Today’s Rhapsody is the Czech Rhapsody by Bohuslav Martinu for Violin and Piano. There’s also an orchestral version of this that I look forward to sharing soon.
Comment
Archive for ‘Test’
407 results.
I have to share a rather interesting conversation I had with a friend regarding safe films to watch with her six year old. I was more than happy to give some suggestions for films that are good but don’t have potential bombshells in them. So obviously things like Bambi with the fairly dramatic off screen death of the mother are out as well as things you might not suspect (these days I consider Bert Lahr as one of the saints of comedy but I remember being nearly traumatized the first time when I saw the Lion leap out of the trees when I saw the Wizard of Oz for the first time)
So I was all ready to recommend some Studio Ghibli and other old favorites… Until I realized just how high my friends standards were for keeping the children pure… After the topic was veering towards new agey political correctness it came to this:
“Just how is Finding Nemo sexualized?” I asked. I was aware of cast members having genders but that was about it.
“Oh because it’s about this boy fish. But then he meets an ANGEL FISH and has to find a pearl for her…” etc, etc
“Uh… Not getting into that doesn’t sound anything like the movie I’ve watched numerous times, but… You do know the angelfish in the movie is a guy… voiced by William Defoe?”
Apparently she didn’t.
I’ve been talking quite a bit about my success biking lately to the point that it’s allowed me to pretty much discontinue taking the bus for everything but the most special occasions.
The problem being I’m coming to discover is that once one of these special occasions comes up you find yourself unprepared for any of the slightest deviations from the plan. Yesterday I had one of those special occasions.
It was Cartoonist’s Northwest’s annual “Mad Hatter” Party at Renton its a fun evening with food, friends and singing by the fire making S’mores. Since it’s over 20 miles away it remains one of the places I choose to take the bus too. I made all of the appropriate plans which involved going back and forth between Google Maps and The King County Trip Planner. They both have a lot going for them. I like Google because it includes things like walking to the bus stop as part of the plan but it’s still in the beta stage and some of it’s choices can come off as a little wonky so I still use King County’s as a fall back.
One of the downsides of using any of the trip planners is that there really no choice between early or late. I’ve found that while it’s tempting to lean towards early to be punctual there is such thing as being too early and for a party it can be a real social faux pas. (and when it’s happening in the suburbs there is no way to while away any excess time.) The planners don’t make this easy when they only give you the option of every hour. The invitation had said “fivish” which I choose to interprit as 5:30. So I used the plan to get me there at Six PM and I was given a handful of plans that would get me there at 5:30 . In hind sight, I wish I had written down more than one of them.
I left earlier because I didn’t have the right bus fare. On a weekend this involves having to buy a candy bar at Walgreens to break a large bill. While I was waiting at the cash register I saw the 41 go by . It’s usually my second choice to go downtown with (my first is 522 but since Sound Transit doesn’t give transfers I don’t use it for trips that go beyond Downtown) It annoyed me to miss it and I just might have caught it if I had run once I got out of the drug store. But the plan I had written down used the 72 and I wasn’t in a hurry.
However for whatever reasons (I suspect Husky Traffic) the 72 was late… really late and since the plan only allowed for ten minutes for the layover downtown I was not amused. It finally came over ten minutes late and dispute desperate hopes arrived five minutes after the next bus left.
I can only assume my next bus had left right when it was supposed to because I had to wait forty minutes for it come. I spent my time pacing, trying to remember what other bus routes the trip planners had mentioned, and being generally unpleasant to be around. By the time the 101 came I was in one of those annoying snarky don’t mess with me moods where even other people talking amongst themselves annoys me.
It snowballed from there my final bus at the Renton Park and ride was every hour. But at least I was finally at the “can’t do anything about it” phase of my mood. Which meant that while I still wasn’t very pleasant company I could at least read my book.
I finally arrived at the party “sixish” And ultimately I had a fairly good time. Though more than one friend scolded me saying i should have called them for a ride… They were probably right.
Today’s sketch is another one of my old ones from the RISD museum. I’m embararased to say I don’t know enough about it to talk about it much. It’s a piece of medieval sculpture done in wood and I’m pretty sure it’s Mary and St. Anne lamenting the dead Christ. Having said that it wasn’t on display the last time I was there and a half hour of surfing didn’t find any reference to it.
Well the biking down town thing has been beginning to pay off and other that being a little saddle sore at times this has been going well. To the point that the only reason I need the bus anymore (not counting the times that you have to carry more than one backpack load) Is for anything I really be a sweaty mess for.
This latest trip downtown, my third, probably should have fit into this category. I’d gotten an invite through the Guild for Washington Lawyer’s For the Arts preview at SAM Gallery of, “Digital Connections” a show focused on digitally created art. I’d been wanting to check out the organization for some time and I figured this would be a good opportunity to do just that and get some networking in. Obviously not something you’d want to arrive at as a sweaty mess.
But I was in Scottish cheapskate mode figuring I was all ready paying five dollars to get in why would I want to pay another five for a round trip downtown? Since it’s finally beginning to cool down just a bit in Seattle I decided to chance it. Of course some precautions had to be made. First I gave myself twice as much time as I needed to get there… The assumption being if I deliberately took my time I wouldn’t exert myself and thus not overheat. This is easier said then done. I tend to be a point a to point b kinda guy who likes to try and beat his previous time every time he goes somewhere because of this biking slowly takes an effort.
Second I traveled light without my backpack. My backpack is like wearing a sweater and after the actual exercize is the biggest culpret when it comes to overheating.
So off I went. I managed to maintain my slow pace and was surprised that despite of this still made it in an hour. I spent the extra time at the Downtown Xanadu where comic artists Matthew Southworth and Harrison Wood were there for a signing. I had met both of them in professional capacity so it was good talking with both of them yet again.
When it was finally time to go to the event there was a little bit of confusion. Turns out the SAM Gallery is not actually in SAM. But I got there. It was a good event and I made several good contacts.
Today’s sketch is another piece of Neoclassicismfrom the RISD Art Museum ‘s Pendleton House wing. I confess that earlier I’d facetiously called a lot of this work “black velvet for rich people” and this piece is no exception. Nydia, the Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii by Randolph Rogers is based on the character from Edward Bulwer-Lytton‘s best-selling novel, The Last Days of Pompeii. (a book so popular and long lasting enough to have an 80s miniseries done of it .) and he did at least 77 copies of it the photo on the bottom is showing what it looks like is actually the one from the New York collection I’ve also seen one at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts… Who said that Commercialism was a modern invention?
I just took another major step in my bicycle commute thing. For the longest time I’d had a… not exactly a fear but a healthy caution for going downtown on my bicycle. Because of this I had an unwritten rule about not going any further south than the Ship Canal. Gradually I would bend this rule. For example there’s a user’s group just off Mercer ave that I’ve been going to but I would rationalize that it was the edge of downtown and I wouldn’t be a good idea to go farther south than that. I bent this rule again this June during Folklife telling myself that the Seattle Center was only fifteen minutes away from where I had been biking to in Mercer and if I didn’t feel safe in the area around Aurora and Deny I could get off and walk. It turned out it wasn’t that bad and I ended up biking there for the entire weekend averaging 50 minutes each way.
So that’s where I’d left it for the next couple of months. However this week I had to go to a monthly meeting held at the downtown Barnes & Noble. Just to spell it out going downtown has become a pain for me. To the point I usually make a day of it maintaining a shopping list for several places and doing work at the library. To make matters worse getting back home after the meeting is a pain. Especially if you miss the first bus. So I’d been thinking about doing the bike ride for a while.
I’d been using the same rationalizing I’d used for stretching my range to the Seattle Center “oh this route doesn’t have that much traffic” or “It’s on a bus route. If you chicken out there’s no shame in putting your bike on the rack and riding the rest of the way” Anyway it turned out not to be that big a deal. Other than a bigger hill than I expected just before I had got into Downtown proper everything went smoothly. Turns out the traffic wasn’t as bad as I dreaded (in fact downtown congestion makes being on a bicycle an advantage) and the bike lanes were well marked so I got to my meeting with time to spare.
Getting home was a little more difficult. The route that I had planned didn’t work so I ended up retracing the way I came which turned out to be a series of one way streets with a few too many highway entrances than I was comfortable with. (Another example of Seattle’s idea of city planning which in hind sight I had not so fond memories of from my delivery days.)
But all in all it went well and any of the bugs I mentioned can be solved with a little better planning and studying the map. I should have been doing this for ages. Now the only reason for taking the bus (not counting errands that do not fit in one backpack) is so I won’t be a sweaty mess for any important meeting I’m going to.
PS
One quick caveat. I did actually bike downtown a few years before to see if I could. But that was on a holiday with bad weather and there was hardly a car on the road so I don’t think that technically counts.
