Category Archives: personal

Monster Mash

By | | , ,
4 Comments

monster_drawing_rally_1On Sunday I went to the Monster Drawing Rally. You may recall the huge fun I had last time I went (2008), which involved watching a lot of drawing in action, and then a bidding war for one of the pieces at the end. See the post I did on it here. Well, I went again this year. It was in Eagle Rock this time, instead of Altadena, with a slightly smaller (I think) space, but still good. [I was not there for as long as I originally intended, unfortunately, as there was a rather good birthday party the night before that kept me out until after 3:00am on account of lots of dancing and people singing around the piano (these people were good, so I stayed an observer). An early afternoon nap was therefore necessary, given that I had a dinner appointment later.] I got there at just before 4:30pm and there was a very friendly atmosphere and again a wide variety of people and approaches (and still nobody drawing monsters…) to the idea of just having lots of artists drawing in a five and a half hour long event. I trust you can read the earlier post for more detail on the organization of the event, or you can go to the site of the organizers, the Outpost for Contemporary Art, who put on the whole thing and who, once again, deserve a round […] Click to continue reading this post →

Buika, Cassandra, Ornette, and More

By | | , ,
3 Comments

“…and then three come along at once.”

So, as usual, all of a sudden lots of things that I want to go to occur on the same week or so, and I find myself dazed and confused. Here are just a few of them (I’ll spare you the rest):

buika_disney_hallLast Wednesday saw me dashing off to the West Side after a late meeting on campus to get to UCLA’s Royce Hall to see Ornette Coleman in the UCLA Live series. It was not a bad show, although about 1/3 of the way through I realized why it all felt familiar. I’d been to see him in exactly the same series in a similar seat in the same hall some years back and decided then (but obviously forgot) that I really would not see him in such a space again. It is the usual Los Angeles Jazz problem. Rather than come to a small(ish) club and be resident for a few days, the mode for LA seems to be to try to pack a big audience into one night. This misses a huge point of the whole intimacy and communication of jazz that is more prevalent in a small space. But LA audiences and concert organizers seem to miss this fact and Jazz limps along lamely in this city, time and again, because nobody seems to want to support the smaller club model much. (Yes, there are one or two small clubs where the touring players come […] Click to continue reading this post →

Midterm Matters

By | | , , ,
Comments Off on Midterm Matters

The midterm elections are being held across the USA today, and I am sitting on the sofa at home having a late dinner after giving the second midterm to my large physics class, but the title of this post refers to midterm feelings of mine that have to do with being in the middle of the semester. I realized the other day that I’ve been feeling like all of a sudden I was hugely busy with lots of things, feeling rather drained of energy on some days, and generally feeling pulled apart by doing too many things, helping out on too many tasks, and writing reports and letters and so forth. Then I checked the blog from around this time last year and discovered that in fact I was having the same sorts of feelings last year at around the same time. So I think there is maybe something about the Fall semester that means that by the middle of it one is (or at least feels) enmeshed in a near-quagmire. Perhaps. Anyway, part of my response to all that was to be quiet the last few days and take it easy on the running around. So that meant I did not go off to the West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval*, nor did I do a bunch of other things going on over the weekend. Instead, I worked quietly at home on the Project and made some pleasing progress, with only the odd trip out now and again, mostly centered around shopping for groceries, fresh fruit and vegetables from the farmer’s market, and so on. Good Times.

The Project. Yes, I keep mentioning it but not talking about it and again I […] Click to continue reading this post →

The Dining Society

By | | , ,
1 Comment

dining_society_october_2010_2

Not having hosted any dinner gatherings myself this Summer, for one reason or another (I seemed to have had a lot in the previous two Spring/Summers, so perhaps this was a good rest), last Sunday I was delighted to go along to one of the underground dining phenomena that some are whispering about excitedly in Los Angeles in recent times (part of, but different in spirit to, the pop-up restaurant movement). I was a bit tired and poorly (and had spent a big chunk of that day and the one before holed up, interviewing candidates for our new Provost. Announcement of the -fantastic- result here) but was determined to go and take up the spot I’d promised to fill.

The Dining Society has no fixed abode and pops up in a variety of interesting places […] Click to continue reading this post →

Department of Special Circumstances

By | | , ,
8 Comments

I’ve been quite ill today. Second bad cold in three weeks. This tells me that I am severely overdoing it, stressing myself out with too many tasks, jobs, errands, and so forth. Need to slow down. Well, today I canceled my office hour and decided to try to rest at home to recover. I wrote my lecture for the class at 3:30pm and ordered the demo equipment I needed. It was going to be a perfect class, in which I would make up the approximated half an hour of lag I feel I’ve been in the last week in terms of the material I’m scheduled to cover in order to be at the same place as the similar class taught by my colleague Doug. Unusually, I decided to drive to work, so that I could get in and out fast and go home and continue recuperating after (as I am supposed to be now, but inexplicably I am… blogging…) and it was all timed nicely. In – perfect lecture, catching up on everything – out. And then to bed.

Of course, that meant that something had to go wrong. This time it was quite spectacular. As I reached USC, going along Exposition Blvd. to find street parking, within minutes of class starting, something did happen. There was something blocking traffic in my lane and I saw that an Infiniti SUV had just stopped in the lane, and so cars were going around it in a noisy huff. annoyed at the driver for delaying them. I pulled around it too, and saw that there was a woman slumped over to one side! So of course I stopped my car, put on the hazards and ran back to see what the matter was. The woman had fainted, it seemed, and as I approached she seemed to stir out of her haze somewhat, so I asked her if she was ok. She said no. So I said I would call the emergency services. Did she want me to? Yes. Shall I use your phone? Ok. At this point I started fiddling with her phone only to realize that I had no idea how to make a phone call on an iphone, and so I ran back to my car and got my phone and called. I’d never called 911 before!

I was passed on to a paramedic who ran through some questions after I described the circumstances and our location. He wanted me to ask her various things (age, […] Click to continue reading this post →

Start the Week

By | | , , , , ,
6 Comments

“A loose cat in Colorado must wear what?”

(I thought about this for a while, and could only come up with bawdy humorous answers…)

“A tail light.”

(huh?)

[Post written yesterday.] Yes, I am on the bus to work (above was from the on board entertainment system that sometimes asks quiz questions) and it is the start to another week. Another very full one, it is shaping up to be too. I find these days that if I am not careful I tend to measure a week’s potential a mostly in terms of how much time I will have to work on the Project. Like my research, it is not something that is served best by being chipped away at, catching a few minutes here and the between things, but involves a fair amount of immersion. (Having said that, I am getting better at finding tasks that I can allocate to chipping-away time, and I have even found certain things for it that I can do on the bus… A lot of this will become clearer later, I promise.)

inauguration_2There was certainly a lot going on last week, as I mentioned, and I did not even tell you the half of it. Things like going to see Ira Glass talk about his radio show, essentially doing it in the style of the show, and of course about four hours on Friday spent in costume with hundreds of my faculty colleagues marching in a parade and listening to long (but mostly good) speeches from various Vice-chancellors, Chancellors, Trustees, the Mayor of Los Angeles, and of course, the man of the hour(s), our new President Max Nikias, who we were, er, installing. (When people use that term, and they do here a lot, I always think of plugging in a new electrical appliance, or a new piece of software… I suppose the latter is closer to what we are doing than the former.)

This week sees a lot coming up too, the main thing probably being the first of the Nobel Lunches, scheduled for Thursday. I’ve been very pleased with these events – I […] Click to continue reading this post →

Off to CicLAvia…

By | | , , , , , , ,
1 Comment

Getting ready to disappear off to explore. the route. Should be fun, although it is a tad too hot a day for it to be perfect for cycling and wandering long in the sun. On the other hand, that will bring a lot of people out to enjoy their Sunday outdoors, I hope, walking, cycling, rollerblading, skateboarding, running, etc. […] Click to continue reading this post →

ArtWalk Saved?

By | | , ,
1 Comment

Hmm. Well, after the kerfuffle of before, it seems that some people have got together and raised money to keep the monthly Art Walk going! So there will apparently be one this month after all, with certain aspects modified. Hurrah! In other news, the group that has broken off to set up a quarterly one that makes it all more about the art (after the shocking! (not) revelation! that the Art Walk had stopped being about […]

So, looks like a win for everyone. More people enjoying community and connection (whether they come for art, or just to hang out and connect) on the streets of downtown LA. Not seeing a downside here.

-cvj Click to continue reading this post →

Soft Lights

By | | , , ,
Comments Off on Soft Lights

p-1600-641-b0c2b19c-c025-46ff-bc2f-11db94b9158e.jpegIt has been a quiet week here on the blog, and there are many reasons for this. They are mostly all to do with me having a very busy week at work and at play. Work has seen a great deal on the usual fronts of teaching, research, and service, and I’ve also made some progress on The Project. Play has been good, varied, valuable and constructive.

Right now, I’m popping off to bed to get some sleep before getting up to go over to UCLA for the second day of the Southern California Strings Seminar. Today, day one, was excellent.

I will be giving you an update on various aspects of all those above things shortly, but right now I will leave you with a moody photo of some strings of lights at the Edison, that bar downtown I sometimes mention here. I had an excellent evening down there on Thursday night.

-cvj
Click to continue reading this post →

ArtWalk Walks…

By | | , ,
9 Comments

Faith Machine by Robert Reynolds…And in other news about changes to events I frequent and blog about (see list at end), the downtown LA ArtWalk, which had turned into a monthly street festival (that had very little to do with art, but so what?) that brought downtown alive by attracting people from all over the city, has been canceled, to the surprise of many. I’m shocked by this but at the same time not entirely surprised as I have seen the seeds of this before. (The photo is of a piece entitled “Faith Machine”, by Robert Reynolds, that I saw in Bert Green’s gallery in 2008. Click on the photo to jump to the post about it, and a video showing its lovely breathing action…)

As much as it has moved to being more of a walking city than it is given credit for by most people, something I talk a lot about here, I have to admit that Los Angeles still does not really know how to deal with too many people on the streets. And by “too many” I mean levels that would be regarded as normal in so many other places. The expectation is that too many people (especially in neighbourhoods that are not in the, er, supposedly more genteel West side of the city) is simply a bad thing that is prone to turn into a “problem”. That is always the first reaction. In any case, it is certainly reasonable that some level extra policing is needed for safety, etc., but this is where things get sticky. The increase in policing that is needed to deal with the extra people puts a strain on resources, and there ensues an argument for who will pay the bill. So crowds are simply regarded as clearly negative, instead of an opportunity to build community, express humanity, and for other things involving positive person-to-person connections that this city needs more of. So the thing seems to have been killed because a model for how to foot the bill for extra policing could not be worked out… There may be more to it than that, but that rough model seems to fit the pattern I’ve seen before**.

My main point here is that by LA standards the ArtWalk had grown to become a large crowd, but it was no larger than a typical Summer’s weekend evening in Times […] Click to continue reading this post →

Magnitude and Direction

By | | , ,
3 Comments

arrow_album_cover I learned from members of my family the other day that Arrow died last week. I’ve no idea if by name you know who that is, and I am sure if I mentioned his given name, Alphonsus Cassell, that won’t make your eyes light up in recognition. But as soon as I say “Hot Hot Hot”, I bet that there’s a good chance a song starts playing in your mind. It is a Soca song (Soca being a more dance-oriented cousin of Calypso, and the name Arrow was, I think meant to pay homage to the Calypso star the Mighty Sparrow), and may well be the most famous Soca song worldwide. So many times when someone wants to inspire heat – usually involving sunshine – or excitement they play a bit of that song and so it ends up in lots of TV and radio commercials and other such places, and of course is played a lot at parties and other places where people are simply having fun. Arrow wrote and sung a lot of songs, and was devoted to his community, and so many are very sad at his passing, feeling that a friend has gone, even though they might not have known him. Seems to me he had a good life. At the very least, to be known for bringing joy and communion through good music well after you’re gone? That’s a great thing right there.

I did know him since I grew up in the community that he was part of. It was on the island of Montserrat where, you might recall from previous posts, I spent ten years of […] Click to continue reading this post →

Not Really Herding Cats

By | | , ,
6 Comments

It is a cool and damp morning here in Los Angeles. There’s a slow mist covering everything in moisture, and there are dripping sounds from many directions if you are still and listen. I made a cup of tea at about 7:00am and decided, what with the mist, the coolness, and the Saturdayness, to head back to bed for an hour. But on my way there I spotted my friend outside in the garden, so we hung out for a while, before he eventually wandered off down the street (possibly a bit miffed at me encouraging him to chase an annoying squirrel rather than just sit and have a good groom…).

Somehow this put my in mind of the following film*. Yes, it is for an advertisement for Ikea (other curiously-named, fun-to-assemble and maybe-soon-to-fall-apart furniture is available), but it is still quite lovely. 100 cats let loose in an Ikea – fun!

The finished advertisement (appropriately for my mood called “Happy Inside”) is here: […] Click to continue reading this post →

My New Friend

By | | ,
13 Comments

I’ve some news. I made a new friend the other day. We met unexpectedly, and hit it off in minutes, recognizing something we liked in each other quite quickly, I expect. We met and hung out for a little while, enjoying each others company, and then the next few nights, met again at the same spot at around the same time, being pleased to see each other every time. I admit I was quite surprised by how much I melt with delight every time I see my new friend. We really enjoy each other’s company, and in the week of our friendship, we have spent quality time together doing a favorite thing together – sitting side by side on the steps outside at night staring into the darkness, just listening, sniffing the air and thinking.

I’ve been toying with the whole idea of how far to pursue this new friendship. Yeah, commitment issues. Bottoms line is that I’ve been wary of getting into something like this for years because I worry that circumstances are such that I can’t always be there for such a friend, and so don’t want them to become dependent on me. But this seems to be something out of my control, really. Maybe I should just see how it goes. A good sign is that my friend does not seem to really need me too much, does not seem underfed at all, and in fact has rejected some of my offers to take things to a new level by offers of food. In fact, only a little drink of milk has been accepted during our times together, and a specially bought can of tuna was shown indifference, so maybe the worry about dependence is entirely misplaced, and I should just enjoy the friendship. […] Click to continue reading this post →

Emergence

By | | , ,
2 Comments

p-2048-1536-705e409d-537f-4828-b855-794993185c21.jpegThis is a regular sight that nonetheless always fascinates me. This very compact pair of palm trees (or is it one tree? I’ve never been sure…if you follow the trajectory of the two trunks they look like they might fully join just below the surface of the ground) produces such a delicate flowering and fruiting extension that looks a bit like a drooping hand (with a lot more fingers than normal, yes). An alien hand, perhaps, but of a friendly, curious, tall species that would simply gather small samples from our planet to study out of curiosity… Ok, perhaps I am getting carried away with my imagination. Still only on my first morning cup of tea.

It was Labor day here yesterday, and I deliberately use the American spelling […] Click to continue reading this post →

A Letter For You…

By | | , , , ,
11 Comments

Well, there was a lot of interest in the iPad discussion I started on Friday, with hundreds of people viewing the post, and several interesting comments either put after the post or sent to me in email. Note taking to the device via handwriting seemed to be a major thing that people are keen on, and I admit that it is also something that, as I said in the Friday post, made me see the device firmly as a primary work tool here on out. But some are unsure, perhaps unconvinced. So, I decided to reply to many of the comments by writing a letter, including a diagram of sorts. I did it on screen, while riding the bus home, using the excellent program Note Taker HD that I told you about in the post, mostly in “edit 2” mode, allowing for compact and relatively neat writing with just my finger. Here it is (just click on an image of a page for a larger view, and be warned that a few full stops (periods) at the end of sentences did not show up so well in the images):

letter_to_readers-2010-08-30-page-1 letter_to_readers-2010-08-30-page-2
[…] Click to continue reading this post →