I just found out that my friend and mentor, J.D. (Dan) Larson, passed away. He was found unresponsive by a neighbour. He was 91 years old.

Dan had a long career in high-energy physics. After a PhD at Caltech, he developed particle accelerator technology at Oak Ridge and Argonne. In the 1990s he stepped away from research to care for his elderly parents in Independence, MO. He had been in poor health for the last couple of years, and died in the home he'd been born in. Dan was my mother-in-law's companion.

This picture was taken in December 2014, and Dan is holding up a collage my partner made for him to thank him for taking her to the airport in the middle of the night (hence the "3:10" clock). Dan drove a very well-used 1990 Ford station wagon, which had many sensors broken or failing. The airbag light was constantly flashing, as did the indicator in the collage. A tremendously precise man, it didn't bother Dan that his gas gauge was broken: he knew exactly how many miles he got on a full tank.

I'll miss him.

Doctor Jimmy and Mister Jim,
When I’m pilled I don’t notice him,
He only comes out when I drink my ginnn …

Source: https://www.tumblr.com/mostlysi...

"New York is a big, mean, wonderful, impatient city that has waited 53 years to celebrate the team it cares about most. Despite the reflexive swagger of its fanbase — “Knicks in four!” became a rallying cry across the boroughs this year; then “Knicks in five!” when they lost a game — it was still nearly impossible to process, in the hours after its N.B.A. championship, that any of this had happened.

When New York comes together — really comes together — it is often in response to something tragic: 9/11, Sandy, Covid. Part of the magic of this run was the notion that uncomplicated joy was also an option. At least every 53 years or so." - Matt Flegenheimer

Photo credit: AP

Finally left some prints and a couple of copies of a book in a funny little anonymous art box we have in the town, which my friend made.

Previously
https://mltshp.com/p/1RAM7
https://mltshp.com/p/1RJTH

source: https://classicalcanvas.tumblr.com/post...

this is a real book, btw.

Men and Pork Chops: A History of the Ontario Pork Producers Marketing Board
BISHOP, Wilfred L.
Phelps Publishing Company (London, ON) 1977

Made another door in the stump

Previously: https://mltshp.com/p/1RG5L

...a kind soul has made the effort of compiling various dumps people have made of old Macintosh system fonts (and other user-inaccessible fonts, such as "eWorld Tight 18"!), including bitmap and early OpenType fonts, and released them as uniform FontFactory and Truetype files.

There are hundreds of fonts and variations here. In the days before live onscreen vector graphics each size had to be drawn separately, so they look different in ways you can't replicate just by up/downscaling one font.

https://github.com/JohnDDun...

Chicago15 is my madeline.

This detailing place near me changed brands a while back, but i just noticed how un-detail-oriented their sign design is (aside from being plain ugly).

It's done. I installed everything this morning, and within about 10 minutes, neighbors started coming by to play.

This is just me (my wife shot the vertical video) plinking around.

I'll post a bunch of process photos and notes on the blog and add a link to that here eventually, but as of today, I'm really pleased with the sound quality from the resonators.

It's lovely having soft tones float up through the living room window as random people stop by to make random music.

It's the whole reason why I built the thing in the first place.

via https://mastodon.world/@MsMissy...

spotted in the U district. these are all over the front of the building. I love them.

source: https://oldshowbiz.tumblr.com/post...

source: https://danskjavlarna.tumblr.com/post...

Aka Olivia Newton John
https://www.tumblr.com/jesusism...

Built on an airplane tug frame according to the steward caring for the vehicle. Has a lower and upper deck for lounging, projecting music system, several hundred watts of LEDs, and powered by two propane alternators and an ungodly amount of lithium ion batteries. Did not get a chance to see it lit up since it was blazingly bright out today.

Seen at the Currents New Media exhibition in SFe.

https://currentsnewmedia.org/

source: https://rhade-zapan.tumblr.com/post...

This signed Hockney print of "Ian Swimming, Los Angeles, 1982" was recently donated to the art collection at my wife's employer. I always loved his Polaroid constructions and this one has a lovely, serene motion timelapse feel to it. Perfect for a summer's afternoon.

from time to time, our local salvage store offers up some really odd shit

(previously: https://www.xylovan.com/xylovan/)

I’ve dreamed of installing the big xylophone in front of the house ever since we moved in five years ago.

My son and I finally picked up the all instruments from storage in LA and brought them home in January. I have another project in the works using keys from the other big keyboard - details to come as it comes together.

Over the past few weeks I polished up all the keys, built new resonators, and rebuilt the top end of the frame to fix the ugly gap that used to be there to allow it to mount cleanly on the van’s flanks. It’s a lot purtier now.

This morning I dug holes for the four legs with a posthole digger and then lowered the frame into place with the help of friends and neighbors.

I plumbed and leveled things with the frame parallel to the little slope in front of the house ( at a nice, playable 40-degree angle), set the legs in place with small stones to steady them, and poured in and then doused a bag of quickset concrete for each.

Tomorrow I mount the new resonators and reinstall 2-1/2 octaves worth of aluminum keys.

It’s happening. I’m stoked.