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A recent New York Times Magazine article discussed how some species of whales may recognize that humans are no longer actively hunting them in many areas, and may be trying to get to know us.

“I’d… challenge anybody to say that these whales are not actively soliciting and engaging in a form of communication with humans, both through eye contact and tactile interaction and perhaps acoustically in ways that we have not yet determined,” says a marine mammal behaviorist quoted in the article.

It’s not that I want to anthropomorphize animals, but I do think they think, and that whales are probably extremely intelligent. It would be fascinating to someday understand anything they could tell us about life in the majority of our world, the watery parts.

The picture here is of a gray whale spouting. We came upon a number of them frolicking in the surf near where we were horseback riding in Cabo San Lucas this past winter at a company event. I think this was fairly close to one of the areas discussed in the article.

This is the view from the hall of my building about 10 minutes ago. I love when the clouds form curves that direct your attention to a focused area of brilliance.

I love the smell of eucalyptus. It’s fresh like pine, and helps my lungs feel clear. In a red glass vase, it looks festive for a California Christmas.

“I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.”

I wake up to a clock radio. It works because it changes all the time; I get too accustomed to any particular alarm.

Over the past few years, I’ve become far too accustomed to waking up already furious with the news that’s begun seeping into my ears about the effects of policies that seem to have been based on ideas that someone wanted to believe were true, whether or not they were. The morning after that victory speech, I have no idea what was on the radio, but it certainly felt like I’d woken up to music.

The current fires in Southern California aren’t that close to where I live, but the air does smell like smoke.

Photo by P M M via flickr.

I often treat cooking as a mad science experiment. I find a food I haven’t tried much before, and see what I can do with it. This is how I sometimes end up with things like hot pink salad dressing.

I recently acquired some prickly pear cactus fruits. My previous experience with this fruit — known in Spanish as tuna — involved consuming a cactus fruit ice cream from a stall at Mercado la Paloma in downtown Los Angeles, and once trying to eat slices of the fruit raw, which I did not enjoy because of the hard little seeds. The flavor of the fruit is a bit like a mild mix of berry, melon, and cucumber.
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Organic. From the farmers’ market.

The new Pretenders album is really good.

It’s a little more rootsy than some of their (Chrissie Hynde’s) other albums, which makes it interesting. There’s that Bo Diddley beat on the title song, a call for destruction and rejuvenation. Also, the bonus tracks are great. “Tequila” is almost a parody of the pathos of country music, but the narrator’s voice of self-aware self-pity works, as she ends up in a bar in the cold Ohio winter, perhaps drinking alongside Townes Van Zandt’s Lefty.

I think the reason the Pretenders are pretty much my default band is that they combine just the right elements of American jangle-rock with New Wave/Punk sheen. I’ve always been fascinated with web sites and programs that suggest things you’ll like based on your other preferences, from a site called Firefly based at the MIT Media Lab in the early 90s to the new itunes Genius feature. A few years ago, I discovered that half my music collection can be summed up by the links on The Pretenders’ allmusic guide web page.

This is what it feels like to be me: certain Pretenders songs have exactly the rhythm and lilt of me in a cheerful (”Don’t Get Me Wrong”; “Who’s Who”) or driven (”Mystery Achievement”) mood. Well, and also when I’m happy sometimes Peter’s theme from Peter and the Wolf plays in my head.

Nobody loves me,
Nobody cares,
Nobody picks me peaches and pears.
Nobody offers me candy and Cokes,
Nobody listens and laughs at me jokes.
Nobody helps when I get in a fight,
Nobody does all my homework at night.
Nobody misses me,
Nobody cries,
Nobody thinks I’m a wonderful guy.
So if you ask me who’s my best friend, in a whiz,
I’ll stand up and tell you that Nobody is.
But yesterday night I got quite a scare,
I woke up and Nobody just wasn’t there.
I called out and reached out for Nobody’s hand,
In the darkness where Nobody usually stands.
Then I poked through the house, in each cranny and nook,
But I found somebody each place that I looked.
I searched till I’m tired, and now with the dawn,
There’s no doubt about it-
Nobody’s gone!

-Shel Silverstein

Sometimes you get lyrics stuck in your head, and sometimes poems that were enormously popular in 4th grade.

In keeping with my current obsession with fusion music, I just saw the video for the Bollywood-rock classic “Aao Twist Kare” on TV and fell in love with it.