August 8th, 2019 | General
So many people seem to think a work of art in a representational style can be taken in at a glance. It is what it is, the way a photograph is a replication of whatever was parked in front of the camera. Ease of recognition, however, can result in profound...
July 27th, 2019 | Gardens and Gardening, General, literature and poetry, the world and Mother Nature
I cannot, of the life of me, get that pesky monarch to pause and pose for a picture. I have a pretty long lens on the camera and I don’t need to get very close, but still. Very irritating. I’ve never spent much time watching butterflies. I learned to differentiate...
July 23rd, 2019 | General, Politics, Popular Culture, Society at Large
As we approach the second Democratic debate, the herd is just too large. Even this early on. Few of the runners stand out in that cloud of dust. Those watching the race are learning anything meaningful about those stuck in the pack. Those that really don’t stand a...
June 26th, 2019 | General, Politics, Society at Large
Twenty-four? Twenty-five? The special supplement to The New York Times lists twenty-two. And I thought seven candidates was a lot in 1992. The first “debates”—which is to say the first round of televised statements sanctioned by the Democratic National Party—will...
June 19th, 2019 | Family, Friends, General, Memory, Time Passes, Women
The Saturday of Reunion weekend marked fifty years to that June 14th when Emma Willard’s class of 1969 gathered in the greensward triangulated by the Chapel, the new Library and Weaver Science Building. It was hot and humid—we had worried that early morning...
May 20th, 2019 | General, Travel, United States
One thing just leads to another. And another. And another. It is now 10:51 A.M. Pacific time on 15 May 2019 and I am using a program called “Notes” which is definitely not Word and it is horrible. I can’t get into Office, it seems, because the...
March 9th, 2019 | Family, Friends, General, Health
The phone rang. Caller ID said it was the Tattooed Boy, perhaps to wish my Dear One “Happy Birthday” because, after all, it was February 8. But a woman whose voice I did not recognize spoke, saying there had been an accident and that Jay wanted to talk. He had been...
January 23rd, 2019 | Education, General, Indigenous Peoples, Politics, Popular Culture, Society at Large
When I saw that video clip of Nick Sandmann smirking at Omaha Elder Nathan Phillips who was drumming and chanting, and realized just how close the two were standing, I was outraged at the boy’s insolence, shocked at the implicit insult of a white person to an...
January 16th, 2019 | General, literature and poetry, Politics, Popular Culture
I had set myself a goal on GoodReads of 50 books in 2018 and got to 34 ½. I also determined that I would post on every book I read in this blog. Well, that’s two resolutions not kept. So here are the titles left out since 4 August 2018 (in the order read): Noah...
January 7th, 2019 | Education, Europe, General, Memory, Travel, United States, visual arts
The painting on that wall in the Tisch Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art would not let me move on. Only a couple of years ago, My Dear One and I had wandered the maze of discontinuous hallways and Escher-like stairs that constitute today’s Louvre Museum to...
