Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, August 15, 2021
through
Saturday, August 21, 2021
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It’s Saturday, August 21, 2021
Welcome to the 1,196th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
1.0 Lead Picture
Orangutan
Eleifert - Own work
Orang Utan eating a mature Coconut.
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2.0 Commentary
The countdown is over. Two weeks after our Cousin’s Outdoor Party and no illnesses reported. For which we are grateful and remain on alert.
So time for a new countdown: when my daughter Katherine ends her stay at my apartment as a young adult and begins her life as an adult, living with her boyfriend in NYC, wach of them in pursuit of careers. She leaves Saturday, the 28th of August. We are planning a quiet dinner at a French bistro on Friday night before.
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3.0 Reading and Writing
I am reading The Goldfinch for my Granddaughter’s interactive class which I greatly enjoy.
The near 800 page book is too heavy to carry about on the T so I paid 49cents for a copy of Pride and Prejudice on my Kindle and am reading that whenever I take the T (like 3 times a day).
Howard D suggested two major ideas re: my manuscript construct. The first is to bring a bang into the opening. And the second, is to dirty the text, i.e., as it stands, it is good writing but too antiseptic. Must describe events in a more personal way. Both ideas are important and accurate. I am creating a new opening for the manuscript that will incorporate those ideas.
I’ve known Howard well for near sixty years and in that tie he has often annoyed me, as I’m sure I, he. But we have never abandoned each other.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“I knew exactly when the fever had struck.
I had been reading Hamlet in an English class at school.
Everyone else stumbled, puzzling over the strange words.
Then it had been my turn, and the language had suddenly woken in me, so that my heart and lungs and tongue and throat were on fire.
Later, I understood that this was why people spoke of Shakespeare as a god.
At the time, I felt like weeping.
Somebody had released me from dumbness, from utter isolation. I knew that I could live inside these words, that they would give me a a shape, a shell.
I had no idea, then, that I would never play Hamlet…. I’m an actor, and in a good year I earn eleven thousand pounds for dressing up as a carrot.”
~Amanda Craig
In a Dark Wood
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from Sally C respond to Jim P, he responding to her.
Dear Dom.
Thanks to your friend Jim P. for his enlightenment on the whole ethnic discussion and the distinction between pluralism and multiculturalism.
(One point: To me, "Roots" spurred interest in ethnic research. That isn't to say that it created interest - one cannot spur something that doesn't exist.)
I haven't studied any of that in depth and can only go with my own experiences and observations, which I will not deny are limited.
I certainly agree that the focus trends these days are proving more divisive than uniting.
I'm far more interested in sharing with others the commonality and creativity that we all, as individuals, have, based on who we are, not what we are.
Every individual is unique and may have something really wonderful to teach me.
Every group (and the individuals in them) has much to offer; sharing one's ethnic culture with others does not equate to relinquishing of identity.
Sally
Blog meister responds: Lovely, Sally. Thank you.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
On Tuesday night I made a white wine sauce with which to stimulate a leftover roast chicken.
It was wonderful and is now part of my stable.
Full recipe to follow but a summary:
Shallots softened in butter, white wine, house-made chicken stock, a touch of vinegar and a touch of lemon juice. The liquids reduced to half. Add heavy cream and simmer for 2 minutes.
Add nuggets of cold butter a piece at a time, stirring as you go. The butter will gloss the sauce, emulsifying into the cream rather than floating as a separate component. Pour over the chicken.
It was memorable.
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7.0 Blog Meister’s Pictures with Captions
Summer Still Life with Lobster and Fern
Greenway Art Daniel Gordon
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Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. They are now found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Classified in the genus Pongo, orangutans were originally considered to be one species. From 1996, they were divided into two species: the Bornean orangutan (P. pygmaeus, with three subspecies) and the Sumatran orangutan (P. abelii). In 2017, a third species, the Tapanuli orangutan (P. tapanuliensis), was definitively identified. The orangutans are the only surviving species of the subfamily Ponginae, which split from the other hominids (gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans) between 19.3 and 15.7 million years ago.
The most arboreal of the great apes, orangutans spend most of their time in trees. They have proportionally long arms and short legs, and have reddish-brown hair covering their bodies. Adult males weigh about 75 kg (165 lb), while females reach about 37 kg (82 lb). Dominant adult males develop distinctive cheek pads or flanges and make long calls that attract females and intimidate rivals; younger subordinate males do not and more resemble adult females. Orangutans are the most solitary of the great apes, social bonds occurring primarily between mothers and their dependent offspring, who remain together for the first two years. Fruit is the most important component of an orangutan's diet; but they will also eat vegetation, bark, honey, insects and bird eggs. They can live over 30 years, both in the wild and in captivity.
Orangutans are among the most intelligent primates. They use a variety of sophisticated tools and construct elaborate sleeping nests each night from branches and foliage. The apes' learning abilities have been studied extensively. There may be distinctive cultures within populations. Orangutans have been featured in literature and art since at least the 18th century, particularly in works that comment on human society. Field studies of the apes were pioneered by primatologist Birutė Galdikas and they have been kept in captive facilities around the world since at least the early 19th century.
All three orangutan species are considered critically endangered. Human activities have caused severe declines in populations and ranges. Threats to wild orangutan populations include poaching, habitat destruction because of palm oil cultivation, and the illegal pet trade. Several conservation and rehabilitation organizations are dedicated to the survival of orangutans in the wild.
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It’s Friday, August 20, 2021
Welcome to the 1,195th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Battle of San Domingo
Battle between Polish troops in French service and the Haitian rebels. The majority of Polish soldiers eventually deserted the French army and fought alongside the Haitians.
January Suchodolski - http://www.pinakoteka.zascianek.pl/Suchodolski/Suchodolski_2.htm
Battle of San Domingo, also known as the Battle for Palm Tree Hill
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2.0 Commentary
Today marks the end of the cousins’ event covid watch. We were careful: everyone had been double-vaccinated, and we stayed outdoors for the most part. The precautions paid off: no one got sick.
Read especially today’s Chuckles and Thoughts for a clear picture of my life past.
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3.0 Reading and Writing
I am now reading Pride and Prejudice. I bought it to study how Jane Austen constructs her characters to steal some of her ideas for my own manuscript, as she and all other writers stole and steal from each other.
I paid only forty-nine cents for it on my kindle and will read it only when I’m on the T, which is a considerable time.
I had a detailed conversation with a dear friend who ranks in the top tiers of literary knowledge and came away from the conversation with further changes to my manuscript. I will put these into play immediately.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“[Lear] is the universal image of the unwisdom and destructiveness of paternal love at its most ineffectual, implacably persuaded of its own benignity, totally devoid of self-knowledge, and careening onward until it brings down the person it loves best, and its world as well.”
~Harold Bloom
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from our dear friend. Sally C:
The Dom in the Hat: Oh, my! It’s you! Absolutely elegant!
(although if I met you on the street looking like that, it might affright me somewhat)
Come to think of it, Dom, you look good in everything I’ve ever seen you wearing. It must be those Italian “handsome” genes.
Sally
Blog meister responds: Aw, shucks.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Monday night we had dinner at the Palm restaurant, taking advantage of Restaurant Week.
We had Mussels in a tomato sauce over linguini, which was cooked al dente as requested; we had a Caesar Salad and a Broiled Salmon and two desserts, a chocolate cake and a cheesecake. They were both delicious. All in all a very good value.
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7.0 Blog Meister’s Pictures with Captions
Aquarium lines for whale watching
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Haiti, known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, to the east of Cuba and Jamaica and south of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island which it shares with the Dominican Republic. To its south-west lies the small island of Navassa Island, which is claimed by Haiti but is disputed as a United States territory under federal administration. Haiti is 27,750 square kilometers (10,714 sq mi) in size, the third largest country in the Caribbean by area, and has an estimated population of 11.4 million, making it the most populous country in the Caribbean.
The island was originally inhabited by the indigenous Taíno people, who originated in South America. The first Europeans arrived on 5 December 1492 during the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, who initially believed he had found India or China. Columbus subsequently founded the first European settlement in the Americas, La Navidad, on what is now the northeastern coast of Haiti. The island was claimed by Spain and named La Española, forming part of the Spanish Empire until the early 17th century. However, competing claims and settlements by the French led to the western portion of the island being ceded to France in 1697, which was subsequently named Saint-Domingue. French colonists established lucrative sugarcane plantations, worked by vast numbers of slaves brought from Africa, which made the colony one of the richest in the world.
In the midst of the French Revolution (1789–99), slaves and free people of color launched the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), led by a former slave and the first black general of the French Army, Toussaint Louverture. After 12 years of conflict, Napoleon Bonaparte's forces were defeated by Louverture's successor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines (later Emperor Jacques I), who declared Haiti's sovereignty on 1 January 1804—the first independent nation of Latin America and the Caribbean, the second republic in the Americas, the first country to abolish slavery, and the only state in history established by a successful slave revolt. Apart from Alexandre Pétion, the first President of the Republic, all of Haiti's first leaders were former slaves. After a brief period in which the country was split in two, President Jean-Pierre Boyer united the country and then attempted to bring the whole of Hispaniola under Haitian control, precipitating a long series of wars that ended in the 1870s when Haiti formally recognized the independence of the Dominican Republic.
Haiti's first century of independence was characterized by political instability, ostracism by the international community and the payment of a crippling debt to France. Political volatility and foreign economic influence in the country prompted the U.S. to occupy the country from 1915 to 1934. Following a series of short-lived presidencies, François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier took power in 1956, ushering in a long period of autocratic rule that was continued by his son Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier that lasted until 1986; the period was characterized by state-sanctioned violence against the opposition and civilians, corruption, and economic stagnation. After 1986, Haiti began attempting to establish a more democratic political system.
Haiti is a founding member of the United Nations, Organization of American States (OAS), Association of Caribbean States, and the International Francophonie Organisation. In addition to CARICOM, it is a member of the International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. Historically poor and politically unstable, Haiti has the lowest Human Development Index in the Americas. Since the turn of the 21st century, the country has endured a coup d'état, which prompted a U.N. intervention, as well as a catastrophic earthquake that killed over 250,000.
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It’s Thursday, August 19, 2021
Welcome to the 1,194th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Pike Place Market
Fresh vegetables at the market
Aaronyoung777 - Own work
Pikes Place Market, Seattle
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2.0 Commentary
Eleven days after our Cousins event and no one has gotten ill. Trending well.
Afghanistan should never have begun.
Let’s focus on issues that we can affect, like the 25% increase in food stamp allotments.
Poor children in America will eat better.
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3.0 Reading and Writing
Thinking about next book to read. Likely to be The Goldfinch, Donna Pratt.
My manuscript is composed of Five Parts, each with several sections. I am working on Part One which deals with the protagonist’s recovery from a forced heroin addiction, preparing for her reintegration into society.
Within Part One I am working on a one-page Section Five in which our exhausted heroine engages in a moment of self love.
In Section 1 our heroine decides to cold-turkey withdraw from her forced heroin addiction. In section two, we see some of the physical torments she goes through. In Section Three she makes her first social contact outside the recovery house and discovers Italian coffee. In Section Four she lays out her plans for life after recovery and changes her name to Dee.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“[Shakespeare} the word-coining genius,
as if thought plunged into a sea of words and came up dripping”
~Virginia Woolf
The Common Reader
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Received some unhappy comments regarding Andrew Cuomo’s quote, “I’m not perverted just Italian.”
Not a happy headline.
Blog meister responds: At my age, eighty, nearly, I often use ‘sweetheart’ or ‘dear’ in my conversation with women. Of any age. Thinking about why I’ve ever been chastised, and I conclude two factors at work here. One is my age. People don’t feel threatened by an octogenarian. The second is that I ‘often’ use these terms of endearment, not always. I realize that as harmless as warm and fuzzy may seem to the speaker, it’s the object of the salutation that has to decide if she likes it or not and the speaker better have a strong basis for believing he will not be insulting her before he steps into a war zone.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
I had planned a meal around knockwurst. Surprise. When I got to the market, they were out of them. I settled for a dry-aged rib eye.
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7.0 Blog Meister’s Pictures with Captions
Newbury St on car free Sunday
Fresh vegetables at the market
Aaronyoung777 - Own work
Pikes Place Market, Seattle
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Pike Place Market is a public market in Seattle, Washington, United States. It opened on August 17, 1907, and is one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers' markets in the United States. Overlooking the Elliott Bay waterfront on Puget Sound, it serves as a place of business for many small farmers, craftspeople and merchants. It is named for its central street, Pike Place, which runs northwest from Pike Street to Virginia Street on the western edge of Downtown Seattle. Pike Place Market is Seattle's most popular tourist destination and the 33rd most visited tourist attraction in the world, with more than 10 million annual visitors.
The Market is built on the edge of a steep hill and consists of several lower levels located below the main level. Each features a variety of unique shops such as antique dealers, comic book and collectible shops, small family-owned restaurants, and one of the oldest head shops in Seattle. The upper street level contains fishmongers, fresh produce stands and craft stalls operating in the covered arcades. Local farmers and craftspeople sell year-round in the arcades from tables they rent from the Market on a daily basis, in accordance with the Market's mission and founding goal: allowing consumers to "Meet the Producer".
Pike Place Market is home to nearly 500 residents who live in eight different buildings throughout the Market. Most of these buildings have been low-income housing in the past; however, some of them no longer are, such as the Livingston Baker apartments. The Market is run by the quasi-government Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority (PDA).
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It’s Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Welcome to the 1,1193rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Alicia Coppola
MR O from USA - "Jericho"
Alicia Coppola and Brad Beyer
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2.0 Commentary
And eleven days after the Cousin’s Party, no illnesses to report. For which we are grateful. We still remain on alert.
I separate from those calling the Afghan pullout an American disaster. The American disaster was going into Afghanistan in the first place. Poor and suffering can be found in most of the world. We must learn to better choose situations in which we can have a meaningful impact. I choose America’s international involvement in the battles for Climate Control and against Covid-19.
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3.0 Reading and Writing
I am nearing the end of The Underground Railroad. It’s been terrific.
My I am working on Part One, Section Five.
In Section 1 our heroine decides to cold-turkey withdraw from her forced heroin addiction. In section two, we see some of the physical torments she goes through. In Section Three she makes her first social contact outside the recovery house and discovers Italian coffee. In Section Four she lays out her plans for life after recovery and changes her name to Dee. In Section Five Dee steps closer to reintegration into society by meeting her aunt’s lawyer who tells Dee her aunt had built a fortune and has left it all to Dee.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“He [Shakespeare] was a wordsmith who loved to act and
to see things from many points of view.(...)
His genius lay in being able to see all sides of an argument.”
~Tina Packer
Women of Will: Following the Feminine in Shakespeare's Plays
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from Jim P:
Hi Dom,
Just a comment on Sally C’s comment to your post on Roots. I liked your post and her comment but want to address one point. She said that Roots “spurred a vast movement among people of color to unearth and record their own stories in a white-dominated world.” I would point out that Haley’s book was part of an already ongoing ethnic revival that began with the Civil Rights movement in the 60s and included the so-called “White Ethnics” like Italians, Poles, and Jews, who were looking at their history outside of the Anglo-Saxon narrative. In 1963, Glazer and Moynihan published Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City, which argued that these groups had not melted into one single group but maintained distinct yet interrelated identities. And Stockley Carmichael’s Black Power of 1966 was in many ways a “Roots” book, but one that looked at the roots of racism and slavery in U.S. institutions.
Haley’s novel Roots came out in 1976. In 1979, Italian Americans in NYC founded the Calandra institute to redress educational discrimination, and did so on the basis of a successful affirmative action lawsuit. Thus, contra Sally C’s comment, Haley’s Roots should be seen in this broader ‘inclusive’ context and rather than the white/non-white binary that seems to be so popular today. That this binary is now so popular might be due in part to the extremes of the roots-ethnic revival, that I think has pushed us further apart as a country. In 1979, Orland Patterson warned of this in his book Ethnic Chauvinism: The Reactionary Impulse. He cautioned against too much ethnic separatism, since it might encourage forgetting universal values and creative individualism, over group differences and individual/group conformity.
Haley was writing during a time when the US was shifting from a pluralist vision of America to a multi-cultural one, a shift that solidified in the 90s. The two are very different as Richard Rorty shows in his must-read book, Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in the Twentieth Century America (Achieving Our Country — Richard Rorty | Harvard University Press.arate ‘roots’ are fine, they exist, but the deepest roots come out of our common humanity. We don’t ever want to forget or uproot those. If we do, then as my cousin Johnny used to say ‘its all over.’
Jim
Blog meister responds: Thoughtful, Jim. Adds greatly to the discussion. Thank you.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
I made a Slow-Roast Chicken using a Bell and Evans free-range.
It was perfect.
Something universally warming about a Roast Chicken.
I particularly enjoy the part of the recipe found in the Recipe Section of the Blog
That calls for a meticulous browning of he bird, not browning by overcooking as in the traditional roasting in a 375* oven but by a manual rotating of the bird under the broiler when the slow roast is over.
Remember that a slow-roast by definition does cannot brown the chicken. So we finish it under the broiler, exposing each side of the chicken to the broiler until it achieves a glorious color, about 3 to 4 minutes.
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7.0 Blog Meister’s Pictures with Captions
Blue Bottle doing some business
While the MFA appears to be languishing, the Blue Bottle Cafe in the Prudential Center is returning to normal busy.
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Alicia Coppola (born April 12, 1968) is an American actress. She became known for playing Lorna Devon in the soap opera Another World from 1991 to 1993. Afterwards, she made guest star appearances in various television series and appeared in films, notably National Treasure: Book of Secrets.
Born in Huntington, New York, Coppola graduated from the Kent School in Kent, Connecticut in 1986 and earned a bachelor's degree in Political Anthropology and Philosophy from New York University in 1990. She is not part of the Coppola family tree.
She is the sister of film producer Matthew Coppola and cousin of film producer Denise Di Novi.
Coppola began her career as a hostess on the MTV game show Remote Control. In 1991, she joined the cast of the soap opera Another World playing the vixen Lorna Devon, the long-lost daughter of popular character Felicia Gallant. She played the role until 1994.
Her better-known TV jobs include a recurring role on Trinity (1998–99), a starring role on the American remake of the British comedy Cold Feet (1999), and top billing on the TNT drama Bull (2000). She played Leesa in a 1999 episode of Sports Night, appeared briefly as Lt. Stadi in the pilot episode of Star Trek: Voyager, played a cannibalistic murderer on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, a widow who marries her late husband's killer on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and appeared several times as JAG lawyer Lieutenant Commander Faith Coleman on JAG and NCIS (she also appeared in an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles, but as a different character). In 2003, she starred alongside Gary Oldman and Ving Rhames in the film Sin, and played a Hollywood rehab stereotype by the name of Toni Stark on Dawson's Creek. She played a power company public relations representative in a 2004 episode of Monk. Coppola also took on the unusual role of a female serial killer agreeing to help catch her copycat in the 2005 episode of Crossing Jordan titled "Road Kill." She had a recurring role on NBC's American Dreams, playing the role of Nancy. She appeared on Two and a Half Men as Dr. Michelle Talmadge, in the episode "Woo-Hoo, a Hernia Exam!" (2005).
Coppola played a short role on the Fox television series Bones in 2005 as Joy Deaver in the episode, "The Girl in the Fridge."
Coppola also had a role as a Muslim intelligence analyst working for the Los Angeles branch of the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU), in a single episode of 24, named Azara ("1–2 am" during Day 4). All four of her scenes were cut from the broadcast episode, but are restored as extras on the Day 4 DVD. In them, she discovers a lead in the investigation which is originally dismissed by fellow analyst Edgar Stiles, who suspects her because of her religion. Edgar later apologizes to her when her lead turns out to be important.
Starting in the fall of 2006, she appeared in the recurring role of IRS Agent Mimi Clark in the post-apocalyptic drama Jericho. She became a series regular in February 2007. She was an FBI agent in National Treasure: Book of Secrets, also directed by Jericho executive producer Jon Turteltaub.
Coppola appeared on the season 2 episode "Little Angels" of CBS' NCIS: Los Angeles, playing FBI agent Amy Rand, an expert on kidnapping cases. She has also appeared on The Nine Lives of Chloe King as Valentina, the leader of the Mai. She appeared on Monk in "Mr. Monk and the Blackout" as the power plant public relations spokesperson and as Monk's date. She appeared in the MTV series Teen Wolf as the powerful Alpha werewolf Talia Hale. In 2014, she appeared on Sons of Anarchy as Mildred Treal in the episode "Faith and Despondency". Coppola returned to daytime soap operas for the first time in twenty years when she took a recurring role on CBS's The Young and the Restless in spring 2016.[3] Coppola appeared as Dr. Tammy Brunner in a 2017 episode of Designated Survivor.
Coppola is married to actor, writer, and producer Anthony Michael Jones, best known for appearing in General Hospital as Father Coates, a recurring occasional role which he played in 11 episodes from 2002 through 2010. They have three daughters together.
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It’s Tuesday, August 17, 2021
Welcome to the 1,1192nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Fatima's Grill
is a restaurant specializing in Lebanese and Mexican fusion cuisine.
First opened as a taco stand in 2016, it is presently located at
7840 Firestone Boulevard in Downey, California, p
art of the Gateway Cities region of Los Angeles County.
A quesabirria from Fatima's Grill topped with Flamin' Hot Cheetos
Josh Lim (Sky Harbor) - Own work
A quesabirria from Fatima's Grill in Downey, California, topped with Flamin' Hot Cheetos, the restaurant's signature ingredient.
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2.0 Commentary
Eight days after the Cousin’s Party, no illnesses to report. For which we are grateful and remain on alert.
Summer is flying by. I noticed yesterday, going out for a post-dinner walk, that the darkness fell quickly. We’ve had a few nice days but all too many poor ones.
I am tired of hearing about Afghanistan. We get the point. Historians will argue it. We will be aware of the torture and suffering that will befall this nation in the coming years. We seem to be unable to learn that the days of Guatemala and the Shah of Iran when we could topple governments is over, if they were ever here. MYOB!
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3.0 Reading and Writing
Close to the end of The Underground Railroad. It’s terrific. The Goldfinch is the next stop for me.
My manuscript is composed of Five Parts, each with several sections.
I am working on Part One, section four. This section is now written but I must edit it today.
Part One deals with the protagonist’s recovery from a forced heroin addiction, preparing for her reintegration into society.
In Section 1 our heroine decides to cold-turkey withdraw form her forced heroin addiction. In section two, we see some of the physical torments she goes through. In Section Three she makes her first social contact outside the recovery house and discovers Italian coffee. In Section Four she lays out her plans for life after recovery, and changes her name to Dee.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“One can forgive Shakespeare anything,
except one's own bad lines.”
~Peter Ackroyd, The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Dom,
My Italian stepmom said you look very good in this hat.
Gary Bartos
Founder
Echobatix
http://www.echobatix.com/
Blog meister responds: I can understand that! And here, I offer Gary’s photo as my own:
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Katherine an I had an appetizer of Clam Sauce and Linguini and then shared a 16oz piece of swordfish. I made a pan sauce, throwing in some anchovies, garlic, parsley, white wine, and lemon.
Very tasty meal.
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Fatima's Grill was opened in the summer of 2016 by Ali Elreda, a Lebanese American who grew up in the predominantly-Hispanic neighboring city of Bell. The restaurant is named after his daughter.
Elreda, who previously had no significant cooking experience, conceived of the restaurant and many of his recipes while working in the kitchen at the Federal Correctional Institution, Safford in Arizona, where he was serving a 7.5-year sentence for drug trafficking. After opening the restaurant, Elreda at one point had to return to Safford to list his ingredients, as he sourced many of the items he uses in his dishes from the prison commissary.
Fatima's Grill currently occupies a corner space in a strip mall along Firestone Boulevard, located across from a Stater Bros. supermarket. The restaurant serves around two hundred customers daily, with much of its traffic being driven by its Instagram account, which has over 165,000 followers. A number of celebrities have patronized the restaurant as a result of social media, including singer Sean Kingston and basketball player Bryon Russell.
The restaurant's menu is anchored around different variations of burritos, tacos, quesadillas, wraps and French fries, informed by Elreda's experiences in prison and his need to cook with whatever ingredients that were available. Much of the restaurant's success is driven by the visual nature of its social media presence, with diners taking pictures of their orders in a way that helps them go viral, in turn driving further traffic. Many dishes feature Flamin' Hot Cheetos as a signature ingredient, which was introduced to the menu at the suggestion of Elreda's daughter in September 2017, and are now considered to be some of the menu's most popular offerings. All meat served by the restaurant is halal.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in California, Fatima's Grill closed its dining room and transitioned to a takeout-only operation, with staff members covering for one another particularly when their family members contracted the disease. In the summer of 2020, a viral TikTok video led a crowd of hundreds of people to congregate at the restaurant, which led to hours-long waits for food. The incident led to Elreda nearly closing the restaurant entirely, though ultimately it was decided instead to very strictly enforce pandemic restrictions.
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It’s Monday, August 16, 2021
Welcome to the 1,1191st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Turn: Washington’s Spies
The new title for the series, which shows the words "TURN: Washington's Spies" (with a backwards "n") in black text on a white background.
http://media.amctv.com/assets/show-turn/img/turn-header-bg-3.jpg
The new logo of the series.
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2.0 Commentary
And now on eight days after the Cousin’s Party and no illnesses to report. For which we are grateful and remain on alert.
America’s largest teachers’ union offered its support for policies that would require all teachers to be vaccinated or submit to regular testing. Many other unions and companies and schools are also in the vanguard of mandating vaccination. Hopefully, testing will be an onerous choice.
The MFA mandate of wearing masks has proven less onerous than what I had feared. I work outdoor at the MFA Garden where patrons take their lunches and there, patrons are permitted to off their masks. That works for me since I work there in the morning, have my lunch, and then leave. Of course, when I want to attend an exhibition, I don the mask.
Plus, the attendance at the museum is way down so many days I have the entire Garden to myself.
I’m in an excellent eating rhythm except that my weight has stagnated. At least I’m not gaining but I do have three unwanted pounds and I can’t seem to gird myself to tweak my diet to get it done. We Americans are very spoiled.
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3.0 Reading and Writing
Work on my manuscript haw stalled for a day as the greater family sorts out vacations and meetings, and daughter Katherine and boyfriend William arrive for four days.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“He [Shakespeare] was a wordsmith who loved to act and to see things from many points of view.(...)
His genius lay in being able to see all sides of an argument.”
~Tina Packer,
Women of Will: Following the Feminine in Shakespeare's Plays
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Family filled the Internet, planning a family trip to Philadelphia to help Grace adjust to life at Swarthmore.
Blog meister responds: Fun things, all.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Thursday’s dinner was a tuna salad with Tatte’s baguette.
With celery, red onion, and lettuce providing the crunch, and
mayonnaise, olive oil, a touch of mustard providing the viscosity,
and a delicious baguette, delicious.
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7.0 Blog Meister’s Pictures with Captions
The MFA Lunch Garden quiet
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11.0 Thumbnail
Turn: Washington's Spies (originally titled Turn and stylized as TURИ: Washington's Spies) is an American period drama television series based on Alexander Rose's book Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring (2007), a history of the Culper Ring. The series originally aired on the AMC network for four seasons, from April 6, 2014, to August 12, 2017.
The story covers events from 1776 to 1781 and features a farmer from Setauket, New York, and his childhood friends. They form an unlikely group of spies called the Culper Ring, which eventually helps to turn the tide during the American Revolutionary War. The series begins in October 1776, shortly after British victories recapture Long Island and the Port of New York for the Crown, and leave General George Washington's army in dire straits. The first episode opens with the following introductory text:
Autumn 1776. Insurgents have declared war against the Crown. Following a successful naval landing, His Majesty's Army has forced Washington's rebels into the wilderness. New York City serves as military base of operations for the British. The Loyalists of nearby Long Island keep vigilant watch out for sympathizers and spies.
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It’s Sunday, August 15, 2021
Welcome to the 1,1190th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
1.0 Lead Picture
Greta Thunberg
Portrait of Thunberg at the European Parliament in 2020
European Parliament - This file has been extracted from another file: Greta Thunberg urges MEPs to show climate leadership (49618310531).jpg
Climate activist Greta Thunberg discussed EU plans to tackle the climate emergency with Parliament’s environment committee on Wednesday 4 March. The climate activist was at the Parliament to discuss the Climate Law, a proposal seeking to commit the EU to carbon neutrality by 2050. Addressing the committee, Thunberg criticised the proposal as insufficient: “The EU must lead the way. You have the moral obligation to do so and you have a unique economical and political opportunity to become a real climate leader. You, yourselves, declared that we are in a climate and environment emergency. You said this was an existential threat. Now you must prove that you mean it.” It is vital to follow “ a science-based pathway”. “Anything else is surrender,” she said. “This climate law is surrender because nature doesn’t bargain and you cannot make deals with physics.” Introducing her, environment committee chair Pascal Canfin said: “Everyone has their role to play in this. I am deeply convinced that what we need is the energy of our young people. No society is transformed, no society can respond to the kind of challenges we face on climate if we do not take on board the energy coming from our young people. And you embody that.”
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2.0 Commentary
My mornings at the MFA have had a tangential benefit to my productivity. Since my plan is to leave the apartment at 9.30 and head to the MFA, often doing errands on the way, my early morning has gotten more productive. That 9.30 pressure seems to get me going at full speed to complete my daily post before going out. Before the MFA, I tended to drag the writing out over the day.
Keeping a check on the Saturday, August 7th Cousins Party for a couple of dozen people meeting outdoors. If no one has covid symptoms after fourteen days we may expect to be free of contamination. On Friday, the 13th, we are seven days into it and no one has reported ill. Seven days to go.
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3.0 Reading and Writing
I have finished Part One, Section 4. Now I have several reviews: are my storylines following a logical path; am I developing my characters; am I using too many gerunds (a quirk of mine).
I’ll take a day for that and then send the new pages out to my readers.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“In any first-class work of art, you can find passages that in themselves are extremely boring, but try to cut them out, as they are in an abridged edition, and you lose the life of the work. Don't think that art that is alive can remain on the same level of interest throughout — and the same is true of life.”
~W.H. Auden
Lectures on Shakespeare
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from our dear Sally C:
Dear Dom,
Interesting piece about Alex Haley. I was among the millions captured by the Kunta Kinte story when “Roots” aired way back when. Meaty stuff! I think that, aside from the controversy over the accuracy of Haley’s work (“Roots” is, after all, a novel, not a pure history), and over the claims of plagiarism (one of which was upheld and was settled), the book illustrates the kinds of environments that black people experienced in America’s days of slavery. The conditions of their lives ran the full spectrum, from decent treatment to atrocity. In this regard, there is great truth and accuracy in “Roots.” And that is the true value of the book. It spurred a vast movement among people of color to unearth and record their own stories in a white-dominated world. It enlightens us all.
If I remember correctly, after completing “Roots,” Haley went on to research his white background. Apparently, one of his white ancestors had immigrated from Ireland, so he tracked his roots there, but the work never made it into a print book. No doubt some is incorporated into his posthumously published “Queen” and some may be included in any of his published papers.
Sally
Blog meister responds: I remember how excited Toni-Lee and I were as each new episode played. We were totally drawn in.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Wednesday night I gently fried some shrimp in an Asian Oil that I make. And then I tried out a vegetarian plate ith rice and curry sauce from Wagamama. They charged $17.00 for five slices of vegetables, three of them being sweet potato, plus curry sauce and rice. The frying was well-done but the curry sauce too thick and too bland. I did thin the sauce and make it more interesting because I had the oil and juices from the sauteed shrimp. Overall, I found the meal a poor value.
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7.0 Personal Photo of the Day
Water spray on the Greenway
The traditional inner city way of coping with the heat.
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11.0 Thumbnail
Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg (born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish environmental activist who is known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action for climate change mitigation. Thunberg initially gained notice for her youth and her straightforward speaking manner, both in public and to political leaders and assemblies, in which she criticizes world leaders for their failure to take what she considers sufficient action to address the climate crisis.
Thunberg's activism began by persuading her parents to adopt lifestyle choices that reduced their own carbon footprint. In August 2018, at age 15, she started spending her school days outside the Swedish Parliament to call for stronger action on climate change by holding up a sign reading Skolstrejk för klimatet (School Strike for Climate). Soon other students engaged in similar protests in their own communities. Together they organized a school climate strike movement under the name Fridays for Future. After Thunberg addressed the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference, student strikes took place every week somewhere in the world. In 2019, there were multiple coordinated multi-city protests involving over a million students each. To avoid energy intensive flying, Thunberg sailed to North America where she attended the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit. Her speech there, in which she exclaimed "How dare you", was widely taken up by the press and incorporated into music.
Her sudden rise to world fame made her both a leader in the activist community and a target for critics, especially due to her age. Her influence on the world stage has been described by The Guardian and other newspapers as the "Greta effect". She received numerous honours and awards, including an honorary Fellowship of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, inclusion in Time's 100 most influential people, being the youngest Time Person of the Year, inclusion in the Forbes list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women (2019), and three consecutive nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize (2019–2021).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
__________________________________________________________
It’s Sunday, August 15, 2021
Welcome to the 1,1190th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
1.0 Lead Picture
Greta Thunberg
Portrait of Thunberg at the European Parliament in 2020
European Parliament - This file has been extracted from another file: Greta Thunberg urges MEPs to show climate leadership (49618310531).jpg
Climate activist Greta Thunberg discussed EU plans to tackle the climate emergency with Parliament’s environment committee on Wednesday 4 March. The climate activist was at the Parliament to discuss the Climate Law, a proposal seeking to commit the EU to carbon neutrality by 2050. Addressing the committee, Thunberg criticised the proposal as insufficient: “The EU must lead the way. You have the moral obligation to do so and you have a unique economical and political opportunity to become a real climate leader. You, yourselves, declared that we are in a climate and environment emergency. You said this was an existential threat. Now you must prove that you mean it.” It is vital to follow “ a science-based pathway”. “Anything else is surrender,” she said. “This climate law is surrender because nature doesn’t bargain and you cannot make deals with physics.” Introducing her, environment committee chair Pascal Canfin said: “Everyone has their role to play in this. I am deeply convinced that what we need is the energy of our young people. No society is transformed, no society can respond to the kind of challenges we face on climate if we do not take on board the energy coming from our young people. And you embody that.”
_____________________________________
2.0 Commentary
My mornings at the MFA have had a tangential benefit to my productivity. Since my plan is to leave the apartment at 9.30 and head to the MFA, often doing errands on the way, my early morning has gotten more productive. That 9.30 pressure seems to get me going at full speed to complete my daily post before going out. Before the MFA, I tended to drag the writing out over the day.
Keeping a check on the Saturday, August 7th Cousins Party for a couple of dozen people meeting outdoors. If no one has covid symptoms after fourteen days we may expect to be free of contamination. On Friday, the 13th, we are seven days into it and no one has reported ill. Seven days to go.
______________________________________
3.0 Reading and Writing
I have finished Part One, Section 4. Now I have several reviews: are my storylines following a logical path; am I developing my characters; am I using too many gerunds (a quirk of mine).
I’ll take a day for that and then send the new pages out to my readers.
______________________________________
4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“In any first-class work of art, you can find passages that in themselves are extremely boring, but try to cut them out, as they are in an abridged edition, and you lose the life of the work. Don't think that art that is alive can remain on the same level of interest throughout — and the same is true of life.”
~W.H. Auden
Lectures on Shakespeare
_____________________________________
5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from our dear Sally C:
Dear Dom,
Interesting piece about Alex Haley. I was among the millions captured by the Kunta Kinte story when “Roots” aired way back when. Meaty stuff! I think that, aside from the controversy over the accuracy of Haley’s work (“Roots” is, after all, a novel, not a pure history), and over the claims of plagiarism (one of which was upheld and was settled), the book illustrates the kinds of environments that black people experienced in America’s days of slavery. The conditions of their lives ran the full spectrum, from decent treatment to atrocity. In this regard, there is great truth and accuracy in “Roots.” And that is the true value of the book. It spurred a vast movement among people of color to unearth and record their own stories in a white-dominated world. It enlightens us all.
If I remember correctly, after completing “Roots,” Haley went on to research his white background. Apparently, one of his white ancestors had immigrated from Ireland, so he tracked his roots there, but the work never made it into a print book. No doubt some is incorporated into his posthumously published “Queen” and some may be included in any of his published papers.
Sally
Blog meister responds: I remember how excited Toni-Lee and I were as each new episode played. We were totally drawn in.
_____________________________________
6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Wednesday night I gently fried some shrimp in an Asian Oil that I make. And then I tried out a vegetarian plate ith rice and curry sauce from Wagamama. They charged $17.00 for five slices of vegetables, three of them being sweet potato, plus curry sauce and rice. The frying was well-done but the curry sauce too thick and too bland. I did thin the sauce and make it more interesting because I had the oil and juices from the sauteed shrimp. Overall, I found the meal a poor value.
____________________________________
7.0 Personal Photo of the Day
Water spray on the Greenway
The traditional inner city way of coping with the heat.
__________________________________
11.0 Thumbnail
Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg (born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish environmental activist who is known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action for climate change mitigation. Thunberg initially gained notice for her youth and her straightforward speaking manner, both in public and to political leaders and assemblies, in which she criticizes world leaders for their failure to take what she considers sufficient action to address the climate crisis.
Thunberg's activism began by persuading her parents to adopt lifestyle choices that reduced their own carbon footprint. In August 2018, at age 15, she started spending her school days outside the Swedish Parliament to call for stronger action on climate change by holding up a sign reading Skolstrejk för klimatet (School Strike for Climate). Soon other students engaged in similar protests in their own communities. Together they organized a school climate strike movement under the name Fridays for Future. After Thunberg addressed the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference, student strikes took place every week somewhere in the world. In 2019, there were multiple coordinated multi-city protests involving over a million students each. To avoid energy intensive flying, Thunberg sailed to North America where she attended the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit. Her speech there, in which she exclaimed "How dare you", was widely taken up by the press and incorporated into music.
Her sudden rise to world fame made her both a leader in the activist community and a target for critics, especially due to her age. Her influence on the world stage has been described by The Guardian and other newspapers as the "Greta effect". She received numerous honours and awards, including an honorary Fellowship of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, inclusion in Time's 100 most influential people, being the youngest Time Person of the Year, inclusion in the Forbes list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women (2019), and three consecutive nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize (2019–2021).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!