Pop Mashup Of 2009 - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Pop Mashup Of 2009 - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

interesting idea

david's house, last week

so so good!

too funny

looky look

last night, after a freakishly warm week.

did not bring my camera ON THANKSGIVING!?! ( this is the day after)

I have no idea how to figure out how multiple pictures arrange themselves in one post. So yes, its always a surprise! Friday, the day after Claire's always awesome dinner party,the fab five hang out with gracious hosts. As always,click to embiggen any pictures, and check out the 2 Lisas. ;-)

mt. greylock at dusk

late november

thinking back

this is a picture from e & b's fab dinner party about a week ago when it was still november - great food and conversation.

click this headline for cool

click this headline for a lol

gallery sitting

doing a little gallery sitting today with Isabella Raven, curator of the Small Works Show, here at the Eclipse Mill in fabulous North Adams. Isabella is a glass artist & jewelry designer, as well as an "event organizer" she laughs! As ever, click to embiggen. top photo shows the valentine prints by yours truly.

yeah!

saw a sweet kit for sale - what an idea
check it out here:


http://www.subversivecrossstitch.com/kits/fuckcancer.html

the little tramp-movie clip

i think the guy below has been studying the great chaplin!

a little silent movie

sour & sweet

hiaku for the last leaves

the trees are empty;
the last few leaves are falling
on the sunny grass

11.7.09

iron & wine - naked as we came

hahahahaha

from zero to tears in...

EMBED-Tricked On Halloween - Watch more free videos

friday morning snow!

what a beautiful sight - taken from the drury high school parking lot around 7:30 am

boo!

color festival

mop

let's walk

dots

http://www.cesmes.fi/

Tea Time

Have you ever shaken your head and wondered who those people at the "Tea Parties" are? This might help explain:http://www.news9.com/global/story.asp?s=11141949.

Also, take the quiz!

on a lighter note...

have you seen any?

I saw a monarch butterfly the other day - and then I realized it's September! They are an end- of- summer phenomenon around here, and I have seen exactly one. In years past we were reliably delighted as thousands gradually made their migration through the Berkshires. Come to think of it, last year there were notably fewer than I've been used to seeing. (We have lived here for about 20 years). Need I say that I am very concerned??!! Also a first this year, another summer companion MIA-the little bats who flutter and swoosh around at dusk, gobbling up the mosquitos. I can't remember seeing even one. Very troubling to me.

listened last night

That large-heartedness – that concern and regard for the plight of others – is not a partisan feeling. It is not a Republican or a Democratic feeling. It, too, is part of the American character. Our ability to stand in other people’s shoes. A recognition that we are all in this together; that when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand. A belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgement that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise.

Guest Post: HILARIOUS!

"This is what the bear would look like, if it was real."

yikes! here comes Bill

found this random max sticker

 

The Original Guitar Hero

funnier than pigs

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lol

just sayin'

"...history is beginning to gel around the assumption that the Bush-Cheney administration presided over the worst attack on US soil in history and failed to capture or bring to justice any of its perpetrators, put the next generation into unparalleled and unsustainable debt, did nothing to combat climate change, viciously opposed the civil rights movement of its time, shrunk the GOP to one in five voters, precipitated the worst recession since the 1930s, took the US into two grueling, unwinnable wars, humiliated the US at the UN with fatally flawed intelligence for war in Iraq, and destroyed the credibility and endurance of the Geneva Conventions, thus ensuring that future captured Americans will be tortured with no recourse."

Speaking of fun...

Thanks to everyone who made my birthday such a nice day and night - much love to you!!

having fun with money

(click the headline for more) hat tip to andrew sullivan

happy birthday

May in May portraits show

one of the group to give relative sizes, and repost of Lexi.

click on any photo for a closer look.

What do you think?

May in May @ the Cup & Saucer

there was a hangin' today, at the Cup & Saucer, on Main Street, in North Adams.

something to do with swine flu?

"The logistical challenge of processing that many pigs each year is roughly equivalent to butchering and boxing the entire human populations of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, San Francisco, Columbus, Austin, Memphis, Baltimore, Fort Worth, Charlotte, El Paso, Milwaukee, Seattle, Boston, Denver, Louisville, Washington, D.C., Nashville, Las Vegas, Portland, Oklahoma City and Tucson."

"Pfiesteria is invisible and odorless -- you know it by the trail of dead. The microbe degrades a fish's skin, laying bare tissue and blood cells; it then eats its way into the fish's body. After the 1995 spill, millions of fish developed large bleeding sores on their sides and quickly died. Fishermen found that at least one of Pfiesteria's toxins could take flight: Breathing the air above the bloom caused severe respiratory difficulty, headaches, blurry vision and logical impairment. Some fishermen forgot how to get home; laboratory workers exposed to Pfiesteria lost the ability to solve simple math problems and dial phones; they forgot their own names. It could take weeks or months for the brain and lungs to recover."
Click on the headline for a link to an interesting recent report.

Friday @ the Gonzoz

Spent last Friday evening visiting Mom & Dad, who are looking well and feeling good, and had some delish pizza and the world famous Sunshine Salad (with sliced strawberries-mmmm). Met up with April & Eric, who drove from Boston, and amazingly got there almost at the same time we did, from North Adams. Forgot to grab my camera-arggh. Putting up a Lisa picture just because she was there to join our happy throng.

oh, the peepsmanity!

special easter tradition: buy peeps in your favorite color, place in microwave, watch the amazing growing peep! Takes about 3 seconds, but i crack up every time. I have to do this at work, and fun fact, its the only thing i ever use a microwave for! Make sure the unpuffed peeps salute their fallen comrades, and for goodness sake don't eat that mess!

passover pix

What a seder! Horty looking positively matriarchal, and providing fantastic food for all guests, remembrances for the kollege kidz who couldn't be there (wine for EB & Em flanking Elijah's cup) and a wonderful time for all those who could be there: David (leading the seder), Doris, PM, April & Eric, Max & me, your humble photographer.

tea-hee

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

hiaku for a cloudless sky

I'm saving daylight;

putting it in a painting

so it always shines

hahahahahahahaha

this is for my brother

click to embiggen

even now

even now, long past their prime, these roses are lovely, and remind me that my beloved loves me-thank you for your thoughtfulness, pm

bella

Cennini’s  Theories of Artistic Materials and Techniques

….Far from being a mechanical set of rules, the book is charged with human warmth, and the author takes great pains to find the exact words for his step-by-step descriptions of the artist’s task. From every instructive page, beyond technical rules and precepts, there breathes an almost sublime sense of the value of the artist’s work. This work is essentially linked to the seasons of the year, to nature and animals, and to the lifeblood of man, all of which in turn, dominate the artist’s function in the eternal cycle of change and renewal.

“ Your life” - Cennini says to the artist, whether painter, goldsmith, or artisan-”should be ordered as if you were engaged in the study of theology, philosophy, or any other branch of learning.” Art was thus seen as the product of rational activity, not merely of chance inspiration and this principle did indeed guide many artists of the period, and Botticelli in particular. His Primavera amounts to a summa ordinata, an epitome, of his beliefs, as if it actually were a textbook of “theology, philosophy, or any other branch of learning.” Yet, at the same time, the painting is just as much an epitome of technique.

Essay by O. Casazza

From Primavera- the Restoration of  Botticelli’s Masterpiece by Umberto Baldini 

English translation copyright 1986

deep thought for today

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. 

That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

Spring

is it sunday already?

sunday morning preacher man

jon is there nothing you can't do?

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haiku for the night sky

atop a mountain

a slender pale-gold crescent

beseeches Venus

haiku for early risers

up at pink-washed dawn-

watching five deer tiptoeing

through the melting snow

social networking demystified

not sure what social networking site will work for you? Here ya go.

i paid a dollar for this book

I was at one of my favorite places the other day (the library, of course-mmmmm books!) and saw this book on the $1 table. It is fascinating reading, especially as i learned virtually no history in all my long years of schooling. I'll quote a chunk  from The Lessons of History, by Will & Ariel Durant(1968) here:

In the Athens of 594 B.C. according to Plutarch, “the disparity of fortune between the rich and the poor had reached its height so that the city seemed to be in a dangerous condition, and  no other means for freeing it from disturbances …seemed possible but despotic power.”  The poor, finding their status worsened with each year- the government in the hands of their masters, and the corrupt courts deciding every issue against them-began to talk of violent revolt. The rich, angry at the challenge to their property, prepared to defend themselves by force. 

Good sense prevailed; moderate elements secured the election of Solon, a businessman of aristocratic lineage, to the supreme archonship. He devalued the currency, thereby easing the burden of all debtors (though he himself was a creditor); he reduced all personal debts, and ended  imprisonment for debt; he cancelled arrears for taxes and mortgage interest; he established a graduated income tax that made the rich pay at a rate twelve times that required of the poor; he reorganized the courts on a more popular basis; and he arranged that the sons of those who had died in war for Athens should be brought up and educated at the government’s expense. The rich protested that his measures were outright confiscation; the radicals complained that he had not redivided the land; but within a generation almost all agreed that his reforms had saved Athens from revolution.

The Roman Senate, so famous for its wisdom, adopted an uncompromising course when the concentration of wealth approached an explosive point in Italy; the result was a hundred years of class and civil war. Tiberius Gracchus, an aristocrat elected as a tribune of the people, proposed to redistribute land by limiting ownership to 333 acres per person , and allotting surplus land to the restive proletariat of the capital. The Senate rejected his proposals as confiscatory. He appealed to the people, telling them, “You fight and die to give  wealth and luxury to others; you are called the masters of the world, but there is not a foot of ground that you can call your own.” Contrary to Roman law he campaigned for re-election as a tribune; in an election-day riot he was slain (133 B.C.). His brother Caius, taking up his cause, failed to prevent a renewal of violence, and ordered his servant to kill him; the slave obeyed and then killed himself (121 B.C.); three thousand of Caius’ followers were put to death  by Senatorial decree. Marius became the leader of the plebs but withdrew when the movement verged on revolution. Catiline, proposing to abolish all debts, organized a revolutionary army of “wretched paupers”; he was inundated by Cicero’s angry eloquence, and died in battle against the state (62 B.C.). Julius Caesar attempted a compromise, but was cut down by patricians (44 B.C.) after five years  of civil war. Mark Antony  confused his support of Caesar’s policies with personal ambitions and romance; Octavius defeated him at Actium, and established the “Principate” that for 210 years (30 B.C.-A.D.180) maintained the Pax Romana between the classes as well as among the states within the Imperial frontiers.

After the breakdown of political order in the Western Roman Empire (A.D. 476) , centuries of destitution were followed by the slow renewal and reconcentration of wealth, partly in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. In one aspect the Reformation was a redistribution of this wealth by Jacqueries in the countryside and massacres in the cities, but the chief result was a transfer of property and privilege from the aristocracy to the bourgeoisie. The government of the United States, in 1933-52 and 1960-65, followed Solon’s peaceful methods, and accomplished a moderate and pacifying redistribution; perhaps someone had studied history. The upper classes in America cursed, complied, and resumed the concentration  of wealth.

We conclude that the concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable, and is periodically alleviated by violent or peaceable partial redistribution. In this view all economic history is the slow heartbeat of the social organism, a vast systole and diastole of concentrating wealth and compulsive recirculation.

a little lesson

who knew

this looks fascinating! Was just checking boing boing before i make some kinda dinner...

fun for fashionistas

came upon this little gallery of sketches  & dresses and love seeing both together

picture I can't figure out how to add

for the post below! lol See April's cool new website.

april has been busy-

Abril Mayo has been a quiet hurricane of creativity I've noticed lately- check this out-too much!!!

congrats emily

so much going on with her! good grades, finally picked a major, photo contest winner, made the dance team!! and a blogger!!

Guest Blogger: Peter May

                           

My friend Steven is moving to Florida. So, the other day the condo rental company calls me as a reference to his character, etc. 

She asks me: 'How long have you known him?' 

I say: 'He is like a brother to me. I have known since we were three.'

She asks: 'How old is he now?'

I say: "55"

She asks: 'So, what's that, about 40 years?'

I respond: 'No. That would be 55 minus 3, about 52 years!'

I am not sure he will get the apartment.

Valentine be mine

thursday guest blogger- carla

oh so true

poem

The Fitchburg/So. Acton line to Boston

The crow, rocking on the fence at the
Concord station, calling, calling
Two deer, lunging up the embankment, away from the
Icy river drifting under the old arched bridge,
Under the baby blue sky peopled with fleecy clouds,
Gliding stately.
Pine trees, beseeching, next to a huge open field, white with snow,
Only one set of tracks bisecting it -
Then past Walden Pond, frozen in white robes,
A lone man walking a black dog.
The train rolling slow, past vistas lovely and open
Or crowded with houses or black empty trees against
That soft blue sky, rolling under graffiti-splashed bridges,
Past dumpsters and brambles and cattails, the snow everywhere melting, raining down
The roofs of every station on the way.

a donation was made in your name...

to the drury high school band! Max participated in the Rock-athon at Drury( basically a fund raiser where the goal is to stay up all night)-and we added Efren,Janet, Lisa , & Lara to his list...and yes he stayed awake till it was time to leave at 8am, did some errands with April(she & eric are in town for a wedding today!) and promptly fell asleep after chowing down a breakfast of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The only reason he didn't fall asleep IN the mashed taters was - he ate them.

song & dance

interesting

smitten

smitten- that's how my friend barbara described seeing this wonderful painting by goya when she was about 9 years old, and it sparked in her a life-long love of art. I know the feeling! We were trying to figure out exactly which painting, so i found this image and described it to her over the phone, while she was sunning on her deck in Mexico, and she said THAT'S THE ONE!