An accessory cloud can often be seen just above Mount Teide’s summit. tweet and youtube video

----- For us in aviation lenticular clouds means bad news. It is the sign of stable perpendicular to the height of the mountain while unstable and less stable layer at the under and over it. It causes severe turbulence on the lee side of the mountain.

----- The mind blowing thing is that the cloud's visible shape is stationary while the air is moving "through" it at high speed. Condensation and vaporization happening continuously at the cloud's edges.

Started reading The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald and came across the words, "dog days".

Apparently, the term "dog days" comes from a star.

(thanks wikipedia!)

The dog days or dog days of summer are the hot, sultry days of summer. They were historically the period following the heliacal rising of the star system Sirius (known colloquially as the "Dog Star"), which Hellenistic astrology connected with heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck. They are now taken to be the hottest, most uncomfortable part of summer in the Northern Hemisphere.

A few lines later, he does mention the dog star.

certain ailments are more likely to beget us under the sign of the dog star.

Read Derek Sivers's article on short urls. I might be old school but, I do like those nice, descriptive urls. I do see his point on making memorable links.

I might do the short urls on notes. If I can figure out how 11ty does multiple permalinks in the data cascade.

Austin Kleon wrote about wrestling and politics inspired by photographs taken by Lourdes Grobet.

Reminded me of Pa. Ranjith's Sarpatta Paramparai. In the backdrop of 70's Madras, we have two warring wrestling factions. Ranjith's uses our expectations of a sport biopic and turns it into a riveting look at politics and caste of the era.

“Wrestling is not a sport, it is a spectacle,” Barthes wrote.

On this Hillside, Richard Long, 1972, MoMA: Drawings and Prints

Came across German artist John Heartfield twice this week - an openculture article and John Berger's Understanding a Photograph.

His work is intriguing but, what caught my interest was Berger's dissection of what makes a good photo-montage.

The peculiar advantage of photo-montage lies in the fact that everything which has been cut out keeps its familiar photographic appearance. We are still looking first at things and only afterwards at symbols.

But because these things have been shifted, because the natural continuities within which they normally exist have been broken, and because they have now been arranged to transmit an unexpected message, we are made conscious of the arbitrariness of their continuous normal message.

Art must deny in order to answer question in its own terms. It is lies that can be qualified as useful or useless; the lie is surrounded by what has not been said and its usefulness or not can be gauged according to what has been hidden. The truth is always first discovered in open space.

Redid my home page. Pared it down to something less noisy.

An old instance of my home page

Found a musical corner of are.na. Love how there is always so much to uncover within it.

Standing on the balcony, looking into the bedroom. P. and K. are getting ready for bed. The best show in the world happening right in front of me.

Twenty odd hours later, we made it back to Toronto. Our house was a snapshot of our state of mind when we left it five months back. This is going to take us days to get it back to normal.

We made our way to Bangalore to board our flight to Toronto. Someone (me) thought we can save a couple of bucks not flying from Chennai. So, we drove for 6 hours. Almost got into a fight with a drunkard along the way. But, we made it Bangalore in one piece.

Was discussing with I. about mythology of who we think we are as artists. Artists always think that we are saving the world some way or the other. What happens when we throw away all those ornaments of deceit that we have build up for ourselves.

6am. I am holding K. tiny hand in mine. All worries fade away. Someday it won’t be - so. But today, now, I have this.

anne carson knows the shape of shame, guilt and grief,

I am the shape you made me. Filth teaches filth.

You remember too much, my mother said to me recently. Why hold onto all that? And I said, Where can I put it down?

Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.

Found a couple of books from my childhood as I was doing a purge of all the books in my library. I really do like the bright aesthetics of these particular books. As for the stories within, meh.