.

A few years later, I discovered that I was immortalized in military folklore when drill instructors warn recruits that while they are suffering in boot camp, their girlfriends back home are being taken care of "Jody."

Ain't no sense in goin' home, Jody's got your girl and gone. Ain't no sense in feeling blue, Jody's got her sister, too.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

The Greaseman: Powerboaters v. Sailboaters.

Get off your knees, guys.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:44 PM | Comments (0)

May 08, 2023

Sharp Dressed Man: Raoul Duke is back from the Derby

Cuff links, stick pin. When I step out I'm gonna do you in.

--Gibbons, Hill and Beard

Raoul Duke (1937-2005)

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)

May 05, 2023

The Battle of Puebla, May 5, 1862.

Artist Unknown.

"Mexican David defeating a French Goliath." - Time Magazine, May 5, 2010

Posted by JD Hull at 02:31 PM | Comments (0)

May 04, 2023

Caravaggio's The Cardsharps (c. 1594)

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

May 02, 2023

How to Work: When the MC5 summered in Detroit.

Detroit, July 19, 1970

Posted by JD Hull at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)

May 01, 2023

Tennyson does May Day.

O, look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow;
He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know.
And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine–
Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine.

--from The May Queen, Alfred Tennyson, 1842

Posted by JD Hull at 11:49 PM | Comments (0)

IHHS ‘71

Posted by JD Hull at 11:36 AM | Comments (0)