The bridge

 

When the weather stops being vicious around here for a few hours I try to go out walking. The other day I went out on the bridge over the Mississippi. This is a massively improved bridge, a sturdy bridge, a feat of engineering. First of all, it spans the mighty river of legend, affording astonishing views up and down the Mississippi all swathed in its clothing of tiny wildernesses. High as it is it also offers views of Saint Minneapolis, which, downtown, rises up on its glimmering towers like some kind of enchanted Oz. Also it has wide paths for walking in protected lanes next to the traffic, stone pillars offering a sense of occasion, enchanting lighting, and even benches and lookout platforms. In short, it's a great bridge.

So why do I hate it?

I guess four lanes of traffic can ruin anything. There is no worthwhile transit here, no charm, no commerce, no sense of being anywhere, just an indescribable feeling of miles of concrete. Though some of us try to use this bridge in other ways, 90 percent of this bridge's functionality is designed to ferry cars back and forth. A place that should be a destination at the heart of the city, is barely more than a sacrifice to the car.

I suppose this is why so often when I cross this bridge I take pictures of it and then come home and try to improve it. You've seen some of my improved pictures, right? Some of them are pretty nice. So the fact that these pictures still kind of struggle speaks, I think, to some of our cities problems. 

Nevertheless, here are my best attempts to humanize my bridge so far. I have a long way to go:

Two seasons at once

 

Winter is a little tough around here, especially when we're deep into Winter and Winter doesn't even begin for another week! Today, as the ice falls, turns to slush, gets churned into some kind of unholy slurry on the roads, people tend to complain. To paraphrase the great Melanie: Winter can be beautiful, but mostly it's not.

Yesterday I walked out to Shangri-la, my little secret woodland. It didn't seem quite so secret with its luxurious blanket of leaves stripped away, and I wondered how I could properly illustrate this most dramatic of seasonal differences. I thought it would be neat to take some pictures in the Summer and then take some of the same place in the Winter. That sounded hard though, and like it would take another six months.

Then I remembered I have taken a lot of pictures!

Sure enough I found some random Summer shots of Shangri-la. So I tracked down their locations and did my best to match my original point of view. 

Here are the best of my results:

Yes, it can be confusing around here

 

A patron came up to the front desk of the library and asked me, "I don't have a library card so what do I need to get on a computer?"

I like this question because it is super easy! Don't get me wrong, there are some very difficult questions I like, and some medium-difficulty questions can be fun too, but an easy question is always a pleasure, like endeavoring to peel an orange and having it all come off in one go, or maybe it's like popping a bit of bubble wrap.

So I answered right away, "Just grab one of those computer passes." I said brightly, gesturing at the little square passes laid out in neat rows on the counter.

The patron picked up a library guide, written in Somali and Hmoob, and asked "This one?"

"No." I replied. "Those little square ones with the letters and numbers."

The patron picked up a free bookmark with a colored pencil drawing of a daisy from the labeled "free bookmark" tray and asked "This one?"

"No." I said. I leaned as far over as I could and gestured at the many little passes just out of my reach. "Anyone of these." I said.

The patron looked confusedly around the desk and reached over the library guides to take a piece of scratch paper. "One of these?" They asked uncertainly.

"No. Wait." I answered. And I walked around the counter and picked up one of the square computer passes and said "One of these." Then I handed them the computer pass.

"Oh. Okay. Thank you." They said and walked away.

Your World Cup Semifinal Predictions!

 

I have not really been brave enough to predict much in this World Cup. As I said, no one knows what's going to happen and then after it happens it was oh so obviously going to be just that. 

At which point my prediction, for example, might look a bit... silly.

But then I saw someone sort of famous in soccer predicted a semifinal of France vs. Morocco.

Not very many people predicted a semifinal of France vs. Morocco.

People were all like: "This guy is amazing!"

The only problem is that all his other guesses were completely wrong, so wrong as to be outright wacky. I think maybe the other semifinal is supposed to be Ghana vs. Cameroon.

Ghana and Cameroon are not in the other semifinal. They were drummed out of their groups unceremoniously.

Though they certainly gave it a good go!

Anyway, my main takeaway from all this is:

Who cares?

So here are my very authoritative semifinal predictions:

France 7

Morocco 0

Sorry Morocco, but Morocco is like a heroic kid at a giant dam. It's been an amazing feat holding back the force of all that water, but it has built and built and built, and now, when it finally bursts, it's going to be ugly.

Croatia 2

Argentina 0

Of course I desperately want Argentina to win, but my superstition that predicting Argentina's loss in this space will always work out for the best, causes me to not dare alter my path.

If I'm right about these predictions we will revisit them. If not we will forget all about it.

More things I don't say (World Cup version)

 

I was out alone at the front desk of my library on a moderately busy Saturday trying, with mixed success, to follow the World Cup on my computer. A man came up to the desk and needed some help with a couple of small things, requesting a book and renewing one, after which he looked around at the few dozen people scattered around the large first floor of the library and commented "It's unusually quiet here today, isn't it?"

I did not reply: "The very fact of you standing here saying that belies your statement." 

That would have been impolite and unprofessional. 

So instead I simply said, "It comes and goes." while missing the crucial second goal for France against England.

Almost a true story

 

I was talking about nothing with one of my co-workers and she made a little joke about something, and I distinctly heard someone say "Good one!"

But I looked around and it was just the two of us. So we kept chatting and she was talking about how one of her library classes was dumping a lot of pointless work on her, and I heard "But you always do so well with those projects. You're so smart and such a good worker!"

I looked down. "Was that your shoes?" I asked amazed.

"Yeah." She replied, maybe slightly embarrassed. "They offer a lot of support."

More French postcards

 

The last of the several postcards I sent to my co-workers at the library I work at has, finally, after nearly four weeks, arrived.

This is what the postcard looks like:

It is addressed to the:

Special Exclusive Library Club

(Care of my library)

and it reads as follows:

Dear Special Exclusive Library Club Members:

I am so happy and proud to be part of the special exclusive library club with you (you know who you are. "Be kind to the little people"*)

I inducted one new member from the main Nice Library, so get your club library exchange applications in by the end of the year!

Looking forward to the debriefings!

Regards,

Feldenstein (acting Assistant General Secretary)

* Motto of the Special Exclusive Library Club

I am sharing this real life text from my postcard with you because you are now a member of the Special Exclusive Library Club too.

Have fun. 

Go easy on the whiskey and cigars.

ESP

 

I know what you're thinking. Which is weird because it is my thought as well. 

I mean, I don't know everything that you're thinking because while we can only really think one thing at a time, like we are thinking these words, we can also think with great speed. We can think faster and wider than words. We can think around the edges of things, and inside them as well. 

And so when we read, we think the thoughts of someone else, but our thinking is intoxicated and flooded and more elaborate than a through line of sentences. Our thoughts swirl around the narrations we sometimes think, like that line of narration is pouring off steam and light and smoke and spark, and it's running tendrils and weaving around and surrounded by a whole forest. We may follow a path. But we're looking around and smelling and breathing and feeling the mist on our foreheads.

So I know what you're thinking, but you keep adding to it, all around it and inside it. You pack in the pauses. You put air into the slow places. You spin off in other directions.

I know what you're thinking, but I can't hold it. It flies out of my hands in every moment.

These are just the lines around its footprints.

That which we do not discuss today

 

I am regularly driven by compelling interests. But alas these are not interests like, I don't know, Yo Yo Ma's interest in a cello. These are more like Karl Schwartzberger's interest in the best mustard.

On April the seventh, 2002, Karl Schwartzberger woke up wondering what the best mustard was. He went to the store and bought every mustard they had. Then he travelled around to seven other grocery stores and fine specialty stores buying mustards.

He assembled an astonishing 34 mustards, everyone he could find in his well stocked city, on a large table in his kitchen.

He also had some breads and sausages to test the mustards in interactive settings.

After exhaustive tasting, including blind taste tests, his favorite two mustards were clearly Amora Mustard, from Dijon, and Dusseldorf Mostert, also known as ABB mustard, and immortalized by Van Gogh in his painting Still Life with Bottles and Ceramics (pictured below). There was too little between the excellence of these mustards to pick one over the other.

Karl was extremely satisfied with the quality of his two picks, but he was nevertheless aware that, as products, they perhaps might lack the vibrancy of a more freshly ground mustard.

What, he wondered, if there was better mustard.

A better mustard!

Into the long, early Spring evening Karl feverishly researched the making of mustard, the nature of brown vs yellow vs. black mustard seeds, and the primacy of steeping seeds in cold water. He learned about the second soaking and about verjus, vinegars, and even lemon juice. He dabbled briefly in thoughts of turmeric, and then strongly rejected it. And he slowly became devoted to the work of the mustard theorist Tomas Cabernet and a devotee of the pure ingredient process.

Late that night, aye, almost as the sun rose again Karl fell asleep running over plans for the next morning. On April the eighth he would attempt to make his own, perfected mustard.

Early in the afternoon of the next day Karl Schwartzberger woke up. He got out of bed. He made some toast and had some tea. He munched the toast as he read the daily paper. He fed the cat. He sat on the couch and read a chapter of an interesting book he was reading about music theory. He got up and stretched, and he looked out the window at some pigeons whereupon suddenly he remembered about the mustard.

And all at once, in an overwhelming wave, it all seemed really pointless to make mustard, tiresome, perhaps difficult, and that he had enough jarred mustard to last him a lifetime anyway. Probably.

 He wasn't that sure he really ate all that much mustard. 

But whatever.

The truth is that he had lost interest.

And so have I.

But it was pretty fun while it lasted.

Wales wins the World Cup

Down now to eight teams in the World Cup we have seven top teams and only one measly remaining underdog, Morocco, and we have our first days off since the games began. Everyone can now rest up for two days- Wednesday and Thursday- maybe I won't even write about The World Cup for all of Thursday! And then Friday it's back to action: Croatia play Brazil in the morning. Argentina lose to the Netherlands in the afternoon.

And in this moment of collecting ourselves FOR THE REALLY BIG GAMES, and because we found the Spain Morocco game very disappointing, we'd like to discuss...

Underdogs!

When criminals in this world appear

And break the laws that they should fear

And frighten all who see or hear

The cry goes up both far and near

For Underdog (Underdog)

Underdog (Underdog)

I have found, in being a passionate follower of the World Cup, that people love underdogs. 

People were super excited about South Korea, Australia, and Japan, and now Morocco. And I am fine with these teams, but skeptical. Because I have found that people enjoy the easy nobility of supporting the little guy when they have nothing on the line, and don't really care. It is a theoretical stance. And I have also found that people only really support a specific underdog after they are successful. An upset by Japan, or a last minute win by South Korea, created many fans who vanished without a tear as soon as their inevitable losses. No one, absolutely no one when I signed up people for my World Cup pool, said anything like: Give me Ghana!

Which doesn't matter I guess, because these people are mostly not watching these games, or not caring about them very much anyway. But I will say I appreciate a fan in this context, someone who has made their pick and decided to care. And if someone at the start of this tournament were to decide to support Brazil because they were the biggest favorite in the tournament, and then they watched them and cared and enjoyed their flair and style, well, their heart is on the line too. There were 32 teams, and a half dozen of them were very very good, another half dozen could be the best team in the world on a special day. Which means that at the start of this tournament every single team alone, no matter how excellent, was, nevertheless, an underdog, 

just some more so than others.

World Cup updates

 

Suffering as I am, from a cold or flu, I have been able to fanatically focus on The World Cup as I can't really manage to do much else.

And so I bring you another up to the minute report from the events in Qatar.

After a thrilling roller coaster of a group stage, chock full of crazy upsets, and numerous twists and turns, we braced ourselves for the round of 16.

In which everything went exactly according to plan. Exactly! Favorites won. Big stars excelled. And all the obvious predictions that most people didn't want to make because they were too obvious, came true.

Which goes to show that soccer is a game full of an astonishing amount of luck, until, suddenly, it isn't.

If Portugal and Spain can win tomorrow (or today, your time), which is by no means assured, unless it happens, in which case it was, it will mark one of the most perfect fait accompli in the history of the World Cup. The quarter finals will consist of an almost perfectly expected final eight of most favorited teams in the world. Not a Cinderella team among them. Not that people won't desperately try to make the lowest hanging fruit into one. Don't fall for that.

And all that sounds pretty boring maybe. But soccer is strange; the unpredictable sets up the obvious, and the obvious leads to the unpredictable.

If Portugal and Spain go through, which, who knows really? Then the quarter finals all of the sudden will have no favorites and no underdogs.

Oh, I mean no favorites until there are winners. 

Then it will have been obvious all along.

Also, as per the compulsive reverse psychology superstition of this blog:

Argentina, alas, will be edged out by The Netherlands.

More paintings

 

I have a sore throat, WHICH MEANS I HAVE A DISEASE!

So, I stayed home from work today, and I am tired, and that's fine, I guess.

Every once in awhile I picked up my phone and made a new painting. Or I guess I should say "painting".

These are the best of them, but I'll say I like the first one best, and that number four is a variation on number two, and number five is a variation on number three, so you don't have to wonder "Haven't I seen this one before?" You have.

Taking up my brush

My pursuit of making paintings without having to actually paint continues apace! I'm not sure if earlier versions of these pictures have already appeared in a recent 'winter scenes on the golf course' post, but as I keep layering deeper and deeper into my photos I feel I am getting closer to turning them into paintings, and so, if I have to present them again, so be it. 

Here are some, ahem, paintings I have made by mangling photographs: