Artists Support the Protests

On Saturday I attended the weekly Freeport, Maine protest against the current administration and its erosion of American democracy with my sister. We grew up in a fascist country and as the gentleman on the left is pointing out (his sign is not very visible), “Remember Germany 1933.” It was a pleasant way to spend a morning but we were all wondering what good it was actually doing… Lots of cars beeped in solidarity; some also shook their heads or worse. This is the point: we agree they have the right to disagree.

This protest coincided with the local arts & crafts fair, and one of the artists offered us all a notecard to thank us for showing up. I went over afterwards and talked with her: she is a farmer whose livelihood is being threatened by the administration’s cuts to the USDA… I loved her work and bought some more notecards. I gave the still life of just-pulled beets to my mother, who loves beets.

Google Creepiness Example 587

A couple weeks back, I bought a new cellphone. This was after the battery died on my old phone from 2019. I took the phone to a local shop to try to get the battery replaced, but despite a valiant attempt at the replacement, the phone was moribund and I ended up spending $160 to acquire a 2023 Moto Power 5G running Android 13. I have not put many apps on the phone to date, and don’t plan to load it up much.

The other day I opened my phone to a notification giving me a tour of the new features these days in Android. Google is now pushing their Gemini AI chatbot technology as much as possible. I have tried to disable Gemini as far as I can on my phone, but I’m sure it will creep back. Anyway, the first slide of this tour was about Gemini, and the slide suggested Gemini would be helpful in finding interesting places to check out in Barcelona, specifically in the Gràcia district. Um. This is all too close to my current interests to be a coincidence. I don’t think Google knows I currently have two books checked out on Barcelona from the public library, since libraries are extremely good about keeping patron information private, but on June 29 I did watch an Easy Catalan video entitled Barcelona’s Neighborhoods: Gràcia. (I know the date because I’m keeping a log of my Catalan input). I try my best to keep Google off my trail, but this is obviously quite hard to do.

Blindness in Pets

When we had our two first cats, Diego developed blindness. The vet predicted he might because his pupils (and eyes) were always open wide, potentially a symptom of high blood pressure. He adapted quite well to life in our old house, finding his way to the litter box (well, in the end, a puppy pad), and was able to jump up to the stool next to me and sit on my lap in the morning, a sweet memory that I will always carry with me.

My sister’s dog was recently diagnosed with diabetes and his total blindness has come on very suddenly — within two weeks his lenses are completely opaque, like a glacial lake, and they have both been on a tortuous journey to find the right level of insulin to treat his symptoms (very high glucose levels, monitored with needle prick blood draws, terrible thirst followed by massive drinking and needing to pee long and often, all night, etc.). But he is still enjoying life and today had a great walk on Bartol Island, managing to trot and even lope for part of it.

Seeing the end of a dear pet’s life looming is never easy and my sister won’t prolong it if his suffering seems to be more than the few moments of pleasure he has. This was a rescue dog whose owner had died in hospital and nobody knew she had a dog; he was locked in a house with no food for who knows how long, found eating toothpaste. He has had serious abandonment issues but this dog got her through an excruciatingly painful divorce. It will be a difficult parting.

The Sketchbook Format Dilemma

As evident by many of my recent posts, I keep a daily sketchbook. Because at the beginning of the year I switched over from sketching buildings on weekends to sketching trees, I started sketching in a portrait format sketchbook (a Stillman & Birn 8.5×5.5” softcover Gamma book), since trees tend to be vertical rather than square. This works well for my weekend tree sketches, which tend to be extended sessions away from the house, but less well on weekdays when I just want to do a quick sketch, and a square format book seems best. My current sketchbook is entirely of plant bits, all of which lie happily on a portrait page. I like the consistency of the theme but it might be time to move on from plant stems. This leads to the dilemma of what format should be my next daily sketchbook. Here are some of the issues:

• A square format sketchbook works well for quicker sketches but is not so good for trees. What would be my next subjects for weekend field sketching?
• I have trouble finding subjects for portrait format sketchbooks that are not plant bits. I suppose there is the vacuum cleaner, water bottles, and the cat tower.
• Landscape format sketchbooks are great for, well, landscapes but there’s too much surface to cover for quick weekday sketches.
• I like the Stillman and Birn Gamma paper but the Gamma softcover sketchbooks don’t come in square format. The Alpha ones do but they are a relatively large 7.5” square size.
• Having a background in 4:3 camera formats (the little Panasonic ZS-50, micro four-thirds cameras), I much prefer 4 to 3 ratios for layout within a frame. I don’t know any 4:3 sketchbooks though.

A New Wallet

For some time now I’ve been dissatisfied with my wallet. I originally bought this because it was about half the size of a traditional women’s purse/wallet, which was always too big, the kind that also fits a checkbook. This particular wallet has served me well — it has more than enough room for cards, ID, paper cash, and change. But the change has a clever way of escaping out the side, and I find myself using cash less and less anyway (late to the card-only party, which I guess I will never be a true-blue member of).

My sister has used a credit card holder for some time. At the front there is a transparent panel for the ID; at the back there are slots of credit cards. I need one more slot than she has so we looked online at the Mywalit store, the colorful Italian brand she’s used for years which has never failed apart from the plastic transparent ID section (which prompted the store to replace the whole cardholder free of charge). These pieces are well designed and very well made, and I’m always looking for an opportunity to support good design.

We went to the local travel shop (Tripquipment in Falmouth) to have a look. They had one of the four-pocket cardholders left. This is my birthday present from her (which I accepted under protest until she reminded me I always knit her a pair of socks for HER birthday, which is certainly true and which does always take hours). It fits very easily in my pocket, has a zipper for any potential change/bills, and is bright and cheerful. No more black things to get lost inside the other black things I have; this is red, orange and green. The colors of summer vegetables.

Daily Sketch - Delphinium

Today’s sketch is of a delphinium in our garden. There are not too many flowers left on the plant as a whole, and the seed pods are developing well.

Geology from the Air

The flight path from Sacramento to Seattle is full of volcanic wonders. First are the Sutter Buttes, proclaimed the smallest mountain range in the world. Next comes Mount Shasta, towering over Northern California and still, in late July, snow-covered. Into Oregon is Mount Hood, the astonishing Crater Lake, then approaching Seattle, Mounts Baker, and Tom in the distance, and Rainier to the east.

I know we live in a geologically active area of the world, but in Davis, you see little evidence of this. Today I had a good reminder that there’s a lot of geology all around.

Postscript: I do know it’s not a great idea to bring fountain pens on planes, but I do it anyway… Also, I wrote this before I heard about the 8.7 magnitude earthquake in Kamchatka, which reminds me also that yes, the Pacific Rim is a powderkeg.

The Monk Of Santa Cruz

I was saddened to learn yesterday of the death a couple days ago of the satirical songwriter and performer Tom Lehrer at age 97. By coincidence I was watching an interview yesterday with the creator of the website hosting all of Tom Lehrer’s works. The interview was from three weeks ago, when Tom was very much alive. The interview prompted me to check his entry in Wikipedia and I was taken aback to learn he died the previous day.

Tom Lehrer’s songs were very much a part of my childhood in the early 1970s. I don’t know if it was my record-collecting father or my record-collecting brother who brought the recordings home, but I heard his songs often. Judging from the accolades these past couple of days, many other people loved his songs as well.

He withdrew from songwriting and performing in the late 1960s, but his satire remains surprisingly relevant in 2025. The flip side of this is the unfortunate truth that we really haven’t solved any of these issues since then! (E.g. his song “Who’s next” is all about nuclear proliferation.) Starting in 1972 he settled into a quiet career teaching mathematics for non-majors and musical theatre at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Here is a just-posted musical eulogy for Tom Lehrer by the interviewer referred to above, Kira Coviello (aka Honest2Betsy).

Tour de Fleece Reckoning

I’ve been watching the Tour de France from about 5:20 am every day it’s been on for the past three weeks, which has also coincided with the Women’s Euros (Spain lost the final to England today, boo-hoo), which I’ve also watched pretty avidly, both of them on Spanish television (RTVE) through a VPN. The Spanish commentators on the cycling are all ex-cyclists and had a different guest on every day of their coverage, which made it interesting — today it was a Spanish women’s champion who rode for Spain in the Olympics and knew the Butte Montmartre circuit the cyclists were going to be riding (in the rain and mostly over cobbles; it wasn’t a comfy saunter as it has been in previous years).

My spinning has been less avid. I’ve certainly spun a sock-quantity of fine BFL 3-ply (well it will be when I ply it) and made a good start on the chocolate corriedale a friend picked up for me at Black Sheep Gathering in June, but I confess to having been seduced by some lace knitting and wasn’t monocraftual.

Time to pick up a pen and get more focused on drawing in time for SAWgust, which starts on Friday.

The Yolo County Slugger

We haven’t been paying much attention to baseball in recent years, in part because our old team the San Francisco Giants has been financially outclassed by their rivals down the road the Los Angeles Dodgers, and have not had a lot of success lately. The other Northern California major league team, the Oakland Athletics, has decided to seek their fortune in Las Vegas, but before the Las Vegas stadium gets built they have temporarily landed nearby, playing in the minor league park in West Sacramento as an interim home. This means Yolo County has a major league baseball team for the time being. But the A’s have not done well here either in the standings or in attendance.

Things might be looking up for them however. The A’s have a 22-year-old rookie slugger named Nick Kurtz who was fast-tracked through the minors in 2024 and arrived on the major league team on April 23rd. Last night against the Houston Astros he had an offensive performance for the ages. He hit four home runs, becoming the first rookie to ever do so, and went six-for-six overall. He also tied the record for most total bases in a single game at 19. Kurtz has been the best hitter in baseball over the last nine or so weeks, and is in the conversation for becoming American League Rookie of the Year. His nickname is “Big Amish” since he hails from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It’s always fun to watch new stars emerge.