avonlea
I brought Led Zeppelin’s album IV (or “Zoso”) to work today, along with Beth Orton’s Daybreaker, both just to have some new music to listen to besides the radio. The former’s song “Black Dog” is going through my head at the moment…
Speaking of classic rock, having reacquired my turntable from my in-laws, I subjected (her term) Diane to the B-side Abbey Road medley on Sunday afternoon. She still doesn’t share my view that it’s a brilliant, dazzlingly creative piece of music, but I appreciate that she sat through it with me :)
The wind blew the clouds out of the sky last night, leaving a clear view of the stars even in our semi-urban, light-polluted location and allowed a very productive evening of stargazing with the telescope. I had never observed Venus through the telescope before, just not having bothered, and I realized I hadn’t missed much when I pointed the instrument at it last night. The lack of moons and the homogeneity of its visible surface made for a boring view. Saturn, on the other hand, was spectacular, and we even saw the shadow the rings cast as they pass in front of the planet. Wanting to seize the moment, I even woke Luke and brought him outside to see, though it’s questionable what, if anything, he saw and understood in his sleepy state. I remembered my parents taking me to the parking lot of Jordan High School, near our house, when I was seven years old to see Halley’s Comet. I remember being underwhelmed–but then again, after wildly optimistic predictions of the comet’s brightness, the whole astronomy community was that year as well.
I found the Orion nebula too, and gazed at that little fuzzy cloud of gas and dust again for a little while. I love astronomy.
Diane and I have been watching the mid-’80s production of Anne of Green Gables over the past couple of nights. I’ve been enjoying it, although I have to say (and Diane would agree) there is something about watching Anne’s propensity for mishaps that compromises our ability to relax while watching. It just sets us on edge in a way that Jane Austen adaptations (of which I am an avid fan) don’t. That said, the production values are polished and excellent and the casting is superlative.
Here at work, the latest project is a counter display for a breakfast/coffee bar called “Café Trevi.” It is to be sold in high-end bakeries and coffeeshops like Starbucks and Dean & Deluca (which made me think of Donald’s tenure there). They want an old-world, Italian aesthetic, which was kind of fun to design around, especially pre-design research, gathering images and textures from the internet and exploring options. Here are a few of the results.