LA-LA-Land

Posted on by
Reply

Lucy Turner Joy, by Anders Leonard Zorn, 1897

We landed it to LA last night. We scored a decent rent-a-car, a white Camry, with only 107 miles on it. Sweet! I christian it the new Clark Griswold Wagon Queen Family Truckster. We got our motor running, and headed out on the highway. We were looking for adventure in whatever came our way. We found it soon enough, stop-and-go traffic on the 405 at 8 PM. Like a true nature child we were born, just born to be wild.

We made it to CalArts and caught the tail-end of a parents and graduate students barbeque. We met some of Dan’s classmates and we got to see Dan’s studio. It was pretty interesting and I did get pictures.

We met with the insurance adjuster Wednesday night. Last weekend, our next door neighbor, Art the architect, pulled us aside and told us that he and all our other neighbors are getting new roofs. When he asked his adjuster what hail damaged looked like, the adjuster pointed it out on our roof. So, we are getting a new roof, awning and gutters. The awning and gutters were only a year old. So much for lifetime warranties. I just hope that the repair work doesn’t take as long as last year.

Pictured with this post is a photo of a painting from the Saint Louis Art Museum. I chose this graphic anticipating a certain dichotomy between stately Saint Louis and the City of Angels. The following text is the museums description of the painting:

The Swedish artist Anders Zorn enjoyed great commercial success as a painter of the rich and famous in fin-de-siècle America. In the mid-1890s he visited Saint Louis where he received commissions to paint several prominent notables including the sitter here who was the wife of a local cotton broker, Duncan Joy. The painting highlights Zorn’s virtuoso Impressionist brushwork. The sitter relaxes on a green armchair while her left hand plays with a ribbon on the sleeve of her dress.

My Mom Was the Bomb.com!

Posted on by
Reply

Frank, Mom, Me, Nan, Dad, Chris

The above family portrait is from the ’70s. Couldn’t you have guessed it from the hair? The scene is in Texas. It is on one of the balconies of my parent’s then new home. In the center of this family grouping is my mom’s mom, Nan.

Her given name was Adeline, but we, her sweet and loving grandchildren, called her Nanny, or more particularly Big Nanny. This was to differentiate her from our Paternal grandmother, who we dubbed Little Nanny. I don’t know which grandmother, we most insulted. At least, on Adeline’s side of the family, Nanny was the familiar term for grandmother, but I doubt that the adjective Big sat all that well with her. Anyway, the name stuck. Our children dubbed their maternal grandparents, Bugs and Horsey. Kids, say the darndest things, don’t they?

I found my mom and grandma’s 1940 census records. Adeline, was one of the ‘lucky’ one-in-twenty interviewees that was asked the supplemental questions. Unlike today though, the government was not particularly invasive, so other than her listing her occupation as part-time waitress, there was not much of note. The online site has improved considerably. If you know the street address, finding your record is a snap. It even display a Google street view photo of the property. The displayed picture is from twenty-first century origin and not from the forties.

The Homestead

My maternal grandfather had passed by the time of the first photo. He is recorded as the person interviewed in the census. He was a fuel oil truck driver for Texaco. He made $1800 per year.

I stole the title for this post, from an NPR article. The son being interviewed exclaimed that his mom was the bomb.com. I just liked the syncopation and latched on to it.

I, Aye, Eye

Posted on by
1

Eye by Tony Tasset

This post is a bit of potpourri. It has no central theme, so you could call it scatter-brained, if you like. I prefer the description, eclectic and I hope it pleases.

Based upon a single Facebook comment, we can assume that Dave safely made it to Hong Kong. It is not much to go on, but unless someone has rather cleverly hacked his account we must take this as proof of life. I would like to hear more of how he is doing, but not at the cost of a four-figure cell phone bill. Stay tuned.

I filed a claim with my insurance company for damages from last month’s hail storm. I had already decided to ignore the baker’s dozen dents in the Prius, when our neighbor came to us last weekend. He explained that he and most of our surrounding neighbors have already contacted their insurance companies and arranged for their new roofs. Further, when he asked his adjuster, what does hail damage look like, the adjuster pointed to our roof and pointed out the damaged spots. I called my insurance company on Monday and started the process.

I would like to recommend “lex-i-con VALLEY” with Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo, a Slate podcast on language. Etymology, the study of historical linguistic change, especially as manifested in individual words, has always been a subject of interest for me. Discussions of words and language, when well done can be both informative and entertaining. However, when it is performed poorly, it can be as dry as dust. “Lex-i-xon” is now in the mist of a multi-episode investigation of gender in language. Come on guys, I can hear your eyeballs rolling back into your heads already. Hear me out.

Their latest podcast is about gendered pronouns, like, he, him, his versus she, her, hers. The fundamental question of this show is what to call people of unknown gender. He, him, his is the default, but in the 1970s a pair of female Harvard divinity students petitioned the university to start using gender neutral pronouns. Faculty pushback was immediate, one dean accused the two of pronoun envy and another labeled the pair, distaff theologians. A word of warning, explicit language is used on the show.

Tony Tasset’s “Eye” supplies the graphic for this post. It is part of the collection at Laumeier Sculpture Park. The following is Laumeier’s description of this work.

Through this gigantic, blue eyeball Tasset creates tension as the sculpture stares, larger than life, across the landscape and back at the viewer. Modeled after Tasset’s own eye, the never-blinking, constantly conscious piece watches over Laumeier day and night. The human eye is simultaneously unique, individual and emblematic. By focusing on a key part of the body, Tasset speaks to a commonality among us. It addresses how we engage and perceive each other while concurrently asserting a prophetic, perhaps even omniscient, presence.

I heard on the radio this morning, a young man’s shout out to his mother, “Mom you are the Bomb.com!” It’s a little late for Mothers Day, but as I say, better late than never.