8 November 06
This Pen is No More
As I’ve said on these pages before, I have many fountain pens; each one is a favorite in its own right. A gunbarrel gray Mont Blanc I bought in Cambridge, Mass, in or around 1993 died today, the victim of negligence as it dropped out of my hand.
I’ve dropped this pen before, always lucky it didn’t fall straight onto the nib. It has a very loose cap, and attempts to fix it have only made it worse. But today, I can only blame my clumsiness.
Oh the agony.
This pen’s qualities: wrote like butter. Nib fine but not scratchy. I had just written about 550 words of my novel with it. It seemed to be liking the voice of Willie, one of the twin brothers in love with my heroine languishing in a Confederate prison in Richmond.
I didn’t take the pen anywhere because of the loose cap, so it became my stay-on-the-counter pen, the one I wrote with in my journal over the years. It paired perfectly with Clairefontaine. We made a morning triad.
In case you’ve been asleep all day, the Democrats took control of the House and, now, the Senate. On a day when I might have been in mourning for a tool I’ve used a great deal over the last fifteen years, a pen so lovely it has felt like an extension of my hand, I’ve felt little but euphoria.
It is a bittersweet day, though, at the end. RIP, dear friend.
7 November 06
Fremont A's?
The Oakland A’s seem eager to move about 20 miles to Fremont, of all places. They are expected to announce next week their intention to acquire the rights to a 143 acre tract currently leased by Cisco Systems.
The A’s would rather move to downtown San Jose, but this is currently politically infeasible, and as columnist Ray Ratto explains, moving to Fremont is a potentially horrific mistake, a third-best alternative chosen simply because A’s managing partner Lew Wolff is in a hurry to be somewhere else. The Oakland Network Associates McAffee Coliseum despite its great many faults as least has the virtue of being on the BART line; the proposed new site would be six miles from the southernmost BART station, off the worst freeway with the most godawful traffic in Northern California, I-880. There are a lot of peeved A’s fans in this thread here.
6 November 06
Eggplants-ho
In between writing a novel, entertaining a Paulist priest, taking the cat to the vet, and getting my new garden in, as well as making sure Numenius is doing his wound care fine on his own (yes, I’m happy to report), I’ve pulled out the summer garden. There are way more eggplants than I thought, lurking about their plants like elongated easter eggs.
I’ve frozen basil, chard, peppers, and chiles. But I hesitate to do the same to these eggplants. Anyone have any idea what I might do with them? There are about 10…
5 November 06
Saint John's Bible Revisited
Our friend Father Ed from our days living in Santa Barbara is visiting here overnight — he flew out from his home now in New York to perform a wedding up in Placerville. After sharing vacation sketches and photos (ours of New York and Europe; his of Alaska and the Boundary Waters) we somehow started talking about the Saint John’s Bible, the amazing calligraphic creation that I was fortunate enough to see in exhibition last summer. So we watched the DVD I got last year about scribe Donald Jackson and the creation of this hand-illuminated bible. Looking at the project’s website, I can’t tell how close the project is to completion, but happily for Father Ed, there is an exhibition of folios of pages from the Prophets volume currently showing in New York. For anybody who is in the area, it is well worth going to — the exhibition runs through November 27.
4 November 06
Not So Fast...
Coming home last night from Sacramento, via the drugstore to order some antibiotics (Numenius had a minor procedure done), we got stuck waiting for the train. This is a normal occurrence for us: pretty much anywhere and home is divided by the train tracks on a very busy line, so we have to stop maybe 10% of the crossings.
This train, though, was a very long freight which slowed to stop right at the crossing. One did this the other day for 40 mintues. I turned around and went back to get the antibiotics and some supper, it now being nearly 7:30.
When we got back in one of the cats had thrown up a frothy mixture all over the house. Diego continued to do this until it was just dry heaving at 2:00 am. Every hour I contemplated taking him to the animal hospital; every hour he seemed to get better.
I finally got some sleep, so did Numenius, so did Diego. But not so many words have been written this morning, and I have some novel catchup to do today… am thinking of going to the library.
2 November 06
First Rain
The first rain of the season was today. We got nearly an inch—0.88” over the day, plus a little bit last night. I didn’t dig out the slot in the ground where we place the rain gauge until this morning, so I don’t know the total from last night.
Rain of course means getting wet in ways you don’t quite want. I dressed lightly for the way into work, just my yellow windbreaker and jeans—only to find out that it was drizzling quite handily once I started cycling in. I also have to find some dry nook to store my outdoors clogs. Ploosh!—stepping with my socks on into the cold, wet linings of these when I went out this evening to the garden to fetch vegetables for the pasta sauce wasn’t that much fun.
But it was wonderful to see the drips and drops forming up on the concrete overhang outside my window at work. Yes! A window. From which I can watch the rain.
1 November 06
Up and At 'Em
I woke up at 3:30, so I got up. I have, gentle reader, a novel to write. (And log into the NaNoWriMo site, which is clogged and sluggish.)
I wrote 2676 words this morning. I wrote them in pen, then typed them this evening. I’m tired, and I’m going to bed.
Historical fiction is hardest, I think, in the dialog. I’m not attempting any real victorian language. Keep it plain and simple should work…
31 October 06
Analog Revolution
One of the default assumptions in my professional circle and probably the general culture as well is that going digital is the way to better utility and higher productivity. I’m having fun questioning that these days. My growing success with the hipsterPDA is one example. But many other practices deserve a look at their analog equivalent. Realizing this, I’ve gone to the habit of trying to write out everything longhand, preferably with a fountain pen, before touching a keyboard. It’s definitely a different writing experience. Does it help? I think so.
Computers are good at two things—being able to do complicated numerical transformations at amazing speed and being devices that can replicate information with perfect fidelity. It does not necessarily follow that digital interfaces are easy to construct or use nor that digital data is incorruptable and long-lasting. Were I to save the draft of this blog post, written in Noodler’s Ink, rather than commit it to the recycling bin, the paper document would likely far outlast the digital trace of this post. And let’s not even get started on the issues of electronic voting—it will suffice to say that the geekier one is, the more one is scared by the prospects of it.
30 October 06
La Ilustre Fregona
I like to mop. I’m strange that way, I’ll admit it. Tidying is a grot and sweeping’s not much fun either, and scrubbing hurts. But mopping delivers a huge amount of satisfaction for the effort. You can make a good serpentine pattern on the floor, weaving the wet with the as-yet-unmopped dry. It’s a meditation, mopping.
The myth goes that the mop was invented in Spain. I’m going to guess that like so many other things it was actually invented in China and introduced through the Moors into the Iberian Peninsula, where it did undoubtedly undergo whatever modifications have led to its perfection somewhere before the time of Cervantes. (The kind of mop I’m talking about is the one that proliferates in Fantasia and that requires squeezing in a basket attached to the top of a bucket, not some miserable sponge-lever-effort that breaks after two uses. The Fantasia mop has survived for five centuries with no improvements necessary, though it doesn’t stop them from trying.)
Today I mopped up the leavings of last Wednesday’s windstorm, the traces of a week’s worth of cobwebs, the clumps of cat fur from the fierce play Diego and Charlie indulge in. The cats sit on the sofa arms watching me in a kind of horrified fascination. The floor glistens and then dries to its dull tile self, snug and ready for the next onslaught of walnut pieces, compost, smelly beetles, whatever else we track in from outside…
28 October 06
End Of Season
The Cardinals won the World Series last night 4 games to 1. The Tigers, who were dominant in the playoffs, lost their stride, maybe as a result of the six days they had off between the end of the playoffs and the start of the World Series. We were rooting for the Tigers—the story of their rise from near-record futility in 2003 to league champion this year is a heartening one. But the Cardinals are a good and worthy team, with a cadre of some very talented players, and I’m not dismayed to see them win. I’ve liked their manager Tony La Russa since his days with the A’s, especially since he has a strong commitment to companion animal welfare (he started the East Bay-based Animal Rescue Foundation after rescuing and trying to find a home for a stray cat that ran onto the field during an A’s-Yankees game.) And it’s fun to see somebody of my stature win the series MVP—the Cards’ shortshop David Eckstein who seems to need all-out effort to make the throw to first base. A stout heart still counts for a lot.
The offseason brings two pastimes, following the moves as teams rearrange themselves for next year, and catching up on baseball and the arts. The San Francisco Giants have already hired a new manager, snatching Bruce Bochy away from the Padres, and seem likely to part ways with Barry Bonds. If the latter happens I’ll be glad. As for baseball in film and literature—it’s high time we finished watching the Ken Burns baseball series!