March | 2015 | dual personalities

Tuesday’s message

by chuckofish

“St. Paul Preaching in Athens” by Raphael

Wonderful words for Tuesday in Holy Week:

The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

(1 Corinthians 1:18-31

The Bible speaks to us in the 21st century. Selah.

2 Comments

“The thorn tree had a mind to Him, when into the woods He came.”*

by chuckofish

Did I not tell you this would happen? Here is the picture I tore the house apart looking for–daughter #1 making palm crosses in the fifth or sixth grade…I found it on Sunday, sitting peacefully in a shoe box on a shelf…C’est la vie.

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A basket of palm crosses at Grace this year.

In church on Palm Sunday we read the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark in place of the Gospel reading. The layreaders took the parts. I was a “Bystander”, which, as my friend Carla explained to my seat-mate, is a step up for me. Usually I am a “Servant Girl”. Carla was a “Witness” and her husband was Judas–who only has two lines, one of which is “Rabbi!” His Method Acting was impressive. My favorite part was when Peter says, “I do not know or understand what you are talking about” and I really think the reader was a bit lost. There is a lot of jockeying for position around the microphone. Since only three of us showed up for practice last week, some confusion is understandable and, although quite avoidable, again par for the course.

And so we enter Holy Week. I’m afraid I have not kept a good Lent. And by that I mean that The Robe (1950) is the only movie on my Lenten movie list that I have watched! I plan to make up for it this week with non-stop biblical epic-watching, culminating, of course, with Ben Hur on Good Friday. I can do this! However, you will not catch me watching A.D. The Bible Continues on Easter. Nosiree, Bob. I will be watching Wolf Hall on Masterpiece Theatre/PBS that night. I advise you to mark your calendars and do the same! It was a huge hit in Britain and I hope that means they did a good job turning this great book into a mini series. We’ll see.

In other news, this weekend there was a three-day estate sale across the street at our neighbor’s house. I got to experience first-hand the annoyance of having hundreds of strangers coming and going and parking all over the place. The shoe was on the other foot and it was weird. The estate sale company put up “No Parking” signs in front of our house and beside it, so we didn’t really have anything to complain about. At least the OM didn’t get into a fight with anyone, which is always a possibility when he comes in contact with the public. Now we will just have to deal with the house being for sale. Whatever.

We had the boy and daughter #3 and some friends over for dinner on Sunday night to hear the highlights of their recent trips to NYC. It was super fun and then the weekend was over.

Have a good Monday.

*Sidney Lanier, A Ballad of the Trees and the Master. Check this out.

5 Comments

March 28, 2015

Sometimes you have to lean into the wind to stand straight*

by chuckofish

Mark Knopfler has a new CD out, and, to no one’s surprise, it’s full of sad melodies, mournful guitar, and stories about a wide variety of down and out characters struggling through life a day at a time.

I haven’t had it long enough to become familiar with all the songs, but the one called ‘Basil’ (track 2) has been running through my head steadily since I first heard it. Despite the melancholy, Mark Knopfler’s music always puts me in a good mood. Simply put, he makes the world a better place and improves the quality of my life. Here’s to you MK. Long may you play.

In other news, we’re impatiently awaiting spring here. It snowed yesterday. The temperature is not due to rise above freezing today and it’s making everyone restless and cranky. We all have cabin fever. Yesterday, as I avoided doing the things I needed to be doing (grading, cleaning, writing…), I kept finding myself perusing the internet and looking at beautiful landscapes like this amazing photograph of the Isle of Skye by Emmanuel Coupe:

or this one of Glencoe by Angie Latham.

You can buy her photos, etc… on Redbubble. She’s got some superb images of Scotland and Wales. Don’t they make you want to go walkabout? Smell the pine (or heather) in your nostrils and shake the winter out of your bones? Well, I may not be in Scotland, but I’m going to go for a walk today even if I do have to wear a hat, mittens and galoshes! I suggest you do the same wherever you are.

Have an excellent weekend.

*Winter in the Blood, by James Welch

2 Comments

March 27, 2015

“There’s nothing tragic about being fifty. Not unless you’re trying to be twenty-five.”*

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of Gloria Swanson (March 27, 1899 – April 4, 1983).

I suggest we watch Sunset Boulevard (1950) in her honor. Gloria was 51 (!) when she made this movie about a has-been silent movie star. You know: “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”

Gloria is pretty great in it. She plays the part of Norma Desmond with great gusto to be sure. She was nominated for an Oscar, but lost out to Judy Holliday in her first movie–quelle ironic. Also nominated that year was Bette Davis–also chewing the scenery as a fading star in All About Eve. It’s funny how that works out sometimes.

Anyway, William Holden, a favorite of mine, is also in the film playing the part of a hack screenwriter who writes a screenplay for a former silent-film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity. He was nominated too, along with Erich von Stroheim and Nancy Olson in supporting parts. Billy Wilder won for story & screenplay, but not for direction. The film won for art direction and for music. It lost the Best Picture prize to All About Eve.

Side note: The Third Man won that year for cinematography but nothing else. This was also the year The Furies–another favorite of mine–was nominated for cinematography. Quite a year for black and white movies! And whoever said they didn’t write good parts for women in mid-century America? All the aforementioned films had dynamite parts for middle-aged actresses.

So a toast to Gloria Swanson, actress and Episcopalian (although a lifelong Lutheran, she is buried at the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest on Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side.)

Have a great weekend!

* Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard (1950)

6 Comments

March 26, 2015

“A good intention, with a bad approach, often leads to a poor result.” *

by chuckofish

While I was going through boxes and piles of photos etc. a few weeks ago, I found an adorable picture of 10-year old daughter #1 making palm crosses with the Altar Guild at our old church for the Palm Sunday service. I put it somewhere safe to use in a blogpost later.

Of course, when I looked for it, I could not find it. I ~~literally~~ tore the house apart. Still no picture. I looked again. Sigh. I even looked in the books I have been reading. Not there. I looked in the scanner for pete’s sake.

This is the story of my life. Good intentions of being organized. I fool a lot of people, but it is all a joke.

I know that picture is out there. It will no doubt turn up on Monday, after Palm Sunday is past. It will be in an obvious place. If an inanimate object could laugh, this picture would be laughing at me.

On a brighter note: lacrosse season has officially started!

The OM and I went to the boys’ first home game yesterday afternoon after work. I suppose there aren’t a lot of coach’s parents going to games, but I say, why the heck not? It is a pleasure to sit outside and watch the game–even if it was a bit chilly. And they were winning when we left at halftime!

And on another bright note: my spy in Jupiter took some photos for me of this guy–

Photo by WWII Guy

Needless to say, this made my day!

It’s the little things in life, right? Have a good day!

*Thomas Edison

5 Comments

March 25, 2015

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

by chuckofish

Did you read this in Apartment Therapy about the 1970s–“the best decade of all time or the worst?” OMG are you kidding me? Check out those interior design pictures! They’re awful! Remember avocado green appliances and orange kitchens?

The 1970s was the worst decade ever–from Watergate to Jimmy Carter–the worst. Elvis died. John Wayne died. What was good about it?

Certainly not the fashions! Everyone looked terrible!

…or the hairdos!

…or the cars!

I read something recently where they referred to the seventies as the “Second Golden Age” of Hollywood. Seriously? I hate the movies from the 1970s. Taxi Driver (1976), Chinatown (1974), Saturday Night Fever (1977), The Deer Hunter (1978), The Exorcist (1973), Rocky (1976)–Ugh. Even the movies I like from the Seventies aren’t in my all-time favorite category!

Well, it just goes to show you that Americans can be nostalgic about anything! And the Seventies’ time has come. Look out for more ridiculousness–and probably a return to high-waisted pants.

Discuss among yourselves.

7 Comments

March 24, 2015

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”*

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) who was an English textile designer, poet, novelist, translator, and social activist. Closely associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement, he was a major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production.

William Morris by Sir William Blake Richmond

Among many things, he is famous for his stained glass designs,

David’s Charge to Solomon by Burne-Jones and Morris, Trinity Church, Boston

book illustration and calligraphy,

politics,

and his wallpaper and fabric designs. Of course, our favorite is the lovely “Compton” design:

“With the arrogance of youth, I determined to do no less than to transform the world with Beauty. If I have succeeded in some small way, if only in one small corner of the world, amongst the men and women I love, then I shall count myself blessed, and blessed, and blessed, and the work goes on.”

(William Morris, The Well at the World’s End, Vol. I)

*John Ruskin said this, although it is often attributed to William Morris. It is good advice.

4 Comments

March 23, 2015

We wait in faith, and turn our face…

by chuckofish

…to where the daylight springs, till thou shalt come our gloom to chase, with healing in thy wings.*

Quelle busy week! It always is like that after a long weekend trip and a few days off from work–so much catching up to do!

The boy was in New York visiting daughter #1 this weekend, so Instagram was on fire with great pictures of his visit all weekend.

From snow to blue skies to the Nightline set and lots of cool places in between.

Also daughter #2 was in Savannah, Georgia with the BF, so there was more Instagramming from down south. They found St. John’s Episcopal Church where my parents were married in 1950

and where General Sherman attended services when he set up his headquarters there.

Meanwhile, I puttered around the yard which is starting to come alive.

On Saturday I went to an estate sale and bought a small vintage chest which I lugged home myself and carried upstairs and into my office.

I think it is pretty great.

I repotted some plants and carried a whole bunch back out to the Florida room which I had cleaned up. Then I took a break.

My back doesn’t hurt too much.

*John Mason Neale, hymn #672

7 Comments

March 21, 2015

Of Confederate raids and sleepy Vermont towns

by chuckofish

In the spirit of my dual personality’s recent trip to Gettysburg, I wanted to share a north country Civil War story that I recently came across. It’s smaller in scope, of course, but compelling in its own way. Whenever I drive son #3 to or from his small Vermont college, I drive through the outskirts of St. Albans, a reasonably sized town a little removed from the northern shores of Lake Champlain. It seems like a typical Vermont town with a core of lovely old buildings, but a little down on its luck now.

Its green and buildings look a lot like my village, albeit more Vermont-like than New York-ish, which is to say nicer.

Believe it or not, back in October 1864, the town was briefly subject to a Confederate takeover. According to the Smithsonian Magazine online, it happened like this:

“Late that afternoon, a tall, handsome man dismounted from a horse in front of the American House Hotel on Main Street in St. Albans, just 15 miles south of the Canadian border. His name was Bennett Young, and he had been staying in town for a few days, letting on little about himself beyond evident interests in the Bible and fishing. On that Wednesday, he drew a pair of Colt revolvers and said, “Gentlemen, I am a Confederate officer, and my men have come to take your town. Anyone who resists will be shot.” Young had been in Canada for months, recruiting escaped Confederate POWs to conduct raids on presumptively safe American towns. Now the northernmost raid of the Civil War was underway. Twenty-one raiders had entered St. Albans; while some of them held some townspeople prisoner in Taylor Park, others robbed the three banks of about $208,000. Some residents fired at the Confederates, fatally wounding one; one resident was killed in return. The fleeing Rebels tried to burn the town down, but their firebombs proved to be duds. American posses crossed into Canada and located many of the raiders, who were arrested by Canadian constables. The Canadians returned what money the raiders still had and charged Young and four of his men with violating Canada’s neutrality, but they dropped the charges a month later for lack of evidence. One of the three banks that were robbed, the Franklin County Bank, still stands (as a TD Bank branch), as does the American House.”

That must have caused quite the stir, to say the least. Fortunately, the Canadians didn’t mind the border breech. Somehow, I don’t think they’d be very happy about it now.

And that, my friends, is the obscure history lesson for today. Have a great weekend!

1 Comment

March 20, 2015

Away, you rolling river

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of George Caleb Bingham (March 20, 1811 – July 7, 1879) who is considered one of the greatest American painters of the 19th century.

“Daniel Boone escorting settlers through the Cumberland Gap” which resides at my flyover university

From 1837-1845 Bingham and his family lived in Arrow Rock, Saline County, Missouri. His home there has been designated a national historic landmark and it is on my list of places to visit.

Eventually he moved to St. Louis where he was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 1848. His interest in politics was reflected in his paintings of the vivid political life on the frontier.

“The County Election” (St. Louis Art Museum)

We are pretty proud of ol’ Bingham here in Missouri. You can read about him here.

“Jolly Flatboatmen in Port” (SLAM)

There is an exhibition of his works now at the SLAM: “Navigating the West”. Guess I’ll have to add this to my “to do” list!

“Boatmen on the Missouri”

“Fur Traders Descending the Missouri” (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

In honor of George Caleb Bingham, I thought I would pick an appropriate “river” movie for my Friday Movie Pick–perhaps: The African Queen (1951), Show Boat (1951), Jean Renoir’s The River (1951), Fitzcarraldo (1982), The Night of the Hunter (1955), or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1939).

Any other ideas? I am open to suggestions!

While you are contemplating this question, here’s a cute picture of the boy and daughter #1 in NYC. He is visiting her this weekend.

Have a great weekend!

6 Comments

dual personalities

Month: March, 2015

March 31, 2015

Tuesday’s message

by chuckofish

March 30, 2015

“The thorn tree had a mind to Him, when into the woods He came.”*

by chuckofish

March 28, 2015

Sometimes you have to lean into the wind to stand straight*

by chuckofish

March 27, 2015

“There’s nothing tragic about being fifty. Not unless you’re trying to be twenty-five.”*

by chuckofish

March 26, 2015

“A good intention, with a bad approach, often leads to a poor result.” *

by chuckofish

March 25, 2015

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

by chuckofish

March 24, 2015

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”*

by chuckofish

March 23, 2015

We wait in faith, and turn our face…

by chuckofish

March 21, 2015

Of Confederate raids and sleepy Vermont towns

by chuckofish

March 20, 2015

Away, you rolling river

by chuckofish