Opus One Media

Moxie

2012-02-22T15:17:00.000-05:00

We think that moms and daughters who venture out into a stiff wind and 20 degree weather display more than a little bit of moxie. For those of you unfamiliar with the word "moxie", it is a slang term of nearly a century ago meaning to face difficulty with courage and spirit". Dick Tracy, of comic book fame, was particularly full of moxie as was his Tess Trueheart.

Indiana Jones had more than his share and our present day Harry Potter came with a wizard's bag full to the top. Our two skaters have it too and we are pretty pleased to see this episode at our local rink in Mitchell Park. Great spirit show here. Great spirit indeed. Real moxie

Walk to Paradise Garden

2012-02-17T08:56:00.000-05:00

I received several more notes from new friends in England just yesterday. It is somewhat confusing how this blog was found but I'm happy when people I don't know and will never ever meet happen upon this and take the time to both write and then come back for more.

Family ties to England go back a long way so far as we can trace - certainly back to Scotland and England prior to 1600 and I say that as a note of pride. My wife and I, who is so typically English in appearance as to make the royal family blush, were last in England a couple of decades ago and spent some time in London (my roots) and St. Paul's and of course had to do the chalk rubbings which I have from each prior visits and we keep in our mutual keepsake drawer to this day.

There is something about doing that simple, tourist thing that is of comfort. Perhaps a million have done so before and after my efforts and in now countless scrapbooks rests a black paper with an image. That perhaps ties a few of us together and I would hope for some magic website that lists all those who pressed chalk to paper. England has gone through so much, can be cited for so much, was arrogant during its history, pompous certainly applies, had a terrible (in our eyes) history of colonialism - us included - yet remains near and dear, steadfast and loyal, and of all the countries with whom I have family roots and a certain longing, I would live there in a minute if the situation availed.

I'm perfectly patriotic to the United States so that is not the issue in the least. It is a certain quality that I find in the Isles that feels comfortable. I like Tony Blair not for his politics but for his use of the language. Shakespeare is my all time best hero not for him but for his amazing use of words that contained colors, that when used and spoken, were better than the alphabet that comprised them.

The music, the singing and the utter calmness and tranquility of English composers is what I find most drawing. Vaughn Williams, Tallis, Holst, Billings, Delius and so many more are treasures of what is art and what is art that makes daily life worth a mention.

Here is a favorite - not the best or worst - but just something that is wonderful to listen to.

The Emperor

2012-02-09T08:10:00.001-05:00

Back in my University days, I had a music history professor who was big on pieces of music being musical paintings of the reality of music of the day. They, for instance, showed that Beethoven wrote his piano concertos with an abbreviated keyboard and therefore selected the keys in which he wrote simply because the tension of the strings in a piano couldn't be held in place with the technology as it existed. Pipe organs all over Europe differ vastly in pitch - one being out of tune to another often by half a tone - and musical instrument development and construction can be traced to what the nearby church organ sounded like. The Brandenburg Concertos of Bach were more about being an example of instruments of the day and how a skilled musician/composer would write for them (and what they were capable of) than anything and when Bach wrote these for the Margrave of Brandenburg in hopes of securing a job he was, subtly showing him what style of music he could expect to hear and what he expected from the court musicians (the difficulty of the music that he would write for them).

That got me to thinking about all things Prussian for a bit as the Margrave of Brandenburg was the head of that area of Prussia that was consolidated in the 19th century by the Emperor Wilhelm family (that Hohenzollern term you might remember). Movies and books talk about Kaiser Wilhelm with Kaiser being the dialect for Emperor (Kaiser Rolls shaped like crowns etc.). I recently met someone who is in that family (without the crown or the title that I know of) so that sped on this galloping thought process. All to the good.

We in the United States neither suffer nor enjoy the aspect of royalty and royal families as our founding was based on NOT having leadership brought about by genetics and marriage but rather by merit and popular appointment. Occasionally we have some families like the Kennedys and Bushes who figure on some sort of birthright and we grow tired of them and replace them. But there is something to this having a royal line that ties a nation or region together historically and who serve as something of a picture of a great deal of time and history; as vivid as Bach's music painted the state of music at the time or the physics of Beethoven's piano determined the key of the concertos.

I'll proceed to think about the work of the day now, but occasionally it doesn't hurt to think about other things.

Field Marshall Radetzky

2012-02-05T13:00:00.002-05:00

This is a portrait of the good field marshall. He has a very famous "march" dedicated to him (The Radetzky March) and I was just going to post it up because it is such a toe-tapper and there is an incredible version of it played by the Venezualan Youth Orchestra conducted by Dudamel.

What brought it to mind was it was written in 1848 - the year of the revolutions that hit the Hapsburgs. Seems the peasants got tired of paying taxes in support of the nobility - which had armies everywhere to keep the peasants from revolution and to support those armies and keep the peasants in their place...well you get the rest.

It made me wonder why we need "field marshalls" or why anyone ever did. Well of course, there were wars all over the place and continue to be so you need commanders. Field Marshalls to command armies that are rushed back to the homeland to defend it against the people who make up the homeland - well not so much.

MeowMeow, 1997 to 2/4/12

2012-02-04T12:09:00.002-05:00

Our MeowMeow (Muggs) went to his reward this morning. As he has done for a dozen plus years, he meowed when our feet hit the floor but it was his last and he waited for us to get up and hold him when he passed on. No foolin'.

I spent most of the night up with him, just letting him sleep; holding him. He had been slipping away for the past couple weeks; the weight loss, appetite, then coordination and all the things that animals do when it is time.

He was named MeowMeow by his 4 grand daughters who loved him. The only cat they knew and although Muggs was a beast to be feared by others of his ilk, he looked at these 4 with a great bit of interest even though as in some sort of alien being much shorter than he was used to. The older he got the more he let them into his life and him into theirs.

My son rescued him from an apartment hallway in Irvington, NJ and he went from there to Astoria and to our house when he (my son) went into the Peace Corps and remained with us for another dozen years, slowly and with a lot of minor incidents, incorporating himself into a household with other cats and then a dog. It took him a while to domesticate but that is true of all of us. He would sit out all night; at peace on a mattress on the front porch bench, wanting nothing, and tail up when we appeared.

He is resting under a cedar tree in our backyard with his food bowl and some high end food for his journey to the cat heaven. He gave us the great gift of unconditional love that animals bestow on humans and for that we are thankful. What with a lifetime of vet bills and cat food we figure he was a $5000 cat and I have to tell you, in heart to heart honesty, when I was holding him this morning while he took his last breath, paw to my face, that I would give it a million times over if he would come back.

Someone Clean the Cage

2012-02-02T07:29:00.000-05:00

We shared this story/thread to a friend and it brought back memories of last February 2nd. Ahhhh Phil.

The text that follows was taken verbatim from an email sent me by this day in history. It is far more than you might want to know but the Candlemas reference is intriguing and I'll read about that and get back to you.

By the way, this is the 125 Groundhog Day. Someone clean the cage.

1887 : First Groundhog Day

On this day in 1887, Groundhog Day, featuring a rodent meteorologist, is celebrated for the first time at Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. According to tradition, if a groundhog comes out of its hole on this day and sees its shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter weather; no shadow means an early spring.
Groundhog Day has its roots in the ancient Christian tradition of Candlemas Day, when clergy would bless and distribute candles needed for winter. The candles represented how long and cold the winter would be. Germans expanded on this concept by selecting an animal--the hedgehog--as a means of predicting weather. Once they came to America, German settlers in Pennsylvania continued the tradition, although they switched from hedgehogs to groundhogs, which were plentiful in the Keystone State.
Groundhogs, also called woodchucks and whose scientific name is Marmota monax, typically weigh 12 to 15 pounds and live six to eight years. They eat vegetables and fruits, whistle when they're frightened or looking for a mate and can climb trees and swim. They go into hibernation in the late fall; during this time, their body temperatures drop significantly, their heartbeats slow from 80 to five beats per minute and they can lose 30 percent of their body fat. In February, male groundhogs emerge from their burrows to look for a mate (not to predict the weather) before going underground again. They come out of hibernation for good in March.
In 1887, a newspaper editor belonging to a group of groundhog hunters from Punxsutawney called the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club declared that Phil, the Punxsutawney groundhog, was America's only true weather-forecasting groundhog. The line of groundhogs that have since been known as Phil might be America's most famous groundhogs, but other towns across North America now have their own weather-predicting rodents, from Birmingham Bill to Staten Island Chuck to Shubenacadie Sam in Canada.
In 1993, the movie Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray popularized the usage of "groundhog day" to mean something that is repeated over and over. Today, tens of thousands of people converge on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney each February 2 to witness Phil's prediction. The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club hosts a three-day celebration featuring entertainment and activities.

Not very subtle

2012-01-29T09:48:00.000-05:00

Yahoo ran this picture in the marquee "news" stories for the past couple days with the headline: "How Romney would rank among presidents "

If you didn't read a word further, you would think that the object of the article was how Romney compared to old George and JFK. There is Mr. Smiley smack dab up there with the two and actually first in line. The story was about "who had the most money" but the picture and headline conveyed another slant. This wasn't an accident.

Now that Newt is on the radar and at times gets billing and notice far above his rank and abilities, the "establishment" who sees Newton as the lynch pin that will unloose a democratic landslide this fall, takes every opportunity to do stuff like this in a pursuit of a Romney nomination.

Idiotic grin aside, Romney would be about the richest President ever if elected - certainly in wealth if not adjusted for inflation wealth so that would be that. Just a reminder then, before we settle into the Sunday morning talk shows, that these faux-cameo stories are everywhere and we all need to consider the source.

FlipFlop and a Howl

2012-01-26T08:38:00.000-05:00

We've had a bit of winter/spring flip flop this last week, punctuated each time by the presence of our resident coyote.

He showed up, or traces thereof, after the weekend snow, following his route down the drive and across the lawn area by the beach and then again yesterday, during the amazing sunset and when spotted ran like the dickens to avoid photo capture.

Weeks of flipflop weather are confusing to everyone and the older you get the more impatient you become with the cold part of it. As kids, we loved snow more than we sought the heat of summer. Not so much anymore. We have flipfloped in our aging process. We wonder also what this does to our pets and those animals caught up in the midst of our suburban sprawl.

Wiley Coyote can't have a very good life as it is and then to get hit by a January spring probably sets his little mental clock ticking like mad. He takes the same path probably daily in search of our cat or anyone's cat, a squirrel or just a dropped leftover from dinner. He knows that if he takes that trail, more than likely he will return to his abode with something to eat. When he disappears for a few days at a time, we reason that he has altered course because the pickings were easier or the route less precarious in some other direction.

All this struck us this morning at 5am as we walked our usual route to the railroad station in our little town, a bit of a sprinkling of snow on the ground - a dusting so to speak - some wind and a lot of slush, where we patiently waited for the train to take us up the tracks a hundred miles to the city where we found our bagel and coffee cart waiting, walked the blocks to our appointment passing the opening and shutting of building doors and the rush of warm air from them, over steaming grates on the side walk and the occasional plunge into ankle deep curb-water, all in search of a paycheck and a meal.

We may as well have been coyotes.

White Sunday Mornings

2012-01-22T09:45:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was snow day - long awaited. The NorthFork Patch ran this picture and it caught my eye if for no other reason than there are NO footsteps down to the bottom of the stairs so it goes to figure that someone ventured out of a basement and saw the above. Just a hunch.

Cement blocks and show always look colder than it is. Long ago, I actually played in a polka band that had a regular Sunday morning gig called the Michigan Polka Party. Most of the time it was taped on Saturday afternoons at the Germania club in Saginaw, Michigan. Germanias were common in heavily German areas and this place had a big auditorium, lots of rooms and a space where the Polka was treasured. I played in this ensemble when my trumpet teacher was in an auto accident and laid up and to be honest I was plenty nervous - TV and all. I was also pretty nervous because I wasn't very good.

The place was a maze of corridors, little reception rooms, endless bars all done in black wood and glass, and one felt a time warp to some place in the middle of Bavaria but on Saturdays, about 3pm we would show up and so would more German speaking people than I knew existed and pretty soon we would play the Pennsylvania Polka (the show's theme song) and the crowd would go to town. We played for an hour and a half and everyone (not me I was 15) shot to one of the many bars and then to a dinner of potatoes and boiled meat.

The second or third week there I was feeling a bit more confident and went exploring after our performance. The place was old - see picture - and once was the Academy of Music which explained the stage and all, and I of course got lost - a bridge too far. Long story short, I found a door and a stairway out of the place and when I saw the picture in the NorthFork Patch that was the first thing I thought of. Very cold northern Michigan day with the usual new snow, block stairway up and out and not a footprint.

gotcha'

2012-01-16T16:17:00.000-05:00

if only..............

I was asked to write a piece for a national political blog

2012-01-13T10:49:00.001-05:00

You can preview it here. If you are a republican, this may not be to your liking but then again who knows.

The FACE of the GOP

We are strong believers in the "picture=1,000 words" school of thought. Here we are treated to belligerent and smug. Governor Christie is out defending his friend, Mr. Romney, who looks on with that smug little smile that drives liberals nearly crazy.

We are reminded of the popular kid in grade school - the first to wear Pat Boone white buck shoes because he could afford them and afford to get them dirty and when challenged, he had some bully who wanted to suck up to him out in front just in case he needed a little muscle.

The discussions surrounding Mr. Romney have centered somewhat on Bain Capital, the VC/leveraged buyout creation of Bain & Company. Mr. Romney puts great store in turning around companies that Bain invested in and therefore learning how capitalism works. The "Bain Way" was to micromanage until companies turned around. This is a Venture Capital method, popular in the middle 1980s, and under Mr. Romney's turn at Bain, marginally successful.

When Bain Capital formed, Mr. Romney was the face of it - raising the initial seed money and transforming the fund from a mildly successful VC firm into a more robust leverage buyout firm. This is where his link to capitalism eludes us.

The pundits and talking heads are equating "equity" participation with capitalism and not really dealing with the venture/leverage area at all. Simply, if you go out and by 100 shares of Apple Computer in the stock market you are an equity holder in Apple. In some very minor percentage, you own a wee bit of the company. You have made an equity investment of sorts. Your money went to someone else who had owned the shares; now they have your money and you have the shares. Apple saw NONE of that money.

Venture Capitalists would have gone to Apple and said, "You (the company) need money. I want shares. I will invest in you directly so that the company gets the money to work with. You will issue me new shares so I own a sizable chunk of your equity directly bought from your company and not another shareholder". Clear so far?

The leverage buyout guys are different and here is how. They take a hard look at your company but instead of buying shares or investing directly like a venture capitalist would, they just figure it might be cheaper to go to the shareholders and offer to buy up all their shares and once they have control, they clean house, fire a lot of people and then decide what to do with what they own. They may choose to put more money in and revitalize it, or they may choose to sell it off piecemeal and recapture their investment, or somewhere in between. They might also borrow all the money against the breakup value of the company and finance the takeover, pay back the investors with the proceeds and hopefully pocket a fair bundle of money in the end.

This later scene is Bain Capital at the time Mr. Romney was running it. Reports have it that he did very little "running it" if any. He was on to the next deal - the rainmaker so to speak. He was successful in picking apart potential companies about half the time. He NEVER created a job. He only lost jobs when he closed companies or they didn't "get better". But as a CEO of the target company (which he never was) he created nothing. He spent money and hoped.

I'm as sure that this gives him the insight to run the business of the United States just as sure as the little boy who surveys the pile of crap in the living room and concludes that there must be a pony in there somewhere.

Bucket List

2012-01-11T09:43:00.000-05:00

I'm scared to death of heights to the point that a ladder gives me the willies. Not something I can do anything about and in my twilight years not something that I'm interested in changing.

That brings me to a little note that I received in my email this morning about in 1908, on this day, Teddy Roosevelt conferred national monument status to the Grand Canyon. It couldn't have been named outright as a "national park" as Arizona, where most of the canyon rests, wasn't a state until 1912, some four years later. All trivia aside, the canyon is on my bucket list, heights and all.
Like so many in my age group, the old Walt Disney show on Sunday night gave me my first view of this place - Winston Hibbler was the announcer and we took a plane ride under the rim of the canyon that was, on a 14" black and white, some pumpkins. My real picture of the area came from music. I still have the LP 33-1/3 with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy of Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite.

Musical descriptions of places, stories, rivers etc. are generically called "tone poems" and music history is chock full of them. Composers painted with melody and harmony as assuredly as painters with oil and brush. It is just a little more abstract and relies on a canvas in the mind rather on the wall over the sofa.

Anyway, I want to go to this place before I die or can't navigate the walkways and see if it is as clear in person as it is in my mind's eye.

Beached Whales

2012-01-08T11:45:00.000-05:00

Many of us pretty much lost interest in Newt when he wandered into his first or second wife's hospital room, during her cancer fight, and announced that there was someone else for him and she need not come home; divorce papers in the morning.

We are pretty sure that Newt's rise and subsequent fall was a lot owning to the Romney PAC's attack ads but it is pretty senseless to blame the truth for one's demise. There is that thing called reality.

Romney is no bargain either. Some may call him a gutless flipflopper; a charitable view to be sure. He never had an ounce of connection to the "common guy". He was an "elite" in Michigan growing up - daddy growing up as governor, rich beyond use for the money, preppy and coddled. If you didn't or don't know Cranbrook, its a prep school like Exeter or Choate - the Michigan version and that, along with wealth and Bloomfield Hills upbringing took him out of touch with the common folk at about age 12.

I met Wilton while in HS at a statewide meeting of those high schoolers who were part of the student groups who liasoned with local government. Bay City's contingent went to Lansing for a weekend thing. We were generally middle class, from a middle class background and a middle class city. When the hotsietots from Bloomfield arrived they just moved to the podium area and sat down - just like that. Being somewhat full of myself as well, I organized a few other chairmen from our area and we marched up there and told them to bugger off until there was an election of sorts to see who would chair this thing.

Wilton had a name tag "Romney" - not Mitt - and security as his daddy was governor. We were blocked by these blokes from asking the question "What do you think you are doing?". It was a good question now as it was then and Wilton still doesn't have an answer. Witness his dismemberment of Newt.

What we don't get and Newt doesn't get is this isn't personal or about what Newt says, believes, exposes, trumpets, or anything. This is about the Divine Right of Kings - Wilton assumes his place rather than putting anything forth other than name, wealth and hubris. Newt is merely the latest whale that needs to be beached...not that he doesn't deserve it.

I believe that this is what I find most irksome about this republican gaggle - their though that they are entitled - something they received at birth or conception, and behaving like a garden slug isn't of much importance as contemplating their lack of substance would simply waste time; take away from their Divine mission so to speak.

So now Newt has a 5 million dollar donation to his support PAC to kinda see him through - although all the New Hampshire TV time has long ago been bought so it goes to S. Carolina where the population is basically so bad off they might buy into his brand of swill.

Perhaps better that then the Cranbrook Dandy's load of manure but that's for another day.

The gentleness of song

2012-01-04T15:46:00.001-05:00

I posted this music (at the end of this entry) a few times over the years for no other reason than "just because". It is a personal "yardstick" against which is measured something beautiful in song....the melody, the accompaniment, orchestration, singing voice, expressiveness .. all those things we think about (we all do this different) and helps us find something we can hear over and over without it ever growing stale. It keeps things in balance; a yin to life's yangs.

We practice a lot of mischief in our lives. Perhaps by complexity or by sensory overload. It keeps us from focusing and staying within the dotted lines. Running around all the time gets us out of phase and removes us from those things that put perspective in our outputs.

We write this because we did some work today that was fairly elegant so we thought..somewhat breathtaking in its simple solutions and caused us to swell up (puff up is more like it) with pride; a blowfish of sorts and now, an hour later, after hearing this piece on an Internet radio station and being snapped like a whip back to the reality of mediocrity, we realized that our yardstick - our ruler - was misplaced somewhere and instead of finding it, we just made one up and measured our latest output against it. Horrors!

silence

2012-01-02T11:45:00.001-05:00

Well, we were cast into electronic darkness about 4:15 this morning as someone bashed into a telephone pole and knocked out electricity to roughly half the town. The only alarm clock that went off was the one in the head - the habitual one that is tied to the cat's tail (tale?) and his "feed me now" button.

Instead of that first cup of coffee in front of CNBC or MSNBC it was light a fire and enjoy the silence. Everything was immediately put on hold, this blog, 8 other blogs, tons of webwork to do, code to code even, and everything was impossible. Think of that. Everything that was supposed to be done was inside a metal box with a normal green light now unlit.

There was a fair wind this morning and easily heard above the silence of a normally electric household now silent. The fireplace crackled and loud enough one could hear it everywhere as well as the occasional chirp of birds now given an opportunity to be heard above electronic dins.

Some 50 years back, my father bundled up my brother and me and took us to Canada fishing, flying in, the whole deal. To be honest, my brother and I didn't nor ever get along and 4 days in a cabin and then a boat on a lake with zero other alternatives wasn't what I would call fun. The lake was pretty big, 40 miles or so long and at that time the only boats on it came from this camp, so maybe 8 total, therefore left pretty much alone. We would motor up about 20 miles to some really rocky points and catch walleyed pike like crazy, put ashore, build a fire and fry a fish or two right there and fish some more and head back to camp for dinner. If it was still enough (often the case) you could hear the 5pm dinner bell inviting us all back to camp as it would carry across the water for miles and there was no sound - absolutely no sound - other than what you personally made. The silence in our boat was deafening.

This morning was like that to a degree. What should have been a bustle of coffee pots, scrambled eggs and fingers clicking on a keyboard; Internet radio in the background and shifting around in a chair was replaced by wind in leaf-vacant trees and crackling wood in the fireplace and whatever sound we chose to make.

I can hear that lake to this day. I really can. After a few days of that wilderness silence, the lapping of small waves against the side of the boat, everyone sitting still to begin with so not to scare the fish - as if they had any idea anyway - well, you remember that. 50 years from now I will remember the silence of this morning, so quiet I could hear the cat purr in the other room as he found his spot in front of the crackling fire. .. kinda now wishing the electricity had stayed off for a few more hours.

Same silence.

Have a dazzling New Year

2012-01-01T11:53:00.000-05:00

New Year's Eve is approaching

2011-12-29T19:44:00.000-05:00

As if I had to tell you that. I was trying to remember the first New Year's Eve that I could remember and simply there was one in Cincinnati, Ohio in the' middle 50s. We had just moved into the first home my parents actually purchased instead of renting and they went to Michigan for New Year's Eve as my dad had been transferred and they hadn't told us yet - so why they were at the Winona Hotel in Bay City Michigan calling us was a mystery to us and a grand plan to them.

The hotel, until it burned down, sat on Water Street overlooking the Saginaw River and it was old when it was young. Barber shop on the first floor, a few dingy guest shops for toothpaste and sundries, and a fish fry on Saturday night, come one come all. The deal was that my dad was going first to Grand Rapids for half a year and we were following him a year from that March so I was 10 and then on to Bay City after another half year. My older brother was drinking Mogan David wine from the refrig in the kitchen and WLW as broadcasting horror flicks...all that I remember. TW 20754 was our phone and it rang with my mom and dad on a lobby Hotel Wenona with a polka in the background pretty near midnight and that was that.

I suppose that was the first NYE I can recall. I led a very sheltered life.

Merry, Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T09:15:00.000-05:00

Botticelli

2011-12-23T08:34:00.000-05:00

This nifty little painting (actually pretty big painting) is/was by Sandro Botticelli and titled "The Adoration of the Magi". The Three Kings and the Christ Child. That fellow on the far right in the gold robe is Botticelli and about 1/6th of the way in there is a guy in a pale blue robe and white hair looking out at us - the fella who commissioned the work, a banker named Del Lama is also somewhat surrounded by the Medici family living and dead scatter about in the work. It is full of symbolism as one would expect - the crumbling structures of the past and the simple wood structure over the Christchild.

Ever wonder where the name Kris Kringle comes from? The Miracle on 34th Street Kris? It's pretty easy actually. Christ Child. Christ Kinderling. Kris Kinder, Kris Kringle.

Anyway, I love the painting and wanted to share it with you here as there was a terrific piece of music written by an Italian composer Resphigi nearly 100 years ago call "Three Botticelli Portraits" one of the three being the Adoration. I just heard it on the radio.

A couple days to go. Shop 'til you drop.

$1.87

2011-12-21T22:47:00.002-05:00

I really like this part of Advent - when we step aside a bit and recognize that more than one great religion has an observance and there is room for everyone in this little ship of state.I get tired of the War on Christmas nonsense. Our Village had a lighting of the menorah the other night and it was in a Village full of lights - both for Hanukkah and Christmas and from a mile up there isn't a whit of difference....actually you can get a lot closer.

Anyway, enough of my rant, I just think of the "We Three Kings..." song...you know..star of wonder star of light...westward leading...and then I think of the O'Henry short story. Here it is. Kids might get something from it as well. Night.

Also Sprach Zarathustra

2011-12-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

Our Fire Department has a new sign. It appeared the other day as if dropped from space and frankly gives a little modernity to the Village for save some little blinky illuminated signs on the outskirts, there just aren't any. Today it is all black. A true monolith.

This must have looked like some black magic if it had appeared a while back in our village history. We are pretty sure the early settlers would have come across it with the same curiosity, fear and awe that the ape men did in 2001 A Space Odyssey when they ran smack into the obelisk. In taking a little tour today, we think that this sign is the only one in town that gives the time and temperature readable at a distance.

There was more of a bit of a howl in the Village regarding this sign. It was apparently donated but that somehow doesn't register - as in what part of donation isn't understood - but for better or worse there it is, and we know the time and temperature with a little holiday greeting tossed in to boot. There is of course a neon sign ordinance floating around and some have assigned this sign "neon" status. We want to rush out and buy a copy of the periodic table but what would be the sense in that. Just good money after bad. Alas, there is a building code and this monolith appears to have broken it seven ways from Sunday.

We have a memory of a sign sitting at the far end of a downtown street when I was growing up. It replaced the clock or was added to the clock at the old Peoples National Bank building in Bay City. It seemed to always be snowing this time of year and a clock face was out of the question and the little thermometer that hung outside Twentieth Century Cleaners on Main Street was out of the way and we always thought it was colder than it register or hotter depending on the season. It was a reassurance driving into town during a heavy snow to see that bank sign emerge from the flakes - a beacon as sure as the lighthouses that surround us.

There seems to be something uplifting about all this and in a year it will be hard to imagine the Village won't find it a centerpiece - a crown jewel of the new age. Now that it is dark, perhaps a generation from now, as it was surely built to last the ages, folks will wander by, stop and look in amazement, and gasp of the implications of "codes".

Crowds will gather - no doubt about it.

Snowball Fight

2011-12-18T14:22:00.001-05:00

For the past 3 years I've trotted out this little bon bon and now am beginning to see it here and there on other blogs.

Bet you can't play it just once.

A bit of a rough patch

2011-12-18T01:16:00.000-05:00

One of our very best friends is going through a rough patch right now - not unlike probably millions of us - and of course our thoughts are out there in support. We think our friend knows that.

I mention this as the moon just rose up enough to expose that bottom crescent and there is enough mist in the air to blurr it a bit. We will wait for it to get a bit higher but at 1am, it had better hurry up as my eyes are starting to go. Not to get too maudlin about things, thinking about my friend and all, but I suppose that things like the moon rising lends a certain stability to things - feast or famine, war or peace, like Hemingway's sun, the moon always rises if we see it or not and unlike the sun it rises a different way with a different look for a month and then starts it over again in case you missed it the first time.

Point is that there are things that are constants although nuanced like our moon and they not only measure out time but remind us that tomorrow will be different than today and that is the natural order of it.

Looking past the moon, we wonder what else is out there seen and unseen, just past our nearsighted abilities, that would or could make our rough patches a little less ...well...rough.

Friday night is fast approaching

2011-12-16T15:04:00.000-05:00

End of a week. Half way through a month full of fun and stress. Half a dozen days left until the shortest day of the year. A couple weeks until New Year's time. 2 hours until sunset.

We like sunsets a lot. Grandkids are on the way for dinner.

Mid-day Lullaby

2011-12-14T13:41:00.002-05:00

Lullaby - something we think about as a soothing song sung to children to help them sleep. But let's take a look at that sentence and generalize it a bit to a song sung to create a peaceful mood and then replace 'peaceful' with gentle or safe/protected...you see where I'm going?

Lullabies don't have to be with words but they can be - but it is the protective mood thing that is conveyed however the method and that is the journey. Here are four of them, all meeting the criteria of a "song sung to" to with the idea of comfort. Perhaps that is why they are so welcome during a stressful day.

See if you like any of them....my treat.