Sat at the Van Gogh museum, watching the artist grow and learn his craft. At first the academic technique of the apprentice, then setting out on his own, growing and learning from his peers and contemporaries, in conversation painting by painting. At a striking time in his life, Van Gogh painted from books of black and white pictures of the great paintings of Van Gogh's favorite master painters. He painted bright, vividly colored renditions. Like a jazz musician, taking the essence of a tune and rebuilding it in a new form, with full brush strokes and bright colors. The same, completely different.

Sorry it's been a long time. I've been all sorts of busy! Tell you all about it someday.

At some point I’ll provide post-to-post redirects, but for now, new content is at sodabrew.com. Cheers!

Originally published at HydricAcid. You can comment here or there.

I want to go to the HaDah Nachash concert next Thursday at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz. Who still lives down there these days? I'm thinking I should visit rigafalls and jarsofwind. Anybody else still in the Cruz?

Alicia and I finished up our absentee ballots over the weekend:



America, Fuck Yeah!

For a great tearsheet that covers EVERYTHING on the San Francisco ballot, check this out: CaliforniaElection.US.

PLEASE, PLEASE BE PREPARED BEFORE YOU GET TO THE VOTING BOOTH. IT IS A VERY LONG BALLOT THIS YEAR!

This is my new Eureka Optima.



This vacuum rocks. It's small and light, with good power, and doesn't have that dipshit design of just about every other vacuum where the vacuum-path runs through the entire hose before connecting to the floor scrubber thinger. Oh, and that floor-scrubber thinger? On this vacuum you can switch it off for hardwood floors!

And it comes in puke green! Kickass!

Serious considering taking all of November and December as a sabbatical. Recovery is needed from this death march, as apparently mid-march creative outlet is not permitted.

Bus to work: 25 minutes. Bike to work: 15 minutes. Only one swerve to avoid getting doored on my first day biking SF to work: priceless.

It's official! I live in San Francisco! It's been slowly building for... oh... two years now, but as the ink dries on the lease yearinprayer and I just co-signed for a place in Bernal, it's for realz!

Also, I need to couch-surf from September 1 - 5 because the previous tenant is still moving out. And I might be dusty. Also we will have a housewarming party! I'm thinking late-September.

When I was in the Czech Republic in March 2007, I went to see a movie called Vratné lahve, which in Czech means “Bottle Return” — although they titled the movie “Empties” in English. There’s a unique feature of Czech supermarkets, a bottle return department, where you return glass bottles of juice, water, and especially beer, and they are returned to the bottling company to be washed a reused without going through an American-style crushing and remanufacturing process. The movie centers around a fellow who loses his job as a teacher of literature and finds work as the man in the bottle return booth at a local supermarket. In the opening sequence of the film, the man is reading a poem to his class, Za trochu lásky… by Jaroslav Vrchlický.

Za trochu lásky šel bych svĕta kraj,
šel s hlavou odkrytou a šel bych bosý,
šel v ledu – ale v duši vĕčný máj,
šel vichřicí – však slyšel zpívat kosy,
šel pouští – a mĕl v srdci perly rosy.
Za trochu lásky šel bych svĕta kraj,
jak ten, kdo zpívá u dveří a prosí.

I’ve been looking for an English translation of this poem since I saw the movie, and thanks to the help of the linguaphiles community of LJ, and my Czech friend Dana, I now have one!

For a bit of love, I would go to the end of the world,
I would go bareheaded and I would go barefoot,
I would go through the ice - but with eternal May in my soul,
I would go through the storm - but would hear blackbirds singing,
I would go into the wilderness – and would have of pearls or dew in the heart
For a bit of love, I would go to the end of the world,
as one who sings begging at the door.

Na zdraví!

Originally published at HydricAcid. You can comment here or there.