Savannah, GA…

… beautiful city, the deep shade of the public squares in the Historic District, the history and historic buildings… then we sought lunch and things went south fast… popular restaurant with hostess that wasn’t being honest… name on list… wait a long time before discovering that two large groups are being seated before us occupying all the outside tables which are the only tables that would accommodate us and our 2 dogs, we leave our phone number and go exploring… Forsythe park with bathroom in sight, H trips on a raised slab of concrete and smashes up their face… no serious damage but our Savannah day has come to an end… the restaurant calls to let us know they set up an extra table for us… my wife has smashed up her face in the park i tell them… hope we see you next time you are in Savannah… not likely i think… we start to make our way slowly back to the car… we find lunch at Parker’s Market which is really a high end convenience store… we return to car and then to motel… all the while we are checking for signs of concussion…

Christmas Journey

… three days of longer, harder driving than expected… we learned that whatever the map app says about travel time, add two hours… we had no time to enjoy any sights along the way… we are in Naples now… will be able to walk around a little…

First Thoughts

… HCR meter pointing downwards… discussion of conservative extremism as evidenced by policies against mask and vaccine mandates… it’s really bleak and threatening… at present, the only remedy appears to be some form of federal voting rights legislation which the Senate can’t pass without making a change in the filibuster… several moderate Democrats Senators have said they will not vote to change the filibuster… what’s most depressing and frightening is that both sides view the current situation as an existential threat… this is the kind of thing that has already and will continue to lead to bloodshed…

… no alcohol last night, in at 9:30 PM, up at 4:00 AM… 6.5 hours of sleep… yup, that seems about right…

… finished The Essential Haiku yesterday, started Conscious, by Annaka Harris… i read a Brain Pickings post about it a couple of days ago and decided to buy it… i am 25 pages into it and was thinking that the development of ideas about consciousness in the book seemed a bit confused and unsound… i know that the book is heading towards presenting the concept of panpsychism, because of the Brain Pickings post and because there is a chapter labeled “Beyond Panpsychism” about 3/4 of the way through the book… an embrace of panpsychism would undercut some of the reasoning in the parts i have read so far, which flits around the trickiness of deciding when matter becomes “conscious”… the dividing lines are not clear and where we presently draw them doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny… so i am thinking the author is confused and muddled but it occurs to me that they are setting us up to introduce panpsychism as the resolution of the muddle… so i think i know why they are proceeding the way they are… at my present rate of reading, i will be done with the book in a few days…

… K comes today to continue with the weeding an mulching of the garden… i have done some work on the other side of the garden and it looks like we will be close to complete by the time H gets home…

… i am looking forward to driving down to Florida and back… the time spent there will be emotionally fraught as J will be frail and continuing on the path of heart failure, and C will be stressed out and sad, and my own emotions will be complex because of my poor relationship with J… so i focus on the three days of travel at either end… time to process… the possibilities of some minor adventures…

… i am feeling a little anxious about my skin exam next week, though i am not presently concerned about any skin anomalies… will be glad to have that past me…

… Chas to the vet yesterday… he’s gained a large amount of weight, 8 lbs according to the vet’s record… we decided to do a blood panel that included thyroid indicators… we’ve had several dogs in the pat with thyroid issues… fortunately, that is easy to treat… the visit cost nearly $470… we used to be able to get out of there for around $200… both Chas and Fiona got vaccinated for Bordetella, aka, Kennel Cough, yesterday… apparently it is going around… the vet says they have seen doggie patients at the rate of 1 per day that have it… it sounds like there is a cluster in one family in Beacon or Beacon vicinity…

Walking

Sitting by the banks of the Hudson River on Denning’s Point…

… road trips are on my mind this morning… because of my father’s declining condition i am expecting to be traveling down to Florida frequently in the next half year or so… i have been thinking about the idea of turning the need to get down there into photographic road trip adventures… i would do the first one by myself… subsequent trips H and the dogs might come… i and we could develop our road trip chops this way… i have begun researching national park passes (though I remember H getting some sort of pass for parks)… i want to investigate park cabin rentals and camping as well… i am thinking the first trip would be end of August, beginning of September…

03 Photography:

Fiona Véronique

… the images presented in this article are from “Riddle,” a recently released photobook by the artist…

Published as a photobook by Antics Publications in 2020, “Riddle” follows a road trip Véronique took with her sister, from Seattle, Washington to Elko Nevada.1

… road trips to “look for America” are a common theme for photobooks, by American photographers (Stephen Shore, Uncommon Places), and foreign born photographers (Robert Frank, The Americans)… there is a high bar for this kind of work…

… i don’t know if this book meets that bar as i don’t have a copy to look through, but i believe many of the images in the book are quite solid and evocative…

… this one in particular is beautiful and rightfully headlines the article… the flat landscape, the trucks, the edge of a parking lot, the place chosen to sun oneself, at the apex of the corner of the parking lot… all quintessentially American… tipped on an angle (homage to Frank?) to slope down (suggesting a downhill run for the nation?)…

… i click through to the book purchase page and buy one of 50 copies for $30… why is it so cheap?, why are there any left?…


  1. Anna: https://www.booooooom.com/2021/07/06/riddle-by-photographer-fiona-veronique/ ↩︎

08 Road Trip Part II

… Cafe Mutton…

… and then there’s the food…

Tortilla Espanola

Fried Baloney Sandwich

… i have never had one of these but apparently it’s a New Jersey thing… Freihoeffer’s bread, Helman’s Mayo, balogney made on premises…

Salad of the Now

… red lettuce, scallions, blue cheese…

Cherry Toast

… Centre of buratta cheese, bread, cherries…

… total yum!…

… on the way back we stopped at Quatro’s custom butcher and purveyor of fine foods…

… we picked up an awesome ribeye steak, smoked garlic and pheasant sausage, smoked duck breast, and some fresh corn…

… once home we cut the steak in half, cooked one half and saved the other for another day…

Pan Seared Ribeye Steak

… the steak was awesome!