Archive for January, 2022

It’s now Lucy Sante

Such a terrific writer. I’ve followed her work for decades, beginning with her New York Review of Books pieces. She has a fine website.

20 years of basil.CA

This week basil.CA celebrates its twentieth anniversary. With some variations, I’ve kept the four-column format used from the beginning (thank you for the inspiration, Arts & Letters Daily!). The main change over the years: Once I shuttered Basil Communications Inc., I wrote about business and the market (and political controversy) a good deal less.

Between 2002 and 2022 I’ve used basil.CA not only as a blog but as a hub connecting to a range of projects: No Contest Communications, my iPhone Blog, photography (general and “straight up“), andvariousotherthingamabobs.

I’m grateful to my readers for swinging by. I’ve tried to keep the place tidy but filled with whatnots to look at and think about, as if you were visiting my apartment as a guest.

Phyllis Christopher

‘The Guardian’ interviews wonderful photographer and friend Phyllis Christopher. Her book “Dark Room: San Francisco Sex and Protest, 1988-2003” is being published this year.

There have been few times in history where women run the camera, the press and the ecosystem of publishing. But the world we created in San Francisco felt like a beautiful laboratory. It wasn’t separatist by any means – we didn’t seclude ourselves from men and non-lesbians – but we were making work for each other. I think that’s evident in these images.

I wrote about Phyllis Christopher’s work a few years back.

Happy birthday, kat

The new term

My term starts on Monday (delayed a week because of Omicron). I can’t wait. This has been too long of a break, considering. I had to cancel a trip to Portland because of an eye operation, and then a visit from my partner and her daughter because of our crazy weather. It would have been a complete bust without a stack of books to read!

This semester’s classes are both for third- and fourth-year students at Kwantlen Polytechnic University: ‘Advanced Professional Communications’ and ‘Technical Report Writing.’ Very oddly, it seems, this latter class has become hugely popular in the last year or so; thirty people are on the waiting list. Technical Report Writing is no breeze!