We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
"There could hardly be a more unbearable - and more irrational - world than one in which the most eminent specialists in each field were allowed to proceed unchecked with the realization of their ideals."
What’s baffling is the fact that even though I’m supposed to be a rude insensitive xenophobic intolerant racist dick, it would never occur to me to move to Africa, India, Mexico, or Asia and act with anything beyond respect, gratitude, and even caution. I certainly wouldn’t start running my neck about how the culture of my new host nation sucks and how it needs to be tossed into the dustbin of history and how the majority needs to quickly become a minority or justice will never be served. I simply can’t find it within myself to be that much of an asshole. And I certainly wouldn’t expect my new hosts to tolerate five seconds of such behavior.
There’s something Eric Hoffer said: “Intellectuals cannot operate at room temperature.” There always has to be a crisis — some terrible reason why their superior wisdom and virtue must be imposed on the unthinking masses. It doesn’t matter what the crisis is. A hundred years ago it was eugenics. At the time of the first Earth Day a generation ago, the big scare was global cooling, a big ice age. They go from one to the other. It meets their psychological needs and gives them a reason for exercising their power.
Peaches ripen late up here in New England. Yes, there are peach varieties which thrive in the North.
As of now, I have had five friends over to pick grocery-bags full and have delivered bags to others. I'll ask a daughter to take a bag home to NYC today. And I have made substantial batches of peach jam, peach chutney, and canned spiced peaches. I am close to peached out with God and nature's abbondanza.
Still, this is a pic of the tree yesterday after all that. Plus the windfall from yesterday's thunderstorm. The local deer do not seem to like peaches. Neither do the turkeys. Squirrels like them, but it's more of a crop than they can make a dent in.
I use no sprays, no fertilizer - out of laziness as much as anything else. These peaches are as sweet as honey. I guess I'll make more jam, but let's consider peach pie, peach crumble, and peach buckle (that's old-fashioned).
Problem is that Mrs. BD and I are currently on low-carb, high protein heavy-work-out diet plans in an effort to delay the discouraging and ennervating effects of age and entropy.
Anyway, there are two types of peach pie: a custardy one and the classic plain one. I like both but maybe prefer the more custardy one. There are many variations on both themes.
Now Peach Crumble. Dynamite with some vanilla ice cream or heavy cream. I salivate as I write this.
- Took a drive yesterday to Long Island City (part of Queens, NYC).
Long Island City (L.I.C.) is the westernmost residential and commercial neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens. L.I.C. is noted for its rapid and ongoing residential growth and gentrification, its waterfront parks, and its thriving arts community.[1] L.I.C. has among the highest concentration of art galleries, art institutions, and studio space of any neighborhood in New York City.
Went there to see a one-act play festival at The Secret Theater. Golly, LIC is changing. High-rises everywhere under construction. We had supper at a superb tiny French bistro, LIC Market. Everybody who works there is French. You can park on the street in LIC, no problem. As a daughter says, a gritty mix of industrial, residential, and business: Real NYC.
We meandered through Astoria while en route. Got a little lost. I have never been to Astoria. It is one of the most pleasant, middle-class, and remarkably multi-cultural places I have seen. Of all things, a large Maltese population too- over 20,000. Who'da thunk it? But if you think about it, there is little to do in Malta.
It's not too far from where the big game - Jokevitch vs. Federer - is today. I can't miss that.
- Out-of-towners like us are always more familiar with Manhattan, with its totalitarian arithmetical road grid. Here is something wonderful, probably worth a trip from anywhere: Picasso, Completely Himself in 3 Dimensions. It's on my to-do list. We never miss major Picasso shows, because his craft and imagination blows my mind.
- Something else fun: Immersive (aka Interactive) theater in NYC. I have heard reports about how much fun it is. A friend had his daughter's Sweet 16th party for 25 gals at one of the scavenger hunt "plays," and a couple of people told me about the MacBeth one.
- At my point in life, a visit to NYC is always good for a dose of hyper-stimulation and amazement in the works of man but I am always happy to return to my quiet more pastoral home where the loudest noise is a cricket. If I won the Powerball, though, I think I'd buy a brownstone (with working fireplaces) in the West Village in a flash. I need both. Prosperous people in NYC belong to elite clubs as private retreats, and have dachas in the country too. I could handle that.
My lovely daughters live as if they owned NYC despite living on a shoestring. Fearless, undaunted, resourceful and adventurous, they just take daily bites of that apple as so many young people need to, and shoot for the stars. No bourgeois instincts, it seems - like their Mom. All the same, they do love to come home sometimes for love, free food, and to hit some tennis balls like the prepster kids they are.
19:1 The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
19:2 Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.
19:3 There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard;
19:4 yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
19:5 which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
19:6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hid from its heat.
19:7 The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the LORD are sure, making wise the simple;
19:8 the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is clear, enlightening the eyes;
19:9 the fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
19:10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb.
19:11 Moreover by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
19:12 But who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults.
19:13 Keep back your servant also from the insolent; do not let them have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.
19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
It looks long to those with ADD, but well worth reading, full of gems
Hymn to Proserpine (After the Proclamation in Rome of the Christian Faith) - 1866
Vicisti, Galilaee.
I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end; Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend. Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep; For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep. Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of the dove; But a goodlier gift is thine than foam of the grapes or love. Yea, is not even Apollo, with hair and harpstring of gold, A bitter God to follow, a beautiful God to behold? I am sick of singing; the bays burn deep and chafe: I am fain To rest a little from praise and grievous pleasure and pain. For the Gods we know not of, who give us our daily breath, We know they are cruel as love or life, and lovely as death. O Gods dethroned and deceased, cast forth, wiped out in a day! From your wrath is the world released, redeemed from your chains, men say. New Gods are crowned in the city; their flowers have broken your rods; They are merciful, clothed with pity, the young compassionate Gods. But for me their new device is barren, the days are bare; Things long past over suffice, and men forgotten that were. Time and the Gods are at strife; ye dwell in the midst thereof, Draining a little life from the barren breasts of love. I say to you, cease, take rest; yea, I say to you all, be at peace, Till the bitter milk of her breast and the barren bosom shall cease. Wilt thou yet take all, Galilean? but these thou shalt not take, The laurel, the palms and the pæan, the breasts of the nymphs in the brake; Breasts more soft than a dove's, that tremble with tenderer breath; And all the wings of the Loves, and all the joy before death; All the feet of the hours that sound as a single lyre, Dropped and deep in the flowers, with strings that flicker like fire. More than these wilt thou give, things fairer than all these things? Nay, for a little we live, and life hath mutable wings. A little while and we die; shall life not thrive as it may? For no man under the sky lives twice, outliving his day. And grief is a grievous thing, and a man hath enough of his tears: Why should he labour, and bring fresh grief to blacken his years? Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death. Laurel is green for a season, and love is sweet for a day; But love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May. Sleep, shall we sleep after all? for the world is not sweet in the end; For the old faiths loosen and fall, the new years ruin and rend. Fate is a sea without shore, and the soul is a rock that abides; But her ears are vexed with the roar and her face with the foam of the tides. O lips that the live blood faints in, the leavings of racks and rods! O ghastly glories of saints, dead limbs of gibbeted Gods! Though all men abase them before you in spirit, and all knees bend, I kneel not neither adore you, but standing, look to the end. All delicate days and pleasant, all spirits and sorrows are cast Far out with the foam of the present that sweeps to the surf of the past: Where beyond the extreme sea-wall, and between the remote sea-gates, Waste water washes, and tall ships founder, and deep death waits: Where, mighty with deepening sides, clad about with the seas as with wings, And impelled of invisible tides, and fulfilled of unspeakable things, White-eyed and poisonous-finned, shark-toothed and serpentine-curled, Rolls, under the whitening wind of the future, the wave of the world. The depths stand naked in sunder behind it, the storms flee away; In the hollow before it the thunder is taken and snared as a prey; In its sides is the north-wind bound; and its salt is of all men's tears; With light of ruin, and sound of changes, and pulse of years: With travail of day after day, and with trouble of hour upon hour; And bitter as blood is the spray; and the crests are as fangs that devour: And its vapour and storm of its steam as the sighing of spirits to be; And its noise as the noise in a dream; and its depth as the roots of the sea: And the height of its heads as the height of the utmost stars of the air: And the ends of the earth at the might thereof tremble, and time is made bare. Will ye bridle the deep sea with reins, will ye chasten the high sea with rods? Will ye take her to chain her with chains, who is older than all ye Gods? All ye as a wind shall go by, as a fire shall ye pass and be past; Ye are Gods, and behold, ye shall die, and the waves be upon you at last. In the darkness of time, in the deeps of the years, in the changes of things, Ye shall sleep as a slain man sleeps, and the world shall forget you for kings. Though the feet of thine high priests tread where thy lords and our forefathers trod, Though these that were Gods are dead, and thou being dead art a God, Though before thee the throned Cytherean be fallen, and hidden her head, Yet thy kingdom shall pass, Galilean, thy dead shall go down to thee dead. Of the maiden thy mother men sing as a goddess with grace clad around; Thou art throned where another was king; where another was queen she is crowned. Yea, once we had sight of another: but now she is queen, say these. Not as thine, not as thine was our mother, a blossom of flowering seas, Clothed round with the world's desire as with raiment, and fair as the foam, And fleeter than kindled fire, and a goddess, and mother of Rome. For thine came pale and a maiden, and sister to sorrow; but ours, Her deep hair heavily laden with odour and colour of flowers, White rose of the rose-white water, a silver splendour, a flame, Bent down unto us that besought her, and earth grew sweet with her name. For thine came weeping, a slave among slaves, and rejected; but she Came flushed from the full-flushed wave, and imperial, her foot on the sea. And the wonderful waters knew her, the winds and the viewless ways, And the roses grew rosier, and bluer the sea-blue stream of the bays. Ye are fallen, our lords, by what token? we wise that ye should not fall. Ye were all so fair that are broken; and one more fair than ye all. But I turn to her still, having seen she shall surely abide in the end; Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend. O daughter of earth, of my mother, her crown and blossom of birth, I am also, I also, thy brother; I go as I came unto earth. In the night where thine eyes are as moons are in heaven, the night where thou art, Where the silence is more than all tunes, where sleep overflows from the heart, Where the poppies are sweet as the rose in our world, and the red rose is white, And the wind falls faint as it blows with the fume of the flowers of the night, And the murmur of spirits that sleep in the shadow of Gods from afar Grows dim in thine ears and deep as the deep dim soul of a star, In the sweet low light of thy face, under heavens untrod by the sun, Let my soul with their souls find place, and forget what is done and undone. Thou art more than the Gods who number the days of our temporal breath; Let these give labour and slumber; but thou, Proserpina, death. Therefore now at thy feet I abide for a season in silence. I know I shall die as my fathers died, and sleep as they sleep; even so. For the glass of the years is brittle wherein we gaze for a span; A little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man. So long I endure, no longer; and laugh not again, neither weep. For there is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep.
Our perception of time and space is arbitrary and inherently meaningless. It’s like the xy-grid we used in school. It’s useful for talking about the information dotted on it, but on its own is meaningless – it's just there. The information dotted on the grid would always be, regardless of the xy-grid.
... the centuries-long belief that all peoples everywhere are embryonic Westerners should have been shattered by the slaughter in Manhattan and at the Pentagon. The attacks were a horrifically graphic reminder that our core ideals––human rights, sex equality, tolerance of difference, peaceful coexistence, personal and political freedom, material prosperity, the separation of church and state, free speech, and consensual government founded on law––were historical anomalies rather than the destiny of all humanity.
Now on 83 acres with some imperfectly-maintained gardens, the place has little use. It would make a fine campus. We had dinner with friends last night who love to explore the more obscure corners of NYC. They found the place to be fascinating, but Staten Island itself not so much.
Despite countless cuts, slashes, and penetrations of my feet over the years from broken shells, stones, sharp twigs, coral, etc., I have always resisted water shoes. After my last visit to the beach in 2014, Mrs. BD sent me to the store to get some.
They are excellent. You can swim in them, and they protect you from burning-hot sand too. Now I will not go to a beach without them.
Another good use of them is exploring shallow waters for critters and things at low tide. No more slipping on rocks or getting a toe sliced by a sharp oyster shell. They might look a little pussified, but they can keep you functional. I also use them for kayaking.
In the car, Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition. The lecture on Pascal is mind-blowing, a math and physics genius who invented the first binary "computer," who gave his life to Christ. Also, the lecture on Francis Bacon, where the prof reviews Bacon's False Idols of Knowledge and Science (from The New Organum (1620):
- The Idol of the Tribe: the arrogance that comes from agreement with one's colleagues - The Idol of the Cave: bias coming from one's psychology and background, and the vanity of attachment to an idea - The Idol of the Marketplace of Words: Wherein words take the place of real knowledge. - The Idol of Theater: Our received philosophical and scientific views as given by tradition and authority
It's better than college. Buy them on sale, and don't pay the library prices. Or trade with friends and neighbors, as we do.
You will thank me for this free ad for them. We are reviewing the big topics we have forgotten, or didn't have time to take in school. Things we need a guide for. Lifelong learning, like lifelong fitness, is a cliche but for good reason.
For me, it makes anything tasty - including burgers. Great with cheese and cream cheese. All cheese requires some fruity accompaniment. Really fine as a meat glaze. Heck, I dip my breakfast hard-boiled egg in some, and put some on scrambled eggs. I put some on rice too. It's not for little children.
Are not just for breads and toast. I think, best of all with cheese and meat. Or cream cheese or yoghurt. Not to forget on crepes and Swedish Pancakes.And venison requires a jam or jelly on the side just as pork requires applesauce. Lean meats need a kicker.
Apple Butter
For me, best on ham, chicken, or turkey sammiches. Also good with the things listed here.
Lemon Curd
Supposedly used for scones, but I like it on fresh fruit or I won't eat the fruit - except raspberries
If I were to approach a person on the street and list off traits like "doesn’t drive," "needs food prepared," "needs help with the remote control," "needs people to bring her beverages," "has trouble remembering things,” and "doesn't pay her own bills" about someone anonymously, he wouldn’t think I was referring to a current presidential front-runner in the year 2015. He would think I was referring to his poor nana, whom he had to place in a home because she wouldn’t stop yelling at the lamp and was at risk of accidentally microwaving her dentures.
Nine Signs of the Impending American Collapse - The unmistakable signs of a disaster from which we would all suffer, the fall of the once-greatest nation on earth, have left me “shaken.”
Litchfield County is the quaintest, best-preserved antique corner of Connecticut. The area was well-settled in the early 1700s and, judging by the size and style of all of the old farmhouses, these were prosperous farmers.
In this area, most of the old farms have been converted to weekend estates for the 1%. The antique places are perfectly-maintained. Old barns everywhere, still looking good. Thanks for all that charm and beauty, 1%ers.
We went over there and took a drive through Southbury, Woodbury, Washington, and Washington Depot. Nice. We were en route to see the Hollister House Gardens in Washington (good pics on their site). Mrs. BD wanted to check it out and to maybe get some garden inspiration.
The garden "rooms" are strongly architectural with walls and hedges, lots of stone, while the plantings are a jumble - or maybe not - probably a well-planned jumble. Engish-style gardens, the sorts of gardens my Mom aspired to. It's the owner's life work.
We had an early supper at the GW Tavern. Good fish. Too much food. I'd put the place in the "Stuff-and-Waddle" category of restaurant, what my sister calls "Sticky Bun restaurants."
My pics of the garden below the fold might or might not inspire your gardening -
Mystic Nights:
Photo of George Orwell's house via 
Peaches ripen late up here in New England. Yes, there are peach varieties which thrive in the North.
Like many really dumb ideas, this one started in San Francisco. In 2007, San Francisco
- Took a drive yesterday to 
Image via 
Man, I love them. Will make some this week. Just need to pick up 
Photo: My entry wall yesterday morning. I asked him to come back on Thanksgiving.
Despite countless cuts, slashes, and penetrations of my feet over the years from broken shells, stones, sharp twigs, coral, etc., I have always resisted water shoes. After my last visit to the beach in 2014, Mrs. BD sent me to the store to get some.
Are We Shifting to 
Photo is a recent one of your Editor laboring on the farm, even on Labor Day. There is no rest for the weary.