the book of CACTI and Other SUCCULENTS

I guess I talk about my plants an awful lot and well, here's some more of that! I found this book while thrifting last year, but only really began to appreciate its usefulness with my own recent burgeoning cacti and succulent garden. A clarification I was happy to read in this book is that cacti are the "best-known" family of succulents, but all succulents are not cacti (!!!).

I love love love illustrations in old books. It doesn't even matter what they are of, but man, look at these! The close-ups of cactus blossoms and bracts, the image of the lady for scale, and the impeccably handwritten labels matched with the arrows. Amazing.

Propagation methods...

This rolled newspaper trick was such a helpful tip for some of my spinier friends. And the watering tip - essential. Ever since A gave me this baby barrel cactus, I've been keen on collecting my own specimens, but I find that I usually cannot resist the $2 succulents at Home Depot when I make a visit.

Cactus medley! I've been a little lax about identifying all of these...I think most of them are in the Opuntia tribe, except for the one on the bottom...

Aloe vera, jade plant, hen & chick, and Sedum.

It's easier to label these images if you actually know the names of all the plants...!

Last week I came home to see all the pots neatly grouped together, and some of my succulents in glass (on the far left) had been rearranged. The work of mischievous/thoughtful gardeners, I believe! As the days continue to get longer, I like to sit out on the porch with a cup of tea as I watch the last vestiges of sunlight stretch, linger, then fade away.

you & me

early uses of california plants

A family friend gave me this book along with a huge Trader Joe's bag-ful of white sage last month and I read it all at once before bed a few weeks ago, but never said anything about it. It's very straightforward, full of illustrations of the plants featured along with its description and use, so much fun!

The World of Sex - Henry Miller

I picked this up at last Sunday's flea market for $1. Of course the title print first caught my eye, and I figured most people passed it over because of that and the fact it looked like a flimsy pamphlet. But upon closer inspection I saw the author's name - Henry Miller, then made out the delicate, beautiful print of the human body, barely noticeable when viewing the thing at a 90º angle, and without any further ado I snapped it up. I was wide awake despite feeling exhausted yesterday and so read it all last night before bed. The content is not as extensive on the topic of sex as the title offers, but in no way does that undermine the writing. In it Miller addresses the issue of his liberal usage of sex in his writing, as sex undoubtedly plays a strong role in the growth of many an individual, whether one would like to admit this or not. What I find remarkable about Henry Miller is that I've never found his writing obscene for the sake of being provocative, in fact his writing seems incredibly truthful and poetic as he chronicles his life experiences and how they build or break him down as a man. I find his words totally intoxicating.

I could tell that my mom was slightly mortified upon viewing this title, as she didn't even know what to say about it. I told her it's an essay by one of my favorite writers, and that seeing only 1000 copies of this one had been printed, I had to have it. I began to tell her about it today but she didn't seem interested. Prudish mothers are so funny and ironic!

the bottomless belly button - dash snow

I was surprised but after a second though, unsurprised at stumbling upon a small graphic novels section in the Architecture and Fine Arts library at school last Friday. After my midterm review I went downstairs to the library to check out a few titles a reviewer had recommended I check out, when my roving eye caught some pretty artwork and enticing titles. Without batting an eyelash I must have grabbed 3 or 4 titles and adding those to the 3 architecture books I got I returned upstairs with a heavy but un-daunting load of reading material.

'The Bottomless Belly Button' is a 720 page epic about the breakdown of a family and how everyone in it reacts to it. The Loony family, with septuagenerian Grandma and Grandpa Loony on the verge of divorce, are having one last week-long family reunion as the divorce is being finalized. The three grown children all react differently - Dennis, the oldest, with the recent arrival of his own child takes the news the hardest and tries to understand what could break apart the seemingly peaceful 40 year marriage of his parents. Claire, who has gone through her own divorce is trying to maintain closeness to her teenage daughter Jill, while Peter, the youngest at age 26, still has yet to find himself or engage in a meaningful relationship. The story and characters seem deceptively simple, because it is a finely crafted, nuanced tale that feels so real as you read it. The artwork is rather simplistic and somewhat crude even, but after being used to viewing such meticulously lined work as Daniel Clowes, Adrian Tomine and Craig Thompson it's refreshing, and if anything the art greatly supports/outlines the story.

Until recent years I would get frustrated by endings of stories, films, books that had no definite, concrete ending, but now I prefer them that way, because life is exactly like that. When a chapter ends it's almost never a clean, 'HERE'S WHEN IT ENDS!' Only after time and perspective is one able to make that distinction, and to hand it off to the reader in such a way undermines the intelligence of the reader, I think. That's not to say leave me hanging, but a lot of times when it's done right, there's a sense of closure with enough room to ponder.

excerpt - The Great Gatsby

'I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye. I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter into their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove. Sometimes, in my mind, I followed them to their apartments on the corners of hidden streets, and they turned and smiled back at me before they faded through a door into warm darkness. At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others - poor young clerks who loitered in front of the windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner - young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.'

The above is an internal passage by Nick Carraway, the narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald writes beautifully, and in my arrogant high school years I often failed to grasp much of the beauty in the words I read in my exasperation at having to overanalyze the literary allusions, metaphors, motifs, foreshadowing, etc. I just wanted to read the book without having to endure, chapter after chapter the brutal butchering and decomposition of the work. As beneficial as it ended up being, the means to getting there was awful. So much bullshit in class about the discussion of illumination in one or two points, dragging on and on and on. I really hated English class as much as it was simultaneously the only subject I excelled in. If only they had let us read through the book once on our own, discuss it in the span of a week and read it again. But even that is a terrible idea. Because it is only now, seven years after I first read and dismissed it, I finally see and appreciate the beauty in this story about childish, self-centered, disillusioned, irresponsible adults in their crazy lives, split dangerously between dream and reality, false hopes and expectations and dismay. I suppose it's a lesson in the perils of the American dream, a warning of the fickleness of human beings, the ever-present discrepancy between what is perceived and what actually is; and then there's a glimmer of hope in it, knowing that the only sane and level-headed person is the one recounting the tale.

I think I'll be re-reading all the books I read in high school now. Time to see them once again in a different light.

meditations - marcus aurelius

'But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of him who does wrong, that it is akin to me, not only of the same blood or seed, but that it participates in the same intelligence and the same portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him. For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away.' II

'For all things soon pass away and become a mere tale, and complete oblivion soon buries them. And I say this of those who have shone in a wondrous way. For the rest, as soon as they have breathed out their breath, they are gone, and no man speaks of them. And, to conclude the matter, what is even an eternal remembrance? A mere nothing. What then is that about which we ought to employ our serious pains?' IV

'And consider that we ought not to act and speak as if we were asleep, for even in sleep we seem to act and speak; and that we ought not, like children who learn from their parents, simply to act and speak as we have been taught.' IV

Wise, wise words albeit in long-winded passages. Stoicism is against my nature meaning, given my regular emotional fluctuations, if I were a stoic I would be DEAD. But it makes for great reading and ruminations, poring over the words of one of the greatest leaders/thinkers/men of all time.

human, all too human

I found this book on my staircase landing and thumbed through it, admiring the vibrant colors/quality of the insets as well as the carefully written analysis on van Gogh and his art. There are some good parts in judging a book by its cover (or its craft) because a well-crafted book will usually (hopefully?) promise equally good insides. My totally biased opinion.

summer blonde - adrian tomine

I had only read Shortcomings before Summer Blonde, and though I've always been fond of Adrian Tomine's illustrations, I don't call myself a big fan of his storytelling, unless angsty, verbose, self-reflective bordering-on-the-mundane conflict is what I'm in the mood for. But maybe I judged too soon. Summer Blonde's strength is that it's a collection of four stories and we get a better glimpse of Tomine's world and what stories he wants to tell. I had a problem with the pacing in all but one of the stories; I would say the pacing and his writing are Tomine's greatest weaknesses. He shows a remarkable empathy for his characters, however - if you were to meet Tomine for the first time he'd probably figure you out in a heartbeat, though he would probably also embellish you with extra emotional baggage/issues as well. Back to his characters, though they're usually fleshed out they also lack a certain wholeness, which could be due to the issues said characters might be facing... as you encounter them you realize you're only peeking into a small part of their lives and their outcome is ambiguous. An entertaining read, read it for the art if not for a strong dose of Adrian Tomine-y goodness...

a coney island of the mind

'... Yes the world is the best place of all

for a lot of such things as

making the fun scene

and making the love scene

and making the sad scene

and singing low songs and having inspirations

and walking around

looking at everything

and smelling flowers

and goosing statues

and even thinking

and kissing people and

making babies and wearing pants

and waving hats and

dancing

and going swimming in rivers

on picnics

in the middle of the summer

and just generally

'living it up'

Yes

but then right in the middle of it

comes the smiling

mortician'

Just the second half of '11' (roughly arranged in the way it's published, but bastardized, sorry) from the third part of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's 'A Coney Island of the Mind'. I read this poem and 'Dog' in high school my sophomore year of English, and the teacher kept likening me to one of the free-r spirits Ferlinghetti likes to talk of. For example, I remember she asked 'Who here do you think would go around goosing statues?' and some people pointed and said 'Hana!'. I guess it's better that this realization was made when in high school rather than in college.

excerpt - Walden

"We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander."

"Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay."

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that is one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours... In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board."

-- Henry David Thoreau, Walden.

If anything, at least read the final chapter - but I don't think you will get the full impact of his words unless you read it ALL.

excerpt - Tropic of Cancer

"It may be that we are doomed, that there is no hope for us, any of us, but if that is so then let us set up a last agonizing, bloodcurdling howl, a screech of defiance, a war whoop! Away with lamentation! Away with elegies and dirges! Away with biographies and histories, and libraries and museums! Let the dead eat the dead. Let us living ones dance about the rim of the crater, a last expiring dance. But a dance!"

-- Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

excerpt - in praise of shadows

we find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against other creates.

-- Jun' ichiro Tanizaki, 'In Praise of Shadows'

The quote above is probably the most famous one in this essay by the Japanese novelist Tanizaki, but looking beyond the pleasing aesthetics of a modestly-lit Japanese room versus the 'tragedy' of integrating modern electrical lighting into old spaces, Tanizaki explores nuances of the Japanese culture and how the quality of light and interplay of shadow is crucial to understanding the approach of the Japanese to their way of life. I wish I had read this book before I went to Japan - it certainly lent me a faint glimpse of knowledge that a whole semester of pre-Asia trip studies sort of failed to do.

city lights books

I was way too in awe and amazed to document in detail the entirety of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, but suffice it to say this is high on my list of favorite places in my life thus far. City Lights holds such a rich history, and had the support of some of the most amazing authors/artists/people in existence ... it made me want to go back and try to finish On The Road and give the Beat poets and authors another try because, I won't lie - I think I get what they want to say but it tires me to sift through it, haha. I've jokingly asserted that if I had to be holed up in one place other than home for a while I'd choose Costco, or Trader Joe's. But now it would have to be City Lights. Perhaps I would physically starve, but my mind and soul would never be more nourished or free from want in such a place.

they say great minds think alike

I bought "The Medium is the Massage" (the white one) last summer, and my sister swiped the black copy from the coffee house on campus. Neither of us had any idea that the other owned a copy of this book until today. So weird/cool!

mmm books...

I've read maybe ten out of all the titles shown.

I spent Sunday morning perusing books & such with Tommy after an interesting (but still delicious!) breakfast at Swingers. The angles of these shots are strange because I'm still getting used to shooting with the new 50mm prime lens I got. No more luxury of zoom, haha. I also had a mini-spree at Hennessey & Ingalls and came home with a new chunk of architecture books to read/devour/add to my bookshelf. I hope it rains HARD tomorrow so I can spend all day reading miles of other peoples' thoughts, analyses, opinions and stories.

Also I had a headache all day until I started typing this out, I guess I found my release for today.