Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, January 9, 2022
through
Saturday, January 15, 2022
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It’s Saturday, January 15, 2022
Welcome to the 1,326th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Pan’s Labyrinth
This is a poster for Pan's Labyrnith. The poster art copyright is believed to belong to the distributor of the film, Warner Bros. (Spain) Picturehouse (United States) New Line Home Entertainment (Home Video), the publisher of the film or the graphic artist.
The poster art can or could be obtained from Warner Bros. (Spain) Picturehouse (United States) New Line Home Entertainment (Home Video).
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Commentary
I’m over my cold, at least 95% over.
Good enough.
Supply chain notwithstanding, I received the components of my sauna a week ahead of time.
With my friend Jack, I took three hours to carry the five boxes, 600 lbs, upstairs to my apartment where it awaits assembly. My 80-year-old muscles will exact a price when I waken tomorrow. Not getting some stronger men to help was a mistake.
Now I must search for a contractor to assemble it.
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Reading and Writing
It appears that I am now two months away from completing my work on the manuscript.
I’ll call the middle of March, my 80th birthday, the end date.
I’ll work away until Valentine’s Day and hope to get a more specific March end date then.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.
~Steve Jobs
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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 sci-fi academic, Tucker J:
First he urged me to see the film.
I did, and emailed him that I found it quietly spectacular.
He emailed this:
Oh I’m so happy you watched and enjoyed!
It really is quite the experience. Del Toro’s vision is genius level.
And then he mailed this:
I’m mad at myself for not bringing this film up earlier in reference to Conflicted. (Conflicted is the name of my manuscript of which Tucker has been a reader.)
It really feels so similar when it comes to blending fantasy elements with real life.
Blog meister responds: Better late than never, my friend.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
Thursday I had dinner with Tucker at Abe and Louis’. We shared a tomahawk steak, Caesar Salad, and Asparagus.
It was its usually delicious stuff.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Window display nyc dec 2021 #7
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Short Essay*
Pan's Labyrinth ('The Labyrinth of the Faun') is a 2006 Spanish-Mexican dark fantasy film written, directed and co-produced by Guillermo Del Toro. The film stars Ivana Baquero, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Doug Jones, and Ariadna Gil.
The story takes place in Spain during the summer of 1944, five years after the Spanish Civil War, during the early Francoist period. The narrative intertwines this real world with a mythical world centered on an overgrown, abandoned labyrinth and a mysterious faun creature, with whom the main character, Ofelia, interacts. Ofelia's stepfather, the Falangist Captain Vidal, hunts the Spanish Maquis who fight against the Francoist regime in the region, while Ofelia's pregnant mother Carmen grows increasingly ill. Ofelia meets several strange and magical creatures who become central to her story, leading her through the trials of the old labyrinth garden. The film employs make-up, animatronics, and CGI effects to bring life to its creatures.
Del Toro stated that he considers the story to be a parable, influenced by fairy tales, and that it addresses and continues themes related to his earlier film The Devil's Backbone (2001), to which Pan's Labyrinth is a spiritual successor, according to del Toro in his director's DVD commentary. The original Spanish title refers to the fauns of Roman mythology, while the English, German and French titles refer specifically to the faun-like Greek deity Pan. However, Del Toro has stated that the faun in the film is not Pan.
Pan's Labyrinth premiered on 27 May 2006 at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was theatrically released by Warner Bros. Pictures in Spain on 11 October and in Mexico on 20 October. Pan's Labyrinth opened to widespread critical acclaim, with many praising the visual effects, direction, cinematography and performances. It grossed $83 million at the worldwide box office and won numerous international awards, including three Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards including Best Film Not in the English Language, the Ariel Award for Best Picture, the Saturn Awards for Best International Film and Best Performance by a Younger Actor for Ivana Baquero and the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form.
A novelization by Del Toro and Cornelia Funke was published in 2019.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Friday, January 14, 2022
Welcome to the 1,325th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Sidney Poitier, circa 2000
John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA - Sidney Poiter
Wash D.C,
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Commentary
So it’s Wednesday night and my fatigue continues.
Unusual for me.
That’s five consecutive days of welcoming rest at a moment in my work
that’s calling me to get on it.
A few weeks ago I was looking to wake at 3.30am to get to it.
I took my temperature. After 4 days running @ 98.6, it’s dropped to 97.8.
It’s been a long time since I did this but I wanted to check: 114/65/71.
Healthy, I think.
I don’t really know how to interpret the numbers.
I do know that I don’t want 130+ which my dinky machine gives me
when the medical center shows 120.
So I should be happy: 113.
Except, it’s not me.
Tomorrow a.m. I will take my readings again.
If they are not normal for me I will call my medical people.
They probably have nothing much to do.
Just lolling about.
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Reading and Writing
Just received the full edits.
My editor likes the work.
See the mail section.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
If you set your goals ridiculously high and it's a failure,
you will fail above everyone else's success.
~James Cameron
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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 my editor:
“First off, let me say how far this manuscript has come — the story is really starting to take shape, and there are some incredibly imaginative characters/storylines and rich details. It feels like you stayed true to the sort of fractured structure you originally envisioned, while making it easier to understand for the reader. Attached, please find a document that contains overall notes for the manuscript and a chapter-by-chapter breakdown, as well as a copy of your manuscript with some line edits.”
Blog meister responds: Sweet words.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
Ate leftovers on Wednesday night.
I have a kitchen note to pass on relative to poached eggs.
Don’t ask me where I got it: I forgot.
Heat the water for the poaching.
Drop the whole egg in the hot water for a 20-count.
Remove the egg.
Add 1 TB vinegar then crack the shell and drop the egg in the water.
It’ll stay intact.
Love that tip.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Street entertainer sidewalk nyc dec 2021
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Short Essay*
Sidney Poitier KBE (February 20, 1927 – January 6, 2022) was a Bahamian-American actor, film director, and diplomat. In 1964, he was the first African American and first Bahamian to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. He also received two competitive Golden Globe Awards, a competitive British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), and a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album. He also won the Life Achievement Award in 1999.
Poitier's family lived in the Bahamas, then still a Crown colony, but he was born unexpectedly in Miami, Florida, while they were visiting, which automatically granted him U.S. citizenship. He grew up in the Bahamas, but moved to Miami at age 15, and to New York City when he was 16. He joined the American Negro Theatre, landing his breakthrough film role as a high school student in the film Blackboard Jungle (1955). In 1958, Poitier starred with Tony Curtis as chained-together escaped convicts in The Defiant Ones, which received nine Academy Award nominations; both actors received nominations for Best Actor, with Poitier's being the first for a Black actor. They both also had Best Actor nominations for the BAFTAs, with Poitier winning. In 1964, he won the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Actor for Lilies of the Field (1963), playing a handyman helping a group of German-speaking nuns build a chapel.
Poitier also received acclaim for Porgy and Bess (1959), A Raisin in the Sun (1961), and A Patch of Blue (1965). He continued to break ground in three successful 1967 films which dealt with issues of race and race relations: To Sir, with Love; Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and In the Heat of the Night. He received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for his performance in the last film, and in a poll the next year he was voted the US's top box-office star. Beginning in the 1970s, Poitier also directed various comedy films, including Stir Crazy (1980), starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, among other films. After nearly a decade away from acting, he returned to television and film starring in Shoot to Kill (1988) and Sneakers (1992).
Poitier was granted a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in 1974. In 1982, he received the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award. In 1995, he received the Kennedy Center Honor. From 1997 to 2007, he was the Bahamian Ambassador to Japan. In 1999, he ranked 22nd among male actors on the "100 Years...100 Stars" list by the American Film Institute and, in 2000, he received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. In 2002, he was given an Honorary Academy Award, in recognition of his "remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being". In 2009, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, by President Barack Obama. In 2016, he was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship for outstanding lifetime achievement in film.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Thursday, January 13, 2022
Welcome to the 1,324th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
The Tragedy of Macbeth
A king's head lies on top of a bloody sword.
http://www.impawards.com/2021/tragedy_of_macbeth.html
This is a poster for The Tragedy of Macbeth. The poster art copyright is believed to belong to the distributor of the film, Apple TV+ and A24, the publisher of the film or the graphic artist.
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Commentary
Day Three of the emergence of my cold.
From 75% improved to 85%.
Lingering are a sore throat, a cough, and a genera; fatigue.
Very hot coffee greatly improved my throat and a full TB of cough syrup stopped my coughing.
And for my fatigue, God bless a comfortable recliner.
I’ve been frustrated for the last couple of years in not losing a pound or two that I sought to lose.
Mostly to get control of my diet.
But I realizing now, my 80th birthday is approaching.
My metabolism may well have slowed and I should deem myself lucky to not have gained weight.
The glass is half full.
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Reading and Writing
I am reading my editor’s notes. This young woman is brilliant. I am very fortunate to have found her. How did I? My granddaughter recommended her. “Oh, what a lucky guy he was.”
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Chuckles and Thoughts
I failed my way to success.
~Thomas Edison
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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 Tucker J:
Hi Dom,
I watched the new Macbeth adaptation over the weekend and thought I would share my thoughts.
Blog meister responds: Love, love, love getting mail like that from our resident sci-fi fan/gamer.
See Short Essay below.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
I had a roast lamb sandwich for dinner.
It was very good.
However, leftover roast is definitely not as flavorful as ‘out of the oven’ fresh.
I think the refrigerator is a serious enemy of flavor.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Christmas NYC sidewalk December 2021
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Short Essay*
This review of the Tragedy of Macbeth, Joel Coen, is by Tucker Johnson who retains all copyrights.
Llewyn Davis, the titular character from the Coen brother’s 2013 masterpiece is a film about a lot of ideas but most of them spring from the idea of being one half of an artistic pair. To create work that people love. To create art that resonates with critics and audiences alike and drives the masses to clamor for more. Before the events of the film even take place Llewyn’s creative partner Mike commits suicide and we as viewers join Llewyn in the period soon after where the artist is struggling personally and professionally. Inside Llewyn Davis posits how strongly an artistic partnership or lack thereof can impact those within it with artists at the very outset of their career. The film taking this into consideration really does beg the question of whether the Coens were considering this very idea nearly a decade ago though even then far from the beginning of their career. These two have their credits on 18 feature films and over that career Joel and Ethan have taken their place as some of America’s most visually and verbally distinctive artists. Though they typically are credited differently on their films (Joel directs, Ethan produces) they both write together, and both share editing duty on nearly every movie they’ve made. So what happens when the hivemind is disrupted? When one half of the duo is removed? The result in this instance is Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth.
Joel Coen sticks fairly close to the Bard’s text, paring it down and shifting some of it around slightly without making major alterations. It wouldn’t be fair to say that because of this adherence to the genius playwright’s text Joel has an arm tied behind his back but for a writer who made a career on weaponizing even the simplest dialogue in his films the idea of setting out to direct a film he didn’t write seems like a mistake. The truth though is that Macbeth plays out more like palate cleansing experiment. A way to test himself as an artist when half of his creative power isn’t around to bounce ideas off.
Joel isn’t totally alone on this one. It could be argued that he swapped out his brother for his wife, three-time Oscar winner Frances McDormand to maintain some level of continuity when it comes to collaborating. McDormand produces the film and plays Lady MacBeth while Denzel Washington, a newbie to the Coen filmography steps in to play the titular role. This casting makes for a lovely take on the classic story. Here, Lord and Lady Macbeth are an older couple. The chances a lifetime can offer are dwindling and so the power grab they devise, which sets the film’s tragedy into motion, plays as both urgent and pragmatic. Because of the implied wisdom of their age, Washington and McDormand expertly appear reasonable even when discussing the specifics of murdering their king, Duncan. McDormand’s delivery of “screw your courage to the sticking place” isn’t annoying or aggressive. It’s a firm suggestion grounded in an implied lifetime of failed attempts at greatness.
Just getting to see McDormand and Washington play these famous parts makes this Macbeth worth preserving for posterity, but Joel Coen makes sure to treat this equivalent of a solo album with wonderful style. With text modifications mostly tabled, he adapts the play visually, sometimes taking a less is more approach. He removes color, making his first black and white feature since The Man Who Wasn’t There. His actors are arranged on sets so empty they border on abstract. The three witches whose prophecy opens the story are played by one performer, with Kathryn Hunter doing brilliant creepy work in triplicate.
The digital shine of Bruno Delbonnel’s cinematography gives the black-and-white images an eerie clarity, bringing out details like the white hairs that dot so many characters’ heads and beards (especially Washington’s). The resulting look is both stagy and expressionistic. A simple scene inside a tent is decorated with trees casting shadows from outside, before a dissolve smoothly transitions from canvas to castle walls. The famous “double, double toil and trouble” scene is staged with the witches perched on rafters above Macbeth, as the floor at his feet fills up with a misty liquid, turning the room into their cauldron.
Despite the stark changes from a typical Coen outing, Macbeth fits right in with Joel’s past work. Lord and Lady Macbeth conspire to kill a bunch of people, all—as Marge Gunderson from Fargo might say—for a little bit of power. The doomy inevitability, too, fits some of the Coens’ bleaker works. Joel doesn’t seem to even try to tease out a sense of surprise from this Macbeth’s late-middle-age downfall. Cinema has long since been saturated with bloody, power-grasping spirals of all ages, which also makes it difficult to discern where Joel might go next, should he continue to make movies without Ethan. For now, he’s started with leaving the words intact but changing the music, refashioning an old standard into a lucid dream.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Welcome to the 1,323rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Jennifer Nuzzo
Tens of thousands of people are working diligently to help us defeat the pandemic.
We haven’t met many of them.
Jennifer Nuzzo is one.
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Commentary
I woke Monday after an excellent night’s sleep. And it came without the use of melatonin. But I had missed an entire night’s sleep and my body was simply going to take it what it needed. I’m all in.
So after a a 22-hur period without sleep, I was feeling very draggy and displaying full common cold symptoms, except my temperature never spiked. So I didn’t worry. Just totally rested that entire 22-hour period, on Sunday.
Monday I felt 75% better than Sunday. I ventured out, with no ill effects it seems. I was home by 2.00pm. As the day progressed, my symptoms didn’t worsen and actually seemed to improve during the evening. I expect to wake well.
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Reading and Writing
My editor gave me the name of a Sci-Fi book that she thought was a good example of creating a new world. I’ll read it although I son’t think it will be helpful. My action takes place in the world as we know it.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
It is better to fail in originality than
to succeed in imitation.
~Herman Melville
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
From my editor came a partial submission. She forwarded what she had finished but the work isn’t near completion. I’ll review the work she has sent before I make any further editing decisions.
Blog meister responds: It’a a bit of a downer.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
Monday I had a bowl of bean, cabbage, and kale enhanced by bits of a pork foot and chicken soup.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Saks NYC façade of lights Christmas time 2021
This a a terrific moment.
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Short Essay*
Jennifer Nuzzo is an American epidemiologist, an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering and the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. She is also a Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Nuzzo earned a Bachelor of Science from Rutgers University in 1999. She received a Master of Science from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2001 and a Doctor of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2014.
Nuzzo co-lead the development of the Global Health Security Index, an assessment of global health security capabilities in 195 countries, performed by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security together with The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). She is the director and principal investigator of the Outbreak Observatory, a research project working to document infectious disease outbreaks and how governments respond to them. Nuzzo serves as an associate editor of the Health Security journal.
She has often appeared in the media discussing how health systems respond to outbreaks, and has helped bring attention to dangers of delaying vaccination, the spread of the Ebola virus, and the 2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic.
Nuzzo was criticized for comments on the George Floyd protests in which large numbers of people broke social distancing and lockdown rules during the COVID-19 shutdown; she said that to not protest against racism would cause greater public health risks than the virus.
The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Tuesday, January 11, 2022
Welcome to the 1,322nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
WS Gilbert’s Peace Offering
In the midst of the quarrel, Gilbert dedicated a collection of Savoy opera lyrics, Songs of a Savoyard, to the composer
Alfred Bryan (1852–1899) - http://pbgsgilbertandsullivan.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html
A cartoon of W. S. Gilbert titled "The Peace Offering", suggesting that, after the famous Carpet Quarrel of 1890 between Gilbert and Sullivan, Gilbert was making a peace offering by dedicating his collection of lyrics, Songs of a Savoyard, to Sullivan.
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Commentary
Sunday was recovery day for me.
An assertive cold hit me on Saturday: headache, cough, runny nose, fatigue.
I took a couple of aspirin, one TB cough medicine, and a Sudafed.
Traditionally with me, when I’ve gotten a cold, I don’t sleep.
That’s weird. You’d think your body ould just shut down.
I went to bed at 11.00pm. At midnight, I got up. I rested but never dropped off to sleep.
I watched TV all night and all day. Bingeing Deadwood.
By the end of the day of total rest, I was feeling much improved.
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Reading and Writing
My editor just sent her text edits. Right on time.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
The real test is not whether you avoid this failure,
because you won't.
It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or
whether you learn from it;
whether you choose to persevere."
~Barack Obama
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Dear Dom,
Happy New Year!
I’m looking forward to another year of the incomparable Dom Capossela blog! (I think I mean both modifiers: “the incomparable Dom Capossela” and “the incomparable blog.”) Kudos for such a commitment to daily posts!
Re: Howard’s pizza – it sounds great! I think the best pizza I have ever had was at a little pizza place in Portsmouth, NH, about 50 years ago. It was covered with fresh broccoli and loads of fresh garlic. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!
Also re: Howard’s culinary “scrap” creations – I do that a lot, too, mostly into soups and stews. I call mine Cupboard Harvest, and into the pot go all the still-viable animal and vegetable refrigerator scraps, often enhanced with a can of mushrooms, black beans, corn, and/or tomatoes. Never the same twice, but always thick and hearty.
Two foodstuffs that I learned many years ago not to pair – for my palate, anyway – were smoked shoulder and carrots. Perfectly dreadful! It impressed me deeply and I have never forgotten it. Carrots can be tricky – with the exception of young ones, they really need to be peeled, or they are bitter. A hippie, back in the day, told me that I shouldn’t peel my carrots because all of the nutrients were in the peel. (I really have doubts of the veracity of that statement – why would Mother Nature keep all the good stuff in the peel only and leave the bulk of the carrot nearly nutritionless? But I digress. I’m good at that.) Anyway, I replied that because the peels are bitter, I will continue to peel mine and thereby continue to consume them, and isn’t it better to eat peeled, low-nutrition carrots than no carrots at all? He didn’t have an answer to that.
Speaking of carrots, here’s a funny conclusion with no basis: Carrots are poisonous because everyone who ate them before 1900 is now dead. I heard something along this line years ago and have been laughing ever since, sometimes sadly, because some people do take this kind of thing to heart. It’s a lesson in context, so often ignored.
Go well, my friend!
Sally
Blog meister responds: I love Sally’s down home precepts. She is an original.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
While I tried to maintain my regular diet, because I didn’t sleep I had six hours to incorporate into my day. Plus feeling very tired. The result is that I had two small plates in addition to my regular menu: an egg on toast at 7.00am and a hot dog at 7.00pm.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
St Pats December 2021
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Short Essay*
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) and to the works they jointly created. The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado are among the best known.
Gilbert, who wrote the libretti for these operas, created fanciful "topsy-turvy" worlds where each absurdity is taken to its logical conclusion—fairies rub elbows with British lords, flirting is a capital offence, gondoliers ascend to the monarchy, and pirates emerge as noblemen who have gone astray. Sullivan, six years Gilbert's junior, composed the music, contributing memorable melodiesthat could convey both humour and pathos.
Their operas have enjoyed broad and enduring international success and are still performed frequently throughout the English-speaking world. Gilbert and Sullivan introduced innovations in content and form that directly influenced the development of musical theatre through the 20th century The operas have also influenced political discourse, literature, film and television and have been widely parodied and pastiched by humorists. The producer Richard D'Oyly Carte brought Gilbert and Sullivan together and nurtured their collaboration. He built the Savoy Theatre in 1881 to present their joint works (which came to be known as the Savoy Operas) and founded the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which performed and promoted Gilbert and Sullivan's works for over a century.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Monday, January 10, 2022
Welcome to the 1,321st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Estee Lauder
Lauder in a vivid print from Yves Saint Laurent, puts today's face on customer by using darker shade of lipstick / World Journal Tribune photo by Bill Sauro.
New York World-Telegram and the Sun staff photographer: Sauro, Bill, photographer. - Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c09674
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Commentary
It’s Saturday afternoon. I’ve been out for 5 hours and it is cold.
I lifted weights at 9.15am and felt fine.
Walked to the Thinking Cup and found it cold: the constantly opening doors
brought in fresh blasts of cold air.
Went home a little early. Walked only .5 miles instead of my regular 3.0 during the winter.
Feeling not myself.
My symptoms are those of the common cold: stuffed up, moist, sneezing.
Since I arrived home @ 1.30pm, I've taken 3/4 TB of cough syrup; and at 6.50pm, two aspirin [very rare for me] .
I took my temperature, 98.6, right on the money.
i'll just rest. Not feeling perfect.
On the 19th of January my sauna (gift of my children) will arrive in Boston.
They will deliver it curbside.
My friend Jack will work with me to get the 4 or 5 pieces upstairs and then
Jack’s crew will assemble it.
It’s hard to believe I’ll have it operating for most of this winter.
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Reading and Writing
I’m spending an inordinate amount of time on a section of the manuscript I had written poorly in the first go-round. A piece that had survived several edits until a good friend called me out on it. I’ll get it right thanks to his help.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
There are no secrets to success.
It is the result of preparation, hard work, and
learning from failure.
~Colin Powell
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
An email from daughter Katherine commented on the omicron variant that afflicted both she and boyfriend William. “It is really a serious illness. Most people take 2-3 days off from work.”
Blog meister responds: That is a substantial economic loss to our country, i.e. when you repeat that over hundreds of thousands of people weekly.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
I am in a several day run of eating leftovers. But one new dish that came out of not having to spend a lot of time preparing food started with a cabbage and bean vegetable plate I made. In the second or third day of it I added chicken stock and leftover over romaine lettuce and made a soup. Then, at W Foods, I found a spectacular looking bunch of kale that I just had to have. Washed, chopped up. I steamed it. Then I pureed it in the chopper and added to the cabbage and bean soup. The result was delicious and a great add to my diet.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
window display nyc #4 dec 2021
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Short Essay*
Estée Lauder (July 1, 1906 – April 24, 2004) was an American businesswoman. She co-founded her eponymous cosmetics company with her husband, Joseph Lauter (later Lauder). Lauder was the only woman on Time magazine's 1998 list of the 20 most influential business geniuses of the 20th century.
Lauder named one of her uncle's blends Super Rich All-Purpose Cream, and began selling the preparation to her friends. She sold creams like Six-In-One cold cream and Dr. Schotz's Viennese Cream to beauty shops, beach clubs and resorts. One day, as she was getting her hair done at the House of Ash Blondes, the salon's owner Florence Morris asked Lauder about her perfect skin. Soon, Estée returned to the beauty parlor to hand out four of her uncle's creams and demonstrate their use. Morris was so impressed that she asked Lauder to sell her products at Morris's new salon.
In 1953, Lauder introduced her first fragrance, Youth-Dew, a bath oil that doubled as a perfume. Instead of using French perfumes by the drop behind each ear, women began using Youth-Dew by the bottle in their bath water. In the first year, it sold 50,000 bottles; by 1984, the figure had risen to 150 million.
Lauder was a subject of a 1985 TV documentary, Estée Lauder: The Sweet Smell of Success. Explaining her success, she said, "I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard."
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Sunday, January 9, 2022
Welcome to the 1,321st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Metaverse: Avatars socializing
Avatars socializing in the 2003 virtual world Second Life
HyacintheLuynes - Own work
Live radio hour in Second Life with Draxtor Despres and Jo Yardley
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Commentary
Off one of the wires I receive, this on Jan. 6: Six advisers to President Biden’s transition team urged him to change his Covid strategy to address the “new normal” of living with the virus.
The coronavirus is here to stay. Things could be worse.
So it’s time to stop wasting time, money, and energy in trying to ‘wipe it out.’
The signs all point to a bottoming out of the pandemic, certainly here in the US.
So, what are we going to do about this new reality? President Biden, lead the way back to the new normal. Masks, vax cards, distancing, hands washing, call it and we’ll follow.
But don’t call for close downs. Not for schools, not for sporting events, not for dining in.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
I never dreamed about success.
I worked for it.
~Estee Lauder
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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 and terrific cook, Howard, D:
I usually use what I have on hand, especially if it’s “scraps” (say an ounce or so), if it seems appropriate, or interesting, given how it would taste in combination with the other ingredients on hand, equally serendipitous.
For the pizza in the photo, I used hand-pulled ovoline mozzarella from DiBruno Brothers (the local go-to cheesemonger). I used a Swiss gruyere, I used a Swiss Emmentaler, and I used a French Tomme de Savoie. The latter three were shredded together and hand sprinkled on the top layers. The mozzarella was on the base layer of tomato sauce.
Here's what I wrote to you the other day, plus, from Facebook, something about the whole ingredient list:
“I made a scratch pizza, including fresh dough started by friend Elizabeth and finished by me, and loaded up — really loaded – with veggies, mainly what we had left in our fridge after 3 ½ weeks in the north country. It was incredibly good, if I say so myself. And I have three adults with some sophistication to agree with me. I’ll send a photo separately.”
Ingredients list: broccoli, string beans, red bell pepper, yellow onion, roma tomatoes, cremini mushrooms, jalapeño pepper, shiitake mushrooms, emmental, gruyére, tomme de Savoie, ovoline mozzarella, anchovy fillets, prepared tomato sauce
Blog meister responds: It looks extraordinary. See the pic just below in Community Photos.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
I found Cauliflower Gnocchi at Whole Foods. Using this as opposed to a white flour Gnocchi has extraordinary health benefits. For a sauce I used salmon roe, red onion; soured cream, butter, and s/fgp.
Very tasty.
Wish I were there.
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Community Photos**
Howard’s pizza made at a stopover at a friend’s.
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Short Essay*
A metaverse is a network of 3D virtual worlds focused on social connection. In futurism and science fiction,
the term is often described as a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual and augmented reality headsets.
The term "metaverse" has its origins in the 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash as a portmanteau of "meta" and "universe." Various metaverses have been developed for popular use such as virtual world platforms like Second Life. Some metaverse iterations involve integration between virtual and physical spaces and virtual economies, often including a significant interest in advancing virtual reality technology.
The term has seen considerable use as a buzzword for public relations purposes to exaggerate development progress for various related technologies and projects. Information privacy and user addiction are concerns within metaverses, stemming from challenges facing the social media and video game industries as a whole.
*The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Community Pictures with Captions are sent in by our followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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