Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, March 1, 2020
through
Saturday, March 7. 2020
It’s Saturday, March 7
Welcome to the 701st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Lindsay and Dom touching shark
Lindsay and Dom in Perkins School for the Blind Tactile Museum
That’s a Hammerhead
One of the few exhibits made of fiberglass
It’s precisely measured to a real specimen
Lindsay armed for combat
Lindsay examining one of the earliest produced books in Braille
Lindsay works as a highly-regarded free lance consultant
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2.0 Commentary
Surprise 700th-posting party
Dom and friends celebrating the 700th posting to existentialautotrip.com
Ashley surprised Dom with a bottle and friends at the Blue Bottle Cafe at the Prudential Center
Gary, the founder of Echobatix, piggybacked a company meeting onto the 700th posting party.
Lindsay insisted that Dom try on a hat that may be used to hide the camera that will send the images that a blind wearer will use to enhance her abilities to interact with her environment.
The outpouring of support coupled with the trip to the Perkins School with Lindsay and Gary made for a most edifying twenty-four hours.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
I steal from every single movie ever made. I love it - if my work has anything it's that I'm taking this from this and that from that and mixing them together.
If people don't like that, then tough titty, don't go and see it, all right?
I steal from everything.
Great artists steal; they don't do homages.
~Quentin Tarantino
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It’s Friday, March 6
Welcome to the 701st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Laura Bridgman carte de visite by Warren
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2.0 Commentary
The depressing news is that the number of calories that I take in continues an imbalance with the number of calories my aging body burns.
My weight keeps going up: eight pounds over my preferred weight; five pounds over my distress weight.
And no end in sight.
I need to accept my emerging shape or undertake a drastic change in my diet.
Remembering my recent fast day in preparation for my colonoscopy.
How little an inconvenience it really was.
Tonight I’m eating out, usually a cause for a few additional calories. Special event and all that.
Ever notice how many special events we Americans indulge in?
I am anecdotally certain that we have more special event days than routine.
In any case, three hours into my day and I am determined to both fast and avoid calories.
I ate only half of my regular half-breakfast-donut and am carrying a small tangerine to eat when I get to the Prudential Center.
The plan is to eat only that (and one chocolate covered biscotti) before meeting my friend Anthony C for dinner @ Toscano @ 5.00pm.
And @ that restaurant to order food that conforms to my pledge of avoiding calories: only a reasonable amount of food, certainly no dessert.
I think I can do it.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
If you want to make a movie, make it. Don't wait for a grant, don't wait for the perfect circumstances, just make it.
~Quentin Tarantino
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
So the White Clam Sauce recipe is ready.
I’ve added it to the Recipes section of the blog.
Either scroll the Index for it or just hit the magnifying glass, type in White Clam Sauce, and hit enter.
It’s pretty much perfect.
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11.0 Thumbnails
Laura Dewey Lynn Bridgman (December 21, 1829 – May 24, 1889) is known as the first deaf-blind American child to gain a significant education in the English language, fifty years before the more famous Helen Keller.
Bridgman was left deaf-blind at the age of two after contracting scarlet fever.
She was educated at the Perkins Institution for the Blind where, under the direction of Samuel Gridley Howe, she learned to read and communicate using Braille and the manual alphabet developed by Charles-Michel de l'Épée.
From the beginning of his work with Bridgman, Howe sent accounts of her progress and his teaching strategies to European journals, which were "read by thousands."
In January 1842 Charles Dickens visited the Institution, and afterwards wrote enthusiastically in his American Notes of Howe's success with Bridgman.
Dickens quotes Howe's account of Bridgman's education:
Her social feelings, and her affections, are very strong; and when she is sitting at work, or by the side of one of her little friends, she will break off from her task every few moments, to hug and kiss them with an earnestness and warmth that is touching to behold.
When left alone, she occupies and apparently amuses herself, and seems quite content; and so strong seems to be the natural tendency of thought to put on the garb of language, that she often soliloquizes in the finger language, slow and tedious as it is.
But it is only when alone, that she is quiet; for if she becomes sensible of the presence of any one near her, she is restless until she can sit close beside them, hold their hand, and converse with them by sign.
Following the publication of Dickens's book, Bridgman became world famous. Thousands of people visited her at the Perkins School, "asked for keepsakes, followed her in the newspapers, and read paeans to her in evangelical journals and ladies' magazines".
On Saturdays, the school was open to the public.
Crowds gathered to watch Laura read and point out locations on a map with raised letters.
In the late 1840s, Howe said that "perhaps there are not three living women whose names are more widely known than Laura Bridgman's; and there is not one who has excited so much sympathy and interest."
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It’s Thursday, March 5
Welcome to the 700th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Ursula K. Le Guin
Gorthian - Own work
Ursula K. Le Guin reading from Lavinia at Rakestraw Books, Danville, California, on June 23, 2008.
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2.0 Commentary
Last night’s dinner was a great success and brought me to a thought.
Ana and Joanna have a five-year-old.
I have a thought for a terrific holiday event for the three of them.
Will pass it by them and then share it.
This winter has been far, far from dreadful.
And the terrific weather (not objectively terrific mind you) continues with 50* today as we work our way to an auspicious 64* on March 9, itself an auspicious day.
I spent decades in which aggression and a narcissism distorted too much of my personality.
My extra years of good health and positive activity have enabled me, to an acceptable degree, to rein in these negatives.
The more I am accepting and understanding the more joy fills my life.
I try not to envy those who’ve known this secret from an early age.
They stand as models for me.
They are worth my admiration.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
The first half of life is learning to be an adult-
the second half is learning to be a child.
~Pablo Picasso
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Sally C:
You had me at "lobster." Young Dom had me at "garlic," especially roasted.
Sally
Blog Meister responds: You are not alone.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Last night’s dinner was a lot of fun,
We got into it together by deciding to sacrifice the integrity of a whole lobster on every plate for the gastronomic impulse of enriching the sauce by removing the tomalley from the lobsters, necessitating the removal of the carapace.
The decision was unanimous and everyone participated in that process.
The sauce, already delicious, was greatly improved.
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11.0 Thumbnails
Book cover featuring Ged
This is the front cover art for the book A Wizard of Earthsea written by Ursula K. Le Guin.
The book cover art copyright is believed to belong to the publisher, Parnassus Press, or the cover artist.
Illustrator Ruth Robbins
A Wizard of Earthsea is a fantasy novel written by American author Ursula K. Le Guin and first published by the small press Parnassus in 1968.
It is regarded as a classic of children's literature, and of fantasy, within which it was widely influential.
The story is set in the fictional archipelago of Earthsea and centers around a young mage named Ged, born in a village on the island of Gont.
He displays great power while still a boy and joins the school of wizardry, where his prickly nature drives him into conflict with one of his fellows.
During a magical duel, Ged's spell goes awry and releases a shadow creature that attacks him. The novel follows his journey as he seeks to be free of the creature.
The book has often been described as a Bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story, as it explores Ged's process of learning to cope with power and come to terms with death.
The novel also carries Taoist themes about a fundamental balance in the universe of Earthsea, which wizards are supposed to maintain, closely tied to the idea that language and names have power to affect the material world and alter this balance.
The structure of the story is similar to that of a traditional epic, although critics have also described it as subverting this genre in many ways, such as by making the protagonist dark-skinned in contrast to more typical white-skinned heroes.
A Wizard of Earthsea received highly positive reviews, initially as a work for children and later among a general audience as well.
It won the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award in 1969 and was one of the final recipients of the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1979.
Margaret Atwood called it one of the "wellsprings" of fantasy literature.
Le Guin wrote five subsequent books that are collectively referred to as the Earthsea Cycle, together with A Wizard of Earthsea: The Tombs of Atuan (1971), The Farthest Shore (1972), Tehanu (1990), The Other Wind (2001), and Tales from Earthsea (2001).
George Slusser described the series as a "work of high style and imagination", while Amanda Craig said that A Wizard of Earthsea was "the most thrilling, wise, and beautiful children's novel ever".
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It’s Wednesday, March 4
Welcome to the 699th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Lobsters awaiting purchase in Trenton in Hancock County, Maine
Billy Hathorn - Own work
I took photo of lobsters awaiting purchase in Trenton, ME, with Canon camera.
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2.0 Commentary
When temperatures in Boston and vicinity reach 45 and above, this is a wonderful part of the world.
So lovely to be able to walk with head up, top button unbuttoned, drinking in the world around us without being forced to pull in our antennae as protection against temperatures below twenty degrees, the freeze exacerbated by a bitter twenty-miles-an-hour wind.
For the next ten days weather people are predicting pleasant temperatures, bringing us to mid-March.
Is it safe to assume winter, the worst of winter, is over?
We all know that answer.
This is New England, the land of ferocious weather changes.
So looking forward to the socialization in next several days: Tues nite: 6 from Blue Bottle; Wed lunch: Lindsay and Gary from Echobatix; Thurs eve: Tony Cintolo for restaurant week dinner followed by a shopping trip, he volunteering to Uber me around in his car. Awesome. Fri nite: Kat arrives @ 6pm.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.
~Pablo Picasso
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
A note from our dear friend, Ann H, reminding me that we share a birthday and have been celebrating annually for the last thirty years or so.
Blog Meister responds: Of course. Except I am spoken for this week and on Friday, daughter Kat arrives to spend her ten-day spring break at the apartment. Hopefully, she will take several of those days with me. So I cannot schedule until she decides which days/nights she’s hanging with me.
And a note from my sister Jo stating my handwriting looked a bit wobbly and am I okay.
Blog Meister responds: I wrote that around midnight. Around midnight I get wobbly.
And a lovely call from son Dom, discussing experiences with oil and garlic sauces and slow-roasting.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
On Tuesday made the Clam Sauce I’m serving at Wednesday’s lunch.
Always on the hunt to make my basic Aglio e Olio (garlic and oil) sauces more interesting I’ve thinly-sliced the garlic, added chopped red chili, thinly-sliced a bit of celery, thinly-sliced some scallions. It looks terrific, especially after I added the clams and broth to marinate for a day.
Recipe to come.
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11.0 Thumbnails
Lobsters are invertebrates with a hard protective exoskeleton.
Lobster shells are flavorful and are great for stews and soups and sauces.
Lobsters have eight walking legs; the front three pairs bear claws, the first of which are larger than the others.
During the cook, the flavorful juices from the pot gather in these legs and lobster aficionados love biting, chewing, and sucking these to enjoy the nodules of juice the legs have housed.
Although lobsters are largely bilaterally symmetrical like most other arthropods, some genera possess unequal, specialized claws.
In New England, our ‘Maine’ lobster claws are unequal, the larger claw being the more desirable in terms of yield, taste, and texture.
The ‘knuckles’ that connect the claws to the body, well-protect meat nodules highly-prized for their sweetness.
Lobster anatomy includes two main body parts: the cephalothorax and the abdomen.
The cephalothorax fuses the head and the thorax, both of which are covered by a chitinous carapace. The lobster's head bears antennae, antennules, mandibles, the first and second maxillae.
The head also bears the (usually stalked) compound eyes.
These are discarded.
Lobsters, like snails and spiders, have blue blood due to the presence of hemocyanin, which contains copper.
In contrast, vertebrates and many other animals have red blood from iron-rich hemoglobin.
Lobsters possess a green hepatopancreas, called the tomalley by chefs, which functions as the animal's liver and pancreas.
The tomalley is a chef’s delight and can be eaten as is or merged into a sauce to enhance the lobster flavor.
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It’s Tuesday, March 3
Welcome to the 698th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
View of Palmyra with the Temple of Bel, Syria
Bernard Gagnon - Own work
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2.0 Commentary
Crostini grow in importance in my diet.
This morning, brunch, avocado toast with a side of tuna salad.
Good for you, obviously. And
not many calories.
Despite the presence of high-calorie ingredients, avocado, mayonnaise, and evoo, I have discovered that however much we want more, less works well enough.
So I limit myself to one. 1. A single.
And a slice of baguette, by definition small, I enjoy a tasty treat and fend off eating a lot before dinner. And
easy to assemble.
The crostini bread is already sliced and in a bag in the freezer.
The ingredients are either raw (tomatoes, slices or chopped, or avocado, or red onion, etc) or already prepared (leftover tuna salad, slice of steak.) And
easy to cook.
Just pop it in the toaster oven. And
satisfying.
The assembly is creative: never the same combination and proportion (week, hardly ever.)
The product is invariably delicious.
Crostini grow in importance in my diet.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
The man who says his wife can't take a joke, forgets that she took him.
~Oscar Wilde
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
In the time leading to my Wednesday White Clam Sauce luncheon I have been tinkering with oil and garlic (Aglio e olio) sauces, including anchovies, pancetta, and squid.
Will report soon.
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11.0 Thumbnails
Palmyra is an ancient Semitic city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria.
Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early second millennium BC.
Palmyra changed hands on a number of occasions between different empires before becoming a subject of the Roman Empire in the first century AD.
The city grew wealthy from trade caravans; the Palmyrenes became renowned as merchants who established colonies along the Silk Road and operated throughout the Roman Empire.
Palmyra's wealth enabled the construction of monumental projects, such as the Great Colonnade, the Temple of Bel, and the distinctive tower tombs.
Ethnically, the Palmyrenes combined elements of Amorites, Arameans, and Arabs.
The city's social structure was tribal, and its inhabitants spoke Palmyrene (a dialect of Aramaic), while using Greek for commercial and diplomatic purposes.
Greco-Roman culture influenced the culture of Palmyra, which produced distinctive art and architecture that combined eastern and western traditions.
The city's inhabitants worshiped local Semitic deities, Mesopotamian and Arab gods.
By the third century AD Palmyra had become a prosperous regional center.
Queen Zenobia rebelled against Rome and established the Palmyrene Empire.
In 273, Roman emperor Aurelian destroyed the city, which was later restored by Diocletian at a reduced size.
The Palmyrenes converted to Christianity during the fourth century and to Islam in the centuries following the conquest by the 7th-century Rashidun Caliphate, after which the Palmyrene and Greek languages were replaced by Arabic.
Following its destruction in 273, Palmyra became a minor center under the Byzantines and later empires.
Its destruction by the Timurids in 1400 reduced it to a small village.
Under French Mandatory rule in 1932, the inhabitants were moved into the new village of Tadmur, and the ancient site became available for excavations.
During the Syrian Civil War in 2015, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) destroyed large parts of the ancient city, which was recaptured by the Syrian Army on 2 March 2017.
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It’s Monday, March 2
Welcome to the 697th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
1.0 Lead Picture
From the series Ansel Adams Photographs of National Parks and Monuments
Ansel Adams - This media is available in the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration, cataloged under the National Archives Identifier (NAID) 519837.
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2.0 Commentary
For the last several years my friend since childhood, Anthony Cintolo, and I have met twice a year during restaurant week.
I have certain expectations.
I remind him when the time comes and we set a date and time within 24-hours.
Last week I sent the reminding email.
A week went by without a response.
Troubling.
He’s on the older side.
I sent a follow up.
One day, two days go by.
No response.
Sick? Maybe. More likely. Possibly.
I called him not knowing what to expect.
He answered.
He’s well.
Just procrastinated.
We’ll meet nest Thursday evening.
Where?
He’ll decide.
It’s a chore.
His penalty for shaking me up.
Along the same lines.
A young, unusually attractive female friend of mine, with whom I’ve infrequently but regularly shared many dinners, was happy to accept a ‘catch-up’ dinner invitation from me.
Delighted to refresh our relationship.
And further, on March 6 daughter Kat will spend spring break with me and we’ll have several nights together.
Tuesday I’m hosting a lobster dinner with half-dozen staffers from the Blue Bottle café, and Wednesday afternoon I’m making White Clam Sauce for the founder of Echobatix and an associate in that company, a blind woman, Lindsay.
After lunch we’re touring the Perkins School for the Blind.
Happy times.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.
~Oscar Wilde
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy/political 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.
Today we post Chapter 21 in which Dee finally accepts the offer of help from Boston’s Mayor and all parties make last minute preparations for Dee’s personal interpretation of Christian mysticism.
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
Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona.
It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over one hundred lives.
Originally known as Boulder Dam from 1933, it was officially renamed Hoover Dam, for President Herbert Hoover, by a joint resolution of Congress in 1947.
Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power.
In 1928, Congress authorized the project.
The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium called Six Companies, Inc., which began construction of the dam in early 1931.
Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and some of the techniques were unproven.
The torrid summer weather and lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties.
Nevertheless, Six Companies turned the dam over to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule.
Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume (when it is full). The dam is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 30 mi southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada.
The dam's generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California. Hoover Dam is a major tourist attraction; nearly a million people tour the dam each year.
The heavily traveled U.S. Route 93 (US 93) ran along the dam's crest until October 2010, when the Hoover Dam Bypass opened.
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It’s Sunday, March 1
Welcome to the 696th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Gioachino Rossini
Étienne Carjat - harvardartmuseums.org
Gioacchino Rossini, 1865
Restored by Adam Cuerden
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2.0 Commentary
The Coronavirus in Northern Italy has my June travel plans on hold.
Today was one of those bad days.
The elevator down stopped five times before reaching the lobby, compared to an average of once.
I got to the train station before learning that I left my credit cards and keys back at the apartment.
Do not advance to Go. Pay the banker 25 minutes of your life. Retrieve forgotten accessories.
I boarded the train to be reminded that on this Saturday the Government Center transfer (which I use) is closed.
On the ride, I got lost in my book until I jolted upright thinking I missed my stop. Heart attack city.
(I hadn’t missed it. Still neared a heart attack.)
I looked for help from my favorite techies to add the app that would bring me the radio broadcast of the Celtics games.
The process was tortuous. My bad.
(I did finally get the proper app [I think] but suffered greatly.
I got to Blue Bottle to discover that their communal table had been usurped by a gang of Columbia U students, several chairs being held by backpacks.
When I asked if the chairs were taken by humans, one after the other they swore that they were.
With one chair there was a hesitation. I seized the opportunity and just took it.
The space I’m typing in is so small my elbows are very close to my rib cage.
In the event, all but one of the hoarded chairs were taken by their friends.
What else can go wrong?
Not finishing today’s post here at the Blue Bottle.
I will however retaliate against the black forces by grilling a sale-priced, slow-roasted, bone-in rib-eye steak, setting it on a large bed of vinegar-dresses watercress, and topping it with a lemon-basil-butter sauce.
Take that!
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
Simple pleasures are the last healthy refuge in a complex world.
~Oscar Wilde
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
My son Dom, while maintaining a 4.0 in his quest for his Master’s, writes that he is extending the Broccoli and Pasta idiom, that being the combination of an oil and garlic base [(with chilies for a ramp up] incorporated into a vegetable sauce in which some of the vegetables are pureed while others are cut into bite-sized pieces.
Other ingredients include chicken stock, Romano cheese, and seasonings.
Pasta and Peas his last effort.
He pureed half a bag of peas which added thickness and intensified flavor to the oil and garlic base and then an entire bag of peas as the main ingredient.
Whereas the Broccoli and Pasta is by tradition a creamy-type sauce, Dom likes the Pasta and Peas as a soup.
So the pasta is not a long-strand pasta but a soup pasta like tubetti.
He puts the Pasta and Peas into the same category as the classic Pasta e Fagioli, although the latter is a red sauce.
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Blog Meister responds: After he hung up I realized there really is no reason why any of them can’t be rendered as either the plate of soup with pasta or a plate of pasta with sauce.
Note that to make the soup-style dishes you’ll need a great stock.
Our own chicken stock is de rigueur for great taste.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Made a delicious crostini yesterday: fresh tomatoes, s/p, touch vinegar accompanied by a small portion of tuna salad. A delicious tandem.
I bought some pepperoni and will try a pepperoni-pizza-crostini soon: tomato, evoo, s/p, fresh oregano, parmigiana cheese, and pepperoni.
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11.0 Thumbnails
Gioachino Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, as well as sacred music.
He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity.
By the early 1850s, Rossini's mental and physical health had deteriorated; he moved to Paris for the more advanced medical care available, remaining there for the rest of his life.
His health improved, and he started composing again. He and his wife established a musical salon in Paris on Saturday evenings, which became internationally renowned.
This photograph of Rossini, by French journalist, caricaturist and photographer Étienne Carjat, was taken in 1865.