…was the destination for a last-minute impulsive day trip – having enviously heard stories from friends of leisurely days spent there over the years; so heading north on the 2, east on the 210 (through the endless Inland Empire), up the 15 (where the San Gabriel Mountains meet the San Bernadino Mountains at the Cajon ..

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..the scenic Hollywood Hills / Santa Monica Mountains park popular with fit youngish Angelenos in the ‘industry’ is not a place I get to visit very often, but wanting to make a gradual informal tour of the wild regions of the city, it’s where I headed today for a hike up and sweaty jog down. ..

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…Petite Mort: Recollections of a Queer Public (2011) and We Who Feel Differently (2012) – by artist-activist friend, and contemporary queer culture instigator, raconteur, organizer, and editor – arrived in the mail today, which I look forward to reading, and then adding to our little library at next months Sundown Schoolhouse of Queer Home Economics ..

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…or Romneya coulteri, or fried-egg flower, are the towering white petaled and yellow native Californians whose drama is greeting visitors to the Theodore Payne Foundation right now (the place I can’t get enough of, and where I have returned today for some native grape vines, currants, sages, and such) – which of course leads to ..

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…opened tonight, featuring set installations by artist friends Alice Konitz and Katie Grinnan (presenting a bright shiny colorful dramatic ‘Junk Heap’). Crescent City is a hyperopera with music by Anne LeBaron, libretto by Douglas Kearney, and directed by Yuval Sharon. It’s the inaugural production of The Industry, a new home for new and experimental opera in ..

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…has been on my mind since I first noticed some of those pods plumping up a few weeks ago, and this afternoon I have the gumption to hunt them all down one by one,  then to a stump in the shade to shell, and finally to the kitchen where they go into the the big ..

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…was a welcoming amber view back to the city last night, just able to glimpse my little mound of a hill out the window through the hazy amber veil as we made the familiar approach and decent across the endless sprawl segmented by the occasional freeway and trapped between the chain of mountains to the ..

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…was a pretty cool thing to see as we made our way down the tarmac and spied the space shuttle casually hanging out on the back of a tricked out NASA 747 transporter – which had delivered it from DC a few days ago – and where it continues to rest as it awaits travel ..

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…or F.O.O.D., was the title given to the final public event of our Princeton Student Colony, which consisted of a variety of activities throughout the afternoon, but the highlight must have been sitting in a circle on linen squares around a student-made communal chopping board, wielding knives of varying sharpness, chopping vegetables for stew while ..

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…in their crowded bed – lovingly raked, graded, laid out, and sprinkled with compost just this winter – is dusty green, bright green, lettuce green, strawberry green, onion green, pea green, kale green, calendula green, and a little yellow from the small flowers produced by the beautiful bolting..

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…or “Reconquering the Streets” by Nicolas Soulier is the great looking book about strategies for re-humanizing and re-claiming our urban roads, with examples from Europe and around the world – including a few Edible Estates pages – which just showed up in the mail this morning, but now it needs to come out in English so ..

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…of old clothes from local friends is a new test at home (in shades of brown and a bit of orange for the brown with orange kitchen) with a new loose knotted technique that makes it super thick and cushy and cozy on bare feet, preparing for the new series of Domestic Integrity Field projects ..

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…or Cynara cardunculus, are found wildly making their way all over my L.A. hill, and I do my best to encourage their big-leaved purple-thistle-flowered towering drama – and one of these days I have to get around to actually braising those tough stems into somethi..

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…or Centranthus ruber, has been creeping around the gardens here for years, looking great and flowering and continually coming back with little encouragement or even a drop of rain through the summer months, and this season it is especially happy – covering the slope at the front steps with it’s happy pink flowers – and ..

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