Today attended my first Flash animation class over at Meramec. Looks like something I’ll enjoy.

It was interesting watching the show with her; she lived through much of it. She and Dad were married in 1958, moving immediately to Europe for Dad’s job with Chrysler and the Defense Department. They were in Italy when the American radio station announced John F. Kennedy’s election – which Dad apparently thought was a terrible thing, “He’s too damn young!” Dad was in his early 20′s then, working at the U.S. missile bases in Italy, then Turkey. Fortunately, they were back in the States by the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Mom pointed out that when Kennedy made the deal with Khrushchev to shut down the missile bases in Europe in exchange for closing the bases in Cuba, the U.S. was already prepared to move the missile defense system to subs and that the European bases were merely a stopgap until the boats were ready. I had no idea.

Watching the documentary brought back memories for Mom. She remembered the amazing impact of Jackie Kennedy, after years of less glamorous First Ladies. Like everyone else of her generation, she recalled vividly the deaths of JFK and his brother, Bobby.

Since moving back to the St. Louis region (Mom’s country location is about 45 minutes across the Mississippi River) I’ve spent a considerable amount of time around my Mother and, before her death two years ago, my Grandmother. I’ve had a remarkable opportunity to hear stories of their lives and times.

An episode of MadMen and several movies on TCM had me wondering about women wearing dresses, hats and gloves everywhere they go. Grandma confirmed it for me. When she was a young woman in her 20′s, she would have never considered leaving the house in a pair of pants. It would be absurd. And she would no more go to the store without a hat and gloves than stand on her head. Decades later her wardrobe was considerably freer, but at the time, a woman dressed like a lady, no matter her economic status.

You watch the TV shows, the movies and documentaries and begin to notice the pattern. Perhaps we see it so much we don’t think of it. Women were fragile things to be protected by big strong men. They were there to serve tea, pour drinks, have dinner on the table. Sometimes they actually had jobs, but it was just until they settled down and got married. In MadMen they are routinely treated like servants or large children.

There is a point to all this (I’m reminded of Ellen Degeneris’ book, “My Point, And I Do Have One.”). I was reading the latest entries on Dangerous Intersections (apparently produced mostly in St. Louis) and saw a post about young women who are proud to say they aren’t feminists.

I’ve heard the claim before. And read articles worrying about young women who live modern lives made possible by the efforts of a whole lotta people who worked hard to make it happen, yet they consider the description unsavory or tawdry.

My family includes my brother and his four kids. Two boys, two girls. They are all four remarkable and unique – of course I may be somewhat biased. My two nieces are accomplished young women. The eldest just graduated SIU-Edwardsville and begins teaching grade school this fall. The second eldest is attending McKendry College while simultaneously working her way through school with a variety of jobs. I can’t help but look at their lives and compare it to their grandmother’s and great grandmother’s.

Their great-grandmother, my Grandma, grew up in the Great Depression. She remembered living in a rental house – her family couldn’t afford to buy a home – when her father moved the family from Tennessee to Illinois in search of work. Various relatives would show up while traveling cross country in a search for employment and move in with her family. Back then there were no motels on the highways. There were no highways. Besides, nobody could afford a hotel or motel. They often had men staying with them – some relatives, some friends of relatives – while they passed through town looking for jobs of any kind. This was before the great government safety nets. Before unemployment insurance, welfare, food stamps, etc. Back then people starved to death if they didn’t have family or neighbors to look after them.

Her mother died when she was young and she was expected to raise her two younger sisters. When she was 16 she got married. Mom said it was mainly to get out of her dad’s house and away from that life. Grandma never had the chance to attend college. I don’t know if she ever was able to finish high school. But she was one of the smartest businesspeople I ever met.

She worked as a cashier, waited tables, and raised kids. Eventually she divorced my grandfather – pretty amazing consider it was the 1940′s and a woman’s identity was always linked to either her parents or her husband – and moved south to join her sisters and father now living in Texas. There she got a job in a factory and at one time was working at a munitions plant during the war

When she remarried, she had another child. She got a job delivering newspapers in what was then a rural part of Texas while holding down other part time jobs and raising her kids. While grandpa worked in Houston, she took care of things in Jasper; including packing up their home by herself into a VW bug when a huge hurricane blew in from the Gulf.

She and her new husband would visit the pier at Freeport, Texas, where grandpa would spend hours fishing. She always packed thermoses of coffee and sandwiches since back then, the shoreline was not lined with stores, cafes or restaurants. One day some fishermen asked where she got the coffee one day and she told them, in her no-nonsense Tennessee way, “I made it at home and brought it, but I suppose we’ve got enough to share if you’re wanting some.”‘

This encounter inspired her to save up her money, find a bank willing to make a loan – probably to her husband, with her name included – and find a location on the beach where she could open a sandwich and coffee stand. She found a plot several sandy blocks from the edge of the ocean (the eroding shoreline would eventually bring the ocean up until the plot became, today, completely underwater) owned by “a widow woman” who gave her a 99 year lease.

That sandwich and coffee stand eventually grew over the years. By the time I and my brother and sister came along, Grandma had closed the cafe and was running a very successful souvenir shop (the Shell Shop) and inner tube, belly board and surfboard rental business. I used to joke that my little old grandmother was the surfboard queen of Freeport, Texas.

She was a very good business operator. She hired local high school kids each summer, lived on the beach first in trailers, then built a no-frills beach house, kept track of taxes and profits and dealt with numerous hurricanes. Unfortunately her husband’s hospitalization with Alzheimer’s at the end of his life ran through their life savings quickly.

Over the course of decades when women were expected to either stay home and take care of the family, or work quietly as a secretary or on an assembly line, she was out charting her own course. She herself came from what might be called hardy stock. Her own grandmother had lived alone in a Tennessee cabin where water came from the stream out front, heat from the stove fed by the wood pile out back.

My Grandma would probably never consider herself a feminist either. Grandma was actually a very conservative person politically (we all learned not to talk about the Bushes around her) though anyone telling her she should stay in the kitchen and let men run the world was asking for a whole heap of trouble.

When I think of what she’s done in her life, what her daughter – my Mom – has accomplished, then I begin to see where my nieces and my hard working sister get it. I’ll have to ask if any of them consider themselves feminists. I know my brother – father to two very strong willed daughters – and I are.

Found via Adam & Andy, Lilkes.com is an amazing collection of images by journalist, collector and serious blogger Jim Lilkes. His website offers everything from daily updates (the Daily Bleat) to vintage matchbooks, comic book covers, everything you ever wanted to know about Minneapolis, extremely bad mystery movies and his regular column in the Star Tribune.

But it is his impressive collection of vintage postcards featuring motels and diners that stirred the very cockles of my 50′s typeface loving heart.

The intrepid Jim Lilkes not only features images of the trendy establishments of yesteryear, but also – when possible – includes photos of the modern day addresses for contrast and comparison.

“Offering sage advice for the penniless and pocket-heavy alike, artist Peter Coffin’s “How to Sneak into a Museum Without Paying” project features hand drawn maps from contributors around the globe. Thus far he’s culled a handful of floor plans and museum maps instructing readers how on how to beat the system and avoid museum fees for a forthcoming bookzine published by Printed Matter.”

Visit the site for more hand drawn maps and details.

Those of us fortunate enough to be in the St. Louis region have been spoiled by the world class St. Louis Art Museum which has no admission fee to enter the museum. Ditto on the Zoo and a few other tourist attractions. While the Art Museum (sorry, I can’t use the abbreviation “SLAM” – it’s just too forced, like calling St. Louis “The Lou”) you can saunter in and wander about to see some amazing works. If they have a special exhibit off the main hall there is usually a ‘suggested donation’ but it’s not too much.

It was a bit of a culture shock to visit museums (aka galleries in Canada, for international travelers wondering why Toronto doesn’t seem to have any art museums in the phone book) in other cities and find a hefty entrance fee at the door. I recall vividly having to fork out fifteen bucks to enter the Fort Lauderdale Art Museum and visit a very lackluster exhibition of the Pissaro family in one of the tiniest, most cramped museums I’ve ever seen.

While I didn’t mind paying five dollars to see the Ad Reinhart show in Los Angeles or whatever they charged for the Chicago Art Institute, there are times when you just don’t have the cash to see great works of art and still be able to afford that overpriced cafe mocha in the coffee shop. Apparently Peter Coffins working to help all those penniless art fans with his work in progress map guide to sneaking in without paying. The link above includes a call for contributions on various museums and the best way to sneak in.

The Automatic Detective, by A. Lee Martinez

]]> http://wordsgohere.wordpress.com/2009/08/15/merciless-tread/feed/ 0 steve301 http://wordsgohere.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/quote-of-the-day-scott-bateman/ http://wordsgohere.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/quote-of-the-day-scott-bateman/#comments Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:37:26 +0000 steve301 http://wordsgohere.wordpress.com/?p=359 ]]> “Keep government outta my Medicare! Oh, wait.”

From Scott Bateman’s video comic “Newt Gingrich vs. healthcare”

Noted from an entry on the Aussie blog buggery.org, where Paul Kidd posts this excerpt from the NY Times:

“I think he would have been a blogger,” said Jean Seaton, a professor at the University of Westminster in London who administers the Orwell writing prize and thought up the idea of the blog.

[…]

“The diary isn’t Orwell at his most polemic; it is Orwell at his most steady, most observant,” Professor Seaton said.

Like any good political blogger, Orwell devoured the news, making clippings and looking for shifts in public and government opinion, Professor Seaton said. “He’s partly obsessed by the newspapers because of the start of the world war,” she said. “The diary is written against this almost traumatized understanding that there is going to have to be a second world war.”

Tim Dorsey’s Serge Storms, educating two henchmen as he gift wraps them with duct tape in the incredibly educational, entertaining and culturally enlightening novel Atomic Jellyfish. Dorsey’s books are often described as a roller coaster ride of one sort or another, but the analogy is true. When you take a ride on one of his stories you never know what is happening next, which way is up and where you’re going to end up. That you learn more than ever conceived possibly about Florida history and culture is just gravy on the killing spree.

If you’re having a so-so day, the dialog will lift your spirits as the bodycount rises.

Today listening to Atomic Jellyfish in the car (I read the book a year or so ago) I learned about all sorts of great places I should have visited when living in Lauderdale. Like the Wreck Bar at the historic Yankee Clipper hotel on Lauderdale Beach. Dorsey claims that the windows behind the bar show the interior of the hotel pool. Is this true? Why didn’t I ever visit such a place? Ah well, lost opportunities.

But what I saw were doctors who were set up to provide care in animal stalls. Or they’d erected tents, to care for people. I mean, there was no privacy. In some cases– and I’ve got some pictures of people being treated on gurneys, on rain-soaked pavement.

And I saw people lined up, standing in line or sitting in these long, long lines, waiting to get care. People drove from South Carolina and Georgia and Kentucky, Tennessee– all over the region, because they knew that this was being done. A lot of them heard about it from word of mouth.

There could have been people and probably were people that I had grown up with. They could have been people who grew up at the house down the road, in the house down the road from me. And that made it real to me.“

Wendal Potter, former PR executive for CIGNA Insurance, interviewed by Bill Moyers, journalist. For the full interview, including why Potter finally left his incredibly well-paid job and is speaking out about the travesty that is our health care system, go here.

Whew! Cause we all know that the current Democratic plan going through Congress is based on mandatory euthanasia for everyone over a certain age. Go figure. Wonder if Obama’s mother-in-law knows what he has (deviously) planned.

Seriously. I know I have friends who vote Republican. WTF? First this birther lunacy. Now Democrats want to put old people to death? Is there a big batch of LSD in the water that I’ve missed?

Dan Smolin, Huffington Post, as reported on Dangerous Intersection.

This is one of the reasons I rarely listen to the happy chattering voices on Marketplace on NPR. Mr. Smolin nails it.

Cover design by Abner Graboff. Paperback book courtesy of the St. Louis Public Library. There are more recent issues of this book online, but the covers on those volumes feature a cute, excessively floral image of a little old lady and little old man. I actually prefer the funky cover shown above. Who is Abner Graboff? Funny you should ask. Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog asked the same question and looked it up for us.

The author, Hector Hugh Munro (aka Saki), was recommended by Amol, who turned me on to the genius of P.G. Wodehouse and other great authors. Last I heard, Amol was working his way through James Joyce. I think I’ll stick to the lighter entertainments.

Grahm Greene’s preface to The Best of Saki says “…the epigrams, the absurdities fly unremittingly back and forth, they dazzle and delight, but we are aware of a harsher, less kindly mind behind them than Wilde’s.”

I’m only into the first chapter. So far Saki is indeed the wit advertised, with the dark subtext lurking in the background. I’m looking forward to getting deeper into the book.

“Many desperate acts of design (including gradients, drop shadows, and the gratuitous use of transparency) are perpetuated in the absence of a strong concept. A good idea provides a framework for design decisions, guiding the work.”

Ellen Lupton, from Quotes On Design

“This stamp was issued by India in the year 2000, showing Gandhi’s flowing cape taking on the shape of India. Gandhi, a firm believer in self-reliance as well as non-violence, would have spun that cape himself. His choice of weaving by the masses as an act of non-violent resistance wasn’t as curious as it seems: it required discipline, involved women and inspired his countrymen and -women to spurn British-made textiles.”

Found on Strange Maps (also in blogroll on right.) Simplicity is the epitome of design. Great design is often a simple image that manages to convey multiple meanings. Like ice skating, ballroom dancing or ducks gliding serenely across the surface of the water, the genius is where it looks easy and effortless. Like a line drawing that manages to convey both Gandhi and the nation of India.

Bear trap necklace

“Whether it’s ‘Oxidised Black’ or ‘Polished’ sterling silver, this articulated necklace (stick your finger in! It works!) is a bane to miniature bears everywhere.”

From the online store at Lost At E Minor. Is it art, jewelery or playtime after the club?

From Johannes Cabal The Necromancer, by Jonathan L. Howard.

I found the above image on the blog James In Space . The artist is Fred Eerdekens, who sculpts space with objects, lights and shadows. The words on the wall are written by the shadows cast by what at first look like random pieces of wire.

“Holy Spirit Come Home” is created with two light sources and arranged objects. The words are formed by the box tops and shapes that cast the shadows on the surface. The words change with the different lights

Light shining through trees to form the words on the wall. Note that the words are not projected: they are formed by negative space in the sculpture. His website has even more amazing examples. I truly admire the way his mind works. It reminds me of watching Todd Davis at work in the photo studio – manipulating light into unexpected creations.

Speaking of James In Space; visit his site when you have a spare few hours to refresh your mind and inspire your imagination. It’s a roller coaster ride of creativity – appropriate since he is, among other things, a designer for theme parks and movies.

I found the book while on vacation years ago. I picked it up, looking for something to read while on the beach or eating dinner and thought it looked interesting. I spent the next two days pouring over it.

Cronkite led an amazing life even before becoming America’s most trusted newsman and the face of American television journalism. The stories of his first jobs in radio include my favorite; his job reading the play by play reports from the teletype of baseball games – having to pretend to be announcing the game live – and how he had to desperately stall when the teletype went down for an hour, then frantically make up plays to catch up to the actual scores when it came back online. After an hour of nobody scoring any runs, he had to suddenly rack up base runs like crazy.

Cronkite and his wife were sent to live in Moscow at the height of the Cold War while he was a reporter. He wrote about living in the gray, impoverished city with no hot water, intermittent electricity and the paranoia of the Russian government system.

In his autobiography Cronkite talked about his philosophy of journalism. He felt strongly that the reporter was there to report: not to be part of the story, not to offer opinion, not to show bias. He did such an amazing job of this, nobody ever really knew his own opinions of the events and world leaders he covered. I think a lot of people would be surprised to hear his thoughts on Nixon, Reagan and Bush, as well as the conservative movement. And the state of journalism these days.

In high school my journalism class spent a lot of time on interview techniques and getting the story behind the people. Our teacher was a huge fan of Barbara Walters – before her “If you could be a twee, what kind of twee would it be?” stage and her stint as a talk show host. Reading Cronkites book , I realize that he has so much more to teach us about understanding events and comprehending the world around us.

I’ve recommended his book to several people. I usually get a funny look when I tell them that Walter Cronkites autobiography is a fascinating read. But it is.

Inspired by a Friday evening visit to the St. Louis Art Museum (open til 9 on Fridays, free admission to special exhibits).

Atrios, Eschaton news & commentary blog

Small wonder the turnover at that company was prodigious. Between her appalling lack of social skills and the hazardous conditions to we were exposed. By the time I found a heavy tool to club her brainless head, she had already flitted off to offend others.

A week ago Sunday I must have been exposed to poison oak again. I thought I had also come down with the flu, but now suspect it was my body doing the “Oh, it’s that again! Let’s shut the works down, boys.” when the urushiol toxins began doing the backstroke through my system. It’s now been over a week and the blisters (sorry to be so vivid) have not yet completely left the theater. I’m trying to cope with  ridiculously overpriced poison ivy wash from the drugstore and resisting any steroid treatment. The last time I thought the cure was worse than the disease.

Soon as I’m feeling perky again – or even just human, I’m taking a drum of Roundup around the property and killing anything green. Grass, leaves, trees, you name it. The frogs better watch out.

The barking mass trooped and woofed outside this morning before the temperatures skyrocketed to above 100. They puttered about (Cosmo and Webster – Minnie just investigated the six square inches of ground around her) and snooped in the shrubs and grasses, making investigative woofs and burfs (Cosmo tends to go “Burf! Burf!” rather than the conventional “Bark Bark!.” ) in hopes of finding a stray bunny to chase. Fortunately the rabbits in the yard are too fast for the Yorkie Duo. I don’t think the boys would know what to do with Bugs Bunny if they caught one.

Charlie’s back yard features a small garden plot on the edge of the flower bed running amok – the flower bed is amok, not the garden plot. I helped him put in tomatoes, green peppers and mulch a few weeks ago after we spent several hours clearing debris and stray foliage from the corner. One of Charlie’s instructions as he sped out of town was to remember to water all the potted plants and the veggies. He talked about lifting up the garden fabric under the mulch and letting the hose run for a half hour – the garden patch is on an incline like everything else in the sloping back yard – to make sure the tomatoes get enough water.

Given the heavy rainfall the past several weeks I suspect the ground is wet enough that plants can go without hosing down for a day or so. Overwatering is a common problem in hot weather. Since the plants have had weeks to establish root systems, they probably need a day or so to drink what’s there in the soil. Drowning is a frequent problem in gardens. If plants have yellow leaves but are not necessarily drooping, it’s probably too much water, not too little.

Of course, if I do kill the things, I better run out and get new ones before he comes home, or I’ll never hear the end of it. Wonder if he’d notice the ripe tomatoes were attached to the plants by bread twist-ties.

Nothing of import to impart here. Just chugging strong McDonald’s coffee and trying to get a plan for the day.

A note on the door of the house said simply, “Don’t come inside. Call 911.”

I heard this third hand. I only knew Perry through mutual friends. He had been a close friend of Jim and Tom for decades.  He was part of the group who often traveled on cruises and vacations with the guys. I met him several times and found him to be a very nice fellow, easy to talk to, very friendly.

When someone is not a close friend, I don’t ask nosy questions. It’s not any of my business what happened or how. It wasn’t until a week ago that I had the chance to talk to Tom and Jim and offer my condolences. They volunteered the story behind the event.

Perry retired early at 50 years old from a large corporation. He had invested his money and planned to enjoy his retirement. Then the stock market crashed, investments vanished, home values plummeted. He watched his life savings disappear, if I got the story right. I was told that his financial planner told him the money was gone and he needed to cut back his lifestyle dramatically and get a part time job. He replied that he had a plan and it was all taken care of. Evidently this was the plan.

Having seen what happened to my parent’s life savings and pensions after they retired, I always found it frustrating to listen to the pat voices on TV and radio telling us “Well, these downturns happen. You just have to wait for the market to correct and everything will be fine again.” or “Sure, this is a drop, but it will come back. Don’t worry. Meanwhile you’ll just need to wait another few years til you retire.” Small comfort for those in their 70′s who already retired.

Meanwhile friends – who have not already had to cash in their 401k or IRA after losing their jobs – have watched as one third to two thirds of their life savings vanished into thin air. Baring a lottery winning, it’s hard to imagine rebuilding those savings again.

Someone pointed out recently that we have not seen the sort of social panic – the widespread suicides, the hopeless throngs on the streets – of the Great Depression era during this ‘economic downturn.’ Probably because of the safety net systems put into place after that horrendous event in American history. The social safety programs so many want to dismantle – just as they wanted to convert the Social Security System into a stock market investment program not too long ago.

I think the hopelessness is there, but not as evident as in the past. It’s a quiet desperation  that surfaces on occasion, in unlikely places. We become numb to the numbers posted regularly; the unemployment figures, the new plant closings, the foreclosures, debt numbers, credit rates, et al. Occasionally the national news will do a profile on some family that simply locks the doors on their home and walks away,leaving the house to the bank. Or a person trying to start over after a lifetime in a profession, now unemployed when the plant closes and it’s time to retool at 53 year old.

Jim and Tom told me of the upcoming memorial gathering where the ashes will be spread. They had lunch recently with some of Perry’s former coworkers, also retired. My friends were surprised at what the coworkers had to say. They seemed angry at Perry for doing this. For the proverbial “taking the easy way out.”

Lately it seems that it’s all coming close to home. I learn more about friends at the edge of desperation. Others who have pretty much given up and are just trying to survive. The future looks like a pretty scary place. And the new government is not the shining new agent of change we were hoping for.

Meanwhile a group of people will be gathering at a park in St. Louis to scatter ashes and remember a friend who died a last month.

Monday morning I opened the door in Illinois and was greeted with a blast of fetid, soggy air too wet to qualify for a sauna. Acres of land covered in rainwater – the rain won’t stop these days – and high heat combine to make misery in the key of damp. Arriving in St. Louis (dog sitting for Charlie again) it was less humid in the urban zones. More buildings and pavement offer less saturated ground to exude damp.

Friends complain about the heat, preferring winter to summer in this region. I’m willing to walk around soaking wet from humidity and sweat instead of crawling through snow and ice. When it’s freezing outside I have no interest in going anywhere. At least this time of year the worst I can expect on the road is the pavement melting to my tires.

Today is one of a projected series of days where the heat index will be over 108 (F). Even though I do prefer hot over cold, I also offer praise to the saint who invented home air conditioning systems.