Linda has been showing some terrific photos of Paris recently as she strolls around and looks at all kinds of things. The Art Deco grate cover in the shape of a butterfly is oh-so-Parisian and quite lovely. I often recommend checking her out but now is particularly good because it's a clear reminder that beauty for both eye and soul can and do and will persist.

Labels: blogs (others'), photos, places

1.  The glassy surface on the Hudson River between incoming and outgoing tides is so startling even though we see it fairly often.  Trees and structures on the other side of the river are reflected like a painting or like that fantastic K-Mart advertisement after 9-11 that showed the towers as reflections in the river . . . but absent from the shoreline.

2.  In the elevator this morning an office acquaintance asked if I had any new photos of t2cgitw and when I said yes she got off at my floor to come look at them.  Generous interest in others is rare and surprising and appreciated.  I must learn to do it more because I am actually interested but often worry that it will annoy people when, in fact, I know quite the opposite from my own experience.

3.  Sitting on my front porch on my slatted porch swing on a sunny day, looking at the bright green leaves and the blue sky beyond, waving at people as they walked by and waved and smiled. . . .

(H/T Kellogg Bloggin')

Labels: blogs (others'), people, places

It's Fair week again! Yay!!

One of my friends has gone to it every year since he moved
to the area, almost forty years ago. It's a total obsession
with many people - the turkey sandwiches, the cows and
sheep, the bunny pavilion, the poultry building, the old farm
implements, the petting zoo, the funnel cakes, etc., etc.

The Dutchess County Fair does in fact have a reputation as
one of the best county fairs in the country. It's superb if you
like these kinds of things. My kids and their kids come to
the Fair every year even though sometimes Johnny forgets
to buy them blue ribbons (heh).

Labels: places, things to do

(How come the NY Post hasn't used "Georgia on my mind" for a headline? If I've thought of it, for sure they have. Does it sound disrespectful? I don't mean it to. Also, I've put this aside in George typeface just to amuse myself and any other typeface fans. Ah the advantages of being under (over? behind? in front of?) the msm radar.)

Charles Krauthammer has a detailed and reasonable article at Real Clear Politics on the so-called cease fire and what he thinks can be done non-militarily to improve things. All based on the idea that "We have cards. We should play them. Much is at stake." I continue to disagree with people, including him, who think Bush should have bolted from the Olympics when all this happened (I wrote about my reasoning yesterday) but I very much like his suggestion that the other seven members of the current G8 should withdraw on the grounds that Putin has defiled his legitimacy there. Krauthammer says the G7 should then be reformed and that Russia and/or its future permutation forever disallowed. I'm an eternal optimist and believe it is possible that Russia could become democratic but maybe I'm mistaken; it's completely irrelevant what I think anyway since I don't get any influence on it at all.

In a related matter, two little girls who were visiting their grandparents in Georgia (the Baltic one, not the U.S. east coast one) for the summer are apparently unable to return home because of the difficulties there at present. The parents appeared on a morning news show today. Why can't the girls leave? Are the borders locked down? Are things worse there than we have been told?

Labels: places, politics, ridiculousness, tv

I'm puzzled about everyone's reaction to the Russian / Georgian crisis. Not because of whatever the sovereignty issues are - those are serious and interesting but not the point for the moment - but because I don't understand the general tone of expectations about what the U.S. should do about it. I hear and read the U.S. government being chastised for not sending troops nor being publicly tough or loud about reprimanding Russia.

Is the real point simply that George Bush is always wrong? Betsy, with whom I often agree, wrote about Bush's "initially weak response to the Russian invasion of Georgia." He did criticize Russia's actions immediately in both a news conference and several interviews (I heard him). Can you imagine the outcry if Bush had sent troops immediately? And there wouldn't have been any point in sending humanitarian aid (which we are now sending) before knowing what's needed.

Betsy and others criticized also Bush for "enjoying some Olympics fun while Russian tanks rolled through Georgia" which seems awfully unfair. Everyone was yelling and screaming that he must go to the Olympics and support U.S. athletes. So I have to believe that if he'd run right out and scold the Russians with threats of troops or with actual troops, he'd have created a very distracting-from-the-Olympics incident which would have detracted very much from the athletes. Plus, it was entirely apparent he was doing diplomacy with both the Chinese and Putin, in person, since they were all there too. I'm quite sure we have no way of knowing or assessing what he was really doing or saying and to whom.

Back in the day Bush determined that Al Quaeda was being supported in Iraq and that therefore it would be possible to undermine the terrorists by sending troops and attacking them in Iraq. Only history will be able to judge that thought process and its correctness or incorrectness but many deemed it very wrong. This week Bush determined that the U.S. has no legal or moral standing to get militarily involved in a dispute between Russia and George and therefore that we had to exercise restraint and not send troops to Georgia and not even get involved immediately so they could sort it out themselves but many deemed that very wrong.

Involved then - bad . . . involved now - good. Why? It's not as if Saddam Hussein was a good guy to Putin's and Medvedev's bad guys; they're all varying degrees of totalitarians leaders of sovereign states and who the heck are we to intervene unless authoritatively requested or unless our own sovereignty is in jeopardy?

Our involvement in Iraq had at least a small - albeit very small - claim to justification by way of the explicit U.N. sanctions which Hussein flagrantly ignored. There is no such factual reason for us to become physically involved in Georgia. Wouldn't it simply be evangelism in the extreme?

Labels: places, reflections, warfare

No kidding. After all, what do you suppose the slingshot found in Sousa's car was for?

Labels: headlines, places, stupidity

Is there any difference between a woman having to wear a scarf in a Muslim country and women having to wear scarves and have their ankles covered in order to enter churches in Italy and France? When I travelled to Europe, we always brought scarves and slacks so we could visit cathedrals, regardless of our own religious or societal practices.

In that regard, there's an impassioned, interesting piece at Roger L. Simon today on the covering of women in Muslim countries. He is absolutely outraged that no so-called feminists (Jane Fonda, Rosie O'Donnell, etc.) have expressed outraged at the treatment of the British woman soldier being made to cover up and parade in front of cameras. My first reaction was to agree and be pleased that he spoke with such force. My second reaction is to wonder why it infuriates him so much that the woman in particular is being treated badly. For men, there is nothing as obvious about the demeaning attitude the captors have for them, but when the young man spoke about how wrong they had been, I believe it was every bit as difficult and certainly just as repellent.

I wholeheartedly agree that women going along with covering up may have been interpreted and seen as capitulation. Unfortunately we can't go back and refuse to do so. As a child and adult tourist, I hated wearing scarves and slacks because we "had" to and I felt it was not a mark of respect but a capitulation to irrational demands, a way of making us feel subject to their will rather than our own. I understood that tourists generally felt they should "be polite" but it didn't seem as if that was the point and I vehemently disagreed with it. Nonetheless. . . .

Anyway, I can't help but wonder where the outrage about Faye Turney's treatment is coming from. It seems sudden and larger than the provocation. There have been so many; why this? Is it a remnant of sexism (i.e. separatism), just in egalitarianism clothing? What do you think?

Labels: places, politics, reflections

In books about Paris or that are set there, mention is invariably made of one or another arrondissement. If one is thoroughly in the know, this is automatically informative because each area has its own persona just as do London's Soho and NYC's Tribeca and all the other named neighborhoods of those great cities. Arrondissments, however, are something of a mystery to non-Parisians. The entire city of Paris is quite walkable (40 square miles total (for perspective: San Francisco=47 sq.mi., Boston=89 and Manhattan=20)) and those cities' neighborhoods are all so distinctive, with their names helping to understand them. Paris' arrondissements' numbers tell nothing, however, so étrangers don't have much to go on. Now comes along the gracious proprietor of ParisDailyPhoto, who by the way does far more more on his blog than display a photo each day, and provides a succinct explanation:

Paris is divided into 20 districts called arrondissements, numbered from 1 to 20 in a clockwise spiral like an escargot (snail) starting from the centre (the île de la Cité and île Saint Louis). Each arrondissement has its own culture... I will come back to that one day!

Now I can't wait for his descriptions.

Labels: blogs (others'), france, places

1. Stepped off at present simple. Sporting two rather attractive blackbirds atop the banner, one seemingly pecking curiously at the other, it's written by "Badaunt" (bad aunt?) who says she's "from NZ, and now live[s] in Japan, teaching English to reluctant university students". Her tale today of visiting a Japanese hospital and learning about breast cysts. Like many of us, she decided to leave well enough alone, adding that "anyway, I'm thinking that if I grow these things big enough maybe one day I'll end up with cleavage!" Good luck with that. (I had horrible bronchitis one year and the doctor assured me I'd end up with a nice sexy gravelly voice. Ha.) Her tales of New Zealand and her ruminations on it, and on many other things, as well as her photos, make for a good visit. Besides, I have to love anyone who manages to write about doilies interestingly and ends up saying "I adored my grandma".

2. After trying three links that were dead, very old and dead, I hit on Letters from the Editter, described as "self-indulgent opinion pieces. Also an expat - logical, since birds of a feather probably do hang out together - Editter is in New Zealand where, one assumes, she is an editor plays riffs on her job. The header photo is a charming pile of big colorful letters, reminding me of the banquet in The Phantom Tollbooth when they eat their words. The photo tour of South Island is absolutely stunning and makes me want to buy a plane ticket right this second (except that it's one of ttcgitw's birthdays Saturday). Not sure if I like the sea photos or the four-leggeds better, though. She covers a wide range of observations, almost all of them hard to leave.

3. Next to petite anglaise, written by - you guessed it - another woman in Paris. Her story is startling (casual blog writer > fired for writing on her blog > front page story in U.K. newspaper) and her attractive blog definitely drew me in. Since one of her favorite books (she spells it 'favourite', of course) is by Enid Blyton, and since she lives in the center of Paris, I figured it had to be fun at least. Actually, it turns out to be terrifically written and another one of those blogs where you start reading and find yourself paging through lots of days' reports. I particularly like her dissertation on writing.

4. Thence to Le Blagueur à Paris, mostly because I like the name (a joker in Paris) whether or not one thinks it's oxymoronish. There are many amusing raconteur-like posts, all worth perusing. One is brought up rather short by a post about whether her blog's name should be feminine (la blagueuse) or masculine, as it is now, but be warned that there is a startling photo - one might even say it borders on pornographic - but it turns out that it's a Courbet and is in the Musée d'Orsay, so be offended if you want but accept that it's not what it seems at first. And it certainly gets a reader's attention. As do the food pictures (yum!) and comments about delicious things like galette de rois.

5. Final stop for today is The Paris Blog (hey, might as well make geography the common thread, right?). A "blog with Gaul" (get it?!), it's visually attractive (ecru background, simple graphics) and includes a sidebar with apartments to rent by the week or month, so this one has to be tagged, that's for sure. Turns out this blog is a group blog about life in Paris, written in English, and with more than two dozen contributors most of who are expats although a few apparently are French. Laurie is the blog's editor and she's doing a terrific job if my excitement means anything. It's been written up in the Wall St. Journal, This French Life, and even posted on about.com. The photos of various people and places, and the snippets of thoughts make it a grand guignol though without anything horrible happening. In particular, check out the post on ghost metro stations or the one on a new film about Edith Piaf or the hilarious short piece on nasalness in speaking French and English.

So that's our trip for today. It was very European and I'm dizzy from the quick rides, but it was fun. See you next week!

Labels: blogs (others'), france, places, reflections

Borrowing Laura's tag line ("tonight's movie"), with thanks. My Father the Hero is quite pleasant, with Gerard Depardieu as a divorced father taking his teenage daughter on vacation to the Bahamas. The story is a bit thin but nevertheless amusing. The boy-crazy daughter loves to stir up trouble to prove how clever she is, so she cooks up a scheme that includes pretending her father is her older lover. Her father finds out and because he really really wants to make his daughter happy, he plays along. The little game backfires when the other hotel guests become appalled and ostracize the 'child molester'. Needless to say, many mistaken ideas and silliness ensue. And although it kind of gets bogged down in its own conceits some of the time, two things raise My Father to B+ for me: one, the scenery - which is breath-takingly extraordinary and really a silent character what with a glorious moon and hotel rooms literally beside the stunning blue-green water, and two, actors who infuse mediocre dialogue with their considerable skill and raise the quality all by themselves (that would be mainly Depardieu, Emma Thompson and Katherine Heigle (now quite the "it" girl on Grey's Anatomy)). It's also interesting how thoroughly descriptions can differ - one here, another here. I recommend this for light relaxed viewing.

Labels: movies, places, writing

1. First stop, one of the outstanding Oklahoman blogs, incurable insomniac. This is a gorgeous site, all slick and sophisticated, designed by one Michael Martine, yet totally navigable and accessible. Plus, one of those mood widgets stares you in the face, right off. The author is a music enthusiast - witness the many links to Mozart and other composers and musicians. Although mainly about cooking, traveling, literature and the aforementioned music, there are also many generally interesting comments on tons of subjects. Apparently her Mozartfluegl was the impetus for her being at a recent film festival in Spokane, Wash. and maybe we'll even get to see it one of these days. Check out Wednesday's discussion of the festival - what fun! - and the utterly sumptuous pictures of the Davenport Hotel - holy cow! wait til you see the place.

2. On to Man About Mayfair, selected because I love Mayfair in London. Turns out the blog is not unrelated in that it's about literary and fashion style as best represented by Mayfair with a bit of Bloomsbury mixed in (my words, not those of "S"). I mean, how can I resist a blog that displays a trio of Scotsmen honoring Burns night - followed immediately by a photo of that most debonair of all men, David Niven. Quoting as he does from Ian Fleming, Evelyn Waugh and AA Gill, Man now joins the ranks of blogs I must check often.

3. Hard to pick where to go from here because most of Man's links looks interesting (Barbour, The Ritz, Aquascutum . . . ), but I decided on 10 Curzon Street because I stayed near there for six weeks a few years ago. It's a lovely site about book selling and searching, and about finding all manner of things right in the heart of Mayfair. How I wish I'd known about this spot when I was there. Describing itself as selling "new, old and antiquarian books as well as producing catalogues on numerous themes", they emphasize "literature, history, architecture, biography and travel as well as keeping a well-stocked children's department". And the delightful descriptions under "our recommendations" is worth the trip to the site all by itself, Brompton bike or no. (Please someone send me a plane ticket. Please!)

4. From there to Chatsworth, no more a blog than 10 Curzon Street, but every bit as interesting. Turns out that Chatsworth has been closed for renovations but is reopening in March. It's "one of Britain’s best loved historic houses and estates, offering something for everyone to enjoy, from famous works of art and the spectacular fountains in the garden to the finest shopping, food and drink and many miles of free walks." Judging by the photos, I'll say that's pretty darn accurate. Visitors can stay on the estate or at nearby hotels and inns - some of which are pictured, all of which look marvelous. It's 3 hours north of London, 90 minutes from Leeds, right near Bakewell. There's still time to get there for the Bread and pastry class on February 24th or Cake decorating on March 20th, or any of the patchwork quilt classes.

5. Unfortunately there are no outside link paths on Chatsworth, and as I'm a slave to my rule of 5, it's back to Insomniac and . . . on to Zoom Vienna. The photos are absolutely gorgeous, beginning at a fish market. One clicks front-and-center and another image appears. Very excellent design concept for a serious photo site/blog and a heckuva neat tour of Vienna. (Site design is by Moxie Design Studios; both the archives, which displays the photos in a bloggy sort of way, and the "all thumbnails" view download almost instantly. Some mighty good hosting and server-ing here.) An incredible balloon-filled hall appears at one point, a beautifully fuzzy backgrounded snowflake decoration at another. The mountain bike trail looks like New England - as Austria often does, actually - and the bronze statues, close-up, are magnificent. I especially love his description of himself and his camera equipment. Whatever you do, don't miss this.

This was more of a literal and physical travelogue than I meant it to be, but it was great fun!

Labels: blogs (others'), places, reflections

I was tagged by Laura at Wide Awake Cafe - my very first tag! - whose response to being tagged was her own interesting list.

1. My first job was in a penny candy store on the west side of Sixth Avenue just north of the Jefferson Market. It was fantastic. It was a branch of an apparently famous store on Cape Cod and we made fudge as well as selling penny candy. Our customers included Greenwich Village regulars like Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks as well as passersby. It was a wonderful job.

2. My favorite book ever is A Covenant with Death by Stephen Becker. As the story begins, a man's wife is being murdered but not by the husband (a fact to which only we omniscent readers are privvy). Within the first pages, the husband is arrested on circumstantial evidence and sentenced to death, and then - drum roll, please - he grabs and executes the hangman as he's about to be hanged. He knows and we know that he is innocent of the original murder but feels justified in the second. His defense attorney is a rumpled, charming character, an erudite and studious man who'd rather hunt and fish than do anything else. He bases his defense on Hobbes' principle that a state's fundamental reason for existence is to protect the safety of its citizens so if their safety is threatened (as the husband's was), then one has a right and perhaps even an obligation to do whatever must be done. I was wild about this mix of serious ideas with an enjoyable mystery story, so much so that I went on to major in philosophy at college and read and watch thousands of mysteries.

3. On my train commuting to work along the Hudson River, I like to sit facing home. As a result, I ride backwards in the morning and forwards at night. I have no idea what that's about and only realized it when someone pointed it out to me.

4. In 3rd grade, I recited the entire poem of Hiawatha on a stage in some sort of presentation to parents and teachers. In fifth grade my parents were told I was a show-off. I still feel exhilarated when speaking to groups of people. I'm not sure I shouldn't have been encouraged to be an actress.

5. I hate to wear socks or anything else between me and my shoes. I used to wear pantyhose like a good professional adult woman but a friend said one day that she hated wearing pantyhose and spending money on something that wears out in seconds, and ever since then I've tried to wear sandals whenever I could and at least go sockless when I cannot.

OK. Happy??! I suppose this is how those lists of a hundred things about oneself originate. Anyway, now I'm tagging my blogfriend and fellow movie fan Laura at Laura's Miscellaneous Musings, interesting writer and idea-logue Bookworm at Bookworm Room, and Charles at Dustbury who may not be into such silliness tho' it would be cool if he'd do it.

Labels: about me, blogs (others'), books, places, reflections

While driving from pillar to post today, doing shopping preparation leading up to Christmas Eve, I chanced upon a new (to me) wine store, Vino 100, in Newburgh, NY. Fantastic location on the waterfront, nicely laid out inside, knowledgeable and friendly staff and owner, super prices, local wines as well as interesting and unusual wines. Very exciting discovery. I also went to the Cornwall Yarn Shop and Fiddlestix Cafe in Cornwall, NY. The yarn shop is well stocked with yarns of nearly every kind, loads of books and patterns, and includes a weaving component that is enthralling and delightful. The cafe has some of the best and most innovating and unusual home cooking I've had in years, from omelettes with caramelized onions to gourmet pizza and sandwiches to homebaked pies. I also went shopping and made a dent in what's left to buy as well as in my hysterics. Now, however, I'm starting to panic again. The good news is that time will inexorably march along and pass right through gift giving days. The bad news is that there is no way I will have enough and/or adequate gifts for everyone who matters. Good attitude. Not.

Labels: food, holidays, places

Since I've written here about some unusual (read: weird) people I've met on my commutes, and probably will do so again, I should also mention it when I meet someone interesting and not at all weird. Good conversation, upbeat attitude, strong family ties, terrific sense of humor. Sometimes I'm downright glad I get to spend ninety minutes on my commute.

Labels: people, places

Listening to the phone calls from people in Hawaii, some of whom say it was as long or longer than the huge one in California, obviously my first thought is to wish everyone there my best in terms of health and emotional support. It must be phenomenally scary and I feel very bad for them. Since one always personalizes things, I also can't help thinking about the bookcases and paintings that would have crumbled to the floor if it happened near my house. I often think that it would be awesome to retire to northern California - lots of sun, low humidity, ocean all the time - until this kind of thing happens and then I wonder. Anyway, at least they have beautiful things to look forward to once the crisis is done, and that's something good anyway.

Labels: places

I like the maps - I always like maps. They're nice to look at and they provide information visually, sometimes showing things we might not see otherwise. On the other hand, fallacies can result from overly simplistic presentation. In Friday's post at Dadvocate, yet another interesting piece of his, 'dad' muses about several maps describing the 2004 election. It's the third map, "Outside the Beltway", that made me want to say something. Its presenters label blue (Kerry) parts as "larger metropolitan areas". But look at them. See how hugely blue Maine and New Hampshire are? Okay, but tell me how where Maine and NH have any large metropolitan areas. Or southern New Mexico and Texas. Or....

What it comes down to, of course, is that somehow many people still feel irked by the 2004 election. I'm not sure why it's so hard for them to accept that the simple fact is that most voters simply preferred Bush's ideas and plans. People who didn't like Clinton or Reagan dealt with those elections without becoming psychotic, after all. Our country is founded on the idea that most people have a fundamental intelligence and good will, isn't it? Thomas Jefferson believed that if you give people the opportunity to make choices about their lives, they will do so well. Isn't that what democracy is all about? Let's face it, there's no box-like explanation for why people vote the way they do. In 2004 we listened and made choices. For some (still inexplicable) reason, this caused more frustration than usual for those who did not vote for the person who won the election.

Labels: blogs (others'), places

Lovely looking, interesting new yarn and knitting book with sumptuous alluring photos of sheep and wool plus lots of intriguing patterns: Morehouse Farm Merino Knits. The book is as creative and tantalizing as visiting their store. So, does anyone have any suggestions on how to get another 5-10 hours in a day??!

Labels: knitting, places

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.

Labels: great link(s), places