| |
| February 25, 2010 |
- The
Power of Pink, in Salon, is where we learn about how
the newest Chicago metrorail line received that color.
(CTA
map, in .png format.) Knew they already had a Brown Line, and
Tokyo subway maps also show a pink line, although there they use names
instead of colors as the designation.
- And speaking of Japan, here's your chance to see a tribute version of
We Are The World.
For describing it, you may require their word for black-face,
ganguro.
|
| February 22, 2010 |
- Three from the ever-excellent Dark Roast Blend:
Blade
Runner Tokyo, Early
Monorails, and
Totalitarian
Architecture of the Third Reich.
- In Time, More
Homeless Americans Living in Cars and Campers.
- James Fallows in the Atlantic -- Cyber
Warriors. Sooner or later, the cyber equivalent of 9/11 will occur -- and, if the real 9/11 is a
model, we will understandably, but destructively, overreact.
- Finally, the current issue of Smithsonian has an
article about Barrow, Alaska with a
stunning
Arctic sunset photo.
|
| February 21, 2010 |
Returned from a week Back East, DC and NYC. Washington area
had had a big snow just before my arrival for the Christmas holiday,
and they had an even bigger snowfall just before my arrival this
time; but both had little impact on my movements, just looked wintry.
Great art in DC at the National
(the Chester
Dale collection) as well as the Portrait Gallery, which now has a
small Elvis room. (Photo, 1978 bust of Elvis, as a Roman, by Robert Arneson.)
Was in town for the big family gathering to celebrate my parents' 60th
anniversary; went very well. Thence up to New York, driven by brother
Andy in the
van to break down the Wunderlanders' booth at Toy Fair. Three other
booths which caught my eye: one had a laser-planetarium product which
sprayed moving points of green light all over (didn't note the company,
unfortunately);
Bridge Street Toys,
which has resurrected Kenner's Girder and Panel (and Hydrodynamic)
systems; and Hi-Tec Art which
makes LED toys, most noteworthy a 'stick-in'
Lite Brite.
After farewells, walked across town to my hotel,
Ye Old Calton Arms, an old,
arty place located caty-corner aacross 25th from the
Armory.
All interior walls decorated by an assortment of artists, recommended
if you can get an inside room. Mine wasn't; they gave me a choice of
three but all faced Third Avenue. No elevator so I chose the lowest,
consoling myself that at least the
El wasn't
running right outside my window anymore, as it used to.
Last morning, after dawdling in nearby Madison Square, rode the subway
up to 112th Street to inspect the cathedral of St.John the Divine and
(like the mysterious black one in Linz that late winter afternoon in
'96), I had the huge structure almost entirely to myself. Afterwards,
breakfast across the street at the Hungarian Pastry shop, and then by
bus to Laguardia and westward flights home.
|
| February 12, 2010 |
Back East tomorrow for parents' anniversary and then a day
or two in NYC, updates here probably not possible until the return.
|
| January 27, 2010 |
|
| January 23, 2010 |
 My morning conversation
class, which ended Tuesday; the last of these I'll be running for a while.
|
| January 10, 2010 |
- Roger Ebert, thyroid cancer survivor, can no longer
eat, drink, nor speak, but
he
can still blog and in that entry, the topic is food.
- Today I saw Shun Yen Performing Arts
and found it quite entertaining. Wish I'd been told beforehand
it was the Falon Gong booster show, but then I wouldn't have gone.
|
| January 7, 2010 |
Tomorrow morning, a tooth extraction... no choice, fractured
root, #2, which is next to the former home of #1, the upper
wisdom tooth -- lost both of those in the 1990s, so this is
the third to go. Fortunately, #13, which fractured last summer,
was saved by my West Coast dentist with a crown which my back
East dentist didn't favor, said it should really get an implant,
which would now be an option for #2 as well. Stuff's expensive
though, insurance doesn't cover it, and the technicalities of
that procedure kinda creep me out.
With four classes now saturated with the Asian names, too many
to remember, and it seems the K-Girls all have the same name!
Well, not all of them, but in just one class, these
are Korean women: Young, Younga, YoungNan, two Kyungs
(although one goes by the nickname Bona), YoungSu, YoungJu and
Mikyung. Those last two torment me as their appearance is
similar and they always sit one behind the other. Young also
had a nickname, but I think she's dropped out.
Update: YoungEun has now joined this class.
|
| January 1, 2010 |
 Made a lot of these, with
plastic drinking straws and string, up until about the
10th grade; nowadays they're extremely rare but I constructed
this one on Christmas Eve, for Wunderland. Happy New Year!
Photo by
Andy
|
| December 19, 2009 |
|
| December 18, 2009 |
 Something I've only heard
mentioned there was why the B's upside down -- an act of resistance
by inmates at the camp workshop where it was made. Now the sign's been
stolen and
Poland's
in a State of Emergency! Click the thumbnail for an alternate,
closer view, which I've hesitated to post since my expression is perhaps
not somber enough given the location.
|
| December 12, 2009 |
Palm Springs supermarket, 2004
A better photo for today would've been some airport scene but
couldn't find so instead, palm trees.
According to Peter Sciretta, Only
Eight of This Decade's Best Picture Nominees Are Original - Gladiator,
Gosford Park, Lost in Translation, Crash, Babel, Little Miss Sunshine,
Juno, and Michael Clayton. Does "Up in the Air" push that tally
up to nine? Comments on that movie's music, at the beginning and the end:
Richard
von Busack's review laments the even better film which could have
been, with for example, over the opening credits, instead, "The Big
Country" by Talking Heads. I see the shapes, I
remember from maps -- yes, one of my favorites. At the end, it
was refreshing to hear "Be Yourself" off the first Graham Nash but from
the same record I think "Man in the Mirror" has the more appropriate
lyric Though we live in the air
I'm not sure that we're free.
|
| December 6, 2009 |
The iPod nano received as a door prize at the CPR class in March is
finally full -- over 1600 songs, all hand-picked, most common sources,
CDs from the library or my own collection; only a handful downloaded
from Apple, Amazon or alternatively, some unknown source. Initially
this loading was by ripping originals onto various external machines,
until about midway through with my hardware upgarde when the Thinkpad's
iTunes took over (so I don't/can't sync, but there are other ways).
Behold, the RashPod, such a delight when played back now
in Shuffle mode. |
| November 29, 2009 |
More spectacular Fall weather today, and the changing trees seem to be
especially beautiful this year. This exhuberant specimen is right down
the street -- in fact, it's obscuring my apartment building, there in
the left background.
- David Brin (author of The Postman) appears in this week's
local rag, the Metro, with
Power
of Consumption -- saving the world by spending ourselves into ruin.
- Mouths
filled with hatred concerns what seems to be a routine
practice in the Old City of Jerusalem -- young Orthodox Jews
spit on Christians (whom they characterized as idolators).
- In Japan,
'Herbivore'
Boys Subvert Ideas Of Manhood. That story's from National Public
radio which is now offering the ultimate pledge-drive premium, only
$200 -- the
NPR Radio,
which doesn't actual utilze radio waves. Instead, it taps in to your
high-speed internet to pick up thousands of public radio (only!)
audio streams.
- Swiss
ban mosque minarets in surprise vote even though the
country's four standing minarets, which won't be affected by the ban, do
not traditionally broadcast the call to prayer outside their own
buildings. Switzerland will not become Turkey.
- Speaking of, another NPR story,
the
Turkey Drop concerns holiday scheduling and breaking up... or
not, until after, when -- Christmas? New Year's? Valentine's Day?
|
| November 27, 2009 |
|
The media prattles on about Black Friday although the
savviest shoppers know today's actually
Buy
Nothing Day but didja know it's also the
National
Day of Listening? On the day after
Thanksgiving, set aside one hour to record a conversation
with someone important to you.
|
| November 25, 2009 |
At an entrance to the underground tunnel connecting the old and new
National Galleries of Art in Washington DC, cel-phone photo
from last August. An artist named Villareal lined this tunnel (which
also contains a moving sidewalk) with thousands of white, computer-switched
LEDs last year, and unless saner minds prevail the authorities will be
dismantling the installation real soon. It's called
Multiverse,
more info at
Gizmodo.
|
| November 19, 2009 |
My plants.
- Report:
Ten
states face looming budget disasters -- Arizona, Florida, Illinois,
Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.
- Related -- the
Ten
Happiest States are Utah, Hawaii, Wyoming, Colorado, Minnesota,
Maryland, Washington, Massachusetts, California, and Arizona -- and the
bottom of the list? The Ten Saddest states: Michigan, Tennessee, Oklahoma,
Missouri, Indiana, Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky, and West
Virginia.
|
| November 16 - Two Emperors |
News photo from day before yesterday, story:
Obama's
bow in Japan sparks some criticism -- some say the POTUS shouldn't
kowtow to any foreign
sovereign, not even symbolically but it's not without precedent, apparently
Nixon once bowed to Hirohito -- but you can bet this fellow never did:
General Macarthur with the Emperor, September 1945
|
| November 14, 2009 |
San Francisco yesterday afternoon, looking
west down Post street from the 8th floor of the
Kabuki Hotel in the Nihonmachi district.
|
| November 11, Armistice Day |
 The
LA motel where I stay, periodically, near the airport. Was there
Wednesday night last week but this photo's from five years ago.
|
| November 7, 2009 |
Back from another whirlwind LA tour. Here's a view from the driver's seat
while waiting on Fairfax for the light to change at Wilshire, leaning out
and looking up at the massive corner decoration of the old May Company
department store. The building doesn't seem to be in use now but I believe
it has landmark status, so can't be torn down. (Later I learned it's
now part of the ever-expanding LACMA Museum of Art down the street.)
Meanwhile,
some links have been piling up.
|
| October 31, 2009 |
Great class ended last week, first conversation course of the school
year, and the demographic of this one almost half Japanese. In
the center, one of the Reikos is holding a plaid shopping bag from the
Isetan department store, very
common to see people carrying this bag in the Shinjuku district of
Tokyo.
|
| October 30, 2009 |
Cans of kaya
at King's Seafood in Sunnyvale. (Posted for an AskMe question.)
|
| October 28, 2009 |
An example of why Halloween has become my least-favorite holiday -- the
decorations are mostly tacky, aesthetic violations. Especially, this
spreading around of cotton to simulate cobwebs -- looks instead like
a severe infestation of tent caterpillers. "Trick or Treat!"
|
| October 25, 2009 |
The majestic, spreading Bay Laurel across the parking lot from the
Los Altos library. This was today;
another, bigger view
from a few days ago -- one of my favorite trees.
|
| October 23, 2009 |
Tonight's sunset (with moon) from my front steps.
Have endured the colonoscopy and as was expected, nothing
non-nominal was found. Still. now that it's over, glad my big
intestine has been purged, feeling better -- that's been my experience
previously too, during the similarly invasive visit by Dr Sigmoid in
2005 and the enematic 'lower GI' received in 1980.
|
| October 21, 2009 |
Aboard the Seattle streetcar, October 2004
|
| October 19, 2009 |
Down on the platform waiting in the Hamburg HauptBahnhof, 2005. |
| October 18, 2009 |
For a while here, I'm showing photos, old and new. Click for biggery.
This is inside the Alexanderplatz U-Bahn station in Berlin, 2005.
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