Blitherings – Page 164 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Consistency & Coordination

Consistency is not something that just happens. In sports, in the arts, being able to produce consistently requires practice. Coordination helps, too.

Sometimes it comes about from coordinating outside things – for me, it began with setting up all my photography equipment to default to AdobeRGB. My camera and my software is now all using it. I also got a i1 display calibrator, by XRite, which has also made a difference in what I see, and what is produced.

These are things which have nothing to do with my ability to shoot a picture, but more with my ability to produce one with decent color. It is making a significant difference, and although what I see is subtle in its differences, it is very much there.

With that done, I have since picked up the brush and the needles again, and that feels very good.

A World of Want

With 7 billion people on the planet, imagine if each was ferociously hungry. Cannibalism might be the end result. In Africa, where there used to be 100,000 cell phones on the entire continent, the anticipated totals are now a billion. Every day, new cameras are introduced and new phones are introduced, and all of this in the middle of droughts on three continents – North America, Australia, and Asia. Crops are dropping in production because there is no water. Africa experiences famine all the time. New cars are de rigueur to many; having one last 15 to 20 years gets written up in the local news. I bought a new watch the other day, and the sales clerk was astounded that it was the first one I had boughten in 20 years. Are new food crops being developed to provide adequate nutrition? Are we changing the way we produce food, and what we raise, and what we eat? Politicians preach austerity, yet little compassion exists with the strongly fiscally conservative for the vast majority who have little to begin with. Globally, the middle class is being destroyed and the gap increases between the rich and poor – yet, revolutions are often based on want – a lack – and when the middle class goes, so go governments. Oh, and let’s not get started on birth control and population and the right-to-life movement . . .

I am not an eco-freak, but the world is definitely out of whack. I am part of that whole process – I want things. I want different foods, a new camera, some more paper, a new pen, a book to read, a place to go. The trash heaps are filled with discarded televisions, phones, couches, spoiled food. I don’t have to do without. I don’t give to charity very often. I don’t do much to aid the less fortunate in my community because my little personal time belongs to me, and no one else.

So what is this all about? It is to remind me of the dichotomy of want and need.

I have what I need, and a lot that I want but don’t need. And a great deal more of what I don’t want.

An Excursion into My Backyard

I have lived in Ventura County for a long, long time, and have watched changes come about, as is inevitable. Mostly it is the loss of open space and farm lands, with houses replacing fields. Traffic congestion has gotten considerably worse. Certainly we all see this. However, there are some things which do change for the better.

One thing which has changed is our level of discrimination. Overall, we recognize it as wrong. Years ago, people of different races and religions were buried in sections of cemeteries reserved just for them; other times, the dead amongst given ethnic groups were refused the right to buried at all. In Ventura County, and throughout much of California, Asians were denied access to cemeteries, public or private, and as a result, were forced to create their own.

The Japanese community was one group, and so they had a small one for their own community. In 1908, out in the middle of nowhere, they laid their dead to rest. Some were Christian, some probably Buddhist or Shinto. Only a few years ago did the historical recognition come, and some funding to help rebuild the cemetery. Throughout the past century, the Japanese community has maintained it, but over the years, vandalism and age have taken its toll.

I have long been coming to this cemetery. It is small and mysterious, with stones with kanji only, others in English, and others with both. Years ago, photographs were attached to some of the more grand stones, but these have disappeared with time. Other markers were simple white posts with faded writing.

There is another cemetery nearby, only a few hundred feet up the road, and probably dating from the same time. It, too, has fallen into disrepair, but nothing has been done to renovate it. More than obviously, it was once a going concern, probably well maintained. The layout shows this, with clearly marked concrete borders for family plots. There are more fancy headstones, yet none except one has any flowers in front of it. Instead, there is litter and debris.

Interesting how differently two communities remember their members.

Safe

In 1982 the Chicago area was struck by someone adulterating Tylenol capsules with potassium cyanide. No one has ever been found guilty – though some were suspected – of this crime which killed several people. Since then, packaging on pills and foods has been improved for the sake of safety.

I don’t begrudge this at all as being a standard, but I don’t think I need:

child proof caps on all prescriptions unless otherwise requested
child proof caps on mouth wash
child proof caps on dishwasher liquid
child proof caps on laundry soap
child proof caps on cough syrup

Add to all this “child proof” stuff – which is really annoying – is all the heat-shrunk, heavy plastic, need-50-tons-of-dynamite for:

SD cards
ink pens
flash drives
nail scissor
head phones

Do I really need to take an axe to something to open these damned containers?

Summer’s Days

Today is the last day of my vacation. Different activities have wandered in and out of my weeks off. Mundane things, such as car repairs, have taken up time. Spinning and reading and knitting and playing games and socializing and calligraphy and photography and painting and studying are amongst the other activities. Probably the most amusing, though, has been reading a popular book about a certain witch and vampire . . . if you are into the subject matter, you know of whom I write.

Elizabethan Script from a Devotional in the Beinecke Library

It has been a fun journey into Elizabethan (Tudor) England, and its historical figures. I have read about Sir Walter Raleigh and his unhappy end; about Nicholas Hilliard, the limner and miniaturist (his work is quite admirable); Edmund Spenser; Thomas Harriot, who was an Einstein of his time; Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland; Mad Kit Marlowe (I read his plays in college); Matthew Roydon. I’ve also looked up articles on quill cutting for writing purposes – I used to cut my own quills years ago – and the different hands used in Elizabethan England. Ink recipes, too.

I dug out my own dip pens, and steel nibs (19th and 20th century items) to practice handwriting with such. Poor paper, which is porous and pulls the ink out of the nib in blurry blobs, yields frustrating results. Bond paper, such as 24 lb. copier paper, is far better, but not ideal. Wider nibs, made by Speedball, require deep wells to hold the ink. While practicing such, I decided that I would look up a poem apropos to the era, and found one by Roydon: An Elegy; or, Friend’s Passion for his Astrophel.

From there, on to different poetry archives, with poems by Sir Raleigh, Edmund Spenser, Shakespeare and others. However, for some reason, this one popped up without any planned search, just by clicking on the name of the author, Royall Snow:

Watteau Panels

i. A Melody with Sombre Chords

Pierrot draws aside the willows
As a curtain,
And naïve Columbine steps through.
In the moonlight–
Like the twinkling of silver minnows
The gurgling brook winks at Pierrot.
He had come there before.

ii. Danse Macabre
From a hidden orchestra
Drifts in blurred melody the valse hesitation
A dancer presses his partner’s hand
Commandingly.

iii. Acquiescence
“No,” whispers the woman
And turns her head
So that the moonlight falls on her bare throat.

Given the subject matter of my reading, one cannot help but wonder why this one poem appeared.