GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Drawings

  • vertical

    Earlier in the year, I waited eight weeks for the local Ikea to finally get a shipment of Billy bookcases.

    The particle board smell was so strong that we started with two book cases and let the rest air out in the garage. This start was enough to handle a third of my books.

    A few weeks later, we raised the final three and finally emptied our boxes of books after eleven years!

    ,
     

    ,
     

     ,
     

     ,
     

     ,
     

     ,
     

     ,
     

    Social media is dangerous. Our puny individual ape brains were not evolved to survive hordes of corporate psychologists. However, there is great value buried in those sites.

    After being on on Instagram for #inktober for two weeks, I am all the more certain that the best way handle a social media website is to decide upon a real-world analogy (to limit your use) and never let it slip out of its prison.

    Here are my personal metaphors for various social media sites.

    • Twitter—Newspaper opinion pages (lurk only—no comments, no hearts)
    • Facebook—Telephone gossip among old friends
    • Linkedin—Awkward business networking event
    • Instagram—Mall of private galleries (I’ve had a rotation of interests, but my current selections are calligraphy, illustration, and airports).
    • Reddit—Collection of old school special interest web-forums (ignore the all-in-one feed on the main page).
    • Substack—The collected newsletters make an Arts and Poetry Magazine, with Notes as an attached web-forum (I avoid hot button topics like politics).
    • Youtube—A giant Fry’s Electronics wall of TV’s. Even though I only lurk the site, this is by far the hardest place to keep in check. I might institute a personal rule to write a sentence about each video I watch (h/t James Hart).
    • Tiktok—Just Say No.

    In these battles against the algorithm, you will be constantly presented with intriguing morsels creeping outside of your proscribed boundaries. Don’t take the bait. You must constantly ignore, mute, and cull your feeds. Big Social is a fine servant but a cruel master.

    .

  • unordered

    The husband of local architect collects Pokémon cards. When I asked her where to buy a big box of cheap commons, she handed me a pile that I passed onto the kids.

    That became a giant mess on the floor, way past bedtime!

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    I’m learning that cleaning up is a slow necklace of focused moments.

    Each attempt at organizing takes way longer than planned. But if you tackle each clean-up endeavor as a focused chip off a giant boulder, you’ll make a dent over time.

    Last Saturday we finally put up shelves in the garage. Sunday, I threw the mess up on the wall. Admittedly this just made a vertical wreck, but it was nice to see the concrete slab again.

    This morning, I sorted through the stuff, consolidated the boxes, and we now enjoy a tidy garage.

    Onto the house (a small corner at a time)!

    .

  • tundra


    In winter, we played in the snow as the sun set over the girl’s last afternoon as a 9 year old. With the rains of that week, our usual spot at Mount Charleston (in the valley below the visitor center) was in fresh deep fluff.

    Coincidentally, this week, I’ve been listening to the Fred Frith soundtrack to Rivers and Tides which includes a few scenes of Andy Goldsworthy working in the winter cold. My memory of the sounds from that afternoon have blended with the sounds of that lovely film.

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    After four and a half years, COVID finally found us.

    I got the symptoms first so I rushed off to my in-law’s empty rental house. Too late, the family all came down soon after.

    But inertia took over and I stayed there for a couple of weeks as we recuperated separately.

    One can get a lot done without family responsibilities. I cleaned up the place thoroughly, finally finished T-Zero (fine book, but still a sequel) and The Conference of the Birds (a glorious Sufi poem that I can barely comprehend), created AutoCAD templates for my calligraphy practice, and ate a lot of TV dinners.

    Without kids, the place stayed remarkably clean. Entropy moves slower in the absence of little people. But still, nice to be home again, mess and all.

    .

  • shelter

    We settled into our new home six months ago and reality intruded on the even the earliest moments everyday magic.

    Here is the boy is looking down as I tidied the garage. A minute later, a yellow pencil poked a hole in the screen.

    And while making our first batch of pancakes, he threw a tantrum after I mixed the batter, after telling me to go ahead and mix without him. Then I got into a tiff with Mama because I burnt the first few pancakes while learning the new stove. (Couples cooking has never been our strong suit.)

    The gods have been gracious, but they always spice things up to keep us in our place.

    ,
     

    ,
     

     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    I was given a tour of landside operations at the airport. Since they manage parking and traffic, they have a large team. I asked one of their managers how someones stands out when a promotion is open.

    First, he noted that not everyone is ambitious. He started with an entry level job 25 years ago and some of his colleagues are still in that exact same position.

    Beyond that, he advises every new employee these three simple guides.

    • Be here when you’re supposed to show up.
    • Do what you’re supposed to do.
    • Don’t do what you aren’t supposed to do.

    After that, he said it’s a matter of politics and luck. These factors are out of our hands. For example, he almost got a job with another county agency in 2007. It didn’t work out, but that team experienced massive layoffs during the great recession while the airport avoided layoffs altogether.

    You never know if you’re winning by losing.

    The gods are funny like that.

    .

  • Created with Human Intelligence (HiBadge 2024)

    In June, 

    Introvert Drawing Club posted a badge that caught fire, cause we’re sick of the cheap plagiaristic garbage being shoved in our faces online.

    This morning, Beth Spencer posted a note that she was only 53 badges from 1k.

    Let’s make that 52!

    ,

    The image was hand drawn with fountain pens in and edited in Pixlr. This morning I added the text as a markup on my iPhone, with the PNG export done in Pixlr after deleting the white background. You can see the badge in action on my photo on the about page.

    If it looks familiar, it’s because I made the original image last year in a post about alternatives to AI art. There is so much great free art made by real people, why would anyone outsource our visual world to thieving machines?

    ,

    Bonus! I originally wrote the badge with “Made”. Since it’s not doing any good by itself on the computer, here it is if you’d prefer this wording.

    ,

    Check out the IG page for all the other #HiBadge2024.

    Happy drawing!

    .

  • quill

    In January, I wrote a letter to a colleague who is rejoining to our team. Selfishly, I’m excited that she returned.

    This was my first tiny poem-calligraphies to leave the house. It was also one of the last ones that I wrote.

    It’s been a long 2024, and we haven’t even started the biennial budgeting season—that hits tomorrow.

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    Unfortunately, my publication schedule will continue to be sporadic. After we get our budget season assignments, it’s off to the races through June.

    Beyond the increasing workload, it has been a tumultuous time for our team. Hopefully things will settle down, but it’s not surprising that my Commute Music project has stalled on Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult over the past month.

    I just started moving again with Blue Mitchell. Yes, I’m slightly out of alphabetical order. It was a necessary fudge.

    Hopefully I’ll get another post out in May, and then June, but frankly it’s been all about work for the past quarter. I’ve already told my supervisor that I’ll try to keep up the pace up through July 1st, but after that it stops. (He’s the best boss I’ve had, but we’re all going through it together). Maybe I’ll breathe again.

    .

  • plumbing

    When buying the house we agreed to address a few minor plumbing issues. Easy enough to do during the negotiations, but the work still had to be done. We changed the innards for two of our toilets, switched faucet stems, and installed a new kitchen sink with our own RO filter.

    That sink took three days, five trips to Home Depot, and a couple angle stops.

    Yes, hiring a plumber would have been more sensible but I learned stuff and enjoyed the challenge (aside from multiple trips to the hardware store!)

    Shoutout to YouTube…there’s no way I would have started this project without all those tutorials. That site is the greatest DIY reference library ever assembled. It has so many videos for every task, with a myriad of angles and opinions.

    I hope more folks make use of this empowering free resource. Simple repairs are one of the easiest ways to earn a feeling of accomplishment on a weekend afternoon.

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
      

    David Auerbach, Carols in the Caves

    • The sound engineers tried to capture the essence in being a massive cave, but the whole album sounded distant. Everything felt flat.
    • This might be a good holiday background album, but does not have presence as the central audio feature for a drive.
    • The album cover looks great.

    Babyland, You Suck Crap

    • Last week, I complained about noise. This one is all about noise, but I had fun.
    • Sampling a multitude of instruments (and implements) gave the audio palate an enjoyable richness. I suspect growing up with electronica and hip-hop makes me prefer variety when getting bashed over the head.
    • I wish I had detailed memories of attending that concert with my landscaper colleague. Sadly, I just don’t remember much from such events. A few visual flashes and a plastic disc is all I have from 20 years ago.

    Elevate, The Architect

    • While looking up this album last week, I learned about the genre “Math Rock“. I had to give it a second shot now that I know “It is characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures (including irregular stopping and starting), counterpoint, odd time signatures, and extended chords.”
    • Still very noisy. Most likely still not my thing, but the architectural cover makes a lot more sense with the music behind it.
    • Am I enjoying this album more because I’m now aware that it’s supposed to be sophisticated? Is the emperor clothed or nekkid?

    .

  • Keep making mistakes!

    I’ve mentioned it before but thought this is worth repeating. I’m no fan of AI, but it’s appearance has unlocked my acceptance of imperfection.

    It wasn’t a coincidence that I started drawing after two dormant decades after Dall-E and Midjourney hit the mainstream in 2022.

    Before this happened, I would have guessed that generative AI images would finally smothered the last embers of my interest in drawing.

    Instead, I was freed from the self induced constipation of accuracy. I picked up the pen and started laying ink on paper again.

    They’re rough. There’s no undo button. No edit function. All you can do is start over, again. Try not to mess it all up with the last few lines on the page.

    These aren’t perfect, but I can vouch for their provenance. My hand was there when each molecule of dye nestled into the fibers of these pages.

    Here’s to many experiments in this year of the Dragon!
     

    I wasn’t super happy with the purple, but it was “good enough”…until I messed up the last two letters of this page. Lettering in ink demands full attention. The simplest mistake can be catastrophic.
    This was on a good track, and then I got cute with his beard and ruined the dragon. Again, the last thing killed the whole page.
    At this point, I didn’t even try to outline the dragon. I didn’t have energy to try a fourth time. I kind of like how the dragon is a bit atmospheric on the page…but that might be a total rationalization for wimping out.

  • old

    Three weeks ago, we moved to our new house. Here are three last shots from the old place.
      

    The kids made a car on their penultimate night at this home. They filled the trunk with stuffies, turned off the lights, and drove the dark roads following the sat-nav until they found a motel.
     

    Here are the last two pieces of bread that I baked in the building. The gods gave me a run of good loaves for the past few weeks. (If you want a great sourdough info, check out Chapin‘s newsletter).
     

    Finally, the last morning routine in this bedroom with a quick gesture sketch, continuous line drawing, and tiny poem. Shoutouts to ashlyn, Citlaflor, Hazel Burgess Art, Beth Kempton, Wendy MacNaughton, and Nadia Gerassimenko for helping mold this regular morning jaunt…which has unfortunately become irregular after I was coincidentally dragged back into the office after four years of working from home after this same weekend.

    So in both ways this was the end of an era. Four years ago, we were living with my in-laws. Their tenant left this rental house a few months in late 2019 and they had not found a replacement before the before the pandemic hit. Given the parents’ age, I exiled myself to this place for a several long months—which included my first grind through the brutish biennial budgeting season as a state worker.

    After things settled down the family joined me here. The kids were 6 and 2. They kept growing. I guess we did too. At the end of 2023, we bought our own place. The kids are now 10 and almost 6.

    The “real Vegas” is not the spectacle of the Strip. It’s our quiet lives in these beige stucco boxes carpeting the Valley. Like most of suburban America, it’s a splendorous existence that we barely appreciate.

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,

    It’s been three weeks at the office. It’s a treat to regularly hang out with my coworkers in person. But that marginal benefit is far outweighed by the cost of commuting every day.

    There are so many things I’d rather do than piloting a metal box across the town to accomplish tasks that I’ve done at home for four years. But I’ve also heard horror stories about workers who have taken ill advantage of remote work. So I get why my massive organization settled on this brute solution.

    I can’t complain too much. Commuting is a mere annoyance, even if the unnecessary nature of this blanket directive makes it particularly irksome.

    So I thought up a new project to redeem the time. I’m going to march through my collection of CD’s in alphabetical order by performer.

    I will listen to each disc at least once through. After that, I can re-listen and skip tracks before I move on to the next album. If I buy any new CD’s, I’ll listen to them once and then slot them in line.

    This project popped into my noggin while listening to an ambiance album featuring the didgeridoo. I was underwhelmed, but I thought about the artist. I presume he thought it was a great piece of art, at least the best he could do at the time he published it. At that moment, I decided to give each of my musicians at least one generous, full hearing.

    For three decades I’ve been listening to the spoken word—sermons on tape, talk radio, and podcasts. As I get older, I’m being overwhelmed by the verbal clutter. Let’s fill that metal box with music.

    !

  • new

    The kids insisted on reading Grumpy Monkey Oh No It’s Christmas before leaving while Mama checked out of the supermarket.

    Mama was not amused as she waited outside. Her ire disappeared when I rushed out with blood soaking through his mask, dripping down his throat.

    He didn’t complain about a bloody nose until the book was done!

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    ,
     

    Apple Vision Pro has finally entered the conversation, on Youtube and in my podcasts. “Spatial computing” will be the future!

    Great! I’m doing nothing.

    The iPhone didn’t hit its stride until the 4—why spend hard cash on alpha technology?

    More importantly, I want the six year old to remember a world without VR.

    Growing up in the early 80’s, I was among the first cohort who always had a computer at home, but we didn’t connect to the internet until college. I’m grateful that my youth was disconnected from the world wide web.

    I’m not so stubborn to skip the ubiquitous internet of today’s reality, but I feel no rush to interjaculate our children’s world with digital light knifed through their pupils.

    That future can wait.

    ,
     

    Happy New Year!

    Here’s to Dragoning for the next lunar cycle.
     

     
    .