Reformation Tour

 Began in Paris - City of Lights, capital of modernity, at least the 19th century kind - striking for a European capital divested of its "dark ages," which Americans like ourselves come in search for.

Angelina's. the fabled tearoom and hot chocolate destination point, severely overpriced and where Jack threw-up.  There are several of these in Tokyo, and well-traveled Japanese are sometimes diagnosed with パリ症候群 *Paris Syndrome," a condition of experiencing letdown, thus mental disorder, according to Dr. Hiroaki Ota.

Dehydration was Jack's malady as we all adjusted to less water, European style, including David & Teresa, our guests from SoCal.

The zero point of Paris and France, near Notre Dame.

Laura gave an excellent tour of the Louvre, engaging children and adults alike. Paris Muse runs a first-rate guided tour, led by spunky PhD art history grads temporarily settled in the city.

Doug Bond (author, teacher) was our fearless guide of key Reformation sites, favoring Luther and Germany on this trip. He & wife, Cheryl, lead Christian heritage tours, but this was our first. Most all the key players below:

Calvin sites: University of Paris, Strasbourg (above), and Noyon, Calvin's birthplace with cathedral where Joan of Arc was posthumously cleared and Charlemagne named a regional king before becoming emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Noyon Cathedral.  Pierre Viret, prominent & unrecognized Swiss reformer, also studied in key institutions of Paris, marking a huge chasm between the church then and today, whose social luminaries tend to be in business or sports, not the academy.

Poppies were blooming.

Michael & I on an early morning, pre-breakfast hike of a local castle.

A WWI cemetary near Verdun; the French countryside marked by these somber memorials; our experience of cuisine, wine, architecture, & pastoral beauty continually punctuated by official loss.

 450th anniversary of the Heidelberg Catechism, many people's favorite Reformation document for its subjective warmth. The more often studied Westminster Longer & Shorter Catechism - except for its remarkable "Man's chief aim is to glorify God and enjoy him forever," always seemed bureaucratically accurate as a doctrinal statement, like reading the rules off a boardgame lid. (Heidelberg above).

Music, congregational singing, a great contribution of the Reformation - these psalm texts were prominently featured in the Luther Museum. Luther's translation of the New Testament into German, as well as printing technology, marked the revolution of the 16th century. A written vernacular, church singing, distribution of texts, etc eventually created a "people" which, in its secular stages, helped found modern nationalism.

The reformers seem to hold a "father of the country" status here, despite ridicule for religious content, unlike the Founders' pluralism, whose mixed heritage everyone claims.

After the Reformation Wall in Geneva overnight, we hightailed back to Lausanne, where we reconnected with M & J's school friends during their last week of the year.  The obligatory trip to Holy Cow, where Jack actually consumed an entire jr burger - a proud eat he returned here to accomplish.

The fries are most memorable and, perhaps, the only European venue which understands the place of ketchup in the American palate.  These wall/rooftop gardens have overtaken the city, beautifully. A dad of Michael's friend, is a city landscape architect, completing various projects such as below.

Paris, etc

Paris boat ride. It is an island city, so named, and its symbols are a boat and oar.rape seed fields of bright yellow.

More later!

Kakigori 氷

Kakigori is a Japanese treat that immigrants brought to Hawaii, where it is known as 'shave ice,' dropping the past tense in the way of 'hash' browns, 'ice' tea or 'ice' cream.

 A summer treat big at the many festivals, kakigori differs from snow cones for its absolutely fine shavings that you gently lift off with a spoon, like eating snow.

Sakuraya, the lone Gardena store which served kakigori - otherwise had in Japanese town - and its famed mochi and manju cakes which even Japanese tourists now purchase to take back to Japan!  The secret with kakigori is using a solid block of ice, not cubes, in order to "shave" off with a blade, not chipped.

In Japan, these are, like most things, taken to their ultimate aesthetic and culinary level, where you can order it with UJI (the highest grade of green tea from a village near Kyoto) and azuki beans, sweetened; giving it a bitter/sweet blend.

Hula Girls of Huntington Beach brought shave ice to BHCA yesterday, reproducing much of the flavor and all of the atmosphere with their homemade syrups,

 

 

At the end, Jason pulled out the azuki beans, tropical fruit, and condensed milk ('snow cap'), as a special favor. I had three. A Poipu native, Jason knew of the prickly lady ("auntie") in charge of Hanalei's Wishing Well and helped mainstream shave ice on the mainland. School's almost out for summer, as American students plunge into the famous 'summer slide,' losing weeks of learning to be redone in September.

Jack's recital

 More lowkey, compared to Mrs. Loyd's studio, Jack's spring recital was refreshingly laidback, simple.

 Carolyn found a great teacher in Dena, who understands children, especially those who've chosen a difficult instrument.

Jack, who loves numbers - does math homework for fun, really took to sudoku in Hawaii - seemingly fits the profile of individuals geared towards music and math.

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Michael is a real party animal who fulfilled a dream by painting his hair at an elementary school carnival. Reveling in all the game booths, even entering a watermelon eating contest. He hates watermelon.

This has been a great neighborhood for the boys, who routinely play with the kids across the street and next door. A late ending, BHCA goes til the 22nd, summer is almost here.

Michael's Recital

  Here they are - Mrs Loyd's and daughter's Suzuki students for a delightful recital. Taking a year-long break while in Lausanne, Michael's reentry in music lessons was initially challenging,

but completely nailed his solo pieces - a slight, knowing smile emerges:

Beacon Hill was well-represented with Aiden, Jonathan, Geneva, and Raymond - Bravo! - and teachers, Elle, Selena, & Danielle and supportive friends in the 

audience.

Seeing these children mature over the years, find their voices and come into their own, has been very satisfying. Behind nearly everyone stands a taskmaster mother.

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The Suzuki method is a linguistic influenced pedagogy known for fidelity to sound - hours spent listening to original pieces - and imitation, reading emphasized much later. Usually known for strictness, the method's original, humanistic vision was to enrich the lives of Japanese children in the dire context of the postwar, replacing cultural devastation with music.

One of the main translators of Shinichi Suzuki happened to be Kyoko Selden, an instructor of mine in grad school, who died earlier this year. She was an extraordinarily gifted linguist of classical Chinese & Japanese, as well as Greek and Latin; not even counting a host of modern European languages. 

She also cooked a mean salmon for Thanksgiving, inviting students to their home filled with literature, art, music and Maoist sentiment from her husband, Mark. She was a tremendously devoted mentor, focusing upon translation work from her students, as she helped me read the poetics of Hagiwara Sakutaro, a TS Eliot-like figure of modernist poetry and criticism.  

With Beacon Hill and Suzuki music, we are increasingly aware how critically dependent the virtues of truth, goodness, and beauty are on having excellent teachers.

Grandparents' Day

Inspired by classical pedagogies, history facts & grammar rules are gestured & sung. Children have remarkable capacities for jingles, and links between knowledge and the body have gained ground. The more anchors, the better, we figure.A beautiful reception, hosting a breakfast honoring grandparents is one of the oldest & perhaps most beloved of BHCA traditions.

Carolyn and Elle staged an art exhibition of the year's portfolio, turning the classroom into a gallery. C introduced the various projects.

Mr Smith's class constructed models of the tabernacle, emphasizing the directional vectors - east/west, up/down - mirrored in the ascending hierarchy of precious metals used, orientation of the tent, as well as earlier Genesis accounts of where the rivers flowed.

Jack's class made family trees; he insisted on including last names.

Art projects, like this,

and this

and this - Michael's gorgeous pastel, echoing his mother's color scheme (see above photo) for dress and, in the process, unintentionally underscoring the link between fashion and art in the modern. Someday, he'll also learn the grim relation between fashion/art and politics, coming to fruition in the Third Reich.  

But that's another story.