Saturday Summary #11

Some people think flowers are sensate beings and believe picking them is murder. Hmmm... Horticulturists have found that the Easter lily bulb can move in the dirt if it is planted too shallowly. It has contractile roots that actually work to pull the bulb deeper into the earth. They know it has something to do with light -- that's all they know.

Rice plants come in different colors which has made Inakadate, Japan a tourist site since the local people began planting their paddies with different kinds of rice plants in such as way as to make pictures or spell words. The village was losing its young people to the city but now has become prosperous thanks to the visitors they attract.
The game of horseshoes is not widely played today but was played by the men in my family when I was growing up. Today Alan Francis of Defiance, Ohio is the undisputed world horsehoe champion; winner of the world title 15 times. His record is 90% ringers of all his pitches.

Thinking of diminishing populations in small villages: in 1800 the only city with one million people was London. Today 326 cities have over a million including 180 which are in developing countries. 16 megalopolises have over 10 million. The percentage of people living in large cities has doubled since 1950.

Another change since the 1950s: today the last month of life often costs more than all the previous medical expenses of that person. Dying used to be very different: George Washington developed a sore throat Dec. 13 and died the next evening, John Q. Adams, Andrew Jackson and Millard Filmore had strokes and died three days later, Rutherford Hayes had a heart attack and died in four days. People used to die quickly of pneumonia, in childbirth and infected wounds. All those things are treated today; often people go on for years of life, but too often they never get out of the ICU and run up bills of staggering size. More and more medical thinkers are grappling with the meaning of these facts and just what can be done and shouldn't be done for the dying and how to act both more responsibly and more humanely. Dying is going to happen to all of us and to everyone we love, we ought to be brave enough to give it some thought.

As a society we are expert at the old head in the sand position on hard questions.
No one seems to be grappling with the following facts: The Library of Congress plans to acquire and store all public Twitter posts since 2006. Meanwhile top secret organizations hidden from public view and lacking significant oversight number 1271 government organization and 1931 private companies all related to outer terrorism intelligence and homeland security. They employ approximately 854,000 people who have top secret clearance, [half the population of Washington D.C.]. This doesn't include the people who don't have that clearance. These people work in some 30 complexes in various locations in the US. These are mostly new buildings with extensive technology inside -- they were called "government bling". To say there is much redundancy is redundant. These organizations intercept 2 BILLION emails, telephone calls and other communications of private citizens every day. They produce so many reports that many are simply shelved and never read. ... Is this the meaning of homeland security or the government's technological version of Collier Brothers-like neuroses?

Reading Blogs

I'm not sure why other people read blogs, nor am I sure why some people react to blogs as anathema. I have a certain amount of self-discipline about how I spend my time. So I don't get into a sort of labyrinth of links and rarely act randomly. There are several blogs that I read for a variety of reasons but it all boils down, I think, to two or three reasons: the person is interesting and so is his or her blog; the subject written about is interesting [this is the majority of blogs I follow] and I learn something -- oh, not all the time, but often enough, and the person writes so well I love to see what he or she has come up with. The latter I envy greatly; they have their blog voices which I suspect is their writing voice whatever they're writing. It is graceful, imaginative and insightful. Some blogs I read have fascinating lists of blogs they read and I usually look through them to see if something interesting has been said and click to read that blog. It's a bit lazy of me, especially as I don't keep up my own blog list which seems impolite of me. I'm just technophobe enough to resist making the effort.

A bonus is when someone writes something that rings a bell -- when I get an insight into my own peculiarities. I read such a thought, which was only an incidental part of a longer blog, yesterday -- about biographers and their subjects. I have been chewing on the thought all day. For me reading blogs is like auditing a number of workshops or classes on a large number of subjects, sampling or grazing on other people's intellects. I think of it a bit like taking my 1-a-day vitamins; the recommended daily dose of this and that subject. Plus sometimes I discover something so pleasing it's like being handed a wonderful piece of chocolate. If I want to go deep, I read a book -- and I read a lot of books -- but life is too short to go deeply into all that is interesting. Thanks to all the blogger I read [most of whom don't read my blog, as far as I know.]

Dramatic Sky

The hottest summer of the Northern Hemisphere since records have been kept, I was told. I suspect it's one of Cape Cod's hottest summers. I'm enjoying it except for the times when there is high humidity. But so far the humidity has not equaled some days in NYC when I actually broke a sweat from the exertion of brushing my teeth in the morning.

I saw this dramatic tree top lighting at sunset the other day when the sun was low enough to shine from under the clouds. Later that evening the clouds thinned enough for a full moon to shine haloed, or ringed which is supposed to mean rain and, indeed, there was a brief thunderstorm. After some 14 months away from the Big Apple I still watch the natural world as if it's all new to me. In fact, it's a rediscovery. Except for the ocean, which, indeed is new to me still. I see people jogging, often with their IPods playing in their ears, and know they are seeing almost nothing. They're young, they'll have time to see. But will they be in the habit of not seeing?

When Leslie was here we had three rather long walks beside the sea, really strolls, looking carefully at the variety of shells and seaweed, the colors, the graceful shapes. She is near the Pacific but her seashores are very different, they even small different says she. It is a pleasure to be with someone who can see the small things like the crab shell, empty of all the gulls at, but with the tiny eyes still attached like headlights.

Saturday Summary #10

First a quote from Winston Churchill: "dogs look up to man, cats look down to man, pigs look us straight in the eye and see an equal." For the most part, pigs get a bad rap. They are as smarter than chimps in experiments using computers {and they don't even have hands for using a keyboard} they have a homing sense of direction that rivals that of dogs, they've been known to make good "watch dogs". And the little pot-bellied pigs are said to be excellent pets.

But on to our species: we tend to think our genetic evolution all took places millions of years ago Not so. Chinese geneticists have found that only about 10,000 years ago the people inhabiting the Tibetan plateau developed genes that allow them to use available oxygen more efficiently than other people so that they can thrive at altitudes of 10,000 to 15,000 feet or more.

Medical science keeps advancing. Former VP Dick Cheney has a hear implant about the size of a D battery that takes over the job of keeping the blood flowing. It flows steadily as water flows through a tap, it does not pulse as hearts normally do. So, in fact, he, like the few others with the device, does not have a pulse. If he should be found unconscious, a medic would think he was dead.

Are hardcover books dying? Amazon.com has been selling hardcover books for 15 years; they have been selling Kindles for 35 months. In the last three months sales of downloads of hardcover books have surpassed sales of the real thing. There were no statistics about sales of paperbacks. I saw a man reading a Kindle at the beach yesterday; he looked more intellectual than people reading paperback murder mysteries, although he might have been reading something equally inane. One can't tell. If you're concerned about making a certain kind of impression, I guess the Kindle is helpful.

Speaking of negative impressions. There are companies (two in the US and one in India, one in the Philippines were mentioned) that hire people to look at downloaded videos for social networking sites on the internet to find seriously offensive material, like child pornography, sadistic animal abuse, and such, and make sure it is no posted. I don't know how they do this technically, nor how the individuals watching it manage to eat and sleep like normal people.

More technology: Chinese-American pianist, Lang Lang, at recent NY Philharmonic concert asked the audience to vote on their choice of encore piece by texting on their cell phones, choosing between a Chopin etude and a traditional Chinese melody. They chose the Chinese piece. I suspect they were not surprised the next day when they received an offer from Lang Lang's record company to purchase his latest CD set at a discount and inviting them to follow him on Facebook.

Finally a bit of geography -- I always like learning new things about places: Venice is not an island as many people think, but an archipelago of 180 island tied together by approximately 400 bridges. The Grand Canal, the widest flowing more or less through the middle of the city, is lined with some 100 grand Renaissance and Baroque style palaces built by the wealthy merchants who flourished during the 500 years or so that Venice ruled the Adriatic Sea and eventually the Mediterranean which they did until land transport of goods became more efficient than sea transport in the 1700s.
As most of us know, the whole city is in serious danger of sinking into the sea and has already had several crises with flooding. Most of us who have been there feel profoundly sad to imagine the loss of such a charming and historic place.

The Apparel Diet and other austerities

While I agree with the comments on my previous blog that beauty comes from within, few of us live as if we believe it, It IS hard to believe in our society which puts so much emphasis on appearances. We not only assess our physical attributes and especially our weight almost constantly, most of us stuff our closets and drawers with far more clothe than we need and many times with lots of clothes we don't even wear.

Today's NYTimes had a long article about two groups of people trying a new approach. One group has been "dieting" since last September. Approximately 150 women and a couple of men, agreed to go on an "Apparel Diet" and not purchase any new shoes or underwear for a year. I could easily go on that diet. I used to purchase new underwear any time I saw a good price, not because I have an underwear "thing" but because I didn't want to be forced to do laundry just because I ran out of underwear. So I have a drawer well stuffed with underwear and always have other reasons to do laundry before the drawer is empty. Also I have plenty of shoes. But I admit to giving thought to the end of the summer sales as my black sandals are badly scrufed and need to be replaced. This seems a reason for probable purchase.

Another group called Six Items or Less [sixitemsorless.com -- if you want to join or read their statements] have decided to wear only six items which are already in their wardrobe [not counting shoes and underwear] for an entire month, no matter what kind of events they attend. They are discovering that, although occasionally they might feel inappropriately attired, no one really notices or seems to care what they're wearing. I think this is true. We go on and on about "nothing to wear" when, of course, we have plenty to wear we just want something that will make us feel beautiful or at least invitingly attractive for wherever we're going. As these people reported, it really doesn't matter. Try it, you'll see for yourself.

So we're back to the comments about my previous post -- the beauty isn't on the outside whether it's the body itself or the clothes covering it. We've been fed a tall tale by the apparel industry and we've displaced our feelings of emotional neediness to closet neediness.

But, gee, I do enjoy fabrics of many sorts, designs of many sorts, textures, styles, cuts, embellishment -- mostly I know very well they don't make ME more appealing or attractive but I like them for their own sake. I've convert a part of my love of fabric, pattern, color, texture to quilting. Still I adore clothes -- I have some that are 20 years old and may way them only a time or two a year but can't part with them. No justifications except the sensual pleasure they give me.

The Full Length Picture or I'm Not a French Woman

Living without a full length mirror for a year has its advantages, which I've discovered. But last night my son-in-law, who is a glass artisan, brought over a full length mirror and attached it to the wall. Oh-oh-oh. Enlightenment sometimes come like a flash of lightening.

To make matters more complex, I read last weekend yet another article about why French women don't get fat. The former American reason was "they smoke" -- and we righteous nonsmoking Americans eat. It's all hokum anyway. Those thin French women, like Coco Chanel in the picture above, exist in Paris and look magnificent with their fine grooming and couture clothes. The same is true of women of the same social status in New York City [we can add other French and American cities] where maintaining the slender body, perfect skin and hair and wearing ridiculously expensive clothes is their lifestyle. This is hardly possible the majority of French or American women. Most of us are too busy to spend hours a day caring for our appearance and, frankly, my dear, we don't give that much of a damn. We are not first or trophy wives of men who think they need such an attachment.

Oh, I know, some of those socialites do charity work that is important and raise much money for good causes. But they aren't on their knees at 8:00 in the morning scrubbing the ring from the bathtub or pulling weeds from the garden. The article I read says actress Leslie Caron remains the sylph she was 50 years ago by eating minuscule portions of food. Well most of us aren't ex-movie stars either and we tend to enjoy our food. We know that if we ate a third as many calories a day we too would be slimmer. But we'd spend the day thinking about food and not about the people in our lives or the work we are doing. Thinking about your hunger pangs several hours a day is a horrible state of mind -- many of us know that because we've tried this or that diet and lived [usually briefly] with that agony.
The fashion magazines and little-read sections of the Sunday paper need these elegant women as some kind of standard, just as Buckingham Palace needs their unsmiling guards. But this has nothing to do with real life as we know it. I recently saw Catherine Deneuvre in a cameo in a movie where she looked honestly mature [see picture] -- the personification of French female beauty is still beautiful but has come a long way from the Belle de Jour days.

All of this is a way of admitting that I am no Belle de Jour either and haven't been for some time. I'm not happy with looking quite as grandmotherly as I do and that mirror may keep telling me I don't need a snack and I should go for a walk ... which is good advice. I'm happy to have the mirror but one does develop mental blank spots so that only occasionally does the whole truth register all at once. The longer the mirror hangs there the more time I have to see as much as I want to see and ignore some of the other aspects.

Saturday Summary

[Computer is in the shop so I'm using my daughter's. Shorter than usual bit because I couldn't read all the things I usually do.]

One day the paper was chock full of bad news about big corporations: No surprise that BP has been covering up its blunders for years. Then there's Glaxo-SmithKlein pharmaceuticals that knew for some years that Avandia, the diabetes drug, kicked up the normally high risk for heart attacks. And the Catholic church's cover up and slow response to sexual abuse by priests seems to bother them less than the possibility of allowing women into the clergy. Some days it just gets piled on like the heat and humidity of these summer days.

The Lacross team or the Iroquois Nation got stuck in the airport and did not make it to the world lacross games because they were traveling on passports, legally issued, of the Iroquois Nation, not the USA. They weren't allowed out because there was a strong possibility they would not be allowed back in. These are NATIVE Americans ... of course the States doesn't have a sterling record in the treatment of their people.

Starlings which number about 200,000 birds, mostly in the Eastern US are not native. 100 starlings were introduced to Central Park at the time of the construction of the Shakespeare Garden, near the Delacourt Theatre where free Shakespeare in the Park is presented. The garden contains only flowers and herbs and trees that are mentioned by Shakespeare. Someone wanted to have the birds the Bard talked about also.

And speaking of flying creatures, a certain species of firefly in the Smokey Mountains has worked out synchronicity of light shows -- the males band together by the thousands and blink in unison to attract females who might not notice a long individual somewhere in the woods sending his signals. This doesn't happen with other groups of fireflies as far as is known.

But we humans love sparkle too. Singer Kathy Perry has dressed in some odd outfits but for a recent red carpet even, she was demure and tasteful in a pink chiffon dress -- that is until she flicked a switch hidden in the bodice and set to blinking some 3200 LED lights sewn in strips just beneath the chiffon.

Stay cool, all. Remember the snows of winter.