Wednesday, July 30. 2008
Love this photo from our Kentucky friend at Slower Pace: 
Tuesday, July 29. 2008
Some of our traditionalist readers might not be fans of Brazilian artist Vic Muniz, but I am. He is an artist/photographer but calls himself an illusionist. This is modern art. I love this guy. His Chocolate Series was drawn with pixie sticks on Plexiglas and then photographed. This is his "Mona Lisa, after Warhol," painted with peanut butter and jelly. You can see why he sells his photos of his work and not the orginals. Somebody might get hungry: 
This is Gordian Puzzle: Orphan Girl at the cemetery, after Delacroix: 
This is The Reader, after Fragonard (from Pictures of Chocolate), 2002. Painted with chocolate sauce: 
Here's his Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct of the Arc River Valley (after Cezanne) 
Monday, July 28. 2008
 This is a tale of minor woe, a "for the loss of a nail, the shoe was lost; for the loss of the shoe, the horse was lost..." story.
When a homeowner sees that ominous drip, drip, drip in the ceiling, coming out of some light fixture, his or her heart sinks. We all know that water and houses don't mix. It turned out that the vibrations from the Jacuzzi tub had screwed up the drain. On further inspection, the dripping had rotted the subfloor. And, on further inspection, the underfloor in front of the shower was wet and crumbling too, partly because Mr. Shower Door installed the door opening out, not in. And the shower stall wasn't adequately vented. And, and, and... This means plumbers, demolition guys, tile guys, new fixtures, dumpsters and carpenters. A new subfloor and a new floor for the bathroom, hopefully something less slippery than the shiny Italian tile we had. I think a marble floor is the idea. And, since that is being done, let's take the vanity out and repaint it, and put a new marble top on it. And since we have a great carpenter/contractor here anyway, why not have him move the non-supporting walls around in the master bedroom to expand the closets and expand the room the way we have always talked about? Yeah, why not? Not a big deal, right? You can move all your hunting gear to the basement. And, since they're already doing that, let's finally put the fireplace in the bedroom. It can link right up to an existing chimney, after all. Cozy. And since they're doing that, let's get rid of all the old carpet and replace it with good oak flooring upstairs. Let's do it everywhere upstairs. After all, it's not much more expensive than high-quality wool carpet. And since the electricians will be around, let's replace all of that terrible hallway lighting, and then re-paint everything. I guess one of the consolations of home-ownership is to know, as you watch your life savings evaporate, that you are helping to keep the economy going in your neck of the woods. Were I single and childless, I could live in a shack in the woods, as long as I had a broadband connection. And a girlfriend or three for company.
 There was a time when a gent would no more leave his house without a tie than a lady would leave the house without a hat. I showed up at a tennis team outdoor dinner-dance event at my club on Saturday night with jacket and tie. Not wishing to make everybody else there feel grievously under-dressed, I quickly removed my tie and stuck it in my pocket.
I am an old-fashioned believer in the idea that professionals should dress up a little bit. Even if it isn't entirely comfortable. And I still believe in wearing a tie to church - not that God cares, but simply as a sign of respect for the occasion. From Neato, American Tie Guys Untie Their Own Association. Brooks Brothers ties have been my mainstay since I was 10 years old, but I have been known to wear other brands when given to me as gifts. Brooks summer ties are on sale now, but I think I have enough to last me. Easy to find a new one to like, though.
Sunday, July 27. 2008
All-American Colleges: Top Schools for Conservatives, Old-Fashioned Liberals, and People of Faith. h/t, Dr Helen Also via Dr. Helen, Choosing the Right College Stuff White People Like. The book.
Still life, 1883. You can read about this piece here. 
Saturday, July 26. 2008
Our blogmeister Chris is a sailboat man himself, but he knows nice powerboats when he sees them. In response to our Hinckley powerboat post a couple of weeks ago, Chris offered the opinion that they were too "common." He attached this photo from his yacht club as proof: 
I happen to think that the Hinckley jet drive is cool as hell, but Chris prefers the Shelter Island Runabouts made by CH Marine. They built Billy Joel's commuter boat. Here's one of their Runabouts: 
I always found the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts" to be devoid of content despite the loveliness of the tune. For simple lyrics which have depth, here are three. First, 
Wow. How can so much be said about life in so few words? Also: Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky!
The rest of that song is here. And one more, the verse that some claim captures everything about Christian faith: - Jesus loves me! This I know,
- For the Bible tells me so.
- Little ones to Him belong;
- They are weak, but He is strong.
The rest of that song is here.
Friday, July 25. 2008
 The Green Fad is done. Nobody is listening anymore and it doesn't sell: Moonbattery, whence the image.
That's what happens when you hysterically oversell something. This video we posted from 50 years ago tells the whole story. And the earth is cooling. That is really scary.
Wednesday, July 23. 2008
 Before my brain's hard drive deteriorates, a few more random thoughts about our northern Italy trip a few weeks ago, a trip which has been more-than-amply photo-documented here.
1. An ottica in Verbania fixed my glasses, for free. The nose-thingy fell off, and she put two new ones on. She was young, blonde, and lovely, and wore high black leather boots and a short-short skirt under her lab coat. My thanks to her. 2. Each morning from my balcony in Baveno I watched two families of Grebes, with their young'uns, paddling around the edge of Lago Maggiore. About the size of our Western Grebe. The chicks were just beginning to learn to dive. Sometimes, one would try to climb on Mom's back the way young grebes too, but they were really too big to fit. The Dad hunted for minnows to feed the chicks, and the Moms herded them so they wouldn't wander too far. 3. Wherever you go in Italy - city, town, country village, or farmland - you are being watched. There will be an old lady peeking from behind a curtain watching you go by. Just stop for a moment to admire somebody's tomatoes, and you will see the curtain move and an old face peer out. It never fails. Italians have a paranoid streak to them. Some old lady is always watching you. She thinks I might steal her zucchini. 4. The church choir rehearsal in Baveno. Pure magic. 5. Gelato? An overrated item, in my opinion, although the hazelnut is very nice indeed. Any dessert is always welcome. I have visited Italy several times, and keep hoping that I will discover the specialness of gelato, but Haagen Dazs is better. The local wines are more fun to sample.
Tuesday, July 22. 2008
 It's a quick water taxi ride from Orta San Giulio to Isola di San Giulio. The basilica on the tiny island was first built in 926 but has had many revisions and renovations since then. It's part of an active Benedictine monastery.
Here's a brief history of the island. Most interesting to me were the frescoes, which ranged in age from early medieval to Renaissance. This one, on a pillar, looked Byzantine in influence. I was sure I took more fresco photos, but I don't find them on my camera. Maybe I spaced out. Here's a site with more photos of the frescoes. A few more of my photos from the island on continuation page.
Continue reading "Isola di San Giulio"
Sunday, July 20. 2008
A re-post from 2005: Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassin Nicholas Taleb My favorite quote from the book: "If you're so rich, how come you ain't smart?" From an Amazon review - it's better than I could do: If the prescriptions for getting rich that are outlined in books such as The Millionaire Next Door and Rich Dad Poor Dad are successful enough to make the books bestsellers, then one must ask, Why aren't there more millionaires? In Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a professional trader and mathematics professor, examines what randomness means in business and in life and why human beings are so prone to mistake dumb luck for consummate skill. This eccentric and highly personal exploration of the nature of randomness meanders from the court of Croesus and trading rooms in New York and London to Russian roulette, Monte Carlo engines, and the philosophy of Karl Popper. Part of what makes this book so good is Taleb's ability to make seemingly arcane mathematical concepts (at least to this reviewer) entirely relevant in evaluating and understanding everything from the stock market to the success of those millionaires cited in the aforementioned bestsellers. Here's an articulate, wise, and humorous meditation on the nature of success and failure that anyone who wants a little more of the former would do well to consider. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards
Saturday, July 19. 2008
 Good things interfere with good things, and bad things interfere with good things.
Tonight, we were able to manage to attend a nice cocktail party, and then to get out to dinner with dear friends we haven't spent time with in a while. There are only so many weekends in a year, and only so many years in a lifetime. Keeping up with friends, and doing the things you want to do, fills the calendar. This summer, for example, I realize that I cannot golf, work in the gardens, work on my tennis game and play a match or two, go fishing or sailing on the coast with friends, help the Mrs. pick out new ceiling lighting for the hallways, go riding with the Mrs. on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, get to church, and sit by the pool and read with a cigar and a scotch which often ends up as a little siesta. Not to mention evening social engagements and the occasional invitations for sporting clays and skeet. Don't even mention wanting time to spend messing with these internets. There are fewer conflicts in the fall and winter up here. For one thing, no yard and garden chores other than wood-splitting and cleaning up fallen limbs and trees in the pastures. Still, I like to go for ducks or goose or grouse or pheasants, but I have a Saturday morning men's tennis group, and you cannot hunt in CT on Sunday. Plus we like to ski in New Hampshire and sometimes Vermont, and I usually have some weekend jobs for work that are needed on Monday. Nothing I do is particularly expensive (other than keeping the horses, maintaining the pool, and keeping a stock of Cuban Dominican smokes). It's all about time - and making choices. I think I am going to give up the golf this year. If I ever retire - which I do not intend to ever do willingly - maybe I can take it up again. And I am going to hire people to do the mowing even though I enjoy it. I make this promise to myself. We are always told that accepting limits is the biggest part of maturity but, when it comes to my plan-to-do list, that aspect of maturity still is tough for me. Friends tell me that I have too many interests.
 Nice weather equipment - WeatherPeddler
Slainte! - Check out Malts.com. Wonderful. You can read Smithsonian Magazine online Cabela's sells floor mats for most cars and trucks. Travel -See America.org Cost-effective travel - Club ABC Vacation Home Rentals by Owner - VRBO. For example, this nice weekly rental on Nantucket: 
or this one in Bellaggio on Lake Como: 
And, of course, there are always good pin-ups at Theo
Friday, July 18. 2008
Nice little piece in The Economist, for those who visit the area.
 Readers know that I have a special attachment to Wellfleet on Cape Cod. I was a little kid in Hyannis when it was a sleepy village without malls, car dealerships, and retirement complexes, but my family soon fled up to Wellfleet for the summers.
By no means do we wish to encourage anyone to buy there, but most of the town is Cape Cod National Seashore so construction opportunities are limited. And the water, especially on the ocean side, is too darn cold for almost anybody except native New Englanders and kids. Besides, as the old joke goes: "Cape Cod Real Estate - going fast." That's because Cape Cod erodes at the average rate of about 3'/year on the ocean side. Thoreau was impressed by that fact. Over the years, we have seen many nice oceanfront cottages disappear over the winter. Wellfleet is not a fancy town (it's a glitz-free zone) and its waters produce the best oysters in the world. Wiki tells us: "Wellfleet was encountered by Europeans as early as 1606, when the French explorer Samuel de Champlain explored and named it "Port Aux Huitres" (Oyster Port) for the bountiful oyster population resident to the area." I thought our readers might be amused by this piece of Wellfleet real estate, for sale now. 
They are asking $1.8 million for that waterfront villa. It's probably the location on the harbor shore, not the structure - if you can call it that a structure. For something with a little more charm, but no waterfront, this is my idea of a real Cape Cod house: 
They are asking $3.625 million for this place. If you do the math, though (lot size 435600 at rule-of-thumb 44,000 sq ft/acre, that's a ten acre place. A solid foothold on the Cape. Worth every darn penny).
Monday, July 14. 2008
 A provocative essay at Boston Review: Reentry: Reversing Mass Imprisonment.
I do not agree with many of the author's points, but all of the issues and debates are touched upon, and the author does make the correct point that not all criminals are incorrigible sociopaths. I also agree that we over-use jail time, which ought to be mainly for violent and comparably major offenses. Certainly not for drug addicts or financial offenders. Large fines. After all, many of our hard-earned tax dollars go to support those folks in jail. A year of jail time costs us more than a year of Ivy League "education" would. Everyone has broken a rule. As a rule of thumb, you have to break quite a few to get caught. My advice: teach and learn the rules, and do not break them. I think it's time to ask, again, what sorts of consequences we, as a society, want to impose for violations of the rules we make. And no weight-lifting equipment in our jails, please. One quote: As the social crisis of urban America supplied the masses for mass incarceration, the penal system itself became more punitive. The tough-on-crime message honed by the Republican Party in national politics since the Goldwater campaign of 1964 spoke to the racial anxieties of white voters discomfited by civil rights protests and summertime waves of civil unrest felt in cities through the decade. Conservatives charged that liberals coddled criminals and excused crime with phony root causes like poverty and unemployment. President Nixon launched a war on crime, only to be surpassed by President Reagan’s War on Drugs, which applied the resources of federal law enforcement to the problem of drug control. Policy experts abandoned rehabilitation, concluding that prisons could only deter and warehouse those who would otherwise commit crime in society. These politics produced a revolution in criminal sentencing. Mandatory minimum prison sentences, sentencing guidelines, parole abolition, and life sentences for third-time felons were widely adopted through the 1980s. The no-nonsense, tough-on-crime politics reached a bipartisan apotheosis with President Clinton’s 1994 crime bill, which launched the largest prison construction project in the nation’s history. As a result of these changes, prison time—as opposed to community supervision—became the main criminal sanction for felony offenders.
Read the whole thing. Link above. (By the way, I am a supporter of Prison Fellowship. I believe that Christ can save anybody's soul.)
Sunday, July 13. 2008
This is a summer weekend re-post from our dusty archives:  "Progress," like environmentalism, is a secular religion.
I have always been suspicious of the concept of progress. For Chambers of Commerces, it has always seemed to mean more asphalt. For Leftists it has meant movement towards international socialism. In the world of morals, it has seemed to mean less morality and self-discipline. In art and design, it often seems vain and meaningless. In the world of religion, it has seemed to mean watering it down. In the Sciences though - medicine, technology, etc - advances have of course added much to quality and ease of life - but nothing to the meaning and purpose of our lives unless we are scientists. Wilfred McClay in Touchstone points out how the word has shaped our experience. Our words shape the way we think about things, sometimes in insidious ways and without our awareness, even as we use them: sometimes our words lead our thoughts instead of vice-versa. History has become for our secular age what “fate” was for the Greco-Roman ancients, and what “providence” was (and remains) for many Christians. This is the sense of History that Hegel and Marx promoted, and the sense that Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy recently appealed to in justifying an opinion by “evolving standards of decency.” It is the sense that moral innovators are appealing to in promoting homosexual and polyamorous “marriage,” artificial wombs, bioengineered enhancements, and all the other delights of “posthumanity.” The postmodernists who claim that we are beyond the sway of such metanarratives as History are speaking utter rubbish. (As usual.) “Progress” is the one article of faith that remains strong among us, the one torch in modernism’s darkening hall that still burns bright. To oppose it, even in the slightest, is to render oneself an “enemy of the future.” Which is why the possibility that such innovations might ultimately fail is, literally, inconceivable to so many true believers, as inconceivable to them as a sudden revocation of the laws of physics. You see, there are certain prevailing winds in this thing called History, and the Path of True Virtue can only be found in discerning those winds, and aligning one’s skiff with them. Or so the partisans of conventional wisdom would have it. And their confidence is oddly mirrored in the dejection of the orthodox, who feel themselves on the losing side of History. Yet both are wrong.
You can read the whole brief piece. It's a Christian view of time and of history. Update: AVI did a piece about cultural views of time last week.
Friday, July 11. 2008
Johnny Otis, Willie and the Hand Jive (with Lionel Hampton) Hand Art, from here: 
More hand art photos on continuation page below -
Continue reading "Hand Jive and Hand Art"
Westport, Massachusetts is a lovely summertime seaside town on Buzzard's Bay. Lots of Boston people summer there. It has a Cape Coddy feel to it. Plenty of marshes and beaches, and a nice harbor (pictured above). This cute little Victorian farmouse on two acres is for sale. It has a boathouse and a cottage. Asking only $995,000. It looks cozy and perfect, to me. Home. (No, we are not in the real estate biz and no, we don't get a finder's fee!): 
Thursday, July 10. 2008
That's the name of a blog. Interesting stuff. (h/t, No Pasaran). Here's their thoughtful essay on The Green Mark-up: Who pays for environmentally-friendly design? That blog does not post frequently enough. There is no doubt that, these days, "Green" is really all about the green. Speaking of architecture, Sipp has a couple of posts on buildings in Providence, RI - and Maggie's Real Estate has a nice place in Westport, MA in the pipeline.
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