1. On my walk yesterday, I spied a flyer regarding an appearance today of cartoonist Ivan Brunetti at Stanford’s Levinthal Humanities Center; looks interesting; it says he’s born in Italy, based in Chicago, has six or seven covers for The New Yorker, and did cover art for the fourth album by one of my favorite bands, Tomahawk, “Oddfellows” (reviewed 53 times on Amazon).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIweKFSJEJU

http://www.amazon.com/Oddfellows-Tomahawk/dp/B00A7CP8WQ

2. Terry and I caught remarks by Connie Wolf at Stanford’s Cantor Museum last night, regarding Carleton Watkins show, of old photographs of Yosemite. Connie mentioned that Kenneth Baker of the Chron had already reviewed the show, which impressed me. But when I read the actual review, here at Palo Alto College Terrace library (where I still occassionally use the shared computer terminals), I was struck by how omenous Baker’s review was, compared to Wolf’s characterization of it. He noted that when there was a show in SF at MOMA a few years back, more was made of how much encroachment there has been on our natural resources in the ensuing years. Also, he notes some of the tragedy in the photographer’s life, such as ending his days in a mental hospital in Napa.

I believe Connie Wolf also mischaracterized what Kenneth Baker said about the catalog: it is a bargain, relatively, at $40, but “deal of the year” not deal of the century.

3. I recognized Janet Duca Norton, the society columnist for The Daily News, by her nametag, and was tempted to speak with her about Eve Ensler, but decided it wasn’t much of an opening. When Duca Norton wrote about Ensler appearing at Castilleja School, a few years ago, I thought it odd she did not mention Ensler’s most famous work. Flash forward, so to speak, to 2013 and the Paly High Principal, according to the Palo Alto Weekly, is basically undone for telling students not to miss the Ensler appearance there. And I’m doing a Duca Norton by not mentioning the taboo words herein.

outro: something awkwafina:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z726OPwCnjE

edit to add, moments later: I’m also flashing to my Pulitzer-Prize winning former colleague at The daily Dartmouth Dan Fagin and his comments about Swiss physician Paracelsus about the difference between a potion and a poison is the dose: quotes from the Chron, white wine, the chemicals inherent in producing history-making large format photo-prints or industrial dyes, and that word that Duca Norton and I cannot udder.

4. or back to brunetti, I could not find the comics insert featuring Brunetti’s work of the McSweeney newspaper, but I did find this comment I posted four years ago, i.e. pre-dating “Plastic Alto” the blog:

This thing rocks. I bought it yesterday — looking for the Chron at Keplers in Menlo Park, then decided to upgrade. Spent about an hour with it, while doing my laundry. Off to Coupa to keep digging into it, keep digging it. I hope they do version 2.0. I want to do something like that here in Palo Alto, maybe under the name PLASTIC ALTO. Or PAPER ALTO??? Mark W, worked on high school and college papers