GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Poetries

  • Inktober24, week 3

    I kept pushing the graphics this week, to the point of dropping letters and even a word. I enjoy the visual puns, but this pace is not sustainable. Then again, we’re two-thirds through, so maybe I’ll just rest in November.

    ,

    10/13

    horizon
    beyond
    horizon
    beyond
    horizon

    This was a frustrating composition. None of the various schemes felt right. I eventually settled on this because I ran out of time.

    After posting this composition, I read Alan Furber’s short book Layout and Design for Calligraphers. It’s absolute gold. It energized the practice for the rest of this week. Total recommend, especially since it’s cheap on the used market.

    ,

    10/14

    range
    rove
    ramble
    go
    roam

    I thought the Furber book would lead me to simpler compositions to execute, which was an accurate prediction for two days.

    ,

    10/15

    the
    guidebook
    ate
    our
    dog

    I started with the trope “the dog ate…” but the page hinted at this vastly better poem.

    ,

    10/16

    greasy
    groggy
    gritty
    grungy
    grainy

    I made a couple mistakes on the first version, which was corrected with black ink. While doing that, I realized that the red “gr” and “y” were unnecessary. A fortuitous mistake that led to the second version.

    I used a ruling pen for GRUNGY. I’ve had one for years as part of a compass set, but had no idea what it did. With YouTube and Instagram, I am now cognizant of its capabilities but completely unable to write the lovely flowing script highlighted in those videos. Something to study after Inktober.

    ,

    10/17
    10/17

    journal
    recenter
    remind
    reframe
    relive

    Between the two options, I made twenty-two attempts (and more if you include unfinished failures). I’m happy enough with both schemes, though neither one matches what they could have been. It’s the Ira Glass notion about the gap between your taste and your skill.

    For the vertical “journal” I quickly learned Neuland to contrast against the main text. Funny how calligraphy betrays uncertainty and rawness, even in the most blocky forms. (BTW it was wicked tough to avoid spelling errors when writing backwards and skipping a letter in each word).

    Both of these final images came from early attempts. Even so, I wouldn’t say that those four hours were spent in vain. Sometimes you have to go overboard to realize the limitations of your skill.

    ,

    10/18

    drive
    through
    fear
    glee
    toil

    These also took a ridiculous number of attempts to get “right”. Even then, I had to digitally edit the top version (shifting the page) and bottom version (correcting a mistake on “toil”).

    It was fun to work in big caps using the 1 inch brush. But always nerve wracking to invest time on a page for a risky blowup on the final last loose word.

    “DRIVE” is written with an informal version of my architectural lettering. I would be more tight on drawing sheets, but would use this hand when writing thank you notes after an interview (to remind prospective employers that I was a legit hand draftsman). Beyond that, I also drew guidelines on the sheets, instead of using my printed AutoCAD templates over a lightbox. This exercise was a nice throwback to the old days.

    And I finally used the ruling pen as intended—to make thin straight lines!

    ,

    along the
    ridge
    of moons

    along this blue ridge crescent
     

    numbers line along a
    ridge

    This poem was an image first—a flowing script with a counterpoint of small text. I then burnt through sheets of paper trying to write a decent “ridge”, eventually settling on a pointed brush. Kill enough trees and you’ll eventually stumble into a few decent options.

    After that, the 5WP’s were informed by the placement and execution of each “ridge” on the page. There are six other 5WP’s that aren’t shown, along with twenty+ sheets of now-scrap paper. I wonder how many IG postings by other folks are also from their thirtieth shot. Part of the anxiety of that place must stem from the seductive assumption that everyone else is sharing their single-shot perfection while I clumsily stumble through my endeavor.

    ,

    I don’t have many deep thoughts on this week, aside from being tired.

    Social media comes with the pressure to constantly to beat your previous best. That dynamic might be beneficial for a month-long push, but it must grind artists down over the long haul, especially with the casino gamification of the algorithm.

    I’m not sure how artists can sustain a long term career, then again we’ve had the starving artist trope in our society long before Zuckerberg and OpenAI ate the internet.

    Thoughts and prayers to all the real ones out there.

    Cya next week!

    ,

    Last weekend, the boy asked me to script this up. We’re no 2nd Amendment family, and we barely watch TV. When I asked him how he came up of the original sentence, he quickly added an adjective.

    .

  • Inktober24, week 2

    I went hard on the brushes this week. I suspect this week will be the creative apex of this challenge. I’ve enjoyed pushing things to the limit, but it takes a lot of time and Halloween is looming!

    ,

    10/6

    worlds hiding
    trek
    inside pages

    Super-graphics look cool, but they are hard! Not only are they big, they have to be right. Then again, the misses create a lot of scrap sheets for extra practice.

    ,

    10/7

    sparrows
    fly without a
    passport

    I pondered this poem while hiking the arroyo. Getting into nature is one of the best ways to focus on an interesting problem (beyond the mundane distractions of daily life).

    ,

    10/8

    brain walk your soul
    hike

    Again, super-graphics are hard! I took ten shots to get something that worked. I got lucky that this sheet had a thin layer of crayon, giving “hike” a beautiful shimmer. This one also introduces my normal handwriting, even if it’s lost in the noise.

    ,

    10/9

    why does the sun sleep?

    I tried a few arrangements with this one, and started testing them all this one sheet. Eventually it became the (non)answer.

    ,

    10/10

    nomadic
    galaxies
    herding
    wayward
    nebulas

    I came up with this poem with similar sized words and then flailed for a composition. On one shot, I used an oversized brush to make the pink layer. That was pretty good, but it didn’t hold it’s own. So I scanned and printed a few copies to experiment with a second layer. It was nice to come up with a good solution, but I still had to execute. Writing the blue layer was the most stressful thing I did all week. If I made a mistake, I’d be ruining two attempts at once.

    I imagine such exercises will get easier after acclimating to this script (as opposed to creating it an hour before completing the image).

    ,

    10/11

    he yowled
    daddy
    stole
    snacks

    Speaking of ruining a composition on the last word. I messed up the “y” on yowled but was too burnt out from yesterday to try more than a few attempts. November’s project will learning copperplate and writing with a sharp nib—proper cursive is a black hole in my game and there are enough youtube and instagram videos that prove it’s doable for lefties.

    ,

    10/12

    remote
    is your next minute

    It‘s nice to just do a simple composition. It helps that I’m now good enough with the brush to easily repeat a word. In this case, I had already completed a decent composition, which erased all the stress. So I just played, trying slightly different arrangements and landing on that script that I learned a few days with “nomadic”.

    ,

    Two weeks into Instagram, it’s a mixed bag. Discovery is awesome. One can feed any interested with an endless supply of images by following hashtags. But the algorithm is capricious (for an addictive slot machine dynamic), creating psychological tension.

    There is an implicit pressure to compare oneself against the best. That’s a ridiculous notion. An amateur would be wise to reference the greats, but the flattening effect of social media creates a mirror of self comparison against those who have dedicated their lives to the craft.

    So I must constantly remind myself that the goal is to make images that I’m curious to see, not to enter a popularity contest of algorithmic work. Even more fundamentally, the doing is the prize, everything else (even that image) is a bonus.

    Cya next week!

    ,

    My daughter joined in for Trek, this time with Procreate. Hopefully she’ll draw more, preferably physical but I’ll be happy however she wants to create.

    .

  • Inktober24, week 1

    This year, I’m doing the Inktober Challenge, which includes a daily word prompt. Instead of waiting a month to compile all of my entries, I’ll share them a week at a time, with a little commentary to accompany each 5 Word Poem.

    ，

    9/29, 9/30

    dancing
    letter
    poems
    Inktober
    incoming
                                hi!

     
    The weekend before the challenge, I learned Textura Prescisus to have a script that contrasts strongly against scripts. I then wrote this 5WP to mark my the arsenal on the eve of the event.

    It had been a struggle over two months to learn twisting the nib for both Foundational Hand and Celtic Half-Uncial because they move the pen differently from each other. To my surprise, that painful skill building set me up to learn Textura Prescisus in a flash. I learned it so quickly, that I picked up Chancery Cursive (hi!) the morning after.

    That said, these new scripts betray an uncertainty in the hand, but only time and practice will fix those lines.

    ,

    10/1

    proudly
    carried
    his
    red
    backpack

     
    The boy got a red backpack at a back-to-school event this summer. Even though we’re doing online school, he proudly wore it when we went to Springs Preserve. With the brilliant Birmingham Ink Magma in one of my pens, this was a no-brainer.

    ，

    10/2

    reaching
    out
    we
    discover
    ourselves

     
    I started the challenge with Foundational Hand, which I knew best. On this second day, I snuck in Celtic Half-Uncial to highlight the day’s prompt.

    ,

    10/3

    boots
    never
    worn
    new
    work

     
    I bought a pair of steel toe boots since we were about to start construction on a new DMV. Then I changed jobs. By the time life slowed down, it was too late to return the boots. They’re sitting in the closet, waiting.

    ,

    10/4

    exotic
    is
    your
    neighbor’s
    normal

     
    I paired an extreme form of Textura Precisus (cutting off the baseline of the script) with Chancery Hand (its narrowness lets me fit “neighbor’s” onto the page). These 5WP’s are a balancing act to find a decent poem that also works visually on the page.

    ,

    10/5

    eye
    see
    binoculars
    far
    out

     
    I took two bites of the apple with this one. After posting the first version, my daughter mentioned that the “b” looked small. I was also unhappy with the original wording so I went back upstairs to try again.

    The shading displays the proud entrance of brushes into the mix. I wanted something that could let me write larger on the page, after maxing with the 6.0mm Pilot Parallels. So now I got hairs to lay ink.

    ,

     
    This week has been fun. The 5 Word Poem format had gotten stale, so it’s been invigorating to have someone else hand me a fresh word to wrangle every day.

    It’s also a pleasant challenge to produce a finished drawing every day. Sometimes it’s important to lie fallow and just play, but a little pressure is often necessary to push the process. Luckily I had enough free time this week to both play with brushes and make a 5WP each morning. I doubt I’ll be so lucky in the coming weeks with incoming Halloween events.

    Cya next week!

    ,

    BONUS!

    The girl finally joined the Inktober fun on Saturday after I showed her a series with Pokemon. Hopefully she’ll keep it up, at least on the weekends.

    .

  • Book Notes, April, May 2024

    Now that we’ve finally put our books up on shelves after a decade in the garage, I pull random old books to enjoy before bedtime. The bedroom is getting crowded with a pile that needs to go back downstairs.

    Here are some notes before sending them back into the stacks.

    Staying by the bed

    Baron in the Trees, Italo Calvino—I’m still slowly working through this book. I paused to read Cosmicomics and might get distracted by T-zero but I want to finish it sooner rather than later.

    Letter on Ethics, Seneca—I enjoyed listening to the selected letters audiobook by Penguin so I picked up the complete letters translated by Margaret Graver last year. I finally started reading them; I’m enchanted by their brevity even though (spoiler warning) the later letters seem to run long.

    The Unbroken Web, Richard Adams—This collection of stories has that pan-religious vibe from the 70/80’s. I most likely would have sent this back onto the shelves but I wrapped it up as a self-birthday present so I might as well give it a solid try in June.

    Carlo Scarpa, The Complete Works—I borrowed this volum many times in college so I finally bought it as a birthday treat. In the past, I only looked at the images, but after spending 100 euros, I’m for damn sure reading the essays. Good lord, that’s some turgid writing. Architecture criticism at its finest.

    Going back up

    Cosmicomics, Italo Calvino—I’ve tried reading this many times over the years and finally broke through. It’s a tender collection of short stories based on scientific principles. I wonder if aging and kids have given me an appreciation for love stories.

    Zhuangzi (Burton) & Lieh-tzu (Graham)—Always good to revisit two of the key texts of Daoism.

    Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess—The boy was curious about chess so we played a few times. I pulled this book of the shelves because I find chess utterly impenetrable. I’ve never been good at with spatial games, much less a perfect information abstract. I slogged through a couple exercises before giving up even though I’m still enchanted by the structure of this book.

    The 26 Letters, Oscar Ogg—Delightfully of its time though I wonder how it holds up with the historical scholarship over the past sixty years.

    40 days dans le desert B, Moebius—Absolute classic. Trippy as fuck.

    The Ode Less Travelled, Stephen Fry—I borrowed this book from the library when I thought I’d take my poetry experiments more seriously. Instead, work took over my life. In stressful times, the pursuit of quality may have the paradoxical side effect of stifling production. Time to send it back to the public library.

    Under the Jaguar Sun, Italo Calvino—I was searching for something to calm the mind, but this was a bit too intense. Turned out that my subconscious was close, since the correct answer was Cosmicomics.

    Journey to the West (Yu)—Always good for a romp Great Sage Under Heaven. Plus a little poetry.

    Charles M. Russell—Nice overview of the artist’s work. Holy hell, the wild west was indeed wild. Life of all types was cheap back then.

    Signal to Noise, Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean—The art holds up. The writing is what you’d expect from a 30 year old writing about a protagonist twice his age. I loved Gaiman, but I’ve soured over the past few years. One day I’ll revisit Sandman, but I’m dreading the potential realization that I’ve outgrown this as well.

    Giovanni Battista Piranesi—A collection of his prints. If drawn accurately, the scale of the ruins are unimaginable, towering over the inglorious lives conducted under these decaying edifices. Quite unsafe to stay in those shadows, though I guess you’ll take what you can get in the heat of summer. Beyond antiquity though, his renderings are sick. Beyond rad.

    Carlo Scarpa—In college, I picked up this Taschen survey on the (relative) cheap. It’s a passable intro to his work, though with the obnoxious style repeating text with multiple languages on each page. Then again, it reminded me of the greatness of Scarpa which lead to my big birthday purchase (noted above).
     

  • Money Multiplication Matters

    Tangents from a few books about money. I heartily recommend the one by Harry Browne; the rest are OK.

    ,

    Fail Safe Investing, Lifelong Financial Security in 30 minutes, Harry Browne, 1999

    If you’re a wimp (like me) this is the best book on investing. And if you get interested in Risk Parity style portfolios, check out Frank Vasquez’s “Risk Parity Radio” for up to date opinions and advice on this style of portfolio construction.

    • If you want to speculate, look elsewhere. Harry Browne advises that your profession will be your primary source of wealth and warns against taking risks like investing on margin.
    • Clean, clear advice. Some specifics are outdated (such as how to purchase investments) but his conservative concepts are solid.
    • I plan on revisiting this book every year. I’ve taken a more aggressive approach than his “Permanent Portfolio” (more stocks, less gold and bonds). Still, I thank him for introducing me to Gold. It’s a controversial asset but a game changer for me. It added a third uncorrelated asset class to ballast the portfolio, which made me more comfortable with investing heavier in stocks.

    ,

    Explore TIPS, Harry Sit, 2010

    Gotta start somewhere and I was curious about Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities when I started my investment journey in 2022. I’ve gone with a different investing strategy.

    • TIPS are bonds with inflation insurance. Harry is a fan of going heavy on TIPS relative to nominal bonds. (I believe a properly diversified portfolio will compensate for inflation with the other asset classes, so I don’t like the extra cost of the inflation insurance).
    • Purchase them at auction, the secondary market or via ETF’s. Harry Sit is open to all investment avenues.
    • I-bonds are more like CD’s since they can’t be sold on the secondary market. Harry Sit is not a fan.

    ,

    Value Averaging, The Safe and Easy Strategy for Higher Investment Returns, Michael E. Edleson, 1993

    An optimized way to pour cash into the investment market.

    • “Value Averaging” is setting a goal for how much you want an investment to increase over time and purchasing accordingly. Unlike “Dollar Cost Averaging”, Value Averaging pushes you to buy more when the markets are down and less when they’re up.
    • If you want to be awesome, the book gives a bunch of math to optimize the investment curve.
    • As a retail investor playing with small sums, I believe optimization is a waste. After learning the basics, the smallest edge requires a ton of study. Any such such bet will be overwhelmed by the capricious whims of the gods. Better to enjoy the finer parts of life.

    ,

    Die Broke, Stephen M. Pollen and Mark Levine, 1997

    I found the book in a random giveaway pile in Berkeley, maybe in lower Sproul Plaza. Two cities (and decades) later, I finally read it.

    • Great title and interesting provocation to reevaluate our relationship to money, work, and retirement.
    • I love books with unique structures. Part 1 is a short self help mindset manual. Part 2 is an alphabetical list of chapters with practical advice. (Since this book is almost thirty years old, I lightly skimmed the second part since I presume most of it is out of date.)
    • I enjoyed Part 1, partly because I already agree with their four key maxims. I view employment as a transaction not fulfillment, believe in avoiding debt, and doubt the positive good of leaving a large bequest. I’m not totally sold on the maxim of “Don’t Retire” but I appreciate their skepticism of the modern retirement paradigm.

    ,
     

    make
    money
    grow
    invest
    digits
    on a
    screen

    .

  • 2023 Retrospective & 2024 Prospective

    I’m trying a new format where I just comment on things with three bullet points. Hopefully it will help me blow through the backlog of old blog drafts. Thought I’d try it out by looking at the year in review and the year to come.

    But you must read Andrei Atanasov’s No. 26 – Dancing In A Supermarket first! I don’t care if you make it back.

    ,
     

    2023

    My theme this year was “catching up”. I feel like I did just OK with the theme, but the more that I think about it, it was an eventful year as we started re-integrated back into society despite our pandemic caution.

    Highlights

    • Buying a House
    • Visiting San Diego (twice!)
    • Two great architects joined the Division

    Hobbies

    • Reading — Homer and Tarot
    • Substack — finding fellow wanderers on Notes
    • Fountain Pens — Sketching and Calligraphy

    Lowlights

    • Getting the house ready for move-in, renovations are still miserable.
    • Didn’t exercise nor eat well enough, gained weight.
    • Distractions, unfocused focused, especially the second half of this year.

    ,
     

    a year
    a life
    goodbye
    tomorrow
    smiles and
    sorrow
    hello

    When calligraphing, I have to be completely focused. This morning I chose John Coltrane’s Giant Steps instead of the usual Chicken and Dumplin’s by Bobby Timmons. That slight change was enough to add an extra O to the page. Fortunately, the early mistake kept me ultra-concentrated for the rest of the exercise.

    It’s been twenty years since hand drafting at the ground floor of Ron Bogley’s house. Small residential doesn’t pay well, but it was the most fun I’ve had as an architect. Graphite on vellum is a lot more forgiving so I would listen to the baseball games as I lettered.

    ,

    2024

    My theme for next year is “settling in”. For the new house and everywhere else. The first half of the year will be a mess between the house and the biennial cycle for my government job. Hopefully the second half will be a time of customizing the home to fit our needs, it’s been a decade of always thinking we’re moving soon.

    Settling In

    • At the new House
    • Returning to the Office (again)
    • Digital Places and Processes

    Practices

    • Sketching and Calligraphy
    • Exercising
    • Reading my repeating “little library” and pushing forward on the classics

    Tiny Targets (and goals)

    • Three deep breaths on a yoga mat every morning. (I’d love to do the 8 Brocades three times a week, but I’ll start tiny.)
    • Sit down and say a small mantra before eating anything, including snacks. (The big goal is to lose a couple of pounds a month, but the numerical goal failed spectacularly last year. Maybe instilling a mindfulness practice is the first step in the process.)
    • Do something with a pen every morning (It would be nice to finish my OPM Letters and clear out my pile of read books to be blogged.)

    ,
     

    new book
    new year
    new month
    new week
    new day
    Foundational Hand
    new font 

    I wrote this on 12/26 with a new-to-me font from The Art of Calligraphy by David Harris. I messed up the word order on the last line (working from bottom up) and kept it for the rest of the poem. But it sounds wrong so I went back to the original wording in the light blue scribbles.

    I’m not sure if I will stick with Foundational Hand for a long period (as I did with Uncial) but I’ll give it at least a week before exploring other fonts.

    This morning habit of writing a tiny poem for calligraphy practice has a highlight of this season to close out the year. Thanks to Beth Kempton and Nadia Gerassimenko for catalyzing the #tinypoem project! I just got Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook — hopefully her wisdom will help me write gooder before I start publishing them in earnest.

    On to another 366 days of discovery in 2024!

    !

  • Merry Christmas!

    Woke up early.

    Checked my phone. Post a comment on a blog.

    Realize it’s Christmas!

    Wrote a tiny poem.
     

    I don’t
    believe
    in Baby
    Jesus
    no more
    so I
    Christmas
    all the
    Harder

    I grew up conservative Christian. And Asian-American. My parents left Hong Kong and Taiwan and met here in the States. With the clarity of immigrants, they sensed that Christmas was a frivolous, secular holiday.

    When my sister and I were teens, they gave in. We started exchanging small gifts. My mom added small decorations around to the house but never bothered with a tree.

    We still drove down to LA from the Bay Area on Christmas because traffic was lighter. We’d eat at my grandparent’s favorite dim sum place in Monterey Park. (My aunt suspected that they liked that spot because the tea was brewed extra strong.)

    We didn’t buck the holiday, but we never gave it religious significance. For a real Christian, every day is Christmas and Easter. Picking out holy-days still feels kind of pagan.

    I drifted away when I grew up. It didn’t do much for me emotionally, and I finally bailed when George W. Bush co-opted the religious establishment to support his optional war. Even so, I always planned on taking my kids to church on Christmas, so they could feel the religious origins of this season.

    That notion died with the election of the Trump. My wife (never religious) was so disgusted with white evangelicals that she didn’t want our kids anywhere near such cruel hypocrites nor be tempted by the pomp and circumstance of their celebration.

    Instead, every year I put up a plastic tree from Ikea on Thanksgiving, buy a few toys, wrap the last six months of library book sale finds in old architectural printouts, watch a Christmas movie, and clean everything up on New Year’s Day.

    Last year ago, I told my daughter the myth of Jesus. It blew her mind. I might as well have grown a third head (or narrated the nsfw story of Lot and his daughters).

    An all-powerful deity came down to this filthy planet to be born in horse shit, grow up as a carpenter, start a small cult as a wandering sage, only to be executed in excruciating fashion. All to pay the blood penalty for the evil committed by his own shithead creatures.

    So here I am, suddenly marveling at the magic of Christmas. Say what you will about the religion, that’s an awesome story.

  • In the dark

    In the dark

    an incline slab

    stomach to stomach

    chest to chest

    head to collar

    arms and legs, draped both sides

    his hair in my face

    squirming and squeaking

    until it slows

    and stills to

    a singular moment

    each night.

  • asian pear watermelon

    I dreamt of an asian pear.

    Stamped with the image of a watermelon.

    Red flesh, black seeds, green rind.

    A juicy bulbous slice.

  • swing

    Blue
    Dress
    Floating By.

    Swing
    Swing

    We were so sick of being trapped by the heat we ended up going to the park around 8pm or so. I played a little (actually a lot) with motion blur. The second shot of many turned out better than the rest.