As an aside, the lake below was not on my route, but storm clouds rolled in fairly quickly the afternoon this was taken & I decided to seek shelter rather than carry on. Heading in the opposite direction from my intended destination, I landed here at the closest source of water and set up camp for the evening. For having lost about four hours of hiking time that day, the scenery provided significant compensation.
Arrived home last night from a solo five day trek through the Northern Sierra. Made a loop that ended up being just shy of 50 miles surveying the deeper parts of a Wilderness I had not yet been that far into.
Photos from the week:
Julieanne Kost is a Digital Imaging Evangelist and Director at Adobe. I know the name because her video tutorials taught me many of the basics of Adobe Photoshop many years ago. I never saw any of her photography work before tonight but WeAndTheColor had a link with her name on it recently and this paragraph or two is my earnest attempt to pay the kindness of stumbling onto it forward. Whether manipulating multiple images to create surreal or heavily processed dreamscapes, or playing with color and contrast in subtle ways to great effect, her work is refined, measured and worth consideration. (I would love to know what Minor White would say about these.)
If you have not clicked any links above, do yourself a favor by checking out her website. Her photography is impressive.
Also impressive is Mas Ergorov and his YouTube channel Advoko Makes. Max is a recently retired defense attorney from St. Petersburg who has some land in Karelia, Russia, “away from roads and people”, where he has built a log cabin using a chainsaw and hand tools. His channel is all about the making of that cabin, its steady improvement and other bushcraft tips and tricks on how to engineer in the woods, all alone with minimal equipment. Bushcraft YouTube it turns out is very interesting — and somehow, relaxing.
In a different corner of the world, Tolgahan Çoĝulu built a microtone guitar for his son using 3-D printed and other assorted Legos. (i love this)
Hearing him play Albeniz’s Leyenda — a song I’ve flirted with unsuccesfully for maybe 30 years?–and so well — on a fretboard made of Legos! — is kind of complicated for me. The man has chops.
Percival Everett sounds like an interesting guy who has done a lot of different things in his day. I’ve never read his books, but I do have an interest in his latest book(s) Telephone. Percival wrote three different versions which were published with no easy way to distinguish which version of the story any reader is actually holding. The publisher, true to this intent of the author, when sending advance copies to Award Committees and the like, sent the same committee members books at random virtually ensuring that the committee would not be discussing the same story. I have never been a part of a book club (with the exception of every class in college, ever) but I would probably like to sit in for something like that.
Speaking of unusual stories, did you hear the one about the 6 E-Bay executives and contractors who were charged this week for cyberstalking a couple who left bad reviews online? These geniuses were mad cuz words online and decided to expense flights to Boston, spend money on multiple hotel stays, rental cars and fund a whole smörgåsbord of stupidity in various strategies to harass this couple for weeks on end. They now face five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Finally, If you need a(nother) laugh:
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if i have to go in, i can at least bring a camera.
The Ferry Building, 12:20pm, Tuesday June 16, 2020
TransAmerica Redwood Park, 12:50, Tuesday June 16, 2020
Book Store, “open for business”, 12:25, Tuesday June 16, 2020
Patio seating, near Pier One, 12:35, Tuesday June 16, 2020
When I was finishing college, I was fairly certain that if I “went post-grad” I was going to study Ideological Distortion somewhere [at a more famous school] and continue down an academic rabbit-hole introduced to me by a professor who mentioned Karl Mannheim’s work to me once in a passing conversation. I was no doubt going to unlock the key to a politics of reason whereby each of us would be able to reckon together as rational people and affect policy decisions clear-eyed, level-headed and free from the burdens required to maintain membership within a political group. As a result of this scholarship, partisanship would falter, talk radio would have become more civil, cable news would become downright scholarly, disingenuous paid political advertising would come to naught, citizens–armed with more signal and less noise–would become increasingly knowledgeable, mastering broader domains, more deeply, and a new era of civic engagement would flourish. A political Rennaisance to remake the world.
Basically, because of my research papers.1
So it is 2020 and I did not go to graduate school. I did not write those papers. I did inadvertently retain the interest in these same types of ideas however: Ideological Distortion. Motivated Reasoning. Cognitive Dissonance. (‘social reasoning’ and ‘identity-based reasoning’ lately)
Probably as a coping mechanism though–assuming it was not always thus.
My longest-running, most consistent topics of interest center around finding ways to explain why otherwise intelligent and rational people arrive at precisely the wrong decision – and why really smart people steadfastly believe in nonsense.2, 3 Particularly after exposure to evidence that contradicts their belief. And–most importantly– in a way that allows for the possibility that they are just wrong — and not malicious.
Wrong you can work with; the inimical is different kettle of fish altogether.
And since we are stating the obvious here, the problem of maliciousness does seem to appear to be surging of late, no? A sort of Age of Malevolence is upon us — ushering forth disinformation, trolling, gaslighting, conspiracy theory, lies, etc., at unheard of levels. Meanwhile, a negative politics is simultaneously ascendent–folks less interested in what the best outcomes might be just so long as the other group “loses.” The problems aren’t getting any easier: Syria, Antibiotic resistance, Global Warming and Sea Level Rise, Sustained Racial Inequalities and Subsequent Unrest, Habitat loss, Extinction, Sustained Economic Disparity (and its inevitable unrest), Pandemics, Nuclear proliferation, a lack of Global Leadership — all while this politics adds to our troublesome millieu.
May we[sic] live in interesting times.
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I’m probably not going to be writing too much in the near short term. Obviously there is a lot happening at the moment and I am tending to think reading more than I write is probably the best thing I can do.
I do know enough however to unequivocally write Black Lives Matter. I also plainly see the very legitimacy of many police departments across the country coming under further scrutiny– or even just the simple observations–of their own actions. I also feel that radical change — through the political process even — is not just justified, but is probably inevitable in many places at this point.
The pandemic also continues.
PLAYLIST LINK: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/18AgmCmRwjJawbY4Zs5rtm?si=k6A8QCR-T2a4upv8WAbKLQ
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A lot of chatter in the pundit class has arisen concerning Biden’s campaign being conducted while social distancing–“from a basement” is how I read some of the worried commentary.
I’ll just say that as long as the central issue in the election is about trump’s performance in office, Biden could basically do this from the pool.
When all you have to do is roll footage, it makes it kind of easy. Obviously it is a long way to November, but the poll numbers don’t look good for the incumbent.
Month’s end. New playlist for the month is now public. I was just going through it and feeling a bit melancholic about the passing of John Prine, specifically, and an ever-growing and ongoing catastrophe claiming tens of thousands of other Americans. And wondering if music is a coping mechanism or just escapist – and then contemplating the distinction. and wondering if I only think in terms of Americans dead because practically, it seems like our country is too far away from agency and initiative to make a difference outside its own borders – that many of its institutions cannot even act effectively or prudently inside their own jurisdictions. maybe their leaders are makng playlists. mourning songwriters. coping. escaping. It bothers me.
April was a rough couple of years. It came on the heels of a month that saw the supposed “greatest economy the world has ever seen” exposed for the hollow, precarious and brittle beast that it is. Equity markets giving back every fucking cent they made since the Cheeto was elected clown. And then today folks are talking about how April was ‘the greatest month the market has had since…”
63,871 (US) deaths from the virus at this moment. If 9/11 happened 21 days in a row, the death toll from the virus would still be higher. If you counted every job that existed in Alaska, Connecticut, Nevada, Hawaii, West Virginia, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Utah, Kansas, Vermont, Oklahoma, Arkansas, New Mexico, Wyoming, Maine, Oregon, New Hampshire and Kentucky – that would total 27 million jobs. 30 million jobs have been lost since February. Roughly 1 in every 5. Nero, watching Fox as Rome burns.
So like – lament, grieving is in order I suppose. But then there’s tons of countervailing points of reference that keep me from despair/despondency. Tonight, just before I started writing this, I saw a friend from college ask for advice online to help keep his two daughters (5 & 8) engaged as they learn music (guitar). And tons of people responded. Everyone wanted to help. And even if no one did, THE IDEA that in some house in the neighborhood of Riverside or Avondale or wherever holmes lives these days, has two little humans who are going to struggle with one-string versions of Black Sabbath tunes or Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star or something, and then eventually get it — and then think they’re hot shit for a quick minute — I’m not saying that’s priceless; i’m saying its worth a lot to me, just to know its there. And there is tons of that, everywhere – and i think it is kind of weird and completely, utterly illogical that stuff like that gives me courage and gives me hope, but it kind of does. Minus the kind-of. Away from the flourescents of the ICUs, there’s still a lot of beauty in the world — and inspiration too.
-s.
in 1967 David Hollander was at RCA studios with his camera, recording Nina Simone as she recorded Nina Simone Sings the Blues. Three shots below, more at the link.
This is Day 44 of physical distancing. My guess is there are about 440 more to go before vaccines are available for Coronavirus.
Yesterday I made dough; today I made bread:
It came out fine. I also have some sourdough starter that is getting off the ground and looking for some of that sweet Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis I’m told is everywhere.
Next weekend, perhaps a sourdough loaf will be on order.
Since I’ve been taking screenshots for a while, just a reminder below that on March 26th, one month ago, there were 1,124 Americans dead and 80,000 confirmed cases. Today, the number of deaths exceed 55,341 with close to a million cases confirmed in the US. For context, the Korean War resulted in 33,686 US combat deaths.
We still have no serious federal response leading to the prospect of rapid and sustained testing, and instead we just have some voices being louder than others clamoring for their own economic interests and the health of The EconomyTM amid feckless ignorance coming from the White House. I periodically assume there is going to be a significant political reckoning for such a dramatic failure of public health policy, but then I ask myself where the evidence is to support such an idea is, and…
Switching back to music: The presentation of J.S.Bach as a rule-breaking hacker by Kathleen Kajioka is both compelling and convincing and I would encourage a listen:
I don’t know that much about Bach, but I do see this trend he has of periodically slipping in phrases that simply do not fit. When I was learning the first prelude to The Well-Tempered Clavier, for example, there are a few bars where I was certain “that can’t be it” — that I’d misread the notes (which would be very easy for me). It just sounds wrong. Bars 22 and 23 in particular are just sort-of affronts to the calm (predictable?) harmony of the bars before it–except for the ones that were perhaps softening the listener up (maybe bars 8 & 12). What sounds wrong as a stand alone bar ultimately gets folded in successfully. But there is no reason for it. Other than ‘cuz. So much is ‘Haydn’ and then there are the components that make it unmistakably Bach. Anyhow – I had never focused on this harmonic subterfuge by Bach before, and found the idea compelling.
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Years back some folks bought a no-name guitar from Elderly Instruments for $100. It was a shit guitar. Fucking horrid by sight. But it was passed around. Nels Cline played it. Alex Skolnick played it. Matt Wilson, a jazz drummer, played it. All manner of folks who were open to it, had their run with the thing and recorded a song with the guitar. It resulted in the $100 Guitar Project: a collection of 51 songs at this point, all from a janky abomination.
The six-stringed atrocity travelled over 30,000 miles according to this NPR piece, and I’m working through the list of folks who contributed, looking for bodies of work I can identify with because openness to that sort of project seems like as great a gate-keeping device as I can imagine for identifying folks who produce a particular type of music I’m interested in.
Which is half of how I stumbled onto:
Ava Mendoza is my favorite artist I’ve discovered this week. (my GOD ! who makes an entire song out of artificial harmonics?!?) I guess she used to be from here (Bay Area) but is in Brooklyn now working with an outfit she is calling Unnatural Ways. Much of my week has inovled checking them out. Their bass player, Tim Dahl, is incredibly interesting as well, but I haven’t pulled that sweater string just yet.
This was beautiful. It was apparently filmed in temperatures below 20’F (and as the footage shows, there was a bit of a gale) but I’m glad they did it.
A guitarist I’ve seen a couple of times, and am always interested in, was apparently reunited with a guitar he cut his teeth on as an early musician, after pawning it 37 years earlier. A really charming story is unravelled in this video interview with Bill Frisell. One of the really great aspects of the story is how just the act of sharing seemingly trivial information with one’s friends and aquaintances can end up producing such amazing outcomes.
finally:
“If people saw this, they would stay home.” What the war against the coronavirus looks like inside two Bronx hospitals. Opinion by Nick Kristoff, Video by Alexander Stockton, Zach Goldbaum and Michael Kirby Smith.
griff.works 
