Ye Gods....

Yeah, it's me being snarky... but I just couldn't resist. Vogue magazine can manage to turn me snarky any time I look at it online... the 'interviews' by one of their editors of people at the Met Gala are among the most hysterical things online... "I LLLOOOVVVEE your outfit!! Who made it?! ADDOOORable!!!" (Barf, barf!!!!!) "Oh is Beyonce here yet?!!!"  (Double barf... she's wearing that naked lace thingy... I think they did a special article on what to wear under it........).

And then of course, a photo of Buce Jenner, pardon me, Caitlan Jenner on Vogue.com -- he had better stick to the cute curled up sitting down Vanity Fair style photos. Standing up, surrounded by at least three short men with their arms out to catch him in case he falls off the high heels, he is the joke of the century. The short skirted outfit doesn't help either. he may have had his face and neck resculpted, but he can't hide the HUGE paws clutching the evening bag and the straight legs and big feet... pure man. Even the belt placed up on the chest just looks uncomfortable. Maybe he should start dressing like Lady Gaga to hide all the faults, or at least not try to look so damned 'ladylike'... a few long dresses, sandals might help... but going overboard to look 'dainty' is not the way for him to go. Pardon me... as with Vogue, I should be more polite and say 'the way for her to go.' Dainty ain't it. Well, he does refer to himself as a 'girl' so maybe he is also trying to be terribly young again too, which is hard to do at his advanced age... but dressing a little more age appropriately might help her look also. When you are a grandmother, you should try for a little less 'youth' look. All I can say is, "Grandmother, what big hands you have..."

Finally... Something to Write About

I just watched the US Soccer Team win the FIFA title in a GREAT game against Japan. They lost in a terrible game last time, so this was an even better evening game, as they played so well... making THREE goals FAST... then another, making it 4-nil... then missing one to Japan in the first half. They made another goal in the second half, but so did Japan, but what a game!!! 5-2 the final score. Carli Lloyd made those first two... then a third goal and a new record for a championship game getting a hat trick.  They all... both sides... played so well, it was a joy to watch. Those first two goals were so fast... fastest ever in a championship game... both of them. Carli must be overjoyed.

I am fond of watching male soccer, and watched the FIFA games this year, but I will say that this game was more exciting than any of them in the men's championship. I will never understand how those kids can stay on their feet running so fast and turning so fast... and kicking so hard. Just amazing... and it is THE BEAUTIFUL GAME! I loved every minute of it... and was exhausted when it was finished... just from watching all the great work they did. God... I have to get my strength back. If I keep having to go down to the Apple Store for lessons, I just may... it's a long walk down to where a cab can pull in on Market.

Oops... "60 Minutes" is on... must go watch that now. Guess cheese and crackers will be my 'dinner' tonight, as there is a lot of stuff on KQED right after 60.

Still Wondering

I just had an email from my son. I have been very, very, VERY lonely of late, kinda particularly during about the last couple of months and since I rarely hear anything from any of my family anymore, I wrote him a sad little letter about my feelings. Mistake. He simply said I had lots of friends... and even a blog, so I must have lotsa friends because of that. What a laugh... this is my little letter to myself... no one else ever sees it or reads it. I have like two or three comments... all from my oldest nephew, who apparently does read it once in awhile. He's the ONLY one. I guess I only write it because I don't have any Kirkie to write to anymore... he won't answer, so why write. So I write to myself about little things like the fact that my kids are strangers now... my own fault, as they both remind me interminably... you wanted to go to CA, where we will never go, as we hate it and it is a long way away. So, just sit back, Peggy and enjoy the nice cool weather, with a couple of warm days every now and then... in a beautiful,  breezy place where  you can breathe without an inhaler, never have another attack of asthma... wear the same kind of clothes all year long... never have a coat, unless maybe a rain coat if it ever starts raining again... and go out and sit and have lunch in the garden with Gloria once in awhile. I miss Bud and Al... and Al Bear and Jane and all the other Fromm people... and reading to each other... and  the poets and all the people who have disappeared to die on me. Even the dear little girl who handled all the business at the 3-Day Novel writing contest has moved on to another job.... Melissa. Amazing, I can still remember some names... although that was always my worst problem... I wonder if it was because my mother could remember everyone's name... was I just reacting against that? Some names are engraved on my brain... I will never forget Leo Burnett, as I loved him so much... or Ned Travis, the same... but about half the people I worked with/for have disappeared from my memory... except in little snatches when something reminds me of them. A bell ring, a taste of pizza, a whiff of perfume... and back they all come... good lord, I have known so many people... and until the last couple of years, I could remember about half of them... but they are all fading out without the reminders. What was the name of that secretary who worked for that dreadful man who thought up 'great books' who used to douse herself in perfume before she went home? Marshall hated that as much as I did and wanted me to tell her... I told him to do it himself and he was furious about that. I do wish I could remember all of them... but what does it matter now, except that if I get back to my writing about them, it would help if I could remember their names.

Enough, enough, Peg... you have nattered along enough for tonight... take your damned pills, go to the john and go to bed. I do hope I have enough kitty food for Sunday... Ana can run over on Monday and get more... she felt she should get some... she knows better how much Sylvia can eat... and Sylvia has been eating like a horse again... both kinds of food.  Wow... I have a weird cramping of my left hand... it pulls my fingers apart into a Vulcan salute... so strange, as it is now hard to do that with my right hand. God, why must I get old.... why can't I just die like everyone else?

Goodbye Again.... John Hartford

I just spent almost the entire day saying goodbye again to a dear friend I lost exactly 14 years ago, John Hartford. Started yesterday morning when I was packing up the last of some old posters and I found John's picture... complete with his careful signature in the elegant writing style he so loved doing. Looked very like the John Hancock signature. John didn't write his poetry on a computer or a typewriter, but on those cards he carried around in his pocket. The house in Tennessee his children have kept up in his honor is full of John's lovely poetry, not as elegantly written as that signature, but in his very readable handwriting. I have managed to rid myself of some of my beloved books, but I shall die owning the little volume of John's poetry... and hope that someone else loves it enough to read it and keep it forever. 

His wonderful song "Gentle On My Mind" is his poem only John Hartford could have set to music and sung so beautifully that many others, even Sinatra, tried to sing it. No one sang it like John... I weep through it every time I hear him do it... it has an added meaning to me, for those feelings I gave to K, though I doubt that he understands that. I am so glad of one thing... someone, I suppose his children, got John to record himself playing and singing a great many of his songs, so that he will be well remembered by those of us who loved him... and the next generation and more will be able to see and hear one of the most versatile writers and musicians of my generation... a man who could not only write great 'folk songs' for us all, but could also sing them with gusto. Who could clog dance while doing so and playing them on any stringed instrument made. Who could play the fiddle with such ability to make you weep, then turn it down to strum it like his guitar, bow still in his hand. What a joy you were, John Hartford. I loved you and I miss you, a real 'only in America' gentleman, who loved his land. One of the greatest real folk singer/songwriters of our time, a true friend, an artist of so many talents and an under-appreciated musical genius.

New 'Grandchild'... and New Computer

Oh, god, I am SO glad I live in California, earthquakes and everything... but NO tornadoes or snow or floods, etc., etc. Well, we are now praying for rain, less wind and a little warm up from our 'cool' weather, which would probably be considered warm back East. Constant 'low 60s' is cool here with the big wind, and a lot cooler after the sun goes down.

Anyway... that is not what I am writing about. I now belong to a podcast group and at the last meeting I said jokingly, "Boy, I wish I had a grandchild here in town to help me figure out how to put my podcasting equipment together and get rid of some stuff on my computer that is bothering me." But I was in luck... a dear young Irish kid offered to play grandchild and come to my apartment and help with everything. Yep, he showed up the next day, complete with all his luggage, as he was leaving for Ireland after working on my computer. And work he did -- helped me a LOT... and is a really fun kid. I am lucky in my friends... and I am sure Mark Moriarty will be a good friend for a long time when he gets back in town... I hope soon.

Then, on Saturday, I went down to the Apple Store and bought a new MacBook Pro laptop computer, which I will need for my podcast, as I will have to take it out of here for the readings, as Larry is allergic to cats. Poor Sylvia was crushed when he rejected her, but she was very pleased with Mark coming to visit. She does love young men... thank goodness he is used to cats and was lovely to her. With the computer I bought a year of weekly one-on-one meetings to help me with the computer and any app on the computer. So I signed up for "Garage Band" half-hour meeting on the 19th at 10":30am... I do HOPE I can figure it out... and will have as many lessons as it takes. I am determined to get on air.

Love Affair, the film..... or was it 'Our Love Affair?"

Saturday night I watched this film on our PBS station (we have 'movie night' on Saturday), mainly because it was on. Why they did the remake, I do not know... I think I remember the first. This remake with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr was hysterically 'old fashioned' and rather silly. The main reason was because dear old 'upper-class' Deborah seemed to obviously feel that she should not be working with Archie Leach, a lower class type. Such amusing 'love' scenes, where as he seemed to be coming in for a kiss, she pulled her head to the side and he got a quick hug, with the look of disdain. Through the whole thing good old Deborah played like the posh upper-class English LADY, putting up with having to work with this dreadful 'Archie Leach' character. And oh, the scenes where she is 'directing' the children singing... waving her hands up and down... silly!

I LOVED Cary Grant. He was the George Clooney of his day... a gorgeous man who looked quite posh to me, and I suppose to most of the American public. He had lost all his low-class tumbler talk and attitude. He wore clothes well and acted like he was born to be aristocracy. But during this film, Deborah seemed to feel she was the elegant, intellectual, charming lady... so why on earth did they force her to put up with this rather minor peasant. There wasn't even a kiss at the end... just good old Debbie letting that man put his cheek next to her lovely, luscious cheek while she intoned the final lines of something like, "Well, if you can sing, I can walk, my darling" all eyes shiny with Hollywood tears.

How dare she... Cary Grant might have come to this country as part of a tumbling act, or something like it, but he turned into the most gorgeous, suave leading man in Hollywood... like a man born to be not only Hollywood aristocracy, but genuine aristocracy. When given the right leading lady (like Kate Hepburn) he was great and stayed that way until he tired of acting and went to work for a cosmetics company. I saw him years ago... an old man with white hair and he was still the most beautiful man I have ever seen. He saw me gasping and pointing and laughed and waved. Kind, too.

Goodness, tough to get into my own blog, complete with a long list of same name with other suffix... and very cheap price, I must say. I am not very clever at naming it seems. Not very at writing also, but I was listening to the PBS show "The Italians" and heard about this wonderful man who spoke at a strike in a spinning mill -- always makes me think of Grandma C. This was one finally led by a fascinating Italian. Here is his speech... he was a very clever writer and speaker... and adapter. I have yet to find out how much of this is simply a sort of description of Giovanniutti and how much his actual words. I do know that the 'Blessed are..." lines are all his adaption for the strikers. I rather wish someone could write something like this, break into Congress... that poor old empty room -- and deliver it......or perhaps even if someone would go to Congress and actually SING John Lennon's 'Imagine" so that Cruz and all the other might really see what it means. No, they are too ignorant to understand it... and too wrapped up in theirselves...

As everyone knows, I do NOT believe in ANY GOD, but this is beautiful:

The Sermon on the Common
By Arturo Giovannitti
THEN it came to pass that the people, having heard that he had come, assembled on the Common to listen unto his words.
And they came from all the parts of the earth, the Syrians and the Armenians, the Thracians and the Tartars, the Jews, the Greeks and the Romans, the Iberians and the Gauls and the Angles and Huns and the Hibernians and Scythians, even from the deserts of sands to the deserts of ice, they came to listen unto his words.
And he, seeing the multitudes, opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
Blessed are the strong in freedom’s spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of the earth.
Blessed are they that mourn their martyred dead: for they shall avenge them upon their murderers and be comforted.
Blessed are the rebels: for they shall reconquer the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after equality: for they shall eat the fruit of their labor.
Blessed are the strong: for they shall not taste the bitterness of pity.
Blessed are the sincere in heart: for they shall see truth.
Blessed are they that do battle against wrong: for they shall be called the children of Liberty.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for equality’s sake: for theirs is the glory of the brotherhood of man.
Blessed are ye when the scribes of the press shall revile you, and the doctors of the law, politicians, policemen, judges and priests shall call you criminals, thieves and murderers and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for the sake of Justice.
Rejoice, then, and be exceedingly glad; for so they persecuted, reviled, cursed, chained, jailed, poisoned, hanged, crucified, burned, beheaded and shot all the seers, the apostles and the warriors of humanity that were before you, for the sake of freedom.
Ye are the power of the earth, the foundations of society, the thinkers and the doers of all things good and all things fair and useful, the makers and dispensers of all the bounties and the joys and the happiness of the world, and if ye fold your mighty arms, all the life of the world stands still and death hovers on the darkened abodes of man.
Ye are the light of the world. There was darkness in all the ages when the torch of your will did not blaze forth, and the past and the future are full of the radiance that cometh from your eyes.
Ye are eternal, even as your father, labor, is eternal, and no power of time and dissolution can prevail against you.
Ages have come and gone, kingdoms and powers and dynasties have risen and fallen, old glories and ancient wisdoms have been turned into dust, heroes and sages have been forgotten and many a mighty and fearsome god has been hurled into the lightless chasms of oblivion.
But ye, Plebs, Populace, People, Rabble, Mob, Proletariat, live and abide forever.
# # *
Think not that I am come to destroy the law: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil through you what the prophets of mankind have presaged from the beginning.
For verily I say unto you, While man lives and labors, nothing can destroy the eternal law of progress which after each advancing step bids him further.
Therefore, say not unto yourselves, even as the priests and scribes and doctors of the law and fools and hypocrites say, This is the goal which was destined unto us and no further shall we go.
For even if there be before you the uplifted arms of terror and the smoking altars of murder enshrined in a gaunt temple of gibbets and fierce with shrieks of curses, ye must pass beyond.
For your feet are like the unrolling of the endless scrolls of time, not even night and silence and death can stop their march forward and upward, ever to a farther and loftier goal.
And, lo, ye shall never arrive because never shall ye cease going.
Whosoever, therefore, shall break one jot or one tittle of this law shall be called the least in the kingdom of man, but whosoever shall do and teach it, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of man.
Ye have heard that it was said by them of all times who toil not but do live of your toil, Thou shalt not rebel against thy master.
But I say unto you that whosoever soweth the seeds of patience the same shall reap the harvest of shame.
They said unto you, Question not the right of your masters to reign over you and command you. They shall have your sweat and your tears, aye, and even your blood and your life, and ye shall serve them in reverence and awe, for their power upon you is of God.
And again they said unto you, Give your masters the labor of your hands and the worship of your hearts, give them the fruits of your orchards, the grains of your fields, the flowers of your gardens and all things made by the labor of your hands and by the thought of your brain, and withhold not aught from your masters, lest your masters law and the curse of your masters God be upon you.
And again they said unto you, Bend your knees and worship your chains, kiss the whip that lashes you, bless the heel that crushes you, revere the yoke that weighs upon your neck, bury your forehead in the dirt whence ye came and whither ye shall return.
Do not cry, do not complain do not grumble, do not think, do not hope, Be humble, resigned, patient, submissive, lowly and prone even as a beast of burden, lest ye have the gaol in this life and gehenna in the life to come.
And again they said unto you, Resist not evil, for all spirit of disobedience and unsubmission issueth from the enemy of peace. Therefore if your masters, or your masters servants smite you on the right cheek, turn unto them the other also, and if they take away from you the heritage of your fathers, give unto them also the birthright of your children.
All this and more than this they said unto you before I came, but now that I am come, a new evangel shall be proclaimed unto you, that your souls may be renovated and purified in the fire of the new salvation which is not peace but war.
Therefore I say unto you, Banish fear from your hearts, dispel the mists of ignorance from your minds, arm your yearning with your strength, your vision with your will, and open your eyes and behold.
Do not moan, do not submit, do not kneel, do not pray, do not wait.
Think, dare, do, rebel, fight ARISE!
It is not true that ye are condemned to serve and suffer in shame forever;
It is not true that injustice, iniquity, hunger, misery, abjection, depravity, hatred, theft, murder and fratricide are eternal;
There is no destiny that the will of man cannot break;
There are no chains of iron that other iron cannot destroy;
There is nothing that the power of your arms, lighted by the power of your mind, cannot transform and reconstruct and remake.
Arise, then, ye men of the plough and the hammer, the helm and the lever, and send forth to the four winds of the earth your new proclamation of freedom which shall be the last and shall abide forevermore.
Through you, through your united, almighty strength, order shall become equity, law shall become liberty, duty shall become love and religion shall become truth.
Through you the man-beast shall die and the man be born;
Through you the dark, bloody chronicles of the brute shall cease and the story of man shall begin.
Through you, by the power of your brain and hand,
All the predictions of the prophets,
All the wisdom of the sages,
All the dreams of the poets,
All the hopes of the heroes,
All the visions of the martyrs,
All the prayers of the saints,
All the crushed, tortured, strangled, maimed and murdered ideals of the ages, and all the glorious destinies of mankind shall become a triumphant and everlasting reality in the name of labor and bread and love, the great threefold truth forever.
And lo and behold, my brothers, this shall be called the revolution.
* * *
Thus spake the man to the assembled multitude that had come from all the lands, over all the waters of the earth, and they listened unto him and received his words, and the dawn began to rise in their hearts, and they praised the announcer with the cheers of their mouths and they blessed him with the tears of their eyes.
But when the multitude dispersed to return to their labors and to their strifes, the dark figures that make darker the shadows of the night held council against the truth-bearer for the words that he had spoken.
And the scribe said, Verily, he is a law-breaker.
And the money changer said, Aye, and he is a fool.
And the judge said, He is a wrongdoer.
And the sage said, He is possessed of a devil.
And the chronicler said, He is a primitive sinner.
And the wise man said, He is a profligate.
And the priest said, He is a blasphemer.
And they all croaked in chorus, He is an enemy of society, of civilization, of religion and mankind. Law and order must be upheld and our sacred institutions must be preserved. We must do away with him.
And they did away with him. But nobody knows to this day whether they sent him to prison or to Parliament.