11 September 2011
Sound check. Waiting. Waiting.
Franco Scalzo and his beautiful friends in Città della Pieve.
In a multiple choice test, eliminate any answer with words like “always,” or “never.” Choose the longest answer, and/or choose B or C because test makers avoid A and D.
The oldest known vegetable is the pea.
Mira Sorvino is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.
“I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.” Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826)
Robert Hollis, a very good painter.
The north Texas branch of the Andrew family, Kyle, Kelli, Craig and Robert.
“It seems to me a barren thing, this conservatism… an unhappy cross-breed, the mule of poitics that engenders nothing.” Benjamin Disraeli.
“Are we an exceptionally unlikely accident or is the universe brimming over with intelligence?” Carl Sagan.
Questa era una simpatica notizia.
This was happy news.
A Venetian wedding document 1503 lists “one marrying ring having diamond.” The Venetians discovered that the diamond is one of the hardest, most enduring substances in nature.
“Let’s Get Another Deck.”
This was the Republican response in 1936 to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. The New Deal saved a lot of people when times were very hard.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps. No one was keen on doing this originally. George Harrison was reduced to asking Eric Clapton on the session just to sell the song. Clapton then went on to play on “Lucy.”
She was following her father. I liked her purse.
Elise Piliwale in Yosemite.
One of my buddies down at Aroma Café.
Frogs move faster than toads.
If snow squeaks when you walk on it, the temperature is ten degrees Fahrenheit or less.
Teressa and Ben.
People who have died on Friday the thirteenth include Benny Goodman and Hubert Humphrey.
Friday is named after Frigga (Freya), the Skandinavian Venus/Aphrodite, free spirited goddess of love and fertility. When the Christians came to the frozen north, Frigga was banished to a mountaintop and labeled a witch. Every Friday, Frigga convened a meeting with eleven other witches, plus the devil, a party of thirteen, where evil was brewed. For many centuries in Scandinavia, Friday was known as “Witches’ Sabbath.”
In the Latin languages, too, Friday is named after the goddess of love, Venus: in Latin dies Veneris (day of Venus); venerdì, vendredi, viernes, divendres (Catalan), vennari (Corsican) and vineri (Romanian).
Of course, good things happen on Friday the thirteenth too. The Third Man premiered January 1950; the Allies recaptured Tobruk November 1942 and Alfred Dreyfus was restored to the French army and promoted to major July 1906.
Two good artists, Julie Knight and Christopher Skura.
Janis Joplin, Sam Andrew.
Can you tell it’s the 80s? David Freiberg and Grace Slick.
Laurence Olivier (Hamlet 1948) and Roberto Benigni (La Vita è Bella 1998) were the only two people to direct themselves to acting Oscars.
Photo: Elise Piliwale
With Catalina. (Photo: Don Aters)
Roman soldiers wore focale, scarves soaked in water and wrapped around the neck to cool the body.
In 1688, a regiment of Croatian mercenaries in the service of Austria appeared in France wearing linen and muslin scarves around their necks.
Whether the scarves were once functional, as were focale, or merely a decorative accent to an otherwise bland military uniform, has never been established.
Fashion conscious French men and women were greatly taken with the idea of the scarves around the neck.
The French began appearing in public with neckwear of linen and lace, knotted in the center, with long flowing ends.
Les Français called the ties “cravates,” their name for the Croats who inspired the sartorial flair.
The French word “cravate” is remarkably close to the Croats name for themselves, Hrvatska. The sound of the two words is almost the same, although, yes, the spelling is quite different. When we were in Bosnia, we passed in and out of Croatia and we saw this word Hrvatska many times at border crossings.
The fashion for wearing the cravate spread quickly to England and it might have died out had not Charles I I decided to make the neckwear a court must.
In the next century Beau Brummel became famous for his massive neckties and innovative ways of tying them.
Knots and ties of cravates were named for famous people and fashionable places, such as the racecourse at Ascot. Most ties today are done in a Windsor knot.
Since 1688, then, neckwear in some form__ belt long or bowtie short, plain or fancy, rope narrow or chest broad__ has been continually popular.
So men, the next time you tie that cravate, don’t curse the Croats. Blame Beau Brummel.
Elie Piliwale’s photograph of her leg.
Molti anni fa, quando ero giovane e scapolo, andavo matto per le ragazze.
Many years ago, when I was young and single, I went crazy for the women.
There’s a cemetery town in California called Colma. Bruce Latimer works there. The ratio of dead to living in Coma is 750 to 1.
Slot machines closest to the doors are the most generous.
In Paris I knew I was catching the flu, so I drew it sitting on my shoujlder.
No photograph can capture the charm and sweetness of this woman.
Nusch Eluard (Man Ray)
Dépôt People. Everytime I sell a painting, I regret it. I’d much rather have the painting than the money.
Elise Piliwale’s photograph of her hobnail glass and coin dot glass.
Karen Lyberger and Stefanie Keys in the land of the Maidu.
Liz Aday and Elise Piliwale in Tacoma.
To calculate a dog’s age in human terms count the first year as 15, the second year as 10, and every year after that as 5.
Sarà uno scherzo, dissi fra me, ma io non ci casco.
(It’s probably a joke, I said to myself, but I’m not getting it.)
If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times but more like 4,950. The head picture weighs more so it ends up on the bottom.
Every seventh wave is a big one.
In Sanskrit, nana meant mother. In Latin, nonna was a child’s nurse. In Greek, nanna was “aunt,” and the Coptic word nane meant “good.” All ancestors of the word “nun.”
Sono disposto a garantire la veridicità di ogni parola.
I am prepared to guarantee the truth of each word.
The average life of a nuclear plant is forty years.
(Remember when George Bush said “nukuler power pants” for “nuclear power plants?”)
Actual newspaper headline: Grandmother of eight makes hole in one.
In San Diego with Randal Myler, playwright, Love, Janis. We were packing our suitcases on the morning of 11 September 2001 to fly to New York to accept a Lifetime Achievement Award from High Times Magazine. i still have the bong on my mantle. Randy called me and said, “You can stop packing now.” “Why?” “Turn on the television.” No, but why?” “Turn on the television.” So I did.
An earplug is properly sized if two thirds of it fits inside the ear canal, and one third remains exposed.
Elise Piliwale rocks her welding costume.
Joe Healey has a daughter named Chelsea.
Holy See is a corruption of the Latin “sedes,” seat. “Kathedra” is Greek for “seat.” When the Pope speaks “ex cathedra,” s/he is speaking “from the seat,” that is, officially. A “cathedral” is where the holy seat is.
A steet on Okinawa.
Come la maggior parte delle donne che hanno raggiunto il successo, è dotata d’intuito e di senso pratico.
Like most women who have achieved success, she is endowed with intuition and common sense.
Next week, then?
Sam Andrew
Big Brother and the Holding Company
__________________________________________________________