Photocosm

The Show Where Diane Seeks Help

 

 

A few hours ago, I got to photograph the punch line to a joke. How often does that happen? Not enough, as in never before. 

 

 

My favorite television comedy series is Cheers. It's hard to believe the first episode of the series aired for the first time in 1982. Next month is the thirtieth anniversary.

 

 

Yesterday was also the birthday of Shelley Long, who played Diane Chambers in the first five years of Cheers. She left the show when her contract ended, but returned for the finale of the series. 

By the way, Shelley Long has the same birthday as wilderness photographer Galen Rowell. I wrote my tribute to him last year here.

I wasn't thinking about birthdays when I took an afternoon walk through Walnut Creek this afternoon, but that's where I photographed a punch line to one of the best jokes on Frasier.  It was an episode in season three, "The Show Where Diane Comes Back."

 

 

Diane Chambers arrives unannounced at Frasier Crane's radio station when he's on the air. Frasier hasn't seen Diane for years, and would be happy never to relive the memory of being ditched by her at their wedding ceremony.

Under pressure from the show producer, Roz Doyle, Frasier invites Diane over for dinner.

 

 

Diane shows up at the Crane family home.

 

 

She tells everybody at the table about living at her Malibu beach house. It's a special life, and she's special, and they're not.

Diane describes a magical moment at Malibu. She spotted a pod of whales just off-shore and had to "...commune with these gentle giants..."

She scrambled for her kayak and started paddling into the surf.

 

 

But just then, Diane's kayak was tangled up in an enormous growth of...of....

She can't find the word. It's on the tip of her tongue and the tips of her fingers.

 

 

Niles gives her the missing word.

 

 

Diane repeats the word and starts to resume her story about the whales and the kayak.

 

 

But Martin Crane has his own interpretation of the word,

"That's funny, I thought he said Seek help."

It got a big laugh. The audience members appreciated the way a benign word had been twisted just a bit to create a verbal harpoon.

 

 

Diane isn't amused, and now she wonders if Niles did tell her, "Seek help."

 

So, what is the magical word I photographed today, the one that rhymes perfectly with "Seek help," the one I instantly connected to this episode when I found it in Walnut Creek?

 

 

SEA KELP, according to DMV.

"Seek help," according to Martin Crane (John Mahoney) and the episode's writer, Christopher Lloyd.

I never saw a single episode of Frasier when the original series aired. I didn't have a television back then, but now it's easy to watch online at Amazon's instant video site.

And I remember doing the count last year when I watched the episode for the first time. S-E-A-K-E-L-P. Seven letters. Yeah, "sea kelp"  would fit on a plate.

 

And it has. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 © 2012 by J.M. Clarke. All Rights Reserved

Turkey Shoot

 

 

The fog burned off slowly today, so the sky was still dim at mid-morning. 

 

 

Here's the new painted stop sign at the Emeryville Public Market. It's a shame traffic will be allowed to roll right over it. New painted traffic signs on the pavement have a stark beauty. Simple shapes and primary colors on a black background. 

 

 

 

Is this the future of travel? It's the Edison2 electric car, charging from a regular power cord at Fantasy Junction, a block away from Pixar.

 

 

And the side view, shortly after sunset a couple of days ago.

 

 

The interior is lean and clean. You can't see it here, but the car is a four-seater.

 

 

Do people really buy clay pianos? They probably give you sticky fingers, and they must be hard to keep in tune. Is the piano seat also clay? 

 

 

Never mind, here's their full name, "Sherman Clay Pianos." That's very different. Tree got in the way of my view from across the street. 

I then took a look through the window. You know, their pianos don't even look clay. Up close, they look very real. I guess if they put their clay pianos into a firing kiln, that would keep them from going soft, and then you could paint them black or white or even glaze them with a special color. But how good can a clay piano sound? Maybe the kind of people who'd buy a clay piano don't need much. Why buy a Steinway when you can own a Clay? 

 

 

A golden Mercedes at a Target store in the Bay Area.

 

 

Dogs at the same Target hope they'll see their owners again.

 

 

Steps from the top of a parking garage in Walnut Creek.

 

 

I was cutting through a parking lot this morning, and saw this bicycle wheel. It had an abstract appeal, the white line and the circles. Yes, this simple arrangement had an artistic quality.

And then I noticed the driver behind the wheel. I walked around and mentioned the bicycle wheel. 

She jumped out and hurried to retrieve it, and she gave me a moment to get the photo. You can see us in the reflection. Minutes before, she had loaded her bicycle into the back seat, made a phone call, and forgotten the wheel. She added this was a new one. Usually when she's forgetful, it's the cup of coffee on the roof.

 

 

Turkey Day Came Early

 

I was nearly home from my walk yesterday, when I caught up with this bird. You don't see that every day. Last time I photographed wild turkeys was 2010 or so, up in Marin County.

 

 

I moved to the street to give the turkey some room. What in the world was a lone turkey doing here?  Maybe it wandered down from the Berkeley/Oakland Hills, but they're miles away.

 

 

And then the bird turned and walked toward me.

 

 

I turned the corner on the final stretch home. The turkey walked ahead of me.

 

 

As I let it wander, the turkey approached me. 

 

 

Maybe it just wanted to check out the license plate. You know, birds of a feather....

 

 

And then it crossed the street.  

I've never seen a wild turkey so close to home. East of the hills, they're very common. In the Blackhawk area of Danville, there's a drive between the golf course and a forest. One of the trees has a handmade sign to watch for the turkeys and to drive slowly. But today was unique here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Things Are Looking Up At Things

 

 

We don't get these clouds often in the Bay Area. We don't get the big fluffy clouds here much, either. Or thunderstorm clouds. Lightning is rare, too. When it thunders at night, dogs bark and so do people.

 

 

There's a space mural at the Rockridge BART train station, in Oakland. It needs to be restored, but you can still see a space walker hanging between the outbound and inbound train tracks above.

 

 

Speaking of space, this office window on a third floor displays the Death Star from Star Wars, made from an abundance of Post-It notes.

Of course, everybody knows how the movie ends. Luke Skywalker attacks the Death Star and turns it into confetti.

 

He appears to be standing above the La- Z Boy store, even if he doesn't.

 

 

Fixing a city street lamp.

 

 

A broken BROKEN sign in Emeryville. Hope they don't fix it, that's art.

 

 

Which way is traffic on this I-80 connector ramp going? Left to right.

 

 

A young man on a BART train does chin-ups. Lots of energy, can't stay still, but BART won't let him ride his bike on the train. 

 

 

It's rare to see somebody using the ceiling hand rail for personal fitness. 

But there was another reason I photographed this guy. He had a "twin."

 

 

Near the bicycle guy was this tuxedo.  A few happy kids had just come from the formal wear rental shop. That's Jose's tux hanging from the rail. 

It's rare to see clothing hanging from a hand rail on a BART train car -twice. 

 

 

 

In astronomy, deep sky objects are the massive distant systems such as galaxies and star clusters. Here's a case of looking down to see the deep sky. Maybe I should call this the "Australian angle."

 

 

From our perspective in the United States, telescopes in Australia look down to see deep sky objects in the southern hemisphere sky. This is a globular cluster of stars in the constellation Tucana. It was photographed by the Australian Astronomical Observatory. 

If we could see people standing outdoors in Australia, they'd be hanging down from the planet in their shoes.

 

 

Palm trees are ubiquitous in the Bay Area. Most people ignore them because they're always there. You could put clowns atop each palm tree, but people wouldn't see them.

 

 

Here's another way to look up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martian Curiosity Commences

 

 

Today is the birthday of Neil Armstrong: star voyager and moonwalker, the namesake of Neil Armstrong Elementary School, the namesake of the Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, engineer, test pilot, teacher, and the pride of Moon City, Ohio. Total official time spent in space: 8 days, 14 hours, 12 minutes, 31 seconds. 

On a beautiful night like this -it's still August 5th here in California- you have to admire the way NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sends somebody a birthday card:

 

These two photos just appeared on television. NASA/JPL received them from the rover Curiosity minutes ago after its landing on Mars. The image on the right shows one of the rover's wheels. Traveling at the speed of light, the radio signals containing these photographs required 14 minutes for the Mars-Earth communication.

It's a great technological achievement, and not just the project which led to this landing. There was also the unprecedented opportunity at NASA TV to watch the event as it happened. I haven't enjoyed a landing this much since the first space shuttle touchdown, and that was decades ago.

 

And here's my contribution to the moment: a tarot card. 

Minutes after the landing, I visited Voyager Tarot and clicked on their Card-A-Day link. The Voyager card of the day represents the situation, the present, the future -the whole. It's a randomly selected card, so you can get anything when you click the link.

The card of the day is the Four Of Worlds. The Voyager name for this card is Commencement. Wouldn't it be something if this illustration on the card is about Mars? You know, commencing the exploration of Mars. It would be a nice moment of synchronicity if that big ball in the center just happened to be the planet Mars.

 

 

It is. 

  

 

 

Curiosity could be the start of something really, really big.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 2012 Max Clarke - All Rights Reserved