Label Art

I like a lot of label art. Some of the most compelling images of California came from crates of citrus. My favorite Art Nouveau lettering is found on the packages of Italian sweets. I am no socialist, and the fact that something is designed to make a product attractive does not shock me one iota. Also, unlike the sort of feeble minds who take Ways of Seeing seriously, I can distinguish between advertising and fine art (and, yes, there are those examples where the line is blurred), and yet do not disdain one for the other.

And now I find myself doing a series of labels for salsas, which is fun and exciting on two levels. One: they are salsas that we are making. Two: we are targeting the market that most goes for the sort of label art that I like.

So, for the next week my visual art mind is going to be focused on the gloriously crassly commercial, and I love every minute of it.

Some notes on doing sculpture in plaster.

1. Do not attempt to make a clay out of the plaster. Use it the way it was intended. Chunky, heavy lunks of plaster crack, and the cracks are deep structural fissures.

2. If you have violated rule one, do not attempt to patch it up by then using plaster properly. It won't work. It will just make the sculpture too bulky, and with structural issues.

3. When you have finally seen the error of number one and two, and realize that you need to start over, you will have a large, fairly heavy piece of cracked, unfinished, sculpture. Resist the temptation to keep it in order to use it in something else. Throw it away. Throw it away. Throw it away.

4. When you have violated all three of the first three laws, don't come running to me when your shirt catches the base of the sculpture, pulling it off the worktable, nearly smashing your foot and making a big mess.

5. Do what I say. Not as I do, and don't ask me how I figured these rules out.

What? Are we running a zoo here?

First it was ladybug larvae. Then a lizard, followed by an ant farm. Yesterday we got a very cute kitten (pictures will be posted soon). Tomorrow we get a couple of walking sticks.

All of this is fine and good, but I have one question: when are we going to start having edible animals for pets?

Online Arts Mega-Event. Coming Soon.

Watch this space. Something is brewing (besides the delicious smelling cask of foaming stuff in the kitchen). As we get closer I will post more details.

Remember, kids...

If you outlaw outlaws, only outlaws will be outlawed.

Or something like that.

I hate politics by slogan (unless the slogan is Believe! Obey! Fight! or Viva Cristo Rey!), whether on the Left or the Right (although it is probably worse when it comes from the Right, who should know better), and debate by bumper sticker, and that is where our political discourse is headed. Candidates debates are little more than bumber sticker exchanges. You could just imagine the candidate rifling through a stack of oblong papers, looking up and saying, "oh yeah! Well...wouldn't it be great if education got all the money it wanted and the Pentagon had to hold a bake sale to free Mumia...oh, wait, they got stuck together. Uh, the earth doesn't belong to us, it belongs to Chief Seattle.... oh, uh..."

Brewing Beer

For many years I have wanted to brew beer, but haven't. I just didn't have the space, and I had never done it and had no idea where to start. Today marked the end of that era, as I got together with some friends who are experienced home brewers and we cooked up a batch of ale. It has just started to ferment, and it is going crazy. Of course I have no idea how it will eventually turn out, but the smell of the wort is fantastic. I will report in a few weeks, after it has finished fermenting and carbonating and so forth.

More radio silence, explained...

We were in Sacramento last night and have family staying with us, so that explains this bout of silence on the blog. Also, we are a little behind on my homeschool schedule, which is fine, because we are still outlandishly ahead, but I intend to stay that way, because Amalia thrives on that. She is technically going to be in second grade next September, but will be doing third grade material. It makes this homeschooling adventure fun, but also pretty fast-paced.

When I visit Sacramento in any season but winter I really love it. Spring is, besides the annoying airborn pollen, absolutely lovely. All those trees have a bright green hue, which will gradually darken as summer progresses. The mock oranges are in bloom, sending off their perfume. I missed seeing my parents' irises, which is a pity, since we planted them for them, and they were apparently quite spectacular this year. But the other blooms made up for it.

Here in Vallejo we are seeing our irises and gladiolas pop out of the ground. They won't be in bloom for a little bit, but the promise of all those flowers lures me into the garden every day, just to see what is opening up.

And that brings me to weeds. The disadvantage to great gardening conditions is that all sorts of unwanted stuff grows fast, too. And some of those weeds look like they might be promising as wildflowers. "Oh, let that one go for a little bit more, it could produce some nice blossoms." Followed by, "why didn;t we pull that out when it was just a little shoot and hadn't sent runners all over the place.

And, of course, I remain plagued by ivy. The ivy I had cleared out of my parents' backyard is back with a vengeance, and our own yard is constantly threatened by the neighbors' ivy. Who plants this stuff? Can they be prosecuted?

Anyway, I could rant on about ivy for hours and pages. I will resist. Don't plant it.

Birds, trees, pollen, sunshine

I love warm weather. No. Scratch that. Well, don't scratch it, just amend it: I like hot weather. I like the sort of weather that bakes the brain until all it can do is contemplate a cold glass of tamarindo soda.

It wasn't that hot yesterday, but it was very pleasant. Sitting on the porch with my neighbor, drinking beer and eating chips, watching Amalia fly a rubber-band powered balsa airplane...that strikes me as pretty close to a perfect Sunday.

The downside, of course, is the messy way that plants reproduce. I have no problem with them reproducing, but do they have to be so inefficient? It only takes that little bit of pollen...the rest of it serves no purpose but to irritate noses and eyes, to cover my dark green car with yellowish crud, to make a mustardy crust on the walkway and porch, and so forth. Fine, I'll forgive the pollen, but then there are the little spiked balls of foot torture that encase futile seeds: seeds that will fall on the sidewalk, get swept into the street, crushed into dust by the cars and eventually go to sea via the storm drain system. You step on one of these suckers barefoot and it is pure pain. You step on one with shoes and, if you don't hit it squarely, you risk twisting your ankle. Of course they do make good projectiles.

Anyway, spring is doing what it does to me every year (besides making me sneeze a bit): it is amazing me at how fast it all happens. One day the trees are still in their bare, bleak mid-winter skeletal state, and the next there is a little greenish tinge to the whole thing, and the next thing you know there are full-sized leaves. You think that if you just sit quietly out there you could see the foliage grow.

A photo of where my family is from.

You can click here to see where my family is from. Obviously this is my Italian side. The Keilholtzes hail from here.

Writing to take my mind off of...writing?

Does anyone else ever do this? I mean, working on something legitimate (meaning something that one has a duty to produce for someone else), and procrastinating or even just taking a break by doing the same sort of work for other, less pressing ends?

I do it all the time. For instance, when I am working on paintings that must be done for whatever reason, I will find myself working on some back-burner project, usually before and sometime about 60% through the Project of Duty. Rarely afterwards, though.

I think there is a valid purpose to it, though. Right now I am displeased with a phrase and I cannot seem to come up with a good alternative. So I come onto the blog and write about this or that (and everyone LOOOOVVVVEEESSSS reading writing about writing - har har har), and when I go back to the work writing it all flows effortlessly. In theory at least.

What I really need to take my mind off of is the beautiful weather we are having. If I think about it too much I might find it impossible to stay indoors. And then the work will simply not get done. That happened yesterday, when I was planning on getting this stuff done. Amalia said, "let's go for a bike ride," and I was unable to resist.

The garden is always a great source of outdoor temptation as well...plants to be planted, weeds to be eradicated, squirrels to be caught for dinner, etc. No, we don't really eat the squirrels, but it is not for any qualms about it. It is just that I don't think I could catch or kill one of them without the neighbors seeing, and that might scare them. "Right now it is squirrels, tomorrow it could be Fido."

And, of course, they are right. I have no qualms about eating dog. I have not yet done it, but I want to, just to see what it tastes like. You see, when I was five I was bitten by a dog, and I have been wanting revenge ever since. No, I probably have my general disinterest in dogs from that, but my culinary curiosity has more to do with the fact that I don't think that there would be an ingredient that was eaten by such large numbers who can eat other foods if it didn't have something going for it (although there are hard-cooked eggs, aka Satan's Turds, often nearly coming with a warning sign (besides the horrendous smell of death that comes from them - I mean, how can a person complain about ANY smell when they eat those things?) when they are labeled as Devil's Eggs. Garnish them with green onions and you might as well buy yourself a ticket to Perdition).

Perhaps when they make the biopic of my life they can call it "The Man Who Hated Green Onions".

But green garlic, that is a different story, and it is just on the horizon....

Which brings us to our seasonal fresh produce report:

(Read in an mid-20th century urban Italian American (first native born generation) accent):

Two words for you right now: strawberries and asparagus. If you are not eating those ;at least three times a week, there is something wrong with you. Here is a warm salad that combines the two:

Peel the bottom of the asparagus spears and cut off the ends on the bias. Parboil them in salted water for six minutes, and refresh them in cold water.

Cut your strawberries in half.

Coat the asparagus in EVOO and finish over a charcoal fire. Sprinkle sea salad salt (sea salt with bits of dried seaweed in it) or lavendar salt over the spears.

Meanwhile, put walnut sized lumps of goat cheese on kitchen parchment on a cooking sheet and warm in a 350 degree oven for a few minutes.

Make a dressing of finely minced shallot, balsamico and EVOO.

Arrange the spears, strawberries, and goat cheese lumps on a plate. Drizzle wtih dressing.

And there you have it: a warm asparagus, goat cheese and strawberry salad.

Also making a first entrance are tender salad greens. No more bitter, tough winter salads. If you have a patch of dirt, you should try growing your own lettuces. Nothing beats a salad that goes from the garden to the plate in under five minutes. Fresh, fresh, fresh.

Anyway, this food talk is making me hungry. And that reminds me that I have work to do. So enjoy the day.

It's the end of the world as I knew it...

Well, not really, but I realized something recently: I don't like REM. I used to, and there are still some songs that I like of theirs from the old days, but hearing their most recent number makes me come to the conclusion that Michael Stipe whines too much. It doesn't bother me with the Smiths, although I usually can only take a couple of their songs in one sitting (and that one sitting generally does it for me for a few months), but REM offers little beyond the whining.

In a similar pessimistic mode, I would like someone who knows the B-52's to tell them that they should hang it up. Quite before they get further behind and all that. Egads. Talk about formula.

On a happier note, musically speaking, I am finding that Palestrina excites me more than he used to. Now, I have always liked Palestrina, but not in that sitting at the edge of the seat way. Now, I find that I really like to listen to him. It is probably because I have been singing him a lot recently (in two choirs), and being in the music like that forces you to pay attention. Palestrina's counterpoint is so fluid that as a passive listener it is easy to be, well, passive.

Also, this young singer from Israel, Yael Naim, might be someone to watch. Or to listen to.

And finally, now that the weather is warming up, I am listening to more Portuguese music. Now, I always listen to Portuguese music, but the rate changes in the warm season. I got into Cristina Branco before I heard Mariza, and Mariza quickly eclipsed Branco for me (imagine getting excited about Buxtehude and then discovering Bach). However, listening to Branco recently reminds me of why I was so crazy about her to begin with. It is sort of like hearing Buxtehude after having studied Bach for years...you realize that there is something grand in the Buxtehude music as well.

One last thing: we have birds in our neighborhood. Lots of birds. I never was one to pay a lot of attention to bird calls, but I have been since moving to Vallejo. That is one of the pleasures of living by an estuary. I highly recommend it.

Roger Miller

It has been awhile since I have linked to some good country, so I must make amends with the BEST country:

Yep. Roger Miller and Johnny Cash, performing on TV in 1969.

And with Dean Martin...

And, well, not Roger Miller, but how can you resist this...

And to go full circle:

And can you listen to Louis and not want to hear Ella? I can't. It is just a photo montage, but the music just doesn't get much better than this:

But we were talking of Roger Miller:

And one of my favorite of his songs (it is sort of a goofy montage of nature shots, but the song is still great):

Plants Wanted...

I am desperately searching for either a plant or at least seeds of Artemisia pontica, aka Roman Wormwood or Petite Absinthe. I can find A. absinthia (Grande Absinthe), but I need the Roman Wormwood for making vermouth. I went to one of the best-stocked nurseries around here, and they had three types of Artemisia, but not the pontica, and they have not carried it in six years (on a related culinary front, they did stock Calamint, also known as the mushroom herb, because of its afinity with wild mushrooms).

So far I am not having luck with my online search for the Artemisia pontica, but I have found that it is a weed in the Northeast, meaning that, just perhaps, one of my New England readers with a mind for botany could just perhaps send a little plant to me...I will reward said botanically-inclined New Englander with something good and true and honorable.

Or, if someone can point me to a commercial source, I will be eternally grateful!

But seriously folks...

naw. never mind. It really isn't funny enough to merit repeating.

Blueberries

We are planting blueberries this year. I have never grown blueberries. In fact, as a kid we rarely had blueberries: they simply did not appear in the markets very often (back then they needed a colder climate). We would read about people in the East who ate blueberries on their "flapjacks." We ate pancakes and put strawberries on them. Or waffles. But always strawberries, or blackberries, if we were to go gathering.

So, naturally, I know nearly nothing about blueberry cultivation. We have a couple of cultivars that require a minimum of chill hours and are supposed to be consistant, high-quality producers.

My question, for any of you who know a thing or two about blueberries is this: is there an ideal way to grow them to maximize yield? A certain way to train the bush on a trellis or should I just shoot for nice round bushes?

Sick and Tired of It...

The lame excuses. The silly non-posts that say, "oh, sorry I have been busy, but I will write something real on the blog someday."

And yet, they continue on. I admit, there are times when I could be working on that long-promised Diebenkorn piece, but instead find myself with my nose buried in another book. There are times when I could type out one of my new recipes, but instead enjoy a post-prandial movie with the family (Miyazaki and Harryhausen for the most part). Shucks, I ought to write about what is so right (amidst much that is so wrong) in Miyazaki.

So, it is not without guilt that I, once again, say, "bear with me. Something of substance comes this way soon."