Kadri Gopalnath, RIP

I mostly know of him by way of this great album with Rudresh Mahanthappa. Jazz fusion that really works, and a new way to hear the sax.

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 91

This song gives me goosebumps every time and really is just about perfect in every possible way. A fantastic performance to boot. Is the botox lady just projecting?

Autumn color in Foothills Park

Oh, it's no Vermont, you say? True enough. We learn to appreciate dusty shades of sage and ochre here, punctuated by the occasional fallen madrone berry or poison oak leaf. Thankful that our subtly beautiful hills are not (yet) burning.

Jordan Casteel at the Cantor Museum

A good way to get out of the smoke for a while if you live anywhere near Stanford is to check out the Cantor's exhibition, Jordan Casteel: Returning the Gaze. Casteel's large-scale portraits pay homage to fauvism but definitely show you something new. Yes, the eyes return the gaze– but there's plenty to look at in the hands, feet, and teeshirts of her subjects, too.

Elijah (detail)

Black Wings

Black Wings Has My Angel
Elliott Chaze

A very fine wild ride of a noir thriller from 1953. It offers up all the hard-boiled prose you could possibly want, rarely if ever veering into the lane of self-parody. The protagonists are made for each other, and their love affair is as warm as it is hot. Can they get away with the perfect crime? Even if they don't, you can believe they would do it all again in a heartbeat. Not entirely immune to some of the stereotypes of its time and genre, Black Wings Has My Angel nonetheless gives us a femme fatale who is every bit the equal of our conniving and complex narrator, as well as pitch-perfect satire of suburban domesticity and convention. And every page is a pleasure to read...

I took her handbag from her lap, flipped the tortoise shell latch, and removed her shiny little automatic, the toy I'd given her the night we came home from Mamie's. The gun looked like one of those things at the carnival where you throw hoops and try to win it. It was no longer than my hand and didn't look as if it would kill a flea. That was very funny, as you will see. I thumbed the release of the clip and checked her ammunition, little baby-bullets with coppery noses like costume jewelry. I replaced the full clip and jerked the chromed jacket back to full-cock position, pleased that it slid nicely, pumping a cartridge into the chamber when I let it go. "You ever shoot one of these, baby?" 

"No," she said, "but it must be just like pointing your finger." 

"That's right, they say that's why in the newspaper when you read about a housewife shooting her man, he generally stays shot. Women don't complicate shooting with a lot of stylized foolishness. The average housewife has had plenty of practice pointing her finger at her old man when he comes home late nights. Then when she gets really sore at him and points a gun instead of a finger it hits him where it hurts." 

"I'm no housewife."  

"No, but you've got some of the symptoms." 

Ethan Frome

I finally read Edith Wharton's little masterpiece. The writing is brilliant, as one would expect– economical but still palpably descriptive of both inner and outer experience. The story is utterly compelling, right down to the nasty plot twist ending. Biting humor affords the reader a nervous chuckle now and then. But I can't think of another book in which the author is so cruel to her protagonist. Why must Ethan be consigned to hell on earth? Is he being punished for being a naive dreamer? For his self-sacrifice for the sake of moral duty? For lusting in his heart? Just for being poor? I guess if God did it to Job...

Baylands geometry

How to appeal to the future of the Democratic Party... not...

"Anxious Democratic Establishment Asks, ‘Is There Anybody Else?’ Party leaders who are fatalistic about Democrats’ chances in 2020 are musing about possible late entrants to the race. Sherrod Brown? Michelle Obama?" So reads the head of this NYT article, but when you scroll down, much of the talk is actually about Hillary or Bloomberg jumping in, or being conscripted by... who, you ask? Those out-of-touch party elites and Wall Streeters? Nah...