Category Archives: Americana

I am afraid it has come to this

Americana, Bay Area Walks, California, Evolution, Psychological Musings

I had lunch today with a friend and we finished much more quickly than usual. I had brought my camera because the last time we had lunch there – there being the Fish Market in San Mateo – a mother duck was showing her teenagers how to forage and I was hoping for a repeat. It was gloriously hot  and all the outside tables were full so we ate inside which may be why we were finished so quickly. What ever the reason, we had some time to kill and we sat – sort of sunning ourselves – on a bench overlooking San Mateo’s Seal Slough. On a corner of the Fish Market’s dock, were a cormorant and seagull also sunning themselves.

They seemed to not being paying much attention to each other which makes sense as they operate in totally different eco-niches. After a while, two more cormorants showed up to fish just off the dock. Then they came over to sun themselves – opening their wings – and the seagull got sort of agitated and moved away. But not very far.

About that time a heron came over to the shore near us to hunt.

At one point one of the late to arrive cormorants got two close to the self identified dock owning cormorant and he/she/or it turned and bit his – who knows if she is a he, but I’m going with his – wing. The intruder backed up about six inches and then moved closer by about four inches just to show he wasn’t intimidated.  Watching the five birds was watching five individual animals. It was fascinating and lovely, sitting in the sun, watching the birds live their little to me – big to them – lives.

And then I thought This is just too close to two old men sitting on a park bench. I remarked on that and we both decided we had places to go and people to see.

 

A great, manufactured, picture

Americana, Photography, Psychological Musings, Uncategorized,

First, a disclaimer. When I showed this picture to Michele, she didn’t see the cross made by the banner and Romney. Without the cross, it is just a snapshot and I am even more convinced that the photographer was shooting the cross than Michele is that she wasn’t. Of course neither one of us knows for sure. End disclaimer.

I like this picture so much because it seems so “made” rather than “taken”. I can just see the wheels turning in the photographer’s mind.The photographer is Christina Clusiau and I imagine her first shooting from the side. Then seeing the potential of the banner and moving to the center to get Romney and the banner to line up. Then, maybe, getting lower to get the banner higher.

If this had been film, Christina probably would have already shot some pictures with the body on which this lens was mounted – sure, she probably had another body but that would have the wrong lens on it – so she would have to hoard her shots. But today, and this is why digital is so great, she probably started with her camera having a clean card and she probably had atleast a  hundred pictures left. So she could shoot, maybe adjust the light, shoot again, and wait. When Romney looked up beseechingly, maybe pointing to someone to ask a question, she shot again. Making this picture.

When the light is right and the picture is right, it is easy. An almost opposite picture is one I took of Yosemite last year. We were driving through Yosemite to get to the other side of the Sierras which included driving through the Wawona Tunnel. On the other side is the Tunnel Overlook – a National Landmark because of the view – and it was late in the day. The light was great and all we had to do was get out of the car and point the camera in the general direction of El Capitan. The shot below would have been hard not to get.

Imagine killing somebody

Americana, War

Just think about it for a second. Over the last, say, 65 years – I’m hoping and going with the premise that I didn’t want to kill anybody before I was six – I have wanted to kill many people. Not for long enough to actually imagine what it would be like, more of a That fucker should be shot. kind of killing. But, imagine killing somebody. A man, say, in a dirt poor third world country.

Somebody who doesn’t want the United States there. Maybe they have kids and a wife who depend on them. So you are not just killing them, you are fucking up a whole family. But, hopefully, they don’t have a dependent family. But, surely, they do have a mother and a father who have invested their hopes and dreams in him. Maybe they named him Ibrahim – Abraham – after the founder of their religion, maybe they named him Anthony. What difference does it make? Just think about killing them. Make it easy on yourself, make the killing from a distance with a high powered rifle.

Now watch this video.  I think that it is a simulation – a training film – but, maybe not. Either way, this is what it is like to kill a person today.

 

Gaddafi’s Creepy Love Den

Americana, Current Affairs, Uncategorized, , ,

 

When I saw the headline, Gaddafi’s Creepy Love Den in The Dailyt Beast, my first thought was  a remembrance of a Peter Arno cartoon in which a stuffy matron, reading the newspaper that says Mayor caught in love nest and looking up at her equally dignified husband, says “What is a ‘Love Nest’, dear?” Of course,  I remember it because I didn’t know, at about ten, what a Love Nest was either; I’m sure that my mother’s explanation was in good taste.  “Love Nest” is just not a term you hear these days, but – then – neither is “Love Den”. I hope they are both coming back.

When I was at an impressionable age, my family had three joke books that helped shape my sensibilities. There were other books and – I’m sure -other joke books, but the three that stick in my mind are the aforementioned Peter Arno book, a James Thurber book with a name I can’t remember, and Up Front by Bill Maudin. They all three had a sort of whimsical sarcasm that I like to think is in my DNA.

Vintage races @ Laguna Seca 2011 – something for almost anybody

Americana, Cars, Evolution, Uncategorized, , , , ,

The thing about races, is that the people who go are generally car people. So, in addition to the races, there are lots of interesting cars: hot rods, old taxis, just nice old cars in general.

For me it is all sorts of cars, Maseratis – although there were few Maseratis this year – Ferraris – a pretty obvious choice – any little, lithe, sports racing car with a big, honk’n,  427, and Formula Jr.s. Formula Jr.s because they are such a great history lesson. Towards the end of the 50’s, Italian Formula One cars were beating everybody but drivers were being killed at an alarming rate. It was decided to start an international training car class called Formula Jr. to train the replacement drivers. Because the cars were limited to a 1.1 liter production car engine, like the FIAT 1100, Forumla Jr. was sort of Italian weighted. Some of the prettiest were the Stanguellinis which looked like miniature Maserati Formula One race cars. Except of course, the Maseratis had 2.5 liter DOHC engines and the Stanguellinis has little FIAT engines. And they were teeny-tiny.

 

But in Formula Jr. Just like Formula One, the British were changing the game.Frank Costin was designing cars based on aerodynamic lessons learned in WWII, cars like Cooper and Lotus were putting the engines behind the drivers, and – another WWII idea – disk brakes were making the British cars stop much quicker. One of my favorite British Formula Jr. cars was the Lola – as in What ever Lola wants, Lola gets – with it’s cute taperesque nose.

 

And Loti like these:

 

Soon the British took over Formula Jr., then small sports-racing cars with cars like the Lotus Eleven

then, when the Brits discovered downforce and the awesome goodness of the Chevrolet V8, we were graced with McLaren M8D  Can-Ams.

And the outstanding velocity stacks that sat on top of that awesome Chevrolet engine, now enlarged to seven liters.

Ferraris, anon.