Support Your Local Fiddler

Should you be in the area, have a listen to Jane Hilton and Shay Veno at Tim Finnegan's this and every Thursday. Shay's a journeyman and Jane is terrific. They'll rouse your sinews.

Shay also holds forth regularly at O'Connors on West Dunlap.

Maybe we'll see you.

Going Dutch

Started Vemeer's Hat and an armchair travel read it is. Brook uses the elements of Vermeer's pictures to lecture about aspects of trade and culture in the 17th century. "Transculturation" is the thesis he's relaying and applying to Dutch traders upon their interface with Asia.

Though he doesn't use this example, he'd have us look at The Girl with a Pearl Earring considering silk from China and Japanese pearl divers, giving the histories of these endeavors and how those products made their way to Europe.

The Dutch have a terrible reputation for colonial ruthlessness and racism in actual estimation of their former hold on Indonesia. Brook's purview is definitely not Marxist and he's somewhat romantic. He's rather like a docent conversing with other snobs, but very accessible.

An interesting point made about the ceramic trade was that the first high-volume customers were the Persians. It seems the Koran prohibited the use of gold or silver plate as being immodest and proud. Fine porcelain was a means to luxuriously evade the ban. So much for principle!

Native Intelligence

A Lesson

Wanted to learn how to use the slide show feature, so took a walk in the Steele Indian School Park in central Phoenix, where is located the long closed Phoenix Indian School itself, taking a series of shots of buildings being refurbished and landscaping being done.

Although the park is a city operation, I don't know who is funding the work on the grounds. They've been at it for years; I'm surprised it's taken so long. Of at least six structures, only one looks finished. You'd think with all the casino money being infused locally there'd be some support, but a colleague just said that, on account of the hard feelings about Bureau of Indian Affairs policy regarding forced deculturation and such, they (the tribes) might not necessarily be interested.

The park anchors a lot of future planning with regard to redevelopment. The new light rail is immediately adjacent. The park, about a half-mile square, affords the premium open space within the prospective density along the line.

Wasn't able to find a good explanatory web site. This is informative.
Most of the building were put up in the 1920s. The fountain is newly installed.

Ha. Trouble getting this page format to support a slide show.
Looks like you've got to link to a host; we'll see how it goes.

I wouldn't be so presumptive as to make much commentary. Not only is it a work in progress, but what's past is quite controversial. Is Old Glory a "central unifying principle" or significant of conquest? Is it not as much a totem as as any "tribe's?" Well, as you can see, no one is there.

Decided not to link to the slide show on the hosting site as it gives entree of my album to strangers. I should have to tidy that up too! You really have to be careful here.

Figured out how to get the slide show running from the other side. Don't see yet how to add text to post. Put it on to see how it presents.

By the way, it appears your hosting site album can be accessed by posting photos. Bear that in mind as well.

One Thing After Another

Presently at coffee shooting the breeze. Getting asked of what I thought of the financial bailout had me sputter a bit, but they've got to do it.

"The thing of it is, who gets bailed, and it looks bad... Lehman goes under but Goldman gets covered? Paulson chaired Goldman. But it's all so interconnected. Who's really hurting are the overseas exchanges and international funds. Lots of trade dollars got invested there. They ain't covered."

So you sit down, relax, and lo and behold, the liquidation is buying greenbacks. The hedge department may be debunked, but the currency traders are going great guns.

"It's all relative and you just can't keep up."

I try to keep Gresham's Law in mind, not that my heart's in it. Easy credit debases the full faith we have everything's going to be alright. Well, you do know why the mateys bit the coins in the pirate movies, don't you? And pieces of eight? Clipped into bits; two bits. Get it? We'll be fine.

Public Stuff

The previous post included just the sort of banality I'd like to avoid (Rolled out of bed, brushed my teeth, put the kettle on and another day, another dollar.), but I'm serious about getting the presentation right. There isn't a help window on this page and I've yet to see a good tutorial in "Layout." With no responses, there's no way to streamline the informational flow. I guess I've got to inquire myself of other users who've posted their e-mail address. Really don't want to get that involved.

For purposes like above, this is good. I got to thinking about the subject, about how cold or vapid most "public art" is, even considering that it's got to stand up to the elements, and remembered this in the file. I thought it had a Kokopelli medallion in the light post like others, but not this one... is that a phoenix rising? Can't quite make it out.

Anyway, I've yet to complete my profile. Oh yeah, like to take pictures and process them. Presently listening to this. Like it a lot too. Today, I've got some banking to do. I think the signage qualifies, don't you?

Here's some bells from the Arcosanti forge. Took a lot of pictures years ago at the Cortes Junction facility, not a public place. Film. (Been meaning to take a ride to get some digitally.) These are at the main branch of the public library. More to say up the pike about Paolo Soleri's mission.

Chores

After an active day, fell asleep in the early evening, waking at 2 a.m., and have decided to take a spin around the blog. This is very much a learning curve - how to get the text right (you can't indent paragraphs - that bugs me; I don't like to present walls of words and you need the ocular break) and it's a chore interspersing multiple photographs. Sometimes spacing gets botched. And there's the peculiar feeling that you're really just talking to yourself. Not much feedback. I need that.

Take the photos. The rose pictures were taken fully automatically. A little too washed. If I set the ISO to 200, will that dampen the light? I should think so. What's the story about boosting images from the net? Or linking to videos? A search engine suffices, and I found a site for free clip art. Just before, on another site in a bulletin board, I had to deal with a copyright issue.

Great picture, huh? You can use them privately or educationally for no pecuniary gain so long as you credit the maker and source. This is from Wikipedia. Looks so much like a Steichen but it's not, and may well be by a Daily News stringer. Anyway, I'd like to blow it up and print it to cool off an instant every now and again.

To top it off, I'm still on dial-up ISP at home, so jumping through all the hoops is exaspertin'.

So, is it a learning curve, a heuristic experience, or is it all a waste of time?

And just killing time, I am, until the Mets and the football Cardinals take the field later this morning. Patience has me looking for something to do and fortitude has got me looking around to see I've got some tidying up on the agenda. I could use this device to express my political opinions (I've pretty much got the presidential race distilled to Navy vs. Punks.) or wax poetic (I do write constantly rewritten verse.) or essay upon the conflict I'm having about whether to go to church or to a tavern to watch those games. I'll spare you. Maybe later.

Yes, I'd better clean the kitchen and do a laundry.

Stretching

There was a terrible storm a couple of weeks ago. Wind shear. Microbursts.

This is what Encanto Park looked like.

Hiked through this morning. All cleaned up, but much damage.

Bridges out. This one's OK. (Best we can do for sighs.)

Nearby, a rose garden. Walkabout one of the older neighborhoods.

Some autumn buds; otherwise they're still pretty stressed.

No Surprises?

I'm surprised she's never been on Broadway.
I'm going to have to swing by Bookmans for The Seagull.
Read it in a college drama class and have completely forgotten.
Should be a breeze, not having to do a paper and all.

No wonder that Paul Newman dead. Usual scenario.
(Why do they always say people "battle" with cancer?)
Had a girlfriend who thought he was greater than sliced bread.
Like, you're just you - and she's ditzed. Find someone else.

Sporting Life

DBacks and Yanks out of it... Mets hang by a thread.
So, who's my team?

Sweet Lou and the Cubs presently.
Yet feel for long-suffering Met fans and hope for best.

The Cardinals and the Jets?
Home team there, of course.

Long-suffering folks here too.
Good thing I've multo championships notched.

Hibernian Haven

Ha' ye been ta Tim Finnegan's yet? Fer d'lova Mike, whoy not?

Last evening was the grand galactical debut of Theres That. Rock on they did. Glad to see old friend lead get himself a new working band as he shows the kids the ropes. Pictures shall have to wait 'till another time, should I live so long - batteries kerbluee; here's one from the file. A fine job they did upgrading this location. Another friend, another New Yorker, turned a space abandoned and boarded up for many years into a splendid addition to the neighborhood. We love it!

Going back, here used to be a cantina that had a house band, Barrio, that was incredibly dancible... salsa, cumbia, mambo, Tex-Mex. Great times 15 years ago with a Latina girlfriend. (We liked Incan music too. She could step to that indigenously.) Now here's Theres That. What will they think of next?

"And how's the corned beef and cabbage?"
Wouldn't know... cook me own.

Low Maintenance

Gardening this after. A little water. Dust a rock. Takes care of that.

I've raised some of these since they was 99 cent miggles. Ten years, I figure. Since I've gotten so artsy-fartsy in my dotage, this is, naturally, my cacti installation. One of the projects in the back of my mind is to pick up Cactuses for Idiots. I've got about thirty potted thus; I always threw away that plastic stake with the name and exposure guide on it right after the plant got situated, consequently I don't know what most of them are called. As I don't speak to them, the matter is not a priority, but I'd like to get a good picture book and do a line-up. "Yeah - that's the one. Stuck me good." My pocket Audubon field guide not adequate. Need a tome. It's on the list.

I certainly have never shot a saguaro. That's a notorious Sonoran Desert morality tale... the nit-wit standing twenty feet away from a thirty foot ton of enveloped water, shooting away oblivious to the laws of physics. Vectoring inertial forces; you know - gravity, what a concept! Came down topside his head. Shows to go you.

I've got aloe vera near twenty-five years old. Real good preventing those crusty elbows. Used to manage "nutritional supplement" stores; some people swear by it drunk down toward regularity. The "beer is food" crowd tout Guinness; lots of yeasty B vitamins as well. I am not a beer guy.

Howdy to EPD on the grid. Rings a bell. You'll like this.

Primal Percussion

You see an advert for a group called Soleil Noir and expect something exotic. Différent. So it was and so I went to have a listen. Mellow acoustic music, live, is very rare.

A pleasant surprise that I was acquainted with the guitarist and, in the small world department, the flautist is from New York, as am I of several eons ago. They were delightful. Très reposant.

Some intricate rhythm and sometimes entrancing. When I look at their "influences" (except for Hakim) I'm completely at a loss. They're seeking their own sound, of course, and you don't want to be too comparative, but I was thinking Ottmar Liebert meets Jethro Tull if they'd really like to bust out. They kicked back covering Paint It, Black. I was the only one in the place alive then. My, my... that would be like getting into Rudy Vallee in '66.

Not Too Bad

So glad to be able to pop in and get vitalized!

For the locals, nothing beats the mid-week deal - no cover and plenty of room on the dance floor.

Char's is a soul survivor and a Phoenix fixture.

If you're traveling through on business, you've got to check out Larry with the Baddness on Wednesdays. They tight.

Lady J is world class; what R&B is all about.

Good Enough

It's Bible Study this evening across the land.

I'd like to go but the last one I went to I managed (Ought I say mismanaged?) to get into a tangle. Evolving from stardust is one thing, of course, but are people basically good or "sinful?"

I held out for the benevolent attitude while someone else, pursuant to, well, jeremiads, obsessed about "sinfulness." I felt suffocated.

Happened to catch a rainbow over the church later that week and recovered my equanimity, but I'll leave them their spats.

Also checked Trespass by Amy Irvine out from library. Didn't mention it initially because I'd no idea it would be as interesting as it is. Written by a "Jack Mormon" woman, it's a telling account of life in "the West" as determined by the omnipresence of the LDS Church in fabled Deseret.

It's about fitting in, or not. It's about the paradigm shift from the expansion upon and exploitation of seemingly endless real estate come up against the perceived oppression of "land use planning."

She had something to say about the above argument, as testified by her grandmothers. The matriarch of a farming and ranching family, accommodated to the strictures of a cruel life amidst a mean world, responded to her grandchild's theological questions thus:

"God put us in this forsaken place for a reason, and I don't have time to waste second-guessin' Him. Now there are cows to feed and crops to bring in, and that's all I've got time for. If you got time to be wonderin', missy, then you ain't livin' right."

Her other grandmother, a "Gentile" painter, conversely related "this world was lovely, and that this life was long, and for her, that was good enough."

Still Only Tuesday

Cool enough to be spinning arboretumatically.

I swear, he played Innagaddadavida.

It's Only Tuesday

Enjoy taking pictures; even more so the creative aspects in the processing application since I make do with a basic automatic. This turned out nice...

...the courtyard of Trinity Cathedral on Roosevelt in Phoenix. Getting to be "cool" enough to get out and take walks.

I find that to be the most annoying thing about the heat here - one doesn't do much casual or convenient walking. You tend to drive from place to place and get little exercise (not to mention the gas tab) unless you make the explicit time to do so. I look forward to taking other walks and more shots showing the sights.

Suppose imperative to be of "The Now" when it comes to posting.

Not much happening this early in the week. I like coming down to a rehabbed area just north of downtown Phoenix. Older houses have been recycled to amenable uses. There's to be some music at the Lost Leaf; nothing doing yet.

Made my weekly run to the library. Picked up The Slaves' War by Andrew Ward and Vermeer's Hat by Timothy Brook. I like to read history, especially these sorts of literary approaches. One of the objects here will be to make further mention of such reading.

I like to write but are not one... quite grammatically challenged in the primary sense. Terrible problem with conjunctive punctuation. Perhaps the practice here will cure me.

Getting Underway

I've been online for many years but have never blogged. Nor chatted; nor socially networked.

Never thought I had much to say, or that I'd simply be repeating the interminable babble.

I shall try not to be tedious, nor derivative, nor silly. I don't live an exiting life... we'll see.

Here am I at coffee place in Phoenix.
Ubiquitous cactus, svelte hibiscus. Good work.

Note empty space to my left. I'm thinking of someone. Were she to sit alongside, I'd mention Georgia O'Keefe and how I'd love to go to Taos. Do you know the way to Santa Fe?

Favorite shirt too.