09.28.06
They live in a home built by an architect for himself. It's all lines and angularity, but done in wood and stone and almost-tadelacked walls with so much of the outside coming in through window-walls, that, for all its hard, jutting planed Modernism, the place is as soft as they are. And the furniture, low and plush, masculine, beckons you give in to repose and just watch the gardeners. There is an amazing harmony in their relationship and it's evinced in the lack of ostentation in their rich home. The army of small statured, good natured Guatemalans polishing the place, and even the sparse, good taste itself bely the money, but little else says anything but a rush to style and good living, clean living with all those well tending hands. And certainly very little gives away the newness of the money. There's the windowpane fridge. They had Puffy's assistant take a picture of his and recreated it. One side is full of labeled leftovers. The other half is, well, his assistant asked what I'd like to drink. It being a nice California morning I ventured, "Juice?" "What kind?" she asked. Now that's a simple piece of morning California conversation, you might even be able to get some unfiltered apple juice with a bit of pulp. But that's it right? Apple, orange, maybe some milk? She drew a finger up and I followed her into the kitchen. One entire wall sized cabinet of glass fronted cooler, filled. "It's like 7-11," A. said later. "My own 7-11." Every kind of beverage from top to bottom. And not just one of each, but a whole line of each just like a pop dispenser. Just like the one he stole from when they broke into his high school on his night of felonies, as we'd learn later in the tales of thievery and scarring. I helped myself to a watermelon juice.
But maybe it's her, She, she's a force of nature while still being a very laid back mama. And she's been in the dough for a long time now. Whether there's a mainstay of design directive in the household or they share the creation of it together, either way, it sure feels like the flow there spills out from their flow together. And all those lines everywhere, like the lines from the slat wood shadows, are broken both by their randomness of line, and all the unparallel jutting of the native grasses in stone beds at the foot of the windows and doors. This place is made to be open, and there's something congruently open about them together in their themness. And in our work today, I got to see it from him completely, on his own, as I always knew it was going to be there, knew it because my mom had told me so after she had him over for passover once and he chimed in with all his newfound love of Kabbala. He's a sweet gentle dude. You know it because of D., she wouldn't have it otherwise, you'd imagine. But then you finally get him alone and talking and you're proven completely right again.
