a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
My LEGO Looney Tunes character collection of twelve little figures is almost complete.
(Daffy Duck got left behind when the package was shipped from Denmark, maybe the Bricklink seller there can send me one in an envelope).
There was a break in the rain today, and I walked around the Denny Triangle (in downtown Seattle) to check on the construction projects there.
in·sou·ci·ant
/inˈso͞osēənt,inˈso͞oSHənt/
adjective
showing a casual lack of concern; indifferent.
“an insouciant shrug”
My package from Kopenhagen, Denmark finally landed on the porch today.
Inside are the LEGO Looney Tunes figures that were still missing from my collection, plus a bunch of bricks for building trees and foliage. I will build one figure every day. Here is the first one: the famous rabbit.
‘We took a break in the spring of 1982 and now we’ve decided it’s time to end it. They say it’s foolhardy to wait more than 40 years between albums, so we’ve recorded a follow-up to The Visitors.’
– ABBA, at the announcement of their first new album in 39 years
The suspense is over for ABBA fans, and hey! a whole new reunion album of their music is coming. (At first it was just a new song or two that were promised.)
As far as I understand, the 80’s supergroup made themselves into avatars for a virtual world tour, so that they would not have the hassle of traveling the world over in the flesh (and in a pandemic). Who can blame them for not wanting to travel for work? I do not.
I finally built the LEGO Creator Safari Wildlife Tree House (31116) that I had bought in July.
The giraffe is the star of the set. I added the alligator* in the reeds, some leaves to the tree, and the color embellishments on the ground and around the flamingo.
*The alligator is one molded LEGO piece with a movable jaw and tail. Nice.
I took the No 10 bus to downtown to go to the dentist this morning.
Here are a few pictures.
From Gretchen Leggitt @g2legit on Instagram:
“FOR THERE IS ALWAYS LIGHT, IF ONLY WE’RE BRAVE ENOUGH TO SEE IT.”
– Amanda Gorman
This is my latest mural in Seattle, WA located just blocks away from the #CHAZ. In 2020, protesters claimed this as an autonomy zone to fight for human rights through art, words, peace and unfortunately some with violence. I do not care to make any comments about this autonomy zone, but I do want to comment on the respect I have for the brave people who have passionately sparked and fought for the 21st century civil rights awaking. @blklivesmatter
I do not endorse violence or destruction. Instead I endorse voices of reason and peace. @amandascgorman was that voice for me when she shared her poem The Hill We Climb with the world. Her words spoke of perseverance, resilience and hope for ALL humans, which inspired this mural.
From Wikipedia:
Speedy Gonzales is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. He is portrayed as “The Fastest Mouse in all Mexico” with his major traits being the ability to run extremely fast, speaking English with an exaggerated Mexican accent, and also speaking Spanish. He usually wears a yellow sombrero, white shirt and trousers (which was a common traditional outfit worn by men and boys of rural Mexican villages), and a red kerchief, similar to that of some traditional Mexican attires.
Cartoons featuring Speedy Gonzales were removed from the Cartoon Network TV channel in 1999— due to concerns that the little mouse’s sombrero and heavy accent insulted Mexicans. Speedy Gonzales fans were mightily upset, though, and successfully petitioned for his return to Cartoon Network three years later.
wil·y
/ˈwīlē/
adjective
skilled at gaining an advantage, especially deceitfully.
[Description taken from Wikipedia] Here’s Wile E. Coyote, the cunning, devious and constantly hungry Coyote that repeatedly attempts to catch and subsequently eat the Road Runner.
Instead of his animal instincts, the Coyote uses absurdly complex contraptions (sometimes in the manner of Rube Goldberg) to try to catch his prey, which comically backfire, with the Coyote often getting injured in slapstick fashion. Many of the items for these contrivances are mail-ordered from a variety of companies that are all named Acme Corporation.
One running gag involves the Coyote trying (in vain) to shield himself with a little parasol against a great falling boulder that is about to crush him. Another running gag involves the Coyote falling from a high cliff. After he goes over the edge, the rest of the scene, shot from a bird’s-eye view, shows him falling into a canyon so deep, that his figure is eventually lost to sight. This is followed, a second or two later, by the rising of a dust cloud from the canyon floor as the Coyote hits.
Happy Fathers Day to all the dads.
I took my rental car back this morning. The plan is to go carless for a week or so, and then get another one. There is still a good number of weeks to go before I get my new car.
It was a pleasant day, and I could walk up, up along Pine Street to get to the other side of Interstate 5, and to Capitol Hill where my house is.
It’s about 30 mins of walking with no stopping, but I took my time, and took some pictures as I went.
‘You need only two rich people to want to buy something they can exclusively own for it to become very expensive’.
– Sebastian Smee, art critic for Washington Post
The recent sale of the digital thing (it’s a .jpg file) called ‘Everydays: The First 5000 Days‘ with its non-fungible token* attached, has caused a stir in the art world. It went for $69.3 million.
*Essentially a digital certificate of authenticity that is a string of characters connected to a blockchain: the same concept that powers cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. (The blockchain means the characters sit in different physical places around the internet, and have to be combined to verify authenticity).
Is it art? I don’t know, I guess so — but it cannot possibly be worth $69.3 million. Just as the Rabbit, the Pool with Two Figures, or that duct-taped banana, cannot possibly be worth $91.1 million, $90.3 million or $125,000, respectively.
(Just for the record, Guinness World Records lists Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa as having the highest-ever insurance value for a painting. On permanent display at the Louvre in Paris, the Mona Lisa was assessed at US $100 million on Dec. 14, 1962. Taking inflation into account, the 1962 value would be around US $870 million today).
My used book with Arabian fairy tales arrived at last, shipped from Germany with snail mail.
I could not find the Afrikaans edition online — the one that had I read in bed fifty years ago as a youngster! — but I found the German translation that offers the same gorgeous water paint illustrations, on Abebooks.com.
The tales inside are as follows:
How the Story of the Thousand-and-one Nights Started
Little Kadi
Sinbad the Sailor
Prince Sayn Al Asnam and the King of Spirits
Aladdin and the Wonder Lamp
Ali Baba and the Forty Robbers
The Magic Horse
The Envious Sisters
How the Story of the Thousand-and-one Nights Ends
South African folk singer Anton Goosen turned 75 today.
He sings mostly in Afrikaans, but also in English.
I love his song called Magalies, O Magaliesberg — a song that (somewhat) romanticises the hardships of the 1830s Great Trek of the Voortrekkers (pioneers).
Some of these pioneers ended up in what would become the Transvaal Colony, and is today called Gauteng Province.
The Magaliesberg is a modest but well-defined mountain range north of Pretoria, with ancient origins. It was formed some 2 billion years ago.
The area around the range has seen occupation by humans dating back at least 2 million years, to the earliest hominin species (such as Mrs Ples). The Sterkfontein Caves, which lie at the World Heritage Site called the Cradle of Humankind, are close by. [From Wikipedia].
[Picture from Wikimedia Commons, from p209 of the book ‘The Voortrekkers’ by J.S. Skelton, 1909].
agter op die wa sit my vaalhaarma
Waai die wind, waai my jas,
knoop my Sannie haar sydoek vas
Veertien rooies voor aan die wa,
sewe van my en sewe van my pa
Die hotagter, die Afrikaan,
hy en sy maat moet die disselboom dra
(Front of the wa1 sits my hoop-legged pa,
back of the wa sits my drab-haired ma
Blows the wind, blow our coats,
ties my Tammy her silk cloth close
Fourteen red ones front of the wa,
seven of mine & seven of my pa’s
The left back, the Afrikaan2,
he and his mate, must bear the bar)
1Short for wagon, we say v-ahh in Afrikaans
2A breed of cattle indigenous to South Africa
Lyrics from ‘Magalies, O Magaliesberg‘ from the Anton Goosen album ‘Liedjieboer Innie Stad’ (1986), with my own rough translation into English.
This painting of Van Gogh has been in the hands of a French family for more than 100 years. It will be auctioned in March and is expected to fetch from €5m to €8m ($6.1m to $9.8m).
Happy Lunar New Year! The Year of the Ox* starts today.
In Asian cultures people wear red to celebrate the arrival of the lunar new year, the color that symbolizes luck and prosperity.
Married couples hand out red packets with cash inside to children and unmarried adults.
*Read: bovine creature. The zodiacal ox could be construed as male, female, neutered, hermaphroditic, and either singular or plural.
I went to the dentist this morning. At 7.30 am on a Monday morning, there was virtually no traffic on the way in. That explains why local TV stations are still not bothering with providing traffic updates like they used to.
After my appointment, I walked around Westlake Avenue, to take a few pictures of the deserted street blocks and offices and store fronts.
I had to wait until midnight to see the virtual Space Needle celebrations on TV, sponsored by T-Mobile and produced by Terry D. Morgan.
The wait was worth it. The creators used sky-mapping technology and video footage to create a spectacle accompanied by dramatic music. Below are a few stills from the video that was posted afterwards.
There were beautiful soft grays and pinks in the blue sky today at sunset.
I had made my way down all along Harrison Street, towards the Interstate 5 overlook by Melrose Avenue.
The St. Ingbert apartments is right there by Harrison and Melrose.
Here is a giraffe from the annual Johannesburg (South Africa) Zoo’s Festival of Lights exhibit.
I bet putting one in my front yard would impress the neighbors!
