Of me. Done by Max Vasilatos after a visit to me on 1/2. To make clay forms of items of mine for bronze casts — still to come — and share holiday carrot cake and commiserate over the pains and inabilities of our poor afflicted bodies, notably the weather-induced agony of our metal hip joints. But the drawing:
(#1) In my bathrobe, sitting in my home office
Facebook discussion ensued:
MV: you’ve acquired a Gandalfesque aspect
AZ > MV: You also got my poor twisted hands into the thing. And my walker. Meanwhile, those are seriously piercing eyes. (The better to look into your soul, my dear.)
MV > AZ: one hand in the foreground holding a bar [AZ: one handle of my walker], all of which made it interesting to add, along with your glass doors and garden… your eyes drew themselves, despite me fighting them a few rounds
AZ: Oh yes, nice work on my robes of office. [AZ: a little joke]
AZ: For comparison, from a year ago, same location:
(#2) Photo (by Kim Darnell) from 12/5/21, a year ago
As a bonus, here are Max and Arnold in easier times, in front of the long-departed Gordon Biersch in Palo Alto on 12/12/14 (photo by, I believe, Ned Deily):
(#3) I’m wearing an excellent leather jacket, whose successor has just now passed on to my grandchild Opal, who it fits perfectly
Note on my prosthetic (right) hip joint. Like many of my joints, regrettably sensitive to changes in the weather. When it’s bad, that hip shimmers with pain when I lie flat (as in, on my bed) and twinges when I walk, but is ok when I’m sitting, so I have to sleep sitting up in a chair.
It was like this on 1/2, and so was Max’s prosthetic hip joint. Mine moderated the next day, yesterday, but moved down to my right knee (“referred pain”, this is called). Today, while a sea-storm is moving in, it’s all down to an ache. No, I don’t understand it.
I don’t know about Max’s hip implant, but mine is titanium, which has always pleased me because (being the sort of person that I am) I associated the metal with Titania, queen of the fairies in Midsummer Night’s Dream. But alas, the chemical element turns out to be named after the Titans of myth (as, it seems, was Titania). From Wikipedia:
Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in sea water, aqua regia, and chlorine.
Titanium was discovered in Cornwall, Great Britain, by William Gregor in 1791 and was named by Martin Heinrich Klaproth after the Titans of Greek mythology [the precursors of the Olympic gods].
… Titanium can be alloyed with iron, aluminium, vanadium, and molybdenum, among other elements, to produce strong, lightweight alloys for aerospace (jet engines, missiles, and spacecraft), military, industrial processes (chemicals and petrochemicals, desalination plants, pulp, and paper), automotive, agriculture (farming), medical prostheses, orthopedic implants, dental and endodontic instruments and files, dental implants, sporting goods, jewelry, mobile phones, and other applications.