Another Water Study

Send me dead flowers

Morning Glow

We give the gift of linking.

A happy L^th to George.

A tremendous amount of wheat!

Van Gogh in California.

No artistic comparison intended, but this image reminded me of some of the Fields of Wheat paintings.





And the entire script to the source material for this posting's title (and the funniest Woody Allen movie ever) can be found here.

One From One Leaves Two*

Happy Thanksgiving

* _{Thanks to Ogden Nash for the title, even though it's apropos of nothing.}

Walk Me Out in the Morning Dew

Early morning in a meadow near the Point Reyes Hostel.

Watching the Water

I managed to avoid running into Charles and Camilla, but other than that the weekend workshop in Point Reyes was a great success. We had perfect weather on Saturday, and Sunday's overcast and drizzly weather leant the perfect atmospheric conditions to go down to the creek bed in Samuel P. Taylor Park to do shots like this one.

Lone Cypress

A shot everyone takes along the 17 Mile Drive, but there is a reason for that.

I will be heading to Point Reyes this weekend for a photo workshop sponsered by UCSC Extension. Stay tuned.

Pebble Beach

Taken at Pebble Beach on an overcast Saturday. Good one for a caption contest.

Golf like an Egyptian.

She Sells Sea Shells by the Seashore

At Sea

I spent yesterday on a sailboat in Monterey Bay. Not a lot of things better than that.

Dyno

Oddly enough the thing that comes to mind when looking at this picture is Stephen King's novel, It. When he was still scary and fun to read. If I remember correctly the youthful protagonist's bike was a Stingray named Silver for the Lone Ranger's horse. He pinned playing cards in the spokes and outraced the devil (of sorts). Not of the caliber of The Stand, but pretty good King, nonetheless.

I remember my own Stingray fondly. Growing up in West Hollywood, we would bike up Kings Road to Sunset and come racing down the hill, with our own playing cards rattling in the spokes like a motorcycle engine. We'd pop wheelies on the pavement in front of my apartment building and imitate Steve McQueen, sliding under the barbed wire in The Great Escape, laying our bikes down on the neighbor's lawn.

Readymade

"Now Mr. Mutt's fountain is not immoral, that is absurd, no more than a bathtub is immoral. It is a fixture that you see every day in plumbers' show windows. Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view -- created a new thought for that object."

From an anonymous article published by Duchamp, Beatrice Wood, and H.-P. Roche in Blind Man, May 1917.

Under the Wheel

Random farm machinery from Wilder Ranch.

I was in Carmel last weekend for our wedding anniversary. Left the camera at home, it being our wedding anniversary and all. Thought the wife might appreciate it if my attention was focused on her and not on the viewfinder. Well, I'll never do that again. So many great shots and no camera to shoot them. Like the old joke about hell for a smoker being a place without fire to light up, that's Carmel without a camera for a photographer.

We're going back for my birthday in October, so hopefully the weather will cooperate and I can scout out some of the same locations.

The Happiest Place on Earth

These two snapshots have been posted before, but I was waxing nostalgic this morning and felt to re-post these images with some commentary.

I was born in Southern California in the San Fernando Valley, but we left Pacoima and moved to West Hollywood when I was very small. My earliest memories are living in a stucco duplex on Spaulding and Waring, about 3 blocks from Fairfax Avenue. Fairfax is the center of the Jewish community in Los Angeles. It is Brooklyn with sunshine and palm trees at the foot of the Hollywood Hills. When I was a kid, the Jewish neighborhood extended from Santa Monica Blvd. south to Pico and from the border of Beverly Hills at La Cienega, all the way to Highland. Today it is more concentrated, surrounded by trendy Hollywood neighborhoods, little Ethiopia and that amorphous thing called Greater LA.

The community continues and in some ways thrives. In the 60s there was a brief influx of hippies, in the 80s there was an attempt at gentrification of the neighborhood, but although it has shrunken, it continues to pulse. The Lubavitchers will still ask you to put on the Tefillin, Canter's deli still serves up corned beef and pastrami 24/7, Diamond's and Schwartz's still have the most delicious baked goods you can find on the west coast. The hassids walk to temple on a Shabbos morning and congregate at the newsstand, just like when I was a little pisher, as my mother would say.

My dad worked at the May Co. on Fairfax and La Brea, right around the corner from the tar pits. This fantastic art deco building is now the annex to the LA County Museum of Art, and was also destroyed by flowing Lava in the 1997 film Volcano. My mom shopped along Fairfax, and I attended Hebrew school at the synagogue on Beverly. In spite of the fact that we were and are a fairly secular family, our lives were still intertwined with the neighborhood and its culture. As the Jews have been dispersed around the globe, those flavors and sites were all concentrated along Fairfax Ave, Sephardics and Ashkenazi, Hungarian, Russian, Israeli, it was all there.

I haven't lived in LA in over 20 years, and I make my home in the deli-free zone of San Jose, California, but once or twice a year, the pastrami calls me and I'll drive to LA,and for a few short hours, I feel at home.

The Authority

This picture made me think of His Dark Materials. Philip Pullman's amazing fantasy trilogy.

Surfin' Safari

Sitting at my desk.
Long daze at the office.
Thinking about the beach.

Have a great weekend.

Dogapalooza

Coming soon... Not dog photos.

The Chase

In hot pursuit.

Contrary to appearances, she really does seem to have a fun time, and I haven't even posted some of the scariest pictures.

Dancing Dog

Pepper Prancing

Finally thought to take the camera to the dogpark yesterday evening. Got some great action shots of Pepper playing with assorted canine compatriots.

More to follow.

Wilder Ranch

Ranch house located at Wilder Ranch State Park

Four Flowers

UC Santa Cruz Arboretum

Sorry for the sporadic posting of late. Paying work consumes my person.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse

Vernal Falls Trail

Yosemite National Park

Falls

Uvas Canyon

Into the Narrows

Zion National Park, Utah

Friday Dogblogging

Well Kevin Drum already took Friday catblogging.

I'll be off from work next week, so blogging may be sporadic at best, but we'll be back full time on the 11^th.

Have a Safe and Sane 4^th of July.

The Window

Another Detail from Mission San Juan Bautista

The Door

Mission San Juan Bautista

The Grindstone

The Village Blacksmith

I couldn't find a sound clip of this, but like many of my generation, one of my first introductions to classical poetry came from Bullwinkle's Corner. In lieu of that here is the text, you'll have to provide the dulcet tones of Bullwinkle J. Moose.

The Village Blacksmith
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -

Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter's voice,
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his haul, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling,--rejoicing,--sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.

Tools of a Trade

Looking Back

Another View from Parkway Lake, looking towards Coyote Creek.

Parkway Lake

The Blank Club

Pepper

The newest addition to our household.

Come back Charlie Brown, Come back

I've posted this image before, but another Charlie Brown statue, also located in Santa Rosa, was in the news over the weekend, so I thought it deserved an encore.

Happily that other statue has been returned (here).

Good grief, indeed.

The Veins of Other Flowers

The Veins of other Flowers
The Scarlet Flowers are
Till Nature leisure has for Terms
As "Branch," and "Jugular."

We pass, and she abides.
We conjugate Her Skill
While She creates and federates
Without a syllable.

~Emily Dickinson

Wayback Machine: 1968

I attended my daughter's college graduation from San Jose State University this Memorial Day Weekend and was honored to witness the presentation of honorary doctorates to John Carlos and Tommy Smith.

If those names don't ring a bell, the picture of them raising their black gloved fists from the podium at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City should. It is truly one of the most iconic images of the century. At the time extremely controversial and certainly brave in that turbulent year.

I was sitting behind the podium and somewhat far, but was able to grab a couple of snaps using a 70-200mm lens.

Gate and Padlock

Three and a half wheels

A thought ay like a flower upon mine heart

Title from Pain In Pleasure by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Just a Little Bit