Good Morning!
It’s Friday!!!
On this day in 1394 Charles VI of France issued a decree for the general expulsion of Jews from France.
In 1587 Japanese strong-man Hideyoshi banned Christianity in Japan and ordered all Christians to leave.
In 1805 Aaron Burr visited New Orleans with plans to establish a new country, with New Orleans as the capital city.
In 1861 the Crittenden Resolution, which called for the American Civil War to be fought to preserve the Union and not for slavery, was passed by the U.S. Congress.
And in 1866 Ulysses S. Grant was named General of the Army. He was the first American officer to hold the rank.
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Quote of the Day
“Never die easy. Why run out of bounds and die easy? Make the linebacker pay. It carries into all facets of your life. It’s OK to lose, to die, but don’t die without trying, without giving it your best.”
Walter Payton
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Today is Scotty Wilbanks’ birthday. From NewSongVEVO
And this one is because I like it. 🙂
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Wandering Views 
First?
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Yes, you are Miss Janice.
finished first week of school, okay it was only two days. Kinder at the beginning of the year is so different that the way we end. I always forget. One child cried for over 20 minutes today because he didn’t want to finish his picture and then later said he had poked himself in the eye with a pencil. Never a dull moment.
My eyes are better, but still very itchy.
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Good new day to rejoice in and give praise to God.
I hope Jo’s eyes are better today.
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Had dinner with some other teachers and learned that one couple, here for the third time, is from Allentown, but they didn’t know Aj.
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Glad to hear your eyes are better, Jo.
Poor child! Poked the pencil in his eye. I’d cry, too.
Good thing he told you what was really the problem so you would not start off the year thinking he was going to be one of those negative children who just don’t want to do anything the teacher suggests.
Do they draw with crayons or markers? Have you ever used the watercolor pencils? They draw with what looks like a regular colored pencil and then a tad bit of water is brushed over it to make a painting. It can be a fun activity.
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Jo,
Do you know what church they came from? They’d be more likely to know my brother Don with BCM anyway. I’m not really famous, except for country music. 🙂
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Love those Susie Black Eyes (Black-eyed Susans).
I have some in bloom by the mail box, but they never seem to have enough of the yellow petals to burst forth. They look anemic or pathetic. I need to find out what to do for them.
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Maybe my Black-eyed Susans have pink eye of a sort.
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AJ, how is Mouse? Does she get into big cat troubles like Miss Bosley or is she more easy going?
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She’s good, and yes, she can be a terror. 🙂
She loves to play with just about anything, especially the big kitty’s tail. Every now and again the big kitty has to whack her back into line. 🙂
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It’s Friday again! You know what that means?
I get to listen to Marty Robbins while I catch up on the posts.
I’m always amused by that small guitar. i.e. “He can’t mean that!”
I saw a show at the Flat Rock Playhouse once. Guy sang and told about Marty Robbins. He said there were no books about him. Nothing to say. He served in the navy in the Pacific during WW II. Came back and married his high school sweetheart, still his wife. He was a committed Christian and had no bad habits, but fast cars.
The one thing his family and producers hated was his affinity for fast cars. He ran in lots of races, but never won a big one.
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Chas, staying with God and his wife means he did win the BIG race. 🙂
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Such happy flowers.
Jo reminded me that not all of my memories of Christian school were bad. I was a “library assistant” as one of my electives from 7-11th grade. I introduced the Kindergartners to the library and worked with the first graders. I read to them, checked out their books for the week, etc. (Which is why I am so good at reading Ira Sleeps Overs and many other children’s books).
For two years I had a little girl that every time she got to the check out table she wet her pants.
I mean EVERY time! Finally I learned to send her to the bathroom and check out her book while she was there.
I also learned how to “grade level” a book, but now they come already leveled. A lost and useless skill….just like my useless knowledge of trivia.
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Kim- Sometimes knowledge of trivia is not totally useless. Look at Ken Jennings. He won 74 games of Jeopardy and became a millionaire because of trivia.
And yes, it’s Friday, but the funnies aren’t so funny this week.
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Not funny at all, Peter, but thanks anyhow. Strange, I usually see some of those in the local paper. But not so much lately.
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Wonderful story, our office represents the authors and we’ve been sobbing for joy over it for a year. Minks lived 8 years after the meeting, and died, happily, a month after the book released.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/07/22/stranger-than-fiction-woman-reveals-monumental-secret-before-reuniting-with-the-baby-she-gave-up-77-years-before/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=story&utm_campaign=ShareButtons
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While waiting for TSWITW to ramble through the mall yesterday, I started reading Blood Feud by Edward Klein. It’s an interesting book. About the relationship between the Obamas and Clintons. A mutual antipathy between them.
Lots of interesting quotes.
Re: Hillary, “And yet, at the same time and without meaning to, this source described a woman who could be hard to like; a woman who was as course as Lyndon Johnson and as paranoid as Richard Nixon; someone who often comes across as disingenuous; an irascible woman who found it almost impossible to contain her feelings of resentment and anger.”
An unnamed source quoting Hillary: “For the last four years,” she said, “Bill has been largely out of my life. He was in Little Rock or New York or traveling, and I was in D.C., or traveling around the world. We talked every day on the phone but didn’t spend a lot of time together. And we’ve been getting along great.
“Now we are going to be together on the campaign trail, and it’s going to be complicated. Plus, there is the dynamic that when I run for president I’m going to be the boss, and I’m not sure
Bill will be able to handle that. He says he’ll be my adviser and loving husband, but I’m afraid that if I’m elected, he’ll think he’s the president again and I’m the first lady. If he starts that s***, I’ll have his (donkey) thrown out of the White House.”
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Sunflowers! A lifelong favorite!
In fact, for 20-some years I debated “sunflowers or roses?” if I ever got married. (I went with roses, but I considered it even as I was planning my wedding.)
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Wow, that is amazing, Michelle. On my way to order the book. . . .
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I am taking a cool down break from mowing. How can it be that when I am sweaty as a dog who has been chasing a garbage truck down the street that Bosley just had to curl up in my lap? I just wanted to drink some water and chill.
I need to get back to it before our heatwave arrives. The way I feel, it is already here. Bosley is going to make a fuss when her couch up and leaves her again.
I will read Michelle’s post/link later when I feel more like reading (without salty sweat burning my eyes).
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On my small view on the Smartphone that looked like a Black-eyed Susan.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helianthus
Now I see it is a sunflower. So beautiful and full of goodness for our nourishment!
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These are nice, too.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudbeckia_hirta
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We are just about on our way to have lunch with my Grade twelve RA and her husband. We’re meeting halfway between our homes and having lunch at a great little local restaurant called Amy’s. I’ve been perusing the online menu, wondering what I should order 🙂 Then the Jeep goes in for diagnostics – hopefully if anything is wrong, husband will be able to fix it himself. 😦
We had a huge storm here last night – stretched right across the province, east to west, and moved from north to south almost the whole province. We had high winds for a short time and heavy rain. Thankfully, no tornadoes or hail here. Our corn was blown flat and one of my huge planter pots was tipped over in the wind. We’re hoping the corn might keep growing – we may have to stake it up though. I was looking out the window and the smaller elm tree was windblown so bad it was half it’s normal height. It looks fine this morning.
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This month I’ve been realizing just a tiny bit of how many species of wildflowers God created. Here, for example, is a website that is supposed to show Indiana wildflowers: https://uswildflowers.com/wfquery.php?State=IN
Well, I took photos of 30 species of flowers during one walk the other day. Earlier in the year in the same state park I had photographed several other species that were no longer in bloom, and elsewhere I have photographed several other species I’ve never seen in that park. So let’s just say I have photos of at least 50 kinds of wildflowers I have photographed just in this state.
So, I looked through that site, and it has dozens of Indiana wildflowers, many of which I have never seen before anywhere. I got names for a number of species I have photographed over the last three years. But I have several more species I cannot find on that site or in the chart or small book of “wildflowers of North America.” It seems we have quite a few books of wildflowers, so I see three books I have not yet consulted. But how many varieties did God make?
Last year I started learning butterfly names, and so far this year I have seen at least four species I hadn’t seen before (including one or two not yet identified, and including the exquisite American painted lady), but most of the ones I’m seeing I remember from last year. But some of these flowers are new to me, and some are really beautiful. (Of course, I have to laugh occasionally when I find out that some really lovely one is poisonous. That purple and yellow flower that gives way to small berries that can have multiple ripenesses–and multiple colors–on the same section of plant? It’s nightshade. This link shows how pretty it is: https://www.flickr.com/photos/shuttersparks/1175548908/ Oh well.)
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Funny coincidence, but right after I read Peter’s post about trivia and Ken Jennings and Jeopardy, I heard the host of the show Performance Today, which I was listening to online, mention trivia, Jeopardy, and even Ken Jennings! To introduce a work by a certain Polish composer, he talked about how on Jeopardy, the host makes a statement, and the contestant, of course, provides the question.
He pointed out how on Jeopardy, the category that contestants are most likely to give a wrong answer is in Classical Music. (28% of answers given in this category are incorrect, and he mentioned that “maybe even Ken Jennings” got some wrong in that category.)
Anyway, the host, in Alex Trebeck style (does he still host Jeopardy?), made the following statement. Anyone here want to try to guess the question? I’ll give you a few hours before I tell.
In 1937, the Chicago Tribune called this man Poland’s greatest composer.
No googling!
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Loved that article in TheBlaze, Michelle. A real tear-jerker, and so beautiful.
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Tomatoes, potatoes, green peppers and eggplant are in the nightshade family. If I eat them I get arthritis type symptoms so I mostly stay away from them. My doctor thinks there is nothing to that, but experience has shown me otherwise. I miss tomatoes and potatoes, but I enjoy being able to walk more.
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Janice, I am allergic to strawberries and in recent years I’ve had problems with tomatoes (though a very different problem than strawberries), and my sister told me they are both in the nightshade family. I think she’s wrong about strawberries, though. Are bell peppers? I have problems with them too, in the last couple years. I love and miss strawberries and tomatoes (though I will eat tomatoes “in moderation,” like a couple small pieces raw or a serving of cooked tomatoes if I haven’t had any for a few days), but peppers I can definitely take or leave, so I’ve decided just to go ahead and “leave” them.
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6 Arrows, belated welcome back!
I’m a pretty serious Jeopardy fan. I like to play along. I do well in some categories, terrible in others (such as Classical Music!). I marvel at great players such as Ken Jennings.
It probably exaggerates Jennings’s prowess to suggest that only in the most difficult categories would he get wrong answers. He got lots of answers wrong. Just not as many as his competition. He also had good timing with the button and he knew how to wager strategically.
I think Brad Rutter is probably a better Jeopardy player, but he was on the show back in the day when each contestant was limited to 5 days. He might have gone on to 74 games or more without that limit. At least twice he’s outscored Jennings in special tournaments.
This week I’m doing better than usual. But it’s not really fair because it’s the Teen Tournament. I do pretty well against these youngsters. But they’re amazingly smart. And I score zero when they give the teens categories such as “Katy Perry”. 🙂
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Janice, raw tomatoes make my mother’s rheumatoid arthritis worse. Cooked nightshade vegetables don’t seem to be quite as much of a problem. Food triggers seem to vary from person to person. I know years ago my mother read that some people found relief from RA symptoms when they took apple cider vinegar. My mother tried it, and it made her RA symptoms much worse!
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Thanks, Kevin. 🙂 And who is Katy Perry? I’m not even sure I would know what category she’s in. 😉
Cheryl, yes, bell peppers are in the nightshade family, as are the other things Janice mentioned: tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplant. I don’t think strawberries are considered nightshades. It does seem like they are a fairly common allergen, however.
I have had a little trouble in the past with achy joints after consuming foods in the nightshade family, but not lately, I don’t think. I do have some joint achiness when it’s rainy, and we’ve had a lot of rain over the past few months. (Wish I could send some of it to our Californians.) It rained again today, although it’s been over a week since our previous rain, which, amazingly, has been a fairly long period without rainfall for us. Last time we had rain (before today), we got three inches in one day.
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Anyone going to take a stab at my Polish composer “question”? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not Chopin. Also, I didn’t know how to spell his last name, so I went to Wikipedia and looked up “Polish composers”. His name does appear on one of the lists on that page, so I’ll be nice and let you take a peek. 😉
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Roscuro is talking about her mother’s RA (I’m guessing that’s rheumatoid arthritis), and Kare earlier mentioned having lunch with her “Grade twelve RA and her husband.” What’s a grade twelve RA, and does someone in 12th grade have a husband? I’m confused. 😉
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I’m finally coming up for air, today was my drop-dead, get-the-house-in-order-or-else day before going back to work Monday. Although I suspect it’ll have to get extended a bit into Saturday … Still, lots of progress. Reorganizing, sweeping, polishing, dusting, washing, moving some furniture around. I’ve been chipping away at it here and there this week, but I really did need to just charge in for a full day. And I still have a few hours left. I haven’t even showered or gotten dressed yet today, still in my t-shirt & shorts and I’m now quite sweaty …
The microwave, meanwhile, looks like it’s ready for the scrap heap (it was several years old, not entirely a surprise). As I was cleaning out the inside today, I noticed that some of the inside coating started chipping off which probably isn’t a good sign. It’s also been *thumping* for a while. So that’s now ready to be hauled to the hazardous drop-off site tomorrow with a new one on order from Amazon that should be here Tuesday.
Peter, I’m still wondering about those “cave puns.” 🙂
Thankfully, our heat wave seems to have been very short-lived, it’s much, much cooler today.
Ok. End of my break.
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I am thinking a grade 12 RA may be a camp counselor who is a Resident Advisor for the high school seniors?
We (husband and I) do not know the composer. He guessed Chopin, and I told him you said “not him.”
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Oh, that makes sense, Janice — the resident advisor for high school seniors. I did not sleep very well last night, so I am foggy today. I will use that as my excuse. 😉
OK, I guess it’s been a few hours since I asked my question. Answer (and music) up next!
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Answer to my 3:37 (in Jeopardy style):
Who is Karol Szymanowski?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karol_Szymanowski
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Wikipedia says Szymanowski’s works can be divided into three periods. Here’s an early one, from his Opus 1. (Yes, I’m going to follow up with more from his middle and late periods. This is your classical music education, and it is good for you.) 🙂
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6 Arrows, if it isn’t Chopin, I don’t know who it is, as no other famous Polish composers from before 1937 come to mind. I guess musician and composer Vladislav Szpilman (author of The Pianist, later made into an Academy Award winning movie) was alive at that time, but he would have been still a very young man. I don’t think Gorecki, whom I remember for his Symphony of Sorrowful Songs was established then either, though I could be wrong.
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This is a good backstage interview with world-class violinist Nicola Benedetti before she played the Szymanowski First Violin Concerto at a 2012 music festival in Europe (there are some musical excerpts, too, not all talking). I found it very interesting when she mentioned a little before the 2-minute mark that she “didn’t grow up in any sort of intense musical environment”, and how it gives her a sense of amazement toward the art form, and how there’s a beauty in hearing music from fresh ears.
The acoustics in the room where this interview is conducted, and the sounds she draws out of her violin, are amazing!
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I was typing my reply as you posted your three posts! I have never heard of Szymanowski.
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Looks like we cross-posted, Roscuro. 😉
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I hadn’t heard of him, either, and had no idea how to spell his name. I went to YouTube trying to type in what I thought might be the spelling. His first name is pronounced like “Karl” or “Carl”, so that was my first error, leaving out the “o”. And I didn’t guess that the second letter of his last name was a “z”! So I just googled “Polish composers” to find a list with his name on it.
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OK, last Szymanowski, from his late period. (The previous video, with the violin concerto excerpts in the interview, was from the composer’s middle period.) His later works were influenced by the folk music of the Polish Gorale region.
This is music from his ballet Harnasie. It’s only a little over one minute in length, guys — if you don’t listen to either of the first two videos I posted, at least give this one a listen! Pretty fun, and not the sort of thing you hear every day. 😉
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morning all. A very chilly 50 degrees here this morning and I am talking inside.
Both my eyes are swollen and itchy. Time to try a hot compress.
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His last name is pronounced like “shim-uh-now-ski”, thus my confusion with that letter “z” in Szymanowski. 🙂
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Hmm, well Szymanowski may well be one of those composer (of which there are many) who were more famous in their day than their work deserved. His early period sounds very imitative of Schubert and Brahms.
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Hope you can find some relief for your eyes soon, Jo.
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Now, having listened to his late period, I would say he seems like the Polish version of his more well known Hungarian contemporary, Bela Bartok – they share the same kind of instrumental groupings, with the folk melody struggling to be heard through discordant harmonies. Interesting to listen to for short periods, but not good background music.
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Thanks for the link, Michelle. Lovely story.
I had the privilege of meeting my son in 96 and his wife now links my name to her facebook posts of the grandkids. My other son moved to Portland at the urging of his brother and the families enjoy time together. God is still doing His work.
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I agree with the similarities to the composers you mentioned, Roscuro — Schubert and Brahms early on (and a little like Chopin, too, I thought), and Bartok in the late period. The middle one seemed rather Debussy-like — reminded me of La Mer in a way.
I see he’s got piano mazurkas from the late period, also. I’ll have to listen to a few of those. I wonder how different they are from Chopin’s mazurkas, being Szymanowski’s are among his later works.
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This mazurka reminds me of Bartok’s Rumanian Folk Dances, and just a little in the middle part of one of Poulenc’s Mouvement Perpetuel. Not very Chopin-esque. 😉
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The similarities are probably why his works have not been widely played since his death. It is the innovators, like Chopin, Schubert, Brahms, Debussy and Bartok who are remembered from each age. Those of their generation who imitated their ideas, although skilled musicians, sound to succeeding generations like only pale copies of the originals.
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Yes, the mazurka does bear resemblance to Bartok; but it lacks the drive and conviction of the Roumanian Dances – I played them once with a small chamber orchestra and enjoyed their varying moods.
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I played the Roumanian Dances as a piano solo, and greatly enjoyed them, but I’ve heard recordings of the piano solo version, piano/violin duet, and orchestral version, and my favorite way to listen to them is the last way. The blend of the tone colors of the various instruments enhance the music, IMO.
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That would be “blend…enhanceS”. There might be grammar police around here. 😉
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Alright, last comment for me tonight, as I’ve been dominating the thread.
Roscuro, I’m not sure if you saw it, but the other day I pointed out a book I had read recently, entitled Alice’s Piano. My mention of it was buried in the middle of all those posts on bad words, etc., so it might have gone unnoticed.
I thought of you when I read that book, as I know you are quite knowledgeable and enjoy history and classical music. There’s plenty of both of those in that book, and I think you’d like reading that book. (“Like” is maybe not the correct word, as it can be intense at times, as Alice was a Nazi concentration camp survivor.)
You can get an idea of some of its content, as they have an excerpt at Amazon.
And as I said earlier, when I first mentioned the book, I found her virtually unrelenting optimism in the face of the many challenges she endured to be very inspiring. Really puts my own (little) difficulties in perspective.
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I posted a link to a book at Amazon, and now my comment is awaiting moderation. Oh, moderator, moderator, where are you? Or will my comment jump out of its own accord? 😉
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My missing comment is #57. How’s that for causing trouble?
Ducking outta here now………………. 😉
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Yes, RA = resident advisor. I attended a Christian boarding school for grade twelve and she was my RA. So very neat that now she will be mentoring my daughter and leading a young women’s Bible study that my daughter will be attending 🙂 It’s a small world with God. I am very thankful we had re-connected through Facebook a few years ago.
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Looks like my 8:15 comment is no longer in moderation. Thanks, AJ, if you released it. And if it came back by itself, then no need to go looking for it for me. 😉
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62. Now I’m done. 🙂
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I finally finished a pesky editing job I’ve been working on for more than two weeks. (It should have taken a lot less time than that, but the author didn’t have English as a first language and wrote all her chapters in a single paragraph of very long sentences.) Happy to be finished!
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Catching up.
Kevin- I think Brad Rutter is the one Jeopardy! player who has never lost to a human. His only loss was to the computer last year. On Jeopardy!, I would do well on classical music, but not modern pop music or opera.
Donna- Cave puns include ones in our suggested script, and ones we make up ourselves, such as this (one I actually made up): There is a lo wall between two passages that has the name Alligator, given by the first explorers of Mark Twain Cave. I tell people they got it wrong, it looks more like a cROCKodile (over-emphasizing the first syllable). Hey, Mark Twain was a humorist so we have to have some humor in the tour.
6arrows- I have never heard of Szym… Szmyn… that Polish composer before.
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