Once a month I highlight a piece of art I have created and posted on my Fine Art America site. This one is titled Systematic Ruin, from the Spray Art collection.
Systematic Ruin
Month: June 2019
Aunt Party Egg Salad
Recently Shelly went to a small family reunion of sorts. It’s called an Aunt Party. These gatherings started when some of the aunts in her family would hold a potluck to visit and play parlor games. All of those aunts are gone now, but the tradition is revisited every few years by other ladies in the family, mostly cousins. By custom they are still called Aunt Parties. She made this recipe found on the internet and it was a big hit. The main difference between this recipe and the one for egg salad we usually use is a lack of mustard.
Ingredients:
3 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped celery
1/4 cup sweet pickle relish
1/4 cup finely chopped bell pepper, optional
1/4 cup finely chopped onion, optional
2 teaspoons minced fresh dill
8 large eggs, hard-boiled, chopped
6 croissants
Instructions:
1) In large bowl, beat together cream cheese and mayonnaise until smooth and creamy. Stir in salt, pepper, celery, and pickle relish. Add bell pepper and onion, if using. Stir in dill and chopped eggs.
2) Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour to allow flavors to blend.
3) Serve on croissants.
Angela’s Ashes
A paperback copy of this book has been in my library for several years, unread until a few months ago. It looked like a depressing read just from the front cover of a grubby, sad boy, taken from a still of the movie made from the book. It is a memoir written by Frank McCourt (1930-2009) beginning with his earliest memories in New York City, his family’s move to Ireland and his growing up there until he returns to America. His father Malachy is a kind hearted but hopeless alcoholic who can’t keep a job. His long suffering mother Angela is eventually reduced to doing whatever she has to to keep her family alive when Malachy leaves for work in England during World War Two. He does not send any money back to his family and eventually word reaches them that he is still drinking up whatever money he manages to make. There is much humor spread throughout the misery as Frank recounts his struggles with his faith, dealing with colorful relatives and neighbors, surviving sadistic school masters and eventually discovering girls. His tone throughout is matter of fact and even, allowing readers to evaluate the people and situations for themselves. He won a Pulitzer Prize for the book and wrote two follow up memoir’s titled ‘Tis and Teacher Man, neither of which I have read. The movie made about the book got mixed reviews, and I don’t think I will watch it because I don’t want it to tamper with the characters in the book as I envision them. While much of the subject matter is grim, most pages brought out at least a chuckle from this reader. It could be the pathos the book evokes is what won it that prize.
The Roundup
The Foundation For Intentional Community states their mission is to “support and promote the development of intentional communities and the evolution of cooperative culture.” Communes today are associated with hippies and as settings for horror movies, but exploring this site should help part the curtain of old stereotypes.
If the suggested viewing Netflix offers you is coming up a little short try What’s on Netflix for some ideas. Whether you are looking for some recommendations or want to dig into a sub-genre, it’s all there. A very useful site.
Gnod is a project of Marek Gibney’s that allows you to “use the latest technological advances to make us all discover more and better things.” Input a few samples of music, products, art, literature or movies that you like and Gnod will make recommendations of new things to try.
Black and WTF is full of funny and bizarre, mostly vintage, photos. The site has not been updated for a few years, but it still makes for addictive viewing.
Have a good weekend!
Keep Camping
Shelly and I have been camping together since she was pregnant with our daughter, who is now 30 and has four children of her own. We camped in our home state of Iowa until the kids were out of diapers and able to talk and feed themselves, then began venturing to neighboring states. We ended up when the kids were teenagers in the Grand Tetons, Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone, The Badlands, Black Hills, The Great Lakes, and other places along rivers, lakes and in forests. We endured countless bugs, torrential thunderstorms, a tornado, lost gear, wet gear, wrong turns, smoking brakes in the mountains, vapor lock in the middle of a busy intersection, a pack of thieving raccoon’s, collapsing tents, howling coyotes, burnt food, cold food, cold nights and days, hot nights and days, and even more bugs. Last, but maybe worst, if you have ever gone on a long trip with a sullen teenager you know what special kind of a situation they can create. And then there are the forests, mountains, hills, flatlands, starry skies, waterfalls, caves, rivers and streams, huge clouds, blowing prairie grasses, flowers, peaceful wildlife, memorable sunsets, winding highways and back roads, fishing, hiking, campfires, good food, spectacular lightning storms, and, of course, smores. Whenever we returned home from a camping vacation it would be with mixed feelings and reviews. As time passed and the vacation took hold in memory, most of the bad would filter out and leave what was truly important. Before too long you are ready to venture out again, with the road ahead and expectations in tow.
Save The Woods Foundation
For several years in the 1990’s I was a member of a Des Moines conservation organization called Save The Woods Foundation, Inc. It was formed in the 80’s by Chris Janson to save several acres of woodland adjacent to his boyhood home and a city park from development. The land at risk was a heavily wooded valley with a stream running through it. Many different kinds of trees made up the small forest and a wide variety of flowers were scattered throughout, a scenic and peaceful little patch of land. Chris formed the Foundation as a nonprofit and entered into a contract with the owner of the property to purchase the land. He then set about building up the foundation, forming a board of directors and trying to raise money. A few years later I joined the board and created and edited the Foundation newsletter, The Green Milieux. We tried every kind of fundraiser we could think of, applied for grants, solicited businesses for donations and tried keeping and expanding our dues paying membership. Several times we came close to loosing the land from lack of money but we kept plugging away. Finally after several years of saving Save The Woods we reached our goal. The Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation provided the remaining money to pay off the land and seven acres of beautiful woodland was added to Beaverdale Park in Des Moines, Iowa with a perpetuity clause that it could never be sold or developed. With the vision of Chris Janson and the thousands of hours of volunteer hard work of our members, not to mention the generous donations of local businesses and the community and other nonprofits, that peaceful little valley is still there.
Technology
“Literally, a technology is a systematic practice or knowledge of an art, and though we almost always apply the term to the scientific and mechanical, there is no reason not to apply it to other human-made techniques for producing desired results. Maybe the best definition would be: A technology is a practice, a technique, or a device for altering the world or the experience of the world.”
Rebecca Solnit, “Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West”
About Time
When we die young, it is a tragedy
When we die middle, it is suspicious
When we die old it is about time
2008 By David Jacobi
John Huston
John Huston became one of my favorite directors rather unwittingly as I watched his movies when I was growing up. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre features Humphrey Bogart, who eventually goes mad over his lust and greed for gold. The Man Who Would Be King stars Sean Connery and Michael Caine as adventurers who end up ruling a hidden mountain kingdom until their charade fails and things turn deadly. Bogart again with Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen, on a river adventure to blow up a German gunboat. The epic sea tale of obsessive revenge, Moby Dick staring Gregory Peck. These movies were shown over and again on TV during the 1970’s when I was a kid. Since most people could only watch movies in the theater or on network TV, you ended up viewing whatever was showing. Once it was done playing in theaters you had to wait years for it to show on TV, so your choices were usually older movies, many made before you were born. What I didn’t pay much attention to at the time was the thing so many of my favorite movies had in common; they were directed by John Huston. As I got older I became aware of the link, and by the time VCR’s became widely available in the 1980’s I watched every Huston film I could find. He has been called the Hemingway of cinema, as he loved a good adventure, hunting, horses, women, writing and drinking. He was also a lifelong painter. In a biography I read about him a few years ago it was noted that he could have a hard time finishing his movies, because he would get distracted by his other interests and would be ready to move on to the next project. I remember we were in Georgia to attend a wedding in the summer of 1987 when the news came out that Huston had died. I felt strange about it and didn’t know why, until I realized I was mourning a man I never met, who had given me so many hours of enjoyment.
The Roundup
While there are plenty of prepper sites on the web I decided to link to the Fed’s site for the basics. Ready asks you to “do four key things: (1) stay informed about the different types of emergencies that could occur and their appropriate responses (2) make a family emergency plan and (3) build an emergency supply kit, and (4) get involved in your community by taking action to prepare for emergencies.”
Julia Solis has been photographing abandoned buildings and underground spaces for 20 years. She is also a writer, event organizer and curator. Check out her site to find out how she blends all of these interests.
“In the decades around 1600, the astrologers Simon Forman and Richard Napier produced one of the largest surviving sets of medical records in history. The Casebooks Project, a team of scholars at the University of Cambridge, has transformed this paper archive into a digital archive.” A fascinating and addicting look into what was considered medical treatment during that time period. Selected Cases In Full “transcribed the full text of several hundred cases and grouped them by theme. These transcriptions are intended to be read alongside the edition and the images of the manuscripts on the full Casebooks website.”
The Soil and Health Library “provides free downloadable e-books about radical agriculture, natural hygiene/nature cure and self-sufficient homestead living. There are secondary collections involving social criticism and transformational psychology.”
Off The Back Porch 