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.
Art is mostly fraud perpetrated by narcissistic academic quacks on a public easily gulled. They should be prosecuted. This is as true of literature as of painting and sculpture. If modern sculpture were placed in a junkyard, art critics couldn’t find it. Most of what we are told are great works are great works only because we are told that they are.
Consider the Mona Lisa, for mysterious reasons regarded an epochal detonation of artistry. Why? She is an excessively round woman who looks as if she is about to spit. We have to be told that she was an astonishment and marvel. Otherwise we would rate her a a pretty fair effort for an art student somewhere in Nebraska...
It seems as if the official Maggie's Farm view is that government should be put into humble shopping centers and abandoned buildings in odd places rather than in grandiose, imperial-style rockpiles.
I am all in favor of grand public building, though. Just not governmental. Grand Central Terminal, for example. Public places which uplift the spirits of the common man or woman and government structures which humble our public servants.
I have always found Rauschenberg's stuff interesting to look at. Long ago, when I dabbled in the journalism field while in college, I interviewed the guy. A friendly Texan, happy to talk. I wish I had had better questions for him.
I liked this piece of his at the Whitney last weekend. My photo lacks the detail and subtlety. It's a complex design, decorative.
I read it in a college course. It's a long novel. In retrospect you could call it a bildungsroman. Tom was a good guy, full of vitality unlike his sour "brother".
Food fads have come and gone ever since humans had food choices (which has been a tiny fraction of human history). I saw this: Why we fell for clean eating.
I don't know who "we" refers to, but it didn't include me.
It was not long ago when the experts thought that cereal was the right breakfast food. That was mostly marketing, but Mr. Kellogg and others thought it might helpfully reduce sexual desire and promote clean thinking compared to "overstimulating" eggs, sausages, and pie for breakfast. Now "we" know cereal is garbage nutrition.
FYI, my usual breakfast is two coffees before my workout, and a protein shake afterwards. I am not claiming that that is "right" but it keeps me trim and strong. If I did manual labor all day on the farm, I'd go for eggs, toast, sausage, bacon, kippers, home fries, grits, and pie. We fed our young growing kids on breakfasts like that. Pancakes or waffles and bacon on Sunday.They grew, and got smart enough.
He and his wife have an antique shop, aka junk store. He bought a hoarder house in Canada, hoping to discover treasure in it. A strangely interesting story and a good time-waster.
Canada has wooden dumpsters.
Below is Part 1. Part 2 here. Part 3 here. Part 4 here. Part 5 here. There are many more, including segments about restoring the hoarder house into something delightful. I think a total of 16 or 18 youtubes. I watched them all over the past month. Tell me I need to get a life.
The entire USA will be at some football get-together on Sunday afternoon. Some people care about The Game, but for most, I think, it's just a good excuse to gather in the winter.
Nachos, guacamole, and other foods are classics. There are many websites dedicated to Superbowl party food, and some to "most disgusting Superbowl foods".
Beer is of course good. I like Coronavirus Extra with a slice of lime, if you have some. Nachos, guacamole? Disgusting.
What things are on your list for Superbowl disgusting food items?
My book stack is high enough for another 6 months. I have enough outdoor clothing (I do like to do outdoor things) for a lifetime. I have enough gym clothes for daily workouts if I do the wash weekly. For hunting and fishing gear I am ok. Too many firearms too, really.
So the family got me some of the usual rare stinky cheeses I love along with exotic jams to go with them. Also, a cool spy boardgame: Codenames. It makes you think about words.
They also gave me a trip, but to where remains a secret surprise to me. I hope it's low on museums, medium on quaint or historic architecture, and high on hiking, cafes, and vino. Provence might hit the spot, and I think the Hadrian's Wall hike is in the pipeline. I never know.
They did identify one thing I didn't really need but is an excellent layer: that featherweight Patagonia quilted vest. I don't like sweaters - too constricting - but I do like to feel relatively comfortable outdoors. A bit chilly is fine with me. Yeah, fleece is great too but heavier than this thing.
Next year I think I will get one of them for my lad.
Matt Guthmiller. Because of his get-up-and-go. Anywhere, any time. All this kid needs is Avgas, junk snacks, a friend or two, and a distant destination with cool food at the end. I do things, but he makes me feel like a pitiful stick-in-the-mud.
It's a heck of a tale. Somewhere around the first third of it it dawned on me that I had read it long ago, but that didn't matter because I had forgotten the ending.
Normal life is an everyday miracle, revealed in the warm embrace of mother and child, in the sweet songs of praise (Hallel) sung on festival days, at a family meal in the sukkah, in bride and groom under the wedding canopy. And yet, for Jews as ultimately for all human beings, normal life is a fragile miracle, one whose preservation requires a more-than-normal spirit, a more-than-normal courage, a more-than-normal faith.
Much of the stuff we own, or which we even value, has minimal monetary value or might even cost money to get rid of. It might be useful to us or of sentimental value or other sorts of personal value (that is true value, emotional value I suppose) but of no value to anybody else. Talking about meaning.
Monetary value is less than you think, and the effort to unload a possession of any monetary value is large. Just try getting rid of an over-aged piano. Pianos have life spans, unlike violins.
American Scholar's podcast on The Global Garage Sale. The interviewer is a bit of a nut, but the guy is interesting. They are both sort-of anti-consumption with a minimalist ethic. For the "environment," of course...Lots of our "good" stuff ends up in landfills despire our virtuous intentions.
I do know some people for whom the only value of anything is monetary.
I have said before that I believe that Scott Adams' idea of personal talent stacks is a good way of thinking about what people have to bring to the table in life. What is practical about that viewpoint is that one can always add to the stack. Might take some effort, but what else is new? Anybody can learn to code interfaces if they want to. Call it talents, call it skills, call it traits or learned traits, whatever.
For your pilot, you want a certain talent stack: ACTUAL DUAL ENGINE FAILURE IN A CITATION JET
The relatively-recent Italian owner of Brooks Brothers is determined to keep the brand going strong. Traditional, but with necessary updates. Let's face it, if you wear a 15 year-old suit, you look out out to lunch. Men's clothing is trimmer now, and so are men.
This frivolous topic comes up because a friend teased me last night at a Christmas party about my shirt. Being sort of conservative types, we 3 guys devouring the sliced filet were all wearing Brooks shirts (and jolly ties and jackets, as befitting the event). Not Barney's shopper types, or Armani types.
We stupidly got on the topic of dress shirts, and the friend accused me of wearing a Milano. Guess what? Brooks now makes 5 fits of their classic dress shirts.
It's about time. You could fit two people in my old Brooks shirts. Here's a related topic: They still have the classic cotton, but their big sellers are the no-iron ones. The no-iron ones feel less comfortable to me but they do not wrinkle up in one day and save a lot on laundry bills.
Re Christmas, most women appreciate a Brooks silk blouse. Silk seems to feel good to female skin.
I hear you asking about my other favorite contemporary novelists. OK, Mark Helprin and Cormac McCarthy, not including beach books with snappy, wacky, sociopathic dialog like Carl Hiassen.
Lots of Saturnalian and also northern European pagan aspects to this season around this part of the world. It's a multicultural festival season.
- Cocktail parties, lots of them. Saturnalian, but on a civilized level. Time to look great and behave well. Get hair done and dig out that tux for the fancy ones. Gotta show up or people will forget that you exist.
- Excesses of foods and hors d'oevres. Saturnalian. Control oneself.
- Random reckless holiday drunken sex. Saturnalian. Sounds exciting, but I have not seen this yet around my neighborhood, so no worries.
- Decorated evergreen trees. Ain't they purty? Pagan German/Scandinavian. I do not think baby Jesus had one, though. We bought one for outdoors and one for indoors. Almost bought a fake one for indoors. It looked perfect, and had 1000 lights but I hate white lights. They look like a bank lobby and if you're not sensible, you might need to visit the bank for Christmas anyway.
- Presents? Sort-of Saturnalian (jewels for your mistresses - they can give you Viagra), sort of European with St. Nicholas. And the wise men with their perfume and stuff. You know what She wants - A Pucci scarf and ballet tickets. We guys generally want nothing other than family happiness. Presents are the worst thing about Christmas unless they are food (we like rare stinky cheeses). We go with 1/person only to keep the tradition going. Yes I know - little kids love opening gifts. Adults don't.
- Snow and cold. Not real Christmassy - northern European. Lucky for me, I like snow and cold and the only thing I love as much around here as a powerful hurricane is a beautiful blizzard that stops life in its tracks and gives us time to not be busy.
- The Messiah. It was written for Easter, for heaven's sake.
- Christmas - it was illegal to celebrate it in New England until, like, a few years ago. You could go to jail for making a savory mince-meat pie at Christmastime. They had pie-police sniffing on the streets of Boston. I have (well, had) and old-tyme Connnecticut Congregationalist pal whose family still refused to acknowledge Christmas. As a Congregationalist by ancient family tradition, I do not think of Christmas as "holy" either but there is nothing not to like about it and the hymns and carols are as good as it gets.
- As for me, any excuse for assembling family is good. I have a big one (5 sibs), and I love them all. Not certain about vice-versa... The holiday decorations are fun, and lovely. Church on Christmas Eve always brings tears to me but whether they are holy or sentimental is hard to tell. All has little to do with whether I am a Jesus-follower or not but yeah, I feel He's worth following as best one can and I take it seriously. Not a grinch, not a scrooge. Birth (Christmas), or re-birth (Easter) - all good lives of the living Spirit.
The entire USA will be at some football get-together on Sunday afternoon. Some people care about The Game, but for most, I think, it's just a good excuse to gather in the winter.
My book stack is high enough for another 6 months. I have enough outdoor clothing (I do like to do outdoor things) for a lifetime. I have enough gym clothes for daily workouts if I do the wash weekly. For hunting and fishing gear I am ok. Too many firearms too, really. 
Perhaps my favorite contemporary novelist, the late Walker Percy: 
Lots of Saturnalian and also northern European pagan aspects to this season around this part of the world. It's a multicultural festival season.