Tuesday, December 25, 2012

To All the World

“A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world!”
Charles Dickens 1812-1870

Peace on earth.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Sigh

“The hill pines were sighing,
O'ercast and chill was the day: 
A mist in the valley lying
Blotted the pleasant May.”
Robert Bridges 1844-1930

A misty Mendocino morning last May




Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Upward

“I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.”
Charlotte Bronte 1816-1855

A recent sunset over San Francisco

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Nine Out of Ten Doctors Agree

“For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.”
Lily Tomlin

Enjoying the end of the day on Maui.



Friday, December 14, 2012

BLISFL

“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls”
Joseph Campbell 1904-1987

Or get a vanity plate so your bliss will follow you.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Birds of a Feather

“You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.”
Chinese Proverb

If these are birds of sorrow, I may be in for trouble. Luckily, no hair nests.

Monday, December 10, 2012

California Dreaming

"Humankind cannot bear very much reality."
T. S. Eliot 1888-1965

A man with a sun head creates a very temporary winter wonderland in downtown Livermore, CA.  



Thursday, December 6, 2012

Modern Art

“Do not strive to be a modern artist.
It's the one thing, unfortunately, you can't help being."
Salvador Dali 1904-1989

Shadows and shapes and angles and reflections and light and dark-
a small section of The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.


Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Experience

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 1881-1955

Looking towards the heavens in Taos, New Mexico

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Enough Said

“Every answer you ever need lies within your own silence..”
Ian Tucker



Friday, November 30, 2012

A Requirement

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times,
always with the same person.”
Mignon McLaughlin 1913-1983

This is my daughter Shannon and some guy named John. They’re
getting married next year! They announced it on Thanksgiving
and this is the picture I took a few minutes later. I cropped off
the ring because it was blinding me. Woo hoo!

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

The Edge

“The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place.”
Rachel Carson 1907-1964

And always changing.






Monday, November 26, 2012

Self Portrait

“The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try
and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt.”
Henri Cartier-Bresson 1908-2004

It’s not so hard when it’s my skin and my shirt. The soft shadows
are cast on the side of a water tank.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Long Term Parking

“We need not destroy the past. It is gone.”
John Cage 1912-1992

But this old truck has turned into an ever present sculpture in the garden of
Osmosis Day Spa Sanctuary in Freestone, California.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

A Conjugation

“The whole of nature, as has been said, is a conjugation of the verb to eat,
in the active and in the passive.”
William Ralph Inge 1860-1954

Today we are active. Happy Thanksgiving, USAers.



Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Hemispheric

“Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature
because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods.”
George W. Bush

In fact, I found this product underfoot in my neighboring hood
of San Francisco (Western Hemisphere).



Sunday, November 18, 2012

In Deep

This would be a much better world if more married couples were
as deeply in love as they are in debt.
Earl Wilson 1907-1987

A man and a woman (seductive French music in the background)
and their monthly car payments (scraatch).

Friday, November 16, 2012

Said and Done

“I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about.”
Oscar Wilde 1854-1900

This sign was posted outside a local church. The quote is attributed to Lou Holtz,
the football coach although some say it originally came from Alfred E Neuman.
What, me worry?




Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Pattern

“Painting is the pattern of one's own nervous system being projected on canvas.”
Francis Bacon 1561-1626

Or on brick and aluminum.




Monday, November 12, 2012

Attention

“One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.”
Luciano Pavarotti 1935-2007

My neighbor is enjoying a pre-Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, minus the pie part.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

The City

“It is an odd thing, but everyone who disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco. It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.”
Oscar Wilde 1854-1900

The San Francisco skyline (the current world).

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Happy

“Happy as a duck in water”
Proverb

Better than the other way.









Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Solitude

“I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so
companionable as solitude.”
Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862

This is Coit Tower in San Francisco, separated from it neighboring
skyscrapers by the incoming fog.



Friday, November 2, 2012

Deep In Vines

“To happy convents, bosomed deep in vines,
Where slumber abbots, purple as their wines.”
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) The Dunciad

Harvest time in wine country has arrived. This vineyard near Petaluma
is ready to make its contribution.




Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Pumpkin Brains

“I try to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out.”
Harold T. Stone

But if they did it might look something like this. Happy Halloween everyone!

Monday, October 29, 2012

Gourdgous

“Go thither; and, with unattainted eye,
Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.”
William Shakespeare 1564-1616 Romeo and Juliet

And I will make thy gourd a swan.






Saturday, October 27, 2012

Pile O’ Pumpkins

"Men are like pumpkins. It seems like all the good ones are either taken or they've had everything scraped out of their heads with a spoon."
Anonymous

These pre-scraped-outs are from the 2012 collection.




Thursday, October 25, 2012

Hang Twenty

“How seldom we weigh our neighbor in the same balance with ourselves”
Thomas à Kempis 1380-1471

It does happen occasionally.




Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Carmel Sunset

“How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky
The gorgeous fame of Summer which is fled!”
Thomas Hood 1799-1845

A good time for a stroll on the beach 

Sunday, October 21, 2012

As the World Ferns

"No tears dim the sweet look that Nature wears."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

The leaves are dropping like... leaves.



Friday, October 19, 2012

Time Out

“Time is not a line, but a series of now points.”
Taisen Deshimaru 1914-1982

This is the Berkeley Pier at dusk, stretching out towards Alcatraz Island. The Golden Gate Bridge is in the back, underneath that little squiggly exclamation point cloud.



Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Deadly Combo

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”
Muhammad Ali

These sea nettles can do both. Their long tentacles sting and paralyze prey.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Autumn Heart

“Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower”
Albert Camus 1913-1960

Don’t ya love fall.



Thursday, October 11, 2012

No Obligation

“Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect.”
Margaret Mitchell 1900-1949

Life is a mystery, no?

Image01


Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Relative Values

“Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues
all the utilities of the world.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882






Sunday, October 7, 2012

In My Humble Opinion

“Where id was, there shall ego be.”
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939

We’re number one.   Aren’t we?

Friday, October 5, 2012

Heaven Knows

“Not in Utopia, -- subterranean fields, --
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!
But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us, -- the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!”
William Wordsworth 1770-1850

The distant island below the dark clouds is the Hawaiian island of Kaho’olawe also known as the Target Isle. It was used by the U.S. military as a place to practice bombing and warfare from World War II to 1990.







Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Character and Reputation

"Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow.
The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."
Abraham Lincoln



Monday, October 1, 2012

How to Sell Bread

"If you have two loaves of bread, sell one and buy a lily."
Chinese proverb

A friendly banana bread vender in Upcountry Maui.


Saturday, September 29, 2012

Discipline

"My mother used to rock me — and she used big rocks."
Rodney Dangerfield 1921-2004

This is a different perspective of the same pile of rocks you
may have seen on my August 16th post. 



Thursday, September 27, 2012

Bring It On

 "You can't fight Mother Nature."
Proverb

But you can have fun trying.



Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Wheels Revealed

“The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise”
Benjamin Franklin 1706-1790

But which one makes the loudest color? I found these bright wheels
in a barn in California's gold country.





Sunday, September 23, 2012

Setting Sun

“The sky broke like an egg into full sunset and the water caught fire.”
Pamela Hansford Johnson 1912-1981

The end of the day on Maui.





Friday, September 21, 2012

Banyan Tree

“I think people tend to forget that trees are living creatures. They're sort of like dogs. Huge, quiet, motionless dogs, with bark instead of fur.”
Jack Handey- Deep Thoughts

And you don't need to walk them.


Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Good Morning

“My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.”
Cary Grant 1804-1986

This was the morning part.



Monday, September 17, 2012

Searching

"Abstract art is part of the constant change and vital searching that energizes every art."
Leonard Brooks 1911-2011

This abstraction is an aerial view of the coral reef off the South Molokai coast.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

The Vault of Heaven

“Clouds on clouds, in volumes driven,
Curtain round the vault of heaven.”
Thomas Love Peacock 1785-1866

This is a view from upcountry looking towards west Maui
where clouds are constant companions.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Glory

“Why did men worship in churches, locking themselves away in the dark, when the world lay beyond its doors in all its real glory?”
Charles de Lint

St. Joseph Catholic Church at Kaupo, Maui, Hawai’i was built in 1862 by the missionary Catholic priests who evangelized on Maui beginning in the mid 1800s.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

In the Sea

“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), It’s always our self we find in the sea.”
e.e. Cummings 1894-1962

Big sea, little self.