From Sunday’s New York Times, “Open Book” by John Williams:

Delightful or Disastrous?

The Economist’s Prospero blog has suggested that some of the world’s worst sentences appear in Philip Mirowski’s new book, “Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste.” One offender: “The nostrum of ‘regulation’ drags with it a raft of unexamined impediments concerning the nature of markets, a dichotomy between markets and governmentality, and a muddle over intentionality, voluntarism and spontaneity that promulgates the neoliberal creed at a subconscious level.” On the flip side, the London-based Times Higher Education deemed the book a “delightful bramble,” though the author’s “own precise vantage point is deliberately impossible to discern.”

Quotable

“I don’t think I’m mainstream. I think what I am is lots and lots of different cults. And when you get lots and lots of small groups who like you a lot, they add up to a big group without ever actually becoming mainstream.” — Neil Gaiman, describing his fan base to The Guardian

In the last month, 3-4 young scrub jays have showed up in the garden. We’ve taken to throwing them bits of cracked corn on the ground. Whereas the grownups are very wary and circumspect, these punks squawk their heads off raucously when we go out to feed the chickens. Such noive! (I seem to remember a comment from one of the old Whole Earth publications about blue jays sounding like creaking door hinges.)

 Yesterday I sat still in a chair and got this guy to come to within a few feet. He would eat a bit of corn, then grab another piece, put it down, dig a hole, and bury it. THEN — he would cover the hole with a leaf or twig. How he’s going to remember where he buried all this loot is beyond me.

This event hasn’t happened for several years. It was so popular and crowds got so large that it put a strain on the town of Hopland (California). Now it’s back, for one day only — Saturday, August 17th. We’ll have a booth, selling books, and I’m doing my presentation,”The Half Acre Homestead” at 4 PM.

   Hopland is about 2 hours north of San Francisco on Highway 101. The Hopland Brewery is apparently closed now, but for great beer/dinner on the way back south, the Ruth McGowan Brew Pub in Cloverdale is a winner — you can see the beautiful copper and stainless brew kettle and tanks from the bar, and can take home a growler or two of fresh brew.

(c) 2010 Erika Lopez