Note: All my posts on the ’60s are gathered under “The ’60s,” above. Being a blog, these posts would normally be in reverse order, with the newest post on top. However, for this particular category, they are arranged with the oldest posts at the top in order to clarify the sequential nature of the posts. The newest posts will be at the bottom.
I love 3-part vocal harmony.
From Will Kahn, Burl Audio in Santa Cruz
Lesley’s friend Elizabeth sent this to her. I can’t find where it’s from, but it sure makes you happy.
Here’s to the great songwriter/poet/kick-ass country rocker Billy Joe Shaver, who left an incredible legacy of songs.
Just built this cozy little wood shed in Trinity County California. All the lumber is salvaged, all the stone was gathered within 500′. The door handle is made from African coral wood and white oak I had from another project. The tin roof and windows were in a cache of reusable materials found on the old homestead. I believe the hinges were the only item purchased.
–J. Hemlock
By Vasco Gargalo, a Portuguese cartoonist, born in 1977 in Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal
From Tomas Pastalka
Developments Since My Birth
By Wallace Shawn
Trump has liberated a lot of people from the last vestiges of the Sermon on the Mount. A lot of people turn out to have been sick and tired of pretending to be good.
October 27, 2020
New York Review of Books
I wonder if anyone but me remembers that during the years after the end of World War II, there were a lot of US Army jeeps on the streets of New York. I was a very little boy at the time, and I remember being lifted up to sit in them by friendly GIs. And do you remember those photographs of the American soldiers as they were being hugged and kissed by the thin, desperate-looking Europeans whose cities they’d liberated? Do you remember those warm, sunny American faces? Those sincere, open faces? Those boys looked like gods or angels who had swooped down from the sky on their jeeps to save the terrified world. Everything they’d actually done during the war, everything they’d seen — the hand-to-hand combat, the firebombing of cities, the piles of corpses — it was all swept away in the glow of victory.
And for the next twenty years, we were dazzled by the never-abating, mind-boggling cascade of prosperity and consumer magic lifting up the middle class. Political speeches overflowed with generosity and altruism. Were people said to be suffering somewhere in America? Were people suffering anywhere on earth? Our politicians won votes by promising to help them. Americans seemed addicted to the feeling that their country represented goodness, decency, and kindness in a world where evil had almost prevailed.
Jane, on the right, is holding one of our mini (2″ by 2″) books, which are insanely popular with kids (and of which we have printed 35,000 copies).
Wonderful Houses came in the mail yesterday and we read the first half for bedtime. We all like the pictures, diagrams and descriptions.
It’s funny, we just finished a book called Bringer of the Mystery Dog by Ann Nolan Clark. It describes life in a nomadic Native American Plains tribe. It dovetails nicely into the description of the yurts and life on the Mongolian plains. The kids love the idea of cook fires made from Buffalo and horse “chips” and of the whole family in the same room.
We’re a family of 5 and live in a small space (1000 sq. ft.) and love your idea of “scaling it back.” I first picked up a copy of Shelter in 2012 at Mollusk in SF. I used it and Tiny Homes and Small Homes for inspiration while renovating an 875 sq. ft. house in Silver Terrace that we lived in for 7 years. I used to bike past the “pink” house on Hampshire that you featured in one of your other books. We’re now in Mill Valley and I can’t wait for the next fixer to start in on.
Thanks for publishing great books!
–Jason, Elliott, Marlon & Jane of the Dubaniewicz family in Mill Valley
Jakub Plichta shot this photo in British Columbia a few weeks ago. He says there has been a ban on hunting grizzlies since 2018 and encounters with people are more common. This is Winston, 3 years old, and he doesn’t attack humanoids. Whew! Glad to hear that; this photo made me nervous.
I just got an email from the Great American Music Hall (in San Francisco) for a livestream concert by Drew Holcomb this Friday, October 23rd, at 8 PM.
Never heard of him, so I found this song. Despite wacky outfits, sounded so good, I took a few squirts of homemade sativa tincture and have been dancing around the office, especially when everyone is dancing outside at the end of the song.
As Drew sings:
“Music, it makes you feel good
Makes you feel understood,
Like you’re not alone,
Not a rolling stone,
Not the only one on the road.”
I played it 3-4 times, dancing and playing bass on first my jug, then on my box bass (similar to a washtub bass, with with body of wood and the resonator a panel from a Samsonite suitcase.) (When I do this, I pretend I’m in the band — fun!)
