Sunday, 20 September 2020
Something went a bit wrong here…the flames are leaving the Ford…oops: missing screw.
This is the logo/type area of the legendary Jeanne Burns…device: Servespoon. It’s like a narrow pancake turner with slots in the blade. One of a kind these days, and perfect for the James lasagne we enjoyed.
Saturday, 19 September 2020
If we didn’t have fancy aerodynamic bumpers, I’d think about getting a tray-style one. If it didn’t require driving a firetruck to have such useful styling.
I’m guessing special nozzle?
Of course, if I had to fight fires to get such a bumper, well, I’d probably be sent out west right away. Way too impossible.
Thursday, 17 September 2020
We managed to time our run to early-vote* to between rain bands. Sally, doncha know. Some rainfall was windy and would have been yucky to venture out in.
But it stayed wet even so, witness that magnificent droplet on a wee magenta-pink basil blossom.
* Not lucky that we had to vote because John Lewis died, and we need a representative to finish his term.
Wednesday, 16 September 2020
We took a Sunday-really-Wednesday drive, just to get out of the city. We really didn’t get far.
We stopped in a small town, now well within the metro area, and strolled down the high street…parallel with the railroad. Look: a cell tower; there’s really almost no farmland—the terrain is either floodplain or waiting to become housing and business developments, and the web of connecting roads and parking lots—if not already built on.
See: the small town has a bank. Or was-a-bank, with an oozing-financial-security chandelier. It’s now a restaurant and salon, but maybe the restaurant is covid-closed? Didn’t check; moved on.
Tuesday, 15 September 2020
Of course, I took this picture for the momentary jab the play of light and dark and the mesh grid pattern generated in my not-yet-awake brain.
And, when I selected it for today’s fun photo, I thought: material culture…then: aesthetics…then that aesthetics are a learned value…and, pfft, I was descending into an anthropological abyss.
Recommendation: stick with the first paragraph.
Monday, 14 September 2020
More evidence that autumn is flirting.
I was poking about on the wee old internet for more info on Foeniculum vulgare, as I’m relatively uninformed. It has a “diverse pharmacological spectrum,” and you can find extended rabbit-holes on that chemistry. Not really my thing.
In Spanish, fennel’s common name is hinojo. It’s even better in Italian: finocchio. However, neither is as excellent as Dutch: venkel. There; is that enough? I so enjoy linguistic diversity!
Saturday, 12 September 2020
Here’re some perfectly fine titles I’m not currently making progress reading. I’ve been intending to read “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon” (1941) for years…Rebecca West tells of her six weeks in Yugoslavia in 1939. Multiple discriminating writer-readers say it’s among the best travel books ever.
“The Overstory” is Richard Powers’s 2018 novel I’ve started and just stopped like it wasn’t good, yet it’s terrific. And complicated. In the best way.
“Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun” (1997) is Charles Hudson’s most-excellent telling of the cultural clash when Spanish explorers invaded southeastern North America. What a superb scholar and writer he was.
Mr. Salyer’s new-new, thoughtful, timely book…. He’s the reason I don’t call The Guru JC. Mr. Salyer was the JC in my life when I met The Guru, and I couldn’t handle two, although most everyone then knew him as JC.
Yes, another history of the west…pretty much starts with the Lewis/Clark expedition, to discuss the AMERICAN West…there’s plusses and minuses to that; it’s another cultural history, I guess. Picked up HW Brands’s “Dreams of El Dorado” on our way through Austin last year–his hometown, so signed copy.
And all of them essentially collecting dust at the moment. Speaking of which: seems to me there’s extra dust in the house in these Covid times; however, nothing like the nastiness in the air in the western air with those huge wildfires. Yikes!
Friday, 11 September 2020
Here’s a distraction…stunning flower. Sorry the insect is out of focus.
This one isn’t! Giant butterfly! (Well, normal sized, just looks large here.) Amazing detail—and that’s an iPhone photo!
