- posted by cjb @ 4:59 PM

 
Dollar days, survival sex
Honor sketching tails to necks
I'm falling down
It's nothing to me
It's nothing to see
If I'll never see the English evergreens I'm running to
It's nothing to me
It's nothing to see
- posted by cjb @ 9:55 AM

 

- posted by cjb @ 8:52 AM

 
Heat-Loving Microbes, Once Dormant, Thrive Over Decades-Old Fire
- posted by cjb @ 8:48 AM

 

- posted by cjb @ 8:42 AM

 

"This idea, that two contradictory realities can coexist, helped Chazelle prepare for the challenge of tackling a musical. 'It’s an idea that speaks to what movies can do, which is that emotion can override everything,' he said. 'You can draw a straight line from that idea to every musical ever made. If you feel enough, you suddenly have a 90-piece orchestra emerge from the heavens and accompany you in song, which is so ridiculous and absurd and yet feels so right sometimes, at least to me.'"
- posted by cjb @ 8:26 AM

 

- posted by cjb @ 8:38 AM

 

Arlington

"In 1902, the businessman John Durand purchased the site. From then to 1964, the property was home to the renowned Durand Mansion. The mansion was purchased and demolished by Caltrans in 1964. Caltrans used the lot to store heavy equipment during construction of the Long Beach Freeway (I-710) expansion. The three-acre lot remained vacant since 1967. In 2003, Caltrans leased the lot to the City of Pasadena for city purposes.

The garden is now maintained and supported by the nonprofit group Arlington Garden with help from local residents and volunteers, the Pasadena Beautiful Foundation, the Pasadena Public Works Department and Pasadena Water and Power."
- posted by cjb @ 8:26 AM

 
"We are looking at what we see, which no description gave us, which never existed.  What we see is new and if we mean to see it we must look at it as something new.  What we see is not what is there, though surely something is there and we seem to see it."

(William Bronk)
- posted by cjb @ 8:14 AM

 
I never done good things (I never done good things)
I never done bad things (I never done bad things)
I never did anything out of the blue
- posted by cjb @ 8:11 AM

 
Boiling Water at Hot Creek—The Dangerous and Dynamic Thermal Springs in California’s Long Valley Caldera
- posted by cjb @ 9:53 PM

 

"By 1938 he had achieved his 'goal,' having dug through nearly 2,500 feet (760 m) of solid granite using only a pick, a shovel, and a four-pound hammer for the initial section, and carefully placed dynamite with notoriously short fuses for the majority portion. It was estimated that he had moved 5,800 tons (5,260 metric tonnes) of rock to complete his work.

Schmidt never used the tunnel to move his mine's ore. Instead, he sold the tunnel to another miner and moved away."
- posted by cjb @ 9:45 PM

 

"With his eyes still closed, he depressed a plunger, initiating the exposure, a minute and thirty seconds long.

A man in olive-green work pants and a matching shirt approached with a clipboard. 'Ranch security,' he said briskly. 'Sir, I need you to pack it up and leave immediately.'

'Could I have one minute?'

'No, you need to leave now.'

“I’m really sorry. You couldn’t give me a minute?”

'You’re not supposed to be here,' the guard said. 'It’s posted. You don’t even have permission to be on the property photographing.'

Cooper began to wheedle, stalling. 'I didn’t mean to bother anybody,' he said. 'Come look at what I’m looking at. Come look—look, look, look, look. Give me one minute. Have a look.'

The guard was steadfast, miffed. 'It doesn’t matter whether you’re photographing for the Blue Room or the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House,' he said. 'You need to respect private-property rights. There’s rules.' Cooper didn’t move. 'You know, I’m about to lose it, sir,' the guard said. 'I’m going to call the sheriffs and you’re going to get a twelve-hundred-dollar fine.'

Cooper waited a moment longer, as the exposure finished, and then said, 'Thank you very much! Would you like to look? It’s not much, but it might make you smile.' The guard remained unsmiling. 'I’m not trying to be silly,' Cooper said. 'We’re from Scotland.'

'You’re Scottish?' the guard said, almost under his breath. 'So am I.' Cooper apologized again; the guard apologized for doing his job. Then he asked about the camera. He, too, was an 'analog redneck,' he said. He offered to carry the camera back to the car."
- posted by cjb @ 10:45 AM

 

Anything human is mentionable, and anything mentionable is manageable

"'It’s so hard, isn’t it?' he said. 'I think there are many people who bring a whole lot of baggage from their past and a whole lot of anxiety about the future to the present moment. What’s so great is that people can be in relationship with each other for the now.'

'Yeah,' I said.

'If we can somehow rid ourselves of illusions,' he said. 'The illusion that we are greater or lesser than we are. The illusion that we’re going to save the world. There are a lot of illusions that people walk around with. I would love to be able to be present in every moment I have.'"

[....]

"I could have walked into some positions that were already set. I could have walked into an office that was already furnished for me. But I would much rather have done what I have done."

[....]

"[F]everishly creating bridges and bridges and bridges--"
- posted by cjb @ 8:35 AM

 
"The plaintiff's stoicism (a factor that should not, generally speaking, penalize the plaintiff--)"

(Giang v. Clayton, [2005] B.C.J. No. 163 (QL), 2005 BCCA 54)
- posted by cjb @ 3:00 PM

 
"I think there are many wrong things about looking at Job as a problem, even though that is the view of Job himself and of the four people who are talking with him."

(Northrop Frye)
- posted by cjb @ 2:13 PM

 

- posted by cjb @ 1:14 PM

 
the garrulousness of
the constantly combusting
natural world

(John Latta, still)
- posted by cjb @ 11:44 AM

 

- posted by cjb @ 8:32 AM

 

- posted by cjb @ 8:24 AM

 

"A lot of my pictures are reconstructed from something I've seen--"
- posted by cjb @ 8:10 AM

 

- posted by cjb @ 9:59 PM

 

"I want sloppy, beautiful, devastating art. I want experiences through art that are troubling and terrifying and joyful. I want to be desperate to catch up.

The object of my affection may not be the same as yours, and in fact I hope it isn’t. I want to die with my head on its shoulder."

(Tom Spurgeon, April 2019)

Dear Tom,

Thanks for believing in me at a point in my life when I had great difficulty believing in myself.

Your kindness, unconditional friendship, & editorial rigor stopped me making a bunch of bad, sad, short sighted self-destructive decisions.

& now I learn you did this for pretty much everyone, that this level of empathy, of caring, was just part of the standard model your God equipped you with.

I know you know this -- because I said thanks at the time -- but that thanks was somehow incomplete, so I'm saying it again, out loud.

I wish I could have met you in Silver City.  My subject, which neither you nor I intuited at the time, turns out to be the American West.  I hope to get there again under somewhat less stressful circumstances with my tools, and if I see something there I might bother you one last time by attaching your name to a picture, instead of that essay you were always politely badgering me to write.

Much love,

Christopher Brayshaw, "long-time friend of the Journal"
- posted by cjb @ 8:17 PM

 
"STANDARD shipping means FIRST CLASS, NOT media mail! Again, that is a miser's category for CHEAPSKATES who don't care about their customers! WHo IN THEIR RIGHT MIND SENDS a 100 Yr old book via CARELESS MEDIA MAIL!??? Now my book that was in Los Angeles at 4:00am somehow found its way to NORTH CAROLINA! And YES there is SOMETHING UNETHICAL about NOT sending me my book which I paid enough for PRIORITY (HELLO I paid a total of 37.08 for a book that cost $30 and PRIORITY MAIL COSTS $4.50! Was it worth it to be a money-grubbing seller and ENRAGE your buyer by sending their RARE 100 YR OLD book to a flipping hell ride across country just so money-grubbing you could make a couple dollars OFF shipping??? THAT is unethical?? Now instead of a satisfied, repeat buyer buying again from you have a VERY IRATE customer who will rate you accordingly!Again STANDARD IS FIRST CLASS! With all the emails you sent me you couldn't have the DECENCY to TELL YOUR BUYER that you were shipping it by PONY EXPRESS? Heck I'd have had it 6 days ago if you'd sent it via pony! IT's CALLED CUSTOMER SERVICE LOOK IT UP SOME TIME! What the hell are you, some kind of uneducated millennial?? COMMUNICATION MY DEAR! That's what CUSTOMER SERVICE IS ABOUT! If you don't get that then go flip burgers where you belong and not handling rare books! What kind of moron would NOT tell their buyer who told them they needed the book right away that they were shipping it freaking MEDIA MAIL??? UGH! People like you aren't fit to own such a type of business, REALLY! You deserve to be treated the same way the next time you have a deadline and need something right away! And I hope you get ripped off the same way you ripped me off my shipping costs, only magnified a thousandfold! It's not about the money veronica it's about EFFICIENCY! I PAID MORE THAN ENOUGH TO GET IT TO MY DOORSTEP IN TWO DAYS! And on top of that you charged me tax??? HELLO IS YOUR STORE IN CALIFORNIA?? UGH! Yeah I overpaid $8! At this point YOU should absorb all shipping costs! That way you'd never repeat the same with another customer! YOU BET I"M ANGRY!"
- posted by cjb @ 4:04 PM

 

Documenting Austurengjahver before it’s too late

"It was interesting to see all the light changes in the steam from the moment the Sun started to cast its first glimpse on it and then the whole area. Sometimes it looked like the steam reflected a little light beams on the soil here and there just to say 'good morning my friend – welcome.'  It’s incredible to see how wide the color spectrum is. On this day the sun does not reach the Geyser area itself, it will be later in January.

I stayed there documenting Austurengjahver for almost five hours and the sun was starting to go down again when I reached the car.

It is vital to document this location as the Government has allowed the Geothermal Power plant company HS Orka to drill in this area and then they will destroy one of our most beautiful place on the Reykjanes Peninsula. The disruptions that would accompany the power project under consideration in the Austurengjar area would have an impact on the entire site and transform the appearance of Lake Kleifarvatn. The construction of a 50 MW electric power station is planned in the area. If plans for the 50 MW Austurengjar Power Plant are realized, a total of 10 to 15 boreholes would need to be drilled. We are trying our best to stop this action but it looks like we will not be able to do so (Money talks) . The strive will continue and we will use all the power we have to do so."
- posted by cjb @ 12:27 PM

 

Study for Broken Flowers, 2019
- posted by cjb @ 9:02 PM

 

They got the Steely Dan t-shirts.

(HT Connor K.)
- posted by cjb @ 3:56 PM

 
"The fat red dog that barks on the balcony."
- posted by cjb @ 1:00 AM

 

- posted by cjb @ 11:39 AM

 
"Thrasymachus bursts violently into the discussion.  He is angry because Socrates and Polemarchus had been engaged in a dialogue.  He sees this as a form of weakness.  The participants in a dialogue obey certain rules which, like laws, govern their association; they seek a common agreement instead of trying to win a victory.  The very art of dialectic seems to impose a kind of justice on those who practice it, whereas rhetoric, the art of making long speeches without being questioned -- Thrasymachus' art -- is adapted to self-aggrandizement.  Thrasymachus sees dialectic as an opponent of rhetoric and wishes to show his audience the superiority of rhetoric."

(Allan Bloom)
- posted by cjb @ 9:22 AM

 
"[A] reconciliation, or perhaps comprehension, in the full sense of the word, of the various dualities or paradoxes in her life: joy and rage, vastness and containment, chaos and order, the furious intimacy of her closest personal relationships and the happiness of her relationship to nature; her place, within her chosen French landscape, in an American tradition 'of a somber, nature-bound aloneness'; the urban versus the natural elements of her landscapes; her resilience in the face of severe physical disability and her 'inordinate fear of death'; the intense physical invitations of her canvases and her gestures of brutal, self-protective rejection in personal encounters, even with relative strangers--"

(Lydia Davis)
- posted by cjb @ 9:13 AM

 
"Yesterday one of those days not worth mentioning.  Sold only one book, and that a low priced mass market paperback by Joyce Carol Oates.  She is one of my favorite writers, but doesn't sell well.  Had had that copy for years, and still have a back-up copy, which, when I pull it from boxes of duplicates, I'll price much higher.

Today though, to quote Monty Python, has so far -- 3 PM -- been something completely different.  Five books sold."
- posted by cjb @ 9:07 AM

 
"I kept smelling a smell of cat pee but could not find where it was coming from, until I found the cat pee -- on the tip of my very own nose." 

(Lydia Davis)
- posted by cjb @ 8:57 AM

 
"As time goes on, I get more and more convinced that the right method in investment is to put fairly large sums into enterprises which one thinks one knows something about and in the management of which one thoroughly believes. It is a mistake to think that one limits one’s risk by spreading too much between enterprises about which one knows little and has no reason for special confidence… One’s knowledge and experience are definitely limited and there are seldom more than two or three enterprises at any given time in which I personally feel myself entitled to put full confidence." 

(J.M. Keynes)
- posted by cjb @ 2:51 PM

 

- posted by cjb @ 11:42 PM

 
"A Great Park Devoid Of Misshapen Monuments And Other Signs Of Earthly Death, But Filled With Towering Trees, Sweeping Lawns, Splashing Fountains, Beautiful Statuary, Cheerful Flowers, Noble Memorial Architecture With Interiors Full Of Light And Color, And Redolent Of The World’s Best History And Romances."
- posted by cjb @ 11:09 PM

 

Waffle, Eric Owen Moss, 2007-16, 2019
- posted by cjb @ 10:57 PM

 

- posted by cjb @ 8:48 PM

 

- posted by cjb @ 8:28 PM

 
"[Mitchell] was looking for a word that meant 'running away with honor.' She found the word hejira while reading the dictionary, and was 'drawn to the dangling j, like in Aja... it's leaving the dream, no blame.'"
- posted by cjb @ 9:39 AM

 

Trouble in Paradise (Five Nights in LA)

Surprise November residency with the D850 Band, rehearsing:

CACTUS / WAFFLE

LA LA LAND TREE

BITUMEN CURTAINS

FORTIFIED DOOR (PICTURE FOR DAN) -- final studio recording

ARTIST'S MEMORIAL

& playing (or at least attempting to play) a few surprises / deep cuts / new songs:

477 S. EUCLID AVENUE, PASADENA CA

HADDONFIELD

AFTER DARK (PICTURE FOR ANDY GIBB)

& maybe (if the landscape isn't 100% on fire):

PANORAMA PARK

HEJIRA

which at this point are just a few words casually jotted on a napkin and a couple of chords.
- posted by cjb @ 8:51 AM

 
Keaton
Elizabeth Bishop

I will be good; I will be good.
I have set my small jaw for the ages
and nothing can distract me from
solving the appointed emergencies
even with my small brain
–witness the diameter of my hatband
and the depth of the crown of my hat

I will be correct; I know what it is to be a man.
I will be correct or bust.
I will love but not impose my feelings.
I will serve and serve
with lute or I will not say anything.

If the machinery goes, I will repair it.
If it goes again I will repair it again.
My backbone

through these endless etceteras painful.

No, it is not the way to be, they say.
Go with the skid, turn always to leeward,
and see what happens, I ask you, now.

I lost a lovely smile somewhere,
and many colors dropped out.
The rigid spine will break, they say–
bend, bend.

I was made at right angles to the world
and I see it so. I can only see it so.
I do not find all this absurdity people talk about.

Perhaps a paradise, a serious paradise where lovers hold hands
and everything works. 
I am not sentimental.
- posted by cjb @ 11:51 AM