Photography pioneer

Do you have a picture you keep on your desk just because it makes you grin like an idiot? Here's my latest one. There may be other things in the world that are cuter, but I haven't found them yet.

The best part is that even though this photo was snapped in 1943, I know the man: Leo Holub founded Stanford's photography department and was the subject of my Weekly cover story last Oct. 20.

Sweetest person I have ever interviewed. Hands-down. Now he has a show of some 200 black-and-whites in San Francisco. I love this grouping of themes: Cityscapes, Heads, Signs and Dogs, Protests and Counterculture. How about protests and dogs? Shouldn't dogs be allowed to protest?

The exhibit brochure also includes a zippy quote from one of Leo's fans:

"You have an astonishing EYE! You out-Cart Cartier-Bresson, and out-Bress Bresson." -Ansel Adams

And when the brochure came across my desk, I recognized Leo right away. He may be 90 years old now, but he has the same gentle blue eyes.

Pictured: Leo Holub's "Self Portrait, First Son and First Camera, 1943" (Leo's name is on the photo because it's on the cover of the Himmelberger Gallery exhibit brochure.)

Hungarian klezmer karma

What kind of hungarophile would I be if I didn't mention that Gypsy violinist Roby Lakatos is coming to town? He'll be tearing it up next Wednesday at Stanford University. A bit of Hungarian folk, a bit of klezmer, throw in some classical and jazz, and you're good to go.

Sadly, I cannot attend because I have a French class. Apparently one cannot be a magyarophile and a francophile at the same time. At least not on Wednesdays.

If you (yes, you) attend, please let me know how it is. Koszi.

In the meantime, go here and then click on "Klezmer Karma." Then dance around your desk! Just like I would do, if my desk weren't next to a wall.

Puppets plus Palo Alto: A perfect pair (please?)

Last November I went to Chicago for the first time and fell head over heels for the city. (It helped that there was some freakish weather pattern that resulted in four straight days of 60-degree weather.)

Deliver me from the faceless, too-new stucco buildings of California: Chicago's structures have history, character, and fascinating architecture. There were historic plaques everywhere I looked, along with lovely, non-earthquake-safe brick. And grinders. And tons of theater. And evenings cold enough for an honest-to-goodness European Christmas market. With sausages and sauerkraut. Can we have a market here?

The main thing I want to bring here, though, is Chicago's famous Puppet Bike. This enterprising artist rides around on a bicycle built for a mini-puppet theater. We found him on a corner near Millennium Park, entertaining the masses with wee animals grooving to music. Kids were dying to drop coins in front.

If we can't have architecture and outdoor sauerkraut, can we have mobile puppets cruising University Avenue? I would be so impressed if someone started this here.

By the way, I don't know why my video is so blurry. I am a writer but merely a fledgling cinematographer, my little chickadees.

You can call them Junior

Junior versions of popular Broadway shows are brilliant. You get the drama and tunes in an adapted piece that even Little Squirmy can sit through. After all, if you're introducing a child to the joys of books, you don't throw "Bleak House" at him. (Actually, please don't throw "Bleak House" at me.)

In the last few years, the Palo Alto Children's Theatre has been working with MTI to help develop new junior shows. Disney, too. The theater gets a script -- sometimes a wee bit draft-y -- and then turns it into a full production.

In 2000, for example, the kids put on a new high-school version of "Les Miserables," says theater assistant director Michael Litfin. They've also done "Pirates of Penzance," "Children of Eden" and others.

Talk about theater bragging rights for the kids. ("I was the first junior Eponine...") Plus afterwards the kids get to tell Disney and MTI exactly what they think of the show. Apparently one once asked such a complex musical question about "Mulan" that the Disney folks were stumped.

"Palo Alto kids," says Michael, "are very articulate."

Pictured: Griffin Carlson, who's playing a dwarf in this year's production of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." This photo by Norbert von der Groeben is on the cover of this Friday's Weekly.

102 candles

When I was in middle school, we got to have "Secret Pals" from Lytton Gardens, a senior community in Palo Alto. I think we wrote letters to them and paid them visits. Sweet idea. I just wish I could have had Lolita Olaine as my pal.

I just got an email saying that Olaine is being honored this Sunday -- her 102nd birthday -- by the First United Methodist Church of Palo Alto. She's being named Artist-in-Residence Emeritus, thanks to the "hundreds of oils and watercolors of nature scenes" she's created, wrote churchgoer Patty Fisher. Fisher also said Olaine still goes to church every Sunday and tools around downtown with her walker.

I also found a bio of Olaine online that says she started an art gallery in the church in the 1960s, and apparently much of her work still hangs there. Sounds like a good story to me...

Happy birthday, KZSU

Have you already exhausted all the channels on the satellite radio thingy you got for the holidays? If your ears haven't fallen off yet, you might want to tune into KZSU, Stanford's radio station. Yes, you. (Oh, sorry. YES, YOU!)

The radio station is celebrating its 60th birthday by spinning out a 60-hour marathon through 11:59 p.m. on Saturday. Each hour of tunes represents another year, with current and alumni DJs playing Big Band to blues to British invasion and beyond. If you have to celebrate 60 candles, that's not a bad way to do it.

At the moment, a DJ named Lobster is taking on 1974 with a set that included the Doobie Brothers' "Black Water." Apparently he was a DJ at KZSU during 1974, too, and just played a recording of the Brothers making fun of Nixon when they visited the station just before the prez resigned.

More historic material is promised during the marathon, including live coverage of the Reagan election night. Regardless of your politics, these are pieces of history you might want to check out.

Here's where they are now

For this Friday's Weekly, I had a lot of fun revisiting some of my favorite arts stories from 2006 and seeing what the artists are up to now. After all, a newspaper story is only a snapshot in time. Readers (and editors) want to know what happens next: Did the guy building the pipe organ ever get it to play? Is the quilter still quilting?

(Suddenly I feel like I'm teaching ESL again: "I quilt, I quilted, I have quilted." Hey! The present perfect is fun!)

Anyway. Here's the link to the "update" story. And magically in this sentence you shall find links to the original stories about organ-builder Andrew Nelsen, ballroom-dance teacher Julia Minson, quilter Linda Gass (she's really more like a painter of silk), and orchestra conductor Kim Venaas.

Pictured: Andrew Nelsen with his pipe organ at the Palo Alto Adult School. Photo by Nicholas Jensen (originally published in the Weekly's print edition).