petescully - @ 20six.co.uk

sketch crawl

On Sunday I took part in the Davis 'sketch crawl'. I'd seen it on Davis Wiki (or rather, my wife had) - a group of people were to meet up at 10am, armed with pens, pencils and paper, and proceed to circumnavigate Davis, sketching until dark. Not only that, but it would be happening simultaneously in other cities too, such as New York. At the end of it all, the Davis sketchcrawlers would retire to a restaurant or bar to enjoy some food, perhaps a drink, and pass around their sketchpads.

I started well enough, got myself some new paper and new pens, sharpened my pencil, packed a banana as a snack. The idea of walking around drawing in the open air on a Sunday morning in December would be madness in London, but it's been pretty warm here the past few days, so it wasn't too bad. But I quickly lost the group. Sketching's a very solitary thing, sometimes. So despite best intentions, I never made the final get-together (but having met everybody first, this was no big loss). Besides, I felt my sketches were not very inspiring, and I noticed that some of the others had supremely professional water-pens. But let's not blame the tools.

See some of what I did here and here.

13.12.05 10:18

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crawled sketches

black pen, paper; some results of the sketchcrawl around davis, 11 dec 05. I ate a banana.

13.12.05 10:29

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mythocracy now!

Dammit, I hate it when that happens. Today I coined a new word, a brilliant word that I couldn't believe wasn't being used all the time: 'mythocracy'. I wanted to use it to describe the Bush (and not just the Bush, of course) policy of lying to the public until it becomes true, etc etc, I had it all planned out, but I thought I'd google the word anyway, and see what I found. and I found that this sacred cow dung guy claims he invented it first, back in the 70s! I also find it being used, on another site, to describe Bush's 'theocratic mythocracy'. furthermore, I find it being absolutely wasted on a site called mythocracy.net.

I know I should be celebrating a new and exciting word that really should be getting out more, but now I can't be bothered. Curse you, google!

14.12.05 09:19

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dear george

Oh George, George, when will it all be over? When will you put us out of our misery and leave office? When will you realize that America needs somebody with a brain larger than a pea to govern the nation? You moan because your country says it is wrong to illegally spy upon American citizens, and then you say you do things in the name of 'freedom'. You read your scripts - very badly, I might add - and then forget that you ever linked Saddam Hussein to Al Qaida. You accept that the pre-war intelligence was wrong, in a bid to win us over, but then state that going to war was right anyway, even though your original actual argument was proven to be utterly flawed. You go on national television - in the daytime, when nobody is watching - and tell us that 30,000 Iraqis have died since you began your quest to 'liberate' them (presumably from this mortal coil), with a smirk on your face. Then you go on national television tonight and tell us earnestly that "for every life lost, there are countless more reclaimed", when you know full well that you can't come back from the dead unless you are Dirty Den.

And those that disagree with you? You simply dismiss them as "defeatists" and tell them they are "giving in to despair". And you tell us that when 9/11 happened the US wasn't even in Iraq, yet the terrorists still attacked anyway, forgetting that they attacked America because the US had an air base in Saudi Arabia and supports Israel, not because of Iraq (which was run by somebody who could never tolerate the existence of terrorist groups in his regime). George, you even admit that the terrorists in Iraq now are foreigners who were allowed in after your forces took over! Anybody would think that you want them there, to keep people scared in a way even Saddam couldn't! Old hussein would have been a great ally in your eternal War on Terr'r if your pals and he had stayed friends. And remember how the French and all those other countries stood side by side with you after 9/11, do you remember that? When Jacques Chirac, bless his little soul, said "Nous sommes tous americains maintenant"? And then how you arrogantly tossed their friendship aside when they told you that you had gone too far, and that invading Iraq was wrong on every level? And George, what is all this about America torturing prisoners? And these secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe, surely you realise that they go against all of your so-called 'morals' and 'values', not to mention pretty much all international rules? Oh George, please can you just go back to Crawford, and take Dick and Donald with you?

There is only one "difficult and noble cause" that I can think of, and that is removing you from office and replacing you with somebody who can actually have independent and original thoughts, who can actually have the foresight to know that going to war on flawed intelligence (and that means sexed-up dossiers, too, Mr.Blair) commits America and her citizens to years of bloodshed that could have been avoided. While it may be commendable that Iraqis are going to the polls to find out for themselves that western democracy stinks, it was not our job to make it happen, any more than it is our job to make it happen anywhere else, such as in, say, Saudi Arabia, or China, or any of those other countries that now apparently own and control the financial destinies of the US and Europe. George, you were a failed businessman, a vanishing serviceman and you are an incompetent and unqualified President.

with love, and best wishes on your retirement/impeachment

your good friend pete

19.12.05 08:48

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Week Twelve: Santa's Claws

He has a long white beard, lives in a cave in the North Pole that nobody can find, he has hundreds of splinter cells in major cities around the world, he breaks into people's houses and leaves unmarked packages about the place, and his elusiveness is causing many to question his very existence. I caught up with the man most Americans know as 'Santa' and most Brits call 'Father Christmas' recently, and asked him what he thought of the so-called 'War On Christmas' raging in the US.

"I'm not very Merry about it," he grumbled. "For one thing, I'm the one who does all the work every year, sleighing all over the world, going up and down strange chimneys, delivering presents to orphans, but who gets the credit? Jesus! I mean, they don't call it 'Claus-mas', do they?" He went on to complain that not only does America have no National Elf Service, but also has no mince pies. Surprisingly, he also revealed that he hates it when children leave him milk. "Don't they know I'm lactose intolerant?"

So does he prefer to say 'Merry Christmas' or 'Happy Holidays'? "Holiday? Not for me, mate. Work my woolly hat off, I do." Santa doesn't mince his pies. "The whole Holiday Tree thing made me go 'ho ho ho', I tell you. Who are they offending? You don't see Jewish people calling the Menorah a 'Holiday Candlestick', do you?" Well, there's also Kwanzaa, I reminded him. "Oh yeah, Kwanzaa! What is that, exactly? I mean, nobody had heard of it until a couple of years ago. Is it something Madonna's doing?"

I admitted I wasn't sure myself, but moved things along, asking him finally what list George W Bush was on this year - 'naughty' or 'nice'. "It's very close," he revealed. "I think this one will go right up to Christmas Eve. It could all depend on Ohio."

20.12.05 09:58

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a bleeding liberty

Pen, paper, politics. Follows a story about a crying statue of Mary in Sacramento.

20.12.05 10:08

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Now I Am The Master

Just a couple of days till Christmas, and I finally find out my MA English results...and I passed with a merit! Pretty pleased about it - I even got an A for my 15,000 word dissertation about Anglo-French Antagonism! My wife & I celebrated with a meal at the Cheesecake Factory in Sacramento. Nice!

I am not going to my graduation, though. I'll be five thousand miles away, drawing cartoons of George Bush.

23.12.05 09:17

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he's the little saint nick

So I heard Santa Claus is going to be indicted. Yup, he wanted to secretly tap children all over the world to find out who is naughty and who is nice. "There are some naughty children out there," he protested. "I can't be expected to get court warrants for every child! My list is very, very long, you know." He's also been accused of failing to check his list twice before passing judgement. The press are camped outside his North Pole ranch, waiting for a statement from Rudolph on whether he will be resigning before Christmas Eve. It is just hoped that FEMA will not be taking over delivery of gifts.

I'm reading an interesting book (by Robin Chrichton) about Santa Claus' origins. We all know that he was based on St Nicholas, a bishop from Asia Minor who secretly gave gifts of gold in the dead of night to needy families (and, according to the book, brothels), but he was not associated with Christmas. St Nicholas went on to become the patron saint of Russia, where tales of Nikolai Chudovorits - the 'wonder worker' - flying about on a magic reindeer captivated the people of the snow-bound north.

St Nicholas' body was eventually translated to Bari by the Normans, when three ships sailed from Byzantium to southern Italy - possibly, as the English carol suggests, 'on Christmas day in the morning'. His saint's day was on the 6th December, and when Norman Italy passed to the Spanish, the tradition of the saint passed with it. The Spanish, under the Habsburgs, also ruled over the Netherlands, and it was there that the roots of 'Sinter Klaas' really lie. Envisaged as a Spanish bishop, accompanied by 'Zwart Pietje' (a little black Moorish servant boy, still part of the Dutch tradition where he's played by white kids with blacked-up faces), Sinter Klaas arrives by boat in Amsterdam every year on the 6th December, bringing gifts for children who have been good, and sticks for those that have been bad (so their parents can beat them). These traditions, in turn, date back to the much older Northern European stories of the white-bearded Odin, coming among mankind on the winter solstice to 'carry off naughty children in a howl of wind'. The Sinter Klaas tradition passed across the Atlantic with the Dutch who founded New York, and through anglicisation (of sorts!) eventually became 'Santa Claus'.

In medieval England another figure appeared alongside St Nicholas in the midwinter festivities - 'Old Father Christmas'. Thought to also be a remanant of an Odinistic (or rather, Wodanistic) tradition, he too sported a long white beard and presided over the festive season, the 'Lord of Misrule' in the Feast of Fools. Eventually, during the Reformation, Sinter Klaas and Father Christmas became utterly secularized; in Germany, St Nicholas' medieval bishop outfit was replaced with winter furs, becoming the 'Weihnachtsman'. In much of Europe the tradition of St Nicholas' Eve merged with Christmas Eve itself, as in France, who believed in Pere Noël.

While Father Christmas continued in England, Santa Claus reigned in the US. However the original mitre-topped Sinter Klaas was replaced by a more familiar image in the 1820s by an illustrator for Harpers Illustrated Weekly, who remembered the red fur-clad Weihnachtsmann of his German youth. The Santa that we know, however, was ultimately the product of Coca-Cola advertising in the 1930s. Nowadays, the main difference between the English Father Christmas and the American Santa is that the former wears a red hood, while Mr Claus wears a nightcap. The American Santa, however, does not drink the brandy left out by English families (at least, mine...) - he prefers a nice cold milk.

So that's the man Santa Claus. I'm actually a little sad that here nobody knows him as 'Father Christmas'; 'Santa Claus' always seemed very foreign to me as a kid. So if he does get indicted (or 'Nicked', even), as I hear he might, maybe Father Christmas can step up and take over? True, he'll have to drive his sleigh on the other side of the sky, but he certainly has the experience, if not the US work permit...

Merry Christmas, y'all !

24.12.05 07:54

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Week Thirteen: A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

My wife gave me a bike for Christmas, and I cannot wait to use it. ffice:smarttags" />Davis, being a college town (and flat as a pancake) is a bicycle haven, being the most two-wheel friendly city in the US. The bike lanes are bigger than the car lanes and run all over the place. I think I will have to wait until a little while for the maiden voyage though, because right now it is raining hard, and according to the news there is plenty more to come.fficeffice" />

I swear to you, the news here in California is obsessed with the weather. The nightly headlines always open with the weather, promising downpours and showers, and warnings like “if you go outside, please bring an umbrella.” The local Sacramento station has a snazzy machine, the ‘Doppler Three’, a kind of radar which detects the stormclouds rolling in from the Pacific. Colourful images wash across the screen, commentated by excited forecasters on the verge of seizure. It is their favourite toy, and they play with it as much as possible.

A few weeks ago, the temperature actually dropped below freezing for about an hour or so. It happened overnight, but we had plenty of warning, telling us to “cover over plants” and “keeps pets indoors”. Meanwhile, in other parts of the US, ice-storms are ravaging communities and severe blizzards are blocking up roads and bringing down power-lines. Here in California though, it’s a little bit nippy – ooh, better watch out, better wear them gloves! The rest of the country must think Californians, so unused to adverse weather, are such babies.

It is easy to make fun, of course, and forget that the heavy rain is a serious issue in flood-threatened Sacramento valley. A lot of people are out on the roads over the Holiday Season, and the wet freeways can be very, very dangerous. Already this year California has seen more road-deaths over Christmas than last year – twenty-seven in all. But what gets me about the news service’s over-emphasis on the weather is that it provides a nice distraction from the real news. Shootings are reported every night in Sacramento; it’s like shotgun alley down there, but it almost always comes second to the weather. The other night it was briefly mentioned that President Bush managed to extend the heinous Patriot Act, while Dick Cheney was announcing ‘essential’ budget cuts to medicare and student loans. But it was all glossed over very quickly, because we had to get back to our report from Doppler Three, “Hey, where’s that rain?!”

Coming from the UK, I know about precipitation. It’s even in the national anthem (“Long To Rain Over Us…”). Part of me is even jealous of that Doppler machine – I bet Michael Fish wishes he had one of those back in ’87. But when there is real news going on in America, with its President conducting illegal wiretaps and members of his administration facing indictment after indictment, and when the weather in other states is beyond California’s wildest nightmares, I think it might be a good idea to step away from the Doppler. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to go and try out my bike. Luckily, my wife bought me a rain jacket too.

27.12.05 23:26

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pete's first american christmas

Technically, it wasn't my first Christmas in the US (having spent a week or so in the New York snow back in '02), but it was my first as a resident, and it was great! Christmas Eve was not American, however, but Bavarian. We went to my wife's grandparents' (her grandma is from Bavaria), and celebrated with lots of family, exchanging gifts and singing 'Silent Night' beside the huge tree. In England, we usually do nothing on Christmas Eve, so this was pretty special. One of the great things about being married is the great big new family that comes with it.

The rest of Christmas Eve was spent in front of the fire, with my wife and her mom, drinking vintage Moet & Chandon champagne (toasting my MA), watching "It's A Wonderful Life". I forgot how long that film is, but it is always a classic.

Christmas Day was spent largely in pyjamas, with basketball on tv and wrapping paper on the floor. The gift-exchanging was great fun; I won't go into what I received or gave, lest we say my wife got me a bike (as I may have mentioned) and, among many other things, a can of Pepsi Max!!! You can't get it here, you see, and it's my favourite drink of all time.

For dinner we had fresh Dungeness crab - it's in season in Northern California this time of year, and despite being lots of hard work, it was delicious! Christmas dinner in England for me means turkey and burps, but since that equals Thanksgiving here, Christmas equals fresh crab. But both holidays have this in common - pie! Apple pie and pumpkin pie are always good.

So there you have it, Christmas in America. Yeah, there's also the annoying "Happy Honda Day" commercials, the smell of cinnamon candles in every single shop, the crazy dash to the store next day for the sales and the returns, the angry christians arguing with the angry atheists about the word 'holiday', the lack of Boxing Day but the existence of President Bush (I know, he's always there), and yeah, I was thousands of miles from my own family and friends. I gotta say though, Christmas was great this year, with old traditions continuing, and maybe new ones beginning. Oh - I almost forgot - and a singing deer's-head! You gotta love the singing deer.

28.12.05 05:33

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crawled sketches black pen, paper; some results of the sketchcrawl around davis, 11 dec 05. I ate a banana.
13.12.05 10:29	Permalink / 4 Comment(s) / Comment

a bleeding liberty Pen, paper, politics. Follows a story about a crying statue of Mary in Sacramento.
20.12.05 10:08	Permalink / Comment