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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~ In Memoriam: Patrick McGoohan (1928 — 2009) ~~~~
~~~~~~~~ Starred as Number Six ~~~~~ ~~~~~ on long-running 1960s TV Series ~~~~~ ~~~~~ "The Prisoner" ~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For newcomers to the Digest, we have created a webpage of all the Violet-n-Joey cartoons!
Check it out at: http://www.doyletics.com/vjtoons.htm Also note the rotating calendar and clock
that follows just to the right of your mouse pointer as you scroll down the page. You'll also see
the clock on the 404 Error page if you make a mistake typing a URL while on the doyletics.com
website.
The Violet-n-Joey Cartoon page is been divided into two pages: one low-speed and one high-speed access. If you have Do NOT Have High-Speed Access, you may try this Link which will load much faster and will allow you to load one cartoon at a time. Use this one for High-Speed Access.
This month Violet and Joey learn about Plain Talk, inspired by actual conversation with our grandson, Garret Tucker.
Each month we take time to thank two of our good readers of Good Mountain Press Digest, books and reviews. Here's our two worthy Honored Readers for this month. One of their names will be in the TO: address line of your email Digest notification. Our Honored Readers for September are:
How busy was it? I only finished writing one book review, that of The Noticer and my plans to finish
World History and The Doctor and the Detective while on the cruise evaporated somewhere over the
Baltic Sea between St. Petersburg and Helsinki. I have begun writing the former and have almost
finished reading the latter, so look for them to headline next month's reviews. The good news is I have
lots of photos from our trip to share with you and lots of news, so let's get started.
FROM THE ROADHOUSE TO THE DRIVEHOUSE
You'll be soon hearing about two houses named Timberlane, the Roadhouse is the one we're currently
living in on Timberlane Road and the Drivehouse is the one we'll be soon moving into and it is about a
block or so away on Timberlane Drive. To ease the communication flow between me and Del and you
for that matter, it seems expeditious to give each one a name of its own name to avoid any confusion
when we're arranging for work to be done, etc.
We are scheduled to close on the Drivehouse by the
end of September and we will be doing some work on that house before we begin moving our furniture
into it. The months of October and November will be very busy, but luckily my entire Editorial Staff of
the Digest will not be on vacation for over two weeks as they were in August, so look for continued
Digests while we relocate our workstations, etc. Luckily we won't have to disconnect the workstations
on this end before the broadband connection is established at the other house. The main issue will be
the amount of time I will have to work on the Digests during the transition, and I'm praying for a
miracle.
Why are we moving? I am perfectly happy with the Roadhouse, but Del has complained for several
years about the lack of space here. I saw the positive side of the small space: we used every square
foot of space here. There wasn't a room we didn't walk through every day for some reason or
another. On the other hand, I could appreciate Del's need for more space — she is the organizer
around the house and if she is running out of space, we're in trouble. And she is. When we have some
of our 8 offspring visit us with their kids, we currently have only one guest bedroom, so we must blow
up some inflatable mattresses in the living room for the kids to sleep. Most of our kids have at least one
boy and a girl, which means we really need 3 guest bedrooms: one for parents, one for the girl(s), and
one for the boy(s). We need a house which is more than as big as our current home and it would be
nice if the yard was over twice as big. That didn't seem possible. We needed a miracle.
A couple of months ago we met a miracle worker, although we didn't know it at the time, Glennda
Bach, a real estate agent with Latter & Blum. Del knew her from her garden clubs and I knew her from
her signs in front lawns, which over the past twenty years I've seen pop up with signs saying, "TOO
LATE" or "SOLD". There was a house for sale on a corner I passed going to PJ's Coffeeshop for my
mid-morning coffee break each day. I mentioned it to Del and she admitted she was intrigued by the
house as well. We called Glennda and she showed us the house. We liked it, but there were two deal-breakers: the Master Bedroom was upstairs and it had a postage-stamp size yard. We looked at the
other homes she had listed and they were either outside of our budget or didn't meet our two priority
requirements. So we forgot a new house in Timberlane Estates, and we didn't want to move elsewhere.
Then about the first of September, Glennda called about another house which matched our
requirements and which had just been reduced to within our price range. We looked at and placed an
offer. It was accepted, we got a home inspection, got approved for a loan, got an appraisal, and the
wheels are turning on our owning the Drivehouse as of October 1 and putting the Roadhouse up for
sale shortly afterward. We will sell it or lease it.
Friends asked us how we could leave our beautiful backyard, and I thought about that for a while.
Finally I created the Diamond Cutter metaphor to describe how we can leave our "gem of a yard" as
our daughter Maureen called it. Yes, it is a gem, like a diamond we've been cutting facets into and
polishing for years to get it finished. And, yes, now we leave it behind for someone else to enjoy, but
fun for me and Del is in the planning, cutting, and polishing and a new and larger rough-cut diamond
awaits our pleasure.
Before we left on our Baltic Sea cruise on the eleventh, we had to have a home inspection done and
review the results. Then we needed a video plumbing inspection done. The video plumber was Joe
Brocato and he is good friends with my first wife's brother, Anthony Guthans. Glennda came over later
to deliver the DVD's of the "Down the Drain" movie. We watched it and here's my movie blurb on it:
"Down the Drain" (2009) a grainy, black & white movie which gives a graphic new meaning to the
phrase, "Your drains are clean" when spoken by a plumber. No music, no plot, no actors, but worth
keeping around as it beats watching Network TV on nights when no NetFlix DVD arrives. Your Call
We needed to line up homeowner's insurance and flood insurance, we needed to qualify for a mortgage
and to fix our mortgage rate, and we needed to have the house appraised. Somehow we managed all
these things and packed for our cruise in 10 very short and busy days.
A WALK IN THE PARK
While all the excitement over the Drivehouse was going through our minds, our daughter from Bellaire,
Texas, Yvette Clark, showed up with her two pre-teens and a French exchange student living with her
for a couple of months. They stayed across the river with our local daughter, Maureen, but we got to
spend a day with them at City Park.
This was the first time Yvette, who studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and speaks French, had been here
on the first Saturday when the local chapter of CODOFIL (Council On the Development Of French
speaking In Louisiana) has its monthly breakfast. I invited Yvette and Charlotte (the French exchange
student) to come over to the breakfast as it would be fun and educational for both of them to meet local
French-speaking people and get to talk to them over breakfast. Well, when the three of us arrived at
the Les amis de CODOFIL, rive ouest meeting, the room was buzzing and already full of folks. A new
table had to be brought in to hold the new arrivals including us. We talked, we said the Pledge of
Allegiance in French and English, we sang both National Anthems, and ended singing along with
favorite Cajun songs in French. Afterward Yvette said both she and Charlotte thoroughly enjoyed
themselves. We said goodbye as they drove home to pick up the kids and meet us at New Orleans'
City Park Amusement area.
I had called our grand-daughter Tiffany to ask if our great-grandson, Ben, could join us and she
arranged to get him to Yvette. With Yvette's two, Evelyn and Aidan, and Ben, that made three kids at
the park, right? No, you forgot Charlotte. She was 19, but had never been to an amusement park and
ridden on a roller coaster, a Ferris Wheel, or bumping cars, among other things. She was just another
one of the kids for today. Yvette lost her baby sitter for the day as Charlotte became another kid to
keep track of, and it was a pleasure for us because of the sheer joy she experienced on the rides.
We got all four kids an unlimited ride arm-band and we only required that they ride on the carousel with
us for the first ride and on train which circumnavigates City Park on the last ride. When we turned them
loose, they scattered to the winds. We had four kids and three adults, which meant one of us had
double duty at times. Ben loved the bumping cars and each time the ride was over, he would race out
the Exit and zip around to the head of the line for the next ride.
Many of the rides had enough people to
fill up the seats without anyone having to stand in line and wait for a whole ride to elapse. Charlotte
loved the Grand Roule. Neither Yvette or I could figure out what she was referring to, until Yvette
recalled that Roulette means "little wheel" and therefore grand roule must mean "big wheel" — what we
call in America, the Ferris Wheel after George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. who invented it. One
quickly learned not to stand in the path between the Exit and the Entrance of a ride — a passel of kids
swarmed at break-neck speed along this path. It was a sheer pleasure to watch their exuberance and
uninhibited joy as they made the run to the next ride as much fun as the ride itself. They never slowed
down.
Yvette met a school buddy from St. Francis and I met the daughter of my cousin Deanna Hill. Jami was
spending the day at the park with her husband, together with their son-in-law and daughter who had a
small son hiding his face from the camera and was pregnant with a daughter-to-be. It was a fun day
which no one wanted to end, but the adults certainly enjoyed the train ride around park with all four
kids present and accounted for.
EGGPLANTS AND EATING OUT OF THE FREEZER
Last year was my first year growing eggplants and I got only one globe eggplant from each bush. This
year I was determined to improve on that statistic or stop growing eggplants. My eggplant bush strived
and were full of flowers, topping nine feet or three meters high, and yet, not a single eggplant fruit had
set from any flower. Looked like another lugubrious year of promise without production! Finally I went
out to the veggie patch, pulled a four foot high eggplant out of the ground and while it was kicking and
screaming and gasping its last breath, I waved its wilting body in front of its big brothers and said
forcefully, "Here's what going to happen to you if you don't make some fruit and fast!!" and with a
flourish I tossed the dying eggplant bush into the mulch pile. I don't know what an eggplant bush sounds
like when it whimpers, but there must have been some whimpering going on at that time. I hoped that
would soon change into resolve to produce some fruit. I was sure that my message was clear, yes,
crystal! but just in case, I had a backup plan which I immediately placed into action.
My backup plan was to pollinate the eggplant flowers with my fingertips. I wasn't sure it would work,
but doing nothing but grousing last year did not work. So I immediately began lightly rubbing my index
finger and thumb over the projections from the down-hanging purple flowers. I did every flower which
was open and hadn't fallen or dried up yet. The next day I repeated my actions on the flowers that
were open and so on for each succeeding day. And on the third or fourth day, a succeeding day for
sure, to my utter amazement, I found about a dozen fruit had set on the eggplant bushes! Within another
week, I had over two dozen fruit setting and burgeoning in size. I began to prop up the limbs of the
bushes to help carry the weight of the heavy fruit. I was overjoyed by the presence of the eggplants, but
chagrined by the realization that I might not get to eat any of the fruit. Why? There was another plan
afoot.
That other plan involved our going on a cruise for over two weeks in the middle of August which is also
the beginning of hurricane season. If we got a wind event while we were away, and it knocked out our
power for several days, all the food in our freezer would have to be thrown away, and the spoiled food
in the refrigerator compartment would have to discarded as well. My plan was to eat out of the freezer
for the two weeks before we left on vacation. If I held to that plan, I could not cook any of the eggplant
before leaving. Two problems: eating everything in the freezer was going to provide enough meals
without cooking any eggplant. If I cooked eggplant on the last day or so, any leftovers would have to
thrown away. I solved that problem by giving away large eggplants to Gus & Annie and Rosie Harris,
since Annie and Rosie both love to cook eggplant. The rest I left on the bushes and prayed for them to
remain erect and healthy for when we returned home. As they did. The first meal I cooked when we
returned home on the 27th of August was some Red Bean-Eggplant Etouffée, which I have just eaten
the last bit of and licked the plate.
How did the eating out of the freezer work? Well, the pack of frozen Alaskan flounder filets went into
the recipe of the month for this Digest: Flounder Seafood Étouffée which you might wish to try for
yourself if you decide to do the eat out of the freezer trick some year.
We ate well those last two
weeks, and magically the freezer was empty of everything but some ground coffee beans which won't
spoil if the freezer goes out. We moved only a few still frozen tubes of crawfish-eggplant-dressing I
pack for future omelets to the freezer in the garage and some opened jars of condiments and preserves
to the fridge compartment in the garage. Stay tuned for the rest of the story which happened when we
returned from vacation.
LAST BABIN COUSIN DIED
My mother was one of 11 Babin children, 2 sons and 8 daughters survived childhood, and only her
brother Lester "Peewee" Babin had a son, so out of some 40 plus grandkids, the Babin name would
only be carried by Lester's son. Unfortunately a debillating disease hit four of Lester and Alicia's five
children. The son, Lester, Jr., died at an early age and had no children. The daughter who escaped the
disease, Cheryl, was the only one to have children. Two of the daughters also died at an early age from
the disease. Janice was the last survivor of the five children and lived to the age of 65, spending most of
her time in a wheelchair and cared for by her mother, Alicia. Cheryl preceded Janice in death by a
couple of years from a non related disease. In her last years, Janice had to be evacuated for Katrina
and Rita, not an easy thing for someone in a wheel chair whose only caregiver was a mother in her 90s.
But there was an angel who helped Alicia, my cousin Myra Bascle who grew up in an adjacent lot to
the Babin children and knew Janice from childhood.
It was a normal childhood for them. They played with us like all our cousins when we came to visit our
Grandma and Grandpa Babin who lived in the lot between Janice and Myra's house. I was among the
oldest of the Babin grandkids with Janice and Myra about four year younger than me. When I left to go
off to college all of Alicia's kids were healthy, but soon the first signs of the disease began to show up
and the deadly diagnosis was revealed. Alicia managed to get a large van to carry her disabled children
to the doctor and hospital, selling her land to make ends meet at one time. The two other girls died in
their twenties or thirties, but Janice carried on. She was an avid LSU fan I found out at the funeral, both
baseball and football. She must have thoroughly enjoyed the past year when LSU won the College
World Series and be National Champions of College Baseball.
The funeral was held in St. Ann's Church in the small town of Bourg, south of Houma, alongside Bayou
Terrebonne. The name of the Parish is Terrebonne which means "Good Earth" and it was good earth
for my Grandpa Babin whose 89 acres was found to have natural gas fields under it and my mother
received royalties from the drillers for many years till the field played itself out. It was a obligatory drive
down the bayou for me as the opportunities to visit with my Babin cousins get less frequent as the years
pass. Aunt Alicia, now 95 years old, was up front greeting everyone.
She recognized my cousin Gaton,
which is natural because he lives nearby, but didn't seem to remember me when I told her I was
Annette's boy. The priest was an Asian priest who was hard to understand when he spoke, but his
compassion and respect for Alicia was eloquent. He came down from the pulpit and stood in front of
Alicia as he talked about her deceased daughter, but it was mostly Alicia he talked about and Myra.
These two women helped Janice in these last years of her life. Not only through the evacuations for
storms, but when Janice fell out of her wheelchair and broke her leg! That is not something I had ever
heard of before, but Alicia with Myra's help got Janice to the hospital and Janice was able to recover
and get back home to watch her beloved Tigers play in the College World Series. The priest talked to
Alicia and to us in the pews about the sacrifices that Alicia made, taking care of her five children after
Lester died some 45 years ago, children who became disabled and required round-the-clock care until
they died, and Alicia was always there. Even now she was there and the lithe little priest was staring her
in the face, inches away, nose to nose, saying "Alicia, it is time for yo u to take care of yourself."
I walked out of the church to head for home, while the burial took place in the cemetery behind St.
Ann's where so many of my Babin and Matherne ancestors are buried. Across the highway was a large
dead armadillo alongside the road and a couple of dozen buzzards were arrayed under a shady tree
nearby apparently waiting their turn while two of their number snacked on the armadillo baking in the
direct sun. There was some kind of message there with the propinquity of the funeral of a dear relative
and buzzards eating. Perhaps it is that we will each one day be an afternoon snack for buzzards, I don't
know, and I feel a bit disrespectful in even mentioning the buzzards and the funeral, but it did happen.
SAGGING BOOKSHELVES AND RUBBERWOOD
Don't know if any of you have bought bookshelves with pressed wood shelves as I have. If so, you
will have noticed that over the years the center of the shelves sag from the weight. For the Drivehouse I
want some bookshelves with real wood under the books that will be as strong as possible. I found what
I was looking for and paradoxically the shelves are made of rubberwood! Now that name raised a red
flag for me right away. I already have rubbery wood under my books! But a name is just a name, so I
came home and did some research. I discovered that rubberwood is actually called Parawood in
Thailand, and it is made from old, no-longer-producing rubber trees.
It is the sap of the rubber tree that
is elastic and rubbery, not the trunks. When the trunks are dried and seasoned, they form a wood
which is stronger than oak. So my next set of bookshelves will be made of rubberwood.
CALCITE EARRINGS AND THE ROLLING STONES' MIDWEST TOUR
Got a call from our daughter-in-law in Bloomington, Indiana, saying that our son was hospitalized in
some small town in Virginia with kidney stones. He was heavily sedated. Apparently he had his ten-year-old son Walden was with him on a business trip, and the country hospital found a room for
grandson to spend the night. Apparently our son passed the stones from his kidney into his bladder and
he said when I talked to him finally that it made going to pee equivalent to playing Russian Roulette.
There's that word for "little wheels/balls" again, in a new context. Our daughter Carla got a text from
him saying, "I made some calcite for you for an earring." Indicated to me that his sense of humor was
back, he was off the heavy meds, and able to use his cell. All good news. Then came the email to me
with the following Subject line: Rolling Stones Midwest tour wraps up — it seems that he had left
the hospital the next morning and was feeling so good, he drove all the way home to Indiana.
DELTA DOWN
We left for the airport in New Orleans at 1 pm for our 4 pm flight to Atlanta. If all goes well, we'd be
on the British Airways flight to Heathrow at 8:30 pm, arriving in Stockholm a few hours later.
We got
on the Delta plane and a thunderstorm came over us for an hour or so and suddenly folks with working
laptops and internet connections were reporting the Delta site said we'd not leave till 9 pm, way too
late for us to catch 8:30 flight in Atlanta to London and then Stockholm. Nothing from the pilot. Only
later did we find out the door lock was broken and they wouldn't let it be worked on during the rain,
and after the rain, they finally decided it couldn't be fixed. We were stranded and in danger of missing
our entire cruise!
We called our Horchow Travel Agent Carolyn and she helped us, staying at the office an extra hour or
more till our fate was decided and we had a new flight to Stockholm. We decided to go home and
sleep in our own beds instead of heading to Atlanta. The next flight was a direct flight to Stockholm on
Delta and didn't leave until 8 pm the next night, August 12, 2009. We had already missed our first day
in Stockholm and if our luck held, we'd be at the boat a couple of hours before the cruise ship departed
for Russia. Had to haul our own bags back to car and we took the wrong elevator and had to double back with six
bags in tow.
We were exhausted by the time we got in the Maxima. Decided to go to Houston's to eat
in Metairie as our fridge at home was empty. We had a nice meal for 44 dollars plus tip, and then we
drove home. Back where we started, having wasted 9 hours at the airport, spent $13 parking, $5
porter, and $51 eating. And we never left home. And we missed a day in Stockholm. Rats!
And this was not the last time Delta broke down on the tarmac while a thunderstorm passed overhead!
Same thing happened on the trip home. We were due to get home about 9:00 pm and didn't make it till
almost midnight. Why? A slight problem with the lighting system came up while we were on hold for an
Atlanta thunderstorm to pass over. When we finally took off hours later, there was pouring rain going
horizontally rearward passed my window and lightning was flashing in the sky, some large bolts hitting
the ground in the distance. Luckily there was little turbulence in the air and we soon left the scattered
thunderstorm behind us.
Delta Down is not soft — it is definitely hard! Even when things go right, something can crop up. Like
our next day flight to Atlanta. We decided to head to the airport in New Orleans in the morning and
catch the first plane to Atlanta. Get off before the afternoon thunderstorms could delay us. We did: we
caught the 8:52 plane, a small commuter jobbie with four seats abreast which took us there
comfortably, — BUT after it landed we sat on the tarmac in the hot sun for 45 minutes before a gate
became available. Delta Down is definitely not soft.
In Atlanta, I was able to use the first class lounge which had PC work carrels in small soundproof
rooms. I used that time to work on my World History review. When we got to our departure gate, I
met a young couple with two small girls who were clearly Swedish and heading for home. The lovely
Swedish family comprised Björn Starrin, his wife, and two girls about 8 and 5, the younger one called
Greta. I took two photos of them at the airport, and later on the plane I asked for his name that I might
identify him and some day he can find the photo on the Internet on my Digest. I told the couple that all I
knew of their country I learned from looking at scratchy Black & White movies by Ingmar Bergman, so
that meant I was going to see Sweden in living color for the first time when we arrived. They smiled.
And sure enough, as we walked down the concourse in Stockholm's ALN airport, there was a large
poster with a smiling face of Ingmar Bergman saying, "Welcome to my city!" and there was Sweden in
living color.
Our non-stop flight to Sweden on Delta in coach was sweetened up for us by the 59 empty seats on the
plane which allowed Del to have three adjacent seats in the middle section to stretch out fully and sleep
in. On the same row I had the two seats by the window to myself. I could sleep comfortably and when
I wished to write on my Laptop, I would move a few seats ahead to the bulkhead where there was no
seat leaning back restricting me. I was aware that someone had moved during the flight into the two
seats behind me to stretch out and sleep. Never met her, but heard her talking about having to get a taxi
from airport to a ship. Later Del talked to her and found out she was Sheri Levy, a Bridge Instructor on
the Crystal Symphony, arriving a day late like us. Since we were passengers Crystal was sending a car
to pick us up so we invited her to join us if there were enough room on the vehicle. There almost
wasn't. Our six bags and her three filled every empty space in the small SUV, stacked up to the ceiling
and in the one empty seat. Through Sheri we met Ian Raizon, also from South Africa and he helped us
arrange our transportation from Dover to London at the end of the cruise, saving us a bunch of money.
STOCKHOLM ARCHIPELAGO
We got through customs wondered how we'd board the ship without an ID card., but they let us on the
ship's main entrance without a card and we walked to the Concierge who took our photo and gave us
our photo ID. Later while Del was showering I went out to the gift area for our only chance at
Stockholm shopping before we set sail at 4 pm. In the small shop at the dock, I met Jennifer, a beautiful
gal behind the counter who looked to be from India, but was a mixture of Sweden and some African
country parents. I selected my souvenirs and I used up all my Swedish Kroner plus a US 50. She
suggested a better rate via credit card, but I want to use up as much Swedish currency as possible and
then get some coins. Had to give her a dollar for some coins at the end as she rounded the gift
purchases to the $50 bill after another discount by her. A locally cast glass horse, Stockholm City Hall
sculpture, a book about city and a colorful cylindar which makes moose sound when you turn it over
for grandkids to play with. The moose spoke to us several times as we were packing to leave the ship
at the end of the cruise. There was another gal seated at a table nearby, a blonde who was half
Swedish and Russian, who wanted to know how to spell "Rhino" for a paper she was writing in English.
Our assigned dinner seating in the Crystal Symphony Dining Room was the early 6:15 pm one at Table
10, almost the same table as for our Italian Cruise in 2008 on the Crystal Serenity. Carolyn and
George MacLaughlin, our tablemates from that cruise are on this cruise, but are on the later seating.
Our table mates were Whitney Denman and Pam McKee (watercolor-artist instructors on board) and
Marjorie and Scott Taylor from Montreal. Pam has identical twin boys, mirror twins, too, as Del found
out. Marjorie is a Scot (born in Scotland) who later became a Canadian and Scott is not a Scot but a
Canadian whose name is Angus Scott Taylor. Go figure. Marjorie and Scott seemed to pop up all over
the ship where we were, sometimes it was Marjorie on the elevator, sometimes it was Scott, like the
last full day at sea when he was just completing his massage with Rosa the Russian masseuse and
heading into the steam room when I was undressing for my massage with Rosa.
These spontaneous
meetings happened similarly with Whitney, Pam, George and Carolyn, and many other friends we made
on the cruise. Bob and Lisa Campbell I met while looking out our veranda on the way out of
Stockholm, they were also leaning on the railing of the stateroom next to us. Later we discovered they
were assigned to a neighboring table at dinner. It is so easy to make friends on a Crystal Cruise, you
simply ask a stranger, "Where are you from?" and a conversation breaks out.
We cruised out of Stockholm through the archipelago of islands leading to the sea. Took a lot of photos
of the islets and the beautiful homes isolated on the hillsides we passed. Sea gulls loved to fly alongside
our veranda and soar up over, allowing me ample chances for photos of them in flight.
BRONZE HORSEMAN, PUSHKIN, AND CATHERINE'S PALACE
Busy day our first day in St. Petersburg. We were up at six am to eat a quick breakfast and leave on
tour. Constantin was our guide with his wireless microphone and our earpieces. I could take the ear
piece off if it got noisy or too loud and just walk up to listen to him. We walked, rode the bus. looked
over the city by bus, then walked, past the Field of Mars with its eternal flame taken from one of the
factories and used to light the other eternal flames around Russia. Then we walked into the Church of
the Resurrection where the Czar was killed (Church of Spilt Blood is its other name). Took photos of
Winter Palace or Hermitage, take your choice. Had to walk to the other side of the Palace Square to
get all of the building into my camera, and the result can be seen in the Banner at the top of this Digest.
Took over 200 photos this day and used up my first battery.
The photos tell the story of what we did. They're coded in the order I took them for future reference.
Some places I shot as we drove past and then later as we walked past them. We went into the Onegin
Shop for a potty break. Bought our souvenirs mostly at kiosks. My Pashimir scarf was the first buy and
a necessary one to keep me warm. Then Del bought a lacquered box. At the Church I bought a glass
with the Bronze Horseman on it. At Onegin I bought a fridge magnet of the Bronze Horseman statue of
Peter the Great which Pushkin wrote a great poem about. Met Father Justin in Onegin Shop and had a
long talk with him.
The second day was our big event, A Formal Evening at Catherine's Palace. When I read the
Excursion Brochure, I penned WOW! in the margin and after it was all over, I seconded that WOW!
That morning I was in the ship's Bistro and saw Sheri Levy with two guys, Ian Raizon and Louie
Prades. Went over to talk and found out all three of them were from South Africa.
First time I ever sat
at a table where I was the only person not from South Africa. All very British. They asked me to sit
down and I did. Del joined us later, and two more couples came over. Curiously all three South
Africans ended up in another country. Ian emigrated to Melbourne and Louie had lived in London for
40 years, working, only recently returned to his native soil in South Africa. Sheri is living in Florida now.
Ian proved very helpful in getting us and all of our six bags from Dover to the Paddington Hilton in
London, and later to the Heathrow Airport as we arranged for Ahmen the driver to take us to
Heathrow as well. These were the only transfers that Crystal did not take care of for us, but Ian came
to the rescue. We met Ian and his wife Sandy briefly in Heathrow when we were flying home and they
were going to New York. Louie was to be our tablemate for the banquet in Catherine's Place later than
night.
The drive out of St. Pete was marvelous. We saw the countryside, the apartment buildings like
crackerboxes built during the 60s. On the horizon what looked like a Nuclear Power Plant was actually
the heating utility plant which supplies steam heat to all the residences in St. Pete. We arrived first and
walked through the Classic Carriages of the 18th and 19th centuries. Some restored, some not. There
was a cattle herd of tourists behind us, but they didn't seem to follow us all the way into the palace.
Details of Evening, filled in from photos.
First we made friends with Sean Linkson and Mia Kammann on the bus in order to get our photo made
for the TP to publish. I had forgotten about doing that during the previous day tour with the onion top
churches in St. Petersburg so it was necessary tonight. I enlisted Sean's help, and had him practice
taking photos with my camera so he would be ready. I chose Catherine's Palace as the backdrop and I
think it came out great. You can clearly see LSU in the headlines of the Times-Picayune and the ornate
palace facade in the background. Her palace is a miniature of the large Winter Palace, but it still spans a
thousand feet wide. Inside it mimics Versailles and the Schoenbrun Palace of Vienna quite well. More
ornate with colored rooms, one with walls lined with amber. Given the price of amber for jewelry, that
one room must be priceless. They took all the amber off the walls to prevent the Nazis from taking it
and then replaced after WWII. For New Orleans natives,the palace resembles a shotgun house, so-called because the structure is linear with the doors lined up on the right edge of each room, so that one
could fire a shotgun from one end of the house the other without hitting a wall. A very expensive
shotgun house!
After the carriage tour, the group shrank down and we had a leisurely stroll through the palace. The
doorways seemed lined up and stretched to the horizon as we walked from elegant, ornate room to
even more elegant and ornate room. There was a flautist who played in several rooms. Nice touch.
Then a pianist played on an antique harpsichord in the green room. Got a movie clip of that.
Then we reached the Great Hall where we were served tall stems of champagne and then Catherine II
came out and greeted us in Russian with a translator giving us the English version. She and her husband
sat down and the chamber orchestra played a couple of pieces and two dancers came out to dance
period dances for us, European style, the style Peter the Great imported into Russian.
We walked out into the courtyard as dusk was drawing nigh and a Russian military band was playing
marches for us. Then an elegant ballerina and her partner in a blue evening coat danced together in the
open air of the large courtyard, with a semi-circular colonnade surrounding it.
Soon the dance was over and Catherine and husband, now in elegant European attire, rode out on the
blacktopped courtyard in a carriage pulled by a black horse and white horse with white taped-up ears.
The horses were stately and strong as they pulled the carriage around in a couple of circles to the awe
of all of us watching. The ballerina and her partner came and danced several dance in front of us. After
the ballet, the band lined up on either side of the walkway, as we walked through the colonnade
encircling the large courtyard on the way to our restaurant and dinner. The band played marches as if in
salute to visiting dignitaries, and who knows but that we were.
The restaurant was close by, right around the corner of the palace and part of it. As we entered, there
were Russian folk singers and dancers to greet us, in authentic Russian peasant dress. Inside we sat at
our table. Louie joined us, as well as George and Carolyn, and a new friend Michael Finger whose son,
Simon is a doctor in New Orleans. The Russian lead singer was operatic and his voice bellowed in
perfect harmony to a rousing chorus of Figaro! He got a standing ovation for his singing. Del was given
a clapping Russian rhythm instrument and kept time with the rousing songs, then bought the gadget as a
souvenir. We also bought the CD which they had for sale.
The banquet was great, complete with a shot of Russian vodka for each of us. Louie drank two shots
and his face and nose were red. Was glad he decided to stop at that. I drank a tiny sip during a toast,
but no chug-a-lug for me. An elegant, unforgettable evening from beginning to end. We made our way
back to the ship knowing that we had just time-traveled back to Catherine's Palace for an evening and
our hearts were full. This was the evening event that I scribbled WOW! to on the side of the brochure
before we left home, and it was exactly that: a WOW! experience, one never to be forgotten.
HELSINKI, PAAVO, AND CHANTERELLES
Our day in Helsinki, Finland came next. Got photos of us coming into the harbor and we took the
complimentary shuttle into downtown. I had emailed Paavo Pylkkänen that we'd meet him and his wife
Elina at noon at the Czar Alexander statue. I had reviewed Paavo's book, Mind, Matter, and the
Implicate Order two years earlier, and wanted to meet him in person. He teaches Philosophy of Mind as well as Philosophy of Physics at the University of Helsinki.
It was raining when we arrived, and we walked up the steps to the Lutheran Church, some steps as
steep as Chichenitza pyramid it seemed. Cold, forbidding church, hardly any color but white with marble statues. Del and I then walked down the side entrance and the steps were shorter as the street
slopped down. Because it was raining, we stopped in a coffee shop which was unique: had a Quonset
Hut appearance inside. Used the rest room and got some coffee and sat for awhile till it was time to
meet with the Pylkännens.
Paavo walked right up to me. He looked more human than his book photo, a gentle Finnish man, tall,
blonde, soft-spoken, like a character out of a Bergman film. Soon Elina joined us and we found a
restaurant for lunch. I had seen some chanterelle mushrooms in open bins in the square earlier and
wondered how they were used, and as I sat there, Elina suggested the mushroom soup, and sure
enough the chanterelles were there in my soup, unchopped, with the same elongated Y-shapes I had
seen earlier in the large bins, but no longer orange.
Elina had to return to work in the Ministry of Finance of Finland right across the square from Paavo. Paavo told
us about his work at the University. Paavo showed us through the university and gave me a book about
the Finnish philosopher, Eino Kaila, who wrote cogently about monism. I read a bit about his "blue
fire" and will revisit that. Seems to be about the reality of the spiritual world, a topic in which I am most
interested since Steiner convinced me of its reality.
Del and I noted that statues of nude women seem to fill the public areas of Helsinki, as if they had just
emerged from the Finnish Sauna. There was a nude woman throwing a javelin, two nudes standing side
by side, and a nude in a fountain with four seals spraying water at her feet. In our walk along the open
market in the light rain, Del saw an artist whose work she liked and bought a painting of the Helsinki
harbor from him. Each day when we got back to the Symphony with our treasures, I photographed
them. Paavo talked a lot about the "Kalevala" — the Genesis story of Finland which was actually put together properly & well known already in the 19th century, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevala. It was written down from oral history, and constitutes a relatively new epic about the beginning of the world.
Back on the Symphony, we went to hear Michelle Bell (Mick Bell of the Fifth Dimension) who has
reclaimed his original name given by his mom, under urging by his wife, and sounded somewhat unsure
of why he had done it. I met him later on the ship and told him how important his name was, its
connection with Mi-cha-el the Archangel, who is always portrayed in art and sculpture as having his
foot on a writhing dragon or serpent and ready to stab it, showing us that evil is alive in the world, but
that He will show us the way and help us to slay evil when it rears its ugly head. Michelle got tears in his
eyes, thanked me, and gave me a big hug. It was very heart-warming to help complete his reunion with
his childhood name. Names are a big thing. We are given them when we are very young, grow up
taking them for granted, and only as adults are we ready to come to grips with the karmic roots in the
names we carry around with us for a lifetime.
ALL AT SEA
My favorite days aboard ship are when we spend the entire day at sea. It's a time for relaxing, for
visiting with friends when spontaneous meetings occur, for recovering from the previous day's excursion
ashore and resting up for the next day. After Helsinki we cruised to Germany, the coast village and
port of Warnemünde from which the excursions to Berlin will take place. When I had visited the North
Sea town of Wadden, many miles to the west, around 1998, Warnemünde was still in East Germany.
This sea day there was a big buffet in the Crystal Room and I got a photo of Michelle Bell with Charles
Rushing and his lady friend, Sharon. Then took photos of the buffet, especially the penguin made from
an egg. I wandered later to the Lido deck and Pam and Whitney enticed me into joining their
watercolor class in progress. I had to leave and finish up quickly, but managed to create a St.
Petersburg Impression according to Pam's instruction which came out as a Ringing Cedars image which
I like. Hope you do also. Saw a Theatre at Sea Broadway-inspired show with Betsy Palmer and
Richard White and others in it in the afternoon.
WALKING THE WALL, "ICH BIN EIN JELLY DONUT", AND THE $2 MILLION CAR
This was an early morning for me. Del didn't want to go to Berlin because of the six hours on the bus
each way, but it was a don't miss spot for me. Bus left shortly after we arrived in port and Sheri was on
our bus. She didn't have an agenda of what to visit, so we wandered the streets of Berlin together. We
followed the bricks which marked the spot of the Berlin Wall through the city like the Boston Freedom
Walk. In a way it is a freedom walk. We took photos of each other in front of the sections of the wall
still standing. By the Reichstag, the river, and in a car showroom. Her son was crazy about Bugatti cars
and when we saw a new model Bugatti, we talked the gal in the showroom into letting me take a photo
of Sheri standing next to the Bugatti. It costs about 2 Millions dollars. You must put about a half million
down payment to get them to start making one for you, a process which takes a year. It goes from 0 to
60 mph in 2.5 seconds and has a top speed of 407 kph, fastest of any production car. I didn't like the
way it looked myself.
On the bus trip to Berlin we stopped for a rest stop and these German Hell's Angel types drove up,
some thirty of them on black cycles with black leather and the name Feldjaegers on their bikes.
Seemed nice enough guys.
Our tour guide was a young Romanian named "Vlad" who said his name was not short for the Russian
"Vladimir" but was a full Romanian name, such as Vlad the Impaler. The castle purported to be that of
the bloody Vlad would be ignored if advertised by its fortress name and no one would come to see it,
but as "Vlad the Impaler's Castle" it draws tourists like Madonna draws Russians to her concerts. Vlad
told us about the buildings we passed and he was very pleasant at all times, never talking too much or
too long. I made certain to give him a nice tip and tell how much I enjoyed his guide work.
Got back to another boufet and open seating in the Dining Room, but I think Majorie and Scott joined
us to talk about the days' events. I made a point to see Patricia Neal's "As I Am" performance with
Del who missed Neal's show on the previous cruise. Neal added a few new things this time and I
enjoyed hearing her life story again. I went to a show, "Shakespeare's Females", by the gal who
played in "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" namely Susannah York. She was incredible.
Loretta
Swit's show I only stayed till she started showing clips from MASH and left, not being a fan of the
sitcom. The Broadway stars were great and we made every show they did, except the night we were in
Catherine's palace. Great singing, dancing, reminiscing. Leslie Uggams was performing. I met her and
her husband Graham on the Berlin bus. Susan Powell and Richard White are married and they acted
and sang together, also on Berlin Bus. I asked Leslie if my memory of her being on the "Sing Along
with Mitch Miller" show and she said she was. It was her second show after name that tune.
Found out from Vlad that when John F. Kennedy announced proudly to the world during his speech at
the Berlin Wall, "Ich bin ein Berliner!" few people outside of Germany realized that he was saying "I am
a jelly donut!" There is a popular jelly donut made in Berlin that has come to be known as a "Berliner"
— a donut of the form found in Berlin! Everyone outside of Berlin calls it, "ein Berliner", but inside
Berlin, they simply call it "a jelly donut".
BANEFUL, BANEFUL COPENHAGEN, NORTH SEA TO DOVER
Docked in Copenhagen, Denmark today. We had a morning tour and the first stop was to see the
Mermaid in the Harbor. Went into a Lutheran Church and took a great photo of Christ Jesus and St.
Peter. Had the world's worst tour guide. She even admitted that Denmark collaborated with the Nazis
just to save their butts and said it as if she was proud of the fact.
Has a great new opera house donated
by a capitalist, a breed which is reviled but essential to the small nucleus of what was once a great
country. Being proud of "free schools" when tax rate is 48% on poor people and 68% on rich people
(over $60K a year) is ironic. Lucky it was a morning only tour because the guide repeated the story of
Denmark's Nazi capitulation three times and I couldn't have stomached a fourth, fifth and sixth if we
had an all-day tour with her.
Del and I both disliked Copenhagen intensely. Copenhagen is the not the wonderful town that Danny
Kaye sang about so merrily. It is the capital of a dreary socialistic country who kowtowed to the Nazis
in WWII and seem proud of it, to listen to the sad excuse for a tour guide we had. Denmark is the
remains of a large country which once included large portions of the Scandinavian Peninsula.
Back on the ship, where capitalism reigned once more, I took some photos of the Crystal Room (built
by capitalists to make a profit by providing a wonderful service) and a delicious cold soup I was served
for lunch. Also photos of a three masted sailing ship going by while I was on the top deck. It was formal
night again and Del took a photo of me reading from Conan Doyle's biography on the veranda in my
tux. Before the dinner we met our table mates and others outside and took photos of each other.
The next day was our last full day at sea on our Baltic Sea Cruise. Another busy day at sea. I think we
should have more days at sea for passengers to just enjoy each other's company. For me the day
started down in the Crystal Room viewing and photographing the artistic watercolors done by Pam and
Whitney's students.
The rest of the day was relaxing. I watched a Theatre at Sea show, had a latte in
The Bistro, took photos of the waves of the North Sea spraying into the air, won a jackpot in the
Casino, while Del was exercising her prerogative and her muscles and getting spa treatments. In the
Palm Court, she and I went to afternoon tea, a marvelous event with Darjeeling tea, light sandwiches, a
view of the sea from the bow of the ship, a trio of flute, violin, and piano playing music, scones with
strawberries and cream, etc. On this day, the flute player who had promised me to learn "Orchids in the
Moonlight" was practicing the song for a later performance at Table 10 for dinner. He gave me a
knowing smile as I acknowledged his finding and mastering the song.
Early the next morning, Del and I were up, our packs had been packed the previous night and were
safely tagged as Purple 5 which meant we were making our own arrangements for transfer in Dover,
thanks to Ian Raizon. We took some photos of the White Cliffs of Dover from the Lido Deck as the
sun rose over the coastline of France, which, because of the high cliffs of the Normandy coast (the
other edge of the channel carved out by the North Sea to separate Lesser and Greater Brittany), we
could see from 20 miles or so away. After a delicious last breakfast at the Lido Café and a goodbye
and tip to our favorite Filipinos there. Somehow the Crystal knows to put the happiest and most
cheerful and approachable servers on the Lido Deck in the café where early morning wakers need help
the most. Rick, Derrick, Miguel were our favorites. A similar thing to what we experienced on the
Serenity last year.
First order of business was to locate our bags in the bowels of the Dover warehouse. Thanks to the
British passport check of all the passengers while at sea the previous day, we were simply waved
ashore by the British authorities.
The gal assigned to help us locate our bags had her hands full. We
finally found 5 of the six bags, but Del's small carry-on had apparently disappeared. Nowhere could it
be found by five or six of us scouring the baggage area. Finally our gal looked behind a medium sized
bag against the wall and there it was! Hooray! She led us out to the van which was waiting for us and
accepted a grateful tip from us. Ahmen (whose full name is Mohammed, but Ian calls him Ahmen) was
our van driver. He is arabic with a large graying Santa Claus beard. His gentle eyes and demeanor
endeared him to us immediately. Ian and Sandy had two friends with them Barry and his wife Estelle
and the six of us with all our bags Ahmen was able somehow to shoehorn us all into the 8 passenger
van with Ian sitting up front with Ahmen on the trip.
BIG BEN, POLKA DOT TREES, GIVING THE EYE THE EYE
I began taking photos as Ahmen drove us through London, past the London Eye (Grand Roule or
Ferris Wheel) which has replaced Big Ben as the iconic symbol of London. Felt no need to ride a tall
Ferris Wheel, so we passed on it when we walked past its base, simply giving the Eye the eye. We had
a lot to see and didn't want to use up our bus pass sitting in another paid seat for an hour. Spied
changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace as we rode past and later when we walked past, it was
the wrong time so we missed it close up. I called it "The Changing of the Diapers" as the Changing of
the Guard bore as much interest to me as watching a woman change dirty diapers on a baby. So what?
After they've changed the Guard, everything looks exactly the same as before. Same uniform, same
positions, same fixed stare, same fixed grimace. At least the baby has a smile of on its face after its
diaper gets changed!
At the Marble Arch, which we must have passed once in the van, six times in the Big Bus, and 4 times
on foot, there is an incredible statue of a horse's head stood on end, nose to the ground. When I first
spied it, it seems to be a huge hollow object of unknown design. Later passes of it on the Big Bus, I
began to discern features like a donkey's face in the broad expanse of one side. Soon thereafter, the
image of the horse's head reached a gestalt in me and what I thought was the donkey's head was the
eye of the horse sculpture. A curious transition which I am yet pondering. Like the Man in the Moon,
once the gestalt forms you cannot see the Moon without the Man in the Moon face ever again. But why
the eye would have looked like a donkey is beyond me so far, and remains an unanswered question, up
until now.
One of the wonderful things about London was that most of the museums if not all were open to the
public without any admission fees. The Tower of London cost 17 pounds ($32) to see the Crown
Jewels and other stuff which must help the Royalty pay for keeping intact a huge palace which has not
been lived in by the Royalty for hundreds of years. Del wanted to see the jewels and I didn't, so she
took the bus across town to see them while I visited Little Venice with John Townsend from Edgway
town about 6 miles away. More about that later.
Unlike our visits to other European capitals this year and last when it rained in Venice (with a
Vengeance), in Rome, in Helsinki, and in St. Petersburg (some of the time), London was beautiful and
clear. One day a shower caught Del as she arrived back at our Paddington Hilton Hotel, but she was
let out under the cover of the Paddington Station awning and did not get wet. No cloud cover, only
scattered white clouds most of the first day for us. It was also warm, about 78, so we wore our long
sleeve shirts around our waist when we walked. And walk we did.
The most impressive square is Trafalgar Square which honors Lord Horatio Nelson, an Admiral
without a right arm or right eye, having lost both in battle. When signaled to withdraw by his superior,
Admiral Hyde Parker, he put his telescope to his blind right eye and said, "I see no signal to retreat"
and went on to a great victory. He rightly deserves the Order of St. Theresa for disregarding orders
and going on to victory, and certainly earned the prominent place in Trafalgar Square. He even
conquered the heart of Lady Hamilton without a right arm or eye and made her his wife.
We got off near the London Eye and walked past the base of London Eye, got some fish and chips
together with a lesson on British rudeness. Walked along the Polka Dot Tree trunks to the next bridge,
the Waterloo Bridge and had to walk the length of that bridge to catch the Big Bus once again to head
back to our Hotel.
We arrived back about 8 pm and we were thoroughly exhausted. We ate at the
restaurant across the street which had tiny two-man tables. Del had the salmon dinner and I had the
salmon salad and it was ths same size salmon, only mine had wilted green stuff under the fish. Good,
though. Over-priced? Natch. Kept reminding myself that I lived in a country 50 weeks of the year
where prices were reasonable and low. Forget about those "old days folks" talking about when the
"dollar was worth something" and they could do Europe on the cheap — these are the good ole days
when it's cheaper to live in the USA.
ELGIN MARBLES, TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE
Next day we had a full day in London and a half day ticket left on the Big Bus. We decided to do the
British Museum today. We had to take the Red Line to Trafalgar Square, then switch to the Green Line
to Russell Square where the Museum is located. This time we got to walk around Trafalgar and take
photos while waiting for the Green Line to arrive. At the Museum we walked directly to the Parthenon
Exhibit room to see the Elgin Marbles. These were salvaged from the frieze of the Greek monument to
save them from being ground up by peasants to build homes. It was during a time of Turkish
occupation, and only diplomats like Lord Elgin and his wife, by schmoozing the Turkish leaders, could
have gotten permission to remove and preserve vital history which was being pulverized daily. The
amazing story of the transporting of the marbles can be found in Karen Essex's fine historical novel,
Stealing Athena which I reviewed last year.
After the British Museum, we took the Green Line back to
around Buckingham Palace and walked along Hyde Park to the Marble Arch to the Odeon Movie
theatre where The Time Traveler's Wife was playing in it first run. We saw banners on the Double-decker buses announcing it and our Concierge had found out where and when it was playing. I had
reviewed in 2006 the novel by Audrey Niffenegger upon which the movie was based. We were
expecting a "Don't Miss Hit" and it was certainly that. By the time we had walked home from the
Marble Arch area, we were exhausted. Ate at Garfinkel's Restaurant and hit the sack early.
LITTLE VENICE, CROWN JEWELS
Up early for our second full day in London. Del wants to go see the crown jewels and I wanted to not
be walking about and seeing the same places in London for a 7th time. No interest in the Tower of
London or the Jewels for me. So Del took the bus by herself and I got on the Internet for the first time.
I was able to sign up for 15 lbs or $28 from 9 am until till we left the next day about noon. My London
friend who I met over the Internet, John, was online and I talked to him over Skype. He sounded
terrible, like he had very low energy. Could not come out today he said, and he apologized for not
calling me back before I left on the cruise. I said I understood and said goodbye. About 15 minutes
later he called me back in the room and said he decided to come meet me here for lunch. Whatever he
did, talked to his wife perhaps, caused him to feel much better and he sounded great. I was so glad he
came. I would have else completely missed the wonderful adventure of the day, one which gave me a
taste of the true England which lay waiting for me just a hundred yards behind where we had been
staying, Little Venice of London.
I went down to the Lobby and waited, inside the outside, at the time he set. But his train was late, and
he showed up late. I asked if he'd pick a place to have lunch and he chose the Subway Sub Shop, an
American place I rarely frequent, but where the shop was! In a place in Paddington known as Little
Venice, as I was to find out. But first we had to walk between the outside of Paddington Station, whose
roof was under construction, and the backside of an old hospital, on cobbled brick walkway just barely
wide enough for two vehicles to pass. I couldn't imagine where we were going as there were no signs
of life except for a few people walking toward the station's rear entrance. Suddenly a blue boat on a
canal appeared to our right as we walked under an overpass carrying cars. To the left shops appeared
in the bottom of office buildings, in one of which was the Subway Shop where we ate. Then we
continued to discover the area known as Little Venice. Tour boats tie up and down the canal carrying
passengers. John said you could take this canal to northern England, going through locks and dams, etc.
A triangular bay opened which seemed designed to allow these long narrow boats to make a
turnaround, sort of a watery Circus, Little Venice Circus, I would call it after the various roadway
intersections in London designed for the same purpose for land traffic.
John and I talked about various things. He reminded me a lot of a good friend from Waterford 3
Nuclear Power Plant, Eric Swearingen. Alike in body shape and facial structure, and both with a gentle
and questioning spirit. He explained to me how his daughter was at school during an unusual hot spell
in London and she fell faint. Apparently something had happened to cause her vestibular system to
malfunction, perhaps the fluid dried up in one of the spiral canals, or some other systemic problem
occurred in her body. After that day, until today when she is about 27 years old, she has had severe
vertigo, unable to stand comfortably, and has undergone hundreds of various procedures to no avail.
One EFT session gave her relief for about 3 minutes, but then the vertigo came back. This one time
relief seems to indicate that permanent relief might be attained via a doyle trace. I had hope to meet her
in person and lead her in a speed trace, but unfortunately she was not able to come on this day.
John mentioned that after the day of her incident, he had to avoid rotaries when driving her in a car or
go very slow. This seems to indicate a problem in the spiral canal which governs side to side motion.
John is hoping that doyletics speed trace might help his daughter, and we agreed to set up a meeting
with her over Skype at a later date.
John and I had a café latte in the lobby of the Hilton and talked until it was time for him to go. A few
minutes later Del returned from her Tower of London trip. I took her on a walk. She was very curious
and I had to ask her to experience the walk as I had to, without explanation. When she saw the canal
and boats, and the Little Venice area, she was delighted. On the Westbourne Terrace Bridge, an
Arabic man came up and asked if I could write down the name of the bridge. He could speak English,
but not write it. I said, "Sure." I found out his name was Mohammed and his grandson was also named
Mohammed. I can now say that in my lifetime I met Mohammed's grandson.
We decided to walk back on the walkway above the canal because there were some benches to sit on
and view the canal activity or lack thereof. It was the lack of the hectic activity of the London street in
front of the Hotel which made this area so attractive to me. A peaceful respite in a busy city. There was
a guy doing some Tai-Chi like exercises under the pergola across the canal. On the way back we
walked through the Office Plaza and saw an interwoven statuary group. The Starbucks shop was
nearby and I bought a grande latte there once or twice before we left, not PJ's quality, but better than
anywhere else in Europe that I'd been.
AHMEN, HEATHROW, HOME
Nothing felt more like home than listening to WWOZ.org, a New Orleans Jazz Station, on the speakers
of my HP LT in room 371 of Paddington Hilton. Up at 7:30 to begin packing and weighing luggage to
keep each of the four large bags under the 40 lb. limit. Another great breakfast down in the lobby. Best
free breakfast of the many I've had around the world. Hand-sliced, delicious brown bread toasted, hot
oatmeal done just right, orange juice, coffee, marmalade, eggs, rice sausages, potatoes, etc. Ready to
tackle the bowels and mazes of Heathrow Airport. Before leaving I took a gander walk over to the
Little Venice section for a Grande Latte and came back to give Del some "foam home."
At 11 am, Del and I schlepped our six bags downstairs and turned them over to the bellmen while I had
the Concierge call Ahmen (Mohammed) to make sure he was on the way. The very nice lady who
answered called him, found out where he was, and said she'd direct him to our Hotel Paddington
immediately and he'd be there in 7 minutes which he was. We loaded up and said goodbye to London.
At Heathrow it was a maze of people. The first class lounge, the North Lounge, was incredibly hard to
find, up and down floors, escalators, and around corners, always being directed to the next place. The
lounge was huge. Lots of good food to select from, but machine-made coffee. Del said she saw Sandy
Raizon and I went over to say Hi. She said the guy that delivered her and Ian was non-talkative and not
so nice as Ahmen. Ian came over, was in a rush as usual. I thanked him and he said they were flying to
New York.
When it came time to get to our gate it was a Coaching Gate: put us on a bus. Some black gal broke
through the queue maze and we followed her through to the first bus. The Brits were so unpleasant and
unhelpful. I watched 12 people in uniforms handling only one queue! Were these Road Crews from the
USA in London on vacation? Finally another queue opened up, but it required one person to check the
passport and another to check the boarding pass. Go figure. Must be Union rules.
On the plane we had nice business class seats, kinda facing cubicles in which we could lay flat to sleep.
The food was lousy — nothing so good as Air France or Delta in business class or even coach for that
matter. The female Brit stewardess was a bitch, but John the steward was very good. I finally refused
to look at the female. I worked on my Journal for hours and hours and uploaded and checked most of
my photos of the trip, glad that there was a 120v power outlet to keep my HP Laptop full charged.
FRIDGE FAILS JUST IN TIME, BOBBY'S FINGERS FALL OFF, FEELINGS
Okay, just kidding about my fingers falling off, but they are loudly complaining as I sit here on the
afternoon of August 31 trying to complete the log of our trip after three days of processing the photos, all
1400 hundred of them from the trip. While I processed each photo, I filled out any gaps in my Journal
and used those notes to put together this synopsis for you, dear Reader.
How can an appliance fail and create two really good things in the process? Ah, there's a story to be
told. This was the first time I ever cleaned out the refrigerator before going on a two-week vacation.
Plus, I only cleaned out the fridge in the kitchen, the one I call Methuselah because it must be about
200 years old in refrigerator years, at least the latest models which hardly last 10 years at most. Best I
figure, ole Meth was born about 1976 and has been in continuous use since then. I have had a fan
motor replaced, a defrost switch, and the light switch to the refrigerator door, the one which turns the
light out when the door is closed. That last job, I did myself, using an old microswitch I salvaged from a
bad ice maker. My kludge worked perfectly these last 15 years except that if someone hit the bottom
of the door, the vent cover upon which I mounted the switch would become dislodged enough to cause
the light to stay on while the fridge was closed.
When this happened, I would note the water
temperature of our ice water was warmer and reset the vent in place. I took to keeping a thermometer
in the fridge to help me note any changes. This switch kludge has worked well, but we'll be moving
soon and I don't want new tenants/owners to be calling me telling me the fridge is broken and I'll have to go
over and replace it and even worse have to explain to them to not replace it or they might get shocked
by the bare connection. I worried about this before leaving on the trip. Figured maybe to call our AAA
Wayne super-repairman to come over and put in a new switch so I could remove my kludge. Chances
of my doing that were minimal, but I thought about doing it.
Here's the rest of the story: when we got home, the temperature in the fridge compartment was 58 and
in the freezer the same. The two lights in the freezer were stuck on, so I removed the bulbs and waited
overnight to see if that worked to cool things off. It didn't. Further tests showed freezer and fridge were nice and cool, with near normal temps at the bottom of the compartments, but 58 deg. at the tops. WTF? Wayne came and
solved the conundrum for me: the fridge switch only controls the light; the freezer switch also turns off
the fan while the door is open. That switch had failed so that the door seemed always open, so the fan
never came on! I told Wayne to replace both switches, the freezer one and the kludge one for the
fridge.
It worked. Ole Methuselah is working great again and ready for a run at the all-time refrigerator
longevity record. We may even move it to the Utility Room or Garage of the Drivehouse. Wayne
explained to me how to move the refrigerator: keep it vertical, put hand cart under fridge side, keep it
vertical at all times, and set down gently every time.
Two good things:
1) Failure occurred in an empty refrigerator. Nothing spoiled or had to be
thrown away.
2) Kludgy switch replaced with new original switch.
Consciously I had no idea that the fridge was going to fail while we were gone. I thought I want to eat
out of the fridge and freezer because of possibility of a wind event which might cause an extended
power failure. I go into this much detail to illustrate how our Guardian Angel works. Apparently mine
had let me have the idea to eat out of the fridge, but couldn't give me the reason it needed to be done.
All I got was a feeling that it needed to be done, so I did it. Well, feelings are how Guardian Angels
communicate with us, but only if we believe in them. I gave mine a name, Johnny, after it helped me
through Hurricane Gustav last year. If you're sure that you don't have a Guardian Angel, you're right
— you don't have one because you've ignored it for so long that it is ignoring you. If you consider the
possibility you might have one, begin to notice when things go right more than when they go wrong, and
you'll begin to see a pattern of some spiritual guidance going on behind the scenes that can only be
communicated to you by feelings. Remember this: Feelings — they're more than just elevator music.
TILL NEXT MONTH
That's it from out our way for another Digest. It will be a little late this month, hopefully by the end of
September First. Till next month, God Willing, and a few miracles happen, we will return with a new
Digest for you to enjoy. Enjoy the shortening of the days and the onset of falling leaves. Make
September a great month for yourself, wherever in the world you live ! ! !
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New Stuff about Website:
Five Books on Art
1. Seymour B. Sarason's The Challenge of Art to Psychology
The author suggests in his Preface that the best title of this book would be:
How Our Society Ignores, Blunts, Extinguishes, and Devalues a Universal
Feature of Human Capability, with Untoward Effects for People and Society
A little unwieldy, he admits, but in his The Argument in Summary chapter, he quotes the
American poet, John Ciardi, as he was addressing a group of powerful businessmen:
[page 7] 'An ulcer, gentlemen, is an unkissed imagination taking its revenge for
having been jilted. It is an unwritten poem, an undanced dance, an unpainted
watercolor. It is a declaration from the mankind of the man that a clear spring
of joy has not been tapped and that it must break through muddily, on its own.'
No better description of the difference between art and science can be found than what
William James said in his Talks to Teachers on Psychology:
[page 65] I say that you make a great, a very great mistake, if you think that
psychology, being the science of the mind's laws, as something from which you
can deduce definite programs and schemes and methods of instruction for
immediate schoolroom use. Psychology is a science, and teaching an art, and
sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves. An intermediary
inventive mind must make the application, by using its originality.
Later the author asks a very interesting question when he tells us what he found in
classrooms:
[page 71] What happens to the rate of question asking when a child begins
school? I have spent countless hours in classrooms. None of my observations
stemmed from an interest in question asking. It took me a while to become
aware of the obvious: the classroom was not a place where children asked
questions. They answered, they did not ask questions.
In the study by Edwin Susskind in 1969, one of the few ever done on question asking, he
found that, in a typical 45 minute class period, the teacher asked from 40 to 150 questions while the
children asked only two. What happens to our children in school when the education system focuses
on teachers asking all the questions?
One can easily imagine the demotivating and demoralizing effect it has on students for the
teacher, who knows all the answers, to be doing all the asking of questions. As Sarason points out,
"It's as if the questions of children are either nonexistent or interfering or a distraction to be
ignored." Asking questions draws answers from those children who already know the answer and
is best saved for testing time. When a child asks a question, they open the possibility within for
learning to take place, both in the questioner and in the remainder of the classroom.
John Dewey's lectures at Harvard (1932) in Art as Experience next comes under Sarason's
viewing glass. "Dewey was a destroyer of traditional dichotomies," he says by way of introducing
the importance of Dewey to our understanding of art and its place in our lives. To see Dewey as a
destroyer of the fixed two-part labels of art and non-art, of artist and non-artist, places Dewey in the
category of artist according to my definition of "art is the process of destruction of sameness." Notice
how Dewey distinguishes fine art from the varieties of human experiences by discussing a continuum
like that which distinguishes a mountain from the surrounding terrain:
[page 84] Mountain peaks do not float unsupported; they do not even just rest
upon the earth. They are the earth in one of its manifest operations.
He explains the origins of art in common everyday experiences that everyone can relate to:
[page 85] The sources of art in human experience will be learned by him who
sees how the tense grace of the ball-player infects the onlooking crowd; who
notes the delight of the housewife in tending her plants, and the intent interest
of her goodman in tending the patch of green in front of the house; the zest of
the spectator in poking the wood burning on the hearth and in watching the
darting flames and crumbling coals.
These experiences are examples of what Dewey calls the life factor that allows us to destroy
the expectations of sameness in process of creating original art. All art must be original — or else it
is merely the production of epigones, those born-after, second-hand imitators, those purveyors of
kitsch, which is the typical output of craft classes and weekend artists that lines the display stands
of shopping mall exhibits. Sarason notes the clarity of the phrase life factor thus:
[page 92] In other contexts and by other writers, the phrase "the life factor" may
strike one as vague, mushy, and up-in-the-clouds. But Dewey is extraordinarily
clear that the life factor is the normal human attribute that allows us to depart
from a previous given order and to forge a new one. It is the attribute that,
despite the process of socialization and its goal to maximize continuity of and
conformity to the established order, ensures individuality.
Thus put, art, as the breaking of the established order, is synonymous with the process of
freedom or spiritual activity as described so well by Rudolf Steiner in his Philosophy of Freedom,
a book that he preferred the title, Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, for his American readers' ears.
The
life factor is an excellent synonym for spiritual activity as it is used by Steiner. One of the challenges
that art gives to psychology is that the universal laws so cherished by psychology are broken with
regularity by the artist, since law-breaking is an inevitable concomitant of a free activity. The greatest
artists of this century were those that broke the laws governing what was an appropriate mode of
painting, as Picasso did with his cubism paintings.
It would seem that children with their limited knowledge of the rules about writing would
be natural poets, and so Kenneth Koch, a poet and professor of creative writing, decided to teach
poetry at P. S. 61 in New York City, and wrote of his experiences in Wishes, Lies, and Dreams in
1970. But he discovered instead that, "Some children's poetry was marvelous but most seemed
uncomfortably imitative of adult poetry or else childishly cute." He got amazing results from one
fourth-grade class with his "I wish" exercise. He told the teacher to ask her students to begin every
line with "I wish, not to use rhyme, and to make the wishes real or crazy."
Sarason, as a clinical psychologist, writes of encountering a new complaint in his clients, a
feeling of lowered expectations and a bleak future. He says about them:
[page 180] That was not what they complained about when they began
psychotherapy, but that is precisely what emerged over time. The sense that
they could no longer expect much from life, that they were impotent to change
their situation, let alone change a complicated, vast, uncomprehending,
incomprehensible, overpowering world. . . . We are enmeshed in a world system
that has discernibly decreased our freedom of action.
Rightly seen, the embedding of the individual in a culture of mechanized kitsch, mass-produced sameness, and vacuous self-expression has resulted in a loss of vital meaning, as though
the life factor of our lives depends on embedding ourselves in the process of art-producing activities
as much as art depends on the life factor for its existence.
In 1985 Kundera decided that he would no longer give interviews to journalists who
subsequently butchered up his words into unrecognizable shards. He began to insist on co-editing
any interview and holding the copyright. This book is the result of an extensive interview made
shortly after his decision. His views of the novel as a work of art are incisive, at times jolting, and
always refreshing. He claims that great novels are noted by the things they aim for, but never quite
reach — the striving of a writer to discover something within in the process of writing the novel.
Novels must have two levels: theme and story — like a two-layered cake, the theme and story must
fill the entire novel — or else the story without the theme becomes flat.
Like great musical compositions, novels must have polyphonic confrontation in which each
voice is as prominent as the others. Kundera studied music composition till age 25 and brings his
comprehensive musical knowledge to bear in providing insights into the understanding of the art of
the novel.
What make a story Kafkan (Kafka-like)? It is the presence of a "boundless labyrinth" in the
face of the state bureaucracy that the key character must confront. Like the story of the engineer
falsely accused of making a statement that he wished to emigrate — he is finally forced to emigrate
when all his attempts to correct the falsehood meet dead ends in the endless corridors of the state.
Poetry and philosophy, Kundera says, cannot incorporate the novel in their works, but the
novel can incorporate poetry and philosophy. The novel, he tells us, is about man's being. What it
means to be in the world.
A true artist, whether painter or novelist, seeks the "truth behind," a hitherto undiscovered
truth, but one always there "behind" reality. The artist who engages in the service of an already
known truth has renounced the mission of art and is engaged in the mundane activity of proselytizing
- whether the truth be the virtues of Communism or Christianity. "A poet who serves any truth other
than the truth to be discovered is a false prophet.
Sample of Kundera's poetic flights of prose:
Beauty in art: the sudden kindled light of the never-before-. This light that
radiates from the great novels time can never dim, for human existence is
perpetually being forgotten by man, and thus the novelists' discoveries, however
old they may be, will never cease to astonish us.
This man, when he dines alone, is in the presence of genius.
...effective censorship is a contradiction in terms. Like pruning, it gives new
vigor to what it cuts back; but if it attacks the root, it destroys the plant it is
supposed to save.
If modern art is sometimes shrill, it is not the fault of the artist alone. We all
tend to raise our voices when we speak to persons who are getting deaf.
As Croce rather brusquely put it, there is no 'double bottom' to the suitcase of
art.
What you see is what you get, both with art and Wind. A art historian by profession and a
master writer by avocation, Wind overflows with a wealth of insights into the evolution of art over
the past five centuries. He points out that in Raphael's time, a theory was extant that Plato used the
language of poetic enthusiasm and Aristotle that of rational analysis.
Thus he explains how the
painter's "School of Athens" came to be dominated by Apollo (god of poetry) and Minerva (goddess
of reason). By following this thought in analysis, one is led to discoveries about the painting that a
purely sensory examination would have missed. "Our eye sees as our mind reads," Wind remarks.
On patronage he comments on how, "we prefer to wait until an artist has finished his work"
but in the Renaissance, patrons were wont to exercise their critical judgments while the fate of the
work was still in doubt. He explains the creative part that Pope Clement VII played in the
development of Michelangelo's works in Rome. He contrasts this with the laissez-faire attitude taken
by the architects of the UNESCO building in Paris. He says the art that resulted seems to "loiter
about the place without function, distracted and disunited."
A challenging book, filled with French and German quotations, well worth reading in their
originals, which is not optional since no translations into English are provided.
Many important ideas fill this book. Here are the salient ones and the thoughts they inspired:
Wolfgang Iser speaking on narrative says, "... the reader receives it by composing it." This
mirrors Peter Schenck's thesis in "Tell Me A Story" in which he avers that it is by telling a story that
we remember things at all. Thus composition occurs in both the sending and receiving ends of a
story.
Italo Calvino has Kubla Khan ask Marco Polo to tell him about Venice. Polo replies, "Every
time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice." Polo recognized that his home city was
implicit in every other city he described.
From George Miller's famous 7±2 paper, Bruner deduces, "...it means that perception is to
some unspecifiable degree an instrument of the world as we have structured it by our expectancies."
My equation to describe this process generically is : Pn= f(In, g(Ip)), where Pn is perception now, In
is Inputs(raw sensory data) now, Ip is Inputs past, and f() and g() are functions. Thus one may read
my equation as follows: our perception in the now is a function (f) of our inputs in the now and
another function (g) of all of our inputs in the past (up until now). This equation explains why my
favorite phrase "up until now" works so well when placed at the end of a statement expressing a
limitation. The phrase refers only to the g(Ip) portion of the equation and reminds us that we can
rethink the In in the present moment and open up possibilities that never existed before thereby.
Nelson Goodman says, "What must be added is that [all] these versions are true." in referring
the multiplicity of explanations for the sun and earth's relative motion. This reflects my rule that "All
Meanings Are True(AMAT)."
Bruner says, "...actions (anticipated, in progress, and recalled) infuse our representations of
the world." Since In refers to "in progress" actions and g(Ip) refers both to anticipated actions and to
recalled actions, my equation echoes Bruner's insight here.
Carol Feldman says, "Modals expressing a stance of uncertainty or doubt in teacher talk to
teachers far outnumbered their occurrence in teacher talk to students." Thus do teachers teach a
certainty to their students that they don't believe exists when they talk to their peers.
Bruner says of Vygotsky, "...conceptual learning was a collaborative enterprise involving an
adult who enters into dialogue with the child in a fashion that provides the child with hints and props
that allow him to begin a new climb, guiding the child in next steps before the child is capable of
appreciating their significance on his own. It is the 'loan of consciousness' that gets the child through
the zone of proximal development." But Bruner also warns that Vygotsky's zone of proximal
development is not always a blessing, "May it not be the source of human vulnerability to
persuasion, vulnerability because the learner begins without a proper basis for criticizing what is
being 'fed' to him by ones whose consciousness initially exceeds his own?"
Bruner again, "Literature subjunctivizes, makes strange, renders the obvious less so, the
unknowable less so as well, matters of value more open to reason and intuition." In the last sentence
of the book Bruner says, "And we should never underrate the boredom induced by empty ideas
pretentiously paraded." No better description of 'kitsch' has ever been made, as it includes all manner
of literature and art.
In this monumental treatise on the principles of art, Collingwood leads us through his various
understandings of art. Art as craft, art as magic, art as amusement, art as representation, art as
expression, art as imagination and finally to his primary thesis: art as language. Speaking artfully he
describes the modern situation of art as topically as if he were writing in 1988 instead of 1938.
"Historical parallels are blind guides," he says, comparing modern civilization to that
of the latter Roman Empire. He comments that "what we are concerned with is the threatened death
of a civilization," and continues:
Civilizations die and are born not with waving of flags and the noise of machine
guns in the streets, but in the dark, in a stillness, when no one is aware of it. It
never gets into the papers. Long afterwards a few people, looking back, begin
to see that it has happened.
Thus he introduces us to his point that in most of our garden, art has died, having been
replaced by amusement, and in Books II and III he presents his plan for the necessary re-cultivation
of that garden. Book II contains his "Theory of Imagination." In it he describes the evolution of
language out of imagination and consciousness so that we come to "acquire new emotions and new
means of expressing."
"Art does not tolerate cliches," he proclaims. No other quote better describes the essence of
art to Collingwood. He views art as mathematics: that its true function is to create possible worlds,
"some of which, later on, thought will find real, or action will make real."
Hits (Watch as soon as you can. A Don't Miss Hit is one you might otherwise ignore.):
“First Do No Harm” (1997) from the Hippocratic Oath includes giving information on a non-medical cure for epilepsy, like the Ketogenic Diet of John Hopkins. Doctors who captiously withhold this information choose to follow the Hypocritic Oath . A DON’T MISS HIT ! “The Soloist” (2008) A tour de force for Robert Downey and Jamie Fox! An incredibly good movie. Proves “you don’t have to be crazy to be a soloist, and it doesn’t help.” Nathaniel Ayers lost his way in NYC and found himself in LA. A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! ! ! ! “Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” (2008) Our London-bond heroes plummet into a future Narnia which has nearly been obliterated by the Telomarines and they help the exiled Prince Caspian return peace to the land where once more the animals talk and the trees dance like in Anastasia’s Ringing Cedars paradise today. A DON’T MISS HIT ! !
“When Was the Last Time You Saw Your Father” (2007) when he was in full control of his life, when he was calling you meathead, and only telling others how proud he was of you. Colin Firth has to deal with his dying father and living memories during this fine movie.
“Leatherheads” (2007) was what football players were called in pre-NFL days when pro ball was a joke, rules were for dummies, and guys left jobs in coal mines to play football. A droll look at passes of all kinds between Clooney and Zellweger. (Worth a second look on Blu-RayHD.)
“Crossing Over” (2008) with Harrison Ford as an immigrant agent with a heart enforcing heartless laws. Ray Liotta also, but immorally. Hispanics, Muslims, Jews, and Aussies coming and going across the heartless border. Some stay, some go, some live, some die. All in a day’s work. A DON’T MISS HIT ! “The Locket” (2002) Vanessa Redgrave stars as aged woman in nursing home befriended by young man who is struggling to throw off the chains of his estranged father’s hold on him without forgiving him first. A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! ! “The Time Traveler’s Wife” (2009) stays at home and waits for her husband come home from somewhen. Hopefully alive. When Henry pops into somewhen, he arrives stark naked, and must somehow find a way to stay warm and out of jail, two conflicting goals which he becomes an expert at achieving. What kind of life is this for a man or for his wife, for that matter? Movie answers the questions, and it make take a couple of viewings to catch all the nuances of Niffenegger’s wonderful novel brought so finely to the screen. A DON’T MISS HIT ! ! ! “Gran Torino” (2008) From Rawhide to Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood has been keeping “dem doggies moving” thru every kind of weather and entertaining us at his every age. Here as crotchy old retiree, he still has enough Marine in him to take one more beachhead with grace and elan.
Misses (Avoid At All Costs): We attempted to watch these this month, but didn't make it all the way through on most of them. Awhile back when three AAAC horrors hit us in one night, I decided to add a sub-category to "Avoid at All Costs", namely, A DVD STOMPER. These are movies so bad, you don't want anyone else to get stuck watching them, so you want to stomp on the disks. That way, if everyone else who gets burnt by the movie does the same, soon no copies of the awful movie will be extant and the world will be better off.
“The Betrayed” (2008) spends 99 minutes in a damp warehouse cell with a woman who is required to figure out what her wayward husband is doing by listening to bugging tapes or lose her son. A gripping movie which loses its grip along the way. Suggest you lose your grip on this movie also.
Your call on these — your taste in movies may differ, but I liked them:
“Walker Payne” (2006) Coal mine closes and Walker, who needs money to get his two girls back takes to fighting his dog, Brute, who life is brutish and short.
“Night Train” (2008) is a “hop and chop” without the hopping. The Maguffin, like the Wandering Jew, lives forever and holds in its thrall people who peer into its contents until their death. Night Train pulls you through the story from beginning to end and end and end, and etc.
“The Good Night” (2007) That’s any night with a dream of Penelope Cruz. Our hero has many — till he meets her in person — but what will it take for him to go home to his wife?
A very attractive, shapely young lady, chaperoned by a hunched-over, homely old lady, entered Doctor Boudreaux's office.
"We have come for an examination," said the young girl.
"Mais ouis," Doctor Boudreaux tells her. "Go behind dat curtain and took all of you clothes off." "Oh no, it's not for me," said the girl, "It's for my old maid aunt here."
"Oh, Ah see," Doc Boudreaux replied. He walked over to the elderly woman, and said, "Madame, stick out you tongue!"
== == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == ==
5. RECIPE of the MONTH for September, 2009 from Bobby Jeaux’s Kitchen: (click links to see photo of ingredients, preparation steps) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Flounder Seafood Étouffée
Background on Flounder Seafood Étouffée
This is a new dish which I created one night based on "Flounder Dawonda" at DiMartino's Deli. I used the base for the Leeks-Étouffée from digest066.htm and modified it for crawfish, shrimp, and flounder. Also included some chopped fresh mushrooms. As my Cajun compatriots say, "Talk About Good!"
Preparation
Chop onions & leeks and mince basil and parsley. Chop mushrooms in chunks.
Place stock in a large measuring cup and heat in microwave for about 3 minutes to get it hot.
Cooking Instructions
Melt butter in a large frying pan and add the chopped leeks, garlic, basil and parsley. Sauté for 5 minutes, allowing a few small pieces of leek to char (adds color to final dish). Add chopped onions and continue sauté.
Add chopped mushrooms, peeled shrimp and crawfish and continue to stir for about five minutes on medium heat.
Add flour, stirring all the while for another five to ten minutes. If mixtures balls, add a bit of stock, and keep stirring.
Add the hot stock and stir until the mixture boils. Reduce heat to a Simmer and let it simmer for about 10 minutes.
Add the cream and return to Low Heat, stir and then fold in the flounder filets, cut in half. After mixture returns to slight bubbling, turn to simmer for about 15 minutes.
See photo here of it in the pot simmering and ready to serve.
Serving Suggestion
Can be served immediately. Best served over wild rice/long grain rice mixture as show above. This is a hearty main dish which both you and your guests will enjoy. Bon Apetit!
Other options
This can be refrigerated and re-heated in microwave for up to a week and it will be as delicious as when it came off the stove.
The Earth is a Great Spirit
That always Faces the Sun
And Bows to the Sun
To the Great Spirit of the Sun,
Once a Year.
The Earth Spirit Faces
The Sun in full Consciousness
While the Back of its Mind
Is off in Space being Infused
By the Spirit of the Night,
The Great Astral Spirits of the Night.
And for my Good Readers, here’s the new reviews and articles for this month. The ARJ2 ones are new additions to the top of A Reader’s Journal, Volume 2, Chronological List, and the ART ones to A Reader’s Treasury. NOTE: these Blurbs are condensations of the Full Reviews sans footnotes and many quoted passages.
This book came to my notice by a small poster for the book on the counter top at Dizzy
Bean's Coffeeshop in Gulf Shores, Alabama, a place I frequent when we are in Orange
Beach for our summer week. I asked the server if she had read it, and she said it was great.
When I got home, I ordered a copy and was surprised to find a 2009 publication date on it.
Somehow the word on this book had reached all the way down to the gulf coast beach area,
I thought, but then I began to read the book and discovered it was set in Gulf Shores and
Orange Beach, even naming some of the places I had seen in the area. Amazingly, the author
describes the road I took from our beach cabin to Dizzy Bean's: "Traffic was light on the
road. It was used mostly by locals as a shortcut to reach Highway 59. Tourists rarely
ventured this way." (Page 45)
But was the book good? Luckily my Google Library showed me that there is a Limited
Preview, and I read the first chapter on-line. This book made me feel the way I did when I
first read Richard Bach's "Illusions — The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah" so I quickly
ordered a copy of the book, read it and then as with Bach's classic, I ordered copies to give
away, this time to our grown children. If you haven't heard about this book from a friend yet,
consider this your notice. You will want to become a Noticer yourself before you finish
reading this book.
The hero of Illusions lived as a barnstormer and the hero of this book, Andy, lived as a
beachcomber; one lived out of his biplane which he flew from one place to another, giving
rides to earn money, and the other lived in a hole in the sand under the Gulf States Park's
pier from which he scavenged food and odd jobs. Richard meets Don Shimoda, another
barnstormer, and Andy meets Jones, another scavenger. The two authors, Bach and
Andrews, seem to be telling a true story, one filled with truths about life and living, and yet
otherwise impossible things seem to happen around Shimoda and Jones, both authors
learning deep lessons about life in the process from their enigmatic teachers.
This book is a fast read, only two days for me, so it will not make sense for me to give
away any of the details of the story in this review, except a comment or two and a sample of
one of the stories. This is a book to be consumed by those in happy marriages, those coming
out into marriage or out of a bad marriage, and those who have foresworn ever marrying for
the first time or ever again. It can be your good driving lessons for marriage, something to
assist you out of the ruts which may otherwise keep you stuck on the road to non-marriage.
Are these deep and pervasive truths? Not really. As the subtitle rightly says, and the book
explains, "Sometimes all you need is a little perspective." Are you ready to take lessons from
the Master Noticer, Jones? Get yourself a copy and begin reading.
Andrews dedicates this book to Polly, ". . . my wife, my best friend, my love . . . my
noticer." Is your spouse your noticer? Are you a noticer? If your spouse is not your best
friend, what is missing, that one thing, which might turn you two in to best friends? Maybe
that key ingredient has missed your notice, up until now? A little perspective is all that's
needed to set you into balance. Perhaps you won't believe me, but then you haven't read the
book, have you?
I am a noticer. As a photographer, I notice things, and take pictures of unique things
with the slim pocket camera I always carry with me. Sometimes I take photos from my car
while moving, opening a side window or the sun roof to shoot the ephemeral scene which
will disappear before I can stop, such as two lovers sitting on a unique Live Oak branch as I passed on a kiddie train, but I stop whenever I can to photograph the four babies
nutria in the middle of the street, or the red-eared slider scurrying across a lawn, or the red-shouldered hawk eating its squirrel lunch, or a large blooming cactus on top of a mound
blocking a closed off street. That cactus is now blooming along the street in front of my
house, but it would be withering away in a dump if I hadn't noticed it years ago, and
salvaged it when the street was re-opened. Most people drove by and never noticed that
cactus. You can see the beautiful cactus blooming in the photo at the top of this Digest.
Jones is a noticer, the eponymous noticer, and introduces himself that to Andy who is
aggravated by Jones's intrusion into his depressed condition in the sandy hole under the pier
which he calls home. Jones explains.
[page 6] "I am a noticer," he said. "It is my gift. While others may be
able to sing well or run fast, I notice things that other people
overlook. And, you know, most of them are in plain sight." The old
man leaned back on his hands and cocked his head. "I notice things
about situations and people that produce perspective. That's what
most people lack — perspective — a broader view. So I give them
that broader view . . . and it allows them to regroup, take a breath,
and begin their lives again."
Did Andy have a perspective of his own? Jones asked him that question. Andy had a
curious perspective. "I grew up hearing that old adage about God putting a person after His
own heart where He wants him to be. And He puts me under a pier?" (Page 7) Ah, there's
the rub! People always claim to have perspective, but their perspective has built-in
limitations, even putting chains on God, as Andy did when he met Jones.
Did Jones argue with Andy, no, he simply left him with three biographies to read, and
the next day invites Andy to a feast of Vienna sausages and sardines. Hah! What a feast! It's
one I knew well from going fishing with my dad as a child. If the fish were biting and we got
hungry, there was the ubiquitous cans of potted meat and Vienna sausages. With the
sausages, no bread was needed and you could eat without stopping fishing. Never missed a
fish when you were eating Vienna sausages. But a feast? No way. Andy wasn't thrilled, but
Jones insisted on having Andy tell him what he was eating. "Vienna sausages and sardines,"
was all that Andy could come up with. Some lessons arose during their long meeting and
then the two men sat on the sand dune over looking the beach and the waves.
[page 15, 16] For several minutes, we both sat silently, watching the
gulls soar overhead, listening to the surf break on the beach. Then
Jones began to gather the empty cans and place them in the plastic
bag. Standing, he extended his hand and helped me to my feet.
"Incidentally," he said with a smile, "you ate sardines and Vienna
sausages in the sand. I dined on surf and turf with an ocean view." He
slapped me on the back. "It's all about perspective."
Here's how you can tell where you are: if you slough off this story as some cute little
phrase, that's a good sign that you need a bigger perspective in life. Chances are you also
have a bumper sticker on your car which says something like: "I'd rather be fishing." or
skiing or hiking or duck hunting or doing anything else but what you are doing. But, if you understand how
to enjoy where you are to the fullest, every day can be a feast, no matter where you live,
work, or eat.
Again Jones gave Andy three more books to read, all biographies of great leaders,
people who had perspective in their lives and how they achieved it. One perspective Jones
shared with Andy is why smart people have more problem with fear than dumb people: they
are more creative and imaginative. Ah, that one pinned me. I wish I'd had this book in my
lap in 1964-65 when I was beset by fears of my own creative imagination. I was even afraid
of having low blood pressure. After months of worrying about my doctor's comment, "You
have low blood pressure" one day, I finally got up the courage to ask him what that meant.
His reply was worthy of Jones, "It means you may be cursed with long life." But that didn't
give me perspective because a few weeks later as I was describing my bowel movements to
him in detail, he said, "You know, there's no silver standard for that in Paris." My worries
and fears were pervasive and they didn't seem to end, only get bigger. I was misusing my
creative imagination, as Jones explains to Walker Miles.
[page 52] "Well, that's why smart people get tripped up with worry
and fear. Worry . . . fear . . . is just a misuse of the creative
imagination that has been placed in each of us. because we are smart
and creative, we imagine all the things that could happen, that might
happen, that will happen if this or that happens. See what I mean?"
For me, I began a program of conditioning thoughts to replace the negative fears with
positive expectations and possibilities. Norman Vincent Peale, Don Curtis, and Robert H.
Schuller were the Jones in my time of need, when I needed a new perspective and a way out
of the fears I had built around me like the carapace of a turtle, out of which I had barely
dared to peek, up until then.
Everyone's heard the old epigram, "For want of a nail, the horse was lost, etc" where
the missing nail is traced to the loss of the battle. Well, that actually happened to Napoleon in
his great defeat by Wellington. Napoleon was ready to defeat Wellington and his troops
quickly broke through Wellington's lines. But the troops had forgotten the nails they were
supposed to drive into the touch hole of the cannons when they passed them to render them
useless thereafter. After his troops overran Wellington's lines, the British troops re-took their
cannons and turned them on the French troops, slaughtering them. Napoleon yelled from the
hilltop for his troops to destroy the cannons, to no avail, all for the lack of a nail. This was
Jones's perspective for Henry about the big picture: it depends on the tiny brush strokes.
Henry is a tough case, so Jones asks him a curious question:
[page 111] "Five seagulls are sitting on a dock. One of them decides
to fly away. How many seagulls are left?"
"Well . . . four."
"No," Jones responded. "There are still five. Deciding to fly
away and actually flying away are two very different things."
Henry finally walks away from his long interaction with Jones muttering to himself,
"Thank you for a man named Jones." Jones came up on folks unexpectedly, folks who were
in need and Jones managed to find that need and fill it. If you have no needs in your life
today, perhaps it's because your perspective on your life is limited, up until now. What
would Jones have to ask you or tell you if he came up to you blocking your car in your
driveway as you were backing up to go meet your husband at a restaurant to ask him for a
divorce, as he did to Jan? Or if you were the very old widow, Willow Gray, who was
planning to commit suicide because she felt her life was over? Or a man of twenty-three like
Andy, who was living in a hole in sand under a pier and hadn't a clue as to what happened
or how to get out of his predicament?
There are many stories in this imminently readable book which you will enjoy, but first
you must open the book. Then you must open yourself. Look up. Get a new perspective.
The best of your life looms ahead of you if you will begin noticing.
I hear often from my Good Readers that they have bought books after reading my book reviews.
Keep reading, folks! As I like to remind you, to obtain more information on what's in these
books, buy and read the books — for less information, read the reviews.
In this section I like to comment on events in the world, in my life, and in my readings which have come up during the month. These are things I might have shared with you in person, if we had had the opportunity to coverse during the month. If we did, then you may recognize my words. If I say some things here which upset you, rest assured that you may skip over these for the very reason that I would likely have not brought up the subject to spoil our time together in person.
1. Padre Filius Passes By a Dry Cleaners Shop this Month:
Padre Filius, the cartoon character created by your intrepid editor and would-be cartoonist, will appear from time to time in this Section of the Digest to share us on some amusing or enlightening aspect of the world he observes during his peregrinations.
This month the good Padre reads sign for a Dry Cleaners Shop.
2.Comments to/from Readers:
EMAIL to Karen Essex re Elgin Marbles:
Dear Karen,
Attached is photo of me in Parthenon Gallery of the British Museum on
Aug 24, 2009. Thanks for chronicling in Stealing Athena the story of these pieces of Greek
history which might else have disappeared forever.
Bobby
Karen wrote back that "It makes me so happy when somebody reads my book and then goes to see
the marbles."
EMAIL from grand-daughter, Tiffany: She sent photos of our two great-grandsons, Ben and Aven, on their first day of school.
Thanks to all of you for providing the chemistry which has made this site a success.
— Especially those of you who have graciously allowed us to show your photos on this website — you're looking good!
In 2011, its tenth year of existence, the doyletics website will top the EIGHT MILLION VISITORS MARK ! ! !
Our hits are averaging about ten times the number of unique visitors. A unique visitor is defined by our collection agent, Urchin, as a visitor who reads at least one page, leaves the website, and doesn't return for at least 20 minutes. So multiple page reads by the same person are not counted as new visitors. This is a conservative way of counting visitors.Our Hits average over 10X the number of Visitors.
As of February 1, 2012 we have received over 8.8 MILLION VISITORS to the Doyletics Website since its inception in August 1, 2001, over TEN YEARS AGO.
Over 1 Million in the past 12 months. We are currently averaging about 89,000 visitors a month [Over One Million a year].
IMPORTANT NOTE: With the new Urchin Logs after an Earthlink Upgrade, our numbers seemed to have fallen dramatically, and it was hard to tell if the new numbers were simply wrong or if the old numbers were artificially high. To complicate matters, the engineers worked for the entire summer to get the Urchin logs to begin to work, and they were undependable until mid-September, 2011. It appears to have started working again in October, but full data seems to take a month to arrive. By January, the data became dependable again, but Urchin has redefined what constitutes a Visitor and that is what has caused the apparent fall in Visitors. With eleven years of data, I know that my Hits to Visitors ratio was 10, using with the previous definition of Visitor as a connection by someone who is not returning within 20 minutes. Now the ratio has risen to 20X because Urchin has redefined a Visitor as a Unique first visit by someone. I have adjusted for the change in Visitor definition, and my Daily and Monthly Adjusted Visitors will continue to rise as they have in the past with no discontinuity.
We especially want to thank you, our Good Readers, in advance, for helping our readership to grow. NOTE our new name for future Digests: DIGESTWORLD. Continue to send comments to Bobby and create links to DIGESTWORLD issues and Reviews on your Facebook page and other Social Media. Email your friends about the reviews, the doyletics speed trace, the cartoons, the jokes, the recipes, the photos in all the DIGESTWORLD Issues archived on our website. Urge them to subscribe to the DIGESTWORLD Reminder so they won't miss a single issue! The Subscription Process has been simplified so that no Reply Confirmation is required. An email to the Editor with your First and Last names is all that's required. There is never a charge for viewing any page on our website, nor for any of the guidance we offer to people asking for help with doyletics or other areas.
~~ NOTE: DIGESTWORLD is a Trademark of 21st Century Education, Inc. ~~
The cost of keeping this website on-line with its 18 Gbytes of bandwidth a month is about $25 a month. Thank you, our Good Readers, for continuing to patronize our advertisers when they provide products and services you are seeking as you visit any of our web pages. Remember the ads are dynamically displayed and every time you read even the same page a second time, you may find new products and services displayed for your review. Our reviews, digests, tidbits, etc, all our webpages act as Google magnets to bring folks to the website to learn about doyletics and frequent our advertisers, so they support one another in effect.
We welcome your contributions to the support of the website and research into the science of doyletics. For our street address, email Bobby at the address found on this page: http://www.doyletics.com/bobby.htm. Every $25 contribution helps keep this website on-line for another month.
We wish to thank all Good Readers who have made a contribution to the doyletics.com website! A special thanks to Chris and Carla Bryant of Corpus Christi!
NEW ! ! ! You can read a description of how to do a Speed Trace:
Or Watch Bobby extemporaneously explain How to Do a Speed Trace on Video:
To make a connection to the Doyletics website from your own website, here's what to do. You may wish to use the first set of code below to link to the site which includes a graphic photo, or to use the second set of code for a text-only link. Immediately below is how the graphic link will look on your website. Just place this .html in an appropriate place on your website.
<CENTER> < — with graphics link — >
<A HREF="http://www.doyletics.com/index.htm">Learn to Do a Speed Trace Here<BR>
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ALT="Learn to Remove Doyles — all those Unwanted Physical Body states of fear, depression, migraine, etc." ALIGN=middle><A/></CENTER>
<CENTER> < — text only link — >
<A HREF="http://www.doyletics.com/introduc.htm">Learn to Do the Speed Trace at doyletics.com <A/>
</CENTER>
My reviews are not intended to replace the purchasing and reading of the reviewed books, but rather to supplant a previous reading or to spur a new reading of your own copy. What I endeavor to do in most of my reviews is to impart a sufficient amount of information to get the reader comfortable
with the book so that they will want to read it for themselves. My Rudolf Steiner reviews are more detailed and my intention is bring his work to a new century of readers by converting his amazing insights into modern language and concepts.
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Hits (Watch as soon as you can. A Don't Miss Hit is one you might otherwise ignore.):
Flounder Seafood Étouffée
