We always think of this song as “lovers” or at the least relationships. How about our whole country — a chain of fools.
As a nation, that’s what we are. A chain of fools.
From wherever we come — the left, right, or middle, we are all of us an endless chain of fools dancing to The Big Asshole’s rhythm. And he can’t even find the rhythm. Nor can he sing.
Maybe we should make it our national anthem. At least we could dig the beat.
Garry came back from the grocery while the snow was softly falling. I already had flowers from last week, so I picked out the ones that were dead, left the chrysanthemums which were in good shape.
But I was grateful. We’ll be locked in the house for a day or two, depending on how much snow we get, though it’s supposed to relatively light and fluffy. That is my favorite kind of snow and I’m sure there’s a special word for it in some arctic language. There are a bunch and I don’t know any of them.
Sunflowers in the snow
This has been a very strange winter. Instead of what we usually get — mountains of snow accompanied by very cold weather — we got a tiny bit of snow, a fair amount of sleet, and a lot of rain and wind.
Photo: Garry Armstrong – House and some snow
Aldrich Street – Photo: Garry Armstrong
In a lot of ways, this is a good summary of this winter. A little snow, a lot of sleet, and when this picture was taken, 60 mph winds were blowing.
And of course, there were the birds. Two bird feeders, about 100 pounds of birdseed … and one Panasonic 4/3 telephoto 100-300 mm lens later …
And of course, our Christmas cactus that has been in more or less continuous bloom since Thanksgiving ..
And more pictures from Garry.
Photo: Garry Armstrong
If you look beyond the fence, you’ll see Gibbs and the Duke by the front steps
Photo: Garry Armstrong
The Changing Seasons Version One (photographic):
Bonnie and living room
The Changing Seasons Version Two (you choose the format):
Three bright birds
If you do a ping-back to this post, Su-Leslie will update it with links to all the other photographers.
This is a bit more than one line. “Inherit the Wind” is one of the best movies of its kind ever made. If you have not yet seen it, I highly recommend it. Not only is it brilliantly acted, directed with a script right out of the actual trial, but it is so “now.” It ought to be “old” but it’s as current as today’s headlines.
The script for “Inherit the Wind” (Spencer Tracy, Frederic March, and Gene Kelly) is largely based on the actual Scopes “Monkey Trial” held in 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee.
“Inherit the Wind” (1960) was directed by Stanley Kramer. The trial was held in Dayton, Tennessee because teaching evolution had been banned by the state’s Butler Act.
You would think that we would have come a long way since then … and we did. We passed some good legislation. Civil rights and all that. We eliminated the legalized part of our national evil. But then, we started doubling back.
We’re heading down a bleak, dark road. Again. Apparently, we lack a national memory of having been here before and it ends badly. It always ends badly.
A nation led by hatred, ignorance, and fear is not seeking a happy ending.
Smooth as silk.
Smooth as a quiet lake on a sunny day.
Smooth as a baby’s cheek.
Smooth …
Silky squirrel
Photo: Garry Armstrong – Water, smooth as silk
Smooth as a baby’s cheek
Twilight at the pond
A little bit of silk …
Shining sand, smooth as silk
Smooth as a bird’s feathers in sunlight …
Smooth water with barely a ripple
I just read a really interesting post on Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo called: SHINE. In her final paragraphs she said:
Don’t we all wish to be loved and accepted for who we are in our entirety? Yet we hide the good, even from ourselves, behind a socially acceptable modesty while brandishing our flaws and frailties as if they alone define who we are. They do not. We define who we are. As much by how we choose to see ourselves as by anything else. If we see ourselves whole, perhaps others may too. They cannot until we do, as we project outward only a fragment of who we are. The saying ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’ comes to mind. Maybe if we love our whole selves we can love others wholly too.
We are told that the very physical fabric of everything we know, including our own bodies, is made of the matter from which the stars were formed. Our physical forms exist because somewhere, aeons ago, a star died. If that is so, why should we not simply shine?
I realize the answer is really simple. We don’t shine because we need to work. We have to have a resume. We need to be “people-people.” No one wants to hire someone who shines. They want to hire people who fit in, people who won’t jolt the company “culture.”
I never figured out what company culture was, actually. Most of the places who exalted their company culture have long since gone bankrupt. Usually what company culture really meant is “we don’t want to work any harder than we absolutely have to.” These are places where mentioning deadlines were enough to get you out the door.
Photo: Garry Armstrong
They hired many more people than they needed to do the work because the people they hired couldn’t really do the work. More to the point, they didn’t do the work. They intentionally worked so slowly I found it hard to believe anyone could write that slowly. They thought THREE PAGES A DAY of technical material was plenty. I used to write between 20 and 50 and on a really good day, I could write half the book. Sure I’d have to go back and edit, add graphics, double check information, and test the document against the product.
But I got the work done. I got the basic draft put together quickly which left me time for serious rewrites and corrections once I’d Beta-tested the product.
Photo: Garry Armstrong
I worked at Intel for a year. It was a good job. Good pay. Also, not far from home and I didn’t have to drive into Boston. I had to work a 10 hour day every day, but I only had about 45 minutes of work to do. I was so bored I thought it would kill me. Ten hours of sitting in front of a computer — with NOTHING to do.
Shine? I could barely keep my eyes open.
And then, I got sick, stopped working, and got old. I don’t have a resume anymore. I’m not working for anyone who pays me, so I don’t have to lie to anyone, fake anything, pretend anything I don’t feel. With all the physical problems I have, I can’t begin to tell you how deeply I enjoy being me all the time. I’m not sure how the rest of the world feels about it, but I’m happy.
Shining is best done by the rich and the retired. Shining is not an option for most of us who have to show up to work and smile.
Last night, tired of the endless depressing, appalling, horrible news from around the world, Garry played a movie he had previously recorded.
San Andreas Fault is not merely a disaster film. It is every disaster film you have ever seen in one film. It’s earthquakes that will turn Kansas into the Pacific beach capital of the nation. It’s crashing buildings, towering infernos, the hugest Omigod tsunamis. We get to see the bravest heroes and most craven cowardice.
It’s all there. Everything you can pack into a movie is in this one. From CGI to humor (parts are so bad they are funny) to the end of the world, to the final line we all know is coming.
The crashing bridge
Every cliché from every disaster movie made in the past century are in this film. I’m pretty sure we’ve seen all of them, but we’d never seen this one before.
I think it was originally filmed in 3D. Everyone said it was drivel, but it made more than $300,000 million at the box office, so clearly drivel sells well.
Crashing cruise ship
It certainly sold well at our house last night. When the intended second husband of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson‘s wife (Carla Gugino) played by Ioan Gruffudd (aka “The Asshole”) abandons Rock’s daughter to her fate, trapped under fallen cement in a parking garage, it’s no less than you expect from the cowardly CEO of a major corporation.
Hollywood crashing
We know they are cowards because … well …that’s what they always do in the movies, right? Have you ever seen a brave, manly CEO stand up to anyone or anything outside a boardroom? Especially when they are trying to marry the hero’s ex-wife who we all know should be with the hero.
Even though The Hero can’t utter a coherent sentence (and probably hasn’t since he came back from The War) (insert name of war here), he’s a hero (with medals to prove it) and would never run. Not even when a million tons of water and a complete cruise ship is about to fall on his head.
The Rock watching everything crash
Ultimately, the family reconnects. The entire west coast is smoldering ruins covered by about half the Pacific Ocean. There isn’t a bridge, a building … nothing. Total, absolute devastation from Canada to Mexico.
Garry is giggling to himself. Because he knows. I know. We both know. It’s coming. That final line.
The Rock (who is no longer the Rock), arm around his wife, his daughter (having been saved by him of course), is gazing over the wreckage of the world and Garry murmurs sotto voce: “Now … we rebuild.”
[Beat. Beat. Beat. Pause about 3 seconds.]
The Rock says: “Now … we rebuild.”
Garry collapses into laughter. The last time he laughed that much was when Trevor Noah had Ben Carson on the show and Trevor did a better Ben Carson than Ben Carson.
Garry was still howling while the credits rolled. It was a perfect ending.
We’d seen the world end. We’d see the best, the bravest. The worst. We’d seen the most depraved cowardice imaginable and in HD wide-screen. In our own living room, no less.
But now, we will rebuild. We have to rebuild … because … SAN ANDREAS 2 is coming!
As the headline says, this will finally allow The Rock (who no longer calls himself “the Rock”, so you have to call him Dwayne) (it’s a long way from being ‘The Rock’ to being Dwayne) to punch an earthquake.
Then, we will rebuild.
Having not picked up the camera except to shoot a flower or two, once I got started shooting, I didn’t stop for quite a while. I missed the Cardinal who was sitting there until the exact minute I pointed my camera over there. He must be eating because he’s quite a porker of a bird. Garry commented that he could even see his feet past that big red belly.
I think the real issue is that he is an early morning feeder and I am not usually taking pictures early in the morning. That’s when I am sleeping, or at least trying to sleep.
And then, there’s the diver …
But from when I got up and managed to have coffee and a muffin, there were finches. Red ones, purple ones, goldfinches and a couple I didn’t recognize, but they are obviously finches of some kind. This is also an area through which birds heading further north — to Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, and Canada pass. Or maybe this was a house finch who was more orange than red.
Titmouse watching from the wires
Finches do look a lot alike and sometimes, their colors seem to blend from the lightest yellow to the deepest reds. This is part (there are a lot of pictures!) of the collection.
This could also be a Pine Grosbeak — another local resident. All the birds are changing colors right now, which makes the confusion even more confusing
The flat feeder was the big draw yesterday. It was a group celebration of seeds!
There is at least one Tufted Titmouse in the collection as well as a Nuthatch, but the rest are various kinds of finches. House finches and purple finches … and the brown females who are the mates of the purple and red-headed house finches.
I’m sure there was some kind of conversation in progress here!
Goldfinches and a nuthatch
Two red finches. I think one is a house finch and the other is a purple finch. Also a lady in the mix but I don’t know whose lady she is.
I have another fifty or so that are not yet processed. Probably another couple of dozen of Garry’s pictures awaiting me, too. All of these were taken in pouring rain.
All lined up at the feeder. Don’t even know how many are in the feeder!
They eat like crazy when it’s snowing or raining. Some instinctive need to eat extra in case the weather gets worse?
The late great Douglas Adams (who shared my birthday, March 11th — I’m sure that means something, but I have no idea what) created a character that I dearly love. Dirk Gently (also known by a number of other names, including Svlad Cjelli), was the owner/operator of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.
It operated based on the “fundamental interconnectedness of all things.” I believe in Douglas Adams and Dirk Gently. We all operate, knowingly or not, on the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. More than half the posts I write — including this — are born while commenting on someone else’s post.
We are intricately and intimately linked. I wonder if we take for granted how bound to others we are in this strange cyber world we have created. I have read and heard much talk about the isolation of each person, alone and lonely with their computer. It has been put out there as a metaphor for the estrangement of people from each other, the symbolic isolation of individuals in the technological world.
I don’t think it’s true.
For me and for many friends isolation would be life without the Internet. Without computers. Without cell phones. For anyone who suffers a chronic illness, for those of us getting on in years who can’t get out as much as we used to — and whose friends have died or moved far away — and for young people whose studies, work, happenstance or life choices have settled them long distances — continents and oceans — distant from old friends and family, electronic communications are a godsend.
Super moon
If we cannot share a hug, we can share face time. Electronic communications are fast or instant and let us share in ways that were science fiction a few years ago.
Without my computers, I would be truly isolated. The fibromyalgia, arthritis and heart condition make getting around difficult. Without electronic connections, I would be a squirrel up a tree without fellow squirrels to hang with.
Bonnie guarding my computer
This post was originally inspired by Dawn Hoskings on whose post I was commenting when I realized how lucky I am to be living in a world that lets me enjoy virtual travel and participate in a larger world. I’m proud to be part of a community of bloggers, a community of friends around the world.
And grateful.
How about you?
I was wondering what to do with some of my bird butts. There are always a lot of them and I’m never sure where to put them. So …
Birds in reverse. The southbound end of a northbound flyer.
Goldfinch in reverse
Not sure whose but it is … House Finch maybe?
Reverse Chickadee amidst Goldfinches and a House Finch (I think) …
Everything IS figure-out-able. You just have to want to figure it out!
I am a big fan of Oprah Winfrey’s SuperSoul Conversations podcasts. For those who might not know Oprah, she’s an American talk show host and interviewer, writer, philanthropist, actor and, well, almost anything else you can think of. She’s retired from television now and is doing her SuperSoul podcasts that are “designedtolightyouup,guideyouthroughlife’sbigquestionsandhelpbringyouonestepclosertoyourbestself.”
Oprah invited Marie Forleo to do a presentation called “Everything is Figureoutable”. I love the philosophy and have included it in my Life Tool Kit. I hope you like the video because Marie is a funny and captivating speaker.
I picked up a camera and went out to take pictures. Which is when I realized the battery needed changing … so I went back in and got a fresh battery. Then I took some pictures.
It was almost dark, but through the magic of electronic camera technology, everything came out clear and surprisingly bright. Yes, there are fences. Our fences.
The pictures look black and white, but that’s the way our world looks this time of year.
Our house, some snow,, and the fence …
And if you look beyond the fence, you’ll see Gibbs and the Duke back by the front steps
The 1928 Fordson tractor and the fence …
We’ve had two family ‘mysteries’ that involved genetics and inheritance of traits. The first involved my first husband, Larry, and his blood type. He always said that his dog tag from the army (Texas and Vietnam postings in the early 1970s) listed his blood type as O – the universal donor.
Normally blood type is at most a not very interesting fact about a person, but it became an issue when my second child, Sarah, was born. I don’t know why it didn’t come up when my first child was born, but it just didn’t.
The OB-GYN who delivered Sarah came in after her birth to talk to us about our new daughter’s health. As part of her report, she mentioned that Sarah’s blood type was AB positive. I am type A and Larry suddenly realized as type O, you can’t get an AB child. Not from an A parent and an O parent. He started to get upset.
Sarah’s birth announcement
The doctor pulled me aside and furtively asked me if I wanted her to pursue the issue. She was politely asking if the child could have a father other than Larry. I told her emphatically that the child was Larry’s and asked her to please do everything she could to find the obvious error as quickly as possible.
Larry, Sarah and I all had our blood drawn for testing. It was very tense between Larry and me while we were waiting for the results. I knew that Larry was the father but he believed that he couldn’t be, so what should have been a glorious day for us turned out to be strained, at best.
Larry and Sarah when she first came home from the hospital
Thank goodness the test results came back quickly. I was confirmed as type A, Sarah was confirmed as type AB positive and Larry turned out to be AB positive too, just like his daughter. The army had made a serious error. Larry’s blood type was listed as the universal donor type instead of the universal recipient type. So if they had ever asked him to donate blood, he could have killed someone with an incompatible transfusion!
Larry was shocked that the military had made such a serious error but he was greatly relieved. In fact, both of our kids have their father’s blood type. So, marital crisis averted!
Another picture of Larry and a newborn Sarah
The other genetic mystery we had in our family was my son, David’s, left-handedness. David was an eight-week Preemie and was part of a study of Preemie development at New York Hospital. A researcher came to our house once a month during David’s first year of life and gave him a battery of behavioral and motor development tests.
He was about a month behind in most things but he was way ahead on one – favoring one hand over the other. That usually doesn’t happen till the end of the first year, but from the time David could reach for things, he strongly favored his left hand.
My mother, me and David when he was an infant
The developmental testers were surprised and so was the family since being left-handed is genetic and no one in either family was left-handed. We quizzed every family member on both sides but David still remained a mystery. Then one day, when David was about one and a half or two years old, my mother was playing with him and the topic of his left-handedness came up again.
Suddenly a light went off in my mother’s brain. “Oh my God!” she said. “I forgot that I was born left-handed!”
My favorite photo of my mom and David
In 1916, when my mother was born, being left-handed was not considered to be a good thing. It was a ‘problem’ that had to be ‘fixed’ to make the child ‘normal’ and like the majority of the population. When Mom was of school age, she was forced to use her right hand instead of her left.
This was so traumatic for her, as well as being neurologically challenging, that she developed a stutter. A ‘psychologist’ of the day told my grandmother to cure Mom’s stutter by smacking her in the face every time she stuttered. This barbaric tactic eventually worked and Mom grew up to be a right-handed adult with no stutter.
My mom as a two-year-old in 1918
But the experience so scarred her that she buried the memory. Even a year of talking about David’s inexplicable left-handedness didn’t trigger her memory. I don’t know what finally did, but now we know that David inherited something directly from his grandmother.
Another family mystery solved!
One bird in a flat feeder.
One wacko dog
One tepee
One lone Black-crowned-night-heron
Singular cactus
Flying!
I picked up the camera today. My shoulder actually hurt more than yesterday and it was obvious that I needed to shoot. I realized as I spent all day shooting, then processing photographs, that the problem isn’t the camera and its weight. It’s these all day workouts on the computer.
I’m not sure what I can do about it because when you shoot, you are going to process … and if you take a lot of pictures — and Garry took quite a few today too — you are going to process a lot.
If anyone has an answer for how to do this without all the crippling side effects, let me know. My wrists, shoulder, neck, and back will thank you.
There are a lot of buds waiting to open soon, too. So there will be more!
Full bloom
Standing back
Closer
Macro
What a little sunlight can do!
I’m part of the new “lost generation”. I grew up loving movies when there were more stars in Hollywood than in heaven.
I plead guilty to reading fan mags about stars like Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper (Mom named me after “Coop”, her favorite star), Ingrid Bergman, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, and many other Tinsel town legends.
I remember “Photoplay” pic layouts of Alan and Sue Carroll Ladd at home. Ladd, with his million-dollar smile, was mowing the lawn, playing with his dogs and hugging the kids, Alan “Laddie” Junior, Alana and David. It was so cool – “Shane” really had a home and family in swanky Beverly Hills.
There was the “Movietone” photo platter with William Holden — home at his ranch with horses and neighbors – smiling and eating hot dogs at their backyard barbecue. It looked so real. A day in the life of Hollywood superstars. I believed it all.
It was the naiveté of a pre-teen movie fan. Yes, I wanted to be a movie star when I grew up. I used to see – every week –3 double features, cartoons and coming attractions at the local and first-run movie houses near my Jamaica, Queens home in the ’40s and early ’50s.
The Academy Awards were bigger than the World Series even though I was a true Dodger Blue fan of Brooklyn’s Boys of Summer.
I started watching the Oscars in black and white with Bob Hope hosting and still in his prime – complaining about being shut out from acting awards by Ronald Coleman, Cary Grant, and James Cagney. It was standard Hollywood humor we all knew, understood, and loved.
During those early 50’s telecasts of the Oscars, it was terrific when the cameras panned the audience to show Greer Garson, Gloria Swanson, Gene Kelly, Spencer Tracy and all the other luminous stars from the golden age of the silver screen.
Previous Oscar-winning movies
Fans used to mull, for weeks, who’d win the major awards. Would Cary Grant finally win after being overlooked for decades? Would newcomers like Paul Newman, Richard Burton, Richard Harris, and Steve McQueen get more attention than the “old guard.” Who was more exciting? Rock Hudson, Kirk Douglas or Clark Gable (Gable had passed away in ’61 but was still hugely popular).
There were the larger than life heroes like John Wayne who’d never received an Oscar despite half a century of stardom. How about Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and Barbara Stanwyck? Were they still TOP stars? There was the fascination with Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Sophia Loren, Kim Novak, Mamie Van Doren, and Diana Dors. What would they be wearing on Oscar night? How much would they “reveal?” How much jewelry would Liz Taylor wear? Could Burton stay sober?
One of my favorite Oscar moments came in the ’60s when Sidney Poitier became the first Black actor to win the coveted “Best Actor” award. Poitier opened the door for Denzel, Wil Smith and so many other minority performers previously relegated to grossly stereotypical roles.
2019 lead Oscar actresses
The Oscar show was must-see viewing for the stars as much as the films and performers vying for the industry’s top awards. Hollywood pioneers like Cecil B. Demille, Adolph Zukor, Jack Warner, and Darryl Zanuck could still be seen and heard. I especially loved seeing legends from the silent film days like Mary Pickford, Buster Keaton and others who were there when the curtains first raised on “moving pictures”.
There were wonderful impromptu moments like David Niven almost being upstaged by a streaker. Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas delighting us with a nifty song and dance number.
Shirley Temple, Margaret O’Brien, Mickey Rooney, and Judy Garland — staples from their youth — were still vital and enjoyable to watch and hear.
Where have all the stars gone today (insert “Where Have All The Flowers Gone” melody here). I don’t know most of the folks who are stars unless I’ve seen them on “Facebook” ‘news’ items.
I don’t much about most of the movies up for awards. I know some are about superheroes, trendsetters in new diversity movies and a rash of “coming of age” flicks that draw blanks at this address.
I know about the industry controversies including Harvey Weinstein and the “Me Too” movement. Diversity for all those excluded since the first Oscars — nine decades ago during the prelude to the great depression. I know this year’s Oscar show will be minus a host.
Maybe that’ll be a plus?
The magic is gone — along with the stars who made the magic. The show is far too long with winners taking too long to thank everyone including their dog walker.
All that said, we’ll still watch. Until we doze off.
Why? It’s the stuff dreams are made of …
Books & Bonsai
How you see life depends on how you look at things
Official Site of Speaker, Historian and Author Sean Munger
https://teepee12.com/
I use the best, I use the rest
Just another WordPress site
Random musings on life, society, and politics.
Just another WordPress.com site
Martha Ann Kennedy's Blog, Copyright 2013-2020, all rights reserved to the author/artist
Words that Play with Time
Fun, unusual and forgotten designations on our calendar.
Teaching the art of composition for photography.
Random Ramblings and Reviews from Trent P. McDonald
To See More Clearly
wandering discourse, pedantic rant, self-indulgent drivel, languorous polemic, grammarian's bête noire, poesy encroachment approaching bombast, unintended subtext in otherwise intentional context, unorthodox unorthodoxy, self-inflected rodomontade, …
Because sometimes life just makes you stop and think
Posts about old Hollywood, current concerns
EMBERS FROM SOMEONE DOGGEDLY TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL...
Musings, Photography, Writing, and More
NO LONGER ENCUMBERED BY ANY SENSE OF FAIR PLAY, EX-JOURNALISTS RETURN TO ACTIVE DUTY TO FIGHT THE TRUMPIAN MENACE!
Welcome to the Anglo Swiss World
Just another WordPress site
The Fun Side Of Science
Your second chance to be creative. .
To participate in the Ragtag Daily Prompt, create a Pingback to your post, or copy and paste the link to your post into the comments. And while you’re there, why not check out some of the other posts too!
People, Places, Nature, LIFE!
explorations on the journey of living
by Taswegian1957 & Human59
Happiness. It's relative.
age is just a (biggish) number
Echoes of Life, Love and Laughter
A fine WordPress.com site on ramdom thoughts & lessons learned.
Mainly through the lens of a Nikon
