Another Green World

It was in July 2024 when I purchased my first ukiyo-e woodblock print – of Ultimate Madoka. While I was waiting for production of that artwork, I ended up purchasing a second ukiyo-e print – a re-creation of one of my favorite prints by Hiroshige Utagawa. At Shin Hanga Gallery I was lucky to get a print of Ohahi Bridge and Atake in Sudden Shower. I had purchased from them in the past, and they are a reliable vendor. I placed the order at the end of July 2024 and received the print in perfect condition two weeks later.

I held off on getting the print framed until the framed Madoka print arrived. I wanted to make sure the Hiroshige print frame was compatible with the Madoka print frame. My Madoka arrived near the end of June 2025, and right away I Went to Chrisman Framing to get my Hiroshige print framed. Tony was very helpful.

The job estimate was two weeks – so, mid July. However, the frame I had selected was out of stock, and there was a four week delay for the material to arrive. So the total wait was six weeks. But it was worth it. The framed print is beautiful.

Framed Hiroshige Ukiyo-e Print

It’s hard to see, but the frame is a very dark brown. I needed the frame to not clash with the Saia oil pastel frame. The new frame does look too close to black, though.

I’ve temporarily hung the three pictures that will be on the gallery wall in the new library – just so I could get a feel as to how they will look. Because the art is radically different between them, I was a little concerned – but I think things will work out OK.

Gallery Wall Preview

Right off the bat, I’ll say that I don’t know Michael Lopp personally, so we’re not friends. However, Michael’s blog, Rands in Repose is an old friend from way back. And I’m sure if I dug through boxes, I’d find a first edition copy of Managing Humans.

I don’t remember what happened, but at some point (well before the pandemic, which is sort of a time marker in my head) I stopped reading Rands in Repose. I don’t know if the content wasn’t useful or the posts too intermittent or if a link simply broke. Whatever happened, the blog link was removed from high visibility. Out of sight, out of mind. I hardly miss things when I’m innundated with information every day.

Recently at Daring Fireball (another very old friend), John Gruber has been posting a series about Substack, starting with The Substack Branding and Faux Prestige Trap and continuing with follow-on posts. In the latest post, John linked to a Rands in Repose post on how/why Rands Left Substack. And, of course, that was the rabbit hole for rediscovering a long-absent (to me) but much loved blog.

One particularly timely post is The Cleanse, where Rands describes cutting back from news and social media, in a mode labeled as turtling. And turtling is what I’ve been doing. (I also canceled my Washington Post subscription before the election, after Bezos’s hinky meddling in the newsroom.) I’ve backed off on political news other than noting at a high level the stories of the day. Instead of fighting the tsunami of stupidity and graft, I’ve moved to high ground and watch from a distance, knowing I’m generally powerless.

I am empowered to act locally and on a small scale. Whatever change I’ll bring to the world will be tiny, positive ones. My days of activism are behind me. I am a small, slow turtle. But mostly I just keep to myself.

Rands moved from Substack to Ghost for his newsletters. But I’m not subscribing to his newsletter, even though I love his blog. I actually need to do a newsletter cleanse – because I don’t handle the daily flood of newsletters, as useful as they might be. Sure, if I had infinite time, I’d read each newsleter every day. More often than not, newsletters pile up unread in a news folder dedicated to important issues. What a waste. There are some awesome sources there (The Hartmann Report, The American Prospect, Erin in The Morning, Matt Stoller, Noahpinion...). Too much, actually. And, don’t bother me – I’m turtling. Adding Rands’ newsletter would just grow the pile of unread things. Not surprisingly, most of the newsletters come from Substack.

After catching up on recent posts, I re-added Rands in Repose to my hidden Links Page. It’s on me to peek in periodically to read updates – like I have to do with all the links on my Links Page. It’s slow. It’s irregular. It’s Turtling.