No more comments

The comments feature wasn't being used and I got tired of cleaning up comment spam.

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Update: I am trying them again now that the site is hosted on Blogger,

Pictures from Empire Builder, Southwest Chief trip

I took a long train trip this past week, from Portland to Chicago (on the Empire Builder) and thence to Gallup, New Mexico (on the Southwest Chief), where I stayed for a few days (visiting Canyon de Chelly and Shiprock) before continuing to Los Angeles (again on the Southwest Chief). I took a bunch of pictures, mostly on the Empire Builder and of Canyon de Chelly. I am a terrible photographer, sadly. Still, I put them up on my home page so people can see them. It's always good to give people something to cluck over. At some point I will probably go through it and give all the pictures titles, but I have not done so yet. You'll just have to guess on a lot of them. Sorry.

Tattoos

While passing a tattoo parlor on the street, it occurred to me that I should get a tattoo that just says "This body intentionally left blank."

A new take on the right to bear arms

Gun-shaped teddy bear crackers ready to liven up wedding receptions

IMABARI, Ehime -- A paint firm here is hoping to add color to wedding receptions in Japan with a new device it has jointly developed -- a gun-shaped party cracker that shoots out a teddy bear. [...]

Guilt by Association

My boss's boss, Jaimie Levin, has been given a nickname by President Bush. From http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/04/20060422-3.html:

I met the bus man here and -- where is Bus Man -- there he is, yes. He is one enthusiastic guy. (Laughter.) He is -- he truly believes that urban America is going to be transformed in a very positive way because of hydrogen-powered buses. And if you don't believe me, just ask him. (Laughter.)

Someday, when Bush is being taken from the Scheveningen detention center to the new International Criminal Court building, he will ride in a hydrogen fuel cell bus, and think of Jaimie.

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Update: Internet Archive link.

These are a few of my favorite songs (part 3)

Somehow I feel all is right with the world when I hear a banjo. I can't explain that. I wonder if I learned to play one whether I wouldn't just sit around my apartment all day, strumming the same notes obsessively.

Anyway, here are some favorite traditional (or traditional-sounding) folk songs.

"Well May The World Go" by Pete Seeger (the one I marked as my favorite is from the Together album with Arlo Guthrie)

"Gotta Travel On" from Weavers Classics (originally from the "Travelling On With The Weavers" LP)

Both these songs are about somebody saying goodbye -- the first, wishing the world well; the second, with a clear resentment at having stayed so long. I've felt that way about leaving things in my life. I was terrible at my first job, in the summer between junior and senior years, and they said either I had to do better or leave, and since I was doing my best, I left. When I got home I played Weavers albums to cheer myself up and when "Gotta Travel On" came on, I just felt so much better -- forget you, summer's almost gone! The song still resonates with me as a way of relieving myself of stress.

"Fifty Sail on Newburgh Bay" (from the album with this title) by Pete Seeger and Ed Renehan

This was one of the first Pete Seeger albums I ever heard; I checked it and one other out of the Sunset Branch Library in San Francisco when I was about ten or eleven. There's nothing that particularly important about this song other than that (besides being up-tempo) it was my introduction to folk music, over twenty-five years ago now. In high school (actually it was the very last weekend of high school before graduation) I bought this LP new from a record store; it was a tremendous find. I drove to Montréal from the New York City area in 1998 and this song and the other songs on this album (a collection of songs about the Hudson River, some like this one written by the historian William Gekle) were running through my head the whole time.

"We Shall Overcome" (my version is recorded from the album of the same title by Pete Seeger)

I don't think there's much I can say about this. It's the great anthem of the Civil Rights movement.

"Over The Hills" from Love Songs for Friends and Foes by Pete Seeger

This is another album I first found at the library, this time from the San Mateo library in high school. I like the melody on this piece, and I think it's romantic.

"The Fools of '49" from Gold Rush Songs by Pat Foster

Yes, this is another item from the San Mateo city library. Good luck finding it online... Two of the other songs from this album are available at eMusic but the whole album is not available and somehow I doubt it ever will be. (I ultimately found an old LP copy for myself through GEMM.) It's too bad because, although this might sound like it's just a compilation of songs of historical interest only, it's very melodic, especially this song. The song is about the various ways to get to San Francisco during the Gold Rush and harsh conditions in every type of trip (sailing to Panama or around the Horn, or coming overland). The chorus goes: "Then they thought of what they had been told / When they started after gold / That they never in this world would make a pile."

I Would Take Something For My Journey Now

No reasonable offer refused.

Come work for me

Anyone interested in desktop publishing and transit should check out this job ad.

Bloglines

Like a lot of people who read the web from several different places, I use Bloglines as my RSS newsreader. Bloglines allows you to make your subscriptions public, so others can see what you've subscribed to. My subscriptions, for example, are here.

What I did not realize is that you can see who is publicly subscribed to any particular feed by clicking on the number of subscribers. And that at least some information, such as the home page you've given, is available to the public for each subscriber.

Hi, Bernard.

One City, One Book

Today I attended a discussion of The Mistress of Spices, the book taken up as the first in Oakland's "One City, One Book" program. This was one of ten book discussions being held all over Oakland.

This was one was held at the Piedmont Avenue Branch Library, a tiny little building on 41st St., two doors down from the apartment building in which I lived from 1997 to 2003. I was afraid that this library was so small that it would be overwhelmed with people. I needn't have worried. All of six people showed up, other than the moderator (a Main Library reference librarian). I was the youngest person present by a decade, I suspect, and the only male.

Literary criticism is not one of my great strengths, so I was quite prepared to be quiet and not say anything. I didn't get that opportunity. Not only were there only six other people there, but four of them hadn't read the book. What's the point of going to a book discussion if you haven't read the book? I can only imagine that the enjoyment of the book would have been lessened by giving away plot points.

Anyway, although I tried not to talk too much, with only two other people there who knew the book I couldn't really be quiet and let those with a clue speak. Oh well.

Even though the turnout was disappointing, I'm glad I read the book and showed up. Magical-realist novels aren't something I normally pick up for myself. I did read One Hundred Years of Solitude (doesn't its Spanish title, Cien años de soledad, have much better rhythm?) in college, eighteen years ago, and later The Octopus, which although written before the term was coined, does seem to have some elements of magic realism to it.

Yet it's good, once in a while, to expand one's boundaries, and the idea of reading the same book as others in your community has a lot of appeal. And, given that the book is set in Oakland and explores themes of cultural assimilation, it's certainly a good choice for the program, even if I don't regret not attending some of the cultural events ("The Art of the Sari: Indian clothing demystified at this hands-on workshop for families and kids"). Let's see what book they pick next year. I wonder if I can get them to read The Death and Life of Great American Cities?