Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, May 1, 2022
through
Saturday, May 7, 2022
__________________________________________________________
It’s Saturday, May 7, 2022
Welcome to the 1,433rd consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
Lead Picture*
Paolo Sorrentino
Director Paolo Sorrentino during the 2018 Venice Film Festival
Pietro Luca Cassarino - https://www.flickr.com/photos/184568471@N07/48768706938/in/dateposted-public/
CC BY-SA 4.0
File:Paolo Sorrentino 2018.jpg
Created: 2 September 2018
About Media Viewer
______________________________________
Commentary
I was at the MFA last week because of the Art in Bloom weekend, which is pretty special.
As my days are getting organized and my social life has waned, I hear the call again.
I shall return there on Thursday morning after I lift.
I will look at the Flemish galleries.
Flemish. Where is Flanders?
I had to look it up.
The Northern 44% of Belgium.
______________________________________
Reading and Writing
My reading turned a bit to the Flemish painters to coordinate with my recent visits there.
_____________________________________
Social Life
On Wednesday, planning for Thursday, I decided to Lift @ 9.00am @ the Pru
and then head to the MFA to visit with Adriaen Brower and Flemish art.
Not one-on-one social but among people.
______________________________________
Chuckles and Thoughts
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
~Groucho Marx
____________________________________
Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
From our friend Jim P:
Hi Dom,
I was so glad to see Annette Funicello (what a lovely Italian name) on your blog. There is one movie of hers that I showed my daughters when they were kids that they loved - Babes in Toyland, with Bobby Sands and Ray Bolger. Here are a couple of clips:
It is a cute, sweet, funny movie.
Love,
Jim
Blog meister responds: The second link with Ray Bulger dancing is brilliant! Thanks, Jim.
_____________________________________
Dinner/Food/Recipes
On Wednesday I had a Dry-Aged Steak. It is the best red meat in the city.
On the side, I served the last of the Primavera Vegetables.
____________________________________
Pictures with Captions from our community**
Gauguin and flowers
__________________________________
Short Essay*
Paolo Sorrentino (Italian: born 31 May 1970) is an Italian film director, screenwriter, and writer. His 2013 film La Grande Bellezza won the Academy Award, the Golden Globe, and the Bafta Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In Italy he was honoured with five David di Donatello and six Nastro d'Argento.
Sorrentino's direction and screenplays, including Il divo, The Consequences of Love, The Family Friend, This Must Be the Place and the 2016 TV series The Young Pope, have received three Cannes Lions, four Venice Film Festival Awards and four European Film Awards.
He works with authors and producers including Francesca Cima and Nicola Giuliano, Toni Servillo and Luca Bigazzi. Actors in his films have included Sabrina Ferilli, Fanny Ardant, Isabella Ferrari, Elena Sofia Ricci, Sean Penn, Frances McDormand, Riccardo Scamarcio, Jude Law, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Nanni Moretti, Filippo Scotti, Carlo Verdone, Antonio Albanese and Frank Langella.
He has also worked with songwriters Antonello Venditti, Paloma Faith and Mark Kozelek and written three books published in Italian.
* 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
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
__________________________________________________________
It’s Friday, May 6, 2022
Welcome to the 1,432nd consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
Lead Picture*
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra in Capitol Studios, circa October 1957, during the recording of Come Fly with Me. A cropped version of the photograph was published on page 15 of the November 28, 1957, issue of the jazz magazine DownBeat (Vol. 24, No. 24). The accompanying story, titled "Sinatra: He's Frank" and written by John Tynan, detailed the entertainer's preparations before the premiere of the second Frank Sinatra Show (1957–58) on ABC. In 1959, United Artists distributed the photograph as a "keybook" publicity photo.…
Photograph by Capitol Records, per a credit found in the 1959 edition of the International Celebrity Register at page 696. No known source credits an individual photographer. - *Original source: DownBeat (November 28, 1957), page 15, appears to be the earliest publication. More of the photograph was shown in the 1959 publicity version. See "other versions" below. Immediate source: Scan via a tweet posted by The Hollywood Reporter on January 19, 2018. Cropped to include only the portions of the photograph disclosed by the "keybook" version. Retouched by uploader.
______________________________________
Commentary
Is it an age thing? I get really caught up in sports games. I scream when the home team, Boston, scores or is fouled or makes a good play. Lots of fans do that.
But I’m wondering if the tension of close games is too exciting for me? If the downer when we lose is too down for me?
And I hate when we get blown out. In fact, I don’t watch blow outs. I’m not so die hard.
Basically, I have to tamp it down. Have to realize that at the end of the day, win or lose, my day continues unchanged whether we have won or lost.
_____________________________________
Screen time
The Celtics were my big screen event. They dominated a talented Milwaukee team the way I like to see my team play: they led by a large margin for most of the game and when the Bucks made a run at them, the Celtics answered to keep the lead healthy.
____________________________________
Social Life
I have several quiet days on tap.
I am looking forward to them to get my life back on a routine.
I think I’m there. My three writing projects, the search for an agent, the rewrite of the sequel, and writing this blog are all integrated in my day.
Quiet is good.
_____________________________________
Chuckles and Thoughts
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...
well, I have others.
~Groucho Marx
_____________________________________
Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
The ice cream posting caught Sally C’s eye:
Dear Dom,
The physique of a friend of mine (who died three years ago) proved his mastery as an ice cream connoisseur of all ice cream stands throughout northern New England – roly-poly. No matter where or when I traveled with him, we always stopped at the best places. His favorite flavor was peach, which one usually has to make. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen peach ice cream on any commercial menu.
My favorite flavor is black raspberry.
Sally
And again she mailed:
When I was a kid, we thought HoJo’s advertised 128 flavors. A young mind can have a tendency to inflate things …
Although they advertised 28 flavors, every HoJo we ever went into only had five or six available. Early click-bait!
Sally
Blog meister responds: Everyone listens when the conversation turns to ice cream. Peach ice cream? I don’t remember seeing it. My favorite has to be chocolate. So boring.
____________________________________
Dinner/Food/Recipes
You remember that I made a vat of Primavera vegetables, meaning a large variety of veggies, in mine I had fiddlehead ferns, cauliflower, cabbage, asparagus, squash, a bit of sausage, a bit of shrimp, carts, red bell, and more, sauteed in oil and seasoned. I’ve been serving it over the last three meals with a bit of pasta. But on Tuesday night I ground up most of the remaining veggies and added them into my own chicken stock. What a splendid taste for an off-meal. And healthy? Wow!
____________________________________
Pictures with Captions from our community**
Automedon with Achilles horses
The horses sense Achilles is going to his death and resist taking him.
The bouquet repeats the colors and themes in the painting.
__________________________________
Short Essay*
Francis Albert Sinatra (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold an estimated 150 million records worldwide.
Born to Italian immigrants in Hoboken, New Jersey, Sinatra was greatly influenced by the intimate, easy-listening vocal style of Bing Crosby[3] and began his musical career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the "bobby soxers". Sinatra released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. However, by the early 1950s, his film career had stalled and he turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best known residency performers as part of the Rat Pack. His career was reborn in 1953 with the success of the film From Here to Eternity, his performance subsequently earning him an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sinatra then released several critically lauded albums, some of which are retrospectively noted as being among the first "concept albums", including In the Wee Small Hours (1955), Songs for Swingin' Lovers! (1956), Come Fly with Me (1958), Only the Lonely (1958), No One Cares (1959), and Nice 'n' Easy (1960).
Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own record label, Reprise Records, and released a string of successful albums. In 1965, he recorded the retrospective album September of My Years and starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music. After releasing Sinatra at the Sands, recorded at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Vegas with frequent collaborator Count Basie in early 1966, the following year he recorded one of his most famous collaborations with Tom Jobim, the album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was followed by 1968's Francis A. & Edward K. with Duke Ellington. Sinatra retired for the first time in 1971, but came out of retirement two years later. He recorded several albums and resumed performing at Caesars Palace, and released "New York, New York" in 1980. Using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until shortly before his death in 1998.
Sinatra forged a highly successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). He appeared in various musicals such as On the Town (1949), Guys and Dolls (1955), High Society (1956), and Pal Joey (1957), winning another Golden Globe for the latter. Toward the end of his career, he frequently played detectives, including the title character in Tony Rome (1967). Sinatra would later receive the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1971. On television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Sinatra was also heavily involved with politics from the mid-1940s, and actively campaigned for presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. He was investigated by the FBI for his alleged relationship with the Mafia.
While Sinatra never learned how to read music, he worked very hard from a young age to improve his abilities in all aspects of music. A perfectionist, renowned for his dress sense and performing presence, he always insisted on recording live with his band. His bright blue eyes earned him the popular nickname "Ol' Blue Eyes". He led a colorful personal life, and was often involved in turbulent affairs with women, such as with his second wife Ava Gardner. He later married Mia Farrow in 1966 and Barbara Marx in 1976. Sinatra had several violent confrontations, usually with journalists he felt had crossed him, or work bosses with whom he had disagreements. He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He was included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people. After Sinatra's death, American music critic Robert Christgau called him "the greatest singer of the 20th century", and he continues to be seen as an iconic figure.
* 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
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
__________________________________________________________
It’s Thursday, May 5, 2022
Welcome to the 1,431st consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
Lead Picture*
Annette Funicello
Publicity photo of American entertainer Annette Funicello (circa 1975) holding a photograph of herself as a child star on The Mickey Mouse Club (circa 1955–1958). There is no copyright information provided with regards to the 1950s photograph the subject is holding, but the inclusion of the 1950s photo within the image is believed to qualify for use on Wikimedia Commons under the terms of de minimis.
It is unclear as to whether the press-materials were distributed by Funicello's personal publicity agency or by one of the studios/networks promoting one of her film/television appearances at the time (circa 1975). - eBay item photo front photo back
______________________________________
Commentary
It’s a little breezy, I thought, as I walked to W Foods to buy groceries.
Protected by a warm winter jacket.
Knowing that my way there was dangerous: I had to be careful of cars.
Knowing that when I got to the market the shelves would be packed with foods of every description and the only danger was overeating.
Knowing my family was safe.
It’s a little breezy?
How unfeeling.
Unappreciative.
We are citizens of the US.
Safe.
Well fed.
Warm.
Citizens of the Ukraine.
Our hearts go out to you.
Citizens of Russia.
We plead with you to end the winter tempest.
May the summer breezes be upon you.
Bring you peace.
_____________________________________
Reading and Writing
Am at the finish line of organizing the manuscript submission-to-agents phase of my work.
_____________________________________
Screen time
Watched the current episode of Better Call Saul.
This is their last season.
I’m hoping we viewers come to discover that they should have ended the series last year.
______________________________________
Wellness
My arm strength has taken a very small step down. Very small step. But down.
____________________________________
Social Life
This is a quiet Tuesday. Yet, by 8.00am I had a lovely phone call with Lisa and David and an exchange of thoughts with Gary of Echobatix.
______________________________________
Chuckles and Thoughts
My sister wanted to be an actress, but she never made it. She does live in a trailer. She got halfway. She's an actress, she just never gets called to the set.
~Mitch Hedberg
_____________________________________
Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
I asked his Press Secretary what Brad Hoylman’s take on the NYC law:
Starting Nov. 1, employers in NYC will be required to post the maximum and minimum salary for a role — so you can know how much a job pays before you take that interview.
My daughter’s response:
Hi - this is cute. However I am sadly not allowed to speak on the Senator's behalf without his permission.
Pay transparency is in line with progressive labor values, so it is something we are very excited about!
Blog meister responds: Thank you, my dear.
_____________________________________
Dinner/Food/Recipes
Monday I had a delicious omelet for dinner.
I accompanied it with a melange of vegetables Primavera. It was delicious.
The omelet was according to my calendar.
____________________________________
Pictures with Captions from our community**
Triumph of the Winter Queen – Allegory of the Just and
accompanying Art in Bloom
_________________________________
Short Essay*
Annette Joanne Funicello (October 22, 1942 – April 8, 2013) was an American actress and singer. Funicello began her professional career as a child performer at the age of twelve. She was one of the most popular Mouseketeers on the original Mickey Mouse Club. As a teenager, she transitioned to a successful career as a singer with the pop singles "O Dio Mio", "First Name Initial", "Tall Paul" and "Pineapple Princess", as well as establishing herself as a film actress, popularizing the successful "Beach Party" genre alongside co-star Frankie Avalon during the mid-1960s.
In 1992, Funicello announced that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1987. She died of complications from the disease on April 8, 2013.
The Mickey Mouse Club
Funicello took dancing and music lessons when she was a child in order to overcome her shyness. In 1955, the 12-year-old was discovered by Walt Disney when she performed as the Swan Queen in Swan Lake at a dance recital at the Starlight Bowl in Burbank, California. Disney cast her as one of the original Mouseketeers. She was the last to be selected, and one of the few cast-members to be personally selected by Walt Disney himself.
In 1955, she signed a seven-year contract with Disney at $160 a week to rise to $500 a week if all options were exercised.
Funicello proved to be very popular, and by the end of the first season of The Mickey Mouse Club, she was receiving 6,000 letters a month, according to her Disney Legends biography – more than any other Mouseketeer.
She had a crush on fellow Mouseketeer Lonnie Burr. In 1958, at the finale of the show, she had to say goodbye to each of the members of its cast, and, in her own words, "I never cried so hard in my life".
In addition to appearing in many Mouseketeer sketches and dance routines, Funicello starred in several serials on The Mickey Mouse Club. These included Adventure in Dairyland, the second and third Spin and Marty serials – The Further Adventures of Spin and Marty (1956) and The New Adventures of Spin and Marty (1957) – and Walt Disney Presents: Annette (1958) (which co-starred Richard Deacon).
She had a rich and successful career in the entertainment industry.
* 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
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
__________________________________________________________
It’s Wednesday, May 4, 2022
Welcome to the 1,430th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
Lead Picture*
Regine
Régine au festival de Cannes.
Georges Biard
Permission details
VRT Wikimedia
This work is free and may be used by anyone for any purpose. If you wish to use this content, you do not need to request permission as long as you follow any licensing requirements mentioned on this page.
The Wikimedia Foundation has received an e-mail confirming that the copyright holder has approved publication under the terms mentioned on this page. This correspondence has been reviewed by a Volunteer Response Team (VRT) member and stored in our permission archive. The correspondence is available to trusted volunteers as ticket #2010010910017329.
______________________________________
Commentary
I got a couple of requests for the link to Kat’s first mention in an AP story.
Here it is:
https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-926289598637
One idea of a calendar of menus is to increase the vegetables in my diet.
It’s working.
Starting Nov. 1, employers in NYC will be required to post the maximum and minimum salary for a role — so you can know how much a job pays before you take that interview.
I’m going to ask State Senator Brad Hoylman, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, represents New York's 27th State Senate District, which covers much of the heart of Manhattan, including the neighborhoods of Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, the Upper West Side, Midtown/East Midtown, Columbus Circle, Times Square, Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, and the East Village what he thinks of that. I have his Press Secretary’s email address.
Stay tuned.
_____________________________________
Screen time
I recently watched Nobody and The Suicide Squad. They were both entertaining.
______________________________________
Wellness
I have a cold. Not a bad one. But one.
____________________________________
Social Life
This week is light for social activities:
Monday a Zoom class meeting as well as a bi-monthly, 30-minute telephone conference with my friend Gary. And that’s it. Of course, my café visits add built-in daily intercourse.
I welcome the hiatus.
______________________________________
Chuckles and Thoughts
I drank some boiling water
because I wanted to whistle.
~Mitch Hedberg
_____________________________________
Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
After texting me his responses to our ice creams together, my son called to re-emphasize the importance of ice cream in our lives. He has an amazing remembrance of the different sites that we visited over the years.
Probably the most long-lived of our patronage, and still ongoing, was the role of Toscanini’s Ice Cream in Central Square owned and operated by Gus Rancatore.
Blog meister responds: The ice cream there is knock-out.
_____________________________________
Dinner/Food/Recipes
Sunday I had a rack of lamb with a plate of Primavera vegetables in a bit of a cream sauce.
Splendid.
The vegetable accompaniment came from a large batch of the vegetables I made to use for the next several days.
____________________________________
Pictures with Captions from our community**
art in bloom chapel
_________________________________
Short Essay*
Régine Zylberberg (born Regina Zylberberg; 26 December 1929 – 1 May 2022), often known mononymously as Régine, was a Belgian-born French singer and nightclub impresario. She dubbed herself the "Queen of the Night".
Zylberberg was born in Anderlecht, Belgium, to Polish Jewish parents and spent much of her early life in hiding from the Nazis in occupied wartime France. After the war, Régine became a torch singer and by 1953 was a nightclub manager in Paris. She is attributed with the invention of the modern-day discothèque, by virtue of creating a new dynamic atmosphere at Paris' Whisky à Gogo, with the ubiquitous jukebox replaced by disc jockeys utilising linked turntables.
In 1957, she opened Chez Régine in the Latin Quarter, which became the place to be seen for visiting celebrities, socialites and royalty. As Zylberberg's celebrity expanded she established other venues under the name Chez Régine's in London, New York City, Monte Carlo and elsewhere. These were ultra-selective venues in prime urban locations, all featuring her signature "disco-style" layout. Zylberberg's Paris Whisky à Gogo became the inspiration for the later establishment of the Whisky a Go Go nightclub in Los Angeles. She also established Jimmy'z, a nightclub in Monaco, in 1974.
In the 1970s, Zylberberg moved to New York and lived in a suite of the Delmonico Hotel where she opened one of her clubs on the ground floor of the hotel. The club served food under the direction of French chef Michel Guérard. In the 1970s, she designed a line of "Ready-to-Dance" evening clothes which were proof against wrinkling and so could be packed, which were sold at Bloomingdale's. In 1988, she was in charge of the Ledoyen Restaurant on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
On 22 April 1996, Zylberberg and her son were arrested for refusing to comply with crew requests and smoking on an American Airlines flight. It was alleged that, though she was travelling economy, Régine had demanded a first-class upgrade, which the airline declined. In June 2011, she appeared as Solange in Follies at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She lived with her husband in Saint-Tropez. She has one son, Lionel, from her first husband Leon Rothcage, whom she married when she was 16.
Zylberberg died on 1 May 2022, according to her granddaughter.
* 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
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
___________________________________________________________________________
It’s Tuesday, May 3, 2022
Welcome to the 1,429th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
Lead Picture*
May Pamphlet
The essays that became known as The May Pamphlet were originally published in small, anarchist journals.
Retort - Libcom
Cover of the Winter 1947 issue of Retort
Permission details
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in the United States between 1927 and 1977, inclusive, without a copyright notice. For further explanation, see Commons:Hirtle chart as well as a detailed definition of "publication" for public art. Note that it may still be copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works (depending on the date of the author's death), such as Canada (50 p.m.a.), Mainland China (50 p.m.a., not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 p.m.a.), Mexico (100 p.m.a.), Switzerland (70 p.m.a.), and other countries with individual treaties.
______________________________________
Commentary
Barnes and Noble at the Pru is closing on June 18th.
It’s capitalism.
And Celtics fans are a little dejected today after the unexpected Celtic loss to the Bucs in the first game of the series, at Boston’s home court.
Milwaukee deserved the win but Boston did not play to their potential.
I have my 4th vaccination. Feeling well. It’s not, but doesn’t it feel like the pandemic is over? But it’s not. Be careful.
______________________________________
Chuckles and Thoughts
I'd like to get four people who do cart wheels very good,
and make a cart.
~Mitch Hedberg
_____________________________________
Dinner/Food/Recipes
I’ve been using the dinner attachment I’ve appended to my daily calendar.
It works.
It gives me a planning tool that will lead to a better diet.
Specifically today, I make a large batch of vegetables for a Primavera Sauce. I sued it with a rack of lamb and tomorrow I will have an omelet for dinner with another batch of it. And later in the week I’ll make a Pasta Primavera Alfredo.
____________________________________
Pictures with Captions from our community**
public sailing on the Charles
View from Salt and Pepper bridge
Kat and I walked ninety minutes from the Aquarium to Harvard Square for dinner.
__________________________________
Short Essay*
The May Pamphlet is a collection of six anarchist essays written and published by Paul Goodman in 1945. Goodman discusses the problems of living in a society that represses individual instinct through coercion. He suggests that individuals resist such conditions by reclaiming their natural instincts and initiative, and by "drawing the line", an ideological delineation beyond which an individual should refuse to conform or cooperate with social convention. While themes from The May Pamphlet—decentralization, peace, social psychology, youth liberation—would recur throughout his works, Goodman's later social criticism focused on practical applications rather than theoretical concerns.
The pamphlet was originally published piecemeal in small, New York anarchist journals and was first compiled as a set among literary essays in Art and Social Nature (1946). The essays were not well known before Goodman's 1960 book Growing Up Absurd led a resurgence of interest in his oeuvre, including the pamphlet's republication in Drawing the Line (1962). The May Pamphlet was Goodman's main contribution to anarchist theory and a primary influence on Colin Ward, who later dedicated Anarchy in Action to Goodman's memory.
* 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
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
__________________________________________________________
It’s Monday, May 2, 2022
Welcome to the 1,428th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
Lead Picture*
Adriaen Brouwer
Portrait of Adriaen Brouwer by Anthony van Dyck
Anthony van Dyck - Boughton House
______________________________________
Commentary
A shout out to my daughter Katherine, the Press Secretary, quoted in an AP article. A hoot!
And an apology to my son Dom for getting it wrong.
I had published my favorite dessert as being a chocolate ice cream soda.
He texted me that the memory of those shared ice cream sodas was so important to him he had to correct me by pointing out the the chocolate ice cream sodas we both admired were made with PEPPERMINT STICK ice cream. The capital letters his.
To quote him: “Amazing, from the first bite to the last sip.”
If memory serves, and it rarely does these days, Brigham’s was the mecca.
He also reminds me that our second favorite was strawberry ice cream soda with strawberry ice cream, but only if it were from uncle bunny’s near Harvard Square.
“I consider these incredibly memories to me,” he texts.
As do I, my dear.
It's just that my memory is slip slidin’ away.
_____________________________________
Understanding aging
Nothing unusual to report this week regarding aging.
______________________________________
Chuckles and Thoughts
I once saw a forklift lift a crate of forks.
And it was way to literal for me.
~Mitch Hedberg
_____________________________________
Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
I got this lovely piece of writing from a dear friend, Dr. Mike A who got it from his daughter who wrote it to her son, Lukas. Although it’s personal, it’s also classic. With permission, here it Laura’s voice:
Note from Lukas’ bird who has a large vocabulary.
Birds are not the most fluid writers, but he did ok! For a bird.
Dear Lukas,
I heard that today is your last day of classes so I bought you a pie. I have heard you say you like key lime pie, so I ordered one for you. I also thought it might remind you of me because we are both green. When the delivery person came, I yelled at him to leave it by the door, which he did.
I wanted to tell you congratulations on all of your hard work and perseverance. I see you go to school every day. You leave early sometimes – even before I get up. Sometimes you come by me late at night to get water – or I hear you taking late showers, so I know you have been up studying.
I have been watching you go to school for a long time. You used to go to school even when you were very short. Now you are tall and you still go to school.
I think I have heard you say that you will go to college somewhere you might have to fly to sometimes. I feel like I should give you some tips about flying. It really looks easy, but it’s no joke and takes some practice and preparation. When you get out of practice it’s easy to go in a direction you don’t want to or bump into things. You might want to start preparing soon. I would suggest trying to fly in your room or near your nest first. Then you can build up from there. Also – basically, when you fly you want to stay high up in the air. If you get too close to the ground you are more likely to crash.
So again, congratulations on this milestone. As I like to say -- “step up!” I know you will. And know that I am here for more flying tips if you need them.
Your bird,
Bubba
Blog meister responds: So lovely.
_____________________________________
Dinner/Food/Recipes
I devoted Saturday night to Calendar my menu for the next month.
The advantages include the efficiencies of not having to plan day-to-day and shopping when it’s convenient.
Of course I anticipate many overrides but when nothing out of the ordinary pops up, my well-balanced eating pattern will rule.
____________________________________
Pictures with Captions from our community**
the Embrace
A tribute to Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King
Preparations for the installation of this heroic work are underway on the Boston Common
_________________________________
Short Essay*
Adriaen Brouwer (c. 1605, in Oudenaarde – January 1638, in Antwerp) was a Flemish painter active in Flanders and the Dutch Republic in the first half of the 17th century.
Brouwer was an important innovator of genre painting through his vivid depictions of peasants, soldiers and other "lower class" individuals engaged in drinking, smoking, card or dice playing, fighting, music making etc. in taverns or rural settings.
Brouwer contributed to the development of the genre of tronies, i.e. head or facial studies, which investigate varieties of expression.
In his final year he produced a few landscapes of a tragic intensity.
Brouwer's work had an important influence on the next generation of Flemish and Dutch genre painters.
* 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
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
__________________________________________________________
It’s Sunday, May 1, 2022
Welcome to the 1,427th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
Lead Picture
Everything Everywhere All at Once
This is a poster for Everything Everywhere All at Once. The poster art copyright is believed to belong to the distributor of the film, A24, the publisher of the film or the graphic artist.
https://a24films.com/films/everything-everywhere-all-at-once
______________________________________
Commentary
I spent Friday morning at the MFA. I went through the Turner exhibit a lot faster than I thought I would. Then I joined a group and did one of the tours of Art in Bloom. That was lovely. Between the Turner and Art in Bloom the museum was packed. I’m happy for it.
I was a bigger fan of William Turner before the exhibit than after.
He was genius at handling of light as it played on the sky and water. Genius at capturing the volume, weight, and power of the ocean. And he often displayed genius using a single blast of light to illuminate the subject of the painting, dividing the work in two and highlighting and detailing the subject, leaving the viewer in awe.
Often, the areas peripheral to that subject are poorly rendered.
______________________________________
Chuckles and Thoughts
I used to be a hot-tar roofer.
Yeah, I remember that... day.
~Mitch Hedberg
______________________________________
Wellness
On Thursday night I had trouble getting to sleep.
I slept from 1.30am to 4.30am and then got into my morning routine.
I ended up at the MFA unfit for the ordeal of standing and admiring works of art.
I stayed with it but it was difficult.
And with the help of a nap I was able to have a productive day, well into the night.
_____________________________________
Sunday Social Calendar for the upcoming week:
On Monday I’ll spend half an hour on phone w Gary of Echobatik. There’s lots of excitement around his work with technology for the vision impaired: he’s ready to plan a short film as an illustration of how his technology works. I will help with the scripting and have a small role in the film itself. We’ll spend half an hour discussing his ideas.
This week I will attend my granddaughter’s Zoom class to discuss the Confederacy of Dunces.
And I’ll be seeing coffee mates every day I visit my cafes.
I’ll receive lots of emails.
And I’ll enjoy two phone calls a day.
___________________________________
Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Jim P sent a note recommending that perhaps Tucker could be enticed to review the film Jim had just seen, Everything Everywhere All At Once.
An hour later Tucker sent this:
Hi Dom,
I was reading your blog and saw Jim has written to you about the film Everything Everywhere All At Once and that he loved it.
I had been working on a piece for it and decided to finish it to support his take!
Tucker
Blog meister responds: Accompanying the note was another of Tucker’s splendid reviews, reprinted below in the Short Essay section.
_____________________________________
Dinner/Food/Recipes
On Friday, I had dinner at Douzo: a Nabeyaki Udon and a sashimi tasting plate.
It was excellent.
____________________________________
Community Photos**
Hanover st is one way during the warm season to accommodate outdoor dining.
__________________________________
Short Essay*
Many a fine wiseass has made this crack at a bagel shop: “Is it really an everything bagel? Are there gummy worms on it? Nine-volt batteries? Dinosaur bones?” It usually ends there. But for the writer-director team known as “Daniels” (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), it’s one of many bonkers gags in Everything Everywhere All At Once that feels like a throwaway at first, then builds with stream-of-consciousness logic into a running joke, and then, even more surprisingly, into something profound.
This maximalist sledgehammer of a film—something of a cross between Cloud Atlas, Enter The Void, and Kung Fu Hustle, has the energy, insanity, and exuberance of Daniels’s DJ Snake and Lil John “Turn Down For What” video and the shock value of their “farting Daniel Radcliffe corpse” movie Swiss Army Man. Hopefully this serves as a warning that it is defiantly not for everyone. For those who revel in chaos, however, this movie is a gift.
The film, which uses the gimmick of jumping between parallel universes to explore, essentially, how to be your best self, is awash in zany sci fi culs-du-sac, sly movie references, and a deranged high fructose attitude that scoffs at the idea of everything but the kitchen sink. The Daniels want infinite kitchen sinks. They strive for a mix of the profane and the transcendent, and also like to follow a dumb joke way past its logical conclusion and back around to a (hopefully) moving conclusion. They may have retained their fondness for things getting stuck up butts, but they’ve grown over the years, and Everything Everywhere All at Once is something approaching a maximalist masterpiece.
Our hero is Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), a Chinese immigrant running a California laundromat facing down a few existential crises. Beyond the fact that she feels like she’s squandered her potential, there’s the daughter (Stephanie Hsu) who feels unloved; her visiting, judgmental father (James Hong), who will likely not accept his granddaughter being gay; her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), who recognizes Evelyn’s unhappiness and is about to serve divorce papers (though not for the reason you may think); and then, adding just enough weight to crack the lens of her reality, a tax audit. On top of all of that, Evelyn keeps getting contacted by forces from another reality who claim she’s the only one who can save the universe.
Michelle Yeoh is tremendous as Evelyn, a flummoxed mom who, out of nowhere, is thrust into the role of action hero. Because of the ludicrous plot, her body is regularly inhabited by different iterations of herself, sometimes shifting multiple times in the same shot. Her performance meets the demands of the film’s title and then some.
The “rules” of Everything Everywhere are complex, but the gist is that different decisions cause splinters in time, and, somewhere out there, anything that could have happened actually did. So, that means there is a timeline where Evelyn decides not to leave home as a young woman, move to America, and start a laundromat, and instead she becomes an international film star whose career very much resembles Michelle Yeoh’s and lives in a world that looks like Wong Kar-Wai’s In The Mood For Love. But on a broader scale, there’s a world where the “wrong” 2001-esque Early Man gets bonked on the head, thus sending humanity down a path to grow hot dog fingers.
Evelyn learns, with the help of a tough-guy Waymond from another reality, to get in touch with the many other Evelyns across the multiverse, borrowing their skills as martial-arts movie stars, sign spinners, singers, and Benihana chefs in an effort to defeat the universe-hopping villain Jobu Tapaki — only to realize that Jobu Tapaki is a dark version of Joy who was broken by her mother’s pressures to succeed. Here lies the powerful emotional core of the film. For all its own garbled mythology, which it doesn’t take especially seriously, always at its core are the Wangs and the hurt they keep doing to one another in the name of love.
There’s a tremendous amount of action in Everything Everywhere, much of it preposterous (including dueling butt plugs). Yet even those who don’t care for noise have to respect the flashy production design, costumes, shifting film stocks and aspect ration, and explosions of rapid-fire editing that simply could not exist prior to the use of computers. Razor blades and tape could not get this thin back in the day.
It’s important to add, however, that this madness does serve a purpose. The anarchy is meant to represent what we all feel: that we’re losing grip, that something’s not right, and the gravity of everything is pulling us into darkness, with only kindness able to keep it at bay. If what we were watching were calm, it would not work. Everything Everywhere All at Once may be a kaleidoscopic fantasy battle across space, time, genres, and emotions, but it’s an incredibly moving family drama first.
*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
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!