Uncategorized | dual personalities

Friday updates

by chuckofish

My Mike Matheny-signed baseball has a case!

The bedroom/master bath reno is going well.

Don’t you just love the Thibaut “Luzon” wallpaper?

I am hoping to get things semi-put-back to normal this weekend if the painting is finished. Isn’t it going to be great?

The boy and daughter #3 and her parents are coming over for dinner on Sunday for a Labor Day bar-b-que.

Square dancing will be optional.

What are you up to this three-day Labor Day weekend? You might want to watch a good working-man movie such as The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Bicycle Thief (1948), 9 to 5 (1980), On the Waterfront (1954) or the documentary Harlan County U.S.A. (1976).

Bruno and Antonio Ricci consider their options in this classic De Sica film.

I can’t say this is a favorite genre of mine, but these are all excellent movies.

Well, have a good weekend!

Come, labor on!
Who dares stand idle, on the harvest plain
While all around him waves the golden grain?
And to each servant does the Master say,
Go work today.

–hymn by Jane L. Borthwick (Ora Labora)

8 Comments

September 3, 2015

In the old days

by chuckofish

2.The Lookout Ð "All's Well" Winslow Homer (American, 1836Ð1910) 1896 Oil on canvas *Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Warren CollectionÑWilliam Wilkins Warren Fund *Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

“All’s Well”, Winslow Homer 1896

“It was a dog’s life,” said the poor old gentleman, quite reassured, “but it made men of those who followed it. I see a change for the worse even in our own town here; full of loafers now, small and poor as ’tis, who once would have followed the sea, every lazy soul of ’em. There is no occupation so fit for just that class o’ men who never get beyond the fo’cas’le. I view it, in addition, that a community narrows down and grows dreadful ignorant when it is shut up to its own affairs, and gets no knowledge of the outside world except from a cheap, unprincipled newspaper. In the old days, a good part o’ the best men here knew a hundred ports and something of the way folks lived in them. They saw the world for themselves, and like’s not their wives and children saw it with them. They may not have had the best of knowledge to carry with ’em sight-seein’, but they were some acquainted with foreign lands an’ their laws, an’ could see outside the battle for town clerk here in Dunnet; they got some sense o’ proportion. Yes, they lived more dignified, and their houses were better within an’ without. Shipping’s a terrible loss to this part o’ New England from a social point o’ view, ma’am.”

–Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs

Today is the birthday of Sarah Orne Jewett (September 3, 1849 – June 24, 1909)–American novelist, short story writer and Episcopalian.

The Sarah Orne Jewett House is a historic house museum at 5 Portland Street in South Berwick, Maine, which is just over the border from New Hampshire. Built in 1774, it is an excellent example of late Georgian architecture.

I guess I’ll have to add it to my list of literary/historic places to visit. In the meantime, let’s toast old Sarah and maybe re-read The Country of the Pointed Firs, which I have somewhere. You can download it here.

While we’re toasting Sarah, we may want to raise a glass to Sally Benson (September 3, 1897 – July 19, 1972) whose birthday is also today. She was a screenwriter and prolific short story writer for The New Yorker back in its heyday. She is best known for her semi-autobiographical stories collected in Junior Miss and Meet Me in St. Louis. Yes, that “Meet Me in St. Louis.”

Her other screen credits include Shadow of a Doubt (1943) for Alfred Hitchcock, Summer Magic (1963) for Walt Disney, Viva Las Vegas (1964) for Elvis, and The Singing Nun (1966)–quite a disparate group! Her screenplay for Anna and the King of Siam (1946) was nominated for an Academy Award.

Here is a sketch of the St. Louis house in which Sally grew up:

This North St. Louis neighborhood “declined” and the house was torn down in 1994. Here’s a picture of the Hollywood version:

(The pictures of the “Meet Me in St. Louis” houses were found here on a fun blog about houses.)

The Hollywood version was eventually torn down too when MGM sold off its lots in the 1970s.

C’est la vie. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. (See above quote.)

3 Comments

September 2, 2015

Mid-week meditation

by chuckofish

September’s Baccalaureate
A combination is
Of Crickets—Crows—and Retrospects
And a dissembling Breeze

That hints without assuming—
An Innuendo sear
That makes the Heart put up its Fun
And turn Philosopher.

–Emily Dickinson

Yes, September is here.

And I have a very cute calendar page for this month, don’t I?

6 Comments

September 1, 2015

Postcards from Lincoln Land

by chuckofish

Although Abraham Lincoln spent most of his formative years in Indiana, he lived for 24 years in Springfield, Illinois. So if you are an admirer of our 16th president (and who isn’t?) you ought to avail yourself of the opportunity to visit this small city and state capitol.

The layout of the town is based on a grid street system, with numbered streets starting with the longitudinal First Street which leads to the Illinois State Capitol. The cross streets are named after presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison and so on just like the town I live in. We could walk everywhere from our centrally located hotel. Luckily the weather was balmy and the temperature moderate for August.

We went to the magnificent Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

I was impressed. You start your tour in a replica of the log cabin Abe grew up in

and end up at the White House. In between there are many vignettes,

complete with sound effects, music and characters speaking. By the end Lincoln has been shot at Ford’s theater and is lying in state. It is an incredibly moving experience. I seriously was close to tears several times.

There is also a cool hologram presentation and a movie–all very well done. It was “experiential”–but not interactive (which I loathe).

Usually I like Museum gift shops, but I was turned off in this one by the crass commercialization of our most revered president.

Really? Couzies with the Gettysburg Address? I mean really, there was Abe Lincoln everything. Good grief, Charlie Brown!

We also visited the only home he ever owned, which is open to the public and operated by the National Park Service.

There are several other houses to visit in this park and you really do get a sense of what the town must have been like in the mid-19th century. To me it was awesome to stand in the great man’s lovely home.

As always, it was fascinating to see the other people who made the pilgrimage to Springfield. They ranged from classy Japanese tourists

to this guy.

But whoever and whatever their reasons–I am always pleased to see people visiting historical sites.

In between all this history we made several stops to eat and drink.

There were plenty of good dining options, even hipster microbreweries with outdoor patios complete with bocce ball courts. And of course there were Episcopal churches to make us feel right at home.

There were many more places of interest we did not get to: Lincoln’s Tomb, the Old State Capitol,

the Dana-Thomas House (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) and the Vachel Lindsay House. Perhaps we shall return another day.

Because, you know, road trips are the best!

P.S.

Doesn’t this dude look just like Nate?

photo-jul-15-9-14-28-pm

Just kidding!

11 Comments

August 31, 2015

“For you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills”*

by chuckofish

As I mentioned on Friday, we roadtripped to the midwest hotspot and state capitol, Springfield, Illinois, on Saturday. I am still recovering from our wild weekend of Land-o-Lincoln pursuits which included stops at great places like this:

Yes, a pink elephant, soft-serve ice cream and an antique mall in an old highschool gymnasium–I am finally at a point in my life where I can stop at places like this and check them out.

More tomorrow…

*Walt Whitman, O Captain! My Captain!

4 Comments

August 29, 2015

“Is there anyone there?”

by chuckofish

The subject heading is not a plea for readers, although I can’t help noticing that my dual personality is usually the only one who comments on my posts. No, no, I am not worried that she elicits more response than I do — I’m just quoting form a poem.

When I was an impressionable youth and prone to daydreaming about castles and such, I discovered Walter De La Mare’s romantic poem, “The Listeners”. Two of my boys recently visited Tintagel on a suitably gray and misty day and (for some reason) their photos from the visit reminded me of the poem.

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,

   Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses

   Of the forest’s ferny floor:

And a bird flew up out of the turret,

   Above the Traveller’s head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;

   ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;

   No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,

   Where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners

   That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight

   To that voice from the world of men:

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,

   That goes down to the empty hall,

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken

   By the lonely Traveller’s call.

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,

   Their stillness answering his cry,

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,

   ’Neath the starred and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even

   Louder, and lifted his head:—

‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,

   That I kept my word,’ he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners,

   Though every word he spake

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house

   From the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,

   And the sound of iron on stone,

And how the silence surged softly backward,

   When the plunging hoofs were gone.

High art it may not be, but you have to admit that it’s evocative. As for the boys, well, they didn’t get blown off the cliffs or taken out by the tide…but they did manage to get wet taking a slefie in a Cornish cave.

Here’s hoping you get to spend some time this weekend in a beautiful and suitably atmospheric location. If not, I recommend a curling up with a good book like Jane Austin’s Northanger Abbey or Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.And, of course, there are countless film adaptations of the latter if you are in the mood to watch something.

1 Comment

August 28, 2015

“Comes an echo on the breeze, Rustling through the leafy trees, and its mellow tones are these, Illinois, Illinois,”*

by chuckofish

Tomorrow my intrepid church buddies and I will embark on an overnight field trip to Springfield, Illinois. Why, you ask? Because we haven’t been there! And because we are belatedly celebrating Carla’s birthday!

Greetings from ILL? Really?

We are going to check out the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (designed by hometowner Gyo Obata at HOK)

and the Lincoln home

and who knows what else.

Since we’ll be there on Sunday morning, perhaps we’ll check out the Cathedral Church of St. Paul while we’re in the neighborhood.

The current Cathedral was built between 1912 and 1913 to replace an older building located at Third and Adams Streets to house its congregation which was founded in 1835. Its early members included, Ninian W. Edwards, son of Illinois’ first governor and husband of one of Mary Todd Lincoln’s sisters. Four Todd sisters attended the early church and were married there, including Frances Todd Wallace, Ann Todd Smith and Elizabeth Todd. Mary Todd was married to Abraham Lincoln by the first Rector, Charles Dresser. A marriage registery in which the marriage was recorded is preserved in the Canterbury House. (I had forgotten that the Todds were Episcopalians.)

Since tomorrow is the feast day of John Bunyan, it is appropriate to note that the ubiquitous Pilgrim’s Progress was one of the few books Lincoln could get his hands on to read as a boy. He was much influenced by it, as was another great U.S. president, Theodore Roosevelt, who wrote that

Great-Heart is my favorite character in allegory…just as Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is to my mind one of the greatest books that was ever written; and I think Abraham Lincoln is the ideal Great-Heart of public life.

Having lived my whole life a few hours away from Lincoln-land, I am very happy to be finally making this pilgrimage.

And, oh yeah, this is pretty funny.

*from the Illinois state song, creatively named “Illinois” by Charles H. Chamberlain (1841–1894, also spelled Chamberlin)

5 Comments

August 27, 2015

How rewarding to know Mr. Smith

by chuckofish

Well, here’s something interesting. William Jay Smith, the author of more than fifty books of poetry, translation, children’s books, and literary criticism, has died. He was 97 and had had a distinguished career spanning fifty-two years.

He served in the US Naval Reserves during World War II, and afterward met and married the poet Barbara Howes and completed graduate study at Columbia University, at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and at University of Florence. He taught and lectured at many colleges and universities, including Williams and Hollins. He served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (the position now called Poet Laureate) from 1968 to 1970, and he had been a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters since 1975.

Furthermore, he grew up outside St. Louis and graduated from Washington University! I am ashamed to say I had never heard of him until I got the email about a distinguished alum dying.

So here in his honor is a poem he wrote about “Mr. Smith”

How rewarding to know Mr. Smith,
Whose writings at random appear!
Some think him a joy to be with
While others do not, it is clear.

His eyes are somewhat Oriental,
His fingers are notably long;
His disposition is gentle,
He will jump at the sound of a gong.

His chin is quite smooth and uncleft,
His face is clean-shaven and bright,
His right arm looks much like his left,
His left leg it goes with his right.

He has friends in the arts and the sciences;
He knows only one talent scout;
He can cope with most kitchen appliances,
But in general prefers dining out.

When young he collected matchboxes,
He now collects notebooks and hats;
He has eaten roussettes (flying foxes),
Which are really the next thing to bats!

He has never set foot on Majorca,
He has been to Tahiti twice,
But will seldom, no veteran walker,
Take two steps when one will suffice.

He abhors motorbikes and boiled cabbage;
Zippers he just tolerates;
He is wholly indifferent to cribbage,
And cuts a poor figure on skates.

He weeps by the side of the ocean,
And goes back the way that he came;
He calls out his name with emotion–
It returns to him always the same.

It returns on the wind and he hears it
While the waves make a rustle around;
The dark settles down, and he fears it,
He fears its thin, crickety sound.

He thinks more and more as time passes,
Rarely opens a volume on myth.
Until mourned by the tall prairie grasses,
How rewarding to know Mr. Smith!

Happy Thursday, y’all!

2 Comments

August 26, 2015

Wednesday round-up

by chuckofish

We are enjoying some really glorious weather for the end of August here in flyover country. High 70s and low humidity–unheard of! And the Cardinals continue to have the best record in baseball.

Way to go, boys!

Speaking of sports, here is the newest lacrosse equipment video that the boy did for Total Lacrosse.

His mother thinks he’s cool.

It is John Buchan’s birthday! You remember he (August 26, 1875 – February 11, 1940) was the Scottish novelist who wrote The Thirty-Nine Steps (among others) and served as Governor General of Canada. He was also Lord Tweedsmuir.

Fun fact: His memoir, Memory Hold-the-Door, or Pilgrim’s Way (as it was called in America) was said to be John F. Kennedy’s favorite book. Interesting.

Here’s a tidbit from chapter one:

Looking back I realise that the woodlands dominated and coloured my childish outlook. We were a noted household for fairy tales. My father had a great collection of them, including some of the ancient Scottish ones like The Red Etin of Ireland, and when we entered the woods we felt ourselves stepping into the veritable world of faery, especially in winter, when the snow made a forest of what in summer was only a coppice. My memory is full of snowstorms, when no postman arrived or milkman from the farm, and we had to dig ourselves out like hibernating bears. In such weather a walk of a hundred yards was an enterprise, and even in lesser falls the woods lost all their homely landmarks for us, and became a terra incognita peopled from the story-books. Witches and warlocks, bears and wolf-packs, stolen princesses and robber lords lurked in corners which at other times were too bare and familiar for the mind to play with. Also I had found in the library a book of Norse mythology which strongly captured my fancy. Norns and Valkyries got into the gales that blew up the Firth, and blasting from a distant quarry was the thud of Thor’s hammer.

A second imaginative world overshadowed the woods, more potent even than that of the sagas and the fairy folk. Our household was ruled by the old Calvinistic discipline. That discipline can have had none of the harshness against which so many have revolted, for it did not dim the beauty and interest of the earth. My father was a man of wide culture, to whom, in the words of the Psalms, all things were full of the goodness of the Lord. But the regime made a solemn background to a child’s life. He was conscious of living in a world ruled by unalterable law under the direct eye of the Almighty. He was a miserable atom as compared with Omnipotence, but an atom, nevertheless, in which Omnipotence took an acute interest. The words of the Bible, from daily family prayers and long Sabbath sessions, were as familiar to him as the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. A child has a natural love of rhetoric, and the noble scriptural cadences had their own meaning for me, quite apart from their proper interpretation. The consequence was that I built up a Bible world of my own and placed it in the woods.

Here is the whole book on Project Gutenberg.

Today is Greta Garbo day on TCM, so set your DVR for a line-up of good movies. I plan to check out Mata Hari (1931) which I have never seen.

Enjoy your Wednesday!

4 Comments

August 25, 2015

Onward, Christian soldiers

by chuckofish

Today is the feast day of Saint Louis, King of France, not only on the R.C. calendar but our own Anglican liturgical calendar. I can’t imagine why.

Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270) was crowned King of France at the age of 12 and reigned until his death.

Louis IX by El Greco–His mother thought he was handsome.

A devout Catholic, he is the only canonized king of France. According to Wikipedia, he was raised by his mother who trained him to be a great leader and a good Christian. She used to say:

I love you, my dear son, as much as a mother can love her child; but I would rather see you dead at my feet than that you should ever commit a mortal sin.

Well, okay then. In turn, he wrote to his own son:

My dearest son, you should permit yourself to be tormented by every kind of martyrdom before you would allow yourself to commit a mortal sin.

At this point I have to ask myself, What is a mortal sin anyway?

The answer is, of course, extremely complicated. Mortal sins–not to be confused with venial sins or “grave matter”–are wrongful acts that condemn a person to Hell after death if unforgiven. By the way, Mortal Sins should not be confused with the Seven Deadly Sins, which are not necessarily Mortal Sins. They are sins that lead to other sins.

Got that? Well, if you ask me, old King Louis seems to have been a bit obsessed with all this sinning. In fact, he wore a hair shirt most of the time and allowed himself to be scourged regularly, lest he enjoy Life too much.

Anyway, Louis established a hospital, was friends with fellow saint-to-be Thomas Aquinas, and took part in two Crusades, which were both total failures. But by all accounts he was a holy guy and so we Episcopalians have this prayer for him today:

O God, who didst call thy servant Louis of France to an earthly throne that he might advance thy heavenly kingdom, and didst give him zeal for thy Church and love for thy people: Mercifully grant that we who commemorate him this day may be fruitful in good works, and attain to the glorious crown of thy saints; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

FYI: We have a pretty cool state of Louis IX in Forest Park here in the flyover town named after him. It has stood atop Art Hill since an unveiling ceremony on Oct. 4, 1906. The statue was inspired by the popularity of a similar statue made of reinforced plaster that was outside the 1904 World’s Fair at the main gate, at Lindell and Union boulevards. The original statue became popular as a place to meet and caught the eye of newspaper illustrators and cartoonists as a symbol of the fair. The committee that ran the fair presented the $42,000 bronze version as a gift to the city during its cleanup of the park.

Over the years Saint Louis’ sword has been broken or stolen a number of times. It was replaced in 1970, 1972, 1977 and 1981. Stealing, and later returning, the sword was considered a rite of passage for students in the engineering program at Washington University. Oh, those crazy engineers!

Be fruitful in good works, but enjoy the day!

4 Comments

dual personalities

Category: Uncategorized

September 4, 2015

Friday updates

by chuckofish

September 3, 2015

In the old days

by chuckofish

September 2, 2015

Mid-week meditation

by chuckofish

September 1, 2015

Postcards from Lincoln Land

by chuckofish

August 31, 2015

“For you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills”*

by chuckofish

August 29, 2015

“Is there anyone there?”

by chuckofish

August 28, 2015

“Comes an echo on the breeze, Rustling through the leafy trees, and its mellow tones are these, Illinois, Illinois,”*

by chuckofish

August 27, 2015

How rewarding to know Mr. Smith

by chuckofish

August 26, 2015

Wednesday round-up

by chuckofish

August 25, 2015

Onward, Christian soldiers

by chuckofish