Month: September 2021

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Reading (about books)

Here I’m going to admit that when I’m not reading books, I am often… reading ABOUT books.

Setting aside my more-than-full-time job, artistic practices, Internet research rabbit holes, language study, long walks, and correspondence, there are still sometimes hours left in the day (especially if I don’t sleep) to read about books! 😀 You just have to look, and the time is THERE. (Give up television: it doesn’t lead to enough good books!)

I wind up reading about books even if I don’t plan to.

Even people I follow on Twitter are either already published authors, or they become published authors after I start following them. (Can I take credit for this somehow?) (I’ll be reviewing more of their books on this site, so I don’t have to list those now.)

Periodicals: The newspapers I subscribe to review books frequently and enthusiastically, and I often make note of their recommendations.

Washington Post Books

Guardian (UK) Books

Local Publishers: We have some!

City Lights: City Lights is a landmark local bookshop AND a publisher, especially known for poetry.

Chronicle Books: Chronicle Books is a local publisher, and their emphasis keeps shifting, so I’m unsure what their specialty is now. They published a favorite technical alternative photographic process book, and a great how-to on fabric design patterns. They currently seem big into cookbooks and lifestyle/decor.

McSweeney’s Books: I subscribe to Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern (an outrageously well designed periodical packed with illustrations and short fiction), and it happens that McSweeney’s ALSO publishes books.

Specialty Publishers: as an artist and art book collector, I have many favorite publishers, including museums (though publishing is a sideline for them). Dedicated photo/art book publishers often have great websites and blogs (and some have their own bookshops!), which I visit just to see what they are up to, and invariably find something that fits my interests. This short list is organized based on the number of books by each I possess:

Phaidon: Based in the UK and NYC, has a bookshop in New York City, and the only time I don’t leave that shop with a bag full of books is when I’d pre-ordered their most tempting new publications. (I’m ridiculous.). I like them for fine art and art theory. There’s a special series of artist monographs that they do in a great style, and I have dreams of being featured by them someday…

Aperture: Based in New York City. Aperture is a non-profit, which publishes a great magazine and produces beautiful photography books.

Taschen: Based in Köln (Cologne), Germany. I like Taschen for their architecture compilations.

Gingko Press is based in Berkeley, California. Gingko produces books on art and design – their graphic design books in particular are especially attractive.

Be cautious: you’ll feel money trying to fly out of your bank account just by glancing at any of these sites!

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Book: Trespass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art edited by Ethel Seno

Trespass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art
edited by Ethel Seno, with essays. by other contributors
published by Taschen, Köln (Cologne), Germany
2010

This oversized book flew into my arms once I realized it included guerrilla gardens AND painted street art AND sculptural interventions AND abstract art… I believe this was one of those books that I bought in a museum shop while traveling, which complicated my return home because my luggage became too heavy…

This well produced book (Taschen makes well designed and printed art books) has a diverse set of urban art interventions, supported by a mix of good-plus-a-bit-stuffy essays about the value of unauthorized art installations. Is street art really at the level of Luther nailing his theses to the church door? (Me: Nope!) Can it be transformative and important and beneficial? (Me: Yes!). Is it a reclamation of public space back from advertising? (Me: sometimes, but not always.) I admit that I have preconceived notions (tagging = bad, graffiti pieces = good, gulf between those two things = huge), and the essays didn’t change my views, but maybe I’ve just been spoiled by living in a great mural city, and didn’t need to be won over for the value of these contributions to urban environments. I appreciate the attempt to distinguish vandalism from expression, though it is difficult to make broad generalizations – it’s more of a case-by-case evaluation.

The book includes some solid old-school works that are worth knowing about, and gives NYC a lot of the credit it deserves (hooray!) for being such a huge influence on global street art culture. The book doesn’t limit itself to NYC, of course, and shows great examples of work in different media from around the world. (I recognize multiple SF artists in here – hooray!)

The big value for me was showing me works I hadn’t seen by artists I knew, or identifying things I’d seen in passing and tying them to specific artists/places/details. You know an art book is good when you get inspired to do more research, and I came away with a list of things to seek out.

This is a solid high-level survey of a very wide range of unauthorized works, from Banksy stencils to plants set into potholes in the road to yarn bombing. I enjoyed it, and feel enriched for having read it.

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P.S. Here are some links (unaffiliated with the book) about work and artists that the book inspired me to seek out more about:

From 1975-1980 Activist Adam Purple Built a Circular Urban Garden in New York that ‘Knocked Down’ the Surrounding Buildings
In 1975, artist and social activist Adam Purple, known for his permanent purple attire, looked out his window in the crime-ridden Lower East Side of New York City to witness two children playing in a pile of rubble. Struck by his own memories of a childhood spent barefoot in rural pastures and fores

Unauthorized gardens for the community were frowned upon by authorities, which makes the authorities look ridiculous… I’d seen this garden in images before, but didn’t know the backstory. Now I do!

Crateman (in Australia) is charming and clever – I love the unanticipated use of a ubiquitous material. There is something especially fun about its low resolution. 🙂

Milk crate man at Richmond
Photographs of trains and railway infrastructure from around Victoria, Australia

Somehow, I had never seen the full set of Jenny Holzer’s appropriately named “Inflammatory Essays,” but I am fixing that now, thanks to the Tate’s collection:

‘Inflammatory Essays’, Jenny Holzer, 1979–82 | Tate
‘Inflammatory Essays’, Jenny Holzer, 1979–82

Holzer’s website is also excellent and includes her current work (which is GREAT!):

Welcome — Jenny Holzer
Jenny Holzer

There are several Barbara Kruger works in the book, and I was reminded of how impressive it is to be INSIDE one of her all text installations, such as the one at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. If you ever have a chance, it’s great to stand in a room wrapped in her work.

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Book: Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson

Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach
by Kelly Robson
published by Tor
2018

One of the funnier recommendations I’d read for this book observed that it was hilarious that, even in the future, scientists will devote entirely too much of their time writing grant proposals. Yes, this book EMPHASIZES that in a way that feels a bit too real!

Without revealing any spoilers, this is a science fiction story of first contact (my definition of it), environmental devastation, underfunded environmental restoration, practical business applications of time travel, and the risks of the combining those things!

Robson tells the story in a non-linear way, which is fair and even appropriate for time travel stories. Her approach develops an excellent tension while reading: you know from the first page that something will go wrong, but HOW it will go wrong and how the wrongness will be resolved is the mystery.

Robson’s world-building is done well – you learn about the different ways humans have survived the devastation they wrought without being bogged down with too many details. The way the world works is experienced as characters accomplish other things, which is efficient and makes the characters’ efforts feel appropriate. It is great to have some grown-up characters in the book: people whose experience, scientific knowledge, and past successes made them valuable. (I live in a youth-worshipping culture, so this stood out.)

I had my doubts about the book during the proposal writing sections (because, as someone with a procurement certificate and experience writing grants: TOO REAL), but was rewarded for my persistence with a book I couldn’t put down once the time travel started.

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Pandemic Life: Autumn approaching (through fog)

Autumn floral joy
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

The western half of San Francisco has had a very foggy summer, which isn’t unusual, but we are confused by the consistency. Our local weather is characterized by its general mildness, sure, but also by its variability. A week may have both hot and cold days; an afternoon may have both warm and cool hours. All of the seasons may be represented during the course of any month.

Dressing for the same weather more than four days in a row feels a bit off.

Many things still feel a bit off, honestly.

The inter-COVID recovery is continuing, but is not evenly distributed. Some streets feel nearly normal, where there is a proper “street life” of locals out and about, while others feel quite abandoned, as if auditioning to be the set of a disaster film. The background rumble of the City hasn’t been fully restored, though there are days when I see traffic backed up on the Bay Bridge or on some street, and those sights are somewhat comforting. A reminder of the before-times! (While polluting traffic isn’t something to celebrate, signs of human activity, even involving vehicles, feel like a return of some kind of vibrancy, however indirect.). My streetcar filled up with schoolchildren one morning, and while it was unexpected (I haven’t been on a FULL streetcar in months), it felt like a good development.

My two friends in other regions who suffered breakthrough infections have fully recovered. My friend in month 9 of long-COVID recovery is making good progress.

My city of 800k+ people is experiencing more than 100 new test-confirmed cases daily (sfdph.org), which isn’t great, but isn’t as bad as it could be. Masking on busy streets, even while outdoors, is coming back into fashion. (I now have a wider range of mask thicknesses to get me through different activities!) My state health department says that more than 48 million of us are vaccinated, and the state’s positivity rate is dropping again (around 3.5% right now for the state; it’s just 2.3% in my City/County). For comparison, the federal Center for Disease Control (CDC) shows still-alarming national numbers (over 8% positivity).

The pandemic marks another grim milestone: 1 in 500 Americans have died of covid-19
The burden of death in the prime of life has been disproportionately borne by Black, Latino, and American Indian and Alaska Native people.

I would like to go to a COVID memorial site, or have one available locally to visit and light a candle or sit to contemplate the vast loss of life. I’m glad to read of this (albeit temporary) memorial art installation by District of Columbia artist by Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg, which is visually strong and thoughtful:

Hundreds of thousands of white flags to be placed on the National Mall to honor lives lost to covid
“In America: Remember,” created by D.C. artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg, will go up in September.

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Two of my friends this week asked me when I think it will be possible to travel safely again, despite knowing I am no expert in epidemiology. (At least I’m not a musician with a cousin with a friend in Trinidad who is misrepresenting his condition?) (If you don’t know what that reference is about, you are lucky.) Maybe I’m an expert in traveling? Anyway, I can see myself traveling recreationally outside of my state again by this time in 2022 if conditions are right. In the meantime, I’m expecting more variants of concern that will need to be studied; data from the results of the mix-and-match clinical studies currently underway (to determine if we should get a different vaccine than we started with, to see if that improves our antibody levels in a useful way); and likely a booster shot based on information from all the studies going on.

I also expect that my travel considerations will be different going forward. I have a friend in New Orleans, but I won’t visit him soon, not only because of Hurricane Ida’s lingering damage, but because of infection rates and hospital availability. Any medical emergency could become fatal if hospitals are overflowing, and the lack of medical support colors my view of any destination! It would also feel wrong to visit a place where locals can’t get the vaccine. So a new list of criteria begins to form:

-low infection rates
-high local/national vaccination rates
-traveler vaccination requirements and testing to fly (so flying is safer)
-traveler testing upon/near arrival (so tourist activities are safer)
-emergency service / hospital availability
-open to U.S. travelers
-cultural attractions are open, operating, and accessible to visitors (note that capacity restrictions to prevent crowding during a pandemic are good and can make attractions more enjoyable; they need to be managed well, so I can know that I can get into museums and similar institutions during my visit with an easy online/mobile/kiosk reservation).
-tourism is supported by local communities & their leaders (I respect local government pleas NOT TO VISIT when they are struggling) and there is a safety culture, especially for public-facing workers.

I’m sure I’ll adjust this list as circumstances change, but this all feels reasonable to me at this time. Vaccination has made me feel safer, but having friends with breakthrough infections reminds me that my perception of safety is limited, and precautions are still required.

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Climate Crisis: California Fire Sizes

There is a pattern. It isn’t a good pattern.

This is a very informative graphic, however unpleasant the data:

While I’m not writing daily about the huge wildfires raging in my state (and throughout the North American West, plus elsewhere in the world), I’m aware of the fires every day. The color of the sunlight, the tint of the sky, the low visibility, the air quality warnings… I learn to celebrate the good air days with zeal, because it’s what I’ve got.

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Book: Architecture Now! Museums by Philip Jodidio

The cover gives a sense of the clean lines the book’s featured projects consistently display. As in other Taschen architecture books, architecture photography is the star of the show.

Architecture Now! Museums
by Philip Jodidio
published by Taschen, Cologne (Köln), Germany
2010

This oversized softcover showcases architecture firms working on public and private museums, with an emphasis on projects Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and North America. Each firm has a brief profile, followed by one or more projects which are showcased through very precise, clear photographs and blue architectural drawings (usually plans, sometimes sections, in miniature) for orientation. Profiles and project texts are provided in English, German, and French in caption style, as the photos and drawings do most of the work in showcasing the projects.

The author emphasized built projects over conceptual ones, though he included some already under construction and a few very likely to be built, to keep the book feeling up-to-the-moment as of its publication. He succeeded!

Museums, especially large public ones, are something of an architect’s dream: the program requirements for the building tend toward grandness (with grand budgets to match), and the owners are often trying to embody their status and create a landmark. (Several of my own city’s museums are featured here, and yes, we were definitely collecting star firms for bold looks that will please visitors and be recognized as proof of our cultural sophistication.) As a result, many of the projects included here were the result of high profile, international competitions.

The projects are quite diverse in materials and appearance, and this impressive variety is due to the hard work of the author, the skill and diverse approaches of the architects, and (I am certain) the programmatic requirement to make unique statements that will serve the owner’s image.

As in other architecture books, I especially appreciate images that show the building being used for its intended purpose. Some promising projects are included here that were built around special collections, but those collections aren’t shown in the uninhabited spaces, and so it is difficult to know if the building truly succeeded in its program. (I don’t know if this is the usual concern about the purity of the architect’s work (which I don’t find useful), or concerns that any art shown would require additional legal reproduction rights.) Those projects that show people moving through the spaces and art on display with appropriate lighting suggest they firmly meet the criteria of success. I wish such images were included for all the projects.

In fact, now that this particular book is ten years old, it would be great to have a standard analysis performed of each rating them on how well the execution of the programs held up during use. I would like to see the best designs/designers given some retroactive credit for not only winning their competitions successfully, but for their programmatic success, and for the satisfaction of their customers.

This is an attractive book of a wide range of solutions to the display requirements of museums, and it is fun to spend time with. I’m happy I purchased it (long ago) and revisited it (today!).

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Life: San Francisco with approaching fog

The breeze: strong. The air: fresh.

I love living here so very much, and appreciate my luck at having grown up here nearly every day.

The City, the Bay, the Pacific Ocean, the community, the weather, the coffee, the cultures, the economy, the hills, the parks, the food, even the fog…

It’s so good to be here.

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Book: Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri

Tokyo Ueno Station
by Yu Miri
translated by Morgan Giles
published by Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House, New York
2019 (English translation – Japanese language original: 2014)

What a book to read on a stormy, autumn day!

This lyrical, sorrow-drenched book is narrated by a ghost who haunts the park near Ueno Station, where he lived once gave up on the idea of living.

Kazu Mori lived a hardscrabble life, working from an impoverished childhood through an insecure adulthood in an endless stream of physically taxing jobs, sending money home to his family while becoming a stranger to them. His reflections on his experiences raise images of hard seasonal harvests, dialect shame, inter-regional hostility, cultural bemusement over different sects of Buddhism, and grief. His choices created a deep alienation from those around him, an estrangement he recognized far too late.

Even as he drifts about, watching others live, he still notices and remembers blossoms blowing in the wind, the soft fabrics of wealthy museum goers, the sound of the rain on a tarp, the bright light at the end of a cigarette, the crunch of crisp leaves underfoot, and the sweet smells of foods… His world of overheard conversations, exposure to the full force of the seasons, and the sound of birds is beautiful, even though he may not have fully appreciated such things in life.

This beautifully written and translated book is a meditation on grief and the extremely transitory nature of life.

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Life: A Moment of Quiet

Little bits of projects in progress are slowly taking over the horizontal surfaces of my home

We had an actual THUNDERSTORM this morning! The sound woke me up at about 4:18 am, which was NOT welcome, though it was novel. I could also see lightning flash through the curtains now and then, and after a while, even heard rain (ACTUAL RAIN!) patting against my home.

The novelty of thunder and lightning used to be delightful – it happens so rarely! – but during a fire weather watch, the fear of new wildfires sparked by lightning is too real. Lovely local lightning photos on Twitter were met with a sentiment that combined “ooooh!” with “OH, NO!”

We are still more than 20 days from the autumn equinox, but rain is rare in September, and the smell of rain and the heaviness of the storm mean that it FEELS like autumn right now.

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I’ve been busy. A little too busy.

There is a quote from Dorothea Lange, which the Internet recounts as, “One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind…” and sometimes I take her suggestion too much to heart. I’ve been WORKING on my projects with intense, goal-oriented dedication, and it feels like work – creative, but still work.

Photography isn’t all being out and taking photos: beyond the planning and reconnaissance about when the light will be right and in what weather and season, there are: downloads and uploads; indexing and organizing; labeling and backing up; and just as much work for film, plus physical labeling and storage. It is a bit tedious to manage my voluminous output across multiple formats, tedious enough that I suspect my notes for possible NaNoWriMo novels may just be a procrastination plan. I’ll admit it: I suspect it would be easier to write another novella (my fifth!) than it would be to organize my photos and scan my film (and recent monotype prints, while I’m at it). It is funny, but also true. Also: to the extent I pretend to care what people think, it would be much more glamorous to say I’ve written another novella than to describe my indexing process for images. Just typing that almost knocked me unconscious with boredozzzzzzzzzz…

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My dining room table is becoming a staging area for cameras and film with too little room left over to eat, and I need to get that under control soonish.

I have an unexpectedly large collection of painted shapes that were masks for monotype prints, which I am also working with for fun and frivolous purposes

The IDEA of having time is stimulating all by itself. The potential project list in my head is getting ambitious, rather than just consisting of things that can be done after work or between errands. More and more modest-but-time-consuming projects are piling up in my mind. I really will be designing inappropriately complex templates for photo albums – it will be fun and mostly harmless! 😀 I really will locate more negatives that I’ve mislaid, to see if I can pull together a book from a camera my father found in HIS father’s attic! These projects will all be satisfying in their own way.

It’s lovely to have the time to execute plans, and hopefully I’ll squeeze in rest between organization sessions!

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Culture: World Postcard Day is October 1, 2021

World Postcard Day (October 1st)
World Postcard Day (October 1st) – Celebrate the postcard day by sending a postcard to someone!

Yes, for some of us, nearly every day is World Postcard Day, thanks to the hard work of our postal services! There is also a SPECIAL day for those of us who aren’t already sending and receiving them regularly! The winning design for the card this year is cute, and everyone likes to receive a note in the mail. Try it!

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