Notes: Projects

Some days are productive. Today was one. This evening, I finished Janet Malcolm's book on Stein and Toklas, found on a shelf in the barn. Malcolm writes wonderfully. It's hot in Sicily, my wife reported, based on a text from our daughter. The weather here is superb.

Late this afternoon, in the barn, I read the first of my many diaries, from autumn 1973. I was in graduate school. Most of the entries relate to my research, but it's dotted with personal asides, I Ching queries, and cashflow calculations. My abilities as a researcher impress me, decades later. I can see why my patron kept me on.

Photo of the Day.

Inigo Thomas, "Diary," London Review of Books, 17 April 2025, p. 45.

A late lunch or an early dinner with my wife, our oldest son, and his wife at Bilotti, a northern Italian restaurant at the far end of College Ave. in Oakland. A pasta-dominated menu, but a friendly, informal place. Good conversation. We drove over, they walked. Crosstown traffic these days ia daunting. Glad we left early. Sunny today, thank goodness. The weather has mostly been July-like and yesterday was cloudy and freezing. It affects me, a human barometer.

23.05.26-1

Photo of the day: tardigrades (AKA waterbears).

Gurusha Mengi's photo of me addressing the MUD Class of 2026.

Cold and overcast today. I had a long talk over Zoom with a friend in Rome, with some follow-up. The day before, I spent doing the final proofing of an article I wrote with her and another friend. The journal is UK-based but the sub-editors are in India, a supportive bunch based on my back-and-forth with them. The publisher has one of those "automated" systems that puts the burden on the author(s) and is both cumbersome to operate and dodgy. I persevered, then begged the sub-editor to give me a pass for putting some of my edits in "comments." I'm back to reading the literary reviews, more than a year behind once again. I tried to read a book on the romantic poets of Provence by Ezra Pound last night, but found it hard going. For a book on poetry, it's oddly unpoetic, lapsing into long prose glosses. The Latin he throws in is not always translated (and I don't read Latin). But there it is, the phrase Eliot borrows in The Wasteland to praise its editor.

My talk.

With John Ellis and Chunman Li at a gathering of the Masters in Urban Design Class of 2026, where I gave a talk earlier today. John acted as an advisor to Ms. Li and others, and I served as a critic in the summer 2025 and spring 2026 studio reviews.

Heard a harpsichord recital by Maryse Carlin at the Madeleine. Wrote a short talk for a gathering of the MUD class of 2026 at Cal. A friend mentioned George Kennan's diary. I was thinking of reading a biography of him, but the diary might be better.

Into town to have lunch with a visiting friend at Zuni Café. An article in the WSJ about a small publisher led me to write him. "Interesting, but not for us," he replied. Surprised to get a reply at all. Not surprised that my books aren't a fit. It's why I self-publish.

Walked to Bauer Wurster Hall to meet the editors and advisors of Room One Thousand at its launch. The new issue looks great and I congratulated them in producing it on schedule. The campus was full of graduates with sashes and others still taking finals.