Maggie's Farm

Before the Renaissance, artists (like composers and songwriters) were artisans and did not sign their work, similar to illustrators and jingle-composers today. The "Master of St. Cecilia" decorated churches in Assisi and in Florence from around 1300-1320.

This fresco is from his Legends of St. Francis, #27 (A heretic confessing) in the Upper Church, San Francesco, Assisi (1300)

Sempre libera, from Traviata:

However, some of us will remain on the farm to milk the chickens, feed the cows, let in the mouse and to kick the dog - and we have also pre-posted and re-posted some good stuff to keep things interesting here.

So stay tuned!

We will be based in Stresa. Will bring camera and my usual pitiful photo skills. The best part is that, unlike Florence, Rome, or Milan (we are bypassing Milan), there is not much to buy up there. No shopping to speak of. And internets? I won't even bother to try. Or maybe I will try to post some photos if I can.

Photo: The Grand Hotel Majestic, in Stresa on Lago Maggiore.

A guy once told me that he left his only copy of a (typewritten) book manuscript in a NYC taxicab. Never saw it again. He was in a hurry, on his way to copying it before delivering it to a publisher. It was a novel. He tried to rewrite it, but finally said the hell with it. Now he just writes essays.

Brit secret security documents left on train.

DO NOT accidentally carry your very favorite Spyder penknife in your pocket when on your way to a flight. It ends up in the garbage can. Happened to me last time.

The garbagemen must have fun finding goodies in those airport cans. That was a $55 pocket knife.

I remember also getting hassled at Canadian Customs a couple of years ago as they rummaged through my luggage. "Any knives?" they asked. "Well, my Swiss Army Knife is in there." This was a hunting trip. Big lecture about bringing knives into Canada, and they took it away from me. Good grief. But it was a rusty old one, and the essential beer bottle-top opener was rusted into the case.

It's a good thing they didn't find the sharpened grapefruit spoon I always travel with, in case I encounter a good grapefruit.

This is Heade's Newbury Marshes (c. 1871) from the John Wilmerding Collection.  Newburyport, MA lies on the coast 40 miles north of Boston, at the mouth of the Merrimack River.

In those days, salt marshes were used for cattle grazing, and salt hay was harvested for winter fodder. Over the past 100 years, the once-vast Atlantic coast salt marshes have been devastated by fill, development, and by channelization in the early 1900s in an effort to reduce mosquitoes (Malaria was a big problem in New England at the turn of the century.) In one of the coastal New England towns I grew up in, the salt marsh acreage dropped from 1000 acres to 30 acres, mostly since 1940.

I think the subject of Salt Marshes will need to be a future post.

Our post on Race in the Race a few weeks ago reminded me of the several posts we have done over recent years about tribalism and trust, making the rather obvious point that people tend towards "affinity groups" because they are more likely to know where the others are coming from. When there are enough socio-cultural affinities between people, we call it a "tribe." (I have often heard Jews refer to fellow Jews as "the tribe.")

Tribes share, among other things, social signals and cues - the most important being "trust cues." (I was amused and pleased to see that our 2006 bit on Trust Cues and Tribalism was the top of Google when you search "Trust Cues." Very cool.)

I more or less know what to expect from a fellow white middle-aged heterosexual New England Protestant somewhat over-educated professional person who dresses sort-of like I do. I do not know exactly what to expect, but approximately and statistically. And if they like to study wildlife, to garden, to hunt, to mess with boats, and to talk about politics, then even more so. The odds are that we will know each other's rules, codes, signals, cues, language, manners, sense of humor, personal boundaries - even tastes. (Not necessarily their politics, though. My "tribe" has enormous political diversity.)

The further we move from our own tribe into the realm of "the other," the less effective we become at reading the signals and cues. I can use as simple an example as attending a Roman Catholic Mass: I feel awkward because I don't know when to stand or sit, or whether they want me to join in Communion or not. All people, I think, have a comfort bias and a trust bias in favor of their own tribes, and I do not feel that that is a bad thing: it's rational. "Birds of a feather..."

I believe that much of what is termed "racism" has little to do with race. Mitt Romney's Mormonism is a case in point. I think it was a real issue. People don't know what the Mormon view of the world is, what they are taught, how they raise their kids, what they think about, etc. - and are not interested enough in the subject to learn about it. All we know is "It seems kinda strange" - and "strange" = "a stranger."

Thus are our "stranger," tribal instincts ignited. It's not about skin color at all. Some of us are fascinated by "the other," some are a little bit curious, some are hostile, but most folks just don't care to be bothered very much with other cultures. The "multiculturalism" movement of the last decade sought to suppress that Stranger Instinct (for some good reasons, and some bad) - but it cannot be done because it is anchored in reason as well as in biology. All the multicult fascists and nannies managed to do was to silence people while, unfortunately, heightening our everyday consciousness of our differences.

So I finally arrive at the Rev. Wright subject. The Rev. Wright preaches a Black Liberation "theology" which, as best I can tell, seems to have only a superficial relationship to any Christianity I have seen (and which is an ideology that seems to have racial hatred built into its core). However, they seem to be dedicated to doing some good and charitable works in Chicago. But my point is that when Wright preaches "God damn America" I instantly know that I am dealing with another tribe. I cannot tell whether his is hyperbolically throwing red meat to work up the crowd, or whether he means it.

I cannot read the signals at all, and that makes me uneasy and distrustful. Rightly so, in my view: I feel like I have wandered into the wrong pew.

That's all a long-winded way of getting around to linking some of our past posts on the general subject:

Scared by his own research on multiculturalism

The Diversity Cult

Signaling Theory

Trust Cues and Tribalism

Masquerades and Clothing Signaling

Photo: Alaskan Eskimos exist in a culture which is totally alien to me.

Thanks, reader

The Wooden Boat Show. June 27-29, at Mystic Seaport, Mystic, CT.

"Deceptive simplicity." An "artist's artist."

Auction at Christie's of Scott's work in London on June 6.

This is Blue Frying Pan.

Shorpy's comment: September 1940. "Mountaineer trying to change tire with a fence post as a jack. Up south fork of the Kentucky River, Breathitt County." 35mm nitrate negative by Marion Post Wolcott for the Farm Security Administration.

Richard Wiseman of Quirkology seeks the funniest jokes in the world.

Of course, Monty Python already addressed this subject:

A quote from a Cindy in the Wind Amazon review of Shelly Lewis' Five Lessons I Didn't Learn From Breast Cancer (And One Big One I Did):

Have you received a breast cancer diagnosis? Got a friend who has? Before you make another move, read this funny and truthful lowdown from Shelley Lewis, whose emotional viewpoint matches mine so precisely I can't shake the feeling that I should've written it myself (after all, I went through this a year before she did). Unlike just about every other book on the breast cancer "experience," with its pretty pink cover and its crapola about how dealing with breast cancer will make you a "better person" (just like it supposedly made its author!), Lewis gets down to the real nitty-gritty. Namely: Breast cancer, at least for some people, isn't a "spiritual growth program," a "journey" or a "gift." It's not the ultimate opportunity for the perfect boob makeover. It's not necessarily going to turn you into Lance Armstrong and an inspiration to everyone. It's just a DISEASE--a scary, upsetting DISEASE that makes you hope you can get through the treatment so you can get back to your life--if at all possible.

A friend who has had breast cancer sent some quotes from the book, with the comment: "I Finally Found My Club! Good laughs @ all the BC bullshit. Thought this book might be helpful if you know others who aren't using their B.C to accomplish a spiritual makeover... & don't expect B.C. to fix what's wrong w/ them."

"My only growth was the one removed by the surgeon."

"Its completely life affirming to want to remain who you essentially are, good...and bad, rather than make permanent accomodations for a disease that you have to believe is just passing through."

"Lots of us decide we don't have to stop our lives to have cancer with all the trimmings - support groups, chat room visits... You don't see a lot of TV or magazine stories about those of us trying to keep b.c. impact to a miniumum."

"I felt about the Cancer Club the same way I did when I got my first invitation to join AARP."

"I draw the line at "Cancer was a gift"... You hear it a lot"

"B.C. wasn't a journey that led me to anywhere worth going...."

"Wherever you go on b.c. web sites somebody is trying to sell you an angel...I hate to say it but if you had a guardian angel before you got b.c., apparently that angel was a fuckup....(or) a slacker..and not just angels, fairies too.  I don't know where fairies land on the spiritual ladder ...(but) it seems that those of us who battle serious diseases are practically being overrun with them.  If Lou Dobbs weren't so concerned with Mexicans sneaking across our borders, he'd probably do a big expose about fairies..."

"Pink Ribbon Barbie" should be stripped, head shaved, (one-breasted) & forced to replace her pink tulle dress with a green hospital gown...."

"I was happy in Healthyville. Couldn't I just get a short-term sublet in b.c.world briefly then move back to my old place..?  I felt pressured to go into the Pink Ghetto, but I couldn't stay there, I couldn't breathe... I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there..."

I tend to agree with Ms. Lewis. Bad disease is a plain bad deal. Scary (if you like life), with little redeeming about it.

As a contrast to our occasional New England houses, a reader thought we might like a peek at the 250-acre Rose Ranch, 50 minutes from Missoula. It's for sale, asking $995,000. Pretty nice views and nice wetlands on it, but 250 acres seems a bit small for Montana. I wonder whether they have Grizzlies.

This is a 46' Palmer-Scotto built in 1939. She is for sale in Belfast, Maine. Details and more photos here.

Milford is a pleasant seaside village with a nice harbor that sits between Bridgeport and New Haven, and is a bit far for a NYC commute although it has a Metro North train station and a number of intrepid train commuters. Its fine harbor lies at the mouth of the Housatonic River. It's a comfortable but not wealthy middle-class town which doesn't put on airs but which has fairly high property taxes, and has a serious racing yacht club in the wealthiest (by income) state in the country.

The house below is right in town in the historic district, in walking distance to the train and to the marina and harbor. Built in 1836 probably by a ship captain, but totally updated with a/c, 1st class kitchen, 5 bedrooms, family room addition on the back, etc. Look at the pictures of it: I think it is a perfect Yankee home which I would be very happy to live in, modestly elegant, with 1/4 acre offering enough space for flower gardens and tomatoes without burdening you with maintenance - plus a handy 3-car detached garage with room for a duck boat or a spare sports car. Asking only $749,000. (And again, no, we do not sell real estate. We just appreciate interesting shelter.)

(The old house is too exposed to the street, though. I think it could benefit from a 4' hedge or picket fence out front along the sidewalk with a row of hydrangeas, and some nicer, less-random and more vigorous plantings in front of the porch - either a simple perennial border or a low hedge. And maybe a red Cherokee Dogwood or Magnolia in the middle of the the right side of the little front lawn. A cool thing about America is that, when you improve your plantings, you inspire your neighbors to do it too. It starts them thinking. The current plantings in front of this nice house insult the simple dignity of the place.)

Overall, however, this house sits there like it's been there for a while and wants to be where it is, and I admire it very much.

An excerpt from Bejart's 1959 Le Sacre de printemps. Maurice Bejart died last November. I believe this is by the Wuppertal Dance Theater:

Jules found this bit from Blazing Saddles - "Taggart, take this down":