Dave's Journal / Apr2025
(actually that's Gigi Hadid in Vogue this month, but so what)
Was "jazzing" this morning, a Chet Baker / Paul Desmond CD. Always puts my head right and leads me to, let's say, another world.
Here's the (Wikipedia) scoop on Paul Desmond:
Paul Desmond (born Paul Emil Breitenfeld; November 25, 1924 - May 30, 1977) was an American jazz alto saxophonist and composer and proponent of cool jazz. He was a member of the Dave Brubeck Quartet and composed the group's biggest hit, "Take Five". The song remains the best-selling jazz song of all time.
In addition to his work with Brubeck, he led several groups and collaborated with Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Jim Hall, and Ed Bickert. After years of chain smoking and poor health, Desmond succumbed to lung cancer in 1977 after a tour with Brubeck.
The movie is "Pi" ....(the number 3.141.......etc). A very troubled guy is obsessed with numbers and patterns in things (like the stock market!). Intense, not "entertaining", but a fascinating art school film.
Despite the last image, the film ends well.
Gets a 7.3/10 grade from IMDB friends.
I drop in here once a year to recalibrate my brain to these great works of very old Russian Orthodox religious, art.
Their website: The Icon Museum
The rules laid down for this type of art (that goes back 500-600 years) are very strict, which helps explain why many of the people poses are very . . . very . . . similar, despite that the works come from all over the ancient Russian provinces and territories.
Most all of these are egg tempera painted on wood panels (made of several pieces). The panels start out flat but over the years, most of them warp, cracking the paint.
Also (I must read up on this) many have metal (silver actually) ornamentation. In some cases, this covers like 90% of the picture. If you have the motivation, here is an excellent web page on the technical details of these icons:
Anatomy of an Icon
I had a rectilnear (no fisheye distortion) 12mm lens on the camera and it worked very well.
One of three or four books that are "sacred" to me. When I retired in 2006-7, I loaned this to a GE buddy. Well, he just retired and returned this to me a few days ago. These equations saved me many many times in my career. Despite computers, the old time senior people trusted Roark, and I always provided such calculations as backup to my computer analyses. When there was a discrepancy, we went with Roarks results.
