Fela Kuti/Jack Bruce/Ian Anderson/Eberhard Schoener

Phil Lesh

I was saddened today to hear of Phil Lesh's passing. 

I happen to think that the Grateful Dead member was the greatest and most inventive bass player I have ever heard.

I can remember being in a taxicab in New York in 1969 and telling the cab driver how much I liked Jack Casady's playing and him telling me that I ought to hear a guy named Phil Lesh.

And when I did, I was hooked and I had to admit that he was right. So started a musical journey that has taken up the great majority of my life,

I met Phil several times but the most memorable event was when he wandered into my hotel room after a show in Fresno in January of 1978. We stayed where the band stayed in those days and several girls that were hanging out in my room were friends with Phil. Maybe Carol, Marla or one of the twins, Theresa? 

There was a tall curly haired fellow as well. We were puffing doobs and listening to tapes and discussing the night's music when Phil came in the door. He sat down on the bed and wanted to know what tape we were listening to and took some notes for further perusal. I remember him listening to and evaluating the show quite intensely.

We got him very stoned on North County red hair and I remember him finally laughing and shaking his head and saying, "No more." Might have been drinking a Heineken. 

In any case, the most memorable thing for me was when I recounted to him how I had been falsely arrested and beat up by undercover cops at a dead concert at the Shrine Auditorium the previous year. Cost me a lot of money and  bruises, for just trying to have a good time at a concert.

And I remarked to Phil that he was probably not interested in anything political. And he looked me straight in the eye and said, "Everything we do is political."

I will never forget that.

He was brilliant in every way and a true artist. My next meeting with him, at an airport in Portland did not go nearly as well, me failing to respect his boundaries. I was an idiot that day and he was tired and never one to suffer fools gladly and he let me have it.

Not sure we ever talked again after that, we may have. But it doesn't matter if we did or we didn't. Phil Lesh was an artist and a man of integrity and his contributions to our musical lexicon will never be forgotten. Like all of the dead, I want to thank them for being who they were and providing us so many damn good times.

Come back to old Santa Fe

Evi(L)Core is denying your insurance claims

I know several people who have been facing major end of life issues and been denied tests that their doctors say that they need to provide in order to survive. 

It is heartbreaking and the patients often no longer have the strength to fight. 

And it is not like humans are making these end of life decisions, apparently algorithms are running the show.

This company is helping insurance companies deny life saving coverage, EviCore.

...insurance companies don’t always make these decisions. Instead, they often outsource medical reviews to a largely hidden industry that makes money by turning down doctors’ requests for payments, known as prior authorizations. Call it the denials for dollars business.

The biggest player is a company called EviCore by Evernorth, which is hired by major American insurance companies and provides coverage to 100 million consumers — about 1 in 3 insured people. It is owned by the insurance giant Cigna.

A ProPublica and Capitol Forum investigation found that EviCore uses an algorithm backed by artificial intelligence, which some insiders call “the dial,” that it can adjust to lead to higher denials. Some contracts ensure the company makes more money the more it cuts health spending. And it issues medical guidelines that doctors have said delay and deny care for patients.

Hope there is a special room in hell for these bastards.

Hillsborough Antique Show

 

It's your voodoo working

Dong Kingman watercolor - Church in the hills, Mexico

This is the other painting I bought out of New York. It was painted by the great San Francisco watercolorist Dong Moy Chu Kingman (1911-2000) in 1962. Quite large, a full sheet 22 x 30" plus mat and frame. 

Kingman was arguably the greatest of the Bay Area watercolorists and one of the most acclaimed in the world. Here is an abridged bio from Askart:

Born in Oakland, CA on March 31, 1911. When Kingman was five, his family moved to Hong Kong where he grew up and attended Lingnan Grammar School. The headmaster of the school, Szetu Wei, had studied painting in Paris and recognized his budding artistic talent. For several years he trained young Kingman in both oriental and occidental approaches to painting. Returning to San Francisco in 1929, Kingman became active in the local art scene and began painting scenes of the city. His first solo show at the San Francisco Art Center in 1936 brought immediate recognition. During the 1930s he spent five years working on commissions for the Federal Public Works of Art Project. During WWII he created maps and charts for the O.S.S. After the war Kingman settled in NYC and taught at Columbia University. His paintings were used as backdrops for the movie "Flower Drum Song" and his watercolors were reproduced in Life and on the covers of Fortune and Holiday magazines. Kingman died in NYC on May 12, 2000. Member: American WC Society; NA (1951). Exh: SFMA Inaugural, 1935; Vallejo Public Library, 1935; Calif. WC Society, 1935-44; San Francisco Art Association, 1936 (1st prize); GGIE, 1939; San Diego FA Gallery, 1943; De Young Museum, 1945 (solo); County Fair (LA), 1949; Philadelphia WC Club, 1950 (medal); NAD, 1975 (gold medal). In: MM; SFMA; Boston Museum; Delaware Museum; Whitney Museum (NYC); MOMA; CHS; Brooklyn Museum; De Young Museum; San Diego Museum; Mills College (Oakland); AIC; NAD; Butler Art Inst. (Columbus, OH); Wilmington (DE) Society of FA; Toledo (OH) Museum; Dartmouth College; U.S. State Dept; Addison Gallery (Andover, MA); Evansville Museum.

Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
Interview with the artist or his/her family; Who's Who in American Art 1940-70; California Art Research, 20 volumes; The Watercolors of Dong Kingman by Alan Gruskin; SF Chronicle, 5-16-2000 (obituary).

The watercolor also has an interesting story. 

The 1963 receipt for the painting from Wildenstein listed the title as "In the Buddhist Temple, Peking." 

Now I looked at these buildings and said, "No way is that Peking, that is Spanish architecture."

I sent pictures to various watercolor experts that I knew and the most knowledgeable one said that it could be Peking, Kingman tended to paint whatever he wanted to paint, however fanciful. 

And he was there in 1963, the date of the receipt.

Still I had my doubts.

I sent pictures to my friends in San Francisco, asking if there was a temple there with similar structures. 

Looks like it could be San Francisco. Nope, two temples there, nothing like it.

When I received the painting last week I took it out of frame and on the back was inscribed the title, Church in hill (sic), Mexico. L142 with the four scratched out to a three or vice versa.

This added to the mystery. I called the seller back in New York and asked if it was possible that her father had bought two paintings instead of one? She said no, that they had gone to dinner with the artist and only bought the one piece.

I sent a picture to the incredible art sleuth and all around smart guy Richard Pettler in the East Bay. Lawyer, art dealer, very bright guy.

He called me back the night before last with this information and a theory. 

He told me that the painting is actually from Guanajuato, Mexico. 

Kingman did a workshop there in May of 1962. 

The buildings check out, the Basilica of our lady.

Pettler found a painting from the very same vantage from one of Kingman's students, a female artist from Fresno. 

She had attended a workshop with the artist in Guanajuato in 1962.

Here was his theory; the receipt for the painting was May of 1963 but payment was not made until June sometime. The Chinese painting was In the Buddhist temple, an interior and probably not as visually interesting. Guy buys it, goes home, wife hates it, they trade it in for a landscape two months later.

Which sounds good and plausible. But I ran it by the owner's daughter and she said it never happened. So I am stuck with a conundrum or in this case, a Chinese puzzle.

Which means I will probably never figure this one out.

Oh, well...

The Cure

Pictures from you.

Ted in Hawaii sent a note and some cool pictures along.

Last Night was so Beautiful up on Koke'e/Mana Ridge which overlooks the NaPali Coast below and a gorgeous view of Niihau and Lehua. As the sky darkened the comet A3 started to visualize as my eyes adjusted. Can still see it with the naked eye, but the camera is the way to go to capture the essence of this part of our universe. Here are nine pictures in sequence, spanned about an hour and a half. So lucky that the clouds which prevailed by Kekaha side stayed away most of the time. Bright Venus and Comet A3, along with satellites and a few meteors, were a spectacle to see. Twas especially dark up there and I had to really watch my footing as the drop-off was right by my toes. 

Enjoy,

TED 

The top shot seemed familiar. Ted was a tour guide on Kauai and knows all the spots and he took us to some great places far off the normal road including this Nihau overlook. Kauai is my favorite place on earth and we have not been there in far too long. I sent Ted this picture I took way back when and he wrote back and told me that it was the exact same spot. Glad he didn't slip.

*

Mike Reardon and his girlfriend Liz are back from their trip to Botswana and he sends these wonderful photos for your pleasure and perusal.

 

Africa, another place I would like to get back to some day. 

Mike, these shots are too good not to watermark.

Memes the word

 

Move Over

Flim flam welcher

I was a contractor for a long time and one thing I hate is when people don't pay their bills and subs. I have seen too many innocent people broken by these predators. 

When my company was short, I busted my ass both to stay in touch and make sure everybody got paid eventually.

And they did.

One of the Presidential candidates this election is a total welcher who loves to rack up big bills and then use his financial position to squeeze people and renegotiate. 

He has a record of leaving cities across our country high and dry.

You never want to do business with this kind of person and you certainly wouldn't want them running your country.

More info here.

Gary Moore & Albert Collins - Cold Cold Feeling

The late Albert Collins was one of my favorite blues guitarists. It took me a while to get the late Gary Moore but he was truly special as well. Nice to hear them together here.

Ribeye

With a freezer full of a nice assortment of choice and prime rib eye steaks I can afford to experiment a little bit. 

Last night, my wife was going to a party that I had no interest in so the day before yesterday I sort of covertly slipped one into the fridge to thaw in anticipation.

I wanted to try a new method, a slow cook and reverse sear. 

I placed garlic, rosemary sprigs and butter on top of the steak and let it roast.

 While I typically oven cook at 350 to 450 before my sear, pulling the beef out at 113 degrees or so, I cooked this one at 225. 

The recipe said 200 for an hour but my internal probe thermometer let me know I had reached the target temperature of 110 in a mere 18 minutes.

I pulled it out of the oven and onto the very hot cast iron griddle.

I then did a quick sear in butter and garlic for about three minutes total, sending the temp up to about 135 degrees.

I let it rest for about ten minutes before cutting into it.

It was at that point that I heard my wife come through the door. 

Something happened, the party never fired.

I would be sharing my steak, which was honestly a bit on the small side. 

Lucky me.

Now if you notice, there is no salad, no vegetables. 

I'm a guy.

They are helpful but not a requirement when men are eating alone. 

She usually makes a comment, last night I was spared for some reason.

By the way, I don't think this is the optimal way to cook a rib eye. 

Steak tastes a little too "roasty." 

Not as red as I like. 

Even though it tasted really good, I am going to go back to the old ways.

*

Next up: Pork chile verde.

Coronado Bathroom Window

I bought a cool painting out of New York.  An acrylic on canvas. A bathroom interior with a book and the counter with a bomb blast cover. 

The artist is Kathleen Marshall (b. 1950). She is known for diminutive interior scenes, usually painted in gouache. I have sold one other of her pieces, which was very small and got good money for it. 

You can see it here on my gallery website. I obtained it from Dixon. You can see more of her work here at Christopher Clark gallery in San Francisco, who now represent her. Her approach has changed somewhat over time. More here. Here is her bio from the site:

As one of only a few contemporary painters who work exclusively in gouache—an opaque, water soluble pigment that is notoriously difficult to master—Kathleen Marshall is somewhat of an anachronism in today’s art world. Often confused with tempera, gouache-like paints originated in ancient Egypt and Greece, and the medium’s rich history includes modern adherents like Henri Matisse, Jean Dubuffet, and Georges Rouault. Over time, gouache on illustration board became the industry standard for illustrators, designers, and comic book artists who valued its velvety finish, density, and saturated color. Present day use continues to be specialized.

Subject-wise, Marshall is best known for intimately scaled, meticulously rendered depictions of dimly lit, sparsely furnished room interiors commonly found in old European flats or homes. Often, the primary light source is a window or French doors flanked by heavy draperies. In her Cherche Midi series, verdant courtyards are visible through the glass. Though less common than her room interiors, Marshall also creates still lifes and figurative works.

Marshall earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in art history from the University of Santa Barbara, a Master’s degree in painting and drawing from San Diego State University, and, in 1982, a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of California, San Diego. By accident, in 1976, she discovered gouache paints at the venerable Bon Marché department store in Paris and spent years teaching herself to use them. The artist’s interest in somber, European-style room interiors, however, stems from childhood when she frequently visited her grandmother, an artist who managed an estate in Los Angeles. Marshall’s darkly evocative compositions are more than skilled renderings of rooms. “They are metaphors for life,” she says. “I paint interiors that I’m surrounded by and that speak to me.” Empty chairs, for example, are stand-ins for people, doors imply a vanished human presence, and views through windows suggest engagement with the outside world. In 1989 Marshall moved to France permanently, but frequently returns to her hometown of La Jolla.

(Mark Lugo, from 100 Artists, 100 Years:  A Century of Creativity in San Diego)

I don't know a lot about the artist but do know that she was connected to the Athenaeum in La Jolla for a good period of time and then moved to Avignon in France, where she continues to paint. Perhaps she lived in Coronado for a spell as well. Somehow I tracked her email down years ago and we had a brief correspondence.

In any case, a women in her eighties in New York contacted me recently and asked me if I would be interested in buying her piece, which she had bought from the Hank Baum Gallery at the New York Art Expo in 1981. I said that I would and we came to terms and I made arrangements for shipping.

But I could not believe the size of the thing. 

This artist is known for postcard size work. This measures 48 x 60". Not sure how to price it?

The work is signed and dated 1981 verso. Started in June of 1980 and finished in October the following year.

There was a little drama as the day it was to be picked up I received a note from the artist that she believed it actually was a small work and that someone must have copied it and made a print or put it on canvas.

Based on that knowledge I cancelled the sale at 4:30 a.m..

But an hour later I got another note from Kathleen, she had found a slide and her notes confirmed that the 4 x 5' size was accurate and that the signature version was indeed hers.

Yippee, I hurriedly put the deal back together, the shipper picked it up the following day and now I have it in my shop.

And I really like it, it is more vague than the later stuff and that appeals to me. She sent me another note:

Wow that is a big one.  I started out working really big but have no idea where any of those paintings are now.  So seeing this one was quite a surprise.

The title would have been something like “Coronado Bathroom window” because I almost always use descriptive titles.

 I remember doing a smaller version of that painting without the nuclear blast. 

Thank you for sending the photo….fun to see.

Kathleen

So everything works out beautifully.  The seller is happy, the artist is happy and I am happy. And someone will hopefully buy it one day and be happy too.

The fun never stops

As John Donne so aptly put it way back in 1624, the bell eventually tolls for all of us. 

This clod that you are reading will bee washed away by the sea one day too, like everybody else. 

You get to a point in your life where the calendar pages fly by and suddenly you are old one day and have to ask yourself, how the hell did that happen?

I measure weeks by Mondays, the day the trash cans come out to be picked up and then come back again, it seems like there is practically no in between any more, what is happening to the rest of the week?

In any case, with age, comes entropy and mechanical failure. I have two friends that got new hips in the last week or so, both by Dr. Knudson. 

Hopefully they will feel better soon and it will relieve them of the hitch in their giddy up.

My arthritis is certainly on the wax. My wife has to open certain jar tops for me. 

We sit on the floor and play cards at night, My feet go numb and after a long session, I creak and stutter getting up like the tin man on a rusty bender. Knees, hips, feet, it is quite the sight.

Of course I will be sixty seven in about sixteen days or so and such discomfort is supposed to come with the territory. Once I am up and moving and get some grease back in the joints, things start to feel a lot better.

*

My automobiles are feeling the same sorts of grief as my body, only in dog years. Both my Mazda and the ProMaster are 2019's. Five years old and mechanical things like to start breaking. I took my van in for a service and they told me that I had a radiator leak.

They pressure tested it and it was not a hose, it was a seam split, where the plastic meets the metal. An unnatural marriage if there ever was one. I had been smelling something amiss for some time but it was staying cool and I paid it no further attention.

But I have a trip to Palm Springs and then one to San Francisco scheduled and I really didn't need the thing blowing at an inconvenient time. So I spent the gelt this week and had it fixed.

Now my mechanic told me that it was not an easy job, at least four hours. Truth was, he told me it took all day. They had to take the entire bumper off to get to it and it was sort of a bitch, even after watching the YouTube how to do it video.

He called me about three and told me that the hose attachments to the radiator are plastic and have a klugey German seal and spring inside and that they tend to break and that I might as well change those out too or risk going through the whole business again. Ram followed the German Sprinter model on this. 

I told him to go ahead, it's only money that I am short of right now, another $275 for new hoses. Whole thing ran about $1475 with tax.

It's been a pretty trouble free van, shouldn't bitch too much. Same thing happened to Bill with his ProMaster, they build these parts to fail nowadays.

I got an art delivery from Shlomo, my New York shipper on Friday. He has the fancy Mercedes model witht he custom cab. Said he had the same radiator problem and didn't change the hoses and they broke three times in quick succession before he got wise and threatened the dealer with a lawsuit. They fixed it. 

I was going to put new brakes on the Madza, he thinks he can save the rotors if we do it soon. Needs two more tires too. But the van takes precedence for now with shows coming up.

*

Take care of yourselves and each other. This election thing will pass, somebody will be pissed off and we will all find a way to survive. May the best woman win.

Goodby Ginger

Yesterday evening, Leslie and I attended a lovely Irish wake for Ginger, a friend and neighbor who has been ailing for some time.

We toasted her at sunset and it was a beautiful sunset at that.

There was good food and a wonderful musician named Paul, who played a variety of instruments and has played with both the Chieftains and Flogging Molly, not quite sure of his name. Castellanos?

Ron and Ginger's adobe ranch was beautiful, filled with relatives and close friends.

This wake was done right. I had a sip of red wine, Leslie had an ice cold Guinness, said that it tasted terrific.

Quite a family those Allison's, top to bottom.

Pentangle

Evening snapshots from the ranch

 

Turn the World Around

Toasted orzo risotto with wagyu beef and marinated artichoke hearts

I was feeling adventuresome this afternoon after a morning paying stray bills and I decided to make my first orzo risotto.

As usual, I took what I considered the best of three or four different recipes and made it up as I went along.

I took my heavy skillet, heated up some avo oil and cooked a nice packet of ground wagyu beef I had bought at Grocery Outlet.

 Seasoned to taste.

I removed it to a bowl after it was sufficiently cooked.

I then toasted panko and crunched up croutons and toasted them in the same pan. 

I put them in a bowl and added a heaping helping of lemon zest and then stirred it all up for my topping. Put that bowl aside.

I pulled out my Le Creuset Dutch oven (or French oven as Kent correctly calls it) and added olive oil and garlic as well as red pepper flakes and cooked them down for a couple minutes. 

Added a little onion powder. 

When that was cooked I added a cup and a half of orzo and toasted it for about four minutes over medium heat.

You want them to get to various shades of golden brown.

I added two cups of chicken broth and then stirred the pasta continuously for about ten minutes. 

When it was nice and getting creamy I added back the beef, marinated artichoke hearts that I had quartered, a healthy dose of shaved parmesan and fresh chopped parsley. 

I gave it a nice stir, adjusted my seasoning and added the crunchy topping and a squeeze of lemon.

I was going to put sun dried tomatoes in but couldn't find them in our overstuffed fridge. 

No big.

I think dinner was a success. 

Some versions call for hot Italian sausage instead of the beef, I am sure that would be excellent too.

My wife came home from an evening putting campaign signs out after work. The table was set and she sat down to a nice meal that she really enjoyed! Onward and forward!

Jean-Luc Ponty

Greetings from Oort

My buddy Wilbur Norman in Santa Fe is an antique dealer who is also an excellent photographer and photo tour leader who goes all over the world to the coolest locations. Apparently he is about 100,000 years old but he still looks really good for his age.

He sent this email last night:

Hello All!

Most of you probably know there has been a comet from the Oort Cloud lingering around the neighborhood: 

C-2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. It was viewed at Purple Mountain Observatory (Zijinshan Astronomical Observatory) in China on 9 January 2023. Then detected on 22 February 2023 by the ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System ) telescope in South Africa. 

It last appeared 80,000 years ago and, sadly, tho I saw it, I lacked an intellectual understanding of it as I was in my migrating (yet again) out-of-Africa, early Homo sapiens and Homo floresiensis; Homo neanderthalensis; Denisovan phase.

here is a 5-pic stacked image.

Keep Looking Up!

Wilbur

Graham Parker - Get Started, Start a Fire

Modern Artistes

I loved the story a few weeks back about the Museum elevator operator in Holland who threw out two painted cans because he thought that they were trash and it turned out they were artwork. Like, who knew?

A lift technician at a museum in the Netherlands mistakenly threw away a piece of artwork made to look like two empty beer cans.

“All the good times we spent together” by French artist Alexandre Lavet may look like it belongs in a trash can at first glance, but closer inspection reveals it is in fact “meticulously hand-painted with acrylics, with each detail painstakingly replicated,” the LAM Museum said in a statement earlier this month.

“For the artist, the cans symbolise cherished memories shared with dear friends,” added the statement from the museum, which is based in the town of Lisse, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Amsterdam.

“While evenings spent enjoying drinks may seem trivial in the grand scheme of things, they ultimately embody precious moments of connection.”

The worker, who the museum said was covering for the regular technician, could perhaps be forgiven their error given the fact that the beer cans were displayed in a glass lift shaft, as though they were left behind by construction workers.

I read a story like this and it just reaffirms the utter stupidity of the lion's share of what passes for modern art today.

A cynical con job, devoid of artistic merit, craftsmanship or vision, the sheer vapidity is overwhelming. Thankfully, this great artistic masterpiece was rescued from a trash bag and re-installed.

I think the art market today is controlled by the hedge funds and speculators. The work is largely terrible and has been for a long time. Koons, Scharf, Hirst, Warhol, Banksy, the majority of the work is total shit, in my humble opinion.  I think you can thank people like Eli Broad for perpetuating this fraud and the emperor's ugly new clothes.

I used to exhibit at the FADA show in Los Angeles and I saw these ninety day wonders arrive on the scene that could barely hold, let alone load a a brush and whose work was singularly dreadful. The kind you find in Miami and Basel, I suppose. 

But the upper class, whose taste tends to run in reverse proportion to their pocketbook in some perverse hydrostatic equation, are titillated by bad art and have been for a very long time. 

Of course, not all non objective abstraction is terrible, some of it was and is great but there's not a lot left to be done in that particular arena so we are now back to painting cans, I suppose. Thiebaud, a man of integrity who never stopped trying to improve his craft and push his personal boundaries concerning light, color and shadow, was, in my opinion, the last great modern artist and he has now passed.

We no longer have artists trying to create masterpieces like Vermeer, Titian, Thiebaud or Hopper, instead we have a bunch of idiots taping bananas to walls and painting soda cans.

*

I was at a wealthy relative's home in Texas when he showed me his new photo, it cost a fortune, many thousands. It showed a man cutting a very valuable piece of apparel with a chainsaw. "Isn't it wonderful," he asked me. I was dumbfounded, didn't know what to say, totally lost on me this forty thousand dollar photograph. Perhaps if I was rich it would have made more sense?

*

Which reminds me of a story.

About thirty years ago, my late brother Buzz and I, on a whim, decided to visit the La Jolla Contemporary Museum of Art.

A janitor had accidentally left a broom leaning against a wall. 

I decided to take the bait and playing docent, delivered a twenty minutes dissertation on the utter beauty of the artist's creation, the sheer deliciousness of the juxtaposition of the diagonal form in tangency to the white wall and blah, blah, blah.

A security guard finally figured out that I didn't have the proper badge and ushered us out. But I really had them going for a while. Drew myself a nice little crowd.

When I last did FADA, an L.A. dealer, I think it might have been Rutberg, a terrific guy and great marketer, had a pile of rocks delivered and spread on the floor of his booth.

"Jack" I says, "Who in their right mind is going to buy this rock crap?" This creation of some flavor of the week South American artist.

Joke was on me, the beaming and venerable art dealer sold the thing out.

What the hell do I know?

Guess I am not cut out for this modern art business. Too hard to keep a straight face.

*

I ventured down this rabbit hole of thought after Robin posted this story on Linked In. Banksy's former agent is really taking some credit. Did you know that Banksy made it okay for ordinary people to like art?

“Banksy, myself, and a couple of others, set up a company called Pictures On Walls and we really wanted to make cheap affordable art for the masses,” Mr Lazarides said.“For a very short moment in time we made a difference, we made it okay for ordinary people to like art… It’s by far the proudest thing I’ve done. And by far the most powerful thing I think he’s done.”

Like, who knew? 

Palm Springs Modernism 2024, Fall Edition

 

More info here.

Holst: The Planets, Op. 32: I. Mars, the Bringer of War

Robot Killers

 

Should we allow AI weapons to decide when and who to kill?

The U.S. does not ban companies from making fully autonomous lethal weapons nor does it explicitly ban them from selling such things to foreign countries. Last year, the U.S. released updated guidelines for AI safety in the military that have been endorsed by many U.S. allies and requires top military officials to approve of any new autonomous weapon; yet the guidelines are voluntary (Anduril said it is committed to following the guidelines), and U.S. officials have continuously said it’s “not the right time” to consider any binding ban on autonomous weapons. 

Lancelot Link and the Evolution Revolution - Magic Feeling

Banana walnut scones with a maple glaze and chocolate chips for the wife.

It's a semi lazy Sunday and I decided to bake some scones before I tackle making dinner tonight. I asked Leslie if she wanted blueberry cranberry again and she yawned, said I should come up with something new.

I get it, I was just wanting to use up the frozen blueberries in the freezer and save myself a trip to the store. But it got me to thinking; I have made a lot of scones, peach scones, nectarine scones, ginger scones, apple scones, strawberry scones, cranberry scones, blackberry scones, ollalaberry scones, raspberry scones, bacon scones, just what the heck was left?

And then it hit me, I had never made banana scones before. Did such a thing even exist? Actually, after looking, there are quite a few recipes for banana scones out there and many cooks say it is their best scone.  Evidently, people like bananas a whoIe bunch. I amalgamated two recipes I found that deviated substantially from anything I have ever made before.

I went to Northgate and bought two kinds of mini mexican banana, one called a burro, or donkey banana. I bought their bananas last week and they are super sweet and better than you can get at a gringo supermarket.

The recipe did not call for cream or half and half as it usually does and I substituted Greek yogurt. This was supposed to make it less runny. I added more flour and baking powder than usual.

I mashed the bananas with a fork and then added the egg, vanilla and yogurt with just a touch of cream and used my mixer to get it smooth, then popped the mixing bowl in the freezer while I worked the dry ingredients.

It also called for an extra tablespoon of the frozen butter which I grated into the dry mix after adding the walnuts. I omitted any white sugar and added two kinds of brown but kept it fairly light since my yogurt had honey in it.

I plopped it on my silicone sheet and started cutting out the scones, adding chocolate chips to Leslie's,  who is an unrepentant chocoholic. Popped it in the 375 oven for 22 minutes and voila!

I took a sautee pan and melted two tablespoons of butter and the rest of the pure maple syrup I had on hand, about a quarter cup. Need to restock or I will catch it from my spouse. I then whisked the bubbly mixture with confectioner sugar and drizzled it over my cooling scones.

I made thirteen but think round numbers sound better so I ate lucky # 13 to give the bake my seal of approval and make things square.

They are certainly delicious, the icing is killer. These will not last long. I am your banana mana.

Fractals and nature's complexity

It was the first really cold day of the year this morning. I welcome it. I wandered out to my garden to see what was up. 

There are some unusual and pretty blooms right now.

One of the bromeliad balensae is blooming, four months or so after the rest of them!

Or  should say, preblooming, because soon it will be sporting a magnificent peppermint colored spike!

Initially the interior leaves turn scarlet red.

One of my agaves is sporting a flower as well but I don't recall the spike being so hairy at the top before.

This should also be an interesting bloom when it unfurls.

Many of the things that grow at my ranch have interesting fractal patterns, perhaps that is why I love the agaves and aloes so much, being a lover of visual order and complexity?

I walked in the preserve this morning, was grokking the white sage when I caught my sneaker on a rock and hurtled forward, catching myself  in prone position before I suffered even a minor tragedy. 

But it was close.

Anyway, I was thinking how cool nature was, to have two white sages fifty feet apart from each other, one with broad leaves and the other thin. 

Same plant, same family.

But then again, you might have a brother or sister that is tall and brunette and you might be short and blond.

I have seen mountain lions almost black or chocolate brown and others that were tawny and pale.

Same wide variety in red tailed hawks.

One plant flowers in May the other says, hey, lets wait until October!

Nature is a trip!