Happy Frickin' Holidays

You're a mean one Mr. Grinch

Futurballa begins a 2 week vacation on Friday. Enjoy the holidays, however you may celebrate.

Rick

The Spy Who Came in from the Old

James Wolcott reminds us that the iconic TV shows of our childhood don't often hold up so well when you buy the box set dvd collection. Case in point, The Man From Uncle.

Wolcott compares and contrasts TMFU with the original Mission Impossible series, that while also somewhat low budget and cheesy, and dealing with similar Cold War espionage in similarly exotic locales, never descended into camp. The show of the era that he fails to mention that actually filmed on location, was smart, and rarely camp, was I Spy.

The always hip, Robert Culp as undercover agent / tennis bum Kelly Robinson, and his inter-racial heterosexual life partner Alexander Scott, played with great charm by a young Bill Cosby before he became the paterfamilias of the Huxtable clan and started pimping Jello, jet-setted about the globe chasing woman and foiling foreign agents. Truly one of the best spy genre shows on TV and though I haven't seen it in many years, I doubt that it would come off as dated and cheesy as TMFU.

Chabad Boys

Getting into the Chanukah spirit, friend George posted a video of Peter Himmelman, Harry Dean Stanton and Bob Dylan on harmonica performing Hava Nagila at the Chabad telethon back in 1989.

Just to join in the spirit, I found a version of the same traditional folksong performed by a Beatles tribute band.



And of course, the all time classic Chanukah song.

Official (Scary) Holiday Season Kick-Off

Since Thanksgiving has been and gone, it is now acceptable to post our traditional Christmas season posting of the Carol of the Old Ones. The very scary version of the very scary Carol of the Bells.




Cthulhu themed ringtones and MP3s can be found here.

And don't miss the Misadventures of Hello Cthulhu!

Photoshop: Before and After

Via escapegrace comes this very interesting retrospective on photo doctoring from Lincoln to Today. Photoshop has only made it more accessible, but Stalin new how to do it quite well.

J. Paul Ferlinghetti

I have returned from my vacation to LA. Weston at the Getty, Dali at LACMA, fine dining in Pasadena and West Hollywood and escaped before the fires got too bad. A great trip had by all.

Here are some images from the J. Paul Getty museum grounds.

Coming into Los Angeles

The town is like an advertisement for itself; none of its charms are left to the visitor's imagination...
~Christopher Isherwood

Heading south for a Museum weekend. I wonder if I'll run into this guy?


The May Company Department Store - Ansel Adams

HOWL

" I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked..."

So begins the iconic poem of the Beat Generation, Howl by Allen Ginsberg. Fifty years ago today, a San Francisco Municipal Court judge ruled that Allen Ginsberg's Beat-era poem "Howl" was not obscene. And on that 50 year anniversary, a New York public radio station has buckled to fear of the FCC and decided not to air a reading of Ginsberg's poem. You can read about the whole silly mess here.

In honor of the anniversary, Pacifica.org will post audio of a reading. Or you can read it for yourself here.

It is a sad time when fear of censorship does the censor's job for him.

I speak of the pompatus of love

What is a pompatus anyways? Well there is a Wikipedia entry to explain.

Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls!

Miatapalooza 2007

Couple of firsts. I took the "none more black" MX-5 to my first car show this weekend, Miatapalooza at Monster Park in San Francico (formerly Candlestick) and posted my first self made video to YouTube.

Jewish Sports Legends

Salon has a ranking of the best 18 Jewish baseball players of all time. The top 3 are pretty predictable, but it's a fun read.

And the author also provides a link to one of the funniest moments in baseball commentary ever. Where are you now, Mel Gibson?

There is no joy in Mudville

DVD Journal is shutting their doors.

This has been the go to site for what's new on the street, upcoming releases and reviews of the latest films on DVD. Sadly the proprietors have decided to cease publication. Hopefully someone else will take up the mantel.

Life Imitates Caddyshack

Bill Murray stopped in Stockholm, Sweden for driving a golf cart under the influence.

Pancho & Lefty

The greatest lefty of all time...

Death Knocks

What a day yesterday, we lost Ingmar Bergman, Tom Snyder and Bill Walsh. I was hoping to find a youtube posting of Dan Akroyd's great Tom Snyder skits, but nothing came up on my search. I did however find this wonderful Bergman parody featuring the film debut of Madeline Kahn. De Duva.

The faux Swedish might be the inspiration for the opening credits of Holy Grail.

Update: I guess it is open season on arthouse directors. I just read that Michelangelo Antonioni passed away as well.

Adventures in Cambria

Or a rare bit of Welsh Skunk....

This past weekend found team Gonzo meeting in the wilds of Cambria, California. A quaint coastal town in the middle of the state. A bit busy and touristy indeed, as it is just five miles from San Simeon, home of Hearst Castle, and it is a gateway to the Paso Robles wine region, where we tasted some very fine potions indeed.

L'Aventure is producing some amazing blends in the Rhone style. A bottle of their Optimus blend accompanied me home. And Windward is doing some very nice Pinots. Fucking Merlots were not to be found, but some delicious Viogniers and Rousannes were also sampled.

While walking along the bluffs near our hotel after a tasty dinner, we saw something posing on the beach side of the path. At first glance it appeared to be a statue or totem of some kind, but when it moved we realized that it was a skunk with tail in the air. In proper Pythonian fashion, we yelled "run away" and ran in search of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch (as seen in scene 21).

Sunday found us doing the touristy thing and visiting Hearst Castle. Well worth a visit. A fun tour and some interesting history. The legend has been cleaned up, as the Hearst family still owns the actual house and the State Park system's tour guides seem to leave out some of the darker parts of the Hearst saga.

The drive from San Jose along Highway 1 is one of the most spectacular roads in the world and other than a Winnebago driver that did not understand the concept of turnouts, the none more black MX-5 was a delight to drive along the twisties south of Big Sur.


Big Sur coast line.


Elephant Seals at play?


Along the bluffs near Cambria.


The view back towards the village.


Hearst's pool.


Antiquities.


Hearst's other pool.

Bialy you can be

From Wikipedia's entry on Robert Heinlein is a link to the Google satellite photo of his circular house that he and his wife Ginny built in Bonny Doon, California.

Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is probably the most subversive children's books ever written, being largely about sexual awakening and atheism. Now they are coming to the big screen beginning this winter with The Golden Compass. See the spectacular trailer here.

This has been mentioned by two of my blogroll regulars recently, Escapegrace and Tony Pierce; LAist has begun a series on LA Neighborhoods beginning with Little Armenia. My old neighborhood, which could be termed little Brooklyn, around Fairfax and Beverly used to stretch to at least Pico, but much of the southern portion is now Little Ethiopia. Nice to see a series like this.

In spite of Ms. Stein's famous quote that "there is no there there", there is indeed many theres there, you just need to know where there is.





Fairfax district of Los Angeles aka Kosher Canyon according to Wikipedia, though growing up there, I never heard it called that.

And for more info on thing Jewish in LA, there's the LA Jewish Guide.

Roadtrip this weekend down the coast in the none more black MX-5, hopefully some photos to share next week.

Jesus of Cool

A short interview with one of the greatest music producers and writers of great pop songs, Nick Lowe, over at the Onion AV Club.

I especially enjoyed his assessment of Punks who pretended to be bad musicians.

Well The Damned were really good, and Elvis was Elvis. Ian Dury and The Blockheads were really, really great. You know, the actual punk music, I didn't care for at all. I thought it was all rubbish, really. It was the attitude, the way that things were being shaken up, that excited me more. I still liked people who were good, you know? Who could actually play. Even though The Damned were a punk group, they played great. As did Elvis, and as did Ian. They were the ones who interested me. Not some of those daft punkers, especially the ones who had people who were actually pretty good musicians sort of pretending to play badly. That was just so stupid, and missed the point completely, I thought. So it was the people who were true to themselves, I think, that were the exciting ones.

Cruel to be kind, indeed.

Ah, synesthesia

The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco is presenting Brian Eno's 77 Million Paintings. A kaleidoscope like installation of evolutionary art by the ambient one.

Eno says of this show, "They are living an independent life, and they keep doing things that still surprise me. I've watched this program now for thousands of hours, because I have it running in my studio, normally, when I'm working there, and occasionally I'll look up and I'll see something really completely unlike anything I've ever seen before and think, 'Bloody hell!' I know all of the elements in the piece, of course, because I made them all, so you would think that I wouldn't be particularly surprised by any of the combinations of them, but I'm very surprised, actually."

More can be read at SFGate.com.

77 Million Paintings: Flat-screen installation by Brian Eno. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday (Sunday show at 7 p.m. is for members of the Long Now Foundation) at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, 701 Mission St., San Francisco. Tickets $20-$25. Call (415) 978-2787 or visit www.longnow.org.

Cult of Steve

They get this just about right.

Smell the Glove

via Tom Tomorrow, Amex has co-opted Spinal Tap's Gimme Some Money (actually the Thamesmen). It seems that only two responses are in order and both have already been taken; "excuse me while I choke on someone else's vomit", and "have these people no sense of irony?"

And Venus Was Her Name

Recent Netflix viewing has been quite tasty. The Good Shepherd, De Niro's history of the CIA as seen through the eyes of Matt Damon, though lengthy and a bit dry, held my interest throughout. The Queen, starring Helen Mirren in a stellar performance. Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro's dark fairytale about the Spanish Civil War. These are just a few of the highlights of my recent viewing. All recommended to varying degrees, depending on your tolerance for violence and British royals.



The last DVD I viewed was Peter O'Toole in his Oscar nominated performance as an aging actor who falls in love with a young girl in the film Venus. It is one of those character driven British films that you don't see very often any more. Not much happens and it takes its time in doing it, but it is such a pleasure to watch a great actor like O'Toole, who is still at the top of his game, do that thing that he does best.

The scenes between O'Toole and Vanessa Redgrave as his estranged wife, are worth the price of admission. Lordy, these people can act. And how refreshing it is to see.

What's round on both ends and high in the middle

A few weeks ago, the wife and I made a whirlwind trip to visit relatives of hers in Southwestern Ohio. While there we took a couple of drives to see a bit of America that us coastal types don't often see.

In Adam's county along the Kentucky border, there are a number of what they call "quilt barns". Traditional quilt pattern panels have been painted on the front of the building.











Shooting a bit of video out the window of the car (I was not behind the wheel) as we drove along inspired this bit of nostalgia.

Chinese Doughnut?

Just for kicks I googled my all-time favorite Chinese waiter the other day. I knew that he had been immortalized by Herb Caen in the SF Chronicle, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the internets contain a variety of fond memories of the man that had the title, "the rudest waiter in the world", Edsel Ford Fong.

Edsel waited tables at Sam Wo's in San Francisco's Chinatown. The restaurant was probably ten feet wide at most, you entered through the kitchen and went up the stairs that brought you to several dining floors. If you knew how it worked and wanted to truly get the Sam Wo's experience, you asked for Edsel's floor. As soon as you were seated, the floor show would begin. Edsel would yell at you, insult you, throw his pencil and pad on the table and bully you into writing down your own order. Insulting him in return was expected, even encouraged.

The food was greasy and really nothing special, but Edsel's entertainment value made it an experience you would never forget.

In my little bit of research, I sadly discovered that Edsel has gone to the Chinese restaurant in the sky some years ago. Sam Wo's is still there.

Some interesting essays on Sam Wo's and Edsel.

AT&T park, home of my San Francisco Giants has a restaurant named for Edsel Ford Fong (scroll down to Food and Beverages).

AAA's Via magazine features Sam Wo's in their San Francisco food tour. Strangely enough as a breakfast stop.

Views by the Bay Blog has some pictures accompanying a post on Sam Wo's.

A nice description of what it was like to be served by Edsel can be found at Fudcourt.

Friday Roadster Blogging

After this I'll shut up about my car, at least for the time being.

I'm almost through Mazda's brief break-in period, and have a trip up the coast to Pescadero under my belt (or hood, as the case may be) for a tasty lunch of Duarte's famous half/half artichoke and green chile soup with their hot and crusty sourdough bread followed by ollieberry pie. Mmmmm, pie. Oh yeah, this was about my car.

A roadtrip is already planned to head south down highway 1 to Cambria for a weekend gathering of fine friends and dining in July.

Here are a couple of pictures that I took last weekend.

Crouching Convertible, Hidden Roof

A few 12 second videos featuring my new car. I'll post some real photos of it one of these days.

Thought... who wouldn't buy a GPS unit that had William Daniel's voice? "Hello Michael, turn left in 100 yards."

Life's Little Conundrums

I have actually asked this very question, and the Onion tackles the issue on my behalf.

How does Radio Shack stay in business? I occasionally stop at the one in my neighborhood, mostly because it is close to my house and sometimes you need an extension cord or a coax cable really fast. There is never anyone there. The salespeople manage to either ignore you, be rude to you or are just plain ignorant. And there are never less than two of them, regardless of the fact that there are rarely customers around.

Money laundering? Vanity business? CIA front? Just askin'.

Oxymoron?

Building on the San Jose State Campus.

Gee, our old LaSalle ran great

In my household quiz shows were a contact sport with everyone yelling at the screen, especially for Jeopardy, but Password and College Bowl were also favorites. What's my Line and To Tell the Truth and the erszatz quiz show, You Bet Your Life were often on the tube, a 25" RCA in a massive wooden cabinet. Some of these I saw in reruns (like You Bet Your life, which was canceled before my birth) and others I watched in prime time with my parents and sisters. So when I heard that Kitty Carlisle Hart had passed away, it brought back quite a few childhood memories.

I was glad to see I am not alone in remembering those golden days. Terry Teachout eulogizes Kitty Carlisle Hart, the widow of the Moss Hart, she always seemed like a classy lady and part of a bygone era.

I also discovered that Terry and I both played Beverly Carlton in productions of The Man Who Came to Dinner. He in college, me in High School.

God Bless You Mr. Rosewater

Saddened to read this morning that Kurt Vonnegut has passed away. The world is a poorer place without him.

Poo tee weet.

Update: I logged this early yesterday, upon my first shocked reading of Vonnegut's passing. Since then the blogs have been filled with eulogies far more eloquent than I could muster. Friend George at Fool in the Forest expresses many a shared sentiment.

Julie Andrews!

Via the permalink free DVD Journal (scroll down to the April 9th disk of the week), is a glowing review of the original version of Bedazzled that has just been released on DVD. Not to be confused with one of the most useless and irrelevant remakes of all time, the 1967 version stars Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in fine form as the Devil and his unwitting Faust, featuring Raquel Welch as what else but, Lust.

As DVD Journal rightly points out, what makes this film so classic is not the extended flights of fancy as Stanley Moon (Moore) attempts to achieve his dream of marital bliss with his love interest Margaret (Eleanor Bron,) only to be repeatedly thwarted by the Devil's trickery, but instead the scenes of dialog between the comedy duo of Cook and Moore. The final scenes of Peter Cook railing against God are hilarious as well.

And by the way, Julie Andrews is the Devil's magic incantation by which he grants Moore his ill fated wishes.

567359

Drumming in the Rain

A typical rainy day in Portland.



From a recent excursion.

Guilty Pleasures

First of all, before I begin my rant, I've got to admit to a couple of things. My wife and I are American Idol viewers. Secondly, as if you did not already know this, I am addicted to political talk tv, Olbermann, Matthews, MTP, etc. etc. Now of late, political talk TV, Joe Scarborough being the worse culprit, has turned into American Idol TV and my guilty pleasures have intersected.

The advent of Sanjaya Malakar, he of the insane hair and less than stellar singing ability, has prompted a virtual nightly segment on a number of these shows in which serious and not so serious people discuss the completely unserious topic of whether Howard Stern and the website Vote for the Worst are "corrupting" the voting process. I wish they spent that much energy on the Florida recount.

To this, I have one thing to say, any process that allows people to vote multiple times, only limited by their obsession and speed dial is already corrupt.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

Oh, Rochester

I just came across a link to the online collection of the George Eastman House Musuem in Rochester, New York. A varied and eclectic list of photographers, of whom I am only familiar with a handful. Certainly an enjoyable way for any photography lover to idle away a bit of time.

The online collection can be viewed here.

The museum's website is here.


Robert Parke Harrison

Escher is my favorite MC

The San Jose Museum of Art is currently exhibiting a collection of the work of MC Escher.

It is an interesting exhibit that includes much of his early work, as well as the more familiar pieces that have graced many a dorm room wall over the years.

The official MC Escher site is worth a visit. There is a fairly extensive picture gallery and a download section with a free interactive puzzle.

Movie News

Coming Soon to a Theater near you

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodrigues team up again for the double feature Grindhouse. I'm sure this will engender as much debate as Kill Bill.

Coming Soon on DVD
Via DVD Journal

Our friends at The Criterion Collection have announced a two-disc release of Lindsay Anderson's 1968 If… starring Malcolm McDowell as hell-raising schoolboy Mick Travis — expect a new transfer from restored elements; a commentary featuring McDowell and film historian David Robinson.

If... is the predecessor and companion piece to Anderson's 1973 film, O Lucky Man! If... is the better picture, but the Alan Price soundtrack from O Lucky Man! is a classic.

Recent Viewing
The Departed and Hollywoodland are the two most recent DVDs that have found their way into my player.

As a longtime Scorsese fan, I am happy that he finally won the Oscar, and The Departed is definitely worth watching. The dialog, the performances, the story are all engaging and it is one of the fastest 150 minutes I've spent in a while. But it is not the film that Raging Bull or Goodfellas were. It feels a bit like a pity Oscar when you look at it in the context of Scorsese's earlier works, but it is a mile above the Aviator and is still worth watching.

Hollywoodland is the story of the death of George Reeves, TV's Superman in the fifties. Ben Affleck inhabits the vapid personality of Reeves and turns in one of his best performances. The film, unlike the over-the-top Black Dahlia, that came out around the same time last year, does not propose to offer a solution to the mystery of Reeves' death. A bit slow at times, but for lovers of tales of old Hollywood and fans of the old Superman series, well worth your time.

Schmaltz will clog your arteries

Leaky truck on Louisiana highway leaves trail of chicken fat.

Quick, bring me some chicken livers and a Ritz cracker.

Via SFGate.com read about it here.

The google led me to this site, a list of road songs on the US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration web site.

Good fun.

All things Bob

Nice to see that, in a qualified sense, the current Pope has acknowledged that Bob Dylan is a prophet.

And here is Weird Al's version of Subterranean Homesick Blues done completely in palindromes.



In the words of friend George, who sent this my way, this is totally inexplicable. Dylan hears a Who!

Baby's got a Major-General

Gilbert, Sullivan & Sir Mix-a-lot



via Salon.com To irresistable not to share.

...into this

Charles Bukowski (dinosauria, we)



I was just in that kind of mood. Enjoy.

Conservowiki

A must read over at Shakespeare's Sister about the conservative answer to Wikipedia, Conservapedia. Started by Phyllis Schaffly's son, it definitely takes the Colbertian view that facts have a liberal bias, so it seeks to avoid them as much as possible.

Here are a few examples from Conservapedia as described by Jon Swift at Shakespeare's Sister

Kangaroo: "Like all modern animals, modern kangaroos originated in the Middle East and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood." (I'm sure skippy will be very interested to learn this.)

Theory of Relativity: "Nothing useful has even been built based on the theory of relativity.…'All things are relative' became popular as atheists and others used relativity to attack Christian values. There remains enormous political support for the theory of relativity that has nothing to do with physics, and Congress continues to spend billions of dollars unsuccessfully searching for particles predicted by the theory of relativity."

Gospels: "The greatest writing in the history of the world is the Gospel of John....This single book has done more to shape human thought and behavior than any other work. Our uniquely American First Amendment right of free speech is based on ministers preaching of the 'Word' of God as described in the first few verses of the Gospel of John."

George Washington: "Washington is perhaps the person other than Jesus who declined enormous worldly power, in Washington's case by voluntarily stepping aside as the ruler of a prosperous nation."

Scopes Trial: "Hollywood has little regard for the truth. Its movie version Inherit the Wind changed everyone's name, thereby preventing libel suits, and changed the facts in order to ridicule religious belief. Thanks to Bryan's victory in the Scopes trial, Tennessee voters have been educated without oppressive evolution theory for 75 years. Free from the liberal indoctrination, Tennessee voted against native son Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential election - probably the only time a candidate has lost the Presidency due to losing his home state. If Tennessee had a high level of belief in evolution comparable to that of East Germany, then you can bet Gore would have won his state and the Presidency."

The Da Vinci Code: "Dan Brown is responsible for feeding millions of readers a pack of lies cleverly wrapped up as a historically accurate novel."

Holocaust: "The Holocaust was the massacring of the Jewish race during World War II. The Germans are not to blame for this but the Nazi are. Besides 6 million Jews dying, 3 million Christians were killed also along with many priests and nuns. This is a very touchy subject for the Jews and is not often discussed amongst them."

Communism: "Communists believe that if they share everything, no one will ever have to work."

Most of the articles in Conservapedia are scrupulously sourced. For example, the entry on Isaac Newton -- "Sir Isaac Newton was one of the inventors of calculus and the propsed [sic-whoops!] the theory of gravity (It should be noted that gravity, like evolution, is just a theory and has never been proven to be true). He was a Devout Christian whose discoveries were inspired by God." -- refers you to the Bible Code Digest, which proves that Newton was a devout Christian. Virtually all of the science entries cite books by Dr. Jay L. Wile, the respected author of homeschool textbooks.

And from my geeky standpoint, the site is a mess. The link to create a log on takes you to a login page with no way to register that I can find. The search field has two button, one that says Go, the other says Search. Hmmmm. And the site is painfully slow and times out on a regular basis. All this free publicity is probably more than they can handle.

Now with more marshmallow bits

Futurballa.com, the futurballa photography website, has been revamped, updated, redesigned and retooled for your pleasure. Come on in and make yourself at home.

A wee bit of free association:

It starts with an interesting review and history of the Brecht, Weill opera, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny can be found at a fool in the forest.

What follows is what happens when you start free associating on Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and Miss Lotte Lenya. The last one is a leap of faith, but some of you might get the connection.

The stuff that dreams are made of

Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation...

Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?

John's Grill, the real life haunt of Dashiell Hammett and the fictional haunt of Sam Spade on Ellis in San Francisco has sported a replica of the Maltese Falcon in a cabinet for many years. The owner, unable to attain the lead one that was used in John Huston's classic film, purchased one of the plaster, publicity models from actor Elisha Cook, Jr., who played Wilmer the gunsel.

Well, some weasel has stolen the black bird.

Read the San Francisco Chronicle's report here.

And to separate fact from fiction, take the Hammett tour.

...but you blew my mind

Best Manzanera solo ever. Ferry looking extra sweaty. Eno in his feather boa days. All that is missing is the Manzanera fly glasses. Takes pretty fly for a white guy to a whole new level.

Two More From God's Country

Of course whenever you are in God's country, one must pay the God's country tax, whereby the crappiest key chain in the gift shop is $8.95.


Halfdome and Sentinel Peaks


Reflection of El Capitan

On the subject of walking in the footsteps of the great photographers, Slate has yet another slide show on a photographic subject. The topic being, "can photographers be plagiarists". I come down on the side of no. One can do everything in one's power to duplicate another photograph, same equipment, same location, same day of the year, and still have the shot be unique. One can emulate, but not duplicate.

The accompanying text is very thought provoking and well worth your time.

To view the slide show, click here.

The Decisive Moment

Slate Magazine's Meghan O'Rourke offers up an excellent slideshow with commentary on the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Before Robert Frank, Alfred Eisenstaedt and Garry Winogrand, he was the original street photographer. I was interested to read about his background as a game hunter, which probably instilled in him the patience to wait for what was termed "the decisive moment".

I wish I could have witnessed this scene that O'Rourke describes.

Truman Capote, who traveled with him to New Orleans in the 1940s, said that while photographing he resembled an "agitated dragonfly," ducking and bobbing, and Lincoln Kirstein described him, in 1947, "dancing about his subject on tip-toe, like a boxer or a fencer."

Click here to view the slideshow.


Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gare Saint-Lazare, Paris, 1932

"The simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression... . In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little human detail can become a leitmotif." — Henri Cartier-Bresson

Now, ya carrot-chewin' coyote!! Git a goin'!!

Unfortunately I did not have a long lens at the moment that I saw what was more likely an actual rodent chewing coyote on a snow covered meadow. The real attraction of this last weekend, which I spent at a photographic field study in Yosemite Valley was the ice formations. Having had a particularly harsh cold snap, followed by warmer days and overnight freezes, the ice in the rives was quite special.

Here are a few images from those rivers and creeks.