Cedd Moses operates some of the hippest bars in downtown L.A.

The gig: Founder and chief executive of the 213 Nightlife Group, which operates some of hippest cocktail lounges in downtown Los Angeles, including Seven Grand Whiskey Bar, the Golden Gopher and the Broadway Bar. The bars owned by Cedd Moses, 52, are typically converted from dilapidated empty buildings. They have contributed to the revitalization of the downtown area and helped promote an emerging craft cocktail culture in Los Angeles. "People thought I was crazy," Moses said. "I was making a good living at the time, but I left to go pour drinks on skid row."

Background: Moses was born in Bristol, Va., a town in the Blue Ridge Highlands of southwestern Virginia on the border with Tennessee. But he was raised in Venice during the burgeoning art scene of the 1960s, and most members of his family are artists. His father is the famous Abstract Expressionist painter Ed Moses, who taught him to be fearless in professional life. "I saw how successful my father was at doing something he loved," Moses said. "I wanted that in my career."

Investments: After graduating from UCLA with degrees in mechanical engineering and computer science, Moses worked as a money manager for Portfolio Advisory Services, a Los Angeles investment management company. Living in Venice in 1996, Moses and a friend from his high school grew tired of running to Hollywood to hit nightspots. "There were no decent bars on the Westside at that time," he said. "They were either complete dive bars or hotel bars that felt too snooty."

First step: Moses and his buddy decided to fix the problem themselves. With $25,000 each, they opened Liquid Kitty in West L.A. Moses refined the bar into what he liked: low-key lighting, robust underground music selection and martinis that nearly knock customers off their bar stools. "Even back then, I wanted a bar that's less trendy and more timeless," Moses said. It was an immediate hit.

The leap: The success of Liquid Kitty enabled Moses to open a lounge in Beverly Hills, a swanky martini spot called C-Bar. He was still working as a money manager but by then he had moved to Silver Lake and began to look eastward. "It felt like the Eastside was more of my home," Moses said. "I went downtown a lot and saw huge potential."

Major cities such as New York and Chicago have sprawling downtown neighborhoods flush with hip nightspots, but downtown Los Angeles was downtrodden and barren, he said. So in 1999, after the city approved the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, Moses set up 213 Nightlife Group with the intention of establishing 10 bars in the downtown area. "I wanted to create downtown as more of destination spot," he said, "Somewhere people could bar hop and go from one place to another."

The payoff: Moses quit his day job and dedicated himself to running his latest venture, the Golden Gopher, a former biker bar with a liquor license that was first issued in 1905. His formula proved true once again. The Golden Gopher has muted lighting, exposed brick and glossy black tile, giving it a gritty dive-bar feel. But the drinks are made from top-shelf liquor, drawing a clientele that can afford them.

Today about 200 people work at the 10 bars and two restaurants that comprise 213 Nightlife Group, which Moses owns with Mark Verge and Eric Needleman.

Word to the wise: "A good bar has to feel like it's been there a while. It has to feel like it's part of the fabric of the neighborhood," Moses said. "If you're gearing toward making something cool, you're probably going to fail."

With Cole's French dip restaurant, Moses took a place that had been housed since 1908 in the basement of the Pacific Electric building, once the nerve center of the Pacific Electric railway network. It had fallen on hard times, but Moses restored the original glass lighting, penny-tile floors and 40-foot mahogany bar to get the place back on its feet. "Seeing a place get restored is a great feeling," he said. "That was part of my vision when we first started."

Spare time: When he's not inside a bar or boardroom, Moses can be found playing squash or at the horse racing track. He's also on the board of directors of the Los Angeles Conservancy and chairman of the American Arts Documentary Foundation, a nonprofit organization that documents contemporary art

Next leap: Moses is taking one of his best-known downtown spots, Seven Grand Whiskey Bar, and expanding the brand. The bar, with its hunting-lodge decor and first-rate whiskey selection, has already opened a location in San Diego. Another one is expected to open at Los Angeles International Airport sometime next year.

"You can't be afraid to take risks," Moses said. "In business in general, you must follow your passion. You'll have a better chance of being successful."

william.hennigan@latimes.com

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Fiscal standoff leaves U.S. payrolls in doubt

WASHINGTON — If the nation goes over the "fiscal cliff," some Americans will wake up Tuesday with financial headaches to rival a New Year's Eve hangover.

More than 2 million long-term jobless would receive their final unemployment benefit check within days. Millions of taxpayers would be unable to file their returns early, resulting in delayed refunds. Taxes would rise immediately on workers across the board. And although some of those increases may eventually be reversed, the first paychecks of the year would be smaller until any legislative fixes kick in.

Even if the crisis is resolved quickly after the new year as pressure mounts on President Obama and lawmakers, it poses a short-term administrative nightmare for businesses. And it would be a financial blow to millions of people struggling to make ends meet in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

"As a working-class person, I would miss any money taken out of my paycheck," said Stephanie Smith, an office administrator in Sacramento. "I just feel that we're already paying high taxes, and it feels like we're still in a recession. Everybody wants to take money out of our paychecks, but nobody wants to put more in."

As the White House and Congress try to avoid the large tax increases and federal spending cuts coming next week, taxpayers, businesses and even the Internal Revenue Service are scrambling to figure out the effects if an agreement is not reached.

The fiscal pain could be averted by a last-minute deal. And even if there is none by Tuesday, Washington policymakers could retroactively reduce tax rates if they ultimately make a deal. But the uncertainty and short-term loss of income could damage an already fragile economy.

Some effects:

Income taxes: Rates would rise on everyone as the George W. Bush-era tax cuts expire. Middle-income households would get hit hard, paying about $1,500 more a year in taxes.

Payroll taxes: Rates would increase by 2 percentage points with the lapse of a temporary, two-year tax cut designed to boost the economy. Workers making $50,000 annually would take home about $40 less every two weeks.

Long-term unemployment benefits: Checks would abruptly end for people receiving extra federal aid — as much as 47 additional weeks of benefits in states such as California. State benefits of up to 26 weeks would still be available, but workers would be out of luck once those run out.

Alternative minimum tax: The number of people facing the provision would skyrocket to about 33 million next year from 4 million this year. The tax, enacted in 1969, was designed to make sure the very wealthy paid some income tax. But it was not indexed to inflation and needs to be fixed each year to avoid ensnaring middle-income households.

Although Congress at some point is expected to spare most of those people from that tax, delays in doing so mean that as many as 100 million people might not be able to file their returns until the end of March or later, according to the IRS. Delays would come as the IRS has to reprogram its system, as well as for taxpayers who would have to do special calculations to determine whether they owe money because of the tax.

Business already are struggling to adjust. They've got to figure out how much in federal taxes to withhold from employee paychecks starting next week. But as of Thursday, the IRS still had not told employers what the 2013 withholding levels would be.

That limbo is particularly vexing for small firms as Golden State Magnetic & Penetrant. The Los Angeles company inspects, cleans and paints aircraft and aerospace components. The firm's president, Joanne Weinoe, does the payroll for herself and her 12 employees. At present, she doesn't know what the withholding should be for the next set of checks she cuts.

"I'm going to tear my hair out of my head and shoot myself," Weinoe joked, adding she'll wait until the morning of Jan. 4, her next payday, before she makes any changes.

"If I have to adjust them, it'll be additional work for me," she said. "Every time they change something, it becomes more work for employers."

The IRS said it continued "to closely monitor the situation" and would "issue guidance by the end of the year."

Workers might not see the new income tax rates immediately reflected in their paychecks. The American Payroll Assn. is advising its members to continue to use 2012 withholding tables until they hear differently from the IRS.

The payroll service Payality Inc., with headquarters in Fresno County, is urging its 700 clients with 25,000 employees throughout the state to hold off on issuing paychecks and making direct deposits for January as long as they can in hopes that lawmakers and the Obama administration will strike a deal.

"We should have some direction by Dec. 31," company President Chet Reilly said. "Then we'll have to scramble as fast as we can."

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Apple loses another copyright lawsuit in China: Xinhua

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – A Chinese court has fined Apple Inc 1 million yuan ($ 160,400) for hosting third-party applications on its App Store that were selling pirated electronic books, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

Apple is to pay compensation to eight Chinese writers and two companies for violating their copyrights, the Beijing No.2 Intermediate People’s Court ruled on Thursday, Xinhua said.

Earlier in the year, a group of Chinese authors filed the suit against Apple, saying an unidentified number of apps on its App Store sold unlicensed copies of their books. The group of eight authors was seeking 10 million yuan in damages.

“We are disappointed at the judgment. Some of our best-selling authors only got 7,000 yuan. The judgment is a signal of encouraging piracy,” Bei Zhicheng, a spokesman for the group, told Reuters.

Apple said in a statement that it takes copyright infringement complaints “very seriously”.

“We’re always updating our service to better assist content owners in protecting their rights,” Apple spokeswoman Carolyn Wu said.

China has the world’s largest Internet and mobile market by number of users, but piracy costs software companies billions of dollars each year.

Apple, whose products enjoy great popularity in China, has faced a string of legal headaches this year. In July, Apple paid 60 million yuan to a Chinese firm, Proview Technology, to settle a long-running lawsuit over the iPad trademark in China.

($ 1 = 6.2360 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Shanghai Newsroom and Melanie Lee; Editing by Kazunori Takada and Matt Driskill)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Katie Holmes' Broadway play 'Dead Accounts' closes

NEW YORK (AP) — Katie Holmes' return to Broadway will be much shorter than she would have liked.

The former Mrs. Cruise's play "Dead Accounts" will close within a week of the new year. Producers said Thursday that Theresa Rebeck's drama will close on Jan. 6 after 27 previews and 44 performances.

The show, which opened to poor reviews on Nov. 29, stars Norbert Leo Butz as Holmes' onstage brother who returns to his Midwest home with a secret. Rebeck created the first season of NBC's "Smash" and several well-received plays including "Seminar" and "Mauritius."

Holmes, who became a star in the teen soap opera "Dawson's Creek," made her Broadway debut in the 2008 production of "All My Sons." She was married to Tom Cruise from 2006 until this year.

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Online: http://www.deadaccountsonbroadway.com

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The New Old Age Blog: United States Lags in Alzheimer's Support

This month, the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging released a report examining how five nations — the United States, Australia, France, Japan and Britain — are responding to growing numbers of older adults with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Every country has a strategy, but some are much further ahead than others. Notably, France began addressing Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in 2001 and is in the midst of carrying out its third national plan. (Scroll down at this link to find the English version of the 2008-2012 French plan.)

By contrast, the United States released its first national plan to address Alzheimer’s in May.

The Senate report highlights several trends under way in all five countries, including efforts to coordinate research more effectively, diagnose Alzheimer’s disease more reliably and improve training in dementia care by medical practitioners.

Most relevant to readers of this blog is another trend with increasing international scope: an accelerating effort to keep patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia at home and arrange for care and treatment there, rather than in institutions.

Anyone who’s followed reader response to Jane Brody’s column this week on aging in place knows the burden that this can place on families, especially if government support for home-based services (companions or home health aides who help with bathing, dressing, toileting and other tasks), adult day care or respite care is scarce or nonexistent, as is the case for most middle-class families in the United States.

Is care at home for patients with Alzheimer’s necessarily more humane? Only if caregivers have the resources — financial, physical and emotional — to handle this draining, exhausting, immeasurably difficult job. And only if the institutions that serve people with more advanced forms of Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia are so poorly financed, staffed and operated that we wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving loved ones in their care.

Three charts in the new Senate report underscore the extent to which the United States differs from other countries in what is expected of family caregivers. The first, on Page 60, shows countries’ support for paid long-term care services for residents age 65 and older. This includes all residents who need long-term care, including those with Alzheimer’s disease, other forms of dementia and other disabling chronic illnesses. Not included are services provided by unpaid family caregivers.

Look at where the United States ranks compared with Australia, Japan, France and the 30 other developed countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Paid support for long-term care is much less in our country than in theirs.

The second chart, on Page 64, gives a sense of how much paid support for long-term care is provided in people’s homes. Again, the data is not specific to Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, although these are primary reasons older adults need long-term care.

And again, the United States falls short in terms of the amount of paid care it provides in home settings, even though older people tend to prefer these settings over institutions.

The third chart, on Page 75, brings results in the other two down to the level of families. When paid long-term care support is scarce or unavailable, you would expect a heavier load to fall on unpaid caregivers, and this is what the chart shows. Look at the number of caregivers in the United States who put in 10 to 19 hours a week (34.2 percent) or 20 hours or more a week (30.5 percent), and compare those with similar figures for France, Australia and Britain, all of which provide more paid long-term care than we do. Where are informal caregivers working the hardest? Right here at home in the United States.

For me, the take-away is clear. Other countries with which the United States is closely aligned have embraced long-term care as an essential social responsibility while we have not. Unless and until we do so, caregivers here will be among the most harried, stressed and burdened among wealthy, developed countries in the world.

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China becoming mighty oak of world's paper industry

JIN JILING, China — In silent, temperature-controlled labs in a desolate part of Hainan, China's most tropical province, rows of women in medical masks and lab coats clone trees that grow freakishly fast.

The trees have official names, such as APP-22 or DH32-29, but Wending Huang, Asia Pulp & Paper Co.'s chief forester in China, calls them his "Yao Mings" after the towering Chinese basketball star. The tiny green tissue samples, methodically implanted in petri jars, will become hardwood eucalyptus trees that need only four to six years to reach full height, up to 90 feet or more.

The test-tube forests have helped undo the long-standing natural advantage of papermaking states such as Wisconsin, where hardwood trees are plentiful but can take up to 10 times as long to reach harvesting height.

What's more, boosted by billions in government subsidies, China has been building massive new mills with automated machines that can produce a mile of glossy publishing-grade paper a minute.

Over the course of the last decade, China tripled its paper production and in 2009 overtook the United States as the world's biggest papermaker. It can now match the annual output of Wisconsin, America's top papermaking state, in the span of three weeks.

China also created the world's biggest and most efficient paper recycling scheme. It now buys about 27 million tons of scrap paper and used cardboard from around the world each year, then de-inks and re-pulps it for about two-thirds of its own paper and cardboard production.

But that is still not enough — for China's needs or its ambition.

China imports the vast majority of virgin timber and processed pulp from around the world — 14.5 million tons last year from places like Russia, Indonesia and Vietnam. That has earned the ire of environmental groups, which say China's insatiable appetite for wood pulp is destroying the world's forests. It has drawn the fire of politicians who accuse China of unfairly subsidizing its mills and dumping paper on the U.S. market, putting domestic operations out of business and an entire industry at risk.

With 20 modern mega-mills spread across China, Indonesia-based Asia Pulp & Paper is at the center of the accusations.

It is an unusual place to find a guy from Wisconsin.

Jeff Lindsay, 52, is a 20-year veteran of that state's paper industry who was recruited by Asia Pulp & Paper in 2011 to run its growing portfolio of patents.

He holds a doctorate in chemical engineering, was on the faculty of the now-defunct Institute of Paper Chemistry in Appleton, Wis., and later joined Kimberly-Clark Corp., which gave the world Kleenex. He holds 130 patents and co-authored a 2009 book, "Conquering Innovation Fatigue," which took aim at barriers to U.S. innovation.

He noted that paper was invented in China (AD 105) and remains a potent national symbol. It is taught in Chinese classrooms as one of the four "great inventions," along with the compass (200 BC), gunpowder (AD 850) and printing presses with movable type (1313).

"These inventions came from China," Lindsay said. "When people go pointing their finger at the Chinese paper industry or saying we shouldn't be buying paper from China — paper came from China."

The West, he says, is in denial about the competitive edge offered by Chinese science, engineering and ingenuity. "You have to innovate to survive in this world," he said.

A heavy infusion of government money helped fund innovation. The Washington-based Economic Policy Institute estimates that the Chinese government doled out at least $33 billion in subsidies to its paper industry from 2002 to 2009 — the period that coincides with its stunning growth.

Schmid writes for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Emily Yount contributed to this report.

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A risky return to the U.S.

The barrilero never stops moving.

All day he wheels cardboard barrels stuffed with used clothing through the narrow aisles of the warehouse. He dumps the apparel atop tables for sorters, who separate nylons from cottons, satins from silks, denims from plaids. If a sorter is standing around with no garments, it's the barrilero's fault. Supervisors hover nearby.

Tons of old clothing come in every week, and tons go back out, to India and Pakistan, where it's sold at outdoor markets.

The factory hired the barrilero in September, a few weeks after the now-21-year-old showed up at the manager's door looking for work. Right away, the manager had recognized him as Anthony, that cute kid who walked his factory floor selling Helen Grace chocolates to workers years ago.

Anthony didn't say much about where he'd been, or what he'd been doing since. He was polite, upbeat, and his knock on the door still had the soft touch of a child. But his hair was falling out, and there was something unfamiliar in his eyes.

"He seemed sadder," the manager said, "like he wanted to say something but didn't know how."

There were many things the barrilero would keep to himself. First among them: His name wasn't Anthony.

::

Luis Luna returned to his hometown of South Gate in May. His arms and legs were scraped raw from cactus needles and his eyes kept blinking, still starved of moisture from his eight-day journey through the Arizona desert the week before.

His friend, Julio Cortez, said it was hard to believe that this gaunt young man with patches of missing hair was the same person he knew at Southeast Middle School.

"I was in shock to see him back and see all he had gone through," Cortez said. "It made me sad and angry."

Cortez, a 22-year-old Cal State Long Beach student, took Luis to buy some clothes. Another former classmate gave Luis a cellphone. Luis slept on couches and in spare bedrooms and spent his days passing out resumes filled with the jobs of his teen years: flipping burgers, waiting tables at I-Hop. He fudged the dates to account for the 15 months he spent in Mexico after he was deported for being in the country illegally.

Luis had been pulled over three years ago for a broken headlight in Pasco, Wash., where he and his mother lived. He was cited for driving without a license, jailed and ordered out of the country in February 2011.

He had a wife back in Washington, but she had left him, in part because of the long separation. Luis decided to build a new life in Southern California, where he had grown up and where he still had friends

Weeks after arriving, he was still jobless and borrowing money to eat when he decided his future might lie in his past. He started retracing the route he took as a boy selling chocolates at warehouses and factories. The assembly line workers, truck drivers and managers knew him as Anthony, the name his mother told him to use to hide his identity.

They could vouch for his strong work ethic — that he'd been working for a living since he was 5 years old.

He eventually found the barrilero job, and a place to live. A swap meet vendor who picked through the bins of cast-offs looking for vintage garments told Luis he had extra space at his house.

Luis goes home to a converted two-car garage with no address in a middle-class neighborhood with trim lawns and streets lined with late-model cars. Much of his clothing is stuffed in a battered dark green suitcase that sits at the foot of his bed. The only other furniture is a mini refrigerator and two lawn chairs.

In some ways, he's a typical youngster with edgy tastes. He has a sleeve tattoo, wears skinny jeans and earrings, and is part of a deejay crew that plays at house parties. He cheers his beloved Los Angeles Lakers and hangs out in hookah bars, and is constantly texting flirty messages.

But his future is dimmer than most. Many of his friends are planning for life after college. Some are applying for work permits and temporary reprieves from deportation, taking advantage of an Obama administration program, announced in June, to help young people who were brought into the country as children.

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Temple Run was downloaded more than 2.5 million times on Christmas Day

Title Post: Temple Run was downloaded more than 2.5 million times on Christmas Day
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DC police investigating 'Meet the Press' incident

WASHINGTON (AP) — District of Columbia police say they are investigating an incident in which NBC News reporter David Gregory displayed what he described as a high-capacity ammunition magazine on "Meet the Press."

Police spokesman Tisha Gant said Wednesday the department is investigating whether Gregory may have violated D.C. firearms laws that ban the possession of high-capacity magazines. She declined to comment further.

While interviewing National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre on Sunday's program, Gregory held an object, apparently as a prop to make a point, and said it was a magazine that could hold 30 rounds.

High-capacity ammunition magazines are banned in the District of Columbia, regardless of whether they're attached to a firearm. "Meet the Press" is generally taped in Washington.

An email seeking comment from NBC was not immediately returned.

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Creating the Ultimate Housework Workout

Robert Wright for The New York Times

Chris Ely, an English butler, and Carol Johnson, a fitness instructor at Crunch NYC, perfecting a houseworkout.

CAN housework help you live longer? A New York Times blog post by Gretchen Reynolds last month cited research linking vigorous activity, including housework, and longevity. The study, which tracked the death rates of British civil servants, was the latest in a flurry of scientific reports crediting domestic chores with health benefits like a lowered risk for breast and colon cancers. In one piquant study published in 2009, researchers found that couples who spent more hours on housework had sex more frequently (with each other) though presumably not while vacuuming. (The report did not specify.)

Intrigued by science that merged the efforts of a Martha with the results of an Arnold (a buffer buffer?), this reporter challenged a household expert and a fitness authority to create the ultimate housework workout — a houseworkout — in her East Village apartment. Perhaps she could add a few years to her own life while learning some fancy new moves for her Swiffer. Christopher Ely, once a footman at Buckingham Palace, and Brooke Astor’s longtime butler, was appointed cleaner-in-chief. Mr. Ely is a man who approaches what the professionals call household management with the range and depth of an Oxford don. Although he is working on his memoirs (he described his book as a room-by-room primer with anecdotes from his years in service), he was happy enough to put his writing aside for an afternoon. His collaborator was Carol Johnson, a dancer and fitness instructor who develops classes at Crunch NYC, including those based on Broadway musicals like “Legally Blonde” and “Rock of Ages.”

Mr. Ely arrived first, beautifully dressed in dark gray wool pants, a black suit coat and a crisp white shirt with silver cuff links. He cleans house in a white shirt? “I know how to clean it,” he countered, meaning the shirt. When Ms. Johnson appeared (in black spandex and a ruffly white chiffon blouse, which she switched out for a Crunch T-shirt), theory, method and materials were discussed.

“If you’re dreading the laundry,” Ms. Johnson said, “why not create a space where it’s actually fun to do by putting on some music?” If fitness is defined by cardio health, she added, it will be a challenge to create housework that leaves you slightly out of breath. “I’m thinking interval training,” she said. As it happens, one trend in exercise has been workouts that are inspired by real-world chores, or what Rob Morea, a high-end Manhattan trainer, described the other day as “mimicking hard labor activities.” In his NoHo studio, Mr. Morea has clients simulate the actions of construction workers hefting cement bags over their shoulders (Mr. Morea uses sand bags) or pushing a wheelbarrow or chopping wood.

Mr. Ely averred that service — extreme housekeeping — is physically demanding, with sore feet and bad knees the least of its debilitating byproducts. Mr. Ely still suffers from an injury he incurred while carrying a poodle to its mistress over icy front steps in Washington When the inevitable occurred, and Mr. Ely wiped out, he threw the dog to his employer before falling hard on his backside. And the right equipment matters: After two weeks’ employ in an Upper East Side penthouse, he was handed a pair of Reeboks by his new boss, the better to withstand the apartment’s wall-to-wall granite floors. (For cleaning, Mr. Ely wears slippers, deck shoes or socks.)

Mr. Ely, whose talents and expertise are wide-ranging (he can stock a wine cellar, do the flowers, set a silver service, iron like a maestro and clean gutters, as he did once or twice at Holly Hill, Mrs. Astor’s Westchester estate), is a minimalist when it comes to materials. He favors any simple dish detergent as a multipurpose cleaner, along with a little vinegar, for glass, and not much else. “Dish detergent is designed for cutting grease; there’s nothing better,” he said. He’s anti-ammonia, anti-bleach. He said bleach destroys fabric, particularly anything with elastic in it. “Knickers and bleach are a terrible combination,” he said. “I had a boss who thought he had skin cancer. His entire trunk had turned red and itchy.” It seems his underpants were being washed in bleach. (Collective wince.) “It’s horrible stuff.”

As for tools, he likes a cobweb cleaner — this reporter had bought Oxo’s extendable duster, which has a fluffy orange cotton duster that snaps onto a sort of wand, but Mr. Ely prefers the kind that looks like a round chimney brush. (If you live in a house, he also suggests leaving the cobwebs by the front and back doors, so the spiders can eat any mosquitoes coming or going.) Choose a mop with microfiber fronds (he suggested the O Cedar brand) because it dries quickly and doesn’t smell. And a sturdy vacuum. Also, stacks of microfiber cloths or a terry cloth towel ripped up.

But first, to stretch. Ms. Johnson took hold of this reporter’s Bona floor mop (it’s like a Swiffer, but with a reusable washcloth) and Mr. Ely followed along with an old-fashioned string mop. Though Mr. Ely has a kind of loose-limbed elegance, he is not exactly limber. He grimaced as he parroted Ms. Johnson, who used her mop as Gene Kelly did his umbrella, stretching her arms overhead, one by one, twisting from side to side, sucking in her stomach, rising up on tip toes. (Mr. Ely said his old poodle-hurling injury was kicking in.) Ms. Johnson adjusted his chin — “You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep sticking your neck out,” she warned — and Mr. Ely raised a black-socked foot napped with cat hair and chastised this reporter: “Would you look at that?” (The cat had vanished early on, but his “debris,” as Mr. Ely put it, was still very much in evidence. The reporter hung her head. Did she know that cat spit is toxic? Mr. Ely wondered.)

“We’re warming up the spine,” said Ms. Johnson. “Squeeze your abdominals.”

Mr. Ely looked worried: “I don’t think I have abdominals!”

MR. ELY’S technique is to clean a room from top to bottom. That means he begins with the cobweb cleaner, wafting it along ceiling corners, moldings, soffits and, uh, the top of the fridge (major dust harvest there). His form was pretty, like a serve by Roger Federer, if not exactly aerobic. For Mr. Ely kept stopping to lecture this reporter — on condensation; on the basic principles of heat transfer and why one needs to vacuum the refrigerator coils; on the movement of moist air in a kitchen; on floor care, which involved a long story about a Belgian monastery whose inhabitants never washed the kitchen floor; on how to dust the halogen spot lights (use a cotton cloth, not a microfiber one, and make sure the lights are off, and cool).  “I do rabbit on, don’t I?” he said. Ms. Johnson gamely hustled him along, noting that anytime you raise your arms over your head you can raise your heart rate. “What about a balance exercise?” she cajoled, executing a neat series of leg lifts. “That’s good for the butler’s booty!”

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