motorhead - let it rock

Tuesday afternoon

 When all the English had tails.

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Ricardo sent this - Storytelling and PsyOps. I read Cordwainer Smith when I was a young man. A bit too real and prescient.

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Lena sends word of the Blue Rock Thrush up in Oregon.

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Cruella and Kristi - Petri

Thanks, Mel!

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A Nuanced view of Israel - Yair Lapid

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A Doctor at Cigna Said Her Bosses Pressured Her to Review Patients' Cases Too Quickly. Cigna Threatened to Fire Her. - Pro Publica

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Revealed: Tyson Foods dumps millions of pounds of toxic pollutants into US rivers and lakes.

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A couple thanked me today for turning them on to Renegade Nell on the Disney Channel. Leslie and I watched the last episode the other night and really hope that there is another season.

Historical fantasy is not everybody's bag but it does float our boat on occasion. This series is set in 1705 Tottenham England.

Disney + also has a great series on Octopus right now, check it out!

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This woke busybody babysitter was fired after telling the kids she was watching that their native American Halloween costumes were cultural appropriation.

Sad state of affairs when kids can't even play cowboys and Indians without some self righteous millennial spoiling all the fun.

Sounds mean but I am glad she lost her job. Next time m.y.o.b.

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Speaking of minding your own business. Kansas voters overwhelmingly voted for abortion rights but the GOP won't stop interfering in their decisions. 

Under the newly signed HB2749, abortion seekers will now have to answer a series of personal questions before undergoing the procedure, including questions asking them if they have been raped, if they have an abusive partner, and if the pregnancy is the result of incest. Reproductive rights advocates say the survey is overly intrusive and potentially traumatizing. 

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Columbia protesters demand juice and snacks.

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Weed Smoker's Dream, 1936

5150 Car Show - Harrah's Casino

My friend Jim is a jefe with the 5150 Ratrod Club. He invited me to come out and judge the car show yesterday at Harrah's Casino in Rincon. It was a beautiful and great day out there and there were a lot of wonderful cars and extremely nice people. Also a lot of very creative people, in all of the various shapes, sizes and shades.

One of the big draws was the valve cover races.

I don't have time to expound too much, got yoga in ten minutes so I will let the pictures do the talking.

I judged with Mike Lackey, Roy Costello and another guy whose name I didn't catch. 

We agreed on a lot of things but there were a whole lot of great cars there! Hard to pick winners... I was told that there were 144 cars entered.

I have always been a sucker for nice emblems and hood ornaments.

 

There were a lot of very creative and cool awards given away, all the trophies made by 5150 members.

Jim and Debbie Ramsey

I look forward to returning next year. 

You should come out too!

Gabor Szabo

Big fan

 

Kids grow up so fast!

The three red tailed hawk siblings are confined to the boundaries of their nest. In the next week or two they should start venturing out to near branches. As you can see, they have lost most of their juvenile down at this point but are in a sort of gawky, intermediate stage. Still, a lot of energy and bouncing around.

 

Hyper ventilation

https://newrepublic.com/post/181023/samuel-alito-trump-immunity-black-day-supreme-court

Olbermann - send Alito to Gitmo podcast

https://newrepublic.com/article/181032/supreme-court-trump-immunity-sealed-fate

TPM - Rogue Supreme Court Abandons Democracy In Her Hour Of Greatest Need

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2024/04/26/trump-immunity-supreme-court-election-interference/73457803007/

SCOTUS majority abandons conservative principles to mount bizarre defense of Trump’s immunity claim

Dido and Aeneas

The pursuit of art, antiques and decorative objects serves many purposes in the world in which I work. The first is purely aesthetic, man's atavistic desire to feather his or her nest. 

Another reason is that objects and art of the past can open up new avenues of inquiry, to shine some light on our history and help us make sense of the world.

And thirdly, we hunter gatherers love a good whodunit, it gives us an opportunity to play detective. I will take you down one of my recent rabbit holes:

I was in the Bay Area a few weeks ago and I got this assemblage of painted panels that I knew nothing about. They looked cool.

On the back of the frame was this label.

The label meant nothing to me but it was something to go on. A lead. The panels looked like stage mockups of some kind, I was guessing late 19th Century.

I googled Dido and Aeneas and learned that it was in fact an opera. It was composed by an Englishman named Henry Purcell sometime between 1683 and 1688.

And Glynbourne (sic)? That must have been written on the back of a panel, I have not taken it apart and seen the pieces out of frame. 

I stuck the word and the name of the opera into my search engine and the results came easy and quick. The real spelling is Glyndebourne and my opera was actually from September of 1965, a production of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. 

Glyndebourne is an Opera House in Lewes, in East Sussex, about an hour's drive east of London. It was founded in 1934. The manor house is said to be about six hundred years old.

More interesting to me was the name of the set and costume designer, Lorenzo Ghiglia. Surely he was the author of my little paintings. Ghiglia was an Italian man born in 1936. 

I sent my findings to my friend Will Chandler who used to be a curator of Decorative Arts at the San Diego Museum and knows about such things.

He told me that there was a photograph of one of the witch's costumes in the Glyndebourne archives. I looked, he was right.

There is also a set painting at the Bridgeman Image Archives.

And the Victoria and Alpert Museum has a costume sketch design by Ghiglio for Dido that I can no longer access on my computer. 

I also found this watercolor sketch from the opera that once sold at auction.

Well now I know. Nothing monumental here but still interesting. I've learned something anyway. No telling how the paintings came to this particular estate in San Francisco, but that nexus is rarely established in my trade.

That wraps it up. Ghiglio died in 2014.

And that's all I know.

Paul Simon & George Harrison

Homeward Bound (I wish I was)

 

It is so pretty at my house this morning in the early drizzle that it was hard to leave.

A lot of flowers are coming into bloom.

The banxia climbing rose has now taken over a few orange trees. 

It's cascade is so beautiful, just fills an incredible amount of space.

Or is it a Cecille Brunner?

I don't really remember now...

After fifty years things sort of decide for themselves at a ranch where they want to grow and we follow along.

Lost more than a few Valencia orange trees to trumpet vines and roses but we have plenty more so it is fine.

I heard a bullock's oriole in the garden today, never saw it. 

They are more furtive than the hooded, less inclined to make their presence known to man.

Welcome back.

Our place is rather wild, definitely not a tailored "Orange County" landscaping style.

But it works for us and the critters all seem to enjoy it.

Had a beautiful red diamondback cross the road in front of me in front of the Murray's place on the way home the other day.

Not too long but fat and well fed.

We have a lot of quail on the property. 

Leslie puts out grain for them under the feeder.

I enjoy watching them forage around and the brilliant woosh of their wings when they fly away.

The orange blossoms are singing and the star jasmine is too. 

So many brilliant fragrances.

If I have time I am going to take a day off as soon as I can and just hang out in the garden with my pals.

Dip my beak in the jelly.