GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Life

  • Summer, Joe Hisashi, 1999

    In January 2020, the Vegas arts scene was struck with an early tragedy when Alexander Huerta suddenly passed away.

    Given our fears of the incoming pandemic, I skipped his wake, though I left some offerings outside his studio before the world shut down.

    I met Alex in his studio during a First Friday art walk soon after moving to Vegas ten years ago. He was working on a series of collages with old black and white magazine images on a black scratchboard background.

    As an architect, I was struck with the sparseness of the series with its urban perspectives. I lent him an exhibition monograph of black and white collages by Romare Bearden.

    Over the years, I’d deliver old architectural sets to his studio. I was excited to see his work exhibited at the library — some of my drawings had been incorporated into his collages! We enjoyed the occasional chat, where I learned that he used to valet cars at a casino, but taught himself how to paint, rescuing himself from alcoholism with the brush.

    These chats didn’t happen nearly enough, because of the arrivals of my daughter and then her brother. One day, I planned on introducing him to my kids, when they were old enough to understand what it meant, “Here’s a real artist!”

    Then again, the kids see him every day, in two small paintings I picked up from our time together. The best money I’ve spent in Vegas.

    perspective of a black and white collage with the artist in the background.

    February 2020 was a long month, processing the loss and watching the pandemic inexorably work its way towards our shores.

    During that time, I listened to this song on repeat. I was lucky to find something that meshed perfectly with my emotional turmoil.

    In America, Joe Hisaishi is known for his collaborations with Studio Ghibli, but this song isn’t from one of those films. Maybe that’s why it touched my soul. I could imprint this music with my own memories.

    Even though those personal and global tragedies came in winter, I always think of this song when it gets hot.

    The air conditioning kicked on for the first time yesterday.

    Welcome to “Summer”.

    I never reclaimed that book, I should replace my old copy.

  • Basic Structures of Buddhism, R. Eno

    While reading the Bodhicaryavatara, I was struck at its resonance with Christianity.

    It has an intense focus on good and bad (defilement), a clear conception of hell, a strident moral directive evangelize (alleviate suffering), and even included a chapter of detailed logical argumentation to prove the another world is more real than our physical world.

    I did not expect this Buddhist text to rhyme so closely to my experience as a reformed Baptist high schooler — there even multiple passages that even vilifies sexual desire!

    Over the past few years, I had focused on Confucianism and Daoism which feels totally foreign from Christianity. I assumed Buddhism would be similarly alien from the religion of my childhood. It wasn’t.

    I needed a quick primer on Buddhism to reset my expectations, and this short essay by Robert Eno delivered. It covered a lot of ground in a quick read and I enjoyed Eno’s slightly irreverent tone. Clearly, he has taught this material many times to sleep deprived college students.

    ~

    To wildly speculate on parallels with Christianity, Buddhism came as a reform religion, stripping away calcified rituals, with an focus on (avoiding) the next life, and had an egalitarian imperative that energized it to spread across the continent.

    In contrast, Confucianism and Daoism were uninterested in the question of salvation. These were elite philosophies that were wrestling with how to craft a state (or withdraw from the brutality of court politics) in the throes of a dying empire.

    ~

    As a pantheistic atheist, I often worry about the old warning “if you believe in nothing you’ll believe in anything”. Hopefully I don’t fall into that trap, but I also can’t shake the intuition that billions of people can’t be all wrong. At the very least, there must something that has made these teachings worth transmitting to the next generation again and again over the millennia.

    ~

    I never skip a chance to plug Robert Eno’s great chinatxt website. Go check it out.

    I started a Great Courses lecture series by Malcom David Eckel, I’m enjoying it so far (two hours into the twelve hour course).

  • The Tracks, 2000

    I snuck out of Berkeley with an architecture degree even though I only completed one architecture studio (while dropping out of a second architecture studio, taking three visual studies studios and one landscape architecture studio).

    The landscape studio consisted of a series of quick projects, including this exploration of remediating an abandoned rail line using plants to pull heavy chemicals out of the soil.

    It seemed fitting to share this long buried project for Earth Day.

    This studio was as much an art studio as a design studio, which isn’t a surprise when you check out Professor Chip Sullivan. This piece was an homage to old science fair presentations, with infographics and drawings, using oil pastels and ink.

    With the re-discovery of my old fountain pen late last year, I am now finally finishing the very last of that red ink, twenty three years later.

    Over a cup of coffee, my friend defined a group of design students who are basically art majors. There is much appeal to straddling both worlds. What can be better than savoring a creation with no “ifs” about how it might actually be in “real life”? To make is the most primal human activity. Yet “to make” also encompasses “to imagine”. To think a drawing represents a viable space 57,600 times its size, to believe “these” certain lines will best direct the movement of hundreds of people over the next fifty years — that demands imagination. A design education challenges and refines raw imagination. For those who cannot rise above the flatland of pure art or refuse to descend from a theoretical ivory tower, let them remain trapped. While the opportunity remains, I will precariously attempt to scale both worlds high on caffeine.

    It’s a bit cringe to read what you wrote as a 20 year old.

    ~

    Hindu thought includes a roadmap of life with four stages. These college drawings were the climax of my work as a Student.

    In their system, I should be wrapping up my time as a Householder, but I’ve got another fifteen years before Retirement (I doubt the ancient system expected folks to be making babies in their late thirties…or Social Security age limits).

    Even though I might be late on the ancient Hindu time schedule, I’ve noticed that my attitude has changed towards work in the past eighteen months. I’ve lost appetite for business books. I still think about my role as a project manager, but I no longer study “leadership”. I work a hard 40 hours, but I’m not turning that dial up to 11.

    I wonder if that next stage in life will be in letters, as with my little library, or if it will be a return to making art.

    If it’s the latter, I need to make some space to get messy. It’s been much too long since I’ve gotten my hands dirty.

  • Unimportant Politics

    Living in a democracy is a great privilege, but most of human history developed in tyrannies that we would find unbearable. And yet, our ancestors persisted to create a society with the rich cultural heritage that we enjoy today.

    We should fight hard to protect our freedoms and improve the world. But I hope that our legacy will be more than a properly functioning government.

    Politics is a worthy vocation for those who are called. Thank to all who fight the good fight. As citizens, we have a responsibility to vote intelligently, so we can’t just completely tune out current events.

    But there is no duty to give our lives to the news entertainment complex elevating politics into pomp, circumstance, and an unending string of existential crises.

    There’s more to life than politics. It’s not everything. Hell, it might not even be the most important thing (even for a cold materialist like me!)

  • You’re the Knight in Shining Armour

    I get the disappointment in the Dominion settlement. But $787M is an ungodly sum of money.

    As someone who manages capital improvement projects for the State, I’m the guy who naturally abbreviates $787,000,000.00 to $787M. I know what that kind of money can do. It’s our Division’s project budget — for half a decade! Or 10 university buildings. Or a hospital with a thousand psychiatric beds. Or a million square feet of office space, including land, fully updated.

    You can’t walk away from that. Dominion didn’t.

    A preacher is prophesying that god will strike down Trump’s enemies this May.

    Everybody is looking for their silver bullet. Nobody gonna fire that magic AR15.

    Democracy is going to be saved by changing hearts and minds one vote at a time.

  • My approach towards local and state elections

    Your votes are more important in State and Local elections.

    With fewer voters each vote counts more, and the people elected to these “lesser” offices will more directly affect your life.

    Guess who turns Washington DC money into real benefits? It’s not your congresswoman — its your state and local officials.

    But of course it’s hard to figure out who to vote for, especially in these obscure contests. Here is how I prepare.

    Research

    • I start with PAC endorsements. Find a couple organizations that matches your politics. If they’re in agreement on a particular race, that saves time for researching the tougher races.
    • Endorsements become more important as the races become less known. I’ll use endorsements both as positive and negative indicators, depending upon where it comes from.
    • Ballotpedia has some good info — especially links to candidate websites and social media pages. If a candidate can’t be bothered to put up a good website, I can’t take them seriously.
    • Local media is critical.
      • Even though our newspapers are owned by a conservative magnate, they have some editorial independence and often get candidate interviews that you won’t find elsewhere and provide factual news for provide background you can’t find otherwise.
      • Vegas is also blessed with the NVindy so I have some good untainted info. If you don’t have that, maybe you can find a local blog or two?
    • As much as I hate Twitter, you may need to use it. Do your research and take a shower.
    • For judicial elections, I’ll sometimes ask my lawyer friend for advice. My research usually comes up with an answer that matches his recommendations, but he has had insights that have been helpful.

    Tie Breakers

    Often you’ll do research and come up with a couple evenly matched candidates. It helps to have a couple heuristics in such circumstances.

    • As a State employee, I’ve learned that government is complicated work. So if a challenger can’t make a convincing case for change, I default to the candidate with experience (but I can’t blame you for going otherwise, that’s how I used to vote).
    • I’ll admit that I’ve resorted to certain identity characteristics as a final tiebreaker. I hate making this type of a choice, but I’m occasionally forced to give up on judicial races with purposely anodyne candidates (where even the local PACs don’t endorse). At that point I’m wildly betting that one identarian aspect of their upbringing might have been formative to give them better perspective in executing the duties of their office.

    Effort

    This might sound like a lot. It’s not. I put in about 4 hours on candidate research for primaries and maybe 1 hour on general elections.

    To be clear, I come into every election cycle with a relatively blank slate. Even though the governor is my top-level manager as a Executive Branch State worker, I actively avoid the scene. I don’t enjoy politics so I don’t follow the blow-by-blow of partisan politics until its time to perform my civic duty.

    Payoff

    Every four years we’re inundated with the line “every vote counts”. But it really does for these races.

    My county commissioner just won re-election by 350 votes. My assemblyman lost his seat in 2014 by 40 votes.

    Not close enough?

    A couple years ago, we had a primary for city council that came down to 5 votes between second and third place. A literal handful of different votes and the dude who was creditably accused of sexual harassment would have made it to the general election!

    Half a day’s work every two years ain’t much effort to own our democracy. And you might find it surprisingly interesting…even dramatic!

    And there’s more! When you consciously research these less known positions (County Recorder, Administrator, Secretary of State, etc) you’ll learn more about your government. It’s a regular civics refresher. And not some abstract textbook assignment — these are real people you’re hiring. You pay their salaries every time you’re levied a sales tax, might as well take some time to know the government that you’ve bought!

  • Coat, Desk, Chair

    I took my first studio in the spring of 1998. More than architecture, ED11A was about drawing and seeing.

    This was the big midterm assignment.

    It also coincided with the clock change, and we bemoaned the loss of an hour to complete this drawing.

    It turned out that I didn’t need that extra hour. I finally got an “A” on this drawing. It was a brutal studio (architecture studios are half hazing), but something clicked on this drawing.

    I expended an intense amount of effort on this piece, but one must also credit Fortuna, since nothing is guaranteed with art.

    It’s been a quarter century since that long week in concrete caverns of Wurster Hall. Things that seemed cataclysmic are mere whispers in our memory.

    Maybe I’ll return to this level artistry one day. More importantly, I hope my kids will push themselves to discover their art — my daughter is less than a decade away from her freshman year in college.

    18″x24″ Pencil Drawing of a Coat, Desk, and Chair. I spent the week on my stomach drawing the green army trench coat at my studio chair and desk. A classmate drew this same scene from a different perspective. Everyone else took this opportunity draw in the comfort of their dormitories.

    The graduate assistant for our section was Noga Wizansky who still makes great art. During my time at Berkeley, I developed close relationships with the professors Chip Sullivan and Joe Slusky in future studios. I loved their omnivorous approach to everything. It’s a shame that the Architecture program has become focused on architecture. There’s plenty of time for that silliness after college.

    Ink for determining the perspective
    Detail of the selected view

  • Gables Tanglewood

    I left Ziegler Cooper ten years ago. They’re a fine architecture firm, but in the wrong part of continent.

    My parents were in San Jose, her parents are in Las Vegas, and fate had told us it was time to go back west. The heater in our apartment blew out, filling the place with acrid smoke. Instead of fixing the busted equipment, the landlord released us from the lease (turns out he was selling the property and it’s now a parking lot).

    My two years at ZCA revolved around this 300 unit, 8 story luxury apartment behemoth on the outer ring of this suburban metropolis. I was the job captain for this project, but we were understaffed so I drafted about 80% this set, from the start of Design Development until halfway through Construction Administration. (We did this in AutoCAD, so Gables Tanglewoods must be among the last generation of projects at this scale that wasn’t documented via BIM.)

    It was great experience for a guy who had only worked on small residential and tenant improvement projects. I learned a ton from the older architects, like proper waterproofing principles and how to squeeze every square inch out the building code from Rafael.

    I also picked up how a more corporate firm works. You have to stand up for yourself in the corporate environment, unless you don’t mind being run over. Sometimes it’s not a horrific trade (I got a ton of experience in a short amount of time) but I realized I can’t sustain such a pace for my career.

    One day, we’ll visit Houston again. Along with pilgrimages to the Menil and the Orange Show, I’m going to saunter into the lobby as prospective tenant so I can finally get a tour of this place that I didn’t get to finish.

  • Monterey Park

    Another city added to that list.
    This time, one that I know all to well.

    I’m not a sage.
    But I have their books next to my bed.

    In a moment of frustration, I opened them randomly.
    I got lucky.

    ~

    The wise have no mind of their own,
    finding it in the minds
    of ordinary people.

    They’re good to good people
    and they’re good to bad people.
    Power is goodness.
    They trust people of good faith
    and they trust people of bad faith.
    Power is trust.

    They mingle their life with world,
    they mix their mind up with the word.
    Ordinary people look after them.
    Wise souls are children.

    — Tao Te Ching, 49 (Lao Tzu, Ursula K. Le Guin)

    Things are shitty today. Unfortunately, it’s nothing new.

    Confucius and Lao Tzu were writing amidst the dissolution of an empire. The feudal order had already dissolved into a collection of Warring States.

    The past few years have been bonkers but nothing like the collapse they were experiencing.

    Amidst the self dealing around us, we have one way through the chaos.

    It’s an asymmetric struggle, but repaying evil with evil only compounds the devolution of our society.

    ~

    Love your enemies,
    bless them that curse you,
    do good to them that hate you,
    and pray for them which despitefully use you,
    and persecute you.

    — Matthew 5:44 (King James Version)

    That reminds me of the admonitions of a Galilean sage.

    Unlike his Chinese counterparts, Jesus wasn’t a petty bureaucrat with privilege. These insights came from a working class dude on the outskirts of the empire.

    And somehow, his wisdom shaped the past two millennia.

    This shit don’t make sense, but it works.

    ~

    With King Wen dead, is not culture invested here in me?
    If Heaven intends culture to be destroyed, those who come after me will not be able to have any part of it.
    If Heaven does not intend this culture to be destroyed, then what can the men of K’uang do to me?

    As in the case of making a mound, if, before the very last basketful, I stop, then I shall have stopped. As in the case of levelling the ground, if, though tipping only one basketful, I am going forward, then I shall be making progress.

    The Three armies can be deprived of their commanding officer, but even a common man cannot be deprived of his purpose.

    — Analects, Book 9:5, 19, 26 (Confucius, D. K. Lau)

    When our institutions fail, even when the hand of fate crushes us, we still have the power to do good.

    As individuals, we still own our purpose and agency. If not in politics, then in culture.

    Let’s build relationships and make art to bind us together.

    No matter how small, each step brings us closer “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

    ~

    Despite the anger, the answer will be found through calm.

    In this moment of great sacrilege, listen for that still small voice.

    Its whisper is our way out.

    The sun sets
    On the western hills,
    Quickly the valleys
    Darken.
    The moon rises through the pines,
    In the chill of the night,
    Amid the crystal sounds
    Of wind and stream.
    The woodcutters
    Have all gone Home,
    In the mist the birds
    Are settling in their nests.
    My friend promised to join me tonight
    Alone with my Lute
    I wait on the vine-strewn path.

    Meng Horan (ca. 689-740, from the commentary on the Tao Te Ching 49 by John Minford)

  • Day 6 and 7 of the New Year – Sticks and a Shave

    a novice reads the I Ching

    How should we approach the New Year?

    1:4,5 to 26

    Yesterday afternoon, I took out my sticks for a reading while the kids played with their new “kid’s only” tent. The boy came out from the clubhouse and started messing with them as I created groups of fours.

    He even attempted a cartwheel while holding a bundle. (Thankfully he didn’t poke an eye!) I told him to keep his feet on the floor if he wanted to keep playing with sticks.

    Traditionally, yarrow stalks are used for I Ching divination. Maybe I’ll plant a batch one year. Until then, I have a collection of sticks from my backyard, the in-law’s garden, and from the desert overlooking the NSC Education Building that we built during the pandemic.

    It’s a ragtag collection of more-or-less straight sticks that aren’t too knobbly, slightly smoother after to multiple readings. (I also tried using 50 unsharpened pencils, but that’s too industrial. I’d rather use coins.)

    After obtaining the result, we were called downstairs for dinner. We watched The Fantastic Mr. Fox and played until the ball dropped in Times Square. That was enough for NYE. I did the dishes and closed the evening by reading Roald Dahl while listening to Bill Evans. A pleasant goodnight for the old year.

    After I woke up in 2023, I read the texts from yesterday’s divination, conducted my morning jaunt on Post, gave myself a proper shave for no good reason beyond the calendar date, and put on Waltz for Debby again.

    Let’s write it up to start the (real) New Year!

    ~

    1. Heaven 乾
    ䷀ (heaven over heaven)

    Creative. Ride the six dragons. Heaven over heaven, movement is constant. Sublime Success. Nothing is static, clouds dance with another. Perseverance gives power in the moment.

    Changing Line 4
    (yang becomes yin)

    Leap into repose. No hurry. Inaction may be the right course. Move with deliberation. Attune oneself to the task. A delicate moment between two worlds. Hesitation is warranted.

    Changing Line 5
    (yang becomes yin)

    Flying Dragon. Find a virtuous partner. Search for good company. Trust in resonance. A chorus of shared inner strength. Spontaneity, time to fly. The work is ready. Leap. Advantage.

    26. Great Domestication 大畜
    ䷙ (mountain over heaven)

    Not eating at home. When the soul is ready, branch out. Heaven in the mountain, the heart is prepared with great virtue. Profit. Inner strength is the core of action. Release them for great good. Cross the river.

    ~

    Auspicious start
    Move deliberately
    Find the sage
    Great deeds

    ~

    P.S. My back is still tender…but I can touch my toes again! Thanks for reading my spontaneous silly liminal week journal.

    Have a great new year!

    Justus