Who could tire of the long shadows,
The long shadows of the trees on snow?
Sometimes I stand at the kitchen window
For a timeless time in a long daze
Before these reflected perpendiculars,
Noting how the light has changed,
How tender it is now in February
When the shadows are blue not black.
The crimson cyclamen has opened wide,
A bower of petals drunk on the light,
And in the snow-bright ordered house
I am drowsy as a turtle in winter,
Living on light and shadow
And their changes.
–May Sarton (1912–1995)
I blogged about old May Sarton here. She’s real good, n’est-ce pas?
Talk about dark and dreary–that was our weekend! But it was brightened a whole lot by my Saturday outing to historic Kimmswick for lunch with my good friends.
We dined at the celebrated “Blue Owl” restaurant. Our food was yummy and the company, as always, hilarious. Carla, our intrepid social planner, drove as usual. It is great to be like a child on these outings and just follow along. I mean that. With all my heart.
The boy came over and burned a CD for me. It is the soundtrack to the movie Inside Llewyn Davis.
Yes, that’s Justin Timberlake singing. It is a wonderful CD and I highly recommend it. (Also highly recommended by daughter #1) How can you miss with T. Bone Burnett producing? Well, you can’t.
I have also been listening to the new CD Old Yellow Moon with Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell.
I believe it just won a Grammy in the “Americana” field. What is this field, you ask? I had never heard of it, but it seems to be a category where old singers are put so they can still win Grammys. I am not trying to be harsh but, c’mon, this is a straight on Country album. I think Steve Martin and Edie Brickell were nominated in this field too. Anyway, it is a good album and I especially like their cover of the Kris Kristofferson song “Chase the Feeling” which includes the classic line: “You got loaded again, Ain’t you handsome when you’re high.”
Speaking of music, I heard that my friend Andrew Hunt will be opening for none other than (be still my heart) Dwight Yoakam
in Austin, TX soon. He will not be with his band Johnny Appleseed, but some other guys. Boy, wouldn’t it be great to see that concert? Okay, Dwight may not be the heart-throb he once was, but neither am I.
Saturday night I watched The Commancheros (1961) with John Wayne and Stuart Whitman.
Stuart Whitman (who replaced James Garner, Charlton Heston and several others) and the Duke in that iconic faded red shirt, leather vest and kerchief.
It is the last film directed by one of my favorites, Michael Curtiz (Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood). He was very ill, dying as it turned out, during the filming of it and John Wayne stepped in and actually directed most of the movie. He took no credit for it, of course. Any film from this era of John Wayne westerns is always a winner in my book, especially when you have had it up to here (already) with X-Game sports at the Olympics.
At church on Sunday I was confronted with the fact that they have cut out a section of my pew (fifth row, epistle side) to accommodate oldsters with walkers. Carla had warned me about this, but still it was a bit jarring on Sunday morning. I had to find a new pew, and for oldsters like me, that is not easy! C’est la vie. I’ll live.
The boy and daughter #3 came over for dinner on Sunday night. I made Episcopal souffle, a nice salad and cut up a baguette for dinner. Perfect.
How was your weekend? Have a good week!
*…to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart”–BCP
By the end of the week I always seem to be tired and rundown. Sometimes I’d even describe myself as discouraged — it just depends on how the week has gone. I’m not going to dwell on the little things that wear me down — like the student who, standing not six feet from me, casually spaton the newly carpeted floor of my building! Really.
Yes, by the end of the week I need civilization and quiet, tea and cakes (hold the cakes, I’m trying to lose weight), and comfort reading. This week’s choice is Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic, A Little Princess, one of my favorite books of all time.
It’s not just a good riches-to-rags-to-riches story; Frances Hodgson Burnett has a lot of valuable things to say. Children’s literature used to teach as well as entertain. Take this excellent piece of advice, for example:
“When people are insulting you, there is nothing so good for them as not to say a word — just to look at them and think. When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wished they hadn’t said afterward. There’s nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in — that’s stronger. It’s a good thing not to answer your enemies.”
This is a book that admits that life entails misfortune and the world is full of mean people. Instead of ignoring these facts or simply making the heroine a passive victim, Burnett teaches that good character and kindness can triumph over adversity.
“If nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that–warm things, kind things, sweet things–help and comfort and laughter–and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all.”
If you haven’t read the book, do! If you don’t have a copy or the time, then try one of the film versions. I’m partial to the Shirley Temple movie, although they do change the story quite a bit.
Shirley makes a great downtrodden scullery maid
If you prefer color, you can see the 1995 version, although they made it American and changed the time to WWI. I haven’t seen it, but judging from the stills, they (over)-emphasize the girl-power aspects of the story.
a quote from the book
I’ll watch whatever version I can find, but I’m hoping for Shirley Temple!
So last night was the first night of televised Olympic coverage. Did you watch?
Traditionally I have always enjoyed the Winter Olympics–all that skiing and those other Nordic events remind me of my mother who was such an enthusiastic winter athlete in her youth.
I remember the Lillehammer, Norway Olympics in 1994 most fondly. The Norwegians were great hosts. My kids were old enough to be interested then and that was around the time when the boy got into speed skating.
He was pretty good and, had we decided to send him to live in Colorado so that he could skate year-round, who knows, maybe he would have gone to the Olympics with Apolo Ohno. But that was never our style. And I could never picture him with those huge thighs.
Anyway, I can’t say I’m too excited about Sochi, a beach venue located on the Black Sea near the border between Georgia/Abkhazia and Russia.
As you recall, Sochi was established as a “fashionable resort” area under Joseph Stalin, who had his favorite “dacha” built in the city. (Fashionable resort in conjunction with communism seems like an oxymoron, don’t you think?) But, hey, Stalin’s study, complete with a wax statue of the leader, is now open to the public. Oh boy. I can just picture the NBC color coverage of this. No thanks.
However, chances are I will find myself glued to the telly anyway for the next two weeks. I will probably get a lot of needlepoint done. And maybe I’ll sort through those giant piles of magazines.
Bottom line: I like to root for the home team. Go, U.S.A.!
Here is a little blast from the past which seems appropriate considering our weather lately. It is the boy and daughters # 1 and 2 circa 1993, all bundled up to play in what appears to be very little snow.
Meanwhile we have had more snow in my flyover town. We only actually had around 4.5 inches of snow on Tuesday afternoon and evening, but it was enough to throw everyone into a tizzy and to call off school for practically everyone on Wednesday. Including moi.
I got up at 5:15 a.m. to decide what to do and quickly ascertained that it would be a Snow Day. I made a bunch of calls and then hunkered down for a day at home. I had thoughtfully brought some work home the night before, so I did that.
I read some of Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey. I am about halfway through and, oh boy, is it good!
I also put together a file cart and started putting papers in files. I tell you, I was on a roll.
I shoveled the driveway when the sun came out.
All in all, quite a productive day!
Finally, I should mention that today is the birthday of Ronald Reagan (1911–2004), our 40th president and fellow flyover native.
I remember him fondly for several reasons, one of which is his years as the host of General Electric Theater (1954–1962). I probably watched it in syndication, but I remember it on Sunday afternoons. I think it was called “Death Valley Days” then. So tonight join me in a toast to the ol’ Gipper.
“I think of a person I haven’t seen or thought of for years, and ten minutes later I see her crossing the street. I turn on the radio to hear a voice reading the biblical story of Jael, which is the story that I have spent the morning writing about. A car passes me on the road, and its license plate consists of my wife’s and my initials side by side. When you tell people stories like that, their usual reaction is to laugh. One wonders why.
I believe that people laugh at coincidence as a way of relegating it to the realm of the absurd and of therefore not having to take seriously the possibility that there is a lot more going on in our lives than we either know or care to know. Who can say what it is that’s going on? But I suspect that part of it, anyway, is that every once and so often we hear a whisper from the wings that goes something like this: “You’ve turned up in the right place at the right time. You’re doing fine. Don’t ever think that you’ve been forgotten.”
–Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking
A couple of weeks ago I was preparing to make a special report in a weekly meeting I attend at work. Doing this always makes me very nervous. I tell myself these people are not scary; they are my peers. It is no big deal. Still, I get nervous. I have trained myself not to ruin the day worrying about things that will take place in the future. Still, I worry.
Then, on the night before this meeting, I turned the page-a-day calendar I have to the next day. The Bible verse was: “For God did not give you a spirit of timidity, but one of power, and of love and of self-control.” My favorite Bible verse from First Timothy! And it couldn’t have been more appropriate. I wasn’t nervous anymore.
I do not believe in coincidence. I believe in the whispering voice saying, “You’re doing fine.”
Have you ever had such an experience? Pay attention and you will see that it happens with some frequency.
“This is a dynamic and mysterious universe and human life is, no doubt, conditioned by imponderables of which we are only dimly aware. People sometimes say, “the strangest coincidence happened.” Coincidences may seem strange, but they are never a result of caprice. They are orderly laws in the spiritual life of man. They affect and influence our lives profoundly. These so-called imponderables are so important that you should become spiritually sensitized to them. Indeed, the more spiritually minded you become the more acute your contact will be with these behind-the-scenes forces. By being alive to them through insight, instruction, and illumination, you can make your way past errors and mistakes on which, were you less spiritually sensitive, you might often stumble.”
― Norman Vincent Peale, Stay Alive All Your Life
* Albert Einstein and also Albert Schweitzer who said, “Coincidence is the pseudonym dear God chooses when he wants to remain incognito.”
It rained all day Saturday, so I stayed home and puttered around the house. I would probably not have ventured out at all, but the old man and I had tickets to attend the “Elegant Italian Dinner” at our church.
Every year the youth of the parish (and their parents) put on this dinner to raise money for their annual spring mission trip. Frighteningly, this was the nineteenth such dinner. All three of my children participated in this dinner and so did I–usually in the kitchen, serving up the plates and washing dishes.
So now it is nice to go and sit at a table with friends and be on the receiving end.
Everyone comes to this party and by Everyone I mean even the Old Man.
It is always the same menu: salad and lasagna and Italian bread with some fancy desserts thrown in. “Elegant” means they use real china and hang up some strings of twinkly white lights in Albright Hall. There are checkered tableclothes and candles in chianti bottles. You get the picture. The teenage waiters wear white shirts, black pants and bow ties. Oh my.
Everyone goes home at 9 o’clock. And, thank you, I would rather attend this function than any society ball or self-aggrandizing academic ceremony you can name.
On Sunday we watched the Super Bowl with some other like-minded, football-indifferent friends. I rooted for Peyton Manning and his Broncos, but was uninvested really in the outcome. (Ever since the Rams lost that heart-breaker in Super Bowl XXXVI and Kurt Warner moved to Phoenix, I haven’t cared much about football.) It was a major bummer, nevertheless, that Peyton’s team lost and lost Big Time, but oh well. It is just football. We enjoyed seeing our hometown Clydesdales in the latest AB commercial. However, my favorite (besides the Oikos Full House reunion) was the Go Daddy commercial with the running bodybuilders.
Now our local weather wizards are saying we’ll have more snow this week. But Candlemas was dark and dreary, so I hope that means that we will NOT have two winters. However, I see that Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter, much to the chagrin of everyone hoping for an early spring. Conflicting superstitions. C’est la vie.
Yesterday, two little boys — sons of friends from church — visited me at my office to see its treasures and learn about ancient languages. When their parents and little brother picked them up someone took a picture.
Don’t you love the little guy’s expression?
We had so much fun! I showed them some cuneiform tablets, some potsherds, Greek arrowheads, chain mail gauntlets (made by a student) and other wonders. We investigated different writing systems and learned a few words of Latin. Then we shot marbles across my office with a model trebuchet kind of like this:
We broke no windows
But the best part of the day was the Lego battle royal. Naturally my minifigs were a huge hit and when the boys divided them up and started playing I was more than content to sit back and listen to their wonderful, wonderful commentary — “curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal” would not have been out of place. Phrases like “dastardly Knave” and “fiendish villain” filled the air.
George Washington had a violent and prolonged duel with a Samurai driving a jeep, while the bagpiper got whacked by Julius Caesar and the Cyclops wrangled an Aztec warrior. I could have watched all day! In fact, the only time I got a little nervous was when the whole family crammed into my small, Lego/marble strewn office to investigate the reproduction Roman gladius and the youngest got a hold of it. But no worries, the parents, who are very chill, had everything under control. I can’t remember the last time I had such fun at the office .
In other news, son #3 had a live gig on the radio. I didn’t get to hear it, but someone with a camera recorded the event which made it onto facebook, and thus, eventually to me. Here’s the pic.
a budding blues man
All in all, it was a nice week, though still cold and snowy. Although there’s plenty of work to do this weekend, I’m going to save some time to play. Remember what George Bernard Shaw said: “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
Yesterday’s post with the wonderful Hiroshige landscape got me thinking about my love of landscape paintings that include snow. I have always loved them. I don’t know why.
I have one in my kitchen which I love.
I bought it on eBay and had it framed. It is a watercolor, painted by a talented amateur. Every day it makes me happy.
Here are a few examples of my favorite landscapes in snow:
Japanese, “Scouting Party near Niuzhuang on a Snowy Night” 1894
Winslow Homer, “Fox Hunt” 1893
Winslow Homer, “Sleigh Ride”
Hiroshige, Bridge in Snow
Childe Hassam, “Melting Snow”
Childe Hassam, “Heckscher Tower”
Frederic Remington, “The Scout–Friends or Foes”
Andrew Wyeth, Winter Landscape
Eric Sloane
Maxfield Parrish may be too popular to be “art”, but these are among my absolute favorites:
Maxfield Parrish, “Christmas Morning 1949”
Maxfield Parrish, “White Birches in the Snow”
Aren’t they all wonderful? So many pictures, so little wall space left!
Well, onward to February! And have a nice weekend! Go, Broncos!
