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| March 12, 2010 |
The 'Ten-Eleven' was how our big boss referred to the next school
year in the meeting today where she formerly announced certain
teachers in all likelihood wouldn't be working then, or at least
not the for-me financially adequate 20 hrs/week I've been doing
since mid-Six-Seven. With the economy and my lack of senority, the
inevitable letting-go; liberating actually, time to do something
new, getting a little burned out. Thinking back on all my classes,
four year's worth; such a rich experience.
Meanwhile in these pages you've occasionally noted science-fiction book
and magazine cover art links... For a long time, decades, I've
wanted an ID - the source of many of those 1950s paperbacks I
love, the artist who made abstract-expressionistic blobs look
futuristic -- and now we know!
Richard
Powers -- his
cover
archive is an internet treasure.
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| March 4-5, 2010 |
Cherry Tree with sakura blossoms in a Cupertino parking lot.
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| February 25, 2010 |
- The
Power of Pink, in Salon, is where we learn about how
the newest Chicago metrorail line received that color.
(CTA
map, in .png format.) Knew they already had a Brown Line, and
Tokyo subway maps also show a pink line, although there they use names
instead of colors as the designation.
- And speaking of Japan, here's your chance to see a tribute version of
We Are The World.
For describing it, you may require their word for black-face,
ganguro.
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| February 22, 2010 |
- Three from the ever-excellent Dark Roast Blend:
Blade
Runner Tokyo, Early
Monorails, and
Totalitarian
Architecture of the Third Reich.
- In TIme, More
Homeless Americans Living in Cars and Campers.
- James Fallows in the Atlantic -- Cyber
Warriors. Sooner or later, the cyber equivalent of 9/11 will occur -- and, if the real 9/11 is a
model, we will understandably, but destructively, overreact.
- Finally, the current issue of Smithsonian has an
article about Barrow, Alaska with a
stunning
Arctic sunset photo.
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| February 21, 2010 |
Returned from a week Back East, DC and NYC. Washington area
had had a big snow just before my arrival for the Christmas holiday,
and they had an even bigger snowfall just before my arrival this
time; but both had little impact on my movements, just looked wintry.
Great art in DC at the National
(the Chester
Dale collection) as well as the Portrait Gallery, which now has a
small Elvis room. (Photo, 1978 bust of Elvis, as a Roman, by Robert Arneson.)
Was in town for the big family gathering to celebrate my parents' 60th
anniversary; went very well. Thence up to New York, driven by brother
Andy in the
van to break down the Wunderlanders' booth at Toy Fair. Three other
booths which caught my eye: one had a laser-planetarium product which
sprayed moving points of green light all over (didn't note the company,
unfortunately);
Bridge Street Toys,
which has resurrected Kenner's Girder and Panel (and Hydrodynamic)
systems; and Hi-Tec Art which
makes LED toys, most noteworthy a 'stick-in'
Lite Brite.
After farewells, walked across town to my hotel,
Ye Old Calton Arms, an old,
arty place located caty-corner aacross 25th from the
Armory.
All interior walls decorated by an assortment of artists, recommended
if you can get an inside room. Mine wasn't; they gave me a choice of
three but all faced Third Avenue. No elevator so I chose the lowest,
consoling myself that at least the
El wasn't
running right outside my window anymore, as it used to.
Last morning, after dawdling in nearby Madison Square, rode the subway
up to 112th Street to inspect the cathedral of St.John the Divine and
(like the mysterious black one in Linz that late winter afternoon in
'96), I had the huge structure almost entirely to myself. Afterwards,
breakfast across the street at the Hungarian Pastry shop, and then by
bus to Laguardia and westward flights home.
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