Happy Birthday, Blog!

In honor of this blog's birthday, here's a beautiful image I found, which is the cover to a book called, Le géant de la grande forêt. 

The book looks awesome!  

My intention for the coming year, maybe after Easter, is to try to do some more writing here.  Maybe focus on some responses to the Lectionary readings each week.  That's ambitious, I know. 

Thanks for reading!

St Lucia's Day

Today has been filled with quiet beauty and wonderful coincidences, and I am grateful for that!

I hadn't realized that today was St Lucia's Day, until a friend posted the photo (above) from The Old Farmer's Almanac. And then another friend sent me this message, below. Just lovely.

Enjoy:

A friend of mine is posting excerpts from Holy books about Jesus every day until Christmas. I am often inspired by your devotion, and thought of you when I was reading them:

From the Qur'an, the angels describing Jesus: "When the angels said, 'O Mary, ALLAH gives thee glad tidings of a son through a word from HIM; his name shall be the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, honoured in this world and in the next, and of those who are granted nearness to God; And he shall speak to the people in the cradle, and when of middle age, and he shall be of the righteous.'"

Jesus in the words of Baha'u'llah: "Know thou that when the Son of Man yielded up His breath to God, the whole creation wept with a great weeping. By sacrificing Himself, however, a fresh capacity was infused into all created things. Its evidences, as witnessed in all the peoples of the earth, are now manifest before thee. The deepest wisdom which the sages have uttered, the profoundest learning which any mind hath unfolded, the arts which the ablest hands have produced, the influence exerted by the most potent of rulers, are but manifestations of the quickening power released by His transcendent, His all-pervasive, and resplendent Spirit.

A Fractal Escape

As a way to escape all my disbelief about the political spin and general ridiculousness that surrounds us in our pop culture, I have turned to Math.

Surprised? Me too. But, with the recent death of Benoît B. Mandelbrot, the man who "discovered" fractals (or at least was the most recent person in modern memory to be able to cogently describe the difficulty of measuring non-straight lines.)

HERE is a great way to make your own fractal images, and wow is it fun!

Enjoy! Thanks BoingBoing for the link.

My Lenten Art Project.... Finally!

Here it is, finally. This is the final outcome of my Lenten Project that I undertook. I was thinking of it as a "study" for a collage, but I'm not sure the collage will actually get done. I basically envisioned this image a long time before I got it down on paper.

Thanks to Leili for suggesting this project.

Kurt Schwitters

My cousin sent me an example of his work today - Beautiful!!

I've received some feedback on my blog post about my planned Lenten Practice for this Lent. "Are you familiar with the work of Kurt Schwitters?" Well, I was not. Wikipedia has a fascinating entry all about him, and his political stance (against Hitler) during WWII. He is quoted as saying:

"In the war [at the machine factory at Wülfen] I discovered my love for the wheel and recognized that machines are abstractions of the human spirit."^[4]

"In the war, things were in terrible turmoil. What I had learned at the academy was of no use to me and the useful new ideas were still unready.... Everything had broken down and new things had to be made out of the fragments; and this is Merz. It was like a revolution within me, not as it was, but as it should have been."^[5]

^{He is best known for his collage work. I've posted an example below. Keep journeying Soul-Searchers.}

Carl Jung

I have been a fan of Carl Jung's since high school. I am so psyched to see this book! It looks amazing. The NYT article is pretty good. The quotation below is from the article, and is a quote from Jung who was speaking to a patient of his:

“I should advise you to put it all down as beautifully as you can — in some beautifully bound book,” Jung instructed. “It will seem as if you were making the visions banal — but then you need to do that — then you are freed from the power of them. . . . Then when these things are in some precious book you can go to the book & turn over the pages & for you it will be your church — your cathedral — the silent places of your spirit where you will find renewal. If anyone tells you that it is morbid or neurotic and you listen to them — then you will lose your soul — for in that book is your soul.”

La Pieta OR "Heaven to Hell" by Lachapelle, and more

WOW. Not sure about Courtney Love as Mary, but....

Thanks to religious imagery in culture for the image. Be sure to visit their blog for more fantastic religious art and images. They've been posting some amazing stuff recently - keep up the great work!

I just found this link to the outstanding work of Azerbaijani photographer Rena Effendi today, via Heading East. You've got to check it out. You'll understand the connection when you get there. Fantastic work!

Weekly Blog Round-Up

POP CULTURE:
* BSG at the UN - So Say We All. But, huh? From io9

* BlogHer posted a big discussion of the Jon Stewart evisceration of CNBC:

Stewart finds that outrageous. So do I. Reporters have a special role in our society. They are supposed to look at all stories with a skeptical eye. We count on reporters to make sure the mischief makers are caught and exposed. We do not expect the reporters to be turning a blind eye to the mischief.

Stewart's focus on CNBC captured what many people are feeling. From Mother Talkers,

I was listening to Marketplace on NPR during the drive home on Friday. I should really stop doing this, in this climate, because I get really worried. I heard this depressing statistic: if you graduated in the 1990s and started saving for retirement, you are basically back to square one. You have no more money for retirement than if you'd saved it under your mattress. I am furious. I did everything I was supposed to do: saved from the first day I started my first job, made it a priority. And because some fat cats on Wall Street got too damn greedy, I've lost it all. 11 years of investments, gone. Now what? I'm not sure I can trust 401(k)s for retirement anymore, y'know? Luckily, I'm at least 30 years away from retirement. But I'm still really pissed!

Oy on the financial news from BlogHer. From the same article: From Cenk Uygur of The HuffingtonPost

I have a close friend who works at a business news station -- and here is the worst kept secret in show business -- it's all about the access. If you piss off the CEOs or the companies, you're going to get a call from your boss. You have jeopardized our relationship with them!
That is very thinly disguised code words for -- don't ever say anything negative about a company we cover otherwise your job is in the trouble. The message is clear -- go along to get along. This isn't journalism. It's public relations by another name.

* I found this site randomly today. Need to take a listen

ART:
* Google flagging a French art blog for showing female nudes in artworks, which I learned about on Bob's Blog.

* Fast trains coming in Turkey! found on TreeHugger.

FOOD:
* Obama is tackling food safety via AmericaBlog. Yay! We've just sent in our check for our favorite farm's CSA I can't wait. And here's a second piece from Nicholas Kristoff's column about food safety, "Pathogens in our Pork." [A witty double entendre in there too!]

* White house green garden, via Huff Po.

* The Dirty Dozen buying guide for produce: a friend posted on facebook.

STYLE:
From my friend Jessica's Blog:

And now my friend is wondering, what does it say about him that he didn’t want to like those glasses because he was afraid that everyone else would like them, too? “Now and then,” he writes, “I get the awful feeling that people think I grew a beard to be trendy and I want to say, ‘I had this beard before it was cool.’… What sort of person feels that way and why?”

Here’s what I think. I think that the dynamic that accounts for his anxiety and my aneurysms is a particularly Generation X phenomenon. When we were growing up, we were fond of things that were weird and unlovable, largely because we, ourselves, felt weird and unlovable. Now that those things have been appropriated and repackaged for mass consumption, we instinctively want to reject them, even though we still love them—just like we mostly kind of hate ourselves, even though we inspire ourselves with something like the affectionate pity one might feel for a broken crayon, or, say, a tattered copy of Pac-Mania! The Official Pac-Man Joke Book.

Weekly Blog Roundup

RELIGIOUS ART:

I love some of these images from Idle Speculations, I can't choose! the tree of virtue and the tree of vice to the left.

CULTURE:

How to have a good self body image, as a mom, but also impart good messages to our daughters about their bodies from Jezebel commenting on the original WaPo article. Makes a ton of sense.

An ode to godparenting from BlogHer echoes my feelings exactly. Thank you again, Lakshmi & Sam!

Egyptian pyramid photo of noblewoman's tomb cia BBC.

Interesting take on the dilemma that is Facebook from Huff Po (which is another thing I must check daily).

Some guy at CNN has a crush on Michelle Obama - I guess I do too then.

More on the impending demise of Gourmet. I wish it didn't have to be this way! via Gawker.

Fug Madness is right around the corner, y'all!

SHOPPING:

Dag! How did I miss this?? From my pal Jennifer Westhoven's blog: free Chanel 19?!?!? So bummed I missed it.

Cadbury Dairy Milk goes Fair Trade!!! This is awesome news, just in time for Easter. [Think they planned it that way??] via BBC.

Here is some worrying news about the state of hiring in this country . Yes, we should hire capable Americans for American jobs. But one thing this article points out is that

"Deep, long-term shortcomings in the U.S. education system have left the country dependent on foreign-born scientists, engineers, computer specialists and other highly skilled workers to fuel the research and innovation that drive economic growth."

Right. And who knows how long it will take to correct this. from Workforce Week, found via BBC.

ART:
Idea of the North - photographs by Birthe Piontek found on "Heading East". Beautiful and haunting photos. Wow.

two amazing shows at Penn's ICA right now:
1) Dread, by Joshua Mosley is a fantastic short film (with sculptures!) that might just blow your mind. Pascal and Rousseau feature prominently.
2) Touch Sensitive by Anthony Campuzano's fantastic art that uses text and bright colors. I was very moved by his work, even though it seems very simple when you enter the space, the ideas involved are very powerful. Two fantastic shows you won't want to miss if you're in/near Philadelphia.


Art Blog by Bob's monthly poll has me sweatin' to the oldies! Puts me in the mood for some hard rock.

I knew there was another reason I love Joss Wheadon - his craftiness! I love the part about his interview in Crocheting Monthly, from BlogHer.

Office cubicles from around the world from the TIME website.

How to be a mermaid/merman via Blogfish and Oceana.

Obamas turn White House organic! More on the "New Victory Garden" in the US. Yeah! From TreeHugger.

Weekly Blog Round-Up

Lots of religious art to be found out on the intertoobs this week, perhaps in honor of the start of Lent. Read on:

RELIGIOUS ART:

* A Serbian icon was recovered in Italy, via BBC. Looks like Jesus' baptism in the Jordan with my favorite, John the Baptist. Look at the motion happening in the icon. My cousin Anthony always refers to John the Baptist as the "Forerunner", and says that images of him are often full of energy, highlighting the awesome.

* Bob writes about the concept of the garden in his review of Nils Büttner’s The History of Gardens in Painting. There are beautiful images in this book, apparently. This quotation struck me, in particular, since it describes exactly the kind of floral symbolism in (religious) art that I've been fascinated by for years:

"Büttner easily transitions from this Roman contemplative use of the painted garden to the religious contemplative use of the early Christians, who linked Christ with the lost paradise of Eden. Without getting bogged down in detail, Büttner explains how flower symbolism developed around figures such as Christ and the Virgin Mary into a full-grown visual garden of salvation for believers. Büttner shows how even the garden of courtly love, a parallel development to the Christian painted garden, bought into the idea of garden as the means of salvation. “Nothing that conflicts with the ethic of courtly love is admitted into the garden,” Büttner writes, “wickedness, hate, greed, envy, and miserliness are banished from it as surely as are old age and poverty.” Sacred and profane love follow the same program of green power." Thanks, as ever, Bob!

* Narco Santo found on Tex[t]Mex. Long-time readers will remember my fascination with the Narco Santo phenomenon.


GREEN DESIGN:

* Here is a fascinating "possible solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian land conflict - use bypasses! Blgdblog always finds great design ideas.

* An excellent green idea for algae-based batteries found on Pruned

* A beautiful story about growing a forest from the Aerophant blog

DREAMS:

* I share something in common with Tai - I, too, have always wanted to live on a house boat.

* I just learned about a competition put on by British Airways called "Great Britons." "Where in the world would you go to take your passion to the next level?" As I've mentioned before, here and here, I would love to be funded to travel around countries that I think have the most moving religious art, and see it in situ. I'd love to take pictures, and talk about the art, and maybe even make a book about it. Maybe I shoud apply! I could see more art like this one from Mexico Cooks.

Inauguration (Religious?) Art

The New York Times just posted a beautiful set of works by Maira Kalman called "The Pursuit of Happiness". Beautiful images. She shares her thoughts and emotions of the Inauguration in such a moving, thoughtful way. Go check it out!

Weekly Blog Round-Up

RELIGIOUS ART (sort of):

• Busty Virgin Mary - via Iconia. thanks, Menachem! See my earlier post about Religion & Sex for another blend of images.
  

POLITICS:

• This makes me happy - a v. blue country from Gallup Polls via NYT.
• Hillary is taking on Human Trafficking, and I say, rock on, sister. I haven't agreed with much Hillary has said over the past year, but this? I can 100% get behind her on this. From Emerging Pensées.
• More about Lilly Ledbetter and equal pay! from NYT, and here, at Jezebel - WITH PHOTO!
• When was the last time I agreed whole-heartedly with something an Editorial Board of a newspaper wrote, especially the NYT. But, these are amazing times!
• These people are jerks! via Huff Po
• Al Arabiya Interview w/President Obama

But ultimately, people are going to judge me not by my words but by my actions and my administration's actions. And I think that what you will see over the next several years is that I'm not going to agree with everything that some Muslim leader may say, or what's on a television station in the Arab world -- but I think that what you'll see is somebody who is listening, who is respectful, and who is trying to promote the interests not just of the United States, but also ordinary people who right now are suffering from poverty and a lack of opportunity. I want to make sure that I'm speaking to them, as well.
This snippet found Justin Webb's BBC Blog but full text on Politco

GREEN:

• Green Patriot Posters. The contest is announced here at Huff Po.
• From Pruned: Fascinating article on desert xeriscaping to form a green belt across the desert in Western China.
• Harder to hate Walmart - they've built the largest Solar Array in Latin America - via TreeHugger.
• Obama's all for Oil Independence! From the BBC.
• I ask myself this question a lot - "What ever Happened to Jimmy Carter's Solar Panels?" via TreeHugger
• Even more on the Eeeewwww: from BLDGBLOG, but previously in the news lots of places.
• From AmericaBlog - And NOW we find out that high fructose corn syrup has Mercury in it too! A pox on ALL their houses. Can we PLEASE get the FDA back on track. dag!
• Obama is awesome for the greens (as in, those who support green initiatives, not "the Greens" who supported the Terrible Nader). I felt so let down after Clinton. He just signed a bunch of executive orders at the end of his presidency, and really didn't give a rat's @$$ about the environment - even with Al Goregeous on board. A travesty. Well, hopefully this isn't too little, too late. From TreeHugger.

STUFF I LIKE:

• Up Helly Aa photos - from the BBC.
• Whither Joaquin? via gawker
• Even though we had a snow day this week, Spring will be here soon, and so will soccer season. I don't know when La Segunda will start, but probably next fall, so I will heed this sports advice from BlogHer.
• "The Case Against Candy Land" from Boing Boing. OMG - he's RIGHT! no wonder I am bored to tears playing Candy Land. Maybe it's NOT that I'm a bad mom, bored playing "classic board games" with my daughter. No, it's THE GAME we're playing.
• I just love Gawker. This time, re: "Iggy Pop, Insurance Stooge."
• Plus, google maps now shows VP's house. Talk about "Lord of the Underworld's lair."! also from Gawker.
• East German time capsule. This is so cool! via BBC
• Creepy! Wired, via AmericaBlog.
• A stroll down memory lane - 1992 on Jezebel -

In the interview accompanying these shots of Marky Mark, he uses the word "dope" over and over again. "I think of myself as a very flavorsome rapper. I'm versatile and that's what I think makes my style so dope," he says. "I did a dope rap on voting for MTV. I just started getting hip on voting." Winter 1992.

And finally, Lakshmi turned me on to this blog last week "Career Hope and Advice for Everyone Starting Over", and I love it. This is the kind of stuff I talk about with Ladybird a lot. And Angie and I just had a marathon convo about these same ideas - so maybe we're all on the same wavelength or something. I have recently found some contentment at work, but it's been a struggle. [Perhaps someday I will share the saga of my volunteer post I had to quit this fall out of frustration. People can be tough.]

I will leave you with this (long) quotation from her latest post, "Are Your Friends and Family Inspiring You? Or Retiring You?"

I don't know who said it, but you've probably also heard the truism that "we see things not as they are but as we are." (Somebody please write in and tell me who said it!) And that is consistent with what Deutschman was saying about "frames." We see and believe things according to elements we already believe to be legitimate truths in life.

So. If you think all workplaces are Dickensian workhouses, that's probably all you're going to find, because you don't have the faith, vision, or expectation of finding anything better for yourself. And if you are surrounded by friends who firmly believe the same, you're at a huge disadvantage even if you do aspire for better for yourself. You're going to be constantly surrounded by debilitating messages that your dreams for something better are pointless. So, from their perspective, you might as well take what you get and suck it up. That's reality, sweetie. Deal with it. Really? I beg to differ.

It's not just friends telling you discouraging things about the world. It could be family members telling you discouraging things about yourself. This is especially common in families with neglectful, abusive, substance-abusing parents. Children of these households very commonly take on unconsciously assigned roles like the Scapegoat, the Troublemaker, the Over-Achiever, the Good One. If that's the case with you, and you're trying to thrive in a world of your own making, hoping for a better life in a healthier world, you could be upsetting the rest of the family. You're breaking the rules, getting a little "full of yourself," or "too big for your britches." And someone is going to want to remind you – often forcefully – that it's futile to aspire for anything better. And heaven help you if you actually reach for a way to love yourself.

Weekly Blog Round-Up - Big Week for Religious Art

Sock Monkey Goddess, Vati - religious art in pop culture, via Boing Boing

Luxury brand Chanel to slash jobs this week, from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth by Chris in Paris:

This was another group that somehow thought the credit crisis would avoid them courtesy of emerging market support. It's true that many of the luxury brands have profited enormously in recent years due to the emerging markets (Russia, especially) but that too is now collapsing. Overpriced luxury was so 2006.

Chanel is to cut 200 jobs as fears grow that the supposedly recession proof luxury market is falling victim to the global credit crisis. Citing a steep decline in this year's sales, the largest French union, the CGT, said the losses at the French fashion label
would concern all staff on fixed term and temporary contracts and come into effect on Wednesday. Sixteen posts would be cut from the brand's boutique on rue Cambon in the heart of Paris's fashion district, it added in a statement at the weekend.

The job losses, described by some commentators as the label's worst crisis since founder Coco Chanel fired all her staff at the outbreak of war in 1939, represent almost 10% of the company's production workforce. The redundancies come after a difficult year for the fashion, perfume, cosmetics and accessories businesses where
growth has almost ground to a halt.

More religious art in the news via Art Blog by Bob - the 3 Religions of the Book on display at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar.


Fitwilliam Darcy's portrait is on the auction block to benefit Oxfam! Sigh, the face that launched a zillion forum posts!


TreeHugger on the need for improving Amtrak
- I love the comment that says

"Every time Amtrak falls apart -- which typically occurs on days ending in "y" -- it hurts us all. If Obama wants to make concrete change fast, he could do no better than to make rail revitalization a high priority."

Couldn't agree more!


Wow - Nollywood images from the Heading East blog - click thru for Michael Stevenson's photos. Some images probably NSFW. But WOW, impressive.


H.T. to Jay: "Vicar takes down "scary" crucifix" via the Guardian, UK. I have to say, this one isn't even that scary. I personally prefer the truly horrifying crucifixes (crucifixi?) with the blood and bruises all over - they feel much more powerful and disturbing - which I appreciate in religious art.


Lakshmi turned me on to this great PA-grown blog and here are my two favorite posts so far: When Children Worry - and When Adults Get Angry - great "in-the-trenches" advice.


On Matti Kaarts a yummy discussion of the British love affair with chutneys and pickles. PLUS a recipe for one homemade. His description of the ploughman's lunch made me so hungry!


There will be a Berlin monument to Roma (aka "gypsies") killed in WWII. This is good news.


Mona Lisa in US (w/ guards!). Art Blog by Bob reviews a new book about First Lady, Jackie O's intense negotiations to get the Mona Lisa on loan to the US for a brief time. Check out the soldiers guarding her!


Christian radio found to be on continuous loop for past 20 years Wow! via Emerging Pensees.

PONTIAC — Listeners of Christian talk radio were surprised and dismayed to learn that the same slate of programs has been playing on Christian radio stations since 1988, and that the entire façade of Christian radio has been run out of a basement complex in Michigan. "I always found the programs very comforting and familiar," says Kathy Reynolds, a regular listener in Columbia, Mo. "Now I know why."
The 365-day-long loop, which has been running continuously since January 1, 1988, includes programs by ministers such as James Dobson and Chuck Colson who dispense parenting and marital advice, Bible answers and non-specific calls to political action. The loop followed the calendar's rhythms, with programs about creating lasting family traditions at Thanksgiving, back-to-school prayer programs in August
and cloyingly sweet programs about home, hearth and "the reason for the season" at Christmas. A layer of conservative concern over the direction of the country was included throughout the year. Read more...

And I leave you with the probably inappropes "Holy Hotties" calendar, Jezebel. One of these seems to come out each year, and I really believe that these are models. not actual priests. But still.... They are some of God's beautiful creatures, it's true. BIG WEEK for religious art news! WOW Holy Hotties!

Weekly Blog Round Up

My friend Karen sent me this image of Pharaoh's daughter finding Moses, it's from the Fleischer Art Memorial, here in Philadelphia. It's done in the style of a Madonna, but is of an Old Testament subject.

Interesting. I'll have to go see it in person! Below is another view of Moses in the bull rushes from Idle Speculations for comparison.

Words of wisdom from our trusty Church Administrator about open sourcing one's life. A very good read.

5 suggestions for Change.gov from boing boing.

Green gingerbread competition for the season.

A Pruned article about re-purposing canals. Is there something other than green-ways that we can do with these things? I think of the canal in my hometown. What memories!

Batgirl wants fair pay!

Chicago sit-in pays off for workers. Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope for the workers in this country after all.

I'm still not gonna darken Walmart's door, but if Blogfish says they are helping to stop overfishing, I'll say, good job. On that.

A cute hippo! Love the hippos. Even if they are aggressive and hate humans.

Awesome images of "re-sampled space" from bldgblog.

This weekend will be our family's holiday baking weekend. Unfortunately my flu bug has prevented Lakshmi, Sam and Awesome Godson from coming over. He's still brand-new, and though I approve of sharing, I do not approve of giving the gift of flu to an infant. SO. We will be cooking with just the Grand Forêts present. Our cookie list this year is as follows:

• gingersnaps
• chocolate star cookies with crushed peppermint
• Austrian jam cookies
• mock mincemeat mini-tarts
• "Cherry Garcia" "Dunking Platters"
• and fudge

Have a great weekend, all!

Weekly Blog Round-Up

In case you live under a rock, or NOT in Philadelphia, the Phillies are going to the World Series! Yay Phils! We love you!

Here's an open letter to incoming President on US food policy by Michael Pollan (9 pages!). It's long, but so important!

Just watched Shanghai Noon again last night. I hope Owen Wilson is feeling better. He is such a great comedian. In a related vein, I also hope Heather Locklear feels better too. All in all, depression SUCKS.

More great religious art at Idle Speculations. Thanks, Terry!

Check out this rolling ball of fish - it's a new concept in fish farming and looks pretty cool too

How cool is your congregation?? You could win $5,000!

Sarah Palin's White House. Better with sound ON.

Finally - calling fear-mongering by its name!

Amazing - and creepy photo of McCain that has made the rounds.

A million photos of British Isles. Found on Boing Boing.

A v. moving post about what we are voting for - right on! - from Sirens Chronicles.


Joe.My.God linked to this NYT story, and commented that as a kid he wished he could have gone on the QE2. As a kid, I DID go on the it, and maybe it was because I was 6, and too young to appreciate it, but, the experience was lost on me. There really wasn't anything for kids to do. The funnest part for me and my sister was to press the steward/stewardess buzzers when my parents went out to dinner at night. By the time they got back, all the stews were hanging out in our room. Angie was freaked out by the porthole.

I love Aboriginal Art.

And have I mentioned how much I ALSO love, Rob Brezsny?? My horoscope this week:

In medieval Europe, more resources and human ingenuity were lavished upon cathedrals and churches than on any other buildings. In the last hundred years, the emphasis has been different, having switched to the towering structures that house institutions dedicated to commerce. By that measure, Money is a far more important God than God. During the next few weeks, Pisces, I invite you to buck the modern trend. As an experiment, see if you can devote at least one more percent of your energy and intelligence to matters of the spirit and soul than to the demands of the material realm. I suspect you'll find, ironically, that this will lead to an increase of your mastery over the material realm.

Blog Round-Up

There's been a lot going on this week:

Letter to Bush from a mom on mainstreet, thanks, Siren's Chronicles, for that. Friend speaks my mind.

Civil Disobedience for Climate Change?! I'm on it! P.S. That's Sir Bono and Al Gorgeous together!

What's the fastest way to become a US citizen? From TextMex

From a recent meeting at my girls' nursery school. This quote just reinforces my whole belief that nothing has changed over time. Yes the players and tools do, but not the feelings.

'The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in lace of
exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.'

Bob Blogs about my favorite superhero!

The "Forêt/Forest" Exhibit in Montreal looks awesome. I wish I could get up there to see it. Thanks bldgblog for the link.

Chicago has a climate plan. Yay! Maybe Philly will be next...?

Aerophant always blows my mind (in a good way) - it IS a beautiful world.

Apparently, my guy George Michael was busted again for drugs. Thanks to JoeMyGod for the news.... but maybe it's not really news anymore.


Cupcakes Take the Cake pointed out that people search for cupcakes in a financial crisis. So I tried seeing how often people search for religious art. It was pretty much the same until this week. Check the spike. [I wonder how many of those points over the years have been ME!?!] And, 5 Reasons why this Depression really IS Going to be Fun! From Gawker.

This week on the fashion front, we see BOTH plaids AND argyle on the Fug Report.

Idle Speculations posted a beautiful image of St Anthony the Abbott in the Wilderness. Wow. It feels appropriate for this week. Thanks, Terry.

And who knows whether the debate will actually happen tonight. I can't watch. Just like the Eagles in the Superbowl - I get too nervous to sit still. So, I'll be sending all my positive energy to Obama tonight. But in the spirit of the thing - I hope he lands some good "body checks". "Keep your stick on the ice" tonight, Barack!

Blog Round-Up

Some News, and other stuff, that caught my eye this week. Enjoy!

• The call for an "Energy Manhattan Project"
• See all 52 (including DC & Pr) State Obama bumper stickers.
• National guard deployment to Iraq & Afghanistan
• omg! Tigh-Roslin campaign site as seen on Boing Boing
• Pretty moss-inspired jewelry
• I helped get the reporters in our of jail in Minneapolis/St Paul!
  
• Mabon is this weekend. Time to make my green man!
• WE has a new ad out against the dirty coal and oil lobbies. Check it out!
  
• TODAY is International "Talk Like a Pirate Day"!
  
• Federal Court Bans Mad Cow Testing
• Tea is more beneficial than water! I knew it.
• Bob at his best - St John the Baptist Triptych - I plan to comment on this piece more later, but in the meantime - WOW!
• How coastal building development since the 1970's has lead to crazier hurricane damage, on Pruned.
  
• This Quiz feeds the hungry. Again, thanks, Bob!

• Old School printing operation. I'm not sure my grandfather's press was as high-tech as this, but wow!

Printing a Book, Old School from Armin Vit on Vimeo.

Life in the City

I just love Gustave Caillebotte! I saw this image on Bob's Art Blog - Thanks Bob! - and just had to share.

It's hard to keep up with blogging, life, the Olympics and a sick granny (please send her good thoughts!). So, I'll post when I can.

Ciao, folks!

A Karmic Hodge Podge

Americablog had a beautiful set of travel photos from a Roman site in Tunisia - check it out!

And then I found Tangled Webs' description of how REALLY bad the oil situation is:

These are from John Mauldin's newsletter in a piece written by the oil analyst David Galland. Galland's take on Saudi Arabia is the most optimistic. I personally think that the Saudi's are hiding the fact that they are at, or very near, peak oil themselves. Then, add this to the equation:

"If you look at the situation in US presidential terms, looking at fossil fuels plus nuclear, the world burned through the equivalent of 10% of all oil ever consumed in Bush's first 4-year term. And, in our model, we're going to burn 10% of all remaining conventional crude in the second 4 years of Bush's term.

Whoa! That's some incredible increase in consumption!

You may have read such analysis before. But you will not often read it coming from a highly mainstream, very conservative market analysts.

If you like $4.00/gal oil, you're going to absolutely love $10/gal oil.

Hopefully, MY candidate for President will help reduce all this crazy consumption!

But, again, and as usual, Bob's Art Blog lifted my spirits - I love Rousseau's works. Did anyone else out there have the Muppets Calendar with Zoot as the "Sleeping Gypsy"?

And then there's Rob Breszny's ALWAYS inspirational horoscope, and general wisdom for this week:

"By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers . . . This palpable world, which we are used to treating with the boredom and disrespect with which we habitually regard places with no sacred association, is a holy place."
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):

A professional dominatrix I know says that many of her clients are men whose jobs give them excessive authority over other people. When she's bossing around these honchos, she sees herself as an agent of karmic correction, counteracting a dangerous lopsidedness in their psyches. I bring this up, Pisces, because you're in a phase when you should rectify any imbalance of power that exists in your own sphere. If you're a swaggering alpha male or female, put in a stint as a humble servant. If you're normally a timid soul, flex your willpower with feisty abandon. If you're neither a control freak nor a doormat -- and thus have no karma to balance -- spend quality time meditating on how to gain more power over the wild ebbs and flows of your imagination.

"Let the body think of the spirit as streaming, pouring, rushing and shining into it from all aides."
- Plotinus

So, isn't it an amazing coincidence, that, in keeping with the Karmic message above, my friend, Clarissa, told me this story on the walk to work today about a lost pencil? I had to share!

When Clarissa was in elementary school she had a blue pencil she absolutely loved. She used it every day, and wore it down so that it got to be small after all the sharpening, you know. So one day, she dropped it while she was riding the bus. She looked for it, couldn't find it, and figured it was lost forever. About a year later she was riding the bus and all of a sudden, HER little blue pencil rolled out from under one of the seats. She picked it up and checked, and indeed, it was hers. Feels karmic, doesn't it?

Finally, from Bris de Mots:

"Toutes les choses de la terre
Il faudrait les aimer passagères
Et les porter au bout des doigts
Et les chanter à basse voix
Les garder les offrir
Tour à tour n'y tenir
Davantage qu'un jour les prendre
Tout à l'heure les rendre
Comme son billet de voyage
Et consentir à perdre leur visage"

Anne Perrier, Oeuvre poétique, 1952-1994, in Pour un vitrail, préface de Gérard Bocholier, L'Escampette, 1996

Must See: "Rembered Light"

One of the truly wonderful benefits of working at an Ivy League institution, as opposed to a suburban single-sex educational institution, is that one has access to art and cultural gems that otherwise would be hard to come by.

On my lunch break today I was able to see an amazing exhibit of work done by various artists from fragments of stained glass collected by Chaplain McDonald during and after WWII. I reacted more strongly to some pieces than others, but the overall effect of this exhibit was that I was struck by the horror and destruction of war. We, in the US, so far removed from the current war we are embroiled in in Iraq, really have NO idea.

The piece "Soustances" (above) was my favorite of all, second favorite was "St John's Red Lion Square", (right). I thought the text on the art was sometimes distracting, but it did put the piece in a context, and it told a moving story. The promotional cover image for the exhibit was what got me in the door, and I wasn't disappointed.

Anyone who will be in Philly between now and July 6th should make an effort to get to the Arthur Ross Gallery. Especially if you appreciate religious art. But history, architecture and wartime memorabilia buffs will be equally impressed. It may be no coincidence that I am watching 1940's House right now... but it's all tying together in my mind.

I just saw this post on To Miss With Love and I thought it was appropes.... Enjoy, all.

To My Friends

Dear friends, I say friend here
In the larger sense of the word:
Wife, sister, associates, relatives,
Schoolmates, men and women,
Persons seen only once
Or frequented all my life:
Provided that between us, for at least a moment,
Was drawn a segment
A well-defined chord.

I speak for you, companions on a journey
Dense, not devoid of effort
And also for you who have lost
The soul, the spirit, the wish to live.
Or nobody or somebody, or perhaps only one, or you
Who are reading me: remember the time
Before the wax hardened,
When each of us was like a seal.
Each of us carries the imprint
Of the friend met along the way;
In each the trace of each.
For good or evil
In wisdom or in folly
Each stamped by each.

Now that time presses urgently,
And the tasks are finished,
To all of you the modest wish
That the autumn may be long and mild.