Consortium of Seven: Year 2

 The backyard borders a nature preserve. Observed so far, bobcats and signs of boars. The big bush, which I kind of disliked at first because it blocks a significant portion of our view of the woods, has surprised us with big-puffy, non-fragrant, mimosa-like, soft-red flowers. We won't get a sudden big bloom, these seem to be popping open and fading away sporadically. Maybe it's the shade and the cooler than average days and nights we are having.  A closer inspection of the flowers, today, brought a beautiful little lavender butterfly or moth to my attention. I captured it in a short video.      I have a math test tomorrow for which I am not fully prepared, but I need to get scores in as soon as possible so that I can file for my license upgrade before the school board meets to approve the rehire candidates for next school year. I wouldn't mind the math if I could retain it -- but it's definitely a case of never used it and lost it, for me.  If I can just pass it I'

The daughter of an architect, I perhaps feel I have a duty to buildings. I like buildings. I like looking at them, I like discussing them. I like their details & I like their looming presence. I make a great deal of the beauty of my city’s architecture & recently during lockdown I have complained of the lack of opportunity “to just wander round some buildings.”  But what of the insides? The guts, the entrails, the viscera of our urban constructions? We talk of the bowels of a building, why not the intestines, the heart, the brain? Architecture & interior design may be entirely different disciplines, but both serve the eye & reflect our Selves, whether collectively or individually. As we struggle to be a collective right now, we turn the outside in, we face inward for self-examination. If there was ever a time for the interior to take its place, it’s now.  We’re talking about the art of interiors, not necessarily “interior portraits,” the 17th century European trend for

     This has been one of those almost too spent to effectively bottom out weeks, and I'm hoping for an otherwise peaceful Friday in which I can get some key things accomplished and so start myself in a better, personal direction. None of that has anything to do with this piece, other than it being a light hodge-podge. I'm kicking this week off with a few shows that have been rolling out over the past several years, but which I either hadn't noticed or at least taken the time for until recently. The first two are on Netflix, the third on CBS All Access -- which will officially become Paramount+ in early March. After that, a couple notes and a closing feature from 56 years ago.       If there's a blanket caveat I should be giving to these weekly blog pieces, it's that I have trouble sleeping, considerable (always by my own, petty, scale) stress, and the unhealthy habit of burying my attentions in other, often passive, activities instead of facing and s

 Happy Thursday, everyone!  I hope everyone is having a good week so far; we're almost to the weekend, so let's take a look at some of the random books I've found in Little Free Libraries this week. Sue me, I have a weakness for movie novelizations.  I know some of them are just toss-offs with maybe some photos inserted, but once in a while you get a work by Alan Dean Foster or Vonda McIntyre, both of who have done of ton of them and deepened the script they're working off, adding in fun details to their Star Wars (Foster) or Star Trek (McIntyre) novelizations.  (As a side note, Foster is currently in a huge dispute with Disney, noting that he is owed a lot of royalties for his Star Wars books.  I don't automatically think Disney is evil, but man are they not looking good on this one, apparently claiming they didn't take on the 20th Century Fox obligations to him, which is obvious BS.)  Anyway, this one is pretty down the middle (and frankly, the photo insert se

                                                               A Retirement Party Requires Refreshments  As we saw last week, Bud often went for walks “up the hill” with his favorite nurses, so his primary human thought he would lose some weight from all that good exercise. He had been pretty hungry when she first brought him home, probably from the months he lived on the streets dodging the dogcatcher.   So, he had gained some weight from a good healthy diet. But as his time working with wounded, injured and ill soldiers went on, Bud gained a little too much. He enjoyed his walks at lunch time and loved to run in circles every evening, but he continued to become more and more, shall we say, portly. His human realized what was happening. Every morning as he arrived at work, Bud did what a good PTSD therapy dog does: he checked the perimeter. He made his way around the outer rim of offices in the one-story building, sniffing for suspicious smells and for delectable ones as well. Every

  This week I reject one of Michael Crichton's novels in favor of another of his books. Crichton was smart, talented, and clearly a troubled soul. Normally I am never quite sure where I am at any particular moment when it comes separating the writer from what he or she has written. But in this week's post, I didn't have any trouble getting it sorted.  This week's recommendation is based on my objections to offensive language and belittling attitudes which so permeate the text that I found it impossible to enjoy reading the novel. I noticed that I was turning pages and waiting for another painful instance.  Book to skip:  The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton Reason to skip: Pernicious, repetitive, unnecessary homophobia kept popping up all through the second half of this 1972 science-gone-wrong thriller. There's a character who needs to hide in an urban lair to plan his terrible revenge. Crichton needed a crummy, I-didn't-see-anything-Officer neighborhood, and h

by whiteray It was a snowy late afternoon in January 1975, and I was at The Table in the student union at Minnesota’s St. Cloud State. Most of the folks who spent their between-classes time at The Table had already headed out into the snow. The only other regular remaining was Laura, a woman who’d joined us that autumn after moving to St. Cloud from a city about sixty miles north.   I don’t recall what we were talking about that afternoon. It could have been my health – I’d been in a serious auto accident in October. Or we might have been discussing her progress in disentangling herself both legally and emotionally from her marriage to an abusive husband (a circumstance commonly mentioned today but one that was not much talked about in 1975). Whatever it was, we were intent on the topic. I knew, however, that it would soon be dinnertime at my parents’ house, and I needed to either go home or call them to say I wouldn’t be home for dinner.   My guess is that we’d been discussing her

This week I found out I need to take a few classes to renew my teaching license. I am going to have to get them done pretty quickly. I also have a few professional competency tests coming up, one of which will include high school math, which I'd hoped I'd never have to see again. Studying will be my game for a few months. Ah, well, no pain no gainful employment, I suppose. I have several books that will need to be put on hold, movies and shows, too. I'm used to it, but every weekend, I think of how nice it would be if I could just wake up and do what I want.  Forever. I hope to work 5 more years, making me 67 at retirement. Hoping I can pull that off... neighbors playing nice music  I had some interesting realizations about my relationship with my youngest child, determining pretty clearly how I feel about a certain aspect of our relationship. This child has never been one to consider consequences, she relies on odds, and doesn't often factor in emotions in determining

“Art scandals” can take many forms. They’re rarely interesting, in spite of what one might think. This particular scandal is perhaps not the form of scandal you’re interested in but to me, it is one of the most strange, lesser known but nevertheless infuriating stories in art.  I take it very personally, I admit. I take to heart all insults to Harry Clarke (Ireland, 1889-1931) & I make no apology for this. I have derived more pleasure, wonder & inspiration from Harry Clarke than almost the whole rest of the art world put together.  You get the idea: he’s my favourite & I’m appalled. I will deal with the scandal first but I promise to also deal with the art. The Geneva Window was commissioned in 1926 for the International Labour Building in Geneva as a gift from the Irish Free State. Despite being completed in 1930, it was never used as the Free State’s not-so-free attitudes towards some of the “disgraced” writers whose work was featured in the window meant that the overall