That button on the floor is the horn. It has reversible wicker chairs, a smoking section, and art nouveau typography on all of the original signage. This image should be large enough to read the engraving: https://i.imgur.com/BG0jG0c.jpeg

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/8784

https://xcancel.com/WhiteHouse/status/1947462498564673995?lang=en

Come on gang. It makes sense.

In this video we return to West Oakland, California to inspect the illegally-planted (but eventually authorized by the city) garden on Mandela Parkway, giving it a full species survey of rarities that were planted there including the Big Cone Pinion Pine, Pinus maximartinezii, as well as the inglorious Puya x berteroniana, Agave vilmoriniana (Octopus Agave), Quercus rugosa (Mexican net leaf oak) and many more.

We also check out some of the trees planted on side streets, including dawn redwoods, giant sequoias, and coast redwoods

[suburbia]

LA's autonomy and safety are being threatened with violence from local and federal sources. But that only draws the community more closely together in solidarity. LA is doing what it's best at, hanging out at the park, eating good food, being annoying, creating traffic, and shooting content!

As Angelenos came together to defend our rights and demand self-governance, the streets filled with the sounds of chants, music, and sizzling griddles. I joined the movement and tasted the flavors of resistance:

🍦 Nieve Artesanal – sweet, cold, and made with love by a local vendor. 🍩 Churros – crispy, golden, and shared freely among strangers who became friends. 🌭 LA Street Dog – bacon-wrapped and smothered in grilled onions, as iconic as the city itself.

This wasn’t just a protest—it was a celebration of community, resilience, and the right to be heard.

what the fuck is that about.

From 1867 to 1974, various cities of the United States had unsightly beggar ordinances, retroactively named ugly laws.[1] These laws targeted poor people and disabled people. For instance, in San Francisco a law of 1867 deemed it illegal for "any person, who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, to expose himself or herself to public view."[2][1] Exceptions to public exposure were acceptable only if the people were subjects of demonstration, to illustrate the separation of disabled from nondisabled and their need for reformation.[3]: 47

This region of Colorado, maybe an hour's drive from where this was taken, is where Chronic Wasting Disease was first detected. Our Cervidae species naturally change their elevation based on seasonal habitat availability. They go into the Rockies during high summer when they can forage without snow and retreat to the front range when it's too cold to survive any higher.

The front range was immediately colonised by cattle ranchers and farmers. The ecocide of the bison degraded that land on top of industrial agriculture's impact, as their foraging patterns are different. Between fencing, irresponsible hunting, calorie loss, wildfire/water policy, and the urban development of the front range/foothills the Cervidae were concentrated in the least desirable pieces of high elevation land. Their most genetically healthy were killed for trophies while the isolated breeding pools created what will be dementia covid at some point. CWD is the most horrifying disease I know of and it comes from denying habitat.

I like that this city-managed natural area manages to balance habitat with accessible low-impact hiking. It has a tremendous number of birds and insects. The native grasses are healthy despite recent heatwaves, so the deer and elk can actually seasonally migrate to quality grazing land. It was full of currants and dozens of our 946 native bee species and dead trees pockmarked by woodpeckers. If we had just done this from the start, the world would have been spared The Big One.

One of my favourite native wildflowers, Cleomella serrulata. I saw a few dozen of them today that were covered in a mixture of native bees, wasps, ants, and beetles. There was a really healthy and diverse bird population in that natural area as a result of the robust insect populations and fruiting shrubs.

I hate golf so much that I'm writing a book which features it. It's ecocide as much as it is wholesale genocide for the benefit of sociopaths. As a big urban greenspace guy, they're uniquely infuriating.

Unfortunately I have to do the horticulture at a couple municipal ones. Today I'm pruning the shrubs in one of them and feel a thud against my shoulder. Some golfer hit a ball at full power (160 kph~) in my direction while I'm wearing high visibility gear, somehow hit me with it, and somehow missed bone. It went between my scapula and spine/neck/skull so it's just a really painful bruise. The guy spontaneously came over to apologise which was good enough for me.

Actually feeling physical pain from golf is a whole new dimension of reasons to hate golf. I could always separate myself from it and golfers, but now it's personal. Golf courses aren't just drastically increasing my chance of developing horrific illnesses. They actually made me want to fight a specific person representing all the reasons I hate golf.

If I was a Menshevik hater of golf before, now I am become Bolshevik the destroyer of golf. I fucking hate golf with three asterisks.

https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/1441/concerto-in-f

In addition to continuing to satisfy a large public clamoring for more of his sweet and tender, buoyant and rambunctious songs that could be sung, whistled, and hummed, George Gershwin took another foray into the classics in 1925. This one, the Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra, was even more ambitious than the previous year’s Rhapsody in Blue: a full-fledged concerto in time-honored three-movement form and a work that was all Gershwin, down to his own orchestration, which had not been the case with Rhapsody in Blue.

Those who thought Tin Pan Alley’s super-composer had gotten the “serious” bug out of his system with Rhapsody were wrong—in a way. Although the phenomenally talented and successful songwriter turned in earnest to the serious musical forms of concerto, symphonic poem (An American in Paris), and opera (Porgy and Bess), he didn’t change his musical persona for the concert hall—no split personality for Gershwin. Whereas most American composers of his era, many of whom had far more traditional musical training, were writing in the fashionable European styles, Gershwin cultivated his mother tongue—the one truly original American vernacular: jazz.

It may be true that Gershwin’s style has a highly polished commercial veneer, compared with what is considered real—that is, improvisational—jazz. Still, there is no denying the strength and vitality of the Gershwin product, in whatever form it appears. As for the Concerto in F, it is jazz all the way and a remarkable achievement for a 27-year-old tunesmith.

The Paris connection was extremely important for Gershwin. His admiration for French music is certainly made tangible in the Concerto’s Adagio second movement. An extended (46-bar) introduction confined almost exclusively to winds and brass (no piano at all) conjures an ambience that goes directly to the heart of Debussy and Ravel. Thematically, the main tune that finally emerges in the piano is hinted at early in the introduction by a muted trumpet. The fascinating manipulations of this theme by piano and orchestra and the figurations and filigree that evolve from it show Gershwin at his most inventive and bracing. The construction of the movement is highly original, with the reappearance of the introduction prefacing a piano cadenza that in turn leads into the “big” tune of the movement—a Gershwin song that is, well, irresistibly Gershwin. The melody is given the grand concerto treatment until it is cut off abruptly for a nostalgic, abbreviated return of the motif from the introduction, this time intriguingly scored for piano and flute.

The outer movements are, expectedly, fast ones that the composer, in a brief analytical note, described as follows:

“The first movement employs the Charleston rhythm. It is quick and pulsating, representing the young, enthusiastic spirit of American life. It begins with a rhythmic motif given out by the kettle drums, supported by the other percussion instruments and with a Charleston motif introduced by bassoon, horns, clarinets, and violas. The principal theme is announced by the bassoon. Later a second theme is introduced by the piano.

“The second movement has a poetic, nocturnal atmosphere which has come to be referred to as the American blues, but in a purer form than that in which they are usually treated.

“The final movement reverts to the style of the first. It is an orgy of rhythms, starting violently and keeping the same pace throughout.” —Orrin Howard

Orchestration: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, bells, xylophone, triangle, and strings