Workmen had just finished installing this when I visited the local community college garden this weekend.
Just wondering
Is there anything that isn’t carcinogenic in California?
Notes from another garden
Back in ancient times, there were no such things as “memes.” Instead, there were New Yorker cartoons, such as this one. Click on the picture to enlarge it.
Chickens, dogs, banjos and bagpipes
Alan Arkin died a few days ago. You can find plenty of encomiums to this unique, legendary, etc. artist online2. Back in 1958, long before Peter Falk yelled “Serpentine” at him, he wrote a minor classic science fiction story, “People Soup.”3 You can read it here.
***
There’s an exhibition of Komar & Melamid’s art in New Jersey. I’d like to see it, but it’s a bit far to pedal. I wrote briefly about the duo here. The New Criterion article, worth reading though it is, omits one noteworthy project of theirs, a collaboration with composer David Soldier to produce examples of the “most wanted” and “least wanted” pieces of music. The “most wanted” song is inevitably drivel that not even Vernon Reid’s guitar can redeem, but people do like drivel, as I constantly rediscover. The “least wanted” song, however, is simultaneously wonderful and horrible and is worth hearing all the way though at least once.
Progress report
Spring was unusually dry, but June rains have made up for it. The garden overall is doing well. Nearly all the foxgloves are blooming or will be soon. These are “Camelot mix” hybrids I started indoors earlier. So far all the flowers have been lavender, but there should eventually be a few other colors.
Our ever-devolving language
What exactly does “decimate” mean? Does accurate language matter any more?
Picture time
Several residents of my garden recently sat for their portraits.
Inside St. Terry’s
My parish church, a few days after Easter; best viewed in full-screen mode. There are notes on the church here. The architect was Emanuel L. Masqueray, who also designed the cathedral in Wichita.
Here’s the exterior:
Lines, straightish and broken
I recently learned that one of my favorite cartoonists, George Booth, died last year. Here’s a selection of his cartoons to remember him by. Click on them to see them larger.
Botanical notes, illustrated
This is the package the Dianthus seeds I planted last year came in:
These are the Dianthus that came from that package:
Something’s not quite right here. Also, they were supposed to be annuals, but every plant came back this spring and is blooming copiously now.
Weekend photography II
While out and about with my camera Saturday, I came across the annual “Downtown Mayhem Biker Bash,” sponsored by a used motorcycle dealer. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much chrome in one place.
Weekend photography I
I discovered that the local community college has a well-maintained garden which includes a good selection of prairie plants and others adapted to Kansas extremes.4
Mysteries of the internet
I.
When I checked my site’s statistics this morning, I found that there had been two page views from three continents, but only one visitor. How that is possible?
II.
This nine-year-old post at Pergolator “violated community guidelines.” How?
Big pink, and not quite blue
What’s in my camera?
Let’s see….
The local used motorcycle dealer established a “2 Wheeler Park” across the street from his shop, featuring grass, daylilies, roses, and a few motorcycles that are a bit past their prime.
Slow down
Ted Gioia echoes R.A. Lafferty:
IT’S OKAY TO READ SLOWLY
I tell myself that, because I am not a fast reader.
I can do speed reading, if it’s absolutely necessary—but I find it painful and exhausting. My natural reading pace is languid, almost lethargic.
My lifetime reading plan has been my proven path to Nirvana
Even more to the point, the books I read must be savored and slowly digested. Proust is one of my favorite authors, but I could only handle his ultra-dense writing in small doses. So I read through his 2,000-page novel at the pace of seven pages per day. I started when I was a teenager, and got to the final page shortly before my 30th birthday.Of course, I read many other things during that period, but I always came back to his massive book—taking it slowly, thoughtfully, in the way it deserved.
For many years, I felt that my slow reading was holding me back. I would be wiser, I would be smarter, I told myself, if I could just read faster. I often keep going back over the same sentences again and again, trying to decipher their inner meaning. This slows me down to a tortoise’s pace—and it’s frustrating.
But now I believe slowness was a benefit. My learning was deeper and more mind-expanding because I didn’t rush it.
By the way, I did the same thing when I learned jazz piano. I spent months learning things that could have been mastered in days. But by the time, I was done, I had internalized my learning at a deep level.
Life is not a race. The journey is its own reward. If we could make the trip instantaneously—like they do with those teleporters in Star Trek—it wouldn’t be worth anything.
See Lafferty’s “The Primary Education of the Camiroi.”