atavistic blogger

One reads that nobody actually blogs any more. Huh.

1. Water conservation is a big issue in California, and much of the focus has been on big agribusiness and its cultivation of water-intensive crops. All the urban domestic water use in the state is a drop next to that bucket. Naturally, in the farming regions in the Central Valley they feel strongly about being expected to carry the weight on that, and along the freeway there are many hostile signs posted on the edges of orchards or ranches. One common one, pre-printed, is a banner reading "Is Growing Food Wasting Water?" I'd say that depends. It depends on whether you're wasting water doing it. Here's an article about that, featuring a fruits-and-nuts baron whose realm I passed right through on the trip to LA.

Most interestingly, the fruits-and-nuts baron's wife:
1) Is responsible for coming up with the brand name "Cuties" for the realm's Mandarin oranges;
2) Was, in a former life, Anthony Russo's girlfriend, the one who owned a small ad agency and let Russo and Ellsberg use its photocopier to copy the Pentagon Papers.

2. About a month ago I remarked, concerning a review of an article on pioneering American women composers, "My candidate for the first great American woman composer is Florence Price, but nobody writes about her."

Behold Alex Ross. My wish is his command.

(Fort Smith Symphony in May, eh? Hmmm.)

3. Mustn't leave out my latest review, of a concert I went to simply because I like all the pieces in it.

4. The only impact of the Super Bowl on this household was the denudation from the grocery store shelves of the shrimp, and the broccoli.