still-sound 218. The Garden

The garden in La Redorte didn't always look like this.  In fact this is an 'after' picture.  I didn't think to take a 'before' picture because I was focused on clearing out the wild jungle that had emerged in the year since I last visited the house in France.  Brennan and I were motivated to take the project on.  We both love plants and enjoy the physicality of gardening - but when we first arrived at the house and found that we couldn't walk very far into it because of these enormous vines bearing tiny purple berries that blocked every path, we knew the job would present no shortage of challenges.

First we ordered two 'big bags' of gravel.  Each 'big bag' bears one ton of rocks.  I suppose the French like to say 'beeg bag' rather than 'grand sac', at least those in the building profession.  Les big bags arrived on a flat bed truck that barely fit down the tiny road.  The operator of the truck controlled the crane from a remote control unit hanging from his neck.  The movements were fluid, precise and controlled.  I feel such an operation would never happen in LA but for some reason, in rural France, it seemed to be no problem.  When the driver finished and the sacks were positioned by the front door, I said to him "Quel spectacle! Je suis vraiment impressione!" to which he replied "C'est d'habitude."  Piece of cake.  Piece of gateau...

Brennan and I transported the four tons of gravel one wheelbarrowful at a time.  We created ramps to go up and down stone walkways.  We had to replace the wheel once.  We went to bed sore every night.  We used stones left over from earlier projects where holes were knocked out of the three foot thick walls of the house to create a new door and a larger window from the kitchen.  They become borders along the edges of the new planted areas.  We created a planter in the front garden with the stones and filled it with jasmine.  The climbing jasmine is a variety named after the city of Grasse, the perfume capital of the world.  The few blossoms that still opened in September released an intense, beautiful scent.

We made a raised circle in the center of the back garden and planted a mature olive tree.  We lined the back border with pink oleander which will hopefully grow substantially and become a privacy screen. We filled the rest of the new spaces, enriched with bagged soil with verbena, plants that look like Russian sage but are not, rosemary, blue fescue grass and a highly fragrant rose.  

After we completed the garden, Brennan and I used any moment we could find to sit on the cafe chairs, drink wine and notice the sound of the breeze through the leaves and the perfume of the fig tree filling the air.

still-sound 217. The Price is Right

The Los Angeles Derby Dolls have moved from Echo Park to East Los Angeles, only a stone's throw from the house.  Brennan got us tickets to go see LA compete against the team from Minnesota.  Brennan and his roommate Iisac used to live in Minneapolis and would regularly go to roller derby.  They supported their Midwestern sisters, while Rob, Derrick and I cheered for LA.  LA clobbered them, something like 214 to 41.  I thought it was nice how the announcer tried to make the defeated team feel better, pointing out that this had been their second bout of the day.  At the end they started playing the theme music to The Price is Right.  Not sure why, but it made me realize how upbeat and cheery the tune was.  

This morning I found the theme music and put it in a new playlist I created called August 15.  I told Brennan how I was going to play the music at the perfume store where I work and make all of the customers guess the prices.

On my way into work I stopped by Blick to buy art supplies.  I had a coupon that would allow me 20% off a total purchase over $50.  I picked up some pieces of wood for carving, some pens, sketchbooks and a set of French Curves.  I didn't bother to calculate,  I know how things just add up.  When I went to the checkout to pay, the total bill came to $49 and change.  The sales associate said that I'd have to get one more thing to be able to use the coupon.  I grabbed one more pen.  She said "You're really good at shopping!  You should be on The Price is Right."

still-sound 216. Fahrenheit

Today I drove downtown to buy Fahrenheit.  It's always been one of my favorite fragrances.  The smell of it brings me back to the mall in the 80s.  I've always obsessed over scents.  I'd leave my mom to look at clothes in the department stores on a Saturday night and I'd creep over to the perfume counters and try on every fragrance.  I know only an old man would say this, but they really knew how to make 'em back then.  I am an old man - I know. But it's true. The original Fahrenheit was perfection.

I knew that I'd probably find an old bottle of Fahrenheit at Universal Perfumes on Los Angeles Street.  They have everything.  Tons of mall classics from all decades.  On my way there I crossed over the 7th Street bridge from Boyle Heights and noticed the new Silverlake Wines at Mateo Street.  I pulled over and stopped inside.  On my way back to the car I noticed a new store - the gates were up over the windows and two women were unpacking boxes and setting objects on to the counters.  The objects looked hand crafted and Japanese.  They saw me squinting through the windows and beckoned me to come in.

I looked at a lacquered wooden bowl that had been hand-lathed.  It was made in the Ishikawa Prefecture.  I bought it.  The women seemed pleased.  I may have been their first customer.  The shelves and cabinetry were gorgeous.  I asked who made them.  One of the women explained that a woodworker in Korea made everything and they had it shipped over.  Wow.  The store was called The Good Liver.  It's my new favorite store.

After the Good Liver I parked my car on Crocket Street, near Skid Row.  I walked over to Universal Perfumes from there because parking is a nightmare downtown and i know that you can park on Crocket Street.  I felt stupid walking past a campus of tents and homeless people with a hand made Japanese bowl in my bag and a (fake) Rolex on my wrist.  I reached Universal Perfumes and asked for the oldest bottle of Fahrenheit.  It smells like the gorgeous scent that I remembered from the 80s - pre reformulation.  I bought a bottle and sprayed myself three times.

still-sound 215. Kittens and a Momma

There's a feline family living in my garden.  They just appeared around two weeks ago, a Momma cat and maybe five kittens.  They mostly hide in the lavender or watch me walk to my car while crouched under oleander leaves.  Sometimes from my bedroom window I see them on the driveway playing or all nuzzled up, nursing from Momma.

I keep a bowl of water out for them and every evening around 7 I leave a plate of food.  I can tell that they've become used to this routine and expect me to be consistent.  When I come home from work and get out of my car, I see their faces poking out from the shrubs reminding me of our little arrangement.  I wish I could keep one but I'm severely allergic to cats and they are most decidedly outdoor animals.

I need to call this woman I've heard of who will collect stray and feral cats, have them fixed and then return them or try to find foster homes.  I feel like I'm supposed to ask my next door neighbor if the Momma cat is his pet.  If so, I wonder if I should ask for his permission.  The kittens will grow up and then produce even more families to fend for themselves on the the streets of East Los Angeles.  But I don't think I will approach the neighbor.  If the cats do belong to him I don't think he cares.  The only thing he seems to care about is moving the beat up station wagon parked outside his house to the other side of the street on Wednesday mornings for street cleaning, then moving it back at 12:00 on the dot, when parking is permitted again.  He leaves the ugly car there at all times, except Wednesday mornings so that no one will park outside of his ugly house.  One time I brought my garbage cans down to the street on garbage night.  I left them next to my driveway towards his driveway - only because his brother had a massive truck parked on the other side of my driveway.  He came to my house to complain the next day.  He said that I didn't respect him.  

still-sound 214. Oh Good Grief!

The other morning I listened to a Vince Guaraldi record called Oh Good Grief!  I had heard one of its songs on the radio last week called 'You're in Love Charlie Brown'.  There were more electric instruments on the track than what I would have expected from Guaraldi.  The early 70s vibe of it made me think that Stereolab must have listened to this album a lot.  I found the record on Ebay and a few days later started playing it at home.  Schroeder is crouched over the piano on the cover and Snoopy has glasses and a mustache.

I completed my morning by brewing some coffee and snipping some flowers from my garden and putting them in a vase.  The purple flowers are heliotrope.  I don't know what the blue ones are called but I did grow them from a packet of seeds last year.  I like how the leaves look like dill.

still-sound 213. Fragrances at the end of a day

I took this picture from the house in France.  I like how it shows the color of the light
outside just before it gets dark.

Today I added a song to my current Spotify playlist by a pianist named Mine Kawakami.  My favorite TV show, At Home With Venetia in Kyoto regularly features Kawakami's music.  Her music sounds a little Classical with a hint of new age, like George Winston playing Bach.  Bright, simple and relaxing. I'm surprised it took me so long to look Kawakami up on Spotify but when I finally did I was pleased to discover a lovely piece I hadn't already known.  It's called Fragrances at the end of a day.  The title appeals to me.  I've found that the scents of trees, lawns and flowers seem to saturate and amplify as the sun goes down.  The evening smells considerably different than day.  

The first time I noticed the evening-scent-effect was as a very young kid.  I must have been particularly young since most of the memory seems to be hazy, but I do remember the smell perfectly.  My father was a photographer and would take pictures for various local businesses for advertisements and catalogs.  One of his clients was a stained glass maker named Morgan Bockius.  One day my dad came home from the Bockius workshop with a brown paper bag full of colorful glass beads, droplets and ornaments.  At that point in my life this was the greatest surprise I had ever received.  

My sister started taking piano lessons with Claire, the wife of Morgan Bockius.  My family was once invited to visit their home and workshop.  We walked through their expansive back garden.  They may have even owned a horse, but I remember nothing about this visit until the sun had almost entirely retreated.  The lawn was mown but not raked.  All the greens of the trees and shrubs were dark and shadowy signalling night.  The air was thick with a perfume which I now know to be hay.  That luscious, coumarin,  almond-cherry scent of hay.  My young nose had never smelled anything like it before.  We went inside the house because the air was becoming chilly.  We sat around a kitchen table lit by a yellow incandescent lamp and ate Brazil nuts from a bowl.  I had never had Brazil nuts before and would not have them again for, maybe twenty years or so.  My family wasn't a Brazil nuts kind of family.  I wouldn't know that the smell that intoxicated me that night was coumarin / hay until well over thirty years after the Bockius visit. 

When I was sixteen I asked my dad if he could ask Morgan Bockius if he needed or wanted an apprentice.  It seemed like the coolest thing someone could possibly do.  How cool would it be if I could now say that I apprenticed a stained glass maker as a teenager?  But I didn't.  I didn't have my driver's license until after I graduated high school and I assumed my dad wouldn't want to drive me to an unpaid internship.  

still-sound 212. Joshua Tree

Brennan and I stayed in Joshua Tree last weekend to celebrate his birthday.  We found a house out in the middle of nowhere.  We borrowed Rob's car (because it's so much nicer for road trips than my car.  Actually it's just nicer) and drove it down dirt roads to finally arrive at a little rental house.  There were swings outside and vast desert views.

I had never seen actual Joshua trees until this trip.  They're like the palm trees in LA except the palms are shorter and make the tree look hairy as they dry.  They grow into unexpected shapes making them appear like humans or monsters.  

On our second night we built a fire outside and sat on lounge chairs drinking wine, looking for constellations and listening to Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66.  Then we drank some more.  I had hoped (in vain) that we'd see UFOs, or at least one. 

We drove to the National Park the following morning and climbed over big rocks.  Some formed cave-like passages. We entered some. 

We filled Rob's car with cacti and desert shrubs that we bought at a nursery and headed back to LA.  Two hours later, we presented Rob with a fragrant orchid to thank him for letting us borrow his car.  

The day after Brennan's birthday he received a call from his mom to let him know that his cat had died the previous day.  When he moved to LA four years ago his mom agreed to look after Kitty at her home in Wisconsin.  I imagine they became very close.  When I got to Brennan's house in the evening his eyes were red and stung.  We drank more wine.  

I drew a picture based on a photo of Kitty.  We placed it on a table and looked at it while burning a stick of incense.