at the lake with friends
swimming, floating, slow boating, lolling around
we encounter this merry band on shore
you never know who you will run across
when out to sea
best to make quick friends of them.
—
‘the circus arrives without warning.’
-erin morgenstern
—
irish hills, michigan, usa – summer 2024
(not me, or my hair stylist, but similar to our interaction)
—
while getting my hair cut
i had a great conversation
with my stylist
who is 20 something-ish
while i am at least 20 x 3-ish
we shared our stories
she has not had an easy life
one of four children
raised by a single mother
who always worked hard to provide for them
my stylist also worked hard
got her social work degree
wants to go to grad school
before she practices her craft
lives with her loving and supportive boyfriend
yet understands
because of how she grew up
that you always need
to be able to provide for yourself
no matter what
she learned to do hair as a back-up skill
to use as needed
but her real gift
was her kindness and the way she interacted
as a listener, without judgment
in telling her own story
with understanding and honesty
obvious compassion
life wisdom beyond her age
lots of laughter, a few tears, and happy smiles later
i had the benefit of a great haircut and therapy at the same time
she will be brilliant in what she does after grad school
and may not realize that she is already a full practitioner.
—
“the kindest people do not just exist —
they choose to soften where circumstance has tried to harden them,
they choose to believe in goodness,
because they have seen firsthand why compassion is so necessary.”
– bianc sparacino
—
image credit: google images
Almost Evening by Japanese artist, Kaoru Yamada
—
while the early morning hours are my favorite time of day
the change to evening holds its own special magic
as the day folds into itself once again.
—
‘the evening had turned sweet and blue.’
-alice hoffman
Johann Bach is remembered as one of the world’s greatest composers, known for orchestral compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos. But one of Bach’s lesser-known works is Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht (“Be Still, Stop Chattering”) — a humorous ode to coffee popularly known as the Coffee Canata. Written sometime in the 1730s, Bach’s mini comic opera makes light of fears at the time that coffee was an immoral beverage entirely unfit for consumption. In the 18th century, coffee shops in Europe were known to be boisterous places of conversation, unchaperoned meeting places for young romantics, and the birthplaces of political plots. A reported lover of coffee, Bach wrote a 10-movement piece that pokes fun at the uproar over coffee. The opera tells the story of a father attempting to persuade his daughter to give up her coffee addiction so that she might get married, but in the end, she just becomes a coffee-imbibing bride.
“If I couldn’t three times a day,
be allowed to drink my little cup of coffee, in my anguish,
I will turn into a shriveled-up roast goat.“
-Johann Sebastian Bach
*thank you for putting this to music, johann, i feel the same.
—
source credits: interesting facts, flypaper, wikipedia, etsy mug
a bit confusing, like these leaves seem to be,
showing the colors of two seasons
—
listening to npr
they talked about starbuck’s
starting the pumpkin spice train
a month earlier this year
pumpkin spice everything = fall/autumn
i don’t remember the calendar saying
that fall begins in august
the seasons/holidays/calendar
shift with the world of marketing
not with the weather (90F) recently
or dates
but by creating their own
‘extended seasons and festivities’
people get excited early
start the buying frenzy
happy summerween
i’m holding out for my favorite real season – fall.
—
‘the seasons change their manners, as the year had found some months asleep and leapt them over.’
-william shakespeare
here is a partial transcript of the npr conversation:
KIM: Summerween is that time of the year when major retailers start to promote all things sweater weather, even though shorts and flip-flops are still in season. George John is a marketing professor at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. He says it’s been a trend for a while now.
JOHN: This is the trend of moving up Christmas and Thanksgiving and Halloween, the three big sort of seasons that run into each other, earlier and earlier and earlier.
KIM: But this year, fall- and Halloween-related goods seem to be popping up sooner than ever. Take Home Depot, for instance. The retailer launched an online Halloween campaign in April. In June, Lowe’s, Party City and Michaels all released spooky seasonal items online, earlier than in previous years. Most recently, on Thursday, Starbucks began serving its iconic pumpkin spice latte on August 22, the coffee chain’s earliest rollout yet. Most of the big businesses say that these early rollouts are in response to excitement from consumers.
JOHN: if they just stretch every darn holiday out to being a season, it just loses its meaning, and it loses its intensity. A risk they are willing to take.
—
Source credits: Juliana Kim, NPR News, George John, University of Minnesota
(not me, but similar to me yesterday, surrendering to life)
—
my plan was to do a lot of nothing
but the universe wasn’t having it
with a surprise leak in my house
and a
‘microwave food explosion incident’
it wasn’t meant to be
but
onward
today is another day
so far, so good
as most of the world is not yet awake.
—
“there’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.”
*bill waterson
*William Boyd Watterson II is an American cartoonist who authored the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. The strip was syndicated from 1985 to 1995. Watterson concluded Calvin and Hobbes with a short statement to newspaper editors and his readers that he felt he had achieved all he could in the medium.
—
image credit: cbs news
totally kid carousel
A Carousel Of Visions;Artist Brings the Fantasies Of Children to Magical Life
Artistic acclaim came early to Milo Mottola. When he was 8, his drawing of menacing tooth film with the slogan “Plaque is mean, so keep teeth clean” was such a hit it won him a $50 savings bond from a dental group and was made into a poster. Nearly 25 years later, Mr. Mottola, an artist who lives in Long Island City, Queens, NY, decided to try to find a way to give other children that same dizzy excitement and spark of confidence, without all those dentists.
What could be better, he thought, than asking children to draw the animals they would like to ride on a carousel — and then to make that carousel, carving the animals exactly as the children drew them? I wanted it to be as magical as the children who ride it,” said Mr. Mottola, who, in an echo of his own past, gave each child whose animal was chosen a $50 savings bond, and a lifetime of free rides on the carousel.
Above each animal, Mr. Mottola displayed the child’s original drawing, and on the floor beneath each animal, he carved the child’s signature. “I wanted the winners to have something that will last forever, where they can someday take their husbands and wives and say ‘I did this.’ “
The carousel is on permanent display in Riverbank State Park, the 28-acre park built three years ago atop a sewage treatment plant between West 137th and West 145th Streets in Harlem.
“improvisation, writing, painting, invention—all creative acts—are forms of play,
the starting place of creativity in the human growth cycle, one of the great primal life functions.”
— stephen nachmanovitch, Free Play
—
Source Credits: Pam Belluck, Milo Mottola, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Percent for Art Program
Material: steel (alloy), wood, fiberglass
Address:679 Riverside Dr, New York, 10031, USA
i have always been drawn to legends, fables, myths, and folk and fairy tales
and also have a love of tiny things
that is how this tiny painted ceramic rooster
came to travel home with me from portugal
not much bigger than a coin
but a mighty symbol
its presence is deeply intertwined with portuguese culture,
symbolizing the values of integrity, righteousness, and the pursuit of justice.
—
the tale that started it all:
==
‘asleep in the legends of old.’
-John Keats, from The Feast of St. Agnes
In the 1990s U.S. sitcom Seinfeld, Elaine’s first apartment is shown furnished in kitschy style, cluttered with bric-a-brac, including a rooster of Barcelos.
source credits: rooster camisa, we are portugal
tchau to the views
tchau to the cork trees
tchau to the interesting people
tchau to the special treats
bienvenue to montreal, canada
where my very kind pilot
comforted a young boy
tired after his long travels
waiting to board our busy flight
bon voyage to montreal, heading home to the states soon.
hello to this happy crew in the baggage claim in detroit!
now it feels like home.
—
‘home is where all of your attempts to escape, cease.’
-naguib mshgouz
moving around portugal
from the train station
by boats of all kinds
by bicycle
with friends
softly like our hotel cat
adorned with beautiful ribbons
with colors in the gardens, so full of life.
—
“the joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences,
and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon,
for each day to have a new and different sun.”
-chris mccandless
I didn't have my glasses on.... 