Monday, June 6. 2005
1944 F armall Model H Time to get back to work, fellow bloggers. Check the oil, crank that thing up, and get rolling.
Thursday, June 2. 2005
Summer Reading: Summer Accommodations Sex, violence, mystery, Judge Crater, and suspense...and coming of age in a classic 1950s Jewish Catskill resort which is very humorously depicted. A medical school pal has written an absorbing novel - God bless him. Especially because he doesn't write like a shrink, which he is, and a darn shrewd one. Favorite quote: "The good things in life you have to seek out and reach for; the shit will always find you." That pretty much sets the stage for the plot - as it does for life.
Yes, Dear A couple celebrating their 80th wedding anniversary shares their secrets with the world. Humility and moderate alcohol use seem to be part of the picture. Plus true love, of course.
Wednesday, June 1. 2005
Steyn on Broadway Who is this mystery man, and how does he know everything about everything? Steyn on Spamalot and the Broadway scene.
Carmen Miranda A cultural icon, no? The Brazilian bombshell. You need this for your cultural education: audio and visual.
Tuesday, May 31. 2005
The American Chesterton Society The best writer, on every subject, of the 20th century that many have never read. We have one reader who is determined to make G.K. Chesterton her summer reading, beginning now. The website has lots of his witty quotes - we'll use them for QQQQ.
Back to work day. This is a 1985 
John Deere, Model 60 Would you say that's a Farmall-lookin' machine? A handy light-weight, like some people.
Monday, May 30. 2005
Cinderella Man See it. Our entire theater clapped at the end. Sure, movies manipulate our emotions, but the story of James J. Braddock was a heck of a story. The real comeback-kid. And a good, old-fashioned movie - pure story-telling, without layers of irony, negativity, propaganda, high-tech flash, or emotional confusion, and with compelling boxing action which will make males sweat and ladies "glow." Thus an honest movie, with neat kids too. Thanks, Ron, for another wonderful movie that puts worthwhile and lasting images in our heads, which few movies do these days. The Bird Dog father-in-law remembers listening to the Baer vs. Braddock fight on the radio in Jersey City, just like the movie: Braddock - the Pride of the Irish of Bergen County. And the story is true - he did repay his welfare checks when he was able to. The movie makes it all real, including the male indignities and the female stresses of the Great Depression. Braddock could take the punches of life - including the punches delivered below the belt by a sleaze-bag like Max Baer and the punches delivered by fate - for his family, not for himself. Thus a real adult male without excuses - the kind we admire and to which we men aspire - a true father. And that is what the movie is about - American fatherhood. Best line: "I do it for the milk."
Sunday, May 29. 2005
 Two Stooges, plus Sweden
Just to prove that some of us here have some humility, here's what we did on Saturday: We took the Ford tractor, with the Dixie brushwacker hooked up, sharpened and ready, to go mow the "back forty" which we missed last year due to the tractor being worked on, and to cut some low branches that get in our way and annoy us by smacking us smartly in the face when we mow. This is a small, not really forty but maybe 25-acre curving meadow adjacent to the beaver marsh, that we only mow alternate years, for the wildlife. (Yes, there are no birds nesting in that field, but we watch out for turtles, snakes, etc.) On my foolish advice, and foolishly listening to mine, brother-in-law rests the chain saw on the side of the tractor seat balanced on top of a hill of chain that we use to drag heavy stuff, and I march behind carrying a plastic container of chain saw 50/1 gas-oil mix, and other miscellaneous tools including a shovel and a bunch of bare-root junipers I want to plant to mark the big rocks in the meadow, along with some Gatorade and Ballantine Ale, like the beast of burden that Bird Dog is. The tractor hits a log hidden by the already 10" hay (thanks a lot, beavers, for dumping that log there), the chain saw jumps, incomprehensively, past the tire-guard and mischievously clips the nozzle off the tire. The water (yes, water-fiilled rear tires) spews out like a fire hydrant, and we have a flat tire on Memorial Day Saturday when no tractor tire places are open, plus the meadow is over a wooden bridge that I doubt any tire guy with his precious shiny Ford 350 pick-up would like to hazard. Unprintable language spewed from Bird Dog as lavishly as the water did from the tire. So much for the day's planned work. But somehow the Stihl saw still worked after its victorious battle with the tire.
Wednesday, May 25. 2005
Humanitarian Adventure Travel. Relief Riders International. How cool is this? Camel? Donkey? Elephant?
Monday, May 23. 2005
1995 John Deere, Model 8650 We moved tractors to Mondays. Monday is the day we all need a little traction to get rolling. This big boy provides more than a little. I'd like to try pulling a few stumps with this one. Man, this is a serious tooth-puller. Almost too big for Yankee-land farms. Put a chain around the house and move it over there!
Saturday, May 21. 2005
Criticism from Readers Keep 'em coming. We will try not to be hypersensitive or defensive. Much as we enjoy compliments, they really do us no good at all. (But keep them coming too.) Yes, we can go overboard and be stupid and provocative sometimes. And yes, sometimes the transitions in our "essays" are lame. And yes and no, we are a hodge-podge, but so is life. And yes, we do like guns. And lots of other things, including dogs and marshes full of birds and this whole amazing Creation. And yes, we can be edgy - some of us, anyway. Edgy is OK, as is curmudgeonly, but cranky is something we'd like to avoid - if we can. Too much Cuba? Sorry. There is just something about Cuba that we like.
Friday, May 20. 2005
Italy this Summer? The strikes have already begun, just in time for tourist season. From Travelwire: "The unions are supposed to maintain a minimum level of service even on strike days, but this legal requirement is not always enforced in practice. The British Embassy in Rome has issued a warning that in addition to planned strikes there was also a risk of unannounced wild-cat stoppages by transportation workers in cities across Italy." Link.
Thursday, May 19. 2005
 May the Force be with you: The Final Episode
George Lucas has brought the galaxy back. Today is opening night for the last installment in the greatest movie making series of all time. Star Wars: "Revenge of the Sith" shows us what finally made Anakin turn to the Dark Side. According to reviewers everywhere, this installment is as good as the original. Kudos to Lucas for ending on such a high note and cementing his place as one of America's great filmmakers. Cannes Film Festival : But the topic of the second three, and particularly this one, is hard as hell. This movie chronicles Anakin's earlier transformation, by which the righteous pilgrim, so handsome, so brave, so noble, so committed, lost his way and became Ahab or Macbeth or Raskolnikov or Faust, or John Wayne in "The Searchers," a figure of power and strength and charisma and intellect, all of it invested in madness and destruction. "What corrupted Anakin into Vader?" a critic asked six years ago. "Pride, that manly bringer of self-destruction? Arrogance? Abuse? (An intriguing possibility and source of many monsters on the banal old Planet E.) Genetic predisposition? Fear? Lucas only knows and let's hope he can get it together to tell us. If told right, it should be quite a tale."Finally, it is.'Sith': The Promise Fulfilled
Monday, May 16. 2005
Anchorman An adolescent, slapstick, semi-lame movie starring Will Farrell which deserves to go down in history as one of the silliest movies made about TV news and reporting. It is so goofy that it is fun.
Saturday, May 14. 2005
1950 Farmall C With the classic short front axle - scarey on hills.
Thursday, May 12. 2005
Another side of the Gary Keillor issue: Gwynnie thinks he's a sanctimonious twit: From Opinion Journal - I'm Open-Minded, You're a Stupid Jerk
There's something amusing about the obnoxious way in which some people trumpet their own open-mindedness and tolerance. Consider these two passages from an essay by Garrison Keillor in The Nation: I enjoy, in small doses, the over-the-top right-wingers who have leaked into AM radio on all sides in the past twenty years. They are evil, lying, cynical bastards who are out to destroy the country I love and turn it into a banana republic, but hey, nobody's perfect. . . . The reason you find an army of right-wingers ratcheting on the radio and so few liberals is simple: Republicans are in need of affirmation, they don't feel comfortable in America and they crave listening to people who think like them. Liberals actually enjoy living in a free society; tuning in to hear an echo is not our idea of a good time. If this were true, nobody would listen to NPR, watch "Fahrenheit 9/11"--or, for that matter, read The Nation.
Wednesday, May 11. 2005
 Talk Radio
I love Garrison Keillor as a precious addition to my life. It is a treat when I can hear him coming through from Northeast NPR on Saturday night, and his books are masterpieces of warm, penetrating yet empathic humor, like a perfect psychiatrist, uncle or grandfather. He has fine, eclectic taste in music, and his singing voice has the same sort of sweet quavering frailty we heard in Jerry Garcia's. I don't agree with his politics, but he's from Minnesota so he can't help it. Still, I don't get why he seems to hate Bush, who seems to be the only person on the planet that this gentle man despises. He points out that local talk radio has been around since the advent of radio, and he claims no fear of conservative - he calls it "right wing" - radio. But he prefers the local chat. (Photo from Lake Wobegon Trails courtesy of Ludwig Photo)
The 7 Plots We have all heard the rumor that there are only seven storylines in all of literature. Well, it depends. Denis Dutton reviews Christopher Booker's The 7 Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. Sounds like an engaging if flawed book. The review is fascinating, and it happily digs into Aristotle a bit. Still amazing to me how everything tracks back to Plato and Aristotle. I guess we are a Greco-Roman colony.
Tuesday, May 10. 2005
Lucas Happy to Retire from Star Wars What a run. 25+ years of fine fantasy, even at its worst. One can only be grateful to him: "Lucas' accomplishments marked a one-of-a-kind revolution. He sneaked into a Hollywood that no longer had the verve or nerve to make the weird, giddy, goofy Saturday matinees of his youth. He found a lone patron among fainthearted studio executives willing to pony up cash for what was essentially an Arthurian sword-in-the-stone fantasy in space." Read entire.
Saturday, May 7. 2005
An email from back-country  Thailand, from a Medical Friend Farewell Thailand,
I am at the airport on my way back to the USA. I am most excited about the prospect of the Old Country Buffet.
I had my first bout of a non GI illness. My feet were quite battered given diving fins , hiking, rocks, ill fittnig sandals etc. They became both red and painful with ugly drainage from some of the cuts. Another doctor I happened to meet acknowledged that spreading redness is never a good sign. I could no longer use my sandals as they were so painful, so I limped around the town barefoot. Of course, I stepped on a piece of glass. I hailed a French tourist for help, However he looked taken aback by my feet, and did not want to try and pull the glass out of the black sole of my foot, so with the help of a kind hostess and a toothpick we got it out. I was forced to wear shoes for the first time in a month-I felt like Tarzan from the disney movie.
As recommended, I took a cooking course there. Look out mango salad, and thai green curry. Wada and Dee were my teachers and there mantra was, "smile and stir" by the end day they thought it best if I specialized as the taster-good kitchen fun had by all.
I rented a motor bike and cruised around the hills outside the town. I had a helmut that looked like a plastic tupperware bowl-perhaps it was at one point. The winding roads and scorching air made me feel a part of the "motorcycle diaries". gratefully, I only saw a motorbike accident, and wasnt part of one. The roadside police stopped me because I didnt have an international license and asked me to go to drivers bureau and pay a fine. I said no that I would not, and then they let me go. Why can't it be that easy in the US.
One afternoon I was hitchhiking from a distant temple on the outskirts of town. I got a ride from Donald M., a recovering alcoholic, he took to a great AA meeting in the outskirts of of Chang Mai-holy providence! We sang its a small world.
Continue reading ""
1961 Farmall, Model 560 Not a thing of beauty, but it has a simple honesty to it, and at least that front axle adds some stability, unlike those old tippy Farmalls. Tractor accidents are the #1 cause of work-related mortality for farmers.
Friday, May 6. 2005
Art Highrollers Feeling No Pain Wednesday at Sotheby's:
Picasso, Rodin, and Max Beckmann all fetch premiums at Sotheby's last night. Hopefully the plastic in your wallet has no limit as some of these masterpieces reach prices approaching 20 million a pop. That's the high end even in downtown Greenwich. Thursday at Sotheby's, from the NYT:
"Christie's sale totaled $142.8 million, far above its low estimate of $111.2 million but not quite reaching its high estimate, $149.6 million. Of the 59 lots offered, only 7 failed to sell. Sotheby's sale totaled $91.2 million, after a low estimate of $127.3 million, with 20 of the 65 lots unsold. "It was day and night," said Franck Giraud, a former director of Christie's Impressionist and modern art department, who is now a private dealer. "It restored confidence overnight." The art market has bounced back according to the insiders. Everyone can get a goodnight's sleep now. The euro continues to rise and the Americans are cutting their losses but the "Big Boys" like Lauder, Newhouse and cohorts continue to spend money like it does grow on trees. Good news for the artists--oh wait a minute-they are dead. Posthumously enjoying themselves to be sure. "The undisputed star of the evening, and the most expensive work, was "Bird in Space," from Brancusi's well-known series of sculptures. This one, a delicately carved piece of gray-blue marble with its original box and limestone base, was made in 1922-23. Scholars did not know of its existence until an expert at Christie's discovered it in an attic in France. Last night about six serious bidders wanted the sculpture, and by the time the price had risen to $23 million, two unidentified telephone bidders were determined not to lose. The hammer fell at $24.5 million, and with Christie's commission the price shot up to $27.4 million, a record for a sculpture at auction and more than twice the $12 million high estimate. They audience burst into applause." Art Market Bounces Back in 2nd Night of Spring Sales - New York Times
Trompe l'oeil NYC's expert street artists create 3-D illusions with chalk. (If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere, eh Frankie?)
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