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Pitchfork memories
This week, I have been using this hay fork to shift wood chips from in front of the chipper to a farther pile. And every time I secure the fork back into the pile, I can’t help but remember my first encounter with a pitchfork. I was six or seven years old and my next…
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Inhabitation
Yesterday, something shifted in my way of thinking about 555. With the yumbo on site and the all-star team cutting bamboo and brush, this place is now a site of continuous habitation. Someone will be around most days. From August 19th, 2022, there will be activity of all sorts, life lived, and stories created for…
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Cats on the prowl
Our neighborhood has a lot of indoor-outdoor pets and a few truly feral cats. The ones in this house are free to come and go; they have schedules around meal times and naps, so I usually know where to find them. More or less. Cats are very territorial, but the territories might not be quite…
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Climate Catastrophe Dissonance
Bill McGuire’s book, Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide, came out this week and a lot of press are turning their attention to climate catastrophe. In the face of yet another summer of extreme heat, floods, drought and fires, it is pretty clear that we are facing the catastrophe in this generation. Right now and maybe for…
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Long Covid – a review
Two Stars. Not a good show in any way: the director lacked a clear vision; cast was underrehearsed and low energy; and the tech was patchy. Even if you get free tickets, avoid this production. I have been “out of it” for the past few months in a slightly concerning way. But I think I…
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Tokyo Bay Meditation
Find calm depths even as the waves crash around you. This 12 minute guided meditation takes you on a tour of Tokyo Bay and your emotional landscape.
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Ishida Tetsuo and the Bird-Tailed Chisel
In the long-ago time when Edo was founded, there was a stone carver called Ishida Tetsuo. He came from a long line of quarrymen who lived on the Boso Peninsula, where stone was pulled from the mountains and turned into building blocks for the new capital city. He apprenticed with his father, who had left…
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Goodbye, Tilly Good Car
Tomorrow we say goodbye to Tilly, our 1999 Daihatsu Mira Gino. I have been emotional about this all week, because I anthropomorphise her. She is cute; she is stalwart. She loves to wait for us under the shade of trees. She is fearless on rocky roads. She delights in hooning – going a little too…
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Repurposing illustrations
I have a few clients who come back to me regularly(ish) for illustration and design work. I was excited yesterday to get a mail from one of them, asking if I had time right away to do some work on a short deadline for a corporate video animation. When we were discussing the details of…
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A New Canvas
I haven’t been writing much about our future house at 555, because everything has been very slow and the architect prefers that I don’t share his work too much. I didn’t feel comfortable writing about the design process that’s been going on since October. But lately the pace is picking up. The final drawings are…
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