Sometimes a new perspective is called for. This is the hallway staircase, from below.
It’s a little weird how I discovered this might make a good shot.
Normally I do my back exercises in the dining room on a yoga mat, but because I hoped to catch the trash and recycling guys and give them their New Year’s envelope, I did the exercises in the hall where I could hear if a truck stopped. Hence.
P.S. I caught them.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged architecture, photo, photograph, photography | Leave a Comment »
WERS featured Elaine Stritch singing a tongue-in-cheek Noel Coward song on Saturday: “Why do the wrong people travel, travel, travel/ When the right people stay at home?” I will include some lyrics.
“What explains this mass mania to leave Pennsylvania
“And clack around like flocks of geese
“Demanding dry martinis on the isles of Greece
“In the smallest street, where the gourmets meet,
“They invariably fetch up
“And it’s hard to make them accept a steak
“that isn’t served rare and smeared with ketchup …” More here.
But staying at home can be quite an extreme adventure. Especially when a neighbor decides to move a house facing Academy Lane so that it faces Sudbury Road, around the corner. Here are the old moorings of the house I have in mind. And just beyond is the house on its new foundation. What a lot of work! There must have been a very compelling reason. If it were me that needed to move a house, I think I would travel, travel, travel — and come back when it was all over.
June 30, 2013 Update. Would you like to see how that house looks now?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Elaine Stritch, Noel Coward, wers, Why do the wrong people travel | Leave a Comment »
I love the colors of the blue claw crab (callinectes sapidus) and couldn’t resist photographing a blue-claw sticker on the back of car in a parking lot.
Thinking that a picture of a sticker was not enough for a blog post, I went hunting for poems on blue claw crabs. I found a couple really awful ones, and I do wish one of my poet readers would write one that I might share.
Here is a poem on a generic crab that is cute.
Jim Clark, Poetry Reincarnations, copyrighted the little animation. He explains it on YouTube.
I also discovered that Richmond Lattimore (my Greek professor back in the day) wrote a short poem called “The Crabs.” Judging from a Google search, “The Crabs” is popular with the makers of standardized tests, probably because it is compact and lends itself to “deep thoughts.”
Finally, this site covers resources related to blue claws, opining that the book Beautiful Swimmers is a “must read for any crab aficionado.”
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ancient greek, beautiful swimmers, blue claw, bryn mawr, callinectes, crab, jim clark, poetry reincarnations, richmond lattimore | 4 Comments »
Pamela and I went to see the movie Hugo. The theater didn’t have 3-D, and one critic said 3-D is essential for full enjoyment of the film, but we found it delightful anyway.
Before I saw the movie, a NY Times review worked its way into my post on the charm of looking out windows. Indeed, as little Hugo peers out of windows and clock faces in the Paris train station where he works, it’s as if he were watching a theatrical entertainment staged for him alone.
A major “character” in Hugo is an old automaton that the boy had worked to repair with his father before a fire left him an orphan. He desperately wants to finish the work. He fancies that if the automaton were to write something, it would deliver a message from his father.
Automatons were apparently quite popular in the early 20th century. They were ingenious robots that could perform feats like writing and drawing.
There is one that can be seen today at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Thought to have been constructed around 1800, it knows how to make four drawings and write three poems — two in French and one in English. “Henri Maillardet, a Swiss mechanician of the 18th century who worked in London producing clocks and other mechanisms” is the tinkerer behind it. Read more.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged automaton, clocks, film, franklin museum, hugo, movie, silent film | 2 Comments »
First Parish does not have a typical service on New Year’s Day. For one thing, attendance is sparse.
Sunday’s “Taizé” service put me in mind of something my mother used to say about Unitarians to tease my father, who was one. (The denomination was not yet Unitarian-Universalist.) She liked to say that her impression of Unitarians had always been “seven people in an attic with a violin.”
Parishioner Joan Esch and her cello provided the opening music yesterday. Instead of going into the main sanctuary, we gathered in the parish hall, sitting on folding chairs around a small table with candles and flowers. At most there were 40 people, including toddlers running and climbing.
Mark Richards led the Taizé service, explaining that the concept started in France. The First Parish version is short and consists of one-verse songs sung over and over in unison without accompaniment and interspersed with readings, cello interludes, meditation, and candle lighting — for remembrance (such as an illness or death) and hope (such as a new beginning or a birth).
I enjoyed being there. It was different. And I liked a line that was quoted from a long-ago minister — something about the mystery within reaching for the mystery without.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cello, first parish, Joan Esch, Mark Richards, music, prayer, religion, singing, song, taize, unitarian universalist, UU | Leave a Comment »
In Eastern Massachusetts, it’s been a mild and sparkling day. 
In Northern Sweden, there’s snow.
Suzanne, her dad, Erik, and Erik’s family are doing cross-country skiing there. At Fjallnas hogfjallshotel and Strandgarden, where Erik’s extended family stays every year between Christmas and New Year’s, dusk descends at 1 p.m.
Can you read the signpost for Strandgarden? Me neither. But it’s pretty nice for skiing in those latitudes
. Last year, dog sledding was on the agenda, too.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cross-country skiing, Fjallnas hogfjallshotel, nordic skiing, skiing, sweden | 4 Comments »
Today I met up with Asakiyume and her daughter the Animator in Fitchburg, a run-down postindustrial city with a lovely little museum, established in 1929 by artist and one-time resident Eleanor Norcross. The show we came for, on graphic art, was put together by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., and is traveling to New York. Definitely worthwhile. So is the Fitchburg Art Museum itself.
I enjoyed seeing what caught the attention of my companions among the wide variety of graphic styles and stories. For me, the book by Brian Fies on his mother’s cancer and a different book illustrating Kafka’s Metamorphosis were of special interest.
One fun thing was an actual bedroom set up to suggest where a typical comic-loving teen might hang out. The Animator scrutinized the book collection and pronounced the teen’s taste eclectic.
I recognized the art of Lynd Ward, although I did not know he created novels without words. The series in the museum was the novel Gods’ Man, described at the Library of America site:
“Gods’ Man (1929), the audaciously ambitious work that made Ward’s reputation, is a modern morality play, an allegory of the deadly bargain a striving young artist often makes with life.”
If you scroll down at the website, you can see woodcuts from the book.
Asakiyume asked me how I knew about Lynd Ward, and I had a vague memory of a children’s book, possibly of folk tales. I don’t think the book I remembered was The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge although Ward was the illustrator. It might have been The Biggest Bear.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged animation, asakiyume, biggest bear, brian fies, eleanor norcross, fitchburg, fitchburg art museum, gods' man, graphic art, library of america, Little Red Lighthouse, lynd ward, norman rockwell museum, sylvia | 2 Comments »
Today I read an article at Miller-McCune on an astronomer and an economist who want to dump the calendar we all use (Gregorian) in favor of something completely new.
It reminded me of my late friend Doc Howe, who was commissioner of education under Lyndon Johnson and who often spoke of an idea for a calendar that he learned about in his Ford Foundation days. (It might have been the World Calendar seen here, but I’m not sure. Like invented languages, new calendar systems keep popping up.)
Writes Emily Badger at Miller-McCune, “The ever-changing calendar, with its periodic leap years and mouthful of monthly mnemonic devices, has irked timekeepers almost since the system was introduced in the 1500s.
“ ‘It’s a very accurate calendar,’ says Richard Conn Henry, a professor of astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. …
“That said, he wants to get rid of the thing. He and Johns Hopkins economist Steve Hanke are now lobbying to replace it with their invention, the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar. In the long tradition of calendar reformers, they believe they’ve settled on the elusive solution to the Gregorian calendar’s floating days of the week: one calendar that remains constant every year, where New Year’s Day falls without fail on, say, Sunday every single time.
“The big advantage to such a system is that nobody — businesses, the NFL, universities, beleaguered governments — would have to go through the exercise every year of rewriting holiday schedules, course calendars or sports seasons.”
Henry and Hanke believe it preferable to insert “an entire extra week onto the end of December every five or six years. … The rest of the calendar would remain constant with four equal quarters of 91 days each, with two months of 30 days and a third month of 31.”
Does this solution speak to you?
Read more on the Hanke-Henry Permanent Calendar here.
(Read more about Doc Howe in the Cincinnati Enquirer obit.)
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged astronomer, commissioner of education, doc howe, economist, emily badger, gregorian calendar, harold howe, Johns Hopkins, lbj, Lyndon Johnson, miller-mccune, Richard Conn Henry, Steve Hanke, united nations, world calendar | 2 Comments »
The Boston Globe has been covering the arrival and treatment of injured Libyan fighters.
In the first installment, the Spaulding Hospital president expressed concern about making the wounded men comfortable in a new culture — especially as they were going to have to pass through Salem at Halloween. Salem, you know, is full of witches in October, and witches aren’t the half of it.
As Billy Baker wrote of the injured on October 30, “They took off from a desert and landed in a numbing rain with snow in the forecast. And then, if that weren’t strange enough, they were taken to Salem. On Halloween weekend.
“For the 22 Libyan fighters airlifted to Logan International Airport yesterday, the first of the injured to arrive in the United States for medical treatment after the overthrow of Moammar Khadafy’s government less than two weeks ago, it was a day of great joy and great culture shock.
“The injured men, who ranged in age from 17 to 46, were whisked away in ambulances shortly after landing …
“The men are here for treatment at the Spaulding Hospital North Shore facility in Salem, which has been preparing for their arrival by training staff in the customs and religious practices of the patients. A prayer room was being designed with the help of an imam; doctors and nurses will wear name tags in Arabic; and a team of translators trained in medical terms has been brought in to explain the medications and therapies.” Read more.
In a November 10 follow-up, the fighters praised their warm reception. “Lying in bed, the 37-year-old Naser said he is grateful for the opportunity to receive medical attention in the United States, and was surprised by the warm reception he has received.
“ ‘It has been a kind and very sincere welcome,’ said Naser. “It has changed completely my vision of America.’ ”
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged billy baker, cultural sensitivity, halloween, injuries, libya, muslim, north shore, salem, spaulding hospital, wounded | Leave a Comment »
You knew that the poet Wallace Stevens was a lawyer for the Hartford Insurance Company in Connecticut, right?
It’s fascinating, the double lives many creative people live. In this post, for example, I mentioned Kyan Bishop, a colleague with a pretty businesslike job, who turns out to be an accomplished conceptual artist.
Today I have two gentlemen from the financial-services industry, which whatever else one might say about it, pays enough for a guy to indulge an artistic bent.
Consider first Geoff Hargadon, now showing at the Kayafas Gallery in Boston.
Art critic Cate McQuaid writes in the Boston Globe, “Bring up conceptual art, and some people’s eyes glaze over. So before we dive into the conceptual underpinnings of the work of … Geoff Hargadon now up at Gallery Kayafas, let’s say this: It’s funny, wry, and self-mocking — accessible on many levels.
“Hargadon’s ‘Dealers Protected!’ features signs that he has put up, first around Boston and then during the Frieze Art Fair in London in October, and during Art Basel Miami Beach earlier this month. Perhaps you have seen them. They read ‘Cash for Your Warhol.’ This show features the signs themselves, and photos of them in situ.
“The artist, who is an unlikely hybrid of street artist and senior vice president at the financial services company UBS, was inspired by the ‘cash for your house’ signs he saw on telephone poles during the worst of the economic collapse. He hilariously posted his first ‘Cash for Your Warhol’ sign outside the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis in 2009, after the museum announced controversial — and later canceled — plans to close and sell off its collection.” Read more here.
Second is the late Warren Hellman, Wall Street financier and devoted banjo player. “After nearly 20 years at Lehman in New York, he started several money management businesses, including Hellman & Friedman in San Francisco, one of the country’s most successful private equity funds. More recently Mr. Hellman focused on philanthropy, bestowing millions of dollars on cultural, educational and medical charities in the Bay Area. The three-day concert he founded, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, held each year in Golden Gate Park, has been financed entirely by him.” Read about Hellman in the NY Times obit.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged art, bluegrass, brandeis, cash for your warhol, cate mcquaid, conceptual artist, geoff hargadon, hardly strictly bluegrass, kayafas, Lehman, peter lattman, rose art museum, ubs, Warren Hellman | Leave a Comment »
Someone who used to know her well alerted me to the story of the Mystery Grammy Nominee. At 51 and without a record label, she has managed to get a remarkable burst of attention for her music.
Writes Christopher Morris at Variety, “Linda Chorney used the Recording Academy’s Grammy 365 website to connect with voters.
“Armed only with a computer and some chutzpah, a longshot snuck through the back door and into the Grammy Awards competition this year.
The resourceful Linda Chorney secured a Grammy nomination in the category of Americana album for her self-produced, self-released ‘Emotional Jukebox’ by taking her mission directly to voters, employing the peer-to-peer function of the Recording Academy’s own site for members, Grammy 365.
“Many in the tight-knit Americana community have reacted quizzically, and sometimes vehemently, to Chorney’s nomination, which trumped several well-known artists in the genre. The virtually unknown Sea Bright, N.J.-based musician will face off on Feb. 12 against a field of nominees that has collectively garnered a total of 23 Grammys. And while some question her methods, her online campaign falls completely within the academy’s parameters for acceptable self-promotion.” Read more.
There are several videos on YouTube. What do you think? Leave a comment.
Follow us on twitter @LunaStellaBlog1.
Update: Chorney didn’t win a Grammy, but she has been invited to sing the national anthem at Fenway Park before an April 2012 Red Sox game, another item on her “bucket list.”
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged award, Christopher Morris, daily kos, fenway, grammy, grammy 365, linda chorney, music, national anthem, new jersey, red sox, sea bright, singer, singing, song, songwriter, variety | Leave a Comment »
On Christmas Eve we have always gone to First Parish for one of the candlelight services. Nowadays we go to the early one because we have a toddler in the family.
Today we got a big kick out of watching him take it all in: so many grownups in the house at once, so many boxes covered with paper you’re allowed to rip, so many curiosities to remove from the bottom of a tree and show people. And rather nice chicken sausages.
The kitchen cupboards were interesting, too. They have different stuff from the ones at home and everything badly needs organizing.
We cooked and ate, and cooked and ate, and cooked and ate.
For lunch, Meran made tarts suggested by Cook’s Illustrated. One was a shitake mushroom and leek tart, the other was butternut squash and spinach. Both had cheese. There also was a salad with fennel, pears, and sugared pecans.
The main course at dinner was a Lamb Tagine we always like. This one is made with prunes and cinnamon, but there are recipes with raisins and almonds or apricots and caramelized onions. Meran contributed a lovely couscous with veggies.
Suzanne and Erik made an apple crisp that we ate with ice cream. There were loads of Christmas cookies.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cook, cooks illustrated, lamb, recipe, tagine, tart | Leave a Comment »
The phrase comes from the carol “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.”
Somehow, the words “when half-spent was the night” instead of “in the middle of the night” (a choice doubtless made to fit the rhythm) makes one think about the meaning more. Something about a gift arriving unexpectedly halfway through a time of darkness. Something surprising and curious.
A nice gift I received Friday was an expression of gratitude for being there for someone through her first year at my workplace. With tears in her eyes. Golly. Something surprising. A welcome surprise.
Then today, tucked in the back door, a stealth gift. Hmmm. No note. Swedish colors. For Erik? I think I recognize the cookie style. It suggests Suzanne’s longtime friend, a buddy since kindergarten, known for — among other things — her mother’s cookie-painting parties at Christmas.
Suzanne is being remembered, and being reminded of fun times, at a busy season when her friend is visiting town for only a short while. These are gifts that make people feel good.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged carol, carolling, gift, lo how a rose, music, sing, song, stealth | Leave a Comment »
Some time ago, I blogged about the book In the Land of Invented Languages and followed up with another post on Esperantists in the subway.
Among the invented languages that people actually speak is Klingon, which came from a television series, Star Trek. Today television is inventing more languages.
As Amy Chozick notes in the NY Times, “Game of Thrones” needed the feeling of authenticity that language (and subtitles) can impart.
She writes, “At his best friend’s wedding reception on the California coast, David J. Peterson stood to deliver his toast as best man. He held his Champagne glass high and shouted ‘Hajas!’ The 50 guests raised their glasses and chanted ‘Hajas!’ in unison.
“The word, which means ‘be strong’ and is pronounced ‘hah-DZHAS,’ has great significance for Mr. Peterson. He invented it, along with 3,250 other words (and counting), in the language he created for the HBO fantasy series ‘Game of Thrones,’ called Dothraki”
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged amy chozick, david peterson, dothraki, esperanto, game of thrones, in the land of invented languages, invented language | 2 Comments »
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 