Every Picture Tells a Story There are two ways in which we acquire art. The less obvious way is that when I have bought a house (primary or secondary or, even tertiary) I am usually quite rabid about getting the place set up to be immediately useable. To me, usable means with art on the walls. That approach requires me to be a devotee of art.com, where I shop for and buy relatively inexpensive artwork…
Cogito, Ergo Sum This morning my head is swirling with thoughts after watching a Broadway rendition of Hadestown. The show is a revival of a Greek mythological story, like so many other great tales. The details of the myth and the story are somewhat irrelevant, but suffice to say that it does what it is supposed to do, which is to ignite thought. I imagine that the Golden Age of Greece certainly raised the…
The Sovereign State of Mine, Mine, Mine Yes, you heard that tight, Donald Trump is having a temper tantrum over a place he’s never been, has only 50,000 indigenous inhabitants (the size of Sheboygan, Wisconsin), and has only one and a half golf courses, one of which appears to be on a glacier or something similar. What it does have is a lot of land, with less and less ice and something called rare…
Seeing Red I’m generally not inclined to link one story to another and prefer that each story stands on its own as opposed to being part of a series. So, while yesterday’s story is preamble to this one, you be the judge of its independence. Yesterday we bought a red car. We had decided in advance and together to buy a white car, which is really funny to me because I have a favorite and…
Silver Alert Yesterday was a day for acting like I was finally retired. Granted it’s August and lots of people are away enjoying themselves, but I am here in San Diego and it was Monday (the proverbial start of the work week). All our siblings are either off to work or off to home. Lazing about the house has a certain charm to it, but there were a few errands to take care of, so…
Remoteness Today I am sitting at my desk in San Diego. We are on a hilltop that looks in every direction. My office faces north, east and west. It is in an alcove and it literally has windows on three sides that gives me the feeling of being suspended over the mountain-top. This is the view from which and the likely time of day during which I will be doing my work from starting in…
Catch-22 I watched the Mike Nichols movie based on Joseph Heller’s dark WWII comedy about a bombardier off the coast of Italy doing everything he can think of to get sent home. Catch-22, the novel, was first published in 1961 and made into a movie in 1970. The story of its title deserves to be told as a prequel to its absurd comedic tone. The concept of the rule “catch” of a paradoxical situation…
Anticipation Do you remember those ketchup commercials that wanted to highlight the thickness of their product? It was for Heinz ketchup, the Hertz Rent-a-car of the ketchup world. The music of Carly Simon played loudly with her slightly altered lyrics (which I believe she herself sang) made the ketchup people’s point. “Anticipation. Is makin’ me late. Is keepin’ me waitin’!” This 3:16 song was written, as most songs, it seems, as a love song. …
Not Just a Hat Rack Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen was an American actress, singer, dancer and comedian who was known as Gracie Allen and was married to George Burns, the actor and comedian. The Burns and Allen Show ran for years on both radio and television with Burns being the straight man to Allen’s hair-brained female routine. We all remember the way their show always ended, “Say Goodnight, Gracie.” What we may not…
Sliding On In Doormen are unusual relationships for tenants. I have a very strong relationship with Corrado (Mr. Porca Miseria) based on the need to be sympathetic to the tragedy of his wife’s ongoing cancer treatments. In our apartment in the Seaport we had a doorman that had a daughter with a woman out of wedlock, who he was raising since she was in jail. That certainly gave us something to talk about. One of…