Jacob Dickinson

@jjldickinson

I’m posting some evocative quotes from Edward Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Pagination is from the 1946 Heritage Press edition (the prettiest affordable one, IMO). Thanks to users on my “Storytellers” list.

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Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· 27d

The combination of [these] two engravings is probably intended to represent a hideous human face; the eyes and teeth appear in the first, and the projecting stone is perhaps intended for the nose or snout. It occupies a space in breadth equal to about five feet of the wall.

Front view of a "sculptured mosaic" about five feet wide, from the cornice of the Casa del Gobernador ("Governor's House") at Uxmal, in Yucatan, probably representing a "hideous human face," with eyes, teeth, and a "nose or snout."
John L. Stephens, "Incidents of Travel in Yucatan," originally published in 1843; v. 1, plate III, based on Catherwood's daguerreotype.

Side view of a "sculptured mosaic" from the cornice of the Casa del Gobernador ("Governor's House") at Uxmal, in Yucatan, probably representing the "nose or snout" of a "hideous human face." It "resembles somewhat an elephant's trunk, which name has, perhaps not inaptly, been given to it by Waldeck, though it is not probable that as such the sculptor intended it, for the elephant was unknown on the Continent of America."
John L. Stephens, "Incidents of Travel in Yucatan," originally published in 1843; v. 1, figure 7, based on Catherwood's daguerreotype.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· May 22

Closeup of magnolia blossom unfurling large, white petals, with honey bee.

Closeup of magnolia blossom unfurling large, white petals.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· May 1

Customer review photo, www.etsy.com/listing/1535...

Bumper sticker parodying bumper stickers disparaging other drivers honking gratuitously, and referring to the work of minimalist composer Philip Glass: “KEEP HONKING I’M LISTENING TO PHILIP GLASS KEEP HONKING I’M LISTENING TO PHILIP GLASS PHILIP I’M LISTENING TO TO KEEP LISTENING HONKING HONKING,” etc.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Apr 23

Leavitt said nothing about the specious charges brought against these imaginary women? The cheap, theatrical imitation of due process in the Iranian judicial system? The injustice and cruelty? It’s just understood Trump acted because they’re babelicious? No need to even try to hide it? Say no more!

Monty Python skit in which an annoying stranger shows way too much interest in another man’s love life and treats it as a shared secret. “Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more!

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Mar 31

MyungJin Kim’s ceramics et al. at the Long Beach Museum of Art.

Botanically-themed terra cotta sculptures (white on green and terra cotta red grounds) and murals (white on terra cotta red grounds) by MyungJin Kim, on display at the Long Beach Museum of Art.

Botanically-themed terra cotta sculptures (white on green grounds) and murals (white on green grounds, with terra cotta owls) by MyungJin Kim, on display at the Long Beach Museum of Art.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Mar 28

and the voluminous tales of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram were devoutly studied by the princes and nobles, who disregarded the genuine heroes and historians of antiquity.

A knight, standing, in a yellow cape, with longsword, takes a kneeling boy into his service as a page. Two other boys, leading a horse, pause to watch. A castle wall rises behind them.
From “In the Court of King Arthur,” by Samuel E. Lowe and illustrated by Neil O’Keefe (Whitman Publishing Co., Racine, Wisconsin, 1918).
This book is a Sir Galahad origin story and supposedly belonged to my father when he was a boy. I recently read it for the first time when taking a break from Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”

Vintage cover page.
From “In the Court of King Arthur,” by Samuel E. Lowe and illustrated by Neil O’Keefe (Whitman Publishing Co., Racine, Wisconsin, 1918).
This book is a Sir Galahad origin story and supposedly belonged to my father when he was a boy. I recently read it for the first time when taking a break from Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Mar 9

Yours are cuddlier. Great names! I wouldn’t have thought of those!

Healthy clump of oyster mushrooms on the trunk of a dead liquidambar tree. Large, irregularly curved caps spread more or less perpendicularly from the trunk, with prominent gills underneath.

Morel mushroom found in Southern California, where it shouldn’t exist. Mulch from Northern California or Oregon. The reticulated structure makes it difficult to confuse the morel with anything else.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Mar 4

This reminds me how every so often the craving builds up and I have to run, not walk, to the nearest Hokkaido Ramen Santouka for the spicy ramen with salmon on the side.

Medium-sized spicy ramen with rice bowl (salmon and salmon roe added) and hard-boiled egg, from the Hokkaido Ramen Santouka in the Mitsuwa Market food court, Del Amo Fashion Center, Torrance, California.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Jan 27

The shrimp and locally harvested oyster mushroom quesadilla has made the leap from the chef’s febrile imagination to the plate, at Black Pork, in Long Beach, California. Really a great food experience. #longbeach #blackpork #terroir #oystermushroom #thefungusisamongus #青空ごはん部

Black Pork’s shrimp and oyster mushroom quesadillas, with a couple of tasty sauces.

Black Pork’s shrimp and oyster mushroom quesadillas. You wanted a closer look at the generous dollops of guacamole, melted cheese, slices of mushroom appetizer, and perfectly cooked shrimp, right? I did!

Black Pork’s shrimp and oyster mushroom quesadillas. This photo, showing one unfolded to reveal all the ingredients, is not very pretty! I quit trying to pretend to be a food photographer in order to show the generous proportions of ingredients.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Jan 25

Black Pork, a struggling little Long Beach, CA restaurant that punches above its weight, is offering this spicy, buttery shrimp and locally harvested oyster mushroom appetizer and a quesadilla twin until the small cache of perishable mushrooms runs out. So in the unlikely event you’re nearby….

Buttery, sautéed slices of fresh, locally harvested oyster mushrooms with shrimp, chili pepper, and buttered toast at Black Pork, in Long Beach, CA. This appetizer combines a French cook’s liberal use of butter with Mexican heat.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Jan 7

How intricate! And elegant! And colorful! Those I captured are relatively crude but emotionally resonant, in my eyes. #papercrane #origami #Manzanar

Paper cranes (origami) at the site of the Manzanar Japanese-American internment camp, between the towns of Lone Pine and Independence, in California’s Owens Valley; along US Route 395 and overshadowed by the Sierra Nevada mountains. They are folded using many colors and patterns of origami paper, and strung together on cords wrapped around a squat wooden post or bollard. They lie in a pile on the desert sand, lit by afternoon sun.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Nov 20

"Trump could have chosen to release many of the files on his own months ago." Thank you, Ms. Kim. That felt like regurgitating an undigested crazy pill.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Nov 17

Ready for a wikiGong.com video retrospective at Saturday night’s LB Soundbrowse sound art event. Onscreen: “The Price,” our 2020 pandemic editorial, based on Daniel Defoe’s 1721 “Citizens Oppose Precautions Against Plague” (wikigong.com/project/wiki...). #wikigong #lbsoundbrowse

The author slumps in a folding chair inside the darkened back room of the old Belmont Shore police station, in Long Beach, California, after setting up for a wikiGong.com video retrospective, part of the LB Soundbrowse sound art event. A sheet of brilliant white Tyvek attached with packing tape serves as an inexpensive and portable screen for the Benq projector. The projector struggles with murk drifting in from the front room, where a performer is using a fog machine. Onscreen: “The Price,” our 2020 pandemic editorial, based on Daniel Defoe’s 1721 “Citizens Oppose Precautions Against Plague.” In the video, Dave Ayer’s sound design, based largely on sound samples captured from infrastructure, grows increasingly loud, angry, and chaotic, overwhelming the author’s reading of Defoe’s text —until receding in the last few seconds of moral clarity [my interpretation!].

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Nov 11

The minister, who viewed with proud indifference the rest of mankind, never forgave the appearance of an injury; and his personal enemies had forfeited in his opinion the merit of all public services. (905) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall

President Trump, seemingly bored and irritated, waits while others rush to help and remove a guest who fainted during his press conference.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Nov 7

A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master, who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the last extremes of injustice and oppression. (897) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall

A slave of Evil Genius in the 1981 “Time Bandits,” who is, in fact, seconds short of experiencing the last extremes of injustice and oppression. He appears to be bald and short. He wears a transparent raincoat but the movie was made before MAGA hats were a thing.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Sep 8

Here Gibbon resolves not to try the reader’s patience with a discussion of 18 competing religious creeds. I imagine a comparison with something which could be visualized more like a Louis Sullivan drawing.

“detail, A System of Architectural Ornament- Plate 16, Impromptu!, 1922; Louis H. Sullivan Graphite on Strathmore paper.” Photo by Flickr.com user Anne Petersen, unedited. License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/).

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Sep 6

I love me a little Gibbon! Who doesn’t?

Photo of baby gibbon, employed as a lazy and unfortunate pun on the name of Edward Gibbon, author of “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”
“Baby Gibbon” (https://www.flickr.com/photos/61367045@N06/5585374016) by Flickr user Phil. License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/).

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Feb 22

Either way! (Congratulations on overcoming the problem some of us still struggle with!) But it would have been less ambiguous if I’d replied to one of the preceding posts.

Edited photograph of a woman, labeled “autocorrect,” admires a large duck passing on the sidewalk, as a man accompanying her, with one arm around her waist, tries to restrain her or recover her attention. The man is labeled “me, typing fuck for the 14th time.” The picture lampoons the difficulty of overcoming guardrails typically built into consumer autocorrect software, e.g. as used in text messaging.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Feb 18

Does the thought of “intimate areas of the administration” make anyone else queasy?

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich posting on X re: revocation of Associated Press access privileges as punishment for AP’s refusal to acknowledge that the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Jan 21

Maybe I’ll get used to it. But that would be bad.

Mugatu yells “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!”

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Sep 23

Nothing to be ashamed of! How big will the number get?

Bluesky screen celebrating 10 million users says I got on board at 1,472,106.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Aug 23

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Jun 18

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Jun 17

Ice cream is my department, so if I want cherry ice cream for Father’s Day, I’ll make it. (Recipe from the “Cook’s Illustrated” “How to Make Ice Cream,” 1997.)

Cooking 3/4 pound fresh pitted cherries with 1/4 cup sugar in a stainless steel Masterchef sauté pan for ice cream. (Recipe from the “Cook’s Illustrated” “How to Make Ice Cream,” 1997.)

A little bit of frozen cherry ice cream in a glass with a spoon. (Recipe from the “Cook’s Illustrated” “How to Make Ice Cream,” 1997.)

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Jun 16

My daughter remembers the good things, too. I used to read Pooh stories to the kids, using distinctive voices for every character, including a squeaky falsetto for Piglet. Not too long ago she sent me this. “When I read it, I heard it in your voice.” One of our most touching exchanges.

Jacob Dickinson@jjldickinson· Jun 16

My first thought when I saw this travesty: “This ridiculous display is supposed to make me WANT your product?” Seriously, who is the target market?