mid-century ornament

This apartment block, not too far away from us, was built in 1949: it certainly looks like it.  In finding out that fact, I discovered that it was the location of a truly nasty rape and murder in 1957, of a nurse called Marjorie Hipperson: she was about to be married, and her body was discovered by her fiancé ... Eventually forensic evidence led to her killer, Darryl Kemp, who'd climbed in through a dicy screen, raped and strangled her - but this arrest and conviction wasn't until he'd kidnapped and raped a couple more women, in Griffith Park, and committed other murders.  The whole long story of his violent crimes - he had the death penalty commuted twice - made for unpleasant reading, and it certainly wasn't where I'd expected to end up after simply trying to locate the date of the building ...

 

driving home

It was a very beautiful evening - but how could it be anything else but, since in sunny Southern California, and everyone I encountered all day was so happy, given last night's results.

 

Blue wave!!

I took this photo on my way home to watch the results come in, and hoped that this was auspicious... Admittedly it's more of a green wave, or a turquoise wave, but it's a wave ...

...and the wave has proved real!  I've been watching all evening with a jaw dropped so far it may dislocate: these are wonderful, wonderful results.  Mind you, it would be good if MS Now could remember that New Mexico existed: the first Native American governor in Deb Haaland, and the return of Ben Ray Luján to the Senate, are things that one wants to add to throw into the cheering.  (I don't expect them to announce that Sarah Boses, a local nurse who lives in Galisteo, has been elected to the NM House, but that's good, too).  But Texas!  South Carolina!  So many victories!  And it looks very close between Bass and Raman for LA Mayor, so I'm hoping that the pundits are right when they say that they expect late votes to bend towards Raman.

I'm wondering what the brightest clothes are that I can muster for tomorrow morning's department meeting.  The November meeting (we have them on the first Wednesday of a month) can result in some somber sartorial choices.  I well remember the one in November 2016 when we all, spontaneously, wore all black.  But not tomorrow!

 

morning, noon, evening

A fairly sullen post-dawn, except in the distant sky: I wasn't especially pleased to be woken at 4 a.m. by howling, rattling winds and by driving rain, all of which knocked lots of golden leaves off the acacia trees.  

At Albuquerque Airport, the Illumination Tree was looking particularly luminous.  It might look like a Chihuly, but in fact it's by an artist called Jezebel, and just in case you were trying to figure it out, according to NM's public art works website, "The organic design combines the earthly life forms and the ethereal sky elements. Designed to embody the romantic merging of Earth and Sky, the artwork is a proper reflection of Jezebel's motto: Romance with nature. Romantically merging Earth (terrestrial life) and Sky (heavenly life). The brightly stained glass blends softly to reflect the colors of the Southwest."  

By the time I was back this evening (and it was a much easier day's travel than on the way out), the light was fading at this end, too.  All the same, I'm much too much of a morning person to want Daylight Savings Time made permanent.

 

November desk

I was glad to turn over the calendar page from October to November: not because October was a bad month (it wasn't, at all), but because October's picture was one that just didn't work from a distance (and was fairly boring close up).  But the distance thing is hard to judge until the calendar's all printed up and one can pace away from it.  But November ... suitably gloomy, but nicely so: it's a corner from the big cemetery in Genoa.  Time, soon, to be assembling the pictures for next year's calendar ...

Here in New Mexico, my desk faces a cork pin board (with some paintings above it, and to each side).  The window is to my left, so I can see the Sandias and the Cerrillos Hills with a slight turn of the procrastinating head. This is a configuration that just wouldn't work in LA, where I look straight out of the window: otherwise, there would be a complicated navigation of where to put furniture so it doesn't block the heating/ac vent, and so on.  But I get to gaze on visual inspiration and solace, which of course periodically gets changed around: I see Ruskin (rather a lot of Ruskin, actually); Turner; Whistler; late C19th interiors; Ojibwe wampum beads; a photo of a rose from the garden at 20 Hillside ...) - I feel happily grounded when I look at all of these.

 

clouds, skelly

Another day of wild skies (I'm hoping that the rumblings of tornado warnings for tomorrow will come to nothing), and me trying to get an improbable amount of work done in very little time... the quiet helps, of course; as does the fact that my ongoing laryngitis means I have no incentive to speak to anyone.  A post-lunch walk revealed this huge skelly outlined against the sky, striding out, it would seem, over the range ...

 

Resist

A placard making its point under a lowering sky.  I'm pleased to see TWO of these signs on our block - though surprised that there aren't many many more.

I was relieved to get that comforting text today that tells one that one's ballot has been received and will be counted.

 

new and different things

Burbank airport - the new Burbank airport, which opened on October 13th - at the crack of dawn.  I don't know what I'd been expecting, but not anything so huge and shiny (and with completely ridiculous prices for coffee).  I'm devastated to read that the old, 1930s, adobe style one is going to be demolished - one would have thought a good use could be found for it - even an aviation museum?  I was very surprised, too, that they didn't have new style body and luggage scanners, but I guess one can't have everything ...

This very flying visit to New Mexico is to check on the stuccoing and painting of our house (and to pay those who did it!).  Instead of the mid brown sludge color that was on the woodwork before, we've gone for a rather wintry grey (which was really hard to choose - not too light, not too dark, not too blue, not too green - and then we both had to like it - oh, and there are lots of residents' association regulations about colors, too).  So this is quite a change, but I think it works!

As you can see, the morning glories are still out - and indeed, this is a shade that never appeared during the summer!  There's lots of very green new grass everywhere, too -

and autumnal trees.  It is great to be back - not least so that I can be reunited with a couple of books that I left here by mistake, and about which I have to write a very imminent review ...

 

an old but favorite skellington

It's always good to see the 1862 Punch cartoon, "The Arsenic Waltz" - such a deadly green to use for one's fancy clothes (or for that matter, the walllpaper).  This was accompanying Anna's works-in-progress paper (and preview for NAVSA in two weeks), on bitumen and art needlework (not that I can quite recollect what point it was illustrating ...).  I promise you that there were other people there, and on line ... our WiP series is such a great opportunity for grad students to try out papers in a safe environment andto get - not so much the kind of questions they'll get at a conference, as feedback about what might have worked better or differently.

 

skellies!

Here are the very best in our immediate neighborhood, as admired on this morning's walk. The skellies appear annually in the old ?1920s or 30s luggage funicular car - this time accompanied by an upside down stars and stripes labeled Vote or Die.  Quite so (although the length of time that it takes to fill out all of the ballot's 9 pages means that surely various people expire during the exercise itself).  

No other political ones on our route this morning - though a fair number of election signs themselves.  Ours is a fairly solid Raman community - I don't think I've seen a single Karen Bass sign around here (though there are two down by the reservoir).   One week to go ...

 

my ear

... and a very clean ear it is, inside and out.

As some of you know, I've been battling hearing problems since late May/early June, when a combination of lots of flights - 13 or 14 - in Argentina, and going up to 14,500 in the pre-Andes, created (or so I thought) around 60% hearing loss in my right ear - and if that wasn't bad enough, a feeling of being perpetually distanced in some kind of diving bell, or echo chamber, where not only did all sound become muffled, and it was difficult to tell what direction sounds were coming from, but it made me feel horribly cut off from the world (and grumpy). Social events, with fuzzy noises hitting me from every side, were a nightmare.

I've had to wait 4 months to see a specialist, during which time Googling didn't (of course) make me feel much better.  But first, the technicians at Keck peered deep into my ear - or as far as they could, because like my primary care doctor before them, all they could see was wax, and more wax: it was as though I had a wax cork in there.  So they used a tiny suction machine which I could watch on very magnified CCTV doing its magic (until I got unbearably dizzy, which is apparently normal), and then the specialist finished it off.  No, I've never had my ears deep-vacuumed before.

And now I can hear, just as well as before.  You can't imagine my gratitude.

leaf patterns

Well, it may not be Maine, but we do get fall here, all the same ... I hope these leaf spottings are healthy: they are on one of our two red bud trees, and it looks decidedly ... variegated. But it's deciduous, and behaving how it should, and I'm happy with that.

 

a very colorful Halloween ...

Remember that house in Silver Lake that was being repainted?  They've always had remarkably elaborate and well illuminated Halloween decorations ... now they look even more extraordinary and eye-dazzling.  Did I suggest a few days ago that decorations this year, overall, weren't quite as elaborate as they've been?  No need to have been worried: there are large pink and black spiders, and floating eyeballs, and endless skeletons, all over the place.

 

from the front door

It was looking particularly good today, weird shadow from the street lamp and all.  To be sure, I've raided Trader Joe's for cheap pots of marigolds and for lots of pumpkins, which blend perfectly with the shade of the house, and which therefore give an extra layer of - well, I'd hardly say designer chic: more like super-conventional middle-America - but it really was one of those days when one gulps at one's good fortune at living here.

 

rain

The weather today was decidedly dramatic and mercurial.  As I left the house this morning, I admired all the clouds massing over the mountains and moving away.  Twenty minutes later, somewhere at the top of S. Hoover, the heavens opened; cars started aquaplaning. and I can't have been the only person wondering where the white lines on the road had disappeared to.  A little later yet, and my customary USC carpark was looking completely beautiful, if damp.

Oh, and so far, so good - the sandbags held up yesterday and today.

 

ready for rain?

The first (small, modest) Pacific storm of the season arrived today - it would be good if we could have one a week like that: not stronger, and no drought.  But uncertain how much rain would descend, I did what I've been meaning to do for weeks, and decanted the collapsing sandbags, and indeed much sand that's dispersed over the past few years, into some new bags.  I know these won't ultimately be enough, and I should go to the fire station and get some more; and yes, I did read with interest some articles this week claiming that duct tape is as good or better (though that doesn't answer the question about what to do if you want to take the car in or out of the garage ...).  The problem we have is two-fold: the garage is on a bend, and when rain comes down really heavily it jumps the curb; and then there's a flat space where rain puddles ...  But this was sufficient reinforcement for now.

And then, yes, the rain did arrive, and not just the sandbags but the new gutter guards and piping did their job ...

 

The Winged Victory of Samothrace

I truly don't understand this headless angel: nothing, so far as I can see, to do with Hallowe'en (unless as a counter-force?) - rather, she, and her counterpart (for there are two of them) seem to be guarding over a perfectly normal modest house on Virgil.  I mean - I'm assuming she's not really an angel, but the Winged Victory of Samothrace (now in the Louvre) - the lack of arms as well as head rather confirm that, although the breasts seem a little too pointed and, er, prominent compared with the original Nike.  And also - her wings are gilded.  But even elucidating all of that doesn't explain why there are two replicas of this Greek statue visible on my drive home.

 

waving at you

It is, of course, Halloween season again.  I have something of a sense (yes, I know it's only October 19th, but still) that the decorations aren't as copious or as elaborate this year as they've been in the past, but some of the houses that one annually looks forward to are on fine form.  This waving skelly was new to me (I was taking a back street route from mailing stuff at the post office), but makes for a quintessentially Californian sight.

 

reservoir grasses

We're still on east coast time (and Alice is back out to Madison and Chicago tomorrow), so we were up very early to walk at the reservoir.  These pink grasses are so pretty.  We're meant to have lots in our back yard ... but last year they all bloomed white, not pink (which was pretty, too), and this year there's no sign of them sprouting flowers at all.  So I'll borrow these for my seasonal pleasure.

 

back!

We were welcomed back in style by Moth and Gramsci - clearly very glad to see us, even if Iris, their cat sitter, looks after them impeccably well.  Here's Grams, in a scratching box that also functions as a safe hiding spot from which to leap out at Moth ...

 

on our way back

A plum colored morning in Vinalhaven; a very grey ferry ride, and then a wet wet wet wet wet drive back to Boston - from where we'll be leaving at some early hour ...

It's been a terrific and very full couple of weeks.

 

more Vinalhaven. and lobsters for dinner

An excellent quiet day in Vinalhaven - there really is nothing like an island, and this one reminds me so much of the Île aux Moines, the other side of the Atlantic - so of course the minute I set foot on it, I loved it to bits.

Rocks, seaweed,

and a hike with a monarch butterfly, and, on a tiny off-shore island, lots of seals (not pictured),

and Alice and Charlotte trekking valiantly through the bushes - Charlotte's hat making her look very like Vera ...

The Historical Society was full of documents and images of the island's granite industry - followed by netting (not so much for fish, but nets to keep flies off horses), domestic crafts and life; local businesses, and of course lobstering.

Did I say lobsters?  Of course, it was very fresh lobsters for dinner:

trying to put out of our mind the fact that they'd been in the ocean enjoying their lobstery lives this morning.

And then the moon and stars over a quiet Vinalhaven night.

dawn to dusk - Bar Harbor to Vinalhaven

From our room balcony this morning - pure Sugimoto marine fog.  Somewhere out there there's a cruise liner, but one couldn't, by that point, tell that.

Driving away from town - misty bogs and trees.

Over the bridge at Barnsport - itself spectacular, and with a formidable looking ... what?  prison?  military installation? on the right - googling showed that it was Fort Knox! but it was long past by the time I found that out...

Then the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, with lots of Andrew Wyeth as well as Maine art - I'd post examples if we weren't staying in a friend's house with no internet and only very shaky phone coverage, so I'm typing fast while I have a bar or two of contact ...

... and it is, indeed, isolate, on Vinalhaven, an island off the mainland: an hour and a quarter on a ferry to get here, and then the most extraordinary, beautiful, seaweed-filled sunset.