It's Hard to Type with Your Finger Aside of Your Nose

Ft. Harrington on Christmas Eve, 2009. Kelsey and Guinness are in the picture because, well... YOU just try taking a picture around here that doesn't include at least one or two furballs.

One of the very few advantages that blogs have over newspapers is that blogs like this can wish their entire readership "Merry Christmas" -- individually! So, here goes, alphabetically:

Adam, Brenda, Brian, Carolyn, Chris, Dann, Demitria, Fred, Jessamyn, Linda, Lucile, Lynda, Margaret, Mary Ellen, Mike, Ronnie, ronniecat, Ruth, and Vicki:

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

ps - if your name is not there, please help me to get over my embarassment by letting me know right away, and I'll fix it.

Tomorrow Came in the Mail Today

Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow, by Brian Fies. Please click on the above image to be taken to Amazon.com's ordering page.

My friend, Brian Fies, is a scientist by college training and a cartoon artist by fame. His first book, Mom's Cancer, was written and drawn in response to his mother's battle with the disease and his family's battles to cope with it and to support her. It was widely acclaimed and won many awards. More importantly, selfish creatures that we are, it touched a deep, personal place in each of us who have dealt with a loved one's cancer and that person's response to it, which is not always one of traditional stoic heroism. Maintenance of love through the most difficult of circumstances is facilitated by an unblinking inner eye, and Mom's Cancer showed that very, very clearly.

Since Mom's Cancer, Brian's fans have been anxiously waiting for his next book. Would it be a "sequel"? A medical advice book would have been logical, since Mom's Cancer was so widely acclaimed as a help for families coping with a loved one's catastrophic illness. Or would it be something else entirely?

It is something else entirely.

Brian's publisher, Harry N. Abrams, and his editor, Charlie Kochman, encouraged Brian to follow his enthusiasm for science, technology, and exploration instead of going the "safe" route with a sequel. Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow is the spectacular result of that gamble.

Whatever Happened... chronicles the 20th Century American love affair with technology and progress from its first-bloom manifestation in the 1939 World's Fair through its confused dissolution at the end of the Apollo era. Along the way, it presents images and print media that are genuine echoes of the times they represent, including "play-within-a-play" comic books that are authentic not only in their art, but in the paper on which they're printed! That sort of attention to detail pervades the work: every frame seems to have been researched assiduously for accuracy. I could find no anachronisms, and I tried. Hard.

Hardbound, handsome, brilliantly printed, it would be well worth the $50 cover price it should have. It is an absolute steal at $19.

I'm pretty sure that I would say all of that if I were a thoroughly impartial observer. But I'm not.

Page 118 of Whatever Happened... looks like this:

Click to see a clearer version. Guinness, at right, is waiting for his dinner, not particularly enthralled by the artwork.

... and here's a closer look:

(Click the image to see a ligible version. Guinness's butt, blurred by the long exposure, is scooting behind the book at upper-left. Maybe it's time to feed him, think?)

That scene is based on one of my Dad's photographs, taken in the early 1960's:

Mom and I lunching in a Florida roadside diner, spring, 1961.

Brian saw it in this post in SherWords at a very opportune time while he was working on Whatever Happened... , and asked if he could use it. I think I hesitated for less than an eighth of a second. I think he did the shot justice, and his acknowledgement at the end of the book is very gracious.

Another thing about Whatever Happened... : Brian had a little virtual "Launch Party" for Whatever Happened... just a little while ago. It is well worth watching -- especially for two things: Brian's careful demonstration of cartooning techniques, and for a "visit" by a famous cartoonist, Stephan Pastis, who does the daily Pearls Before Swine strip. Pastis is a hoot, and it's clear from his behavior at Brian's party where the inspiration for his "Rat" main character comes from.

Pastis also takes off his shirt in that clip. Just in case you needed any further impetus to watch.

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For Ruth: Truly Overdone Raised Beds

Over on "Live in It Then! Five Cents, Please," our good friend Ruth just posted a nifty trio of posts chronicling her and Larry's construction of a raised garden bed. Sturdily constructed of concrete blocks, and located very conveniently to their back stoop, it should serve them well with a minimum of fuss. Except for its somewhat disturbing sedan abuse, it appears to be a very sensible raised bed.

Sensible. Unlike the Ft. Harrington raised beds, which were constructed in June of 2000 with overkill, over-build, over-complexity, and general over-the-toppishness. The hyperthyroid Ft. Harrington raised beds are even visible on Google Earth, if you know where to look.

But they were fun to build, and they are actually still there, in excellent shape, ready to pop out veggies on a season's notice.

Staking out the plan.

We had lived in what would become "Ft. Harrington" for only one full calendar year when we decided that a garden would be wonderful, now that we had the space for it. We cleared the space you see above, which had been just a weedy, overgrown mess under previous owners. (It is also the leach field for our septic system.) We planted the tiny apple sapling at right, and staked out the locations for four 4x8 raised beds.

The first box.

The material for the raised bed boxes is local redwood, which -- even untreated, as it has to be for this application -- is rot resistant. The corners are 4x4 pieces; the sides are rough planks. I had envisioned all four boxes as three planks high, but this first box convinced me that the others could be just two planks high.

Short-box mass production -- Kelsey T. Dog, supervisor.

Note the spiffy new fence at left. That is part of the new periphery fencing that Doug built (with Adam's and my help -- Doug, after all, was the carpenter, so we were the grunts). The fence was built during our first summer here, 1999, in order to allow us to get a dog. We wound up with Kelsey instead. (Just joking, big guy!) Note how skinny he is here; he was only a year and a half old at the time.

New boxes at the ready.

The planks are attached to the legs with high-calibre lag bolts, not wimpy nails or even screws, and the legs extend six inches below the bottom of the boards to be sunk into the ground for stability. These are the DC-3's of raised beds. They will last longer than our house. After Armageddon, cockroaches will use them for mansions.

New boxes entrenched to ground level.

Moles, voles, or terrians can't claw up through this sturdy steel wire mesh at the bottom of each box. Well, terrians, maybe could, but they're not real. Or even highly-rated.

Compost-enhanced soil, shortly after its delivery. A human would be smelling the roses.

Lining the boxes.

The boxes are lined with heavy-duty black plastic sheeting for two reasons: 1) to eliminate water loss through the sides, and 2) to further retard any rot in the planks. Almost ten years after the boxes were built, there is no sign of any rot anywhere on any of them.

Ready for the dirt.

Full up.

Operational.

This view was taken in spring, 2004, in the fifth year of the boxes' operation. Three minor alterations can be seen: posts for jute webbing for a tomato cage on the tall box, a wire trellis for vines on the far box, and wide planks along the long edges of all of the boxes. The last serve as benches for comfortable, lazy gardening.

Corn, peas, and beans, 2004 -- and notice how big the apple tree has become (trunk at left).

Pumpkin, tomato, and crooked-neck squash plants, 2004.

Garden supervisor.

This is JT, a neighbor's cat, and the self-appointed mayor of the settlement we call "Creepy Hollow" that surrounds Ft. Harrington. He approves of the raised beds, overbuilt as they may be.

Martha, My Dear!

Martha Kanter's Facebook Face

My friend Martha will probably be going to Washington soon, as the Obama administration's new Undersecretary of Education.

Martha Kanter is currently the Chancellor of the Foothill-DeAnza Community College District, in which I have been employed as head of (and, for a while, the only member of) DeAnza College's astronomy department for the past 20 years. I first met her in 1993, when she came to DeAnza from just down the 280 freeway. Previously VP of Instruction at San Jose City College, she had just been tapped to be only the second President of DeAnza College, succeeding the locally-legendary A. Robert DeHart.

We all looked at her like she had come from some Mel Brooks version of Mars. DeHart had been dignified and almost aloof; Martha is gregarious and joyful. DeHart was very tall and almost forbidding; Martha is about five-foot-nothing and as welcoming as your favorite auntie. DeHart had established a clear chain of command; Martha takes everyone's opinions very seriously, even students', for God's sake. DeHart accomplished magnificent things for DeAnza College. Martha Kanter did not shy from that legacy. Her ten-year term as DeAnza President terminated only by promotion: six years ago, she was designated Chancellor of our District (which we share with the older and smaller Foothill College.)

It took her about five minutes, it seemed, to win us over in '93, and it seemed like she did it one person at a time. When she arrived, I was beginning my stint as an officer in the Faculty Senate. By the time she had really hit her stride as President in '95, I had entered my term as Senate President. As a result of our positions, we served and worked together a great deal, and I had a chance to see first-hand her remarkable skills in working with smart, contentious people with high opinions of themselves (faculty, in this case, but it would later become evident with other groups, too, like CEOs of Silicon Valley principalities.)

She's a superb politician, in other words, in the best sense.

But she's also a person of great dedication to her cause: making sure that society doesn't waste its ability to benefit from any person's potential because that person couldn't go to college. She has dedicated her working life to the cause of making higher education available to as many people as possible who might otherwise have been denied access, and she has achieved astonishing things in that effort throughout her career. As Chancellor of our District, for example, she has energized the Silicon Valley high-tech community to support public education in substantial and unprecedented ways, has orchestrated a partnership with NASA and UC to transform part of the former Moffett NAS into an innovative shared technology education campus -- and has convinced the voters of our District to overwhelmingly approve more than half a billion dollars in capital expenditures for our two Colleges (including my beloved new Planetarium renovations), a record by any measure for a Community College district.

Martha is not only a believer in what community colleges can do for society, she has become a prime mover in allowing that potential to be realized in California.

And now she will be able to bring that joyful energy and vision to a national stage. Yesterday, the Obama administration announced that Martha Kanter is their choice to be the new Undersecretary of Education, a position that has public higher education as a major focus. While her nomination is subject to Senate ratification, I can't imagine that she would be rejected. I'm pretty sure she's paid her taxes.

I'm biased, I'm prejudiced, sure. But I really, honestly think that there couldn't possibly be a better person alive for that job.

God bless, and God speed, Martha.

Chancellor Martha Kanter (left) with her two Presidents: Brian Murphy of DeAnza and Judy Miner of Foothill.

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New Blogroll Link: Margaret Ryall

Margaret Ryall

Margaret Ryall is an artist and educator in Newfoundland. I found her by Googling around for Birr Castle and the Bothy, as I do frequently, since that place is so dear to Diane's and my hearts. Ms. Ryall stayed in the Bothy for a fortnight in July of 2008, researching a body of work that will ultimately comprise 16 images that, together, "read" the garden of the Demesne.

That alone would have earned her a place in our appreciation. But her insight, expertise, and ability to express the technical aspects of fine art composition and production earn her a place of significant admiration. A seminar conducted by Ms. Ryall and Brian Fies would and should command an impressive tuition, since their talents and teaching abilities are unquestionably above merely top-tier.

As an introduction to Margaret Ryall's abilities, both in creation and instruction, please visit:

Her detailed recipe for critique, and
Her keen advice concerning enriching a center of interest in a visual composition.

While couched in terms of painting, this latter piece is equally applicable to photography. (And while not so directly applicable to cartooning, there is much that she says that could inform line-art structures. I think.)

As I often say, I'm hard-pressed to draw anything beyond a breath, but Ms. Ryall and Mr. Fies's presence in my daily reading allows me to better enjoy the works of those who can express themselves with facility and skill in visual media. They boost me along, sort of, to at least ride along on their wings and help me to enjoy the view.

And their expertise in wielding words is pretty cool, too.