Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, March 8
through
Saturday, March 14 2020
It’s Saturday,
Welcome to the 708th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Planet Fitness and the Corona Virus
Photo on Friday morning when usually you have to move quickly to get the machine you want.
So despite the corona, I worked out.
Thinking, my health better served by maintaining my routine.
Taking extra care to wipe machines; wash hands.
Hope I’m right.
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2.0 Commentary
Life everywhere is corona-driven.
Let’s every one see this disaster as a series of individual opportunities to practice charity.
Good neighborliness.
Let’s encourage the good works by shining light on them.
To that end I publish this paragraph from a private email my son Christopher, Microsoft’s Executive Vice-President of Marketing, sent to me, not intended to gain credit for the company.
All the more laudable.
All 50,000 Microsoft employees in this area are working from home now (with exceptions for Retail store employees, and a few others) so all meetings have moved virtual using one of our products called Microsoft Teams.
Amazon has done the same with their local employees so sadly a lot of small restaurants near Amazon are shutting down since no one is there to eat lunch.
Microsoft is are doing a lot for the local community right now like paying all our vendor hourly workers who staff our cafeterias, drive the shuttles, etc. as if they were working full time, using our kitchens to create lunches for all the public school kids who aren’t at school, etc.
It’s pretty crazy.
We’re incredibly lucky to have the ability to help!
Start spreading the news.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
~Will Rogers
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Tucker J:
Hey Dom!
I watched Little Women the other day and found it really wonderful. I wrote a thing if you’re at all interested in including it.
Blog Meister responds: We love Tucker’s fresh take on movies. See 10.0 Movie Reviews below.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
I roasted a duck for dinner tonight.
Not new.
However, what is new are the substantive changes that I made to the blog recipes Clam Sauce, White and Aglio e Olio.
The clam sauce recipe now directs us to add the semi-cooked linguini into the clam sauce where it will finish the cook by absorbing the clam broth.
The oil and garlic sauce gets more garlicy; it also gets more substantial with the addition of thinly-sliced celery.
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10.0 Movie Reviews
The 21st century’s first film adaptation of Little Women opens with Jo March (Saoirse Ronan) standing in front of a frosted glass door, a portal from the cozy domestic sphere with which women like her are supposed to be content into the colder but more thrilling world of men. She opens the door and strides purposefully across the smoky room of a publishing house, the camera following her past dark wooden desks occupied by men in black suits who think they know what girls want to read. Jo plops herself down in front of one of these men, Mr. Dashwood (Tracy Letts), her knees bouncing, and her fingertips stained with ink. The story her “friend” has submitted for publication will do just fine, Mr. Dashwood tells her, but she should remember that “If the main character’s a girl, make sure she’s married by the end.”
Louisa May Alcott’s classic coming-of-age novel sticks to this directive, but not without its own spirited jabs at the Victorian ideal of “the angel in the house.” Writer-director Greta Gerwig’s version of Little Women remixes the story in order to highlight Alcott’s genteel howls of protest, like an actor changing the meaning of a line by putting emphasis on a different word. She does this primarily by liberating Little Women from the restraints of chronology, weaving together the lives of the March sisters from early adolescence to young womanhood on a timeline that hopscotches among characters and decades with remarkable ease. This is accomplished through not only strong work from editor Nick Houy, but also an eye for visual patterns and character-based detail that underlines Gerwig’s empathy and affection for these four butterflies flapping against the glass of 19th-century paternalism.
The primary mood of the first half of Little Women is cheerful chaos, the camera scrambling to keep up in tracking shots following Jo and her sisters, Meg (Emma Watson), Amy (Florence Pugh), and Beth (Eliza Scanlen), through their shabby but comfortable Massachusetts home, happy chatter ringing off of the walls. The Marches are not as rich as the Laurences next door, whose bachelor household frequently turns to the March girls for emotional support. But they’re also not as poor as the Hummels down the lane, with whom their saintly mother, Marmee (Laura Dern), insists the girls share their Christmas breakfast.
The sisters’ father, Mr. March (Bob Odenkirk), is away volunteering in the Civil War, turning the March household into a matriarchal incubator for ambition and imagination insulated from the expectations of the outside world. That is, except those of their wealthy, finger-wagging Aunt March (Meryl Streep), who insists that at least one of the March sisters marry a rich man in order to ensure the family’s financial future. Gerwig and cinematographer Yorick Le Saux reflect this loving atmosphere with the warm glow of candles and golden sunlight that stays consistent throughout the seasons. One day, this light will grow cold and gray as Jo and her sisters’ dreams collide with reality, but not today.
Jo views marriage as a death sentence, but eldest sister Meg is obsessed with romance and propriety, which she sees as one and the same. Over the years, the character of Meg has been received and portrayed as an uptight scold, but Gerwig likes her too much to share that interpretation. Here, Meg is both a starry-eyed dreamer and a compassionate realist who wants what’s best for those she loves. Likewise, youngest sister Amy has sometimes been played as a brat in previous adaptations. True, she can be jealous and vindictive, but Gerwig understands that her tantrums are driven by a premature cynicism. Even sweet, gentle, doomed Beth is more than a peaked symbol of feminine self-sacrifice in this Little Women, finding moments of near-spiritual satisfaction playing piano in the parlor of the Laurence’s luxurious, lifeless house. And although Little Women sometimes shares Jo’s doubts, it never loses faith in its fiery protagonist and her decisions.
Casting Timothée Chalamet as the boy next door Laurie was a savvy move, and not just because he and Ronan have a pre-existing rapport from their work on Gerwig’s Lady Bird. With his floppy hair and soulful eyes, Chalamet is also the ideal canvas onto which the March girls—and, by extension, the audience—can sketch all manner of anxieties and desires. Little Women doesn’t prioritize romantic love over other kinds of intimacy and affection, but neither does it dismiss the need for such love as incompatible with being an independent woman. In fact, for the stubborn Jo, admitting that she’s lonely is a bigger challenge than leaving home to pursue her writing career. As with all the film’s emotional beats, the romantic tension between the characters develops organically, with just a little boost from Alexandre Desplat’s stirring, nostalgic score. Compared to the slow crescendo of the love stories, the film’s brush with death sometimes feels empty and sudden, but loss can feel that way in real life, too.
Gerwig’s overarching project with Little Women is building a fantasy space where girls can explore their identities in a safe, encouraging environment, whether it’s true love or artistic glory they long for. All too often, the lessons of womanhood—its disappointments, its inequities, its cruelties—are learned too soon or far too quickly, and the sacrifices made along the way are too great to bear. In one of the film’s more pointed feminist subtexts, Gerwig hints at a contrast between the idyllic ending of Jo’s story and the reality of Alcott’s life as a woman creator in 19th-century America. A title card at the beginning of the film quotes the author: “I’ve had lots of troubles, so I write jolly tales.”
Little Women is the best kind of Hollywood film: thoughtful yet escapist, sophisticated yet accessible, expertly crafted and deeply felt. The performances are all top notch—Ronan and Pugh, especially, breathe new life into their characters. Gerwig’s direction is also first rate, using symbolism and composition to reinforce the emotional arcs of the material. The film tweaks the structure of a well-known and beloved story and modernizes it with light meta touches, all while staying true to its old-fashioned belief in the virtues of kindness and selflessness. It’s a living, breathing, vibrant work of art, one that’s as bittersweet as life itself.
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It’s Friday,
Welcome to the 707th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Mahatma Gandhi, left, Mithuben Petit, and Sarojini Naidu, right, during the Salt Satyagraha of 1930
From the en wikipedia HERE
Gandhi leading his followers on the famous Salt Marsh March to break the English Salt Laws, 1930
Yann (talk) - Scanned by Yann (talk).
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2.0 Commentary
Corona’s long hand has intruded on my peaceful existence.
Kat’s schedule to return to college via NYC and a visit to her boyfriend’s family,
Now a visit to NYC followed by a return here to our apartment in Boston.
She’ll take her courses online, at least until April 6, the newly-scheduled return date.
Wash your hands!
Still working on my sleep.
I’ve upped my intake of melatonin to 15mg.
Will even go higher to avoid Trazodone.
I’m up to three hours for my night’s sleep.
If I can get to four [with naps of course] I’ll consider myself functional.
And my weight?
Eight days in and the miracle continues.
Never, in my hundreds of permutations of my diet, have I ever embarked on a routine that has caused me to lose weight every day of the diet.
Typically, I lose for two days, three days, but then have a day where I show aa weight gain, and then a return to weight loss for a couple of days.
Not so with the fast.
Eight days in; eight days of loss.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
There are men running governments who shouldn't be allowed to play with matches.
~Will Rogers
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Colleen G:
Hi Dom,
I just got this email from Abettina. She is the 96 (I think, or 94) year old spitfire that is helping us out with senior programming workshops.
Perhaps you'd like to read through and see if any of these fit the feel for your blog.
Cheers,
Colleen:)
Blog Meister responds: I’m honored to have them.
I present one of them to our readers. The other two ro be published within a couple of weeks.
Thank you, Abettina.
Title: Enjoy the journey
By ABETTINA DELL'ORFANO MORANO
Once in a while everyone daydreams and envisions a picturesque view of our lives. We are about to take a trip that spans our lives. It might not be the most comfortable ride because we will be traveling by train. We snuggle into the contours of our seat and are warm and comfortable. Uppermost in our mind is our destination and we know that on a certain day and at a certain time we will arrive at the train station.
As we ride along we listen to the rhythmic sound of the wheels of the train that comforts and soothes our restless spirit. We watch the scenery as we pass by and begin to recall the many seasons gone by. Something brings us back to the present, and we begin to grow restless.
We rise from our seat and take a walk down the aisle to the dining car to enjoy a cup of coffee as the train slowly makes its way toward our destiny. We sit by a window and watch the drama of the changing landscape roll by and complain about the minutes and hours we've wasted waiting for something new to happen in our lives. We think to ourselves, "Wait until I reach the station!" "Yes, that will be it - we cry." Or "Wait until I buy that new car!" We're always waiting - waiting for our next promotion - wait until I reach the age of retirement, then I'll be happy!"
We tarry and put off living while anxiously waiting for something, anything to happen. But sooner or later as we travel along the uncertain path of our journey, we come to realize there is no one place to arrive at all at once - the true joy of your life is in the journey of living.
The pleasure or sorrow of your life is in the now, and the path you take may not always be smooth. There are unpredictable detours waiting around the corner that will lead to your destiny, and as you sit and look out of the window on the train watching the landscape disappear, you begin to wonder, where have all those vintage years gone?
Let's learn before it is too late that life must be lived in the moment as we go along. Remember to take time to nourish your soul, which is far more precious than life or money. Dream your dreams, and dare to live your dreams. spend time with your family — and don't neglect your friends. Soon we come to realize that regret and fears are the twin thieves that rob us of our peace today. We may have made a mess of our past — but your future can be amazing.
My friend, take heed, it isn't the burden of the day that weighs on us that won't leave us alone, it's the regrets we have accumulated from yesterday. The mistakes made, unfulfilled dreams, roads not followed, waste of joys experienced of precious moments, the regrets we experience of each day, that make us tired.
We are only a breath away from our journey's end, but don't waste time waiting for your journey to end, it will come soon enough.
Abettina Dell'Orfano Morano resides in Saugus
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11.0 Thumbnails
The Salt March was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
The 24-day march lasted from 12 March 1930 to 6 April 1930 as a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly. Mahatma Gandhi started this march with 80 of his trusted volunteers.
Walking ten miles a day for 24 days, the march spanned over 240 miles, from Sabarmati Ashram, 240 miles to Dandi, which was called Navsari at that time (now in the state of Gujarat).
Growing numbers of Indians joined them along the way.
When Gandhi broke the salt laws at 6:30 am on 6 April 1930, it sparked large scale acts of civil disobedience against the British Raj salt laws by millions of Indians.
After making the salt by evaporation at Dandi, Gandhi continued southward along the coast, making salt and addressing meetings on the way.
Gandhi was arrested on the midnight of 4–5 May 1930, just days before the planned action at Dharasana.
The Dandi March and the ensuing Dharasana Satyagraha drew worldwide attention to the Indian independence movement through extensive newspaper and newsreel coverage.
The Salt Satyagraha campaign was based upon Gandhi's principles of non-violent protest called satyagraha, which he loosely translated as "truth-force".
In early 1930 the Indian National Congress chose satyagraha as their main tactic for winning Indian sovereignty and self-rule from British rule and appointed Gandhi to organize the campaign.
Gandhi chose the 1882 British Salt Act as the first target of satyagraha.
The Salt March to Dandi, and the beating by British police of hundreds of nonviolent protesters in Dharasana, which received worldwide news coverage, demonstrated the effective use of civil disobedience as a technique for fighting social and political injustice.
The satyagraha teachings of Gandhi and the March to Dandi had a significant influence on American activists Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel, and others during the Civil Rights Movement for civil rights for African Americans and other minority groups in the 1960s.
The march was the most significant organized challenge to British authority since the Non-cooperation movement of 1920–22, and directly followed the Purna Swaraj declaration of sovereignty and self-rule by the Indian National Congress on 26 January 1930.
It gained worldwide attention which gave impetus to the Indian independence movement and started the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement.
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It’s Thursday,
Welcome to the 706th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Two sets of actresses for the HBO miniseries My Brilliant Friend.
Photo conveys the intensity of domestic drama southern Italian style.
Source (WP:NFCC#4)
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2.0 Commentary
It continues to work well.
It’s my panacea.
More.
My deus ex machina.
Talking here about my discovery of fasting.
Think about it.
We each make decisions about the pleasure we get from food as opposed to
The way we want to look.
Now I am aware that there are people who
Can eat anything they want and still look great.
These are fortunate ones indeed.
Most of us struggle to balance the two:
The food and our appearance.
For fifteen years I’ve weighed 142 pounds.
I liked the way I looked.
Basically.
Basically: no one us think that we are perfect.
A nose, a handful of fat, our hair, whatever.
Even Miss Little Perfect has a gripe.
But basically, I was okay.
A year ago,
Without any indicia of why,
I began gaining weight.
Slowly at first.
A pound a month.
Six months ago I was up to 148,
All of the weight around my waist.
What frightened me was that I had lost control.
I varied my diet again and again,
Refusing to accept that, yet again,
After another decade,
My metabolism has slowed.
And the weight kept coming.
A week ago hitting 154l lbs.
Very close to a decision to abandon my concept of what I should weigh:
I couldn’t imagine cutting out any more food.
Life would not be worth living.
Just about to resign myself to looking different from what I’d gotten used to,
When my mind flitted back to the day of a medically necessary fast:
The day before my colonoscopy.
That day taught me I could go without food until the evening.
Easily.
And so a week ago I started an aesthetically induced fast.
Not the 100% fast required by the medicos,
But a fast nonetheless:
Coffee, a half donut, and a soft-boiled egg in the early morning.
A cookie and Italian coffee in the early afternoon.
And a satisfying dinner at night.
Bingo.
Seven days in,
Seven days of losing a half-pound a day,
Except for the first three days
Wherein I lost a full pound a day.
A net loss so far of five pounds.
Far, far in excess of my goal of a loss of one pound for the week,
The more important measure being
To stop the uncontrollable weight gain.
So how am I feeling?
Great.
Really great about my meals for the first time in a year.
I am seven pounds more than I want to be.
A lot.
But less than twelve.
And less than thirteen which I might have been had I not
Ripped up the fifteen-year-diet that had done well for me, and
Replaced it with my fast.
I am not proselytizing.
Fasting is not for everyone.
Not even for a lot of people.
It definitely works for me and I offer it only as
An illustration one my struggle to find a way, and
My success.
Be happy for me as
I wish you well on your own quest.
Search.
Thing.
Love you.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.
~Ulysses S. Grant
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Enjoyed the Happy Hour at Pabu.
The $9.00 glass of sake was well worth it, as was the second glass of the same.
The oysters, fried chicken, hand roll, and chicken meatballs were all terrific.
My first time eating at a happy hour and
Found it to be an excellent dinner variation.
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11.0 Thumbnails
My Brilliant Friend is an Italian and Neapolitan language coming-of-age drama television series created by Saverio Costanzo for HBO, RAI and TIMvision.
Coming of age implies a domestic drama, and this series is indeed partly that.
But it’s coming of age in a violent, female-oppressed society told from the point of view of two lifelong female friends, and violence and jealousy and danger are inextricably woven into the story.
By the way, anyone at all familiar with Boston’s North End in the 1950s will realize how closely that time and place echoes the Neapolitan society of My Brilliant Friend.
Named after the first of four novels in the Neapolitan Novels series by Elena Ferrante, it is set to adapt the entire literary work over four seasons of eight episodes.
The series is a co-production between Italian production companies Wildside, Fandango, The Apartment, Mowe and international film group Umedia.
The first season premiered on HBO on November 18, 2018 and on Rai 1 and TIMvision on November 27, 2018.
A second season, based on Ferrante's second Neapolitan Novel and titled My Brilliant Friend: The Story of a New Name was confirmed in December 2018, and premiered on Rai 1 on February 10, 2020, and will premiere on HBO on March 16, 2020.
The first two episodes of the second season were released in Italian cinemas from January 27–29, 2020.
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It’s Wednesday,
Welcome to the 705th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Andrea Bocelli with his wife Veronica Berti in March 2010.
Angela George
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2.0 Commentary
My son Mino, traveling Europe, not bothered much by the anti-corona precautions being taken.
He asked about Boston, my response: not much going on here either.
Although the Blue Bottle has removed its paper napkins from public reach.
One asks for them.
I am assured the measure is only temporary.
I watched the first episode of The New Pope reluctantly, at the urging of a friend.
Monday night I watched the last episode of the season, sorry to see it end.
Are we ever satisfied?
But, but, but, an alert.
Next Monday is the start of My Brilliant Friend’s second season.
Do watch it.
It is a must see.
More tomorrow.
Last night Kat and I had dinner @ Petite Robert in Boston’s South End.
We lucked out with the warm temperatures and early dinner hour and had a lovely dinner outdoors.
We shared oysters, then shared a lovely cod, Filet de Cabillaud with a root vegetable hash, and then shared a Coq au Vin. Kat finished with a sorbet trio and I with a Mousse au Chocolat.
The food and service were exactly what we had hoped for: a true French bistro.
Despite the lovely dinner, lovely dinners definitely part of my diet, my fasting continues with continued success.
Early morning coffee with half a sweet roll, a midday cookie with a cappuccino, and a lovely dinner.
Five days, 2.5 pounds lost.
So far, my commitment to the diet continues unabated.
Daughter Kat at home until Friday morning when she’ll leave to spend a couple of nights with her boyfriend and his family.
She’s actively pursuing a summer internship, a couple of interesting possibilities into the interview stage.
Goodness, what tensions we put on ourselves.
So goal oriented we, my daughter listing a fewe of the hurdles she has faced in her young life: getting into a good high school, achieving, getting into a good college, achieving, getting good internships, deciding what the years after college will bring.
I love that she is not in pursuit of money.
Personal fulfillment and social impact her primary goals.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else.
If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.
This is not just a grab-bag candy game.
~Toni Morrison
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
To all of you who contributed to the outpouring, the flood of well-wishes,
Blog Meister responds: Thank you very much.
And Ann H added this:
Love Pabu - great "Happy Hour"
Blog Meister responds: Will try it very soon.
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11.0 Thumbnails
Andrea Angel Bocelli OMRI OMDSM, born 22 September 1958, is an Italian opera singer, songwriter, and record producer.
Celine Dion has said that "if God would have a singing voice, he must sound a lot like Andrea Bocelli," and David Foster, a record producer, often describes Bocelli's voice as the most beautiful in the world.
Since 1982, Bocelli has recorded 15 solo studio albums of both pop and classical music, three greatest hits albums, and nine complete operas, selling over 90 million records worldwide.
He has had success as a crossover performer, bringing classical music to the top of international pop charts.
He was born with poor eyesight and became completely blind at age 12, following a football accident.
In 1998, Bocelli was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People.
In 1999, he was nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards.
"The Prayer" is his duet with Celine Dion for the animated film Quest for Camelot which won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
He captured a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records with the release of his classical album Sacred Arias, as he simultaneously held the top three positions on the US Classical Albums charts.
Bocelli was made a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2006 and was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 2 March 2010 for his contribution to Live Theater.
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It’s Tuesday,
Welcome to the 704th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Sameul Gridley Howe
Sameul Gridley Howe’s reputation brought Anne Sullivan to Perkins School for the Blind and
She taught Helen Keller who then also entered Perkins School.
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2.0 Commentary
My oh my!
Quel jour!
What a day!
Full sun and 65*!
Is this early March?
And is it extraordinary or
Does it presage the earth turning into a pressure cooker?
With daughter Kat visiting we had meals that required little cooking.
Twice we’ve eaten out [at Pabu, well worth the price; an excellent meal, and, tonite, at Petit Robert: we’re optimistic.]
I had an Italian-American gravy in the freezer which I pulled out and used. No work.
We had a 2-pound aged bone-in beef rib-eye tres simple: slow roast then Sear/Broil. I had a handful of delicious Cacciatore sauce that we used on the steak along with Broccoli Rabe and Potatoes. The only meal I cooked during her visit was the Clam Stew that I wrote about several days ago.
We count ourselves as very lucky indeed.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
Opinions are like orgasms...mine matters most and I really don't care if you have one.
~Sylvia Plath
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Gary B
I just read your posts about Ursula LeGuin and Wizard of Earthsea.
She’s one of my favorite authors, and the Earthsea books had an impact on me as a preteen.
A few years ago I reread the first three again and finished up with the final three in the series.
Blog Meister responds: Great minds….
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11.0 Thumbnails
Samuel Gridley Howe (November 10, 1801 – January 9, 1876) was a nineteenth century American physician, abolitionist, and an advocate of education for the blind.
He organized and was the first director of the Perkins Institution.
In America he met and was chosen to bring money to the Polish revolutionaries, thus he left with two missions, to establish schools for the blind and as chairman of the American-Polish Committee at Paris,
organized with J. Fenimore Cooper, S. F. B. Morse, and several other Americans living in the city, to support the revolutionaries.
The Poles were defeated by the Russians and Howe was to give money to the many, particularly officers, who did not want to return home and harassed people of neighboring countries, while they were given political refuge and crossed over the Prussian border into Prussia.
Howe undertook to distribute the supplies and funds personally, and while in Berlin, he was arrested and imprisoned, but managed to destroy or hide the discriminating letters to the Polish officers.
After five weeks, he was released due to the intervention of the United States Minister at Paris.
Returning to Boston in July 1832, Howe began receiving a few blind children at his father's house in Pleasant Street.
He gradually developed what became the noted Perkins Institution.
In January 1833 the funds available were all spent, but so much progress had been shown that the legislature approved funding, later increased to $30,000 a year, to the institution on condition that it should educate gratuitously twenty poor blind from the state.
Collections of funds were also contributed from Salem and Boston. Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins, a prominent Boston trader in slaves, furs, and opium, presented his mansion and grounds in Pearl Street as a location for the school in perpetuity.
This building was later found unsuitable and Colonel Perkins consented to its sale.
In 1839 the institution was moved to the former Mount Washington House Hotel in South Boston.
It was henceforth known as the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum (or, since 1877, School for the Blind.)
Howe was director, and the life and soul of the school; he opened a printing-office and organized a fund for printing for the blind — the first done in the United States.
He was a ceaseless promoter of their work.
Through him, the Institution became one of the intellectual centers of American philanthropy, and by degrees obtained more and more financial support.
In 1837, Howe brought to the school Laura Bridgman, a young deaf-blind girl who later became a teacher at the school.
She became famous as the first known deaf-blind person to be successfully educated in the United States.
Howe taught Bridgman himself.
Within a few years of attendance at Perkins Institution, she learned the manual alphabet and how to write.
Howe originated many improvements in teaching methods, as well as in the process of printing books in Braille.
Besides acting as superintendent of the Perkins Institution to the end of his life, he was instrumental in establishing numerous institutions of a similar character throughout the country.
An abolitionist, in 1863, he was one of three men appointed by the Secretary of War to the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, to investigate conditions of freedmen in the South since the Emancipation Proclamation and recommend how they could be aided in their transition to freedom.
In addition to traveling to the South, Howe traveled to Canada West (now Ontario, Canada), where thousands of former slaves had escaped to freedom and established new lives; he interviewed freedmen as well as government officials in Canada.
His wife, Julia, was an ardent supporter of abolitionism and was later active in the cause of Woman's Suffrage.
She composed the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" during the American Civil War.
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It’s Monday,
Welcome to the 703rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Helen Keller holding a magnolia, ca. 1920
Image from the Los Angeles Times; restored by User:Rhododendrites
- Los Angeles Times photographic archive, UCLA Library
Helen Keller sitting, holding a magnolia flower, circa 1920.
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2.0 Commentary
So my modified fasting enters its fourth day.
I can report that for myself, the fasting is painless.
Truly.
I wake at 4.30am to two cups of half-decaf coffee and a half of a donut.
About noon, I eat a cookie.
About 2.00pm I eat a piece of fruit.
And a robust dinner with wine or a strong drink at 6.00pm.
And for its effect, I’ve lost a half-pound a day.
My ultimate goal is to lose 10 pounds.
Experience with other diets of mine shouts out, “So you think in 20 days you’ll lose ten pounds?
It has never happened to you. It’s not happening now.”
I will report.
By the way, my friend Tony Cintolo and I went for dinner together as, twice a year, is our wont.
Tony, a blogger, generously offered to take me shopping for bottles and cans.
Like manna from heaven; an oasis; a respite.
I stocked up: twelve cans of Cento San Marzano tomatoes (a two month supply,) six bottles of Ajax dish detergent (a two month supply,) etc.
Wow!
Meanwhile, ten weeks without having to pay $53.00 a day for the infrequently enjoyed pleasure of owning a car has saved me $3,710.00.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
If you're that depressed, reach out to someone.
And remember, suicide is a permanent solution, to a temporary problem.
~Robin Williams
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
from a recent email, with a link to his food blog, from Howard D., doing his usual best to make even the humble potato-and-egg sandwich a fit subject for scholarship…
Like the French omelet and, more pertinently, like the Italian frittata, there is a whole tradition, if not a sub-cuisine, a genre unto itself, of avian eggs whisked into a simple aerated batter, and fried with, more often than not, animal fats, in a pan with bits of whatever vegetables, fresh, and perhaps even on the way out, but still quite flavorful and nutritious, that have been cooked first, for softening, tenderizing, and caramelization and which become immersed in the emulsive and binding embrace of the eggs allowed to cook to a soft doneness, firmer than scrambled, and more tender than a custard—because yes, if you are tempted to add cheese, preferably grated, any cheese really would do, but provolone and cheddar and swiss are the usual choices in the salumeria-derived original, you should go ahead and do so.
The potato, native in terms of modern botanical history essentially to what are now called “the Americas,” were first introduced to Europe by the Spanish, who brought them from the Andes (where some 3000 species originate) <1> and who somehow or other first propagated them not on the mainland of the continent, but on the Canary Islands (among their posssessions at the time) <2>, and from around the start of the 17th century they proliferated and were added to the cuisines of the usual suspect nations. There are not many recipes which feature, never mind highlight, the potato as a significant ingredient in Italian cuisines, but there are a fair number of recipes in the authoritative, if not canonical, cookery book in English of what the title of the book calls “Classic Italian” preparations by the estimable Marcella Hazan.<3> And in fact, one of these is a frittata featuring, in a reduced set of key ingredients, besides the requisite eggs, not much more than onions and potatoes.
For me, the key factor in preparation, though not out of the ordinary in the way of the preparation of most versions of this versatile dish, is that the potatoes are cooked in oil to a specified level of crispiness in advance.
Precisely as with this sandwich recipe. If either dish, but especially this lowly sandwich, deserves elevation to a place in some taxonomy of dishes worth bothering about, however little actual bother their concoction represents measured in energy expended, it is because it falls under the category of what do with leftovers. Who hasn’t prepared more potatoes than needed for other purposes for more formal dishes and been left with a small bowlful that sits in the fridge, waiting for the inspired and sudden yearning for a satisfaction that fits neatly and trimly between two slices of bread?
< 1 > “The Potato Explained” https://www.alcademics.com/2014/09/the-potato-explained.html
< 2 > “The History of the Potato, Part 1” https://www.alcademics.com/2014/09/the-history-of-the-potato-part-i.html
< 3 > https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/77517/essentials-of-classic-italian-cooking-by-marcella-hazan/; pp. 284-5
Blog Meister responds: No one writes like Howard D.
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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 22 in which Dee presents her views of Christian mysticism to the world.
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Twitter, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnails
Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer.
She was the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Helen Keller portrait, 1904.
Due to a protruding left eye, Keller was usually photographed in profile.
Both her eyes were replaced in adulthood with glass replicas for "medical and cosmetic reasons".
Unknown author -
This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3c12513.
In 1886, Keller's mother, inspired by an account in Charles Dickens' American Notes of the successful education of another deaf and blind woman, Laura Bridgman, dispatched the young Keller, accompanied by her father, to seek out physician J. Julian Chisolm, an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist in Baltimore, for advice.
Chisholm referred the Kellers to Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children at the time.
Bell advised them to contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind, the school where Bridgman had been educated, which was then located in South Boston.
Michael Anagnos, the school's director, asked a 20-year-old alumnus of the school, Anne Sullivan, herself visually impaired, to become Keller's instructor.
It was the beginning of a nearly 50-year-long relationship during which Sullivan evolved into Keller's governess and eventually her companion.
Sullivan arrived at Keller's house on March 5, 1887, a day Keller would forever remember as my soul's birthday.
Sullivan immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling words into her hand, beginning with "d-o-l-l" for the doll that she had brought Keller as a present.
Keller was frustrated, at first, because she did not understand that every object had a word uniquely identifying it.
In fact, when Sullivan was trying to teach Keller the word for "mug", Keller became so frustrated she broke the mug.
But soon she began imitating Sullivan's hand gestures. “I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed,” Keller remembered. “I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation.”
Keller's breakthrough in communication came the next month, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running cool water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of "water".
Writing in her autobiography, The Story of My Life, Keller recalled the moment: "I stood still, my whole
attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers.
Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten — a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me.
I knew then that w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. The living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, set it free!"
Keller then nearly exhausted Sullivan, demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in her world.
Helen Keller was viewed as isolated but was very in touch with the outside world.
She was able to enjoy music by feeling the beat and she was able to have a strong connection with animals through touch.
She was delayed at picking up language, but that did not stop her from having a voice.
The story of Keller and her teacher, Anne Sullivan, was made famous by Keller's autobiography, The Story of My Life, and its adaptations for film and stage, The Miracle Worker.
Her birthplace in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, is now a museum and sponsors an annual "Helen Keller Day."
Her June 27th birthday is commemorated as Helen Keller Day in Pennsylvania and, in the centenary year of her birth, was recognized by a presidential proclamation from US President Jimmy Carter.
A prolific author, Keller was well-traveled and outspoken in her convictions.
A member of the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, she campaigned for women's suffrage, labor rights, socialism, antimilitarism, and other similar causes.
She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1971 and was one of twelve inaugural inductees to the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame on June 8, 2015.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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It’s Sunday,
Welcome to the 702nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan vacationing at Cape Cod in July 1888
Family member of Thaxter P. Spencer, now part of the R. Stanton Avery Special Collections, at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. - New England Historic Genealogical Society
Photograph of Helen Keller at age 8 with her tutor Anne Sullivan on vacation in Brewster, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
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2.0 Commentary
The shellfish stew recipe is posted in the recipes pages.
My daughter, Kat, and I feasted on the stew.
Looked good, tasted good, and was satisfying as our dinner.
From now to the middle of March the weather continues mild: the two coldest days in the 40s, acceptable, and two days in the balmy 60s. Wonderful.
Sleep continues to improve and trazodone down to ¼ of a capsule.
And my fasting diet is working: coffee and a half-donut in the morning, a single cookie and a piece of fruit during the day, and dinner in the evening, about 6.00pm.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone.
It's not.
The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.
~Robin Williams
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Sally C:
Dear Dom,
I can't think of anyone better suited than you, to carry off the panache you do with that hat! 🌞 Considering the style with which you wear you black beret, I'm thinking you are an ultimate hat man.
Sally
Blog Meister responds: I don’t know about the ‘ultimate.’ But thanks. 😊
And this from Colleen G:
Dom!
Happy to see you living life to the fullest and sportin' an amazing hat to boot.
Seeing the photo of you and Lindsey touching that shark, maybe me think of our visit to you with my family and how we visited the aquarium and the touch tank where sting rays swim around and people can put their hands in as they swim by to touch. I wonder if Lindsey has ever had that experience. Might be a good one!
Have a great weekend.
Cheers,
Colleen
Blog Meister responds: Your ideas have influenced much of my life! I passed the idea on and it met with wholehearted enthusiasm. Now to work out a date.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Friday night Kat arrived at apartment and per her request we stayed home for dinner:
My first version of what I think a Clam Stew should be.
Clams, mussels, thinly-sliced leeks, zucchini and celery matchsticks, potatoes simmered in white wine, shellfish broth, and water; seasoned with
Saffron, fresh basil, fresh parsley, garlic oil, chili pepper, tomato paste; and accompanied with
Crostini heaped with a couple of the stew’s potatoes mashed with hot pepper, salt, freshly-ground pepper, garlic-oil
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11.0 Thumbnails
Anne Sullivan Macy (born Johanna Mansfield Sullivan; April 14, 1866 – October 20, 1936) was an American teacher best known for being the instructor and lifelong companion of Helen Keller.
At the age of five, Sullivan contracted trachoma, an eye disease, which left her partially blind and without reading or writing skills.
She received her education as a student of the Perkins School for the Blind; soon after graduation at age 20, she became a teacher to Keller.
Anne began her studies at the Perkins School on October 7, 1880.
Although her rough manners made her first years at Perkins humiliating for her, she managed to connect with a few teachers and made progress with her learning.
While there, she befriended and learned the manual alphabet from Laura Bridgman, a graduate of Perkins and the first blind and deaf person to be educated there.
Also while there, she had a series of eye operations that significantly improved her vision.
In June 1886, she graduated at age 20 as the valedictorian of her class.
She stated
"Fellow-graduates: Duty bids us go forth into active life. Let us go cheerfully, hopefully, and earnestly, and set ourselves to find our especial part. When we have found it, willingly and faithfully perform it; for every obstacle we overcome, every success we achieve tends to bring man closer to God and make life more as He would have it."
The summer following Sullivan's graduation, the director of Perkins, Michael Anagnos, was contacted by Arthur Keller, who was in search of a teacher for his seven-year-old blind and deaf daughter, Helen.
Anagnos immediately recommended Sullivan for this position, and she began her work on March 3, 1887, at the Kellers' home in Tuscumbia, Alabama.
She quickly connected with Helen. It was the beginning of a 49-year relationship: Sullivan evolved from teacher, to governess, and finally to companion and friend.
Sullivan (standing) with Helen Keller, circa 1909
Sullivan's curriculum involved a strict schedule with constant introduction of new vocabulary words; however, Sullivan quickly changed her teachings after seeing they did not suit Keller.
Instead, she began to teach her vocabulary based on her own interests, by spelling each word out into Keller's palm; within six months this method proved to be working, as Keller had learned 575 words, some multiplication tables, and the Braille system.
Sullivan strongly encouraged Helen's parents to send her to the Perkins School, where she could have an appropriate education.
Once they agreed to this, Sullivan took Keller to Boston in 1888 and stayed with her there.
Sullivan continued to teach her bright protégée, who soon became famous for her remarkable progress.
With the help of the school's director Anagnos, Keller became a public symbol for the school, helping to increase its funding and donations and making it the most famous and sought-after school for the blind in the country.
However, an accusation of plagiarism against Keller greatly upset Sullivan: she left and never returned, but did remain influential to the school.
Sullivan also remained a close companion to Keller and continued to assist in her education, which ultimately included a degree from Radcliffe College.