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Here is to the Wizards. They made the playoffs. Do you realize they have had the aggregate worst record in the NBA since 2000. They probably had one of the worst records between around 1980 and 2000. They have been a disappointing team. ....and I've followed them virtually all of that time. I started watching them way back....in Baltimore...When Wes Unseld turned them into a fearsome team and Earl Monroe was a one of a kind unstoppable offensive whirlwind. They had other great players back then including the incredibly powerful Gus Johnson. And then the team got BETTER. They won a championship in the late 1970's had an excellent team....and a couple of dismal decades.... So it is good to see this team with some young stars plus some wise stable veterans finally make the playoffs. The Washington Post has an astonishing statistical look at the Wizards season thanks to 6 cameras attached to the tops of arenas catching every moment of every game. Here is an astonishing little detail one might never know: John Wall basically controls the ball more than any other player on any other team. Lots of other little nuggets in the story. In any case good luck Wizards in the Playoffs. You would have made Abe Pollin proud. --- [The following posts have been split into separate threads: Wes Unseld (DonRocks)]

For several years, I was a Big Brother, until my little brother, Ali, his mom Iris, and his sister, Naimah, moved to San Diego to stake out a better life for themselves. I remember taking his family to the airport, and had to pay for their cat to get on the plane because they didn't have the money. I only saw Ali once more after that, a few years later when I went to visit their family out in San Diego. We drove up to Los Angeles because Ali wanted to go to the Spike Lee Store, where everything was overpriced and of questionable quality. I bought him a T-shirt, and paid twice what it was worth - I didn't want to drive back to San Diego without a momento from his hero. A few years before that, I had flown in from Moscow. Exhausted after traveling the better part of 24 hours, I was ready to collapse into bed, but checked my answering machine first. There was a message from Iris: Ali's best friend Frankie was shot and killed in a drug deal gone bad, and the funeral was in about one hour. Somehow, I found the strength to throw on a suit, and drive to Seat Pleasant, where I was the only white person at the funeral. Frankie's mom came up to me, and asked me to say a few words. To this day, I have no idea why - what the heck was I supposed to say? Fighting lack of concentration because of sleepiness, I fumbled through my speech, turned to Frankie lying in his coffin, and told him we all loved him - that won the audience over, and things went as well as they could have under the extreme amount of pressure I was under. Six years ago, I wondered what Ali had been up to, and I searched his name on the internet, only to find his obituary. I posted this. Frankie and Ali were both the finest young men. I loved them and miss them terribly to this day - their premature deaths are 100% attributable to the neighborhoods they grew up in - even though Iris tried her best to escape, it just wasn't enough. She didn't have the money. I did things with Ali and Frankie about once a week, and remember one day asking them where they went to school. "Taney Middle School," Ali said, which meant nothing to me, or to him, or to Frankie. But a few years later, I did a little research, and found that Roger B. Taney was a Supreme Court Justice. 'Okay,' I thought to myself, they had gone to a middle school named after a Supreme Court Justice. Then, I found out that Roger B. Taney was actually Chief Justice from 1836-1864, and was the person who wrote the majority decision in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857. These children were going to a school that was nearly 100% black, and the school was named after the Chief Justice who tried the Dred Scott case? I couldn't believe it, but over the years, I forgot all about it. Until recently, when it popped back into my mind, and I Googled to see if that school was really named after the same man who wrote the Dred Scott ruling - the ruling that said, blacks "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." Fortunately, in 1993, someone had the common sense to change the name of the school from "Roger B. Taney Middle School" to "Thurgood Marshall Middle School": "School May Change Name to Thurgood Marshall" on articles.orlandosentinel.com This column came out today: "Out with Redskins - and Everything Else!" by George F. Will on washingtonpost.com Will mixed up some valid points along with some reductio ad absurdum, as he seems to have a tendency to do - he's a smart guy; I wonder what he would say about Roger B. Taney Middle School educating a nearly all-black student body.

I recently commented on my seemingly non-stop run of good luck with American Westerns, but I've just come across two-in-a-row that I'd say were of the "good-but-not-great" variety: "The Magnificent Seven" and "Firecreek," and this makes me wonder - have I been good at selecting Westerns, or have I simply been selecting movies involving John Ford and Clint Eastwood? One problem I see in "Firecreek" is that there's no strongman (yes, the same can be said about "Shane," but I also didn't like Shane). The lead protagonist is a 70-year-old Jimmy Stewart, and the lead antagonist is a 73-year-old Henry Fonda, neither of whom - even in their physical primes - were particularly imposing. I love both of these actors, but this does conjure up notions of two elderly men shaking their canes at each other in the nursing home. Their age doesn't bother me per se (hell, I'm getting there myself), but we have people being beaten, killed, etc., and there isn't going to be any John Wayne riding into town to save the day. Still, the mere thought of Stewart and Fonda being together in the same picture is enough to give me optimism. Two out of the five bad guys played important roles on "Star Trek" episodes, and it's hard to get their Trek portrayals out of my head: Gary Lockwood ("Where No Man Has Gone Before") and Morgan Woodward ("Dagger of the Mind"): Halfway into the movie, I retract what I said about Stewart and Fonda - the primary antagonist has been Gary Lockwood (by a long-shot), and Henry Fonda has been wounded, and barely even noticeable in the film - so far, this is a classic "Wild One"- or "Born Losers"-type film about a gang coming into town (sometimes on motorcycles, sometimes on horses), and making trouble for otherwise-peaceful people who did nothing to ask for it. I'm pretty sure there's going to be something bad that happens, since there's so much movie left, and Jimmy Stewart seems like the one who may rise to the occasion, overcoming his normally gentle nature (refer to "Straw Dogs"). I'm liking "Firecreek" more than I thought I might - it's not a great film, but it does follow a classic model, and so far, is doing it pretty well. *** SPOILERS ALERT *** Uh, yeah ... something bad happened: Bad guys and whisky don't mix, and they were hammered when I wrote that last paragraph. Man, this "wake" the antagonists have is like something out of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (and I'm talking about the "family dinner" scene) - this is pretty creepy stuff while not completely going over the top. In many ways, this is what I would term a "small film" - a movie that deals with relatively minor issues on a less-than-grand scale. Not a boring, period piece, but just relatively compact in overall size. With that said, the music - scored by the well-known Alfred Newman - is arguably more ambitious than the movie. There are times when you notice the music, but shouldn't, and I'll go far enough to say that in a couple of spots, it's a bit maudlin - when a film's music is in balance, you don't really notice it, but there are a couple of times in Firecreek when you do, and I wish Newman had toned it down maybe just ten percent. The music is good, mind you, but it can be just a touch too amped up for the situation. One example is when Stewart leaves his wife (who is in false labor) and rides back into town - that whole scene is a little too dramatized, aurally, and would be better served by a more pensive score. (Of course, that dramatic music could indicate that something is about to, ahem, happen.) Oh my goodness, my "Straw Dogs" comment isn't all that far off. I don't read critics' reviews until after I finish watching films. I don't care what anyone says - of the previous two Westerns I've seen, neither "The Magnificent Seven" nor "Firecreek" are great, but both are good, and "Firecreek" is the better of the two. [I've now read what scant reviews are out there.] "The Magnificent Seven" is wildly overrated; "Firecreek" is slightly underrated.

If you like NBA scorers, Dirk Notwitzki is and has been one of the best. He is currently 6th in all time scoring and only the 6th player to score over 30,000 points. Rarified air. He is also a horse. He is currently ranked 11th in all times games and 8th all time in minutes. He is still active. He has played a lot and scored a lot. He is a scorer, he shoots a lot and hits a lot, currently 11th in total field goals, 9th in attempts, 14th in total 3 pt shots, 13th in attempts and 7th in foul shots made. Completely a high production horse. Currently in his 19th season all for one team, The Dallas Mavericks. He is their all time star of stars. He is still effective. The other night in his 19th season he contributed to a Mavs victory at the Wizards scoring 20 points in 32 minutes. including some devastating 3 pointers. In his freaking 19th year!! Nowitzki has high value offensive attributes. He is the prototype "stretch 4" or big man that can shoot effectively from the outside. If he didn't invent the position he clearly defined it. He isn't just big, he is 7 feet tall. His outside shot is both deadly and unblockable. Put a tall guy on him, he can still shoot the fadeaway over the tall guy, or invariably drive by him. Put a shorter guy on him and the shot never gets blocked. Nowitzki has one of the games all time iconic shots. Interestingly Nowitzki's career virtually completely overlaps with that of Tim Duncan. Two guys with long careers for a single team, and coincidentally they played in the same state (Texas) in the same division, and matched up frequently: 57 times in regular season, 33 games in the playoffs. Personal statistics against one another pretty similar and characteristic of their strengths. Duncan has a big edge in regular season wins; its much closer in the playoffs. It is one of the league's all time rivalries if somewhat understated. Nowitzki has also been a winner, if not to the same degree as Duncan, still remarkably successful. During his time in Dallas the team had 11 consecutive seasons with 50 wins or more. 11 consecutive seasons. Phenomenal. Other teams have similar or even better streaks (Duncan's Spurs) and yet teams such as the Wizards haven't won 50 or more games since 1979. Nowitzki gave his team sustained excellence, including one NBA championship, two times in the finals, and endless times in the playoffs. Nowitzki is a scorer and a winner. During his "reign" Dallas never had another super star; accompanying good to excellent players but no superstars who played with Nowitzki at their primes. He carried the team. He essentially made Dallas "unmatchable". How do you cover a 7 foot guy who shoots from the outside and the far outside? You can't. Its been the defining element of the Dallas Mavs offense for most of the last 19 years. Quite a streak. Here are a paltry 4 minutes of some of his best and game winning plays:

Please don't remember John Glenn only for his partisan politics - the man was, is, and always will be a great American Hero - just look at those tags in this thread, and there could have been more. I have total respect for this great American, and I hope everyone else does, too. Senator Glenn left us earlier today at the age of 95 - we lost a giant today: What a great man.

On Kobe Bryant's final game of his career, he tosses in 60 points on a career-high 50 shots. Yes, the Lakers were feeding him the ball and telling him to shoot, no the Jazz weren't playing their best defense, but who cares. All people will remember 50 years from now is 60 points in his final game. Congratulations on a legendary career, Black Mamba!

I try to read at least one novel by each Nobel Prize Winning Author, just for the hell of it - for my own self-improvement, I guess. Having always considered myself fluent (or at least highly conversational) in French, and having read some pretty tough little books in French before, I decided to tackle one of Patrick Modiano's works in his native language, so I had my mother-in-law find and ship me a really nice copy of <<La Place de LÉtoile>>, one of his most important works. I read the preface, and understood the double-entendre. Great! I was going to blitz through this 211-page book in a couple of months. Then I got to the second page, and was staring down things like this list of idiomatic invectives, one right after the other: ... rantanplan ... Vlan! ... cet effréné empaffeur de petites Aryennes! ... Rastaquouère des cocktails infâmes! and so on, and so on. It took me an hour - with a dictionary - to read one page, and I closed the book and said, "To hell with it - this isn't French; this is Martian." So I took the more sensible route - or so I *thought* - and bought a translated book (and there weren't many available): "Missing Person," translated by Daniel Weissbort. One mistake was followed by another, the second being so significant that it stole six months from my life. First of all, "Missing Person" is some editor's *impossibly bad* translation of the novel's real name: <<Rues des Boutiques Obscures>>, which translates much more appropriately - and poetically - to "Streets of Obscure Boutiques." This book is, you see, a mystery novel in which the detective is also the subject - he can't remember who he is, so he spends the entire book chasing down leads as to his real identity, some of which are good, some of which aren't - hence, the beautiful title which was completely ruined in translation, the imagery of some poor man scurrying up-and-down streets with strange, but familiar, looking boutiques a near-perfect allegory of his search for himself. I was hell-bent on giving Modiano the respect of trying to solve this mystery before I got to the end of the book - so much so, that I wrote down, and kept track of, every single name, proper noun, street, etc., in the *entire book*, so when they were referred to again later on, I could go back and find the page on which they were originally referred. That's dedication, right? Yeah, that's dedication. Assuming the book has an ending. When I was 20 pages from the end, after spending about six months reading it, studiously assembling my study guide, an uneasy feeling came over me ... this book wasn't going anywhere. And then I cursed the author when I was 5 pages from the end, because I knew then that this was going to be one of "those" novels - this wasn't a mystery novel; it was a meditation on existence, and all that work I did was for *nothing*. Nada. Zilch. This was going to be a story without an ending. Then I read the final word, closed the book, and said to myself, "That bastard." It was like having read "Waiting for Godot" (for those who don't know: Godot never shows up), diligently writing down every possible clue throughout the entire story, only to have zero payoff at the end, and to have realized you wasted about forty hours of work. If I had only known, I would have read it differently, but I had no way to know. Well, I hope you all enjoy my Study Guide to NOTHING. I even went so far as to separate Rues, from Boulevards, from Avenues, and to think with about 50 pages left, I thought to myself, "You know, I'm going to have to read this a second time and write down all *phone numbers*, because what I'm doing isn't going to be enough. Listen up! Learn from my mistake in attempting to read this as a novel in which you can figure out clues. Had I done this properly, I would have included phone numbers, and also the page numbers for the dates at the very bottom. As it stands, *the entire project was a mistake*, and the novel is best blasted through without worrying about details. Read it in a week; not in six months. Trust me - my loss can be your gain. I will add that I just this moment purchased the hardcover version of this novel in French, and I'm going to "blast through it," <<sans dico>>, both to improve my French, and because I know I'll understand it very well, even though I won't know certain individual words - plus, I now have a brand new hardcover copy for my tiny, personal library, and also a paperback English-language copy to lend to my friends - one thing I am not, is a quitter. Enjoy! I sure as hell didn't. There are no spoilers here, and the page numbers represent the very first time in the book that something was referenced. This is an important note: The reason these lists look so "condensed" is because I often tapped them in on my cell phone, and was trying to keep one note per line. I had no intention of making these public, and they were for my own benefit - but it's obvious to me (now) that someone, at some point in time, might get some use out of them, so here they are in their "raw" format, with my apologies. Don Rockwell's Study Guide to ... NOTHING! Note: This ONLY applies to This Edition of "Missing Person" The sleuth *and* the subject is named Guy Roland - the entire story is about him trying to find out his true identity. Links that Guy Roland uses to get from one lead to the next: Hutte Sonachidze (how?) -> Heurteur Styoppa (funeral of de Rosen) Blunt (photo & funeral of Orlov) Howard (Lutte's directories) Pilgram (Howard's pic + Hutte) Ruddy bartender (Denise born) Mansoure (magazine cover) People mentioned in the story (again, the page cited is the very first time a name or person was referenced in the book - if something "important" shows up later, I'll sometimes write something such as [see 119] which means "see also page 119"): Guy Roland 1 Constantin von Hutte 1 "The dark little man, puffy face" 1 The dark little man's wife 1 Another dark little man 1 Paul Sonachidze 5 Jean Heurteur 7 Styoppa de Dzhagorev 10 Marie de Rosen 13 Georges Sacher 13 Giorgiadze 27 Mara "Gay" Orlov 27 Pedro the South American 27 [identified by Bob 64, lying on bed 115] Bernardy Mac Mahon 32 Kyril Orlov 32 Irene Giorgiadze 32 Waldo Blunt 33 Jean-Pierre Bernardy 33 [see 159] Lucky Luciano 38 Howard de Luz (Jean Simety) 40 (48) John Gilbert 41 Dany Blunt 42 MmeMabel Donahue Simety 48 Claude Howard 49 Freddie [Alfred Jean 158] Howard de Luz 50 Robert "Bob," the Valbreuse caretaker 54 [named 58] French billiard-playing woman 61 Freddy's jockey friend 64 [see 124] Robert Brun 66 (same as Bob 54?) R.L. de Oliveira Cezar, CG 67 Helene Pilgram 68 Policemen standing sentry 71 Mr [Pedro?80] McEvoy 72 [Dominican Republic working at legation 119] Denise [Yvette Coudreuse] 73[79] ["Muth" 119] Leon Van Allen 73 [Dutch 119] Paul Coudreuse 79 Henriette Bogaerts 79 Jimmy Pedro Stern 79 Oleg de Wrede (Paris) 81 [see 137] Ruddy bartender 86 Jean-Michel Mansoure 89 Hoyningen-Huene 95 Alec Scouffi (Greek-Egypt) 97 Blue Rider (Scouffi's killer) 99 Richard Wall 102 10-yr-old girl w/Denise 103 Fat, bald man in pic w/cig 104 Jacques [F 119] dressmaker Denise worked for on Rue la Boetie [#32 119] 107 Sir Basil Zaharoff 108 Pretty dark-haired tropical Latina 112 Man on beach with son 114 King Gustav of Sweden 117 De Swert 118 Mrs. Kahan 118 Georges Stern 120 Giuvia Sarano 120 Cueva 122 Colonel de Basil 122 Andre Wildmer 124 Porfirio Rubirosa 127 [killed in car under?accident 129] Bob Besson 132 Mrs. Jeanschmidt 136 Mrs E. Khan 137 Louis de Wrede, Comte de Montpensier (called Oleg) 138 Duchess rof Uzes 138 Duke of Windsor 138 Mrs. Henri Duvernois 139 Fair-Haired Man at Gare de Lyon 143 [Kyril 146] (Not Gay's father) George (Bar Owner in Megeve) 150 Joseph Simety Howard De Luz 158 Louise Fouquereaux 158 Alex Maguy 162 Japanese actor and his wife 162 Evelyne and a pale young man 162 Jean-Claude the Belgian 162 Fribourg 165 Fat Maori 165 Alain Gerbault 165 Rues (a <<Rue>> is a Street - I left the word "Rue" out of every one except the very first)Rue Vital 1 Anatole-de-la-Forge 5 [see 162] Cambon 7 [Hotel Castille, 8th 119] Claude-Lorrain 13 Charles-Marie-Widor 15 Marie-Widor 15 Boileau 16 Chardon-Lagache 17 [#9 121] Julien-Potin 22 [Pedro McElvoy? 121] [Porfirio Rubirosa 129] Ernest-Deloison 22 du Mont-Thabor 25 du Cirque 33 [21, 23] Rayounard 48 de Bassano 49 [10A] Cambaceres (8th) 68 Jenner (school) 89 [1] Gabrielle (18th) 92 Coustou 93 Lepic 93 des Abbesses 93 Germain-Pilon 93 [97] de Rome 5th floor (17th) 96 [26] de Naples (8th) 105 [11] de Berne (8th) 105 [99] de Rome (17th) 105 [97] de Rome (17th) 105 la Boetie 108 [97] de Rome 4th floor (17th) 110 Molitor (16th) 112 Mirabeau (16th) 112 Royale 114 Saint-Honore 114 Longchamp 117 [24] Bayard (8th) 120 Jouy-en-Josas 123 du Docteur-Kurzenne [22] de Picardie (Nice) 137 Francois-1er 137 [16] Foucault #5 160 Rude 162 de Saigon 162 Chagrin 162 Avenues (for some perverse reason, I thought it might be important to separate out rues, avenues, and boulevards - again, I only used the word <<Avenue>> in the very first one): Avenue Paul-Doumer 1 Niel 3 de la Grande-Armee 7 [see 162] des Champs-Élysées 7 de Versailles 18 Montaigne 33 [25] du Marechal-Lyautey 33 de New-York 40 Hoche 108 Victor-Hugo 109 Boulevards (again, I only used the word <<Boulevard>> in the very first one>>): Boulevard Maurice-Barres 22 Richard-Wallace 22 de Clichy 93 Moulin Rouge 93 Graff's 93 des Batignolles 107 de Courcelles 108 Emile-Augier 113 Places (again, I only mention <<Place>> in the very first one - a <<Place>> is like a Square, i.e., Times Square, Mount Vernon Square, etc.) Place Pereire 3 Blanche 92 des Abbesses 93 Clichy 107 de L'Etoile 108 de Levis 109 de l'Alma 114 de la Concorde 114 Malesherbes 140 des Saussaies 142 All other nouns except for People: Paris 1 Hutte's office and furnishings 1 Nice 2 Hortensias (cafe) 3 Ville d'Avray 6 Saint-Cloud 6 Porte de Saint-Cloud 7 Langer's 7 Hotel Castille 7 C.M. Hutte Agency 9 Tanagra 9 Alaverdi 11 Sainte Genevieve-des-Bois 13 Russian Orthodox Church 13 Le Herisson 18 School of Pages 19 Porte Maillot 22 Pont de Puteaux 22 Seine 22 The Emigration 23 Georgian Consulate 27 Yalta 28 Quai du General-Koenig 29 Bar-Restaurant de l'Ile 29 3 Addresses for Gay Orlov 33 Hotel Chateaubriand 33 Hilton Hotel Bar 33 Sur les quais du Vieux Paris 34 Sag Warum 35 Que reste-t-il de nos amours 35 Quai Branly 37 Pont Bir-Hakeim 37 Palm Island Casino 38 Arkansas 38 Quai de Passy 39 Trocadero Gardens 40 [see 161] Pont d'Iena 40 Hollywood 41 Pont d'Alma 41 Museum of Modern Art 41 Eiffel Tower 44 Auteuil Race Course 46 Military Cross 48 Club du Grand Pavois 48 Motor Yacht Club of the Cote d'Azur 48 Valbreuse, Orne (61,Alencon) 48 Square Henri Pate 16th 49 Golden Tripe Competition 49 Mauritius 49 [Port Louis 158] Chateau Saint-Lazare 54 [named 67] Biarritz 59 The billiard table in the summer dining-room 62 LU Biscuit box 63 Photographs in biscuit box 65 La Baule 65 Port of New York 66 French Argentine Consulate 66 DominicanRepublic passport67 ANJou15-28 67 Ph#s - 10A RueCambaceres68 Lists of embassies/legations 69 Dressmakers workshop 73 Paramaribo, DutchGuyana 74 Dominican Embassy 74 Megeve 74 Gilt box - English cigarettes 75 Dominican Legation 75 "Charlie Chan" 79 "Anonymous Letters" 79 Department du Seine 79 (13th) 9A Quai d'Austerlitz 79 AUTeuil54-73 81 "History of the Restoration" (L. de Viel-Castel) 85 A La Marine (cafe) 85 "Men Spreekt Vlaamsch" 85 Photo of Antwerp 86 Gare d'Austerlitz 87 Belgian cigarettes (Laurens) 87 Quai d'Austerlitz 88 [#9, 13th 119] Belgium 88 Botanical Gardens 91 Wine Market 91 Montmartre 94 Sacre Coeur 94 Vogue 95 Wehrmacht musicians 96 Marie Brizard 97 Alexandria, Egypt 98 "Ship at Anchor" (Scouffi) 98 Skeletal phone conversation 99 Montmartre funicular 100 Sacre Coeur gardens 100 Seine-et Oise (was 78) 103 Seine-et-Marne (77,Melun) 103 Versailles 103 Hotel de Chicago 105 "At The Golden Fish Residential Hotel" (Scouffi) 105 Salle Playel (Brussels) 105 Theatre de la Monnaie (Brussels) 105 Cafe at corner of Rue de Rome and Boulevard de Batignolles 108 Parc Monceau 108 Basque restaurant w/ Gascony fresco 109 The Royal-Villiers, Place de Levis 109 South American legation (Hutte's townhouse) 112 16th arrondissement 112 Cafe at intersection of Rue Mirabeau and Avenue de Versailles 113 Auteuil 113 Chausee de la Muette 113 Russian restaurant with zither player 113 Cours-la-Reine 114 Queen Astrid's 115 Faubourg Saint-Honore 115 Portugal via Switzerland 116 #6 Square de l'Opera 9th 119 Megeve, Haute-Savoie 119 Annemasse, Haute-Savoie 119 Hotel Lincoln 8th 120 Via delle Botteghe Oscure 2 Rome, Italy 120 Valparaiso 122 Plaza Echauren 122 Cerro Alegre District 122 Avenida Errazuriz 123 Protestant church 123 Robin Hood Inn 123 Jouy-en-Josas 123 Wine bar / grocery store on Ave Niel 124 Giverny, Oise 125 Alsace-Lorraine Gardens 127 Eden Roc 127 Square des Aliscamps 128 Neuilly 129 "El Reloj" and "Tu me acostumbraste" (guitar tunes) [129] Luiza School - Pedro's father would pick up him and Freddie [130] [Luiza and Albany School 135] Vincennes 132 Vichy 133 Parc des Sources 133 Hotel de la Paix 133 Cafe de la Restauration 133 Border at Hendaye (closed) 135 Chez Arkady (Russian restaurant) sometime around 1937 137 Siberia 138 Courcelles Metro Station 140 Square Edouard-VII 141 The Cintra 141 Côte d'Azure 141 "Collection du Masque" novels 142 Gare de Lyon 142 Sallanches 143 "Invisible" Mentioned 146 "The Southern Cross" Chalet 147 Rochebrune 147 Paris-Sport Magazine 147 Hotel du Mont-Blanc 149 L'Equipe (Adult Chalet) 150 Comet Garage 153 [see 160] Valda Lozenge 157 Port Louis, Mauritius 158 5 Addresses for Alfred Jean Howard de Luz 158 Island of Padipi 159 Papeete, French Polynesia 164 Bora Bora 165 Salle Pleyel 165 Tuamotu Archipelago 165 Marquesas 165 Moluccan Blackbirds 166 Seaside Resort in Southern Russia 167 Dates (Often given in the form of letters written to Guy Roland from people he asked questions to in his quest to find out about his life - I should have written down the page numbers also, but I didn't): 1872?Marie Rosen born 1885-04-28 Scouffi born 1910-09-30 Waldo Blunt born 1912-07-30 Alfred Jean Howard De Luz born, Port Louis, Mauritius 1912-09-30 Jimmy Pedro Stern born, Salonica Greece 1914 Mara Orlov born 1914 Photo of "black and white" dinner party 1914/1918SalonicaArchivesFire 1917-12-21 Denise born 1920 Scouffi to Feance 1936 Mara Orlov USA->France ????-02-14 Denise and Pedro 1939-04-03 Pedro weds Denise town hall (17th) 1939-04-03 Certified Abstract 1940 Jimmy Stern disappears 1940-12 Pedro McElvoy resides at #9 Rue Julien-Potin, Neuilly, Seine 1941-04 Van Allen opens fashion house #6 Square de l'Opera 9th 1941-07-15 Consulado letter 1945-01 Van Allen's fashion house closes 1943-02 Denise disappears crossing French-Swiss border 1947 C.M. Hutte formed 1950 Mara Orlov dies 1950 Jean Alfred Howard de Luz leaves France for the Island of Padipi, Polynesia, near Bora Bora (Society Isles) 159 1952 Waldo Blunt in Paris 1965-10-23 Gay Orlov memo 1965-11-07 Scouffi memo 1965-11-27 Letter to Pedro from Mrs E. Khan (representing Hutte) telling Pedro all she knows about Oleg de Wrede

Peter Murphy left Bauhaus and did his own thing. A friend gave me a listen. Went to see in in 86 or 87 at the old 930 Club (horribly distorted speakers and all) and he was great. A skeleton, but great. "Final Solution" (1986) "My Last Two Weeks" (1988) "The Sweetest Drop" (1992) Not as much a fan as I was back then, but still he did some interesting stuff.