a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
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!
There was still a little snow on the ground, in the shady areas, here in the city today.
Does that count as a White Christmas?
Merry Christmas. Geseënde Kersfees.
I’m not traveling anywhere for Christmas this year.
So: no excuse for not putting up a tree.
I retrieved the one I have from the basement, and put up some of my bird figures in it, along with a few other decorations.
tillerman (plural tillermen)
noun
(US) A person who steers the rear wheels of a fire truck (a tiller truck) or controls its ladder
I first heard ‘Tea for the Tillerman’ by British singer-songwriter Cat Stevens from a vinyl record in 1980. A friend of mine in Stellenbosch, South Africa, played it for us in his dorm room. The record was made in 1970, and the artist changed his name to Yusuf Islam in 1977.
Fast forward 50 years from 1970, and now there is a ‘reimagined’ Tea for the Tillerman, issued on CD. There is a clarinet to accompany the piano in ‘Wild World’. In the ‘Father And Son’ remake, the young Yusuf’s voice for the son’s lyrics was left intact, but the today-Yusuf (72) sings the lines of the father— very heartfelt.
Here’s a little collection of fall leaves.
I put them in a bowl of water, and then I applied a digital filter to the pictures to simplify the colors.
I walked down to the former Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone by the East Precinct police station today.
All was quiet with not much traffic on the streets – but right then three police patrol vans erupted out of the police station garage, piercing sirens going and headlights flashing. There was an emergency somewhere that they were rushing to.
My CD from a warehouse in North Carolina landed in the mailbox today (from a bare-bones website called MovieMars).
None of the CD was available on Amazon, none on Discogs.com, none on Ebay. Amazon Netherlands does not ship to the United States, and I could order one from Amazon UK, but that would have cost $36 with the shipping cost. Yikes.
This striking new mural is from the outside of the Neumos music venue on East Pike St in Capitol Hill.
We have had a mild, average summer so far, with temperatures in the high 60s or 70s (18 to 24 °C). The sun still sets after 9 pm .. so even after dinner, there is still lots of time to go for a walk or to water the garden.
In the South and Southwest of the United States a phenomenon called a ‘heat dome*‘ has developed, which will lead to historic high temperatures the next few weeks. It is possible for Phoenix, AZ, to see 120 °F (48 °C).
*A heat dome occurs when strong, high-pressure atmospheric conditions trap hot ocean air like a lid or cap.
It was a fine day here in the city: eighty (27°C) and sunny.
My English-French illustrated dictionary has landed on my porch.
It is illustrated with panels from Belgian cartoonist Hergé’s Tintin characters, which is why I had to have it, of course.
Is this the perfect watch for the pandemic? It’s a Swiss-made watch with one hand that rolls around the dial once every 24 hours. 12 noon at the top, of course, and midnight at the bottom.
‘We lucked out!’ ‘That was close!’
[Cartoonist Klaus Stuttmann in Der Tagespiegel newspaper].
They will stay for an extended time at the Space Station for the Demo-2 mission. The specific duration of the mission is to be determined.
The streets were all quiet around Capitol Hill tonight as I walked down to Broadway at around 7.
Later on tonight, protesters squared off with police in downtown Seattle, though .. same as in many cities in the US tonight: Atlanta*, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St Paul (of course), New York City, Washington DC.
*Where CNN’s headquarters is being attacked by the very protesters (turned rioters) that they had supported as noble & just.
‘After a dinner party in 1892, the guests went from Krøyer’s home down to the beach to enjoy the summer’s evening, and Anna Ancher and Marie Krøyer went for a walk together along the beach. This is where he first got the idea for this motif. During the 1890’s in particular and until he died in 1909, Krøyer painted several works from Skagen, in which he depicted the twilight hour, the so-called ‘blue hour’, when the sky and the sea seem to merge into each other in the same shade of blue. Krøyer was far from the only artist to paint evocative, blue-tone paintings’. [From Google Arts & Culture]
Here’s the Doon Drive house, now replete with Chev truck by the front door, back yard, tennis court, swing set, swimming pool, trees and flower beds.
Did I go a little overboard? Well no – this is really not going overboard, given all the crazy things LEGO builders have come up with!
I will let it occupy my dining room table for a bit, and then decide what to do! Maybe I will put the bricks for just the house, in a shoebox, with pictures, so that it can be rebuilt again.
Many more works of art have appeared in the last month or so, on the boarded-up storefronts that line Pike and Pine St here in Capitol Hill, Seattle.
Here are a few.
