Amid the unfolding of lovely summer, with its welcoming relief from the cold and its long days, few of us have noted that forbidding winter is already limbering up for a re-entry.
Painting credit: Piero della Francesca
This, the Lead Picture Today, Friday, July 26, 2019, on the blog –
existentialautotrip.com
The blog? A daily three to four minute excursion into photos and short texts to regale the curious with an ever-changing and diverting view of a world rich in gastronomy, visual art, ideas, chuckles, stories, people, diversions, science, homespun, and enlightenment.
Observing with wit and wisdom, Dom Capossela, an experienced leader, guides his team of contributors and followers through that world, an amusing and edifying conversation to join.
See ‘Thumbnail’ below for further description of the Lead Picture theme.
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COMMENTARY
Friday, July 26, 2019
Amid the unfolding of lovely summer, with its welcoming relief from the cold and its long days, few of us have noted that forbidding winter is already limbering up for a re-entry.
Since June 21, the sun has risen a minute or two later every succeeding day; and has set a minute or two earlier.
Cumulatively, we’ve lost about an hour of sunlight since the summer solstice.
Dwell on that to dampen spirits.
The summer solstice, also known as midsummer, occurs when one of the Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun.
It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere.
The summer solstice is when the Sun reaches its highest position in the sky and is the day with the longest period of daylight.
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COMMENTARY: Kali L
Friday, July 26, 2019
What They Don't Know About Me
I want to be dazzled and so in love
that the air I breathe is recognized
as a gift.
What I want in my life is to be
willing and open to break down
all my walls and tell my fears
that they don't belong here.
Fear is an unnecessary cage.
I do not want to close the windows
and doors and think that 5 miles
more is just too far to drive.
The light I have traveled within to
find is so bright it reminds me of the
midnight sun in the Faroe Islands
and the church perched on the hillside
beckoning us to visit from across the water.
I want to remember what it felt like to sit
gazing out knowing time was winding us
further from each other and that love
can still exist even if we don't.
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Weather
Friday, July 26, 2019
On this day Boston will present residents with a seasonably warm day, a high of 81* but a feels-like of 82* with a chance of a thunderstorm.
Nice summer days to follow.
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Tracking Postings – Tracking Time
Friday, July 26, 2019
Our 476th consecutive posting, committed to 5,000.
After 476 posts we’re at the 9.52 percentile of our commitment, that commitment a different way of marking the passage of time.
Posting always done by 6.00am the day of, but usually by 6pm of the night before.
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Dinner
Posted Friday, July 26, 2019
On Wednesday we made Baked Beans again.
Simplified the recipe and added pork belly and duck parts.
My-o-my delicious.
Will post this recent iteration of the recipe soon.
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Chuckle of the Day:
Friday, July 26, 2019
An 80 year old man was having his annual checkup when the doctor asked how he was feeling.
"I've never been better!" he boasted.
"I've got an 18 year old bride who's pregnant and having my child! What do you think about that?"
The doctor considered this for a moment, then said, "Let me tell you a story. I knew a guy who was an avid hunter. He never missed a season. But one day he goes out in a bit of a hurry and accidentally grabs his umbrella instead of his gun.
"So he’s in the woods and suddenly a grizzly bear appears in front of him.
” He raises his umbrella, points it at the bear and squeezes the handle. And do you know what happened?"
”No, what?"
The doctor concluded, "The bear dropped dead in front of him."
"No!” exclaimed the old man. "Someone else had to have shot that bear."
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We love getting mail.
Contact me at domcapossela@hotmail.com
Friday, July 26, 2019
This from Sally C:
Dear Dom,
Here's an illustration of the weird mood I'm in today:
I received an email from an alternate health newsletter.
Email advertisement headline: Do You Have Memory Loss?
Me: How would I know?
Unrelated to weird mood above:Marvelous bit on the "Hidden Figures" today.Thank you.That was one astonishing group of women.It's about time they got recognized.I gave the book to my mother as a birthday gift, but haven't had a chance to read it myself yet.I have seen the film.I never cease to be amazed at the dignity that black Americans have maintained in the face of such indignities as were legislated and practiced for so long.
Web Meister Responds: Cute to the chuckle and Amen to Hidden Figures.
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Today’s Thumbnail
Friday, July 26, 2019
The baptism of Jesus is one of the five major milestones in the gospel narrative of the life of Jesus, the others being the transfiguration, the crucifixion, the resurrection and the ascension.
It is described in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
John's gospel does not directly describe Jesus's baptism. Most modern theologians view the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist as a historical event to which a high degree of certainty can be assigned.
Along with the crucifixion, most biblical scholars view it as one of the two historically certain facts about him and often use it as the starting point for the study of the historical Jesus.
This picture is a tempera-on-poplar painting titled The Baptism of Christ, produced by Italian painter Piero della Francesca sometime after 1437.
It is in the collection of the National Gallery in London.
Painting credit: Piero della Francesca
Jesus is in the centrerof the composition, portrayed in the moment of his resurrection, as suggested by the position of the leg on the parapet of his tomb, which Piero renders as a classical sarcophagus.
His stern, impassive figure, depicted in an iconic and abstract fixity (and described by Aldous Huxley as "athletic"), rises over four sleeping soldiers, representing the difference between the human and the divine spheres (or the death, defeated by Christ's light).
His figure in the commune's council hall "both protects the judge and purifies the judged" according to Marilyn Aronberg Lavin.
The landscape, immersed in the dawn light, has also a symbolic value: the contrast between the flourishing young trees on the right and the bare mature ones on the left alludes to the renovation of men through the Resurrection's light.
Andrew Graham-Dixon notes that apart from the wound, Christ's "body is as perfectly sculpted and as blemish-free as that of an antique statue.
But there are touches of intense humanity about him too: the unidealized, almost coarse-featured face; and those three folds of skin that wrinkle at his belly as he raises his left leg. Piero emphasizes his twofold nature, as both man and God."
Painting credit: Piero della Francesca
I keep a list of all of Piero’s paintings and where they may be seen.
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Good Morning on this Friday, the twenty-sixth day of July, 2019
Our lead picture features a painintg by Piero della Francesca and our Thumbnail adds a bit more info on Piero’s works.
Our commentary notes the first stirring of winter while Kali stays intimately, honestly emotional.
We posted a Boston weather report and the ticking calendar as illustrated by the growing number of posts as calendar markers.
We posted a chuckle of a bear shot dead with an umbrella and promised an updated baked bean recipe in the near future.
And never least, we posted a light joke and a note from Sally C.
And now? Gotta go.
Che vuoi? Le pocketbook?
See you soon.
Your love.