the time has come to talk of many things

It’s January 6th, the Day of Epiphany, and for our purposes we'll hook right into the pure definition of epiphany: "inspired understanding, revelation and enlightened knowledge."

In Central America this is the day when gifts are at last exchanged during the Christmas celebration, because King's Day commemorates the day the three Magi finally made it all the way to Bethlehem and laid their gifts down before the Christ child.

So it seems fitting to appropriate this day for our purposes, and announce a gift for Joe-Henry, son of AnnieMcQ, friend of this blog. (With the caveat that I’ve been slow to get them shipped off and it’ll be another week of so before the package itself follows in kind. Apologies: My bad.)

I’ll let the World’s Best Mechanical Engineer explain what this is all about:

Joe Henry,
A long, long time ago I was a small boy like you. I had a deeply ingrained interest in how things work. I would ask questions and dismantle broken toys and appliances. Slowly I started to forge a little understanding of machinery and science.

Then one day everything changed.

My mother mail ordered the Young People's Science Encyclopedia. At a time when our family had no money to spare, my mother miraculously bought this encyclopedia. I read and was amazed. No longer would I have to blacksmith my knowledge from the embers of broken toys. My Mom had bought a veritable blast furnace of science knowledge. I basked in its heat.

It was the late 60's or early 70's. These were heady times in American science. The space race was in full swing. America knew that going to the moon was dangerous... and we went anyway. The Science encyclopedia was steeped in this attitude.

Science was fun, exciting, and possibly a little dangerous.

The encyclopedia was full of experiments. I performed many of them, anxiously waiting for crystals to grow and seeds to sprout. I decided to either be a mechanical or aerospace engineer.

Many years later Suttonhoo and my brother b1-66er were meeting me for dinner in San Juan Bautista.[1] And then destiny intervened on your behalf.

Sitting in a dark corner of an antiques shop was a copy of the Young People's Science Encyclopedia. [Ed. Note: b1-66er gets full points for spotting it earlier in the evening, and for hauling us all back there. And for disapproving soundly at our inability to negotiate a good deal. I'm afraid our hearts led the transaction.]

I thought it might jump into my arms. Clearly this encyclopedia needed to get into the right hands: Yours.

Suttonhoo and I bought it as a belated Christmas gift for you. But in reality it could have just as easily been an Easter gift or a Veteran's Day gift. You NEED this encyclopedia.

This is the Guttenberg Bible of young people's science knowledge.

Here's a tip for you on the experiments: some of the experiment supplies have to be bought at a pharmacy. Take the encyclopedia with you to a mom and pop pharmacy (not a chain) when you try to obtain the supplies. That way they can see the experiment and know that you are not trying to wreak some kind of havoc.

Good luck.

B1-67er

Editor’s note: Ms. McQ, being a girl with an aversion to grime (on my books) I took some liberties and did my best to clean up each volume. It seems they sat somewhere very dusty for quite a long while. B1-66er & - 67er were a bit impatient with me for doing so: they thought it was of utmost urgency that Joe-Henry receive these volumes AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Please accept my apologies for the delay.

An apology too for the fact that volumes 14 and 18 are missing from the set -- I've found replacements through Abebooks and am having them shipped to you directly.

And, of course, before we go, an experiment, excerpted from the Young People's Science Encyclopedia:

HOW DOES A STEAM ENGINE WORK?

1. Follow the adjoining diagram to assemble a homemade steam engine.


2. Find a tall, clear, heat-resistant plastic container with a cover. Drill a hole in the bottom of the container and one hole off center in the cover.


3. Cut a circle of plastic from a second cover that will fit into the container.


4. Cut slits in the center of the two covers to insert a tongue depressor, or apencil may be used to act as the piston rod.


5. Insert the ends of two pieces of rubber tubing into a cork which fits snugly in the spout of a teakettle.


6. Boil the water in the kettle. Push the other two ends of the tubes slightly into each opening on the ends of the container.


7. Wearing a glove, alternately pinch one tube at a time to shut off the steam. Alternate the steam intake. This causes the piston rod to move forward and back. If the exposed end of the piston were attached to a crankshaft, work could be done.

p.s. Another Editor's Note: Just occurred to me that you might be needing this link »



[1] Near the fabled Casa de Fruita.

I cannot be distant

I cannot be distant
since everything has come alarmingly closer—
the curls, the infectious chuckles,
the drawl like poured-out honey,
the privilege of sharing her astute delight,
the benign devastations of her wit.


A fragment from Derek Wolcott's statement read in honor of Elizabeth Hardwick at her memorial service in New York on 16 December. It appeared in 17 January issue of the New York Review of Books and is so full of love it's startling and a tender treat to read »

forney-cation

When I was in Denver between Christmas and New Year’s my brother was keen to check out the Forney Museum of Transportation. We had been a few times when we were kids and it was housed downtown in what is now the REI flagship store. The big brick warehouse, to my recollection, was the best part of that visit -- the way the sun spilled through the high windows and lit up the dust that lived everywhere in that place.

The exhibits, as I remembered them, were cool but stale: A lot of big machines. Cars. Trains. Other mechanical stuff. Cool to a point when you’re a girl with a penchant for these things. Unbelievably cool when you’re a boy.

Which is why, I think, my brother was keen to get back there.



So we did. With his four kids in tow. And they didn’t even start saying “can we go now?” until we’d been there an hour at least.

Me? I missed the high windows. The brick. But the electric cars were pretty cool. As were the trains. And I took an especial liking to all the creepy mannequins.

except for scenic designers

When you see an aging building or a rusted bridge, you are seeing nature and man working together. If you paint over a building, there is no more magic to that building. But if it is allowed to age, then man has built it and nature has added into it — it's so organic.

But often people wouldn't think to permit that, except for scenic designers.

Film director David Lynch speaking of Beauty in Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity. Another one from the Tattered Cover haul.

Which I summarized in brief in an email to a friend in which I suggested he was welcome to the book now that I'd finished it:

p.s. & unrelated: just finished the david lynch book. strangely rambling & yet concise take on the connection between his meditation practise and his work in film/the creative process. a really light but enjoyable read. with some bizarreness like a chapter entitled: "The box & the key"[1] followed by a single sentence: "I don't have a clue what those are."

the book's a little like a david lynch film, actually.

Needless to say, he didn't take me up on my offer.

[1] A Mullholland Drive reference, no?



Update: Speaking of David Lynch, @vasta just tweeted this: David Lynch on the iPhone »

fever dream

Removed, and then restored, at Lolabola's command. I figured it was too tame of a dream to be of much interest; but of course the *other* dreams I would never post here. ;)


In my dream I was wearing flip-flops which I hardly ever never wear now that I'm grown, with nice clothes, linen slacks, a light top. I had worn the flip-flops down to a nub like I always did those long summer days by the pool as a kid and they had started to come apart so I had to twist my feet up a bit in an attempt to get them to hold together as I walked up the path. Even still they pulled apart periodically and I had to stop to repair them. I could feel the cold stones under my toes.

The path was in Japan, maybe Tibet, and I was following an older woman -- well-dressed, Western -- who held the address of the dentist. The dentist came highly recommended and was the reason we were walking up the trail -- maybe it was in the Andes? But it was clear that it might take awhile to get where we were going. It had started to snow and she grew agitated, and although we had been walking for several hours I suggested that we turn back and try again when the snow had cleared. This calmed her some, although she continued to mutter under her breath as we began our descent.

don't speak

Sick. Don't trust myself to post anything requiring thought because my brain is in a funky fever state where the edges are all soft.

So I'll post this instead: A nothing kind of shot taken in the back room of the Newberry Library about a week back (maybe two?) that made me giddy happy when I shot it and still does. Even though it's still unclear to me why that is. The sort of shot only a mother could love.

Which I suppose is something we all could use a little more of: That wild inexplicable love you forever even though anyway kind of love.

stepping out

Calder's Flamingo Stabile in Mies' Federal Plaza
Chicago, IL

A few days back.

vacancy

I have it on good authority that the Big Bunny Motel was originally the “Bugs Bunny” Motel, before the folks at Warner Brothers brought the copyright hammer down on the owners.

If you look closely you can see how the sign was modified to accommodate the evolution.

Denver, CO
On Colfax Ave

throwing out the first pitch

A bowl of pudding only has taste when I put it in my mouth — when it is in contact with my tongue. It doesn't have taste or flavor sitting in my fridge, only the potential. Similarly, the walls in my kitchen are not "white" when I leave the room. They still have paint on them, of course, but color only occurs when they interact with my eyes.

Sound waves impinge on the eardrums and pinnae (the fleshy parts of your ear), setting off a chain of mechanical and neurochemical events, the end product of which is an internal mental image we call pitch.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? (The question was first posed by the Irish philosopher George Berkely.) Simply, no — sound is a mental image created by the brain in response to vibrating molecules. Similarly, there can be no pitch without a human or animal present.

A suitable measuring device can register the frequency made by the tree falling, but truly it is not pitch unless and until it is heard.

Daniel J. Levitin in This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, acquired as one of the welcome hazards of setting foot into any of the Tattered Cover locations in Denver, Colorado (this one was Lodo). (Impossible to leave that place without dropping some coin.)

And offered this morning for Mr. BobcatRock of London -- Twitterer, Flickrer, and now Blogger (who of course immediately cemented my already growing affection when he said sweet things about detritus) -- who's suggesting that he just may finish that album this year.

Offered as a way of stating the obvious, which is to say: Please lay down those tracks, Mr. Rock, so that we can give them a listen.

bricklayer

Ever notice? When Dorothy lands in Oz and the Munchkins show her the trailhead of the Yellow Brick Road, there’s a Red Brick Road that starts at exactly the same spot, spiraling off in the opposite direction.

I wanna know where that road goes.

Shot some red brick and hand-lettered signage to excess in Denver’s Lodo (lower downtown) historic warehouse district while I was away.

Here’s the set »

Here’s the slideshow »

the history of red

Olivetti Valentine
Originally uploaded by thetourist.

Every color has a history. Red is the color of the Communist flag, the color that makes a surgeon move faster and the color of passion.

Ettore Sottsass, designer of the Olivetti Valentine Typewriter, as cited in his obituary in this morning's New York Times.

and a happy new year

and a happy new year
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Here's to clean sweeps and good things in the New Year.

Happy happy to You and Yours.

the view from here

the view from here
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Shot a couple days back, but more of the same today, so I figured I could cheat and post this one.

Weekend full of nieces, 1 nephew, & 1 napping baby: all good stuff. + some old friends & plenty of conversations about everything over diner food & Dino's, which was more than worth the price of admission.

I'm meeting little H.M. for the first time this trip since she only just introduced herself to the world two months ago. She's such a mellow baby -- so little fussing, so much cuddling. Probably helps some that my voice shares some of the same vocal patterns as her daddy's: familiar music to coo to.

Whatever it was, it worked: We took to each other straightaway.

yipee-ki-

yipee-ki-
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Yay.

Lodo, Denco
Posting by cameraphone.

the perfect pour

Stopped by the Trident the day before last after a late breakfast with an old friend at Lucile's just down the road.

I love what I do now, but I've never loved working so much as when I worked at the Trident when I was a student, supporting my two double-latte habit a day with subsidized coffee drinks, and doling out one of the few legal substances that made its way into Boulder's sewage run off.

Started up by three Buddhists from Berkeley before good coffee was easy to come by in Boulder, the Trident used to be almost the *only* place where you could get real coffee in town. And although good coffee is now much easier to come by under the Flatirons I'd still recommend that you go out of your way for a cup of the Trident's coffee at the far West end of the Pearl Street Mall the next time you're there -- a recommendation based in part on sentiment but mostly on knowing how much coffee matters in that place.

To become a barista at the Trident it was expected that you would first bus tables -- for a year. This was your apprenticeship.

Some kind of conference took place behind closed doors before the invitation was issued to train at the piston-driven Rancilio (no pre-programmed push button nonsense at the Trident -- this was a real machine that required timing, temperament, and a musical sense of tempo to operate) and then M.S. (who's still with the Trident and whom it was good to see again yesterday when I stopped by to pay my respects) whose true business title I don't think I ever knew (and don't know now) but who I think of as "the Elder" (not that he's old. just that he knows. so much.) -- M.S. would pull you aside and let you know that it was time.

And then your training would begin.

There were conversations about the correct color and texture of the coffee's crema as it poured like honey through the grip; about the right grind and how the burrs would sometimes have to be adjusted when the weather changed because humidity in the air impacted the pour. There were conversations about tamping, frothing and ratios of espresso to milk.

In the summertime there were careful machinations to create an iced coffee that was strong enough to hold up as the ice melted down, and intensely labor-intensive iced espresso drinks in which we lovingly layered a strata of chilled espresso over a base of cold milk.

I loved the art required to work there, and the speed needed to serve the line that snaked out the door. And I loved that the management we worked for respected that art and asked us to own it.

I also remember with respect and reverence the best bitch slap I ever received on the job. I was late by about ten minutes for my shift -- I had been late before and had as good an excuse now as I had then, but M.S. had had enough of it.

He pointed out that I was late, I started in with my excuses, and he interrupted me, saying: "No. Don't be late again."

I wasn't.

When I was going through my divorce and unsure of my place in the world, I came *this close* to calling him up to see if I might spend a few weeks at the Trident, working the machine, making coffee for the folks, flowing from one order, one act of creation, one delivered request to the next.

I sensed then that maybe it could right my world, make sense out of things again -- the way making gifts by hand does, the way giving can fill you up whole.

the breakfast king

the breakfast king
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Biscuits & gravy at Midnight.

Posting by cameraphone from The Breakfast King all night diner, Mississippi & Santa Fe, Denver, CO

devotchka

dvotchka
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Posting by cameraphone from the Mercury Cafe, Denver, CO

So good.

I will eat your money

I will eat your money
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Jukebox, Rocky Mtn Diner.

Posting by cameraphone from Denver, CO

M explains it all for you

A Red Robin children's menu, requesting the child's name, email address and other personally identifiable information, on which my 8 year old niece M explains COPA -- the Child Online Protection Act -- for the folks. In crayon.

It reads: "I can't tell you."

Posting by cameraphone from Denver, CO where I'm catching up with the family -- including my brand new baby niece, H.M.

Yay.

and then suddenly

a found poem

we are wet
the woods thicken
it's getting darker

little muddy paths
lead off to the left
into the woods
until you can't see
them anymore

where to?
we climb.

this is never going to end.

and then suddenly
like a bolt of lightening
nothing happens

but then truly
absolutely nothing

everything

goes on doing
what
it's always done



Found in Tim Krabbe's The Rider

you have my word.

Just off Rush, right around Noontime.
Chicago, IL

since 1940

since 1940
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Adjacent to Bughouse Square
& the Newberry Library

Posting by cameraphone
Chicago, IL

another calla

pen to paper

a found poem

Not long
after the women descend[ed]
on this swarming city
they would find him

at his stall
near the post office

letter writer for the unlettered

Hungry, battered, lonely
needing someone to convert
their spoken words into
letters
to mail back home

ferry[ing] false reassurances

[of] steady jobs as shopkeepers
and Bollywood stagehands
nothing of the brothels, beatings, rapes
rupees agonizingly acquired

Many called Mr. Sawant “brother”
and tied a string on his wrist each year
in the Hindu tradition

Sometimes, suspicious parents
boarded a train to Mumbai
and turned up at [the] stall
which a daughter had listed
as her address

Mr. Sawant greeted them
kindly
but disclosed nothing



Found in The Ink Fades on a Profession as India Modernizes in this morning's New York Times.

Video: Central do Brasil trailer. A 1998 movie about another letter writer.

dress warm. wear bells.

Christmas mantra via debaird

merry merry, my friends.

thank you, mr. peterson.

Rest easy, Sir.

Oscar Emmanuel Peterson, b. 1925 d. 2007

in our grasp

Christmas day is in our grasp,
So long as we have hands to clasp.

— All the Hoos down in Hooville

From this 'hoo to you: May comfort & joy be yours.

Merry Christmas, Y'all!

bompa's waffles

KEY
plaintext = from the back of the Bisquick box
italics = from my Bompa

2 cups Original Bisquick mix
2 tbsp vegetable oil melted butter
1 1/3 cups milk (best that it's whole milk)
1 egg separated; beat the white into frothy peaks

STIR ingredients until well blended but do it like this: 1) sift the Bisquick into the bowl and 2) make a careful well in the center where you will 3) drop in the egg yolk, break it with your whisk, and initiate the stir before 4) introducing the milk and then, when you've whisked your mixture to be lump free set the whisk aside and 5) carefully, CAREFULLY, fold in the egg white.

POUR onto the center of hot greased waffle iron you'll know it's hot when the light winks out. Do not attempt to make the waffle before the light winks out, even if your granddaughters, still in their PJs, their long skinny legs hanging over the stools that lift them up high over the counter where you're making the waffles, appear to be terribly, terribly hungry. Famished even. And excited, because they've had your waffles before. (Please Note: Grease the waffle iron with butter. By all means: it must be butter.); close lid.

BAKE about 5 min or until steaming stops. (the steaming must stop. trust no other indicator.) Carefully remove waffle.

To Reheat Heat waffles in toaster until crisp. DO NOT reheat a waffle. Make only what you can eat hot off the iron. Do not warm a waffle in the oven; all waffle eaters must be in attendance when the batter hits the grill.

To EAT Allow the grandchildren to top their own, but after they've gorged on several smeared thick with soft butter and maple syrup, recommend that they just may want to try one like you like yours: saturated with melted butter, topped with a thick even crust of cinnamon sugar.

And you will find that they do.

Optional: Serve with bacon. Maybe some eggs.

slouching towards bethlehem

jesus pope and babies
Originally uploaded by tijo.

a found poem

This is not how Mary and Joseph came into Bethlehem,
but this is how you enter now.

You wait
at the wall, three stories high, thorned
with razor wire. Standing beside it, you feel
as if you're at the base of a dam. Israeli soldiers armed
with assault rifles examine your papers. They search
your vehicle.

No Israeli civilian, by military order, is allowed
in. And few Bethlehem residents are permitted out.

If you're cleared to enter, a sliding steel door grinds
open. The soldiers step aside, and you drive
through the temporary gap in the wall. Then the door slides
back, squealing on its track, booming shut.

You're in Bethlehem.

The city, at the scrabbly hem of the Judaean desert, is built
over several broad, flat-topped hills, stingy
with vegetation. The older homes are made
of pale yellow stone, wedged
along steep, narrow streets. A couple of battered taxis ply
the roads, drivers heavy
on the horns. At an outdoor stall, lamb meat rotates
on a spit, dripping fat. Men sit on plastic chairs and sip
from small glasses of thick Arabic coffee. There's an odor
of uncollected garbage. As you work your way up the hill, you can see
the scope of the wall and chart its ongoing expansion

A gray snake, segmented by cylindrical guard towers, methodically
constricting the city.


From Michael Finkel’s Bethelehem 2007 in the December issue of National Geographic

baby it's cold outside

dante is wise, and also loves bacon.

In this, the season of gifts, I have just received a wonderful gift, and now I will share it with you: Enlightenment through Bacon »

Many thanks to Martin, for the link, and to Boing Boing, for the original post.


p.s. Re beggin' strips. My sister never misses the opportunity to remind me of the time I was babysitting a neighbor kid and rifled the kitchen for treats, coming up only with some dry jerky stashed on top of the fridge. I downed a few pieces. Thought little more of it.

Until the parents arrived home and, just before the dad gave me a lift, treated their yappy little dog to a dog treat -- the very same jerky that I had availed myself of earlier that evening.

Good times.


More on bacon »

in flight movie

US flight patterns, as recorded by the FAA and visualized by the Celestial Mechanics Project -- the (quicktime) Movie »

Beautiful, beautiful.


Here's the main index page, with several other visualizations »

via beebo_wallace & the Celestial Mechanics project.

for the world's best mechanical engineer

:-{[}

Deforesting Lulu's
in Evanston, IL
Posting by cameraphone

in this, the season of gifts, may I urge you to ask Santa for something better

via Jessica Hagy's Indexed

how I learned to stop worrying and love the loaf

We've spoken of the meatloaf before.

I have since acquired a new baking dish, and tackled the meatloaf once again.

This evening, as a matter of fact. And though I'm not, as a rule, much of a meat eater, I've found that it's quite as good as I remember it.

Even without the shards of glass.

Georgia's Meatloaf

1 lb of lean, twice-ground round steak the great "meatloaf mix" that they serve up at the City Meat Market down the street -- which I think is a trifectorate of beef, ethically-vile veal, and some pork

1/2 cup of soft breadcrumbs from homemade whole wheat bread I had a little challah that I cubed and froze around Thanksgiving -- so I used that for my crumbs

2 garlic cloves, minced

4-5 leaves fresh lovage, finely chopped
4-5 fresh celery leaves, finely chopped (not much of a celery lover, so I left these out)

1/2 onion, finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon herb sea salt

1 egg, slightly beaten

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup home-canned tomato sauce, or high-quality commercial sauce (yeah: guess which one I opted for ;)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine the meat with all the dry ingredients so that they are distributed evenly. Next, lightly beat the egg in a small bowl and mix it into the meat mixture. Finally, add the milk and blend into the meat mixture. Shape the mix into a loaf and place it in a greased baking pan. Pour the tomato sauce on the top of the meatloaf. Bake for 1 hour. Slice the loaf and serve on warmed plates.

Serves 6. Or 2 & one begging cat, over two nights. Provided one of the two does not carelessly & excessively heat the loaf pan and then transfer to a cold(er) surface.

Provided that, you should do just fine.

Adopted freely once again from, you guessed it, A Painter's Kitchen: Recipes from the Kitchen of Georgia O'Keefe (girl knew how to eat)

ablution

ablution
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Yay for the gods of live music & dark beer
& good company.

Because sometimes that's all you need.

And other times that's everything.

Listening to Rico jam at the Ballydoyle.
Downers Grove, IL

Posting by cameraphone.

lolscience

Schrodinger's lolcat
Originally uploaded by dantekgeek.

lolscience Flickr group »

via New Scientist & mfirman

holiday diversions, &c.

The bristlebot. Because none of us has nearly enough time to build something like this -- which is why it's nice to live through others.

And when you're entirely short on time for your Christmas greetings, try the holiday-o-matic »

both via Neatorama

ritual = receptacle

Green Tea
Originally uploaded by Patrick T Power.
© 2007 by Patrick T. Power.
All Rights Reserved.

I wanted to write about this, just note it, briefly, how ritual = receptacle, how something about the funeral this last weekend -- the Mass, the Meal -- helped to wrap up the grief, make it manageable. Contain the soft, wet edges that kept spilling into everything before.

I needed a pic of course, and then Patrick T. Power posted this, which he shot last night as we wrapped up the meal that we shared before I packed it up and headed home from Ann Arbor. He was kind enough to participate in a usability study that we were doing, schelpping all the way down from Lansing, and kind enough to share stories and a little Teriyaki after.

Another important receptacle: Stories. How we tell them. Why we tell them. That we tell them.

How they shape our world.



p.s. do you see that glimmer of silver light on my hand in the left hand side of the frame? that's my Nini's birthstone -- a ruby -- in a pave setting. it was a gift from my family for coordinating her funeral. so unnecessary. such a tremendous treasure. with an inscription that reads: "you are loved."

always a john and never a hooker

I want to know why we started learning somewhere down the line that a president is always a clown: always a john and never a hooker. Always a boss and never a worker, always a liar, always a thief and never caught.

via bentkid

so much more where that came from. so good.

outbound again

outbound again
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

ORD to DTW

Posting by cameraphone.

these gifts

Tired. So tired. But grateful and glad. Grateful that my Nini made a dignified exit, sudden and swift though it was, grateful that she had all her wits about her, and a room full of her children, too.

Glad that we were able to give her a tremendous send off, almost all parties present, each stepping forward in the fullness of their gifts to send her on her way; the wind at her back, the sun on her face.

The kind of funeral that led one guest to remark, almost apologetically, that it "was the best funeral" she'd ever been to.

Grateful that I'm rich in family. Such a beautiful, generous, deep-feeling family.

Reminded how much ritual matters, how much music can soothe, how important it is to gather together, to remember, to cry, to tell stories. And to laugh.

Reminded how much each small kindness, of which Nini sowed so many, blooms full into fruit and scatters its seed on the wind to the far distance. Reminded how one small gift of kindness can change a life.

Reminded how much kindness, how much love, has shaped mine.

Posting by cameraphone from SFO.
Return leg to Chicago delayed, of course.

101 South

101 South
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Got the job done.
Heading home.

Posting by cameraphone
from SFO.

wise old oak

wise old oak
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Walking at dawn.
Sonoma, CA

Posting by cameraphone

sonoma jack

sonoma jack
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Confession: Grabbed a sandwich at the Sonoma Cheese Factory on the Plaza when we got in to town this afternoon, but sneaked in a little Christmas shopping down the street and around the corner a ways, because anyone who cares jack about Jack knows that Vella's makes the only Sonoma Jack that matters.

With salami on the side.

Because Nini would want us to eat.

Posting by cameraphone from Sonoma, CA.

persimmons $1

persimmons $1
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Just off the Plaza.

Tree was overloaded with ripe persimmons. Homeowner was selling them for a buck a piece.

Posting by cameraphone from Sonoma, CA

hwy 121

hwy 121
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Few things as pretty as this little stretch
of road from the City into Sonoma.

Posting by cameraphone.
Funeral tomorrow.

Dear Barack,

David isn't listening. Many folks have stopped by with the same "all they want is my money" complaint, and a few have commented in just the last few days.

The Open Letter to David Plouffe, Campaign Manager, Obama for America that I posted back in March continues to be one of the most frequently hit posts on detritus, and for awhile there I was hopeful that it was your campaign that was looking it up.

But given the mail that I received from you just today ("When Hillary Attacks", containing no fewer than FOUR "donate today" links) I'm guessing is was disgruntled folk. Not your people. Your people don't seem to spend a whole lot of time online, or answering email; and they certainly don't seem to have their ear to the ground.

I'm sorry to hear it, Mr. Obama. More than anything I'm sorry to be the one to admit that I've lost that lovin' feeling.

'Cause baby, I had a real thing for you.

busman's holiday

I was thinking I might lighten things up a bit by posting a few of the shots I took while tooling around with the b1-boys in the Bay Area the weekend before everything went to hell.

And then I remembered they were mostly of graveyards. Which pretty much makes it a busman’s holiday for our purposes.

It was one graveyard, actually: The one behind the Mission Dolores in San Francisco where a scene from Vertigo was shot.

The goal of the day was to go on a filmgrammage and shoot at most of the locations for that film. But it didn’t happen, because a lot of other stuff did.

But anyway: here’s what some of it looked like »

colophon

Goudy Old Style is a graceful, balanced design with a few eccentricities, including the upward-curved ear on the g and the diamond shape of the dots of the i, j, and the points found in the period, colon and exclamation point, and the sharply canted hyphen. The uppercase italic Q has a strong calligraphic quality. Generally classified as a Garalde (sometimes called Aldine) face, certain of its attributes—most notably the gently curved, rounded serifs of certain glyphs—suggest a Venetian influence.

— Wikipedia

Two years back I chose to set Nini's book in Goudy Old Style for reasons that I kept to myself at the time (mostly because I believe it's best that we typefreaks stay quiet about the strange synaesthesia that we experience around letterforms).

But now I'll spill: I felt it had the firm uprightness of a Catholic girl from Kansas, the solid serifs of a businesswoman who tackled work as though it were a sacrament, the elegance and grace of a hostess who knew how to put on the swank, and the warmth and eagerness of a woman who loved to learn and thoroughly enjoyed her life.

Today I set the program for her Funeral Mass in the same typeface.

For all the same reasons.

for he who has been thinking much of trees (and for me)

In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation.
Whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal,
and hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

— Mary Oliver


I'm so glad I save old letters. Just found this written on the back of an envelope given to me by a friend a long time ago. It was tucked into a pile of letters tied with ribbon alongside a birthday card from my Nini, a sweet confection received only a few years back that struck me at the time as unexpectedly and delightfully effusive. It's peppered with words like "forever" and "always" and "still" and it concludes: "It isn't any wonder that a thousand years from now, somewhere, somehow I'll still be loving you."

I've got nothin'.

honoring the dish

Yes. I honor the dish.

What the Executive Chef of the Bayleaf said after he described the brilliant Paella that he learned from a fellow who inherited it from his Great-Great-Grandmother from Granada, when I asked him if he makes it with the chorizo that he told me the recipe calls for.

Something amazing: Even though it’s Christmas, even though people are packed to the gills with parties and bookings and things to do, Nini’s funeral service and the reception to follow are coming together beautifully. As though all the stars are aligned.

We’re planning a luncheon after the interment in Napa. Just imagine trying to seat fifty people on a Saturday during the Holidays in Napa. And yet: doors opened wide.

Last night I spoke with the executive chef who’s planning the menu. He was so generous and solicitous and kind about our situation. And as he described the courses, the care that he takes with the Cornish Hens, the Paella recipe that he received from his mentor, and his warm words washed over me, I was reminded of a moment long ago when we read the Odyssey in a University course, and my professor remarked on the banquet that was laid for Odysseus, who had lost everything.

Commented on how this is what we must do when death visits us: We must eat. Eventually.

Because this is how we know we are alive. And this is how we pledge to keep on living.


Update: Indeed. The paella was amazing.

today is December 10th

You know what that means.

It's International Human Rights Day.

I had a big ol' post planned, but frankly friends, given everything that happened this weekend, I don't have it in me.

We'll let the Universal Declaration of Human Rights speak for itself »

of woman born

Spent the weekend tucking Nini in, making arrangements for her funeral and helping to organize the dispatch of her apartment in Phoenix -- surrounded, most importantly, by family.

Which included (on this round): Two cousins, my uncle (the lone brother among six sisters) and all of my aunts. Every single one of my five brilliant beautiful maddening voluminous aunts with their hearts as big as the hills.

Each one of them their heart breaking, each one of them doing what they needed to do next each in their own way: one making sure that every one of us has the dollars we need to make it to the funeral; another drafting the eulogy; the other suggesting a desert hike; most of them in their turn making sure that everyone was eating, and then everyone: sifting and sorting, packing and planning.

Several family meetings were called, of course; important matters discussed. There was much chatter and cross-talk and sometimes hurt feelings and occasionally the volume reached such heights that I wished I had brought my noise canceling headphones along, but mostly it all worked out and mostly there were hugs and good tears and the early stages of settling into this place called grief.

And I spent the weekend amazed to be among them, sometimes startled to observe habits and gestures that are so innately and immediately their mother's, sometimes shaken to tears by thinking I was seeing my Nini pass in the hallway, when in fact it was just one of her daughters.

One of her brilliant beautiful maddening voluminous daughters, so different each from the other, each possessing a unique facet of the woman who brought them here, each sparkling full of life like she did, each uncannily strong with a sweet creamy center.

Each one of them gorgeous. Each one of this woman born.

article 2

pick one
Originally uploaded by Mr. Mark.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

That means you too.

Article 2, Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

December 10th is International Human Rights Day.