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My perfect SoCal day

August 10th 2012 Posted at Awesomeness, Life
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Giant Robot has a feature called ‘My Perfect Day,’ which is often about some sort of epic romp around a city, meeting friends, enjoying tasty snacks and delicious scenery. A couple weekends months ago, I had just such a notable day in Long Beach with my friend Kelly.

It started with coffee in Oxnard at an ex-Woolworth’s lunch counter. I had gotten off the 101 because I wanted to drive the Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu for the first time (my only other experience was on the airport bus, which was avoiding traffic on the 405). I had circled a couple blocks in downtown Oxnard and was almost ready to resign myself to Starbuck’s, but I decided on one more block. That’s where I found this:

From Perfect LA Day

The PCH was a bit gloomy, but it’s just a perfect view the whole way. There is a stretch that seems like you are in a very fancy alley. It consists of what appears to be a solid row of oceanside garages–but then you realize that the front of all these houses is beach access and ocean view.

The first goal for the day was to visit Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station–what was described to me as a nice set of galleries. But first I let Yelp direct me to Shoops Euro Deli, which shared a parking lot with a yoga supply store, a fancy textile boutique, and a vegan Thai place that had a massage studio in the back. Please don’t think I had spelt gruel with organic berries for breakfast.

From Perfect LA Day

Shoop’s served up a pastrami and swiss breakfast burrito (er, ’spinach wrap’–ok, it was Santa Monica). It was a great spot I never would have found without a little preparation. On the way back to the car, an art gallery caught my eye. Or rather, a room filled with screenprints of the same penis (link is SFW) with nice gentle affirmational phrases on them. The wall text said that people his whole life had been telling him not to listen to his penis. He was always generally dissatisfied with life, but then one day he heard the voice. That voice he had always been told to ignore. And from that day on he gave in and started listening when his penis told him: “Say please,” “You have to be present to win,” and “It’s just you and me kid.”

It was one of the stranger art exhibits I’ve seen. (oh: and the bookstore was fantastic. 20th century first editions.) Also on the way to the car was this very interesting-looking store that demands a return visit:

From Perfect LA Day

Bergamot Station turned out to be a lot more than a few galleries. It looks like it may have been one of the original prototypes of private art developers taking a long-term lease on un-used, publicly-owned, industrial properties. In this case, a city bus barn.

But the whole point of the day was to meet Kelly halfway between her new San Diego digs and Santa Barbara. That means Long Beach. I’d only been there once, in 2002, but I remember it being a great little city even though a lot of people dissed it. Today confirmed my memories.

The whole plan was to swing by Open Books, who I loved talking to at the LA ZineFest earlier in the year. Unfortunately K was running a bit late. Fortunately, there was an awesome coffeeshop just down the block where I got to watch a goth girl waiting for her blind date.

Well, the day was perfect, and it was months ago. I have had many perfect days since, so I’m going to wrap this up bullet style:

We drove by Acres of Books later on in the day, which evoked total deja vu from my first visit to Long Beach almost exactly ten years ago.
The bbq that was recommended by the antique store guy? Fantastic! With a beer selection that I would put against the best of the San Diego beer bars.
I took a break on the way back with a waltz down Wilshire Blvd and a stop by the LACMA courtyard. A great end.

Thanks K!

The local landscape

July 14th 2012 Posted at growing
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Last summer was a bust for local gardening. I didn’t know the cycles and we were warned about the sandy soil. The only thing that made it through ‘the winter’ was an oregano.

This summer isn’t much better, with a native culinary sage completely crapping out so far (I even went and gathered oak litter in a local park–but maybe I chose the wrong species). But a small stand of chives is established, and this morning at the farmers market I found bunches of left-in-the-ground-too-long garlic for a buck. They were from the herb stand that has an amazing variety all for a buck. I asked where the farm is actually located and it sounds like the soil should be a match.

So there’s three test plantings of about six cloves each in the two spots that get strong sun. I think in this climate I could probably coax three rounds of garlic out of the ground (in Oregon I sometimes managed a weak second harvest). Stay tuned.

What does it look like when you go to work?

May 15th 2012 Posted at Libraries
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Other than looking at a computer screen, it looks like this when I go to visit my offsite storage. This is 9″ wide film:

And this is 1 of 3 rows of map cases. I counted them up last night: there’s not as many as I thought:

I’m in danger of losing some storage space–which is kind of mucking up my plans. I had a strategy to decrease the size of the collection, but keep the footprint the same. I have some serious preservation issues that need to be dealt with. The main way to deal with them is to take everything out of the drawers, throw away the most damaged, and put everything back in more carefully–just less of it. The main preservation problem with the paper materials is that they are too crowded together. Often 30 or 40 maps in a drawer need repair. I have 1000 drawers.

Another problem is late stage vinegar syndrome in an unknown amount of the collection. Here’s what a dead photo looks like (I flipped the colors, so you’re looking at a negative image of a piece of negative film):

Chinese emotions

May 10th 2012 Posted at China
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表情符号 (biǎoqíng fúhào). The Chinese word for emoticon. Did you know that they are different in Asia than they are here?

This came up recently while catching up with reading (ie: avoiding other work). The article in question talks about Apple is following Weibo’s lead by adding a full selection of emojo (the Anglicized Japanese term) to iOS.

My own emotions run to extremes, as I just finished putting together and presenting results from the China trip (now almost a whole year in the past!). Now what? How do these projects relate to my day-to-day life?

Bilingual storytime

March 1st 2012 Posted at China, Libraries, Reading
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I really, really hope I didn’t look like a creepy old man.

There I sat outside the (awesomely sound trapping –I almost missed story time because I couldn’t hear it) little amphitheater, first with my phone and then with my laptop open. But the one little girl and father/uncle/brother/cousin/friend didn’t notice. She was rapt. A mother/auntie/neighbor lady and an older boy came next. A red-headed anglo girl came last with her dad/mom’s partner, but she didn’t have any stamina.

The story teller was awesome. He read only English books, and translated them really fast and fluently into Spanish. He added phrases and sentences too –the first book was dogs and puppies made out of fruits and vegetables. The words were simple sentences: sleepy puppy; happy dog; angry puppy. He knew the Spanish cold and constructed the sentences in exactly the same way. But then he described the pictures back and forth, English and Spanish, slipping effortlessly between: Banana dog. Broccoli poodle (ok, I don’t think he said poodle in English or Spanish). Cabbage dog. Chili perrito.

The books were carefully chosen–getting harder as the half hour progressed. I wonder if there’s a rhythm every week and that’s why the older boy arrived ten minutes into it. I think he even editorialized a bit in Spanish–but I totally couldn’t catch it (damn it–I’m a useless monolingual American).

He basically fled into the staff room immediately afterwards, so I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself.

Conclusions? I need video of someone doing this in Chinese. I continue to resist doing it bilingual–but obviously if I’m going to be involved at all there’s going to be some English going on.

(oh–and that fox totally should have convinced one of those chickens to jump into that stone soup pot. Even little kids know that vegetarian stone soup sucks.)

Making the scene with a (whole bunch of) magazine(s).

February 26th 2012 Posted at Awesomeness, Reading
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I’m really glad that some simple things make my girlfriend happy. She was perfectly happy to sit in the car and be driven two hours on Sunday to an undisclosed location in downtown LA. When we arrived at the awesome Spring Street Arts Tower and walked into the even awesome-r The Last Bookstore, she smiled and said ‘oh.’ And off we went.　　Ｓｈｅ did suspect we were heading to an indoor market when she realize I had brought and empty tote bag. What else would you bring to a Zine Festival?

We had a great afternoon with no plan whatsoever. When we decided we were finished, we weren’t hungry, so we made no dinner plans. Knowing that a bathroom break would be needed eventually, I decided to take surface streets generally west towards the 405. Along the way, L said ‘oh look, it’s Koreatown.’ So International Food Court for dinner! Look how happy I made her!

I had so many great conversations, and saw so many awesome homemade publications, that I can’t possibly describe them all. (And four days later I can’t be expected to remember them all, can I?)　What I’ll give you is the people that I bought things from.

We put ourselves on a budget, but I don’t think either one of us came close to spending it. Because I was feeling cheap and chatty, I decided to make sure to take a photo of everyone I gave money to. Maybe I should have expanded this to anyone who gave me something or people I chatted with –but this would be a huge-ass blog post for that (or maybe it would be a photo album instead). Some people were trading (and I got the impression that everyone was open to a trade), but I didn’t make anything before going. Now I’m totally inspired! The folks at [Open] (check it out: it’s an awesome looking bookstore in Long Beach) traded a zine for an email address. There were lots of other freebies too. I met Clutch McB(!), and L went back to his table a little later to pick up copies of Invincible Summer/Clutch that we don’t already have (I knew she’d remember). Unfortunately, because L made the purchase, I didn’t get a photo. But I did get a shot of everyone else who I gave money to on Sunday:

Ayun came from New York. Actually–there was a huge Brooklyn contingent. I think maybe they chartered a plane. Ayun was one of only a handful of zinesters who were of a similar vintage to me. She’s visiting her (college aged!?) kids here in California and working on an actual paid writing gig. She had a number of other offerings, but this library-themed title really caught my eye. For a while I thought I would concentrate on buying only zines with libraries but I think that would have been a bit specific. There was a great horror comic that included a grisly circulation desk scene, but I passed on it.

These lovely ladies were totally dressed to sell their ware–a single audio zine. Three songs by each, the zine is essentially illustrated liner notes. I haven’t listened to the accompanying CD yet, but it is known to include xylophone. They had a great table and were really excited. Please note: these are not actual librarians, but I think maybe they want to be. Really: how could any librarian pass this up?

Finally: this handsome couple. What I scored: from him, a zine inspired by Davey Rothbart’s Found, this zine speculates about the owners of items that Matt has found lying around. From her, Kseniya, her own CraigsList W4M ads and the first emails from potential suitors–including ones that that don’t seem interested in a date, but DO seem interested in getting their emails into a zine. And yes, Matt’s is one of the emails. Stupendous!

Finally, there are two others that I feel a need to talk about. I chose not to give money to The Doktor Is In. She had a small title on offer for free/donationMy Stay in the Mental Hospital. I was very curious about her interview zine, but for some strange reason the mental hospital title and her multiple zines about living with social anxiety had me paralyzed. I told L about her at lunch, and she promptly returned and wound up buying one of everything. Who has the social anxiety now?

She was awesome–what better way to overcome your social anxiety by writing it down, putting it on display, and having 1500 people walk by and talk to you about it?

My last conversation of the day (well, with a vendor at least) was with Andrew Chapin. Andrew is the stepson of Steppenwolf drummer Gerald McCrohan/Jerry Edmonton. Turns out, dad would often leave illustrated notes on the kitchen table for Andrew, and somehow wonderfully they got saved. He has compiled these into a children’s book. We had a really nice conversation about choosing good literature for little kids and I told him a bit about the Chinese childrens libraries. Maybe we could get this translated as an example of creative parenting?

Report from an epic weekend

January 23rd 2012 Posted at Awesomeness, Biking, Life
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Work hard, play hard I suppose. Thursday night we partied with the local bicycle life folk. The occasion was the opening of the SB Bicycle Film Fest. I got to toast two of the principles at Wheelhouse Bikes on my new E-Moto, as well as express my condolences on the closing of the shop. I thanked them for the deal on the bike, but told them I’d rather have the shop. Friday evening I stayed on campus late to catch a round of films. I had forgotten just how touching some of it is, and pretty much immediately decided to see more of it. L had gone home, but she did join me Saturday night for 2 more sessions. Before that, I had plowed through a set of maps for a collaborator in China (sent them, the final unprocessed sketch maps of last year’s experiment, off on Sunday morning).

I’m really glad we decided to go Saturday night, because one of the movies feature Bici Centro, where L has been spending Tuesday evenings. Bici is a community bike shop where you can buy a good over-hauled used bike, and put your bike on a stand for $3 an hour and have 5 or 6 people help you take it apart and put it back together. A fantastic tid-bit from the film: 5% of us bike to work. I’ve been doing it rather adamantly for more than 20 years now. It’s always been a choice, but half the people I see on two wheels everyday are poor and are biking out of economic necessity. So it turns out Bici is a very clever solution to a problem I never knew I had: a Third Place where I get to interact with the full spectrum of my fellow cyclists.

Longtime volunteer Sharkey, stood up after the film to answer a few questions. I haven’t had the chance to interact with him, but he seemed a familiar face. He told L that he doesn’t go for Tuesday night shop-nights anymore (where people work exclusively on bikes that will be sold out of the shop). Sharkey prefers to go to open shop on Wednesday nights, Thursday nights, and Saturday afternoons.

Friday evening I also got to chat with some geographers and test out my new textbook theory (we are about to see the end of commercial textbooks because they are escaping into the wild electronically).

After sending my maps off the China on Sunday afternoon, we went with our awesome neighbors to a recital of show tunes. Yeah, sounds strange I know, but L was enraptured and I thought it was pretty good too. It was a local performer and his father–who had taken the son on tour through the “Irish Riviera” of the Jersey Shore back in the 80s. Dad looks a really vibrant 75 or 80, still over six feet and muscular. And both have big baritone voices. It was really unusual.

Next came cheesecake with the neighbors. We walked away with loaner DVDs and books. I was coming down with a cold, but we crowned the weekend with attending the Bike Smut Film Festival, where the admonition of the weekend was: ‘Community standards define what is obscene. So before someone in your community defines obscenity for you, make sure to go out and watch porn with your fellow bikesexuals.’

+hangouts

January 7th 2012 Posted at China
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Before Christmas I had a number of videochats with Lao Meng, who owns the mothers’ book salon / private library in Wuhan. He has since migrated to Beijing, but he maintains his interest in the business and his sister Mimi runs it day-to-day. We attempted to have a Christmas Eve party, but there wasn’t interest on that particular Saturday morning in Wuhan.

I had promised a Polish Christmas carol.

I am not sure whether that speaks to my singing ability or reported troubles with connecting via international servers. Multiple friends in multiple industries have told me that there have been recent sporadic and geographic outages. Regardless, we are hoping to continue our conversations. I also continue to wrack my brain about how to find a Mandarin-speaking, well spoken, hi-tech, American-style childrens librarian who is interested in spreading his or her skills. Are those categories really null when you and them all together?

Come on!

Anyway, emails have been sent, and we will turn on the webcams again soon. Meanwhile, we continue to live our lives on opposite sides of the world.

3 months!

January 4th 2012 Posted at Life
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That might be the longest break ever. There was action at the other blog, and I have been spending a lot of time on google+, but still. Almost 3 whole months without a post. And the last one even had a comment!

What can I say other than that I’ve been busy living life? One thing is that I have been thinking alot about the longer posts that were promised. That was the original goal when I got back from China: to produce 5 or 6 longer essays about the experience. What I have discovered is that the desire to produce those longer pieces squelched the desire to post the 3 or 4 paragraph quick updates. Facebook does the same for short updates. Why blog about the amazing meal I made when I can snap a photo and write a 20 word status update?

So what purpose does this blog serve? Or any blog for that matter? For a while this served as more of a diary than a report of any kind. And I used to regularly look at old posts as a sort of assistive memory device. What was the name of that restaurant/book/city/person? It’s weird: it almost feels like I’m becoming anxious about my own PIM. Help me KFTF. You’re my only hope.

Arab Spring; Jasmine Revolution; American Fall, …er, autumn?

October 5th 2011 Posted at Life
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The past three weeks have been spent working on cleaning up the spatial data from the sketch map survey I conducted while in Wuhan. During that time I’ve been putting a bit of passive thought into the experience while trying to maintain some of the contacts that I made during this trip.

At the same time, Occupy Wall Street has started here and over the past few days has blossomed in a number of locations. L spent the day with our local contingent dressed, as requested online, as a corporate zombie. (Well, she was wearing a tie and an oxford shirt.)

Doing both of these at the same time feels a bit like looking at the world through fuzzy glasses. I’m pretty much a worker bee heading off to the hive each day, so most all current events information is gathered online and via the radio. Work is fairly intense so I’m not the type of office drone who has a lot of time to twitter or read blogs extensively. But even with unlimited time to read, there really isn’t any way of seeing ‘China’ other than through fuzzy glasses–even if I was there on the ground. U.S. news? I’m not quite sure how to keep up anymore.

So through these fuzzy lenses, I try to see some patterns. Is there a direction it’s all heading in? One trope so far from the Occupy Wall Street coverage is that there are no specific proposals being put forward. A charming response that I have heard more than once is ‘give us a break, we’ve only been doing this for 3 weeks.’ There is a sense of experimentation in what I read, and L reported that it felt that way on the ground as well.

That report led to a really interesting conversation around the dinner table last night as I remembered that there are many different formulas for putting on a rally, some of which are intended to make it self-organized and somewhat amorphous. (There are also established ways of disrupting the various flavors of gatherings. The Trotskyites are particularly good at that. Fucking Trotskyites.) There’s also a formula for doing civil disobedience in a way that no one gets hurt and you get inserted straight into the court system rather than dicking around with the police trying to figure out what to do with you. (L’s favorite quote of the day: “…don’t be afraid to be arrested, it’s fun, you get to learn the justice system, you usually get out the next day…”) (For inquiring minds: I’ve never done it.)

Of course there is a bit of dissonance as some of the speakers complained about home and retirement accounts’ dwindling values while others were homeless. All this in a setting of cobalt blue skies and palm trees. Similar dissonance creeps into China discourse as some praise the rapid social advances that have accompanied economic development at the same time others speculate on how long the Party-State can hold out in the face of those social advances.

It’s these contradictions that are keeping me up right now; keeping me on the edge of my seat about who will be next: Syria? Greece? Us?

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