Waldorf Diaries--Agoraphobic Interiors

I was watching the movie “The Reader” last night and was struck by the beauty of the Ralph Fiennes character’s Berlin apartment. It had a modern simplicity that melded perfectly with the aging sophistication of the city. The production designer Brigitte Broch succeeded in making me forget that it was a set (probably in a Los Angeles studio) and I felt suddenly compelled to move to Berlin and find that apartment.

I was still thinking about it when I woke up this morning in my small hotel room. I thought about its high ceilings, 7’0 doors, and long clean white hallways. I quickly became obsessed with the idea of space and realized that I could probably never live comfortably in “The Reader” apartment because it seemed too big. I’ve always lived in small spaces. There was a short period in New York when I literally lived in a friend’s closet. My most recent apartment in the Lee Building was the biggest place I’ve ever had (still a modest 700 square feet) and I had difficulty approaching the space from a personal design perspective. It took me two years to start feeling like I was getting close to having it properly furnished.

As much as I love and admire the architect Hugh Newel Jacobson and his modern residential cathedrals I think I would find all that space off setting. I think I need to be grounded in a room and if there’s too much space I have a subtle agoraphobic reaction. I begin to feel like I’m floating and that can be distracting. 

So for the moment I live in a hotel room and it's surprisingly comfortable. I really don't need much space.

I couldn't find a still of the Berlin apartment set but I did find a photo (My sister Juliet gets photo credit) of me when I was living in a storage area behind my friend's clothing store in the early 1990's--again not a very large area.

Waldorf Diaries--Prayer to Ponos

(My new screensaver)

On Friday afternoon I gathered up all my tools that had been scattered around the house I’ve been working on and moved everything back into the shop. Now it’s Monday morning and the satisfaction of finishing of a job and having some money in my bank account is being replaced by the realization that I need to switch focus and get some writing done. I need to sit still in front of this laptop and produce something—anything! I’ve taken breaks from writing before and I know that anything I write today is probably going to be crap. It’ll end up being dragged into the trash icon and I’m going to feel discouraged. That’s just the way it is. That has been my experience.

Before I opened up this little MacBook of mine this morning I said a prayer for the ability to write what I need to write. I definitely require some help. I didn’t even bother asking for inspiration just the strength to get through this morning’s grind. Inspiration would be a bonus but I’m certainly not counting on it. The muses can probably take the day off and maybe Ponos, the Greek God of labor, can give me a hand today…

Obsession, Focus, Gin and Louis V

I am not a multitasker. People who have the capacity to take on multiple projects and see them through successfully amaze me. I am obsessively driven and each individual project requires my total focus or I quickly become distracted and scattered. The end result is a myriad of partial thoughts and projects that have no connection to each other and no individual value. When the volume of uncompleted work reaches critical mass I tend to shelve everything and start the cycle over. Over the past couple of years with a great deal of self-discipline and a lot of straight up prayer my ability to focus has improved substantially. Still I am careful not to take on more than one major project at a time.

Recently I made the mistake of trying to read two books at the same time—“Home (A Short History of an Idea)” by Witold Rybczynski and a collection of Raymond Carver short stories—the result was a melding of the two as I jumped between them and I suddenly I was reading about a broken alcoholic man in Louis V’s Versailles. He was drinking cheap gin in a Rococo palace wondering why his wife left him while appreciating the advent of horsehair cushions. This valuable lesson was not lost on me as I try to balance writing my book with the house I’m working on. They are two different projects but equally demanding of creative solutions.

Fortunately the house with its wainscoting and bannisters has an end in sight and then I can get back to what’s important.

For the Love of Wainscoting

The majority of my posts lately have been  general musings on hotel life and the idea of home. I haven't written much about wood, carpentry, or design lately. I thought I'd break the trend and post some photos of the beautiful house I'm presently working on. The world needs more wainscoting. I'll post more photos when it's all been stained.

Ai, one of my talented associates

I had nothing to do with this fireplace but it's really pretty

The Waldorf Diaries--The Food Hassle

One of the challenges of hotel living is the figuring where to eat. Not having a kitchen or means to refrigerate perishables makes eating out a necessity. Truth is that even when I did have a kitchen I didn’t use it very often and my refrigerator was usually a cold desert of nutrition containing a tub of yogurt and few pieces of fruit. French mustard, fish sauce, balsamic vinegar, curry paste, and three different types of hot sauces lined the shelving on the door. These condiments rattled their neglected glass jars and bottles when I opened the door in the morning to get the yogurt.

I can cook but when I’m single it’s not a priority in my life. Kitchens and dining areas are comfortable places for human interaction--places where two or more people can come together in the creation of a basic life necessity. Cooking solo starts feeling like a time consuming chore lacking the sense of intimacy and shared experience that comes with communal food preparation. Instead whenever I’ve lived alone I’ve tried to be surrounded with enough excellent restaurants so I can eat something different and delicious every night.

At the moment I’m fortunate to live in the same building as one of my favorite restaurants, Nuba. The dining room is a couple of seconds away and I don’t even have to go outside. I have a stool at the bar where I sit two or three nights a week with a book and eat my dinner. The other nights I have to travel to eat and sometimes this can be laborious. My industrial surroundings require me to leave my neighborhood to forage and I find myself indecisively roaming the city trying to figure out what exactly I want to eat and where to find it. Usually by the time I get around to starting my quest for food it’s fairly late and I’m very hungry so making any sort of rational decision becomes increasingly difficult. 

Sometimes I just give up and find myself at the deli counter of Whole Foods ordering various salad items in a haphazard fashion. This too often proves to be a disappointing dining experience and the sad part is by that point I don't really care. 

Waldorf Diaries--Vancouver

From this

To this in eight minutes

Vancouver, despite its big city aspirations, is still very much a small town. One night recently I left my hotel, situated in an East Vancouver industrial area, and drove through the downtown east side, through the financial district, and through Coal Harbor to the vast expanse of Stanley Park in under 10 minutes. I was travelling crosstown and beneath the speed limit. I traversed each micro neighborhood (some only a matter of several blocks) in mere minutes.

I keep waiting for Vancouver to grow up. Transform into the city I think it should be—the city it has the potential to become. I’ve lived in big cities in several countries and I love their constant movement, the anonymity, the sense of history, the layering of culture, and the inevitable decay. Vancouver is so shiny and fresh and I still find that difficult. At 125 years it’s still in its infancy and I have to remind myself of that. It has a lot of maturing up to do and, admittedly, so do I. Maybe that’s why I came back here—Vancouver still has a blank page aspect to it, a plasticity in its forming character, that I find easy to relate to.

Simple Beauty

Occasionally I am fortunate enough to work on a house where the homeowners are willing to spend money on quality materials and allow the time needed to create something of aesthetic value. I’m spending a few weeks doing clear fir moldings in a beautifully designed house on Vancouver’s west side. The details are simple and classic leaving the evenly textured vertical grain lumber to add depth and warmth. Even raw and unstained the wood creates a level of comfort that painted MDF will never possess. We’re using minimal fasteners to eliminate distracting nail holes and keep the lines clean. Projects like this make my job worthwhile.

Waldorf Diaries--Fear (and Loathing)

Recently a close friend and I were discussing the affects of fear. How fear possesses an insidious nature and an ability to degrade and debilitate all situations. I believe the antithesis of joy is fear rather than sadness. I’ve heard it referred to as an evil and corrosive thread that weaves through our existence. Still I’m not convinced that fear is without value and I think it is a necessary aspect of the creative process. The challenge of getting beyond it is pivotal and requisite for the growth of any undertaking. Fear itself is not motivating and in my history it’s had the power to paralyze me but more recently there is growing faith that if I’m able to recognize it—verbalize it—I have the ability to progress. This has proven true both in my work at the shop and in now my literary project. I've encountered few things as terrifying as a folder full of jumbled notes and unfinished thoughts.

Fear is also one of my favorite bands to ever come out of the L A area and I love this t shirt!

Waldorf Diaries--Zombies and Convalescence

With the recent arrival of zombie tenants at the hotel I’ve come down with a rare strain of acute viral rhinopharyngitis. Also known as the common cold “Zombie Version”, its symptoms are nasal and chest congestion, sneezing, coughing, fever, and increased appetite for human flesh. “Feed a cold,” as the saying goes.

I spent most of yesterday convalescing in my hotel room sleeping, watching Sanford and Son episodes on Youtube, and creating a mountain of crumpled tissues on my bedside table. Being sick in a hotel feels different than being sick at home. I can't wrap myself in blankets and lie on the couch. The absence of a kitchen means that most food and beverages must be obtained by actually getting dressed and going outside. Hotels are public spaces so it’s impossible to have the requisite privacy that is needed for proper recuperation.

I’ve been sick in hotel rooms on several continents. Usually these small rooms were in the hot tropical climates of southeast Asia or areas where cheap wine is abundant like the south of Spain. I even spent a couple of days sweating in feverish delirium within the confines of a shack in the Western Sahara. This time is different. At home, in this Vancouver hotel, I have a routine and responsibilities. I’ve missed work and had to postpone social obligations.

Then there’s the zombie issue. I have to talk to the hotel management about this problem before it gets out of hand.

Waldorf Diaries--My Neighbor's Closet

It’s Friday night and it’s difficult to get out of my room. Racks of clothing line the hallways outside my door turning the second floor of the Waldorf Hotel into Vancouver’s newest garment district. Shoppers crowd into the narrow corridors pulling hangers and drinking wine. It’s still early and the true multitudes have yet to arrive. In a couple of hours it may be impossible for me to get out of here.

My room is an interesting juxtaposition against the retail fervor happening outside the door. I often feel sequestered here in this calm space that contrasts so dramatically with the rest of this hyper social hotel. My sparse but comfortable furnishings, books, laptop, printer, my utilitarian clothing—these basic and uncomplicated things bring a sense of calm. I’ve been careful to limit possible distractions and reduce my life into its simplest form. This is really an experiment in focus and though hardly a monastic cell it does possess an austerity that allows me space and perspective to move forward in this project—Finding a definition of home.