14 September 04
Ivan
My brother used to live in New Orleans, where he and one of his many international roommates washed windows for a living (he had just finished university in England and this was his first stop in the U.S.). They lived in the French Quarter, in an apartment with high ceilings and exposed brick walls.
He’s fetched up in Juneau, Alaska many years, and many stops, later. But he and his wife are in New Orleans now, visiting following a conference she’s been attending. One of the largest hurricanes recorded in the Atlantic is heading their way. I hope they decide to leave sooner rather than later; New Orleans could be a swimming pool of sewage, industrial waste, and floating coffins. Not likely, but possible. I’d rather they not be around to find out.
(Postscript, September 15: They’re safe in Seattle, will finish their vacation there and head home on Saturday.)
13 September 04
Neurodiversity
According to Word Spy, neurodiversity is defined as the variety of non-debilitating neurological behaviors and abilities exhibited by the human race. The earliest citation for this word is by Judy Singer in 1999:
For me, the key significance of the ‘autistic spectrum’ lies in its call for and anticipation of a politics of neurological diversity, or neurodiversity. The ‘neurologically different’ represent a new addition to the familiar political categories of class/gender/race and will augment the insights of the social model of disability. The rise of neurodiversity takes postmodern fragmentation one step further. Just as the postmodern era sees every once too solid belief melt into air, even our most taken-for-granted assumptions that we all more or less see, feel, touch, hear, smell, and sort information, in more or less the same way (unless visibly disabled) are being dissolved.
Here is a wonderfully comprehensive site on neurodiversity. (From Metafilter.)
12 September 04
Lila’s New Assignment
Long-time readers of Feathers of Hope will recall that this time last year I was hobbling about in a high-tech cast known as a camwalker, following the surgical reattachment of my Achilles tendon to itself, and that this hobbling was speeded up considerably by the appearance of Lila in my life.
Lila is a tricycle put together from recycled bits of other bicycles by the ingenious hands of Peter Wagner, of Whymcycles fame. I was able to bungee my crutches on the front and cycle the two miles to work and back, surrounded by pink and purple, ringing that outrageous bell when I needed to warn unsuspecting pedestrians that I was coming along and was much wider than the average bike.
Lila needs to get her parking break fixed and her front chain reattached (she’s technically a tandem, the person in front perched precariously on the edge of the universe, like Wave here at left), and then she’ll be off to help the next person whose ability to ride a normal bicycle is somewhat compromised. We bundled her over to West Davis today. I’ll miss seeing this cheerful contraption by our front door to welcome us home…
11 September 04
Bloggers Do The Berkeley Bookstore Beat
Today we travelled by train to Berkeley to meet up with bloggers Chris from Creek Running North, Siona from Nomen est Numen, and Maria from Alembic. Our aim was to visit Berkeley bookstores, of which there are a plethora, too many to do in a day, but no matter. We first walked up to Cody’s on Telegraph Avenue, the largest and most famous of Berkeley bookstores, where we browsed for an hour, several of us emerging with more books than intended. Siona brought her own lunch so we wanted to eat outside, so we picked up take-out Indian from a restaurant on Telegraph (walk 500 yards in Berkeley, you’ll find an eatery that meets the needs of the moment) and had our lunch by Strawberry Creek on the UC Berkeley campus. The Indian food made for a messy picnic, but was very good. Meanwhile the Cal marching band was warming for the football game later on in the afternoon. (A bit of Aggie Pride here—I think the UC Davis Marching Band-Uh is better).
Chris had to leave early, but the rest of walked down Shattuck to the used bookstore Pegasus, where I found a book on line-and-wash (our third art book purchase of the day). Our return trek netted us an office supply store (complete with Clairefontaine and Rhodia notebooks, as well as Lamy and Stypen fountain pens—Maria bought a Lamy pen), as well a decent espresso place by the BART station.
Too many things to do in Berkeley as usual. No chance to visit art stores, alas. We even found a very intriguing new restaurant half-a-block from BART—Ristorante Raphael, kosher Italian vegetarian food. But we were full from our Indian meal, so it will wait for next time.
These blogger bookstore outings are quite fun. Perhaps we should all next go on a field trip to Powell’s!
10 September 04
Cataloging Images
As Numenius mentioned recently, we’re starting to get overwhelmed with electronic clutter, especially digital images.
I installed a copy of iView Media Pro at work on Tuesday—in order to start sorting through the Wildlife Health Center’s thousands of images that I need to use in my work every day. They’re on my hard drive, they’re on CD’s, they’re everywhere. I rarely get enthusiastic about software: it’s there to do a job, and if it doesn’t do it well I get irritated (if it’s Microsoft Word I get riproaring furious), but mostly I just get on with my tasks.
iView gets my enthusiastic vote for most labor-saving device I’m likely to come across this year. If you’ve got pictures coming out your USB lugholes, this might be something to try.
9 September 04
El Diccionario del Besbol
This resource came in handy this evening, before attending my Spanish class.
From the National Baseball Hall of Fame
8 September 04
Name That Typeface
I once designed, for a final project in design school, a board game called “Name That Typeface.” Game pieces were type slugs set as their face (so Garamond was set in Garamond, Electra in Electra); there were cards with questions referring to type specimens; I even got a local binder to foil stamp the “spine” of the board.
Type’s changed a lot in the years since I finished school, and I struggle now to name some of the more trendy ones, even if they’re used all over the place. But designing type is an exciting field and there’s some wonderful work going on. It must be a great time to take a typography class.
I haven’t signed up for one of those, but for an online calligraphy class (Roman Majuscules, fiendishly difficult and something I’ve never taken enough time to learn properly). I’ve never taken an online class (our teacher lives in Melbourne, so this should be interesting). It starts in November; I’ll let you know how it goes!
7 September 04
New Horizons In Image Search
Here’s a tabby cat, perhaps on his way to Cheshiredom.
(From LibrarianInBlack)
6 September 04
Piggyes Bones
One of the wonderfully unpredictable discoveries of a commonality with Siona is an interest in bones and skeletons. She took a quick look through our sketchbooks on Saturday and said without hesitation “wild boar” at the sketches of a skull, one of which is pictured at left.
I’m not sure what it means that we both went into raptures over the bad taxidermy at Harvard’s Peabody Museum.
5 September 04
A Home for Carlos and Blake
Carlos and Blake, the two kittens that emerged from the cornfield behind our house a couple weeks ago, got adopted today. Just as last Sunday, they went to the Petco today where Feline Lifeline holds their adoptions. It didn’t take long before a family came by with a little boy who was quite interested in Carlos. Then the mom started to handle Blake and immediately bonded with him. It turned out that her 13-year old cat just died of cancer Thursday. They came into Petco looking for another kitty and ended up leaving with two! So Carlos and Blake, tentatively renamed Tumble and Pumpkin, are off to their new home, shared with a yellow-orange 6-month old tabby named Flash (three different shades of orange cats in one house).
Here’s a picture of Blake at Petco, curious as ever.