SWCAMBORNE

“You will be civilized on the day you can spend a long period of time doing nothing, learning nothing, and improving nothing, without feeling the slightest amount of guilt.”

Nassim Taleb

The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Nassim Taleb is a writer and thinker.  He grew up in Lebanon and grew rich in the USA.  He is the author of among other books, The Black Swan.  He recently created the concept of the Antifragile and wrote a book about it.

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.”

Nassim Taleb

The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Nassim Taleb is a writer and thinker.  He grew up in Lebanon and grew rich in the USA.  He is the author of among other books, The Black Swan.  He recently created the concept of the Antifragile and wrote a book about it.

We visited the “Levitated Mass” at the Los Angles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on Saturday.  It was heavy.  The LACMA website calls it a Megalith which in my mind makes this installation a henge.  The artist is Michael Heizer.  What I admire most, having moved some big stones around myself, is that he was able to convince art patrons to put up the money to move and install the stone.

Walking under the Levitated Mass gave me a control of nature feeling, as if I was taking a big risk, even though it is well designed and not in the least dangerous.

A bit of perspective:

• This stone weighs about 330 tons.
• One of the large stones at Stonehenge weighs about 25 tons
• A medium sized office building, like the one in the background of these pictures weighs about 12,000 tons. Office building construction facts

The Levitating Mass can be seen as a driveby from 6th Street just East of Fairfax.  But this exhibit is best seen from below.  If you can find parking entry is free.  Parking is $10 in the LACMA lot.

We had lunch first with Gil and Nanci C. at Short Order at the Farmers Market.  A very nice outing.

A giant band saw from a closed lumber mill in Northern California has become public art in front of a new Lumber Company on Colorado Blvd in East Pasadena.

Congratulations Ganahl Lumber

I just finished reading Terry Pratchett’s new book Dodger on my Kindle.  It was a great read and like all of Pratchett’s books full of pithy humor and word play.  Highly recommended!  He paints a very good picture of Victorian London and includes encounters with Dickens, Disraeli and others.

“The man gave Dodger a cursory glance that had quite a lot of curse in it.”

“She had more teeth than brains, and she didn’t have many teeth.”

“all these pictures on the walls of elderly men with white hair and expressions of acute constipation.”

“No Englishman would ever have said ‘I think therefore I am.’ Although he might possibly have said, ‘I think therefore I am, I think.’”

The worlds best Jam:

Made by Aty R in limited editions using San Gabriel Valley fruit,

Plumness Jam is only available to people who know people.

I get a jar occasionally and try to avoid gorging myself so that it will last longer. 

I prefer plumness jam on buttered whole wheat toast.

Aty R. is the best!

One of my book groups recently read The Fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather.  It was a bit of a slog getting through the book but it lead to an unusually animated discussion about whether the peasantry was better off under the Romans or their successors.  One group held that it didn’t matter very much to the peasants and the other was that the Pax Romana was very good for everyone.

David A. subsequently sent out this YouTube clip from the Monty Python movie The Life of Brian.  John Cleese thought that the Romans were no good at all except for the roads, water, peace etc.

An attempt at embedding:

it didn’t work yet click the link above.

The book on Amazon

The Movie cover:

“Most of us make an instinctive decision,

then build an infrastructure of reasoning to justify it. 

And call the result common sense.”

The above quote is from the book The Sense of an Ending a novel by Julian Barnes.  We read it in the Fingerhut Book Club this month.  It is a very well written short novel that makes you think a bit about life and aging.

A few more quotes:

“Some Englishman once observed that marriage is a long dull meal with the pudding served first.  I think that’s far too cynical.”

“May you be ordinary, as the poet once wished the new-born baby.”

Unfortunately I’m going to miss the book club meeting because we are going hiking in the Alps.

Life is good.

Nurit and I went to the Huntington Library twice last week.  Once to see the train exhibit and once for a special members tour. No photos were allowed in the train exhibit.

What a beautiful place.  This is the new conservatory.  It is reminiscent of Kew Gardens.

The famous former red bridge in the Japanese Garden

The rose garden is especially beautiful this year with the new rosarian

in charge and lot of activity going on.

See a few more pictures on Flickr or go over there yourself and take your own.

I went with Lillian, Barbara and Gordon to watch the Amgen Tour of California bicycle race a few weeks ago and had a terrific time.

It took all day but it was great fun to be up in the mountains at Mt Baldy Village with thousands of people who shared a strange enthusiasm for bicycle racing.  We were at a spot where we could see the racers go by twice and we did but the actual part where you watch the race is perhaps five minute each time.

Most of the time is taken up eating, watching the other spectators and casual riders, repositioning and trying to find your friends.  As the riders came by I rang a cowbell to encourage them and it seemed to work.  And I get to write the word peloton and know what it means.

Bicycle racing is a perfect sport for advertising upscale products.  The fans are all upper middle class people with nice cars free time and disposable income.  It is not unusual for someone to spend $3000 for a recreational bicycle and then an additional $1000 each for some super tires and wheels.

I get high with a little help from my friends

The Tour of California isn’t as big as the Tour de France yet but I predict that it will be in thirty years or so.