angel baby a cover
fiction
There are many covers of Rosie and the originals "angel baby" including the Beatles but the best is by Jeanette Jenardo from the film " my family" . Everybody needs a platonic form of the ideal love interest to remember after the embers are extinguished.
another picture I saw at the national gallery in London
fiction
edward w pritchard
Another picture I saw at the national gallery on my trip to London was Titian's Pope Julius the second. It's hard for us in the era of near perfect media reproductions to appreciate Titian's genius in his rendering of Pope Julius in his old age. Look at the picture on google images. It's worth five minutes of your time. Have you ever seen a more realistic picture? He lived and now he is gone. Who will immortalize me or you?
ps watch for another story of my trip to the London National gallery which includes a reference to my prurient interest in a recently deceased porn star .
the Magdalen reading
fiction
edward w pritchard
One of my favorite authors and pictures is "the Magdalen reading" by Rogier van der Weyden at the National gallery in London. As a reader myself it's like the Platonic form of Reading a book. How we take reading for granted. Over the last two thousand years since Mary Magdalen died how many persons could afford books before the invention of the printing press in Europe [ 1440 AD]. I saw the picture in London and I wouldn't take the money spent twenty five years ago on the trip to London to see the art among other things even if the money spent to fly to London and stay in expensive hotels could have grown at 12% interest and I now had the money stashed in my mattress . I suppose I could certainly use the money however.
Mary Magdalen is an interesting character. Often I wonder if there was any truth in the story of her and how many desperate woman in the past followed her profession because of circumstance. Currently I am reading "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky and in chapter two Sonia the drunks daughter becomes a prostitute in St Petersburg Russia to escape abject poverty and a life with no way out. A similar situation in modern America would be Dakota Skye working as a porn star to survive. I wrote about Dakota Skye before and I surely wish should Jesus have been around he could have rescued Dakota Skye although like others I took prurient interest from her work.
I would venture that 40% of Americans are two months paychecks from poverty should they loose their job, social security and all government benefits cease and new jobs become unavailable for a year or two. Don't look down on people in the bottom third in America; taking a historical perspective poverty often happens to people if they are lucky enough to live a longer life. Currently medical bills in America are spiraling at a uncontrollable rate. and The fabric of America ideals is tearing as more and more persons act in non accord with the Bill of rights, constitution and our inherited British system of order, the Rule of Law and fair play.
In addition to reading to understand persons and places of the past I often look at great Art to study past civilizations and ideas and ideals of those before us. My hope for my grand children is that America will stop the worship of material things and follow something similar to early christian ideals concerning the purpose of our existence.
woe to us bag holders
fiction
edward w pritchard
Horace the Roman said " anger is short madness. Today the bag holders that's us America citizens begin to understand that our economic system is a bit of a facade .
Yesterday someone or something manipulated a miraculous turn around in the stock markets. Will markets be orderly over the next few months? Horace the Roman again wrote " Nil Desperandum". That's don't despair. As the song writer W.C. Handy said '"I hate to see the evening sun go down."
Me who can only watch in confusion, it's all beyond my understanding at this point. Who can understand bit coins and the meta investments. I hope it doesn't hit my investments, that's a social security check each month. Seneca another Roman said " I was ship wrecked before I got aboard."
At times like these I pull out my copy of John Kenneth Galbraith's " the great crash [of} 1929" his little blue book about the October 1929 stock market crash that in about one month dropped the Times a convenient average of the general stock market back then 50% in four weeks. After, in the next month or two an investigation of how short sellers had wrecked the market was initiated and later shelved, to be looked at again during the prolonged great depression of the 1930's.
Too much manipulation into markets is dangerous and un-American. Should the government intervene in markets to keep the merry go round turning faster and faster. As another Roman said " No one should be the Judge in his own case". Or as anonymous said " the greatest griefs are those we cause our selves".
Admit it, aren't we all, us bag holders, a bit of a voyeur at such times? Didn't P.J. O'Rourke say " Eat the Rich"? Nil Desperandum.
raise high the roofbeams carpenters [ or workmen]
fiction
edward w pritchard
What was Sappho trying to say when she wrote [ raise high the roofbeams carpenters] . I don't know and Boo Boo at the wedding never explained it to me. Boo Boo Glass is [ JD Salinger's very minor female character]. Boo Boo references Sappho in a work of fiction.
I enjoy Sappho's poetry even if it's possible that a mere woman wasn't capable of such beautiful lyrics and it is unknown but possible that Alexander Pope didn't secretly write some of Sappho's poems. But that would be an anachronism beyond a man's understanding.
Some folks like to do home improvements and some men like to view all girl movies with occasional references to Sappho or Shakespeare to side step the supreme court case " memoirs of a woman of pleasure" v Massachusetts I suppose. Obscenity is in the eye of the beholder perhaps.
Live and let live. I like Author Miller's character, Charley's speech at Willie's demise after the main character Willie Loman passed where Charlie says in "death of a salesman"... Willie was a salesman. And for a salesman there is no rock bottom to life.
I was a salesman once. Nasty business. Hard to have faith in the future and all. Hard to do home improvements. All I can say is why did Sappho have to die and why can't we just live on and on or at least live on in our writings. Sappho was a great poet. I'll look her up in the by and by if it's not an imaginary place. Like Boo Boo is an imaginary character who gets all the references and nuances just right, like Alexander Pope, the diminutive hunchback.
stock market foretells the future
fiction
edward w pritchard
Why wasn't CEO Trevor Milton jailed after he was indicted for fraud at Nikola the company that was going to have all the garbage trucks in the USA run on a secret energy source which turned out to be; "have all the garbage trucks get a push down hill and then run for a while on gravity until the hill ran out. "??
As they say in America " nothing succeeds like success." Speaking of the musical "nothing succeeds like success" I never saw the play but I often thought of the high school girl dancing about in their white boots scene.
Rich Americans have been guilty of many civil atrocities in the stock market over the last fifteen years. Too bad they all were not just guilty of thinking of girls they used to know dancing about in mid calf white boots a long long time ago.
Case in point the stock of Peliton the company which sold you a magic mirror which if you stood in front of it in your bedroom while you exercised then it would keep you perpetually young . Peliton is crashing now too and surprise all the executives over the last year legally sold off their shares just in the nick of time, a few weeks before the downgrades and realization by stock holders [ bag holders] that the venture was a chimera.
Better at 2am to contemplate the dance scene in " nothing succeeds like success I suppose. "America the beautiful and all.
Stock markets about too crash again. Get out of the market for a while to shelter your precious funds. and don't do too many home improvement projects ; as the stock market goes so goes the housing market.
from the curmudgeon
ain't nobodies business if I do
fiction
at the bottom one calls Lord, lord lord
ain't nobodies business what I do
judge us not
the countries going to hell
and someday someone will write about the fall
get paid to read
fiction
edward w pritchard
Of the 7 billion or so people in the world how many tonight are reading about Rome's first Punic War. Perhaps someone could split up a certain amount of funds for being the only group to be reading about Rome's important Punic wars at this specific time.
Get paid to read. It could happen. It's sorta like investing in bit coins or the metaverse. Imaginary but getting paid in real money. We will take cash please.
stretch yourself to understand
fiction
edward w pritchard
Caveat- there is no money in this. Only understanding.
Reading " Christ stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi helps me to understand Dante and his Inferno. You must concentrate and step outside yourself and your place in space where you abide.
Read a little now and then, that's about it.
