Out of the Frying Pan

On the reading table (or tablet)

• Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki. In this context, enchantment is "the process of delighting people with a product, service, organization or idea." This book is for anyone who needs the power of persuasion -- in other words, everyone. It's a fun read with ideas that will stir up your mind and maybe your behavior. And it has been beta-tested, just like software. About how many books is that true?
• Old Filth by Jane Gardam. What does it mean to be a child of an empire, rather than the child of a natural family? For many, probably most, children born to colonists of the British Empire, it meant being sent "home" from their homes at an early age and knowing their minders, malevolent or benevolent, better than their own parents. Gardam's character Filth (Failed in London, Try Hong Kong) is an exemplar of the type and his story is deeply engrossing.
• The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party by Alexander McCall Smith. The latest installment of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency provides the expected cast of unexpected characters (really, how does he make up these people?) and the regular actors working together to make a fine story of many strands. One version of the e-book is enhanced by 15 short videos of the author talking about the series.
• The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. McLain sought, in this fictional account, to rescue Hemingway's first wife from under the heap of facts about Hemingway's life and she succeeds in virtuoso fashion. Paris after the Great War is right here, Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound included. And so is a plausible version of the woman Hemingway discarded and then yearned for, for the rest of his life.

Spring + six days

Three dozen iris reticulata must have been planted at the base of the gargoyle last Fall; memory said maybe a dozen. These seem not to naturalize here -- at least they haven't at other places in the garden -- but maybe one show is good enough.

Everything I know about the allelopathy of black sunflower seed hulls is being turned on its head by these daylilies. Perhaps the seeds require moisture to do their damage to the dirt. Moisture there will be once the sprinklers start up in another month or so. Before then, maybe the resident gardener will see to a little homework and attention at the base of the bird feeders.

Cleaning up under my desk

I found 95¢, including a Wyoming quarter. It pays to tidy up. I should remember that ;)

In the neighborhood

Thanks to Blair, I came across this wonderful piece, 15 Reasons Mister Rogers Was the Best Neighbor Ever

Vanity blogging

Yes, yes, that's what I do right here on my personal blog. But we knew that already.

A problem for me is that I had not expected my bird blog, Picturing Birds, to turn into a vanity blog, but that is just what's happened, by default. It was my mistake because I made the assumption that, just as there are botanical -- i.e., extremely precise -- pictures of plants, there would be ornithological pictures of birds prior to 1923 (the copyright watershed date).

I've been collecting old bird books on eBay like crazy and the pictures in them range between cartoon-like to watercolors that would not be especially helpful to me in identifying birds. It's frustrating.

I'm about to launch another blog, Picturing Creatures, and there's no problem at all amassing images for it. But I don't know what to do about the bird blog. My photos aren't good enough, generally (there are some exceptions), for a bird images blog, but I am unimpressed with the published images I've found so far. I'd be very glad for suggestions.

It's a blast working with all the old images of botanical subjects and angels. Every day I wake up and can't wait to get after it. The birds... less so, so far.

Peace in our time

Heaven's Fest is moving up to Larimer County Fairgrounds. It's what I said they needed to do last year: move to a venue suited to the size crowd they want to attract.

On another topic, I must have planted more than the dozen iris I thought I put in the ground last Fall. They're lovely and it'll be a joy to have them while they're here, because they seem to account for almost everything that has sprouted. Oh, well.

Listening for Spring?

It has been many years since I've had this much color in the garden in March. Iris reticulata used to show up in January in my Oswego garden, which sort of calibrates where we are in seasons here on the Front Range.

On the reading table (or tablet)

• I wouldn't like to say why, but recently it was suggested that I revisit Carol Dweck's Mindset. I did and have prominently posted some words to remind me of what Dweck's work shows about growing, learning, and succeeding at life's challenges.
• This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection by Carol Burnett reviews her amazing career, from The Princess and the Pea to the traveling show she stages now, where it is just her on stage and the audience posing questions. Without blinking at the hardships of her life, she lavishes praise, seemingly on anyone who has contributed to her success. An upbeat, classy memoir.
• In My Korean Deli: Risking It All for a Convenience Store, Ben Ryder Howe tells a story of juxtapositions: his WASP background with living and working with his Korean in-laws; buying and breaking his backside in a New York deli while working as senior editor at Paris Review. It's a big, delicious story, with plenty of whiplash as Howe moves between worlds.
• Three Stages of Amazement: A Novel, Carol Edgarian. There it is: I went and read another book with "A Novel" in its title. The book begins with interesting characters in plausible situations and then launches into a kind of fairy tale, complete with the convenient disposition of characters whose survival might have proven problematic. I seem to be allergic to not finishing e-books, so I finished this one, but regret the time spent. Will I learn? (Mindset says I can!)

The long view

Not on the fence

Homage to the gargoyle

Something different again

Every time I take this quiz, I get a different result. Previously, it was Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August. Before that, it was Stranger in a Strange Land. I simply don't know WHAT to believe ;)

You're Siddhartha!
by Hermann Hesse
You simply don't know what to believe, but you're willing to try anything once. Western values, Eastern values, hedonism and minimalism, you've spent some time in every camp. But you still don't have any idea what camp you belong in. This makes you an individualist of the highest order, but also really lonely. It's time to chill out under a tree. And realize that at least you believe in ferries.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

About the super moon rising later today

NASA has great information about it. HT,  Dennis

Lesser Yellowlegs from last August

Going through some images (well, thousands of them, to be accurate) today for Picturing Birds, I came across the above photo I took near Lower Latham Reservoir last August.

There's no access in shooting range (camera! camera!) to the reservoir, but there's a swamp across the road. The best thing is to use one's car as a blind and shoot from the car, which is what I'm pretty sure I did.

Yes, we do

We have a problem on one of the cars that I'd never heard of before: cracks in the transmission housing. At the bottom of the notes from the car service department: "Does customer drive on dirt roads?"

Hail, Glorious Saint Patrick!

Sung by the magnificent Frank Patterson, may God be good to him.

This is a simple, lovely version with all the verses. I'd listen to this one, too, to get a full flavor of this great day.

Donating to Japan

Felix Salmon has a controversial piece at Reuters: Don't Donate to Japan

If you don't go along with his reasoning (I think I kind of tend to), check out Japan: 11 Ways You Can Help from Your House. There's a good article over at Charity Navigator, too.

Signs

A sign that a squirrel was busy here, but decided to leave a few things behind.

A sign that, if I'm willing to clear brush a little (but not much: we still have two months of frost), the perennial salvia is sending up new growth.

A day with a couple of good signs is a day to be enjoyed.

Blog, blog, blog

Although I'll keep my personal projects over at typepad -- too many custom features to give up -- once again I'm playing with blogger. And boy howdy, when blogger says a blog is launched, it has left the station.

I was waiting for some old books with some great illustrations to show up, but Picturing Birds took off so I figured I'd best put up some, well, pictures. I have a few in reserve ;)

On the reading table (or tablet)

• A Person of Interest, Susan Choi. The story starts with a bombing and, it comes to seem, an increasingly unfortunate survivor. There are mysteries and secrets and lies and questions that turn on life's ultimate, daily pop quiz: what does it mean to be a good person. I liked this one a lot.
• Solitude, Robert Kull. Kull isn't writing about solitude "from the outside"; for a year he becomes a solitary on an uninhabited island near Chile. The narrative begins with near disaster: how much of his supplies survive a stormy drop-off and how much will he be able to retrieve? This is a long book and to call it narrative might be stretching things. Maybe it's more of a very long reflection. It was an interdisciplinary project, which is to say it's not for everyone.
• A Disorder Peculiar to the Country: A Novel, Ken Kalfus. I wish I'd checked the Amazon star rating on this one first. I figure the title has to call itself a novel because otherwise the book might be called a string of episodes related to a couple of common characters. Meh.
• How Not to Die: Surprising Lessons on Living Longer, Safer, and Healthier from America's Favorite Medical Examiner, Jan Garavaglia. OK, it's a little macabre. But it also has a bunch of scary examples of people who checked out before it should have been closing time. If you know somebody who refuses to visit a doctor or dentist or who does accident-provoking things like being a clutter-bug (guilty, somewhat!), this is the book to scare them to... well, you know.

Picturing Angels

My newest blog, Picturing Angels, has gone live. Above: Domenchino's cartoon (preparatory sketch) for The Guardian Angel.

Help for kitchen gardens

Via a comment on the Picturing Plants blog, I found a blog that offers a lot of good information about kitchen gardens, Kitchen Garden Help.com. In particular, I was glad to get more information about thymes. We have some that creep into a stone path, but the sand has settled. I now have the idea that I'd better lift the thyme, add sand, and then replant the thyme. Thanks for that, Sonica! ;)

There's a name for it!

I'm a micropreneur What with Picturing Plants (there's a free res Redouté illustration over there for a few days) and other little projects I'm working on, that's what it is! Go, me! ;)

Today is warm, 70F. I felt that if I pushed through some of winter's decay (still too early to remove), I might find a sign of something hopeful. I photographed it so that I can look at it during the freezing days and snowstorms that lie ahead.

But for today, the house is opened up and the fans are running full out. That's just for today :).

"Memento, Homo, Quia Pulvis Es...."

HT Whispers in the Loggia

"Teach us to sit still"

T. S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday

This little statue by Oregon artist Ruth Trout speaks to me of the brokenness that is Ash Wednesday. It is a time to sit with all that has come apart, with all that leads inexorably to this day when I realize that saying "sorry" is not enough.

No, I have to let my heart be broken by the hearts I have hurt, by the pain of my own disappointment with myself. I have to accept the ashes and yet believe, somehow, that there is a way to go on.

 

Feeling like ferns

Today over at Picturing Plants I have a drawing of a carpet design, ferns. I love ferns, even when they're shimmery and out of focus.

In what is surely one of the largest labors of love on the Web, the Connecticut Botanical Society has indexed, photographed, and described the ferns of Connecticut. You won't believe how many there are.

Monday mix

• A virtual visit to the Galapagos Islands - a friend is making a real visit soon and shared this fun site with me.
• A low tech way to animate a picture - it's called a thaumatrope and kids might get a kick out of it.
• Ash Wednesday is this week. The Cardinal Archbishop Emeritus of Los Angeles, Roger Mahony, asks and answers a challenging question: How would satan tempt Jesus in 2011?

On the reading table (or tablet)

• Walking in This World: The Practical Art of Creativity, Julia Cameron. In this book, as in Finding Water, the chapters are organized by week, as if one were attending one of Cameron's classes. I like the topics, which include matters like perspective, discernment, and resiliency, but in happy reality I found that each topic took more than a week to go through. The pages are liberally sprinkled with fine quotations. Although I would have appreciated a bibliography, I can also appreciate that this might have been an onerous task. I'll take the quotations and say "thank you."
right: Denver Botanic Gardens, September 2007
• The Truth About Garden Remedies: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why, Jeff Gillman. Okay, I'll cut straight to the chase. Ix-nay on the ammonia, enthusiastic yeps on the compost and eggshells (separately, with dandy "recipes" for prepping the eggshells), don't bother with the hydrogels, NO! with the hydrogen peroxide -- and if you find all this interesting, maybe get the book. The "why" as laid out here tends to include not only the author's own experiments but also surveys of relevant literature. Honestly, I could do with a little less of the "why" because it is the art more than the science of gardening that appeals to me, but I consider this a valuable resource for checking things out.
• Minding Frankie, Maeve Binchy. Her novels are always a place where good (eventually) triumphs, and yet where there is room for the least savory characters to amend their lives. There is sadness, because this is part of life, but throughout this novel there is a sense that the novelist is working things out as life should work out. We should all be so lucky as to live in Binchy's world. That said, if you are looking for something thrilling or intensely provocative, this book is not for you.
• Plutarch's Lives. Haven't finished it. Duh. And I'm wishing for a more modern translation than the one I picked up on iBooks. But having read little more than citations of Plutarch before, it's fascinating. I have a feeling, though, that it's important to stay grounded in real history (The Hemlock Cup, for instance, which I've still not finished). Otherwise, one could get carried away. You know, sort of like Shakespeare did ;)

Potato peeling

When I use potatoes, I rarely if ever peel them. But if I did, I'd use this tip.

What's collaboration?

The question occurs to me because of a post I did today over at Picturing Plants and Flowers.

The calligrapher for the image at right (actually, it was a whole book eventually called Mira calligraphiae monumenta -- Model Book of Calligraphy) was Georg Bocskay, commissioned by Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I. The work was done in 1561-62.

Ferdinand's grandson, Rudolf II, took the idea further by commissioning Europe's last great calligrapher Joris Hoefnagel to fill white spaces on the page with illustration.

Here's the thing. Hoefnagel started work 15 years after Bocskay's death. Is that collaboration?

Bocskay was described as court historian, scribe, and secretary to both Ferdinand I and his successor, Maximilian II. I wonder what Bocskay would have made of his "collaboration" that began after his death.

The non-conformist

The only green shoots in the backyard are from crabgrass, apparently immune even to the coldest temperatures. But the birds are busy; we entertain dozens at a time. Mostly sparrows and house finches, but today I saw many robins -- headed south, ominously -- and even a northern flicker.

I finished up Jodi Picoult's Sing You Home, which disappointed me with its predictability and lack of nuance. It's a novel with a sound track, if that helps in your deliberations about reading it.

Leo Babauta has a good post about how to increase focus. I like the desk clearing idea, but I already have a couple of unyielding little boxes of things in my office. Would it really be a good idea to add another to deal with "later"? I'm thinking.

The first day of False Spring

"False" Spring because these days of touching 60F can't last, but "Spring" because for a few hours, at least, the heat is off and the windows are open.

The amount of yard debris that collects on this 5000' square lot is impressive -- especially considering that close to 3000' square is covered by the footprint of the house, garage, and driveway. I was outside playing with a little of it and saw...

...a gargoyle that looks hard done by. It was the weather, not a tumble. Behind it is the feed tank we've re-purposed for growing veg. From an aesthetic standpoint, I think I should have left it alone, rather than painting it off-white, but the light color is intended to deal with the effect of hot sun hitting metal.

...a cat hanging out under the dead alchemilla mollis leaves. I like to leave the dead leaves in place until April or so, when the crowns begin to send up new leaves and there's little chance of minus temps.

...my favorite birdbath, through the screen of reprieved berberis.

...these odd twigs. I have a feeling I planted this shrub on purpose, i.e. it is not a gift from the birds. The twigs have a sweet smell. But I have no idea what this is.