Three different walking stints today: downtown in the morning to the doctor, downtown to the Library and to Arts Center East gallery (for the “Innate Heroine” all-woman show) in the afternoon, and the inevitable dusk-time Charlie-dog ramble.
Sunday (yesterday, retirement day 557) I drove to Boise in the Blue Car for a day at PCA* Silver Sage Region’s “OktoberFAST” showing of about 140 cars of the Porsche marque, assembled by member/owners mostly from Boise, but with some from Oregon, Washington and even Colorado. The venue was something called The Village at Meridian, which seemed to be some shopping center developer’s notion of an English or European village, albeit with upscale or trendy shops. Several of its somewhat narrow streets were blocked off, and when you stood at an intersection you could see nothing but Porsche for as far as the eye could see in any direction. Well, that and hordes of humans and dogs, that is. In fact the crowded foot traffic and the interplay of bright sun with deep shadows cast by surrounding buildings — together with the abundance of shoppers and visitors jumping in front of the cars to do selfies — made photography quite challenging. I chatted briefly with a couple of pro-level photographers who also complained about the shooting conditions. But nevertheless, I do have a few photos to document the experience (and I will add about 60 – 80 more to my car blog for a more specialized audience less likely to be completely bored):
My favorite car on display? Probably a 1965 “356” model, said to be a daily driver, running skinny studded snow tires and equipped with a set of skis.
FACTOID: I accomplished the entire trip of about 380 miles in total at an average of 30.3 mpg, running at a “brisk” pace easily keeping up with traffic and frequently staying legal. This, coupled with the age of the car and the fact that it reflects my keen interest in recycling, soothes my environmental conscience ever so slightly.
*PCA = Porsche Club of America
Just a follow-on to my recent mention of SPARC. Knowing that I had worked with SPARC intermittently through the 70s and 80s, I made a quick search of the 10,846 negatives so far (as of yesterday) uncovered for the 1974-1999 period to look for likely relevant keyword matches. Less than half of those have any keywords at all, but I did locate a few SPARC-related items after a few minutes to supplement that previous post.
Here, we see some images of a couple of artists I worked closely with, a few research photos of potential public art sites on freeway walls (an ongoing quest was to find and negotiate for public art spaces around LA), and other miscellany. I probably have some more stuff from the SPARC period on my photoblog (that may not be of general interest, however).
Whew! I could just about write a book about this photo and the memories it triggers. 
This is the old Venice City Police Station and Jail, located at — I won’t forget this address — 685 Venice Boulevard. I don’t recall the first time I ever saw it, but by the time I had taken this photo it had been vacated by the City of Los Angeles, and was mostly being, and continued to be, rented out for film productions (it even shows up in the Woody Allen movie, Annie Hall). Here as the “Dull City Jail” it was apparently decked out with temporary, fictitious signage for one such instance.
A couple of years after I made the above photo, the place was acquired by three artists and filmmakers (Judy, Donna and Christina) who founded SPARC in that place. 
SPARC — the Social and Public Art Resource Center — was soon to become my workplace, even my live-in studio residence for a time, and would be the venue for some utterly remarkable adventures and acquaintances (not the least of whom were the co-founders, particularly the amazing Judy Baca with whom I worked closely and often as her administrative “right-hand man” and advisor) over a good number of years. Don’t even ask, don’t get me started on stories of feminist politics, art world machinations, city government escapades, legal and extra-legal exploits, art projects undertaken against all odds and much, much more that arose from those experiences.
Here’s a link to SPARC’s website. And here’s a February 2016 Google Street View image of the SPARC site.
And, finally, the SPARC building as shown in “Annie Hall”:
Today Dennis Hoyt sent me a link to his latest promotional piece, this in support of an upcoming auction sale to benefit the La Grande Symphony. As you may recall, or if you follow my Porsche blog you would know that Dennis is an internationally-acclaimed local sculptor who specializes in auto racing subject matter. We have collaborated in the past on a website and his charitable projects, and talk Porsches and Formula One racing when we get together. This piece is about his tribute sculpture to legendary Stirling Moss and his winning Mercedes 300 SLR. And, incredibly, this video was put together using iPhone and iMovie technology as a first time effort by his neighbor, April Simpson. I was only going to post this on my car blog, but it is too good; it deserves a wider audience, IMHO.
Walking the Deplorable Devil Dawg this afternoon, stumbled upon Ken (neighbor three blocks away) and his Tonka Toy. (Too bad little Lisle didn’t see this.) It’s a 50s Jeep pickup, radically modified with a 600hp Chevy 454ci engine and other Chevy and GM running gear, 44-inch tires and custom bodywork that includes a unitized hood and wider-by-six-inches fenders that tip forward to expose the engine and front suspension. Stands roughly eight feet tall. Originally painted in yellow and green as a University of Oregon Ducks tribute, Ken is redoing it to make it less … political. The thing was supposedly once on the cover of a custom trucks magazine after a small fortune was spent on it; Ken is going to rework it a bit now and powder coat a lot of stuff, fabricate and install a custom electronic dropdown step assist for age-appropriate ingress and egress, drive it about twenty miles a month, and mostly put it in car shows. I was going to publish the pics below on my Porsche and sports car blog, but they don’t fit there, either.
For comparison, here’s a stock version from 1950:
The Guys is a play by Anne Nelson about the aftermath of 9/11. We saw a local production at the Liberty Theatre (in its alley-accessible Back Door Stage; see some streetside signage here) today, directed and produced in part by Jeanie Nickel, a friend and high school classmate of Ivi. A moving work, with an especially wonderful performance by Bryn McLaughlin , whose previous roles in Shakespeare and other local productions have made our day at other times.
Okay, we wrapped up the second book, The Man In The Wooden Hat, and had to blast down to the library to pick up Last Friends, the third in the set. Kim read book one aloud, I read book two aloud, and now we are alternating on this one. Yes, we still recommend these reads, and probably anything by Jane Gardam.
So the Pew Research Center tells us that one in four American adults didn’t read a book in the last year. (I would have expected more non-readers than that, actually.) Anyway, that leads me to report that we are now well into the second of the Old Filth Trilogy, namely, The Man In The Wooden Hat, and this time I am the out-loud reader on the eye-friendly Kindle. The trilogy, btw, was written when its author was approaching or in her 70s and 80s. Here’s part of what Wikipedia has to say about Jane Gardam, who has to be one of the least-known great writers out there:
Jane Mary Gardam OBE FRSL (born 11 July 1928) is an English writer of children’s and adult fiction. She also writes reviews for The Spectator and The Telegraph, and writes for BBC radio. She lives in Kent, Wimbledon, and Yorkshire. She has won numerous literary awards, including the Whitbread Award twice. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.[1]
The question has arisen, and I apparently had neglected in my earlier post to explain. The “Filth” in Old Filth is actually an acronym popularly used by British civil servants, at least in the referenced novel: FILTH is “Failed in London, Try Hong Kong.”