Miles To Go.

Errmm, all's well here...

The beatings will continue until morale improves…

That about sums up the Assad’s family strategy for dealing the outbreak of “Arab Spring” in Syrian towns as it continues into “who’s next to Fall, this Fall”.  I think it is a country worth keeping an eye on, though it is very difficult with limited social media permitted.

Fellow Americans know so very little about the little country wedged between Lebanon and Iraq. I know just enough to be dangerous: my trek through the country with Tad Jones gave us a very unique perspective and continues to be the influence for our singular effort to inform our kin with our in-development play, A Line in the Sand. As we’ve said before, the region may look differently if TE Lawrence used twitter. We have tried piecing together Syria’s history enough to understand its future. But we’ve only been noodling it for five years, while they’ve had centuries to create the puzzle. Here’s a few pieces:

First: Syria is a key domino in one of the four big tectonic changes that will define the next generation: access to oil. While they have little oil themselves, they have long been a keystone in the strategic interests of the region, crossing both ethnic and geographic ties. Many of the current conflicts in the region lead back to Damascus, one way or another: Baghdad, Tehran, West Bank, Golan, Beirut, Israel proper, the Palestinian question, etc. etc. The entire region has a long history of being tribal, and Syria has exploited those gaps for centuries.

(for the other three, and a lot more eloquent grasp of geo-politics, see Thomas Friedman and the world’s four ruling bargains): 1) The world’s oil tap is deposing its old regimes, 2) Europe is unravelling as PIIGS spend and Germans save, 3) China’s deliberately undervalued currency and export-led growth keeping the Communist Party’s in power by providing rising living standards, and 4) In America, a credit-consumption-led economy, whereby we maintained a middle class by using steroids (easy credit, subprime mortgages and construction work) and less muscle-building (education, skill-building and innovation).

Second: It’s strategic. because of this  position, the region has been fought over for centuries. Long before there was oil, there were the Crusades whereby the Catholic church essentially invented the jihad, IMHO. Teutonic Knights were promised eternal gratitude and absolution in advance for re-taking Jerusalem and slaughtering anyone that stood in the way. This generally meant Muslims. In support of the thousands that made their way to the Holy Land, huge logistical challenges were met as Hospitallers literally paved the path from France to Palestine with roads, castles, and supporting infrastructure provisions (and became rich in the meantime).  I have personally visited Krak de Chevaliers in Homs and I can attest to the awesomeness of the work as well as the brilliance of the positioning. It was clear the spot was very important and was not going to be given up easily.

Third: Syria is the ultimate state controlled, exterior influenced, family business. Bashar al-Assad is the current president, and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad. Bashar’s prior occupation was ophthalmologist, so it was likely his family connections that got him the job. With very few natural resources and de-minimus GDP (#67 thank you, just beating Oman) sometimes it seems like the whole country gets by playing two rivals against another, or one against the middle. Iran and Russia have deep ties, obviously. The former a result of Cold War support, the latter more like neighborly politics. Syria has been under Emergency Law from 1962, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, and its system of government is considered non-democratic. Many citizens I know live between terror and resignation. If the Arab revolt continues, hope will replace resignation, but terror will continue.

Fourth: Syria has stunningly rich history. The near future is likely to take inspiration from its past. I had the good fortune to tour just a bit of it, including Jerash which was one of the great Roman outposts and remains today one of the finest of Syria’s 50,000 archeological sites. The Crusaders rolled through a thousand years later and left an amazing collage of castles and fortifications. The French have stuck around for the past millennium in the Levant, and it shows. In this century, Lawrence of Arabia organized the tribes of the dessert into revolt against the Turks by promising Damascus as the prize upon victory. For a people raised in the sands of the deserts, there was no more fertile green imaginable. The bait worked, for at least as long as Lawrence’s promises weren’t already undercut by French-English back-handedness. The West is still reaping what was sown in post WW I Syria it’s no wonder Lawrence is called by one biographer ”A Prince of Our Disorder”.  

So, far as I can see, the beatings in Syria will likely continue. It will not fall easily because we have little leverage, outsiders are too interested in the status quo, and the insiders are not interested in anything short of carrying on. Change will depend on those who see the benefits and are willing to risk to consequences of the process. In the meantime, I wish my Syrian friends their safety, peace and a better place than yesterday.

PS: the best damn rose petal jam in the world is served with the french croissants at the Biet al mamlukkka hotel.

Gimme your keys, I'm a good guy... online.

I recently let a home in France from no-one I had ever met, except online.

When I returned, I realized it’s been awhile since I have wailed away on Trust and the dangers of a Trust gap between online behavior and offline repercussions. My thesis is that, if the Trust gap could be bridged, the Sharing Economy (aka collaborative Consumption) would take off.

Since my first post, Sharing Darling airBnB topped off a $112M raise at $1B valuation, which is a good start!  Full disclosure: I have an investment in, and a deep belief for, the benefits of  TrustCloud, mentioned  frequently in my posts but not here.

When you hand the housekeys  to a couch surfer, leave the kids with the new sitter, or hitch a ride with three total unknowns, it’s not a natural feeling. I’ve written about it in my MadMen post, as well as the downside in my Catfish story.

The antidote?  Trust. After my first post of five mistakes, here are five more  common Trust mistakes we are hardwired to commit in real life, and more evidence we should consider asking for a Hall Pass before exposing ourselves in real life to peeps we met online:

 6. Contamination effects, whereby we allow irrelevant but proximate information to influence a decision;

7. The effect heuristic, whereby preconceived value-judgements interfere with our assessment of costs and benefits;

8. Scope neglect, which prevents us from proportionately adjusting what we should be willing to sacrifice to avoid harms of different orders of magnitude;

9. Overconfidence in calibration, which leads us to underestimate the confidence intervals within which our estimates will be robust (e.g. to conflate the ‘best case’ scenario with the ‘most probable’); and

10. Bystander apathy, which inclines us to abdicate individual responsibility when in a crowd.

How many of these dumb trust mistakes do you recognize? When you layer online activity on top of your offline judgements, does it begin to get scary? It has me thinking there has to be an improvement if Sharing is to get super-scale.

...and a popular one at that.

If you are lucky enough to see this place it will teach you quite a bit about the French, which is to say, 1) they assign hilarious import on meaningless things, 2) they only follow rules if it will inconvenience someone or make something into a farce, 3) sex sells, 4) it all ends up with stunning beauty. And remember, I love France, and the French. Onward?

Pere La Chaise is a vast cemetery on the far eastern side of Paris proper named after ”Father Chair”, a priest of no consequence except that Louis XIV, France’s greatest King, unloaded on him just before expiring. Seems the cardinal had stepped out just as Louis took a turn for the worse, and there was Father Chair to hear surely one of the great last confessions of all time. He then became ?the man who knew all the secrets?, as far as France was concerned. Voila, instant fame and glory. Three hundred years later, on the plaques of every door of the Cemetery, begins the phrase ”Pere la Chaise, last confessor to Louis XIV”? I think I have proved point #1 above without going on.

Of the twenty cemeteries in Paris, Pere-Lachaise is the most famous, it has over 70,000 plots and receives some two million visitors a year from all over the world. With 44 hectares and 5,300 trees, Pere-Lachaise is also the largest park in Paris. One inside the gates, one finds a stunning display of early 19th century mini-architecture and crypt design. Each alley is flanked with majestic horse chestnuts, the walks are all cobblestone, and the crypts themselves are marvels of taste and style. With the possible exception of Disneyland, no-one has ever done miniature so consistently. Of course, this magic kingdom is real limestone, granite and marble. If you are lucky enough to get a sunny day, it is a tremendous place for a quiet walk. For the more directed, there awaits a grave hunt with some very fun and famous artsy names to seek out: Chopin, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison. Wait a minute.

Here is a place that hasn’t taken new arrivals (except cremations) for years now. And double forget it if you are not French or loved by the French. So what is Jim doing here? (If you really believe he is dead). Well, simply refer to rule#2 above. The commissar decided it would be a hoot to let Jim join the other pillars of French culture, so there he is, down in Map plot #31. Americans and stoners alike have scrawled Jim this way>>> and Come light my fire>>>> in many of the tombs en route, so it’s an easy find. Indeed, he seems to have actually been able to break on through to the other side. No word yet on coming back. We’ll keep you posted.

Meantime, it’s up the hill to the main parade ground where we can, in an instant, prove rule #3. Seems a very young couple met an untimely death in the middle of the prior century. Legend has it they were flush with love in the springtime when the unlucky demise ended their days on earth. But the power of their love seems to live on. You see, it has become legend that a visit to these graves and a touch of strategic parts of the departed’s statuary (to my eye, I’d say rubbing is more like it) will restore one’s procreative powers. No word on what it does to the deceased, but that is the shiniest brass in Pere la Chaise.

Pere la Chaise has it all. Stunning beauty, silliness, culture, irreverence, and superstition. You decide which applies to what.

If you go
» Pere la Chaise History

Legends die hard in the Spencer family, especially when they are based oceans away and told by grandparents that are beyond questioning. A trip through the French countryside with my father clarified a lot, and embarrassed no-one.

Herbert Sharpless Spencer grew up in a coal mine in central Pennsylvania (see prior story), this was all that was left. By the time he was of an age he could lie about his age, he volunteered for what appeared to be a much cushier job: rifleman in the US Army’s Big Red One commanded by General Pershing. His proficiency hitting squirrels (for dinner!) at 50 yards with a .22 rifle qualified him for the job, no doubt. Compared to the strip mine, it must have seemed like a nice trade. Obviously never out of the county- let alone the country- Herbert arrived in St. Malo, France in 1918 and was promptly sent to the Argonne Forest to an area called St. Mihiel, where the Germans had been terrifying the French by their proximity to Paris. (Actually, 2:30 by car for us, but we were flying.) It was warfare at its worst, stagnant lines of barbed wire and trench lasting for tens if not scores of miles uninterrupted.

So Herbert is in France for not longer than a week, stationed in St. Mihiel for not much longer than a few days. He hears the all clear, rises out of the trench, and promptly takes four bullets in the legs, losing one completely and seriously maiming the other. He is given up for dead. But, of course, he isn’t. By his telling, despite what must have been excruciating pain, he bound his (last) leg with his shirt, fashioned two crutches out of fence posts and started walking as best he could.

He finds a stream, drinks profusely from the collapsible army issue cup (now a Spencer talisman) and somehow finds the will and strength to save himself. Powerful force, that self-preservation. Downstream, he happened upon a farm house, and mustered the nerve to knock on the door. It opened, and he came to a tough realization: he spoke no French. True to form, the woman spoke no English, and shut him out. I’ve been treated rudely and felt out of place in some far away places in my life, but nothing like that. And no, the French aren’t usually that bad. But Herbert kept walking to a monastery he called St. Michel and somehow pulled through.

I had been to St. Michel a few times, on the Normandy coast a few hours drive outside Paris. I had shared those experiences with my Dad, and was able to bring him there recently with my publicist Greg and his Dad Paul. The place is glorious, as I imagine has been for 1,000 years. It’s also too far for a recently maimed rifleman to crawl to if he starts from the Argonne forest, even if he did start in 1918. My dad came to this conclusion on his own. “Perhaps there’s another St. Michel”, I suggested.

We spent the next week looking, with stops at the beaches of Normandy and the streets of Paris, just the four of us finding precious experiences together and generally enjoying ourselves immensely. (view short film). The culmination was our journey was the Argonne Forest and a field outside a town called St. Mihiel where 86 years prior my grandfather was shown no great respect by a German machine gunner. After a picnic (Dad is now a pate aficionado) on the banks of the Meuse where Herbert may well have dipped for drink we made our way into town to inquire about. It was a sleepy place, not to much changed from back in the day, I imagine. We were directed toward the old town, where amongst classic French row houses and walled gardens, we discover a monastery. Apparently, it was the Army hospital during the war, and was adjacent to a wonderful church. The name, of course: St. Michel.

Herbert Spencer had crawled across town, not across France. But his wounds were real, as was his valor. I was moved to see his son and my father piece it all together. It was magic.

Swimming is getting more important in the work-out mashup that is a middle-age athletic life. I used to love the pool as a kid, spending most every day in the summer playing all kinds of ridiculous games with my siblings and neighborhood friends. “Minnow” and “Marco Polo” come quickly to mind, the latter being an example of how much a little sister can get away with cheating and still never catch an older brother who lived underwater.

But now, swimming has become a great low impact workout that nevertheless burns a tremendous amount of energy. I am not the first one to figure this out, but I may be uniquely qualified to opine upon some world bests, having been to many round the globe more than a few times, and always hitting the pool where I land as part of “who needs sleep” regimen. A word on the judging before we begin. Pools are for swimming, so they have to excel there first. I grew up swimming in the Beaver public pool (packed minnow scene) and later our own in ground in the backyard, so I begin with hopelessly low standards, but that’s before travelling the world. Now my book includes scenic integration, and some scenery worth integrating. Overcrowding (more than 2 people) is instant DSQ in my book. Needless accompaniments like hovering pool staff, warm towels, branded robes and overpriced lotion will not count for extra, but will not be deducted as long as they do not interfere.

Ready? One two three jump!!!

Rating a mention is the pool at Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo, mainly for the view. Great giant kidney nestled into the cliffs, but too much indoor and too much spa traffic for my tastes. The Miraflores Club in Lima has an amazing over-hanger, but no-one swims as the weather is always mist. The Fairmont in Chicago has a stunner as well, but it is shared with a club next door, so I don’t really know who owns it so scratch that one. Riyadh has a beauty in the Al Faisaliya Hotel, if you are ever in town hanging around waiting for Princes to call. Full Olympic job, with hand applied tiles throughout, an unbelievable waterfall, super heating and cooling systems, great extras like the ice-death plunge pool and no-one is ever there! Total swimmers paradise, except that-get this- you can’t ever see the sun (uh, one hang-up of Islam). Despite this, I give it my runner up status. It’s that good. Winner goes to a place on the French Riviera- Alps Maritimes, actually. Mortgage your house, drain the kid’s retirement fund and/or max the credit cards for a fun week at Eden Roc in Cap D’Antibes. Jewel in the crown of a family hotel operator (that owns Brenner’s in Baden Baden and the Bristol in Paris), the place was bought sight unseen (ok, seen from the boat) by the big man, who insisted it remain a family operation and not succumb to Omni-Mega-World Domination Hotel Corp. So far, so good!

The pool is worth it all. Perched on a 30-acre nature preserve, Eden Roc is the “summer cottage” portion of Hotel du Cap, made famous firstly by F. Scott Fitzgerald and later all sorts of fashion and movie stars. Cannes and its festival are just across the bay in late May. And the pool itself is pure masterpiece. Cut into the rocks and facing west, it’s a negative edge job that’s falls into the best western view there is. It’s a salt water job, so you literally fly and float (just don’t drink, and keep the goggles tight). Most people are there to be seen, so the pool is like I-95 at 3:00am, pure fast-lane.

But it keeps going (yes, the aforementioned towels, robes, lotion and service are always available) but check out the gymnastic equipment strung out over the water. What a great place to horse around and break an arm! And if that’s not enough for you, some very legitimate 5 and 10 meter boards to plunge into the colder than it looks Med. Nice thing about the derring-do equipment: there are no peligroso signs on them. Anyone idiot enough to try should not be permitted to bring any action against the owners lest they be laughed out of court. The swim platforms are out there, a-ways off, if you can fight off the hypothermia to get to them. I now know why sea lions warm themselves on the rocks between dips! Unlike them, I was permitted to return to the pool (+/-85f) feels all the better. (No, the Med doesn’t have sea lions- try Galapagos). But the Galapagos doesn’t have an Eden Roc either! Francois, Pierre, Jean-Jacques my congratulations. As pool boys, you work at the center of the world.

The French will outlive us. And I have figured out why.

They may smoke like chimneys, drink wine incessantly, not really exercise except for la boule, eat foi gras, mandate 35 hour work weeks, five weeks of vacances and have 650 varieties of cheese. But, despite what would appear to be unhealthy in every regard, they have actually perfected the art of just not really caring too much about anything. Which means, they will whistle right pass our heart attack ridden fifties and our stress induced weak sixties to outlive us well into their eighties and beyond. They get to the finish in style, while appearing to do all the wrong things along the way.

This reminds me of a horserace I was at recently in Longchamp. Stay with me.

My friends at Quarterback, (yes, they named it after American Football- they confuse the French as much as “Vaux les ventures” confuses Americans!) host the Prix D’Honneur each year. And the horses run backwards, much like the French approach life itself! But, lets go back a bit…

The infield tent at the Pd’H was a model of French hospitality. The food was special, the wine was sublime, and the people were a total blast. Contrary to popular belief, they do not hate Americans, at least not this one. We hit it off with Gauthier’s friends marvelously, and I got to watch each of the races- backwards, bien sur- from the finish line on the infield grass.

But as it is in so many other corners of the world, it was the people that made the mark on me. Parisian, most of them (and so being the most uptight of the French people) But even in a business setting, and this was all business they were able to enjoy themselves as I rarely see in America. Maybe they have peaked as a country in culture, food, wine, art, architecture. Maybe they have begun to coast. But who cares. Much like I was reminded in Egypt, who did for it for a few thousand years, these guys were on a hot streak for a long time. They deserve a little time off. And they seem to be making the best of it.

One treat of the day was the Republican Guard, a holdover from the time of Kings (the Musketeers are no-longer I guess). Before the big race, they canter up and blow horns in front of the royal box. Not being a royal,. I have an unobstructed view of the asses of 30 horses. Which is when I notice they shave a check board logo on the hindquarters (of the horses- not the guards!)? Gauthier brought out some more wine, lit a cigar (and was surprised I didn’t join him). We watched last bit of sun fall over the grandstand and knew we had lived a moment.

The final race was testament to my thesis. It started from the wrong side of the track, and the horses ran the entire race the wrong way, that is to me clockwise. And it occurred to me, they were just like the French. They got to the finish line, backwards and in good form. Like the French, I suppose, the horses did all the right things for all the wrong reasons. But they got there, just the same.

Which is why French horses run backwards and Frenchmen live so long: how you get there is not such serious business, it’s knowing what is really important that counts.

That, and betting on Joie de Vivre at 13:1.

Oui, c’est vrai!

If you go
» Prix D’Honneur
» Roland Garros
   Brasserie Balzar

Shortly after the French bit the bullet and elected Nic Sarkozy (American lover! Immigrant not-lover! Salami eater!) over Ms. Royale (Well dressed!, Well mannered! A true French mum for us all!) it seemed like a good time to check in on mes amis francais to see how they were getting along under la nouvelle salade compose’. I am pleased to report the French are going about doing what they do best: being French. In my opinion, this means getting a very quiet revenge on the entire rest of the civilized world by drinking wine, eating foie gras, and playing La Boule like that’s all there is.

In the words of the now immortal Sebou, plus que ca change, plus que c’est la meme chose.

And where is the best place to enjoy this most French of traditions of tossing steel balls in efforts to get close by a small cork one? Without a doubt, The Café outside the fortress wall of St.Paul de Vence. Uh, that’s in France, BTW.

First, a wee bit of background on St.P.de V. Situated on the hills overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, the town was a medieval fortress with commanding views (always that way, isn’t it?). The winding streets are a haven for art galleries and food lovers. Palm D’or is there. Chagall has a museum down the street (he’s gone, though). The city itself has preserved its fountains, cemeteries, cathedrales, cobblestones, public wash basins, and other key elements in drawing busloads of tourists to the place. A visit to St Paul de Vence is on many a must-see list, but many people rush from bus to shop and back, and walk right on by the best part of it all.

La Boule, played to the death!

I’ve watched this game from afar, played it up close, and observed it from every angle imaginable. (My buddy Gauthier at Quarterback actually hosts the Petanque Championships in Arles each year, but this piece isn’t about winning, it’s about living). A few rules to begin perhaps? Start with a softly undulating chipped clay surface, with just enough stray stones to knock the ball off course every once in a maddening while. A small (golf ball size) cork ball is tossed gently. Then each player takes a turn trying to lodge his boule closest to the object. (think shuffleboard, in a circular way). If your toss does not better the previous, you toss until done. Rolling gets you no-where. Pebbles disrupt everything. The prized shot is actually the sky ball, descending from the heaven, to annihilate a tightly clustered bunch of opponent’s boules, a partner’s shins, and perhaps some poor dog’s tooth who was after the chicken bone dropped nearby sometime earlier. When each team (of two) has finished, a succinct analysis is made, that being who remains closest the object ball, which has likely moved by now. Bonus scoring is achieved if all three of your boules are inside the best of your opponents. Everything is argued passionately: the boule moved! The pebble got in the way! The object was too far (left, right, away, close). The dog interfered! You cheat like Sarkozy! You cry like Segolene! Finally, peace is restored when a tape measure is introduced to settle once and for all in centimeters what the eye just can’t discern. And voila, one team declares victory for the round. Whereupon, the cork is gently tossed, the boules are wiped clean, the dog scatters for cover and we go again.

The game is sublimely simple. Maddeningly complicated. Requires no great physical prowess. And goes on forever. Which is why it is good to choose a good place to play. I knew the busloads don’t get it, but when I came upon – Café I knew I was in Yankee Stadium. It is has an amazing view of the valley and the coast, and room enough for at least 30 games of boules simultaneously. The Horse chestnut trees have halogen lights. The café is alongside to serve cold drinks, wine, and more wine. A clubhouse is nestled in the corner, with tapes, ball cloths, and extra visors. And the gravel is divine, some absolutely perfect clay that really only hangs around in that area, I am guessing.. No doubt, I am not the first to notice all this, because the crowd for boules is entirely locals, huge, and entirely mad. They play and play and play. They make the nuts in Jardin Luxembourg look like schoolboys. And they play well into the night. Like 2am into the night! The café never turns out the lights on a game. The bathrooms stay open. Wives who call the bar are told the last game is just finishing up… and the wine never runs out.

Kind of like the way it should be in more places, I think.

If you go
» St Paul de Vence
» Musee Chagall
» Gallerie Unicorn
» Quarterback

I was lucky enough to be back in France for some beautiful early summer weather and I got to witness something truly interesting- to me anyways. The ball boys/girls at the French Open are absolutely fantastic in their economy of motion and their effectiveness. I don’t know who trains these kids, but I think they should consider a higher calling. Let me explain.

Roland Garros in the late spring is not shabby. Set in the Bois de Boulogne (woods) on the western fringe of Paris, the tennis center is tucked neatly into a few lush hectares that are made all the better by the hospitality provided by my friends at Quarterback.fr. This year’s tourney saw a vicious quarterfinal match between Murat Safin, a strapping Russian and fan favorite (most teenage Russian girls live in Paris these days) and a less loved- for no good reason- Italian named Starace. The match went five sets, and into the twilight. Each of us wondered whether darkness would prevail over all. And then I began watching the ball boys do their work. It was art.

I guess tennis players are temperamental, so everything is designed to serve them, alas. I have not seen any better service from tuxedoed staff in four star restaurants! Of the six boys stationed on the court (two behind each service lines, two at the net), none were in sight of the players at any time during play. None made any movement. Then, when a point was over, the service line boys would hold balls aloft so as to bounce them perfectly into the waiting racket of the server. No nod from the server- no ball. Server frown for a moment- boy runs with towel to dry server. Boys at net clean errant balls from area immediately. Boys on serve receive side do likewise, clearing service debris with a minimum of motion and maximum of efficiency. And, end of game, balls are transferred with a unique speed rolling technique to other side. I’m sure I was only observing half the idiosyncrasies. But they had reached the pinnacle of what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “the Way” in his book FLOW (a great read BTW). It embodies the highest effectiveness at any task, so much so that the pursuit is pure pleasure.

But to me, it was a flow experience. These kids were so into it, and so good at what they did, I totally disregarded the end of the five set battle royale. It reminded me of one of my life pursuits, which is finding flow in as many things as possible. I highly recommend the book, as well as the practice. Paris in may ain’t hateful either.