Barstow - Harry Partch

I listened to the Kronos rendition of this this morning as well as the Newband orchestration with Partch's original instruments. I believe that this is the original. Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was a genius, a man born in Oakland and who died in Encinitas. Partch was a unique composer and microtonalist, he divided the octave into 43 unequal tones. Built his own, rather bizarre instruments.

This piece is called Barstow: Eight Hitchhiker Inscriptions from a Highway Railing at Barstow, California and was first written in 1941. I discovered it thanks to a room mate named Ron, at boarding school in Idyllwild.

Partch's early life, from Wicki:

Partch was born on June 24, 1901 in Oakland, California. His parents were Virgil Franklin Partch (1860–1919) and Jennie (née Childers, 1863–1920). The couple were Presbyterian missionaries, and served in China from 1888 to 1893, and again from 1895 to 1900, when they fled the Boxer Rebellion.[1]
The family moved to Arizona for his mother's health. His father worked for the Immigration Service there, and they settled in the small town of Benson. It was still the Wild West there in the early twentieth century, and Partch recalled seeing outlaws in town. Nearby, there were native Yaqui people, whose music he heard. His mother sang to him in Mandarin, and he heard and sang songs in Spanish and the Yaqui language. His mother encouraged her children to learn music, and he learned the mandolin, violin, piano,[1] reed organ, and cornet. His mother taught him to read music.[2]
The family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1913, where Partch seriously studied the piano. He got work playing keyboards for silent films while he was in high school. By 14, he was composing for the piano. He early found an interest in writing music for dramatic situations, and often cited the lost composition Death and the Desert (1916) as an early example.[1] Partch graduated from high school in 1919.

Liquid Sky

This has not held up real well, very campy, I confess it was one of my all time favorite B movies. Congratulations to any of you who can finish it.

12.14.13

The chinese landed on the moon this morning and immediately claimed it for the motherland.

"The moon is, and has always been, a chinese possession and woe to the hegemonist imperialists who seeks to interfere in our galactic affairs."

The United States and Russia immediately sent up their own  warships but it might take up to a light year or two to haul in the heavy armaments and who the hell knows what lays in store for us then, now that the Chinese have such a head start. Our own damn fault for letting the space program go to shit.

© Robert Sommers 2013

Poontang

poon is a hug, tang is a kiss... Stan sent this over a few weeks back and I just had my first chance to listen. I believe that it is fairly early, will check.

Pipeline Masters

Rick Griffin

Jerry sent this over. If you like big wave surfing, check out the livecast:

Rob. thought you might want to take a look at this. Pipeline Masters:

http://www.vanstriplecrownofsurfing.com/billabongpipemasters2013/live

Final day of the final contest of the year today, which will determine the world title for 2013. It's coming down to Kelly Slater vs. Mick Fanning. The surf at Pipeline is 10 to 15 foot today. Epic! Best conditions and swell that they've had for this contest since 2000. Shalom...

Vicious

i saw Amazon peddling some big Lou Reed Velvet compilation today. Everybody's darling, if I may borrow a phrase. In death Lou is cashing in like he never could when he was alive. The major headphone endorsement deal at the very end of the line seems perhaps a bit strange and oddly timed. Why cash in at the end, like Laurie Anderson needs the bread? I guess in death his punk, anarchic message is finally safe for the masses. Lousy guitar player, but gutty enough to pull the whole thing off.

I love Lou, wore out Transformer, loved him when he was alive too, damnit. You can check the tapes.

Bimbim-bap!

photo - A.P.

One of the unfortunate truisms of life is that you can pick your friends but you can't pick your family. Who among us doesn't have one goofy uncle who likes to act up at the family barbecue?

Or maybe likes to drop trou at the nudist resort with a bunch of similarly disrobed octogenarians, like my good old Uncle Norm likes to do. Most of us just slough it off and have another long neck. Not North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He had his own uncle wacked.

For not clapping fervently enough at his nephew's speech. 

Jang Song Thaeck was asked by Kim's own pop, his wife's brother, nutty Dictator Number two, to watch over the lad while he grew into the full flower of evil despotism. Guess it was a lesson very well learned as Kim made a move that would have made Oedipus himself proud and went to the mattress rooms only a year or two into his nascent bloody reign.

So the young tyrant went Luca Brasi on his poor Uncle. Some thanks, huh Jang? You try to help a kid out. But remembering Tessio, I am sure it was only business. Jang certainly knew how the game was played on the parallel. But a machine gun? Ouch.

Kim may not be thinking too good. Jang was the go between with China and those are not the kind of neighbors you really want to piss off. But with the circle of confidantes that were advising the youthful dictator, people like zany power forward Dennis Rodman, it is no wonder that he may not be thinking right and got fratricidal with the poor guy.

I heard some talking heads trying to read the tea leaves on what might have precipitated the purge and a few mentioned a generational conflict. Something similar happened in the cultural revolution in Red China when the young bucks were walking around pulling the old guys beards and wreaking all kinds of havoc. Kids!

Anybody else remember the movie Wild in the Streets from the sixties, where everybody over thirty five gets sent to a death camp? Watch those younguns folks, they don't seem to be thinking quite right.

The Healer

On a cold hard night on the spanish main

Met some interesting people of late, some new friends, some old. Like Sig, who calls himself a non spiritual coincidentalist and whose business card is inscribed Irony is destiny. Sig told me the most amazing tale about a very special piece of paper that floated through his car window one fine day, a story that I hope that he will retell for us so that I do not botch it up. And of course there's the Warhol thing.

Identical twins, Roselle New Jersey 1967 - Diane Arbus

On my trip to Detroit, a somewhat older flight attendant from St. Paul was telling me a story of a pair of  siamese twins that work out at a gym she belongs to. I was peppering her with questions. I have so many questions, two trunks, one pair of legs, two distinct personalities, who gets to decide where to go?  When to sleep? Can they communicate nonverbally? Pardon me, but do they share the satisfaction of physical pleasure and can I get a little help on the mechanics involved?

Sort of fascinating to think of two psyches sharing physical space or is it one psyche, one big collective nervous system with two separate heads? Do they ever go through protracted periods of not speaking? Equal smarts?Any hobbies? Separate marriages and individual friendships? Interesting people to meet, I would think. One entity or two?

The Band

Comin' Back To Me

12.12

There is a quite a bit of web chatter today about Fox anchor Megyn Kelly's pronouncement last night on her show. You know the one I am talking about... Jesus and Santa are both white, don't you know?

“[F]or you kids watching at home,” “Santa just is white. But this person (Aisha Harris) is arguing that maybe we should also have a black Santa.” “Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to change. You know, I mean, Jesus was a white man too.”

This kind of stuff makes my head spin like Linda Blair and sends me running to the medicine cabinet. First lets look at Santa, a figure whose image was concocted relatively recently, based on a loose amalgamation of the fourth century St. Nicholas of Myra, who hailed from the Anatolian steppes in an area now known as Turkey and a portly dutch figure more of us are familiar with known as Kris Kringle.

While the latter was certainly bred from good white stock, the former was most certainly one of the muddier shades. Ever seen a turk? They kind of look like me, but with my eyebrows maybe growing together. As Procul Harem might say, a darker shade of pale.

*
I hate to even touch jesus but as a semite in search of a missing haplotype, I admit to checking the Caucasian box on the government forms and maybe he did too. Definitely not a Pacific Islander. I hate to break this to you but supposedly the guy was, get this, a jew. Really. Until he found christianity of course and then he had the rhinoplasty and got the curls ironed out and nobody but the good lord was the wiser.

I think that the man did exist, a revolutionary prophet who counseled that we should love our enemies and led an intellectual vanguard that was forming approximately 150 years before his birth, to a people hungry for a messiah to fulfill the biblical words regarding the roots of Jesse, which if memory serves, were first mentioned in Ezekial, surely one of Bob Dylan, Rick Griffin and my favorite chapters, filled with brilliant visual imagery but much more accessible and powerful in my eyes than the new testament's chapter Revelations.

A friend of mine was in Cusco and told me about seeing several different last supper paintings down there where the disciples were dark skinned indios and the gang was feasting on guinea pig. I believe that we humans tend to create our deities in our own image.

Of course there are people who take for gospel what others might not process quite so literally. And who the hell am I to make any comments on anybody else's belief system? Freaking worship the trix rabbit for all I care.

I was reading something from Oklahoma the other day, can't put my finger on the link right now but it definitely got me chuckling. Somebody said that if english was good enough for Jesus to speak, it should be good enough for the residents of the United States of America.

Now piety is one thing, this level of dumb goes beyond the pale. Sometimes our idiocy just floors me, I can't sugar coat it. Maybe our part of the species can secede and leave those people to happily inhabit their flat little earth.

*
I didn't see a lot of churches in Canada, no little metal fish on cars either. Saw some Anglican churches, fairly low key. But one evening I was watching a local station and being really bored, tuned in to some religious programming and caught two guys having an interesting discussion.

These guys were talking about the many different religions and how they all claim to have a slightly different take and they all think that they have it about right and then there are those people on the outside who claim to have a slightly wider view and maybe figure out that man needs salvation, gods, hell in some cases, to keep them from killing each other and maybe fulfilling some supernatural or spiritual requirement.

And the guy says that the people who claimed that they had this wider, objective ability to understand religion and man's need for deities are really the arrogant ones.

And I kind of have a problem with this and it is one of the things I can't stand about the Judeoislamichristian faiths, the security of ignorance part. Man gets into trouble right off the bat when eve takes a bite out of that macintosh and tastes from the tree of knowledge. Why the entrenchment in ignorance, if not downright stupidity? What is wrong with trying to figure it all out, maybe get smarter?

I just know that my god wants me to be just as smart and aware as I can possibly be.

*
I had my stitches pulled out today. Doctor says that I can lose the sling when I want to. Right now it is serving more as a psychological barrier so that people won't bump into me unawares or clap me on the shoulder, something that has happened quite a few times. Need orange safety cones around me. Found out that my health coverage doesn't cover rehab for shit so I am not going to get it. Doc says that I can find the proper rotator cuff rehab instruction videos on Youtube. Fine. I told him that I would be healing super fast and he said that he believed it. My mouse is back on the right side of the keyboard. I feed myself a hell of a lot better with my left hand than I used to.

*

Got back to my store and heard a knock. A strange man at the door, said he was a friend. Must have been a friend of the wife. I got off the phone and tried to suss it out, he mentioned a name out of the past, a pre Fallbrook room mate, no it couldn't be. A bit heavier, darker hair but my gosh, it is the same guy, 35 years later.

How did you find me, Jerry? He searched my name a few years ago and found the blast. Says that I have a pretty big cyber foot print. Went back to the beginning and read every one. Don't know that he thinks much of the writing but he likes the pictures and Spain. Wonder if anyone else has ever read every one. I don't think I have. Every once in a while I follow a hit to an old post that I forgot I wrote that cracks me up. Like AirDong. But I applaud the valiant effort. And also thank new blast reader Ilana for now regularly tuning in.

My old friend said that he saw my spouse Leslie walking through Loews one day and wanted to say hello, recognized her from her many pictures on the blog, but didn't didn't want to freak her out.

Jerry is a very good guy, always was. Big wave surfer. Was a pleasure, so happy to see you again. Remarried, after a disastrous first like me. Another betrayal. But things have thankfully come around and most of us usually get what we deserve in the end. There, now I sound religious.

Blues In The Closet

The Tin Drum

12.11

kudos and brickbats - aye for John Boehner, finally stood up to the lunatics on his wing who will never accept any compromise whatsoever, he called a spade a spade this morning. kudos to Paul Ryan and Patty Murray, a repub and dem who actually managed to work together, compromise and craft a bipartisan deal that is tolerable. Adults never get everything they want in this life. I hate to praise McConnell but appreciated his support for thad cochran, now uber righties like Cornyn are vilified in their own party as being too centrist, utterly ridiculous. About time for the adults in the room to speak up.

kudos to the people of the Ukraine, whose leadership, afraid of a shutoff of the Russia energy tap, have spurned Europe and got in bed with Putin.  The statue of Lenin laying on his ass was a nice touch last week. They join Georgia and several other ex soviets in wishing to be free of the bone crushing embrace of the russian bear, which knows only the tools of power and intimidation. and of course, polonium.

a brick for the rubios of the world, ted cruz walking out in a huff, who are sore because Obama shook raoul's hand. give it a break,  it's been fifty years already,face it, you old cubanistas down there in miami are never getting your beachfront property back, batista is dead. damn shame, but the world moves on. we can tolerate slave labor in china, should be no problem with that insignificant little island.

And allan west is sore because the obaminator didn't genuflect at the shrine of the iron lady, Thatcher. the nasty old wench who preferred to keep the blacks in south africa under semi permanent servitude, mustn't be too hasty with that freedom stuff. dangerous brew in the wrong hands.

*
watched the video of my surgery this morning, pretty cool, fantastic voyage through my synovial sea, that is until the fifteen minute mark when the water turned a fiery red. A guy should have a couple weeks after an operation to chill but I am not giving myself the luxury, second day in semi suspended action mode. must, make, money.

*
dinner at vincent's last night, never order the catfish.

Laura is moving and needs to sell her beautiful old piano. let me know if you have an interest.

The piano is an Alexandra. I did an alexandra/piano google search and found an interesting link to the bavarian princess Alexandra Amelie (1826-1875), the fifth daughter of good King Ludwig. She apparently had many strange idiosyncrasies and fixations, only wore white clothing and was an obsessive clean freak. Certain colors and smells deeply disturbed her. And she harbored the strange delusion that she had swallowed an elaborate grand piano made of glass in childhood that had somehow remained inside her. She was under the fear that if bumped into, it might shatter the inner instrument. The delicate princess was ultimately sequestered in a convent, presumably one with few sharp edges.

Long Time Gone

william burroughs mash up

words to the wise for young people. stutz sent this over. also sent a link to an interesting site - oxford american - southern magazine of good writing. met three southerners at tea this fine morn, haled from georgia, tennessee and mississippi rspectively, lovely voices and people, to be sure.

talked about driving up through tennessee, fireflies and fireworks, gorgeous lakes not yet orked into coal. statue of alvin york. many good folks down south. jonquils and rebel yell. yes sir, yes ma'am.

i entered the world at large this morning after a week nested in the womb, had my cup, caught up with friends, went to the bank overdrawn, stuck something in to cover, no rest for the weary or infirm, will have to start shucking and jiving earlier than i had planned, best laid plans and all that...money siphon never stops with the giant sucking noises. for any of us. back on the gerbil wheel. not going to worry for a day or two... no extra points for being the richest guy in the graveyard.

lena sent a rainbow from cardiff, I am pretty sure it is for everybody.

Bowlegged Woman, Knock-kneed Man

marx and lennon

The Air Force band flash mob at the Smithsonian is a pretty cool story. In the words of Sydney Greenstreet, "Well played, if a bit ecumenical."

The news that the NSA is wasting taxpayer dollars by hiding in your xbox looking for orcs is a bit disturbing. What a farcical laughingstock we have become.

© steve lovelace.com

Hendrix. in his own words.

pardon the e.e. cummings bit of late but caps are hard on shoulders and I am cheating when i can.

i talked to my mother for the first time in ages. she is out of the hospital and dialysis for a while. guess she is reading the blog again. says that i am writing too much about food. that I eat better than anybody in baltimore. which is tough to imagine since they have those famous pit beef sandwiches there that I never got to try. crab cakes, not to mention. she lives in elicott city, maryland, just down the street from edward snowden. my mother was a gourmand before anyone had heard of the term. we were the only kids in the neighborhood forced to eat calves brains and tripe. great italian cook, great all around chef, much like Leslie, a natural. mother and wife share the same birthday, strange, the leos in my life or in this case, leo virgo cusps in my life.

anyway food is good to write about since it is largely free of controversy and nobody gets too pissed about it like some other topics. Feeds into my current view of humans as being merely overlarge pastry bags that are constantly engaged in the acts of filling and squeezing, with temporary stops to do the important things in life like write haiku or maybe tweet a little in the off time.

Leslie has been taking wonderful care of my lazy sodden recuperating ass, second batch of flaxseed, banana, pecan pancakes with freeze dried blueberries, maybe the best ever. accompanied by extra thick apple wood smoked bacon. real maple syrup. get this, get that, honey, could you?

wrote to a friend in japan last night, his return reply suggests a heightened angst level re: sino adventurism in a precarious south china sea. friends in thailand similarly freaked with current instability there. careful china, you know we are listening to your every word.

*
stan sends over america as horror show - guardian - festival of dangerous ideas.

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"When you get the message, hang up the phone."- Timothy Leary

Zatoichi - The Whirlwind of Kisoji

No 9 Dream

"We never got it off on that revolution stuff." David Bowie - all the young dudes

I believe that this is an early Phil Spector work-up. Leslie tells me that it is the anniversary of Lennon's murder today. Still remember where I was when I turned on the radio, heard the news, rainy night in Encinitas, driving on El Camino Real. Not all that far from Borellis, where George liked to eat with Ravi when he was in town. I heard that Ravi loved pastries too.

We were talking about John at coffee a month or so back. I had been doing some thinking and it was my position that he is arguably the most important musical figure since 1960. Someone countered with Dylan and I guess you could safely put your money on that but I still would personally pick Lennon. BTW, Tony offered Prince which I thought was ludicrous but Leslie thought not so far fetched.

Now if we go back to the fifties things get trickier with Elvis and Chuck Berry. So I won't. But it definitely boggles that a band from Liverpool that hones their chops playing eight hours of simple rock and roll a night in Hamburg could evolve into such an elemental force in culture. Revolutionary. With the greatest harmonies of their or any time. I am too inarticulate and woefully unprepared to explain their genius so I won't even try.

It is hard to qualify an artist's greatness, a very subjective proposition. Many talents have made a huge impression in the last fifty years, Elton, Stevie, Hendrix, Michael Jackson, may I offer Jerry? In my mind, no one has had near the impact of John and his band, the Beatles.

My favorite period is With the, Meet the Beatles. The innocent pop songs sung with such perfect beauty and economy. The latin rhythms that Paul and John so artfully entwined. Bossas, things like this boy, my favorite, aka as Ringo's theme.

Forward to Revolver and Rubber Soul, two fingers perfectly placed on the warm emotions of the times.

And then to start getting very high and exploring and having fun on the magical mystery tour, the psychedelic majesty and roadmap of Sgt. Pepper. And to think that there was nary a solo the whole time. Because the band was about music, not individual pyrotechnics. I remember reading a quote once from Paul that George could have pulled off Clapton's legendary Beatles' guitar solos no sweat, it just wasn't their bag.

I am not trying to minimize McCartney's role in all this, in a musical sense his presence over shadowed even John's. Yet John was the cerebral catalyst on the songs that meant the most, at least to me.

I would appreciate your input on the subject, what John meant to you, if anything. Hey, who knows, you may have been more into Mick? In any case, tip a pint to the man first chance you get. Ta.

bird in a cage

cooped up like a decidedly non free range chicken, wing pinioned, mostly hormone free - reading my sick books, latest Le Carre - surprise, there is a betrayal, who would have thunk?, Cornwall's characters are a tad deeper than most humans I personally run into but they tend to get a little predictable these days. Smiley's people vid next, watched the first season of shameless yesterday. Was going stir crazy wednesday, tubes and compression socks and the ice machine, couldn't move, couldn't breathe -  shed all the hardware for an occasional icepack and an ibuprofen.  You knew I wouldn't be able to stop writing, didn't you?

Christmas in our house means of course dim sum, jasmine, let me know who wants to show this year.

best,

R

chinese going out for jewish this time,  a benefit, lower east side 1903, trying to save the jews from the pogroms of kishinev, where my mother's family is from.

Save It for Later

read something

america the vulgar - wsj

what the pope gets wrong about capitalism - reason

gop civil war - fascinating read by an old operative at National Review. The notion of a permanent insurgency.

 a few reports that the CRO is withholding from the public - Secrecy News

should the government be allowed to force a private baker to bake a cake for a gay couple?

skin talks to the liver.

more on ALEC - alternet

doj gets squirrelly on gps tracking - aclu - forget constitutionality, think good faith

photobomb - atlantic

between hemispheres - wiring differences between males and females - economist

darpa's new membrane technology could allow total global space surveillance - extremetech

torture doctors

Palestine should seek redress at the international criminal court - Human Rights Watch

Austrian Mayor resigns over call for journalists to be hanged like Jews - Jerusalem Post

"Simlinger, who has served as the mayor of the small town of Gföhl since 1997, said the last thing he wanted to do was to “injure people.” The mayor allegedly said during a city council meeting on Tuesday,“I don’t give a shit about asylum seekers, but the journalists are to be blamed. They should be hanged; they are like the Jews.”

Venezuela tightens grip on media. - Matthew Waid

between pigs and anchovies - where humans rank on the food chain - great comments.

stingray - usa today

NRA elephant gun - Mother Jones

die, selfish gene, die. phase changing and gene expression.

we come in peace

Mark Knopfler & Chris Barber

No Water = No NSA Data Center

54-56 Was My Number

12.5

had my post op, splendid, zero meds since surgery, celebrated with roast duck curry at thai one on in Vista with sweetheart. left hand tricky... thanks for good wishes!

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Alec wants to penalize solar freeloaders. god forbid that one ever gets off the grid.

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zegna icon jacket. totally wired. download manual.

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mandela dies, on u.s. terrorist list until 2008, enemy of thatcher, reagan and cheney...

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Liz Warren on third way.

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Good christians can't get PTSD.

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prez says its a mean old world and they really aren't that in to reading your email, but...we should be happy with the checks and balances of congress and the courts, should get comfortable with the idea of a darpa like system of governmental total information awareness, what's the problem if you aren't doing anything wrong? A sane and sober person has to call bullshit, what checks?, courts won't recognize individual citizens standing in lawsuits, justice department plays silly games and congress is at war with itself. Not like TED CRUZ, RUBIO OR PAUL would be any improvement, things would only get worse but what a progressive failure... totally self inflicted, of course.

*
Nice. McDonalds wants to help its workers figure out how much to tip their pool boys...

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When considering Persia in your holiday plans this year, Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr. says, don't forget about the nukes!

God Speaks of Marty Robbins

operation went well. experiment in left handed typing. bone spurs, calcium deposits, one bone insert. have managed to say off the percocet and pills. pain manageable at present. wife awesome.hooked up to the ice machine. later.

Blakey

Steve Winwood

Salt Pond Sunset

Ted took this fine photo today in Kauai. Make sure that you click on it and view it big.

Zimbra

See you on the flip

Rose Royce

Davanti Del Mar

I had my pre-op exam this morning for tomorrow's shoulder surgery. Everything is going to be great. To celebrate afterwards I took Leslie to one of my new favorite local restaurants, Davanti Enoteca Del Mar.

This is my second visit but Leslie had never been there and I was sure that she would love it. She did.

We started the meal with the obligatory Ligurian focaccia filled with the wonderful italian cheese and topped with honeycomb.

Leslie decided that we should sit outside and it was a splendid idea. The first thing I noticed was that the music was great, another restaurant that favors 60's psychedelia. I guess that we have arrived. White Room, Hendrix, all very good for the digestive tract.

We started looking at the menu. Everything is tantalizing, risottos, ragu of the day, all manner of pasta with everything sounding so interesting.

I decided on the pappardelle with the beef cheek, roasted tomato and parmesan. Leslie  decided to get a salumi, cheese and salad concoction off the special menu as well as an apple and fennel salad.

We also ordered one of the very intriguing cheeses, a robiola bosina and extra bread, which it turned out we really didn't need.

Leslie also got a very special cocktail called the Master after the master cleanse, this one contained maple syrup, lemon and cayenne and a splash of Tito's Vodka.  I tasted it and it was delicious.

Alas the server told me that they were out of the beef cheek so I decided to try the ravioli. What an amazing dish, it was filled with squash, browned butter, sage, crispy prosciutto and a liberal dollop of hazelnuts. Really remarkable, worth the price of admission.

We really like the place. I think that it gives Cucina Urbana a run, and is certainly better than the new joint in Flower Hill, Cucina Enoteca. I sat at the bar there recently and came away very disappointed. "At $4.50 a glass I certainly don't want another root beer, I don't care if it was brewed by capuchin monks in Bhutan." The fennel pizza was terrible and they have now taken the garlic and oil away from their Burrata confit vasi. Don't I sound like a petulant yuppie now?

The meal here was terrific, Leslie's salad a thing of wonder. My ravioli was heaven and the crunchy prosciutto just tops. Unami time.

Tracy always gets the mascarpone polenta, just too much to try at this place, actually part of a small chain that started in Chicago.

We were way too full for dessert but it certainly looked terrific and next time out will drastically reduce the bread and wait for the apple caramel tart or the lime thingie.

I encourage you to try this restaurant. I promise you won't be sorry.

Davanti Enoteca
12955 El Camino Real (At Del Mar Highlands Town Center)
Del Mar, CA, 92130
858-519-5060 

Rhythm & Blues

New York Stan sent this one over.

Cognitive fail

The experience was a trifle unsettling, at least on an intellectual level.

The battery on my Chrysler key was obviously failing and I stopped at a neighborhood store to get it replaced.

The man behind the counter quickly took the pear shaped plastic instrument apart and found the appropriate battery on the shelf, which he installed into the round slot without a problem.

Then things started getting tricky and interesting. I watched the young man try to put the two halves of the key back together but repeatedly he tried to match the bulbous end with the tapered end, one, two, three times. Finally an inner light went on and he reversed the halves and made a fit. I must tell you that I was floored, it was the equivalent of a toddler trying to put the hexagonal block into the triangular hole.

I felt slightly embarrassed for this person but tried not to show any visible reaction whatsoever. This sort of cognitive disfunction is nothing to ridicule, but it did make me a little sad for the man.

I guess that we have to be careful in assuming that the people we meet have a "normal" or standard skill set, some of them may have serious hard wired structural impediments. Some thing to be aware of while driving too. The world is literally filled with all types, and everybody is trying to make it the best they can.

Fenario

Jack-A-Roe

Express yourself

So like what happened to you people with the photographs this year? Ten measly pictures? After last year's tour de force? What's up with that?

I don't want to call anybody out but Randy, BigDave, Shawn in Thailand, Lena, there's a lot of you folks missing this year. Throw something at the blast wall, let's see if it sticks...

You all have cell phones, you had to take at least one photograph this year. Time to share. Or not.

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Speaking of cameras, I would like to go on a little rant. I am by no means some great photographer but what my pictures lack in quality I believe is made up for in sheer volume of work.

In fact just the other day KJ mentioned to me that my photographs were a source of no small inspiration to him since I obviously had no problems showing my imperfection filled shots to the world at large without fear of censure. I paraphrase of course. What he may have said might be closer to technically crappy shots that usually say something. And I think I can live with that.

*
I started taking photographs close to the time I started drawing, probably five or six. I wanted to be an artist when I was young and sketched from a very early age. My stepfather had a twin lens rollieflex and showed me the rudiments of picture taking when I was very young. I fell in love with black and white photography, and dare I say, grain, in the first or second grade. Loved Life and Look magazine, loved photography. Taped pictures to my walls.

My father was an army photographer in World War II and there were always cameras around, my dad's hobby. We always had a darkroom in the house and one of my earliest prize possessions was his old Zeiss ikon Voigtlander camera, a camera that was unfortunately later stolen from me in New York. Our developing equipment was eventually donated to the Army Navy Academy.

My father went through a lot of gear, Pentax, Topcon, Olympus, before finally settling down with his Hasseblads. When I got serious about photography again in my twenties I went through a few cheap Konica FT -2's, the camera I took to Africa. Never had a Nikon until I got old, never had expensive gear, never thought it was about the gear.

I used to paint, both commercially and for pure artistic fun. Oils and watercolors, never acrylics. Griffin taught me a couple things. When Leslie and I started in the antiques business in the nineties we sold all of the old canvases of mine that were still laying around. When I found out that I had bladder and kidney cancer in 1985 I made a decision to stay away from harmful chemicals and stopped painting completely, something I still really miss. Photography helped with the artsy jones and became an easy substitute, as did writing to some degree, although I believe it is the most difficult craft of them all. But there is nothing like slapping paint.

*
Having or not having an innate sense of composition is akin to having or not having an ear for music. I don't believe that it can be really taught, only felt and those people who seek to compose and who rely on some academic or mechanical process will never be as capable as those who are at home in the bandwidth. Different things come easy for different people.

*
Several friends of mine are looking for cameras right now. One is traveling to Asia and wants something light and easy, with the flash in the right place and a good grip. Basically a point and shoot. The other friend wants the latest technology and was talking to me last night about the new generation of mirrorless cameras and how they were going to revolutionize everything.

I have looked at some of these cameras and honestly feel that they would be a hideous experience for me. My Nikon D7000 is large but not overlarge. It is comfortable for me. When I take it with me, which is most of the time, it means I am ready to focus on my pursuit. I have a cellphone in my pocket for recording, but I am rarely happy with the limitations of that camera. My Nikon camera is a tool that allows me unfailingly to do what I want to do and I am sure will be sufficient for ever in accomplishing my artistic goals. Of course, I am coming up on 20k clicks, for a camera a little over a year old, I think that is a mess of shooting and it ain't gonna live forever.

I need an optical viewfinder in my camera, like the ability to cycle through my herd of lenses, like to be able to change my depth of field and speed. I don't need video, a microphone jack, or wifi, or html ports or pancake lenses or any of the other new fads. Tiny sensors. These are toy gadgets, not cameras. Personally, I would rather go back to the twin lens rollie. With the caveat that I know I am a much better digital photographer now than I ever was a film photographer.

*
Photography is a fairly simple process, capturing light through a few pieces of glass for an interval of time through a prescribed opening. Whether the image that is captured is meaningful or not is of course, a personal matter. Things speak to us all quite differently. I met Shawn some time after he went to the Art Institute of Chicago. Shawn was a very talented draftsman and very creative artist but I remember a period of time where it was his point of view that what you think about my creation is inconsequential, only the process matters.

I went through a bit of this myself in college. I was working for me, and decided not to make things pretty for my art professors. This pissed them off exceedingly and I certainly didn't help myself much with my method. When I decided to show them or made the mistake of showing them what I was capable of, at least one of them was flabbergasted, Frank Jones, who even accused me of stealing another students work, thinking me incapable. This angered me for a long time.

You can paint, or draw, or shoot pictures, or sing, or cook, for your own muse or you can engage for the world. I think that I mostly follow the former path but hope that people can still dig my output.

*
If I could get another camera I would buy a D7100 or its next successor. They have shed the lowpass filter and it is supposed to be what is known in the trade as tack sharp. Great camera, wonderful in low light. There is a retro craze in photography at present, even a new Nik retro analog software upload a few weeks back. Nikon has a new df retro throwback so that people can pose like they shoot 50's rangefinders. How utterly stupid and lacking in substance. Style mongers. But that's where we are at. Fancy, useless electronics or vapid style.

If I could swing it I would buy a Sigma DP2 Merrill or the SD 1, with the foveon sensor. They are cheap and remarkable, although beset with a few problems and completely tripod dependent. I think that they take the best pictures I have seen to date, in terms of color saturation and resolution. Used for less than six hundred bucks on ebay.

 *
We live in a remarkable world, in a remarkable time. We are the only one of our sentient brethren with our unique sense of consciousness and personal identity. And an ability to laugh, to perceive irony, to recognize the beauty of a sunset. Such a gift.

*
I sat behind a middle eastern couple on the plane and thought; for all of our differences, we all have so much more in common. We mostly all have ten fingers, use a base 10 mathematical system, share a calendar and a clock. Most of our cultural taboos are fairly uniform across continents, tribes and religions. In the end we are all hip deep in the similar experience of being human.

*
Express yourself. It is a wonderful part of being alive. As the Navajos say, walk in beauty.

Burton Cummings & Randy Bachman

Tommy James and the Shondells

Let it snow

I had a wonderful trip to Canada. Cold but not too cold, about 17 below celsius with wind chill at the worst.  Timed my visit perfectly, with the first real dusting of snow. I hadn't seen my brother Buzz in a while, nor his wife, children and grandchild, they were all wonderful company and it could not have been a nicer time.

The trip out was uneventful. I arrived at the airport and was sent to the TSA pre clearance line which means belt and shoes stay on and Bobby walks right through. "Wait a second, how can this be? I'm a nutty, subversive writer and I should have a file this thick?"To my chagrin, my protests fell on deaf ears.

My plane flew into Detroit, I got a first blast of icy air debarking between the plane door and the ramp. Strange to see one's breath again after a protracted absence. Detroit Airport has a tunnel between terminals that is an odd and quite wonderful light show. I also took this picture of an airport restaurant with my cell phone. Rather bizarre message they are sending. Marketing genius, obviously trying to appeal to the large untapped shithead demographic.

Toronto is a special city. Not particularly beautiful, it lacks the copper domed elegance of Quebec and the sheer beauty of British Columbia. Dismal in a way that many northeastern cities appear where the winter brings so few hours of sunlight. Yet it is one of the most advanced cities I have ever visited in many ways. People in Toronto seem to be totally color blind, it is the most blended and tolerant city I have ever visited from a cultural standpoint. Quite commendable. And the people by and large seem pretty hip.

Like the rest of the Canada the people are all so nice, almost fatally nice. I believe that they are inwardly kvelling with delight over the Mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford's recent implosion. They can finally show the rest of the world a little street cred, that they have the capacity to be bad like the rest of us. Nobody has really acted up since Margaret Trudeau. And now Rob Ford is doing his best Belushi impression at the same time Prime Minister Stephen Harper is embroiled in a big payola scam of his own. You've made it Canada...

I watched a lot of hockey highlights, my nephew is a local sports radio announcer. Discussed the finer arts of curling, the miserable NBA basketball franchise. And ate a lot of good ethnic food. Toronto is such a vast repository of good, cheap, ethnic cuisine, my favorite kind.

The first night we walked over to a neighborhood joint, Pho Spring Garden, Koreans that served vietnamese, thai and korean fare. I had maybe the best bimbimpap of my life, the spring rolls sucked but after all, I was in the middle of the tundra, so what did I expect? Buzz ordered the pho. My brother definitely knows his way around food. A lawyer turned restauranteur,

Yonge Street is chalk full of interesting foods, you could eat at a different place every night and never get tired. Middle eastern, chinese, tea houses, curry, pinoy, kabob, izakaya joints, hungarian, and everything in between, it is a veritable smorgasbord of gustatory delights.

The first morning I woke up and walked to the park across Doris and tromped through the snow. Some kids in the park offered me a toke, which I graciously declined. Didn't want to cause an international incident or anything. It was fun to get my sea legs or should I say snow legs back?

I felt something strange occurring with my left foot and gingerly limped back to the small apartment I had rented, turned out that I hadn't paid proper attention to my toenails and I had a quite bloody toe. One of the worst problems with getting fat, the physiologic and structural impediments to good toenail maintenance.

Buzz drove me over to the venerable St. Lawrence Market. I choked down a peameal bacon sandwich, a local signature dish, pretty much required but not one of the greatest things I have ever eaten. Hey, nobody put a gun to my head. This is one of the world's great markets and I loved looking at all of the varied food, ukrainian, mexican, any cuisine you could think of.

I also ate a portuguese flan at the market, which my slightly younger brother commented was odd because apparently we regularly had a similar dish when we were young boys in El Paso that I don't particularly remember at present.

I had an appointment to talk to a woman about a painting at the University of Toronto and than scurried over to talk to a man about another canvas. As I peered into the gallery, a man walked up to tell me that the man  I sought had passed away. He owned another gallery now at the same location and we exchanged business cards and pleasantries after a bit of requisite butt sniffing.

Zachary came over and joined us, we all went out to an excellent dim sum place for lunch called Pearl BayView which was situated in a mall somewhere. No carts, one orders from the kitchen off the menu.

Food was nice and tasty!

Afterwards Buzz drove me over to Soma in the distillery district. Leslie and I went to this place, my favorite chocolate shop in the world, on our last trip to Toronto ages ago and could never forget it. Soma makes the best hot chocolate you have ever tasted this side of machu picchu anyway, a spicy, chile filled mouth orgasm. I bought a king's ransom worth to bring home.

Soma has this wonderful ninety something year old chocolate press, maybe imported from Spain?

Next door to Soma is the very cool and futuristic shop, Bergo the Gallery of Industrial Design. I missed my wife a lot, she would have really enjoyed herself this afternoon. Very cool place. Check out the link.

I don't want you to get the impression that all I did was eat. I am sure that we did other things too, like discuss Proust and solve the world hunger problem. But I did put it away.

That night we ordered in West Indian from Island Foods. We dined on oxtails and curried chicken. I had the boneless goat. All delicious and simply unavailable in the land where I live. Of course you can't get a decent burrito up there either or so my brother tells me. If you love curries, Toronto has to be close to heaven.

Thanksgiving day, we drove to Waterloo to see my niece and her family, the first time I would ever set eyes on the newest addition to my clan, my great niece Rosalyn, the most adorable girl. Stopped for jelly doughnuts, apparently a Chanukah staple I was never clued into, never celebrating much in my strange childhood.

The family is very tight, loving and supportive and it was an honor to spend time with them, to a person. Sorry I missed seeing my nephew Jake, away at graduate school, I am told a very smart young man.

My sister in law Julia was really great to me and made me feel most welcome. A wonderful visit with the whole family, something that I have neglected for too long.

I took a long walk up Yonge the next day. Watched the cranes operating on the rooftop and enjoyed the very crisp morning. Visited a little cemetery, tombstones topped with winter's frosting.

I love walking in big cities, especially New York, but Toronto is an able substitute. I lose myself in the anonymity of city streets, rediscover a forgotten piece of myself while striding alone across great avenues.

*

The culture of cold is much more developed in Canada. Snow tires, snow pants, these people are professionals. Most American winters pale next to what they experience up here and the folks in Saskatoon have it even worse.

I heard the weather people talk about so many different levels of snow, dusting, blowing and corn. My brother talked of a snow with the consistency of kosher salt. The weather people issued weather statements. It is definitely a new frozen lexicon. I realized how little I actually knew about the subject.

I decided to learn a little something about snow, perhaps something I could share. I started researching snow and found the new terms graupel, firn, névé in my dictionary. Graupel is the soft snow pellet that forms when supercooled droplets of water are collected and freeze on a falling snowflake.

Firn is rounded, compact snow that is over a year old.

Névé is young, granular snow that has been partially melted, refrozen and compacted but still has not had a birthday.

Snow cognoscentis and I assume most Canadians fit into this category, can readily tell you the difference between a snow flurry, squall or burst. I assuredly, can not.

Read this website and you too can understand all the various snow formations, tell a cornice from a barchan and hoarfrost from perennial. And no, you can't get sastrugi at a goulash restaurant.

If I am unable to write after tuesday I wish you all the best of Decembers.

Robert

The Dealer - Chico Hamilton

Thanksgivkuhh

I waited in line after the long flight to Canada, biding my time to talk to  the Customs enforcement agent.

"Where you coming from?"

San Diego.

"How long do you plan to be here?"

Five days.

"Where are you staying?"

With my brother in Toronto.

"How long has he been here?"

About 25 years.

"Vietnam, huh? He looked at me with a nodding acknowledgement. In a soft voice he said, " I don't blame him."

His math was a bit off but I didn't stop to argue, too busy laughing to myself. Buzz the Canadian draft dodger.

Nice snow last night, cold as hell. Walked through the park and took pictures when the sun came up.Will hopefully have time to write about the trip when I get back.

Presidential turkey

President Obama made headlines the other day when he mentioned that he was not particularly ideological. I agree, he does not appear to be. My problem is that he campaigned rather fervently as a person with a strong ideological bent, especially in some of the areas I am interested in like civil liberties. Now it appears that he is not as committed to a progressive agenda as he once presented himself.

Huffpo pointed out today that he has pardoned far more thanksgiving turkeys than low level marijuana smokers. I am not going to waste your time with a long laundry list of grievances, I have done that many times before. I only wish that he had been more honest with his constituency when he gave us his initial sales job.

I have friends that are pained by my negative view of Barack Obama. I look at him as a very good opportunity wasted and a man who has a hard time taking responsibility. While the ACA was definitely obstructed at every term, his signature program was so fatally flawed and executed that it obviously had no business being launched before it was ready. Amateur hour. His backtracking on his promises to the american people regarding this program will badly tarnish his legacy forever.

It is admirable that we have a President that can be so non ideological and objective. But as I said several years ago after one of his many betrayals, some day he will need his alienated base and they will no longer listen or respond to his clarion call. I believe that day has come.

Blues for Roy

Michael Bloomfield was 21 years old when he recorded this tune in 1964.

Recorded by Norman Dayron. Michael Bloomfield, g; Michael Johnson, g; Sid Warner, b; Norm Mayell, d.
Big John’s, Chicago, IL; October 15, 1964