I’ve decided to try to make shorter blog postings — more frequently. Here’s a barn on river-bottom land near Honeydew, Calif.

I took off early last Thursday morning for points northwest. After a latte and donut in Petaluma, I decided to veer off Hwy 101 and hit Harbin Hot Springs. The hot pool there is 110-115°. Hot! Then under water in the cold pool, and mojo is workin. I love driving through uncharted territory with my camera, searching for photographable objects. It’s like hunting. Here are a few shots:

On Hwy 101,
south of Garberville

Cut-out art on side of road just north of Ferndale; flock of birds in background

Hawk near beach south of Ferndale

Lovely red colored apples in old orchard near Honeydew

Barn in a deep valley on road between Ferndale and Petrolia (shot with telephoto)

I read an article in Ode Magazine* recently titled “Fire Your Gurus,” about dumping coaches, therapists, priests, and other masters who promise enlightenment or a better life, or a million bucks in the real estate market. It rang a bell. I thought of Dylan’s “Don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters,” and decided to look up the lyrics. Wow! Reading this as poetry for the first time, all these years later, it stands the test of time. Here are the first two of four stanzas:

Johnny’s in the basement

Mixing up the medicine

I’m on the pavement

Thinking about the government

The man in the trench coat

Badge out, laid off

Says he’s got a bad cough

Wants to get it paid off

Look out kid

It’s somethin’ you did

God knows when

But you’re doin’ it again

You better duck down the alley way

Lookin’ for a new friend

The man in the coon-skin cap

In the big pen

Wants eleven dollar bills

You only got ten

Maggie comes fleet foot

Face full of black soot

Talkin’ that the heat put

Plants in the bed but

The phone’s tapped anyway

Maggie says that many say

They must bust in early May

Orders from the D. A.

Look out kid

Don’t matter what you did

Walk on your tip toes

Don’t try “No Doz”

Better stay away from those

That carry around a fire hose

Keep a clean nose

Watch the plain clothes

You don’t need a weather man

To know which way the wind blows…

Full lyrics at: https://bobdylan.com/moderntimes/songs/subterranean.html

Copyright © 1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

Ode is a great new magazine, I believe originally from Holland. It’s “green,” but not preachy, with insightful, relevant articles.

Green Festival

Lew and I are getting pretty good at setting up our booth. We dodge union help and do it ourselves. We clip three pieces of lath to booth poles with plastic ties and mount our photo blowups (this year from our next book, BUILDERS OF THE PACIFIC COAST). We have a spiffy new 10-foot canvas banner, and the booth looks colorful and inviting.

We hit the ground running with our new book, THE BAREFOOT ARCHITECT: A MANUAL ON GREEN BUILDING. It was a mild sensation (this was obviously the right venue for it), and we sold over 100 copies. I haven’t seen a reaction to a book like this in many years. People seem to love it. It’s a wonderful book by a wonderful author, and the timing is right. Details at: https://shelterpub.com/_barefoot/BA-book.html

It’s great to get discovered by the 20-year olds.

Electric car

Cover of Plenty Magazine

Gimme Feedback

Response at our stand was just phenomenal. We were jammed up with people both days. People came up to thank me for our building books, especially SHELTER. It was an outpouring of — for lack of a better word — love. Maybe 10 different people said, “Thank you for your work over the years,” or, “I just want to shake your hand.” Overwhelming. I feel like I’m walking the line of self-aggrandizement here, but dammit, the feedback over the past few years has just been extraordinary. One guy picked up SHELTER and said “I learned to read with this book.” He said at the age of 5 he fell in love with the book and taught himself to read with it. I’ve written about this before, but it keeps happening, at an increasing rate.

What a LOT of people are now becoming aware of was part and parcel of the subculture of the ’60s-’70s. The hippies were right! Organic farming. Treating the earth with respect. Alternative energy. And on and on. Have I said all this before as well? Well, it’s heartening to see it catch on, even if 4 decades later.

Raptor in Flight

My friend Michael Jeneid just stopped by to show me these photos of a Northern Harrier he recently took from a kayak at Mono Lake, California:

I haven’t lived in the (a) city since I was 17. But I guess the roots are still there, as my pulse quickens and brain revs up when I’m out and around in San Francisco (or Manhattan, or Rome, for that matter). I’ve been in SF for 4 days now, and loving the variety of things to do, places to eat, intensity of contacts. We had a fantastic day yesterday at The Green Festival. Our brand-new book, The Barefoot Architect, is a huge hit. We sold over 50 copies yesterday. People love it. It’s got the good vibes of its author, Dutch architect Johan van Lengen, who runs the TIBA school of building in the Brazilian jungle. It sold 200,000 copies in Spanish, is also in Portuguese, and this is the first English edition. It’s now a sunny Sunday morning and I’ve ridden my Micro-Tek 3-wheeled push-scooter about 2 miles over to Ritual Roasters, my utter favorite coffee shop in SF with skillful baristas, great lattes, and fast wi-fi connection, getting my caffeine fix, an almond croissant, and checking the news.

I grew up here and thought the whole world was like San Francisco. Little did I know. There were 26 kids on my block, and we owned the city, traversing it on bikes, rollers skates (with metal wheels), and electric streetcars. In the ’40s, the streetcars had cow catchers front and rear. The cow catchers were hinged and let down on the front end of the streetcar, and strapped up on the rear end. Our technique was to crouch down so the conducter wouldn’t see us, run up and hop on the rear cowcatcher. We rode all over the city, including through the 2-mile tunnel from West Portal to Castro Street, sparks flying from the rollers on the electric wires overhead. A thrill! I still love San Francisco. No, it ain’t what it used to be, but what is? It’s no longer a working port (of any significance), it’s expensive, the skyline is marred by the jerk-off ugly Transamerica Pyramid building, etc. But it’s still got soul, and culture up the kazoo, and retains its spirit of freedom and tolerance.