A nice walk on a spectacular day

Around home, California, Travel

After hanging around Michele’s family cabin all morning, soaking up the sunshine and what I always think of as Eastern Sierra air – a distinct dry earth and pine smell; strong, warm, sun, cool air in the shade – we went out for a burger in Truckee.

Aside by Michele: BurgerMe is a wonderful find, with very tasty grass-fed burgers. End aside.

Then, while driving to Lake Tahoe the long way around, we got waylaid at Martis Creek where we took an  afternoon walk.

Eastern Sierra meadows – maybe any high altitude meadows – are among my favorite places to walk. Especially in the late afternoon. With their familiar smells and sounds, they are one of my spiritual homes. Warm, somehow-how-soft feeling, it brings back distant memories of the end of the day after a hard hike or climb. Today, the hard hike was getting a burger in Truckee but the meadow is still glorious.

Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance

Around home, Cars, Photography

From Corvette Expert Jim Gessner, memory by Steve Stern

One of my first car memories and my first racing memory was watching a Mercedes Benz and Corvette race for the Del Monte Trophy on the winding, very narrow, town roads of Pebble Beach. (We were kids and, as the Corvette with the bigger engine lead the MB 300 SL, we said such pithy things as Nothing beats cubic inches, then when the much more expensive MB passed the Vet, we said Except cubic money.)  In those days, before actual racetracks, we all got to stand very close to the action. The Pebble Beach race has moved to the Laguna Seca racetrack and the attached car show has become the  Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, probably the best carshow in the world, with an admission of $250 which does keep the hoi polloi pretty far from the action (the VIP tickets cost $600 and do include lunch [which proves, once again, that there is no such thing as a free lunch]).

To make the cars more accessible, the organizers have started the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance. The cars that are entered into Sunday’s show are encouraged to take a tour around the area on Thursday. While they don’t have to tour, if two cars are tied in points, the car that has been on the tour wins. On Thursday, Michele and I went down to the Monterrey Peninsula to check it out. Once again, we are able to stand very close to the action.

1924 Rolls-Royce 20 HP Barker Tourer 

1955 Mercedes Benz 300 SL

1954 Ferrari 500 Mondail Pinin Farina Spyder

At the end, when all the cars are parked, unbelievably close.

1925 Rolls Royce Phantom 1 Baker Sports Torpedo Tourer

But out on the road, listening to the cars go by, for a car nut like me, is thrilling. Getting close and seeing the details just adds to the thrillingness.

1939 Delage D8-120 S Saoutchick Cabriolet

 

1937  Talbot Lago T150C Figoni Falaschi Cabriolet 

 To be continued….

 

 

 

 

Pussy Riot

Current Affairs

I want to start  – scratch that – I feel it necessary to start this by disclaiming any alliance with Russia, Putin, child beating, or kitten killing, but two years in jail, even a Russian jail, does not seem like cruel and unusual punishment to me for what Pussy Riot did. They forced their way into Moscow’s biggest Orthodox  cathedral and sung an anti-Putin song – using the term loosely – and had to be dragged out. I have been told by our neutral, Western, press not to like Putin and I don’t, but imagine if  Dave Mustaine of Megadeth had forced his way into the Washington National Cathedral, sang a song against Obama – saying, for example, that Obama should be impeached for staging the Aurora shooting –  and had to be dragged out. I would be very surprised if he didn’t go to jail or get slapped with a huge fine and I, for one, would be all for it.

From all I read, Russia just sounds like a nasty kleptocracy and I would not want to live there and there is still something hypocritical about our State Department’s concern, about Madonna’s taking up the cause, about all the Western hand wringing. I imagine that Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina and Samutsevich wanted to raised concern and outrage about freedom of speech in Russia and they are getting it. They just aren’t getting it for free.

Restoring Street Art

Americana, Art, Photography

 


I am sort of fascinated with informal street art – graffiti, if that makes you happier – I like the pictures, but I like the lettering even better. I am convinced that the lettering is a throw back to Mayan Glyphs.

About a week ago, Ed Dieden called to tell me to bring my camera with me to lunch, he had found a great vain of street art in Oakland.

By the time we got there, however, the art had been defaced. I have seen this on alot of Mayan sites, also. Somebody comes along later and trashes the art, presumable to show dominance. With street art, all it takes is a spray-painted line drawn through the art, sort of like keying a nice car.

OK, “restoring Street Art” is way too grandiose a term. But with street art, or any digital photograph, the photographer has an astounding amount of after-shot-control using Lightroom and Photoshop. I have talked to lots of photographers who frown on post shutter manipulation but I am not one of them. Ansel Adams – one of the demiGods of photography – retouched both his negatives and prints taking the tradition of post shutter manipulation back almost 100 years (and I am sure he was not the first).

My own standards – using the word standards in the most grandiose way possible – is having the final picture most closely represent what it felt like being there (I guess, by that criteria, I should accent the white defacing lines because, once I noticed them, they became very obtrusive but, at first, I didn’t notice them and they do detract from the art). I have no desire to Photoshop batman running through a wall although I have no problem with other people doing that. Here are a couple of shots, cleaned-up.