Freshly brewed: Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

Eddie Murphy and Jerry Seinfeld share a good laugh
in a 2004 Porsche Carrera GT

Freshly brewed episodes of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s talk show that combines good laughs, great coffee and colorful vintage cars into a series of quirky but likable “caffeine-fueled adventures” with the sharpest minds in comedy, rolled out last week on Netflix.

The latest batch of 12 episodes of  Comedians ... features 11 comedians, 11 different cars, endless pots of coffee – especially prominently-featured Lavaazza Italian espresso – and lots of laughs. Among the featured guests this season are: Ricky Gervais (in back-to-back episodes), Eddie Murphy, Seth Rogen, Matthew Broderick, SNL’s Melissa Villaseñor and Martin Short. As for the cars, let’s see, they include: a 2004 Porsche Carrera GT, a 1976 Dodge Monaco, a 1969 Maserati Mistral and a 2018 Lamborghini Huracán Performante.

Each episode is touching in its own way, and thanks to Seinfeld – still curious at age 65 – the art of conversation remains alive and well. Seinfeld is one of the best when it comes to the art of observational humor, whether talking about personal relationships or the nuances of uncomfortable social obligations. It’s what we loved about the New York native in Seinfeld, which spanned 180 episodes over nine seasons from 1989-98 on NBC. The series remains a fixture in reruns across the country.

Now, having successfully transitioned from broadcast TV to an internet series, Seinfeld has taken an offbeat approach that shows another side of the comedy world. It’s something the comedian feels talk shows and interviews can’t or don’t let you see. The web-based comedy series he created, directs and stars in debuted in 2012 and is shot using DSLR and interior-mounted Go-Pro cameras.

“It’s a show about trust,” said former Daily Show host Jon Stewart.

Nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Series or Special, in Comedians ... Seinfeld connects with those whom he admires the most and the show shines in its ability to go inside the minds of some of the word’s funniest people. A who’s who of contemporary A-list comedians, including Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman and Amy Schumer as well as iconic ones Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Don Rickles and Jerry Lewis, have been coffee companions of Seinfeld’s. So have present and past late night TV hosts Trevor Noah, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman and Jay Leno. Seinfeld co-stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards have also made appearances.

Each 12-to-20-minute episode of Comedians ... follows a premise of Seinfeld introducing a vintage car such as a 1983 Mercedes Benz station wagon or a 1991 Nissan Figaro, then picking up his guest comedian in that vintage car, driving around and sharing conversation, and, finally, stopping for coffee and more conversation. Seinfeld films most episodes in New York and Los Angeles, but has also ventured to New Jersey and Massassuchetts – even Portland, Ore.

In this season’s episode with Broderick, for instance, the two drive around the actor’s childhood Manhattan neighborhood, reminisce about their mutual love for Mel Brooks and share laughs about Brook’s original film version of The Producers. (Broderick co-starred as Leo Bloom in the Broadway musical adaptation as well as a 2005 remake of the film.) They also live out a baseball fantasy of being New York Mets ball players at Citi Field. The camera captures them walking into the clubhouse to don their Mets jerseys, then follows them out on the diamond hitting and fielding. Finally, we see the two sitting in box seats eating hot dogs while discussing Broderick’s 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which prominently includes the central character driving around Chicago in a sporty fire engine-red Ferrari and spending an afternoon in the bleacher seats at Chicago’s Wrigley Field cheering for the Cubs.

Meanwhile, when Seinfeld meets up with Short in L.A., not only do we get to re-live some of the best of Jiminy Glick, Short’s fictional Comedy Central talk show host character, but the former SNL and SCTV star also shares how appearing in a Canadian production of Godspell helped launch his comedy career and those of Gilda Radner, Eugene Levy and Paul Shaffer.

Whether meaningful or meandering, silly or deep, the unscripted conversations between Seinfeld and his Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee companions are hardly a show about nothing.

Cover photo: Courtesy of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee website. Video: Courtesy of YouTube.

Global trek: A writer senses a changing planet

Paul Salopek and his traveling companion
(Photo: By John Stanmeyer,
courtesy of nationalgeographic.org.)

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and National Geographic Fellow Paul Salopek is one migrant among many. He’s retracing our ancestors’ ancient migration on foot out of Africa and across the globe and writing about his adventures. His story has been shared by PBS NewsHour, the New York Times, NPR and Christiane Amanpour, among many.

As he begins the seventh year of his global trek, billed as the “Out of Eden Walk,” Salopek senses a changing planet.

As he wrote earlier this week on the National Geographic website (nationalgeographic.org) from Varanasi, India, it was exactly six years ago that he ducked out of a tent in the Rift Valley of Ethiopia, “clipped a pedometer to my belt, clapped on a cowboy hat, and began hiking to the Middle East on the Out of Eden Walk: a global ramble along the pathways of the first ‘Homo sapiens’ who dispersed out of Africa in the Stone Age.”

As Salopek recalled, by the desert dawn of January 10, 2013, some 60,000 people already had died in the distant war in Syria (a toll that now exceeds 400,000). “Barack Obama was soon going to be sworn in for a second term as U.S. president. And in Ethiopia, cell phone usage was exploding at the rate of 400 percent a year, though coverage hadn’t yet reached my desolate camp. I was using a satellite phone. It’s sudden ringing that silent morning startled me. It was an American radio host.”

The radio interviewer asked Salopek if he was still carrying his New Mexico house keys. The answer was no. The writer had sent them back years ago while he was walking in Cyprus. He no longer owns a house. He has a map. Home is on it everywhere.

“Ancient migrations have guided my walk’s route and storytelling across the world from Africa to my finish line, the tip of South America,” writes Salopek. “So it’s natural that some readers – the calling journalist included – tend to see my project as an antique and maybe ethereal endeavor, a monkish pilgrimage, a ‘journey out of time.’ But it’s been just the opposite.”

By Salopek’s estimate, over the past six years, he’s walked nearly 16 million footsteps from his starting point at a human fossil site in the wilderness in the Horn of Africa and his current location on the cultivated plains of northern India. His days, he says, “have been extraordinarily busy: crammed with incident and talkative people, immersed in modern problems and current events. In this way, the Out of Eden Walk has been more like a trek into a common future: After all, we’re walking together into the shared bottlenecks of the 21st century.”

According to Salopek, after walking for six years on his trek, “two broad impressions have emerged, at boot level of this vast world.”

First, he says, “we’re living in a golden age of human migration” as desert villagers by the millions try clawing their way into urbanized global economies.

“Even at the utterest ends of the Earth, I’ve found myself walking among striving people on the move. In the remote Afar Desert of Ethiopia, I stumbled across the bodies of African migrants who had died of thirst on the unforgiving desert trails to find jobs on the Arabian peninsula. I slept in sandy Jordanian fields among Syrian war refugees.”

As Salopek points out, “the UN (United Nations) estimates that more than a billion people – one in seven humans today – are voting like this with their feet, migrating both internally and across borders. Such numbers may alarm the more settled, richer corners of the globe. But history teaches that the forces behind human exodus are rarely contained by walls.”

Are you listening, President Trump?

“I sit dusty and sweating under a ficus tree, one walker among many,” writes Salopek, “watching busloads of India’s hardworking poor come and go ceaselessly. Sooner than later, the world must learn to harness the extraordinary energy behind mass aspiration.”

As for the second change, Salopek likens it to a tectonic shift, “a new geological weight over the horizon that tilts the surface of the planet east.”

For the past three years, Salopek has walked the old Silk Road from Turkey to India. In Central Asia, he writes, he’s seen societies transformed by Chinese economic power: “new highways, pipelines, communications grids, railroads. Part of this is the trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, the most costly infrastructure project in the world today.”

Salopek writes that he’s unsure whether this will be the century of the Chinese. “But it is clear from hundreds of trailside conversations in shops and farms, in schools and offices that we collectively walked across a new Asian threshold some time ago. All roads may yet lead to Rome. But there are new Romes now. And the old ones have lost something of their glow.”

The writer looks forward to exploring these new questions, on foot of course, as he walks east, toward Myanmar, toward Yunnan.

“Whatever the case,” writes Salopek, “there is no need for fear. The key is stop and talk, and then to keep moving. To cross the next river. To look around the next mountain. Humankind’s ancestors did this, and they gave us the world.”

Salopek has a map. Home is on it everywhere. “And it will do.”

(The Out of Eden Walk is Paul Salopek’s multiyear, 21,000-mile storytelling odyssey across the globe in the footsteps of our ancestors. Join the #EdenWalk journey through social media on Facebook and Twitter.)

At the year’s end, one last 2018 travel adventure

A view from St. James’s Park in London.

Alan Alda, one of America’s most beloved and respected actors, once suggested that you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. “What you’ll discover,” he said “will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”

As we awake to the beginning of 2019, no matter where we may be or reside in the world, it’s worth a moment of our time to consider the meaning of Alda’s words.

Last Friday, my wife and I returned from a 10-day holiday visit to London, our first time being British since 2007. Each time we’ve been to England – three times in all since 2005 – there have been new discoveries awaiting us, and this trip provided a wonderful opportunity to rediscover old things from a different perspective.

Upon arrival, we found ourselves in the thick of Christmas holiday revelry as we lodged in a charming, one-bedroom apartment on quiet Lamb’s Passage, an equal walking distance in either direction to the Barbican and Moorgate Underground stations. Within minutes, thanks to the efficiency of the Underground tube, we were able to arrive at a variety of destinations around London: Borough Market, the Tate Modern, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Leicester Square, Oxford Street and Westminster Abbey, to name just a few that we visited.

Our visit began with theater – we saw a wonderful performance of “Company” at the Sir John Gielgud Theatre, in which we met the musical’s star, Rosalie Craig, afterward, and showered her with praise. We followed it with our second Hamilton experience of the year (and third overall), a matinee at the Victoria Palace that we did on the spur of the moment.

We got a feel for British shopping during our excursion to Oxford Street, which included buying music CDs at HMV, clothes at Uniqlo and in perusing holiday merchandise at the elegant Selfridges. Nearby, we enjoyed a charming lunch at the Monocle Cafe in Marylebone. We made time for seeing the new “Mary Poppins Returns” film at the lovely Barbican Centre Cinema.

There were days spent at museums, such as the Queen’s Gallery near Buckingham Palace and the British Museum, which is one of the great museums devoted to human history and culture.

We also enjoyed a lovely walk through St. James’s Park, where we were welcomed by ducks, geese and pelicans.

Finally, we experienced the Holy Trinity of Anglican Church worship experiences, at St. Martin in the Fields, in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Each Anglican Eucharist was special in its own way. I’ll fondly remember the beautiful four-part choir performing throughout much of the early-afternoon Eucharist at St. Martin in Fields on our first full day in London. Then, there was sitting in the Quire next to the Choir of Men and Boys during Sunday morning Eucharist at Westminster Abbey, a holy shrine steeped deep in British and Anglican history. Finally, there was Midnight Eucharist on Christmas Eve in the venerable and cavernous St. Paul’s Cathedral, where we were the only American couple seated in a row among Germans and Austrians and British worshipers – and feeling at home in our surroundings.

We returned to Westminster Abbey near the end of our stay and it was a pleasure to stand in Poet’s Corner as well as to see the new David Hockney “Queen’s Window” stained glass window.

London is a city in which I could never see myself getting bored. There’s always plenty of interesting things to explore and admire and be curious about.

It’s easy enough to get caught up in the city’s history, its art, its architecture, the Royal Family.

There’s plenty to explore. I know we’ll be back, again.

In the meantime, I look forward to 2019 and the New Year that awaits. Hopefully, it will be a year full of new discoveries and travel adventures. It is truly my hope that yours will be filled with new discoveries, too.

Safe travels and Happy New Year!

At the year's end, one last 2017 travel adventure

St. Patrick's Cathedral along Fifth Avenue.

It was Alan Alda, one of my country's most beloved and respected actors, whom many of us remember as Hawkeye Pierce in the long-running American TV series "M*A*S*H," who once gave a bit of wise advice that's resonated with me. As we awake to the final week of 2017, no matter where we may be or reside in the world, it's worth a moment of our time to think about what he said.

"You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself," said Alda.

Now that my wife and I live on the East coast, we enjoy escaping to New York City. It's only 3 1/2 hours by train – and Amtrak has several Northeast Regional trains that travel between Washington D.C.'s Union Station and New York City's Penn Station daily.

Since moving to the Beltway, we've traveled to New York City by train twice, most recently last weekend. Each time, there are new discoveries that await us and it provides us with a chance to rediscover old things from a different perspective.

The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular.

Whereas, our previous trip over Labor Day weekend was very much an Upper West Side experience, last weekend we found ourselves in the thick of the Christmas holiday revelry as we lodged a block off Times Square at the Hotel Muse on West 46th Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. We were a short walk from Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall, where we caught a glimpse – along with thousands of other tourists – of the tall and majestic Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and ice skating rink. Also, we saw the nearby festive holiday windows of Saks Fifth Avenue, the Neo-Gothic magnificence St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Cathedral, and took in a late Friday evening performance of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. The headlining Rockettes are truly a one-of-a-kind New York experience and Radio City Music Hall is an art deco masterpiece that has been truly well-preserved and taken care of over the years.

Grand Central Terminal in New York City.

On Saturday, we rode the subway to Herald Square – to the land of "Believe" – and shopped at Macy's flagship New York City store.

Then, we ventured to Grand Central Terminal to shop at a lovely boutique holiday fair and to also enjoy warm soup on what turned out to be a wet and cold wintry day.

Later, our evening included dining and listening to seasonal holiday music at Jazz at Lincoln Center – and it was most welcome and enjoyable.

We'll be back in 2018 to see Hamilton.

New York City is a place that never sleeps and I could never see myself getting bored. There's always plenty to see and do and admire and be curious about. I know we'll be back next year as we have tickets to see Hamilton.

I look forward to 2018 and the New Year that awaits. Hopefully, it will be a year full of new discoveries and travel adventures. I hope yours will be filled with new discoveries, too.

Safe travels and Happy New Year!

2017 Davis Cup: France's Noah made all the right moves

Raising La Coupe Davis / 2017 World Champions France

There's always so much pressure in France to win a Davis Cup. Especially, since a new generation of tennis "musketeers" featuring Gaël Monfils, Richard Gasquet, Gilles Simon and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga are in their prime and have once again made France a competitive team.

When Belgium's mighty ace, World No. 7 David Goffin, leveled the 2017 Davis Cup championship tie at two points apiece after beating Tsonga convincingly in straight sets, 7-6 (5), 6-3, 6-2, in the opening reverse singles on Sunday afternoon, many of the 25,000-plus passionate French fans who packed Stade Pierre-Mauroy in Lille, France – just a few kilometers from the Belgian border – must have felt a collective, sinking feeling that their hopes of winning the Coupe Davis was slipping away for another year – again.

Imagine, the difficult decision that French captain Yannick Noah – the last Frenchman to win a Grand Slam when he triumphed at the 1983 French Open – faced in deciding to insert 23-year-old Lucas Pouille in the decisive fifth rubber instead of the more experienced Gasquet, 31. After all, Pouille was taken down by Goffin in Friday's first singles rubber, and Gasquet teamed with Pierre-Hugues Herbert to win Saturday's doubles rubber over Ruben Bemelmans and Joris De Loore in four sets after having never previously played together.

Thus, for the second straight year, the Davis Cup championship came down to a fifth and final rubber. The winner takes home the Davis Cup. The loser gets parting gifts from the ITF and handshakes from the winners. So, there was just a little pressure riding on the outcome of the final tennis match of the year.

Looking back, Noah's decision proved brilliant – the right one. Pouille, ranked No. 18 in the world and born just 75km from Lille, beat an overmatched Steve Darcis, 6-3, 6-1, 6-0, in just one hour and 34 minutes. Pouille showed his dominance in the final set by winning 25 of 34 points against the No. 76 Darcis. Leave it to the captain to be the first to sprint out on court to hug and congratulate Pouille. The rest of the joyful French team soon followed.

After 16 years of struggle and frustration – including losing each of the past three finals (2002, 2010, 2014) it competed in – France finally won its 10th Davis Cup championship. It was their first title since they beat Australia in 2001. France drew even with Great Britain, but still trails the U.S., which has won the Davis Cup a record 32 times and second-place Australia with 28. Belgium, which lost the 2015 final to Great Britain, is still looking for its first Davis Cup title.

Yannick Noah leads a lively rendition of "La Marseillaise."

Cue up the "La Marseillaise!" Never has a winning French team and its fan sung France's national anthem more proudly than they did during the awards ceremony in Lille.

Asked to describe the feeling of winning the Davis Cup, Pouille said during an English-language TV interview following his clinching victory, "No words needed. We have finally won it.

"There's nothing better than winning as a team, with my mates, in front of the fans, my family and my friends. We're going to celebrate and make the most of it. I'm proud of my team."

Speaking for Belgium, Goffin, who improved to 21-3 in singles rubbers with his pair of wins over Pouille and Tsonga – his team's only point points during the tie – said: "It's a disappointment even if I played two good matches. When the team loses we're all disappointed. We gave it our all. It's tough to finish this way, but we did a lot of good things as a team this year."

So, too, did France, and it marked the third Davis Cup victory as captain for Noah, who came back in 2015 for a third stint as France's Davis Cup captain after he skippered his country's team twice in the 1990s – winning in 1991 and 1996.

Shortly after Pouille's clinching victory, Noah described what it all meant for France during a television interview. "It was a beautiful adventure," he said. "We had eight, nine players capable of playing. We had a terrific team spirit. It was really beautiful to win.

"We played for people we love. I'm very proud for my team."

Looking back, France, which advanced to the championship tie against Belgium with victories over Japan, Great Britain and Serbia, won with a committed group of players. Everyone understood and accepted their roles on the team – and this French squad showed its strength in numbers. Plus, Noah backed Pouille from the beginning despite his opening-day loss to Goffin. He would have been unmercifully second-guessed if France had been swept in the reverse singles after entering the final day ahead 2-1. Instead, it turned out to be a beautiful adventure, just as Noah pictured it. Looking ahead, Pouille's definitely the future of French tennis.

Vive la France!

Photos: Courtesy of ITF Davis Cup Twitter feed.

Toy Story at Twenty: To infinity and beyond!

Toy Story / A great story with great characters.

With the release of The Good Dinosaur over Thanksgiving weekend, it's hard to believe that it's been 20 years since the debut of Toy Story, the memorable tale of a group of toys that come to life which was the first feature-length computer-animated film and the first theatrical film produced by Pixar.

At San Francisco International Airport, I recently happened upon SFO Museum's newest curated exhibition, "Toy Story at Twenty," which tells the story behind the story of this wonderful buddy-comedy adventure film through a variety of artifacts -- early sketches, toys and sculptures of the unforgettable characters Woody, a pull-string cowboy doll, and Buzz Lightyear, an astronaut figure -- as well as sharing backstories from many of the principals at Pixar such as director John Lasseter, producer Ralph Guggenheim, and story co-creator Andrew Stanton, who were involved in the production that forever changed the landscape of feature animation.

Toy Story / A buddy movie where the buddies are toys.

"It'll be a buddy movie: a banter-laden tale of a bitter alliance blossoming into a true friendship," said Toy Story director John Lasseter, as quoted in the exhibition. "It'll have a few unusual twists. First, the buddies will be toys. And second, it will be the first time an entire movie will have been created using computer animation."

According to Toy Story producer Ralph Guggenheim, "Nobody knew what skills we'd need when we started. It was a completely new series of combinations that had to add up to more than the sum of its parts." Added story supervisor Joe Ranft, "If the story isn't there, all the breakthrough computer graphics in the world piled onto it won't matter. You'll have made a piece of passing fashion."

Fortunately, the vivid, entertaining and moving story was there and it resonated with its audience. The iconic and timeless Toy Story had its theatrical debut on November 22, 1995, and went on to earn over $361 million worldwide.

Toy Story / An early sketch image of Woody.

The voices Woody and Buzz Lightyear are familiar ones belonging to actors Tom Hanks and Tim Allen.

"Getting a line reading from Tom Hanks is like getting this big, incredibly wet sponge," remembered animator Glenn McQueen. "It's overflowing with different possibilities for you to wring out." Meanwhile, as John Lasseter described it, "Casting Tim Allen to voice Buzz gave us that quality we wanted of a macho guy with a soft underbelly. Tim's perfect at doing an everyday guy."

Toy Story story co-creator Andrew Stanton said: "We never thought Woody and Buzz's repartee would hold the spotlight in and of itself. But once they were animated, suddenly the chemistry between them was the highlight of the movie."

Toy Story / A prototype of Buzz Lightyear.

The film received three Academy Award nominations, including Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song for "You've Got a Friend in Me" written and performed by Randy Newman. It won a Special Achievement Academy Award.

"Randy (Newman) turned out to be a great help to us when we needed a lot of emotion told to the audience, and accepted by the audience in a short amount of time," said Andrew Stanton.

"'You've Got a Friend in Me' speaks volumes about the love between Andy and Woody, better than we ever could tell it in dialogue. The way you feel it at the end of the song, we would have needed two more sequences without a song to get that point across."

Peter Schneider, president of Walt Disney Feature Animation, summed it up best: "At the end of the day, it's not the technique that the audience cares about; it's a great story, a visual feast, and great characters. They want to be taken on an emotional journey they've never been on before."

"Toy Story at Twenty" opened last week and it's on continuous display daily through May 22, 2016, for free, pre-security, in the SFO International Terminal main hall departures lobby. It is accessible to all airport visitors, and I highly recommend it.

To infinity and beyond!

Images: Courtesy of Pixar and Toy Story at Twenty.

Bruce Hornsby: Broadening his full range by exploring many winding roads on a wonderful music journey

Bruce Hornsby /Deftly swinging a tune from one style to another
without ever missing an internal beat.

Bruce Hornsby is an American singer and keyboardist who draws from a variety of musical traditions, among them rock, jazz, classical, bluegrass, hymns and folk, that shape his songwriting talent. The Virginia-born composer has explored songs with Southern themes about race, religion, judgement and tolerance -- even penning a song "Sneaking Up on Boo Radley," that's a reference to a character from Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. 

An avid basketball fan, Hornsby is just as comfortable blending and re-working the melodies of legendary jam band Grateful Dead, whom he will sit in as a guest keyboardist during their 50th anniversary farewell concerts this summer, as he is paying homage to bluegrass legend Bill Monroe. In addition to collaborating with the Grateful Dead, Hornsby's creative interest has also sparked working with Rickie Lee Jones, Ornette Coleman, Bela Fleck, Ricky Skaggs and Pat Metheny on various projects over the years as well as on his own in a career that has spanned two and one-half decades.

The spontaneity and creativity of Hornsby's live performances are loose and playful, and he welcomes requests from his audiences, which are collected before the start of each show and sit visible across the top of his Steinway & Sons grand piano.

Bruce Hornsby / Exploring and improving.impr

The 60-year-old Hornsby's solo performances, such as the one I attended last week in Zellerbach Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, offer him a limitless opportunity to challenge himself: through reworking originals, segueing songs into other songs, and blurring the lines of classical compositions and jazz standards.

Performing solo, as he did for two hours on a recent Wednesday evening in Berkeley, has allowed him to "recommit (himself) to the study of piano" and "take (his) piano playing to a whole new level."

"My standard line," Hornsby says of his solo concerts, "is: I'm not the vehicle for your nostalgic night out. But I will be kind."

These explorations and improvisations culminated in Hornsby's first entirely live solo piano album, entitled Solo Concerts, released in August 2014, which was given out to all ticket holders the night I saw him perform in Berkeley.

The 21 tracks which comprise the album were culled from solo concerts performed by Hornsby throughout the U.S. in 2012 and 2013. They bring together "disparate information from musical languages often thought to be opposed: Americana roots music, folk-pop, film scores and modern classical, what Hornsby calls an 'unholy alliance.'"

There are solo renditions of recognizable Hornsby chestnuts ("Mandolin Rain" and "The Valley Road") as well as boogie-woogie ("Preacher in the Ring"), a Spike Lee film score ("Song E {Hymn in E-Flat}") and modern classical with the "dissonance and expressive chromatics" of 20th century 12-tone experimental composers such as Austrians Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, as well as the American modernist Elliot Carter, Hungarian György Ligeti and Frenchman Olivier Messaien.

"There's often a bias in the rock or pop world against virtuosity," said Hornsby, in the program notes for his Cal Performances concert in Berkeley. "I understand that mindset: expression over virtuosity. But my feeling is, why not both?"

After all, it's not clinical, what Hornsby does as well and as enjoyable as anyone. His two-handed independence at the keyboard is really vibrant and emotional. It's what he calls the pursuit of the unattainable. And, yet, his solo concerts turn his audiences into adventurous music listeners.

That's the way it is.

Photos: Courtesy of Google images and © Kirk Stauffer Photography.

A Great Debate ~ imagination vs. knowledge

Albert Einstein / Imagination will take you everywhere.

Albert Einstein once said that imagination is more important than knowledge.  "Knowledge," he stated, "is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there will ever be to know and understand."

Put into a modern context, in our ever-changing, "wired" world of 24/7/365 news and information, technology and culture, does Einstein's vision of imagination over knowledge still hold true?  I would like to think so. After all, imagination gives us impetus to create.  Yet, I do believe imagination often owes a debt of gratitude to knowledge.

Here's an example: Knowledge is Thomas Edison developing the means for improving the audibility of the telephone. Imagination is Steve Jobs taking Edison's body of late 19th/early 20th century knowledge and ~ with a world of imagination (and some great marketing) ~ turning it into the modern creation of the Apple iPhone 4, a smart phone for the 21st century.  The Apple iPhone 4 is not only a telephone, but also it's a camera, an mp3 player, an information receiver, organizer, and a communications device all-in-one ~ and just slightly more portable than Edison's telephones ever were.

Here's another example: The American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of New York's Hayden Planetarium and host of the PBS series Nova scienceNOW, has studied the great debate of imagination versus knowledge.  He understands and appreciates the benefits that both sides contribute to the study of science and physics.

"You can explore (what's already been explored), but your life is not at risk for having done so," deGrasse Tyson said, explaining the worthiness and human spirit of adventure in sending man to explore Mars at a time when a return to Moon may be less risky.

During a recent appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, deGrasse Tyson, a popularizer of science, expounded on the imagination versus knowledge debate:  "When you are on the frontier of knowledge between what is known and what is unknown ~ reaching out into that abyss ~ sometimes, you do actually have to make stuff up that might be true so that you can organize a research plan to find out whether or not it is."  

A false bridge?  Maybe, but it comes with good intentions and involves a bit of risk taking.

"This is the creativity of discovery," deGrasse Tyson concluded.

Which brings us back to Einstein, the German born American physicist with the whimsical facial expressions, who developed the special and general theories of relativity ~ no small fete ~ and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921.  "The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination,'' Einstein said. "Imagination is the preview of life's coming attractions.

"Logic will get you from A to B.  Imagination will take you everywhere."

Life's an adventure.  The journey continues ...

Photo of Albert Einstein taken in 1953, Ruth Orkin/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.