FIVE SECOND STORIES

We're beginning our gloomy time of year. There are days where you can name the time of a singular event of sunshine. You tell your spouse "yeah, the sun came out around 2pm for 10 minutes". One such occasion last week:

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I re-watched this the other day and it brought back memories of my youth when me and the lads would go to the movies together either at the Odeon in Frandor or LCC. We would go have drinks and a bite, burn one in the car or parking ramp and arrive in good humor. I think most of us had read the book and the movie had only been out for a couple of years. It appealed to our sensibilities of satire, irony, surrealism with a tasty double-bonus: the lovely bare breasts of Valerie Perrine. Such nudity was not commonplace in those days (1973) and there was no online porn-it was available for most only in magazine form.

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Cold, rainy late afternoon, I was on the couch listening to music while C was in her office doing yoga. Buddy came and hung out with me. First, a good session of scritches and belly rubs, then he settled down next me, making sure some part of his body was in contact with mine. Such a nice boy!

In the Washington Post, there was a snippet concerning a woman, discussing her loneliness after losing her beloved cat with her provider, is written a prescription for a new cat. Both C and I can attest to having a cat increases our wellness.

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Heilung is an experimental folk music band with members from Denmark, Norway and Germany. Their music is based on texts and runic inscriptions from Germanic peoples of the Iron and Viking ages. Heilung (healing in English) describe their music as "amplified history from early medieval northern Europe". I may not particularly dig the sound but man, they get points for their unique dress. I think checking out fellow concertgoers would be half the entertainment. To each his own. Personally, much more interesting than...

Kevin Mazur

But then, say 3,000 years from now, some group might revive her ancient kind of sound and look.

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Fun article about portraits made out of seeds. Original images are AVIF which are not accepted by Blogger. Man, just thinking about the amount of patience needed to create one of these pieces makes me tired! Tis why I never liked jigsaw puzzles-no patience.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/20/crop-art-seed-portraits-minnesota-state-fair 

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Surreal ad from Mail Chimp-how did they do this? Reminds me a bit of scenes from Dante's Inferno or something by Bosch, only the people would be nekkid.

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Country manners

Growing up, the valued behavior of neighbors were: friendly but minding their own business and be there when needed. One of the things we appreciate about our neighborhood now is that most follow this idea as well. 

There were not a lot of homes close by my parent's house. Four on the South side of the gravel road and one across from our neighbor to our West. A wealthy Lansing attorney lived there with his wife, Jean, who had a dog kennel and raised several varieties of spaniels. She also owned Pierre, a big white horse who once backed my Mom against the side of the house for a kiss and stepped on one of her big toes. Its nail was never the same. 

One year, there was a  Summer drought that extended into early Fall. On a high wind day, the neighbor to our West sent one of their kids to burn newspapers in their burn barrel which sat near the edge of a field. The wind caught the embers which flew into the field and ignited the grass. Before you knew it, the fire had jumped a tree-lined embankment between the properties and set our field ablaze. My Dad and I were out with shovels trying to tamp the fire. Luckily, whatever had grown that season had already been harvested so what remained was mainly stubble. We had just started work when Jean arrived, shovel in hand, having seen the smoke from her house. Together, we stopped the fire about halfway to our woods. We stayed a while to make sure the fire was not going to revive. My Mom, who had been cooking supper, came out to see how things were going and met us as we were coming in from the field. She hollered a greeting and thanks to Jean, who was striding back to her house and waved back.

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Seen while out and about: 

The beloved "Sparty" statue on the MSU campus is located at the top of a "Y" intersection. I was driving in to pick C up and I was approaching the right hand portion of the Y. It is a two-laned road and at the intersection, a car coming towards me had stopped mid-turn. Why? To take pics of Sparty on an Iphone, undoubtedly for an Instagram posting. As I made a left turn, I saw that being the rush hour, 23 vehicles where backed up over the bridge and up a hill behind this person. I just shook my head at this kind of entitled thoughtlessness that seems to occur more and more in our culture. These are the people who, for the "perfect" Instagram shot, fall off cliffs, get gored by buffalo and eaten by grizzly bears. Oi vey.

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Painting by Arthur John Trevor Briscoe

Two more rats have jumped ship: lawyers Sid Powell and Kenny Chesebro came to their senses and chose personal freedom over continuing their support of the Roach and going down with his ship earning years of imprisonment. Yep, they plead guilty with no jail time, multi-year probation with minimal damage restitution in exchange for their testimony against Roach. In the end perhaps, all that will be left will be Roach with a few true believer servants to face the rising waters.

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Vintage commercial from 1985 for a cleaning product called Tough Act. They rip off the bald guy Mr. Clean, replacing him with a Tougher version. Yeah, he can really kick some ass on your filth (hilariously while destroying your doors and cabinetry) with the tagline: We know how to take care of scum. The actor was Robert Tessier, stuntman and actor who specialized in heavy, menacing roles.

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Out and about 10/21

Chipper with green acorn. Rain gauge shows yesterday's total

My birch and Benny's maple

The yin yang trees behind us

Tree by the solar array

I drove to Grand Ledge to visit the Ledges park. It was closed due to still uncleared downed trees from the August storm. I've noticed this year that folks are really into the lawn decorations. Lots of 10' skeletons, cemeteries, white sheeted ghosts dangling from trees. This caught my attention. Simply a witches coven-'Double double toil and trouble/Fire burn and cauldron bubble'.