foolish fire

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Inspired by a visit to Russia shortly after the demise of the Soviet state. There weren’t many visible signs of the increasing economic disparity but what was there was greeted with silence and denial.

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I love the proportions of man to machine in this painting from a vintage photo I’ve had hanging out in my files for a while. I think it may actually may be taken in France or the Netherlands but the title sounds better in Italian, as do most things.

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Returning schizophrenically to a painterly style for this topic. “Stripes” reminded me of learning calligraphy when I was younger and the tedium of making guidelines. That idea morphed into the reality that so few people use handwriting at all these days, let alone learn fine penmanship. But it’s never too late.

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In honor of our 15th Anniversary.

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Heard a financial advisor on NPR talking about how much money someone needs to have saved before they can retire in anything like “comfort”, presuming we’re all going to live into our 80′s and possible beyond. I could tell where this was leading so I reached for the radio and turned it off…but not in time to avoid hearing The Number. Suffice to say it’s big and scary. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry but at the same time I detected a small voice from within saying, “I’ll be curious to see how I pull off this whole aging thing.”

Thus I offer this little tribute to the idea that we can elect to be curious rather than fearful.

I was on a century bike ride this weekend and passed this storefront in a small town on the north coast of California. This would only make sense to someone who designs and/or develops web sites but the fact that CSS is apparently available at your local store (and even available “used”) is more than a little disconcerting. Then again, I guess it would be convenient to be able swing by and pick up a dozen fresh CSS3 snippets on your way home.

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Where this came from is anyone’s guess. Could be seeing “The Help” ( a movie I begrudgingly attended but ended up liking a lot…although I wanted to throw my popcorn at the screen during several scenes). Add to that images conjured up when I let the topic roll around in my brain for a while and then try not to overthink what spills out.