Sat 05.28.05 - At Plumpjack Winery.
May 2005 Archives
Sat 05.28.05 - At Silver Oak Winery, Oakville, sitting on the back lawn looking at the oaks, hills, and sky.
Sat 05.28.05 - At Domaine Chandon, Napa Valley.
Fri 05.27 - After dinner, I met up with Mie & Dav at the Hemlock to see Murder of Crows, a good metal band with a saxaphone! After MoC, we drove over to Thee Parkside to see The Neine and The Spores. It was a fun surprise to walk in and see the Spores! Molly and the boys rock. Thanks Mie & Dav.
Fri 05.27.05 - Ceviche at Fresca.
Fri 05.27.05 - With incongruously small trailer wheels, just before Andersen's Pea Soup.
Fri 05.27.05 - Northbound.
Fri 05.27.05 - My sister Allison & I are driving north on the 5 fwy to go to San Francisco for our cousin's graduation from SFSU. My 2nd road trip to SF in 2 weeks. I am a glutton.
...dream that Doug has a baby (not a wife or girlfriend, but Doug himself) named Jeffery David DaBruno(?) Bowman. Ugh! My 6:30 am dream did not answer the question of "Will the baby grow up to be a WaSP mafioso leg breaker for no use of tables in layout?".
I suppose it does not help that my bedtime reading has been the Zen of CSS Design.
After trying a wide variety of RSS readers - online ones, stand alone software, and plug-ins for Mozilla, I happily settled on InfoRSS. InfoRSS has a jaunty ticker of my fave blog and news headlines trotting along on the bottom toolbar of my Mozilla browser and mail. I see it out of the corner of my eye all day and when it trots out a headline that I have not seen yet, I click on the headline and InfoRSS brings up a new tab with the blog post or website in question. A lovely system for someone who enjoys the visuals of a website as much as the content.
But now I am mentally swimming in blog reading and dreaming about it... Sorry Doug.
Mon 05.23.05 - What the tree trimmers have wrought...
Mon 05.23.05 - Three months since I wrote the landlady requesting that the overgrown backyard ficus get trimmed and three weeks after grass seed was planted, I came home from a client meeting to discover the ficus being chopped and the new grass trampled. Good thing that there is a half bag of seed left...
Sat 05.21.05 - 'Tis the season for the jacaranda trees to be in full bloom.
Wed. 05.18.05 - Fields of new garlic just east of Gilroy as I drove back down to SoCal.
Wag passed the baton to me... Thanks Wag! Here's my contribution to the musical meme that continues to trot around the blog-world:
Total volume of music files on my computer: A peasly 2.68 GB. I only keep what I am currently listening to on my computer, the rest of my music is cds in my car or room. I like to leave room for lots and lots and lots of photos.
Last CD I bought: Gurgle... gurgle... agh...
I must admit as an editor on an online music zine and the co-booker at Alex's Bar ... lots of cds come in the mail, very rarely do they get bought...
Song playing right now: I am currently taking $ at the front door at Alex's tonight for the Icarus Line / 400 Blows / Darker My Love show. Darker My Love is playing, I don't know the name of the song.
Five songs I listen to a lot these days: I have had the same 5 cds in the car for a couple of weeks now, including my road trip to the Bay Area, and all of these songs I listen to on my computer frequently as well:
1) Gina from San Jose - Eleven Hundred Springs - I love the honestly in Matt Hillyer's voice as he sings this raw honky tonk love song to his real life lady.
2) The Outlaw - Dropkick Murphys - I love the Murphys. Love the power of this song. This is the best song off of the last CD, Blackout.
3) City of Blinding Lights - U2 - This song has grown on me. When I first heard it, I thought it was too slow and a bit schmaltzy lyrically. Now I love it.
4) This Old House - Loretta Lynn - The whole of the "Van Lear Rose" CD makes me happy and sad at the same time. I like to listen to it late at night a cry. Specifically, "This Old House" is a great tale of a song with wonderful, spacious old timey instrumentation.
5) Hey Bartender - Laurel Aitkin - This "First Wave" Ska song makes me laugh whenever I hear it. It is very infectious, esp. the hiccups.
And now I pass the baton to:
Julie Wanda
Jason
Charlie
Lauren
Megan and Murray
Fri 05.20.05 - My sister, Allison, just found out that she passed the Calif. State Bar Exam the first time around! Now I am getting her drunk on champagne...
Wed 05.18.05 - Thanks Jason!
Tues 05.17.05 - Here.
Tues 05.17.05 - I am now in the final hour of the road trip. Yeah! The sky clouded up in the last hour or so, plus enough rain to make a mess of the squashed bugs on the windshield.
Tues 05.17.05 - Seen a bit north of Harris Ranch. Listening to 1100 Springs.
Tue 05.17.05 - Two trucks of my favorite butter spotted on the 5 fwy northbound just after the 5 / 99 junction.
Tue 05.14.05 - Hills near Valencia on the 5 fwy northbound.
Tue 05.17.05 - Attempting to exit LA...
Sat. 05.14.05 - The Barflies.net Geek Out BBQ. Justin is a Cublicle Gangsta. Among other things.
Thurs. 05.12.05 - Heidi at the Farmer's Market in LA, where we enjoyed
dinner and drinks.
Mon. 05.09.05 - Freckles. Aged 13. Occupying space. Less space than in previous years.
I loved the winter in Boston. I got quite a lot of reading and painting done, as well as walking. I was thinner then. I love cold. I miss it now that I am back home in SoCal. The too-warm weather this week is driving me to SF next week.
One of the reasons that I applied for graduate school in Europe was the hope to return to a walking city and the hope for more uninterrupted time to make art, write, read and think due to inclement weather and a lack of overstimulation.
Meg says it all in her post about the overstimulation of LA and how our over-busy lives crowd out our creative impulses and acting out of those impulses. I must agree. I had to carve out this evening to catch up on the blog posts that have been bouncing around my head this week.
Yesterday I received an email from the admissions office of the university I applied to saying that they have received my full package and that it has moved on to departmental consideration. I was quite surprised that a busy admin office took the time to let me know that my little package had been processed and sent off to the department. How kind and thoughtful.
The email came the day had I planned to send an email inquiring if my package had arrived. The US Postal Service does not track Global Priority or Express Mail. I sent my application package off on April 12th and wanted to wait until May 12th to inquire that all was well. The deadline is June 12th and I hope to hear yea or nea by July.
On tenderhooks here in the land of warm weather, too much to do, make, say and write.
Last night Heidi and I met at the Farmer's Market at 3rd & Fairfax in LA to have dinner and a good chat. Over 3 hours we caught up, cooked up a Heidi's Night Of Beauty at Alex's for July, and talked about life, the world, the entertainment industry, and development in the Central Valley of California.
While in college, many moons ago, painter Christine Anderson presented a visiting artist's lecture on her series of paintings on how suburbian track homes were overrunning America's best farm land. In the 15 years since, I have spent time thinking about and ranting about how Americans have a predilection for paving over any good bit of land.
A couple of years ago, while at breakfast, my brother Joe and I got into a discussion about how California needs to conserve its best farm land and not put up track housing over the land that feeds our nation plus many others. My brother stated that all we had to do was get our produce from Mexico.
Continue reading 2500 Sq. Ft. and some DDT.
Charlie is hosting a Meet Up and I am going. He said the magic words to a die hard tapas and wine fan... The Thirsty Bear.
Today in class, I had my students write on Dave Hickey's essay "Unbreak My Heart, An Overture" from Air Guitar.
From page 13:
That was the best thing about little stores. If you were a nobody like me, and didn't know anything, you could go into one of them and find things out. People would talk to you, not because you were going to buy something, but because they loved the stuff they had to sell. The guy at the Billabong Surf Shop, I can assure you, wants to talk about his boards. Even if you want to buy one, right now, he still wants to talk about them, will talk you out into the street, you with the board under your arm, if he is a true child of the high water.And I love that kind of talk, have lived on it and lived by it, writing that kind of talk for magazines. To me, it has always been the heart of the mystery, the heart of the heart: they way people talk about loving things, which things and why.
One of the questions I asked my students to address in their writing about Hickey's essay and then in class discussion is what do you talk about that you love so much that you will talk to strangers about it? I love the internet, I love blogs, I love writing, I love photography, I love my Nokia 7610, I love wine and tapas. And I want to talk to and listen to other lovers of all of these things.
So, I shall go to Charlie's Meet Up. Besides, I need a good lark, a road trip, a small mid-week holiday.
I will arrive in San Francisco around 4pm on Tues. May 17th, staying at my fave little hotel on 7th & Mission in SoMa, and will be there through Wednesday afternoon or maybe later (I just have to be back in SoCal by 2pm on Thursday).
Anyone want to get together? Hang out? Have a meal? Go to an Art Museum? Walk around? Talk about what we love?
Tues. 05.10.05 - The view while driving north on Valley View towards La Mirada in rush hour traffic.
Photo of the Double Delight and Midnight Blue roses taken on Mon. 05.09.05 with Ms. Jen's Nokia 7610.
Wed. 05.11.05 - After working in my driveway side another 4 hours today, I am almost done. I have all the plants and roses in that my mom and I got on April 25th. I have another 4 foot section of heinous tuber/rhizomes to dig out tomorrow morning and then I need to decide if I will get another rose bush or another salvia. Decisions...
1) Typography - Lots of folk have been talking about typography on the web (or the lack thereof and the hacks needed), but lately I have been thinking a lot about book typography. I am teaching a Critical Thinking and Art Theory class to university art majors this semseter and have been reading at least 100 pages a week, thus page readability is a must.
Here is what I have noticed: books published in the last 5 - 10 years have very readable, curvy, thin, and lovely serif typefaces. Books that I have in my collection that were published previous to 1995 tend to have heavy times influenced typefaces. There is also a difference in line height that makes many new books appear light and airy.
Good work, I say to all the unknown designers slaving away in the little cubicles at the big publishing houses. Thank you.
2) Mom has been in SoCal for over 5 days and at my house for nearly 4 and my refigerator has not expanded. Yeah.
3) We are having a nice time and Mom was kind enough to leave my to client work this afternoon while she went out to prune and water my garden. Thanks, Mom!
4) My cousin Kristen is graduating from San Francisco State on Sat. May 28th. Anyone have any recommendations on hotels in SF that are nice, decent neighborhoods that are fun to walk around? I need a recommendation, as the hotel that I stayed at last year when I went to the MT party is full...
Mon 05.09.05 - Happy Birthday to my brother Joe & his roommate Rochelle.
Thur 05.05.05 - Three Fives in a row today and a gorgeous sky at sunset. We had a wee bit more rain today. Energizer bunny of a rainy season.
Wed 05.04.05 - Trees. Construction equipment now lines the 22 fwy.
Want to laugh?
Adopt Jerry. He needs to be rescued from Nick Page.
Really. Do Not Skip Intro. Trust me.
(via Davezilla)
Tue 05.03.05 - The view of the Long Beach harbor as seen from the patio of the Belmont Brewery.
Sat. 04.30.05 - Fancy, Extravagant, and Elegant. A flower in the Cactus Garden at the Huntington.
... a day late...
Oh well, I was having too much fun celebrating May 1st by digging up another section of pernicious weeds and rhizomes in the garden and reading Charles de Lint's Tapping the Dream Tree to remember to blog about maypoles / baskets, labor movements, and Beltane . Ooops.