Ready for Change? In 2012, perhaps?

John, over at Rene's Apple has been posting some good stuff on the train wreck that is the Obama Administration. Hopey! Hopey! Changey! Changey! Yes We Can!

I hope Mark Steyn doesn't mind, but I am proposing that Hopey! Hopey! Changey! Changey! Yes WE Can! become a motto so ubiquitous that the saps who pushed for the Obama presidency will cringe every time they hear it.

The silver lining is that the poor boys saddled with "Richard Milhous" will have some company in all the "Barack Hussein"s and "Obama"s.

Betting pool topic: how soon before some school or other thing is renamed to whatever it was before it became the Barack Obama Elementary/Water Treatment Center/etc.?

Impeach Obama!
He's not my president!
Don't blame me, I voted for Keyes!

Hang her high!

I am normally staunchly opposed to capital punishment. But I am a reasonable man, and I understand that there are exceptions. When a prisoner who was convicted of a serious crime can rally support from behind bars, then society has a duty to protect itself by executing said prisoner. The case of Kathleen Soliah comes to mind. If ever there were a good reason to use the death penalty without the slightest bit of hand-wringing, then this is it. Instead, this convicted terrorist will be free to resume her comfortable middle class life. This is a travesty. The only reason her crimes were not greater is the general incompetence of the SLA. While they are at it, it is long past time to pull the switch on Mumia and Leonard Peltier.

Very Odd.

Yesterday I noticed what looks like an oil well in American Canyon (a town in Napa County, next to Vallejo). I don't think that anyone is pulling up crude here, but I cannot imagine a house needing to draw up so much well water that they need a heavy duty pump like that. Odd.

American Canyon is an interesting place. It sits on the road between Vallejo and Napa, and is not quite fish nor is it fowl. It was incorporated as a city sometime in the 1990's, and before that was a region more than anything. The canyon itself runs perpendicular to the main body of the town (if you call it that - it is more a conglomeration of light industry that supports the wine and other agricultural concerns, retail, and new housing developments. You really can't pinpoint a downtown per se), which is centered around Highway 29. There are several interesting businesses in American Canyon and an Italian supper club that we really should try one of these days.

I like American Canyon, in the same way that I like Mexicali. Both towns pretty much completely lack charm, but they don't lack life. Of course the life in American Canyon is threatened by the suburban sprawl type developments and their attendent chain stores, but there is enough of the old strangeness that naturally happens in a border region (in this case the border between agriculture and industry, but also the border between wealthy, bucolic Napa County and poorer, more blue collar Solano County, and not to slight the border relationship between an inland valley and the Bay Area...etc.) to allow for unusual ventures to at least survive if not to thrive.

American Canyon boasts an excellent nursery, a large lot selling normal as well as unusual lawn sculptures (need a giant iron T-Rex?), cork wholesalers, etc. However, when you think of the Napa Valley, this sort of setting does not come to mind. It is sort of like saying "Rome" and coming up with EUR. Now, anyone who knows me, knows that EUR is about my favorite part of Rome, so if I were to book a vacation in Rome and found that my hotel was out at EUR, I would be delighted, but I think most people would feel a little bit cheated. And with this in mind, I giggle every time I see the GAIA Napa Valley Spa. It's architecture is complete trendy "look-at-me-I'm-sustainable!" horsepoop. And I would be curious to see their literature. But it is a little bit of upscale Napa Valley plopped in a pretty gritty looking light-industrial-meets-suburban-sprawl area. Perhaps in twenty years (five years ago I would have said "ten years," but economies change) the Napa Valley will be fully in American Canyon (who woulda thunk that the blue collar town of Napa would have had anything like what it does now - other than the wine train, it was difficult to tell that it was even in the Napa Valley just ten years ago), and this place will be the brave pioneer. Meanwhile, however, it seems a little incongruous.

I know that if I were flying from far away and thought that I was going to be in the Napa Valley and, instead, found myself half an hour away in American Canyon, I would probably be a bit annoyed.

The grapes, however, are migrating that direction. There is even a small vineyard in Vallejo (although I think that is just for private use. I don't believe there is a commercial aspect to it at all), so even in American Canyon, you can look at rolling hills covered in vines, and that is always pleasant.

What made me think of this? It is March, which is planting time for summer vegetables. This means a trip to the Mid Cities Nursery in American Canyon (and usually a trip to the Berkeley Horticultural Nursery later to pick up the more hard-to-find items). We made ours yesterday. Two more varieties of lettuce, two varieties of tomatoes, tomatillos, sugar snap peas, summer squash, another blueberry bush, hyssop, basil, bronze fennel,and Italian sweet pepper have joined the existing lettuce, raddicchio, Japanese mustard, Swiss Chard, Portuguese kale, eggplant, artichoke, beets, celery, blueberry, strawberry, Mexican lime, Persian lime, countless herbs, etc. that are already in the garden.

Price vs. Quality

Something that I have noticed is that if you take an ordinary thing, gussy it up a bit and call it an "artist's" thing, instead of an "ordinary thing" the price jumps, even as there is no real difference in the thing. For instance, you take a regular tool box or plastic tackle box, call it an "artist's tool box" or "artist's brush box" and you can charge more for it. I understand why they can get away with this. For certain things there is a measurable difference: paint, for instance. Commercial paint is formulated to last about ten years and is not expected to have the same color saturation as artist's paint, which must be expected to last a long time (I once talked to someone about Iris Giclee and expressed my doubts as to its archival qualities. This person assured me that a giclee print should last at least 75 years. Hmmm. 1934. So long, Michaelangelo).

But there are many things that just take advantage of an artist's need for purer ingredients, more rigorous standards of durability and archivability, etc., to make a quick buck. Tool boxes, rags, smocks, all come quickly to mind. I can think of a good design for an artist's tool box, but it would be THIS artist's tool box and might annoy the next artist to no end.

Which brings me to the current question: I can pay $45 for a gallon of Turpenoid, a solvent of odorless (more or less) mineral spirits or I can pay $12 for a gallon of some hardware store odorless mineral spirit paint thinner. I asked the fellow at Blick's and he gave me a long-winded, Stierscheiss-laden answer that basically said, "dude, I don't know a thing about this stuff." Well, he said, "uh, the turpenoid was specially formulated for painting and the paint thinner, uh, wasn't?" At least I think he was asking a question, as his inflection made it sound like it. He had long hair, so go figure. It may have been a girl with three-day stubble and a deep voice. Long hair, question-tone for statements...deep voice, three-day stubble. Why do they make it so difficult these days?

Gamblin, a reputable manufacturer, although I don't always trust them when they speak of their competitors, publishes a little sheet comparing solvents. They make Gamsol, which is a "highly-refined" mineral spirit which they claim performs very well and is minimally toxic. I believe them. When they say that they are working on a high-quality product, they really are. However, in their comparisons they lump Turpenoid in with other (much cheaper) odorless mineral spirits. Since I have been using Turpenoid exclusively for twenty-something years. and have been pleased with it, I do not see the point of switching to Gamblin, but maybe it is time to swtich to something cheaper that Gamblin claims is the same product.

Do any of you have any experience with cheap odorless mineral spirit paint thinners? Please tell me your experiences.

Something to See

At least once in your life, you should see the full moon rise over Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay. Especially on a beautiful, clear evening. With the sun casting golden tints over the City and Oakland Hills, and the sparkle of the lights beginning to shine, nothing quite comes close.

The sensation is especially highlighted when you are eating sea scallops with bacon.

The Connecticut Situation

As anyone who knows me knows, I am no fan of New England. I have had great times there, and know plenty of good folks from that neck of the world. For the most part, however, I see New England as a terrible cultural influence on the rest of the country. Sure, slavery was wrong, but I just can't get all enthused about the Civil War, knowing that it was primarily motivated by the smug New Englanders wanting to wave their moral superiority over the South. There has been a dark stain on that part of the world since the first Calvinists washed ashore and the Indians made the mistake of not eating them.

Now we have this situation in Connecticut (they don't even have real names for places over there, just impossible-to-spell gibberish in semi-dead languages - why not The State of Our Lady, Star of the Sea..."Today the Maris Stellae State Legislature passed sweeping new restrictions on allowing heretics to walk freely in the streets." Ah, we can wish). I have a quick and easy solution: repatriate New England with that other England, and then invite the Luftwaffe to have all of them.

I know, I know, one is not supposed to cheer for the Luftwaffe, but when they are going against England (New, Old, or Middle Aged), it is hard to resist.

Ah, you say, AH, what if I find ten good men in New England?

Fine, you find 'em, and we will allow them to move to the Holy Land of California. We can exchange them for all the utopianist, pagan, eco-creepy, secular neo-puritan jerks that keep coming here from that part of the world already!

Food Writing, Art Writing, etc.

One of the ways that I measure reader reaction to the blog is to look at which posts generate comments years after they were published. For the most part, the bulk of the continuing comments are the food posts. The oxtail soup recipe and the musings on pink popcorn are regular comments draws. Second to that is the Dear Margo post, which attracts rather nasty and hilarious drive-by comments (a drive-by is when the commenter just HAS to make a point to prove how broad-minded she is and how horrified she is by my narrow, bigoted mind, but is not really there for discussion, just to react, the way an insect reacts to a strong light), because I don't take Wicca seriously and don't think you should, either.

One unfortunate thing is that I hate writing recipes. I don't cook by 1/2 a teaspoon this and 300 grams that. No, scratch that. I do cook that way, but it is so internalized that I don't think of it that way anymore. I add the correct amount of salt, enough pimenton to bring the smell and the color to where they should be, etc. However, people like to read the recipes, and I feel something of an obligation to share, so I will strive to write and post more recipes. I don't think I posted any recipes last year, because things got pretty busy around here, and figuring out the exact measurements on recipes takes time and energy. I know. It is just laziness on my part, but so it goes. Since it is my blog, I will do a bit better than that, but ff you want more output, you will have to pay more. I no longer write for the newspapers, but it definitely has left a permanent mark: I write for money.

Amalia has these standardized reading tests that ask questions like "why did the author write this piece." They never offer the correct answer: "Because he was paid to." Or, at the very least, "because the editor told him to." Nor do they allow the testee to write an essay on how the intention of the author is not really a very interesting or enlightening aspect of the text. They should allow the children to ask. "well, do you mean the empirical author or some ideal author?"

However, they don't. Did the writer write to entertain you, to inform you, or to persuade you? Now, wouldn't the most persuasive writing pretend not to be persuasive? The way to get the right answer is to stop thinking like an intelligent reader and to pretend you are an educrat where things are always on the surface, and if you get too lost, you can always relax in knowing that there is going to be some Conference or other in the next couple of months that is going to completely revolutionize how we teach literature and writing.

Art writing. Yes, that is in the title. The most fun for me is to write about art. It must be the least fun for the reader, since those posts tend to get the least amount of commentary. Architecture tends to bring in a little bit more commentary and music does too, but painting is not something that people want to comment on. Too bad. I am working on another art-related project, mentioned here before, and the art writing will end up going towards that end.

As for bullfighting, the season is over, hombre! Let's talk in May.