Month: May 2022

Listening to “The Gist” and I had to stop that in order to write this. “The Gist” like “The Unspeakable Podcast” and at times “The Jordan Harbinger Show” are news oriented talk shows that depart from the normal pablum you get from Fox, NPR, the evening news shows. These things have meat to them. So much meat that they are no longer welcome on the normal outlets. So you need to look them up. “The Gist” is especially fascinating. It was aired by The Slate from 201) until 2021 when he and they had a falling out. Mike P¢x¢ (when, oh when, am I going to get an erasure or eraser??) Pecsa has the longest running news podcast and he has been featured on, it seems, all the places you have appeared on This American Life, Radiolab, Planet Money, he has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, The Guardian, GQ, and on and on. Right now he is interviewing Jeff Nussbaum — the guy who was a speechwriter for President Biden. He was deeply involved in the last six Democratic National Conventions. Ahh enough, go dig out a copy of “The Gist” and give it a listen for some news that is not filtered.

“The Unspeakable” is run by Meghan Daum and when I say run by she does everything for the podcast. What a worker. Her most recent interviewee (??) was Frances Kissling who ran an abortion clinic in 1 970 and she has been called leading philosopher for the abortion movement. She is Catholic also. Fascinating talk between the two of them.

Now these two are examples of news that is ignored by mainstream news folks. Not to say you won’t, will not, hear either of them on those outlets. But what you will not hear is a deep talk with them. Great stuff to listen to for challenging yourself.

—— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm :: 2022-05-12

Nuts. Cashews, raw cashews, organic raw cashews, roasted organic raw cashews, There was a bowl of them at the table. They went with some sliced apples and tea, Assam tea. A friend had, was visite ahhh visiting friend who came over just to visit. Where “visit” means you talk a bit about anything for as long as you have time in the day to talk. I started with a couple of caswers, cashews nibbling them down and then more and more. Damn, were they delicious, I did not talk a whole lot. Wife and friend kept the talk, the conversation going. They did a nice job of it too.

Yakisoba noodles for dinner tonight. Were you aware that soba does not refer to the buckwheat noodle? No, the soba in yakisoba refers to Chinese noodles or wheat noodles.

It is time for me to play, well practice, some Ukulele. There is a lot of practicing to do before I will appear in public. Even a group of Ukulele players that get together to learn how to play. Lots to do.

—— MichaelRpdx :: rkmn :: 2022-05-11

Mothers Day (Mother’s ?? Day?) was this last weekend. It seems Reed College is having graduation now. Because of this our planned trip to the Crystal Springs Park, a haven for birds especially waterfowl, was way too crowded to visit. Instead we went to a mini cart pod a few blocks away. A mini cart pod is a place with just a couple of food trucks. In this case there were three of them. The devil of temptation took over my brain and I ordered a Cuban Torta, a Torta Cubano, and, well I think that is it for Torta Cubanos this year. Why? Because the things are so filling. Because they include breaded pork loin, pork hot dogs, sliced deli ham, fried eggs (yes, plural), queso cheese, avocados, refried beans, onions, and a tomato, and Mexican mayonnaise. Or maybe the meats are different. One source says this sandwich was invented in the 1950s on Calle Republica de Cuba in Mexico City. A cook served everything he had stuffed onto a torta. Torts are not small either. No, I did not finish this one. Maybe tomorrow, there is do much there. If you eat meat you really should try one of these Someday. Someday. Then again, I could have the second half for dinner. I would have enough food to put me to sleep and I could use a good, long, full night of sleep.

In other unsolicited advice, hop onto YouTube and watch the current VlogBrothers featuring John Green. He is in Cincinnati (sp checked there) for a filming of a book he wrote. He is staying in a BNB where he took art from home so it would be a nicer place to stay. Except for the “art” bought by the owners. One of the pieces is Wanderlust in large type with its definition. Wanderlust? In Cincinnati? I agree with John Green, it does not fit. But worse, it cost a lot, way more than they could have spent on art from students at a local college. We have art from locals, like the I am sorry about the reflections on it but this etching was available locally. I know the money went to the person who executed it. (OK, forget ¥ does talk about art and what it does for us. Worth the 4:00 limit.

All of this is what happens when You Sit Down and Type. This is a response to Keep On Truckin Mike’s response to someone about the subject of freewriting. it is what I do almost every time. If I wait for ideas or inspiration to | arrive you end up with what I had in One Typed Page over the last two days. I do like to say that the muse will come to visit and see what you are up to when you are busy typing or painting or drawing or taking a walk or cooking or doing whatever it is you do. Sitting around waiting for a visit Just won’t work. The muse doesn’t care about you then. Do something and the muse will come to visit.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm :: 2022-05-10

It is not one of the 103 bits of advice from Kevin Kelly but it seems like something all of the One Typed Page people will do when they are sitting in front of a typewriter without, it seems, anything to write. It comes from Werner Herzog (is he someone who you have benefited from watching a movie from?) who is quoted as saying “When I don’t know how to continue writing, I just continue anyway.”

You do not need to know what you are going to type out for the, that, one page a day. You start to type and then you have something. Whether or not you know what you are going to say, type. None of us type gibberish. It may not make sense. But we all have the impulse, the habit of typing word after word to make words that make sentences. You can make art.

Art is whatever you can get away with. That is from Kevin Kelly. He also said “The biggest lie we tell ourselves is ‘I don’t need to write this down because I will remember it.” or “Habit is far more dependable than inspiration. Make progress by making habits.” There are 100 more bits of wisdom, or “103 Bits of Wisdom I Wish I Had Known” published for his 7Oth birthday.

Kevin Kelly also wrote “Better Than Free?” and “1,000 True Facts”. Find all of this at https://kk.org – damn, isn’t that easy?

I took my sister to a wine shop she introduced me to last night as a Mothers Day present. They had a wine tasting mostly Pinot Noirs, six wines to try. It was fun. We, my wife and I, reminisced about Eric Bogan and what he yd¢w knew about wines, our times at a different place that had tastings every week, not every month, once a week would be nice. The place we went to last night had tastings every week. They are recovering from two years of not having tastings thanks to Covid. We Went. The first time in um mumble gosh I do not know how long it has been. We went early because my sister had a 7:00 golf lesson. The place was Portland Wine Merchants. It was like being reborn. Afterwards we ambled up Hawthorne street or boulevard looking at the changes in who was open or gone. 3 Doors Down was among the survivors. We had not been there in years, decades?, years in any case. It is Italian. We decided we needed to go. Do you have reservations? Umm, no. That is fine, here, take this table. We stayed late and talked about how we used to do things like this all the time. Again!
Again we shall do it.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm :: 2022-05-07

CORVALLIS, OREGON

June 1, 1925 was the opening date for the Hotel Benton. It was located across the street from the county courthouse and a block from the railroad station. Civic pride made this seven story building a reality. Funded by the Kiwanis club and their work in getting people to subscribe to it and a bond floated. 954 of the work to build this hotel was done by local contractors and workers.

Popular for more than thirty years due to the sophisticated design and wonderful location. The termination of rail service in the 1940s coupled with the growth of automobile centric travel. By the 1980s the once splendid hotel was converted to being low income public housing.

Hooray for Linda in DC’s providing this stationery to get me to look up the hotel’s history on Wikipedia.

I had thought of driving down to Corvallis to view the building. Maybe take a photo of it. Maybe stop in at Luis’s Taqueria like Barak Obama once did and we did quit a bit when traveling to and from Salem. But, four hours of driving just to photograph and see a hotel? Ah, nah, this can wait. It will do fine for me to stop in when I am on my way to Gold Beach this summer to visit my Mom.

And the attached photo is truly a good print. Nothing like a 4×5 camera for perspective adjustment. That is what happened on
the photograph.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm :: 2022-05-06

Yay! again to Linda in DC for providing the stationery.

CORVALLIS’ LARGEST–FINEST HOTEL
CONVENIENTLY LOCATED

Many years ago I:

• wrote for the Celebrator Beer News
• would sit in front of the keyboard (ohhh, board, nice for Wordle) trying to come up with something to say.

Have you looked at Linda in DC’s (geez, I need to put in a red ribbon and get an erasure to erase with) Linda in DC’s link to her collection of typewriter stationery? Nice, very nice stuff. Looking her name up … hmmm why? It was published on Monday, May 2. I saw it was “for your use” which I needed to verify. Tomorrow, I promise to use one. It is nice to have a cob or printer. But tomorrow, not yesterday.

Not that it concerns you, but two years ago we had the driest April in history for Portland. This year we had the wettest one.

Are we not lucky? From driest to wettest. There I had to say it ~ to Someone and you are the someones.

There are times when our One Typed Page pieces turn to our own ruminations about ourselves. Why?

I voted the day after the ballots arrived in the mail. It is the only way to vote here in Oregon. By the mail.

I need to write something down. It is like something of a One Typed Page, but with a pencil or a pen and I fill the page. It needs doing. Now.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm :: 2022-05-05

Last Thursday Joe Van Cleve wrote about video editing which segued into Casey Neistat and his daily, yes daily, posting of video logs or VLOGs. As JVC wrote “daily activities in pieces that soon came to be known as VLOGs…”. Now to be clear here, Casey did not get VLOG as something that he invented. (do we call these pieces TLOG? Typewriter Logs?) I do not thing that JVC was saying this, but I do want it #¢ to be clear. Video logging of daily activities came to us with videos displacing film. Another event that marked was Vlogbrother, which launched on January 1 , 2007 when two brothers, John and Hank Green, vowed to give up all text based communication for a year. Instead they took turns sending each other a video daily. You can check Wikipedia for “vlog” and “vlogbrothers” for more information on this subject. And do watch a few Casey Neistat vidoes from the time he was sending out daily videos on his life. I watched all of them for a year. What a way to start each day.

Side note: I wrote a piece on this subject last Monday. It just didn’t sit well with me. This is a v2 version. You can catch that episode at https://saunter.us/my_typed_page/ and scroll down a bit to find VLOGing and Curiosity. e

You might, you just might, want to watch some Casey Neistat. I paused in this to watch “You Can’t” and “Make It Count* ‘Bike Lanes” is another one to don’t miss. In 2011 Casey got a ticket for not riding in the bike lane. He made a video on that subject. It was a video that launched his career.

Can you imagine shooting, editing, and getting a video up one day at a time for a full year? Even if you think you can’t, you can and if nothing else you will become a much stronger video
person.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm :: 2022-05-03

Disclaimer Alert: My recollection of the One Typed Page history is from memory. I apologize to all of you and Joe Van Cleve in particular for what I have wrong here.

A few days ago Joe Van Cleve credited Casey Neistat with creating VLOGs. A video daily or regular event you can see on YouTube. About 10 years ago the Green brothers, John and Hank did a daily event on YouTube. It was in the form of, essentially sending a letter to the other brother. The subject could be anything but they kept it up. You can find out more on their history at a Wikiepedia entry for Vlogbrothers. Suffice to say they started the communications via videos on January 1 , 2007 when they vowed to give up all text based communication. During that first y¢¢ year they founded the Project for Awesome which they used to fund their favorite charities. There is lots more, I recommend the Wikipedia article on them or perhaps watching them on YouTube. Just DFTBA, Now the Green brothers were not the first. That the vlog or vog invention goes to Adam Kostras in 2000. As you may know people do it all the time now.

SPACEBAR

In case you do not or did not read the comments SPACEBAR shared his credulity at my being correct in Curiosity Stream costing just $7 $12/year. Yep, that is the current price does not include Nebula. If you are interested in that the “easy” way to get there is https: //curiositystream.com/hai or /adamneely or other YouTuber who is part of Nebula. Yes it is true and yea the stuff available is pretty interesting. What else can you get for $127

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm ::2022-05-01

PS – I tried to use a typewriter erasure. It does not seem to work.