Bummer and Lazarus were stray dogs and the best of friends. They never separated, and they were fantasic at killing rats. In the 1860's, they were media darlings in San Francisco.

Lazarus died first.

In this Edward Jump cartoon, Emperor Norton I performs the funeral service while Frederick Coombs, who believed himself to be George Washington, digs the grave.

Bummer went on to live for many more years. When he finally expired, Mark Twain wrote:

The old vagrant 'Bummer' is really dead at last; and although he was always more respected than his obsequious vassal, the dog 'Lazarus,' his exit has not made half as much stir in the newspaper world as signalised the departure of the latter. I think it is because he died a natural death: died with friends around him to smooth his pillow and wipe the death-damps from his brow, and receive his last words of love and resignation; because he died full of years, and honor, and disease, and fleas. He was permited to die a natural death, as I have said, but poor Lazarus 'died with his boots on' - which is to say, he lost his life by violence; he gave up the ghost mysteriously, at dead of night, with none to cheer his last moments or soothe his dying pains. So the murdered dog was canonized in the newspapers, his shortcomings excused and his virtues heralded to the world; but his superior, parting with his life in the fullness of time, and in the due course of nature, sinks as quietly as might the mangiest cur among us. Well, let him go. In earlier days he was courted and caressed; but latterly he has lost his comeliness - his dignity had given place to a want of self-respect, which allowed him to practice mean deceptions to regain for a moment that sympathy and notice which had become necessary to his very existence, and it was evident to all that the dog had had his day; his great popularity was gone forever. In fact, Bummer should have died sooner: there was a time when his death would have left a lasting legacy of fame to his name. Now, however, he will be forgotten in a few days. Bummer's skin is to be stuffed and placed with that of Lazarus.

Rodin's Balzac:

Balzac corresponded, then dated the countess Ewelina Hanska for a span of twenty-four years; eventually the two wed in 1850. Six months later, Balzac died.

Rodin had a fifty-three years relationship with the seamstress Rose Beuret in 1917, who died two weeks after the marriage. Rodin followed ten months later.

Eat and drink for tomorrow we leave.

They took me to the bar last night since it was my last chance to go out in montreal, and I ordered a scotch. As I was handing the barkeep a $10 bill, I burst into tears, and he said "WHOA WHOA WHOA there. You are Not paying for this drink."

--- giu

This bench is near 29th and Diamond in San Francisco.

An elderly gentleman named Aleksey was waking down the hill while I was taking pictures of the bench. There used to be two metal benches, he said, but they were very old; so the police ripped them apart, disposed of them down the street, and now we're left with this smaller, lesser wooden fixture.

He spoke to me almost entirely in Russian; by which I mean to say I almost entirely didn't understand him. He repeated himself until I could find enough cognates to string together a narrative in English, which I'd repeat back to him, and via negativa ("net net net!") he molded my translations into a few facts about himself.

I learned Aleksey is a WWII veteran from the Ukraine; he has two daughters and a son, and had a wife who died during the war; I learned he has a large soft spot in the back of his head from a battle wound, which I touched; and I learned that the battle, fought against the Germans in 44, killed the majority of his battalion and left shrapnel in his head.

I agreed to send him two prints in exchange for taking this picture. Several times he mentioned a "token", but I couldn't quite understand what he meant, because he wasn't talking about the photograph.

A rescue crew in Washington Avenue Bridge, Minneapolis:

The Hold Steady wrote a song about this bridge called "Stuck Between Stations":

I surrounded myself with doctors and deep thinkers
But big heads with soft bodies make for lousy lovers

I sent this to my friend Peter Gallo:

He replied, "Suzette Borkenstein Gontard also removed heartbreaking from their interests..."

Animal Collective's danse macabre. They played last night at the Fillmore, which Bill Graham used to operate; today it's owned by Live Nation, a subsidiary of Clear Channel. The venue is down the street from Jay DeFeo's old apartment (see my September 14 entry).

Picasso used three different white pigments. O'Keeffe used one.

Picasso. Goat's Skull, Bottle and Candle, 1952. Tate.

Georgia O'Keeffe. Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue, 1931. Met.

Jay DeFeo originally her painting The Rose to cover the frame of her Fillmore St. bay window here in San Francisco, but the painting became an obsession and continued to amass size and weight over a period of eight years.

It only became a finished piece when she and her husband were evicted from the apartment, a wall was taken down, and a forklift was used to remove the painting from her home and studio. It is roughly 11 feet tall, 8 feet wide, and weights 2,300 pounds.

I went to visit the apartment today. The woman who lives there now was pulling back her curtains as I focused my camera for the shot. She isn't visible but I wonder if she was looking at me. After I downloaded the picture I noticed windows like owl eyes to the right.

This is her on the fire escape in 1965.

A photo of White Horses in Marin.

Philip James de Loutherbourg. The Vision of the White Horse, 1798. Tate Collection.

Quod fuimus, estis; quod sumus, vos eritis (what we were, you are; what we are, you will be).

dissapointed
disapointed
disappointed *

Transformations of a "you are beautiful" installation.

From The Dance of Death, Hans Holbein

A Haight Street cleanup crew after mourners marked the Death of the Hippie. October 6, forty years ago.