Today, in 1944, my sister died from complications of Scarlet Fever. Before penicillin this was often a killing disease, but many did survive with medical care. Unfortunately, this didn’t take place because of poverty, and some religious influence.
It’s a curious thing to know that you had a sibling that was never there, and because of pain/guilt very rarely spoken about. She was three days shy of being eight years old, not a mature person, but a normal preteen little girl.
My older brother Bob knew her well, and loved her beyond measure. He was twelve years old when she died. And now he has died. There is no more a living connection. We barely keep alive the memories of our important great grandfathers. What are the chances of an eight year old little girl?
She was my sister, she was the aunt of my children. I will always speak her name, and ponder what things might have been. Rest in peace Gayle Ondra Diestler.
I have a fun suggestion. Try removing just one word from your speech or thoughts for one month. If the word comes up, as it will naturally do, dismiss it quickly, as if it never happened. The word is banished to a verbal purgatory, along with swear words in front of your mother. The word is… “coincidence”
Let’s say that you make the decision to do this, then you plan a trip to the dentist. On the BART train you notice a man dressed in black, shaved head, and a bar-code tattooed on the back of his neck. Later, after a successful teeth cleaning you head through the lobby, and you notice a bald man, dressed in black, with a bar-code tattoo on the back of his neck.
Normally you might say this is a coincidence, but you can’t say this because for at least a month the word doesn’t exist for you.
Then you decide to jump on and off BART several times, catch bus transfer, walk through the busiest shopping center, before paying cash at the nearest motel. And you are still alive in the morning.
I have removed the word “coincidence” for the last ten years. I have found new meanings to the things I see and hear, spending a lot of time analyzing the “agencies” behind the events.
Just now while driving home, I noticed dozens of yellow daisies growing on the corner lot. I looked at them only in passing, but I noticed them. I’m not a nectar seeking insect, also, I do not collect pollen. But the agency of the flower had created an explosion of color that caught my attention.
For millennia, when the early humans looked up, they witnessed two lights in the sky, one that ruled the day, and one that ruled the night. Stories were made up about these objects, some of the facts were confused. They appear to us to be the same size, and it took thousands of years to learn that the night orb was not generating light, but merely reflecting light from the sun.
In textbooks they often say it’s an amazing coincidence that the moon and the sun were almost the exact size from our perspective. It took years for us to accept the fact that the sun is slightly over 400 times the size of the moon.
For us, the occasional eclipse proves that they are essentially the same size. In a thousand years it might be slightly different, but in this early science years it was said to be a coincidence. What agency determined this?
As far as we know, planets don’t decide to make a moon the exact size of the sun as seen from the surface. So what agency is responsible? How often does this random relationship occur in infinite galaxies?
If this is by design, what are we expected to learn by the viewed relationship?
Perhaps the intention all along was to encourage questioning, noticing things and then trying to find the purpose, instead of labeling it “coincidence
I went to my brother’s funeral service this weekend. It was a time of remembrance, and a time of the spoken word. They are not always the same story. It was a time of healing of old wounds, and a time to pick at the scars or scabs, it was a time of reflection of the person, and a time to reflect on others, and words not said, actions not taken.
It was a time for Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, or maybe listen to the Byrds, “Turn, Turn, Turn”.
Mostly it was an ending. We are left with our memories, some resolved, and pleasant. Some unresolved, with hurt and frustration mixed up with grief. So it is with families everywhere.
There is a skill set known as “dealing with cognitive dissonance”. It may not be a useful skill set. In some ways it gets you through the day, through the immediate conflict. But like a cheap bandaid, it falls away in time, exposing the wound created. We are a bag of skin, with broken sharp objects inside.
The purpose of life for some Jewish scholars, is to “repair the world”. Because it is rent and torn in so many ways, and on so many levels. It is worth the time, while alive, to ponder the damage done in our lives. To take responsibility, and to give grace. Both sides of the coin held by those still alive.
And then there will be an ending, and an accounting… possibly with words unsaid, and actions not taken.
I taught graphic design for many years, and I always mentioned the two projects that professional designers dreamed about. The first would be designing a typeface that becomes popular. This is not only financially rewarding, but it is amazing to see the impact on the world.
Typography is now a lost art, primarily through the glut of available typefaces. When fonts were formed in lead with matrix molds, the choices were less. When fonts were designed in postscript, the choices were almost endless.
I was sucked into that designers dream when the first typographic app came out. A designer could load the font into each character, and at the end you could upload the font to your computer and type with it. Of course it was much more than upper and lower case alphabet stuff. It was special characters, punctuation, numbers, super script, etc.
I only got the upper and lower case finished. What I did was upload my favorite five fonts, convert them into postscript outlines, then I averaged them all together to create a blend.
The final project was unique to my selections and had many of the qualities that I admired. I typed a few sentences, then forgot about going further.
The second dream of designers is to make a lasting logo. A logo for the ages that becomes representational, a short cut of identity. Fortunately, I not only taught graphic design, but I was the institutional designer for the college.
I’m not certain that I was asked to make a logo. I was just aware that a design had not been decided, because I saw that there were several different ways that the college presented itself in print.
There was a letterhead that spelled out the college name in Copperplate, a popular typeface in the late 1800s. This typeface did not have lowercase letters, it just used smaller capital letters instead. It was remarkable because it had very small, sharp serifs… almost like thorns, on a mostly standard sans serif body style.
This worked well with the college name because there was the letter “g” that had a descender sticking down below the base line. In Copperplate there were no ascenders or descenders.
Then someone tried using just the four first letters to make a textual logo. I mention four because the official name was “Contra Costa Community College”.
The end result was that it looked like four horse shoe prints, or a long broken chain. It was better to drop the “community”. Three “C”s was enough.
I worked on three different designs. The first was different ways to present three “C”s, some based on type, some based on art. One that appeared interesting was three curved, swooping shapes. This was before Nike’s logo. It was promising.
The next idea was based on a Japanese style circular “chop”. I once saw a rendition of Mt. Fuji surrounded by a circular band. When I was walking the college upper road, I could see Mt. Tamalpais and the bay quite clearly.
I did a quick sketch of Mt. Tam with the bay below, and I made three choppy “C”s in the bay water. Like waves. Then, I placed a circular ring around it all, broken only by the water.
The third idea was slightly improving the old Copperplate idea.
I placed all three projects in a folder and present them to the President of the college. I wasn’t sure he had the authority, considering there was the chancellor of the district. He liked the “swoop” logo, but said he would take the projects to a district meeting. He came back with the Mt. Tam “chop” idea. Although he thought it was Mt. Diablo.
I almost said that we can’t see Mt. Diablo from our campus, but then I realized that the district office can’t see Mt. Tamalpais. I said nothing. I changed the mountain slightly.
The round logo lasted seven or eight years, from 1977 to 1985. In 1984 the college hired a new president, and as some presidents do, changes were made. In 1985 I was asked to “improve” the logo.
I replaced the circular band with a horizontal double oval. I also removed one line of the waves in the bay, and changed the “choppy” three “C”s with a more typographic look. I used a typeface with a slightly round serif similar to CocaCola’s typeface. Lastly, I was asked to make the mountain more similar to Mt. Diablo. I never said that it was Mt. Tam. I changed the mountain again.
For the last thirty-eight years it has remained the same, with eleven different presidents. It can be seen from space because it is in the middle of the football field. It is chiseled in stone on several signs on campus, and of course it is on every piece of letterhead.
It wasn’t the lyrics of a classic song, it was the announced death of a person I’ve known for forty years.
Relationships made at work are in a peculiar box. Often they are simply “associates”, people that are known, people that share a building or office, people that work together on projects… but often they never enter in to your private life.
‘Associate” does not necessarily mean being a friend. In academia, relationships have another label- colleague, another person at the “college”. Again, friendship is not implied, but the relationship is deeper on many levels. More complex, more commitment.
It’s stranger still when the individual should be a “friend”, but has never quite transitioned to that close circle. It is always a missed opportunity. I received a death notice of a person that should have been my friend, but remained my colleague. We smiled in hallways. We brought joy to each other in the passing. We loved the same things in the world. We taught things of passion.
And somehow we never had the time for “friendship”. that was an error on my part. I should have reached out more because I appreciated his “being”. But I think he knew that, so maybe it was the same for him.
The college asked for comments, I sent the following.
David…
He was/is the purist definition of a colleague. We shared in teaching disciplines that did not directly lead to successful careers, yet we believed the disciplines were essential to being a successful individual. We shared being part-time instructors in the decades when part-time did not have the respect of others. We shared the challenge of being academic chairs when budgets were contracting every year. We shared the joy of loving the community of the college above all else. But he was kinder, wiser, and more gentle.
I will miss my rare colleague, as he continues to lead the way.
Frederick Wilhelm Diestler was born on May 6, 1860 in Lansing, Allamakee Countyt, Iowa. The new Republican Party had nominated Abraham Lincoln for the November election in 1860, and he won!
In the months before the election the country was defining issues issues with sharp edges, and the election of Lincoln was felt by some people in the South as the last straw. In Iowa they celebrated!
Frederick’s father, John Frederick, was an immigrant from Prussia. He was born in Gross Fahlenwerder, Soldin county. Over one hundred colonists had moved there from the Pfalz area near France, because of the threat of war, and constant French raids.
The colonists at first wanted to go to the United States, like their Hessian neighbors. But the Emperor had at first refused to let them go, asking them to consider going to some new lands east of Berlin. They spoke German there, and he promised not to draft their sons for war.
John Frederick was born in Gross Fahlenwerder, but as a teenager, he was one of the first that independently decided to move to America.
I’m not certain in what year he first came to the US. I found a record of him coming over when he was in his early twenties, but the oral history was that he was a teenager. I have found several instances where individuals came over to check things out, then went back to escort family and friends to the new world. In 1857 John zfrederick came by ship with a neighbor, Karl Berkeley.
John Frederick came to Iowa via the Great Lakes to Green Bay. From there he followed the portage trail through Wisconsin to the Mississippi River. I believe he stopped briefly to marry a distant cousin, Julia, at his father-in-law’s farm in Lansing , Minn. They stayed there for almost two years, and their first child died there in childbirth.
In a pattern that has repeated several times, after the death, they decide to move back to Wisconsin. This time there went to a sunburn of Milwaukee and lived on a small farm near Pewaukee. Julia was pregnant with Anna, and after the birth they went back to Langsing, Iowa. It’s possible that Julia’s father had helped, or knew, that a farm was for sale nearby, or perhaps they rented.
John Frederick had remember the area and decided to go to the neighboring farm, and Frederick William was born there as the oldest son.
It seems possible that Lansing was the place to go for births until 1873, when John Frederick purchased the Quincy Township farm. It was very isolated, no commercial buildings. The nearest hospital was in Dover, so perhaps that’s why several children had Dover listed as place of birth.
It looks like Anna and William had left the Quincy farm by the 1880 census. The unresolved mystery is where was Frederick William during the 1870 census. He was only ten years old, but he not listed in the family.
Perhaps this is part of the family lore… that Frederick William was often called “Wild Bill”. He was John Fredericks oldest son, but it appears that he and several of his brothers were not expected to take over the family farm when John Frederick lost his leg. Herman was given the responsibility, but even he gave up pretty quickly. John Frederick sold the farm in the Quincy Township, and brought a small house in the city of Nora Springs, Iowa.
As far as I can tell, Frederick William moved around Iowa, perhaps learning the trade of making rope for the farmers. Most farms had a patch of hemp growing, to use in the seasonal rope making.
Frederick did not get married early, he was 34 when he married Amelia Mary Louise Markmann Korth, on March 14, 1894. The oral story was that Amelia was a mail order bride, arranged through a German language newspaper. The surprise was that when Amelia arrived she was already pregnant with William Diestler, born September 21, 1893, in Fingal, ND.
The records show that she arrived in 1891, when she was 15 years old, she married Frederick William in 1894, when she was 18. Apparently she had been in the country for three years. Perhaps there was a previous mail order situation that didn’t work out, but she was already pregnant when Frederick decided it was time to get married.
His father, John Frederick was miles away in Iowa. His uncles and aunt were in Wisconsin, even further away. For some reason Frederick decided to raise horses in the plains near Fingal, ND, a town founded in 1891, by some Canadians, The nearest city was Fargo, ND and that was pretty small at the time. He purchased a ranch in 1893.
In 1876 the population of Fargo was only 600. By 1893 it had grown to nearly 8,000 people, then disaster struck on June 7, 1893. A fire swept through 33 blocks of the city, destroying nearly 300 buildings. The city responded by rebuilding within a year, and by 1894 most of the buildings were brand new, still standing today.
Frederick William was still living in Fingal, ND. From 1893-1912, he raised horses and slowly gained a measure of wealth. In 1912 he built an 18 room ranch house that was the largest in the local area. Then the winter of 1920 hit.
Frederick William had 160 acres about 2 miles east of Fingal. The blizzard killed over 200,000 head of cattle in ND. It wiped out 90% of the horses on the ranch. Only Ben and a couple of his sisters could help Frederick William. They had a half dozen horses left, which they quickly sold.
They have to sell the ranch at a great loss. The ranch house was moved by the new owner a few miles away. There was nothing left of the ranch.
The family spent the rest of the winter/spring in a stone silo that a neighbor rented to them. They picked the grains of wheat from the cracks in the walls, and parched them on the stove to make a decaf coffee. It was hard times. Most of the girls found jobs cleaning, washing clothes, doing house chores. The boys did the best they could but there was no steady work.
The economic pressure took a toll on the relation between Frederick and Amelia and they divorced in 1926. At the time Fargo was known as the divorce capital of the Midwest.
Amelia moved to the town of Fargo, and the older children found relationships and some work. For the next twenty years Amelia relied on support from the children in some fashion.
Frederick William was traveling throughout the Midwest with his rope making business. Frederick died in 1926, pretty much a broken man.
It was said that he mistrusted banks, but he didn’t put his money in his mattress. Since he traveled a lot, he sewed his money in the seams of his clothes.
He also was very talented with a pocket knife. He would often whittle a chain out of a two by four, complete with a box at the end that contained a small ball. He would do this often in one day.
‘Wild Bill” had many disappointments, and his life was hard. His true wealth was in the amount of his children.
I’m not saying that I’m completely knowledgeable on image making AI, but I have tested most of the commonly popular software, and some of the not so common. The trouble with reviews is that the software generally doesn’t get worse, it tends to correct itself and gets better.
For now, the best part of portrait AI is the backgrounds, the clothes, the hair, the skin tones, and the general placement of the facial features. Artistic styles can be fun to look at, but twenty anime portraits seems a bit much.
The spookiest feature is the ability to turn the head to a 3/4 shot from a full on frontal, or the ability to automatically animate the image.
Right now the easiest “tell” for an AI generated image is the pupil of the eye. The correct size, the correct highlight from eye to eye, and the general construction of the iris. The very last trial I made had nearly corrected this flaw, so it probably will disappear in the next few versions.
The text based AI is already scary, the image based AI will change forever our ability to trust photographic images.
I recently wrote about him on occasion of his birthday in January. He was 91, and I wished for him that 2023 would be a great year. He was still mobile a week before he died. Not mobile enough to go for a stroll, but he could get a snack from the refrigerator.
I don’t think he found much relief from the dementia caused by the mini-strokes from a few years ago. It’s been bad for his loved ones.
My middle brother would call him every month or so, and talk for hours. He hasn’t been able to handle phone calls for about a year. I would write him an e-mail periodically, and his daughter would read it to him. Later, he would tell her that I had called, and he would share the news. It’s been over a year since I last wrote. I just finished my 20th letter to him.
Bob,
So, I’ve been told that you died. I saw on my phone that your daughter Sheila was calling me in the afternoon on Wednesday. It’s funny how fast the brain takes in information, and projects the possible outcomes. I knew that you had gone before answering. It didn’t help.
It’s been a few days now. A roller coaster of emotions, a Ferris wheel of departures. My car is now closer to the exit.
“Bob Stories” are on my mind. You certainly generated tons of memories. And naturally, that generates many questions that I never asked, and I couldn’t expect an answer from you for the last few years.
You were my connection to Gayle, though you never said much about her. Even when you were lucid, I never remembered to ask about her. I was always waiting for the right time. The same waiting time I had with our parents.
You were so much older than I, and you became somewhat mythical. You would visit on leave from the army, and there was always gear left behind. Web belts, canteens, pouches, even a training dummy M1 rifle. I always had the best stuff in the neighborhood to play army.
Weirdly, the one thing that stands out were the “white” Mickey Mouse boots. They were issued to you when you received advanced training for crashing helicopters in the snow. I think it was Mt. Rainier where you built snow caves, and wore insulated white rubber boots. They actually had a built in release valve to deflate the pressure built up when flying at height in the helicopter.
Obviously I had to wear a dozen socks to put on the boots, but I clumped around feeling pretty important for years. Then on another visit, you reclaimed them.
One year you left scuba diving equipment. I immediately drained the tank while sitting in the bottom of my friend’s pool. I didn’t swim, I just sat there, breathing underwater. Then I felt bad that I had used all the air. I did use the fins to learn to swim while camping. They were so much netter than the crummy cheap kids fins.
For years I spent more time with the objects that you left, and very little time talking with you. Later, when I was older we didn’t have much in common.
Then I was in the army and we shared ideas about weapons and things that were sharp. I think you were impressed when I brought up the black powder rifle that I had built. At least you enjoyed shooting it in the woods.
When visiting your house, I always asked, “How many weapons do you have within reach, as you sit in your Lazy-Boy?” If your answer was less than a dozen I would wonder what was wrong.
I am now sitting in my own Lazy Boy. I count ten, three of them Norwegian bearded axes. I’m a work in progress.
I’ll end this last letter knowing that I’ll still be talking to you, and remembering. You lead the way, my brother. I loved, and love you always.
A medieval Greek word meaning “made without hand”. I suppose that would be all objects of nature. In the art world it would be all “found art” that didn’t include manmade objects. But this Greek word was primarily used in the world of iconology. It was used for Christian relics with images. The most famous being the “Shroud of Turin”.
What I have found recently is that many scholars are now calling it the “Man in the Shroud”. This is the result of trying to describe what it “is”, instead of what it might be. It is the most tested relic in the world, but it is easier to say what it isn’t, rather than what it is.
Compiling the most conservative descriptions I’ve found…
1. The shroud is made of flax linen, in a herringbone weave, measuring approx 14.5 ft by 3.7 ft.
2. There is a frontal image of a man on the left side of the rectangle, with the head near the center, then a dorsal image of the same man on the right side of the rectangle. The suggestion is that the shroud was laid flat, the man was placed on the right half with the feet near the right edge. Then the rest of the shroud was drawn over the body, with the left side pulled to match the right edge. Essentially the shroud was folded in half, with the body inside, and the head near the fold.
3. The image is only on one side of the linen material, and is only barely on the surface, less than a quarter of a hair’s thickness. It doesn’t penetrate through, it doesn’t have directional brush stokes, it doesn’t appear to be pigment or dye.
4. There are many areas of blood stains, which do penetrate through the linen. The blood stains are constant with wounds created by the result of being crucified.
5. In addition there are blood stains on the head and face, and from “scurging” of the body.
6. Finally, there are blood stains on the feet, wrists, and the left side of the chest.
There is agreement that the shroud has been positively known from at least 1354. During a public viewing in 1898 it was finally photographed by Secondo Pia.
It wasn’t until then that the original image was discovered to be a negative. When the photographic negative was developed it showed that the man’s image was a positive with many details now being visible.
The fine details in a normal photograph were still unresolved because of the fibers of the flax linen.
During the 1500s there was a fire in the cathedral where the shroud was stored. It was folded several times and just the edges of the folded material were burned. It was fortunate that one of the image was damaged, but several holes were charred and burned through. Local nuns sewed patches on the holes, and sewed a linen backing cloth, completely covering the backside of the shroud.
In 1988 there was an agreement with the owner of the shroud that carbon 14 testing may be done on some samples that didn’t disturb the image. Unfortunately, carbon 14 testing requires the sample to be completely destroyed in the test. The sample was taken from an 8 centimeter strip of the edge of the shroud. Samples were given off to three different labs around the world. All of them came to the same conclusion. The flax was harvested in the range between 1290 – 1350. The shroud was made in medieval times. The findings were combined and published by an independent scientific organization.
Later, scholars discovered that sometime in the 1600s, some of the edges of the shroud were patched with 1600s linen material with a “French invisible weave”. The 8 centimeter strip sample was part of that weave. So, the sample had original linen material and 16th century linen material mixed in the carbon 14 results. This meant that the average of the two resulted in the dates provided in the report. The same organization gave a second report that they could not very the dates of the contaminated samples. It was back to square one, nothing proved, nothing disproved.
In 2002, a restoration was made on the shroud. The patches were removed, the charred material was cut away and stored, and a new backing cloth was sewn in place of the old. This was done in secret without consulting dozens of shroud scholars. Some have said that important data is now lost forever.
Some say the the removed material could have been used for a new carbon 14 test, but now it’s been removed and can’t be validated. Other material has been micro-vacuumed from the shroud with consulting experts. ‘Sticky tape’ has been pressed on the exposed backside with some force to collect dust and pollen samples. Wrinkles may have been “steamed” in order for the shroud to lay flat, with lead weights attach to stretch the material.
Lots of opinions written by many people, but what has been done, is done. And nothing has been proven.
The shroud exists, the image exists. The age is unknown, the method making the image is unknown.
In the late 1300s it was declared a forgery. An artist made the image, intending it to represent Jesus in his burial cloth, showing signs of the crucified body.
Hundreds of facts and details have since made that very hard to believe. The idea that the image was made by the body being reincarnated is also very difficult to believe.
It wasn’t until 1988 that the ownership went to the Catholic Church.
It is still the most researched relic in the world.
This word has been bouncing around in my grey matter for a few weeks. Not because I self identify, but more that I’ve read the word in several different sources.
Most recently in an article in “The Atlantic Monthly”, by Agnes Callard. She is probably someone that I should know, or at least heard of, but I’m clueless. Agnes’s article was titled, “A Philosopher Gets Fed Up With Profundity, There are better ways to communicate.” The graphic was three repeating words, chiseled in stone…”Yada, Yada, Yada”
I think for most people it was a quick way of dismissing something that was said or written. A sarcastic response to wordy communication perhaps. I don’t know if many people would know that “Yada” is Hebrew, meaning “to know.”
So that “Yada, Yada, Yada” might still be sarcastic, but more pointedly, suggesting that you might “know too much”. Interestingly, the Hebrew could also imply that Yada is to know carnally.
The article begins with a warning from her Phd. advisor to not call herself a philosopher once she receives her doctorate. Better that she identifies herself as someone who reads philosophy. The reasoning is that she might be expected to be profound!
Apparently there had been a profile of Agnes that was based upon an interview, and not upon her written perceptions of philosophy. The reviewers of the profile responded that she was boring, banal, and unremarkable. And certainly not profound!
The expectation of profundity from a philosopher was not met.
I am not a philosopher, although I have been philosophical at times. For many years I was paid to profess. The teachers Union actually pushed a policy allowing the college district to call us “professors” without the usual requirement of the rigorous academic structure.
The problem with titles is that sometimes it is just a title, without the reenforcing background.
Most of the reenforcing background is actual work, and work that is decades long. Being “philosophical” on a lost summer day in 1969, does not qualify a person as a philosopher. It takes time and effort. Calling oneself a professor because of a labor policy is problematic.
How to be profound. It does not come with a title. It comes from the opinion of others, and not self identification. Multiple opinions of others, over a period of time. In addition, the opinions are from individuals that have a solid understanding of what “profound” means. A steep requirement.
Should one even desire to be profound? In one sense it is a label that establishes a “distance”. You can’t be close to a profound person. You might ask them for an opinion, you might sit quietly in a garden with them. It might be dangerous to be close to a profound person, they might parse your soul, judge you, and find you wanting.
I like the idea of “occasional profundity”. It would be every now and then, and definitely not on call. There’s a dramatic quality of not being able to be profound consistently.
A Work Progressing 
Gayle
Today, in 1944, my sister died from complications of Scarlet Fever. Before penicillin this was often a killing disease, but many did survive with medical care. Unfortunately, this didn’t take place because of poverty, and some religious influence.
It’s a curious thing to know that you had a sibling that was never there, and because of pain/guilt very rarely spoken about. She was three days shy of being eight years old, not a mature person, but a normal preteen little girl.
My older brother Bob knew her well, and loved her beyond measure. He was twelve years old when she died. And now he has died. There is no more a living connection. We barely keep alive the memories of our important great grandfathers. What are the chances of an eight year old little girl?
She was my sister, she was the aunt of my children. I will always speak her name, and ponder what things might have been. Rest in peace Gayle Ondra Diestler.