Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, September 11, 2022
through
Saturday, September 17, 2022
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It’s Saturday, September 17, 2022
Welcome to the 1,552nd consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Jean-Luc Godard
at Berkeley, 1968
Gary Stevens - This file has been extracted from another file
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Commentary
California is calling for a minimum wage of $22.00 per hour. The proposal has been passed by both branches of government. The governor will sign it. So many other states think themselves too advanced in their aims for minimum wages of under $10.00/hr. Bless UPS for the financial rewards they offer their employees.
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Writing
I’m reviewing the newly-released list of hotels we’ll be staying at. With the list, Tucker helped me apply for an eVisa from the Japanese Consulate. I am reviewing the list to make sure the restaurants I’ve booked line up with the nights we’ll be visiting those cities. When I finish that I’ll get directions from the hotels to the restaurants and print them out in Japanese to ensure my taxi or uber driver can get me there and back.
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Screen time
I’ve been looking forward to the limited series Ken Burns work called The Holocaust”. Add to that now Tucker’s retrospective suggestions listed below in the Mail section.
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Social Life
Saturday I’ll be attending my 50th Reunion of childhood friends. We were only fifty. Perhaps half of us are still alive. But over 200 are paid to attend.
On Monday I have a dentist appointment and I’m having lunch with Echobatik principals, Gary and Mia and her seeing-eye dog, Minta. Am making a Gravy to serve with penne pasta.
And Wednesday I’m having lunch with Tucker. Roast duck.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
“I believe it was Shakespeare, or possibly Howard Cosell, who first observed that marriage is very much like a birthday candle, in that 'the flames of passion burn brightest when the wick of intimacy is first ignited by the disposable butane lighter of physical attraction, but sooner or later the heat of familiarity causes the wax of boredom to drip all over the vanilla frosting of novelty and the shredded coconut of romance.' I could not have phrased it better myself.”
~ Dave Barry
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Another great email from Tucker J:
It’s a sad day for movie fans everywhere.
I wrote a little something on Godard for your pleasure:
Jean-Luc Godard spent six decades at the forefront of international filmmaking. His career positioned him as one of the towering figures of the French New Wave and his influence on cinema really can’t begin to be calculated. Beginning in 1960, Godard created films that smashed high and low culture together like a child playing with trucks. His films play out with an anything-goes sensibility that more recent filmmakers have aspired to. Just like the constantly shifting narratives and structures of his films, Godard’s career was equally antsy. As the ‘60’s went on he became more and more radical visually and aesthetically as well as politically. Only 8 years into his whizbang career Godard swore off the idea of commercial filmmaking entirely. He created a left leaning film collective called the Dziga Vertov Group and set to producing films about, among many things, anti-capitalist notions. At the end of his career, Jean-Luc Godard explored a more lyrical and poetic style of digital filmmaking with works that focused more philosophically on ideas like trauma, religion, and the history and legacy of cinema.
To quote film writer John Patterson “Godard saw a rule and then broke it”. In the early stages of his career, he made a name on including what many believed to be mistakes (jump cuts being the easiest to recognize) in his films. Godard began his career as a film critic and many of his films can stand on their own as critical analyses of the medium.
With 131 directing credits to his name (admittedly many of those are short films) it might be difficult to get going with Godard if his work is completely foreign to you. Here are a few great places to start:
Breathless – a film with a threadbare plot but whose form is its reputation. Here Godard uses flaws, accidents, and formal “don’t do’s” of cinema purposefully to reinvent our idea of what a film can and should be. Breathless was made guerilla style, without any permission to shoot, no script, and with (at the time) new lightweight cameras that allowed for handheld shooting like never before. The result is a film that feels like a documentary by way of a jazz composition. The film also was the first real use of his high-low culture collision, like staging Shakespeare outside of a porn theater.
Contempt – a film about a film failing to get made. Contempt is shot in gorgeous widescreen and vibrant colors (especially red which Godard has a career long obsession with). The film is as formally constructed as Breathless isn’t, with elegant and complex tracking shots. Even with its more professional look the film is still pure Godard and often feels improvisational even with its rich colors and beautiful sets and locations. A true French masterpiece.
Bande a part – If it tells you anything about Godard’s influence, Quentin Tarantino named his production company after this film. Bande a part is probably the easiest of Godard’s films to engage with and for that reason it has become a embedded in wider film culture. References to it can be found far and wide (the dance scene in Pulp Fiction is an easy one to spot). Anna Karina (then Godard’s wife) centers the narrative of a woman who joins two criminals in a plan to rob her boss. The plot is almost immediately jettisoned in lieu of following the three main characters around Paris as they drive and hang out in cafes. One particularly famous fourth wall breaking moment happens when one character asks for a moment of silence and the entire film goes mute for that moment. Bande a part is wildly playful and a lot of fun to watch.
A Married Woman – Many of Godard’s films focus on women’s lives including this story of a woman being consumed by capitalism and consumerism. To make this film full on Godard there’s also footage of the Auschwitz trials that were happening around the time of the film’s production and extended sequences of fashion photography. Here Godard really attacks modern life in France and attempts to show the dangers of losing yourself to what is fashionable. It’s message is no less poignant today.
Alphaville – the beauty of Alphaville is that it conveys a fully realized vision of a dystopian future and this feat was done without building a single set. Godard and cinematographer Raoul Coutard used then contemporary Paris to fuel carefully curated visuals that sold a believable future. Alphaville is a detective story about a man trying to destroy a computer that has taken full control of the city it resides in. Godard paints a future where ideas “love” and “conscience” have been long forgotten. His detective protagonist is able to weaponize his love of art and literature to fight a cold and merciless future.
La Chinoise – near the end of the ‘60’s Godard gave us a taste of where his career would lead with this film. La Chinoise is a dark comedy about being committed to a political ideology. The film’s editing is in your face and is often used to enhance many of the visual jokes on display. Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book is shown more and more as the film goes on. Godard also directed Weekend in this same year which features an equal number of visual gags meant to underscore the absurdity of modern life as Godard saw it. This film is famous for featuring a long tracking shot that lays out life from beginning to end with people eating, conversing, arguing, having sex, and dying all while stuck in an endless traffic jam.
With Godard’s passing I’m certain we’ll see all manner of new writings, retrospectives, and reexaminations of his work. We are fortunate that Jean-Luc left us with such a body of work as to stand up against any level of scrutiny for the last 60 years and surely for at least 60 more.
· Tucker
Blog meister responds: Such amazing scholarship. I’m going to start on this list now. We thank you my friend.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
I ate my delicious Beef Chili with Beans on Wednesday. Delicious.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
MFA garden lunch quiet. I need to get back to the MFA soon.
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Short Essay
Jean-Luc Godard (3 December 1930 – 13 September 2022) was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the 1960s French New Wave film movement[1] and was arguably the most influential French filmmaker of the post-war era.[2] According to AllMovie, his work "revolutionized the motion picture form" through its experimentation with narrative, continuity, sound, and camerawork.
During his early career as a film critic for the influential magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, Godard criticized mainstream French cinema's "Tradition of Quality", which emphasized established convention over innovation and experimentation. In response, he and like-minded critics began to make their own films, challenging the conventions of traditional Hollywood in addition to French cinema. Godard first received global acclaim for his 1960 feature Breathless, helping to establish the New Wave movement. His work makes use of frequent homages and references to film history, and often expressed his political views; he was an avid reader of existentialism and Marxist philosophy. After the New Wave, his politics were less radical and his later films are about representation and human conflict from a humanist and Marxist perspective.
In a 2002 Sight & Sound poll, Godard ranked third in the critics' top ten directors of all time.[7] He is said to have "created one of the largest bodies of critical analysis of any filmmaker since the mid-twentieth century."[8] His work has been central to narrative theory and have "challenged both commercial narrative cinema norms and film criticism's vocabulary."[9] In 2010, Godard was awarded an Academy Honorary Award, but did not attend the award ceremony.
Godard was married twice, to actresses Anna Karina and Anne Wiazemsky, both of whom starred in several of his films. His collaborations with Karina—which included such critically acclaimed films as Vivre sa vie (1962), Bande à part (1964), and Pierrot le Fou (1965)—were called "arguably the most influential body of work in the history of cinema" by Filmmaker magazine.
The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or
* exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Friday, September 16, 2022
Welcome to the 1,551st consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Don Corleone
Godfather15 flip
View author information
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Commentary
Looking at the railroads.
I’m saddened by the impasse.
What can be done?
By the unions? By industry? By government?
What can I do?
The direct and indirect impact on our nation impact from a strike will be enormous.
Incalculable.
May God give the parties strength and wisdom.
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Writing
The list of hotels on our itinerary has just been released by our tour company.
That gave me the information I needed to complete my application for a Visa to Japan. My friend Tucker took remote contro of my computer and filled it out for me. Thank goodness.
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Can you define this Word: Visa
For definition, see below, immediately after the Short Essay
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Screen time
I’m enjoying Ted Lasso.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
“Nobody cares if you can't dance well.
Just get up and dance. ”
~ Dave Barry
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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, Sally C:
Dear Dom,
With regard to your inflamed gums, I recommend three things: 1) take a hefty dose of Vitamin C (2,000 to 4,000 mg per day) for a few days, 2) add a full-spectrum multi-B vitamin to your regimen, and 3) steep a black tea bag for a moment in boiling water, allow to cool for a few minutes, and pack it against your gums for a while. The vitamins B and C will take down the inflammation or infection, and the tea bag will provide considerable immediate relief. The tea bag worked for me many years ago when I had an inflamed tooth in the middle of our move to Virginia from Maine, and the dentist was booked solid that day. The tooth eventually needed extraction, but not for another nine months.
Sally
Blog meister responds: Love your down-east contributions to our blog. Thank you my dear.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
I am eating Beef Chili today.
I don’t remember when I either made or ate this dish.
I bought a batch of Beef and Chili Soup from W Foods.
I fried 6oz of ground beef with a chopped onion in an Asian Oil and seasoned this with curry, ginger, turmeric, and garlic powder,
Added a bit of tomatoes, chicken stock, and the soup.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Boy being a goose nuisance
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Short Essay
Vito Corleone (born Vito Andolini) is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel The Godfather and in the first two of Francis Ford Coppola's film trilogy. Vito is originally portrayed by Marlon Brando in the 1972 film The Godfather, and later by Oreste Baldini as a boy and by Robert De Niro as a young man in The Godfather Part II (1974). He is an orphaned Sicilian immigrant who builds a Mafia empire.
He and his wife Carmela have four children: Santino ("Sonny"), Frederico ("Fredo"), and Michael, and one daughter Constanzia ("Connie"). Vito informally adopts Sonny's friend, Tom Hagen, who becomes his lawyer and consigliere. Upon Vito's death, Michael succeeds him as Don of the Corleone crime family.
Vito oversees a business founded on gambling, bootlegging, prostitution, and union corruption, but he is known as a kind, generous man who lives by a strict moral code of loyalty to friends and, above all, family. He is also known as a traditionalist who demands respect commensurate with his status; even his closest friends refer to him as "Godfather" or "Don Corleone" rather than "Vito".
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Definition of Today’s Word: Visa
an endorsement on a passport indicating that the holder is allowed to enter, leave, or stay for a specified period of time in a country
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Thursday, September 15, 2022
Welcome to the 1,550th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Autumn
The variety of colors between the trees and the forest floor is like a giant mural in autumn, particularly out of cityscapes
Someone35 - Own work
the forests in new hampshire in autumn
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Commentary
So the rate of inflation dropped.
By a too little according to most.
So what now?
Point to the working class and say, “You’re out of a job?” “Your credit is destroyed?” “Your small house is lost?”
No, my friends.
Energy rules.
For the next two decades our lives will be about energy.
And those who have made trillions of dollars on oil, coal, and nuclear must now drive down the costs and prices of energy.
How?
Simply put, giving back several of those trillions and reducing inflation without throwing working Americans out of their jobs.
Jobs and employment must be protected against the ultra-rich, the ridiculously rich and their efforts at higher federal reserve interest rates.
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Reading
My reading time has been spent on my trip to Japan. I am well-prepared. I’m looking forward to receiving today four 3oz plastic bottles to hold my shampoo, conditioner, cough syrup, and body lotion. The 3oz within the rules set by the TSA.
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Wellness
My scheduling took a double-hit today. My dental office cannot book an appointment to look at my gums that feel inflamed around a back tooth because their computer is down for a couple of days.
And my health club is closed without warning. It will reopen in four days for renovation. That seems suspicious to me.
In any case, I’ll survive.
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Understanding aging
I carried my larger laptop today, the Surface, rather than the smaller GO3.
It proved that my switch to the smaller device was well-founded.
I can no longer physically carry the more solid, more pleasurable Surface and must settle for the lighter, lower, smaller but essential GO3.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
“Aside from velcro, time is the most mysterious substance in the universe.
You can't see it or touch it, yet a plumber can charge you upwards of seventy-five dollars per hour for it, without necessarily fixing anything.”
~Dave Barry
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Some comments made on my messing up the two mailings yesterday. One was a repeat.
Blog meister responds: It happens.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
I enjoyed a gorgeous slow-roasted chicken on Tuesday.
The thing was juicy, had a well-toasted skin, and was small, offering up a great set of bones to gnaw on. With peas and sweet potatoes.
So simple. Reasonable. Delicious.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Boy chasing goose.
The young man obviously isn’t aware that the geese need to fatten up for their trips north.
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Short Essay*
Autumn, also known as Fall in American English and Canadian English, is one of the four temperate seasons. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March (Southern Hemisphere). Autumn is the season when the duration of daylight becomes noticeably shorter and the temperature cools considerably. Day length decreases and night length increases as the season progresses until the Winter Solstice in December (Northern Hemisphere) and June (Southern Hemisphere). One of its main features in temperate climates is the striking change in color for the leaves of deciduous trees as they prepare to shed.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
*Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Wednesday, September 14, 2022
Welcome to the 1,549th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Rings of Power
The Rings of Power, their stones, and their bearers[T 3]
Ian Alexander - Own work
The Rings of Power described in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings
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Commentary
Love to see the falling gas prices.
Energy issues and costs to consumers must be fiercely addressed.
These costs must be borne by America’s richest people.
Entirely.
The alternative is to force payment by the workers of America by way of lost jobs to bring about a lessening of demand and so falling inflation.
That is too often the plan of America’s richest people.
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Reading
I’m spending a lot of time on sights to see in the Japanese cities I’ll be visiting.
You Tube has been a good find.
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Writing
Besides my regular writing for the blog and submissions to agents, I’m writing on my itinerary.
Social Life
I enjoyed a spontaneous visit from an old friend. A lovely moment.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
“The problem with winter sports is that
-- follow me closely here --
they generally take place in winter.”
~ Dave Barry
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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 Tucker J on setting a date for a promised Roast Duck dinner.
Hi Dom.
September 20th sounds lovely! Let’s do it!
Also I wrote on the latest Rings of Power episode!
Blog meister responds: How amazingly lucky are we who read Tucker’s brilliant pieces. Thank you, my friend. For Tucker’s review, see Short Essay just below.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
CURRY
SEAR MEAT
1lb meat
2TB Asian Oil
Reserve
FRY AROMATICS
1 ½ TB ginger
red bell pepper
chili pepper
3 garlic cloves
4oz onion, lightly brown
ADD SPICES
Salt
freshly ground pepper
1 TB curry powder
turmeric
coriander
paprika
garam masala
Cook for a bit to awaken the flavors
ADD LIQUIDS in equal amounts
coconut milk
tomato puree
chicken stock
Cook for several minutes to thicken to taste
Add, according to your imagination, thing like peas, ceci beans, scallions, greens and, of course, the meat.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Falun Dafa
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Short Essay*
The Ring’s of Power’s third outing feels like the first true table setting the series has done so far but that’s not a bad thing. “Adar,” which is both the episode’s name and the Elvish word for “Father,” comes to relate to every storyline in this episode and that includes the introductions of several new characters. Arondir is help prisoner by an Orc chief named Adar; Nori’s father may have doomed his family; and Galadriel joins one of the most famous fathers in Middle-earth: Elendil (Lloyd Owen), who rescued her at the end of the last episode and took her to Númenor.
Hoping to provide this lost Elf with a boat back to Middle-earth, Elendil brings Galadriel to Queen Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), whom we later learn fears the Elves’ return to Númenor. Míriel resents Galadriel’s assertion that Númenor was handed to the Númenoreans after the fall of Morgoth. They fought for the land, she believes. But allegiance to the Elves can doom even a king. The previous king of Númenor lives in exile because of his loyalty to Elves. Galadriel’s presence there is not a welcome one, but Halbrand smooth talks her into possibly giving them a lift back to Middle-earth.
Tasked with keeping Galadriel captive, Elendil (Owen Lloyd) has some bad news for her. He escorts her to the Numenor Hall Of Laws and asks a scholar to check the archives for signs of the sigil on Finrod’s shoulder. It turns out it’s not a sigil; it’s a map of where Sauron and the Orcs are building Mordor and the tower of Barad-dûr, a place where evil can thrive. Galadriel needs to get back to Middle-earth, but first, she needs to talk to Halbrand.
When she does, we learn that he’s the exiled king of the Southlands, outrunning his past because his ancestors pledged fealty to Morgoth. Halbrand has a sharp, adaptive tongue that can seemingly get him out of any situation. Galadriel is clearly charmed. She’d like him to unite the men of the south and fight with the Elves. However, there’s something about him that’s untrustworthy.
He makes a solid counterpoint to Isildur, the son of Elendil and the protagonist of his own story. Though Isildur has begun a naval career, he’s dreaming of leaving Númenor for Middle-earth. His father, however, forbids it. It might feel predictable, but as Galadriel says, doesn’t it feel like there’s something bigger at work here? Knowing Tolkien, nothing simply occurs. Every happening is guided by prophecy, divine intervention, or the discovery of a magic ring. Even if every moment of The Rings of Power is predestined the series’ creators understand that the point of the journey is not to arrive.
“Adar” spends a lot of time on exposition, but it also makes room to relish in the setting. Director Wayne Yip makes a whole meal out of introducing us to Númenor, one of the most mythic settings in Tolkien, and it does not disappoint with sweeping shots of the vast sets and effects of the nautical city, detours through the sides streets and back alleys, and, of course, gorgeously loving shots of Galadriel on horseback, beaming with delight. It’s nice to have a show where nature is treated with the same grace and care as CG effects. In Tolkien, even nature is supernatural.
Things are far less enjoyable for Arondir. Last seen being pulled through a tunnel by a bunch of creaky, spooky hands, Arondir awakens to find he’s been captured by orcs, thrown in a trench, and forced to rip the roots out from a tree. This tree earned its place in these lands, but the orcs, who must shield themselves from the sun because even the slightest bit of earthly love burns them, are ravaging the Southlands for Mordor.
Arondir is not alone. His other Elf friends, Watchwarden Revion (Simon Merrells) and Médor (Augustus Prew) were also captured. Unfortunately, they’re outmatched by the orcs, who speak of reverence about “Adar.” It might mean father in Elvish, but in the Orc trench, it clearly stirs the feeling of authority through fear.
The violence and cruelty towards the end of “Adar” is truly shocking and the deaths of some of the elves are treated with understandable horror. Elves didn’t even have a word for death until Morgoth’s appearance so the surprise deaths of Revion and Médor speak to how efficiently this show gets the viewer on the characters’ side. We hardly knew these elves, but their deaths were treated with reverence and sorrow. There’s a history between Arondir and his friends. This might be the first time Arondir’s ever seen an Elf killed in combat. His pain is felt.
Violence sadly is a relative experience. Though Galadriel and Arondir both live by the sword and have grown accustomed to seeing bloodshed but the Harfoots have not. Their lives are peaceful so even something as trivial as a broken ankle becomes life threatening. When we pick up with Nori’s story, her father Largo (Dylan Smith) isn’t healed, and the Migration is coming.
The nomad lifestyle has hardened these proto-Hobbits. During their harvest celebration, they do a mourner’s Kaddish for the Harfoots they “left behind.” There’s Miles Brightapple, who froze to death in the mountain pass, and Daffodile Burrows whose death is simply attributed to “wolves”. Largo and Marigold Brandyfoot (Sara Zwangobani) fear they, too, will be left behind because of Largo’s injury.
Nori’s parents know that if they fall behind, no one will come back and look for them. To be de-caravaned means to open themselves up to the dangers of the world, to certain death. Lucky for Largo, his daughter Nori is already working on something more important than migration by stealing star charts from Sadoc. Nori and Poppy have electric energy during this little heist scene but there’s also a lot of love here. Poppy’s feeling for Nori is very reminiscent of Sam’s affection for Frodo. We learn in this episode that Poppy lost someone in the migration. It seems clear that she will not let the same happen to Nori.
So while the caravan treads off toward a new campsite, the Brandyfoots are stuck in the mud, left behind. Poppy stays faithful to her word and waits for them, but it’s someone outside the bounds of their tribe that saves them. The Stranger speaks “Friend” and enters a new smaller caravan. The last show of The Stranger pushing the Brandyfoot wagon over a clearing is perhaps the most Tolkienian image thus far on the show.
Though the Stranger stands nearly three times as tall as the Harfoots, Daniel Weyman plays this character with such glassy-eyed confusion. He’s lost. He’s scared. But when he says “Nori” or “friend,” you can hear the truth. His spirit is meek and small and in desperate need of a friend. He landed in the right place.
Tucker
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Welcome to the 1,548th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Make Way for Ducklings by Nancy Schon
Make Way for Ducklings in the Boston Public Garden, Boston, Massachusetts.
self-taken photo by User:Gareth Owen
A duck statue
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Commentary
I love outdoor dining.
Being outside on a nice day is truly lovely.
Many Boston restaurants are doing well with their efforts.
However, my sad personal view is that restaurants are not doing much to make the outdoor space stylish and inviting.
A few, a very few, are trying hard, but the others’ efforts are pathetic.
Umbrellas, plants, table settings, light, heat, cleanliness are all important.
Creativity is very important.
I hope that soon we will see longer strides taken to make the outdoor space more lovely.
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Screen time
I watched 13 Assassins a second time in two days. Even better since I knew the story and could more fully enjoy the movie-making.
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Wellness
It appears my side is well-recovered from the bike incident.
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Understanding aging
As my tour day approaches, five more weeks, I begin to wonder if I am physically up to it.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
“When trouble arises and things look bad,
there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command.
Very often, that individual is crazy. ”
~ Dave Barry, Dave Barry Turns Fifty
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
Roast lamb, sweet potato, lamb gravy, fresh peas, butter/mint.
With a half bottle of Michele Chiarlo’s ‘La Court’.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Outdoor Dining
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Short Essay*
Nancy Schön (born 1928) is a sculptor of public art displayed internationally. She is best known for her work in the Boston, Massachusetts area, notably her bronze duck and ducklings in the Boston Public Garden, a recreation of the duck family in Robert McCloskey's children's classic Make Way for Ducklings. It is featured on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail. In 1991, Barbara Bush gave a duplicate of this sculpture to Raisa Gorbachev as part of the START Treaty, and the work is displayed in Moscow's Novodevichy Park.
In 1952, after graduation from Boston's Museum School, she married Donald Alan Schön (1930–1997), and her series, The Reflective Giraffe, with a giraffe as the central icon, is a tribute to her husband. Since 1966, she has lived in West Newton, Massachusetts.
In 2009, Nancy Schön was a participant at "Engaging Reflection," a Canadian seminar, which offered this profile of her:
Nancy prides herself in having work that is totally interactive. Her sculptures are available for people to touch, sit on, hug and interact with every day of the year, day or night. Nancy Schön’s major works include Make Way for Ducklings which is located in the Boston Public Garden in Boston, Massachusetts and the Tortoise and Hare which is a metaphor for the Boston Marathon and is at the finish line in Copley Square. Nancy married Donald Schön in 1952 and feels their work was very similar. Donald’s writing about “reflection in action” parallels the process of creating a sculpture as the professional reflects on their practice in the midst of practice in order to problem solve. As Nancy creates a work of art, her research is a quest for knowledge and of understanding issues and of learning. “We learn so much from our inquiry but as my husband said, ‘we know more than we can say’ and I would always say back to him that I think our unconscious is brilliant!” Nancy was recently awarded an honorary doctor of law degree from Mount Ida College in honor of her work in public sculpture.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, September 11, 2022
through
Saturday, September 17, 2022
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It’s Monday, September 12, 2022
Welcome to the 1,547th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Textual traditions
Textual traditions of bound manuscripts of the Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) are passed down providing additional vowel points, pronunciation marks and stress accents in the authentic Masoretic Text of the Jewish Bible, often the basis for translations of the Christian Old Testament
Shmuel ben Ya'akov - [2]
w:Leningrad Codex text sample. A very old manuscript of the hebrew bible. A former possession of karaït jews. They claim his author was karait, a position refused by rabbanite jews.
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Commentary
It’s not that easy keeping one’s meals diverse and interesting.
But we do live in a great country.
We start with a list of foods that we like and can prepare easily.
We rotate until one day we review the list and decided we’re bored.
But we have so many options.
Especially given the ease of take-out or delivery.
We can order oriental, sandwiches, French, and so many others.
I love food.
I love meal planning.
Today’s meals was Baked Clams. Tomorrow’s will be Roast Lamb. And next? I think Chinese.
Oh! What a lucky man he was.
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Writing
I’ve been spending tons of time reviewing the tour highlights, making sure I understand what we’ll be doing on tour, and making some changes.
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Screen time
On Tucker’s advice I watched 13 Assassins.
One of the best movies I have ever seen.
Thank you, Tucker.
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Wellness
So I got my new shot against covid.
Updated my physical vac card and now I’ll learn to download my records onto my cell.
Also, I have to find a testing place that will ensure I get the results quickly although they do accept home testing, so that’s okay. That’s my bailout
Meanwhile, the day after I received the 4th booster I was exhausted. I cancelled my lifting session and took two long naps instead of my usual two.
Social Life
I’ve added lunch with Gary, Mia, and her guide dog, Minta to my pre-Japan calendar.
And lunch with Tucker for later that week.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
“Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear.”
~ Dave Barry
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
I exchanged a series of emails re: my 50th anniversary of Friends of the North End.
Blog meister responds: Fun!
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
On Saturday I made Baked Stuffed Clams. They were delicious. I served a salad with them.
And I had four extra that I stuffed into my tiny freezer.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Just married and dancing on the Public Garden. Auspicious beginnings.
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Short Essay*
A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past.[1][2] A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes (like lawyers' wigs or military officers' spurs), but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings. Traditions can persist and evolve for thousands of years—the word tradition itself derives from the Latin tradere literally meaning to transmit, to hand over, to give for safekeeping. While it is commonly assumed that traditions have an ancient history, many traditions have been invented on purpose, whether that be political or cultural, over short periods of time. Various academic disciplines also use the word in a variety of ways.
The phrase "according to tradition", or "by tradition", usually means that whatever information follows is known only by oral tradition, but is not supported (and perhaps may be refuted) by physical documentation, by a physical artifact, or other quality evidence. Tradition is used to indicate the quality of a piece of information being discussed. For example, "According to tradition, Homer was born on Chios, but many other locales have historically claimed him as theirs." This tradition may never be proven or disproven. In another example, "King Arthur, by tradition a true British king, has inspired many well loved stories." Whether they are documented fact or not does not decrease their value as cultural history and literature.
Traditions are a subject of study in several academic fields, especially in social sciences such as folklore studies, anthropology, archaeology, and biology.
The concept of tradition, as the notion of holding on to a previous time, is also found in political and philosophical discourse. For example, it is the basis of the political concept of traditionalism, and also strands of many world religions including traditional Catholicism. In artistic contexts, tradition is used to decide the correct display of an art form. For example, in the performance of traditional genres (such as traditional dance), adherence to guidelines dictating how an art form should be composed are given greater importance than the performer's own preferences. A number of factors can exacerbate the loss of tradition, including industrialization, globalization, and the assimilation or marginalization of specific cultural groups. In response to this, tradition-preservation attempts have now been started in many countries around the world, focusing on aspects such as traditional languages. Tradition is usually contrasted with the goal of modernity and should be differentiated from customs, conventions, laws, norms, routines, rules and similar concepts.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Sunday, September 11, 2022
Welcome to the 1,546th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
King Charles III
President Joe Biden greets Britian’s Prince Charles, Tuesday, November 2, 2021, during the COP26 U.N. Climate Change Conference at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow, Scotland. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz) This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.
The White House - P20211102AS-2249-2
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Commentary
One of the days on my Japan trip is taking us up Mt. Figi.
We are warned it will be colder.
I’ve decided to take a light winter coat that I own.
I will wear it as part of my travel outfit to make room for it.
But I do want to be warm.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
“In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season;
the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church;
the Jews called it 'Hanukkah' and went to synagogue;
the atheists went to parties and drank.
People passing each other on the street would say 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Happy Hanukkah!' or (to the atheists) 'Look out for the wall!”
~ Dave Barry
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Social Life
My next planned social event is eight days away when I attend the 50th Anniversary of my friends from the North End.
But I’m sure that spontaneous meetups will pop up before that.
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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 my son Chris:
Hey folks,
I had one more fly fishing trip to wrap up the summer, this time to the Elk River in Fernie, BC.
Here’s a five minute compilation of two of my days there… very lucky to get to go!
Chris
Blog meister responds: It’s like a religious moment.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
For my nephew Stan’s visit I served some watermelon chunks, clam chowder, and salmon with a pineapple-chutney sauce.
All delicious.
And a great visit.
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Community Photos**
Hawk at John Heinz NWR
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Short Essay*
Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms.[a] He acceded to the throne on 8 September 2022 upon the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. As Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay from 1952 to his accession, he was the oldest and the longest-serving heir apparent in British history,[2] and the longest-serving Prince of Wales, having held the title from 26 July 1958 until his accession.[3] At 73, Charles is also the oldest person ever to assume the British throne.[4] The record was previously held by William IV at age 64.
Charles was born in Buckingham Palace, the first child of his mother and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; he was the first grandchild of King George VI and his consort, Queen Elizabeth. He was educated at Cheam and Gordonstoun schools, both of which his father attended as a child. He later spent a year at the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia. After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Cambridge, Charles served in the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy from 1971 to 1976. In 1981, he married Lady Diana Spencer, with whom he had two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. In 1996, the couple divorced after they had each engaged in well-publicised extramarital affairs. Diana died as the result of a car crash in Paris the following year. In 2005, Charles married his long-time partner, Camilla Parker Bowles.
As Prince of Wales, Charles undertook official duties on behalf of Elizabeth II. He founded the youth charity The Prince's Trust in 1976, sponsors The Prince's Charities, and is a patron, president, or a member of over 400 other charities and organisations. He has advocated for the conservation of historic buildings and the importance of architecture in society. A critic of modernist architecture, Charles has worked on the creation of Poundbury, an experimental new town based on his architectural tastes. He is also an author or co-author of a number of books.
A self-described environmentalist, Charles has supported organic farming and action to prevent climate change as the manager of the Duchy of Cornwall estates, which has earned him awards and recognition from environmental groups. He is also a prominent critic of the adoption of genetically modified food. Charles III's support for alternative medicine, including homeopathy, has been the subject of criticism. The conduct of his charities has also attracted criticism, with The Prince's Foundation subject to an ongoing Metropolitan Police investigation into cash-for-honours allegations.
*The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Community Pictures with Captions are sent in by our followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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