28 December 04
Lichen On Black Walnut
A favorite walk of mine is to head west out the levee north of Putah Creek. The black walnut here was just off the levee on the other side of I-80, which at the time Sunday was filled with post-Christmas traffic moving very slowly westbound. There were no leaves at all on this walnut, nor any mistletoe, but many dark brown walnut husks were on the tree and on the ground.
27 December 04
Snowshoeing Alone
This morning I borrowed Martin’s new snowshoes to go for a little saunter through the woods (about half a block away) and to the lake. We had quite a bit of snow yesterday afternoon and overnight, and it was a fine powder covering a lot of ice—perfect snowshoeing conditions.
Although I used to live in New England, I lived in Cambridge, not in the country. 
I don’t know these trees now, if I ever did. I do remember the birds and their calls but there aren’t so many of those about—it’s probably below 0 degrees Fahrenheit as I write this—but the trees, if they aren’t birches, are outside my knowledge, especially the conifers. This part of Maine is mixed deciduous and conifer but if you go only a little further north it gets to be predominantly coniferous, so it’s on a border zone.
I feel like an outsider and a guest. I’m grateful to the woods for welcoming my novice attempts to get to know them this morning. Now, Dave, Beth: what on earth are these berries?
Postscript, December 30: the berries are a form of deciduous holly, ilex verticillata. They are also known as winterberry and black alder and as Beth notes, grow in close proximity to water. As Tattler notes, they are snatched by many for decorations, so I was glad to see them untouched in several places by the lakeside on my various walks.
26 December 04
Davis Depot
Yesterday I travelled by train from Davis to Berkeley to have brunch with my folks. There is an old Southern Pacific railroad depot at both ends of the journey. Sadly, the depot in Berkeley is presently sitting unused—its last role was as a restaurant, and it is currently slated to be the centerpiece of some new development. Traingoers at Berkeley simply get on and off at the side of the tracks underneath the overpass at the foot of University Avenue.
The depot in Davis is in active use as an Amtrak station, and the city has put a lot of effort into making the area around the station an attractive entrance to the town. The depot dates from 1913, at a time when Southern Pacific was building many Mission-style depots. At left is a sketch I did of the station while waiting for the train yesterday. The palms, another good Southern California touch, date from the 1920s.
25 December 04
Pyjama Day
We DID venture out into the northern woods, still with icy snow in them. We DID walk across the lake onto Fibbers’ Island, where we made up fibs (like there’s a hot tub on here and pineapple trees). I did hear black-capped chickadees and tufted titmice. I didn’t fall on the ice except once. We did sort of stay in our pyjamas all day despite the walk in the woods. I did sing songs I haven’t thought about for over thirty years.
It’s REALLY cold here. It’s wonderful. The hairs in my nose froze.
24 December 04
Freezing Mists
Note to self: next time I need to ride my bike somewhere when it’s about 35 degrees F outside with dense fog do wear gloves. Next time means tomorrow morning—there’s a dense fog advisory in effect for the Sacramento Valley (“Conditions are expected to deteriorate through the night into Saturday morning. Locally temperatures are expected to be near freezing by morning”)
Pica meanwhile has headed off to Maine to visit her sister and family. Temperatures several degrees above freezing will seem in comparison to be balmy.
23 December 04
The Modern Working Cat
The other day I went into B & L Bikes downtown and was met by a friendly kitty keeping track of the bright shiny new road and mountain bikes. As remarked upon yesterday, cats also play an important role in many bookstores balancing the astral energies of disgruntled used books. Cats have successfully made the transition to the contemporary workplace in many other venues. Blogger David St Lawrence discusses the vital role cats play in the lives of telecommuters and home office workers:
When you are miles away from the frenetic activity and mayhem of the corporate office, you can get lonely and your productivity will lapse. An office cat will know how to cheer you up and will usually know when to remind you to take a mid morning and mid afternoon coffee break.
The affinity of cats towards technology has often been noted. Cats uncannily home in on computer keyboards: after all, to quote the Jargon File, “it is widely grokked that cats have the hacker nature”. Cats also have an interest in other forms of technology such as radio gear, as the cat pages of the store Universal Radio make clear.
Here is a site dedicated to working felines everywhere, and includes a state-by-state directory to many of these cats.
22 December 04
The Muttering of Old Books
Dale has opened an interesting thread, taken up by Jarrett, on going to a bookstore—perhaps the finest bookstore in the world, Powells—and feeling less than excited, newly so, about the books on the shelves. He describes the “dreary hopelessness” of walking through the philosophy section, an experience that used to be so satisfying.
I suggested this might be a distribution problem—that the really good new stuff is out there, hiding, unpublished and unnoticed because of corporate decisions relating to “the market” (us) and its perceived desires. I think it might not be that simple, though, having thought about it further.
Walter Benjamin spent weeks at a time not talking to other people. Cornel West doesn’t do this. There are demands on his time that are probably getting in the way of some writing that might, in fact, get Dale really excited. If not West, then others. Very few of us know how to be alone.
What are the really important books of our time? Can we know? This is a question that has been asked in different ways by many different bloggers, some of whom appear in the list at left and many more that don’t. Is this also a function of our failure to embrace aloneness and thinking hard? I’m not sure, but I think we need to keep looking. I think we need to keep going to Powell’s. Like Icarus falling unheeded into the drink, we may not know for some time.
I was talking this afternoon with a mentor from my publishing past, who told me that Vicky Nelson, author of The Secret Life of Puppets, puts it this way in answer to someone who was getting less than excited by the books in her high-powered reading group: forget the reading group. Go to the grimiest used bookstore you can find and head for the dustiest section. Something will leap off the shelf at you, and it won’t be what you’re expecting. It might be Icarus.
A childhood friend has recently left the rat race and opened her own used bookstore in Picton, Ontario. Olivia & Co comes with the eponymous cat draped over comfy furniture. It’s not very grimy, at least from the photos I can see on her website, but I’ll bet there are a few gems in there. And at the very least there’s a cat to balance the muttering of old books, as Jarrett puts it.
21 December 04
Black Walnuts In Winter
On this first day of winter I finished one journal and started the next. The campus bookstore stocks sketchbooks made by Pentalic which are wirebound and have 90 pound paper. I have no idea where else one can obtain these sketchbooks. The relatively heavy weight of the paper makes them great for taking washes, much better than the 70 pound paper usually found in this sort of bound sketchbook.
I went on a walk today to the Arboretum to test out the new journal. At right is a sketch of a line of black walnuts on the south edge of the Arboretum. Most of the green in the trees is actually mistletoe.
20 December 04
Prometheus Again
I once tried to paint in oils and egg tempera a painting of Prometheus. My titan was gaunt and almost skeletal, quite unlike some of the renderings I’ve seen of him as a buff gay icon. He faced the viewer in horror as his back was turned to the approaching liver-snatching eagle, which I modelled on the steppe eagle rather than golden. I’d gotten through about three or four glazes before I decided to give up—the drawing was wrong, especially of the man.
The reason I’m thinking about Prometheus again is because of the liver connection. Today I chanced upon a contemporary artist, Elsie Russell, who has clearly put some time into this subject.
I’m always enchanted when I find artists working today who have a) some grasp of drawing and anatomy and b) an interest in their historical artistic and cultural heritage, along with the talent to explore these in a new way. It’s possible in some cases to write this off as postmodern trendiness, though why that’s worse than modernist trendiness I’m not sure. (Notice that a lot of the artists who rail against drawing well, calling it “illustration,” are the ones who can’t draw for beans, like David Hockney.)
Classical myths endure because they tell us something fundamental about the human condition. I suppose I’m entering a phase where I’m willing to try and work out what this particular one might be for me. Regeneration? Endurance? Being punished for doing the right thing or for knowledge? In this dark time of the year in the northern hemisphere, images of light are particularly appealing to me. In this dark time we are entering for the world, how much more appealing they become. How much more worth the defiance of authority, even when those who benefit from the great act are unworthy or worse, ignorant.
Liver. Live. Love. Fegato. Fe. Foie. Foi. Higado. Hidalgo.
Live.