dual personalities

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October 22, 2012

Hip hip hooray!

by chuckofish

How wonderful to be able to give a big shout out to Hilary Mantel for winning her second Man Booker Prize! She previously won the award in 2009 for Wolf Hall. Now she has won the 2012 award for the sequel Bring Up the Bodies. She is the first woman to win twice. I couldn’t be more excited for her, and if you have not yet read either of these two wonderful books–run (don’t walk) to your nearest book store/library to acquire the books and do so!

Meanwhile the wonderful fall weather continues here in our flyover state.

The leaves on the ancient mulberry tree in our yard are bright yellow.

…and at the same time the rhododendron bush continues to bloom

along with several spring annuals!

And I have been trying to find something to read. I have started several books that were recommended by friends and abandoned them all. Bleh. Now I have gone back to an old favorite and am reading Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, Volume One. Not surprisingly, Bob has a wonderful way of expressing things and amazing powers of recall.

Having moved to New York City after one semester of college, he drifts around playing music, staying with people he meets, reading their books, and listening to music. His brain is like the proverbial sponge as he sets about educating himself:

I had broken myself of the habit of thinking in short song cycles and began reading longer and longer poems to see if I could remember anything I read about in the beginning. I trained my mind to do this, had cast off gloomy habits and learned to settle myself down. I read all of Lord Byron’s Don Juan, and concentrated fully from start to finish. Also, Coleridge’s Kubla Kan. I began cramming my brain with all kinds of deep poems. It seemed like I’d been pulling an empty wagon a long time and now I was beginning to fill it up and would have to pull harder. I felt like I was coming out of the back pasture.

Don’t you just love that?

I wonder if Bob has read Hilary Mantel’s books. I think he would really like them and old Thomas Cromwell especially.

7 Comments
October 20, 2012

On Dollhouses

by chuckofish

While surfing the web, I recently came across a wonderful antique dollhouse

which reminded me of how much I had wanted one as a little girl. Our mother used to tell us about the one she had shared with her sister and her descriptions only fueled my longing. As my aunt ended up with the house, I didn’t get to see it until I visited her during a college break. It was a very cool doll- house, although not as fancy as this one

or Queen Mary’s which has a room to itself at Windsor Castle.

The Victoria and Albert Museum has a whole collection of dollhouses of which Mrs. Hibberd’s from 1800 is a particularly fine example:

Here’s a close-up of a room in Mrs. Hibberd’s house.

But I think one of the most awesome dollhouses I’ve ever seen belonged to Charlotte Bronte.

It recently went up for auction with an expected selling price of about 3-4000 pounds. Sigh…
I wonder who ended up with my mother’s (and aunt’s) dollhouse. Dual personality, do you know?

3 Comments
October 19, 2012

Fat Baby Friday — British edition

by chuckofish

I thought I would shake up your mellow Fall Friday with a series of pictures showing my hubby as a plump 6 month old (it says so on the back of one of the photos) enjoying his first introduction to the potty chair.

They started potty training early in England (my poor mother-in-law must have thought I was crazy or lazy with my own kids, who were much indulged in that regard — but we need not go into that now).

Maybe I was right to wait…

On the up-side, he seems to have survived the experience largely unscathed and we now have these photos with which to embarrass him (ha, ha!).

3 Comments
October 18, 2012

Being green

by chuckofish

I think I’ve mentioned that one of my favorite blogs is Reggie Darling, written by Reggie Darling. Reggie and I are definitely on the same page. I was reminded of this once again when I read this the other day:

…Which brings to mind one of the reasons that I enjoy collecting antiques (or “previously owned” things): namely, that I appreciate owning objects that someone else (and, depending on the age of the object, possibly many people) owned and enjoyed before me, and which I shall pass on to someone else to own and enjoy in the future. We are but stewards of our possessions, Dear Reader, and it is up to us to appropriately care for them while enjoying them, so that those who come after us may do so as well. Collecting and living with antiques (whether they be objects or houses), is the original definition of being green in my book.

I concur. (And the stewardship view is so Episcopalian!) It’s the way we were brought up.

In addition to loving and living with the things I have inherited, I enjoy going to estate sales and looking at other people’s things and occasionally picking up nice vintage items for very little–like this mid-century Russel Wright green tray I got a few weeks ago. I have re-purposed it for use in my bathroom.

I also love to buy good old books for a dollar! I found the large 1892 Book of Common Prayer last weekend and the little handmade book holder a few weeks ago.

Sometimes I put absentee bids on items at our local auction house. And sometimes I win! I picked up a few nice 19th century lustreware pieces for less than a lunch out would cost.

Ah, the joy of hunting and gathering in the 21st century! I love being green and scoring a bargain makes it all the more sweet.

P.S. I can’t do a post on being green without this:

5 Comments
October 17, 2012

Happy birthday, Marshall Mathers!

by chuckofish

Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), better known by his stage name Eminem (often stylized as EMINƎM) and by his alter ego Slim Shady, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter, and actor. And he turns 40 today!

And, yes, I am a big fan. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. I think Em is a latter-day poet and an example to all frustrated, unhappy, unchallenged kids in bad family environments who need to express their anger and channel their emotions into a creative outlet like writing. Using their words, as teachers have been saying for years, instead of violence. He is the real deal.

I suggest we all watch 8 Mile in honor of his birthday. This is a great movie, directed by the talented Curtis Hanson in 2002. It is not just a “rap-version of Saturday Night Fever“, a movie I despise. Eminem is really good in this movie and very appealing. I also have to hand it to him for not wanting to be a movie star and for turning down all offers to make more movies.

This is not to say that I didn’t feel like Ned Flanders at a Chris Rock concert while watching this movie. And I am no fan of rap or hip-hop. No, I am not. But Eminem works hard at his craft. I can appreciate that. He bettered himself. I like to think that under the vulgarity and the bravura is a fine young man who wants to do the right thing.

Happy Birthday, Marshall!

15 Comments
October 16, 2012

What memo?

by chuckofish

Clearly the boy did not get the memo about the guys wearing their soccer or basketball uniform as a Halloween costume in the seventh grade. No, someone forgot to give him the message. He’s the nerd on the left dressed as a bag of leaves. (Not that you were really a nerd. No way. They were the nerds!)

Oh, well. C’est la vie, right?

6 Comments
October 15, 2012

Back to the salt mine

by chuckofish

Another weekend gone with the wind. I finished the Alexander McCall Smith book I have been reading–the 13th installment of the #1 Ladies Detective Agency series, The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection.

It was another slow, easy read about Precious Ramotswe and her sometimes often irritating friends.

In the end, however, McCall Smith teaches us the same lesson we have been waiting for: “The human heart, you see…is pretty much the same wherever one goes.” It is a lesson worth repeating.

I also finally watched Joss Whedon’s The Avengers. Daughter #2 had liked it very much when she saw it last summer, so I thought I would check it out. I am also an old Joss Whedon fan from the old Buffy days and also like all things Serenity. But I have to say, I wasn’t all that impressed. They are, after all, super heroes, so you don’t get a lot of character development and/or good dialogue. Yes, there was lots of CG pyrotechnics etc. Yes, the final fight in NYC was pretty darn swell. But not really my thing, you know?

The best line in the movie was from Captain America

who was responding to Scarlett Johansson’s character who had referred to Iron Man, Thor and Loki as gods:

There’s only one God, Ma’am, and I’m pretty sure He doesn’t dress like that.

The highlight of the weekend, even for this self-admittedly fair-weather fan, was definitely the Cardinals beating the Washington Nationals to advance to the National League Championship Series against the Giants. Go, Cards!

And we won game #1 against the Giants. That’s the way I like it. Uh Huh.

4 Comments
October 14, 2012

Meet Pierre

by chuckofish

…so debonaire!

and unquestionably the best pumpkin ever. Back in October of 1985 (or thereabouts) while living in a graduate dorm (fondly dubbed Helen Hadley Hell), I and fellow 3rd floor inmates spent an afternoon creating Pierre to enter into the dorm pumpkin carving contest. He had prune eyes, apple mouth, potato nose and ears, and some sort of grass/straw eyebrows and mustache. His beret was a freebie cloth frisbie from some local bank and someone donated the cig. We were so proud of Pierre…but, alas, the judges rejected our creative vision and disqualified him because of all the add-ons. We were outraged. Much drowning of sorrows ensued…

Nowadays, everyone uses templates, but there’s still nothing quite as satisfying as creating a pumpkin character freehand. There’s something so Dr. Frankenstein about it! Hence, I challenge you to create your own pumpkin personality and, if possible, post pictures.

5 Comments
October 13, 2012

Cowabunga, Dude!

by chuckofish

Halloween has always been a big favorite in my family and when the boys were young I tried hard to be creative the way I thought my mother would be. My first big Halloween costume effort was appropriately for my oldest son’s first trick-or-treat outing. He was three and really into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at the time (We never watched Sesame Street. I’m afraid I found it too boring. But if my boys didn’t know about Big Bird, at least they knew their Renaissance artists).

I made the shell from cardboard, foam and fabric — the rest was pretty easy. You can’t really tell from the picture, but he had a Ninja Turtle belt and shoes. We went all out.

Alas, as is usually the way with such things, the costume succumbed to the boys’ loving attention and within a year it looked like this on the little brother

And for those of you who feel nostalgic about the turtles, there’s good news from lego, which has announced that they are coming out with a line of TMNT:

Cowabunga, indeed!

3 Comments
October 12, 2012

Fat Baby Friday!

by chuckofish

Here is a picture of our grandmother, two of her daughters, their spouses, and her first three grandchildren–all boys! It is probably early in 1952, since our brother Chris (center) was born in July 1951 and he appears to be about 7 months old.

Let’s take a closer look.

Our cousin Stephen is the “fat baby” on the left. Granted, he is wearing a puffy snowsuit, but what a well-fed bambino he is! (He grew up to be 6’4″ and thin as a rail.) He, of course, is sitting quietly for the photographer, while our brother, true to form, seems to be struggling to get out of the Cadillac of all baby buggies. Perhaps he is just happily wiggling, but he is moving. Both of his parents are looking down at the squirming babe.

His father looks annoyed. Perhaps he is just annoyed because he didn’t get the memo about wearing his uniform. Oh well. C’est la vie.

Have a great (fat baby) Friday!

(P.S. If you double-click on the images, you can see them even bigger.)

3 Comments