Autographs — John Sayles

 

John Sayles spoke at Vromans Bookstore this evening.

(index to autographs)

Too many bowl games

I wrote this on Facebook recently:

My alma mater Rice lost a bowl game today. It's crazy stupid that a team WITH A LOSING RECORD even gets into a bowl game! That degrades all bowl games. Rice's season record was 5-7! After today's loss, 5-8! Clearly, there are WAY too many bowl games.

Later that day, I thought, "I should have sent it to the newspaper." So I sent it to the LATimes sports section. They did not print it.

Tucson — November 2025

Mine tourists

Link to more photos. View the photos individually to see the captions.

We took a group tour to Tucson and vicinity. It went pretty well. The weather was good. We stayed at a resort hotel, but had no time to use the resort facilities. Also, oddly, the only evening dining options were the limited bar menu or room service. They apparently expect guests to eat dinner elsewhere, but our group schedule didn't include dinner stops, so were stuck with the hotel. And because the hotel is rather isolated, there were no nearby restaurants to walk to, either.

We began with a morning tour of the city. That included a stop at Mission San Xavier del Bac, but I didn't go in. In the afternoon, we went to the Titan Missile Museum, going underground to the launch control center, including a simulated launch, and viewing a Titan II missile in the launch duct.

Tombstone was not for me. The tourist street was like many others, and I'm not much into the famed gunfight at the O.K. Corral, especially not in triplicate: first a short movie about it, then the actual site, looking at eight mannequins of the participants and listening to a recording telling the story again, followed by a reenactment with live actors. Plus the next day, our tour director showed the 1957 movie about it (Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas) on the bus. Sigh. 

I did like the adjacent C.S. Fly's Photo Gallery of mostly 1880s photos.

Next was the Copper Queen Mine tour, wearing hard hats, safety vests, and carrying miner's headlamps, riding an original mine train, straddling a bench seat, into the mine. At several stops, our retired miner guide told us about mining and miners' work, tools, and lives. 

On our way to and from Tombstone and the mine, we passed the 'Boneyard' the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base — over 4000 out-of-service military aircraft in row after row, sitting alongside the highway.

Because of the federal government shutdown, we could not tour Saguaro National Park, but we took photos nearby. Our substitute stop was the Tucson Botanical Gardens. I liked the butterfly pavilion and the masses of marigolds in the Frida Kahlo garden.

Kartchner Caverns was OK, but they had some very annoying rules: 

• no cameras or smartphones (!!) (Nope, I have no photos.)
• "no food or drink past this point" at the door of Visitor Center (?!) but despite that, when I asked, they said a water bottle is OK, as long as it has a cap, and they couldn't explain the contradiction
• leave all purses and bags in a locker, and the lockers aren't free (!!) and require four quarters (who has that?!!) and there's no change machine (!!) and you have to go inside to ask for quarters in exchange for bills (!!) 

GRRR.

We spent one morning at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum — part zoo, aquarium, botanical garden, and natural history museum.

At Biosphere 2, I particularly liked the lung, a cylindrical tank containing a flexible membrane attached to a heavy metal plate, which rises and falls to equalize pressure. I was also looking forward to seeing the ocean, but there wasn't much to see. 

Victor's retirement funds

Black hole of paperwork

In December 2023, when Victor turned 60, he received a letter from AFORE, the government-mandated company that manages pension funds, saying he had nearly $10,000 (USD) in retirement funds!

We began a l-o-n-g series of trips to various offices tracking down different needed paperwork: his official identification number, his tax ID card, opening a bank account, papers only available from one specific distant office, his original birth certificate, his official police record, and more.

Additional time-consuming complications: several times at different agencies, computers were down; several times, he was told the next step would take maybe fifteen days, after we would be back in L.A.; many steps had to be done in person, not online nor by anyone else (such as Victor's niece); because we are married, he had to change his listed beneficiary from his niece to me; some appointments made online disappeared; some of his signed papers had to be sent to Mexico City first; one time when he signed on a computer screen, they said his signature was insufficiently similar to that on his ID, so he had to go get a new ID. 

It really did seem like they made up requirements to avoid paying out money.

After he got an initial deposit in his bank account, AFORE said there was some police investigation and Victor began another round of pointless visits to multiple police agencies.

Months went by with no new deposit. When we were next in Mérida, they sent him for another police report. After that, they needed a new bank statement. 

Finally, they said deposits would resume in a month, and they did! And they have continued monthly.

WHEW! What an ordeal.

Copper Canyon — October 2025

Link to more photos. View the photos individually to see the captions.

We took a group tour to Copper Canyon (Barrancas del Cobre) in Mexico. The weather was good: mild temperatures and daytime rain only twice. 

Copper Canyon is remote, requiring several days to get to either end. Our tour began in Phoenix, continued by bus to San Carlos on the Sea of Cortez in the state of Sonora, then past the giant Mayo Deer Dance statue to El Fuerte in the state of Sinaloa. Dinner included a Zorro performer, because the hotel claims to be on the site of the birthplace of Zorro.

In the morning, we enjoyed a gentle float trip on the El Fuerte River. After lunch, a female version of the traditional Yaqui Deer Dance, followed by nine other dancers, each with an elaborate costume, and ending with a female Zorro dancer. (Click here to view a separate photo album of all these dancers.)

That night, our tour director Carlos told us he had been in pain for the last two days, and was now diagnosed with appendicitis! He said he was leaving for the nearest hospital, an hour away, and we would have a new tour director the next evening. We once had a tour with unplanned bus changes, but this was the first time we experienced a change of tour director! (Carlos appears in the background of several photos of the dancers; probably the best shot of him is in the photo of the female Zorro dancer.)

The next day we learned that Carlos had a laparoscopic appendectomy and was doing OK. Directorless, the hotel staff took us to begin the canyon train ride, frequently along the very edge of the canyon, finishing at the small town of Barrancas in the state of Chihuahua, where we stayed in a hotel on the rim of the Copper Canyon, at an elevation of 7,300 feet. While there, we also shopped from the indigenous Tarahumara artisan vendors.

When we left the canyon, we returned to our bus and traveled to the city of Chihuahua. There, our new tour director, after only a few days, had been speaking too loudly too long and now had laryngitis, so we got one more tour director to speak for him. At our farewell group dinner that night, we were serenaded by a Mexican band. The next day, we went to El Paso, where the tour ended.

Autographs — The Yes Men

At Occidental last night, they showed the 2009 documentary The Yes Men Fix The World, and then the two Yes Men spoke, answered questions, and signed books.

I've always been torn about them. I appreciate their intentions, and they choose deserving targets, and sure, their "culture jamming" hoaxes are fun to hear about, but I don't like lying and tricking people, including news media. That affects innocent bystanders like me who rely on mainstream news being generally truthful.

Autographs — Tim Greiving

 

Tim Greiving spoke and signed books at Vromans last night.

Tim Greiving

I even brought my 'Celebrating John Williams' CD just in case Williams made a surprise appearance. Alas, he did not.

I also asked the first audience question: "If asked, would John Williams enjoy writing another Olympic fanfare for the 2028 games?" Greiving said yes. I hope LA28 asks.

(index to autographs)

Autographs — Ted Chiang

 

Ted Chiang spoke at Occidental last night on "The Incompatibilities between Generative AI and Art."

(index to autographs)

Jack Kirby exhibit

 

Link to more photos.

As I've written before, I loved reading comic books when I was younger. My two favorite comic book artists were Steve Ditko for his occasional surreal psychedelic vistas, and Jack Kirby for both his muscular super-heroes and his action scenes. When I read that the Skirball Cultural Center was going to have a major Jack Kirby exhibit, I had to go.

I did not know that Kirby was Jewish, but I'm glad that that led the Skirball to hold this exhibit. I had not been there before.

It was fun seeing all the Kirby artwork. I never knew he worked for DC for a time, but that was in 1970, when I was no longer buying comic books.

Bowers Museum — August 2025

Link to more photos.

We went on a one-day tour to Orange County. The highlight was the Bowers Museum. It was my first visit there. The featured exhibit was China's Terracotta Warriors. 

Only a handful of the warriors were there (photo above), but there were many related items and other exhibits. (See the photo album linked above.)

As a novelty, you could take a photo of yourself as a terracotta warrior: