Waiting For The Election

The last presidential election (in 2016) ended with a very bad result.  We are told, as citizens, that if we don't like our elected representatives then it is our right to replace them at the next election.  We've had to wait four long seemingly endless years for that opportunity and now it's right around the corner.  Just a few days away.

The waiting has been torturous.  To measure it, right after the 2016 election I installed a countdown clock in the right column of Mixed Meters.  It listed the number of years, months and days until we the people could turn Donald Trump into a loser.  Wouldn't that be nice.

As the election date loomed closer and closer, it has become clear that the counter widget is a few days off.  Hey, this is just a blog.  At Mixed Meters close is good enough.

Almost every day this year I've been obsessively reading news articles about the election.  If you're in the U.S. I think you know what those articles are about:

• Trump wants to suppress the vote, 
• Trump told a bunch of lies, 
• Trump has a chance of winning, 
• Trump might steal the election, 
• Trump will ruin the country even more in a second term.

By this time next week maybe we'll know who the winner is.  I sure hope we will.  The waiting might be over after four endless years.  I find it hard to stop thinking about it.

Today I needed an escape.  So I took my camera outside into our backyard and driveway and shot some pictures of whatever I happened to find out there.  It was sunny and warm, but not too sunny and not too warm.  Just right.

To start, here are some close-ups of a fence.

We built this fence 13 years ago when Chowderhead came to live with us.  It has deteriorated quite a bit.  Time does that.  

I took pictures of Leslie's carnivorous plants.

This fly actually flew into the pitcher plant while I watched it.  Pitcher plants are designed so flies can't escape from them.  It flew down about an inch before it realized the danger it was in.  "Holy shit," I heard it scream, "I better get the fuck out of this dangerous place." and it flew away.  Maybe it was actually talking about politics in the United States in the year 2020.

I took some pictures of plants which don't eat insects.

The last one - the curly cactus - is one of my favorites among all of Leslie's plants.

And I took some selfies.  You'd have done the same, I bet.  I kept seeing my reflection in windows.  I look pretty unhappy in the first one because I was thinking about Donald Trump.  It's hard not to think about Donald Trump these days.  Not thinking about him was the whole idea behind this post.  I'm not doing too well. 

The lines on my forehead are reflections from something inside the house - possibly our microwave.  Also, can you say 'double chin'?  I thought so.

The last three selfies also show more pitcher plants.   Leslie has a lot of them.

I even took one picture of Leslie looking out at me through a window.  Yes, I got her permission before I uploaded it.  Tomorrow is our 28th wedding anniversary.  Love you, honey.

There is one more shot.  Our two ceramic backyard icons, another happily married couple, Irving (he's on the left) and Happy.  We bought them in 2004 in Los Olivos so they've been together for 16 years.  Irving appeared in Mixed Meters previously here.

Only a couple days to go before the election.  Irving and Happy can't vote.  I hope you voted.  If not, do it now.  Right now.

If Donald Trump loses I will reset the counter to show the number of days until the inauguration on January 20, 2021.  After that Mixed Meters may not need a counter.  That will make me happy.

If the devil is victorious and Donald Trump gets re-elected, I will reset the counter until election day in 2024.  And we can all just cross our fingers that the nation survives until then.  Good luck, America.  We're gonna need it.

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Here are a links to political news sites which I have found useful this year:

Electoral Vote

What the Fuck Just Happened Today?

Political Wire

Arboretum With Peacocks

This post is about a short walk in a park.

In this case the park is the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia California - Arcadia is one city east of Pasadena - a place where many pea fowl live and squawk.

Remarkably the Arboretum has been open to visitors in this time of the Coronavirus.  Leslie and I took an hour-long stroll there several days ago.  In this time of shelter in place we were happy to get out to somewhere beautiful.

On the same day we visited, the L.A.Times ran this article about how and why the Arboretum has stayed open during the pandemic.  (Quick answer: wide roads.) 

While we were there I took a few pictures.  Landscapes aren't really my thing.  (Click on these shots and somehow they get bigger.)

This tree-trunk face looks to have a third eye.  Or maybe it's a doctor wearing a head mirror.

I also shot some video.  Later I added music.  The music is adapted from two old 30-Second Spots: Druella's Four-part Gossip Reel (which I composed Oct. 4, 2004) and Nothing to Wear (composed Oct. 5, 2004).   I'll let you guess which is which:

Arboretum with Peacocks by David Ocker © 2020 - 96 seconds

Leslie called it March of the Peacocks

Previous Los Angeles Arboretum-related MM posts:
Squawk! (a video about the noise peacocks make)
Water With Ducks (another avian-based video - wait for the Wagner quote)

Cactus Flower

Today is the fourteenth anniversary of Mixed Meters.  Feeble yay.

To celebrate, here's a picture of a cactus flower.

Now, a quiz: How is a cactus flower like this blog?

Answer: a cactus doesn't often get new flowers and this blog doesn't often get new posts.

My very first post in 2005 addressed the issue of infrequent posting.  Here's the whole thing:

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In which David fails to find an interesting first comment

Every new adventure begins with the words "Why am I doing this?" It would be so much easier not to bother trying new things.

If you, future person reading these words, discover that this blog hasn't changed in months . . . years . . . then you'll know I couldn't find a good answer for the question.

My philosophy will be . . . keep it short.

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Fascinating, huh?

And here's another quiz question for you, O Future-Person-reading-these-words: Why am I doing this? 

Please write your answers on a postcard and send them to the comment section.  The winner receives a four year stay at the Trump property of their choice, no expenses paid.

Finally . . .
In celebration of Mixed Meters' august September anniversary I created a video from my cactus flower picture.

The video is entitled Cactus Flower.  The picture above is the only visual component.  If you watch very closely you might notice some slight changes as time passes.

I suggest watching at the largest size and highest resolution available to you.

Cactus Flower © 2019 David Ocker - 190 seconds.

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If you enjoyed the music, you might also like these pieces.

Quiz question #3:  How were the visual transformations done?  Answer: Deep Dream Generator.

The Last Strawberry Plant

Years ago Leslie optimistically planted some strawberries in our back yard. The plants did not thrive in our hot dry summers, although one of them has survived against all odds.  We thought it too would soon be a goner.

Recently that remaining plant was moved a few feet so it sits under an avacado tree. This new spot seems to have given it a new lease on life.  It still doesn't produce much fruit, but the plant is flowering and is showing potential.

Here is the entire strawberry crop from the last two weeks.

The plant is in a big cloth pot.  The bricks and the dog have nothing to do with this story.

I noticed a praying mantis on one of the leaves.

I shot some video of Mr. or Ms. Mantis.  Watch in hi-def for less than a minute.  Keep your eyes on the scurrying ants.

The music is the opening from my piece Allegro (Winter 2013 short version) from The Seasons.

Read about another fruit on Mixed Meters: In which I remember the Great Cranberry Scare of 1959

Breezes In The Danger Garden

Back in April I posted pictures of Leslie's carnivorous plants thriving in her garden. I called it the Danger Garden.  Dangerous only if you're an insect.

Here's a plant that didn't make that post.  It's called a Rainbow Plant, very small and delicate and gorgeous.  But still a carnivore.

I also shot lots of video.  I was fascinated by the plants swaying in the wind.  I spliced the least unsteady video segments into a sequence, rather at random, and began adding music.

Before long I had to put the project aside, only one third complete, in favor of real work.

I returned to the project several weeks ago and, to be honest, I didn't like what I heard.  The music was way too busy for aimlessly bobbing plants.  So I started decomposing - moving things around, adding silence, cutting things out, thinning the herd.  (Or should I say 'thinning the heard'?)

Then, using the time-honored musical technique called Cut and Paste, I expanded what remained to the necessary length.  After some tucks and tweaks, adjustments and embellishments, fiddling and fixing, and finally a lot of random transpositions both vertical and horizontal, I made the music fit the video.

"Good enough," I exclaimed to no one in particular.  "Not your best work," I told myself in the mirror the next morning.

So here it is, Breezes In The Danger Garden, by David Ocker (© 2016 by David Ocker 395 seconds.)  It's good enough.  Just click it to play it:

I could have spent hours more doing tucking and tweaking on Breezes in the Danger Garden and it would have remained, in my opinion, only good enough.

The issue here is my opinion.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the opinions I form of my own work.  That's because self-evaluation is the only evaluation I get.  No one else tries to understand or explain what I do.  Fair enough.

The final product, my actual music, however it sounds, might be great art -- although it probably isn't.  And how would I know one way or the other?

You'd think by now I'd have an instinct or a set of tools for evaluating the quality of music, developed over decades of writing, hearing and thinking about music.    This is different than knowing what I like and what I don't like; I know that subjectively.  My likes change over time.  Knowing what's good or bad ought to be more objective, right?  Permanent.  Something others agree on.

So here's the problem: I no longer trust my ability to distinguish good from bad, even in my own music.  Especially in my own music.  That's why, when I read about the notion of illusory superiority it made sense to me.  The idea grabbed me and wouldn't let go.

Simply stated, it made me realize that I believe I'm a better composer than I actually am.  A kind of self-protective mechanism.  I guess it prevents me from getting depressed.  In other words, a useful delusion.  And, based on what the Internet tells me, many people in our society display this tendency in all sorts of ways.

Now it's not my job, as the writer of an ego blog like Mixed Meters, to explain issues of pop psychology to you.  You could just do a Google search for "illusory superiority".  Then you can read what other people have written and I won't need to try to explain it.  And you won't need to try to understand it.

Meanwhile I've concluded that the notion that I think I'm better at my endeavors than I actually am probably applies to all my creative pursuits.  And if you've read this post to the very end, it probably applies to you too.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed Breezes in the Danger Garden.

From The Danger Garden

Spring is a nice time in Southern California.  Like Springs everywhere plants here begin to grow again.  And so it is with Leslie's collection of carnivorous plants.  We call them CPs for short.  She has a lot of CPs in her garden.  It's a dangerous place to be if you're an insect.

(Click on any picture for better viewing.)

In the winter she cuts these little insect-meat eaters back and we wait for new shoots to sprout out in the brighter sun and higher temperatures.  Or maybe we wait for new sprouts to shoot out.  This year has not disappointed.  In fact it's been downright amazing.  I have taken many photographs.

Leslie grows multiple varieties of Saracennia, commonly known as Pitcher Plants.  These bad boys trap their unsuspecting little buggers in tall horn-like pitchers.  The pitchers have a cap on them giving them the profile of a large animal with its mouth open.

The different varieties are colored with combinations of green and red and white.  There are colored veins of great intricacy.  And little hairs that help ensnare dinner.

Before the pitchers form, they send out thin stalks with a round bulb on the end.  This becomes the flower with droopy petals.

The plants send out flat stalks which slowly open into the pitchers.  Then they just spend the rest of the year waiting for food to fly right in.

Leslie has many other varieties of CPs.  Here are a few pictures of Sundews.  This guys full name is Drosera capensis.  Sundews catch their food using little balls of stickum from which a hapless six-legger can't escape.  Clever.

Here's a drosera flower stalk with delicate purple flowers.  Apparently there's a good reason CPs have tall flower stalks.  They need to trick insects into pollinating them.  If the flowers are too close to the parts of the plant which catch the insects, pollination won't happen.  Once the plant sex is over, however, the insect is back on the menu.

Other Mixed Meters posts in which carnivorous plants play a role.
Freud Was Wrong About the Cigar
Carnivorous Plants (with pictures of many different types of CPs)

Carnivorous Plants

A few years ago Leslie acquired some strange little plants which get their nourishment by eating insects. She purchased these from a vendor at a local plant show. I was skeptical about them at first until I noticed that the number of flying insects in our yard had decreased noticeably.

The vendor is Don Elkins and he calls his company Mesa Exotics. Last weekend we visited his greenhouse in Arroyo Grande, near San Luis Obispo. While Don and Leslie talked exitedly about the care and feeding of these little meateaters, I amused myself by snapping a lot of pictures.

(Click on any picture for an enlargement. Hover over them for a bit of description)

Leslie was kind of like a kid in a candy shop.  We returned with a car full of bits of unusual and unfamiliar vegetation, all of it designed to make an insect's life a short one.

Outside, next to empty farmland, was a field of pitcher plants.  These plants have a long tube into which unsuspecting insects are attracted by some sort of smell.  Once inside, the little fly can't escape and it gets digested.  How does that work exactly?  I haven't a clue.

Leslie refers to carnivorous plants as CPs.  CPs come with a wide range of techniques for snaring their prey.  Here are some examples beginning with a Pygmy Sundew.

I thought the little droplets on this plant were actually water.  I was informed that it is slime made by the plant.  Somehow this attracts small insects.

This plant is called a Butterwort.  The leaves are very smooth to the touch because they're covered with tiny, slimy hairs which trap small insects.  This particular plant has been dining well lately.

The next two are from the genus Nepenthes.  These produce colorful pitchers suspended on long elegant vines.  The first picture shows a living pitcher, the second shows one which has died.

This is an extreme closeup of the flower of a Bladderwort.  The flower is very tiny.  It's called the Angry Bunny.

The most famous CP is the Venus Fly Trap.  Don had a lot of them in his greenhouse but I didn't snap any decent pictures of them.  Here's one of Leslie's plants which had captured a large scrumptious moth that couldn't get away quite fast enough.

Leslie had clearly found a kindred spirit in meeting Don.  They both have considerable enthusiasm and excitement for these curious species.  We'd like to thank him profusely for sharing his time and expertise and passion for these little carnivores.  Also, thanks for the cool plants.

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There's been a recent spate of news about Sheep-Eating Plants. Here's an article which details these and other, even stranger, carnivorous plants.