Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss

I’m a gonna speak to City Council in about 30 minutes, after 14 or so speakers, about butterflies literally and metaphorically.

1. Eleanor Laney, Palo Alto Garden Club, was tabling at California Avenue farmers’ market Sunday about monarch butterflies and planting milk weed here. I donated $10 and went home with two plants, now sitting in their respective boxes on our porch.
2. I recall speaking by phone to a Juanita Salisbury of Palo Alto who planted a “pollinator zone” at Guinda and Embarcadero. It attracts bees. Laney said she knows Salisbury, and Juanita, later, confirmed such.
3. I pulled up on my handheld from the Earthwise Gallery of Posters on my wordpress Plastic Alto blog a 1997 poster design created by Michele Nelson who married to become Michele Ester Turner (1965-2016). It was for the bands Calobo and Sweet Virginia at Cubberley, in 1997 and was a digital print poster (about 200 run) of a butterfly (but Laney said it was not a monarch). I read recently that Michele had passed away, and I am speaking today partly to honor her memory.
4. I’m also thinking about “Chaos Theory” and “The Butterfly Effect”. I’m not expert. What I mean is it is hard to predict effects due to causes. If you excuse the political metaphor, I am saying that there is alot more going on here, on the grassroots level, then you would know if you only follow the “party line” which, to my mind, tries to propulgate a monoculture of ideas and discourages dissent. (I’m just sayin’). In the cases of the butterfly and the bees projects, these are viable and could have ongoing support and significance, belying their humble (bumble) current states.
5. Background: A Sound of Thunder, a story from 1952 by Ray Bradbury, dealing with space travel and time tourism and the effect, ironically, of leaving the path. (It impacted the use of language, and spelling, and outcome of an election. Also: Edward Lorenz, who went to Dartmouth and studied weather. Not to be confused with Henrik Lorentz, a physicist. There’s also a Simpson’s episode on this concept, or popular notion of such.
6. My concert featured four bands: Calobo (from Oregon), Laura Kemp Band (from Oregon), Sweet Virginia (from SF, but featuring Clint Bennett from Gunn on guitar), and Shelly Doty, of Berkeley, formerly of Jambay of Oregon. Calobo two members later joined a more popular band, The Decemberists. 1997. Write-up in the Weekly. Clint went on to make soundtracks for network TV shows, in Hollywood.
7. edit to add, five minutes later but eight speakers before my hit: Clint Bennett did the music for Bunheads, a show TMW then Terry My Terry watched several episodes of, of which Terry and I watched several episodes. I recall reaching Clint around then to catch up. I mis-identify Clint in a previous Calobo/Sweet Virginia post, confusing his name with that of a local jazz instrumentalist and maybe singer. I don’t recall if I asked Michele Nelson if she knew Clint Bennett. She went to Paly, he Gunn. I should post separately about the subset of posters designed by Michele.