sunset

To the beach for dinner this evening, with friends - a spectacular sunset (hazy enough to make me wonder if some of the smoke from the wildfires was finding its way east rather than west), with the sun itself looking like some pale golden beach volleyball.

 

Out of Site - at the Autry

Another Pacific Standard Time, Art and Science Collide show, this time at the Autry (so wonderfully close by): Out of Site: Survey Science and the Hidden West.  This - like the Huntington Exhibition, is beautifully curated, and a wonderful mix of nineteenth century materials (some familiar, some not at all so), twentieth century, and contemporary work - much of which blurred the line between survey and surveillance.  I really appreciated the juxtapositions - not just the Mark Klett etc rephotography, but - above - the Timothy O'Sullivan water holes and ponds with the Remington Fight for the Water Hole painting - I'd never previously seen it close up, and appreciated how much action is taking place in the background.

The early rooms were dark - but not just for conservation reasons: mining was so central here to the theme of subterranean observation that one felt as though one was, indeed, down a pit.  And I was so grateful for all the attention given to Flash -

including Harold Edgerton's Mirror Sphere (this felt like an old friend!).

Organized by the VSRI/LACMA photo research group, this was an excellent Saturday morning with colleagues and students, and Britt Salvesen and Amy Scott - from LACMA and the Autry respecively - were understandably the best of guides - from gold mines through to nuclear explosions and some great contemporary photography by John Divola (of an abandoned army base near Victorville) and Bremner Benedict - beautiful images of sites near the southern border that are, in fact, subject to all kinds of environmental degradation.  And as Amy and Britt brought out, so many of the images belonged in sets, or series, and so the whole show was very much about the temporal, as well.

 

our yard sign

Admittedly, this sign would be better plural - "ladies" not "lady" - but it gets the message across pretty well.  I thought it would never arrived - I ordered it just a couple of days after the Harris candidacy, and after the resurfacing of JDV's anti-feline remark - and of course it was printed and made in China, I subsequently realized, and and and - but it turned up in Santa Fe the morning we left, and now adorns our doorstep.  Three other Harris or Harris/Walz signs visible in our small street, already - although given the neighborhood, that mightn't come as anything of a surprise.  

 

Storm Cloud

To The Huntington this evening, for the reception/opening of the Storm Cloud: Picturing the Origins of Our Climate Crisis exhibition - a show that's been four years in the making, and that's absolutely stunning. So many treats, very carefully and thoughtfully curated.  Even though I've been involved with it from the start, and have known what was going to be there (and what wasn't - organizing an exhibition is such a balancing act between one's wishes, the practicalities of what's to hand, and the availability and portability of objects) - even though I had a good idea of what individual images would be visible, the groupings and juxtapositions and wall panels - helpful without being didactic - were superb.  

So go and see - for example - some Ruskin drawings and daguerreotypes;

these ferns in William Henry Millais's (brother of the more famous ...) Hayes Common;

Andrew Melrose's Westward the Star of Empire - here's a detail - and I know it's normally just down the road at the Autry, but it's terribly hung and one can't see it properly -

and a taxidermied bird-hat.

 

campus security

Campus has grown a lot more railings - forests of them - forcing one onto the main pathways (together with electric scooters, skateboards, and tables and booths from the careers fair).  Given that we're also currently being told about the university's financial crisis (Exhibit A - the fact that All Library Purchases are - well, canceled.  The purchasing budget has been set at 0%.  Yes, I know this is a university), please could someone tell us how much this is costing??? - ditto the new elaborate gateways where we have to have our ID checked as we come and go.  I suppose the railings may come in handy for chaining ourselves to them, in protest.

 

A fiery drive home

It was a dramatic drive back to LA today.  The smoke from the Line fire, above San Bernadino, was visible from ways out, settling low over the ground and in the little valleys all the way after we started the long, long descent after the climb up from Needles.  But this - which was the Bridge fire exploding this afternoon (from 4,000 or so acres to around 34,000) became apparent as soon as we turned onto the 15, and the skies became ... apocalyptic was the only word.  Alice was valiantly driving at this point; I was taking pictures - and yes, it really was that weird orange (like Trump, later.  I'd have given anything for a Trump election sign, at this point).

And then we turned onto the 210, and the fire was behind us - but no less spectacular and terrifying (this is all about 45 miles from home, but it's so huge, billowing up into the sky, that it feels closer ...)

 

road warrior (Winslow, Arizona)

How much havoc will this young man cause in the middle of the night?  (Moth is around somewhere, too, of course).  The trouble with them being such good cats and sleeping on the way is that - well, now they are full of beans.  And of course, "sleeping" is a relative term.  The first hour and a bit, Gramsci did his usual Yowling - which coincided with Alice being (on Zoom) in a History department meeting.  I trust she was muted ...

 

end of ...

I can't complain .., thanks, in a way, to the pandemic, which made Working From Home (i.e. having many meetings on Zoom) possible, I've stretched out the end of this summer a little longer than, strictly speaking, I should have done.  Thanks, too, to various accumulated course releases from administrative positions over the years ... And definitely, by now, the leaves are starting to turn.  But tomorrow, off we all roll back to LA, in the hope that the temperatures there really do start to drop ...

[in baby rabbit news ... they fledged! or whatever rabbits do.  Hopped?  One stayed very close to the front door for a good deal of the day, which was anxiety-provoking, but the mother was hovering around, and off she's gone].

 

breakfast sunflowers

Breakfast sunflowers ... at Cafe Fina.  We were sustaining ourselves before much ... what would one say?  Spring cleaning?  In September?  Whatever, we put a great deal of energy into scrubbing and brushing and wiping and and and ... some corners (like the bottom of the shower that we'd been using as an extra storage space ...) we hadn't seen for a little too long (only a couple of dessicated centipedes, but still).  It feels very good, even though the cats (stuck in my study and out of the way of stuff they wouldn't want to get on their paws) were horrified.  In fact, they would rather be straight out of the front door, where we have a nest of baby rabbits ... meaning that we now have to go in and out of the back as much as we possibly can. 

 

another corner of the kitchen

Another morning, another string of garlic (ancient, by now, and dessicated and inedible, but I'm fond of it), another cat tchotchke ... 

 

an apple

A small, and perfectly formed fruit - that when you crack its apple-color glazed, white chocolate crust gives you apple mousse and spicy stewed apple ... that goes with the cognac ice cream just perfectly.  Coming to the end of the summer, here - the evening started with a loud and very wet thunderstorm - and this was a wonderful celebration of (nearly) the end of our stay, at Geronimo's... a real treat.

 

kitchen, morning

Now that we're into September, the light is changing fast and the days quite obviously are getting shorter - which means that the rising sun illuminates everything beautifully.  That includes, rather too vividly, the cobwebs on the ristras, like some Gothic version of the Southwest.  One more thing to put on the list for Saturday, which we are determinedly devoting to spring - er, fall - cleaning - and this would suggest, Not A Moment Too Soon.

 

Railyard

A quick trip to the farmers' market this morning (freshly roasted chile! tomatoes! Japanese eggplants! lots of green stuff! Sangre potatoes!  I assumed with a name like that that they would be local born and bred - but actually they came originally from Colorado State University in 1982).  Our heads have been firmly down working (for it's the semester, after all ...), but it was great to head into town.

 

forms of labor (or its avoidance)

The cats had Labor Day right: they slept.  The humans, on the other hand ... well, I caught up with admin and report writing and thinking about a conference paper,

and Alice is charging ahead with her next chapter, and also found time to make some bread, which I am much looking forward to trying for breakfast.  This is not its most flattering angle, but I was trying to build on a theme of roundness ...

 

end of the season portraits

I think I may be marginally obsessed with the Glories this year, but they are doing us very proud, although, admittedly, they're looking a bit droopy at the top, and they have yellowing leaves at the bottom.  Of course, they are there - and a lot more visually tempting than a view of a computer screen, which is what I've spent a lot of time looking at today (ok, with Gramsci sprawled around the desk, too ...)