Wayne is appearing on national television to promote his new toys.
These toys started when Wayne hung mobiles down at Bar Reis, a once-dank wine bar in Park Slope. The mobiles caught the eye of an entrepreneur, who marshalled Wayne's phenomenal sculpting and painting skills. Some years later, through the travails of fund-raising, suffering through the demise of several large toy-shops, the models went off to the Far East to be cast. Now the first shipment of toys has arrived on a container ship from China, and Wayne & Co. are on tv!
Anna was sweet to pick up a book for me from the Children's section of the San Francisco Public Library. The book: "Archer's Goon", a masterful work by British novelist Diana Wynne Jones, whose books I've loved since reading "Howl's Moving Castle," with its conceit from a Donne poem, and its milliner's-daughter heroine.
"Archer's Goon" is a subtle masterpiece, with sewage, finance, education, and words as public resources, each "farmed" by a shadowy sibling of the family in charge of the town.
After reading the story of how Apropa't, the Savath and Savalas album from Scott Herren and Eva Puyuelo Muns, I like the soft, wistful album's concertinas and petulant vocals even more. I dug out some older releases -- the beautifully-titled Folk Songs for Trains Trees and Honey and a Prefuse73 10". And get your damn Putney out of my mix.
On a slightly-related note: I bought Pere Ubu's "The Tenement Year" and Crowded House's "Temple of Low Men" both because of the intriguing write-ups in a then-hip Rolling Stone magazine. Now I read The Big Takeover.
Now, if you happen to have £2000 burning a hole in yr pocket, you might want to scope out the view from these webcams. iamevilgordon and his beloved Belinda are in town for nuptials, and brought Aram a fine bottle o' Islay malt. I like their motto: "Bruichladdich - The distillery with attitude"
Malt does more than Milton can to justify god's ways to man
UPDATE: Now that the summer's ending, San Mateo County reopens its parks. I wrote about this earlier because I like public space (and public clocks).
Riding to work today for the first time all week, inspiration overcame me. I re-worked the Bay Area Anti-derailleur and Single-speed Society web site, which consists of a single page. I took elements from gmail (clicking on a div does something!), and innerHTML wizardry from Cody.
The old page will remain on the site for a while, for no good reason.
Sure, it was buried on an inside page, but the drunk driver who killed a Bay Area cyclist this spring received a prison sentence yesterday.
This sets a good precedent, although the eight-year sentence is too light (the charges to which he pleaded guilty carry small prison terms), especially since the driver was without a valid licence. I wish that a prosecutor could construe this as wilfull, or first-degree, manslaughter, rather than vehicular manslaughter. The guilty party is a lawyer -- he has special knowledge of these circumstances! -- and got behind the wheel of his car voluntarily, while intoxicated. Is this comparable to firing off a gun randomly into a crowd?
Today's Examiner has the banner "Fans arrive by land, sea Giants, Raiders rooters exhaust transit options" for their lead story.
Began reading Dea Birkett's Serpents in Paradise, but the writing really isn't very good -- although the material, a woman's journey to and stay on remote, legendary Pitcairn Island, deserves much better.