This.



Great story about the making of this track on Open Culture, here.

After all of his political and philanthropic work, plus Bourne and 30 Rock, he should have been a shoe-in. But I waited. And now, with his amazing performance in Behind the Candelabra, he's in!

So. Good.



I also have a renewed admiration for Michael Douglas. And holy smokes, Rob Lowe! Or, rather, Rob Lowe's cat face. Fabulous.

Eames as my Tiny Dancer?



Oh guuuuuurl. I squee something awful fierce.

There have been a few essays and articles posted in the last few months about the second coming of Bay Area tech that are, both separately and together, very interesting indeed.

First, in both timeline and foundation:

Rebecca Solnit's excellent essay on the burgeoning San Francisco dot com environment, for London Review of Books

All this is changing the character of what was once a great city of refuge for dissidents, queers, pacifists and experimentalists. Like so many cities that flourished in the post-industrial era, it has become increasingly unaffordable over the past quarter-century, but still has a host of writers, artists, activists, environmentalists, eccentrics and others who don’t work sixty-hour weeks for corporations– though we may be a relic population. Boomtowns also drive out people who perform essential services for relatively modest salaries, the teachers, firefighters, mechanics and carpenters, along with people who might have time for civic engagement. I look in wonder at the store clerks and dishwashers, wondering how they hang on or how long their commute is. Sometimes the tech workers on their buses seem like bees who belong to a great hive, but the hive isn’t civil society or a city; it’s a corporation.

Onward, to the intersection of this phenomenon with philanthropy and community:

The Bacon Wrapped Economy

More young people have more money in a more concentrated place than perhaps ever before. Old money is being replaced by new, but it's a new kind of new, one that has different values, different habits, and different interests than the previous generation. The very rich have always, to a greater or lesser degree, been guilty of excess, but what's changed is that the Bay Area's new wealth doesn't necessarily have the perspective, the experience, or the commitments of the group it's replacing.

And that brings with it a whole host of disparate side effects: The arts economy, already unstable, has been forced to contend with the twin challenges of changing tastes and new funding models. Entire industries that didn't exist ten years ago are either thriving on venture capital, or thriving on companies that are thriving on it. It is now possible to find a $6 bottle of Miller High Life, a $48 plate of fried chicken, or a $20 BLT in parts of the city that used to be known for their dive bars and taco stands. If, after all, money has always been a means of effecting the world we want to bring about, when a region is flooded with uncommonly rich and uncommonly young people, that world begins to look very different. And we're all living in it, whether we like it or not.

AKA, coffin nail number nine in my nonprofit career. I definitely saw this happening when I left my last nonprofit job -- the money is there, but the focus, priorities, and commitment of the donors are way less grounded in reality. I get that in the best of worlds this can also possibly make some nonprofits be a bit more accountable, and can possibly make the arts more dynamic, but what I'm actually seeing are the unsustainable side effects: fickle, less committed support in exchange for moving mountains, and shallow donors unaware of the issues that are important to vulnerable communities made up of folks who are definitely not bringing in a $2000+/week paycheck.

And lastly:

Oakland Ranks Number 11 on List of Best Cities for Tech Start-Ups

Here it comes.

Okay, so as much as I find start-up culture and tech drones and $25 cocktails somewhat sad, I continue to be torn by this type of stuff. On one hand, Oakland needs the tax base and has benefitted in many ways (still more so peripherally) from tech. And cities are living organisms -- always changing, growing, adjusting -- with the consequential growing pains, so why not? But is this stuff going to fix public schools? Save our community libraries? Lower crime rates? Or just get us more people in $100 hoodies gushing about how edgy Oakland is at their $40 brunch served by an ex-Oaklander who now commutes from El Sobrante? I fear we'll get folks who don't value or even SEE anyone else but folks like themselves.

But sooner or later, everyone has to live in the world they've created: "...now I can make a billion dollars building a cool photo app or targeting ads to people more effectively. And that is a problem: More and more people in tech are making huge amounts of money, and people aren't curing cancer because it's not an attractive thing to do."

We can dream, and this is the world we made?

I'm not much for fancy schmancy celebrity stuff, but *sigh* Cannes.

And *sigh* fashion at Cannes.

THIS. JUMPSUIT.



(Balenciaga by Alexander Wang jumpsuit)

And oooohhhhhhhhh...



(Christian Dior haute couture 2013)

Yummy.

But in more important, Cannes closer to home news, the Ryan Coogler film, Fruitvale Station -- based on the last day of the life of Oscar Grant, the unarmed 22-year-old black man who was shot and killed in Oakland by a transit officer on New Year’s Day in 2009 -- is getting rave reviews. The shooting of Oscar Grant was in a lot of ways a last straw for a community with an uneasy relationship with police (Riders anyone?), and the frustration and anger resulted in several weeks of rioting and protests.

Hopefully the film will make this reality that many people of color experience in "post-race" America something that is understood beyond the borders of Oakland.

Wow!





Post-Punk/New Wave Super Friends

If you don't get at least a little itch to shake your rump to the new Pharrell-driven Daft Punk song, "Get Lucky," you may not be human.

But the former goth in me is all about this.

Honor and support on this International Workers' Day, and always.

Man harem alert!

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Been back for a couple of weeks from another successful couple of weeks in Tokyo. This was really a perfect trip this time around: Trevor logged a lot of training time and I got to meet some of the wonderful British Budo folks he met last year, and there was also plenty of time to see our friends and family, and take in a lot of what Japan has to offer -- which is, namely for me:

Excellent food...



(Serious damage being done with friends at all you can eat yakiniku, Akihabara)

And great people...



(Jeebus, just look at that mass of people! [Takeshita Street, Harajuku])

"But saudade!" you exclaim, "I know you've been going to Japan for many years now, but surely you're not so jaded yet that there must be more to visiting than just food and crowds of people-watching?"

I mean, I guess.

;)

I have covered many of the things I love about Japan over the last 7 (!!!) years I have blogged here; my friends have been nearly regaled to death for almost 20. So, you'll have to forgive me if I come across as jaded, which is lame. It's more that I don't want to bore you! Japan, my friends, is super interesting (settle in for the long haul if you ask me sometime about growing pains and tenability around rigid societal constructs there, which is endlessly fascinating to me); more important though, is that IT IS TOTALLY RAD.

Lemme see...something somewhat new to blog about (and, more importantly, give an excuse to put up pictures)...

Okay, so, the gorgeous natural environment (can be) a big winner. Even though I find Japan's reverence of nature juxtaposed with their almost fanatical desire to control and politically monetize it somewhat off-putting, I also tend to waffle and find their control fascinating. From bonsai to parking space-sized park retreats in the middle of highrises to lining rivers with concrete to ostensibly control their flow, it always makes for an interesting environment.

For the last few years I have visited during cherry blossom season. The impermanence of cherry blossoms -- they only bloom for a couple of weeks and then they are gone -- represent the intense and ephemeral qualities of life. All of Japan takes time out for hanami, or cherry blossom viewing, for that short time. We usually go to Inokashira Koen, in Kichijoji, but alas, there were few blossoms left this time around. But spring had definitely sprung.



Architecture, too, is a wonderful thing to behold in Japan. While there are plenty of plain Soviet-style concrete block buildings jutting about, and often it seems there are no zoning laws so you're left with a sort of weird jumble in high density, suburban, and mixed-use areas alike, there also seems to be gorgeous traditional architecture and exciting and innovative new architecture everywhere you turn.

My particular passion is that old-school, proletariat spirit, or shitamachi. While I crave the pounded dirt-floored homes still in use in the more rural areas of Japan, I spend most of my time on the city now, so the tiny, tin-sided, home/business mixed use buildings dating from the early 20th century to post-war tend to be my jam. These are in Shinjuku bordering a park and the pleasure district. Lying somewhere between old and new, I love this shitamachi spirit and seek it out anywhere I can.



These newer, but still old-school, passageways in Nezu -- just a hop, skip, and jump from the museums and shopping in Ueno -- were also lovely to behold.



And finally, no shitamachi-style trek is complete without visits to the old-school drinking establishments, or nomiya, that are centered around shitamachi areas like Asakusa and Ueno. This alleyway was tucked away in a tiny corner of Shinjuku, just bordering the highrises and fancy bars and clubs of Kabuchicho.



*LOVE*

Architecturally, the new and old can be blended seamlessly as well. This is the new gorgeous Asakusa Cultural Center, by Kengo Kuma and Associates, Tokyo.



Beautifully lit up at night, I was still sad it was closed in the evening. I usually go to Asakusa in the evening to avoid the temple crowds and get my old-school outdoor nomiya on, and I had no idea this had just been completed. Next time I am going inside!

Then there's what lies in-between all the glass and steel in one of the most sophisticated cities in the world. Trevor and I happened upon a building removal site in Shinjuku. Wild what lurks beneath, and it ain't all that sophisticated.



But even though you've got some serious analog shizz happening right behind and below the bright lights of the big city, I would be remiss if I didn't mention this other wonderful thing about Japan: the amazing attention to quality, detail, and service. This is in addition to how people are in general helpful and polite, even if they aren't working and supposed to help you; get them drinking, and normally shy Japanese will love you like a brother.

Coming from a place like the Wild West, it can seem almost criminal how well-done and polite even the most simple of things are created and transacted.



So my insanely delicious, healthy, and perfectly presented matcha latte kind of brings me full circle. I always appreciate Japan, and there is always something wonderful to experience and behold there, but really, it is all about the food...



(my udon and umeshu at the gorgeous Maenohara Onsen, Shimura-Sakaue)

And the people...



Ja mata, Nihon.

Early evening, walking in windy San Francisco, I saw these big, beautiful flags and I was moved to take a photograph.



I'm sure it's funny to some for me to follow a post about the ridiculousness of both 'Accidental Racist' and the Confederate Flag as a misunderstood symbol with a shot of California's and the United States' respectively. But as infuriating and sometimes scary they can be in their own ways, I truly love my state and my country.

I've never been much for nationalism -- or, more commonly, nationalism veiled as patriotism -- or, ugh, patriotism conflated with religious zealotry, but I am patriotic. I do, however, cringe when any crowd begins shouting "USA! USA!" (Ha, years ago I had a Facebook friend seriously use that response as a way to shut me down for calling him out about falsely claiming Obama had ordered folks to call the White House Xmas tree a "holiday tree.") It always makes me uncomfortable when this happens because I feel a crowd shouting this has more creep toward nationalism than actual patriotic love. Love allows for weakness and mistakes as well as strength.

I prefer this as my love song to my great state and country:

A little late to the party, but this is oh so good.

Stephen Colbert Spoofs 'Accidental Racist'

If you haven't heard the original 'Accidental Racist' I think that really, it's not necessary: Colbert covers the salient points. I also think David Graham at The Atlantic does a bang up job of laying down how offensive, and in many ways, damaging, this song is.

It really hits home here:

It's pretty insane to compare an inoffensive piece of headgear to a flag that represents a treasonous secession movement devoting to maintaining the practice of slavery. It's even more insane to compare jewelry to, you know, slave shackles.

The deeply offensive gold chains and iron chains thing aside, we're also talking about a flag that represents a movement devoted to maintaining the practice of slavery and comparing it to a 'do-rag' -- a piece of clothing that has been given connotations of offense by, well, racists. The flag, however, remains what it is. I get that these guys probably had good intentions, but good intentions aren't enough when it comes to learning how not to be entitled. This song does not much more than bolster white privilege and white entitlement around racism.

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing and inevitable fallout for the Muslim community (and the poor Czechs!) I've been thinking a lot about "accidental racism" and white privilege. I read two great pieces on this recently.

For anyone who struggles with the idea of white privilege, this:

The Saudi Marathon Man

Why the search, the interrogation, the dogs, the bomb squad, and the injured [Saudi Arabian] man’s name tweeted out, attached to the word “suspect”? After the bombs went off, people were running in every direction—so was the young man. Many, like him, were wounded; many of them were saved by the unflinching kindness of strangers, who carried them or stopped the bleeding with their own hands and improvised tourniquets...In the midst of that, according to a CBS News report, a bystander saw the young man running, badly hurt, rushed to him, and then “tackled him,” bringing him down. People thought he looked suspicious.

What made them suspect him? He was running—so was everyone. The police reportedly thought he smelled like explosives; his wounds might have suggested why. He said something about thinking there would be a second bomb—as there was, and often is, to target responders. If that was the reason he gave for running, it was a sensible one. He asked if anyone was dead—a question people were screaming. And he was from Saudi Arabia, which is around where the logic stops. Was it just the way he looked, or did he, in the chaos, maybe call for God with a name that someone found strange?

And this one, which while written from the perspective of a Swede, had so many hallmarks of my own tiny town American childhood that I could recall my Japanese mother's pride, shame, and anger at the hands of "accidental racists" like it was yesterday:

Sweden's Closet Racists

Being 6 years old and walking toward passport control with Dad, who has sweaty hands, who clears his throat, who fixes his hair and shines up his shoes on the backs of his knees. All the pink-colored people are let by. But our dad is stopped. And we think, maybe it was by chance, until we see the same scene repeated year after year.

Being 7 and starting school and being told about society by a dad who was terrified even then that his outsiderness would be inherited by his children. He says, “When you look like we do, you must always be a thousand times better than everyone else if you don’t want to be refused.”

I remember my mother's bewilderment -- then fear when security arrived, then shaking rage when she realized what was happening -- when a department store in my hometown wouldn't take her check; the check with her strange and difficult-to-pronounce name printed in script below my white father's, the check accompanied by a military ID ("it's from the US government, it's better than a driver's license," my non-driving mother repeated over and over, in vain). They demanded that my father be there, in person, for them to honor the check. I remember her shame and defeat, and moreover I remember my embarrassment at yet another thing that set me apart from my white peers -- an embarrassment only rivaled by my shame now in looking back on my childhood lack of perspective and support for my mother.

When someone wears a Confederate Flag in spite of the fact that it is first and foremost a symbol of whites owning human beings, and then has the nerve to tell me that foundational symbolism isn't intended -- it's only "accidentally racist" and purely on me -- privilege is the first thing that goes through my mind.

Steubenville.

The only good thing to come out of this is the fact that we are finally having serious discourse about rape culture in the United States. 

While I agree with this Slate blogger, who states:

What makes CNN's [rape apologist] coverage doubly amazing is that teenagers get taken off the path of "promising" every day for behaviors that are exponentially less anti-social than terrorizing girls with sexual abuse. The country is full of nonrapist D students, teen moms, high-school drop-outs, and dim but well-meaning people who have severely limited opportunities to become the sort of community leaders these boys were clearly slated to be. I'd have any one of them be my boss rather than a guy who raped someone and then reportedly texted a naked photo of the victim with the caption, "Bitches is bitches. Fuck ‘em," to his friends later. A system that takes rapists out of the running for certain opportunities so nonrapists have a better shot is a system that is working. After the Penn State scandal, you'd think people would understand the importance of keeping sexual predators out of positions of power.

...I also DO feel a bit of sadness for these boys; it is the same sadness I feel when confronted with extreme ignorance and entitlement. I am NOT absolving them of guilt, nor giving them an excuse -- I know plenty of men, many of whom I knew as boys, who grew up in this culture and who would NEVER do this, nor allow or have allowed this to happen, and would in fact help any girl or woman they saw and probably -- as men are wont to do -- get violent with the perpetrators. Did their mommas and daddies raise them right? Perhaps. Are they smarter or more sensitive than the average bear? Maybe. Did having strong female friends contribute to their outlook? Possibly. Did they have better access to discourse about gender roles in society? Sorry, but I think that's unlikely.  

It's true that a system that takes rapists out of the running for certain opportunities is a system that is working, but a system that continues to raise boys to do these things, blames the victim, and then is merely punitive and does not rehabilitate, is NOT working and needs to be held accountable.

There is a pervasive argument that points to our still toxic gender environment, and the way our 21st century society continues to define women as property and men as only men if they are violent and unfeeling, as the big red flags in perpetuating this behavior. 

Two great essays about this can be found here and here. 


What I do want to tell you is that you need to stop using the “wives, sisters, daughters” argument when you are talking to people defending the Steubenville rapists. Or any rapists. Or anyone who commits any kind of crime, violent or otherwise, against a woman...Saying these things is not helpful; in fact, it’s not even helping to humanize the victim. What you are actually doing is perpetuating rape culture by advancing the idea that a woman is only valuable in so much as she is loved or valued by a man.

--

We don't raise boys to be men. We raise them not to be women, or gay men...if we want to end the pandemic of rape, it’s going to require an entire global movement of men willing to do the hard work of interrogating the ideas they were raised with.

Holy smokes, this is cool.

Transforming Dresses by Hussein Chalayan

Okay nerds, this is awesome.

Bibliomancy Oracle

Oh my, it's almost February, but...

Happy New Year!

One of many gay couples getting marriage licenses at midnight in the great state of Washington. Adorables.

I love that these guys look like biker dudes from my redneck hometown, or guys with which my Dad would've gone fishing and hunting. Visibility is key to attitudes changing. These guys made my day.

I have seen this flying around the internets for the last couple of days, but just now got the chance to sit down and read it.

Restaurant Review: Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square

Ruinous. Unlovable. Inedible.

Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? When you saw the burger described as “Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche,” did your mind touch the void for a minute?

There are too many gems to post. WELCOME TO FLAVOR TOWN!

I saw the Afghan Whigs last night at the Fillmore in San Francisco, with tickets I was stoked to receive as part of a package deal while supporting the KALX Berkeley fundraiser.

This is the era of the reunion tour, and I have seen some seriously shite, purely money-making, insult-to-the-fans tours lately where the band hates themselves, their fans, and their songs. Not so with the Afghan Whigs -- they killed it! Not only was the band in top form, rocking like it was 1994, but genius singer and songwriter Greg Dulli's voice has not aged. For a man who yells a lot of his lyrics, that is saying something!

So. good.

This photo gallery is a nice way to end the workweek, and that's saying something since y'all know how I feel about cats.

This Grandma and her Cat are the Cutest Best Friends Ever

My favorite:

My Japanese grandfather's business was making these types of good luck decorations; I love the beautiful one she's made with citrus for oshogatsu.

I sometimes dream of this life, but am too much of a flatlander now.

FOUR MORE YEARS!

...despite all our differences, most of us share certain hopes for America’s future.  We want our kids to grow up in a country where they have access to the best schools and the best teachers — a country that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation, with all the good jobs and new businesses that follow.
 
We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt; that isn’t weakened by inequality; that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.
 
We want to pass on a country that’s safe and respected and admired around the world; a nation that is defended by the strongest military on Earth and the best troops this world has ever known — but also a country that moves with confidence beyond this time of war to shape a peace that is built on the promise of freedom and dignity for every human being.

We believe in a generous America; in a compassionate America; in a tolerant America, open to the dreams of an immigrant’s daughter who studies in our schools and pledges to our flag. To the young boy on the South Side of Chicago who sees a life beyond the nearest street corner. To the furniture worker’s child in North Carolina who wants to become a doctor or a scientist, an engineer or entrepreneur, a diplomat or even a President. That’s the future we hope for. That’s the vision we share.  That’s where we need to go. Forward. That's where we need to go.   

And thank you, Maine and Maryland.

I've got lots of friends who are public service employees -- firefighters, police officers, FEMA, and the like. I was reading this article in the SF Chronicle about the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in NYC and some of the rest of the Eastern Seaboard. The accompanying slideshow really made me appreciate the gravity of what it is that they are committed to doing for our communities.

New York City police officers go door to door in a housing project to take note of which residents are ignoring the mandatory evacuation order as Hurricane Sandy approaches on October 28, 2012 in the Rockaway Beach neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. 

So, in light of this, I find what we have at stake November 6 in the United States as even more important.


Romney Says America Doesn't Need 'More Firemen, More Policemen, More Teachers'

plus this excellent, no pulled punches opinion piece from the NY Times:

A Big Storm Requires Big Government

[Eliminating federal disaster coordination and support] is an absurd notion, but it’s fully in line with decades of Republican resistance to federal emergency planning. FEMA, created by President Jimmy Carter, was elevated to cabinet rank in the Bill Clinton administration, but was then demoted by President George W. Bush, who neglected it, subsumed it into the Department of Homeland Security, and placed it in the control of political hacks. The disaster of Hurricane Katrina was just waiting to happen.

The agency was put back in working order by President Obama, but ideology still blinds Republicans to its value. Many don’t like the idea of free aid for poor people, or they think people should pay for their bad decisions, which this week includes living on the East Coast.

Oh Chris Christie, you Romney shill, the irony.

I mean, this is definitely the rotten cherry on top of Romney's willingness to say anything to win, his abysmal knowledge of foreign policy (as demonstrated in the third Presidential debate), plus his views on women, gay rights, birth control, "the 47%" -- you name the right thing to do, and he's on the wrong side of both compassion and history.

It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.

Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, 1788

Let's re-elect Barack Obama.

Hee.

This 2013 Cthulhu calendar by John Coulthart is superb. Reasonable too.

Of course, December is my favorite.

Looking to satisfy the 10-year old inside your sophisticated and cultured adult body?

These Japanese Fart Scrolls housed at Waseda University are straight up awesome.

My favorite. Y'all know how I feel about cats. Like so:

Hat tip to Tofugu.

I get tired of meme-y pics plastered all over teh facebooks, but every now and then one comes along...

Apparently it is homecoming week at my hometown high school. Being someone who was more inclined in high school to ditch pep rallies to smoke cloves in the drain pipe that ran under the lower student parking lot, I was never a high school sports fan, so strangely my one high school regret is not joining the biggest supporters of high school football, the band. And that is because ours was the world class Golden Regiment, celebrating 30 years this year.

I remember them being amazing when my parents took me to a free concert at the high school gymnasium when I was in middle school. I had a lot of friends who played in band, many during the 200 strong marching band days fueled by the direction of the inimitable Pat Sieben.

This is the closest video of the band in age I could find to my high school years -- ironically, at a parade in Canada -- and while it is short and not particularly noteworthy music-wise, it gives you a bit of an idea of how bitchin' band was at my high school.

We live in interesting times indeed.

3-D Printer Company Seizes Machine from Desktop Gunsmith

the Wiki Weapon project aimed to eventually provide a platform for anyone to share 3-D weapons schematics online. Eventually, the group hoped, anyone could download the open source blueprints and build weapons at home.

Hmmmm.

And I didn't know this:

It’s legal in the United States to manufacture a gun at home without a license — provided it’s not for sale or trade. But this doesn’t include all weapons. Machine guns and sawed-off shotguns are illegal to manufacture without a license. There’s also a law requiring “any other weapon, other than a pistol or a revolver … capable of being concealed on the person” to be subject to review by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms an Explosives (ATF).

Wow. I love the implications of 3-D printing technology, and I really don't have a problem with the Second Amendment, but ehhhh --  this stuff has to be regulated somehow. I grew up in a gun-owning, hunting home, and I know the drill:  laws tend to keep honest people honest, if you outlaw guns then only outlaws will have guns, etc., but having a gun blueprint available online, for free, to anyone, for download and printing? That's very different than having to build your own out of metal or go to a shop and buy one (or traffic with certain folks to get one illegally).

Oh jeez, it's a bunch of Libertarians. 

When asked about the possibility of a Wiki Weapon hypothetically being used by a child or a mentally unstable individual, Wilson, a fierce libertarian, defended the project.

"People say you're going to allow people to hurt people, well that's one of the sad realities of liberty. People abuse freedom," said Wilson. "But that's no excuse to not have these rights or to feel good about someone taking them away from you."

I am a great admirer of the oft-paraphrased Ben Franklin bit, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." But let's be reasonable about "essential liberty." Wilson is right that people abuse freedom, but you know, we're living in a society. We're supposed to act in a civilized way. Liberties such as these are limited to people who play nice -- free downloads for anyone is decidedly not the same thing. It's going to -- and should -- be regulated, and our government (which is there to protect us too, lest we forget) needs time to to figure it out. Cute little law project and 15 minutes of fame there, but it's pretty cut and dried. Give it a rest.

I hiked 6 miles straight uphill, drank gin lemonades on three bar patios, and both bicycled this way and that in my beloved city and walked around its lake -- all on this past wonderfully hot, hot weekend.

Today is a work day, but I think I may cut out early.

Running up the stairs; gonna meet you at the rooftop.

Great li'l bit about Oakland on the local National Public Radio FB feed today.

Five Reasons Why Oakland is Hella Awesome on the Internet

The best thing EVER:  the When in Oakland Tumbler. oh. my. god. The realness just blew my mind.

Oakland Pedestrians:

When I Start Off on Telegraph in Oakland and End up on Telegraph in Berkeley:

OMG, one more, near and dear to my heart.

When I Have to Drive Through Berkeley:

I *heart* Kal Penn

Obama and Kumar go to the DNC

Which is more adorable: that the president of the United States is so obviously reaching out for the stoner vote, or that Kal Penn, the star of the “Harold & Kumar” movies, has carved out such an impressive political career? 

Just in case anyone forgot...

Penn, who was the associate director of the White House Office of Public Engagement for two years before leaving to make another “Harold & Kumar” movie, is hosting the Democratic convention live coverage on BarackObama.com this week. He’s also speaking at the convention Tuesday night.

Proper.

A subject near and dear to my heart. It's not so much how much (within reason), but what you eat. And you've gotta expend!

Severe Diet Doesn’t Prolong Life, Study of Monkeys Concludes

Lab test results showed lower levels of cholesterol and blood sugar in the male monkeys that started eating 30 percent fewer calories in old age, but not in the females. Males and females that started dieting when they were old had lower levels of triglycerides, which are linked to heart disease risk. Monkeys put on the diet when they were young or middle-aged did not get the same benefits, though they had less cancer. But the bottom line was that the monkeys that ate less did not live any longer than those that ate normally. 

I'd really like to see studies around the stress levels in the "semi-starved" monkeys vs. the well-fed monkeys. I'm surprised this factor isn't addressed.

Why I'm not a parent.

Delaware Toddler Fight Club Shut Down

What? They do it in Thailand.

How Young Is Too Young to Be a Prizefighter?

RIP Helen Gurley Brown.

Legendary to the end.

On her long marriage: "I married the right man. He is kind, compassionate and generous, not just to me, but to a lot of other people. You need to marry a decent, caring person."

I know this from personal experience to be true. Don't settle for someone who isn't decent, generous, and kind.

"Prosti-dudes" = groan (and not in a good way). Better is that this town -- in one of the eight Nevada counties that allows prostitution -- is called Mound House.

Men Back on the Menu at a Brothel in Northern Nevada

(toro nagashi on the Motoyasu River, Hiroshima)

Hiroshima Marks 67th Anniversary of A-Bomb Attack

I was in Japan for the first time for the 50th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and never before in my short life had I experienced something so profound. I remember going to a bank in Tokyo with my aunt where there was a large and detailed exhibit of the Hiroshima bombing that consisted primarily of a maze of poster-sized photographs depicting very graphic images of the aftermath. I remember distinctly rounding a corner to see an elderly woman sobbing in front of a photograph depicting radiation burns on a woman's back. I felt like all eyes were on me, a half-Japanese -- but most importantly, half-American -- reminder of the war.

Here I was in Japan for the first time, trying to discover that elusive part of my identity that I could never quite grasp as a child -- an identity that, growing up in a very white and very provincial part of the country, was rife with the scars of prejudice and the consequent shame I felt at being different -- and all I felt was more shame.

But the extraordinary thing was, people were warm and gracious to me. Japanese folks are warm and gracious anyway, especially given the all-important public-face, but my aunt told me that people approached her and told her they were happy to see me there -- not only to pay my respects, but to learn from the mistakes of the past.

My Army veteran father and Japanese mother both maintained that the bombing negated the need for a ground war in Japan, which would have killed and maimed so many more Japanese civilians, as well as soldiers on both sides. They both said that the status of the Emperor as a god and the culture of feudalism and obedience meant that even the most vulnerable of civilians -- the elderly, women, and children -- would have come at gun-wielding ground soldiers armed with daggers, hoes, even merely sharpened sticks.

All I know for sure is that war -- however inevitable -- sucks. Though we humans never seem to learn, I hope we learned something from this.

Wow!

A $9 Bike Made of Cardboard

Israel’s Izhar Gafni has designed a bike that can be produced for $9 and support riders up to 310 pounds. 

“It always excites me to take negligible materials and then turn them into something completely different; something useful..."

Love innovative, beautiful, and functional work with paper. Reminds me of this post from 6 years (!!) ago about Japanese architect Shigeru Ban and his cardboard refugee homes. Awesomesauce.

Altamont Pass at dusk.

Haha, VICTORY!

Pop Music Too Loud and All Sounds the Same: Official

A team led by artificial intelligence specialist Joan Serra at the Spanish National Research Council ran music from the last 50 years through some complex algorithms and found that pop songs have become intrinsically louder and more bland in terms of the chords, melodies and types of sound used.
  
This is from Reuters, not the Onion, so I now have no shame in requesting that you please vacate my literal and figurative area of aesthetic and recreational space, planted with durable things, subject to weed, pest control, and practices aimed at its maintenance, and regularly mowed to ensure an acceptable length. NOW.

Speaking of art, a recent acquisition:

I've admired my very talented friend Alex Case's breathtaking asphalt paintings for some time, since I saw him exhibit them over a year ago at Johansson Projects. At once serene and dynamic -- a hallmark of a lot of my favorite types of art, and certainly one of the reasons I love Alex's other work too -- we made the decision to buy this right after I had quit my same-old-BS-different-salt-mine job and were unsure of the stability of our finances. Like my taste in art, I was both terrified and exhilarated, calm but intrepid, because I knew.

There is a way I decided I wanted to live my life a long time ago that was fomenting even when I was just a little girl. I had an idyllic childhood and great parents, and though the negative and positive aspects of the redneck county where I grew up informs my life in many ways, one thing that stands out is that I always knew there was more out there.

I remember my father telling me how he joined the US Army to see the world and avoid a life sentence at the mill or the mine; how on R&R in Occupied Japan while the other GIs went out to drink and whore he would buy a train ticket -- counting the stops so he wouldn't get lost -- and get off the train in some little village and just walk around. Contrary to the official warnings of his superiors, who told him that a lone American GI in a village far from base was at risk of getting his throat slit, he was invited into the homes of countless families for tea, along the way learning his love of Japanese joinery and Japanese farming techniques, and saw the kind of Japan that still only exists for a very few lucky outsiders.

It was my father who told me that I was the captain of my destiny and that I could steer myself anywhere I wanted to go. In the course of charting my way, I decided I wanted to exist fearless, by sucking the marrow out of life, and part of that for me was forging a life that valued the arts.  

Alex's painting means a lot more to me than just a beautiful piece of work that I will have the rest of my life -- it reinforces for me the things my father taught me and wanted for me; that I'm making the right choices for my life, and that I'm also blessed to have the time and inclination to reflect on those things.