Summer is: enjoying songs in the key of life

Summer is about enjoying leisurely activity. Although the season may be winding down ~ the Labor Day holiday that signals an unofficial end to summer in the U.S. is this weekend ~ there are still plenty of sunny days and balmy evenings until autumn officially arrives. What better way to celebrate than by spinning some enjoyable tunes.

Whether you're looking to create a mood or, simply, be in the mood, here's a multicultural (think U.S., England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden) playlist of some of my favorite music I've been exploring this summer that's worth a good listen. Hopefully, these songs not only appeal to your inner ear and hungry mind, they'll make you smile, too.

Happy listening!

Ray Charles / Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!

Ben Howard / Promise

Mark Ronson and Sean Lennon / Sail on Sailor

Grizzy Bear / Yet Again

Lianne La Havas / Is Your Love Big Enough?

Raphael Saadiq / Radio

Agnes Obel / Just So

Koop / I See A Different You

Pink Martini / City of Night

Belle & Sebastian / Another Sunny Day

A music study break: Laura Marling and thoughts about her song "What He Wrote"

Laura Marling / I Speak Because I Can

One of many things I enjoy contributing to my Facebook Timeline is something I call a "music study break". It might either be a song that I've recently heard while listening to the "Morning Becomes Eclectic" program via KCRW.com (Monday-Friday 9 a.m.-noon PT; GMT -7 hours) or, perhaps, a song that's recently come up in the shuffle mode on my iPod. 

Recently, I woke up wondering what to share for my "music study break" that day and the young, English folk singer/songwriter Laura Marling (age 22) immediately came to mind. And, I thought: What a wonderfully powerful alto voice she's been blessed with, and Marling has the gifted ability to pen intelligently defiant songs about feminine independence filled with gravitas. Earlier this summer, Marling shared in what was described as a religious communion of music when she performed a concert in San Francisco's Gothic-style Grace Cathedral.

As it happens, I have an autographed copy of Marling's 2010 Mercury Prize-winning album 'I Speak Because I Can' downloaded on my iPod that I've been exploring. It's an album filled with songs whose themes are centered around responsibility, particularly the responsibility of womanhood. I came across one particular song, "What He Wrote" that's both poignant in its tone, thought provoking in its lyrics, and it brings out the clarity in her voice.

After sharing "What He Wrote" on my Timeline, I decided to peruse the lyrics and see what I could glean from them. One of my first thoughts while listening to this song was: Is Marling sharing a poetic confession with God? After all, she connects authentically with her listeners in an elegant and emotional manner. And, Marling writes with keen wisdom beyond her years.

As it turned out, Marling explained in an interview, "What He Wrote" was inspired by letters from a wife to her husband in the Second World War. And, according to Marling, it reflected a time in her own life when she was still looking for her identity as a young woman.

In writing about the album which "What He Wrote" appears on, 'I Speak Because I Can', one critic suggested that Marling "uses folk as an archetypal form to get at the essential realities of love, sex, heartbreak, and death. Sometimes she does it with heart-stopping quietness, her voice dropping to conversational tones." So, in a sense, my immediate thoughts about a woman sharing a confession with God weren't too off base as the essential realities of Marling's songs aren't unlike some of the very same themes that are expressed in The Bible or, perhaps, The Quran. 

Laura Marling / She uses folk as an archetypal form to get
at the essential realities of love, sex, heartbreak and death.

Here's what the U.K.'s New Music Express described of "What He Wrote": "Inspired by wartime love letters that Laura read in a newspaper, ‘What He Wrote’ seems to detail the forbidden love of writing to a man other than your husband – she appeals to the Greek goddess Hera, goddess of women and marriage, for forgiveness for speaking to this man when she’s 'spoken for.' The whole song, just vocals and guitar, trembles in its waltz rhythm, but the most effecting line has to be the unqualified frankness of, 'I miss his smell.'"

In her review for the London-based newspaper The Telegraph, critic Helen Brown said of Marling: "Her songs are simple yet complex, weird but quotidian like hedgerows – twisted, full of thorns, fruit, life and death." Writing about "What He Wrote," Brown says: "She gazes back into Greek mythology for female companionship, addressing the marriage goddess Hera and conjuring the spirit of Odysseus’ patient wife Penelope." 

Laura Marling speaks because she can ~ and, through her inspiring music, she delivers a lot of poignant and expressive thoughts worth our time and pleasing to our ears.

What He Wrote

By Laura Marling

Forgive me Hera,

I cannot stay.

He cut out my tongue,

There is nothing to save.

Love me?

Oh Lord, he threw me away,

He laughed at my sins, in his arms I must

Stay.

He wrote, I'm broke.

Please send for me.

But I'm broken, too,

And spoken for.

Do not tempt me.

Her skin is white, and I'm light as the

Sun,

So holy light shines, on the things you have done.

So I asked him,

How he became this man?

How did he learn,

To hold fruit in his hands?

And where is the lamb, that gave you your

Name?

He had to leave, though I begged Him to

Stay.

Left me alone, when I needed the

Light.

Fell to my knees, and I wept for my

Life!

If he had of stayed, you might

Understand.

If he had of stayed, you never would've

Taken my hand.

He wrote,

I'm alone.

Please send for me.

But I'm broken, too,

And spoken for.

Do not tempt me.

And where is the lamb, that gave Him your

Name?

He had to flee, though I begged him to

Stay.

Begged him to stay, in my cold wooden

Grip.

Begged him to stay, by the light of this

Ship.

Me fighting him,

Fighting light,

Fighting dawn.

The waves came,

And stole him,

And took him to war.

He wrote,

I'm broke.

Please send for me.

But I'm broken, too,

And I am spoken for.

Do not tempt me.

Forgive me, Hera, I cannot stay.

He cut out my tongue, there is nothing to

Save.

Love me or loathe, he threw me away.

He laughed at my sins, in his arms I must

Stay.

We write.

And that's alright.

But I miss his smell.

And we speak,

When spoken to.
That suits me well.

That suits us well.

That suits me well.

Just because: Why we fall in love with the Summer Olympic Games every four years

Golden smiles  x 4 / The American 4 x 100 meter medley relay team
of Allison Schmitt, Dana Vollmer, Rebecca Soni and Missy Franklin
display their gold medals after setting a world record.

Every four years we fall in love with the Summer Olympic Games. And, this year, there were plenty of reasons to fall in love with the London Summer Games.

NPR sports commentator Frank Deford observed that the Olympics are "like an independent movie with foreign actors you've never heard of." Further, he said, it's quite alright if we "cheer for people you've never heard of in a sport you don't care about just because."

During the London Summer Games' fortnight, which wrapped up Sunday night with a smashing three-hour finale that featured a jukebox of British music idols as well as an Eric Idle sing-a-long of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," I found myself cheering for athletes I had never heard of in sports that rarely receive any mention in my country just because ... just because I cared enough to want to. And it was fun.

Golden moment for Team GB / Heptathlete Jessica Ennis basked in
triumph as she won the heptathlon 800 meter run
 and secured a gold medal for Great Britain.

As a result of watching a lot of Olympics coverage live on the BBC via the Internet (here in the U.S., the glamor sports of swimming, gymnastics, diving and track and field aired on tape delay to garner larger nighttime audiences), I got caught up in cheering for a lot of Great Britain's Olympic hopefuls like "Team GB" track cyclist Sir Chris Hoy, heptathlete Jessica Ennis and gymnast Beth Tweddle.

Also, thanks to having a lot of Facebook friends from Tunisia, I rooted for their country's athletes like Malek Jaziri (tennis), Habiba Ghribi (athletics) and Oussama Mellouli (indoor and outdoor swimming). And, I marveled at the achievements of David Rudisha of Kenya, who set a world record in winning the men's 800 meters, and little Meseret Defar of Ethiopia (5-feet-3, 95 pounds), who won an exciting women's 5,000 meter race, then pulled a cloth picture of the Virgin Mary from her track top, held it aloft, and kissed it before breaking down in tears of joy, crying: "I won, I won."

David Rudisha / He set a
world record in winning
the gold medal in the
men's 800 meter run.

Mind you, I thrilled in cheering for the U.S. on the basketball court, in the swimming pool and on the Olympic Stadium running track throughout the fortnight, too.

Before the start of the Summer Olympics, Lord Sebastian Coe, the two-time Olympic gold medalist in the 1,500 meters from Great Britain who headed the London organizing committee, said the London Summer Games would be "the Games for everyone."

And they were.

The London Summer Games will be remembered as the most diverse and inclusive Summer Olympics ever.

American gymnast Gabby Douglas in flight / Color her a winner
as she won the gold medal in the women's all-around.

Three traditionally-conservative Islamic nations, known for their cultural and political restrictions of women ~ Saudi Arabia, Brunei and Qatar ~ sent their first female athletes to the Olympics. The London Games will also be remembered for a double-amputee runner (Oscar Pistorius of South Africa, who earned the nickname "The Blade Runner"); an African-American gymnast (Gabby Douglas of the U.S., who became the first woman of color to win the gymnastics all-around gold medal); and an openly gay soccer player whose acceptance by her teammates was very refreshing (Megan Rapinoe of the U.S., who became the first prominent American soccer player to come out in the media).

The world's Olympic athletes, representing 204 nations of the world, came from all walks of life just like the fans who cheered for them. And, their stories were quite compelling, too.

Inclusive but alone, too / Sarah Attar became the first female Saudi
athlete to compete in an Olympic track and field event. 

Last Wednesday, an Olympic milestone was achieved when the first woman track and field athlete representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia competed. Sarah Attar, 19, born and raised in the U.S. of a Saudi father and an American mother and who holds dual citizenship, ran in the last heat of the 800 meter run. A cross-country runner at Pepperdine University in Calfornia, Attar's Olympic experience lasted less than three minutes.

Sarah Attar wore a white hijab
and a green and black track suit
that covered her arms and legs
to comply with Saudi Arabia's
strict interpretation of
Islamic law.

Attired in a white hijab and a black and green track suit that covered her arms and legs to comply with Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islamic law, Attar received a standing ovation from many in the crowd at Olympic Stadium as she crossed the finish line alone, well behind the others in her heat. Although she finished last in her heat in 2 minutes 44.95 seconds, about 41 seconds behind the first-place finisher, Attar had much to smile about her experience.

Attar said she wanted to represent Saudi Arabia at the Olympics as a way of inspiring women. "This is such a huge honor and an amazing experience, just to be representing the women," she said, following the conclusion of her race. "I know that this can make a huge difference. Hopefully, this sparks something amazing."

A few other milestones worth sharing from the Olympic fortnight:

• Malaysian diver Pamg Pandelela Rinong won the first-ever diving medal for Malaysia when she won a bronze medal in the 10 meter platform competition. "I feel a great honor to win the historic medal for my country," said Pamg, who was the flag bearer for Malaysia at the opening ceremonies. "I'm very proud of Malaysia for the breakthrough, and hope my country is also proud of me," she added.

• The tiny Caribbean nation of Grenada (population 109,000) became the smallest country to win an Olympic gold medal when 19-year-old Kirani James won the men's 400 meter sprint.

• Before the London Games, the last all-male sport in the Olympics was boxing. No more, as the first gold medals in women's boxing were awarded in three different weight classes. Great Britain's Nicola Adams became the first female to win an Olympic gold medal. Then, Ireland's Katie Taylor won her country's first gold medal of the 2012 Games. Finally, Claressa Shields won the first U.S. women's boxing gold medal. "It's a dream come true," Adams told BBC Sport. "I am so happy and overwhelmed with joy right now. I have wanted this all my life and I have done it."

A bronze moment / Pamg Pandalela Rinong won Malaysia's first-ever
diving medal. "I hope my country is ... proud of me."

The American poet Maya Angelou, who has written about diversity and inclusion throughout her lifetime, observed: "We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color."

A friend of mine from England shared their perspective about the Games with me that are worth sharing with you: "As a nation, Great Britain has found itself not only through its medal success (Team GB won a total of 65 medals, including 29 golds), but by realizing that we are a truly diverse and inclusive nation who welcome and celebrate the success of all."

While the London Summer Games have been about "inspiring a new generation," these Olympic Games will be remembered for its diversity and inclusiveness, too.

Indeed, breaking down barriers one medal at a time, and welcoming and celebrating the success of all.

Various photographs courtesy of The Guardian.co.uk, 2012.

Photograph of David Rudisha courstesy of nbcolympics.com, 2012.

Image of Sarah Attar courtesy of NBC, 2012.

These Olympics have been stunning, full of emotion, digital, even conversational, too!

For the love of sport / Winning an Olympic gold medal
is what every athlete strives to achieve.

The late, great Czech long-distance runner Emil Zátopek, who won three gold medals in the 1952 Helsinki Summer Olympic Games, once offered some astute advice to would-be Olympians: "If you want to win something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a marathon."

In the Helsinki Games, Zátopek won the 5,000 meters, 10,000 meters and the marathon. Zátopek's final medal (he also won a gold and a silver medal in the 1948 London Games) came when he decided at the last minute to compete in his very first marathon. He broke the existing Olympic record in winning each of the three events.

Zátopek's strategy for the marathon was simple, wrote Simon Burnton in the London Guardian newspaper: "He raced alongside Jim Peters, the British world-record holder. After a punishing first 15 kilometers in which Peters knew he had overtaxed himself, Zátopek asked the Englishman what he thought of the race thus far. The astonished Peters told the Czech that the pace was 'too slow', in an attempt to slip up Zátopek, at which point Zátopek simply accelerated. Peters never finished; Zátopek ran an Olymic record race."

Zátopek's triple gold medal hat trick from 60 years ago was merely ranked No. 41 among 50 stunning Olympic moments by the Guardian earlier this year.

Usain Bolt / World's Fastest Human ~ again.

During the first 11 days of this year's London Summer Games, there's been many stunning and memorable moments involving the world's most outstanding athletes: Think American swimmer Michael Phelps, who broke a 48-year-old Olympic record for most total medals. We've been witness to supreme excellence and raw emotions: Think Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, who claimed the title of world's fastest human for the second consecutive Summer Olympics, then put on a theatrical performance in celebrating his victory that would be the envy of West End theatre. And, certainly, there's been much for host nation Great Britain to be jolly about, too: Think Andy Murray winning the men's singles gold on the famed Wimbledon grass tennis courts.

In a perfect world, NBC, my country's Olympics television broadcaster, would show all of the marquee events like swimming, gymnastics and track and field ~ called athletics throughout much of the rest of the world ~ live, coast-to-coast in all time zones. Instead, NBC monopolizes these events for dramatic, prime-time viewing, packaged on tape, and shown hours after they took place. Often, many big events, like the men's 100 meter dash, aired here in the U.S. after 11 p.m., much too late for many to stay up to watch.

Michael Phelps / The greatest Olympian of them all.

Instead, I've found a reliable internet connection for the BBC, and last week, I delighted in watching all of the swimming finals live during the middle of the day on my MacBook Pro laptop. In doing so, I gained a different perspective about American Olympians like Phelps and Missy Franklin, who reigned in the pool, and the 16-year-old American gymnast Gabby Douglas, who won the all-around gold medal after she helped the U.S. win the team gold medal.

In addition, I came to learn the personal stories of many wonderful and charismatic British athletes competing for Team GB, like Jessica Ennis (gold medal winner in the heptathlon), Mo Farah (gold medal winner in the men's 10,000 meters) and Sir Chris Hoy, who Tuesday night became the most decorated British Olympian when he won his sixth gold medal in track cycling. Their fetes were brilliantly described by a hardy group of BBC presenters, correspondents and commentators. I found myself rooting for Team GB from across the pond, wanting to see these likable athletes do well and win gold.

American gymnast Gabby Douglas
won the individual all-around title.

Also, I've relied on reading the wonderful and descriptive stories, and thrilled to the dramatic and colorful photography and detailed graphics each day in my home-delivered copy of the New York Times print edition and on their website, too.

Sometimes, it still takes an old-fashioned newspaper to be able to put something as huge as the Summer Olympics into proper perspective.

For many, including myself, these have been a digital and "conversational" Olympics, too. Through Facebook, Twitter, texting and other social media, eager fans across the world have been able to engage in conversation ~ at times as the events are unfolding ~ with like-minded Olympic fans. In the past week, I've discussed LeBron James and the U.S. "dream team" with a basketball fan in Tunisia, and cheered for Phelps and Franklin with swimming fans in Germany and Hungary. Plus, I shared in the raw emotions of last Friday's 19-17 third-set tennis thriller between Roger Federer of Switzerland and Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina on Wimbledon's Centre Court with fans of both players, stretching from Canada to Scotland and from Morocco to Serbia, too.

While there's been many moments to digest and delight in during this London fortnight, there is one that's worth remembering for all the right reasons. It involved the sprinter Kirani James, who won the first medal for the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada. Before Monday night, Grenada, which only gained its independence in 1974, had never had an Olympic medalist in any event. Now, it has a gold medalist in the talented 19-year-old James. It was special to see him receive his gold medal tonight and to hear his country's national anthem played before an electrifying-but-appreciative Olympic Stadium crowd. The BBC's television images captured the moment nicely for the all world to see, and James could be seen throughout the anthem singing the words to "Hail Grenada" with much emotion showing in his young face. It left me wondering if this magic Olympic moment will get left on the NBC editing floor?

Olympic spirit and flame / Colorful javelins are ready for
competition in front of the cauldron at Olympic Stadium.

Indeed, each day has brought us golden moments that will live on in our collective memory and, importantly, the Olympics have helped foster an appreciation for healthy competition among the world's elite athletes.

Which brings us full circle to Emil Zátopek for a dash of Olympics perspective. He observed: "Great is the victory, but the friendship of all is greater."

Photo of Olympic gold medal courtesy of Getty Images, 2012.
Photos of Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps courtesy of the Guardian.co.uk, 2012.
Photo of Gabby Douglas courtesy of nytimes.com, 2012
Photo of Olympic cauldron courtesy of Reuters, 2012.

These Olympic Games have been about breaking down barriers and having fun, too

The 2012 London Summer Games are less than a week old. Already, these Olympic Games have been all about host Britain being confidently eccentric, at times quirky, but always putting on a good show.

From the pristine grass tennis courts of Wimbledon to the party-like atmosphere of beach volleyball, played in the middle of the Horse Guards Parade, to the road cycling races buzzing the Mall while taking a quick right at Buckingham Palace, the sights and sounds throughout London have been unabashed and brilliantly British.

After all, a nation that's given us William Shakespeare, Sir Isaac Newton, Jane Austen, Sir Winston Churchill, the Beatles, Mary Poppins, Harry Potter and the House of Windsor, is definitely a nation secure in its own identity. And, who else but filmmaker Danny Boyle of "Slumdog Millionaire" fame could convince Queen Elizabeth that jumping out of a helicopter with James Bond during last Friday's opening ceremonies would be a good career move for her? 

Who even knew the Queen even had a sense of humour?

Undoubtedly, the London Summer Games have been colorful. Lots of Union Jacks, Stella McCartney-inspired fashion and painted faces all about town have made for good visuals on TV and the Internet. Thank goodness, I've found a reliable Internet link to watch the BBC's refreshingly enjoyable coverage that is far less pretentious and glitzy than NBC's here in the U.S.

Just as importantly, the London Summer Games have been about breaking down barriers. 

On Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. women's football (soccer) team defeated North Korea 1-0 in the first women's international match played in the 102-year history of Old Trafford, the home of famed Manchester United of the English Premier League.

"It's not every decade," said U.S. player Megan Rapinoe, when asked by a New York Times reporter if she was impressed by the aura of playing at Old Trafford, the so-called "Theater of Dreams."

Talk about your gender bias.

As Olympic and Old Trafford historians met and compared notes, it seemed that the only other women's match believed to have been played at Old Trafford was a 1989 Women's F.A. Cup final between Friends of Fulham FC and Leasowe Pacific, which Leasowe won 3-2 in front of a paltry crowd of 916.

Big Ben / The Games of the XXX Olympiad from London.

NPR sports commentator Frank Deford recently observed that the Olympics are "like an independent movie with foreign actors you've never heard of." Further, he said, it's quite alright if we "cheer for people you've never heard of in a sport you don't care about just because."

While I've been riveted to the first-week excitement in the swimming pool, I've also been fascinated by sampling a bit of the action in archery, badminton, fencing and table tennis, too. These aren't exactly household sports with recognizable athletes in America. And, the competitions in these sports have been airing at odd hours of the day and night. Yet, it's been fun to watch, too.

Meanwhile, the London Summer Games have been filled with wonderful, weepy moments and dreams come true. And, it's only the first week.

At the Olympic pool Monday night, Ruta Meilutyte, a 15-year-old from Lithuania, won the gold medal in the 100-meter breaststroke in 1 minute, 05.47 seconds. It was her country's first Olympic swimming medal. Imagine what this must mean for Meilutyte and for her country, too.  "I can't believe it," said Meilutyte, excitedly, in a poolside interview with the BBC moments after beating an impressive field. 

Michael Phelps / The greatest Olympian of them all.

Tonight, American swimmer Michael Phelps anchored a U.S. victory in the 4 x 200-meter freestyle and, thus, won his 15th gold and 19th overall medal to break the Olympic record for most career medals set 48 years ago by Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina. The crowd was electrified by this unbelievably spectacular and historic night in the swimming pool. Phelps had become the greatest Olympian of them all.

Aside from cheering for Phelps, among the most emotional of highlights in the first week of the Olympics for me happened during the opening ceremonies. It was the performance of the hymn "Abide With Me" as sung by the Scottish singer Emelie Sandé. She appeared shortly after a moving sequence during which a memorial wall on the stadium screens showed images of spectators' loved ones who had passed away. It was worth a good cry.

The hymn, "Abide With Me" is a prayer for God to remain present with the speaker throughout life, through trials, and through death. Since the 1927 F.A. Cup final between Arsenal and Cardiff City, the first and last verses of the hymn have been traditionally sung at the F.A. Cup final before the kick off of the match. It was awe inspiring.

As a nation, Britain has always excelled at celebrating its past: from its military victories to its monarchies, from its intellectual achievement to its culture. For this fortnight, the BBC commentators are sparing no adjectives. Everything is: amazing, beautiful, charming, dashing, elegant, fabulous, and so on. Boosterish? Maybe, but it's that lovely British accent that puts a delightful spin on everything. And, that's cool by me. 

Yes, these Olympic Games, the world's greatest five-ring sports spectacular, have been absolutely fabulous.  And, it's only the first week.

Michael Phelps photograph courtesy of the Guardian.co.uk.

Two wheels good: Citius, Altius, Fortius?

Two wheels good / A simple two-wheeler is the bicycle of choice
 for residents navigating the narrow streets and canals of Amsterdam.

With the London Summer Games just days away, it is with great interest that I read of the triumph of Bradley Wiggins, the first British winner in the storied history of the Tour de France.

Cycling's premier event finished its annual, three-week endurance trek Sunday afternoon under bright, sunny skies along the famous cobble-stoned Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

The Tour has become controversial in recent years due to doping allegations against seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong as well as the suspected and apparent use of performance-enhancing drugs in more recent years that has seen two champions ~ Floyd Landis and Alberto Contador ~ stripped of their titles. In fact, until this year, only two Tour de France champions since 1995 ~ Carlos Saestre in 1998 and Cadel Evans last year ~ have not become embroiled in controversy surrounding performance-enhancing drugs. Thus, it was very refreshing to see Wiggins, 32, vehemently deny that he was doping during this year's Tour.

Looking good in yellow /
Bradley Wiggins rides into Paris.

Wiggins won the Tour de France the old-fashioned way:

He e-a-r-n-e-d it.

Which brings us to the subject of the London Summer Games. The Olympic motto is the hendiatrus Citius, Altius, Fortius, which is Latin for "Faster, Stronger, Higher". The motto was introduced for the Paris Summer Games in 1924. Fast forward more than eight decades and, certainly, today's athletes, for better or worse, emulate the Olympic motto. They run faster, they are certainly of stronger build than ever before, and athletes definitely can leap higher, too.

But is it really necessary? Is it worth paying this price?

Through the looking glass /
Cyclists enjoy their ride
along Binnenamstel
 canal in Amsterdam.

Just for a moment, imagine this: Picture a modern-day Tour de France being contested using a simple, two-wheeler like those that are refreshingly commonplace in cities like Amsterdam, the Dutch capital of the Netherlands. Sure, it might take more than the currently-alloted three weeks to complete the Tour, but who cares? And, ask yourself, too: How would a modern-day Tour cyclist handle the demanding climbs of both the Alps or Pyrenees mountains riding a simple two-wheeler?
The answer is simple:
It wouldn't be easy. Yet, it sure would be pure sports.

Citius, Altius, Fortius?

Let the London Summer Games begin.

Amsterdam photographs by Michael Dickens, copyright 2012. All rights reserved.
Photograph of Bradley Wiggins courtesy of The Guardian.

Yes, Chef. Connecting with food and having a conversation about it with Marcus Samuelsson

Marcus Samuelsson / An incomparable story.

It began with a simple ritual:  Every Saturday afternoon, a boy who loved to cook walked to his grandmother's house and helped her prepare a roast chicken for dinner. The grandmother was Swedish, a retired domestic. The boy was Ethiopian and adopted. He would grow up to become a world-renowned chef after emigrating to the United States.

Meet Marcus Samuelsson.

Samuelsson's recently-published memoir, Yes, Chef (Illustrated. 319 pp. Random House, $27.) is not only a great culinary story, it's also a love letter to food and family. I have been reading this incomparable story and it's hard to put down.

Born Kassahun Tsegie in a small, poverty-stricken Ethiopian farming village, Samuelsson contracted tuberculosis at age 2, as did his mother and sister. Together, the three found the strength and courage to walk bravely through seventy-five miles of terrible heat ~ fighting through their fatigue and fever all the way ~ to reach a hospital in the Ethiopian capital city of Addis Ababa. Through a miracle, Kassahun and his sister, Fantaye, got out alive. Their mother died. They never knew their father.

Yes, Chef.

As Samuelsson shared his fascinating life's story with great honestly during a conversation and book signing at Book Passage's intimate San Francisco's Ferry Building store last week, he said: "Sometimes, the worst situation can become the best situation."

Recovered but now orphaned, Marcus and his sister were welcomed into a loving, middle-class white family in Göteborg, Sweden. They had been adopted. Samuelsson hiked, skied and fished, all the trappings of a happy childhood. Best of all, it was there in Göteborg that Marcus's new grandmother, Helga, nurtured in him a lifelong passion for food and cooking with her pan-fried herring, her freshly baked bread, and her signature dish of roast chicken.

In a chapter of Yes, Chef devoted to Helga, Samuelsson writes: "Mormor (the Swedish word for mother's mother) treated her house like it was her own little food factory. She made everything herself: jams, pickles, and breads. She bought large cuts of meat or whole chickens and game animals from the butcher and then broke them down into chops and roasts at home. It's so funny to me how, today, we celebrate braising as some refined, elegant approach, when it's the same slow cooking method Mormor used. Her menus followed a simple logic:

"You have bread today because it's fresh. You have toast tomorrow because the bread has gone stale. You make croutons the next day, and whatever bread is left after that gets ground into crumbs that you'll use to batter fish.

"I don't think I saw a rib-eye steak until my late teens when I started working in restaurants. At home, we ate mostly ground meat that was rolled into balls and stretched even further by ample additions of breadcrumbs. We ate our own Swedish version of a hamburger: pan beef, a patty topped with caramelized onions. Sometimes we ate beef Lindstrom: a hamburger patty mixed with onions, capers, and pickled beets before being seared in butter. That's comfort food where I come from, and it's damn good."

A multi-cultural life.

Indeed, there was little question that Samuelsson was destined for a life and career that involved his passion of food. He studied cooking at a vocational high school in Sweden.

Then, he endured working his way up the culinary ladder, cooking on cruise ships and in the demanding culture of good restaurants in Switzerland and France. All the while, Samuelsson's goal was coming to the United States with the great determination of finding his place in the world.

"I am an immigrant, not a refugee. There is a big difference," explained Samuelsson. "I am as patriotic as any American. I am determined and grateful."

In 1991, at age twenty-one, Samuelsson arrived in New York City and took a low-level job at Aquavit, a restaurant known for its celebrated Scandinavian cuisine. "You have to completely give yourself up," says Samuelsson of being a low-ranking member of a good kitchen. "It's a daily dose of humility."

Soon, his "outsized talent and ambition" as a chef finally came together at Aquavit and he earned a coveted New York Times three-star rating at the age of twenty-four.

As Samuelsson told his San Francisco audience, sometimes, it's a matter of "luck and the belief in others."

Throughout his memoir, Samuelsson describes the brutal and selfless work ~ "chasing flavors" as he describes it ~ that he endured in order to achieve his culinary aspirations, which have including cooking for President Obama's first White House state dinner in 2009, reality show triumphs (Top Chef Masters), and appearances on Today, Charlie Rose, Iron Chef and Chopped, where he is a frequent judge. He's also experienced ambitious failures ~ career crises ~ which have included opening a much-heralded branch of Aquavit in Minneapolis only to see it shuttered four and one-half years after it opened due to an evaporating convention and business audience brought on in a post-September 11 world.

In a New York Times review of Yes, Chef, Dwight Garner wrote: "There's a strong undercurrent of loneliness. ... In part this is because, he says, blacks are 'shamefully underrepresented at the high end of the business.' When bad things happen, like the time the voluble and unhinged British chef Gordon Ramsay used a racial insult to describe him, he felt he had few people to turn to for support. That loneliness is a part of Mr. Samuelsson's reserve."

With modesty but tact, Samuelsson, who won the 2003 James Beard Award for best chef in New York City, pointedly notes: "A hundred years ago, black men and women had to fight to get out of the kitchen. These days, we have to fight to get in." He further explained during his conversation in San Francisco: "I knew in Europe, I could not be accepted as a black chef. I was determined to make it in New York City." 

Always with a smile.

Fast forward to the opening of his beloved Red Rooster in the heart of New York City's lively Harlem (310 Lenox Avenue, between 125th and 126th streets). Samuelsson's newest restaurant celebrates the roots of American comfort food ~ think fried chicken, what the restaurant calls its "fried yard bird" ~ and, it represents a fulfillment of a dream of "creating a truly diverse, multiracial dining room ~ a place where presidents and prime ministers rub elbows with jazz musicians, aspiring artists, bus drivers and nurses." In Red Rooster, Samuelsson has found a place where he can feel at home, filled with "diversity from all different backgrounds" and in a neighborhood he now calls home, where he lives with his wife.

At times, it's been a struggle for Samuelsson to find his place, both in the kitchen and in the world. At least for now, he has the appearance of a man who's found peace in all the right places ~ and, he's always with a smile on his face.

"Cooking has changed, but the core values remain the same. It's about expressing a journey and culture. What better way than through food," says Samuelsson. And, besides, as he playfully shared with his San Francisco audience on this summer night: "My fried chicken is better than yours!"

Photographs by Michael Dickens, copyright 2012. All rights reserved.

A calm serenity inside an artistic interior

An artistic interior /
Interior of the Saint Bavo Church in Haarlem, the Netherlands,
painted by 17th-century Dutch artist Pieter Jansz. Saenredam.
This painting is part of the Rijksmuseum's permanent collection.

During my recent European holiday, I spent a portion of a Sunday afternoon visiting the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. For me, spending time in art museums is always time well spent. And, if you're lucky like I was on that day, you just might learn something new about art that relates to history, too.

In an exhibit featuring a retrospective of Dutch artists, I came across a 17th-century painting depicting the interior of the Saint Bavo Church in Haarlem, the Netherlands, by Pieter Jansz. Saenredam.

Saenredam (1597-1665), who was the son of a print maker and draughtsman, was one of the most remarkable painters of 17th-century Holland, a period known as the Golden Age of Dutch Art. He painted this oil on panel of the light-filled interior of Saint Bavo Church in 1636.

Saenredam painted no fewer than six "portraits" of Saint Bavo, considered by many as one of the finest Gothic buildings still in existence today. Each time, he focused on one of the organs. Here, he depicted the Resurrection of Christ on the open shutter of the organ. He mixed gold powder with his paint to represent the gold in the painting. In describing the ornamentation of this painting, the Rijksmuseum website noted:

"At the time Saenredam painted the Saint Bavo Church, leading music-lovers were campaigning for more organ music to be played in church services. Calvinist ministers objected to organ music. Little music was played in church and psalms were sung unaccompanied. The ministers would rather have had no organs at all in church because they felt the beautifully decorated  organs were evidence of ostentation and excess. Haarlem's music-lovers handed a petition to the town council, in which they asked to be allowed to use the organ, 'the ornament of the church', everyday. It is possible that Saenredam gave the organs a prominent position in his painting in support of this campaign."

(As an aside, the interior of the church, which was originally Roman Catholic, was stripped of all of its embellishments, including statues and paintings, by the Protestants following the iconoclasm of the Protestant Reformation.)

What I learned in researching the artist and this painting is this: Saenredam was the first Dutch painter to specialize in church interiors. His precise on-the-spot observations and detailed perspectives helped us to have a better understanding and appreciation for these architectural marvels. And, through the addition of including tiny figures, he helped to emphasize the height and immensity of the church. Also, in some of his interior paintings, the artist used a central perspective: All of the lines in the painting disappear in a single point. Finally, Saenredam signed and dated all of his paintings in order to speak to posterity, a personal testament to the history of his work for future generations.

The Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, which owns one of Saenredam's interior paintings of Saint Bavo, commented on his work in its website:

"The overall impression is one of strong verticality, soaring space, and penetrating light, a spiritual reference to the heavens above. The inclusion of small figures accentuates the viewer's experience of exalted interior space. Saenredam described architectural elements in great detail: vaulted ceilings, moldings, decorative capitals, clustered pillars, and clerestory windows."

Saenredam made his first drawing of the interior of the church of Saint Bavo in 1626. From then on, he devoted himself almost exclusively to painting church interiors, always using precise perspective. Of his fifty surviving paintings, almost half show the interiors of two churches, Saint Bavo and the Mariakerk in Utrecht.

What can we learn from Saenredam's sacred interior spaces? For one, they were designed for contemplation. Unlike others whose paintings evoked a certain type of pomp, pageantry, and theatre that was usually seen in Roman Catholic churches, Saenredam's surprisingly modern paintings evoked "the whitewashed austerity of the Dutch Reformed Church," says the Getty Center.

In describing Saenredam's style and viewpoint, the Getty Center said: "There are no processions, no clusters of worshippers at shrines. He adopted a very low viewpoint and a palette restricted to the palest of tones, and allowed few people into his bare interiors. He concentrated on depicting light, color, and space. Many Dutch artists continued his tradition, but few equaled his inventive vision."

Indeed, Saenredam's painting of the interior of Saint Bavo Church owes its calm serenity to his desire to paint a faithful rendering, one that is careful and accurate. And, more fact than fiction.