Only Good Boys Get Hunt's
This must explain why I love ketchup so much. I wish my mother was still here to verify it.
One More From The MFA
I forgot to mention that our visit to the Boston Museum Of Fine Arts last week would not have been complete without re-connecting with Degas' little dancer.
Sandro Botticelli At The Boston MFA
Today was the first Sunday of the first full weekend of the month, so that meant free admission to the Museum Of Fine Arts, courtesy of our BankAmericard. Thank you once again, Bank Of America.
I'm just going to leave photos here of some things that drew me to them. It was very special to see such beauty that had survived from the 15th and 16th centuries.
And yes, Botticelli's "Venus" was indeed part of the exhibit, and for many of those present, it seemed to be the primary focus. And it certainly was powerful to see the original painting in person.
But my eyes drifted to other works that were less known or unknown to me, that engaged me immediately
There was a young man with a man-bun looking at this painting while I was taking the photo. I resisted the temptation to ask him if this might have been the inspiration for his choice of hairstyle.
Phillies To Blue Jays To Phillies
By Danny Coleman for the "Old Images of Philadelphia" page on Facebook
What's in a name.... The Philadelphia Blue Jays???Hold on to your hats this is a doozy...In 1942 the "Phillies" officially changed their name to "Phils". In 1943 lumber baron William Cox bought the team and changed it back to "Phillies". He was only able to buy the team because Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis blocked Bill Veeck's attempt to buy the team and load it with players from the Negro League. That being said under Cox's ownership he devoted the resources to fund a real team with an actual farm system as the Phillies finished last perennially. They finally were "out of the basement ". But.... the owner, Cox, was caught betting on the team and subsequently was banned from baseball. The Carpenter family then bought the team and tried to clean up the image by subtlety naming it the "Blue Jays". The name did not take but the farm system did and yielded Robin Roberts, Richie Ashburn and the 1950 National League Champion Whiz Kids!!! Yes it's ironic the "Phillies" lost to the "Blue Jays" in the 1993 World Series.
Amazon Books
An Amazon Books store opened on the North Shore, and I wanted to see how a store without visible pricing could possibly hope to succeed. With my background in bookselling and retail, and as an Amazon Prime member, I was especially interested in learning about how in-store transactions got processed and whether or not that elusive thing known as "Customer Service" would be present.
And I made a commitment to myself not to purchase any books there, since I'm on a personal campaign to jettison those of my existing books that I no longer read or care about but have some market value left (to family for free, or to other readers for as much money as possible on eBay). Books I purchase these days are either ebooks, or Audible books.
So how did it go?
Well, it's a gorgeous store, in the way that I think Apple stores are gorgeous. It doesn't look like an Apple Store, but it does have that same clean, open, thought-through look and feel to it. It's comfortable and it looks like a bookstore.
About a quarter of the store is devoted to Amazon electronics, which allows the customer to interact with Kindle and Alexa hands-on instead of online. Online shopping is a wonderful thing, but you can't see and touch (and interact) with things like you can in a brick-and-mortar store. So in that regard, Amazon Books is a showroom - and it is especially a Prime showroom.
And if you're saying "well I like shopping online because I like to read the comments" all you have to do is open the Amazon app on your smartphone, scan the item, and read the comments. Alternatively, you can take the item you're interested in to one of the scanning stations in the store.
The title selection was eclectic but engaging, and browsing was really fun. The checkout procedure seemed quick and easy, again making use of a customer's Prime membership, or for non-Amazonians, the old fashioned card-swipe way. It appeared to be frictionless. And customer service was also good, and respectful to browsers. I engaged with one Associate who was obviously a book person, and with whom I bonded (as a book person and former bookseller myself). He answered all my questions and was quite clear about Amazon's mission with Amazon Books - to showcase amazon.com.
All in all, I was impressed. I didn't ask Alexa any questions, but despite my best intentions, I did buy a book.
Marathon Monday Morning
Early this morning, runners prepare to board busses in Boston for the trip to the Boston Marathon starting line in Hopkinton.
Cargo Shorts: Yes Or No?
It's getting to be shorts weather again.
What do you think - yes or no for cargo shorts?
www.pravda.gov
The new Administration is considering ways of re-branding the White House Communications Office in January.
You Say You Want A Revolution
"He [Obama] lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!"
Donald Trump
November 7, 2012
Good Morning America, How Are You?
The sun's not up yet in Boston, but it's still there, behind the clouds.
Election Night Drinking Game
How many olives will it take to fill a classic Martini glass?
And Finally Today, In Election News From Florida...
This just in...
Daylight Savings Time Ends
It used to be that we would set our clocks back tonight. Now our electronic devices take care of that for us.
Smoking Guns Galore!
I'm not advocating for WikiLeaks, or for a political party. I'm just astounded at how much we're all learning (if we didn't already know) about how the political sausage is really made.
Witchy Woman
Be careful out there tonight!
The Port Huron Statement
Tom Hayden, who died yesterday, wrote this in 1962. Parts of it resonated strongly for many of us who were on college campuses during the 1960s.
INTRODUCTION: AGENDA FOR A GENERATION
We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.
When we were kids the United States was the wealthiest and strongest country in the world: the only one with the atom bomb, the least scarred by modern war, an initiator of the United Nations that we thought would distribute Western influence throughout the world. Freedom and equality for each individual, government of, by, and for the people -- these American values we found good, principles by which we could live as men. Many of us began maturing in complacency.
As we grew, however, our comfort was penetrated by events too troubling to dismiss. First, the permeating and victimizing fact of human degradation, symbolized by the Southern struggle against racial bigotry, compelled most of us from silence to activism. Second, the enclosing fact of the Cold War, symbolized by the presence of the Bomb, brought awareness that we ourselves, and our friends, and millions of abstract "others" we knew more directly because of our common peril, might die at any time. We might deliberately ignore, or avoid, or fail to feel all other human problems, but not these two, for these were too immediate and crushing in their impact, too challenging in the demand that we as individuals take the responsibility for encounter and resolution.
While these and other problems either directly oppressed us or rankled our consciences and became our own subjective concerns, we began to see complicated and disturbing paradoxes in our surrounding America. The declaration "all men are created equal . . . rang hollow before the facts of Negro life in the South and the big cities of the North. The proclaimed peaceful intentions of the United States contradicted its economic and military investments in the Cold War status quo.
We witnessed, and continue to witness, other paradoxes. With nuclear energy whole cities can easily be powered, yet the dominant nationstates seem more likely to unleash destruction greater than that incurred in all wars of human history. Although our own technology is destroying old and creating new forms of social organization, men still tolerate meaningless work and idleness. While two-thirds of mankind suffers undernourishment, our own upper classes revel amidst superfluous abundance. Although world population is expected to double in forty years, the nations still tolerate anarchy as a major principle of international conduct and uncontrolled exploitation governs the sapping of the earth's physical resources. Although mankind desperately needs revolutionary leadership, America rests in national stalemate, its goals ambiguous and tradition-bound instead of informed and clear, its democratic system apathetic and manipulated rather than "of, by, and for the people."
The entire Port Huron Statement is here
Holy Cow!
Cubs are in the World Series!
