Sunday, February 25, 2007
A flit of waxwings
Drying lettuce, I stood under dripping skies in the gravel pit out back. And suddenly, marvelously, a flit of cedar waxwings sprang—thirty birds at once—from the tree overhead and curved off and up and then back, landing with a sound like raindrops. They did this, singly, in sixes, all together, again and again until the eucalyptus to the east seized their interest. They are small, crested birds.
William Forsythe's new work, "Atmospheric Studies"
Though it contains some nice things, the new piece is a failure. As though he was incapable of making any decisions, Forsythe includes everything, crowding the stage with movement and ideas until it's just a blur. The idea was to dissolve the distinction between a woman suffering because her son has died and artistic depictions of that suffering, using dance, color, dialogue, distorted and very loud sounds, and that old genre somewhere described by Michael Baxandall, the literary description of a painting. The problem is that we remain on the margins, distanced by a range of quasi-Brechtian techniques that remind us again and again that the artist's enterprise is doubtful, visible, too artificial by half. The dancing is a bore, the dialogue devolves into a moment straight out of "Sprockets," and the final scene is a mess. Naturally the applause at Zellerbach on Friday night went on and on. (I spotted Peter Sellars when he arrived and there were marvelously dressed women in the audience.)
Friday, February 23, 2007
What is Important in a Compost Mix?
In the wild, many alpines grow in situations where water drains away very quickly and easily—this is known as "sharp" drainage. This results in many air spaces around the roots. When growing in a pot, we need to provide similar conditions and make a mix that while holding sufficient water to supply the plant, drains excess water very rapidly to leave lots of air spaces. Before looking at how to achieve this, let's first ask:
Why is it important to have lots of air spaces?
Roots not only take up water, they take up and need oxygen too. Roots are normally covered by a thin film of water. Oxygen has to diffuse across this before it can enter the root. Oxygen diffuses through water relatively slowly. So the thicker the layer of water around the root, the longer it takes oxygen to diffuse through it to get to the root, which may result in the roots being starved of oxygen. Without it, they cannot metabolise and perform their functions—one of which is to take up water. This explains why the symptoms of plants being over-watered or under-watered are the same: If under-watered there is insufficient water to supply the plant and so it wilts. If over-watered, there is plenty of water around but the roots cannot take it up due to being short of oxygen. So the result is the same—the plant may be sitting in water but it wilts because it cannot take the water in.
The reason for going into all this is that plants vary on just how sensitive they are to the amounts of oxygen in the growing medium - and alpines are among those plants that require a high degree of aeration. This is why when growing alpines we aim to produce a mix which is very free-draining, so leaving plenty of air spaces in the medium. The percentage of the volume of a medium that contains air after it has been saturated then allowed to drain is called the Air Filled Porosity (AFP). For the majority of plants, a figure between 10% and 20% AFP is aimed at; for alpines this figure needs to be at the higher end of this range or even above. So when we say a plant needs good drainage, it may be more informative to say that what they need is good aeration (which is created by good drainage).
What factors affect drainage?
1. Pore Size - Pores are the spaces between (and within) the solid parts of a medium and they contain the air and water required by the plant for growth. Pores vary enormously in size. The relative numbers of large and small ones, the way they are grouped and how interconnected they are will determine the rate of water movement through the mix and also determine how much air and water are retained. It is these factors that you can alter by adding drainage material such as grit, and the extent of the effect will vary depending on the particle size of the grit you use and the amount you add to a mix.
The most important factor is the relative proportion of big pores to little ones. This is because of a key point: small pores hold onto water more strongly than large ones—due mainly to capillary action. This means that small pores (called micropores) retain water, which leaves no room for air, while big ones (called macropores) tend to drain most of their water leaving air in its place. It follows that fine sands are not suitable as drainage components- the fine particles simply fall into the larger air spaces, clogging them up and producing smaller pores that hold on to water—in other words you get poorer drainage, the opposite of what you want. So, use only coarse grits as drainage material—in practise, this means ones with most of the particles larger than 1.6mm diameter.
2. Quantity of Grit Used - If you add a very small amount of grit to a medium it will not help the drainage, it will simply displace some of the medium. For grit to work as a drainage medium there must be enough of it so that it exceeds what is called the threshold proportion. The threshold proportion is where there is just enough grit that the particles touch each other. At this point, the pores between the grit are still filled with soil and humus and no new macropores have been created. More grit must be added to further "dilute" the medium so it exceeds the threshold. At this point, new macropores are created that drain readily and provide aeration. In practice, most alpine growers use between 30% and 50% (by volume) of grit in their mixes to achieve this.
3. Pot Depth and Perched Water Tables - When you water into a pot and excess starts coming out the bottom, it is coming out due to a mix of gravity pulling on it and the weight of water above pushing down on it (the "hydraulic head"). As water drains, there is a point at which gravity or the hydraulic head are insufficient to push any more water out. So at the bottom of each pot there is a layer where ALL the pores are filled with water. This is called a perched water table. This is true of all pots whatever mix it contains - at the bottom of every pot there is always a perched water table. Wouldn't it be good if we could prevent this?
This brings us to the old myth. "Put a layer of grit or other coarse material at the bottom of pots and containers to provide drainage." You will hear such advice repeated again and again in books, on websites and TV programmes. Materials recommended for such use may include gravel, grit, sand, broken up clay pots or polystyrene bits, all to be added "for drainage." If you ask the person giving this advice as to EXACTLY why they think this will work, they often don't know - it's just something they have been taught or read about and they have never stopped to think why it might work. If they do have an explanation, it is usually to point out that coarse materials have large air spaces that drain more easily than small air spaces. This is of course correct as we saw earlier. HOWEVER this applies to the materials ALONE. They don't stop to think what happens if you start putting materials in layers. What actually happens is that drainage is HINDERED by this practice and water tends to accumulate at the boundary between the two layers. This happens for two reasons:
a) As we learned earlier, small pores hang on to water more strongly than large ones. Because of this, when you have a medium with smaller pores above one with larger pores, the water has difficulty crossing the boundary. There is insufficient "strength" in the larger pores to pull the water out of the smaller ones above where they are held more strongly by capillary action. So instead of the water draining evenly from the pot, it drains to the interface between the two layers then slows down or may even be stopped altogether until a sufficiently large hydraulic head has built up again to force it across the boundary. This of course means when the compost above is completely saturated! Since the stated goal for using a layer of coarse material is "to improve drainage," it is ironic that this practice actually causes the very state it is intended to prevent!
b) Secondly, the natural "perched water table" we learned about has now been forced to form higher up the pot giving what is called a RAISED perched water table. This leaves even less of the volume of the pot which contains well-drained and well-aerated compost.
There is however a way to remove the perched water table from a pot, so that the whole volume of the pot is well drained: Plunge the pot in a sand plunge. For this to work, ensure that the compost in the pot makes good contact with the sand beneath. This has the effect of greatly increasing the length of the pot so that the perched water table doesn't form until the water reaches the bottom of the plunge. Sometimes people put a piece of broken pot over the drainage hole of clay pots—but this will break the continuity between the compost and the plunge so this will not then work. A good modern alternative is to cover the drainage hole in clay pots with a piece of plastic net. This will help stop compost trickling out but not entirely break the continuity between compost and plunge. Removing the perched water tables from pots is probably the most important function that a plunge serves, so it is strange that this aspect is rarely mentioned these days when the functions of a plunge are discussed.
Why is it important to have lots of air spaces?
Roots not only take up water, they take up and need oxygen too. Roots are normally covered by a thin film of water. Oxygen has to diffuse across this before it can enter the root. Oxygen diffuses through water relatively slowly. So the thicker the layer of water around the root, the longer it takes oxygen to diffuse through it to get to the root, which may result in the roots being starved of oxygen. Without it, they cannot metabolise and perform their functions—one of which is to take up water. This explains why the symptoms of plants being over-watered or under-watered are the same: If under-watered there is insufficient water to supply the plant and so it wilts. If over-watered, there is plenty of water around but the roots cannot take it up due to being short of oxygen. So the result is the same—the plant may be sitting in water but it wilts because it cannot take the water in.
The reason for going into all this is that plants vary on just how sensitive they are to the amounts of oxygen in the growing medium - and alpines are among those plants that require a high degree of aeration. This is why when growing alpines we aim to produce a mix which is very free-draining, so leaving plenty of air spaces in the medium. The percentage of the volume of a medium that contains air after it has been saturated then allowed to drain is called the Air Filled Porosity (AFP). For the majority of plants, a figure between 10% and 20% AFP is aimed at; for alpines this figure needs to be at the higher end of this range or even above. So when we say a plant needs good drainage, it may be more informative to say that what they need is good aeration (which is created by good drainage).
What factors affect drainage?
1. Pore Size - Pores are the spaces between (and within) the solid parts of a medium and they contain the air and water required by the plant for growth. Pores vary enormously in size. The relative numbers of large and small ones, the way they are grouped and how interconnected they are will determine the rate of water movement through the mix and also determine how much air and water are retained. It is these factors that you can alter by adding drainage material such as grit, and the extent of the effect will vary depending on the particle size of the grit you use and the amount you add to a mix.
The most important factor is the relative proportion of big pores to little ones. This is because of a key point: small pores hold onto water more strongly than large ones—due mainly to capillary action. This means that small pores (called micropores) retain water, which leaves no room for air, while big ones (called macropores) tend to drain most of their water leaving air in its place. It follows that fine sands are not suitable as drainage components- the fine particles simply fall into the larger air spaces, clogging them up and producing smaller pores that hold on to water—in other words you get poorer drainage, the opposite of what you want. So, use only coarse grits as drainage material—in practise, this means ones with most of the particles larger than 1.6mm diameter.
2. Quantity of Grit Used - If you add a very small amount of grit to a medium it will not help the drainage, it will simply displace some of the medium. For grit to work as a drainage medium there must be enough of it so that it exceeds what is called the threshold proportion. The threshold proportion is where there is just enough grit that the particles touch each other. At this point, the pores between the grit are still filled with soil and humus and no new macropores have been created. More grit must be added to further "dilute" the medium so it exceeds the threshold. At this point, new macropores are created that drain readily and provide aeration. In practice, most alpine growers use between 30% and 50% (by volume) of grit in their mixes to achieve this.
3. Pot Depth and Perched Water Tables - When you water into a pot and excess starts coming out the bottom, it is coming out due to a mix of gravity pulling on it and the weight of water above pushing down on it (the "hydraulic head"). As water drains, there is a point at which gravity or the hydraulic head are insufficient to push any more water out. So at the bottom of each pot there is a layer where ALL the pores are filled with water. This is called a perched water table. This is true of all pots whatever mix it contains - at the bottom of every pot there is always a perched water table. Wouldn't it be good if we could prevent this?
This brings us to the old myth. "Put a layer of grit or other coarse material at the bottom of pots and containers to provide drainage." You will hear such advice repeated again and again in books, on websites and TV programmes. Materials recommended for such use may include gravel, grit, sand, broken up clay pots or polystyrene bits, all to be added "for drainage." If you ask the person giving this advice as to EXACTLY why they think this will work, they often don't know - it's just something they have been taught or read about and they have never stopped to think why it might work. If they do have an explanation, it is usually to point out that coarse materials have large air spaces that drain more easily than small air spaces. This is of course correct as we saw earlier. HOWEVER this applies to the materials ALONE. They don't stop to think what happens if you start putting materials in layers. What actually happens is that drainage is HINDERED by this practice and water tends to accumulate at the boundary between the two layers. This happens for two reasons:
a) As we learned earlier, small pores hang on to water more strongly than large ones. Because of this, when you have a medium with smaller pores above one with larger pores, the water has difficulty crossing the boundary. There is insufficient "strength" in the larger pores to pull the water out of the smaller ones above where they are held more strongly by capillary action. So instead of the water draining evenly from the pot, it drains to the interface between the two layers then slows down or may even be stopped altogether until a sufficiently large hydraulic head has built up again to force it across the boundary. This of course means when the compost above is completely saturated! Since the stated goal for using a layer of coarse material is "to improve drainage," it is ironic that this practice actually causes the very state it is intended to prevent!
b) Secondly, the natural "perched water table" we learned about has now been forced to form higher up the pot giving what is called a RAISED perched water table. This leaves even less of the volume of the pot which contains well-drained and well-aerated compost.
There is however a way to remove the perched water table from a pot, so that the whole volume of the pot is well drained: Plunge the pot in a sand plunge. For this to work, ensure that the compost in the pot makes good contact with the sand beneath. This has the effect of greatly increasing the length of the pot so that the perched water table doesn't form until the water reaches the bottom of the plunge. Sometimes people put a piece of broken pot over the drainage hole of clay pots—but this will break the continuity between the compost and the plunge so this will not then work. A good modern alternative is to cover the drainage hole in clay pots with a piece of plastic net. This will help stop compost trickling out but not entirely break the continuity between compost and plunge. Removing the perched water tables from pots is probably the most important function that a plunge serves, so it is strange that this aspect is rarely mentioned these days when the functions of a plunge are discussed.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Why I hate Russians
I wrote the following:
This book of postcards presents thirty of the finest paintings from the fabled collection of the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Founded by Empress Catherine the Great, the Hermitage occupies ten buildings, five of which were erected in the eighteenth century. Grandest of all is the Winter Palace, the richly ornamented home of the ruling Romanov dynasty until the Russian Revolution. So imagine that you are walking along echoing halls, across gleaming parquet floors, under vaulted ceilings from which hang gold-plated chandeliers, as you take in this assortment of landscapes, madonnas, still lifes, and portraits from Russia, Italy, France, England, Holland, Flanders, and Germany.
They wrote:
Vaulted ceilings are hardly typical of the palatial and museum interiors - please rephrase
I wrote:
Dear Olga,
Gina has passed to me your request for a series of
changes to the back cover text, which I wrote. Thank
you for your careful and thorough inspection. I have
never visited the Hermitage and so am at a real
disadvantage when it comes to describing the museum. I
had to rely on information and images presented on the
official Hermitage website, hence my confusion. My
suggestion that a walk through the Hermitage might
involve passing under vaulted ceilings was the
unfortunate result of the website's pictures of the
Raphael loggias, the War Gallery of 1812, the Peter's
(Small Throne) Room, the Alexander Hall, the Gothic
Drawing Room of Grand Princesses, the Gold Drawing
Room, the White Hall, the Corner Drawing-Room of
Emperor Nicholas I, and the Study of Empress Alexandra
Fyodorovnas. My apologies.
Yours very truly,
Sam Gilbert
And Steven Linberg commented, from Paris:
It would be odd if the Hermitage didn't have vaulted ceilings. The fucking
thing wasn't built by the Bauhaus, after all. Believe me, as a translator,
I've encountered this thing a million times. If queried, it will turn out
they think "vaulted" means either that there are safes in the ceiling
or Sergey Bubka cleared it at one go.
Soviet-built steamrollers, Olga and Nataha replied to another part of the text, which reads:
Friend of French philosophers and foe of Russian serfs, Catherine the Great acquired a collection of fine European paintings with which she adorned the Winter Palace, a treasure-house the empress coyly likened to the retreat of a hermit. Forty-five years after Catherine’s death, the nineteenth-century traveler Johann Georg Kohl noted the preponderance of Netherlandish works in the collection, citing “more unroasted and roasted game, than roasted martyrs; more hares transfixed by the spit of the cook, than St. Sebastians by the arrows of the heathen.” Culinary subjects lost their prominence as Catherine’s successors snatched up masterpieces by Titian, Leonardo, and Raphael; Fragonard, Sisley, and Renoir; Gainsborough, Gauguin, and Friedrich—all of whom are represented in this book of postcards. Under the reign of Joseph Stalin dramatic changes reshaped the Hermitage, as an antibourgeois purge of many works was followed by an influx of art taken as booty by the Red Army during World War II.
Today the Hermitage is incontestably one of the world’s greatest museums. Its doors long open to all, it has not served as a monarch’s private retreat since 1852, when it was first opened to the public. Most recently, satellite Hermitages have popped up in Amsterdam, London, and Las Vegas; one will soon open in Ferrara.
They said:
There is a problem with intro text. It looks funny and even smart, however, unfortunately, it's untrue in most of its statements and cannot be published in a book of postcards which we are going to sell inside the Hermitage museum.
For your guidence, attached please find some texts taken from the official Hermitage web site and from the St Petersburg Rough Guide. We do hope this will be helpful and useful to create something more plausible for this and forthcoming postcard books on the Hermitage collection.
I could only say
I mean, how am I supposed to cope with such boneheads? If they knew a vaulted ceiling from a Gazprom stock offering I'd be willing to enter into a conversation with these ignoramuses but when they fail to identify a single error or inaccuracy in my introduction and summarily reject it I just want to point every anti-ballistic missile in Europe at Saint Petersburg and fire away. I'd crawl over broken glass from Moscow to Khartoum if Olga showed me a single mistake in my introduction.
This book of postcards presents thirty of the finest paintings from the fabled collection of the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Founded by Empress Catherine the Great, the Hermitage occupies ten buildings, five of which were erected in the eighteenth century. Grandest of all is the Winter Palace, the richly ornamented home of the ruling Romanov dynasty until the Russian Revolution. So imagine that you are walking along echoing halls, across gleaming parquet floors, under vaulted ceilings from which hang gold-plated chandeliers, as you take in this assortment of landscapes, madonnas, still lifes, and portraits from Russia, Italy, France, England, Holland, Flanders, and Germany.
They wrote:
Vaulted ceilings are hardly typical of the palatial and museum interiors - please rephrase
I wrote:
Dear Olga,
Gina has passed to me your request for a series of
changes to the back cover text, which I wrote. Thank
you for your careful and thorough inspection. I have
never visited the Hermitage and so am at a real
disadvantage when it comes to describing the museum. I
had to rely on information and images presented on the
official Hermitage website, hence my confusion. My
suggestion that a walk through the Hermitage might
involve passing under vaulted ceilings was the
unfortunate result of the website's pictures of the
Raphael loggias, the War Gallery of 1812, the Peter's
(Small Throne) Room, the Alexander Hall, the Gothic
Drawing Room of Grand Princesses, the Gold Drawing
Room, the White Hall, the Corner Drawing-Room of
Emperor Nicholas I, and the Study of Empress Alexandra
Fyodorovnas. My apologies.
Yours very truly,
Sam Gilbert
And Steven Linberg commented, from Paris:
It would be odd if the Hermitage didn't have vaulted ceilings. The fucking
thing wasn't built by the Bauhaus, after all. Believe me, as a translator,
I've encountered this thing a million times. If queried, it will turn out
they think "vaulted" means either that there are safes in the ceiling
or Sergey Bubka cleared it at one go.
Soviet-built steamrollers, Olga and Nataha replied to another part of the text, which reads:
Friend of French philosophers and foe of Russian serfs, Catherine the Great acquired a collection of fine European paintings with which she adorned the Winter Palace, a treasure-house the empress coyly likened to the retreat of a hermit. Forty-five years after Catherine’s death, the nineteenth-century traveler Johann Georg Kohl noted the preponderance of Netherlandish works in the collection, citing “more unroasted and roasted game, than roasted martyrs; more hares transfixed by the spit of the cook, than St. Sebastians by the arrows of the heathen.” Culinary subjects lost their prominence as Catherine’s successors snatched up masterpieces by Titian, Leonardo, and Raphael; Fragonard, Sisley, and Renoir; Gainsborough, Gauguin, and Friedrich—all of whom are represented in this book of postcards. Under the reign of Joseph Stalin dramatic changes reshaped the Hermitage, as an antibourgeois purge of many works was followed by an influx of art taken as booty by the Red Army during World War II.
Today the Hermitage is incontestably one of the world’s greatest museums. Its doors long open to all, it has not served as a monarch’s private retreat since 1852, when it was first opened to the public. Most recently, satellite Hermitages have popped up in Amsterdam, London, and Las Vegas; one will soon open in Ferrara.
They said:
There is a problem with intro text. It looks funny and even smart, however, unfortunately, it's untrue in most of its statements and cannot be published in a book of postcards which we are going to sell inside the Hermitage museum.
For your guidence, attached please find some texts taken from the official Hermitage web site and from the St Petersburg Rough Guide. We do hope this will be helpful and useful to create something more plausible for this and forthcoming postcard books on the Hermitage collection.
I could only say
I mean, how am I supposed to cope with such boneheads? If they knew a vaulted ceiling from a Gazprom stock offering I'd be willing to enter into a conversation with these ignoramuses but when they fail to identify a single error or inaccuracy in my introduction and summarily reject it I just want to point every anti-ballistic missile in Europe at Saint Petersburg and fire away. I'd crawl over broken glass from Moscow to Khartoum if Olga showed me a single mistake in my introduction.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Cultural Quiz
(1) What is The Gherkin?
(2) Who is William Forsythe?
(3) Why did Elgin want the marbles?
(4) What piece of technology was crucial to the house that Mickey built hard by MoCA?
(5) What book did Philip Roth declare "the best English novel written since the war"?
(6) Which painter wrote a book disproving the myth that van Gogh sold only a single painting in his lifetime?
(7) When did espionage become a subject for serious books and movies?
(8) Name a poet who makes you laugh.
(9) Does anyone write symphonies any more?
(10) Who owns Olivier Messiaen's ondes Martenot?
(11) What is it about Finland?
(12) Which novelist do I refer to as The Pisspot and why?
(13) Is anyone safe?
(14) Which great composer wrote wonderful dance music?
(15) Who has a nice voice?
(16) When all else fails, do a crossover album--ok or not?
(17) Can a movie be exciting without guns or cars or hiphop dancing?
(18) Should painting be decorative?
(19) Should Bill Viola switch to cello?
(20) What is your favorite song?
(2) Who is William Forsythe?
(3) Why did Elgin want the marbles?
(4) What piece of technology was crucial to the house that Mickey built hard by MoCA?
(5) What book did Philip Roth declare "the best English novel written since the war"?
(6) Which painter wrote a book disproving the myth that van Gogh sold only a single painting in his lifetime?
(7) When did espionage become a subject for serious books and movies?
(8) Name a poet who makes you laugh.
(9) Does anyone write symphonies any more?
(10) Who owns Olivier Messiaen's ondes Martenot?
(11) What is it about Finland?
(12) Which novelist do I refer to as The Pisspot and why?
(13) Is anyone safe?
(14) Which great composer wrote wonderful dance music?
(15) Who has a nice voice?
(16) When all else fails, do a crossover album--ok or not?
(17) Can a movie be exciting without guns or cars or hiphop dancing?
(18) Should painting be decorative?
(19) Should Bill Viola switch to cello?
(20) What is your favorite song?
Faith
I don't want religion, I just want the church dinners and the warm greetings of one hundred of my townsmen on a weekend morning.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Today's music
Mercury Rev "All Is Dream"
Radiohead "Kid A"
Nick Drake "Way to Blue"
Jonathan Richman "You Must Ask the Heart"
Jeff Buckley "Grace"
Johannes Hieronymus Kapsberger "Libro quarto d'intavolatura di chitarone"
Josef Haydn "Andante con Variazioni f-moll Op.83 Hob.XVII:6"
"Stan Getz Meets Gerry Mulligan in Hi-Fi"
Radiohead "Kid A"
Nick Drake "Way to Blue"
Jonathan Richman "You Must Ask the Heart"
Jeff Buckley "Grace"
Johannes Hieronymus Kapsberger "Libro quarto d'intavolatura di chitarone"
Josef Haydn "Andante con Variazioni f-moll Op.83 Hob.XVII:6"
"Stan Getz Meets Gerry Mulligan in Hi-Fi"
Thursday, February 15, 2007
O my gawd
Possibly the most hilariously awful dancing ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfGc4wcil2g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfGc4wcil2g
Friday, February 09, 2007
Things I don't like
war
new age thinking
Brussels sprouts
cruelty
selfishness
waste
tobacco
bad skin
refusal to confront evil
Liszt
Schumann
Robin Williams
TV
football
baseball
extraordinary renditions
cellular telephones
parties
baseball caps
spring-loaded hair clips
take-out food
coffee breath
new age thinking
Brussels sprouts
cruelty
selfishness
waste
tobacco
bad skin
refusal to confront evil
Liszt
Schumann
Robin Williams
TV
football
baseball
extraordinary renditions
cellular telephones
parties
baseball caps
spring-loaded hair clips
take-out food
coffee breath
Things I like
the walk along the railroad tracks (some madman is making Mark Di Suvero sculpture on a big lot upstream from the feed and hay place)
rowing on Tomales Bay, morning and dusk
nuts
citrus
Eloise and Lucy
dancing
萊陽酥餅
Elephant Rock, between Tomales and Dillon Beach
flowery perfume
making juice with Won Sun and Eloise and Lucy
Musar
Christoffel
traveling with Liz
臺北
spider-leg tea
remembering my dreams
Stan Getz
my vacuum cleaner
walking in San Francisco
hand-me-down clothes
calochortus
rowing on Tomales Bay, morning and dusk
nuts
citrus
Eloise and Lucy
dancing
萊陽酥餅
Elephant Rock, between Tomales and Dillon Beach
flowery perfume
making juice with Won Sun and Eloise and Lucy
Musar
Christoffel
traveling with Liz
臺北
spider-leg tea
remembering my dreams
Stan Getz
my vacuum cleaner
walking in San Francisco
hand-me-down clothes
calochortus
Thursday, February 08, 2007
The agony of Saint Lambert
A seventh-century Flemish patron of surgeons, Lambert was once sentenced by abbey elders to a night in a snowdrift for breaking his monastic vow of silence: he had farted.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Fantasy
If you could inhabit any creature for a day, another for a week, another for a year, what would they be? For me, a day of being a trout would be enough, a week of being a cheetah would go by in a flash, and a year would permit me to experience all the seasons of a merlin's life. But a year as Michael Stipe would be fun too.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Friday, February 02, 2007
Why Yahoo is losing market share
Hello Sam,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Address Book.
Our engineering team is aware that it is no longer possible to send an email using the nickname only. They are diligently exploring efficient and effective methods that will resolve this issue in as timely a manner as possible. However, there is no timeline for a resolution. We appreciate your patience in this matter.
Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.
Regards,
Elizabeth
Yahoo! Customer Care
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Address Book.
Our engineering team is aware that it is no longer possible to send an email using the nickname only. They are diligently exploring efficient and effective methods that will resolve this issue in as timely a manner as possible. However, there is no timeline for a resolution. We appreciate your patience in this matter.
Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.
Regards,
Elizabeth
Yahoo! Customer Care
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