Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

This will probably be a short blog tonight, because I seem to have temporarily misplaced my glasses, at least I hope I just temporarily misplaced them and they didn’t fall out of my pocket while I was taking out the garbage or going to the store, I’m searching back through my addled short term memory and the last time I definitely remember having them was before all that, so I think they must be somewhere in the flat.

It wasn’t really a mean statement, and he apologized O.K.

Of course, the frustrating thing about losing ones glasses is that not having them makes it harder to look for them.  It’s sort of like when you forget your phone, your first instinct is to call everybody and let them know you don’t have a phone, but…

****************************************

Congratulations to my niece, Betsy Stalter, on getting married, which she just announced via facebook and we had no idea, although her and Enderson have been a couple for a long time.  I haven’t met him yet (they live in Brazil, he’s Brazilian) but most of the rest of the family has and they think he’s great.

******************************************************************************

In the news, I would like to  offer a bit of a defense of the lame duck Czech Prime Minister, Jiři (George) Rusnok, who was caught saying something stupid when he obviously thought the mike was off.  Admittedly, he’s a moron, because there was no reason at all to think it was turned off, but it wasn’t such a malicious statement.  When informed that he was  going to be delegated to attend Mandela’s funeral because the President, Miloš Zeman, is in  a permanent alcoholic stupor has a knee injury,  he said something that could be very roughly translated as “Bloody hell, I don’t have time for this shit.”

He wasn’t saying that nobody should go, he wasn’t saying anything negative about Mandela, he was just bitching, to a friend, about the long flight (long as a pig? Jeez, this language) and the inconvenience.

I don’t really get that, either, because I see that as one of the great perks about a job like his.  He gets to jet off to South Africa for a couple of days, away from the Czech Winter, spend some time shmoozing with world leaders and maybe fit in a day or two of sightseeing, food, and music, if he’s smart.

Funerals aren’t much fun, but that’s only a few hours.  Deal with it, ty vole.

Sometimes I find the way people react to the news is more interesting than the news itself.  In this world of instant news and non-stop social  media, the reactions become newsworthy  in  themselves,  and the  reactions to the reactions and the reactions to the  reactions  to the reactions, in an infinite regression.

RIP Nelson Mandela

There were two things people were talking about today, and one of them was a TV presentation of a stage play of The Sound of Music, and lots of people were outraged (seriously,  outraged.  Not miffed or mildly  annyed or slightly put out) that anybody should dare to desecrate the perfection that was the 1964 (or thereabouts – I’m not going to look it up) film.  I’ve seen the film, it was O.K., I also remember the Mad Magazine version,  The Sound of Money (dough, means cash, for all of us, ray! for musicals like this….) but people need to lighten up, great movies get remade.  Even movies that sucked sometimes get remade.  Also, they probably  should learn the difference between a movie and a play.

The other,  of course, was the death of Nelson Mandela.  I must confess, his death took  me by  surprise because I thought he  was already dead.  I  suppose that’s the kind of  misunderstanding  that  can  arise when you live to 95.

The vast majority of the comments, of course, were basic “RIP” type comments, but my cousin the Rabbi somehow made it about Mandela’s relationship  to the Jews, and Rick “Santorum” Santorum, who is probably getting ready  for a 2016 run for the White House his own self, commented that Mandela’s struggle against apartheid is similar to his  fight against Obamacare.

I’m sure glad Rick  is no  longer politically relevant.  At least, I hope  he’s not.

Two things happened this morning which I would like to note here, not because I am at all superstitious, I’m sure it was just a total coincidence, but just because these two things happening, within seconds of each other, is weird enough to be worthy of note.

It was about a quarter past 6 in the morning and I was on my way to work because on Thursdays I have a class that starts at 7, and it was still night, not like beginning to be dawn, but still black night.  I looked up, it was a clear enough sky to see plenty of stars, and zippo! A shooting star.  Haven’t seen one in years and it’s always a pleasure and I see it as an omen of good luck (except, of course, as I said, I’m not at all superstitious).  Then I looked down at the ground (hey, walking’s like driving, you’ve got to be checking all around) and a black cat walked across the sidewalk right in front of me.

This painted pastiche of newsprint and vomit was sold for 80 million dollars

Just thought I’d mention that.

Tonight’s topic, though, is art, particularly paintings, and this little quiz that somebody put up on my facebook page. Go ahead, take the quiz.  Million dollar art or yard sale art.  I scored 7 out of 15, which is  the same as just flat out guessing. Which is, of course, what I was doing.

I am not a sophisticated viewer of art.  I strongly suspect that a lot of the people who bought these paintings aren’t, either.  I suspect that the very people who spent 2, 4, or 10 million  dollars for some color splashed on canvas also scored 7 or 8 on this test.  Rich people just have too damn much money.

Same with poetry.  I don’t get non-representational art and I don’t get 9/10ths of modern poetry.  The difference is that nobody ever spends a million dollars for a poem, or even a book.