We were curious about the plants in grandma’s backyard—there’s an app for that. Take a photo, identify the plant! Easier than hitting the big red Staples button, and it’s almost always right.
Amazing, until I remember watching my landscape architecture friends slaving over flashcards preparing for tests. Now it’s a camera and an internet connection. Kind of scary!
Is the the future? The prophets of AI have been warning us that automation is now coming for us. (I wrote the first draft in 2020, before ChatGPT became famous!)
I suspect that my generation, those landscape students who are now a quarter century into their careers, will be spared the worst of it. Our kids won’t be so lucky.
How do I help them become useful producers in this brave new world?
The obvious answer is to minimize the menial work in my job. If it’s easy, someone will automate it. Focus my energies on the difficult, squishy parts of work. Like figuring out how to create deep relationships with my team, to dance through problems with firmness and grace.
Of course this is a bummer. Crushing a simple TTD list feels so good! But too gorge on fluff and some OPM-AI app will push me into an early pension.
~
Some Links
John Parshal gives an intriguing presentation on the different tank manufacturing systems between the Germans, Americans, and Soviets. (The full conference session about the Kursk is worth a watch.)
Dr. Robert Citino asks “Why Did the German Army Fight to the End?” The sobering answer is because they kept fighting. As much as we want to blame one man, everyone played their part in that machine.
On a completely different note, a surreal scene of a gunfight capped with a Nick Cage directing one of the gunmen to shoot a corpse, “his soul is still dancing”.
The gothicized italics was nice, but lacking. So added an extra layer.
,
10/26
INFERNO
As a longer word, I slammed it together, but it didn’t feel right.
So I went in the opposite direction with uncial, a wider script. Even though the aspect ratio makes the final one look small, it’s actually from a long 6×18 sheet.
,
10/27
puzzling
Another tricky word. I dropped the vowels (saving width on the page) and went with gothic, which emphasizes vertical strokes at the expense of legibility, hiding the missing letters.
,
10/28
Onion
I might have been able to get the top version to work with a compass and straightedge, but I wasn’t feeling the effort, even though camera is one of my favorite pieces from last year.
So back to ruling pen cursive! I have several versions of this that I’m all fond of. I picked this one because the nion felt very comfortable inside the O.
10/26/2024
,
10/29
SKELETAL
After a couple horizontal tries, I realized this word wants to go vertical. After inverting arctic and seeing how it could be pushed to make overlapping letters more legible, I realized that it was even more applicable here!
,
10/29
Lesson
I love the simple swooping capital cursive L.
It took a few tries to get right…turned out that I needed a guide line to keep esson lined up properly. I usually just wing it, but this was not one of those pieces.
2/5
,
10/30
VACANT
I’ve been wanting to work in versal and the V got me thinking of this script that draws out the letters. But Roman Capitals weren’t the right fit so I dove into my book on graffiti.
I just realized the relationship between graffiti and vacant lots. Maybe it was hiding in my subconscious, but at the time I just felt this script looked bubbly and I had run out of ideas.
For the second version, I borrowed the the girl’s Posca markers from last Christmas. I might buy another pack this year.
,
10/31
AWARd
I wrestled with this graph, until I switched to a lower case d.
It seemed fitting to close Inktober with another splatter, after a summer dominated by the ruling pen.
,
I always think that finishing a project will feel triumphant.
It never does. It’s always ends a whimper.
On to the next one.
Cya next time!
,
PS—Over the Moon, John Kahrs, Glen Keane, 2020
Good, mediocre, and bad.
The animation was nice, and it was great to see Asian faces. Unlike Mulan, the faces felt real and detailed. The family dinner scenes with the aunts and grandparents were as real as one could hope for in this idyllic country town. Yes, both moms were airbrushed, but the animators really put real soul into the ancillary characters.
Unfortunately, for all the good animation, the story was mediocre. This wasn’t a cheap knockoff, but it wasn’t a top-notch Disney imitation either. Classic Pixar would blatantly telegraph its game and still manage to tug your heart strings. Then again, Disney hasn’t been very good at imitating Disney for the past decade.
This movie has a similar structure to Coco, but it’s just clunky. They blatantly unalive Mom#1 in the first song. The songs and dance routines are inserted awkwardly. The other world seems gratuitously wacky. Along the way, they basically unalived suspension of disbelief.
Oh and, her dad did an awful job trying to blend the family. Dropping the news on the daughter right before a big family event. Geez.
—September 2021
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PPS—The Painting, Jean-François Laguionie, 2011
This movie isn’t subtle as an allegory of God asleep at the wheel with the cold heartedness of mankind. But it’s still a good adventure, with love, exploration, justice, and ultimately freedom.
In spite of its straightforward messaging, it charms in a way that American animation fall flat. The early Pixar formula was great, but it’s predictable to the edge of dullness.
Even though this isn’t that avante garde, it’s fresh air in America. And the art is great with a bold painting style that contrasted against the CGI of the painter’s studio. Everything has been done, and this story’s tropes aren’t new. But the combination with the art direction make this a movie a fine 90 minutes.
—October 2021
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PPPS—Tales of the Night, Michel Ocelot, 2011
This is a fun collection of short stories with the main characters in silhouette. In a world before Into the Spiderverse, anything that wasn’t the same 3D blob felt unique, and the flatness of the papercut characters made the backgrounds shine bright.
The movie raises the thorny question of cultural appropriation. I suspect it’s a hotter issue in American than France—referencing another culture might be more fraught in a pluralistic society. But over the past few years, I’ve decided that we should let storytellers set their stories in a diversity of fictions. They are taking a risk when they venture outside their known world, but that’s their problem. Why should I force them to stick to exactly what they’ve experienced?
And maybe the heightened sensitivity around cultural appropriation is a holdover from the mass-culture era. As media becomes diffuse and publication becomes democratized (even as the algorithms have become monopolized), it’s hard to feel strongly about any specific cultural product. If it fails, ignore it.
The culture is no longer mass. It’s a series of short stories connected only in our internal stage. Just like this movie.
The end of the second week and start of the third weeks the a doldrums of a month-long challenge. Engagement falls off as people slam into reality. That’s why I did it all in September.
,
blunder
I started by cribbing Arthur Baker’s brush script. I have a hard time with the verticals of his b (skinny at the bottom to wide on top) but that’s gonna take focused practice.
It will likely take a month of pure brushwork to drill into my hand and brain that the flat brush can make different shapes depending on how hard I press (unlike a steel nib).
Ultimately I decided to give it another go after getting a big fat hake brush (which also inspired my retake on “sting”). I’m a lot happier with this one than the original blunder.
10/17
,
10/18
Ornate
Three versions of Ornate, the top two different surfaces of the Handwritmic ruling pen, the last one the Dreaming Dogs Aldus ruling pen with a curved edge.
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10/19
DEAL
One of the pieces that went from straight from brain to paper. It still took several tries to get good enough, and of course I still have my quibbles, but I got my fun out of this one.
,
10/20
ARCTIC
There are three types of color inversion in GIMP. This one was the “value invert” where colors keep their main characteristics. After that, I nudged the curves to highlight the overlaps to better define the letters.
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10/21
rivals
I had a rough time with this one. Words are inherently cooperative things. The letters patiently stand in line, more or less in teh right order.
At first, I tried something competitive within the word that just didn’t work.So I settled on gothic, harkening to sports team logos. But that was boring.
A few days later, I thought of going upside down. The capital R is so distinctive that it still reads upside down, and the flourish on the l makes it read both ways. The upside v is forgiven cause it’s in the middle, plus it resonates in the graph as an apparent capital a.
So again, third time was the charm.
,
10/22
Blast
I clearly have a blast with ruling pen cursive. But this time, print letters felt right.
Then again, the as lives on the cusp of cursive. With calligraphy, I have finally started understanding the weird cursive conventions that was drilled in 2nd grade (such as the weird-s shape).
,
10/23
Button
More cursive, with a circle.
With any concept, there are still so many little choices in the execution. A medium-small buttOn felt right.
,
10/24
FIREfly
More cursive+block text. Even though I try to let each word speak on its own, the line of thought from piece to piece becomes obvious in retrospect.
,
In August, we visited Springs Preserves and my dad let the grandkids play with his SLR.
I then spent September celebrating an unplanned liver party at UMC.
I finally took the photos off his camera, which reminded me to dig up my old camera.
While looking the Nikon D40, the boy asked “so you’re looking for a real camera, like without a phone?“
Cya next time!
,
PS—Magic: The Gathering Arena
Twenty-three years ago I joined my first poker night. It was also my last poker night. It was so fun that I quit on the spot.
Two decades later, I came across MTGA, getting all the gambling kicks without spending real money.
Like any online game, there are plenty of ways that Hasbro can steal your cash, but you don’t have to give it away.
Having been an adult through the rise of social media and freemium mobile game evolution, I see exactly what’s going on with multiple currencies, regular rewards, multimedia stimuli, and daily prompts. Like any sucker, I can see all the warning signs, but it’s so fun.
It teaches compassion towards the victims of con-men. Many of these marks must know they are onto some bad stuff, but do it anyways.
We’ll see if this kick holds up after a few months. It’s mega fun, but it’s not building towards anything bigger in life.
Is the time worth it? I know it’s not. Maybe it’s my subconscious rebelling against the pandemic.
—September 2021
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PPS—Ominous Roost
I’ve been playing so much MTGA that I need to go cold turkey.
But first, I brewed my own deck—a case study of why the game is so alluring in an online environment.
In this game, I love having lots of creatures and things that make them for free. So this card is perfect, since it is all about creating free creatures.
At first, I started with what I had in my digital collection and added all the relevant cards.
After playing it a couple times, I realized the concept was workable so I used a couple precious “wildcard” tokens to buy a few extra copies. Then I pushed the deck wide, using a copy of all the cards with the special ability “Disturb” to explore how they interacted together.
Once I sensed how the individual pieces worked together, I culled the deck to the to the bare essence. In constructed Magic, there are many great cards, but only 60 slots. Once the goal of the deck is decided, it has to be refined.
This deck tried to build lots of flying creatures to kill the opponent before they killed me. The engine was a couple of card draw / discard spells that would simultaneously create more creatures and build up defenses. For interaction I had a couple surprises to mess with the creatures in play.
Thus arises the central paradox in deck building. One is limited in engine cards because the engine requires fuel. This deck relied heavily discarding “spirit” cards, but all my engine makers and surprise cards are not spirits.
This is where the online part of MTGA kicks in. It’s fascinating to slowly refine this deck. The entire library of Magic is at your fingertips so you can tinker endlessly and your opponents won’t get bored because it’s a new player each time.
With each test, the wicked question comes up. Did my most recent changes improve the deck or was it a lucky card draw?
I’m not sure. Let’s play again!
—October 2021, I quit MTGA a few weeks later. It was too obsessive! Four years later, I remember nothing from this deck except what’s written here.
,
PPPPS—Sid Meier’s Civilization, 1991
Every decade or so, I get sucked into this game for a couple nights of mindless clicking.
Of course I played quite a bit when it first came out. And then in Berkeley, Houston, and now Las Vegas.
This time on an online DOSbox emulator on the Internet Archive (a legit site, I’ve donated to them in the past). But I must be getting old—I got a bad headache and I’m still hungover the morning after.
Like much of my entertainment, I stick with what I know, so I’ve only played the original version. It’s just the right balance of challenging but actually pretty easy.
I always focus on a high infrastructure strategy, going heavy on research, connecting all my cities by (rail)roads. Once I have an edge, I defend with strong military unit and buy off cities with an army of Diplomats, strangling the other civilizations.
You’d think it gets boring, but a little randomness keeps it fun, just like Hollywood recycling the same formulas to entrance the world for a century.
Coda: I got sucked in for a second night. Fun enough, but not the best use of February 18-20, 2022. Now I need to avoid this program till 2032. Maybe I’ll finally try out Civ II (1996).
Another week. This one goes quickly, and suddenly you’re halfway through!
,
10/8
RECKLESS
It was obvious that this should be written on a background. I got plenty of sheets for that.I vaguely remember using my right hand to write this, to make it a little extra reckless.
,
10/9
heavy
The one on a background was just for practice, but I liked the touch of color. Plus “sunrise” felt like a nice contrast to “heavy”.
1/4
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10/10
sweep
This was rough. I wasn’t happy with any of the early versions. But a week ago, I was reminded about the practice of taping two pencils together to test one’s lettering skills. I tried it with two flair pens, then three flair pens, then two brush pens, and which became four brush pens.
It still took a few tries to get it right. I started on the letter-sized sheets before going to the tabloids. It was sooooo fun to sweep big letters with a megaplex brush pen! But the smaller composition turned out more sweep-y on the screen.
Sometimes, more fun is not more correct.But always take that detour.
,
10/11
sting
Unlike other pieces, this one was straightforward. It always takes a few tries, but it’s nice to not be tortured for every single assignment. Though S’s are always torture.
That’s what I wrote when drafting this newsletter. But the morning of the assignment, I thought of a making something with a big sloppy brush.
It was meant to be rough and quick, but with a wide open Saturday I darn sure overcomplicated it. I suspect the best version is the second shot (single barb, green text on white background), but I played a lot in the computer, including learning how to better play with masks and even the difference between 8-bit and 16-bit encoding.
Last year, I started Inktober thinking I would single-shot a piece every morning. I did that for a couple of days before architecture-school training kicked in. I’m not competitive but a well crafted work is a sign of respect. So if I’m gonna do it, I have to chase a certain level of respectability!
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10/12
SHRED
I tried a few variations on the stripes, but the most literal (figurative?) attempt was the only version that worked.
Just before uploading this piece, I realized it would read better with a grey background. Last year, I framed each piece inside of a square format (like that “sunrise” piece from January), but my wife pointed out that it was claustrophobic. But once in a while, it’s the right move.
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10/17
Drink
I changed this the morning of the upload. The first one was fine, but insufficient. For this second version, I started with some ornate flourishes that disappeared over 33 tries to get it right.
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TRUNK
I tried to mimic a car trunk, but it didn’t work. Those initial attempts led me into Roman capitals.I tried overlapping letters to fit the page; they decided to combine instead.
,
ragged
Even with pieces with a crazy background, I always test the graph on a clean sheet. I like to make sure that I can do it straight.
,
I just (re)watched Ponyo with the kids. I’ve always remembered it as a bit slow, but maybe I’ve slowed down. It was an absolutely a visual treat. Definitely recommend!
Last week was Flushed Away, a movie by the Wallace and Gromit studio that was way better than I expected. It’s trapped in the early 2000’s animation style, but a fun story well told!
Cya next time!
,
PS—A Divination Journey
Art and Chance In college I played with chance operations in creating art. It never led to anything spectacular, but I loved the idea of delving into randomness to spur the next move.
Glass Bead Game The Herman Hesse novel. I read it. I remember nothing, except the cover the paperback I owned.
Tai Chi The Christian fundamentalists who are scared of yoga should worry about Tai Chi too. The grand ultimate fist is a practice that also leads to eastern philosophy. The body moves the mind.
Decktet A brilliant double suited deck by PD Magnus, whose book of games included a chapter on divination. Instead of contacting the occult, this philosopher deconstructs readings as randomness interacting with the subconscious.
Tarot Once demystified, a Tarot deck is just a 5-suited pack of playing cards, an obvious game development from the standard European 4-suited decks. Not spooky.
War For a while, I played War with my daughter using a cheap tarot deck. After repeated interactions, the deck became as mundane as that copy of Operation collecting dust in the closet.
Waite-Rider I got one. Not a fan. I prefer pip decks.
Daoism It’s the cool Chinese philosophy in this individualistic age.
Confucianism Yin needs its Yang. During the pandemic I finally read the Analects and realized that this old guy also spoke to my sense of societal order, likely due to my upbringing.
I Ching Wait, Confucius was into this book? I should look into it. No surprise that Daoists dig divination, but if Confucians are studying it too, then that’s an universal text.
Yarrow Stalks Divining with yarrow stalks is the best! The half hour it takes about to determine a reading becomes a meditation on the question, calming the mind before contemplating the answer. Any other practice feels like child’s play.
Too much Tarot In spite of memorizing the I Ching, I fell out of the practice. And then I went on a Tarot deck buying spree. It was bit of pandemic mania, but it’s nice to own these lovely art pieces.
Calligraphy Now that I have a productive hobby, I’ve lost interest in divination. Life is simple—work, play with the kids, and graph when I have time. Why delve into the subconscious? I enjoy enough randomness with each stroke of the brush.
But I do need to get back into Tai Chi. Then again, I don’t need cards or coins to know that.
—September 2025
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PPS—More thoughts on divination
PD Magnus’s chapter on divination in his Decktet book pushed me past any residual Fundamentalist fear of this sort of “occult” activity. Divination is a randomly generated lens for focused self-reflection. And as an atheist now, what is there to fear?
I started with a crappy tarot deck at the bookstore which sat unused for a decade until I started playing War with my daughter (the fifth trump suit makes it much more fun than with a normal 4-suited deck). After the deck came into regular use as a game deck, I tried a few readings.
But the booklet that came with that deck was way too predictive. It’s one thing to say “love is in the air”—your brain can plumb a vague comment to find its own meaning. Totally different beast to predict “you will have problems with your lover”. Such definitive pronouncements will implant counter productive seeds. Who knows how that might manifest!
I also tried a couple readings with the Decktet. PD Magnus did a great job of using vague typologies for pronouncements, just like how I Ching also avoids the overly predictive problem (it can be a bit of a word salad at times).
I also tried a couple readings with the Decktet. PD Magnus did a great job of using vague typologies for pronouncements, just like how I Ching also avoids the overly specific (sometimes by being a world said). But I’m still wary that this is toying with fire. Not because of any supernatural stuff, but the potential for this practice to reinforce perverse subconscious feedback loops.
As such, I don’t practice readings while the kids are awake. I don’t hide the books or cards, but I don’t want them thinking that readings are to be trifled with. I doubt I would have properly handled the randomized subconscious before my 40’s.
But I also rue missing out on playing with I Ching chance operations in my undergrad art classes!
—August 2021
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PPPS—The four arts
With my recent discovery of the joy of sketching, I realized that I am pursuing the Four Arts in a 21st century way.
Qin (琴)Music I need to get on a regular practice schedule but a ukulele and banjo both got strings and make noise. Occasionally I get the timing right and you might call it music.
Qi (棋) Go I got two bookcases of boardgames. A proper scholar would focus on one game, but I like variety.
Shu (書) Calligraphy Well, I’m not writing with a brush. But I am writing a lot, tapping into my poetic side. Plus, with thirty months of as a professional hand draftsman, I’ve got great handwriting when I want to show off.
(Update: two years later, calligraphy has completely taken over my world. I now understand why the ancients took calligraphy so seriously—it’s endless practice distilled into a moment. And the brush doesn’t lie.).
Hua (畫) Painting Again, no brush. And not silk. But my motley collection of fountain pens and notebooks seem close enough.
Bonus—Divination Hard to be more Chinese than consulting the unknown with fifty sticks. But I’ll also happily check out the Tarot as well. Both have been great ways to delve into the subconscious.
And so here we are, what’s old is new again. In a new way.
This year, I focused on the words. My spring explorations of folded cards pulled me away from the 5 Word Poems and the summer detour into the ruling pen (which loves big) didn’t help with the resuscitating the 5WP format.
,
9/30
inkTober ’25
This was done with a dryish brush with old clumpy ink. It made for a great texture on the page, but left a few spot marks on the scanner cause I rushed to get them into the box.
I cheated slightly, pulling the “ink” to overlap the “Tober”. Even though I try to avoid over processing, I’m not above digital. These compilation posts are my confessional booth.
I’ve been playing a lot with Gothicized Italics, so it naturally became a big part of this year’s scripts. This was my last assigment for Inktober since it was more important to complete the daily pieces first.
Last year I tried to make each piece on the morning of the challenge. That’s hard! This year, I finished everything in September while convalescing from the that liver infection. So now I’m posting leisurely and enjoying what others are sharing.
So really, my true #inktober is copying flourishes from Arthur Baker’s sample books.
,
10/1
Mustache
This was made with a ruling pen, dipped in a grey wash of saved water after cleaning my tools.
I’m really happy with this piece, a strong start to the month. I wasn’t as happy with all thirty-one pieces, but that’s life.
,
10/2
weave
Confession: I digitally swapped the final period from bronze to blue.
This piece is a direct variant of my August experiments with overlapping Gothicized Italics in a notebook.
8/25
,
This crown was slighted tilted, but the crossed O felt like a gem.
10/3
This crown is well balanced and I prefer the curved n as a mirror to the C.
crOwn
The red and blue design was a second series after scanning in the initial set. Even so, I’m still not happy with the final piece—calligraphy is an ocean of practice poured into a single moment, that might not go your way. If this was my profession, I’d be obligated to hit perfection, but as a hobby, I can settle.
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10/4
murky
This was made with a Dreaming Dogs Layla ruling pen, which has a slight curve. Videos show that you can make a very wide line, but since I was using the thin grey wash, this is about as wide as I can get.
I love split line effect when you go really fast with this pen.
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10/5
deer
I had a brutal time with this one. I tried to capture the leap of the Deer using cursive, but was unhappy while scanning it. So I tried making a logo. Again unhappy. Finally found something by starting with a lowercase “d”.
Fortunately the paper is thick enough to reuse the back of the sheets. Even after failing both sides, they become the background for experiments before attempting finished pieces.
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10/6
pierce
Unlike deer, I had a concept that executed beautifully. There were several pieces that were presentable, but this one stood out with the bleeding red.
Even then, I’m still a tad dissatisfied with the piece. The piercing action would have been more pronounced if I stopped it inside the opening of the “p”.
,
10/7
Starfish
One of my mantras is “when in doubt, add noise”. The ruling pen gave a little splatter, but it had more promise by using the back of a practice sheet. Right before posting this piece, I utilized a new mantra “try inverting”. I don’t love this digital crutch, but it works too often to ignore.
,
That first week in October just flew by. While I’m certain my body is still quietly recovering from my liver infection, the most noticeable thing is catching up at work. Being semi-chastened with that medical scare, I’m now much better at letting things slide into tomorrow.
There’s always more work.
Cya next time!
,
PS—Dominion
My daughter and I have been playing Dominion a lot.
Even at seven, she reads darn fast. Enough to play a game with lots of text.
My wife hates wordy card games, but the girl has a lot of fun because she enjoys buying stuff.
For a while we played without attack cards, but she’s warmed up to the inclusion of such cards when I promised I wouldn’t purchase those cards.
She also prohibits deck thinning cards. She senses the power of this strategy but has no interest in trashing old purchases.
The original 2008 base game is better for playing with a child than the revised version. The new deck manipulation cards are fine for lifestyle gamers, but sometimes simplicity is better.
Either way you can’t go wrong. Dominion is an amazing game. It’s too bad I didn’t realize it when I was gaming every Friday night.
Then again, it’s damn cool to explore it with my own kids. That’s a trade I’d gladly make, eight days a week.
—August 2021
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PPS—Dominion Prosperity
Top tier awesomeness is hearing your daughter claim Dominion as her favorite game when introducing herself to the 2nd grade class.
Admittedly, we’re not playing competitively. She’ll take credit if she’s winning, but if she’s losing then we’re on a team while her stuffies take the fall.
But no matter, she enjoys playing.
The strategy is simple. Spend all game buying stuff that lets you buy more stuff. A nice intuitive mechanic—even the 3-year old has taken to directing us to “buy” this or that.
She still won’t let me play the attack cards, but I’m just happy to be able to watch them in action.
If you like money and buying stuff, Dominion Prosperity is a great addition to the base game. Based on this article by Donald X. Vaccarino, I suspect I’ll be buying Empires for Christmas.
Is there a better endorsement than continued patronage?
—September 2021
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PPPS—Dominion Empires
Unlike his sister, the boy grew up with an older sibling who gives no quarter.
So unless it’s Snorta, he only plays cooperative games. As such, Dominion Empires has not gotten much play.
Two summers ago, I found a cooperative variant. He had fun a couple times as I basically played for both of us. Last week, we watched My Neighbors the Yamadas with subtitles so I realized that he can read at the level to play the game proficiently.
It worked OK, they enjoyed the time. But she still doesn’t fully enjoy the cooperative version and he still has no interest in playing Dominion competitively.
I cheated a little in this one, moving some of the words in the box to fine tune the composition. I never feel great about digital manipulation, but as time passes, I feel less guilty about it.
,
3/6
dirt our home to be
I love how the colors came out on this one, especially the inversion of the colors with the words.
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3/8 Inktober 52 (2025), week 10
a chain of black daisies
This 5WP was banked on inverting colors in the computer, but the image of a black daisy won out.
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3/9 Inktober 52 (2024), week 12
spring forward lose an hour
It’s interesting to revisit the layering of colored words months after graphing the pieces.. Clearly the top example was the best, but it took a few shots to explore the possibilities. I often compare calligraphy to hitting the slots.
The greatest thing about the constant practice is that once I land on a good composition, I am supremely confident than I can get it right. Unlike the previous Inktober, I don’t worry about whether I can replicate a good turn of hand from a practice sheet onto the final sheet.
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3/10 Poetry Haul #9
try please love turn vulnerable
unraveled sweater we broken burden
alive date new fresh chapter
More play with italics.
,
I am constantly in awe of the Monkey King. I never thought I had any affinity to superheroes until I saw my kids watch old Sun Wukong videos and read the books myself.
Then I realized I did have a favorite superhero all along, planted when my mom would read stories from old Chinese picture books to me and my sister when we were little kids.
Cya next time!
,
PS—Monkey King, Wu Cheng’en, trans. Julia Lovell, 2021
I’m typically too snobbish to read abridged versions, and now I’ve gone through two of them with the Walden audiobook and this Lovell translation.
In some ways it hearkens to the proscribed system in How to Read a Book where one takes multiple passes at varying levels of detail. I’m pretty good at skimming books, but it certainly helps when someone has done that work for you.
As for this book itself, it’s one heck of a story. The introduction warns you that this is satire, and it follows through on the promise. The Taoists are venal, the heavenly bureaucracy is minimally competent, the Buddhists aren’t much better, and I don’t think there is a single happy marriage in the book. Our gang of pilgrims are least dysfunctional bunch of the lot, which isn’t saying much.
As an abridged book, some of the stories are cut as was most of the poetry, which seems to be a distinctive aspect of the original novel. But that’s all good, it’s a fun read and it enticed me to read an unabridged version. Hard to give it higher praise than that.
After reading an unabridged translation by Anthony C. Yu, I must admit that cutting out the poetry quite impoverishes the experience. As much as I appreciate that this abridged version introduced me to the original, without the poetry it’s like reading a screenplay and ignoring the movie.
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PPS—A Field Guide to Roadside Wildflowers at Full Speed
Any excuse to bring up this gem makes it a good day.
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PPPS—New Tales of the Monkey King
I guess this TV show was a fun romp.
I don’t particularly mind the cultural appropriation because it’s way different than the original book and it’s Australian. I got enough problems in my own continent, I can’t get bothered over what they do on the other side of the globe.
But the first season was just OK. It certainly wasn’t anything that I would have watched without its nominal relationship to the 西遊記.
Yeah there’s a monk and his/her three disciples. The disciples are all gods in exile, and there are demons in this world, but then it goes off into its own universe.
Unlike the clear heavenly imperium of the original, the screen writers went for a good versus evil mega-battle—the bane of all superhero comic book movies. It’s a complete change from the original book. Instead of four folks on a long journey, they’ve been dumped into a Manichean struggle.
Even so, I enjoyed watching how they took an old story and modernize it to a contemporary popular medium. I can’t fault them for taking inspiration from the source and blazing their own trail.
But I must quibble with their depictions of Monkey and Tripitaka.
Monkey is depicted as a vain illiterate creature in this show. He’s certainly vain, but he’s a fucking badass. He’s quite literate, he should always be depicted as a Superman.
I’m fine that they recast Tripitaka a woman. One of the problems in the original story is that it’s a sausage fest. However, the screenwriters are much too kind to Tripitaka whose defining feature should be his helplessness. I dislike that she even learned kung fu in this show. I get that they are trying to avoid the damsel in distress, but if so, they should have chosen a different character to gender shift.
My the ultimate judgement?
I never watched Season 2.
I don’t regret the time spent on the first ten episodes, but if I want to know what happened on this TV show, I’ll just read the Wikipedia synopsis.
The Portland trip took a lot out of us. The trip was great, but planning and then recovering took a bunch of extra time before and after the actual time off. And then we followed it with a jaunt to San Diego right before school started. Travel is fun, but it eats into “free” time for sure.
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2/25 Inktober 52 (2024), week 21
quack quack sexy selfie sandwich
How did duckface became a social media phenomenon? I guess every era needs its thing.
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2/28 Inktober 52 (2024), week 20
we don’t see our mythology
I went light for a white on white vibe. Then reversed it.
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3/1 Poetry Haul #8
somewhere we assemble wonder moon meet rich star light award fall and honor sun girl
I had some fun with extended italics as I wrapped up February.
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3/2 Inktober 52 (2025), week 9
lamp with a fresh genie
The flat brush runs fine, but I’ve continued to have trouble with cursive with a pointed brush. The Pentel brush pen works great, but I’ve never gotten the hang of normal pointed brushes.
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3/3
touching hands through a loupe
I had purchased a collage by Duane Toops and zoomed in with a jeweler’s loupe. Collage is a tactile art, I could see his hand in the cuts and ridges of paper on paper.
The cursive looks like it has regressed, it might be time to add it back on the list as a monthly focus.
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Again, it feels like I’m trying to just get something in before another month disappears. Things have been super busy at work. But it’s a good busy. I’m doing good work on great projects.
I just need to slow down the pace. As much as I hate to admit it, things at the airport can wait, especially as time with the wife and kids continues to drip away.
I didn’t get this posted in time for August, and then my body revolted to put September on hold for three weeks.
Even worse, after returning from the hospital with my liver abscess, another family member went to the ER after dropping a bunch of weight and experiencing serious discomfort in the gut.
The family is going through a bout of organ revolts. We’ve had a good run, so I guess we were due.
Health shouldn’t be taken for granted, and yet, that is exactly what we do during the good times. One can’t live on permanent high alert, but I need to cultivate a practice of gratitude to savor the quiets between the storms.
Cya next time!
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PS—The Mentor Leader, Tony Dungy, 2010
In 2021, I stopped reading self-help books—I got what I needed out of them.
After starting a work-related newsletter, I tried to restart the habit to grab some professional ideas to go with my artistic interests.
Naww, I’m past peak Self-help.
There’s nothing wrong with this book. This book matches Tony Dungy’s public persona—a quiet dude who makes everyone around him successful.
I blasted through the book at 2x speed. His main point is that a mentor leader should be humble. Being humble means receding into the background; success is found in elevating those around you.
I dig it! I bet I’m less humble than I’d like to believe, but I appreciate the appeal of his message.
Tony goes heavy on Christianity, but given my recent forays into ancient wisdom literature, that’s fine, even as an atheist.
Worth a quick listen if you’re in the mood for a generic leadership book, though you might remember nothing from it four years hence.
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PPS—The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson, 2016
It’s kind of amazing to listen to a self help book and have nothing to say about it, even after trying to come up with an interesting take for a few days.
Just standard tough love, self-help fare, with a lot of F-bombs. The title is perfect for this book. If you pick it up, you’ll most likely dig it.
I didn’t disagree with Manson’s main points. There are only so many ways to approach life and his recommendations match how I see things, in spite of his crass delivery.
Pick your priorities (chose your f’s).
Control your reactions.
Owning your world is better constantly being the victim of your own psychodrama.
Avoid highs—chemical, relational, any type. They’re temporary and the crash only gets worse the longer you delay.
Commitment is freedom. It creates depth versus breadth.
Don’t pursue the results, pursue the process. Or if you don’t enjoy the process, give up on the results and chase what you enjoy doing.
The unconvinced will not be persuaded, but the book is fine if you want another take on such riffs. Another listen for 2x speed.
My cursive in February hit an apex after a January of practice.
It was also when I finally gave up on the square format for whatever aspect ratio that the piece wanted.
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2/18 Inktober 52 (2024), week 26
suddenly aware the butterfly slept
Almost three weeks into February Italics, I was getting a bit more confident with the script, while still playing with brush.
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2/20 Inktober 52 (2024), week 23
dino with batter fried chicken
One morning, I spilled a bottle of ink wash. My first move was to grab a sheet of paper to soak up the mess. Made for a great texture!
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2/21 Inktober 52 (2025), week 8
fish fish pisces two fish
GIMP has three different ways to invert a piece. In this option, the original colors were kept, except for white and black.
Inverting a piece absolutely feels like a cheat, but if it works, who am I to refuse the delights of the machine?
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2/22 Poetry Haul #7
dream flight hosting remote realms
black haze guarding seven wishes
deeper songs access slumbering people
I love the when a page shows layers of partial stanzas frozen in messy process.
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2/24 Inktober 52 (2024), week 24
off on knock out over
I am super comfortable with the Pentel brush pen, but have not found a straight brush that feels right for calligraphy. Trying to do so would be an expensive pursuit.Art gets really expensive when you forsake satisficing for maximizing.
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I can’t believe we’re in mid-May. How does a year fly? I need to internalize the Cult of Done Manifesto and push things out faster.
Or maybe just enjoy the pace I got. It’s a balance when navigating internet hobbies, especially when work is super busy.
Cya next time!
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PS—Fuck you and your family
During the pandemic, I took daily walks and found a black Honda Pilot plastered with obnoxious bumper stickers and window decals—stick figures in various poses, a few f-bombs, and this window decal.
This was the only one that was remotely amusing.
I get a kick out of other families’ windshield representation of themselves. The basic stick figure trope as well as Disney, Star Wars, football, and this version cursing at everybody.
I’m not impressed with crudity for its own sake. Curses lose their sting when used wantonly, but this window decal was playful.
Subverting expectations is too highfalutin’ a descriptor, but at least it had something beyond the other gas station bathroom humor on that car. The occasional zag against the mainstream can land, even if being a dick just makes you a dick.
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PPS—Waiting for emails
The start of the school year was rough. The school district’s distance learning program was totally overwhelmed with new enrollees in Fall 2021 due to the sudden rise of the Delta variant.
Even though we had been enrolled for a months, this fresh turmoil meant we did not receive any information. So we headed into the first day of school not knowing her teacher, when we should meet, etc.
At least we picked up a Chromebook and some textbooks earlier in summer.
This wait was a special sort of torture, hitting refresh on my email every few minutes hoping to receive a missive from her new teacher. I even waded back into Facebook to check in on other parent’s frustrations. Misery loves company.
Then I would blame myself for the anxiety. Sure, it would be nice to start with a special sort of excitement. But who really cares if it day one is a whimper or a bang?
Soon enough, none of this anxiety would matter. She would hard at work with whichever teacher she got. Who cares if she misses out on a few days of second grade instruction? We’ll still be in here.
(Ultimately, it turned out to be a bigger mess than I feared. The first month was a wreck with a substitute trying to learn her way in the worst possible circumstances. Fortunately, the school district enticed a cadre of devoted teachers to tackle a second shift and our girl ended up learning in the evenings that year. It’s all an ancient memory as she heads into middle school).
In that moment, life reminded that in spite of our era of instant communication, we don’t always get what we want when we want it. Even if it felt necessary.
Character traits are earned by doing, so I guess I owe the gods some gratitude for this chance to practice patience.
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PPPS-Practice
2/5
I started my daily practice with extra printed templates that I used on the lightbox. This was the last of these printouts before transitioning to binder paper. It’s much cheaper and they’re lined on both sides!
Then again, it was fun to be reminded about how I would maximize these sheets with layers in light colored ink—a habit that I’ve continued during my morning meditations.
It’s a pain to track which goes with what…so I’m mixing up the Inktober 52 prompts with my own 5WP’s. Bon Appetit!
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2/10 Inktober 52 (2022), week 51
flickering victorians pacing gaslit verandas
This was the last 5WP for an informal series on magic using Inktober prompts. I had a rough time composing this piece. When I was younger I would be disappointed the deflation that comes with the end of a project. Now I’m just used to it. On to the next!
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2/11 Poetry Haul #3
shoulders cry pleading seeking peace
hibernation silo free body struggle
frequently understatement ever vigilant rights
You really can’t cross the same river twice. In early February, I had just come off of a month of pointed brush work. I don’t think I could do this right now. Even though I’m still practicing daily, I’ve lost the edge that comes with focusing on it solely every morning.
To do this again, I’d have to relive January, like the Borges story where Pierre Menard creates a life to spontaneously re-create Don Quixote.
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2/13 Inktober 52 (2024), week 28
ratty rebels raided royal realms
I save of all my scrap sheets. This was graphed on a test page for my team holiday cards. Of course, many attempts to work on such sheets also don’t turn out, so they just get blacker over time!
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2/16 Inktober 52 (2025), week 7
4 triangles make a pyramid
I love calligraphy due to its handcraft. But the final deliverable is always on a screen. So am I a digital artist?
Maybe. Two months after the initial publication, I can’t remember the original ink color (turned out it was pink). The background was obviously an addition after the fact. And actually, this is version 2 because I had originally uploaded one where the script color opacity came out differently between the sky and sand backgrounds.
So yes, this is absolutely a piece of digital art. But in this digital age, is everything digital art? Maybe that’s a meaningless distinction? Everything flits across a universe of flickering rectangles, while the “real” work sits inside an old cardboard Sun Chips box.
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2/15 Poetry Haul #6
vision notified no cold hope
dismiss despair supply prove dream
remarkably somewhere slam hot truth
Like clockwork, I start publicly running the script of the month after two weeks of practice. After fourteen days, I’m comfortable with the muscle memory even if it hasn’t hit full smoothness.
On the third week, it gets locks in, edging towards boredom. By week four I’m playing with variations on the script.
By week six or seven I feel like I’ve already lost the script, or that it’s merged with the new script of that next month.
It’s a slightly depressing cycle, but no skill is permanent.
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If even knowledge is impermeant, I guess a cardboard box of papers ain’t a bad parting gift.
Cya next time!
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PS—Bissell Vacuum Cleaner
We’ve tried a few vacuum cleaners over the years. We have a $400 Miele in the closet, and we’ve also spent similar sums on a couple of cordless Dysons.
But our workhorse is an $18 Bissell. We’ve bought four of them. The first one died. The second for my mother-in-law and then we accidentally bought two more online when we were moving into our place. No matter, just keep one up and downstairs.
It’s just a little handheld vacuum with a handle extension and a flat insert to let you push it along the floor.
That’s the magic. So cheap you’re never scared to use it. Dirty kitchen. Suck it up. Laminate floors? Without brushes, this vacuum can’t ruin anything. No bags to track. Just dump it out and wash the filter.
And no batteries! This thing runs forever. Light and nimble, well worth the hassle of occasionally swapping plugs when vacuuming a large area.
The cheapest product came out to be the best one. At least the most regularly used everywhere, and is there a better definition of “best” for a household appliance?
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PPS—Stainless Steel Baking Pans
We bought an 8″x10″ baking pan, a few years ago. Small enough to fit a toaster oven. Works great. Flat plate of stainless steel with a slight rolled rim. Nice and shiny.
And a second one last year, so we could swap back and forth, but we gave one to our in-laws.
But I got cute with the third one. Intsead of reordering the exact same item, I got one that came with a little grill rack.
It was so small!
I double checked. The dimensions were super close, just off one inch in each direction: 7×9 versus 8×10.
Do the math.
63 square inches to 80 square inches. I bought something that was almost a quarter smaller than the original!
What an embarrassing display of innumeracy. My mental math is great…if I use my brain.
But the rack is nice. We’ve gotten good use out of it. No complaints.
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PPPS—Practice
2/12
Around mid-February I realized that I would totally lose the straight brush if I didn’t practice it regularly. So I started filling the empty lines between the main scripts with cursive.
I’m procrastinating on taxes by compiling this post. Taxes are a cost of society and a lovely spring buzzkill. On the bright side, we’re about to head out to an airshow at Nellis, so I’m getting our fair share of entertainment (and propaganda) for these taxes.
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1/29
daddy, you look more chinese! (without glasses)
The boy is still earnestly drops lines of joy. I wonder how much longer it will last; it’s all so fleeting.
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1/30
fried onion topping my cereal
I do love fried onions.
For a week in January, I played with funky Uncials, and it’s on the list to revisit for a full month. I wonder if I will ever stumble into a particular script that “is it“. Likely not—I’m a too into variety and impatient for perfection.
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1/31
unruly mindless fake constitutional scholars
unforgettable kerfuffle eggheads evaporate around
senior space gang, andromeda chapter
These poetry hauls can be challenging! But it’s always fun to make them work. I love the mental picture of an alien biker gang who faux-studied our founding fathers.
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2/5
… and the pursuit of Leisure
This was inspired when Thomas J Bevan announced a Symposium on Leisure. I’m super happy with both of these. A couple months later, I’m not confident if I could do this today. The downside of picking up new scripts is losing old ones along the way.
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2/9
trauma rejection surpass interior style
diversity through self illusion recognition
analyze capital ammunition beyond currency
I made a mistake on “interior” so I rewrote the poem on a single page—which I immediately recognized was the right format for these poetry haul exercises.Sometimes you gotta keep doing something until the right format arrives. Repetition is the heart of process.
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Between commenting on two-month old 5WP’s and editing four-year old blog drafts, these newsletters have become an exercise in archeology.
I do appreciate each of y’all who read and comment on them. Thanks for joining my delve into the past!
Cya next time!
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PS—Word by Word, Ann Lamott, 1996
Bird by Bird is such a classic that the library has a long wait for the audiobook. So I started with this recorded seminar that she gave in Austin.
I dig it—I’ll be reading Bird by Bird.
Three key takeaways.
If you’re gonna be a writer, then write. Getting published is only a result of writing.
Find a writing group to work through this all together.
Draw deeply from reality.
I appreciate her suggestion for writer’s block. Give yourself permission to think. If you can’t write, then maybe force yourself to not write for a while. Sometimes your brain needs space to recharge.
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Here are a few other exercises that sounded fun (though I haven’t tried them in the four years since I listened to that workshop).
List 10 favorite words.
Spend 300 words on someone you truly hate.
Describe yourself in detail five and ten years from now.
Where you would want to live, do it in exquisite detail.
Why you are here, why do you insist?
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PPS—Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott, 1995
Vulnerable, crass, funny. Brilliant! I see why it’s a classic writing workshop in a book. Anne explores the difficulty of the process, and exhorts the reader to do the work.
She doesn’t shy from the benefits of the writing life, but reminds us that outside success isn’t all that special. Our personal problems don’t disappear after our shell gets polished.
So, it’s about sitting down and writing. Work and make it happen. Taking things one “small assignment” at a time. Finding a cohort to work with.
Don’t be disappointed when a project always ends with a whimper. (They all do.) Life keeps moving. The process stays going.
TLDR: Sit down every day, jump in, flail around, do a bit at a time, gut yourself to examine the innards, deliver, and do it again tomorrow. It’ll add up to a good life.
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Speaking of Process, a friend and I started a journal of student work at Berkeley that lasted for two issues. It darn near killed me both years. For the longest time I thought it was a waste (aside from meeting one of my best friends). As a middle-aged man, I’ve learned that friends are rare. A buddy is one helluva a haul for a project.
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This book is nominally about writing, but her subtitle is perfect: “Some Instructions on Writing and Life”. Her notes on completing a book mirror too closely to the work I’ve done as an architect. Writing might be her profession, but this book transcends her medium.
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It is refreshing to read a self-help book by a great writer. The book shines; you don’t have to trust claims of her excellence in some other field—the proof is right here, page by page. Her display of craft makes her advice all the more visceral as she bares her soul and wrestles with the difficulty of life.
