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"Knowledge is classification"
John Dewey, 1925
For nearly fifty years, I collected notes for a book I titled Apples and Oranges: Intellectual Categories and Their History. I last added an item five years ago.
Sure, now that I'm retired, I could actually start writing the book, but it would take a lot of work, and I'm not sure how many people would be interested in it. The other day, I thought I should at least mention it here.
I began thinking about academic departments and majors, but I was also intrigued by the numbered section of Roget's Thesaurus, which I found fascinating. My 1962 edition has eight classes, each with numerous divisions and sub-sections — 1040 numbered entries in all. In the latest edition, there are six classes and 1000 entries. Clearly, there's some history to be told here.
Along the way, I learned about the trivium and quadrivium. I have notes on the history of encyclopedias and the Dewey Decimal System and the Library of Congress classifications.
I have lengthy excerpts (Thanks, Xerox!) of books on the subject by Langridge, Palmer, Herdman, Sayers, Hutchins, Amsler and Sowa; notes about books by Maltby, Ranganathan, and others; quotes from Aristotle, Kant, John Stuart Mill, Wells, Lenat, Landau, Fodor, and Lakoff.
Being a computer scientist, I added notes about clustering algorithms, taxonomies, and the rise and fall of categories and classes in the Smalltalk browser.
Dave Eggers' most recent book, The Monk of Mokha is about Mokhtar Alkhanshali, a young Yemeni American who becomes a coffee entrepreneur. Both of them were scheduled to speak at the Los Angeles central library last night.
I'm not a coffee drinker, and I'm not very interested in that book, but I went hoping to hear Eggers and get his autograph. I was only partly successful, and not the part you might expect.
Eggers got stuck in transit, and didn't arrive until after the talk! Alkhanshali spoke for nearly an hour. It was mildly interesting. Eggers arrived just in time to sign books, and most people had multiple books for him to autograph. Plus, he first talked to some of the library staff, then to the two people who had spoken briefly before Alkhanshali.
They were serving special coffee at the reception, and I hear it was very good, but there were long lines for that, and I really didn't want to have coffee late at night, so I didn't stand in line.
I'm glad I got the autograph, and I look forward to reading the book, but I still felt that most of the evening was a waste of my time.
(Index of autographs)
Impression of Shengshan 2, 2015
by Zhao Meng
I've always liked scholar's stones. Now, I've just purchased the sculpture pictured above, inspired by them. It's about ten inches from end to end. It's my biggest art purchase ever. Here's the back story.
I was looking at collections of photos of scholar's stones and related sculpture, such as this batch, and I liked one in particular:
I would have purchased a copy, but there are none. It's one of a kind, in a private collection, and not for sale. But the sculptor, Zhou Meng, has done other similar pieces. Rasti Chinese Art in Hong Kong sells his work. The piece I bought is one of the cheapest available.
I am generally pleased with my purchase, but there were several annoyances along the way. Mr. Rasti always responds to email, but, of course, there is a long delay in correspondence due to time zone differences. His prices are negotiable, but I hate haggling, and I'm not good at it, and I almost certainly overpaid. Worse, the only payment method he accepts is an international wire transfer, which is slow, expensive, and must be done in person at a bank. (He did cover the fee.) The shipment was held up at Customs for several days; no one knows why.
Finally, the work has some streaks, spots, and discolorations:
Rasti says, "The discolouration is deliberate to make the sculpture more natural. It actually gives depth to the rocks," but I prefer it clean and white (as in the photograph I based my purchase on!). Some of the marks do come off, and I am working on that.
(click to enlarge)
My letter in response to Attorney General Sessions ending legal shelter for state-sanctioned marijuana was published in today's Los Angeles Times:
Bring it on. Let's force the issue.
If the feds begin wholesale arrests and imprisonment of pot dealers and users, it will only enrage everyone who supports legalization.
The cowards in Congress will either have to finally legalize marijuana or face the wrath of the voters.
Our visa case was approved on Dec. 14th! They do believe that we are free to marry, intend to marry, are not terrorists or criminals, have established a relationship, and have met in person. This is the first of three steps.
Probably next month, the State Department will ask Victor to apply for a visa, including a medical exam. They will conduct more background checks. That is Step 2. If all goes well, they will interview Victor in person at the U.S. consulate in Mérida. That is Step 3. After that, he should get the visa!
I knew Step 2 was for Victor to fill out the lengthy online visa application, and I assumed this week's notice would say to do so. I was prepared to go to Yucatán very soon to help him, since his answers have to be in English. But no, Step 1 was handled by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), part of the Department of Homeland Security, and Step 2 is with the State Department. So right now, USCIS is sending our case to the State Department, and we have to wait to hear from them. This could happen in a few weeks, but with the holidays upon us (and with Trump's downsizing of the State Department!), it might take longer. Sigh.
Suspended umbrellas — an art installation in downtown Mérida
As I previously wrote, the feds wanted Victor's statement of intent to marry. He mailed that to me on October 26th, via airmail. Many years ago, mail to and from Mexico took a long time, and sometimes never arrived, but I hoped that now things were better. No such luck. After three weeks, I still had not received his letter. So I made my shortest-ever trip to Yucatán to get Victor's signed statement.
I mailed everything back to the feds on Nov. 25th, and they acknowledged receipt on Nov. 28th. Now we wait for them to check it out and, I hope, then tell us they want Victor to fill out his online application.
Meanwhile, yesterday, Dec. 7th, I finally received Victor's airmailed letter!
One year ago, I wrote about my reactions to Trump's election. One of the bullet points was "I suspect this blog may return to its title and original purpose in the years to come." Mostly, and happily, that hasn't happened.
As explained in my welcome message, the blog name is because I was upset that others were not as outraged as I was about George W. Bush.
Well, Trump hasn't managed to accomplish much politically! Certainly not as much as Dubya. There was a stolen Supreme Court seat, but the theft preceded him. There have been lots of terrible executive orders and undoing Obama-era regulations, but that's pretty typical in a party shift Presidency, and, for that very reason, can be as easily undone by the next Democratic President.
The worst and longest-lasting Trump accomplishments are his judicial appointments. As I've written before, "For me, it's the courts, stupid!" Update, one day later: In today's New York Times, I find this piece: Trump's Most Troubling Legacy? His Judges
The painting on the left is by Doug West. I think it is titled Taos. It was used in the poster for the Music from Angel Fire festival sometime in the 1980s. I bought the poster in Santa Fe back then.
The photo on the right is what my poster looks like today. It has never been in a lot of direct sunlight, but it gets some. The reds are all gone. The large words below the illustration ("Doug West" and "Angel Fire") are completely invisible now.
The front and back covers of ZAP Comix #13
(by Victor Moscoso)
I bought ZAP Comix #13 in June 1994, probably in San Francisco, and got autographs from most of the cartoonists. I forgot all about the autographs until I was looking at the comic the other day!
On the front cover, Gilbert Shelton's autograph is in the lower left corner, vertically sideways. Robert Williams' personalized autograph is in the bottom center. (Victor Moscoso's signature (bottom right) is not an autograph; he's the cover artist and that's his pre-printed signature. He did autograph my copy on the inside. See below.)
On the inside cover, S. Clay Wilson's personalized and dated signature is across the top margin of the page.
On the first page, both Spain [Rodriguez] and Victor Moscoso signed along the right-hand margin of the page.
(Index of autographs)
Roz Chast spoke at the Los Angeles Central Library last night as part of their Aloud series. I always enjoy her New Yorker cartoons. I sometimes post them on Facebook.
I had seen almost every cartoon she used during her talk, but she also spoke about her background and especially her life in New York.
She had some hilarious things to say about standpipes, too. That minute and a half of her talk begins about 39 minutes into her talk. Unfortunately, that link is only audio, no visuals, so here are three pages of standpipes from her Going Into Town (click to enlarge each image):
(Index of autographs)
