I have added something to the site today. Just to the right in the “Pages” section you will a “Books” entry. This page contains links to PDF files that list the books I’ve read. It’s similar to the list I’ve been keeping (and failing to keep updated though I’ve watched fewer than a dozen films since my last update) of films I’ve viewed. By no means are these lists complete. Currently, there are less than a hundred books listed. I started reading round about the age of five and have read thousands of books. One year, whilst in the Navy, I kept track of how many books I read that year. Sixty was the number. I will add books when I have finished reading them and as I remember that I have read them.

Oh! Also, if you are by chance longing to read some other things I’ve written I have made a number of postings on another website. You can those here:

TIBU - This Is By Us

A search for “Honario” will present a list of the things I’ve posted. You can also go here, which is my Profile page, but it lists only my last two postings (you have to do some clicking to get to the rest):

Honario on TIBU

Many much love

Rather than trying to explain here are three examples. These photos were all taken in one afternoon. I first “discovered” these sites one evening round about midnight while I was walking to a subway station and talking to friend on my phone about where and what I should eat. Several days later I returned to further explore these places in the light of day.

***Note about using these maps: Zoom all the way in using the controls in the upper left. This way my cluster of markers become easier to click on. Even so, some of them will still be too close to easily click. Use the “drop down” box in the upper left to more easily select individual photos. A “bubble” will pop-up when you select a photo by clicking the marker or using the drop-down box. This bubble will contain a short caption and a thumbnail of the photo. Clicking on the photo in the bubble will open, in a new tab or window, a larger, full-sized photo for a better view.***

The Cahuenga Branch Carnegie Library

While I was walking and talking on the phone my friend asked where I was. So, I looked up to spy a street sign when I saw this building. I exclaimed loudly into the phone. My friend was able to find the library on the net while we spoke. For a bit about the history and reasons of Carnegie Libraries click here. In short, it is the story of how an enormously wealthy man altered the course of America with his wealth. And I don’t mean, necessarily (though he was certainly guilty of it), though political means and corruption, but through idealism.

The Streelamp Yard

After going on a bit about the library, during the phone conversation, I spun around (still looking for street names) when I spotted this yard. It’s a very “me” thing to get excited about such mundane things as old streetlights. I just had to come back in the daylight to see what was here. While I was shooting these pics a small gaggle of neighborhood kids collected around me. They wondered and asked what I was doing. I did my best to explain that I was taking pictures for fun but I utterly failed. One little girl wrinkled her nose, pointed at a pile of rusty bits & parts with a flipped wrist, and asked “Of those??” Another boy, methinks in an effort to shoo away a weirdo, told me about a row of old streetlights, in working order, erected in the parking lot of a nearby shopping center. (These can actually be seen in the following Urban Goo map. Just to the right (east) of the Goo, oriented North South in the center of the parking lot.) He was right!! I’ve slated a return trip for myself to get snapshots of this array of historic lamps. Of Interest to note: The photo labeled “Streetlamp Yard 19″ shows three “pawn broker globe” lamps in front of the building. These three lamps can be seen as three small white dots in the Google Map satellite photo.

And finally, Urban Goo

This is a very “me” thing to notice. And I don’t just notice these things I ponder them at length and depth. In fact, this one is not all that great of an example of the phenomenon. I’ve come across ones that are much larger, blacker and that make noise as you walk across them. I guess I should warn you that some people may find these distasteful to view. Though, distasteful things abound in urban environments. If’n you are tryin’ to shut yourself off from these you be shutting yourself off from a lot in this world. In my humble opinion.

Happy Bastille Day!!

For America France is like an irritating older sibling. Hard to love because of perceived arrogance, condescension, and a manner of speaking that leaves us feeling like we are coarse & feeble minded. It is easy to forget that much of that attitude, posture stems from the fact that this older sibling made her énormes fautes (huge mistakes) at an earlier time than we. A sixteen year old will learn the humiliating lessons of seduction before a twelve year old will. And even if the twelve year old observes the humiliation he will likely miss take the lessons for the lack of four years of experience. We dismiss France at our peril. Our histories are deeply rooted and inexorably entwined by blood as well as war, philosophy, commerce and politics.

I could go on for hours about the food, art and romance of France, but I’d rather focus here on a few of the lesser known, and my favored, “sports” of France.

Debate: It must take place in public. In private your entreaties are likely to be only greeted by a shrug. But in public a quip or offhand comment is an invitation to battle. Though it will often seem heated it is almost always warm hearted. It is common to see two combatants join forces to leap upon an interloper. Buses and the Metro seem to be popular as a forum. The most common topic I’ve witnessed is the “best” route to a particular destination on the Metro. These debates do not end, they simply pause for the rallying & gathering of evidence. They can last for decades.

Assembling the Meal: Shortly after breakfast as everyone in the family disperses on their daily activities the phone calls start. Mobile phones that is which are far more ubiquitous and utilized than they are here in America. The reason for the call? Invariably, “What shall we have for dinner?” This conversation requires at least ten calls throughout the day. Once the matter is settled, usually just an hour or two before the gathering, each member is dispatched to a particular part of the city to acquire a certain ingredient from a specific purveyor. I’ve often been stymied in my assignment for lack of certain knowledge. A dairyman once refused to sell me butter because I did not know how it was to be used. Baking, sautéing, or for spreading upon something to be eaten directly?? It took three phone calls to ascertain the purpose. Whereupon I was offered three choices. Actually, really only one choice as the other two would certainly only be used by a cretin. But ahhh, this one, this jewel of bovine production has been prized for millennium by the better courts of Europe for its delicate properties. So, of course, I would select the indicated one for which I be loudly and derisively maligned, upon arriving home, for being had because I did not know the price of butter in France. “Zut alors!”

In my perusing of the morning news I encountered a quiz to test one’s knowledge of France. Of course, any Frenchman would be dismissive of this quiz as it could be completed, without error, by any four year old. Which, in my humiliating experience, I found to be quite true. Yet, I still found it be fun and was quite shocked to find that I did well. Answering 14 of 15 correctly. My one error was caused by the dastardly tactic of the quiz compilateur using transposed numbers.

Enjoy!
Just in time for Bastille Day, try this quiz on what it means to be French

Avec beaucoup d’humeur et d’affection.

The world is sacred.
It can’t be improved.
If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you’ll lose it.

There is a time for being ahead,
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger.

The Master sees things as they are,
without trying to control them.
She lets them go their own way,
and resides at the center of the circle.

- Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching - Chapter 29, translation by Stephen Mitchell

When I read this chapter it makes me conceive of life like dealing with an unseen wild animal throughout my day. That my every action will be an engagement with, and reaction to, this animal. That everything I am to encounter is a result of an active living force with purposeful intent upon my being.

How often do we think of the daily external world as a living thing? Not as a remote god or set of abstract circumstances, but as an immediate, intentional animal. Can you at first imagine and then respond to a situation that provokes visceral emotion with silence and inaction? Or detect when the absence of occurrence should be met with furious action?

These are appropriate responses. Sometimes.
The life you are to lead today is a living thing. External to you. Acting in response to and upon you.
Are you attentive to it?

The more prohibitions you have,
the less virtuous people will be.
The more weapons you have,
the less secure people will be.
The more subsidies you have,
the less self-reliant people will be.

Therefore the Master says:
I let go of the law,
and people become honest.
I let go of economics,
and people become prosperous.
I let go of religion,
and people become serene.
I let go of all desire for the common good,
and the good becomes common as grass.

- Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching - Chapter 57, translation by Stephen Mitchell

I really like, am attracted to, this chapter because on its face it seems so paradoxical, yet so subtle and therefore difficult to understand.

I came to this concept through customer service and customer service management. Through direct experience in these things. I can summarize my experience thusly: If a person, not a machine, answers the phone within one or two rings your customers will call less often. If you spend excessive time dealing with every detail and aspect of issues raised in a phone call you will expend fewer resources on that customer over their life cycle, and they will stay with you longer.

Let me equate these things: prohibitions with policies, weapons with penalties and fees, subsidies with sales, discounts and loss-leaders. All of these things add to the complexity of doing business. Require greater oversight, more involved systems which greatly increases the likelihood of breakdown and error.

When it is stated, in the last stanza, “I let go …” this does not mean to abolish or ignore the subject. It means to reduce the subject from primary mindfulness or intention to that of lingering or background priority.

Of you

This restive man
Whose dyslexic eye
Made rebel blooms
Of thee

Though epiphany imagined
Is chin to sun
With eyes a squint
While scent draws
Mystery and fingers
Reach

How or Why or What
Are not aks’d
Language for that
Not yet even
Conceived

It’s more a melody
An industry of zest
Whose soul soothe satisfies
Endlessly with rest

19Jun2007 Amon Y Nomolous

It was created by Judy Baca, now a Professor at UCLA, with the help of over 700 people. Mostly students who worked their summers away in a flood control channel. Yep! That’s right. In a flood control channel. The mural was painted on the western concrete wall of the Tujunga Wash, so it’s actually below ground, between Oxnard Street and Burbank Boulevard. The wash follows along side Coldwater Canyon Avenue. Since there are parks running along each side of the wash it can easily be viewed from the east side of the wash.

It appears from the official web site (SPARCMurals.org) that restoration as well as expansion is planned. SPARC has also created and cataloged murals all over Los Angeles. Their web site is very worth an hour or two to cruise through. And like virtually all arts programs they could use some more nickels. So, if’n you got some loose nickels around the house or car pitch them SPARC’s way.

It’s kind of surprising that more people don’t know about this mural. Though you can’t really see it unless you get out of your car which, it seems, people in Los Angeles do as little as possible. I remember hearing about it back when they first started painting it. I can’t remember when I first saw it, but it was long before I moved into the neighborhood.

I want you to explore it. To experience it. To savor it. To make that a bit easier as an enticement I took photos of it and plotted them on a Google map. (Images on the map are smaller than those below. Zoom in to more easily click the the red pins to view the photos. Click and drag the map to move around.) That way you can locate it easily and get directions. Give me a shout before you go. I’ll meet you there and I know a few great places to eat nearby.

The pictures are numbered from south to north (Burbank towards Oxnard) as this is the direction of the depicted history of California. From pre-history to about the 1950s. After clicking a photo to view the full size image use “Back” to return to this page.

Right now there are only a few ripening fruits left, but the tree is covered with budding little green future fruits. I’ve identified several that I plan to track their growth through the year. Hopefully, these will survive to maturity so that I can end this photo essay with a shot of us feasting.

I’ll alert you with a new post and link back to this page whenever I post new photographs.

The above shots were taken on June 5th, 2007. Since then I’ve lost track of where the crinkled skin fruit is on the tree. I took some shots today with a ruler to keep track of their size as they grow. Above the trio there is another fruit on the same branch (Lil’ Sister). The fruit above with the remnants of its flower I’ll refer to as Single.

These all taken on June 7th, 2007.

Here are some of my first experiments shooting in macro mode. I came across these mushrooms while I was shooting the pictures for my Great Wall of Los Angeles post. They were very close to the spot where I shot Great Wall Park 5. Click on the photos for a larger image.

My hat next to the mushrooms so that you can know the scale of the shots.

A series of shots drawing in closer on the gills of the toppled over mushroom (top of photo with hat).

Let’s take a close look at the top of the medium mushroom (middle of the photo with the hat).

The largest mushroom with a little one growing underneath and peeping out.

I’m very satisfied with the performance of this camera. It will allow me peek further into tiny worlds that surround us. Who knows perhaps I’ll run into Horton and his Whos!?

Blinded White
I can know
I can calculate
But does it change
Something solid
Something real
This ability to know?
Or just the way I feel?

Blinded Green
This body
Made most of this mind
And this world
Made this body
Its trees
Its water
Its light

I fear
That on what
This mind insists
Makes out of step
This mind
To the dance
Of light through water
To the roots of trees
And then free to the sun
To fall The river fall
Insists on knowing

What does it change?
What does it help?

Blinded Red
The blood in babies
Passed from the ancient
Through the eyes of mothers
Secret powers
I suspect
Wrongly believing
Only from a distance
I a silent witness
You mother
You baby
Draw deeply
From how I stand
The power of your rising
Vigorous blood
Live in the rose
Live in the hand
Giving of rose
From my hand
To your eye
Back through
My shuddering soul
Things right
Because we’ve
Got giving

Blinded Black
Now
Because my mind
Racing
Unable to will
My body
To speak
To reach
Left standing
Black
Uncomprehending
Wondering
How blue?
How white?
How green?
How deep is your red?

And can you
Will you know
My black dissolves
By your smiling
Standing
Invitingly waves to me
Just now
Just here

25Jan2004 Amon Y Nomolous