November 14, 2006
The title of this picture is STEAM PUMP taken by Lewis Hine in 1920. The human subject is a powerhouse mechanic and I think the picture works so well because it depicts power deriving from the machine and the man.
On a personal level I like the picture because it reminds me of my late father-in-law, whom I admired and who was also a powerhouse mechanic who toiled in the powerhouses of General Motors.
November 11, 2006
November 10, 2006
Found. While rooting around in the attic, I came across a small stack of old 45 rpm records. Among them was this recording of Bill Haley's Rock Around The Clock. Needless to say, it peeled away fifty years off this old body. Another in the stack was the song, Gonna Get Along Without Ya Now, by Patience and Prudence, a song that really takes me back. When I was courting my wife in the early fifties of the last century, my girl friend (wife-to-be) and her sister would sing this song while doing dishes after supper. They really did a great job, maybe I'm a little prejudiced, but they really did. Ahh wonderful memories, and where did the time go?
November 9, 2006
The second of three completed installments of Augustus and Winston conversations. This one is called THE MIND. A whimsical meeting of a dying man and a beast (well a mouse) who cuts him no slack.
AUGUSTUS AND WINSTON
CONVERSATIONS:
THE MIND
By Jim Kittelberger
His eyes, wide open, stared at the ceiling at that gray on gray time of the night. That time when your mind sees everything crystal clear without the coloration of sun and shadows; When everything is so clear and dimensional, without hopes or wishes to cling to; when the truth is so omnipresent it is accompanied by an almost physical pain, and there is absolutely no place to hide, no appeals to make, no excuses, no chance of a mistake. It’s the time when truth, your truth, crashes into you head on.
It was that moment for Gus. He knew his moment of truth was arriving, when the future, his future, was written in the shadows of the ceiling. He knew for a certainty that he would never again leave this bed. He knew that he would never again feel that built up physical energy, pent up after a good nights sleep and hardly able to contain itself one minute longer, straining to burst free and run. Just run, full out, with the wind in his face, running just for the hell of it because it felt so good, no reason for it except the feeling of legs raising and lowering like pistons, well-oiled and functioning as God planned for them to work. Sweat breaking out on his forehead, falling as gravity says it must, into his eyes and stinging; then falling, with no thought of pain, injury, or reason, onto the clean smelling grass and rolling until he lay on his back, arms and legs spread wide, looking up into the sun, smiling to himself, just because it seems like such a natural thing to do.
Gus lies there in his bed, smiling the smile he remembered from so long ago, when a familiar voice breaks into his reverie.
“That smile you have on your face tells me you must be revisiting the good times you had in your youth, in that bordello across the border”, came the irreverent voice of his companion these days, Winston Cartier.
“You know”, retorted Gus, “It just occurred to me that your initials are WC, I think it might stand for Water Closet, that place where your mouse mind resides.”
“That’s pretty good for an old coot like you,” responded Winston, “it shows you still have a little life left in you,” he said, showing Gus little or no sympathy for his present physical condition, or his status as a human.
“It’s good to see you again, you little badgering know-it-all, even with that toilet mouth of yours. Even though you’re dead wrong about where my mind was residing at the moment of your arrival.”
“Well, my frail friend, your mind is, well, your mind. It’s yours to use for good or ill. A quite powerful instrument for a piece of matter that only weighs three pounds, that is for you humans. For us in the mouse kingdom, it is of course less in direct relation to our size. Of course, in my case, if you believe in heredity, my offspring, if I choose to have any, should have a larger allocation of brain space. It is well known…..”
“Stop please,” interjected Gus. “I can’t take anymore. I am well aware of your mental powers, but please, I’m not a well man and I can take only so much baloney, from man or beast, er mouse.”
“As a matter of fact,” Gus continued, “The source of the smile you happened to glimpse, was from one of the powers of our brain, our memory. I happened to be recalling, quite vividly, I might add, a moment in life where nothing else mattered except the moment. When life is stretched out in front of us forever, and time is irrelevant. Death was a nebulous term with no meaning. Our grandparents were still with us and the only time that word death had any meaning was perhaps at the death of a pet goldfish or dog, sad, but forgotten with the acquiring of a substitute. Perhaps, as I think of it now, it teaches a bad lesson, or no lesson at all, that death is not a permanent thing, and when it happens, we just acquire a different colored fish, or a dog with more hair. We learn nothing from the experience, and it teaches us that life, human or animal, is cheap and easily replaced.
“Maybe you didn’t learn anything Gus,” Winston replied, “but that’s just your experience. The mind doesn’t control us and tell us what to think or how to process information it receives. With it’s ten billion nerve cells it does a very good job of processing, but you have to interpret what information you get, but this is all getting too involved, and young humans are not yet old enough to make proper decisions with the information they receive, but I can assure you the experience is catalogued away and will be remembered forever and used as a database for making proper decisions at a later time in their lives. You higher class of vertebrates sometimes are a little dense, but eventually, if given enough time, will get it.”
“You don’t have to tell me the power of the mind, you wisenheimer rodent, I remember a time in my life when I was angry most of the time, angry because of my dissatisfaction with a situation that I could do nothing about, but I wore my bad attitude like a ill-fitting suit. That is until one day, while talking to my wife about my troubles, it came upon me like an epiphany that no one cared about my problems, except me and of course my poor wife who had to listen to the constant whining. It was like I discovered America and it was so simple. It was all in my mind. So many learned people had written books on the subject of positive thinking, but I was blind to them, until I changed my thinking and overnight, really, overnight my life changed.” Gus shook his head, “It was all so simple and I was too dumb to know it.”
“Life is a learning experience until we die,” said Winston, “I’m sure you’re still learning as you lie in what will surely be your death bed. Some sage says what you have accumulated through all your years is wisdom. Not just facts, but the experience to know what works and when to use it.” Winston actually smiled wistfully at the old man, then asked, “Tell me Gus, if you had the opportunity to live your life over, would you do anything differently? Now I’m not the genie with three wishes, not even one, so your answer is just rhetorical, I sadly cannot offer you new life.” Winston actually seemed moved just a little by asking the old man to rethink his entire life and encapsulate a gem for posterity, the answer for a happy life.
Gus laid his head back down on his pillow and thought for a moment. “Gladly, I can say I would not change much, except one thing. One thing sounds like I would wish for one more Hershey bar and that would close out a happy life, but the one thing I wish I would have done that I did not do, was to exercise the brain God gave me, by going on further in my schooling. I don’t have any way of knowing what would come from taking that path, but I feel it may have been like dropping a stone in the water and concentric circles appear over and over, expanding out to the shore. The waste, if that’s what it was, was my own doing, so I only have myself to blame for not knowing what might have been.”
Gus finished and looked over at his inquisitor, agitator, debating partner, late night companion and friend, “Not too bad, don’t you think, that I hold no grudges, owe no man, and have had the love of a wonderful woman and only have one regret for a lifetime, and that is wasting only what was mine to begin with.”
Winston, tipped his hat, an affectation he acquired after watching Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, and replied, “Don’t get yourself all pumped up you old coot, with that pretentious eulogy you just gave yourself. You were probably too darn lazy to use anymore of your brain than you did, so be grateful with what you accomplished using only half of the brain God gave you and go to sleep dreaming about whatever you were dreaming about before. I still think it was that bordello just over the border and Madam Rosa’s best girls you were smiling about.”
Gus laughed out loud and then slept.
AUGUSTUS AND WINSTON
CONVERSATIONS:
THE MIND
By Jim Kittelberger
His eyes, wide open, stared at the ceiling at that gray on gray time of the night. That time when your mind sees everything crystal clear without the coloration of sun and shadows; When everything is so clear and dimensional, without hopes or wishes to cling to; when the truth is so omnipresent it is accompanied by an almost physical pain, and there is absolutely no place to hide, no appeals to make, no excuses, no chance of a mistake. It’s the time when truth, your truth, crashes into you head on.
It was that moment for Gus. He knew his moment of truth was arriving, when the future, his future, was written in the shadows of the ceiling. He knew for a certainty that he would never again leave this bed. He knew that he would never again feel that built up physical energy, pent up after a good nights sleep and hardly able to contain itself one minute longer, straining to burst free and run. Just run, full out, with the wind in his face, running just for the hell of it because it felt so good, no reason for it except the feeling of legs raising and lowering like pistons, well-oiled and functioning as God planned for them to work. Sweat breaking out on his forehead, falling as gravity says it must, into his eyes and stinging; then falling, with no thought of pain, injury, or reason, onto the clean smelling grass and rolling until he lay on his back, arms and legs spread wide, looking up into the sun, smiling to himself, just because it seems like such a natural thing to do.
Gus lies there in his bed, smiling the smile he remembered from so long ago, when a familiar voice breaks into his reverie.
“That smile you have on your face tells me you must be revisiting the good times you had in your youth, in that bordello across the border”, came the irreverent voice of his companion these days, Winston Cartier.
“You know”, retorted Gus, “It just occurred to me that your initials are WC, I think it might stand for Water Closet, that place where your mouse mind resides.”
“That’s pretty good for an old coot like you,” responded Winston, “it shows you still have a little life left in you,” he said, showing Gus little or no sympathy for his present physical condition, or his status as a human.
“It’s good to see you again, you little badgering know-it-all, even with that toilet mouth of yours. Even though you’re dead wrong about where my mind was residing at the moment of your arrival.”
“Well, my frail friend, your mind is, well, your mind. It’s yours to use for good or ill. A quite powerful instrument for a piece of matter that only weighs three pounds, that is for you humans. For us in the mouse kingdom, it is of course less in direct relation to our size. Of course, in my case, if you believe in heredity, my offspring, if I choose to have any, should have a larger allocation of brain space. It is well known…..”
“Stop please,” interjected Gus. “I can’t take anymore. I am well aware of your mental powers, but please, I’m not a well man and I can take only so much baloney, from man or beast, er mouse.”
“As a matter of fact,” Gus continued, “The source of the smile you happened to glimpse, was from one of the powers of our brain, our memory. I happened to be recalling, quite vividly, I might add, a moment in life where nothing else mattered except the moment. When life is stretched out in front of us forever, and time is irrelevant. Death was a nebulous term with no meaning. Our grandparents were still with us and the only time that word death had any meaning was perhaps at the death of a pet goldfish or dog, sad, but forgotten with the acquiring of a substitute. Perhaps, as I think of it now, it teaches a bad lesson, or no lesson at all, that death is not a permanent thing, and when it happens, we just acquire a different colored fish, or a dog with more hair. We learn nothing from the experience, and it teaches us that life, human or animal, is cheap and easily replaced.
“Maybe you didn’t learn anything Gus,” Winston replied, “but that’s just your experience. The mind doesn’t control us and tell us what to think or how to process information it receives. With it’s ten billion nerve cells it does a very good job of processing, but you have to interpret what information you get, but this is all getting too involved, and young humans are not yet old enough to make proper decisions with the information they receive, but I can assure you the experience is catalogued away and will be remembered forever and used as a database for making proper decisions at a later time in their lives. You higher class of vertebrates sometimes are a little dense, but eventually, if given enough time, will get it.”
“You don’t have to tell me the power of the mind, you wisenheimer rodent, I remember a time in my life when I was angry most of the time, angry because of my dissatisfaction with a situation that I could do nothing about, but I wore my bad attitude like a ill-fitting suit. That is until one day, while talking to my wife about my troubles, it came upon me like an epiphany that no one cared about my problems, except me and of course my poor wife who had to listen to the constant whining. It was like I discovered America and it was so simple. It was all in my mind. So many learned people had written books on the subject of positive thinking, but I was blind to them, until I changed my thinking and overnight, really, overnight my life changed.” Gus shook his head, “It was all so simple and I was too dumb to know it.”
“Life is a learning experience until we die,” said Winston, “I’m sure you’re still learning as you lie in what will surely be your death bed. Some sage says what you have accumulated through all your years is wisdom. Not just facts, but the experience to know what works and when to use it.” Winston actually smiled wistfully at the old man, then asked, “Tell me Gus, if you had the opportunity to live your life over, would you do anything differently? Now I’m not the genie with three wishes, not even one, so your answer is just rhetorical, I sadly cannot offer you new life.” Winston actually seemed moved just a little by asking the old man to rethink his entire life and encapsulate a gem for posterity, the answer for a happy life.
Gus laid his head back down on his pillow and thought for a moment. “Gladly, I can say I would not change much, except one thing. One thing sounds like I would wish for one more Hershey bar and that would close out a happy life, but the one thing I wish I would have done that I did not do, was to exercise the brain God gave me, by going on further in my schooling. I don’t have any way of knowing what would come from taking that path, but I feel it may have been like dropping a stone in the water and concentric circles appear over and over, expanding out to the shore. The waste, if that’s what it was, was my own doing, so I only have myself to blame for not knowing what might have been.”
Gus finished and looked over at his inquisitor, agitator, debating partner, late night companion and friend, “Not too bad, don’t you think, that I hold no grudges, owe no man, and have had the love of a wonderful woman and only have one regret for a lifetime, and that is wasting only what was mine to begin with.”
Winston, tipped his hat, an affectation he acquired after watching Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, and replied, “Don’t get yourself all pumped up you old coot, with that pretentious eulogy you just gave yourself. You were probably too darn lazy to use anymore of your brain than you did, so be grateful with what you accomplished using only half of the brain God gave you and go to sleep dreaming about whatever you were dreaming about before. I still think it was that bordello just over the border and Madam Rosa’s best girls you were smiling about.”
Gus laughed out loud and then slept.
November 8, 2006
The war was nearly over when this picture was taken in 1945. Do you think that is the reason that all these people decided to go to the beach, to relax and celebrate? I don't think there is room for anyone to sit down. I look at this picture and wonder why when each person arrived, and saw all the people who had gotten there before them, they didn't turn around and go somewhere else. Human behavior is sometimes kind of weird, or maybe just New Yorkers, this picture was taken at Coney Island.
November 7, 2006
I have debuted a new site that I am still testing. It's called ON-HANDS STORYTIME. http://jim2jak.tripod.com/onhandsstorytime/
If anyone has a moment or two would you please go to the site and click on a couple of the sound bytes, and please let me know if it worked, or not. It works in testing, but you all know how that goes. What's that principal that says, if anything can go wrong, it will. I intend to add pictures to the site also, if it works.
Thank you all.
Hope you all voted today, and it turns out the way you want.
If anyone has a moment or two would you please go to the site and click on a couple of the sound bytes, and please let me know if it worked, or not. It works in testing, but you all know how that goes. What's that principal that says, if anything can go wrong, it will. I intend to add pictures to the site also, if it works.
Thank you all.
Hope you all voted today, and it turns out the way you want.
November 6, 2006
I think America is singing because we are free, and tomorrow we can vote to keep what we like and discard that which we don't. We're not perfect God knows, but we keep trying to be better. On Election day we can give it a little boost in whatever we think is the correct path to follow. Please exercise your right as Walt Whitman, the lady in the big hat, and I encourage you to do.
I Hear America Singing
from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1900)
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—
the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or washing—Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;The day what belongs to the day—At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.
November 4, 2006
November 3, 2006
I like to read as you probably do too, and I like to look at lists. I at first googled BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN, but then I ran across this list using the same criteria. I figured who would know better about books than librarians, right? Right!
I quickly ran down the list and eliminating all the books I have either read, heard on tape, seen the movie, or just knew about generally, I still came up with seven (7) I had never heard of. Maybe I will check with my library and see if they have them.
THE 100 FAVORITE NOVELS OF LIBRARIANS
Based on a survey conducted by Brodart Co., September, 1998 - March, 1999
1. Pride and Prejudice
Austen
2. To Kill a Mockingbird
Lee
3. Jane Eyre
Bronte
4. Gone with the Wind
Mitchell
5. Lord of the Rings
Tolkien
6. The Catcher in the Rye
Salinger
7. Little Women
Alcott
8. A Prayer of Owen Meany
Irving
9. The Stand
King
10. The Great Gatsby
Fitzgerald
11. Mists of Avalon
Bradley
12. David Copperfield
Dickens
13. Kristen Lavransdotter x
Undset
14. Beloved
Morrison
15. Age of Innocence
Wharton
16. The Shell Seekers
Pilcher
17. Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Hardy
18. The World According to Garp
Irving
19. Catch 22
Heller
20. The Clan of the Cave Bear
Auel
21. The Horse Whisperer
Evans
22. Pillars of the Earth
Follett
23. Prince of Tides
Conroy
24. Possession
Byatt
25. Rebecca
DuMaurier
26. Follow the River
Thom
27. My Antonia
Cather
28. The Old Man and the Sea
Hemingway
29. The Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne
30. Sophies Choice
Styron
31. Snow Falling on Cedars
Guterson
32. One Hundred Years of Solitude
Marquez
33. Name of the Rose
Eco
34. The Giver x
Lowry
35. Cold Mountain
Frazier
36. Cold Sassy Tree
Burns
37. Atlas Shrugged
Rand
38. Bridge to Terebithia x
Paterson
39. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Tyler
40. The Hobbit
Tolkien
41. Les Miserables
Hugo
42. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Lewis
43. Wuthering Heights
Bronte
44. A Tale of Two Cities
Dickens
45. Huckelberry Finn
Twain
46. Alice in Wonderland
Carroll
47. The Wind in the Willows
Grahame
48. The Bean Trees
Kingsolving
49. Ben Hur
Wallace
50. And Then There Were None
Christie
51. The Secret Garden
Burnett
52. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry x
Taylor
53. Busman's Honeymoon x
Sayers
54. Schindler's List
Keneally
55. Emma
Austen
56. The Color Purple
Walker
57. The Count of Monte Cristo
Dumas
58. Charlotte's Web
White
59. Anne of Green Gables
Montgomery
60. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
Wells
61. Lady Chatterly's Lover
Lawrence
62. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Smith
63. East of Eden
Steinbeck
64. The Once and Future King
White
65. Enders Game x
Card
66. The Fountainhead
Rand
67. A Patchwork Planet
Tyler
68. Gaudy Night
Sayers
69. Shogun
Clavell
70. Grapes of Wrath
Steinbeck
71. Handmaid's Tale
Atwood
72. Lonesome Dove
McMurtry
73. Outlander
Gabaldon
74. Pigs in Heaven
Kingsolver
75. Slaughterhouse Five
Vonnegut
76. Jude the Obscure
Hardy
77. Time and Again
Finney
78. Misery
King
79. A Christmas Carol
Dickens
80. The Accidental Tourist
Tyler
81. Giants of the Earth
Rolvaag
82. Persuasion
Austen
83. Fried Green Tomatoes
Flagg
84. Tisha x
Specht
85. The Thornbirds
McCullough
86. Christy
Marshall
87. Lost Horizon
Hilton
88. The Little Prince
St. Exupery
89. Fahrenheight 451
Bradbury
90. For Whom the Bell Tolls
Hemingway
91. Frankenstein
Shelley
92. Bleak House
Dickens
93. Boy's Life
McCammon
94. Chesapeake
Michener
95. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Adams
96. How Green Was My Valley
Llewellyn
97. Howard's End
Forster
98. I, Robot
Asimov
99. Of Mice and Men
Steinbeck
100. A Passage to India
Forster
The seven I do not know are: numbers 13, 34, 38, 52, 53, 65, 84
I quickly ran down the list and eliminating all the books I have either read, heard on tape, seen the movie, or just knew about generally, I still came up with seven (7) I had never heard of. Maybe I will check with my library and see if they have them.
THE 100 FAVORITE NOVELS OF LIBRARIANS
Based on a survey conducted by Brodart Co., September, 1998 - March, 1999
1. Pride and Prejudice
Austen
2. To Kill a Mockingbird
Lee
3. Jane Eyre
Bronte
4. Gone with the Wind
Mitchell
5. Lord of the Rings
Tolkien
6. The Catcher in the Rye
Salinger
7. Little Women
Alcott
8. A Prayer of Owen Meany
Irving
9. The Stand
King
10. The Great Gatsby
Fitzgerald
11. Mists of Avalon
Bradley
12. David Copperfield
Dickens
13. Kristen Lavransdotter x
Undset
14. Beloved
Morrison
15. Age of Innocence
Wharton
16. The Shell Seekers
Pilcher
17. Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Hardy
18. The World According to Garp
Irving
19. Catch 22
Heller
20. The Clan of the Cave Bear
Auel
21. The Horse Whisperer
Evans
22. Pillars of the Earth
Follett
23. Prince of Tides
Conroy
24. Possession
Byatt
25. Rebecca
DuMaurier
26. Follow the River
Thom
27. My Antonia
Cather
28. The Old Man and the Sea
Hemingway
29. The Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne
30. Sophies Choice
Styron
31. Snow Falling on Cedars
Guterson
32. One Hundred Years of Solitude
Marquez
33. Name of the Rose
Eco
34. The Giver x
Lowry
35. Cold Mountain
Frazier
36. Cold Sassy Tree
Burns
37. Atlas Shrugged
Rand
38. Bridge to Terebithia x
Paterson
39. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Tyler
40. The Hobbit
Tolkien
41. Les Miserables
Hugo
42. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Lewis
43. Wuthering Heights
Bronte
44. A Tale of Two Cities
Dickens
45. Huckelberry Finn
Twain
46. Alice in Wonderland
Carroll
47. The Wind in the Willows
Grahame
48. The Bean Trees
Kingsolving
49. Ben Hur
Wallace
50. And Then There Were None
Christie
51. The Secret Garden
Burnett
52. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry x
Taylor
53. Busman's Honeymoon x
Sayers
54. Schindler's List
Keneally
55. Emma
Austen
56. The Color Purple
Walker
57. The Count of Monte Cristo
Dumas
58. Charlotte's Web
White
59. Anne of Green Gables
Montgomery
60. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
Wells
61. Lady Chatterly's Lover
Lawrence
62. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Smith
63. East of Eden
Steinbeck
64. The Once and Future King
White
65. Enders Game x
Card
66. The Fountainhead
Rand
67. A Patchwork Planet
Tyler
68. Gaudy Night
Sayers
69. Shogun
Clavell
70. Grapes of Wrath
Steinbeck
71. Handmaid's Tale
Atwood
72. Lonesome Dove
McMurtry
73. Outlander
Gabaldon
74. Pigs in Heaven
Kingsolver
75. Slaughterhouse Five
Vonnegut
76. Jude the Obscure
Hardy
77. Time and Again
Finney
78. Misery
King
79. A Christmas Carol
Dickens
80. The Accidental Tourist
Tyler
81. Giants of the Earth
Rolvaag
82. Persuasion
Austen
83. Fried Green Tomatoes
Flagg
84. Tisha x
Specht
85. The Thornbirds
McCullough
86. Christy
Marshall
87. Lost Horizon
Hilton
88. The Little Prince
St. Exupery
89. Fahrenheight 451
Bradbury
90. For Whom the Bell Tolls
Hemingway
91. Frankenstein
Shelley
92. Bleak House
Dickens
93. Boy's Life
McCammon
94. Chesapeake
Michener
95. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Adams
96. How Green Was My Valley
Llewellyn
97. Howard's End
Forster
98. I, Robot
Asimov
99. Of Mice and Men
Steinbeck
100. A Passage to India
Forster
The seven I do not know are: numbers 13, 34, 38, 52, 53, 65, 84
November 2, 2006
In 1959 on this day, Charles Van Doren admitted to a House subcommittee that he had the questions and answers in advance of his appearances on the TV game show ''Twenty-One.''
Were we naive or what. Well it's taken us forty-seven years, but we have gotten it down to a science. At least the politicians have. They have learned to tell the polished, and honed lie to all of us depending upon our age, sex, ethnicity, party persuation, how big a contribution we can give to his personal war chest or to his particular party. It's amazing how they can do it. It's like watching a ventriloquist to see if his lips move. With the pol it's the trick of telling each of us our own especially prepared message that we want to hear, while telling someone else something different. Watching his or her mouth talk out of both sides at the same time is worthy of an American Idol appearance.
Well take heart all, it's just about over for a couple more years, although with the presidential election next up, it will probably not stop.
Were we naive or what. Well it's taken us forty-seven years, but we have gotten it down to a science. At least the politicians have. They have learned to tell the polished, and honed lie to all of us depending upon our age, sex, ethnicity, party persuation, how big a contribution we can give to his personal war chest or to his particular party. It's amazing how they can do it. It's like watching a ventriloquist to see if his lips move. With the pol it's the trick of telling each of us our own especially prepared message that we want to hear, while telling someone else something different. Watching his or her mouth talk out of both sides at the same time is worthy of an American Idol appearance.
Well take heart all, it's just about over for a couple more years, although with the presidential election next up, it will probably not stop.
Back in May I wrote a piece about Jackson Pollock, and his style of painting, and not being a great fan. But yesterday? Mr. Pollock hit the jackpot for one of his drip paintings. One of his paintings, the one shown here, got 140 million dollars in a personal transaction. Oh boy, like I said before, "where's my paintbox"? Now I'm going to make a run over to my local Sherwin Williams paint store and pick up a few gallons of various colors, a big tarp, and a canvas to drip it all onto. Whoa boy, I can see the bucks already.
For more on this story, here is the address: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/arts/design/02drip.html?th&emc=th
November 1, 2006
I like to occasionally write stories for children, so a while back I wrote this one for the two hardest ages to navigate, growing up and growing old. Most train stories for kids are always compared to The Little Train that Could, well that's o.k. too, enjoy the story whatever you think.
a fable for any age
THE LONG STEEL TRACK
A CHILDREN’S TALE FOR OLDER ADULTS
By Jim Kittelberger
The Blue Engine Line pulled into the station at Littletown, Ohio. It belched one last puff of smoke, and one last shot of steam, which created a very large cloud obscuring the little station house. If trains were people, it would seem that blue engine was ready for the train retirement home, or as was the fact, for the scrap heap. Blue train had been working very hard for many, many years, carrying passengers from their homes into the big city. It was good at its job. It would proudly announce its arrival at each station with a loud toot of its whistle, and carry the people safely to their destinations. But times became hard for all the people in Ohio including the farmers and they had to work much harder to have enough money to feed their families. The owners of the Blue Engine Line also had less money, so they cut back on upkeep on their trains. Well, Blue train just like people needed someone to keep it clean and neat and pretty and oiled and in topnotch mechanical shape. But the owners didn’t have the money so Blue train started getting a little dirtier and shabbier and not in very good mechanical shape, until finally it was so tired and uncared for, it acted old. So as time passed and the company had more money, it was decided that instead of fixing up Blue train, it should be retired and shoved aside. They would purchase a new shiny train, a red one, the Red Engine Line.
Blue train was oh so blue and sad as it sat on the siding of the station, but at least the owners had not send it to the trash heap, but instead just ignored it. So it sat there day after day, month after month, year after year. Children would come with their parents and climb up into the engine and pretend they were engineers speeding down the tracks. Blue train liked that, but he was sure he had some more miles left in him, but the owners had forgotten all about him. That is until one day when the most important man in Ohio, the Governor of the state and many mayors were aboard the Red Engine Line on the way back to Capital city to sign a very important bill that would help all the people of Ohio. The night was moonless, and dark. Snow was swirling around the big train as it barreled through the night, speeding them to the Capital. When all of a sudden with no warning, it started slowing in spite of anything the engineer could do, until finally it stopped in the middle of nowhere. The big engine wheezed and sputtered and started to make the oddest noise the engineer had ever heard. It stated making noises like a coffee maker, it sounded like water boiling and percolating and getting louder. It was the great boiler building up a huge head of steam and not being able to use it for moving the train. Something had broken and the steam kept building until something was going to blow soon. The engineer, not knowing what to do, ordered all the workers off the engine and he followed them soon after, and they ran off to a safe distance, and stood in the blowing snow waiting for whatever was about to happen. Well it finally did happen. The boiler, not able to contain its hot steam one moment longer, blew out a huge hole in the bottom of the boiler and the steam and fire exploded under the big locomotive. Farmers, who saw it, later reported that the sparks that came out of the boiler were better than any Fourth of July fireworks show they had ever seen. And the steam created a cloud bigger than four of Zeke Smiths biggest barns.
The owners, who were riding with the Governor, were mortified. Here sat the most important man in Ohio with a very important job to do sitting here in the middle of pastures and cornfields, still many miles from the Capital, not moving. They huddled together and got out their maps of all their tracks and stations, arguing and discussing and arguing again. They finally decided they needed the closest train available to get here and rescue the governor and the mayors. They looked again and again, and decided that the closest station to them was a little town called Littletown. So the call went out. Get up steam on any available train and send it as soon as possible to rescue the very important people. The Littletown stationmaster replied yes sir, yes sir twice because he was so nervous. He looked at his manifest and was aghast, he had said yes before he realized that all his trains were out of the station at other places. That is, all except, the Blue train. But it had not been used for years and was old and tired. But he had no choice now, because if he called back and told them, they would surely fire him for not realizing he had no trains available.
Blue train was in the middle of another nights long sleep, when he noticed a small army of men coming in his direction. Before he knew what was happening, they had lit his boiler and the steam was making the old engine come alive again. As quickly as possible Blue train was connected to the main line. The engineer pushed the old throttle and the Blue engine started to move. At first it was like an old fellow with stiff muscles getting on his feet after sitting for a long while, he groaned and moaned; but soon, as the steam ran through its lines and twists and turns it started to feel good, until he was flying down the tracks feeling as if he were a teenager again. Soon, it seems in record time, with all its lights blazing and its horn tooting and whistle whistling, it came around the final turn and there was the Governors train. The Governor could not stop thanking the owners for their great wisdom in sending for this fine train, and the owners could not stop thanking the stationmaster for his wise choice in sending this fine old train.
So, I wish I could say that old Blue train was back to work on a daily basis, but time could not be reversed and old Blue was just that, old. But old Blue was given a special siding all to itself, and banners proclaimed that this train was the train that rescued the Governor of Ohio in a snowstorm and carried him to Capital city where he signed important bills that helped all the people of Ohio. He was a hero.
There is a moral to this story. We all get old and our bodies may become smaller and less robust, but inside all of us dwells a spirit that burns eternally bright, just like Old Blue Train in Littletown Ohio.
a fable for any age
THE LONG STEEL TRACK
A CHILDREN’S TALE FOR OLDER ADULTS
By Jim Kittelberger
The Blue Engine Line pulled into the station at Littletown, Ohio. It belched one last puff of smoke, and one last shot of steam, which created a very large cloud obscuring the little station house. If trains were people, it would seem that blue engine was ready for the train retirement home, or as was the fact, for the scrap heap. Blue train had been working very hard for many, many years, carrying passengers from their homes into the big city. It was good at its job. It would proudly announce its arrival at each station with a loud toot of its whistle, and carry the people safely to their destinations. But times became hard for all the people in Ohio including the farmers and they had to work much harder to have enough money to feed their families. The owners of the Blue Engine Line also had less money, so they cut back on upkeep on their trains. Well, Blue train just like people needed someone to keep it clean and neat and pretty and oiled and in topnotch mechanical shape. But the owners didn’t have the money so Blue train started getting a little dirtier and shabbier and not in very good mechanical shape, until finally it was so tired and uncared for, it acted old. So as time passed and the company had more money, it was decided that instead of fixing up Blue train, it should be retired and shoved aside. They would purchase a new shiny train, a red one, the Red Engine Line.
Blue train was oh so blue and sad as it sat on the siding of the station, but at least the owners had not send it to the trash heap, but instead just ignored it. So it sat there day after day, month after month, year after year. Children would come with their parents and climb up into the engine and pretend they were engineers speeding down the tracks. Blue train liked that, but he was sure he had some more miles left in him, but the owners had forgotten all about him. That is until one day when the most important man in Ohio, the Governor of the state and many mayors were aboard the Red Engine Line on the way back to Capital city to sign a very important bill that would help all the people of Ohio. The night was moonless, and dark. Snow was swirling around the big train as it barreled through the night, speeding them to the Capital. When all of a sudden with no warning, it started slowing in spite of anything the engineer could do, until finally it stopped in the middle of nowhere. The big engine wheezed and sputtered and started to make the oddest noise the engineer had ever heard. It stated making noises like a coffee maker, it sounded like water boiling and percolating and getting louder. It was the great boiler building up a huge head of steam and not being able to use it for moving the train. Something had broken and the steam kept building until something was going to blow soon. The engineer, not knowing what to do, ordered all the workers off the engine and he followed them soon after, and they ran off to a safe distance, and stood in the blowing snow waiting for whatever was about to happen. Well it finally did happen. The boiler, not able to contain its hot steam one moment longer, blew out a huge hole in the bottom of the boiler and the steam and fire exploded under the big locomotive. Farmers, who saw it, later reported that the sparks that came out of the boiler were better than any Fourth of July fireworks show they had ever seen. And the steam created a cloud bigger than four of Zeke Smiths biggest barns.
The owners, who were riding with the Governor, were mortified. Here sat the most important man in Ohio with a very important job to do sitting here in the middle of pastures and cornfields, still many miles from the Capital, not moving. They huddled together and got out their maps of all their tracks and stations, arguing and discussing and arguing again. They finally decided they needed the closest train available to get here and rescue the governor and the mayors. They looked again and again, and decided that the closest station to them was a little town called Littletown. So the call went out. Get up steam on any available train and send it as soon as possible to rescue the very important people. The Littletown stationmaster replied yes sir, yes sir twice because he was so nervous. He looked at his manifest and was aghast, he had said yes before he realized that all his trains were out of the station at other places. That is, all except, the Blue train. But it had not been used for years and was old and tired. But he had no choice now, because if he called back and told them, they would surely fire him for not realizing he had no trains available.
Blue train was in the middle of another nights long sleep, when he noticed a small army of men coming in his direction. Before he knew what was happening, they had lit his boiler and the steam was making the old engine come alive again. As quickly as possible Blue train was connected to the main line. The engineer pushed the old throttle and the Blue engine started to move. At first it was like an old fellow with stiff muscles getting on his feet after sitting for a long while, he groaned and moaned; but soon, as the steam ran through its lines and twists and turns it started to feel good, until he was flying down the tracks feeling as if he were a teenager again. Soon, it seems in record time, with all its lights blazing and its horn tooting and whistle whistling, it came around the final turn and there was the Governors train. The Governor could not stop thanking the owners for their great wisdom in sending for this fine train, and the owners could not stop thanking the stationmaster for his wise choice in sending this fine old train.
So, I wish I could say that old Blue train was back to work on a daily basis, but time could not be reversed and old Blue was just that, old. But old Blue was given a special siding all to itself, and banners proclaimed that this train was the train that rescued the Governor of Ohio in a snowstorm and carried him to Capital city where he signed important bills that helped all the people of Ohio. He was a hero.
There is a moral to this story. We all get old and our bodies may become smaller and less robust, but inside all of us dwells a spirit that burns eternally bright, just like Old Blue Train in Littletown Ohio.
October 31, 2006
I have started a separate webpage entitled VISUAL ARTS DAILY http://jim2jak.tripod.com
Visual Arts Daily
My hopeful intention for the Visual Arts Daily is to offer each day a small taste of the beauty found in paintings, photography, architecture, magnificent gardens, or wherever else it’s found. Please visit often.
I will, of course, continue the Public Reader until age perhaps catches up with me; hopefully that's a long way down the road.
October 30, 2006
A TOUCH OF SHAKESPEARE 1564-1616
Firstly, do not make old Bill angry. From The Tempest, ActI Scene II:
Fill all thy bones with aches.
Ouch.
From Henry V. A favorite of mine.
Band of Brothers
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,
And say, These wounds I had on Crispin’s day
Old men forget, yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names
Familiar in their mouths as household words,-
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster,-
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered
This story shall the good man teach his son,
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered,-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother, be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition,
And gentlemen in England now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
Shakespeare sonnets that to my unschooled ear make me wish I were an actor. Every actor must want to speak some lines like these:
Have you not heard it said full oft, a woman’s nay doth stand for naught? Ibid xiv.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments: love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. Sonnet cxvi
That time of year thou may’st in me behold, when yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hand upon those boughs which shake against the cold,- bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. Sonnet lxxiii
My grief lies onward and my joy behind. Sonnet I
Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear. Venus and Adonis, Line 145
Farewell! Thou art too dear for my possessing. Sonnet lxxxvii
October 29, 2006
So What's Wrong with Norman Rockwell?
I have never understood why the art community looked down their respective noses at illustrators. Just a few that I recall quickly are Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, J. Leyendecker and the son of N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth. I suspect illustrators, the really good ones, take home some handy amount of change if they are still in the work-a-day work routine. But I suspect that it was and maybe still is a class thing. I ran across this in an Art for Dummies book recently, and a person of no less qualifications than Thomas Hoving, an elite art historian wrote what follows.
by Thomas Hoving, eminent art historian
In addition to an acceptance of all styles and modes of expression today there's a refreshing gradual disappearance of art critism based purely on ideology. Critics and historians are beginning to recognize that styles are simply languages with one no inherently better than another. There are fewer and fewer art critic fights and tantrums defending one style against another. There's also a forgiving, permissive mood currently gaining ground in the art world.
Norman Rockwell (1894-1978), who only a decade ago was considered by most art critics to be a hopelessly mawkish illustrator of little talent and no energy, has recently been touted, even by the curator of 20th century art at New York's Guggenheim Museum (which has the subtitle of The Museum For Non-Objective Art hardly Norman's forte), as a major artistic force and potent communicator in America from the 1930's through the 1960's. I agree.
October 27, 2006
Scrabble has to be one of my favorite board games. I've mentioned before of my liking many of the games offered on the internet, but Scrabble or it's variants, is one of my favorites. I mentioned before also that the site ITSYOURTURN.COM has an offshoot of the game called Jamble that my sister-in-laws husband and I have been playing continuously now for quite a while. So, when I saw this hyperlink in REDDIT, that directed me to this article in SLATE, I had to make the trip. A man, whom the articles states is an ordinary player like most of us, got the unbelievable score of 830 it sent shivers up my spine with the visions of glory that could be within the reach of even us mere mortals. Well not really, but the words he used are not the fancy schmanzie ones, but words like FLATFISH. I could have thought of a word like that. Read the article and dream on. THIS IS THE FINAL BOARD.
http://www.slate.com/id/2152255/
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