Things to do during the New Depression

Since the stock market decided to go up four days in a row last week - I thought I would engage in some high finance. Actually the first day the stock market went up, I was like Hurray! The S&P is now at 712 points! I had been meaning - oh for the past three years or four years to move my 401(k) into an IRA; and since January I've been pegging when I would do it to the S&P. So for a while I was like, when the S&P is at 900 points again, I'll transfer. Then it was, well, when the S&P is at 850 points again, I'll transfer. Next it was when the S&P is 800 points, I'll make my move! Then well, when it's over 700 I'll go. So I transferred the money but the market continued to go up and the S&P ended at about 756 - while I had cleverly bowed out at 714. So don't count on me for stock tips!
In this new era of pinching pennies I have started composting (who needs to buy fertilizer?!?) and have started making my own vinegar. This entails mixing wine, vinegar mother and water in a large non-metallic jar and having it hang around in a warm place breathing until the wine has miraculously turned into vinegar. So I have a bunch of Merlot hanging out in a jar with some vinegar - and now I have to find a place to put it where it won't be in the way and won't be accidentally knocked over - because two bottles of red wine and a bottle of vinegar knocked over would probably create some horrid chemical bond with the residue of Murphy's oil soap that I use to wash the wood floors and I can imagine the red liquid moving like wildfire on my floor, burning it's way down, down, down to the basement. And goddess knows that no one has any spare let's replace the floor cash around. So I have put the jar of about two liters of liquid in the bathroom, on the floor of the shower (a handy drain!) underneath the camera enlarger. But it's a little weird to have guests use a bathroom that has a vat of vinegar wine as aromatherapy in it. So when guests come I hide the vinegar\wine mixture in the outdoor coat closet, which makes all the coats smell like - you guessed it - wine!

We are also composting. The compost media posse make it seem like "Oh! Just Throw your lettuce scraps in here and VOILA! Dirt!!!!!" But then you actually get the instructions and you have to have the right mix of brown vs. green, you have to turn it over, you have to add dirt, you have to add yard waste but not weeds! My yard waste is weeds! You have to add paper, but not printed paper or white paper and you have to keep it all in balance or you start getting little bugs flying around. So I have bugs.

I diagnose the compost heap - not enough "Brown". So how do I get more brown? My garden is not supplying it. I start walking around with bags and a rake and start raking other people's leaves. Look there's the crazy lady stealing leaves!

Now I just need to find some ducks to eat the snails that are eating my chard!

My cousin went to the Alamo Movie set and the "Marshall" an Alamo Movie Historian who dresses up like a Marshall, gave him this photo of my grandfather and Richard Widmark. If you peer past grand papa you can see some extras in costume.

I was in the Delta a while ago and came across this sign for Bab's Delta Diner - a great place for breakfast before you go fishing, which of course you can't do since the California salmon fisheries have collapsed.

Things I wonder about

The New York Times reported that in Georgia, the Georgians count in Base 20 and have
consonant clusters like “gvprtskvni”. And that maybe the closest language is Basque.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/weekinreview/24barry.html?ref=weekinreview

What does this mean? How can you have a base 20 counting system in 2008? Do the children have to go to school barefoot so they can use their fingers and toes to do math?

In the markets do people say “gvprtskvni” while waving their fingers and toes about meaning I'll have DA20 cows and you can pay in .D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6D6 payments? I mean the Brits got rid of their base 12 monetary system years and years ago leaving us mystified readers when we have to read Dickens or Austen what's a shilling and why on earth do you need a ha'penny?

Further, isn't it interesting that Georgia has break away Republics like Ossetia, with the Ossetians speaking a Farsi like language, while the Basques are trying to break away from Spain?

I know we're all supposed to be appalled that Georgia is being invaded by Russia, and it's a democracy - but can you really be a democracy when you count in base 20? I don't think so.

This begs the question, why can't we all get along. As long as you do things my way, in Base 10.
Really. Counting is only useful when you can use just your fingers.

Yee Ha - It's a Sign!

So I was up in Central No Cal hanging out with a bunch of sound engineers and I found this fabulous sign out near the edge of the slough. It was a beautiful day and I had just had a fabulous breakfast at the local greasy spoon which opened at 5:00 am for the fisherman crowd.

I don't know, but is it just me - I keep on hearing these pop culture references to "80's music" - the last time was in the promo for the sisterhood of the pants, or whatever the hell that movie is and all these pretty girls are preparing for a wild (tame) time of sisterhood and they're going through a checklist of what they need and "80's music" is on it. And last year there was that movie where Hugh Grant plays a washed up 80's pop star. Huh? Is the Clash safe now? What happened? Where am I? What happened to retro ironic bowling and poodle skirts? What decade am I in? How co-opted can co-option get? Is there nothing sacred?
Of course I LOVED when they played Wreckless Eric's Whole Wide World in Stranger than Fiction last year, but I just thought that the music editor had good taste.

The Brave New World is Full of Oak

I just have to say that I've always been glad about living in California because I can buy local and still drink world class wine. Unfortunately, I now know that not all California wine is world class, particularly in my "Night Train House Swill" price range. Oh the mis-use of Oak! There is no excuse for cutting down French and American oak trees to put grape juice in it. No no no, as Amy Winehouse would say.

Class Three was a whirlwind tour of the New World wines. Our professor has a bit of a sweet tooth so this class was remarkable for NOT having disgusting sweet wine in it , say what you like about old world terroir but I like a dry wine and there's dirt in New Zealand as well.

Enough! We started with a golden 75% pinot noir method champenoise wine from Meriwether, Cuvee Wm Clark Brut in Oregon, where they disgorge the wine to order. YUM! It smelled of apples and toast and was DELICIOUS. Why spend the dinero on champers from Champagne when you can get this lucky ducky. And it is local to my friend T., so it's good for the world.

Next up was a flight of American Whites, the Eroica Chateua St. Michelle - a reisling made in partnership with a german wine maker and a Viognier the Surh Luchtel Fortunati. Well the Eroica is a riesling but not an offensively sweet riesling. It smelt crisp and a little of apple and raisin pie; it had an appealing acidity that made it crisp on hte tongue. The Viognier was icky.

Next we had a flight of American Reds, a 2004 Daedalus Labyrinth Pinot Noir and a 2004 Nalle Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel. The Daedalus Pinot looked like rubies in your glass, smelt earthy and had peppery cherries on the tongue. Lovely. The Nalle Zin was a darker ruby - almost crimson a bit of green herb amid the cherry in the nose and was GORGEOUS.

Then we were off to the Aussie-New Zealand, South Africa-America part of the globe.

Starting with Antipodes we had a Cloudy Bay Sauv Blanc - all grapefruit and cat piss and a Hewitson, Old Garden Mourvedre. This was a crimson wine with spice and leathery tannins and was lovely.

In the next flight we had a Warwick Sauv Blanc (South Africa) that was a bit sweet and spicy with nice acids for balance and would be lovely with food. Finally we had a Luigi Bosca Mallbec reserve from South America that was dark ruby with a tannin bite at the end. It was very interesting.

All in all the bubbly was a total find, I'd walk a mile for some of the reds and I wouldn't cross a finger for the whites.

Reviews: Magritte, Tiajuana, Icons

Okay, how long did I say these slippers had a chance of lasting? Beso chewed the balls off them last night. He was playing with a ball and I had my slippers right next to me on the floor by the couch. Because I don't put shoes or slippers on the couch, because I was not raised in a barn. So he was running around and I was knitting a baby blanket for a friend and then suddenly he bounces in so happy happy happy that I know something is WRONG. Well somehow he had done it.

So, the beloved and I have gone to a few shows. The Magritte show at LACMA was beautifully arranged by John Baldessari, you walked on a carpet of clouds (how surreal!) but the Magrittes were you know, pretty Magritte-y and not very interesting. The work around the Magrittes by contemporary artists was actually very interesting. It was good to see some of Doug Hubler's Crocodile Tears series and some dynamic work by Vija Celmins, who is also having a major retro at the Hammer, which I haven't seen yet. But it wasn't really the best show I've seen and was rather disappointing. Though it will not be disappointing to the museum because it is one of those block buster shows that everyone takes their children to see. "Look honey the APPLE is a BIG as the ROOM!."

In contrast a more modest show at the Santa Monica Museum of Art does not disappoint. "Strange New World: Art and Design from Tijuana" was lively and engaging. It had some of the funniest video art I'd seen in a while. And there were some damn good paintings. SM Museum

At the Getty (Yes, we've been going going going in search of an art fix) there is a show of Icons from the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine underneath Mount Sinai. The Monastery is the continuous monastery going and they had a lot of icons that need restoration. So the Getty conservators stepped in and did a damn good job restoring things but then they took them to California and put them on display here. I assume the icons are eventually going back, since the Getty seems to be returning things these days. Anyway I figured that I would never get my ass over to the Sinai peninsula to see these in situ, and I'd probably be struck down by angry monks if I did, so off to the Getty we went. So as Fellini and Bunuel have ever been fond of pointing out, there is something surreal about priests in their robes. But really nothing is more surreal than having 50 Eastern Orthodox Priests on a pilgrimage to the Getty Center in their medieval-man robes and large crosses and long, long, long beards. And like medieval-man, they haven't really discovered deodorant so they are au natural. But like people everywhere, you could tell who the cool monks were. They could occasionally make jokes. There is a tension, however, in the display of objects shown both as objects and as objects of veneration. These are religious artifacts that have been in continuous use for 1000 years and as such are wonderful examples of medieval art. And so there is tension between the use and purpose of the object when taken out of it's context and placed in a secular modern one. It's rather embarrassing to see people kneel and pray in an art museum. Especially the Getty that temple to Mammon.

Anyway the monks made a good visual along with the art. There was a portal of full length portraits of Moses and Aaron, dark curly hair on one, long white beard on the other, one was holding a tablet and the other a scroll. I thought the white haired bearded one was Moses -- even though he was holding the scroll, but on reading the text I found out he was Aaron! Moses was the cute dude with the curly dark hair holding the tablets. Upon finding this out I then stood around and watched people approach and then would ask them, which one is Moses? And everyone pointed to old white beard. So poor Moses has over the centuries been slowly becoming less cute in the popular imagination. Cause I'm telling you two thousand years ago, he was the hunk. Speaking of which, there is an icon of St. Catherine (or 97 icons of Catherine, the monastery is named after her) where she is gazing coyly at the viewer, seductively leaning against her wheel. Which I thought was what she was martyred on , but apparently she was going to be put to death on the wheel and her touch broke it, so she was beheaded instead and angels whisked her away to Mount Sinai and the monastery started. Who knew?

Signs: Ye Coach House Curry

So in last weekend's New York Times Magazine they interview Dr. Andrew Von Eschenbach the current FDA commissioner. He is asked about his predecessor, Lester Crawford, who resigned in scandal because he and his wife owned stock in FDA regulated companies. That is he was in a position to grant FDA approval to drugs for companies that he owned a financial interest. Um, this is obviously ILLEGAL and UNETHICAL, and Dr. Crawford is being sentenced next week. Asked about this, the new FDA head says: "It's very sad that these circumstances have occurred and that he and his family are facing this."

Now, I know that outrage is just useless in this administration, but wouldn't you want the new head of the FDA to say something against illegally profiting from companies that you are supposed to be policing? Like gee wow, I feel bad for his lack of judgment, but you obviously can't have the fox GUARDING the chickens. And I have set up my finances in a blind trust administered by so and so with the stipulation that all drug companies will not be assets in the blind trust. Dr. Von Eschenbach also said about his opinion as a cancer doctor about regulating nicotine as a drug he said "As cancer doctors, we have looked at the consequences of tobacco, of which nicotine is a component, but in which there are many other components." Well, gee, where do I start? First he didn't answer the question. And you can be against regulating tobacco and nicotine and also be against cancer. But he really sounds like he started out being one of those RJR shills - paid to obfuscate the fact that cigarette smoking and tobacco cause cancer. He may have looked at the consequences of tobacco, emphysema, cancer; but he seems mildly amused by them.

This administration's ability to find and promote complete amoral greedy people gives crony capitalism a new name. KBR not doing enough for Cheney's portfolio - let's have a fraudulent war!

Signs: Universal Pictures

I have added a link to my old friend and professor's site, sharongoldart. I have also deleted the link to the old face city. Things there went sour, one partner executed a senseless coup and in general behaved like a Karl Rove, baseless lies, rumours and innuendo. So I can no longer recommend the site. Which is too bad. But I can recommend that you get a facial from the fabulous Robin, who works at Ole Hendricksen's spa and who was ousted from old face city by an evil partner. (310) 854-7700 is the phone number if you want a fab facial.

Signs: & Things I wonder about

So it's now the tenth day of a heat wave (in West LA, the valleys have been burning up longer than that) with temps above 100 digits and I say "It's hot." It didn't bother me really, it still cools down at night (though apparently not as much as it used to according to the LA Times the low temperature has risen 7 degrees in the past twenty years because we keep on cementing things up.) Until a couple of days ago and then it had just been too damn hot for too damn long. Our apartment is un-air conditioned and so we use fans and appreciate the bit of ocean breeze that kicks up around 4:00 ish. But we're on the ground floor and it's a bit of a dicey neighborhood so I don't like to leave all the windows open at night, particularly in the bedroom. So I spent a lot of the weekend napping with my body sweating up the sheets where ever my skin touched the bed. And staying awake at night listening to the motorcycles roaring down La Cienega and homeless people routing around in the alley, while sweating.

The thing about heat this hot for so long is it saps your ability to do anything. You certainly don't want to move fast. And you certainly don't want to have the sun touch your skin. And you certainly don't want to exercise, or paint, or walk about town taking photos. Cooking seems incredibly complicated and ice cubes are in high demand, but you are too unmotivated to get up and walk the ten steps to get them.

Which makes you wonder about the commitment of all those suicide bombers in Iraq. It is hot in Iraq, temps for months in the century mark. And yet people can consistently get worked up enough to go out and blow themselves up in a crowd of civilians. I mean when it's as hot as Hades and you are going to blow yourself up, you know it's going to get quite a bit hotter when you explode. I can barely make myself go out and water the herbs in this weather and yet day after day someone is willing to strap on twenty pounds of explosive and walk in the heat to a market and blow himself up. That is a marketing message that is WORKING!

Signs: Reading Room

Here's an old Christian Science Reading Room sign, the building is still being used as a CS Reading Room so it is also a contemporary sign. Notice how they don't ask you to ask them about CS, like the "Ask me About Kabala" sign down the street from me. No, CS is old fashioned and discrete, they let you rest your feet in a reading room. Which is why there are fewer and fewer CSists in the world, they are not keeping up in the cutthroat competition that religion has become these days.

Speaking of a losing company; General Motors. I don't know if this is happening in your hood or not, but in LA GM is offering to subsidize your gas consumption at 1.99 if you buy one of their gas guzzling cars, like the Hummer, which gets 10 to 12 miles per gallon in the city. But after a year you're on your own sucker! I was ranting about how stupid this is and how no one would fall for such a stupid offer, and how desperate GM must be to offer this kind of money losing incentive - you know, just because I like to kick a dog when it's down. But my beloved, C. said, "Well it's just like when we were at H.D. Buttercup and that guy said that all those 90 dollar pillows were on sale at 20% off if you bought four. And we spent 30 minutes looking at all the pillows trying to find the perfect combination of four pillows because they were 20% off." Which we did, because it was such a deal, like 1.99 gas. I mean for four decorative pillows instead of paying 360 dollars we would be spending 288 dollars. On pillows. It was such a good deal. And we had picked out the four perfect pillows that would look so great on the new couch when I realized that 1) we're unemployed 2) we have hound dogs and 3) hound dogs and silk pillows that are dry clean only do not go together so the whole IDEA of DECORATOR pillows in this context was RIDICULOUSLY STUPID. And we left with out any pillows. I mean it was such an insane idea that I had to make ridiculous an ADVERB for chrissakes. That's how stupid it was. But it wasn't as stupid as paying over 50 grand for a car that gets 10 miles per gallon so you can get 1.99 gas for a year. That's just pathetic.

Signs: Joe's Cafe

Here's a sign from Joe's Cafe in Santa Barbara. We got the dogs groomed first and then went to the beach for a day, which you know is always a clever thing to do. We did not eat at Joe's, but apparently the food is good. We did eat at a local joint in the harbour and watched the sea urchin catch get loaded on trucks. Amazing how much those little fiching boats hold in their holds. We also watched some evening sail boat races and swimming races.


My friend M. has sent me a sign from Seattle.

Signs: Pub & Things I wonder About

Here's another pub sign.

Lately the federal reserve and some other economists have been shouting about inflation inflation inflation. Now. In 2006 - not last year, not the year before. Where have they been for the past five years??? Housing prices have quadrupled in the past five years. Doesn't that count as inflation? It seems to me that it should, duh!

Signs: 1000 fabrics & Art Shows

This is a pretty good sign. We went to see the modernism in america show at the Hammer museum and it was pretty fun, all the Duchamps were fun to see and some of the painting were incredible - but I'm always a sucker for Kandinsky. But more surprising were these very evocative and moving videos by Jesper Just, a Danish artist, of men singing. In one a bewigged man sings an american pop song in a deep bass voice with a Danish accent and then slowly falls to the ground - doing an impersonation of "The Dying Swan". Move over Pavlova!

We also went a while ago to look at the Klimt's that had been restored to the heirs od Adele Bloch-Bauer after being looted by the Nazis. Anyone seeing the huge gold portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer can imagine why the painting was looted - It's GOLD! Any normal soldier in the field could tell it was valuable - it's GOLD! It's a huge painting, not something that one could simply hang over the old couch and it fills your entire visual field with GOLD! However the best painting was the one of birch trees. Once again a huge canvas with a landscape of birch trees. In art history books you always see the portraits Klimt did of women, which are always rather ambivalent about their subjects and which seem to surround their subjects with ornamentation that is more visually impressive than the women, who become enmeshed in the patterns. But you never see the landscapes which are really beautiful. Apparently he used lenses to flatten his visual field which then gives the paintings a flatness and an attention to surface while also portraying a three dimensional world. So you sort of get a visual impression of something that is both flat and deep.

Signs: Fox&Goose

This is a little "English" pub that is fun to have breakfast at in Sacto. Good Sign.

Signs: Observation Pit

This is the incredibly smelly observation pit of my youth.

Signs: David Candy

So I've always sort of wondered about painted signs, they are on walls, exposed to the elements, they are destined to become an architectural palimpsest. This sign is frayed, it looks old. Is it telling us that David makes Candy at the Co? Or that David Candy works here? Is it the David Candy Candy Company? Who's David? Is his wife Candy? Are they fashion designers, lawyers, happily married, plump from eating candy? Where does the candy fit in here? Is it chocolate or fireballs? This sign raises more questions than it answers.

This sign, however, boldy asks a question and answers it. What is Kabbalah? - well come on in and find out by spending a tuesday evening with them. What could be more homey?

I have been spending a lot of time talking to people who I want to convince to hire me. It is very hard to be pleasing and competent and say the appropriate TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) while talking to strangers who have hidden agendas while you have a painfully obvious one - please employ me!!!!! All this nattering is leaving me too tired to listen, write and speak to the actual people who I like to listen, talk and write to. For example, after a comletely disasterous interview at a company that left me down and blue for a day, I picked up the totally fluffed out dogs from the groomer. We found a groomer in Beverly Hills and apparently the good people of the hills of beverly like their dogs to be highly poofy. Beso came out looking like a little round old english sheepdog - highly fluffy, and even Leche with her more griffon-like coat was a little round poofy ball of hound dog. They were so clean we took them for a hike along the beach where they made many people smile at the poofy dogs. Anyway, like I said I was tremendously blue, and when I got home from our walk I had two messages to return. Two people called while I was returning those phone calls and just after I had finsihed three hours of talking to 4 recruiters on the friggin' phone about why I am such a DGITPM (damn good IT Project Manager) and had poured myself a glass of wine, the phone rang again and I had to talk to another recruiter about WBSs (Work Break Down Structures - another TLA!) while a glass of Chardonnay was sweating untouched in front of my face. All that said, it makes it hard to talk to my friends because I'm tired of my own voice!

Signs: Watch

This is a damn good sign I found while walking around. Damn good.

Signs: Mercury Cleaners

So we went out to this mexican restaurant and there was the ubiquitous flat TV screen framed on the wall of the bar. It was playing some sort of fishing show. Now, I really like the fishing show "Fishing with John" but since that is sort of a retro-ironic everything in quotes fishing show, I'm not sure that it counts as a fishing show. But that is my exposure to fishing shows. One of the things about having a TV set that is cable only and being too stingy to actually buy cable services is that I have absolutely NO IDEA about what is on TV. So I am always both appalled and fascinated that restaurants would put TVs up because really I want to spend time dining with my friends and noticing the food and not looking at TV. But you can't NOT LOOK at TV, it's like a train wreck. So there was this fishing show, I'm eating my guacamole and drinking this lovely Malbec from Argentina and I think: "Wow, what a great gig, to be the camera man on a fishing show!" It's not complex camera work. It's not like the f-stop would change at all. You just bob about on a boat pointing the camera at the deep blue sea, or the stupid guy commenting about fishing (that must be really hard, to make something up about fishing, which is basically waiting until a fish bites your line -- it's almost as boring as watching golf) and then if they catch something you point the camera at the net. Meanwhile all you have to do is bob along on the boat and make sure your sun block is applied. What a great gig. When the fisher dude caught the fish, he took the hook out and released the fish. Catch and release that was the name of the game.

So I was totally unprepared for what happened next.

Who knew there was a
Hunt Fish Cook channel??? The next show was some weird sort of homoerotic hunting program. Two guys dressed in camouflage outfits were wandering around the spooky forest; using whistles to lure turkeys. When they had spied the turkey nest they put camouflage masks on their faces and hid themselves in the bushes. They guy who wore glasses took off his glasses. Does someone see the problem with this? Someone who needs glasses to see takes them off to shoot at things. Would you want to work camera on this show? No way. Then they actually SHOT the turkey - and the two men ran to each other from their respective hiding places and did a little hooting dance over the dead turkey. Then the guy put his glasses back on (a little late if you ask me) and the two walked off, hand in hand with a turkey hanging down one's back. What kind of weird little fairy tale is this? Does any one believe that the two guys who are carefully applying "smell like forest not like hunter" perfume on themselves and dressing in camouflage and hiding so the turkey won't notice are actually hunting a turkey? When was the last time you noticed an inconspicuous camera crew, with producer and caterer? Like the turkey won't notice the camera crew because the hunters are hidden.

Signs: Simons

This is a pretty groovy sign, isn't it?
We are packing and packing and packing. And then we are going to Napa Valley for my brithday (mudbaths, dinner at Bouchon) for a little respite from packing. I will bravely bring my camera and snap photos of interesting signs in one of the most gorgeous places on earth. I know it's tough, but there you go. I won't be able to say that when I move to LA. Though I popped down to LA to have a job interview and since it's been stormy all week, the sky was clear blue with big thunderclouds and crisp clean air, allowing me to look out the window of the office building and see the Getty Center and the Hollywood sign, and the bumper to bumper traffic on the 405. And it was a gorgeous day in Los Angeles.

Signs: Orpheum

This is from our trip to San Francisco's lovely DeYoung Museum. Apparently there was quite a stir about putting something contemporary in Golden Gate Park, but it is a lovely and surprising and intimate place to look at art. My two takeaways are Chiura Obata and Masami Teraoka. Obato was a Japanese American who worked in the 30's (no doubt he was interred in the forties) who was trained in the Japanese style and then hit modernism - so his brushwork is lyrical and the the paintings are gorgeous modern pieces with this flat and spare japanese style. Teraoka is a contemporary artist who did a huge folding screen with bravura brushstrokes representing a woman and child being drowned in a sea of AIDS. Amazing.

Signs: Tower

This is the original Tower of Tower records. Now that you've seen it, you don't have to make a pilgrimage to Sacramento to see the lowly beginnings of a multinational conglomerate. Several years ago, I was forced to go to Vermont and so, as long as I was there, a pilgrimage must be made to ice cream Valhalla - Ben and Jerry Land. This was before they were bought out by some multinational conglomerate that produces toilet paper and genetically engineered soy beans. There were cows. They were on hills. So imagine green rolling hills artistically speckled with black and white cows. Very pretty. Very soothing. Very, very I've had too much THC so give me some butterfat with my sugar. This is what America is all about, two entrepreneurial pot heads making butterfat sugar for other pot heads, making an entire empire of cold cream cash, and then getting bought out by a multinational conglomerate that opposes all you value.