A Childhood Summed Up In Two Desktop Toys

3904

VW's when they still said "flower power" and not "overbred car for the wealthy".

Star Trek before it was cool.

I mean, I'm sure there's some sort of perspective thread between the reality of these two things and my current edgy combination of despair and hope that fills my head pretty much all the time, but right now, I'm just enjoying the bittersweet irony of it all.

That Moment When You Realize Your Ice Scraper Has A More Dramatic and Heroic Life Than You Do

3521A.

The sticker was probably designed by Michael Bay, and its script was written by J.J. Abrams.

(cue sufficiently dramatic music)

Ice scraper? More like ice hero, amirite?

Hoo-ah!!!!

[art] Found On The Studio Floor: My Anxieties Have Anxieties

3422.

Charlie Brown is, in many ways, along with the fox, my totem. No explanation should be required.

So it goes. 

[liff] In Which I Replace The USS Enterprise's Warp Core

3385.

Seriously! I replaced the USS Enterprise's warp core, if by USS Enterprise you mean "the five-inch-long desktop light-up model version sold by Running Press"  and by 'warp core' you mean "the three LR-41 button batteries that power the little tiny light inside".

The ship in peril during a
not-peril time.

I love this model because it's very accurate to the way the ship looked in TOS; the markings and details are actually quite precise. It's a lovely little model in a size that fits, rather literally, in the palm of your hand.

It's a little like having that tiny little metal ship that was in a couple of the episodes, you know, in "Cats Paw" where that witchy chick dangled it over a candle flame and everyone on the bridge got really really warm.

I lusted to have that model. Just as well, as clumsy as I was, I would have just broken it anyway.

One fun little bit of dross I insist on carrying around is a little pulp-style SF ray gun made by Kikkerland. it's a little keychain fob and when you pull the trigger it makes a little ray gun zap sound and flashes a red LED. This, as the Enterprise replica, uses LR-41 cells, and being carried in the pocket, is subject to some wear. I had a couple of broken ones.

So, breaking open the case of the little ray-gun I found three LR-41 cells, which just so happened to be the number of cells my Enterprise needed.

The results speak for themselves.

Cannibalizing a ray gun blaster to power the USS Enterprise is a step above MacGyvering.

I'd prefer to say I got my Scotty on. 

[liff] Views Of The City Of Lviv, Ukraine

3369.

Here's a curve ball for y'all.

My beloved makes interesting friends online; she has an intellect that makes people open up to her. Recently she made the acquaintance of of a fellow in Poland who has recently made a sortie into the city of Lviv.

Wikipedia has this to say about the seventh-largest city in Ukraine:

Lviv is the largest city in western Ukraine and the seventh largest city in the country overall, is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine. Named in honor of the Leo, the eldest son of Rus' King Daniel of Galicia. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (also called Kingdom of Rus') from 1272 to 1349, when was conquered by King Casimir III the Great who then became known as the King of Poland and Rus'. From 1434, it was the regional capital of the Ruthenian Voivodeship in the Kingdom of Poland and was known as Lwów. In 1772, after the First partition of Poland, the city became the capital of the Habsburg Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and was renamed to Lemberg. In 1918 in a short time was the capital of the West Ukrainian People's Republic. Between the wars, the city was known again as Lwów and was the centre of the Lwów Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic. After the Second World War, it became part of the Soviet Union (Ukrainian SSR) and in 1991 of independent Ukraine. Administratively, Lviv serves as the administrative center of Lviv Oblast and has the status of city of oblast significance. Its population is 728,350 (2016 est.)

So, it's an important city of regional stature, kind of like a San Diego or a Twin Cities or Memphis. And it's seen a lot of history, and crossed more than one border more than once.

Since my chances of travelling that far are nil, we eagerly adore pictures sent by overseas friends. The following are sent by our correspondent Tomek Kurcz, and are posted with his permission. I find them most delightful. And since I don't have anything more to add, I'll let them do most of the talking:

How they do coffee in Lviv. Tomek would feel quite at home here in Portland, I think,
though I've never seen a coffee around here as delectable as a parfait.
(copyright Tomek Kurcz, used with permission)

Slack time at the kitteh cafe.
(copyright Tomek Kurcz, used with permission)

Strollers on a cobbled Lviv street.
For what it's worth, the demonym of a Lviv resident is Leopolitan; the
Latin name of Lviv was Leopolis. It's the city of the lion.
(copyright Tomek Kurcz; used with permission)

Just a beautiful old building in Lviv.
(copyright Tomek Kurcz; used with permission)

This one has a surprise. Look directly out from the POV at the red tile roof in the middle
distance; then just above and to the left of that on the roof of the building just beyond,
notice that there is a car chassis on that roof. And there are people dining there.
I believe that's suppose to be a rooftop cafe. Classy.
(copyright Tomek Kurcz; used with permission)

Lviv streetcorner; note directional sign in center.
(copyright Tomek Kurcz; used with permission)

Another Lvivian roadsign. (copyright Tomek Kurcz; used with permission)

That's it from Lviv, Ukraine. Thanks to Tomek for sharing these delightful photos. Until such time as we can actually travel to Europe, they'll do.

[liff] Waiting For Godot On Facebook

3362.

I created this on Facebook while I was figuring out what my Moebius Stripper name was.

[liff] On The Subject of Superstars

3340.

I've been reading a great deal about Andy Warhol and the way he lived his life. I must say, still, even though I can recognize what a great infusion of new ideas (or at least aggressively current ones for the time) he brought to popular art at the time, a great deal of his work doesn't reach me.

His life, though … that's another thing. He lived his life like it was one big artwork. I find it endlessly fascinating. Since I keep diary, I remember the big cultural bomb that The Andy Warhol Diaries were. It was so very fashionable, as an actor or actress or public figure, to find yourself mentioned in them. And fact was, or at least I have read, was that he started the diary as a way to keep track of daily expenses after he got in some financial legal trouble. Or at least that's what I heard, but it makes sense. Somehow everything he did just got big and bombastic and outlandish.

I've also been learning about Warhol's Superstars, that coterie of actors, artists, and performers he kept about him when he was at his biggest and brightest. As I understand it, if you came to work for him and worked in one of his film or figured in his artwork, he'd call you a Superstar, and then promote you. Some of them became famous, some notorious. All of them seem to be remembered.

Now, Andy seemed to have a fairly cynical view of the idea of fame, but I was thinking, what if we all figured out who our own superstars were, and promoted them? I mean, we aren't Andy Warhol (I think sometimes not even he was), but that doesn't mean we can't support, as best as we can, those people around us who color our individual worlds. What would it be like if we all really started pulling for each other? We all fancy that we do, but sometimes, I wonder … two people I know are either homeless and jobless or on the edge of it. I promote them via Facebook because it's what I can do right now, but I do it.

Ever since there's been a social media, I've shared neat people and things by them that make me happy without hesitation. Because that's what I do, because I'm happy when my friends win.

I see superstars in my own life. If only you could view the world with my eyes.

[liff] Our Hummingbird, Perching

3323.

In heraldry, that is to say, the classic school of artistic design of coats of arms, there is a bird called the martlet. It is drawn usually something like this:

Those tufts on the bottom of the bird are where the feet would be, if they were there. Medieval people had funny ideas about fauna. The most likely, to me, legend as to whither the martlet comes from the conjecture that it was inspired by the swift … which probably perched, but few people actually saw it happen, so the popular idea was that they never landed at all.

Which was kind of what I thought about hummingbirds. We have a few hanging about; they're pleasant birds, fun to watch, and scrappy little guys who are not above chasing (and sometimes succeeding) some of the local crows away from the area. I mean, I knew that hummingbirds perched, but I'd never seen one … until this guy:

And that, my friends, is your Marlin Perkins moment for the day. 

[liff] A Koan On Success

3231.

If one can't be the stunning success one hoped to, can one at least be a beautiful failure?

[liff] Neil Armstrong: Straight Outta Wapakoneta

3221.

Neil Armstrong is one reason I don't do bucket lists.

Why should I? I'm not only never going to the moon, he sharked being the first guy to do it. I mean, think about it. If he were still alive, no matter what you were doing, no matter what your peak experience is, even if you're in the middle of it, he could walk on stage, take the spot from you, say "I'm Neil Armstrong, and I'm the first human being ever to walk on a celestial body that isn't Earth", and that's history's mic drop right there. You can never compare to that. How can you? Are YOU going to the moon, chump? No. Even if you could, are you getting there in 1968? No.

And then he just retired and lived a quiet productive life, like OG Astronauts should. Zero shame in that game.

Neil was the luckiest human being who ever lived.

Just sayin'.

[liff] This Is The Week That Is, Oregon, The 4th Week of July 2015

3207.

After seeing the news and still enduring the weather this week in lower south Cascadia, this is all I can see; this is us, in a nutshell:

Now, how do we get out of this nutshell?

[liff] Nerdmasté … A Salutation For All My Nerd And Geek Friends

3172.

Whatever else we feel about the nerd in society … most of my true friends are. I would not have this any other way. I love my tribe.

[Liff] This Is How You Coffee Cup

3163.

This is an oooooooold warhorse.

[liff] Scrabble at Chez Burgerville, 82nd and Glisan

3132.

What you do after you've had a hot, tiring, but quintessentially-satisfying day on Hawthorne Boulevard is take your Scrabble set to the Burgerville on NE 82nd and Glisan and play.

True story: at the corner of SE 41st and Hawthorne there is a curiosity shop that's having an going-out-of-business sale, and the shop is called the Blue Butterfly.

It's been having its GOOB sale for about 2 yahren, as memory service. Not hatin, just sayin'.

Anyhow. We poked around the tables in front and found a Diamond Anniversary Scrabble set. It's in this plastic clamshell case, with two drawers for holding tiles and the racks, rubberized wheels designed to allow the board to rotate in place when open, and a raised grid for holding the letters in place. But would it have all the tiles, we wondered?

I waited as The Wife™ did a quick count. 99 tiles. There should be 100. At a $5 price tag?

Hell, close enough!

Needing a cooling break, the next stop was the aforesaid Burgerville. Over two beverages, we laid out the tiles … no, actually, there were 100 of them!

Just one thing to do … game on.

My wife is a cutthroat Scrabble player. I rarely win. I won this game by one point …

… 10 points, if you deduct that Q that's laying just to the right of the playing field. That was hers. I used all mine.

That word at the bottom, PLUNGER? I started it as LUNG. She added the E for LUNGE, and I put in the P and R to complete the word. It wasn't the winning coup, but I figure I got style points for that.

[liff] The Scrub Jays Of McMinnville

3118.

There is a bit of property down in McMinnville that we are obliged to maintain, for reasons which are not germane to the following discussion. Suffice to say that we have to do a couple of very hard jobs down that way at least once a year. Money is expended, Gatorade is consumed. It's typically hot work, though this iteration, while it happened on the official first day of summer, happened during weather that was fine yet temperate – occasional clouds, some overcast holding off the heat of the day 'til the mid-afternoon. Best for landscaping a tough job.

Over the past several years, we've had bird visitation. Typically after the long grass gets cut down and before the creatures who exist on the dirt surface had a chance to get underground, the jays came.

California Scrub Jays, they call them. Here's a handsome fellow scouting the just-cut grass for nommage:

We've noticed that they happen each time. It's not a visit unless we see some jays, really. They're like friends, in a way. This time, we had a few moments to look and observe … and we saw some family behavior there that was quite delightful.

A couple of jays were visible at most times in the sweetgum maple that exists at the front of the property. At first we thought it was simply a mom and dad bird protecting the nest.

But it became evident when we saw the fluffy down on some bird butts that what we probably had was at least two adolescent fledgelings taking some first flights. There was at least one adult that seemed to be keeping tabs on the kids, who perched on the wires and yelled at us to get out of their yard.

I always wondered about birds and wires. They take to them so naturally. I always thought that birds like this had a cosmology, and just as some of us monkeys think that since the Universe made us possible that the Universe evolved for us, I figured birds knew that us humans existed so that wires would develop for their perching.

But we figure we have occupants on the place that take care of it for us, at least, in that birdy way. 

[#liff] Meanwhile, In The Triffid Patch, a/k/a Our Back Yard

3116.

Got plants? We do. Our back yard is a little cultured and a little wild; thanks to an off-hand remark The Wife™made last night, I now call it the Triffid Patch.

It's appropriate.

We're … ah, casual gardeners. We have a few vegetable plants in containers, the yard is kinda overrun with dandelions, and in the decade-plus we've lived here, we've had roses.

In as much as the container plants go, I'm working my way up. First two tomato plants and a green bell pepper. Then two tomato plants and 2 peppers - the green bell and a jalapeño. This year, three tomatoes, a green pepper, and a Yummy mix sweet pepper plant.

The jalapeños didn't fare so well. And one of the pepper plants got savaged in the night by … something. We know not what, nor are we sure we wish to. Chupacabra? Zanti misifits? Republicans? I don't know. We'll let the night maintain its secrets. We shall not, as they say, go there.

The roses were a bequest from the previous owners, who apparently cultivated them for show. We were nowhere near that hep on it, and had intended to have them taken out and rehomed at people so inclined to keep them. We still may. But for now, we've watched them go through some interesting evolution. It would seem that grafts have been placed onto other rosebush stocks; they would exhibit some different blossoms, but that seems to be breeding out as time goes on.

The blossoms that have survived have been quirky and beautiful, in a wild way. Deep rich color, as in the above … or attenuated, delicate shadings, as this one below.

A couple of bushes along the north fence, however, have this deep, deep, deep, red color. The eye looks upon this ultra saturated thing, and thinks velvet. That must feel like velvet if touched. 

As it is, the eye cannot look at it without the vibrant red pushing some of the eye's own receptors into near-overload. I can almost sense it as a palpable physical sensation myself.

It's a bit like frozen flame.

[#art] A Change of Carrier

3112.

I've decided to join the messenger-bag generation.

It's cool. I'm usually a few years late to just about any party, anyway.

If you don't know if I'm hangin' around or not, you can usually tell that I'm here if you see my backpack. It's a habit I picked up never-you-mind how many years ago and I've probably kept too long, but in an unfriendly world that don't love you back no matter how hard you love it, you have to have your security blanket.

We all do, I think. I fancy I'm just a bit more honest about it than some. Then, I care less and less what anyone thinks about what I do as I move through this part of my life; I'll do what I can to cope.

My backpack has been part of my identity for a long time. It holds a lot of things that are important to me that I want to keep near; the sketchbook I'm not drawing in; the book on creativity I'm not reading or using, the art supplies I'm apparently hoarding up against the apocalypse. But backpacks encourage a sort-of hermit crabbish-ness, in which I carry my notional studio on my back. As long as my right shoulder isn't killing me (how I've avoided tendonitis all these years, I can't tell you) I figure I can carry anything. Or everything.

Whether or not I can kickstart my own engine, a touch of parsimony is called for, I think. Will it improve my creativity at all if I don't figure I have everything I need and inspiration will spontaneously combust from inside the recesses of the thing?

I don't know.  Anything's worth trying once.

I also have a taijtu (see illo) patch that will simply look stunning on the flap.

And so it goes.

[liff] Question Of The Day/Month/Year

3097.

If one can't be a brilliant success, why not be a beautiful failure?

[liff] At SE 122nd and Stark, It's Always Darkest Before The Daw, Whatever That Is

3086.

Spotted while going from there to here along SE 122nd Avenue at Stark, on Saturday:

While one can argue that, in Portlandia, it's always been the Age of Asparagus, one still wonders what dawing is, what is involved in this process (that's what we're assuming it is), or how it brought said Age to come about, exactly.

If you didn't see it on Saturday then you missed it; someone set up the spell check on it, and now all its dawing are belong to us, because I have the picture. of which I share.

[liff] The 3-D Letters and The Synanon Ruler

3079.

The annual Gethsemane Lutheran Church is truly the Gumpian bawx of chawklits. You really never know what you're going to get.

Oh, there are some things which are verities. The snacks, running to chili, sausage dogs and lemonade, are exquisite. The baked goods, being Lutheran, are immaculate (I'm not really being a cutie-pie here; the Lutherans really do create some immaculate baked goods). The people … really, really sweet. It's hard to find a group so warm to people they literally do not know.

We found things that we were looking for for a while. A 2-controller electric blanket, a few nifty books, some housewares. And me, I found this:

Cute, huh? Unique? I dare you to find things like this within 15 miles of this place. To cases, then:

Hernard 3-D Title Letters. This was how we did image macros before there was an interwebs. These are small, ceramic letters, about 3/4ths of a inch tall and about a quarter-inch thick, and treated on the back with a stickum, this looks like it's easily 30 years old if it's a day. The stickum looks quite fossilized, but the instructions assure me that I'll get it back if I treat it with lighter fluid.

That's a relative thing, I'm sure. I wouldn't consider a coating of lighter fluid such a treat, but that's me for you.

The literature on the card on the back enthuses with promise. Create dramatic shadow effects with epic 3-Dness! Stick the letters to glass and shoot through them for effects! Carry them with you everywhere! Go crazy!

I'm going to live caption my cats. After The Wife™ sews me back together, I'll let you know how that went.

The other thing is a thing, and a strange thing, and a thing of a certain hobby of mine. Some people enjoy comparative religion. Not me. Much too straightforward and cute. It's got to be abstruse, eye-crossingly obsessive, and hard to follow. I 'collect' artifacts from some new religious movements. Sometimes, the sketchier the better. For a while I was collecting scripture books … I have a very old copy of Science and Health with Key To the Scriptures  that I'm rather fond of.

I stopped short of getting a copy of The Urantia Book, though. We have enough doorstops around here.

Anywhoozle, when I saw this, I couldn't resist … hell, at a tag price of twenty-five cents, I couldn't afford not to!

Synanon, for those who don't know, was a self-improvement creed that grew out of a drug-and-alcohol rehab group started by a man named Chuck Dederich back in the last 60s. It grew and prospered and eventually collapsed of its own weight. But they did have some small manufacturing base, and apparently some of that was devoted to making logo items.

Really, I recommend the Gethsemane yearly rummage sale to everyone. It's a fun experience. And you really do never know what you're gonna get there.