Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, November 29, 2020
through
Saturday, December 5, 2020
____________________________________________________________
It’s Saturday, December 5, 2020
Welcome to the 958th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
1.0 Lead Picture
A Helmeted guineafowl
at Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
Bob - Picasa Web Albums
__________________________
2.0 Commentary
The group working on the Sacco and Vanzetti project (bronzing and installing an existing sculpture of these two victims of social injustice) is growing in reach.
Today proved to be another strong step forward.
While cold weather is on us, these temperatures, high thirties and low forties, they can be dealt with.
Can it stay this mild through the month?
That would considerably shorten the winter.
Despite trying to be even-handed during the transition of administrations, the President’s blatant disregard of the covid-19 disaster is outrageous.
The rantings of his followers are outrageous.
How I hope the Republican Party will work itself out:
Trump’s Republican followers will fall back to 25%.
The 50% of Republicans happy to marginalize Trump’s influence will coalesce among several top Republican contenders.
The 25% of those Republicans intimidated by Trump’s noisy followers will be lured out by and to join up with the Republican mainstream, further marginalizing the fanatics.
It will be a weakened post-Trump Party but one true to its principles.
______________________________________
4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“I loved her against reason,
against promise,
against peace,
against hope,
against happiness,
against all discouragement that could be.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
_____________________________________
5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from Colleen G, a writer and avid reader:
Hi Dom,
Just wanted to tell you I finished A Gentleman in Moscow last night and it was good to the very last drop!
I hope you have gotten it or plan to. I want to hear your thoughts on it.
Cheerio,
Colleen:)
Blog meister responds: Have just finished Outline by Rachel Cusk and am now reading Citizen by Claudia Rankine, given me by my daughter, she also riding herd on my book selection. But ‘Moscow’ is almost in my hands.
_____________________________________
6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Tonight a simple meal: slow-roasted then grilled steak.
I have some leftover vegetables.
Dinner easy and good.
Here is a great recipe for Guinea Hen.
It’s a template useful for most birds although the cooking time may vary on whether the bird is naturally lean and dry or fatty and moist. For any birds the cooking idiom is the same.
Note that you can find the recipe in the recipe section of the blog: Guinea Hen:
ROASTED GUINEA HEN
Off-Stage:
Beets or other root vegetable: white wine vinegar; 1/2 t honey
Porchetta: (not pancetta) Small dice; well-rendered to cracklings and oil
This oil is a wonderful entrée to a variant of Pasta Aglio e Olio and works well as a first course
Roasting Pan:
A poultry rack; the rack in the roasting pan
Pour ½ cup white wine and ½ cup stock to create steam and lay the foundation of a pan sauce.
Prepare the bird
Remove the innards; usually not substantial enough to warrant a re-weighing of the bird
Rub hen in and out with rendered porchetta
Stuff the cavity:
1 small Meyer’s lemon chopped into small pieces, larger than a large dice.
1 handful of fresh thyme/bay leaves
1 medium leek, sliced thinly
2 crushed garlic cloves
2 TB rendered porchetta oil with some cracklings
salt/pepper, coarse
The cook
Roast 42 min per pound in a 200* oven, basting with rendered porchetta oil
Spatchcock the guinea hen and broil from bottom shelf for 8 min skin side up and then reverse and cook underside for another 7 min.
Let rest for 30 min
_____________________________________
7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
__________________________________
11.0 Thumbnail
While modern guineafowl species are endemic to Africa, the helmeted guineafowl has been introduced as a domesticated bird widely elsewhere.
The insect- and seed-eating, ground-nesting birds of this family resemble partridges, but with featherless heads, though both members of the genus Guttera have a distinctive black crest, and the vulturine guineafowl has a downy brown patch on the nape.
Most species of guineafowl have a dark grey or blackish plumage with dense white spots, but both members of the genus Agelastes lack the spots.
While several species are relatively well known, the plumed guineafowl and the two members of the genus Agelastes remain relatively poorly known.
These large birds measure from 16–28 inches in length, and weigh 1.5-3.5 pounds.
Guinea hens weigh more than guinea cocks, possibly because of the larger reproductive organs in the female compared to the male guinea fowl.
Also, the presence of relatively larger egg clusters in the dual-purpose guinea hens may be a factor that contributes to the higher body weight of the guinea hens.
The species for which information is known are normally monogamous, mating for life, or are serially monogamous; however, occasional exceptions have been recorded for helmeted and Kenya crested guineafowl, which have been reported to be polygamous in captivity.
All guineafowl are social, and typically live in small groups or large flocks.
Guineafowl travel behind herd animals and beneath monkey troops where they forage within manure and on items that have fallen to the understory from the canopy.
Guineafowl play a pivotal role in the control of ticks, flies, locusts, scorpions and other invertebrates. They pluck maggots from carcasses and manure.
Wild guineafowl are strong flyers.
Their breast muscles are dark, enabling them to sustain themselves in flight for considerable distances if hard-pressed.
Grass and bush fires are a constant threat to these galliformes and flight is the most effective escape.
Some species of guineafowl, like the vulturine, may go without drinking water for extended periods, instead sourcing their moisture from their food. Young guineafowl (called keets) are very sensitive to weather, in particular cold temperatures.
Guinea hens are not known to be good mothers,[6] but in the wild the guinea hen's mate (a guinea cock) may help tend the young keets during the day by keeping them warm and finding food. Sometimes more than one cock will help raise the young. It could be said that guinea fowl (hens and cocks together) make good parents. During warm weather the cock is unlikely to set on the keets during the night (leaving that duty to the hen), but may help the hen keep the keets warm at night when temperatures drop below freezing.
Guinea fowl may be trained to go into a coop (instead of roosting in trees) when very young. Once hatched and ready to leave the brooder (approx. 3 weeks), they may be enclosed in a coop for at least 3 days so they learn where "home" is. When guinea parents (who already roost in a coop) raise their own keets, the hen will set on them outdoors during the night, but then the parents will teach the keets to also go into the coop in the evenings at approximately 3 weeks of age.
Each sex has a different call which can be used to differentiate between female and male.
Unlike chickens (which generally do best with one rooster for a flock of hens, guinea fowl do well with one cock for each hen.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
____________________________________________________________
It’s Friday, December 4, 2020
Welcome to the 957th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
1.0 Lead Picture
Alfred Hitchcock
Studio publicity photo of Alfred Hitchcock.
Studio publicity still - Dr. Macro
______________________________________
2.0 Commentary
How exciting!
How upbeat!
While covid-19 rages around us we remain undaunted.
Talk is now on the distribution of the vaccine.
By the end of April we will all have at least a date for our personal vaccination.
Wonderful.
Meanwhile, we have five months to go.
To be more careful than ever.
Researching the Medici Venus.
Decades ago, and centuries of criticism regaled the piece as the most beautiful woman in the world.
At one time, it was the Uffizi’s number 1 draw.
Occupying the most hallowed gallery in the museum.
And then in 1975 a respected critic called it charmless and set off a raft of criticism denigrating the sculpture.
It no longer holds the same cachet.
Well, I’m certainly not going to waft on the basis of what is current.
I love the pictures of the statue I have seen and am determined to view it with a totally open mind.
______________________________________
4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
Dickens on love:
I am under the influence of some tremendous attraction which I have resisted in vain, and
which overmasters me.
You could draw me to fire,
you could draw me to water,
you could draw me to the gallows,
you could draw me to any death,
you could draw me to anything I have most avoided,
you could draw me to any exposure and disgrace.
This and the confusion of my thoughts,
so that I am fit for nothing,
is what I mean by your being the ruin of me.
~Charles Dickens
_____________________________________
5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
My son Dom and I have met at Christmas time for decades.
Always including his Dylan and wife, Amanda, and my Kat.
Always including our friend Cindy, she of child care for both the infants Dylan and Kat, which makes her part of the family.
The group often including some others close to us.
Not this year, those others.
So we will be six.
We will eat at my well-ventilated apartment, Dom to make his wonderful Lasagna and I, a rib roast.
_____________________________________
6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Wednesday night I enjoyed dinner alone: a lobster steamed in Marinara Sauce, with spaghetti, a scant 2oz of spaghetti – me returned to my by-the-rules diet.
The Marinara Sauce made, dinner is easy and good.
American-Chinese restaurants make a garlicky brown sauce replete with tiny pieces of chopped pork shoulder that they serve over seafood, Lobster Chinese Style, for example. Love the garlic.
Wondering. Am enjoying the porchetta so much would it be fun to chop some up, render them into cracklings, and add them into the sauce?
Certainly gilding the lily.
But might discover something.
_____________________________________
7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
_________________________________
11.0 Thumbnail
Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is one of the most influential and extensively studied filmmakers in the history of cinema.
Known as the "Master of Suspense", he directed over 50 feature films[a] in a career spanning six decades, becoming as well-known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, his cameo roles in most of his films, and his hosting and producing of the television anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–65). His films garnered 46 Oscar nominations and six wins.
Born in Leytonstone, London, Hitchcock entered the film industry in 1919 as a title card designer after training as a technical clerk and copy writer for a telegraph-cable company. He made his directorial debut with the British-German silent film The Pleasure Garden (1925). His first successful film, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), helped to shape the thriller genre, while his 1929 film, Blackmail, was the first British "talkie".
Two of his 1930s thrillers, The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938), are ranked among the greatest British films of the 20th century.
By 1939, Hitchcock was a filmmaker of international importance, and film producer David O. Selznick persuaded him to move to Hollywood. A string of successful films followed, including Rebecca (1940), Foreign Correspondent (1940), Suspicion (1941), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), and Notorious (1946). Rebecca won the Academy Award for Best Picture, although Hitchcock himself was only nominated as Best Director; he was also nominated for Lifeboat (1944) and Spellbound (1945), although he never won the Best Director Academy Award.
The "Hitchcockian" style includes the use of camera movement to mimic a person's gaze, thereby turning viewers into voyeurs, and framing shots to maximize anxiety and fear. The film critic Robin Wood wrote that the meaning of a Hitchcock film "is there in the method, in the progression from shot to shot. A Hitchcock film is an organism, with the whole implied in every detail and every detail related to the whole."
After a brief lull of commercial success in the late 1940s, Hitchcock returned to form with Strangers on a Train (1951) and Dial M For Murder (1954). By 1960 Hitchcock had directed four films often ranked among the greatest of all time: Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), and Psycho (1960), the first and last of these garnering him Best Director nominations.[7] In 2012, Vertigo replaced Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) as the British Film Institute's greatest film ever made based on its world-wide poll of hundreds of film critics.[8] By 2018 eight of his films had been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry,[b] including his personal favourite, Shadow of a Doubt (1943).[c] He received the BAFTA Fellowship in 1971, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1979 and was knighted in December that year, four months before he died.[11]
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
____________________________________________________________
It’s Thursday, December 3, 2020
Welcome to the 956th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
1.0 Lead Picture
Venus de' Medici
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy.
Wai Laam Lo - Own work
______________________________________
2.0 Commentary
Weather looks mild for the next ten days, with two only of the days dipping below 40*,
and even those in the high thirties.
We’ll be almost mid-December without bruising cold; without a major storm.
Can take this.
Back on my pre-Thanksgiving diet.
Now to reincorporate my weights: Wednesday night my return to the club.
Thinking Cup on Newbury and the one on Hanover, (I visit one in the morning and one in the afternoon) have accepted providing me with sanitizing sheets to wipe down my table and chairs before I sit.
Feels so much safer.
Perhaps providing guests with the option of self-sanitizing bare-naked tables might be made an idiom of café-going.
______________________________________
3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
Researching the Medici Venus.
______________________________________
4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of light,
it was the season of darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair.
Charles Dickens
_____________________________________
5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
A reader writes:
The trillion dollar repair of our infrastructure you espouse, to create millions of new jobs, to replace welfare-type giveaways, must mandate a $20.00 minimum wage for the entry-level jobs.
Why reinstall poverty?
Blog meister responds: Why, indeed?
_____________________________________
6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Tuesday night I made a Guinea Hen.
These are bony, dry, touch-gamey birds that resist presenting delicious.
But having made one months ago, I was determined to improve it.
First, I rendered a well-made porchetta that Whole Foods was selling and brushed the bird all over with it.
I added flavor enhancers into the cavity: lemon pieces, garlic cloves, fresh thyme, s/freshly-ground pepper, and porchetta fat
The bird went on a poultry rack, the rack in a roasting pan.
Added 2 cups of hot stock and wine to roasting pan for steam and eventual pan sauce.
Timed the bird @ 42 min/lb in a 200* oven, basting it every 15 minutes or as needed
After the slow-roast I spatchcocked (cut the backbone out to flatten the bird and expose the entire skinside to the broiler), thoroughly basted it again, and then set it back on the lowest shelf.
I turned on the broiler cooking the bird for 8 minutes skin side and then 7 minutes on other side.
Then I let the bird rest 30 minutes before serving.
____________________________________
7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
__________________________________
11.0 Thumbnail
The Venus de' Medici or Medici Venus is a Hellenistic marble sculpture depicting the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite.
It is a 1st-century BCE marble copy, perhaps made in Athens, of a bronze original Greek sculpture, following the type of the Aphrodite of Knidos, which would have been made by a sculptor in the immediate Praxitelean tradition, perhaps at the end of the century.
It has become one of the navigation points by which the progress of the Western classical tradition is traced, the references to it outline the changes of taste and the process of classical scholarship.
It is housed in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.
The goddess is depicted in a fugitive, momentary pose, as if surprised in the act of emerging from the sea, to which the dolphin at her feet alludes. The dolphin would not have been a necessary support for the bronze original.
The Medici Venus is one of the most-copied antiquities. Louis XIV had no less than five, marbles by Carlier, Clérion, Coysevox and Frémery, and a bronze by the Keller brothers. (Haskell and Penny, p. 325).
In lead, copies of the Venus de' Medici stand in many English and European gardens, sometimes protected by small temples; in small bronze reductions it figured among the most familiar of the antiquities represented in collectors' cabinets: in Greuze's portrait of Claude-Henri Watelet, ca 1763–65, the connoisseur and author of L'Art de peindre is shown with calipers and a notebook, regarding a bronze statuette of the Venus de' Medici, as if in the act of deducing the ideal proportions of the female figure from the sculpture's example.
The Venus de' Medici was even reproduced in Sèvres biscuit porcelain, which had the matte whiteness of marble.
American sculptor Hiram Powers based his 1844 statue The Greek Slave on the Venus de' Medici.
Is also possible to see a replica in white Carrara Marble of the Venus' hand carved by Niccolò Bazzanti of Pietro Bazzanti e Figlio Art Gallery of Florence at Museo Civico Revoltella, Trieste.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
____________________________________________________________
It’s Wednesday, December 2, 2020
Welcome to the 955th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
1.0 Lead Picture
Napoleon cannon
en:User:Hlj - en:User:Hlj Originally uploaded to EN Wikipedia as en:File:CW Arty Confederate Napoleon.jpg by en:User:Hlj 22 July 2005
Confederate 12-Pound "Napoleon".
Photographed at Gettysburg National Military Park, 2005
______________________________________
2.0 Commentary
So I gained four pounds the week my daughter visited over Thanksgiving.
The culprits?
Pizza. I ate a couple of slices after dinner.
Pasta. I ate two meals; large meals that featured pasta.
Chinese food. I overate.
And desserts. Many too many; much too much.
Result?
Four pounds.
Will revert to my basic diet optimistic that my adopted diet will return me to the 146.2 mark with which my body seems comfortable.
June.
The majority of Americans will be vaccinated by end of June.
Music to our ears.
A very welcome ‘ouch’ to our arms.
Question: Why aren’t we discussing mass vaccination centers?
The numbers are overwhelming and will not be well-handled by our current doctors’ offices.
We can’t think ‘one-at-a-time’.
Thousands a day is more like it.
Many facilities vaccinating thousands a day.
The setting up of these centers will be happy news for us to listen to; to follow.
______________________________________
3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
No time for research today.
______________________________________
4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
I visited a monastery and as I walked past the kitchen I saw a priest frying chips.
'Are you the friar? ' I asked him.
'No, I am the chip monk' he replied.
“You don’t have to use a spatula to flip pancakes,” the proud monk asserted.
Next thing I knew it was out of the frying pan and onto the friar.
_____________________________________
5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
I emailed Howard reminding him that I was among Dukakis’ first supporters in his gubernatorial run.
I also mentioned some of the things we did together many years ago. Many.
Howard emailed this:
He’s [Mike Dukakis, that is] not really that much older than either of us, but you especially, you old fart… But I somehow have the impression he is far more, that is, disproportionately, decrepit.
I didn’t have much to do with the rock groups, and all the satellite activity. I knew enough to know I knew more than I would want to allude if I were ever questioned by those with judicial authority. I wasn’t sure – on my usual, really kind of priggish (I think of it as, looking back now) moral high ground – why you had insinuated yourself into certain aspects of that scene. Not imagining that, in fact, you were being far more liberal minded than I imagined myself to be… and also being too anxiety prone to want to take financial advantage of the opportunities.
The saving grace for me, and in the larger perspective of the time that has passed since, was that I already had the attitude, which I’ve preserved, if not reinforced, that it was really none of my goddam business, and further, who was I to judge?
I do remember the equipment you got the better of the deal on with Nick Anagnostis and I was incredibly envious, but grateful for all the time you gave me to play with it.
I also remember wishing I could program those tapes, in terms of choices of music, more to my musical tastes, but I also understood my musical tastes – however eclectic and diverse and global – were not those of the average Dom’s customer… Even with a band like J. Geils (and between Peter and what’s his name from the band Boston – I figured you had pretty much locked up the kingpins of the Boston-based musical scene… you only needed Carly Simon and James Taylor, and sure enough, you locked up that connection too with the move to Squaw Island), I was high and mighty. To me, what they were calling blues – and don’t get me wrong, I loved and love their music, but it was a new kind of blues, if it should even be called that – was watered down Kool Aid, white boy blues, compared to the real thing, which they started out emulating and then made their own in a way that was guaranteed to make a hell a lot more money than the originals, the country blues and Delta blues greats that I spent my teen years listening to, ever could have hoped to make, starting with being the wrong color skin or coming from the wrong side of the tracks.
And, by the way, don’t you ever get tired of you saying 18 words… blah blah, and then having me go off, like some cracked Jew-boy Marcel Proust (well, yeah, OK, so he was Jewish too… but you know what I mean; we didn’t have cork-lined bedrooms in the Bronx, though we did work up pretty good fixations on our mothers)?
It’s fun for me. Keeps my mind alive, and, of course, I love to write, so there it is.
Xoxo
h
Blog meister responds: Howard’s memory is prodigious.
_____________________________________
6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Monday night I joined my dear friend Ann H for dinner at Rochambeau, a French bistro @ 900 Boylston St.
Dinner was excellent.
We shared three items: chicken liver pate, mussels, and a huge pork chop.
The company was excellent; lots of family talk.
Note: the tables are very far apart.
_____________________________________
7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
__________________________________
11.0 Thumbnail
Landis's Missouri Battery, also known as Landis's Company, Missouri Light Artillery, was an artillery battery that served in the Confederate States Army during the early stages of the American Civil War. The battery was formed when Captain John C. Landis recruited men from the Missouri State Guard in late 1861 and early 1862. The battery fielded two 12-pounder Napoleon field guns and two 24-pounder howitzers for much of its existence, and had a highest reported numerical strength of 62 men. After initially serving in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, where it may have fought in the Battle of Pea Ridge, the unit was transferred east of the Mississippi River. The battery saw limited action in 1862 at the Battle of Iuka and at the Second Battle of Corinth.
In 1863, the unit was transferred to Grand Gulf, Mississippi, a key point on the Mississippi River. After Major General Ulysses S. Grant landed Union infantry at Bruinsburg, Landis's Battery formed part of Confederate defenses at the battles of Port Gibson in early May, after which Landis was promoted and Lieutenant John M. Langan took command. Later that month, it took part in the Battle of Champion Hill. On May 17, the battery was part of a Confederate force tasked with holding the crossing of the Big Black River at the Battle of Big Black River Bridge, where it may have suffered the capture of two cannons. Landis's Battery next saw action during the Siege of Vicksburg. While there, the battery helped repulse Union assaults on May 22. Landis's Battery was captured when the Confederate garrison of Vicksburg surrendered on July 4. Although the surviving men of the battery were exchanged, the battery was not reorganized after Vicksburg; instead, it was absorbed into Guibor's Missouri Battery along with Wade's Missouri Battery.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
____________________________________________________________
It’s Tuesday, December 1, 2020
Welcome to the 954th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
1.0 Lead Picture
Duccio – Rucellai Madonna aka Maestà
Google Art Project
Duccio di Buoninsegna - LgFyCpDuHQ6z1g at Google Cultural Institute, zoom level maximum
______________________________________
2.0 Commentary
My heart goes out to those, mostly the young, whose schooling and school experience has been foreshortened.
Business at the Thinking Cup on Newbury Street is robust.
While certainly not at pre-pandemic levels, it can get crowded.
I was coming here during March when I might be the only customer for twenty minutes.
Happy to see it.
I’ll take a moment to reiterate my call for a massive rebuilding of America’s infrastructure.
A trillion dollar event.
The creation of millions of jobs.
A war against unemployment.
An end to most handouts.
______________________________________
3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
Working on the Rucellai Madonna by Duccio.
This is one of the oldest and best known works by Duccio di Buoninsegna who, in the early 1280s, most likely worked alongside Florentine painter Cimabue.
See picture and Thumbnail
_________________________________
4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
What do you call a friar in prison?
A felonious monk.
And then came the friar who replaced all the incense with marijuana.
He wanted to make the other monks High Priests.
_____________________________________
5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from dear friend Ann H regarding the publication of a piece on the town crier, on myh son, Dom, and on her daughter Kendra:
I love the town crier. He is awesome with the sports updates, weather, etc.
That is great news on Dom at UMass.
Miss Kendra just got accepted to Bunker Hill for the nursing program. She was so excited as that was her first choice. She did not even wait to hear yet from North-Eastern or Simmons. TBC.
Miss you!
xo
Blog meister responds: Following the email, Ann and I planned Monday dinner at Rochambeau. So good to hear from friends.
_____________________________________
6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Sunday night was my first night alone in a week.
I missed my daughter and Will.
I had leftover turkey pieces with a refreshed gravy.
And a mashed potato.
Lovely.
_____________________________________
7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
__________________________________
11.0 Thumbnail
The Rucellai Madonna is a panel painting representing the Virgin and Child enthroned with Angels by the Sienese painter Duccio di Buoninsegna. The original contract for the work is dated 1285; the painting was probably delivered in 1286. The painting was commissioned by the Laudesi confraternity of Florence to decorate the chapel they maintained in the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella (in 1591, the painting was moved to the adjacent, much larger Rucellai family chapel, hence the modern title of convenience).
It was transferred to the Galleria degli Uffizi in the 19th century. The Rucellai Madonna is the largest 13th-century panel painting extant.
Alongside formal elements taken from Byzantine traditions, such as the gold lettering on the Christ Child’s cloak and the signs used to construct the anatomies of the faces, Duccio also reveals his sensitivity to the naturalism and elegance of Gothic art, as can be seen in the distribution of light and shade, in the draped fabrics, and in the wavy, undulating movements of the borders.
The work, measuring 4.5 by 2.9 meters, was painted in egg tempera on a five-pieced poplar panel. The panel and frame would have been constructed by a master carpenter and then handed over to Duccio for painting. the frame is of the same wood. Although the contract required Duccio to use costly, ultramarine blue, made from ground lapis lazuli, conservators restoring the panel in 1989 determined the pigment of the Virgin's robe to be the cheaper substitute, azurite. Over the centuries, the blue pigments darkened considerably and the green bole underpainting of the fleshtones became more visible. A more recent restoration has rectified those issues, thereby greatly enhancing the tonal unity and subtle naturalism of the work.
The iconography of the painting was determined by the needs of the patrons and the Dominican order. The members of the Laudesi met in the chapel to sing lauds, or Latin hymns praising the Virgin;[5]an image of Mary provided a focus for those devotions. The roundels on the frame represent apostles, saints, and prominent members of the Dominican order, including Saints Dominic and Thomas Aquinas.[6]
Given the bitter political enmity of Florence and Siena, the Florentine civic group's choice of a Sienese artist is noteworthy. Siena regarded the Virgin not only as its patron saint, but as Queen of the city.[7]As a result of this association, Sienese artists like Guido da Siena and Duccio came to specialize in Marian imagery. Although compositional and iconographic sources of the Rucellai Madonna are Byzantine icons, Duccio's work was modeled on recent Sienese works, and not derived directly from a Greek model. The emphasis on grace and refinement seen in the Virgin's gown and stylized anatomy may reflect a familiarity with French Gothic art[8] (which is also suggested by the aspects of the later Maestà).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
____________________________________________________________
It’s Monday, November 30, 2020
Welcome to the 953rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
______________________________________
1.0 Lead Picture
Coat of arms of Nigeria
Lumia1234 - Own work
Coats of arms of Nigeria
______________________________________
2.0 Commentary
So my daughter returned to NYC.
In two weeks she’ll return home for six weeks.
She’s got an interim period from her lease in NYC to when she takes up residence in Swarthmore, Pa, to complete her senior year remotely.
She’ll spend them with me in Boston.
Despite the remote classes, Swarthmore is permitting students to live in the dorms on campus under stringent regulations.
To avoid those regs and still remain at school, she and several of her classmates have rented a house in the town of Swarthmore.
Hoping the bubble they create in that house will provide themselves safety.
Hoping that I (being 147 years old) am vaccinated before I see her again.
What a warm, lovely November!
I will miss Kat and William in the next two weeks.
We’ve had a lot of fun in the kitchen.
Their holiday dinner was remarkable.
______________________________________
3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
I added this bit to my research on Cimabue’s Maesta:
This massive painting—over twelve feet tall and seven feet wide (12’8’’ x 7’4’’)—features Mary gazing out at the viewer. She gestures toward the child with her right hand, while Christ raises his hand in a priestly pose of blessing, an adaptation of the ancient Byzantine icon type (known as the “Hodegetria”) in which the Virgin Mary points to Christ as the way to heaven.
______________________________________
4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
A man at work one day notices that his co-worker is wearing an earring.
This man knows the co-worker to be a normally conservative fellow and is curious about his sudden change in fashion.
“I didn’t know you were into earrings,” he says.
“Don’t make a big deal out of it. It’s only an earring.”
The man falls silent for a few minutes, but then, “So, how long have you been wearing one?”
“Ever since my wife found it in my truck.”
_____________________________________
5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from our dear friend, wonderful writer, and an extravagantly wonderful mother, Colleen G:
Happy Thanksgiving, Dom
Loved your poem on faith and the Christmas season. I actually "quit" news two+ weeks ago. It was too distracting from my real life. It's the best decision I've made, sinking myself into A Gentleman in Moscow with my extra time. My sanity thanks me, I'm sure. :)
Mostly why I was prompted to write you was your comment about not being able to get anything done while Kat is home and you are just fine with that--as you should be. Humans have always been my priority. In retail or restaurants, the person standing in front of us always takes precedent to the one on the phone – whether we try to make things fair or not, it's just a natural human default. So, your little observation is something for me to hold up and say, "See, even Dom can't concentrate with a child around and she is a woman--now I know why I have such a hard time getting anything done with four small ones."
It may be sad and I "should" be stronger than this, but every now and then I need to be able to convince myself why I haven't gotten as much work/writing done as I had imagined. It's because of these adorable human beings standing in front of me. I just can't resist them. Humans are my default :)
Enjoy all that is human this holidays season. Ignore the ones on the television. They can wait.
You'll find you haven't missed anything and if you have, your sanity will reward you with the bliss that only ignorance can bestow!
Cheers,
Colleen:)
Blog meister responds: join the club, my dear.
i can tell you from two generations of experience that there is no time and there is no activity
that will ever be as important to your personal life and to humanity's well-being
than the time you spend with your children and
the events to which you lead them.
i think you know that.
love
_____________________________________
6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Saturday night we had dinner at Fugakyu, our most frequented Japanese restaurant.
Dinner is always good there and sold at affordable prices.
We made a mandatory stop at a nearby Japanese bakery and we each bought a treat.
_____________________________________
7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
__________________________________
11.0 Thumbnail
Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a sovereign country in West Africa bordering Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Its southern coast is on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean.
It is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located. Lagos is the most populous city in the country and the African continent, as well as one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world.
Nigeria has been home to several indigenous pre-colonial states and kingdoms since the second millennium BC, with the Nok Civilization having been the first time the country had been unified internally in the 15th Century B.C.
The modern state originated with British colonialization in the 19th century, taking its present territorial shape with the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914 by Lord Frederick Lugard.
The British set up administrative and legal structures while practicing indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms.
Nigeria became a formally independent federation on October 1, 1960. It experienced a civil war from 1967 to 1970, followed by a succession of democratically-elected civilian governments and military dictatorships, until achieving a stable democracy in 1999; the 2015 presidential election was the first time an incumbent president had lost re-election.
Nigeria is a multinational state inhabited by more than 250 ethnic groups speaking 500 distinct languages, all identifying with a wide variety of cultures. The three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa–Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the west, and Igbo in the east, together comprising over 60% of the total population.
The official language is English, chosen to facilitate linguistic unity at the national level.
Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Muslims, who live mostly in the north, and Christians, who live mostly in the south.
The country has the world's fifth-largest Muslim population and sixth-largest Christian population, with a minority practicing indigenous religions, such as those native to the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities.
Nigeria's constitution ensures freedom of religion.
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh most populous country in the world, with an estimated 206 million inhabitants as of late 2019.
It has the third-largest youth population in the world, after India and China, with nearly half its population under the age of eighteen.
Nigeria's economy is the largest in Africa and the 24th largest in the world, worth almost $450 billion and $1 trillion in terms of nominal GDP and purchasing power parity, respectively.
Nigeria is often referred to as the "Giant of Africa", owing to its large population and economy, and is also considered to be an emerging market by the World Bank; it has been identified as a regional power on the African continent, a middle power in international affairs, and has also been identified as an emerging global power. However, its Human Development Index ranks 158th in the world, and the country is classified as a lower middle-income economy, with a gross national income per capita between $1,026 and $3,986.
Nigeria is a founding member of the African Union and a member of many other international organizations, including the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the ECOWAS, and OPEC. Nigeria is also a member of the informal MINT group of countries, which are widely seen as the globe's next emerging economies, as well as the "Next Eleven" economies, which are set to become among the biggest in the world.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
____________________________________________________________
It’s Sunday, November 29, 2020
Welcome to the 952nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
____________________
1.0 Lead Picture
Portrait of George Washington (1732–99)
___________________
2.0 Commentary
Boston’s Town Crier.
Gilbert.
Look for him on You Tube.
I found Gilbert when the pandemic strike.
Till then, I had daily been going to the Prudential Center and meeting Yan, a homeless women receded deep within a heap of grey blankets and shawls and helping her get a nice lunch.
After pandemic and the Pru was virtually closed, first Yan and then I stopped going.
My new route took me through the Boston Common where I passed Gilbert, he shouting out the weather and the sports scores.
Without stopping, I passed him for several days.
Until it dawned on me that he was a fixture in Boston.
I asked and he told me he’s been doing this for over thirty years.
Wow.
Since then, I directed my alms giving to him.
He earns his donation: his cries add flavor to the day of the passersby.
Look for him on YouTube.
Boston’s Town Crier.
Gilbert.
_______________
4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
“Actually,” said the 80-year-old, “80 is the worst age of all!”
“Do you have trouble peeing too?” asked the 60-year-old.
“No, not really. I pee every morning at 6:00. I pee like a racehorse on a flat rock; no problem at all.”
“Do you have trouble crapping?” asked the 70-year-old.
“No, I crap every morning at 6:30.”
With great exasperation, the 60-year-old said, “Let me get this straight. You pee every morning at 6:00 and crap every morning at 6:30. So what’s so tough about being 80?”
“I don’t wake up until 7:00!”
_____________________
5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
For those of us who fondly remember our in-house poet, Kali, I offer three emails:
Dear Dom,
Your writing always brings a smile to my face.
I have an air purifier in my office as I've worked the entire pandemic.
Whatever illusion of being safe- i'll subscribe to.
I hope you have a beautiful Thanksgiving filled with fulfilling conversations and love.
With love,
Kali Pezzi
Blog Meister responds:
so wonderful to hear from you, kali.
thank you for your well-wishes.
you sound lovely: calm, grounded, in love.
i hope that's all true.
love to you, my dear,
dom
And Kali responded:
I am grounded!
I'm going back to school next year to work toward a counseling degree :)
and I love Rhode Island and
of course my wonderful husband :)
Blog Meister responds: adds 5,000 pounds of joy to my day.
God bless.
my son Dom enrolled at UMass Boston two years ago and is 2 years away from a degree in clinical psychology.
love young people, although my son is old enough to be your father. 😊
keep in touch, love.
Dom
And Kali responded:
You're a young person!\
I'm so excited to go back to Salve!
__________________________________
6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Friday night we had a muted smorgasbord from our refrigerator including, goose and turkey, Gravy, a vegan antipasto, and some vegetables, buttressed by store-bought fried rice and lobster sauce. We had the latter two early in the week but there wasn’t enough to satisfy us.
____________________________________
7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
____________________
11.0 Thumbnails
George Washington (February 22, 1732[b] – December 14, 1799) was an American political leader, military general, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Previously, he led Patriot forces to victory in the nation's War for Independence. He presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which established the U.S. Constitution and a federal government. Washington has been called the "Father of His Country" for his manifold leadership in the formative days of the new nation.
Washington received his initial military training and command with the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War. He was later elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses and was named a delegate to the Continental Congress, where he was appointed Commanding General of the Continental Army. He commanded American forces, allied with France, in the defeat and surrender of the British during the Siege of Yorktown. He resigned his commission after the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
Washington played a key role in adopting and ratifying the Constitution and was then twice elected president by the Electoral College. He implemented a strong, well-financed national government while remaining impartial in a fierce rivalry between cabinet members Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. During the French Revolution, he proclaimed a policy of neutrality while sanctioning the Jay Treaty. He set enduring precedents for the office of president, including the title "Mr. President", and his Farewell Address is widely regarded as a pre-eminent statement on republicanism.
Washington owned slaves, and, in order to preserve national unity, he supported measures passed by Congress to protect slavery. He later became troubled with the institution of slavery and freed his slaves in a 1799 will. He endeavored to assimilate Native Americans into Anglo-American culture, but combated indigenous resistance during instances of violent conflict. He was a member of the Anglican Church and the Freemasons, and he urged broad religious freedom in his roles as general and president. Upon his death, he was eulogized as "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen". He has been memorialized by monuments, art, geographical locations, stamps, and currency, and many scholars and polls rank him among the greatest U.S. presidents.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!