My eBay Method

My first batch of eBay sales is finished; the buyers are receiving their items, and feedback is being exchanged. Of the 24 items I posted, 22 sold. Bids totaled $1145.92, from which I earned $915.65 profit. (My expenses were: $32.80 listing fees, $44.30 closing fees, $39.12 PayPal fees, and $114.05 shipping fees.)

In my auctions, I’m doing two things that conventional wisdom frowns upon — using ten-day listings and providing free shipping — yet I feel that both of these are helping me get better prices. I know that when I buy things off eBay, I always bid more for free shipping. It’s just nice not to have to hassle with a shipping price. And though many people say ten-day auctions don’t produce higher sales prices, I’m not convinced. Especially on my more desirable items, the bidding rose a fraction every day. Might all the bidding have been compressed into seven days if I’d elected to host shorter auctions? Perhaps. But I’m comfortable paying forty cents for three days extra.

In true J.D.-fashion, I kept a detailed spreadsheet on each listing (condensed version). Before posting each auction, I determined a minimum desired sale price and a maximum expected sales price. Two items (both old Apple II computer games) did not sell. Two others — my precious Little Nemo book from 1972, and a Superman book from 1978 — sold for less than what I’d hoped. Everything else met my minimum desired sales price, and nine of the items sold for more than I expected. Two of the items sold for way more than I’d expected.

Cosmic Encounter, a board game I bought in the early nineties, sold for $232.50 — I had only expected it to reach $150. The biggest surprise, though, was a set of Bible commentaries. I’d spied this set of books in the Sellwood Stars antique mall soon after we moved to the new house. They were listed for $8, and I wanted to buy them, but Kris pooh-poohed the notion. I went back the next day and bought them anyhow. I liked that they were the same size as my Modern Library books. During last fall’s great book purge (for which this eBay stuff is one of the last steps), I decided I didn’t have room for the Bible commentaries. On a whim, I checked eBay and was shocked to see that complete sets sold for $150. My set wasn’t complete, but I figured it would go for $125 or so. It sold for $222.50.

Other items that sold for more than I had expected include my Star Wars VHS tapes (widescreen, THX, super-deluxe edition, the last prints before Lucas started tinkering with the original films) which sold for $51, and a Tintin popup book which sold for $43.

I have a second batch of auctions up at the moment. Aside from a couple of items, they’re not doing as well as I’d hoped. I had to take one item down because it wasn’t what I thought it was. Two of the nine remaining items don’t have bids yet (though Sunday is still several days away, and these items do have people watching). Still, bidding has reached $110 for these items, which isn’t far from my $150 minimum desired total. (My maximum expected is $265.)

I am now giving serious consideration to auctioning some larger ticket items, things such as:

  • my film-based SLR camera — this would leave me committed to digital;
  • lenses better suited for film work than digital work (such as my 20mm wide-angle lens, which has an effective focal length of 30mm in digital);
  • my 700mhz iBook.

One problem I keep encountering is that I’m not expert enough about my various items to know how to describe them correctly. By this I mean, many of the items I have for sale are collectables, or items where the condition is important. I often don’t have a basis for using the right words (e.g. “mint”, “near-mint”, “very good”) to describe condition. Instead, I perform a sort of visual assessment and then try to convey this information via words. Turns out, I may be overstating the blemishes. One buyer wrote me in private e-mail: “The [books] arrived today, and my wife is very pleased, indeed. They are in much better condition than we even hoped…” I guess it’s better to under-promise and over-deliver than to do the opposite.

Finally, here is my eBay auction routine, which is based on much reading, and asking many questions in various forums:

  • I start my listings on Thursday afternoons and evenings. I run ten-day listings. My goal is for them to end on Sunday evening between seven and ten Eastern (four and seven Pacific). This gives me two weekends to attract bids.
  • If I need to, I pay the extra ten cents to prepare listings in advance and schedule them to start on Thursday evenings. This week, I don’t have any ready to go, so I’ll rush home after work and spend about three or four hours madly posting items in real-time.
  • I offer free shipping, insurance, and delivery confirmation. (I’m considering nixing the insurance.) Sure, I could charge for these, but all of this money is gravy anyway, and I haven’t yet been burned by the free shipping, so I’m willing to keep doing this. I think it builds goodwill.
  • I offer a money-back guarantee, but only if the item is not as described. (Not if a person changes his mind or made a mistake.)
  • I post low starting bids. The more popular I think an item will be, the lower the starting bid. In the case of the Cosmic Encounter game, for example, I knew there would be plenty of interest, so I started bidding at 99 cents. If there probably will only be a couple bids, I start bidding near my minimum desired sale point. For example, I wanted to sell eight books at a minimum of $20 each, so I started bidding for them at $9.99 a piece.
  • Which brings up something else: I research the hell out of each item I’m posting. I dig through eBay to find what similar items fetch. I also look to see how many bids they get. I check other places (Amazon, abebooks.com, other forums) to see what other places sell the item for.
  • I craft my title with great care. For example, I’m currently selling a book entitled The Hidden Game of Baseball by John Thorn and Pete Palmer. I could put all that into my auction title, but it would be a waste. Instead my title is geared toward keywords that I think interested parties would use: HIDDEN GAME OF BASEBALL Thorn Palmer SABR Bill James. The last three terms have nothing directly to do with the book, but people interested in SABR or in the work of Bill James will be interested in this book. I want them to see it in their search results.
  • I try to have a good description, listing the strengths and flaws of my offerings minutely. I generally say things like “I think this book is in great shape, but be aware that the cover has a small tear and the previous owner’s name is on the flyleaf”, etc. I also try to place additional keywords in the description, but sprinkled into conversational sentences. For example, in my auction for some Tolkien animated films on VHS, I’m using the names of Peter Jackson, Liv Tyler, etc.
  • I refuse to accept bids from headaches: people with negative feedback, people who haven’t been paying, and people outside the U.S.
  • I take photos and post them in the description. I use the 35-cent gallery feature so that my photo appears when people browse listings. If condition is a concern, I use many photos to convey the state of the item.

These techniques seem to be working well so far. I’m excited to go rummage around to find more stuff to sell. I have a stack of Flash Gordon comic strip compilations, old Apple II computer games (I’ve decided to sell these as a lot instead of individually), science fiction novels, and camera equipment that I’m hoping to post soon. I’d really like to find a couple additional big-ticket items like the game and the Bible commentaries. Maybe I should root through my Star Trek collection. I probably have some good stuff there…

A State of Mind

The more I know, the less I know.

That is to say, the more I learn, the more I realize that there’s so much I will never learn, that there’s so much to know and never enough time to know it all. Unsurprisingly, I have huge gaps in my knowledge. One of these gaps is North Korea.

Here’s what I know about North Korea: it’s a communist nation; the U.S. fought a thinly-veiled war against the Soviets with Korea as a staging ground; M*A*S*H was set in Korea; our President considers North Korea part of the Axis of Evil; the biggest nuclear threat to Portland is probably from North Korea. That’s it. That’s all I know. And some of that is probably wrong.

Because of this, it was eye-opening to watch A State of Mind, a recent documentary about one aspect of life in North Korea. Now I have a better understanding of North Korea as a nation, of its people and its culture.

A State of Mind (netflix)is nominally the story of two girls preparing to perform in the enormous gymnastics exhibition that is North Korea’s Mass Games. The film is about more than that, though. It’s about ideology. It’s about culture. It’s about family. It’s about privation. For ninety minutes, it transports the viewer into another world.

One strength of this film is that it is completely non-judgmental. It neither praises nor condemns communist North Korea, with its food rationing and its rolling blackouts. It neither praises nor condemns the blatant propaganda pushed by the State, or the Orwellian “always-on” radio in every household. When the lights come one evening after a blackout, one girl’s father shouts, “Dirty American Imperialists! This is their fault!” (or something similar).

The dedication with which these girls, aged eleven and thirteen, train for the Mass Games is remarkable. For months, they spend two hours every afternoon learning synchronized gymnastics moves with hundreds of other girls. In the weeks leading up to the event, they actually spend eight hours a day in training. The results are spectacular: a mass of human motion in which individuals are subsumed into a giant collective group organism capable of great beauty.

A State of Mind isn’t for everyone. I’m sure that many would find the film slow and tedious. I found it fascinating. It was like a travelogue to a hidden kingdom where cold Soviet-style architecture stood side-by-side with Japanese-style tradition. It was interesting to see some aspects of 1984 and Anthem made real. (It’s a chilling reminder of the direction this country is headed with all of the State-sponsored propaganda we’re fed, and especially the ongoing erosion of individual rights.)

Some North Korea-related links:

Lastly, I’m hosting the A State of Mind trailer (right-click to download, or left-click to view in browser).

Obviously, this film is yet another in the series of documentaries that Kris and I have been watching. She admits that she, too, finds them fascinating. They’re generally much more fulfilling than a normal movie. I’d much rather watch a film like Mass Games than a film like King Kong or 40-Year-Old Virgin. Did I already ask you all to recommend documentaries for us? I don’t care: I’ll ask again. Tell me about documentaries that you loved, and I’ll add them to my Netflix queue.

Free Skate

Why is ice dancing my favorite sport in the Winter Olympics? Because you get moments of pure brilliance, like the one I just saw: the French couple’s free dance was simply amazing. (I’ll post a link to it here if I can find it online.)

“What are they, in the French Revolution?” I asked Kris as the pair took the ice. He was wearing a puffy shirt; she was wearing a poodle skirt (without the poodle). Their clothes were bloody. Their skin was covered in ashes.

“No way,” said Kris. “They didn’t wear clothes like that during the French Revolution. You’re thinking of Les Mis.”

But, of course, I was right. They skated to the Les Mis soundtrack. Perhaps they weren’t the most technically adept couple, and they made some mistakes, but damn if they didn’t have fun. I had fun watching them. They skated with passion. Their lifts were amazing. They sang along with the music.

Who cares if they’re going to finish 18th; I loved their performance.

This is why ice dancing is my favorite.

Some things you should know: I’m only mildly interested in other figure skating events, which I often find absurd. It’s not like I’m a figure skating aficionado. Also, the ice dancing competition is spread across three events: the compulsory, the original, and the free skate. The compulsory is rather tedious, the original is good, but the free skate — which is what’s on tonight — the free skate is a fantastic fusion of music, theater, and athleticism. It just may be the apex of human achievement!

Enough hyperbole. I’m going back to the competition…

I’ve seen a lot of stuff over at YouTube during the past few months, but I’ve never tried to link to any of the videos until now. It’s easy! Below is a clip of the famous Torvill and Dean “Bolero” routine from the 1984 Olympics. The announcers keep bringing this up; it’s a good reference point.

Perfection? Indeed!

As I say, the apex of human achievement.

Rocky Mountain School of Photography

As spring approaches, the photography bug begins to stir inside me. I want to photograph the sunrises. I want to photograph the icy foliage. I itch to get outside. To combat this bug, I spent this weekend at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography “photo weekend” in downtown Portland.

Simon Climbing a Ladder

The Rocky Mountain School of Photography is based in Missoula, Montana. It offers photo weekends — a series of workshops on various photographic topics — throughout the country, as well as various week-long workshops throughout the world. (Workshops this year include trips to South Africa; Victoria, BC; New Zealand; and the Oregon Coast.) The Rocky Mountain School of Photography is best known, however, for its eleven-week summer intensive career training program. (I have a friend who quit her job to do this program; she said it was the best thing she’s ever done. It’s something I’d like to do some day if I can afford it. The program costs $7200!)

The End of the Day

The photo weekends offer a quick taste of their extended content, condensed for hobbyists such as myself. Classes are taught for groups of about fifty students, ranging in skill from novice to professional. Here are the courses that were offered this weekend:

The classes I attended are indicated by italics.

Session One
Photography Basics taught by Susanna Gaunt
Understanding Light taught by Elizabeth Stone
Zone System for Color taught by David Marx

Session Two
Understanding Your Digital SLR taught by David Marx
Creative Techniques in Color taught by Elizabeth Stone
Vacation and Travel Photography taught by Susanna Gaunt

Session Three
Macro Photography taught by Elizabeth Stone
Filters and White Balance taught by David Marx
Sports and Motion taught by Susanna Gaunt

Session Four
Composition taught by Elizabeth Stone
Enhancing Your Digital Images taught by David Marx
Photographing Kids taught by Susanna Gaunt

Session Five
Low Light and Night Photography taught by Elizabeth Stone
Sunrises, Sunsets, and Flowing Water taught by Susanna Gaunt
Printing and E-mailing Your Photos taught by David Marx

Session Six
Group Critique of Student Photos

The classes I attended were a mixed bag. The instructors were certainly knowledgeable — no question of that — but sometimes the subject matter seemed irrelevant (to me) or the presentation ineffective. For example, the Creative Techniques in Color class wasn’t about using color to enhance your photos; it covered infrared photography and multiple exposures and related topics. If I’d realized this in advance, I would have selected a different topic. The Sports and Motion class had potential, but the lecture followed our workbook almost verbatim, and no photographic examples were provided until the very end of the session.

However, the Enhancing Your Digital Images class was worth the price of admission all by itself. That session was fantastic, peeling away some of the mysteries of Photoshop in just two hours. (I now know what Levels are and what the Curves tool is for!) I’ve tried to learn Photoshop from books before, but they just cannot compare to what I learned yesterday. It’s clear to me now that I need to find a Photoshop class at a community college or an art school. (Or, if I can scrape together a thousand bucks, to attend a RMSP workshop on Photoshop in Missoula.)

Opal Creek Pool

One of the things I loved about the weekend were the little tidbits of advice the instructors dispensed here and there. Some of this goes against conventional wisdom, against the stuff photography students hear all the time. For example, we’re told from the start to always have UV/haze filters over our lenses — “It’s better to scratch a $10 filter than to scratch a $1000 lens.” I heard each instructor pooh-pooh this notion. Here, then, is the heart of this entry: little tidbits of advice gleaned from the Rocky Mountain School of Photography photo weekend.

  • If you have a favorite place to photograph, keep going back. Photograph it under different conditions: different times of day, different seasons, etc.
  • Any time you use a filter of any sort, you are compromising quality, losing sharpness. Only use filters when you need them. You paid big money for the glass in your lenses, but the glass (or plastic) in your filters is cheap stuff.
  • If you’re using white balance on your digital camera, the only filters you need are a polarizer and a neutral density filter. Warming and cooling filters are redundant, as those functions are handled by your digital camera’s white balance settings.
  • Student: “Do you use U/V filters?” “No! No! No! Don’t use U/V filters. They’re bad! Haze filters are junk. If you want to cut through haze, put on a polarizer.” Use a lens shade to protect your lens, not a haze filter.
  • Always use a lens shade. It prevents flare. It improves the quality of light. It protects the lens. (Use the lens shade instead of a cheap filter.)
  • If you like water, get a cheap $8 underwater camera from Target, then have the film cross-processed and pushed three stops.
  • Regarding the oft-cited rule that one ought to mostly do photography in the morning and evening (because midday sun is too harsh). “There is no bad light. It’s just a different quality of light.” (Which is not to say that you’re going to get good results photographing architecture at noon, just that you won’t necessarily get bad results.)
  • Learn to use fill flash, especially to provide catchlights in outdoor portraits. A catchlight makes the subject seem more alive.
  • Regarding one of my pet peeves, the ubiquity of the 8×10 format and the difficulty in making 8×12 formats: “I cannot believe that we, as photographers, have not rebelled. 8×10? Please!” A 35mm image is approximately 1.5 x 1 inches, or a 3:2 aspect ratio. This prints full frame on an 8×12. An 8×10 print actually lops off 17% of your image.
  • Most people (including me) use too much sharpening in Photoshop. Sharpening should be subtle. If somebody says to you, “Nice unsharp mask,” you know you’ve used too much.
  • Freezing film retards the aging process.

Though I found parts of the weekend dull and uninteresting, I’m glad I took the workshop. I will be a better photographer for it. (Actually, I’ll be a more efficient photographer — I didn’t actually learn anything to help improve the quality of my images, just to improve my workflow.)

Ella Jumping on Her Bed II

Another keen thing I got from the weekend is that everybody’s photographic sensibilities are different. Sure, there are commonly accepted guidelines for producing photographs that appeal to a broad audience, but each person is always going to have a specific taste. One of the instructors loves to work in the abstract, and is quite fond of photographs that would bore most people to tears. This was a revelation to me. I, too, love to work in the abstract, but I don’t do it often because (a) I don’t have the training and (b) nobody I show the stuff to seems to like it. I like it, but I always figure there’s something wrong with the photos when everybody else blows it off. This weekend made me realize that it’s okay to be different, okay to develop a personal style, okay to to make images that only I like. Images like these:

    Corn Leaf

I’ve never posted the introduction to photography entry I wrote last summer. I finished about 90% of it, but got sidetracked before it was done. Maybe I should work on it so that I can share my (limited) photographic wisdom before spring and summer are upon us.

He Opened His Mouth and Breathed Out Spring

I am reading Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell for the third time in less than a year. If that is not a high recommendation, I don’t know what is.

I’ve mentioned before (as have several commenters) that there are some brilliant passages in this book. Though Clarke is unable to sustain this peak of quality throughout the entire volume, like an addict I keep going, craving the next hit.

Here is today’s hit:

Strange took the cup and drank the water down. The cup fell from his hand. Drawlight was aware — he did not know how exactly — that Strange was changed. Against the starry sky the black shape of his figure sagged and his head dropped. Drawlight wondered if he were drunk. But how could a few drops of any thing make a man drunk? Besides he did not smell of strong liquor; he smelt like a man who had not washed himself or his linen for some weeks; and there was another smell too — one that had not been there a minute ago — a smell like old age and half a hundred cats.

Drawlight had the strangest feeling. It was something he had felt before when magic was about to happen. Invisible doors seemed to be opening all around him; winds blew on him from far away, bringing scents of woods, moors, and bogs. Images flew unbidden into his mind. The houses around him were no longer empty. He could see inside them as if the walls had been removed. Each dark room contained — not a person exactly — a Being, an Ancient Spirit. One contained a Fire; another a Stone; yet another a Shower of Rain; yet another a Flock of Birds; yet another a Hillside; yet another a Small Creature with Dark and Fiery Thoughts; and on and on.

“What are they?” he whispered, in amazement. He realized that all the hairs on his head were standing on end as if he had been electrified. Then a new, different sensation took him: it was a sensation not unlike falling, and yet he remained standing. It was as if his mind had fallen down.

He thought he stood upon an English hillside. Rain was falling; it twisted in the air like grey ghosts. Rain fell upon him and he grew thin as rain. Rain washed away thought, washed away memory, all the good and the bad. He no longer knew his name. Everything was washed away like mud from a stone. Rain filled him up with thoughts and memories of his own. Silver lines of water covered the hillside, like intricate lace, like the veins of an arm. Forgetting that he was, or ever had been, a man, he became the lines of water. He fell into the earth with the rain.

He thought he lay beneath the earth, beneath England. Long ages passed; cold and rain seeped through him; stones shifted within him. In the Silence and the Dark he grew vast. He became the earth; he became England. A star looked down on him and spoke to him. A stone asked him a question and he answered it in its own language. A river curled at his side; hills budded beneath his fingers. He opened his mouth and breathed out spring…

He thought he was pressed into a thicket in a dark wood in winter. The trees went on for ever, dark pillars separated thin, white slices of winter light. He looked down. Young saplings pierced him through and through; they grew up through his body, through his feet and hands. His eye-lids would no longer close because twigs had grown up through them. Insects scuttled in and out of his ears; spiders built nests and webs in his mouth. He realized he had been entwined in the wood for years and years. He knew the wood and the wood knew him. There was no saying any longer what was wood and what was man.

All was silent. Snow fell. He screamed…

Blackness.

Like rising up from beneath dark waters, Drawlight came to himself. Who it was that released him — whether Strange, or the wood, or England itself — he did not know, but he felt its contempt as it cast him back into his own mind. The Ancient Spirits withdrew from him. His thoughts and sensations shrank back to those of a Man. He was dizzy and reeling from the memory of what he had endured. He examined his hands and rubbed the places on his body where the trees had pierced him. They seemed whole enough; oh, but they hurt! He whimpered and looked around for Strange.

The magician was a little way off, crouching by a wall, muttering magic to himself. He struck the wall once; the stones bulged, changed shape, became a raven; the raven opened its wings and, with a loud caw, flew up towards the night sky. He struck the wall again: another raven emerged from the wall and flew away. Then another and another, and on and on, thick and fast they came until all the stars above were blotted out by black wings.

Strange raised his hand to strike again…

“Lord Magician,” gasped Drawlight. “You have not told me what the third message is.”

Strange looked round. Without warning he seized Drawlight’s coat and pulled him close. Drawlight could feel Strange’s stinking breath on his face and for the first time he could see his face. Starlight shone on fierce, wild eyes, from which all humanity and reason had fled.

“Tell Norrell I am coming!” hissed Strange.

In the past few hours, I’ve listened to this passage three times. I’ve read it on paper three times. I’ve copied it from the book to the text editor. It retains its dark hold on me each time I read it, enchants me. I wish that I could write like this.

When I have finished with Jonathan Strange, I will move onto a book that Kris recently read and loved: The Time Traveler’s Wife. And then I will re-read another book that captivated me last spring: Cloud Atlas. This is a golden age of fantastic fiction. There’s some wonderful stuff being produced by strong writers, stuff that’s accessible even to those disinclined toward fantasy and science fiction, stuff that’s quality literature by any measure. For children, there are the Harry Potter books and Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. For adults, there are the three books I’ve cited and several others. It is a great time to be a fan of speculative fiction.

Kentucky Fried Kitten

On the way to pick up dinner tonight, I came up with a brilliant business idea. Kris thinks it’s doomed to failure, but I don’t know. What do you think?

Here’s the concept: Kentucky Fried Kitten, just like Kentucky Fried Chicken (which was where I was headed to pick up dinner), but with kittens. And better!

Imagine your typical fast food restaurant, but with a special glassed-in cage area in which hundreds of kittens romp and play. While the parents are ordering food, their brood can paw at the glass wall, admiring the furry little scamps inside. “Which one do you like, Johnny?” asks Mom, and Johnny points to a little calico in the corner. A smiling teenager grabs the calico kitten, gives a wave, and vanishes to the kitchen.

A few minutes later: voila! Dinner is served. Deep-fried kitten. Crisp and juicy. Crazy delicious.

Some other key ideas regarding this exciting business opportunity:

  • BYOC! Customers will get a discount if they bring in their own cat.
  • A number of delicious dipping sauces will be available, from standards like honey mustard and barbeque, to more exotic flavors like spicy thai and yellow curry.
  • Customers can create a wide variety of combo meals, with popular sides such as mashed potatoes and cole slaw, and new favorites like goldfish crackers. Also, customers will be able to opt for white-meat only meals for a nominal surcharge.
  • Toys with the meals? No way! Each child gets to keep the skin of the kitten she eats. While the meat is coated in a mixture of secret seasonings and then dunked in bubbling vegetable oil, a specially trained employee is mounting the kitten’s skin for the customer to take home. Johnny’s little calico is a treasure for years to come.
  • Think of the low overhead. The Humane Society is always whining about how there are too many kittens. KFK takes care of that problem and provides delicious, nutritious meals in the process. (It may even be possible to charge the Humane Society for taking the kittens of their hands!) This is a meal that even Bob Barker would be proud to eat.
  • This is an opportunity for people to have closer contact with the food they eat. You always hear people preaching the importance of this, but do you ever see it put into practice? Now you will!

As you can see, this is a revolutionary concept, and the franchise opportunities are endless (as are the potential profits). I need to do some more brainstorming — you can help — before I move on to a business plan, but I think we’re close to a go here. I’m thinking of brining in Ken Lay as CEO.

Kentucky Fried Kitten: coming soon to a street corner near you.

Mmmmm…Finger-lickin’ good!

The Waters of March

It was cold this morning, and a thick layer of frost clung to the car, the road, the trees. Traffic moved slowly, wary of ice.

Climbing the hill next to the mill in Oregon City, I could see billowing frothy clouds of steam from the falls. Entropy. The mist roiled outward, fog-like, making the road slightly more slippery.

Down the hill, past Canemah, I saw the full moon, bright white and glowing, hanging like a low fruit in the cerulean sky. Its light fell silver and shimmering on the smooth surface of the river, forming a road of white from the far bank to this. I was mesmerized. I could not look away. My attention ought to have been focused on the iced road in front of me, but instead I was drawn to the light on the water.

Later in the morning I found a fabulous song: Aguas de Marco by Antonio Carlos Jobim. (Jobim, a Brazilian composer and poet, produced such gems as “The Girl From Ipanema”, “How Insensitive”, and “Desafinado”. He also wrote the English lyrics for many of his songs, including this one.) The song stuck in my head, the melody repeating again and again. I googled the lyrics.

The Waters of March
(aka Aguas de Marco)
by Antonio Carlos Jobim

A stick, a stone, it’s the end of the road,
It’s the rest of the stump, it’s a little alone,
It’s a sliver of glass, it is life, it’s the sun,
It is night, it is death, it’s a trap, it’s a gun.
The oak when it blooms, a fox in the brush,
The knot in the wood, the song of the thrush.
The wood of the wind, a cliff, a fall,
A scratch, a lump, it is nothing at all.
It’s the wind blowing free, it’s the end of a slope,
It’s a beam, it’s a void, it’s a hunch, it’s a hope.

And the riverbank talks of the water of march.

It’s the end of the strain, it’s the joy in your heart,
The foot, the ground, the flesh, the bone,
The beat of the road, a slingshot stone.
A fish, a flash, a silvery glow,
A fight, a bet, the range of the bow.
The bed of the well, the end of the line,
The dismay in the face, it’s a loss, it’s a find.
A spear, a spike, a point, a nail,
A drip, a drop, the end of the tale.
A truckload of bricks in the soft morning light,
The shot of a gun, in the dead of the night.
A mile, a must, a thrust, a bump.
It’s a girl, it’s a rhyme, it’s the cold, it’s the mumps,
The plan of the house, the body in bed,
The car that got stuck, it’s the mud, it’s the mud.
A float, a drift, a flight, a wing,
A hawk, a quail, the promise of spring.

And the riverbanks talks of the waters of march.

It’s the promise of life, it’s the joy in your heart,
A snake, a stick, it is John, it is Joe,
It’s a thorn in your hand, and a cut on your toe.
A point, a grain, a bee, a bite,
A blink, a buzzard, the sudden stroke of night.
A pin, a needle, a sting, a pain,
A snail, a riddle, a weep, a stain.
A pass in the mountains, a horse, a mule,
In the distance the shelves rode three shadows of blue.

And the riverbank talks of the promise of life
In your heart, in your heart.

A stick, a stone, the end of the load,
The rest of the stump, a lonesome road.
A sliver of glass, a life, the sun,
A night, a death, the end of the run.

And the riverbank talks of the waters of march

It’s the end of all strain,
It’s the joy in your heart.

Through much cleverness I discovered and downloaded a wonderful video recording of a 1973 performance of this song by Elis Regina, which I am hosting here:

Elis Regina and Antonio Carlos Jobim — Aguas de Marco

Enjoy it. May it make you as happy as it has made me.

(p.s. There are many versions of this song available for purchase from the iTunes Music Store, both in English and in Portuguese. I bought the entire album called Elis y Tom because I liked this music so much.)

Grizzly Man

We haven’t seen any Best Picture nominees recently, but we did get a chance to netflix Grizzly Man, a highly-regarded documentary from last year.

Grizzly Man tells the story of Timothy Treadwell, a ne’er-do-well, a drug addict, and notorious liar, who, after his acting career failed, began to spend his summers in Alaska, camping in Katmai National Park on the Alaska Peninsula: the very heart of grizzly territory. Beginning in 1991, Treadwell lived in the bush with the bears, the foxes, the birds, and the bugs. He named the animals around him. He learned their personalities. He spoke with them. In 2003, because of an argument with an airline ticket agent, Treadwell and his girlfriend stayed two weeks longer than normal. All of the bears they knew had already migrated toward their hibernation locations, and strange, new bears had taken their place. Strange, new, hungry, aggressive bears. Strange, new, hungry, aggressive bears that killed and ate Treadwell and his girlfriend.

During his last five years in Alaska, Treadwell used a couple of video cameras to film himself interacting with the animals and the world around him. His intention was to produce some sort of extended work about the grizzlies. One hundred hours of footage survived, and it is from this raw material that the bulk of the film is drawn. We see what Treadwell saw. We hear what he has to say about it.

Much of the footage used in Grizzly Man is gorgeous. Treadwell had a fine eye, and he had beautiful scenery at his disposal. He was unafraid to use wide angles, and this allowed him to capture the grand scale of the land around him. His footage of the animals — the bears and the foxes — is also great stuff, and I cannot help but admire his work.

Was Timothy Treadwell a hero or was he a fool? Was he an idealist or was he an idiot? Did his “work” promote the health and safety of the bears or did it endanger them? This film asks — but does not answer — these questions.

Many people, including the film’s director, Werner Herzog, are critical of Treadwell’s actions, and of his anthropomorphized view of the natural world. I cannot help buy sympathize with the man. I respect him. The classical view of nature says that the world of the animals is a wild kingdom, and that the world of man is wholly separate from it. I am not convinced this is true. It may be that each species operates according to unique principles, with specific evolutionary motivations for behavior, but I believe that it’s possible for species to overcome these mental structures and learn to communicate, even to co-habitate. This isn’t pie-in-the-sky environmentalist “love-the-earth” New Age bullshit; I sincerely believe that, given time, humans will learn to communicate more effectively with animals. I believe that animals are, in general, far more intelligent than most people credit, and that individual creatures are capable of rich emotional lives.

But that’s not really what the film is about. Grizzly Man is about Treadwell, about his deep, conflicted soul, and about the solace he finds among the bears. It’s not clear what Treadwell does when he’s not living with the bears. Part of his time is spent doing educational presentations for grade school children, but what does he do with the rest of his time? Interviews with friends and family make it obvious that he didn’t have a lot of money. Was he employed at all? He helped found and run Grizzly People, “a grassroots organization devoted to preserving bears and their wilderness habitat”, but was that all?

A final note: I love the song used to close the film, “Coyotes” by Don Edwards. If you know of any other songs like this (“Cold Missouri Waters” by Cry Cry Cry is an example), please share them with me. These are country/folk story songs with sparse instrumentation, songs that are all about the voice of the singer and about the story he (or she) is singing.

Knife Skills

“Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.” — Napoleon Dynamite

Though I love to cook, the truth is I have no real skill in the kitchen, no formal training. When I heard that Kris and Craig planned to take a knife class together, I asked to tag along.

Our class was held at In Good Taste, a kitchen store located in the heart of Portland’s Pearl District. The store, which comes highly recommended by food maven Amy Jo, features a fantastic selection of cookbooks, wine, and knives. It sells lots of other kitchen gadgets, too. Between In Good Taste and the nearby Sur La Table, a home cook can find a lot of fun toys!

In the center of In Good Taste is a vast kitchen island, the store’s cooking school. Available classes range from knife skills (basic and advanced) to hearty winter soups to hands-on sausage making. Our class was taught by Chef Lucy, who was both knowledgable and patient. She introduced various knife cuts, demonstrated them for us, and then allowed us to practice on a bin of vegetables. Each of the fourteen students was rather raw, and Lucy took time during each cut to walk around and examine our progress. (We were all raw except for Craig, that is. “You’ve done this before,” Lucy said, examining his finely julienned carrot. My julienne was less good, though Lucy did admire one of my orange supremes.)

I was pleased with the class. Even if the only long-term skill I take from it is a better way to dice onions, it’s worth the time and money, but I hope to be able to retain the other skills we were taught.

“I really like this knife,” I told Kris as we were mincing garlic. “It’s better than anything we have at home.”

“Our knives are very good,” she said, attempting to dissuade me. She knew where I was headed. “We have a nice Henckels and a Wüsthof.”

“You know,” I said, undissuaded, “my birthday is coming up. And we get ten percent off anything we buy here after this class today.”

“Okay,” Kris said. “You can have a knife for your birthday. But you can’t use it until your birthday!”

While Kris browsed the kitchen gadgets, I picked out a 6.5-inch Shun Santoku knife, the very knife we used in the class. It was a tough choice whether or not to purchase a scalloped blade; I opted for a smooth edge.

When we got home, I took out my knife and my cutting board (I have a special J.D.-only cutting board that I love — this same cutting board was used in the cooking class) and, just for the hell of it, I diced an onion. “I thought I told you that you couldn’t use your knife until your birthday,” Kris mumbled, but she relented when I reminded her that she was allowed to use her Christmas present — a new food processor — to prepare for Friend Thanksgiving.

I enjoy cooking (and, especially, eating) and it pleases me to acquire good kitchen equipment and good kitchen skills.

Winter Olympics 2006

The Winter Olympics begin today, which is a Big Deal in our household. I love the Olympics, but I hate the media’s U.S.-centric coverage. How well does the U.S. really do at the Olympic Games? I have the answer.

First, here are some general Olympics-related links:

We will soon be bombarded with medals charts showing how well the United States is doing. I’ve always believed these medal charts are deceptive. What does it really mean that the United States earned 34 medals at the 2002 Winter Olympics? Is a bronze medal just as good as a gold? Which is more impressive: that the United States won 34 medals or that Estonia won three?

Here is the BBC’s final medal chart from the 2002 Winter Olympics:

This chart is sorted by the number of gold medals earned by each country, but I feel this doesn’t accurately reflect how well each country performed. I want to know how well a country does in relation to its population, or how well it does based on the number of athletes it sends to the Olympic Games.

Four years ago I created a spreadsheet to track exactly this sort of information. What did I find?

Though the U.S. finished second in total medals won, its accomplishments were actually rather mediocre by any other measure. To my mind, the country with the best performance at the 2002 Winter Olympics — and by a huge margin — was Norway. Norway only earned 24 medals to the United States’ 34 (Germany finished first with 35), but Norway is a much smaller country, sent fewer athletes to the competition, and has a smaller Gross Domestic Product. Norway kicked ass.

Here’s how I would sort the medal chart from the 2002 Winter Games:

More detailed information is available from my full spreadsheet.

I intend to keep detailed information regarding each country’s performance again for the 2006 Winter Olympics. When this information is active (which is not the case as of this moment), you’ll be able to find it at the foldedspace.org 2006 Olympics medal tracker page. Check back throughout the Olympics for updated standings.

I have vivid recollections of watching the Opening Cermonies in 2002 at Mac and Pam’s house. The two Ice Queens huddled beneath blankets, and the four of us kept a running banter regarding each country’s outfits, etc. We spent the night. The next day MacDaddy and I went for Mexican food at La Costa. While we ate, we watched the luge and cross-country skiing. Good times. Good times.