Control

The Virtuoso, 22 November-15 December, Casa do Artista, Lisboa

New Address

Sarah and Steve Cherington
2456 Massachusetts Ave, No. 403
Cambridge, MA
02140

The Good Ole U S of A

Now accepting visitors....

The Return

Dear inhabitants, I've been away on serious and mostly pleasant business — which is always great. But during this time I kept reading your posts:

- Sarah, "Kate" sounds good, keep posting her pics;
- Uday, I'm sure your visit to Boston was awesome;
- Steve, congrats for the Red Sox's victory;
- Jim, my late but heartfelt happy birthday.

Interesting news about the university. The British PM, Gordon Brown, is coming to Kent in December. Hopefully, to tell us how good we are.

Mother Sarah

I haven't been on the blog for a while but I guess I couldn't have had a better birthday wish from the other side of the pond.

But regardless of the name Mother Sarah chooses, I'm sure Mary will continue to go from generation to generation.

Hope you are all having a good time.

It's a Girl!

The newest US pics

Still working on names... but might be Katherine (Kate) Mary Cherington

Happy Birthday Jim!

Wishing you a Happy Birthday from this side of the pond. Wish we could all celebrate together!

Partying in Boston

The Parade 'Rolling Rally'



Papelbon dances in his kilt with his broom (because the series was a 'sweep')

Baby Red Sox!

Loved the red sox's costume! And of course Woody's pics... Nice glasses!

www.malvadesign.com

Finally, my site is ready. More or less anyway, at least it's working. Minor details to solve. Any comments will be welcome.

Victory!

and... it's a girl!

Back to the World Series!!!

The Sox came back from being down 3 games to 1 in the American League Pennant race to capture it last night at Fenway in game 7!

The 7 game World Series starts Wednesday night at Fenway against the Colorado Rockies.

Go Sox! Woody, I am assuming you will be coming back here to see it....

Soxtober!!!

Woody in America

Woody Arrives....

Manny wins it all

The pictures behind the inspirational visit of Uday Kiran Ivan Rosario.

Oh, How S/He's Grown...

Looks like s/he has daddy's long legs! Ultrasound from 12 weeks. Due: April 4th

While some of you were making a baby...

Huge kiss from aunt Filipa!

Two Words: Uncle Woody!

The National

Steve, I'm sure you're listening to this:

"Mistaken for Strangers" (from Boxer)

Jana Gana Mana

A beautiful version of the Indian national anthem, featuring some of our best classical musicians jamming together. Its pretty good stuff, even if you can't understand the language.

Independence Day

It's always a wonderful feeling to celebrate your nation’s birthday. Its not that I'm a nationalist, I tend to be anything but. However, what warms me to my country's freedom is only the fact that peace and non-violence triumphed over aggression.
Gandhi, who formed the Indian consciousness, built his message on the edifice of "non-violence" and "non-violent resistance", which at times brought the mighty British Empire to its knees. As I have been researching for my organisations' website, I have going through tons of video footage showing peaceful civic disobedience. It's hard to hurt someone when he is armed with nothing but his body and mind. This victory is helpful to idealists like me; it's nice to know that fairytales come alive...sometimes.
It's funny how history picks the most bizarre personalities to alter its courses. For Christianity, it was the odd carpenter and his band of twelve fishermen who protested religious fanaticism. For Islam, it was the uneducated and illiterate Mohammed, who altered the thinking of an otherwise brutal society. More recently, in Bosnia it was a musician (Vedran Smailovic) who bore sniper attacks to play his cello in the streets of Sarajevo. And in India's case, it was a frail old man who "could have been physically crushed by anyone" - said his friend and fellow freedom fighter, Ms. Sarojini Naidu.
For those of us who look around us with the intention of bringing about social change, it's important to remember that the true change comes from the heart and the pen, and not from the barrel of a gun. In peace,

Parkwood 2008!!!

Here here, Boss-man. Smashing idea. Ahhhhh !!! (In my British aristocratic accent)
Absolutely agree with you. Good on Serg, for keeping this blog alive inspite of everything.
Yeah, lets work on something for Parkwood 2008. Is anyone in touch with Myers and Hyewon? I need to speak to Jackie and Ryan and Budd. No news from Lanre. We could have a darts competition and a cook-off. My contribution as always will be "Brown stuff in a brown sauce" :-) A barbeque. Crash into some undergrad party, drink their booze and play some frisbee. Just like old times :-)
Just a quick update. I have accepted a position as "Service Learning Coordinator" with Georgetown's School of Foreign Service in Qatar. It's really is exciting and it keeps me connected with international development work, which is all I'm concerned about. And I can continue with some of my research and my NGO in India. So I'm thrilled about the whole deal. This would mean that I would travel to the US sometime soon, so will have a chance to catch up with my free and brave friends.
In the meantime, I am working on my NGO in India. Setting up a website and re-building the team. I leave to Kerala (southern-most state) today for the Nehru Cup. Chcck out this site for a better idea http://www.nehrutrophy.nic.in/home.htm Although I will be posting more once I get back on Monday, with some pictures as well.
Anyway champs, have to run now. You all be well. Cheers !!!

My Response

...This is my response to Ross and Amber's idea.
In fact I'm so excited with the prospects of a reunion that I'm already here, waiting for you.
Filipa will arrive in January. How about you?

Hothe Court Reunion?

Hey Gang,
I hope everyone is fairing well these days, despite being strewn about the globe (which is pretty cool if you think about it). I know it can be hard to take time and look back on our Hothe Court days. Sergio has done a great job keeping the flame alive and carrying the torch. This blog is a really great idea and I, like most of us, am guilty of not participating in the conversation. This is bizarre considering all the evenings spent in heated discussion of world affairs with all of you (I'm looking at you Steve and Uday).
Nevertheless, here is topic that we MUST all consider and comment on: What does everyone think about a Hothe Court Reunion for Summer 2008. I know Sarah has mentioned the idea a couple times, but it would be nice to see a show of hands. Just think, we could stay in Park Wood, BBQ, play some Footie, drink the obligatory beer/ale/stout/bitter/pilsner (or whatever your preference) and catch up on old times... Any thoughts??

Some Family History...

Here's some family history: my great grandfather giving a speach and then standing outside Lisbon's city council, in 1910, after his group just had our last king killed and started the first Portuguese Republic. He's the tall crazy hair guy, second from the right in both pics. See any resemblances anyone?

My Blog

Visit my blog. It'll always have lots of images. I promise.

Englishes

David Lavery, an important American scholar in Television Studies, editor of volumes on The X Files, Seinfeld, Twin Peaks, Deadwood, The Sopranos, and others, father of Buffy Studies, is now Chair of Film and Television at Brunel University, London. He's been commenting on the differences between American English and British English on his blog. Two examples:
(1) I just finished serving as the external examiner on a PhD thesis at Brunel University, and reading through the candidate's three hundred+ pages on Doctor Who fandom, I was struck by the author's frequent (and not uncommon) use of the word "whilst." The forty undergraduate essays I just slogged through also showed the word in common usage.
In the room in which I teach, a message on the remote control keypad tells me to wait "whilst the projector warms up."
Not surprisingly, the American Heritage Dictionary notes that this archaic word is "mostly British" in usage. Use of "whilst" in the US would produce, I think, snickering if not outright laughter.
It is impossible to conceive of an American using this in conversation or in print. If he did, he would have no friends. To my ear it sounds pretentious--sounds like something a Pythonesque contestant in an "Upper Class Twit of the Year" contest might utter.
It is snowing today in London. As soon as the sun comes up I intend to go out amongst my fellow Londoners.
(2) On British television a week ago an advert for the Korean car manufacturer caught my attention because the very British announcer pronounced the name "High-an-die." It made me wonder if I had been pronouncing the name wrong all these years.
But watching Fox News (trying to keep up-to-speed on what the enemy thinks) on my newly installed SKY satellite television I heard an American Hyundai commercial. "Hun-die" the voice-over intoned, the pronunciation with which I was familiar.
"Two countries separated by a common language" (George Bernard Shaw)--a paradox I thought I understood. But "two countries separated by different pronunciations of a third language"--that will need further explanation.
The relation between British and American English is similar to the one between Portuguese Portuguese (?) and Brazilian Portuguese. The firsts have archaic traces and the seconds are simpler and more creative. But it's somehow misleading to talk of British English and Portuguese Portuguese forgetting regional differences. There are regions in Portugal where the spoken Portuguese is difficult to understand even for native speakers — the Azores and Madeira archipelagos, for instance.
Sometimes it doesn't come naturally for me to speak with a british accent — even though I pronounce "duty" as "dyuty" instead of "doody", "militry" instead "military" is a bit of a stretch. I've basically learned English by reading and listening American English. But I'm becoming accustomed to use certain words. Not "whilst" instead of "while" — I've noticed that too! —, but, for example, in the recent paper that presented at the conference on Battlestar Galactica, I automatically wrote "lounger" instead of "chaise longue" and "trousers" instead of "pants".

A Home

The new album by the British group The Cinematic Orchestra Ma Fleur is a rarity: a beautiful and delicate set of musical compositions built from silence — e.g. in the closing track appropriately called "Time and Space". Silence remains present as a musical element — as a revelatory background, one might write — so that we can really listen and appreciate this music in its subtle inflections and details. Here's the first song: "To Build a Home" with Patrick Watson's voice.

Trust

SHARON: How do you know? I mean, how do you really know you can trust me?
ADAMA: I don't. That's what trust is.
"Precipice" (3.02)

Bye, Professor Henry Jones

"I thought long and hard about it, and if anything could have pulled me out of retirement it would have been an Indiana Jones film. I love working with Steven and George, and it goes without saying that it is an honor to have Harrison as my son. But in the end, retirement is just too damned much fun. This is a remarkable cast, and I can only say, 'Break a leg, everyone.' I'll see you at the theatre." (Sean Connery)

Oh No, Where Did the Groove Go?

Sparks "The Rhythm Thief" (from Lil' Beethoven)

Shakespeare's Globe in Schools

A project for my new theatre company Avalon: taking Shakespeare's plays and for this year Romeo and Juliet, to schools all over Portugal, as interactive theatre.

Another Play Opening: Spanish Drama with Plenty of Salero!

A poster made out of my new hobby ORIGAMI, for one of my most recent theatre designs. Free tickets (!) if you find yourself in Lisbon on July 9th...

Dua

Who cries for Dua Khalil Aswad?
She was a 17 year old Iraqi Yazidi girl (pre-Islamic) who was stoned to death in an honour killing. In love with a Sunni boy (Islamic) she sought refuge from her family who saw this love story as an abomination. Her family finally persuaded her that she had been forgiven and could return home, only to let a mob ambush and kill her with repeated kicks and crushing stones on April 7.
How do we know all this? A video of her murder was recorded by the cellphones of some of the men and partially shown on CNN.
Joss Whedon cried and wrote a desperate post about the prevalence of misogyny, today, everywhere.
I have never had any faith in humanity. But I will give us props on this: if we can evolve, invent and theorize our way into the technologically magical, culturally diverse and artistically magnificent race we are and still get people to buy the idiotic idea that half of us are inferior, we’re pretty amazing. Let our next sleight of hand be to make that myth disappear.
Diana Mukkaled also cried. Here are the last paragraphs of her article:
Dua is among the dozens of women killed in Iraqi Kurdistan in the name of "honor" using the most horrifying methods including being burned alive.
This is an act of mass-murder that has become a frequent occurrence against many females, which is well documented.
Some regard the practice of honor killings as a ritual that paves way to manhood by reaffirming the tribe's masculine identity at the expense of a life, in this case Dua's.
Nobody tried to help Dua or alleviate her pain, but as she was being stoned and kicked, a man came and threw a jacket over the lower half of her body to cover her legs. For them, it is not shameful to cruelly kill a young girl, but it is shameful if her legs are revealed while she suffers unbearable agony.
This has to stop! Events like these show how nonsensical moral relativism is — according to it moral propositions do not reflect universal truths, instead making claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances. In contrast, moral pluralism accepts moral differences, but draws limits to these differences so that we don't have to tolerate the intolerable. This is happening here, in the UK, where some groups assert the "right" to have their own laws outside of British Law.
I refrained from including a link to the complete video, but you can always google it. I couldn't bare watching it until the end. I couldn't stand watching these fucking weak and cowardly men do that to Dua.
We all should cry for her.

Inland Empire

NIKKI (Laura Dern): Wake up and find out what the hell yesterday was about. I'm not too keen on tomorrow, and today's slipping by.
From Inland Empire (2006), dir. David Lynch.

Presidential Candidates on...

The presidential candidates on... abortion and Iraq (from The New York Times).

Go Obama!

Another remarkable speech from Obama:
There is a verse from the Bible that is sometimes read or recited during rites of passage like this. Corinthians 13:11: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.”
I bring this up because there’s often an assumption on days like today that growing up is purely a function of age; that becoming an adult is an inevitable progression that can be measured by a series of milestones – college graduation or your first job or the first time you throw a party that actually has food too.
And yet, maturity does not come from any one occasion – it emerges as a quality of character. Because the fact is, I know a whole lot of thirty and forty and fifty year olds who have not yet put away childish things – who continually struggle to rise above the selfish or the petty or the small.
We see this reflected in our country today.
We see it in a politics that’s become more concerned about who’s up and who’s down than who’s working to solve the real challenges facing our generation; a politics where debates over war and peace are reduced to 60-second soundbites and 30-second attack ads.
We see it in a media culture that sensationalizes the trivial and trivializes the profound – in a 24-hour news network bonanza that never fails to keep us posted on how many days Paris Hilton will spend in jail but often fails to update us on the continuing genocide in Darfur or the recovery effort in New Orleans or the poverty that plagues too many American streets.
And as we’re fed this steady diet of cynicism, it’s easy to start buying into it and put off hard decisions. We become tempted to turn inward, suspicious that change is really possible, doubtful that one person really can make a difference.
That’s where the true test of growing up occurs. That’s where you come in...
No matter where you go from here – whether it’s into public service or the business world; whether it’s law school or medical school; whether you become scientists or artists or entertainers – you will face a choice. Do you want to be passive observers of the way world is or active citizens in shaping the way the world ought to be? In both your own life and the life of your country, will you strive to put away childish things?
It is a constant struggle, this quest for maturity, and as my wife will certainly tell you, I haven’t always been on the winning side in my own life. But through my own tests and failings, I have learned a few lessons here and there about growing up, and there’s three I’d like to leave you with today.
The first lesson came during my first year in college.
Back then I had a tendency, in my mother’s words, to act a bit casual about my future. I rebelled, angry in the way that many young men in general, and young black men in particular, are angry, thinking that responsibility and hard work were old-fashioned conventions that didn’t apply to me. I partied a little too much and studied just enough to get by.
And once, after a particularly long night of partying, we had spilled a little too much beer, broke a few too many bottles, and trashed a little too much of the dorm. And the next day, the mess was so bad that when one of the cleaning ladies saw it, she began to tear up.
And when a girlfriend of mine heard about this, she said to me, “That woman could’ve been my grandmother, Barack. She spent her days cleaning up after somebody else’s mess.”
Which drove home for me the first lesson of growing up:
The world doesn’t just revolve around you.
There’s a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit – the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes; to see the world through those who are different from us – the child who’s hungry, the laid-off steelworker, the immigrant woman cleaning your dorm room.
As you go on in life, cultivating this quality of empathy will become harder, not easier. There’s no community service requirement in the real world; no one forcing you to care. You’ll be free to live in neighborhoods with people who are exactly like yourself, and send your kids to the same schools, and narrow your concerns to what’s going in your own little circle.
Not only that – we live in a culture that discourages empathy. A culture that too often tells us our principle goal in life is to be rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained. A culture where those in power too often encourage these selfish impulses.
They will tell you that the Americans who sleep in the streets and beg for food got there because they’re all lazy or weak of spirit. That the inner-city children who are trapped in dilapidated schools can’t learn and won’t learn and so we should just give up on them entirely. That the innocent people being slaughtered and expelled from their homes half a world away are somebody else’s problem to take care of.
I hope you don’t listen to this. I hope you choose to broaden, and not contract, your ambit of concern. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate, although you do have that obligation. Not because you have a debt to all of those who helped you get to where you are, although you do have that debt.
It’s because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. And because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential – and become full-grown.
The second lesson I learned after college, when I had this crazy idea that I wanted to be a community organizer and work in low-income neighborhoods.
My mother and grandparents thought I should go to law school. My friends had applied for jobs on Wall Street. But I went ahead and wrote letters to every organization in the country that I could think of. And finally, this small group of churches on the south side of Chicago wrote back and gave me a job organizing neighborhoods devastated by steel-plant closings in the early 80s.
The churches didn’t have much money – so they offered me a grand sum of $12,000 a year plus $1,000 to buy a car. And I got ready to move to Chicago – a place I had never been and where I didn’t know a living soul.
Even people who didn’t know me were skeptical of my decision. I remember having a conversation with an older man I had met before I arrived in Chicago. I told him about my plans, and he looked at me and said, “Let me tell something. You look like a nice clean-cut young man, and you’ve got a nice voice. So let me give you a piece of advice – forget this community organizing business. You can’t change the world, and people won’t appreciate you trying. What you should do is go into television broadcasting. I’m telling you, you’ve got a future.”
I could’ve taken my mother’s advice and I could’ve taken my grandparents advice. I could’ve taken the path my friends traveled. And objectively speaking, that older man had a point about the TV thing.
But I knew there was something in me that wanted to try for something bigger.
So the second lesson is this: Challenge yourself. Take some risks in your life.
This isn’t easy. In a few minutes, you can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and go chasing after the big house and the large salary and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy.
But I hope you don’t. Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. And it will leave you unfulfilled.
So don’t let people talk you into doing what’s easy or comfortable. Listen to what’s inside of you and decide what it is that you care about so much that you’re willing to risk it all.
The third lesson is one that I learned once I got to Chicago.
I had spent weeks organizing our very first community meeting around the issue of gang violence. We invited the police; we made phone calls, went to churches, and passed out flyers.
I had been warned of the turf battles and bad politics between certain community leaders, but I ignored them, confident that I knew what I was doing.
The night of the meeting we arranged rows and rows of chairs in anticipation of the crowd. And we waited. And we waited. And finally, a group of older people walk in to the hall. And they sit down. And this little old lady raises her hand and asks, “Is this where the bingo game is?”
Thirteen people showed up that night. The police never came. And the meeting was a complete disaster.
Later, the volunteers I worked with told me they were quitting – that they had been doing this for two years and had nothing to show for it.
I was tired too. But at that point, I looked outside and saw some young boys playing in a vacant lot across the street, tossing stones at boarded-up apartment building. And I turned to the volunteers, and I asked them, “Before you quit, I want you to answer one question. What’s gonna happen to those boys? Who will fight for them if not us? Who will give them a fair shot if we leave?”
And at that moment, we were all reminded of a third lesson in growing up:
Persevere.
Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it’s not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won’t. It’s whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.
After my little speech that day, one by one, the volunteers decided not to quit. We went back to those neighborhoods, and we kept at it, sustaining ourselves with the small victories. Eventually, over time, a community changed. And so had we.
Cultivating empathy, challenging yourself, persevering in the face of adversity – these are qualities that dare us to put away childish things. They are qualities that help us grow.
They are qualities that one graduate today knows especially well.
Richard Komi was born thousands of miles from here in Southern Nigeria. He’d probably still be there today, if he hadn’t been forced to flee when his tribe came under attack. Eventually, he made it to the United States, worked his way through factories and retail jobs, and came here to SNHU, to complete the education he began in Africa. And now, with a wife and kids and lots of responsibility, he’s even taking the time to give back to his new country by volunteering on this campaign.
Richard Komi may be graduating today, but it’s clear that he grew up a long time ago. We celebrate with him because his journey is a testament to the powerful idea that in the face of impossible odds, ordinary people can do extraordinary things.
At a time when America finds itself at a crossroads, facing challenges we haven’t seen in decades, we need to hold on to this idea more than ever.
A lot is riding on the decisions that are made and the leadership that is provided by this generation. We are counting on you to help fix a health care system that’s leaving too many Americans sick or bankrupt or both. We are counting on you to bring this planet back from the brink by solving this crisis of global climate change. We are counting on you to help stop a genocide in Darfur that’s taking the lives of innocents as we speak here today. And we’re counting on you to restore the image of America around the world that has led so many like Richard Komi to find liberty, and opportunity, and hope on our doorstep.
There are some who are betting against you – who say that you don’t pay attention, that you don’t show up to vote, that you’re too concerned with your own lives and your own problems.
Well that’s not what I believe and it’s not what I’ve seen. Instead I’ve seen rallies filled with crowds that stretch far into the horizon; thousands upon thousands signing up to organize online; scores who are coming to the very first political event of their lifetime. And just a few hours before this commencement, I got the opportunity to send off hundreds of people who have chosen to take time out of their busy lives and spend an entire Saturday knocking on doors here in New Hampshire. Because they’re not content to sit back and watch anymore. Because they believe they can help this country grow.
And whenever the doubt creeps in and I find myself wondering if change is really possible, I end up thinking about the young Americans – teenagers and college kids not much older than you – who watched the Civil Rights Movement unfold before them on television sets all across the country.
I imagine that they would’ve seen the marchers and heard the speeches, but they also probably saw the dogs and the fire hoses, or the footage of innocent people being beaten within an inch of their lives; or heard the news the day those four little girls died when someone threw a bomb into their church.
Instinctively, they knew that it was safer and smarter to stay at home; to watch the movement from afar. But they also understood that these people in Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi were their brothers and sisters; that what was happening was wrong; and that they had an obligation to make it right. When the buses pulled up for a Freedom Ride down South, they got on. They took a risk. And they changed the world.
Now it’s your turn. You will be tested by the challenges of this new century, and at times you will fail. But know that you have it within your power to try. That generations who have come before you faced these same fears and uncertainties in their own time. And that if we’re willing to shoulder each other’s burdens, to take great risks, and to persevere through trial, America will continue its journey towards that distant horizon, and a better day.

Rowan Atkinson Live

"Amazing Jesus"

"Welcome to Hell"

LOL

Drunken man parks horse in bank foyer.

Remembering "The Muppet Show"

Do you?

Cheap Laugh

Hello All!
Happy 50th Ghana! I thought of you on the 6th, Jim.
Love the drawings, Filipa.
Yeah- where is everybody?
You need to see this- had us in stitches.
Steve was at the game but did not have any pizza....

XOXO
Sarah

Images Come and Go...

Here aresome more pics of some of my later work. Enjoy: Memoirs of a Geisha and Marie Antoinette.
Jim, my sincere congrats on the 50 years of Ghana! And my best wishes for the next 50 years. Have fun!
Everyone else: where are you guys? Miss you!