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The Valley Part 3

  • 1971

That year was a year of two births in Santa Clara Valley. One was in  the wee hours of August 31st at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View. And the other was on January 11th. The former was my birthdate and the latter was the first time Santa Clara Valley was rechristened Silicon Valley in print. A columnist named Don Hoefler wrote a column in Electronic News titled “Silicon Valley USA”, in reference to the growing number of companies producing microprocessor chips. And since then, the moniker has stuck.

Five years earlier a family moved from Mountain View to a 1952 single story ranch house that was built on the site of a former orchard in Los Altos. The house is owned by the Jobs family and the address of the rather plain house is 2066 Crist Drive.

When I pulled up opposite to the house on Crist Drive there were already three tech tourists in front of the house. A 20 something from Arizona taking  pictures of his girlfriend in front of the driveway and a bespectacled long-hair that looked like he was visiting a sacred shrine in Japan.

And in a sense, this is a shrine to those who worship at the alter of Apple Computers and is beatified co-founder, Steve Jobs.

The house at 2066 Crist Avenue and more specifically, it’s garage, was the birthing place of Apple Computer. It was here that Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and family and friends assembled the first 50 Apple I personal computers. The garage was also the birthing location of the even more successful Apple II. (My elementary school in Cupertino had three Apple II computers which were housed in the library.)

While sketching the house I reflected how much it resembled the house where I grew up, just 3.6 miles away, which was a two story track house in Sunnyvale, also on the land of an apricot orchard. I attended the rival high school to Homestead High, where the two Steve’s graduated. In a 1995 interview Jobs commented on growing up in the area:

Silicon Valley for the most part at the time was still orchards-and it was really a paradise. I remember the air being crystal clear, where you could see from one end of the valley to the other- It was really the most wonderful place in the world to grow up.

Anyone visiting Silicon Valley today would not include the word “paradise” in their description, unless there where referring to the fecundity of Starbucks and convenient  but anonymous mini malls that speckle the valley like feed to the chickens. And as for the crystal clear air of Jobs’ youth, now you can barely see the peak of Mt. Hamilton thought the permeant haze of the valley.

I sometimes ask myself, what was lost and what was gained, in the transition from Heart’s Delight to Silicon? Has the standard of life corroded for those children growing up in the valley today? Now, can the youth of Silicon Valley share the same experiences that Jobs and myself had? And as Jobs noted, is Silicon Valley still,”the most wonderful place in the world to grow up”?

In my youth there were open fields, orchards,  and empty lots to play in. No play structures, just a blank canvas for your imagination to wander. Where do the youth of Silicon Valley go to experience nature? Or are they too preoccupied with videos games, iPhones and iPads to notice what has disappeared?

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A 2011 sketch of the two story track house I grew up in, 3.6 miles from 2066 Crist Drive. My father moved out of this house shortly after I sketched this and it was sold to an Apple engineer for an unbelievable amount.

 

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The Valley Part 2

When and where was the genesis of Silicon Valley? What started the charge from an agrarian valley to the world’s epicenter of innovation and technology? What was the Pandora’s box that set the change in motion?

Ironically, it was on the campus of a  university whose nickname is “The Farm”. To the rest of the world it is known as Stanford University.

It was on the Stanford campus that an engineering faculty member, Dr. Fredrick Terman, encouraged his students to start their own businesses and keep them in the Santa Clara Valley instead of joining established companies in the east coast. Herman has become known as the father of Silicon Valley. Two of his students heeded his advice and started their business in a humble garage in Palo Alto. Their names where William Hewlett and David Packard.

This garage is now known as “the Birthplace of Silicon Valley”. It was in this small detached garage, in 1939,  that Hewlitt and Packard built their first product, an audio oscillator.

Fredrick Terman also encourage the development of local businesses by convincing Stanford University to develop a 700 acre business park on Page Mill Road, just south of the campus. The park was built in 1951 and early tenants were Varian, Hewlett-Packard, Lockheed, and General Electric. The park was renamed Stanford Research Park and it is still the address of the main headquarters of the company that started in a Palo Alto Garage on Addison Avenue.

In the next post I will sketch another garage that birthed one of Silicon Valley’s most famous companies. This garage sits on land that was once an apricot orchard and the company that starting in this garage changed the face of the Santa Clara Valley perhaps more that the two Stanford grads that labored away in a small green shed in a Palo Alto neighborhood.

 

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The Valley Part 1

Silicon Valley is probably a good, in many ways. The Valley of Heart’s Delight was a glory. We should have found ways of keeping the one from destroying the other. We did not. . .

-Wallace Stegner, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist

 The children’s book of poetry, Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein was a popular birthday gift at many birthday parties when I was a child growing up in the 1970s. But in the Santa Clara Valley where the sidewalk literally ended, the apricot and cherry orchards began.

Sunnyvale in the 70s was in a state of transition. It was the struggle between the Valley of Heart’s Delight and Silicon Valley. When I was a kid, it seemed that the Valley of Heart’s Delight had the upper hand, but the lone apricot tree in our back yard, told that the ascendancy of Silicon Valley was clearly underway. The apricot orchard had made way to the track homes that housed the families that fueled the early industries of Silicon Valley, and this lone tree, which my brother and I posed in for family Christmas cards, was the last reminder. My family, on Cormorant Court, was one of those early Silicon Valley families.

After work, during the final warm days of summer and fall, my father would put me on the back of his bicycle and we would retrace his route to work along Fair Oaks Ave. We ascended the pedestrian walkway over the Southern Pacific train tracks. Here we would look down into the Schuckl Cannery on the side of the tracks. To this day I can recall the din of the conveyor belts, the frenetic energy of the forklifts bringing in the valley’s harvest, and the smell of the burning train brakes as a commuter train eased into Sunnyvale Station down below.

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Blenheim Apricots at the Sunnyvale Heritage Orchard. This preserved orchard is on ten acres and contains about 800 trees. At it’s height Sunnyvale’s orchards included eight to nine million trees.

Then there was the oft-told story of the day my dad drove to work along Fair Oaks Ave  and he saw a cherry orchard  being uprooted, with fruit still on the trees. “What a waste” was the phrase that usually concluded the story. Those orchards are now rows and rows of condos with names like Cherry Orchard and Orchard Gardens Apartments.

Gone are the millions of apricot and cherry trees, the canneries, and the migrant workers that picked fruit each summer and fall. What is left are like islands of preserved orchards in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and Los Altos, a mere shadow of the agricultural area that once attracted motorists each spring to view the millions of blossoming trees.

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In 2001 the Sunnyvale Orchard Heritage Park Interpretive Exhibit was opened. It was built along side the Heritage Orchard with interpretive signs that told of the rise and fall of the Valley of Heart’s Delight. My father’s name is immortalized on one of the signs in the Hertitage Park. He helped to create the park so future generations would remember the valley’s past. 

On a recent returned to Sunnyvale on a May morning, that was already starting to feel like summer, I sketched a few apricot trees at the Orchard Heritage Park. On my way I drove down De Anza Boulevard, past the ghosts of my childhood, past unrecognizable buildings and storefronts, past the Apple Campus. So much was physically gone. An orchard, a favorite restaurant, a father. What does it mean when your past no longer physically exists?

Over the next few blogs I will explore the changing face of The Valley.

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Redwood Deck

At my cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the redwood deck that faces northwest, over the San Lorenzo River and the hillside of trees beyond, has become a touchstone for my journaling. This view and this amphitheater has inspired many sketches.

I have sketched this scene over the years in many different seasons and in different light. This view has helping me focus on the natural details that surround the cabin. I have found that by looking at a single location, the possibilities are infinite.

Many different animals visit the deck and the area around it. Chickadees, juncos, jays, nuthatches, acorn woodpeckers, black-headed grosbeaks, wood ducks, Cooper’s hawk, red-shouldered hawk, band-tailed pigeons, squirrels, deer, raccoons and skunks. All these creatures have found their way into my journals.

Chickadee tree

The redwood tree, that towers over the cabin, off to the right has been the inspiration for a dozens of sketches. I built a chickadee nest box that hangs about 30 feet above the ground. The actives of the chickadees during the spring and summer months have always been fodder for my musings. The above spread was done on Mother’s Day.

Jay ladder

For some the “blue jay” of the redwoods is a noisy egg thief that is abhorred but to me the Steller’s jay provides hours of entertainment. The page above is from observing the jays as they bounce up the “Redwood Ladder” after getting seed at the feeder.

 

Swainson's thrush

On a resent May afternoon I was greeted by the ethereal call of the Swanson’s thrush coming from down the hill on the near shore of the San Lorenzo. This neo-tropic migrant had returned to it’s summer nesting grounds. I created a spread to celebrated it’s arrival with a portrait, a map, and a bust of William Swanson, the British ornithologist that the thrush is named after.

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Grinding Rock, Coloma

This May I organized and participated in the biggest event in any fourth grader’s life at my school. Our annual three day, two night trip to the Coloma Outdoor Discovery School (CODS). My school has been part of this program for 23 years and CODS had just celebrated it’s 25th anniversary.

Coloma is the site of the event that changed California’s and the Nation’s history. In January of 1848, a carpenter from New Jersey, named James Marshall, spotted something shining in the tailrace of the sawmill where he served as construction superintendent. This was the “discovery” of gold that led to the Gold Rush of 1849, which is cited as the largest mass human migration in human history. California would never be the same. Just like my Greenhorns would be forever altered in their three day journey from being a Greenhorn to  becoming an experienced Sourdough miner.

The CODS campus  lies on the banks of the South Fork of the American River, just upstream from the site where the carpenter’s eyes fell on the shining beacon of gold. We are literally living in history, in a location that was ground zero for the enormous flood of emmigrants and immigrants that transformed the Golden State.

Each morning I would head out of my digs with my journal and paints. In the early morning, nature returns to the campus. The first harbinger of the dawn is the California towhee, with it’s emphatic “cheep” call. It is soon followed by the contact call of the California quail, then the harsh reprise of the western scrub-jay (Aphelocoma californica). Coloma is a place of truly California birds. When I stepped out of my door a covey of quail was to my left and six black-tail deer was to my right. The space in-between was populated with Canada geese and their downey goselings. The “wake-waka-waka” call of the acorn woodpecker was coming from the trees above.

I turned left, the quail scuttled off to the brush and I headed downstream  with no destination but an urge to capture my experience in ink and watercolor. To my right was the American River, the river that Sam Brannan emoralized on May 12, 1848, when he held aloft a bottle of gold dust and announced to the crowded San Francisco street, “Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!”

I headed out to the very edge of campus, just shy of Troublemaker Rapids. I saw a pieced of exposed granite surrounded by grass. I had not seen his rock before. Two mortar holes were worn into the granite. These holes were created and used by the native people of Coloma Valley to pound acorns into meal.

Acorns were a valuable food resource to native Californians providing protein and carbohydrates as well as a source of vitamins A and C. The grinding rock was silent now. The ancient grinding songs are gone but the sound of the swollen river working its way through Troublemaker Rapids and the calls of acorn woodpecker and scrub-jay, the other inhabitants of Coloma Valley that use acorns for sustenance, remain.

I set down my paints and journal and walked to the banks of the American and filled my cup with the icy snowmelt. I returned to the grinding rock and I started my sketch.

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Sketching the grinding rock on the CODS campus with the waters of the South Fork of the American River.

Tree of Heaven

My second sketch was found much closer to my digs, across the dirt road in fact. Like the thousands that rushed into Coloma Valley in 1848 and 1849 this was an invasive species. It is known by many derivative monikers. My favorites are “stink tree”, “ghetto palm”, and “tree of Hell”. It is known to science as Ailanthus altissima, and it’s common name is tree of heaven. It’s native home is the celestial kingdom: China.

The tree was brought to California in the 1890’s by Chinese immigrants, who sought their fortune in the gold fields. It is commonly found in abandoned Chinese mining camps.

What really interested me was the two active cavity nests that were in the upper reaches of the truck. The bottom cavity was being used by a pair of European starling. Each time the adults returned with food, the begging calls of the chicks could be heard from the front porch of my digs. The upper hole was occupied by acorn woodpeckers.

For me this tree and it’s tenants are a metaphor for Coloma and California since the time of the Gold Rush of 1849. Here was a tree from Asia being occupied by an evasive species of bird, the European starling that has spread in it’s own Manifest Destiny, from coast to coast and north and south. Just when these thoughts get me down, the Acorn woodpecker returns to her nest with a beak full of insects for her hungry chicks. This is the true native Californian, occupying the upper nest cavity. Her brood will ensure that the laughter-like waka-waka-waka call of the bird that the miners call carpentero, will always fill the Coloma Valley.

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Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas

It is impossible to believe the emotional and spiritual intensity and pure, classic beauty that can be produced by a man, an animal, and a piece of scarlet serge draped over a stick.

Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon

A traveler visits a foreign country to experience a different culture, to see exotic flora and fauna, and sample strange cuisine. And some of us travel to be challenged, to broaden our perspectives, and to see how the rest of the world lives. I can think of few experiences that can be more challenging to a vegetarian nature- lover than attending a corrida at the Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas on an Easter Sunday afternoon in Madrid. Why did I attend such an event? I have had an obsession with bulls and matadors from an early age.

It all started with reading The Story Ferdinand written  by Murio Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson. This 1936 classic is about a young bull that gets chosen for the bullfights in Madrid because of his supposed bravery and ferociousness, in reality he sat on a bumble bee. Ferdinand really just wants to sit under a cork oak and smell the flowers, instead of charging the matador. Once in the ring, he smells the flowers in all the ladies hair and he could care less with participating in the ancient and brutal art form. The Story of Ferdinand was banned in Spain for its overt pacifist message in a time of brutal world aggression. But as a child I loved the simple black line illustrations and the simple but powerful tale.

A corrida is a odd mix of the strange and familiar. The trumpet sounds and the paseo enters the ring led by the two Alguacils dressed in costumes of the reign of Philip II. The three matadors follow in their suits of light sparkling in the Madrid afternoon sun followed by their Cuadrilla. The Matadors doff their hats to the directors box, and spectacle is ready to begin.

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The paseo at Las Ventas, Madrid, the most famous bullring in the world.

The bull that came out of the toril gate on that Easter afternoon was no Ferdinand. This bull was willing to charge the cape and could care less about the few flowers that adorned ladies hair.

The toro charged around the ring and the first matador came out holding his cape in both hands. The bull turned for a pass. The toro caught the matador with his horns and raised him into the air. He landed on his side and bull lowered his head and gored the matador. Toro: 1, Matador: 0. But in this traditional dance of death, the toro seldom wins. And this corrida was no different.

 

Lesser kes

Many of the villages in the Spanish countryside have a Plaza de Toros such as the ring in Trujillo which was opened in 1848 and closed in 1998. This bullring now provides a habit for a nesting colony for the lesser kestrel. As this agile predator stilled above the red tiled roof of the ring, I reflected on this very different dance of death.

IMG_4349Corvidsketcher, sketching the Plaza de Toros La Piedad in Trijillo, with lesser kestrels flying above.

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107 Species

Life bird number one was a wood pigeon sitting in Neptune’s hand in the Plaza del Castillo seen from the bus coming from Barajas Airport to Atocha Train Station in Madrid. I figured this was an auspicious start to my Spanish birding adventure.

The next morning I got common blackbird (Turdus merula) in front of the Prado on a walk from my flat in the Lavapiés neighborhood to the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. On the walk I got many house sparrows and rock pigeons, the official species of many American cities. This trickle of life birds, two in two days, was just the opening act of the deluge of aves to follow.

My birding adventure started in earnest on Monday morning. The calls of swifts (the cinematic soundtrack that represents pastoral spring or summer) directed my gaze skywards to the narrow grey window of sky between the buildings of Lavapiés. A lifer on the way back from the coffee shop was not a bad way to start a birding adventure.

Pau picked me up in front of my flat and we left the traffic of Madrid and headed south west for the province of Extremadura. On the drive out of Madrid to Saucedilla these are the lifers seen from the car, without binoculars: grey heron, spotless starling, kestrel, marsh harrier, booted eagle, white stork, red kite, hoopoe, common buzzard, black, and griffin vulture.

We stopped in the small village of Saucedilla to have a bocadillo e una caña in the small cafe. After our repass we walked across the square to the 16th century Church of St. John the Baptist. The church was covered with jawdaws and we circled the church looking for our prize. Three lesser kestrels flew in  and hovered above the church. Bingo! In the area around Saucedilla other highlights included: purple swamp-hen, purple heron, spoonbill, water rail, bearded reeding, Savi’s, Sardinian, fan-tailed, and sedge warbler, black-winged kite, and Iberian grey shrike.

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At the close of the day, Monday March 28, I added 42 new bird species to my world list. The highlight at the end of the day was a little owl (Athene noctua) perched a stone wall seen from the porch of our base camp at Casa Rural Las Canteras.

On Tuesday we headed out to Monfragüe National Park where I added 26 new species. See the previous blog post on Parque Nacional Monfragüe.

On Wednesday we explored some reservoirs in Extremadura. Highlights included: red-cresteted grebe, shelduck, lapwing, greenshank, the “blue bullet” kingfisher, great spotted cuckoo, great bustard, bee-eater, and Scops owl. Total lifers: 22 species.

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On Thursday we were attempting to find the Eurasian eagle owl with the assistance of a local farmer. We missed out but found an abandoned nest. Highlights included: little bustard, Montagu’s harrier, pallid swifts, and green sandpiper. Total lifers: 7 species.

On our last day in Extremadura we headed to the mountains and the monastery town of Guadalupe. Highlights included: jay, nuthatch, sparrow hawk, and green woodpecker. Total lifers: 6 species.

On April 4th, in San Sebastián I added two more species: firecrest and yellow-legged gull.

My guide in Extremadura was Pau Lucio. I would highly recommend him if you plan to bird this amazing part of Spain. His guiding company is called Birdwatching Spain and more info can be found at their website: http://birdwatchingspain.net

 

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Code 5

I picked up DICK at 7AM. We were going to attempt to add a very rare bird to our life lists. Our destination was parking lot C at the Yolo Byway Wildlife Area near Davis.

What drives a rational being to wake up at six on a Saturday morning and drive two hours just to see a rather drab sandpiper? This bird was not endangered or threatened, it is common on it’s home range, which happens to be in Eastern Europe to Central Asia. As Rare Birds of North America points out, “Every species is rare somewhere”. This bird is so rare in North America that the American Birding Association (ABA) rates it a Code 5.

Here is how the ABA defines the code:

Code 5: Accidental.

Species that are recorded five or fewer times in the ABA Checklist Area, or fewer than three records in the past 30 years.

Now that’s rare, extremely  rare. This bird was only the 3rd sighting in the state of California. And only the twelveth record in the United States, the majority have been in the Aleutians and the Pribilofs in Alaska.

In all the excitement I forgot to mention our quarry: marsh sandpiper (Tringa stagnatilis).

We arrived at parking lot C at 8:30 and there were already about 50 birders looking into the pond  for the marsh sandpiper. I scanned the waders in front of me, afraid to ask if it had been seen. Perhaps it had flown and we where out of luck. A birder mentioned that the bird had been seen earlier but was now foraging out of sight behind some reeds off to our left.

I threaded my way through the many tripod legs to get a better look into the reeds. A birder called, “Rail!”and I looked off to the right, only to miss the Virginia rail disappearing into the rushes. I returned my attention to the reeds and their hidden gem.

Through the reeds I saw a flash of white, something that seemed out of place. The phantasm methodically worked its way to the right and came into view. “There it is!” I said in unison with a birder standing at my elbow. All binos, cameras and scopes turns towards the reeds. In my mind I ticked off the boxes: a bright white belly (Check), dark needle-like bill (Check),  greenish-yellow legs (Check), a wader that looked like nothing I had seen before (Check). At 8:42 I got United States Lifebird No. 501! We all enjoyed great views in perfect morning light as the Tringa foraged in the shallows, picking bugs off the surface of the water.

At 8:45 the show came to an end, all the waders, including the shining, white gem, took to the air and we where able to observe the bird in flight as it tailed a groups of dowitchers. All watchers willed the bird to circle back and return to the waters in front of us. Our bird had flown. . . well not exactly. The sandpaper was refound near lot D but on the following day, it was seen one more time and then the marsh sandpiper was gone.

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Parque Nacional Monfragüe

Monfragüe National Park is the crown jewel of the Extremadura region. This is one of Spain’s 15 National Parks and was established in 2007. The 17.852 hectare park is recognized by UNESCO as a Bioshere region. But of course we were here for the raptors. Monfragüe hosts 15 regular breeding species, including the world’s largest breeding concentration of Eurasian black vultures. The real highlight for a birder in Monfragüe is to see the blue Iberian skies covered in raptors: vultures, kites, hawks, and eagles and we were not let down.

This is the land of the old world vultures, the ones with long, snake-like necks and a billowy scarf of feathers. These were the vultures of National Geographic, the Jungle Book, and Ferdinand the Bull.

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The skies full of vultures (three species), kites (two species), and eagles (one species) at Monfragüe. In California we would describe this scene as “raptorlicious”.

When Pau and I set out from Las Canteras early on a misty morning, our destination was Monfragüe and our prize was the bird that the two English brother twitchers would inevitable ask us about as they indeed greeted us in the evening with, “Did you get Spanish imperial eagle?” This eagle is the the prize bird for any birder visiting Monfragüe. It is a very rare bird, in the 1960’s only 30 pairs existed. Powerlines, poisoning and habitat destruction where the causes of the eagle’s decline. Through conservation efforts the eagle’s population has slowly increased. In 2011, there were 318 pairs in Spain. On the drive to the National Park, I told Pau that I wanted to find the imperial eagle by myself. I picked through the many huge kettles of raptors looking for the eagle with snowy white leading shoulders. No luck. No yet anyway.

We came to a stretch of road that was across the river from steep cliffs that rose above the water. The road was lined with birders and their scopes. Their attention was fixes on the cliffs and the skies above. Pau pulled over and I reminded him, “Leave the imperial to me.”

I stepped out of the car and looked up. Above me was a large raptor rising on the thermals of the warm road. I raised my binos to my eyes. It turned to the left, slightly dipping it’s wing. A dusting of “snow” on it’s shoulders. I love when life birds, especially rare ones, are this easy to find! Spanish imperial eagle.

Pau later showed me the female on a nest. This eagle and the precious eggs she was incubating was a good sign that the Spain Imperial eagle would continue to thrive in Extremadura.

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 “Will Break for Dung Beetles”, Monfragüe, it’s not just about the raptors, it pays of to look down.

My guide in Extremadura was Pau Lucio. I would highly recommend him if you plan to bird this amazing part of Spain. His guiding company is called Birdwatching Spain and more info can be found at their website: http://birdwatchingspain.net

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Extremadura and Las Canteras

 

Why Spain? You ask. The answer has been the same on recent trips both when boarding a plane or hitting the road. Birds, birds, birds.

Extremadura, the province southwest of Madrid, boasts an amazing array of avian riches in Europe, a high consentration of raptors and a handful of endemics which are birds that are found nowhere else in Europe.

Birders come from all over Europe to make a pilgrimage to this rural part of Spain to see Spainish imperial eagle (which once graced the flag of Franco’s Spain), Egyptian, griffon, and black vultures, black stork, Iberian magpie, bee-eater, lesser kestrel, great and little bustard. Many of the twitchers hailed from the mighty triad of birding nations of Northern Europe: the Netherlands, Germany, and Great Britain.

Extremadura sits on the flyway that bridges Northern Europe with Africa. This part of the Iberian Peninsula provides breeding habits for the colorful European bee-eater and roller as well as providing a year round habitat from many other species.

For this expedition I hired the services of a guide to take me to the birds, work as a translator and go-between with the locals, and help me navigate rural Spanish cuisine (which for me meant cheese, bread, and beer but sometimes augmented with wine.)

Las Canteras

My mastery of Castilian is clearly demonstrated by my different spelling of Las Canteras in this spread. It’s great to know that my spelling is appalling in any language!

My guide, Pau, chose Casa Rural Las Canteras Birdwatching Center as our base camp. From the front porch you could view the crumbling stone barn that had been reclaimed as a white stork rookery, containing at least eight active nests.  On the other side of the porch was a scope fixed on a little owl. No I mean that’s what the owl is called: Athene noctua ( odd name for a daylight owl). It seemed that no matter when you looked through the scope, the little owl is always perched on the stone wall. Uncanny! Well I had to sketch the owl on it’s permanent perch.

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So this is where babies are made! White stork nest at Las Canteras.

Las Canteras (or Carbones) is run by the innkeeper and his mother, whom I dubbed Doña Carbones. She looked at my white stork sketch and offered a little art criticism: “¡Muy bonito!” I’ll take it!