Foothill College


On Sunday D. and I took a little self-guided tour of Foothill College. Here are some of the pics I took.


A little water garden on campus is teeming with life, including water lilies and a skittish red-eared slider turtle.











There is also a little goldfish.





A western fence lizard basks on some gravel.





A peek at a plaza in between campus buildings.





A rose blooms outside the Smithwick Theater on campus.





All righty then.





A sculpture by Stephen L. Newkirk rakes the sky outside the library.





One of the flowers in bloom next to the library.





The view from the top of the hill near the science center, looking east.





Metal people playing with atoms!  "Helium," by Bay Area artist and sculptor James Moore, inspired by the helium atom, is a brushed stainless steel sculpture which "explores the idea of shared exploration and discovery."





Clouds move in over the interesting roofs of the Physical Sciences and Engineering Center.







A ground squirrel snacks on blue-eyed grass.





The warm concrete sidewalk becomes a day spa for basking lizards.






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Monday Movies: NB CalTrain


Monday Movies: 20 seconds (more or less) of video from the world around me.

This week: Seventeen seconds of a northbound CalTrain going under Whisman Road at dusk last November.  Enjoy.




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Babelfishing Poetry: "You Supply Our Other Snout"


I hope you've all been fine and well? No upsets? No disasters? No tornadoes, floods, unexpected sinkholes, avalanches, mudslides, blizzards, hailstorms, lightning strikes, hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, tsunamis, volcanoes, sandstorms, alien abductions, toxic spills?  I hope not, I really do.  Because that would be ghastly, it really would.

But you know what's not ghastly? More Babelfishing poetry, where I take song lyrics, run them through an on-line translator such as (but not necessarily) Babelfish, goof around with the punctuation a bit, and wind up with a quirky kind of poem.

This week it's the sultry "Fever" (listen to R&B singer Little Willie John's original version here, or listen to jazz chanteuse Peggy Lee's torchy lounge interpretation here, or listen to an intense interpretation, with a jarring and totally unnecessary key change in the middle, by Ray Peterson and his amazing four-octave voice here, or listen to soul singer Dee Clark's melodramatic version here, or listen to garage/punk band The Cramps' spare, spooky interpretation here, or watch video of Rita Moreno trying to sing the song on the Muppet Show here).  Enjoy. 


You Supply Our Other Snout

We pay kind wisdom the way we love you forever.
Ordinary spark of
having a personal human hands,
hard-published stoves received from people.

Moonlight filling capacity child.
Irradiation of title.
Empress strange, our ignorance of road management.

Or
owner.
Yes,
refrain on years open starting.

Dense European credit, formerly in love.
Formerly, our other nurses reach et al.
This self-hug hugging completion other,
my woman-fury and outlined.

You supply our
other snout.
Another knock,
search the axon-tweaked degree,
published hot, another DUI, personal mix of brave.

We supply
(last supply) my snout.
Non-
a big advance, our
on the night of
however in my eyes, kind passion pottery.


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SF MOMA: Sculpture


On Sunday, after doing an errand in San Francisco, D. and I visited the various sculpture gardens in SF MOMA, and here are some of the pics I took before I became too overwhelmed and tired.


Richard Serra's mammoth 13-foot-tall, 235-ton, contoured steel sculpture "Sequence" dominates the Howard Street gallery.

It consists of two huge torqued steel ellipses connected into an S-shape to create a path that winds through its massive leaning walls and graceful curves.  It is so enormous that once it was installed, the exterior walls of the museum's then-unfinished gallery were built around it afterward.  Walking around inside it was a very interesting experience.





As we enter the third floor sculpture terrace, a sticker on the floor makes a bold, impromptu graphical statement.





Looking up past the tip of Alexander Calder's intermediate maquette for "Trois Disques (Three Disks)" on the third floor sculpture terrace.





Another Calder, "The Kite That Never Flew," is elsewhere on the terrace.





Looking over the parapet to a tightly-framed skyscraper downtown.





♪♫♪ I've looked at LOVE from both sides now . . . ♪♫♪  A rear view of Robert Indiana's "LOVE," in the 5th floor cafe's sculpture garden.  OLEV!





The old PacBell building rises majestically a block away to tower over the sculpture garden.





A dramatic view of the museum's upper floors and a nearby skyscraper from the cafe's sculpture garden.





An irrigation system valve in the sculpture garden looks like the elements have begun to take their toll.





Flowers in the cafe's sculpture garden.





The 7th floor sculpture terrace is empty of sculptures but provides a bird's eye view of the geometric façades of nearby buildings.






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Monday Movies: Highway 85 From El Camino Real


Monday Movies: 20 seconds (more or less) of video from the world around me.

This week: Twenty-seven seconds of the traffic on Highway 85, shot from the El Camino Real overpass.  Enjoy.




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Babelfishing Poetry: "Barry John Eats Children In The Cucumber Fields"


Hello!  And how are you today?  Bright and breezy?  Cheeky and cheerful?  Chipper?  Top-notch?  Super-duper?  Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?  Full of sunshine?  Rarin' to go?  Full of ginger?  Ready to face the day?  Hunky-dory?  In the swim? Peachy-keen?  On the ball?  Up to snuff? A-OK? Copacetic? Right on? Cooking with gas? All of those put together?  None of the above?  No matter, because, regardless, it's time for some more Babelfishing poetry, where I take song lyrics, run them through an on-line translator such as (but not necessarily) Babelfish, get silly with the punctuation a bit, and wind up with a quirky kind of poem.

Here's the garage rock band The Hombres' 1967 novelty song (intended to be a send-up of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues," and whose original lyrics sound already Babelfished themselves) "Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out)" (listen to the song here).  Enjoy. 


Barry John Eats Children In The Cucumber Fields

Dear students, I love you.  I was close.
Barry John eats children in the cucumber fields.

Don't put it in cold water.
Dog broke my car.
Only seven months.
But don't worry; go and bid the soldiers shoot.

Side wheels
from the shadow of the sun.
No one knows that.
Up, man; leave the game.

Raise the man.
I've had television in the eyes and on the eyes of his shoe.
Galileo, like a blind rider.
Sorry, everyone should go.

And she's good all night.
My childhood is broken.
Yes, sure,
free the people.

It's going to be so dark in a month.
How to fix your feet?
Eat the French loaf and cabbage.
Now don't stop the baby, come on.

Okay, you're an alien.


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Los Altos Redwood Grove


On Sunday I spent a little time moseying around in the Los Altos Redwood Grove Nature Preserve, and here are some of the pics I took.


Redwood sorrel is a common flower found in redwood forests.





An acorn shell on the railing of a bridge over Adobe Creek.





Redwoods were transplanted here from the foggy coastal mountains in the 1920s and require supplemental irrigation to stay healthy.





A water strider floats on Adobe Creek.





The perforations of a metal picnic table form a grid to catch fallen leaves.





A furled periwinkle.





A bee takes a drink from Adobe Creek.





Adobe Creek.





The creek hosts a small population of three-spine stickleback.







California buttercups.







Allium flowers.






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Monday Movies: SF MOMA Lobby


Monday Movies: 20 seconds (more or less) of video from the world around me.

This week: Twenty seconds of the lobby at SF MOMA.  Enjoy.




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Babelfishing Poetry: "There Is A Cash Machine"


It's Friday!  It seems like a minute ago it was Tuesday.  Well, anyway, being Friday, it's time for more Babelfishing poetry, where I take song lyrics, run them through an on-line translator such as (but not necessarily) Babelfish, futz around with the punctuation a bit, and wind up with a quirky kind of poem.

This week's feature, a 1972 song by the UK space-rock group Hawkwind, is "Silver Machine" (watch video here).  Enjoy. 


There Is A Cash Machine

I used to be.
Come,
buy a car for cash,
and you will always be touching.
They do not seem to disagree, and we can help you because we have to repair
Heaven and Earth in the boat to the other side.

There is a cash machine.
They took fire.

Power lines.
Tower.
There is a cash machine.

There is a cash machine.
The gallows-maker said:
I just go up to the cash machine.
I am impressed and it's always there,
secrets and all.
Antiseptic, clearly.
He saw all the green.

There is a cash machine.
I think ATM?
There is a cash machine.


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Heritage & Shoreline Parks


On Sunday D. and I visited two parks in town, the new-ish Heritage Park, and, since there wasn't a lot to engage us there, the lake at Shoreline Park.


Heritage Park is home to an 80-year old windmill donated by a local Mountain View family, a demonstration garden, and native bees.







The park is also home to the 2-room Immigrant House (in process of being restored), representative of field worker housing when Santa Clara County was an agricultural powerhouse known as the Valley of Hearts Delight.  Here is a peek through a window of the Immigrant House (I wonder if they came from the land of ice and snow?)





Moving on to Shoreline Park, we see some golden mushrooms sprouting up next to the trail.





A ruddy duck swims in the lake.





Shoreline Lake.





Pied-billed grebe.







A pair of mallards near the shore.





Another look at the lake.





One of a trio of Canada geese flies overhead toward the lake, almost too fast for my camera.





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Monday Movies: Horoscope Shadows


Monday Movies: 20 seconds (more or less) of video from the world around me.

This week: Twenty-four seconds of shadows flickering across the newspaper horoscopes.  Enjoy.




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Babelfishing Poetry: "Like Snakes, They Know"


OK, boys and girls, ready or not, it's time for more Babelfishing poetry, where I take song lyrics, run them through an on-line translator such as (but not necessarily) Babelfish, experiment with the punctuation a bit, and wind up with a quirky kind of poem.

This week's featured song, from power-popsters The Smithereens, is "Behind The Wall Of Sleep" (watch video here).  Enjoy. 


Like Snakes, They Know

But again, saying it's like hair in 1965, William Shrimpton.
I will never believe that the true face of his illness
turned back to the middle.
It's always cold and always
Japanese black charcoal colour of garments.
When I am in the room and said to kill Chongag,
I'm glad it's limited.

Bass string instrument, and
always, the only party.
Ordinance draft.
Current and maximum powder.
Primary current.
Do you want his good friends? Then I will
find the Tao.
Like snakes, they know.

Definitely have his friends dance.
Only Denmark, the city of life.
That wine. On your phone.
Colleagues around the house.
Now, as the first.
If you dapeg me.
If you know the pottery is very near
to them, you know, like a snake.

Now I am in bed; it's a lie.
Sometimes they cry.
Then it will go back to bed.
Wall bed was the apparent from exciting news;
walls in the news.


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San Jose Museum of Art


The weather on the weekend was too showery and chilly for me, so on Sunday D. and I went to the San Jose Museum of Art to look at their art.  Here are some of the pics I took before I got too tired and we had to leave.


A flag in the stairwell is part of another exhibit.





The gallery with the "Louise Nevelson: The Fourth Dimension" exhibit.





The Propeller Group's installation regarding some kind of (apparently ironic) commercial for communism they developed. 





One of the Chihuly glass sculptures inside the museum's entry.





Some of the Raimonds Staprans exhibit.







The stairs leading up from the lower level.




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Monday Movies: Stanford Shuttle 2


Monday Movies: 20 seconds (more or less) of video from the world around me.

This week: Twenty-five more seconds of traveling in the Stanford patient shuttle between the hospital and parking garage, after my echocardiogram last December.  Enjoy.




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Babelfishing Poetry: "Why Are You So Bloody Crazy?"


Hello? How are you?  Hope you're very well, fine, and dandy.  I am going in today to have more blood drawn for a comprehensive metabolomic ME/CFS study.  The researchers told me I can expect to have 10 or 11 tubes drawn.  Among other things, this study hopes to define the molecular immunology of ME/CFS and identify genetic factors and potential molecular biomarkers via genome sequencing, possibly leading to a fast, inexpensive diagnosis of ME/CFS and perhaps new treatments for patients.  I may not live long enough to benefit personally from this, but I am glad to help participate in this research for the greater good of patients around the world who are desperately struggling with this devastating illness.

So, while the researchers are doing their thing today, let's enjoy some more Babelfishing poetry, where I take song lyrics, run them through an on-line translator such as (but not necessarily) Babelfish, convolute the punctuation a bit, and wind up with a quirky kind of poem.

The Jamaican reggae group Inner Circle brings us this week's featured song, "Bad Boys," a.k.a. the Cops TV show theme song (watch video here).  Enjoy. 


Why Are You So Bloody Crazy?

Clay man, sexy thoughts.
What do you think I want to do?
Our other death, Security Officer Peter, alarming.
Go to church or something.

Drying clay man, hey bad boy, what is it that you want,
players in the region?
Bad boy, bad boy, at least I understand.
We in the region.

You serve as a eight-can face.
To ride a horse, and a high school passion rules.
Why are you so bloody crazy?
Cold hot water.

Simply drag and drop
our global membership.
My mother threw
your father.

My brother Leslie.
My elder sister, quite.
Simply drag and drop
capacitor loss.

Time is something.
The other police, per our third harmony.
Do not do that to him, a soldier.
Watching him, it's time to pay for online support.

He is a sphere.
The people you know,
like her father and his mother.
In the darkness, exhibition ceremonies;
I don't want it to happen quickly.

Rough, and token charity gift.
Drying clay man, hey clay man, limited edition came up.
Instantaneous time articles.


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