September | 2016 | dual personalities

You can do it!

by chuckofish

This made me LOL.

Also it got me thinking about support and encouragement, which are all very well and good, but lest we forget, here’s a word from Ralph Waldo Emerson on self-reliance:

“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.”

And a poem by Mary Oliver to get you moving:

THE FOURTH SIGN OF THE ZODIAC (PART 3)

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.

Have a good weekend. October will be here tomorrow! The last quarter of the year is upon us. Let us make good use of it.

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Here is a picture (taken circa 1930) that should bring a smile to your face today. Our mother is on the left and her older sister Susanne is on the right. I am not sure who the lady is–an aunt? (Uncle Erskine’s wife?) There is also half a dog, also unidentified. I don’t know about you, but I am loving their ensembles. So glad little Mary got to wear that necklace.

Anyway, may this adorable photo of yesteryear serve as a reminder to print some of those pictures you are storing on your phone. Someday someone will be glad you did. (And here’s a word from blogger Emily Clark on the subject.)

In other news, the boy got his staples removed two weeks after his surgery. The doctor quoted Keanu Reeves in The Replacements (2000)– “Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever.”

FYI: Tonight is Gene Wilder night on TCM. Here’s the schedule if you are in the mood.

Today in the Episcopal Church we celebrate the feast of Saint Michael and All Angels. The Epistle appointed for today is Revelation 12: 7–12

War broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

This may explain a lot.

4 Comments

September 28, 2016

“”What are you reading, my dear? A pretty sight, a lady with a book.”*”

by chuckofish

“It was the first golden week of spring, and Mrs. Arthur William Morgan was completely unaffected by it.”

I have been reading Let Me Tell You, which I broke down and bought last week.

Usually I don’t buy compilations of writing put together by the children of long-dead authors who seem to have been scrounging around in drawers looking for anything to publish that will make some more money for them. Clearly this book is a lot of scraps and personal musings along with some ideas for stories and a few unpublished stories–unpublished maybe for good reason. And this is not the first time. They published Just an Ordinary Day in 1995 after a trunk was discovered in an old barn that contained a trove of her unpublished stuff.

That having been said, I am enjoying it all very much–mostly because I just love Shirley, and Shirley not-quite-at-the-top-of-her game is still better than most. Shirley, like J.D. Salinger, saw the phoniness in everyone (including herself) and was so good at skewering people, ever so gently and with such subtlety and humor.

Anyway, she is a kindred spirit.

I cannot find any patience for those people who believe that you start writing when you sit down at your desk and pick up your pen and finish writing when you put down your pen again; a writer is always writing, seeing everything through a thin mist of words, fitting swift little descriptions to everything he sees, always noticing. Just as I believe that a painter cannot sit down to his morning coffee without noticing what color it is, so a writer cannot see an odd little gesture without putting a verbal description to it, and ought never to let a moment go by undescribed.

I think I will re-read one (or two) of her novels now.

*We Have Always Lived in the Castle

5 Comments

September 27, 2016

Within our inward temple

by chuckofish

What powerful Spirit lives within!
What active Angel doth inhabit here!
What heavenly light inspires my skin,
Which doth so like a Deity appear!
A living Temple of all ages, I
Within me see
A Temple of Eternity!
All Kingdoms I descry
In me.

An inward Omnipresence here
Mysteriously like His within me stands,
Whose knowledge is a Sacred Sphere
That in itself at once includes all lands.
There is some Angel that within me can
Both talk and move,
And walk and fly and see and love,
A man on earth, a man
Above.

Dull walls of clay my Spirit leaves,
And in a foreign Kingdom doth appear,
This great Apostle it receives,
Admires His works and sees them, standing here,
Within myself from East to West I move
As if I were
At once a Cherubim and Sphere,
Or was at once above
And here.

The Soul’s a messenger whereby
Within our inward Temple we may be
Even like the very Deity
In all the parts of His Eternity.
O live within and leave unwieldy dross!
Flesh is but clay!
O fly my Soul and haste away
To Jesus’ Throne or Cross!
Obey!

–Thomas Traherne, An Hymn Upon St. Bartholomew’s Day

In commemoration of his poems and spiritual writings, Thomas Traherne is included in the anglican calendar of saints. Today is his feast day (in the Episcopal Church) and this is the collect for the day:

“Creator of wonder and majesty, who didst inspire thy poet Thomas Traherne with mystical insight to see thy glory in the natural world and in the faces of men and women around us: Help us to know thee in thy creation and in our neighbors, and to understand our obligations to both, that we may ever grow into the people thou hast created us to be; through our Savior Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, in everlasting light. Amen.”

The stained glass window is one of the four Traherne Windows in Audley Chapel, Hereford Cathedral, created by stained-glass artist Tom Denny in 2007.

And I just thought this was really nice:

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September 26, 2016

Grant us strength and courage*

by chuckofish

⁶Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; ⁷for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; ⁸but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. ⁹But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. ¹⁰For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

¹¹But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.¹²Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

There was a lot of uncomfortable scripture in Sunday’s lectionary starting with the “Alas for those at ease in Zion” cautionary speech from Amos, continuing with Paul’s strong words to Timothy, and concluding with the difficult parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Our rector soft-peddled most of it, urging us to “see in love” and to notice the needy etc. All very well and good, but Amos, Paul and Jesus would have rolled their eyes.

During the Prayers of the People one of the acolytes fainted/had a seizure. Since I sit up front on the epistle side of the church, I had a birds-eye view of the whole thing and it was pretty unsettling. I was unsettled to begin with, because I had just heard that three members of the vestry had resigned, including one person who is a regular pillar of the church.

On the one hand, I was happy that I am so out of it that I had no inkling of any drama going on, but it was unsettling nonetheless. I really hate drama at church.

Our U-verse was out on Friday night, so I was forced to watch a DVD and put Longmire off until we were back online the next day. I watched I’m Not There (2007)–or “Ruminations on the life of Bob Dylan, where six characters embody a different aspect of the musician’s life.”

Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, among others, play the different Bobs. It was interesting, but seemed overly gimmick-y. The best thing about it was the real Dylan playing on the soundtrack.

The boy came over on Saturday and we watched the Cards–Cubs game which was fun.

We won 10-4 so that was especially good too.

And I saw these on Etsy:

Now it is Monday and a very busy work week looms. All will be well, right?

*BCP, Post-communion Prayer

6 Comments

September 24, 2016

We have art in order not to die of the truth*

by chuckofish

In one corner of my living room hangs a pleasing watercolor that I inherited from my grandmother (father’s mother). You’ve seen it in pictures before. Remember this one taken just after we painted the living room and before the fern took over?

I’ve always loved this painting and wondered about how my grandmother came to own it, and what the artist who painted it, Sears Gallagher, was like. So I looked him up, and wouldn’t you know, he has a Wikipedia page.

A close-up of my watercolor

A prolific American artist, who specialized in watercolor and etching, Gallagher was born in Boston in 1869. Apart from the obligatory study abroad and summers spent in Monhegan, Maine, he lived in Boston all his life, dying there in 1955. Commercially successful and critically acclaimed, he was compared to the likes of Winslow Homer and James McNeill Whistler, at least according to Wikipedia. The Metropolitan Museum in NY and the Chicago Art Institute are among the museums that own his work, particularly his etchings, which until recently have gained more attention than his watercolors. Despite his success, he is not what one would call famous. I suspect it’s because too much of his work survives, and also because he lived a conventional, scandal-free life. He occupied the same house in a suburb of Boston from the time he married until he died. He and his wife had two children, a boy and a girl.

image from the Boston Public Library via Wikipedia

He took his art very seriously and even pushed the boundaries of style in his younger days. I really love his watercolors of Maine.

Apparently, he belonged to the artist’s colony on Monhegan Island. This painting of Christmas Cove is similar to the one I own. He liked to paint the beach and water,

but sometimes he explored other subjects.

And once in a while, he even did a portrait. I wonder who this lovely lady was? She reminds me a little of my grandmother.

Maybe he wasn’t a grand master, but I bet Sears Gallagher has helped just as many people “not die of the truth”. His painting has certainly made my house a nicer place to live. So tonight let’s make a toast to Sears Gallagher, a wonderful artist and (by all accounts) a good man.

*Friedrich Nietzsche

** all photos via Google image

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September 23, 2016

“It seemed to be a good idea at the time.”*

by chuckofish

The reboot of The Magnificent Seven opens today, but you will not catch me going to see this remake of a remake. Please. I mean look at these guys.

Of course, they have changed the story so the bad guy is an industrialist. Of course he is. Bandits are so yesterday. Robber Barons–big time bandits–clever.

Also, you can bet that this new version is 100 times more violent than either of the earlier movies.

So no, I prefer to dust off the original, The Seven Samurai (1954), directed by Akira Kurosawa

and starring Toshiro Mifune as one of the seven.

Or I could watch the original American remake, The Magnificent Seven (1960) starring Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen et al.

I could go either way. You do what you want. You will not hurt my feelings.

Meanwhile the boy and daughter #3 came over for dinner last night. I figured the boy would like to get out of the house since he is still recuperating. (He gets his staples out next week.)

So that was nice. And he looks pretty good, right?

The dining room is looking pretty good too!

Have a super weekend!

*Steve McQueen as Vin in The Magnificent Seven (1960)

4 Comments

September 22, 2016

This and that

by chuckofish

Well, did you hear that Curtis Hanson died? This makes me sad, because he was one of the few directors who made movies that I have actually admired in the last twenty years. Seriously, there are so few. But I liked L.A. Confidential (1997), Wonder Boys (2000), In Her Shoes (2005), and Lucky You (2006). And I am a big fan of 8 Mile (2002)

which starred Eminem, who said, “Curtis Hanson believed in me and our crazy idea to make a rap battle movie set in Detroit. He basically made me into an actor for ‘8 Mile.’ I’m lucky I got to know him.”

So tonight I will toast Curtis Hanson and this weekend I will try to watch one of his movies.

In other news, while the world goes to hell in a hand-basket, my flyover town is all in a tizzy about the new “improved” mascot of the local Jesuit university.

New Billiken

Old Billiken

I hear that the Billiken’s new look is a hot topic in the twitter-sphere.

Anyway, I found this whole kerfuffle amusing.

Meanwhile the Cards are still in the race for the wild card spot. And we have the best mascot ever.

God’s grace abounds.

3 Comments

September 21, 2016

“That was the most awkward Wednesday he ever remembered.”*

by chuckofish

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien was published 79 years ago on September 21, 1937 to wide critical acclaim. As you know, it is recognized as a classic in children’s literature. And lots of people other than J.R.R. Tolkien have made a lot of money on various movie adaptions.

“Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.”

“There are no safe paths in this part of the world. Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now, and in for all sorts of fun wherever you go.”

It might be time to dig out a copy and re-read The Hobbit. Well, we’ll see. Hope your Wednesday isn’t too awkward.

*The Hobbit, of course. The illustrations pictured are by the author.

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September 20, 2016

Humble and hearty thanks

by chuckofish

Fall arrives tomorrow. However, it is still hot as blazes here.

But that’s all right! Autumn weather is not far off.

Eternal God,
you crown the year with your goodness
and give us the fruits of the earth in their season:
Grant that we may use them to your glory,
for the relief of those in need
and for our own well-being;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–BCP, 2004

First four images via Pinterest; fifth, Virginia Lee Burton, The Little House

6 Comments

dual personalities

Month: September, 2016

September 30, 2016

You can do it!

by chuckofish

September 29, 2016

Throwback Thursday

by chuckofish

September 28, 2016

“”What are you reading, my dear? A pretty sight, a lady with a book.”*”

by chuckofish

September 27, 2016

Within our inward temple

by chuckofish

September 26, 2016

Grant us strength and courage*

by chuckofish

September 24, 2016

We have art in order not to die of the truth*

by chuckofish

September 23, 2016

“It seemed to be a good idea at the time.”*

by chuckofish

September 22, 2016

This and that

by chuckofish

September 21, 2016

“That was the most awkward Wednesday he ever remembered.”*

by chuckofish

September 20, 2016

Humble and hearty thanks

by chuckofish