31 January 06
Were I a Sculptor
At the intersection of 3rd and F downtown here in Davisthere is a sculpture of two joggers, clad in shorts and t-shirts, running in opposite directions, with index fingers pointing up and forward. In times past this sculpture was the subject of serious debate in the City Council: people were worried that somebody would be impaled on one of the fingers.
Since it is 2006, it is time for the sculpture to be updated. Instead of two joggers, picture two students walking past hauling overloaded teardrop-shaped backpacks, holding cell phones glued to their faces, oblivious to each other and to the world.
30 January 06
Endings and Beginnings
Teju Cole comes offline tomorrow, having lasted just the month of January. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, don’t wait a minute longer. Lagos is your destination. You will rarely see better writing than this.
Meanwhile, the white-tailed kites outside my office have built a nest in the tall pine just above the railway track. The female is incubating by now, I think. It doesn’t stop the male from mating with her, though. He “kip, kip, kips” about with his wings in a steep dihedral, almost unable to stay airborne—the merest hover. They are some of the most beautiful birds on the planet. I’ll try and sketch some of this.
29 January 06
Coyote Corridor
We went over to REI in Sacramento today to hunt for a pair of hiking boots for Pica that don’t give her blisters. We brought our bikes along and afterwards went for a little ride along the American River Parkway. On the parkway there is a bike trail that runs along the river about 32 miles one way from Sacramento up to Folsom. We’ve been quite remiss in never having ridden on it the almost seven years we’ve been up in Davis. Conveniently, REI offers easy access to the parkway so we rode from its parking lot up along the trail up to Cal State Sacramento and back. Just when we were returning and on the other side of the levee from REI, we heard, perhaps howling at a train passing by, two coyotes! This sort of thing makes one a believer in wildlife corridors.
28 January 06
Sister Spa
While Numenius was installing Tiger, and my mother and brother were browsing in an independent bookstore in Calistoga, I wallowed in mud with my sister-in-law. “No mudpies,” said our cheerful attendant, leaving us in the company of a rubber ducky and a rubber froggie.
Rain here. It was a perfect day for a mudbath.
26 January 06
Modeled City
“It’s often hard to convince people that Olivo Barbieri’s aerial photographs are real.” How one photographer’s experiments in tilt-shift aerial photography make Las Vegas “an avatar of itself”.
From The Map Room.
25 January 06
Bagali Polo and Guinness Truffles
Ron and Joe came up looking for mountain plovers but got skunked, so we met them at Bogey’s and then went to Ali Baba for dinner. Dessert was at Ciocolat, where Ron cut three truffles into four pieces with her trusty swiss army knife and we each tried a piece of cinammon, triple sec, and guinness truffle. Much jollity ensued. Because we could talk about depressing things too, but tended not to.
24 January 06
Joy and Death
It turns out they are frequent coauthors. I am sitting in on a seminar this quarter and one of the recommended papers for tomorrow’s session has the following citation:
Joy, Michael K. and Russell G. Death, 2004. Predictive modelling and spatial mapping of freshwater fish and decapod assemblages using GIS and neural networks. Freshwater Biology 49:1036-1052.
23 January 06
Monday, Monday
The first almond blossom of
the first tree that blossoms here:
doomed to sterility
The white of egrets
fussing in receding floodwaters
bright white on mud
The Canada geese
watching the egrets
cryptic on cryptic
The mallards
ignoring them all
sexsexsexsexsex
The blue, blue sky
no hint of clouds
with this north wind
I ride into it.
The north wind.
The day.
22 January 06
Dream Birds
No, I don’t mean the objects of a long-sought birding expedition—that Steller’s Sea Eagle on the shores of Kamchatka, for instance. I mean birds seen in dreams. This morning I saw a Yellow Sandpiper on the patio just outside our bedroom back window. This bird is about the size of a Stilt Sandpiper, buffy above, but with yellow on its breast and under the wings. Pica keeps her own dream list; maybe I should start one.
21 January 06
Cat Show
I had never been to a cat show before today. We volunteered, though, to help staff it for Feline Lifeline, who were provided space if they provided enough volunteers. We like this organization a lot—Debbie helped us out when we were overrun by feral kittens last year—and were glad to give a little time today.
Our jobs as ring stewards were to spray each cage with disinfectant and wipe it with a paper towel after every cat. There were hundreds of cats there, and each ring had cats all day. So each cage needed cleaning loads of times.
It was interesting, though. I had never heard of Sphinx or Singapura breeds; I was amazed at how many Persians there were (I still think they’re ugly and very ill-adapted for life as a cat, but they are apparently the most popular breed in the United States).
Numenius’ ring had a “housecat” class, with your ordinary overfed moggies well in evidence. I wish I’d been able to see more of it.
This is a subculture I knew absolutely nothing about. There was one man who looked exactly like his Persian; a woman who seemed anxious to the point of danger all day. But mostly they were an affable, chummy bunch…