a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
Here we are, at the last Friday of 2023.
It didn’t feel like December at all here in the city, where we hit a balmy 58 °F (14 °C).
The string of little LED lights I had ordered for my table-top tree arrived today.
Sunset is now at 4.20 pm here in Seattle, with the winter solstice upon us.
I fancy myself to be a hard-core philatelist— at least when it comes to the stamps from South Africa in my collection.
To identify variants of a particular stamp that had been issued, I would say one needs at least a detailed stamp catalogue, a magnifying glass, and a stamp perforation gauge. Let’s also throw in an ultra-violet (UV) light, for stamps tagged with special inks.
Happy Friday.
My little Christmas tree— that has gone bare for a week or so— finally has a few decorations on.
Now it just needs a string of lights for night time.
The amigos went out for beers and fried chicken at Maro Polo saloon in Georgetown tonight.
After that, we checked out the goings-on at the Equinox Studios and the Georgetown Atelier art school nearby.
It was the once-a-month open day for the public.
This puzzle is a holdover from the pandemic.
The entire dining room table is full of puzzle pieces, and at this point it’s hard to believe they are all going to be squeezed in tightly into the frame!
Trick or treat?
Art and text posted by Jamie Schler@lifesafeast on X:
Shabbat Shalom.
Peace, joy, kindness to you all.
‘If all life moves inevitably towards its end, then we must, during our own, colour it with our colours of love and hope’. – Marc Chagall.
It was a lovely day here in Seattle (71 °F/ 22 °C).
Four of the amigos played a little pickleball this morning.
Afterwards we had something to eat and drink, on the patio of the dive bar called Twilight Exit, in Central District.
The pinball machines in Twilight are very cool.
We made a brief stop in downtown Fairbanks today, and then headed to the The University of Alaska Museum of the North (the museum is on the campus of the university).
Blue diamonds, strike ’em anywhere
First we caffeinate then incinerate
We’ll get you
And sparks will fly in the summer air
Did you pull out of your stall
Maybe I’ll see you after all
[Chorus: Stephan Jenkins]
Hold me down, I want to find out
We say no ’cause I live my life like a burning man
Like a burning man, a burning man
Like a burning man
And I won’t get enough until my legs are broken
– Lyrics from ‘Burning Man’ by Third Eye Blind, 1997
It’s nice to see the stranded— stranded in mud, in the desert!— festivalgoers to this year’s Burning Man are able to finally make an exodus from the muddy grounds there.
The National Nordic Museum is a museum in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, dedicated to the Nordic history, art, culture, and the heritage of the area’s Nordic immigrants.
Here are a few pictures that I had taken inside of the museum, and of items on display.
A thousand curiosities are to be found at Ye Olde Curiosity Shop (founded in 1899) on the Seattle Waterfront’s Pier 54.
Here is a smattering of pictures that I took at Seattle Center: from the Space Needle, from inside the Chihuly Garden and Glass and from inside the Museum of Pop Culture.
Toe Vader slaap, toe Moeder droom,
is ek uit by die hek langs die appelboom.
En ek ry op die spierwit perd se rug
bo-oor die heinings en bo-oor die brug.
En niemand weet dat ek daar was
met elwekinders op die gras.
As Father slept, as Mother dreamed,
I slipped out the gate by the apple tree.
I rode on the back of the snow-white horse
over the hedge and over the gorge.
And on no one ever, will it dawn
that I’d been there with elven children, on the lawn.
– From ‘Die Spree met Foete’, reworkings of Annie M.G. Schmidt’s Dutch verses into Afrikaans, 2002.
Verses by Piet Grobler and artwork by Philip de Vos.
The rough translation into English is my own.
August is here, with a full moon tonight.
There are two full moons this August, both of which are supermoons—
The Sturgeon Moon that reaches its peak today, August 1st;
The Blue Moon that occurs on Wednesday, August 30th.
There was a small musical ensemble, with a few couples were dancing to their tunes, in Volunteer Park tonight.
I found this feline at the West Exit of Shinjuku Station in Tokyo during my recent visit there (stills from a giant video screen).
The entrance to the Studio Alta building right next door is one of world’s famous rendezvous points.
Some 3.6 million people pass through Shinjuku Station every single day.
We made a run back to the Uniqlo store in Akihabara to return & exchange clothing items for larger sizes there.
Behind the RECOfan record store nearby, there is a mini-mall of display cases filled with figurines for serious collectors.
Some items run into several thousands of yen (several hundreds of dollars).
The first picture is a reminder to passengers not to go onto the tracks to retrieve items that may have been dropped there. Well, these days there are safety barriers and doors in place (see the edge of the picture) that would prevent passengers— young and old— from dropping items onto the tracks in the first place.
