Erik Friedl: "Memories of JC" and "In Praise of High Places"

[Iain Barraclough]

Hello Erik,
Try changing the document now. Let me know if you have any problems.
I have changed the document access so that anyone who clicks the link can edit the document without signing in. Signing in necessitates a Google account ID, and you don't have one of those (do you?). Such changes would appear as being made by "Anonymous".
If you had a Google ID and signed in to Google docs using that ID and then made changes to the document, then the changes would appear as being made by "Your User ID".

If you did have a Google ID, then a better alternative could be to assign the document "Private" status, so that only people who had the link and signed in with their Google ID could edit the document.

If more than one person is viewing/editing the document, then each will be able to see the other's changes as they happen - i.e., in real time. (It's quite fascinating to see this happening.)
Any versions/edits to the document can be rolled back to an earlier stage, if necessary.

Memories of John Corlette (Erik Friedl 69) updated by EF 2011-01-02.doc

By the way, you mentioned that you might have missed the earlier "collective online conversation", but it it has been an email conversation only, and the addressees who have been included in it have varied - so it will be difficult to ascertain who will have been given an opportunity read and comment on what.

I did set up a forum (Aiglon College alumni) so that we could have these conversations in an all-inclusive manner (as opposed to inadvertently dropping people off the distribution list of our emails). This was via a non-proprietary Aiglon alumni group listserver (unlike all the other Aiglon alumni groups which are locked into proprietary services such as Facebook or LinkedIn - both of which hold copyright over all and any content in their respective groups. By sending an email to Aiglon College alumni, you make a post to the group. This is the email address use to post messages to the group:

 aiglon-colleg...@googlegroups.com
- so I have sent this email to that group also, as well as you and Steve.

As you and Steve are both addressees of this email and members of the group, then you will thus both receive this email twice via two separate routes. Sorry for the duplication, but I wish to make a point.

------------------ WARNING! Start of rant ------------------
The point is this:  that since I took the trouble to set up Aiglon College alumni in June 2009, with the intention of reducing the "yet another deadly email discussion" syndrome, a total of 20 posts have been made to that group, by only three people. There has been two-fifths of three-eights of the proverbial SFA of any significant discussion in that forum otherwise, but heaps via email conversations (like this one right now).
For evidence, just look at the stats from the group (below) and compare that to your email client count of Aiglon-related email discussions:

Posters over all time:
15     IainB6467 - Co-Owner of site, along with SteveMcC (zero posts).
  3     noelt6670
  1     derb
  1     John

Some people (not me you understand), might suggest that this could be evidence of abject apathy or lack of interest amongst the alumni, but I couldn't possibly comment.
(Yes, I know. It's probably flogging a dead horse, but I had to try.)
------------------ End of rant ------------------

Regards,
       Iain.
______________________________________________________
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Erik Friedl <efr...@earthlink.net>
Date: 3 January 2011 07:37
Subject: Fwd: Memories of JC (Revised)
To: Iain Barraclough <Iain.Bar...@gmail.com>
Cc: Steve McCrea <miste...@comcast.net>


Sir Iain,

Thanks for moving so swiftly on replacing the old with the new, i.e. putting up the final version of that little piece I just penned about JC.  Steve and Iain: Do you want me to quickly clean up the text-only version of "In Praise of High Places"?  Do I need that additional link to access to make corrections--sorry if I missed this part of the collective online conversation earlier!

In the meantime, Happy New Year to all!

Erik

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Iain Barraclough <iain.bar...@gmail.com>
Date: 2 January 2011 21:02
Subject: Fwd: Erik Friedl: "Memories of JC" and "In Praise of High Places"
To: Erik Friedl <efr...@earthlink.net>
Cc: Steve McCrea <miste...@comcast.net>


I have updated the document linked to (below) with the "improved, shinier version" that Eric provided, and renamed it:

Memories of John Corlette (Erik Friedl 69) updated by EF 2011-01-02.doc

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Erik Friedl <efr...@earthlink.net>
Date: 2 January 2011 19:53
Subject: Memories of JC (Revised)
To: Steve McCrea <miste...@comcast.net>
Cc: Iain Barraclough <Iain.Bar...@gmail.com>


Dear Steve,

Thanks for forwarding the articles I wrote on part of my Aiglon experience to Iain and the rest of the group.  I'm sure they'll trigger a number of memories and articles in turn.

The diehard journalist in me prompted me to revisit the piece I just wrote on "Memories of JC" and I'm attaching the improved, shinier version.

Best regards and Happy New Year,

Erik

Erik Friedl, Los Angeles
efr...@earthlink.net
Tel 818-848-6273

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Iain Barraclough <iain.bar...@gmail.com>
Date: 2 January 2011 19:32
Subject: Fwd: Erik Friedl: "Memories of JC" and "In Praise of High Places"
To: Steve McCrea <miste...@comcast.net>
Cc: John Vornle <johnv...@gmail.com>, bah...@azarm.net, raymone merz <r.m...@rogers.com>, aig George Harto <gha...@cs.unm.edu>, elaine demartin <Edem...@aol.com>, Bahman Azarm <aza...@optonline.net>, Noel Thompson <noeldt...@gmail.com>, erik friedl <efr...@earthlink.net>, AIG Maria Brown <maria...@btinternet.com>, Duncan Maxwell <snakepo...@yahoo.co.uk>, JEREMY MCWILLIAM <cape...@btinternet.com>, Will sutherland <w...@qbeglobal.net>, Aiglon DR David Rhodes <hilarya...@gmail.com>, Steve Groves <sgro...@gmail.com>


Steve,
(CCd to your distribution list.)
Thanks for this.
I have loaded the docs that you sent, into Google docs, as follows: (anyone with the link can read/download)

• Memories of John Corlette (Erik Friedl 69).doc (this is the Word doc you sent, converted into Google docs format).
• In Praise Of High Places.jpg (this is just the image of the printed article, showing the text and the embedded photos)
• In Praise Of High Places.doc (this is an OCR - Optical Character Read) of the text in the image of the printed article. It has a few mistakes in it, but it's an exceptionally handy feature, as I think you might agree. Saves you having to type it all in by hand. The possibilities are endless...
  

Hope this helps or is of use.


Regards,
       Iain.
______________________________________________________

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Steve McCrea <miste...@comcast.net>
Date: 2 January 2011 00:32
Subject: Fwd: Erik Friedl: "Memories of JC" and "In Praise of High Places"
To: Iain Barraclough <iain.bar...@gmail.com>, John Vornle <johnv...@gmail.com>, bah...@azarm.net, raymone merz <r.m...@rogers.com>, aig George Harto <gha...@cs.unm.edu>, elaine demartin <Edem...@aol.com>, Bahman Azarm <aza...@optonline.net>, Noel Thompson <noeldt...@gmail.com>, aig Noel Thompson <famt...@aol.com>, erik friedl <efr...@earthlink.net>, AIG Maria Brown <maria...@btinternet.com>, Duncan Maxwell <snakepo...@yahoo.co.uk>, JEREMY MCWILLIAM <cape...@btinternet.com>, aig Will sutherland <w...@qbeglobal.net>, Aiglon DR David Rhodes <hilarya...@gmail.com>

Erik shared these items with me.

I hope they spark you to write what you remember... 

copy to Steve Groves   sgro...@gmail.com

I have invited Steve to join the JC society because he demonstrated his understanding of JC's philosophy in a telephone call with me.

I encourage all members of the society to contact Steve to welcome him and to get a sense of the "early" JC that most of us only heard about.

Usually I would blind copy this memo to all members, but I want Steve Groves to have access to your email addresses... 

Steve Conger

Begin forwarded message:

From: Erik Friedl <efr...@earthlink.net>

Date: December 31, 2010 4:02:12 PM EST

To: Steve McCrea <miste...@comcast.net>

Subject: Erik Friedl: "Memories of JC" and "In Praise of High Places"

Dear Steve,

Per your request, I'm attaching two items I've written about JC and my Aiglon experience.  The latter was first printed in AIGLON LIFE (May 2000).

Enjoy and Happy New Year!

Erik

Erik Friedl

efr...@earthlink.net

Tel 818-848-6273

Memories of Conversations with JC

by Erik Friedl (69)

Several vivid memories of our school’s founder in action come effortlessly to mind.  First and foremost, there was the morning that JC dropped a virtual bombshell at Meditation circa 1967.  I still remember Chris Howson later saying, “Did you see Miss Trott’s jaw hit the ground!”  The body count was still mounting as students and teachers soundlessly made their way to first classes.  School management and staff had apparently been getting too large an earful of profanities as used in common everyday parlance by much of the student body (“It’s not school policy” Nigel Denham not infrequently intoned sotto voce from the back of the class in his lilting Yorkshire accent).  Nothing really too out of the ordinary, if memory serves, but someone had signaled the alarm and JC decided it was time to take action and clean out our mouths.

He had mounted the Meditation stage in Belvedere and after a few minutes of lulling some of us almost to sleep—others were more attentive to his gentle discourse on how language can be used as a tool for precise communication—he quite abruptly changed his tone and blurted out with the most careful enunciation a laundry list of words that should NOT be included in everyday communication—words that he no longer wanted to hear uttered in the environs of fair Chesières.  The F-word alone sounded so bizarre coming out of JC’s mouth.  We had all been ambushed by the gentle, quiet one and dealt a memorable, if momentary, shock to the system. 

Years later, when I had the privilege of being commissioned to make a new school film, JC had me up to his flat on the top floor of Alpina for drinks.  He reiterated that he wasn’t in favor of a fast, cutty editing style, especially when it came to the local scenery.  He wanted the viewer to be able to drink in and savor the school’s setting as if listening to a gentle Bach Cantata (in fact, I made good use of Bach’s Cantata No. 208, “Sheep May Safely Graze”, in the chamber music sequence with Miss Lowe on harpsichord).  JC also offered that he was now in the third and final phase of his life.  In the first third, he explained, he had been an architect.  The second phase had been all about education and starting his own school in the alps.  He was now essentially awaiting a sure signal—a direction pointing the way to what would be the third chapter of his professional life which he was sure would have something to do with parapsychology.  He was just keeping the channels clear and remaining accessible to the signs when they came.  I saw him again the following year in New York City when he and Miss Lowe kindly invited me to fly up from Texas (I was in my third year at Texas A&M) to attend the East Coast premiere of the new Aiglon film.  JC at the wheel of his cherished XJ12 was about to take Chesières hill yet again.

December 31, 2010

________________________________________________________

[Erik Friedl]

Hi Iain,

Mission accomplished and thanks for your help.  I did clean up the OCR version of "In Praise of High Places" and saved changes (which it seemed to do automatically).  

And yes, I do have a Google account ID.  The one thing, however, that I wasn't able to do was assign the newly reedited document "Private" status.  If you could please handle that from your end.

Points below well taken.  At the end of the day, it's all about communication and of course wishing to communicate (love the paraphrasing of Ian Richardson's classic refrain from "House of Cards"!).

Best,

Erik

[Iain Barraclough]

Hi Erik,
I have made the document "Private" for "Erik Friedl" <efr...@earthlink.net> able to edit. Try logging-in with that ID and see what happens. You may be obliged to use your Gmail ID (and to let me know what that ID is so that I can authorise it).

I am replying to the post from the Alumni group, not to your actual (separate) email to me.
D'you see how that works? I just hit the "Reply" button and I don't actually need to put anyone's name in the addressee list - all that is needed is the aiglon-colleg...@googlegroups.com
The group communication is automated such that it then:

• receives my emailed reply,
• matches it with any existing discussion topic that corresponds to the email Subject, 
  
• posts the reply to that discussion topic (i.e., the one that matches the email Subject), and
• sends the post out as an email to the group members. The members can choose how they want to receive those emailed posts - e.g., as individual posts as and when they occur, or as a summary at the end of (say) a week.

If you change the email topic, then your reply will be posted to a new topic matching whatever you changed the subject to.
The "good practice" rules are:

• Don't change the Subject, unless you want to deliberately change the group topic and set up a new topic.
  
• Avoid proliferation of topics - because it makes the discussion forum very confusing to have the same discussion thread continuing under more than one topic.
• Don't litter - in your replies, chop off the earlier portions of the thread that are not immediately relevant in the post you are replying to (because if you don't, then each discussion thread becomes interminably long with repetitive junk).
  

It couldn't be easier.
As you say, "...it's all about communication and of course wishing to communicate".
So, why...?
Oh, never mind. It's a rhetorical Q anyway.

Did you know that Ian Richardson said about that book:

In answer to the Q: What was the inspiration for Francis Urquhart? (Mark P., Wimbledon)
I had come to the conclusion in 1987 that Mrs. Thatcher wouldn't last forever as Prime Minister - indeed, Willie Whitelaw, her deputy, had said as much to me. In any event, it was clear that the next few years were going to be very turbulent years in politics, with skulduggery, treachery and thwarted ambition served up for breakfast. That became the background for House of Cards and the character of Francis Urquhart. I'm sad to say that the entire concept derives from his initials. FU.

Always made me smile, those initiials. Ian R is a clever writer and writes a suberb story. The associated TV proggies and sequels were compulsory viewing for me.

Regards,
       Iain.
______________________________________________________

[Erik Friedl]

Iain,

Brilliant!  Thanks for taking the document back to "Private" status--indeed, I was able to access it fine with my Gmail ID (the page indicated it was accessible by you, i.e. "Slarti...", and three more: me, Steve Conger and "Duckie").  Thanks again for setting it up and for the little clinic on how it all works.

Re Ian Richardson/Francis Urquhart (I can no longer separate the two personae!), fascinating to read how and why Michael Dobbs wrote the original book.  I too was the biggest fan of the series, not to forget "To Play the King" and "Final Cut", but "House of Cards" with the ill-fated, lovely Mattie Storin was probably the best.  Great modern-day Macbethian piece--also loved the music and the dramatic conceit of FU (or Sir Francis in polite circles) addressing camera directly, complete with devastating ironies and candour.

Again, Happy New Year and santé!

Erik

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[Erik Friedl]

Iain,

By "Gmail ID", I'm assuming that you mean you need my Gmail password in order to authorise?  If that's the case, I'll send it along.

Erik

On Jan 3, 2011, at 6:35 PM, Iain Barraclough wrote:

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[IainB6467]

Hi Erik,
No, by "Gmail ID", I meant something like "Erik....@gmail.com" - or whatever your Gmail email address happens to be.
Please do NOT send me your password to anything. You should never give passwords to anyone.
(By the way, this particular  reply to your previous post was made directly from the discussion forum in the Aiglon College alumni group).

When you wrote, "I was able to access it fine with my Gmail ID", could you access it to view it AND edit it? That would be curious.

Regards,
       Iain.
______________________________________________________

[Erik Friedl]

Hi Iain,

I didn't think you were really asking for my password--misinterpretation on my part!--when I was asking for clarification.  Your point on not divulging passwords well taken though.  I don't actually have a Gmail address but my Gmail ID or sign-in email address is "efr...@earthlink.net".

When I accessed and signed in to the OCR version of "In Praise of High Places", I was able to both view and edit.  However, I could only view--not edit--the other piece, "Memories of John Corlette", and I didn't have to sign in once I clicked on the link that you had sent (which is fine by me--it's a lock on that one and I don't need to re-edit).

Best,

Erik

  

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[Iain Barraclough]

Oh, now I understand. You call "efr...@earthlink.net" your Gmail ID or sign-in email address because you use it to sign into the Aiglon alumni Google group - is that it?

It's actually just your group sign-in ID, not a "Google" ID.

[Erik Friedl]

Yes, that sounds about right.  

By the way, I stumbled across Big Treadway's video again of our Aiglon Cultural Long Ex. to Dijon/Beaune many a moon ago and there's some excellent stuff in it.  Here's the link just in case you haven't seen it yet:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P5CZOyzAvE

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[Iain Barraclough]

Ah! Thanks Eric,
This is now decidedly off-topic, but:
Yes that YouTube vid - Aiglon Memories 1966 Part 5 - Dijon Expedition - is another great vid by Richard Treadway. He's very good isn't he? (Though maybe not quite in your league yet!)
In this one I even noticed some shots of you and also my smiling face in it - a still, about 0:22 mins in, and a movie bit at about 1:41 mins in, so I showed it to my family. It got a laugh or two - I don't have much hair now! I have very few photos of me before age 34 as they were all lost in a fire. Those few I do have now were sent to me by family/friends after the fire.

I especially enjoyed the close-ups of the "stars" in his Aiglon Memories 1966 Part 4 - The Summer-Expedition. It reminded me of how much I actually liked (had a sense of kinship with) many of my Aiglon schoolmates.

I saw Richard Trafford in one as well. I'd like to re-establish contact with him. I wonder what became of him? I think he might have been expelled for running away or something - was he one of the group who escaped on bicycles on their summer expedition and got as far as France? Enterprising lads. He was a very likeable guy. He had had some pretty horrific experiences as a child in Africa - he told me that his nanny was killed/shot by the mau-mau as she was walking along holding his hand one day. They didn't touch him though. His mother was a very nice lady - very kind to me when I was invited to visit their apartment (I think it was either in Geneva or Montreux). Probably because of his earlier life experiences, I think he had some difficulty in settling down in Aiglon, and it worried his mother (I recall that she told me something along those lines.)

Regards,
       Iain.
______________________________________________________

[Richard Treadway]

Hi Iain,

Thanks for the kind remarks regarding the Aiglon videos.  

For those who haven't seen the videos I created a Playlist called Aiglon Memories 1966  

The videos are based on 8mm movies I took at Aiglon in 1966.  So far I have created 5 episodes with plans to create a couple more.  All the music is by Aiglonites or their children. 

 Enjoy,

Cheers,

Richard

--

[Maria Brown]

Hello Richard,
Thank you so much for sharing these excellent videos. Great to see those
familiar huts and mountains. The expeditions obviously made a lasting impression
on me as I still go back to the mountains every summer for more hiking
and hut trips.
--
Best regards,
Maria mailto:maria...@btinternet.com
Aiglon '69-74

> Cheers,

> Richard

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