Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, February 16
through
Saturday, February 22
It’s Saturday, February 22
Welcome to the 689th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
An unfolded long cane.
The long cane is the primary mobility tool for blind and vision impaired people.
Long canes are often foldable to save space.
Sarah Chester - email sent to User:Graham87
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2.0 Commentary
Trazodone.
Has entered my life, at least while I try to cure my insomnia.
Many clinicians use low-dose trazodone as an alternative to benzodiazepines for the treatment of insomnia. Two recent reviews found that trazodone is the second most prescribed agent for insomnia.
Thursday night I added ½ of a capsule to my medications.
I took it @ 12.00am, Friday morning.
I lay down @ 12.30am and fell right to sleep, waking up at 2.00am.
After five minutes of lying awake, I got up and had my breakfast: a soft-boiled egg, ½ of a Union Sq jelly donut, and 2 cups of coffee, half-decaf.
I shaved, brushed my teeth, and returned to bed at 3.30am.
I slept soundly until 7.30am, a total of 5 ½ hours sleep, a good sleep for me.
I will use a half-capsule of Trazodine again tonight.
The goal is to get those 5 hours of sleep without having to resort to breakfast @ 2.00am.
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Yesterday was the first time in my life that I had coffee with a blind person.
Several of us, including Lindsay Yazzolino, have been meeting to discuss ways of adding to the empowerment of blind and deaf/blind people.
Lindsay and I had not yet attended a meeting together and we set a date to meet at the Blu Bottle café to correct that situation.
I was apprehensive of making some sort of solecism or some egregious mistake that might embarrass one or the other of us.
In the event, the meet, beginning with a warm embrace, went terrifically well.
We talked about ourselves for a bit and then got down to the business of the tactile impact of various aids for the blind.
We had already set up March 4 as the day we would meet for lunch and tour the Perkins School for the Blind but added next Thursday as a possible additional meetup.
And said ‘Goodbye.’
It was lovely.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives: Be kind anyway.
If you are successful you will win some false friends and true enemies: Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank people will try to cheat you: Be honest anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight: Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous of you: Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten by tomorrow: Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough: Give your best anyway.
~Mother Teresa
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Tommie T:
Love Leo Buscaglia.
i have marked, starred, underlined so many of his words.
I think I have all of his books.
A favorite is a children's book - The Fall of Freddie the Leaf, which I used as a counselor in helping children deal with loss - whether a pet or a member of the family.
I appreciated reading about Enrico and the celebration of life meal.
What a great tribute.
Thanks for sharing.
Blog Meister responds: He’s iconic. Or was.
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11.0 Thumbnails
Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment or vision loss, is a decreased ability to see to a degree that causes problems not fixable by usual means, such as glasses.
Visual impairment may cause people difficulties with normal daily activities such as driving, reading, socializing, and walking.
As of 2015 there were 940 million people with some degree of vision loss.
39 million were blind.
The term blindness is used for complete or nearly complete vision loss.
Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness.
Total blindness is the complete lack of form and visual light perception and is clinically recorded as NLP, an abbreviation for "no light perception."
Blindness is frequently used to describe severe visual impairment with some remaining vision. Those described as having only light perception have no more sight than the ability to tell light from dark and the general direction of a light source.
The World Health Organization defines low vision as visual acuity of less than 20/60, but equal to or better than 20/200, or visual field loss to less than 20 degrees, in the better eye with best possible correction.
Blindness is defined as visual acuity of less than 20/400, or a visual field loss to less than 10 degrees, in the better eye with best possible correction.
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It’s Friday, February 21
Welcome to the 688th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Portuguese escudo
This particular coin is part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.
Coin design credit: Kingdom of Portugal / Casa da Moeda; photographed by the National Numismatic Collection
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2.0 Commentary
750.00 a day for the plane, a high-end hotel, meals, and tours, for three nights and four days in an enticingly warm climate.
What I considered to take a break from the winter.
And rejected.
For $900.00 I can take my daughter for a chef’s meal at O Ya. We’d be face-to-face for four hours talking about school, the Democrats, and all.
Phenomenal food and great conversation.
Take a hot shower to warm up.
Or Miami.
What would Miami cost?
Half the 750.00 per day, maybe.
Temperatures between 75 and 85.
Warm enough.
Going to check that out.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
~Leo Buscaglia
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11.0 Thumbnails
The Portuguese escudo was the currency used in Portugal prior to the introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999. One escudo was subdivided into a hundred centavos. In addition, the escudo was also an 18th-century denomination of the real, the currency used before the 5 October 1910 revolution.
This picture shows a gold coin worth eight escudos minted in 1729, during the reign of John V. The obverse (left) features a portrait of the monarch in profile, with an abbreviated Latin inscription translating to 'John V, by the grace of God, King of Portugal and the Algarves'. The reverse (right) depicts the Portuguese coat of arms, supported by two dragons on either side and surmounted by a crown. While various denominations of the gold escudo were produced between 1722 and 1821, the eight-escudo coin was only struck for a fairly brief period, first in 1722, and again between 1724 and 1730.
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It’s Thursday, February 20
Welcome to the 687th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
The Café-Concert is an 1879 oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Édouard Manet
Now in the collection of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.
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2.0 Commentary
Think loveliness.
Think the Divadkar family, parents, two daughters, and Emile, son.
The planning and burial of the remains of Alexa’s (she the mother) brother the occasion (opportunity) of my spending a bunch of time with them, en famille and individually.
I observed them interact over the phone, over coffee, over dinner, at the memorial, and as a guest for the post-memorial dinner, and basked in the love they shared.
I heard neither a single rude remark nor indeed any phrase that was less than complimentary.
Being around them was edifying and a great honor for me.
People we love and admire bring joy to our lives.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
~Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time
accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation,
at the opposite pole.
~Karl Marx
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
Several letters from people trying the Chicken, Broccoli, and Pasta recipe.
Not a surprise: a popular Italian all-in-one meal.
And on the Eulogy, quoting the first:
“Absolutely beautiful and beautifully written.”
I print this to make sure that we understand that compliments and words of appreciation are encouraging to others.
Many thanks to all of you.
The praise makes my efforts on the blog worthwhile.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Last night twenty-five of us enjoyed Enrico’s memorial dinner at the North End’s Limoncello restaurant:
Individual antipasti, eggplant parmigiana, Chicken, Broccoli, and Pasta, and a rim cake.
Table arrangements were perfect.
Service was perfect.
Food was perfect.
Price was reasonable.
We picked the right place.
We thank the kitchen and the dining room staffs both, but of particular efficiency and amiability was LouLou, who’s been at the restaurant since it opened and is the quintessential hostess-party-planner. I’m honored to call her my friend.
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11.0 Thumbnails
The Café-Concert is an 1879 oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Édouard Manet
now in the collection of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.
It is one of several works set in the Brasserie Reichshoffen on the Boulevard Marguerite-de-Rochechouart in Paris, depicting social life at the end of the 19th century.
The three main figures in the work form a triangle, each seemingly unaware of the presence of the others; the waitress drinks beer, the woman at the bar smokes a cigarette and appears subdued, and the man watches the performance of singer "La Belle Polonaise", reflected in a mirror in the background.
The figures of the individuals represented are not clearly defined, but modeled with brushstrokes.
Manet was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, and was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
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It’s Wednesday, February 19
Welcome to the 685th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
Charles J Sharp - Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography.co.uk
Bosc's fringe-toed lizards love bite as part of courtship.
Dana Biosphere Reserve, Jordan
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2.0 Commentary
Lucky to have several warm spots in my life.
The community surrounding the blog perhaps the single most responsive, the single warmest spot.
As responsive and as warm as I could have imagined.
My life greatly enriched by my associations with you.
Meanwhile, not normal means simply learning to function with and around the aberrations dealt one.
Here’s the latest configuration of my struggle to retain my wonderfully effective sleep pattern that has blessed me for the last two years.
12.15am: Read
12.20am: Eyes close; book down; pillows propped; light off
12.25am: Sleep
01.40 am: wake; really wake
Get up and have breakfast, including coffee.
Work on blog or other writing.
Shave.
4.00am: Direct to eyes close and sleep.
Wake at 6.15am
Total sleep to this point: 3 ½ hours.
Rise up.
Prep day.
During day, garner two 30 minute naps.
Total: 4 ½ hours.
I function alright with that.
Collateral damage.
My weight is out of control.
Haven’t been this weight in ten years.
Until I get back to regular, God knows I don’t dare hope for normal, I cannot safely attack the weight issue.
Darn it!
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
Nietzsche was the one who did the job for me.
At a certain moment in his life, the idea came to him of what he called "the love of your fate."
Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, "This is what I need."
It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge.
If you bring love to that moment-not discouragement-you will find the strength is there.
Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life.
What a privilege!
This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow.
~Joseph Campbell
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Sally C:
Dear Dom,
I hope your tribute gathering for your dear friend was over dinner. In this world very little satisfies the soul more than sharing cherished memories with loved ones over a good meal, be it simple or elegant.
Recuperating from the broken arm, with surgery last Monday. Definitely, working with only one wing puts a crimp in my style, but I shall persevere. Back to work today - eating bonbons and watching soaps just isn't what's it's said to be. (Of course, I haven't had any bonbons, and I abhor soaps.) I should be fully functional in time for the advent of the fife and drum season in mid-April.
In the meantime, Colleen G.'s various The Room to Write programs are keeping me entertained. Bless her! What a dynamo.
Sally M. Chetwynd
P. O. Box 1916
Wakefield, MA 01880
781-548-9519 (cell)
Blog Meister responds: I guess you can type. so you can write.
is there anything else important?
love you,
dom
And Sally says:
Good point. I concur.
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11.0 Thumbnails
Bosc's fringe-toed lizard is a medium-sized species of lizard found in northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
Active during the day, they are energetic foragers for insects and other small invertebrates, and are one of the most common lizards in their range.
Males and females are similar in appearance, both having a snout-to-vent length of between 2.0 and 3.1 in, but males are usually larger.
The feet have long slender digits that are fringed.
The dorsal surface is olive-grey with five longitudinal dark stripes, the middle one of which subdivides at the neck, while the ventral surface is whitish, but in the female, the underside of the tail becomes suffused with red during the breeding season.
In juveniles, the tail is blue.
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It’s Tuesday, February 18
Welcome to the 684th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Marble headstone in Singapore, showing an arched emblem, within the arch is a statue of Jesus Christ.
Headstone with arch emblem found at the Garden of Remembrance, Old Chua Chu Kang, Singapore. This headstone was formerly from the old Bidadari Cetemetry. Img by Calvin Teo, August 2006
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2.0 Commentary
We gathered to remember our brother, father, uncle, friend.
Enrico Ponzo Eulogy
“It’s going…going…gone!”
A game winning home run by Petrocelli.
Mike Ponzo was in the waiting room watching the game.
Pat Ponzo was in the delivery room giving birth.
A boy.
A name?
What else?
The home run a sign from God.
Had to be Rico.
Although later he would come to prefer Enrico.
Enrico’s father, Michael, was manager of Dom’s restaurant and had a weekly family dinner there.
Everyone got to order their favorite dish, in Enrico’s case, Chicken, Broccoli, and Pasta.
From these early years, Enrico was respectful and upbeat.
From these early years, when he told stories of school or play he was charismatic.
A natural salesperson: when he accompanied his mother and sister to Hampton Beach selling silver and gold, he could outsell anyone.
When he showed up.
Which he often did, late.
Mom’s fault in a way:
She encouraged him to be a free spirit, fearless.
Couple that with a fertile mind.
He was a voracious reader
He loved to draw and loved graphics design.
He was a self-taught computer engineer.
A fertile mind.
Willing to oversee a childbirth at home,
Reading medical and dental books to treat himself.
Reading law books, taking pride in knowing as much about the law as a trial lawyer.
He was an explorer.
So many flea markets with his mom and sister.
Marshes close by.
Time for Enrico to come relieve his sister.
She anxious for a break.
Looking at her watch.
Five minutes late.
“Where’s Enrico?” mother asks.
“I don’t know,” Alexa would answer.
But she knew.
She knew he’s be much later still.
The marshes had him.
He had a net and he was out scooping crabs, small fish, snakes, oysters.
Any kind of sea life, known and unknown.
Fertile mind.
Fearless spirit.
Enrico loved his children
During the years he operated his ranch in Idaho, a stay-at-home dad, he dutifully and happily tended his children.
And given his fertile mind, it shouldn’t surprise us that, although brought up in the city, he often availed himself of the proximity of the National Parks, taking his two children, ages 6 and 8, on week-long camping trips, hiking and fishing and sleeping in their pup tent.
He loved his children.
During visits with his sister, Alexa, the first words out of his mouth was to share information with her about them or to ask her for information about them.
And in those Idaho days, Enrico enjoyed a great reputation as a good neighbor.
He willingly helped his friends with any problems.
Small ones like fences and computers.
Important ones like helping to corral escaped cattle.
Would have loved to see Enrico chasing cows.
And he was involved with the most profound local problems,
Like water distribution.
The lifeblood of cattle ranching.
Ranchers and non-ranchers at loggerheads over the issue.
Enrico was one of the few Idahoans both sides would listen to.
And so instrumental in their reaching a solution acceptable to all of them.
In later life, even when things weren’t going so well, Enrico remained respectful and upbeat, always smiling,
contagious that smile.
Confined, “This isn’t really that bad,” he told Amisha, his visiting niece.
“Now tell me the good stuff that’s going on in the family.”
We gather to remember Enrico.
To personally and communally share the loss of his passing out of our lives.
To remember those many qualities of his, among them inquisitiveness, joy of life, sharing, appreciation, helping others, love, and respect, and, to the best of our abilities, emulate those wonderful qualities.
Sister Alexa said it best, “Always in our thoughts. God bless you, Enrico.”
Always in our thoughts.
God bless you, Enrico.
And God bless us.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Elegy in a Country Graveyard
~Thomas Gray
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It’s Monday, February 17
Welcome to the 683rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
The Dharmaraya Swamy Temple
Photograph credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim
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2.0 Commentary
Sleep continues strange.
Sunday morning got to bed at 12.15am and was able to fall asleep.
Woke in an hour.
1.15am got up to work on blog and other correspondence
Had breakfast: small bowl of cereal w seeds, nuts, dried fruit, milk, and honey.
Two cups of half-decaf coffee, and half a sea salt, honey Union Square donut.
Got back to bed at 4.00am falling immediately to sleep, waking at 7.15am.
I anticipate picking up another hour in a series of lovely short naps: a total of 5 raggedy hours of sleep.
Livable.
Been dealing with a recalcitrant computer.
Finally had to return it to factory settings.
Which meant all the shortcuts I’d accumulated were wiped.
Recovering is a slow process and today bit me on the rear:
recording my weekly podcast on SoundCloud became quite the issue.
With a little help from my friends, finally solved it.
But didn’t finish the podcast until 11.00pm, just beating my own deadline by only a little bit.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
If you punish a child for being naughty, and reward him for being good, he will do right merely for the sake of the reward; and when he goes out into the world and finds that goodness is not always rewarded, nor wickedness always punished, he will grow into a man who only thinks about how he may get on in the world, and does right or wrong according as he finds advantage to himself.
Immanuel Kant
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
So today I’m into broccoli and pasta for five of us.
First time in decades so I’m sure quantities not precise but we’ll give it a go.
2lbs broccoli, separate the stems and flowers.
Boil the stems until very soft, at least 20 minutes.
Puree the stems with ½ cup garlic oil, ½ cup Romano cheese, salt and freshly-ground pepper.
This produces an outrageously good creamy sauce.
Set aside.
Boil the flowers until still slightly snappy, about 6 minutes.
Rinse under cold water, drain and set aside.
In a 12” fry pan saute 2 ½ lbs of boneless chicken in garlic oil, salt, and pepper.
When cooked, combine chicken, broccoli flowers, and sauce.
Boil the ziti and when still al dente, add to the fry pan with the chicken other ingredients.
A bit of the pasta water might be necessary to thin the pan.
Heat.
Taste.
Usually wants more cheese and freshly-ground pepper.
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11.0 Thumbnails
The Dharmaraya Swamy Temple is one of the oldest temples in Bangalore, India.
It is thought to be more than 800 years old and is built in the Dravidian style, with a gopuram, an ornate monumental entrance tower.
Gods worshipped here include Dharmaraya, Krishna, Arjuna, Draupadi and Bhima.
The Karaga festival starts from the temple each year; the festival is dedicated to Draupadi, the most important female character in the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. Starting at midnight, a priest dressed as a woman carries an earthen pot filled with water and adorned with decorations several feet high on his head in procession through the town, preceded by hundreds of bare-chested, dhoti-clad, turbaned Veerakumaras bearing unsheathed swords.
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It’s Sunday, February 16
Welcome to the 682nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Title page from the variant first edition vocal score of Giuseppe Verdi's Giovanna d'Arco.
Luigi Barinetti "G.M." scrawled in lower left; may be the initials of the set designer, Girolamo Magnani (1815–1889)
Restored by Adam Cuerden - Harvard Library, scanned from a c. 1846 book: Verdi, Giuseppe, Giovanna d'Arco : dramma lirico / di Temistocle Solera ; posto in musica dal maestro cav. Giuseppe Verdi ; riduzione par canto con accompagnamento di pianoforte ; completa.
Milano : Tito di Gio. Ricordi, [1846?].
Illustration credit: Luigi Barinetti; restored by Adam Cuerden
Restored image: Stains removed, text straightened a bit, rotated, cropped, etc.
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2.0 Commentary
So a day or two ago I mentioned receiving a 2lb package of ground beef instead of a 2lb piece of NY Sirloin Steak.
I called up again,
again ordered a 2lb piece of NY Sirloin Steak,
returned the ground beef and
picked up my 2lb piece of NY Sirloin steak.
Except, which I learned when I retrieved the piece from my refrigerator,
the package contained two 1lb pieces of NY Sirloin Steak.
I kept one and returned the other.
While the efficient store manager,
she well-known to me as I to her by virtue of my regular appearances at the store,
was ringing in the necessary transactions,
I told the story of the two mis-orders,
not by way of complaint, but simple sharing,
one friendly to another.
And simply sharing, she refunded the full amount of the prior purchase,
giving me a free steak, $11.00.
Unsought but well-appreciated.
My decades-long experiences with Whole Foods
makes me realize that this attitude of making the customer happy
is not an isolated event.
It is the essence of the store.
Why I am a loyal customer.
Small benefices are very often very impactful and
very often well in excess of the energy of the gesture..
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.
~Helen Keller
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7.0 “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
In Chapter 20,
Here’s the link:
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook. Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnails
Giovanna d'Arco is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, loosely based on the story of Joan of Arc as depicted in the play The Maid of Orleans by Friedrich Schiller, and set to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera.
Verdi wrote the music during the autumn and winter of 1844–45; the opera premiered at La Scala in Milan on 15 February 1845.
While contemporary critics were rather dismissive, it was "ecstatically received" by audiences, and given a respectable run of seventeen performances.
This picture is the title page from a variant of the first-edition vocal score of Giovanna d'Arco, published around 1846.
Soprano Erminia Frezzolini sang the title role at the first performance, opposite her husband, tenor Antonio Poggi, who played the role of Charles VII of France.
Joan of Arc (French: Jeanne d'Arc, c. 1412 – 30 May 1431), nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" is considered a heroine of France for her role during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years' War, and was canonized as a Roman Catholic saint.
Joan claimed to have received visions of the archangel Michael, Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine of Alexandria instructing her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War.
The unanointed King Charles VII sent Joan to the Siege of Orléans as part of a relief army.
She gained prominence after the siege was lifted only nine days later.
Several additional swift victories led to Charles VII's consecration at Reims.
This long-awaited event boosted French morale and paved the way for the final French victory.
On 23 May 1430, she was captured at Compiègne by the Burgundian faction, a group of French nobles allied with the English. She was later handed over to the English and put on trial by the pro-English bishop Pierre Cauchon on a variety of charges.
After Cauchon declared her guilty, she was burned at the stake on 30 May 1431, dying at about nineteen years of age.
In 1456, an inquisitorial court authorized by Pope Callixtus III examined the trial, debunked the charges against her, pronounced her innocent, and declared her a martyr.
In the 16th century she became a symbol of the Catholic League, and in 1803 she was declared a national symbol of France by the decision of Napoleon Bonaparte.
She was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920.
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It’s Monday, February 17
Welcome to the 682nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
The Dharmaraya Swamy Temple
Photograph credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim
For more, see 11.0 Thumbnails in this section
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2.0 Commentary
Sleep continues strange.
Sunday morning got to bed at 12.15am and was able to fall asleep.
Woke in an hour.
1.15am got up to work on blog and other correspondence
Had breakfast: small bowl of cereal w seeds, nuts, dried fruit, milk, and honey.
Two cups of half-decaf coffee, and half a sea salt, honey Union Square donut.
Got back to bed at 4.00am falling immediately to sleep, waking at 7.15am.
I anticipate picking up another hour in a series of lovely short naps: a total of 5 raggedy hours of sleep.
Livable.
Been dealing with a recalcitrant computer.
Finally had to return it to factory settings.
Which meant all the shortcuts I’d accumulated were wiped.
Recovering is a slow process and today bit me on the rear:
recording my weekly podcast on SoundCloud became quite the issue.
With a little help from my friends, finally solved it.
But didn’t finish the podcast until 11.00pm, beating my self-imposed deadline by only a little bit.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
If you punish a child for being naughty, and reward him for being good, he will do right merely for the sake of the reward; and when he goes out into the world and finds that goodness is not always rewarded, nor wickedness always punished, he will grow into a man who only thinks about how he may get on in the world, and does right or wrong according as he finds advantage to himself.
Immanuel Kant
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
So today I’m into broccoli and pasta for five of us.
First time in decades so I’m sure quantities not precise but we’ll give it a go.
2lbs broccoli, separate the stems and flowers.
Boil the stems until very soft, at least 20 minutes.
Puree the stems with ½ cup garlic oil, ½ cup Romano cheese, salt and freshly-ground pepper.
This produces an outrageously good creamy sauce.
Set aside.
Boil the flowers until still slightly snappy, about 6 minutes.
Rinse under cold water, drain and set aside.
In a 12” fry pan saute 2 ½ lbs of boneless chicken in garlic oil, salt, and pepper.
When cooked, combine chicken, broccoli flowers, and sauce.
Boil the ziti and when still al dente, add to the fry pan with the chicken other ingredients.
A bit of the pasta water might be necessary to thin the pan.
Heat.
Taste.
Usually wants more cheese and freshly-ground pepper.
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11.0 Thumbnails
The Dharmaraya Swamy Temple is one of the oldest temples in Bangalore, India.
It is thought to be more than 800 years old and is built in the Dravidian style, with a gopuram, an ornate monumental entrance tower.
Gods worshipped here include Dharmaraya, Krishna, Arjuna, Draupadi and Bhima.
The Karaga festival starts from the temple each year; the festival is dedicated to Draupadi, the most important female character in the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. Starting at midnight, a priest dressed as a woman carries an earthen pot filled with water and adorned with decorations several feet high on his head in procession through the town, preceded by hundreds of bare-chested, dhoti-clad, turbaned Veerakumaras bearing unsheathed swords.
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It’s Sunday, February 16
Welcome to the 681st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
1.0 Lead Picture
Title page from the variant first edition vocal score of Giuseppe Verdi's Giovanna d'Arco.
Luigi Barinetti "G.M." scrawled in lower left; may be the initials of the set designer, Girolamo Magnani (1815–1889)
Restored by Adam Cuerden - Harvard Library, scanned from a c. 1846 book: Verdi, Giuseppe, Giovanna d'Arco : dramma lirico / di Temistocle Solera ; posto in musica dal maestro cav. Giuseppe Verdi ; riduzione par canto con accompagnamento di pianoforte ; completa.
Milano : Tito di Gio. Ricordi, [1846?].
Illustration credit: Luigi Barinetti; restored by Adam Cuerden
Restored image: Stains removed, text straightened a bit, rotated, cropped, etc.
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2.0 Commentary
So a day or two ago I mentioned receiving a 2lb package of ground beef instead of a 2lb piece of NY Sirloin Steak.
I called up again,
again ordered a 2lb piece of NY Sirloin Steak,
returned the ground beef and
picked up my 2lb piece of NY Sirloin steak.
Except, which I learned when I retrieved the piece from my refrigerator,
the package contained two 1lb pieces of NY Sirloin Steak.
I kept one and returned the other.
While the efficient store manager,
she well-known to me as I to her by virtue of my regular appearances at the store,
was ringing in the necessary transactions,
I told the story of the two mis-orders,
not by way of complaint, but simple sharing,
one friendly to another.
And simply sharing, she refunded the full amount of the prior purchase,
giving me a free steak, $11.00.
Unsought but well-appreciated.
My decades-long experiences with Whole Foods
makes me realize that this attitude of making the customer happy
is not an isolated event.
It is the essence of the store.
Why I am a loyal customer.
Small benefices are very often very impactful and
very often well in excess of the energy of the gesture..
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.
~Helen Keller
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7.0 “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
In Chapter 20, we see Dee rise to prominence.
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook. Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnails
Giovanna d'Arco is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, loosely based on the story of Joan of Arc as depicted in the play The Maid of Orleans by Friedrich Schiller, and set to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera.
Verdi wrote the music during the autumn and winter of 1844–45; the opera premiered at La Scala in Milan on 15 February 1845.
While contemporary critics were rather dismissive, it was "ecstatically received" by audiences, and given a respectable run of seventeen performances.
This picture is the title page from a variant of the first-edition vocal score of Giovanna d'Arco, published around 1846.
Soprano Erminia Frezzolini sang the title role at the first performance, opposite her husband, tenor Antonio Poggi, who played the role of Charles VII of France.
Joan of Arc (French: Jeanne d'Arc, c. 1412 – 30 May 1431), nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" is considered a heroine of France for her role during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years' War, and was canonized as a Roman Catholic saint.
Joan claimed to have received visions of the archangel Michael, Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine of Alexandria instructing her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War.
The unanointed King Charles VII sent Joan to the Siege of Orléans as part of a relief army.
She gained prominence after the siege was lifted only nine days later.
Several additional swift victories led to Charles VII's consecration at Reims.
This long-awaited event boosted French morale and paved the way for the final French victory.
On 23 May 1430, she was captured at Compiègne by the Burgundian faction, a group of French nobles allied with the English. She was later handed over to the English and put on trial by the pro-English bishop Pierre Cauchon on a variety of charges.
After Cauchon declared her guilty, she was burned at the stake on 30 May 1431, dying at about nineteen years of age.
In 1456, an inquisitorial court authorized by Pope Callixtus III examined the trial, debunked the charges against her, pronounced her innocent, and declared her a martyr.
In the 16th century she became a symbol of the Catholic League, and in 1803 she was declared a national symbol of France by the decision of Napoleon Bonaparte.
She was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920.