The Blue Bear

When I was a baby–perhaps for on the occasion of my first or second birthday, no one remembers anymore– my great-grandmother, my mother’s grandmother, gave me this stuffed bear, which she had made herself. Now, almost 50 years later, I am faced with the task of sending Blue Bear off to the landfill. My relationship with Blue Bear is an odd one. He was never one of my favorite stuffed animals, and yet I have kept him with me all these years, while...

Read…

The Sound of Fast Food

...ickly coming to a close. There was a day when cellphones, cordless phones, baby monitors and all kinds of other radio transmissions were accessible to anyone with a cheap scanner. Even police and fire departments are starting to encrypt transmissions. This particular In and Out got so popular that they switched to having an employee in the parking lot with a tablet to take orders which brought an end to our office fun. I invite any musicians in th...

Read…

Weekend Linkages: A Weird World

...Levi Walter Yaggy’s Geographical Maps and Charts Photographs of the Los Angeles Alligator Farm (ca. 1907) The Navajo farmer taking a traditional approach to making baby food Historic San Francisco tiki bar the Tonga Room is a rite of passage. But is it really worth visiting? ‘They’re in the air, drinking water, dust, food …’ How to reduce your exposure to microplastics Doppler Radar Telegram Critter Cam for Under $10!...

Read…

A Sasquatch in the Garden?

...ed the strangest object I’ve ever dug up: what appears to be a cast plaster footprint. In my fevered imagination and search for click bait blog headlines, this discovery proves this existence of Sasquatch. Alas, it’s a bit small unless we consider the possibility of a loose baby Sasquatch. More likely, it’s someone’s art project. Some years ago I also uncovered what looked like the beginnings of an attempt to carve a stone bust and I’m guessing th...

Read…

Babylon Ain’t Falling

...thy. It leads to paranoia and the feeling that a civil war in the Heart of Babylon is imminent. Whatever happens in the next week it’s not time to make brunch reservations. In this election we face a choice between a kind of incompetent proto-fascism (real fascists would organize the buses better at their rallies) and neoliberalism. Proto-fascism is worse but neoliberalism sows the seeds of fascism by worsening conditions for working class and mid...

Read…