Category Archives: Art and Culture

Aging, Art and Culture, Asia, Commentary on the news, Health, Politics, US History

President Shoots the Moon

Leave a comment

Spring                                                 Waxing Awakening Moon

Moon viewing.  We don’t do it much here, except as a casual thing, a walk outside, look up, oh a nice moon tonight or shine on harvest moon for me and my gal then on to the drive in or what’s on your play list dude? In Japan they take the moon viewing a step further, ok, a whole nighttime stroll longer.  They build moon viewing platforms, have parties, and produce some wonderful art that features the moon.  Tonight the waxing awakening moon hung just above the trees in the west, behind a scrim of clouds, a faint glow surrounding the upturned crescent.  It is a moon to remember.

This crescent awakening moon will now memorialize for me the day the Democratic party got some balls.  Obama wanted to pass health care reform.  I saw a representative, I don’t know his name, with silver hair, looked about my age, get up and say, “Before we were born, reform of the health care system was begun, just waiting for this day.”

This is not a victory for Democrats, however, it is a victory for the American people, a victory for those who have lived their lives in fear of a cough, a broken leg, a child’s fever.  In this country, which can bail out billionaires and support subsidies to bank robbers, that is, banks that rob, to have 32 million people with no health insurance has been a crime of long standing, a crime that has produced serial deaths over and over with no fear of prosecution.

It is my hope that Republicans will understand that many of the folks who swallow the tea party line are the very people who will wake up some time soon with health insurance, health insurance they have never had. If you don’t believe me, just look at the Gallup map below and consider it with an overlay of the Bush and McCain presidential votes.

Obama has won a victory here, a hard fought victory and he should get his props.  He should also get more credit for calming the Great Recession and ushering in a period of up ticking economic news.  I imagine we will see more such substantive wins for him as his presidency continues.

Hurray for the red, white and blue!

Now a moment on partisan politics and post-partisan politics, the so-called third way.  Yes, our politics have become so polarized that it is difficult to recall the times when it wasn’t.  Yes, there is acrimony and ill will and yes, it does make governance more difficult than it needs to be.  Here’s the thing, though.  In the end it is politics.  This clumsy, broken, dysfunctional process is the way we have chosen, and keep choosing, to mediate our substantive differences.  I read a very compelling argument for changing the system of representation in the Senate where 10% of the states have 90% of the population, but have only a tenth of the votes.  The author of the argument went on to say that fixing this dysfunction was not possible and that we needed to work with the system we have.

It’s not ideal, but there is no system for managing the affairs of human societies that is and ours is better than most.  This vote proves it.

Art and Culture, Bees, Woolly Mammoths

Putting the Stuff Together

Leave a comment

Imbolc                                   Waxing Wild Moon

A tour for Academia Caesar Chavez this morning.  Delightful 4th graders with lots of questions and energy.  I think they liked looking over the railing into the fountain court about as much as anything.   The talent level in the docent corps always amazes me.  The two women docents who shared this tour with me were, respectively, a professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary and a retired professor of epidemiology from the Public Health department at the UofM.deep-hive-body

After the tour I had lunch at Keegan’s Pub with Frank Broderick.  He gives me the leftover corned beef after his St. Patrick’s day meal for the Woollies, but he forgot on Monday.  He had a corned beef sandwich for lunch and I had bangers and mash.  The bangers were much smaller than the ones I remember from England.

The first order this season from Mann Lake Bee Supply came yesterday.  It had eleven hive bodies and seven honey supers.  Kate has a hive body and a honey super already put together.  A hive body is deeper than a honey super since it contains frames that house brood, the queen and the nurse bees.  A honey super is about half the size to fit the honey frames.

(pics:  a deep hive body and a honey super with frames)super-frames

We’re buzzing.

Art and Culture, Bees, Faith and Spirituality, Garden, Great Work, Our Land and Home, permaculture

Birds Sing, Sun Shines

Leave a comment

Imbolc                                             New Moon (Awakening)

Since last Friday when I had two tours through this afternoon around 5 (when I got stung), I’ve been on high intellectual alert touring museum goers, learning about Apis mellifera, doing Latin homework, going over the Latin with Kate, teeth cleaning (OK, that’s anti-intellectual), having a tutoring session and using all the faculties I possessed to fend off various small creatures intent on driving a food bearer away from their home.  I’m tired.

But.  Boy, I’d rather have this kind of exhaustion in my life than be sagging toward 75 with a remote in one hand and my putter in the other.  So to speak.

From a gardening perspective this is a time when the sun and the greening and the weeds returning make working outside seem very attractive, but it’s still about a month early.  Even the early veggies normally don’t go in the ground until the first of April or even a bit later.  The birds sing, the sun shines, the moist air smells of soil and the bees sting.

The Grout Doctor has replaced the tiles that had become loose over the shower door.  Now he has to seal the grout once, then come back and seal it one more time.  At some point in here the new door gets installed and then I can get back to my steam baths after my work out.  I’ll be glad to have it functional again.

Art and Culture, Bees, Garden, permaculture, Weather +Climate

Echoes of Narcissus

Leave a comment

Imbolc                                     New Moon (Awakening)

An all day Latin day, this time 3rd conjugation verbs, the notorious bad boys of Latin grammar.  Due to a weak vowel they got jiggered around by spoken Latin until they’ve become most unusual, irregular in some ways.  Got remember the paradigms for present, future and imperfect.  Just gotta remember.  Latin has become easier and harder, reflecting, I suppose, past learning and present state of ignorance.  It is true though that I have begun to be able to read sentences without looking up a single word. That’s pretty exciting.

Ovid here I come.  Of course, that’s Owid to English speaker’s ears.  I have a plan to put my Latin and my affection for Ovid to good use.  When I get closer to its realization, I’ll let you know.

Talked to Mark Nordeen.  He has some pollen patties and has agreed to give me one for the live hive.  I’m gonna see him tomorrow.  Then, in April, I’ll hive the package bees and wait until mid-May to divide the new one, feeding and caring for both of them in the interim.  Kate has volunteered to be assistant apiarist.  Her first job involves whacking together ten hive boxes, eight supers plus frames and foundations.  It will be fun to have help.

All the fruit trees are now visible.  No rabbit or vole damage on any of them.  That’s a relief because I was exasperated at the end of the last growing season–trying to keep Rigel and Vega in the yard, then out of the gardens.  As a result, I didn’t put up the hardware cloth protective barriers around them.

It hit 64 here yesterday and its 56 today.  Geez.  The sun feels good.  When I walked out to pick up the mail today, I felt warmth on my neck.  It surprised me.

Art and Culture

Tinto

Leave a comment

Imbolc                                 Waning Wild Moon

The first graders, who wanted to see a rock, got to see a lot of rocks.  Chinese jade, Lake Tai rocks, pebbles on the floor of the literati garden.  We also saw Doryphoros (made of rock), the Veiled Lady (rock again).  The kids themselves dropped by the snuff bottles which the teacher wisely referred to as fancy bottles.  At the end, when I asked them what had been their favorite, Riley, a small boy with big glasses, said, “The bottles, because I saw two.”  They were a lot of fun.

The afternoon public tour, a reprise of my Grand Tour idea from last week, had seven folks and they all responded well to the tour idea.  Adults get less excited than first graders, but they all said they had a good time.

Talked for a while with Carolina (Carol-ina), a docent to be, who hails from Bogota.  We talked about tinto and how much better shape Bogota is in now than it was in 1989 when I visited.  Tinto, a thick, concentrated coffee served in Colombia, comes everywhere you visit.  It was fun to find a person with a  personal connection to such an old and interesting culture.  Her husband works for Medtronics.

Art and Culture, Writing

A Grand Tour

Leave a comment

Imbolc                             Waning Wild Moon

I took folks on a Grand Tour at the MIA this afternoon, seeing objects from the historical period 1600-1850.  I expanded the Grand Tour idea and took it beyond the confines of Italy and France to include North America, Africa and Asia.  The folks on the tour, five, Allison and four women together, and I traveled the world in a little over an hour.

One of the women, an ICU nurse at Southdale, said of Lucretia, she looks she’s trying to stabilize herself.  This from a person who sees people in extremis every day at work.  I’m inclined to believe now that Lucretia is stabilizing herself.  This same woman, a practical woman of science and data, she described herself this way, has a son who has begun to study the Middle Ages.  She seemed a bit puzzled by his choice and wondered about just what the Middle Ages were.  Allison gave the group a pitch about bringing in friends for tours and she wondered about organizing a tour of medieval art, to learn more about what her son had chosen to study.

The tour at 1 o’clock breaks up the day though and I got a late nap and didn’t get on the treadmill until 6 pm.  The writing this  morning was fine, but the time was too short.  When I  write I like to have a clear morning and time for a nap in the afternoon.  Not so today.  I’m now over 50,000 words into the new novel, which should be about midway.  Revision and changes along the way could change that of course.

Art and Culture, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Friends, Humanities

Worlds Opening Up

Leave a comment

Imbolc                                     Waning Wild Moon

On the way into St. Paul tonight I listened to lectures on Epicureanism, Stoicism and Skepticism.  These were especially relevant and resonant for me since Latin is the native language of many who took them up, though their roots were in Greece.  They got me excited about reading Cicero and Polybius, maybe Marcus Aurelius in the original.  It was a fun intersection current learnings.

Of course, in St. Paul, I play sheepshead with a group who have had varying relations with a Latinate institution, the Roman Catholic Church.  Mostly Jesuits, or ex-Jesuits rather, they have lived inside an institution directly influenced by the Latin language and Roman political culture.

The  card gods smiled on me tonight, sending me several wonderful hands.  This does not always happen so it’s fun to play them when they come.

Art and Culture, World History

Vita brevis, ars longa

Leave a comment

Imbolc                                       Waning Wild Moon

Sheepshead tonight.  We seem to pass around the points, playing as if each person should get a turn at the head of the list and everyone a turn in the barrel.  Always a good time.

Tomorrow a public tour.  Stuff I enjoy.  Historical.  Highlights.  I’m still seeking a way to understand this world into which I emerged, a swimmer on the path to become a walker.  Objects, material objects, created by people with skilled hands, wild hearts and a need to create tell a part of the story.  They tell it from the inside out, the human experience filleted and boned, served up for others.  As I learn more, the ancientrail of the creator lays itself more and more open to me, oracle bones crackling in the fire, fish hooks made from bone, statues of bronze and brass, people molded from clay, ornaments from gold.  How do we wrap ourselves in the terrible passage of time, time that has seen the creators dead, dead long ago, gone, often, usually, nameless, yet the stuff they shaped continues on their journey, small capsules from the ancient past.

We see it and walk past it, looking for the next best thing, passing by the cycladic figures, the woman of LaMouthe, the Greek vases, the section of wall from Ashur-bur-nipals splendid palace, walking on past them to see the show, the Louvre show or the modern galleries, some of the objects in those places made by people still alive, still breathing, their hands still working while the sculptor who shaped the rock into the plump representation of a woman does not.

Museums are strange, often scary places if we look for the ghost, the hand behind the object, the living person with five fingers and a mother, creating with no thought that 15,000 years later–yes, 15,000 years later–we would pass by, maybe glance down, maybe not.  And what of 15,000 years from now?  17, 010 a.c.e.  Will someone walk past, glance down, wonder about who cared for this object, these objects, all those many years ago?

Art and Culture

It’s a Bright, Shiny Day

Leave a comment

Imbolc                                         Waning Wild Moon

The day began with another bright morning shining through the bedroom window.

Allan Grundmeier, aka the Grout Doctor, came to wash my steam bath in acid.  He’s done.  Gregg came to by give an estimate on removing and replacing the shower door.  Lois came to clean the house.  Kate took Emma to the vets to clean up a wound on her back.

I did more research for my tour tomorrow at 1:00 pm, highlights of art from 1600-1850 looking at ukiyoe prints from Japan, Honthorst’s Denial of St Peter and Rembrandt’s Lucretia.  After that I fed the dogs and prepped myself our phone call with Greg, the Latin tutor.  The Latin has gotten tougher, but the learning still seems to be happening without much agony, largely thanks to having Kate in the loop.

A nap and I’m back, ready for some more work this afternoon.  No novel today because sheepshead’s tonight and I need to get my workout in, too.

Art and Culture, Dogs, GeekWorld

The Grand Tour

Leave a comment

Imbolc                                      Waxing Wild Moon

Met the Grout Doctor today.  Turns out he wears a yellow weatherproof  jacket, very new jeans and rubber duckies.  Allan came by to give us an estimate on what it would take to rehabilitate some aching tiles and bring that new installation gleam back to the steam bath.  More than I’d imagined, but less than we were willing to pay, so Allan will return on Thursday to get started.  Gonna give the whole shebang an acid bath.  Sounds very Hannibal Lecter to me.

Fiddled with the new Panasonic camera we got today, too.  The number of things it can do amaze me.  It can focus on an object and then retain focus on that object as it moves.  How can it do that?  If you turn a little switch, it will shoot HD quality video using any of the settings it has for still photography.  How can do it that?  The twelve megapixels it shoots my buddy Jim Johnson tells me is just at the minimal range of what magazines expect in photos.  Well, at least the camera’s good enough for the pro mags.  I haven’t shot any images with it yet.  I want to devote a day or so to using all the various gadgets, learn how it performs.

Also put together an 8 object tour for next Friday, the public tour  Highlights:  Art from 1600-1850.  My theme is the Grand Tour, which was popular in that time frame.  In my Grand Tour though we will visit all but the Australian continent, while retaining the traditional focus on European art of France, Italy and the Low Countries.  I’ve begun to use the new Grove Dictionary of Art.  It has depth and breadth.  It taught me today about the Grand Tour and the various phases through which it passed before finally dying out as the middle-class began to travel more.  Just wasn’t the same with all those shopkeepers in the Uffizi.

Put in more words to the Unmaking.  I’m close to the middle, maybe a bit passed it.  We’ll see how it is after I finish and it sits on the shelf for a while.  Then I’ll have a better view of it.  Right now it’s so close to me, I can’t tell anything.

And Vega came inside limping tonight.  Limping makes us take deep breaths, because it can mean the onset of cancer, has meant the onset of cancer in at least three of our dogs.  On the other hand it might be an injury.  We hope.