Friday, July 4, 2008
Paintings from France
In one of those fortuitous click-throughs that happens when browsing blogs, I came upon Postcard from Provence. This amazing site is Julian Merrow-Smith's daily painting diary. He paints pottery, natural objects, found treasures, landscapes, etc. near his home in the South of France. His work is really lovely, a style you don't see much any more. His paintings are for sale by auction on the site (clever idea!).

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 12:24 AM

Thursday, July 3, 2008
Passing it on
Passing it on from D.S. and with thanks also to Rene's Apple whence it originated: Sergei Nakariakov, playing Bach's "Air on the G String", on fluegelhorn.



One of my favorite pieces and so beautifully played. Have a wonderful day.

Update. Here's a 7+ minute clip of him playing part one of Mozart's KV495 for horn and orchestra. It's as mellow as the Bach but longer. And it's astonishing to hear a flugglehorn so beautiful, for those of us who remember it from jokes more than beauty.

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Permalink | 1 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:22 AM

Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Superb websites
Time magazine has compiled a list of 50 fabulous websites. I liked them all especially these:

Gas Buddy (time-tested and VERY helpful)
Howcast (much better than others like it)
Itotallylikeloveit (this is a delight)
Omiru (amazing, fun and useful)
Wikitravel (I basically am not a fan of wikis (topic for another day) but this is terrific)
Health.com (much better tone and therefore more useful (to me anyway) than the others)
Serious eats (Mario Vitali and lots of interesting stuff)
Mapjack (digital mapping made fun and visually appealing)
Mint (financial planning/scheduling made fun)
Nymbler (names made wild and crazy)
Picnik (photo editing gone easy as well as wild and crazy)
SearchMe (results of searching moving to a new level)
Someecards (not your average card shop, not even average e-card shop)
WebSudoku (no need for explanations)
CarbonRally (either silly or awesome, not sure yet)
Colourlovers (awesome)
FreeRice (tons of fun, instructional AND worthwhile, all in one!)
Kiva - and some others (personal loaning sites, very interesting and useful)
Petfinder (holy cow, I mean mackerel, I mean . . .)

Enjoy!!

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Permalink | 1 comment(s) | posted by jau at 5:56 PM

Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Toddler care
Here's a little essay (here) that I think will make you laugh out loud if you've been anywhere near toddlers and/or their parents for more than a few minutes.

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Permalink | 1 comment(s) | posted by jau at 5:33 PM

Sunday, December 23, 2007
Keep tabs on Santa
Don't forget - beginning at 2 a.m. Mountain Time tomorrow morning (12/24), you can find out where Santa is, thanks to Norad. Click here to watch. What a whimsical lovely thing.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 3:32 PM

Thursday, July 19, 2007
Democracy <-?-> Republic
Following up on my "GWB" post the other day as well as its germane comments, take a look at "Protection from the tyranny of democracy and republicanism," written the same day as mine, amazingly (must've been something in the air that day, eh?) (grateful h/t CRR* Tatyana). That blog is a terrific addition to my must-reads, for one thing, and, for another, the article makes good points about democracies and republics (both upper- and lower-case) and, in particular, about the American constitution.

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Permalink | 5 comment(s) | posted by jau at 2:53 PM

Sunday, June 25, 2006
great links
-Fabulous idea! I sure want to do it, but will I?! (HT: Spiced Sass)
-A terrific photo. Gorgeous or what?
-Read this. I think I agree with him. Do you?

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 10:55 AM

Saturday, June 10, 2006
pro-how-ci-a-tion
Referred there by Blue Tea (a terrific blog, by the way), I perused the "Beastly mispronounciations" page and was delighted even though it didn't include two of my personal favorites: thee-AYE-ter (theater) and sup-POZ-ub-ly (supposedly).

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:29 AM

Saturday, June 3, 2006
don't miss
Since this apparently is a linkage day, here are some not to miss:

-An engrossing post about and from a Princeton grad now serving in Iraq, from Powerline. (Update: the PL link may not work for you, so here is a copy albeit w/o photos.)
-Maggie's Farm's 'Saturday Verse', by by William Carlos Williams, deliverer of over three thousand babies (!) and 1950 poetry National Book Award Winner.
-Also from Maggie's Farm, a provocative piece on climate change. By the way, have you noticed that the MSM is now using the phrase "climate change" instead of "global warming"? Should we draw any conclusions from that?
-Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
-Three novel, well-written, interesting cat blogs - yes, I said cat blogs: ferdinand t.cat, tacjammer and catymology.

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Permalink | 6 comment(s) | posted by jau at 3:49 PM

Tuesday, May 30, 2006
cool news
Very cool new news site. Wrong map of England and more sports news than I need, but that's just me. Awesome idea. Hat tip: A Sweet, Familiar Dissonance.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 3:10 PM

Monday, May 29, 2006
memorial day - more thoughts
-events today in Washington, DC.
-3:00 p.m. the national moment of silence in remembrance
Seablogger recommends Christopher Hitchens' reflection on Memorial Day. Furthermore, Alan Sullivan's own post this morning is thought-provoking on several fronts - his father, Abraham Lincoln, George Bush, the Civil War, Saddam Hussein, to name but a few. Don't miss either.

Everett Alvarez was the first American p.o.w. in Vietnam. His book, Chained Eagle, details his experiences as a p.o.w. in Vietnam from August 5, 1964 until February 1973. C-Span broadcast his recent appearance at the Library of Congress and what an upbeat, humorous, somewhat wise man he is. May we all accept and learn from our own travails as he has.

The President delivered a rousing and thoughtul commencement address at West Point on Saturday.

DADvocate writes affectingly about his former landlord and WWII veteran, Tex McDonald.

George Washington's granddaughter was married to Robert E. Lee, the eventual leader of the Confederate Army; Lee refused a commission to the Union Army saying he couldn't possibly fight against his beloved State of Virginia; during the Civil War, the US government (the 'North') appropriated Lee's wife's 11,000 acres and home in Arlington because they wanted to bury soldiers there; although Mary Lee died before she made a decision about what to do, her son sued the government for unlawful seizure; the Supreme Court ruled in his favor and awarded him a significant amount of money; he promptly deeded the land back to the US for burying soldiers and others. PBS last evening re-aired the National Geographic's portrait of Arlington National Cemetery and it is being aired around the country today, as well, at various times. If only for the details about the intense training of the amazing guards, it's more than worth watching. Both historically and emotionally engrossing, it is another fascinating and complex piece of our story.

Via Dadvocate, GM's Corner with some marvelous photos and all of Rudyard Kipling's poem, Tommy.

DevraDoWrite's reprise of a wonderful essay about Taps.
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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 8:28 AM

Sunday, May 7, 2006
h is for happy
I love to knit and crochet, am beginning to love weaving (under the tutelage of Peg at Expressive Weaving in Cornwall), and occasionally work quite obsessively while immersed in a project. But when it comes to the final tucking in of all the yarn ends or sewing the last seam or filling the pillow, I'm oddly lackadaisical (resistant?). So Iam very happy to report that last week I finished and sent off two projects: (1) my lovely daughter-in-law's birthday spring-weight poncho in Rowan summer tweed (the color is 'raffia' though it's more taupe and green than the photo shows) and (2) a no-particular-reason kimono-style sweater for which I found the cutest buttons at Yarn Central in Hopewell Junction. I designed the poncho with two panels in a left-and-right slightly twisting trellis lace and two panels in feather-and-fan, so it looks ok with any panel front, back or sideways, and giving the bottom edge a pleasant curve. Next I'll try it in a lighter yarn and see how that looks.

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Permalink | 2 comment(s) | posted by jau at 3:29 PM

who knew?
Marilyn Johnson's "Dead Beat" showcases many of the world's wonderfully fascinating, hilarious, fabulously informative obituary writers. I learned about the book in an appealing interview conducted by Washington Post obit staffer writer, Adam Bernstein. I checked out her website only to learn that there is an association for people who write and/or enjoy obituaries. What was a bit more surprising is learning of their upcoming annual meeting in Las Vegas in June, the website for which begins by saying that "[i]f you are a journalist, a historian, a genealogist, an anthropologist , a mystery writer, a journalism educator, a hospice provider, a funeral industry professional or an aficionado of the obituary, this conference is for you." I suppose none of this should surprise me since I have long known that obits are unmatchable and extraordinary resources. It is a always joy to learn about the amazing human beings who shape the world, from wars to books to playdoh to shopping malls to tweezers.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 11:17 AM

Tuesday, May 2, 2006
homeschooling: microscope contest
A very cool contest is taking place on one of the interesting schooling blogs:
Spunky is giving away a Benz Microscope and Apologia Biology Set this week. Click here to get the details.
I highly recommend Spunky just for reading, anyway, but this makes a visit next to mandatory although words like "mandatory" are probably being expunged from educational dictionaries everywhere. (Two others very worth perusing are Why Homeschool and Homeschool Alumni.) Spunky's enthusiasm about learning is so infectious that, after reading her for a while, I often find myself wondering where I could find someone who would let me teach.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 4:25 PM

Friday, April 14, 2006
writing
Article by Catherine Keenan in the Sydney (Australia) paper was alluring because it purported to be about writer's block. Although it is interesting, it's actually an essay about a handful of great writers who never wrote much more after their great work. (Harper Lee, Truman Capote, F.Scott FitzGerald, and some others.) Perhaps geniuses write as long as their muses send messages, and the rest of us just plug away as at a trade.
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Permalink | 1 comment(s) | posted by jau at 10:45 AM

Wednesday, April 12, 2006
linkage
Some interesting, if unrelated, links with which I do not necessarily agree but do find stimulating and thought-provoking:
--Our Literature of Extremes by Jeffrey Hart, a professor of English at Dartmouth
--Iranian Bomb Scare on the WSJ opinion page today
--many of the stories on the front page of Arts & Letters Daily (I must be in a tolerant mood)
--Rudolph Vrba's obituary - an enthrallingly adventureous and courageous man
--article in the NY Sun about Massachusetts' new health bill which is either fabulous and the beginning of sanity or horrible and the beginning of the end of life as we know it, depending on who you hear and/or listen to
T-t-t-t-that's all, folks, for now.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 1:01 PM

Saturday, April 8, 2006
oh boy
You want to read something that makes you react on nearly every level to nearly every paragraph? Here you go - Robin Givhan's Washington Post column on Rep. Cynthia McKinney's hair. Agree, disagree, hate it, love it? Read it, scream, weep, yell . . . and tell me what you think.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:26 AM

Saturday, March 18, 2006
backing up, etc.
In light of the near disaster that hit Betsy's Page and Viking Pundit and a few others the last few days (read about it here (Betsy's post), here, here and here), I decided to put myself through the backup process that Blogger outlines. Backing up the template is just a matter of copying so that's peachy but backing up the posts is a lot less slick. The good news is that the posts backup works, in the sense that all the text is now preserved. The bad news is that it's preserved in a plain old text file so it would have to be copied it back post-by-post. Ugh. On the other hand, the basic good news is that the posts do exist separately from the blog now.

According to Viking Pundit, he was eventually informed that "[his] blog was automatically deleted by Blogger as part of the “automated spam prevention system. How I fell into this category, I have no idea since I have no blogads, backtracks or other things beyond text and some picture links." Brother! I mean, granting that Blogger is free, I still have to believe that Google makes money from it somehow or they wouldn't leave it out here for millions of us to use and keep using, especially considering that they actually stopped providing a fee-based version. Anyway, Blogger really needs to come up with a way to provide full backups if they're really needed. And to be more human-being responsive.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 8:44 AM

Friday, March 17, 2006
keith and carolyn maupin
There is a dinner dance being held in Batavia, Ohio on April 9th that will commemorate the life of Army Specialist Keith "Matt" Maupin, who was captured and almost certainly killed in Iraq in 2004. Because he is the only U.S. soldier in Iraq who is unaccounted for, there is an entry about him in Wikipedia. Matt's grieving and sad parents have nonetheless set up a scholarship fund that raises money for schools attended by soldiers serving in Iraq. The festivities next month at the Oasis Country Club near Loveland, Ohio, will raise money for the April 9th Scholarship Fund. Those of us/you who are interested in the dance or adding to the Fund can do so at Fifth Third Bank or by calling (513) 752-4310 which is the number for the Yellow Ribbon Support Center. The national media is unbelievably remiss and should be loudly recognizing, honoring and publicizing
the dignified, honorable actions of a couple still able to give and share with others despite their personal tragedy.
(Quotation from, and hat tip and effusive thanks to, dadvocate.) By the way, the Yellow Ribbon Support Center, also founded by the Maupins, collects and sends non-perishable and personal items as well as 'care packages' to military personnel serving abroad. Take a moment to think about the Maupin's strength, courage, energy and willingness to support others - they are amazing and inspiring, and deserve our support and respect.

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Permalink | 1 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:08 AM

Saturday, February 18, 2006
c is for complimenting
One of my favorite ideas is the Complimenting Complimenter. The idea is saying nice things to people, some of whom you know and some of whom you don't know. There's a list of birthdays to which one can add oneself and even get nice wishes by email. Kind, delightful, lovely.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 1:44 PM