Wednesday, May 28. 2008
YouTube is becoming an excellent outlet for short films. Anchoress posted this exquisite and gentle short by Joe Gleason, The Dinner Guest, which, to me, combines the theme of anticipation with the ancient theme of the power of the word, wherein God the Playwright, like the mystical weaver at the loom or Aslan's singing the world into existence, creates time and space and everything that was, is, and will be. Bryn Terfel is singing a Welsh folk song.
Our Dylanologist just sent us the video he recorded a week or two ago - 32 seconds in Prague. He always pans too quickly: http://www.dr-mercury.com/site/mags/prague.wvx (Thanx, Dr. Merc, for hosting his film.)
Tuesday, May 27. 2008
It's a big business now. Video at Frontline.
Monday, May 26. 2008
J.S. Bach likely never wrote any music specifically for the piano, which was a newfangled instrument at the time. He did compose for the clavichord, the harpsichord, and, of course, the organ, and people term these compositions generally as "for the keyboard" - thus permitting them to sneak in the piano. Here's a good rant on the subject. (If there are any musicologists out there, please correct me if I am in error.) So when we heard Glenn Gould playing the Italian Concerto on the blog yesterday we were not hearing anything that Bach had in mind. The clavichord is incapable of making very much noise. For fun, here's the real sound of the Prelude in C Major of Bach's The Well-tempered Clavier, which means "The well-tuned clavichord":
Sunday, May 25. 2008
Glenn Gould plays the Italian Concerto. If it puts you in an Italian state of mind, check out this on Isola Bella: that is Italian! (Click on that small photo to biggify.)
Saturday, May 24. 2008
At the NYBG in the Bronx, a Henry Moore exhibit all summer. It's the largest outdoor exhibit of Moore's sculpture ever. It's a cool photo op, and it is tough to capture the fluid, organic, muscular forms and the ways that light affects them. 
Wednesday, May 21. 2008
The Farmer's Home - Summer, by Currier and Ives, of course. This will be our summertime image this year: 
Over the transom: THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES
Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks.
Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.
There is no fast food.
Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of 'pretend' bills with not enough money.
In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week.
Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time.
Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment.
He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care.
He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function.
Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times.
The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.
The men must shave their legs, wear makeup daily, adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails polished and eyebrows groomed.
During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties. They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.
They will need to read a book each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7:00 am.
A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name. Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.
The kids vote them off the island based on performance. The last man wins only if...he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.
If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years eventually earning the right to be called Mother!
Monday, May 19. 2008
This is not my blog. I contribute things, but that's it. I'm not in charge. So I am not responsible for what is said here. I'm simply responsible for my own behavior, and to choose my friends wisely. But as my father often told me, nothing good happens in a bar after midnight; so if you choose to stay in there, whatever happens is partly your responsibility. I have sharp Internet elbows. I say outrageous things for effect from time to time. When you try to use humorous turns of phrase, it's easy to piss people off. In general, the Internet could easily be renamed: A Pigpen for Pissed off People anyway. If I woke up tomorrow and everybody's URL began with PPP instead of WWW I'd be down with that. I still say we should call a "call a spade a spade." But some people like to find offense where it isn't because they've got nothing else but outrage. They're willing to manufacture outrage to suit their crabby worthless worldview. If someone didn't care for my politics, they might take issue with the expression "call a spade a spade," for instance. They're hoping that they could wield a sort of moral Kryptonite they could use to say that any particular argument is settled, because you're obviously not even of sufficient moral stature to dispute with. Political Correctness is the attempt to end discourse by introducing extraneous moral elements that, in general, are imaginary.
But what of the flip side? What of people who claim that their right to express themselves is being impinged by PC, when in reality, no such extraneous elements are being introduced to the equation?  This image, among others, was inserted in the comments here at Maggie's, to mock the people in it. But not in just a humdrum way. They were used as a sort of intellectual club to try to beat the political opponents of the person that used the picture. It was an exponential, not just an arithmetical, extension to the insult.
The person that offered it has nothing of any merit to say about anything. If they told me the sun was rising in the East today, I'd check. If they did have anything of merit to say, they wouldn't have to resort to using a picture like that to complain about being enjoined from fantasizing about the murder of their political opponents. I must be immune to the charms of the urge to mock the mentally disabled. Because I don't see it. I see two people, in every way my equal in the eyes of the creator, looking directly into the camera -- unashamed, friendly, outgoing, sunny, and smiling. They are useful to other people. They are --get this-- happy. Contrast their demeanor with the crabby, xenophobic, greedy, unfriendly, spiteful, whining, paranoid, and anti-intellectual outlook of the person that placed it here, and the cowardly context of the original sentiment expressed. Yes, indeed, the photo depicts people who aren't "smart enough" to drink their own urine and eat Spam in their bunker while telling people on the Internet they're praying for an apocalypse that never comes so you can say "I told you so." I'll take a planet filled with people like the picture, please.
From a collection of photos of wrecks at Dark Roasted Blend. h/t, Dr. Bob 
Wednesday, May 14. 2008
 Handle every stressful situation like a dog.
If you can't eat it or hump it,
Piss on it and walk away.
Here. (h/t, Right Wing Prof, who says it's Mega Kewl and a seriously tempting time-waster)
Catlin (1796-1872), a Philadelphia lawyer, built his artistic career on paintings of American Indians. This Buffalo Hunt is from this Catlin website. 
This newspaper announcement is from the Smithsonian's collection of Catlin papers: 
Monday, May 12. 2008
 Lots of links.
Saturday, May 10. 2008
A re-post: A few nifty finds: New York City in Pictures, with "every street and every building in NY"; NewYorkology is a site with depth and detail, with tips for visitors and residents, including the location of the Whispering Gallery in Grand Central Station, which is quite near my favorite spot in the world for oyster stew and a beer, the famous and venerable Oyster Bar & Restaurant, which, along with oysters from all ends of the earth, almost always offers the rarest and very best oyster on earth, Wellfleets , with their subtle nutty flavor derived from the Herring River which flows into the harbor of Bird Dog's favorite town on his native Cape Cod. Then there's NY Architectural images - cool building photos listed by neighborhood. Oldbars lists - with photos - some of NYC's oldest, including McSorleys, where I have both booted and rallied in youth, back before 1970 when women weren't allowed in; and, since we're on bars, there's the unique The Campbell Apartment, if you can find it; Forgotten New York is a good ramble; and the new Tenement Museum has been getting a lot of attention, but I haven't been there.
Friday, May 9. 2008
Little Walter on harmonica with Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers, Wild About You, Baby, 1967.
Over the transom: As a young minister in Kentucky, I was asked by a funeral director to hold a graveside service for a homeless man, who had no family or friends. The funeral was to be held at a new cemetery way back in the country, and this man would be the first to be buried there. I was not familiar with the backwoods area, and I soon became lost. Being a typical man, I did not stop to ask for directions. I finally arrived an hour late. I saw the backhoe and the open grave, but the hearse was nowhere in sight. The digging crew was eating lunch. I apologized to the workers for my tardiness, and I stepped to the side of the open grave. There I saw the vault lid already in place. I assured the workers I would not hold them up for long, as I told them that this was the proper thing to do. The workers gathered around the grave and stood silently, as I began to pour out my heart and soul. As I preached about "looking forward to a brighter tomorrow" and "the glory that is to come," the workers began to say "Amen," "Praise the Lord," and "Glory!" The fervor of these men truly inspired me. So, I preached and I preached like I had never preached before, all the way from Genesis to Revelations. I finally closed the lengthy service with a prayer, thanked the men, and walked to my car. As I was opening the door and taking off my coat, I heard one of the workers say to another, "I ain't NEVER seen nothin' like that before, and I've been puttin' in septic tanks for 30 years!"
Samuel Finley Morse Badger of Massachusetts, aka Sam Badger, aka Solon Francis Montecello Badger, painted ship portraits. This is the schooner Edward H. Cole: 
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