Monday, September 29, 2014

Monitor Recrdings from back in the 1960s






My wall unit was pretty much installed today--something that took more than two hours.  But I didn't send the two book cases on their way, so they're still there in the living room, and boxes of the books that were on them (no room for the book cases now) are still in the dining room.  That means I should be dealing with all that.  Instead I decided to finish something I'd just started:  Listing all the songs I have in a binder labeled Chansons en francais.

I came across words to French songs as printed up by Monitor records and got to thinking about how grateful I was for them back in the days with no Internet!  I looked up Monitor Recordings on the Internet and found this:

Monitor Records (2)

Profile:
American label, Monitor Records is mostly known for its "Music Of The World" series of releases, but has more than 250 folk and classical music recordings in its catalogue.

In 1956, Michael Stillman and his business partner Rose Rubin started Monitor Records in New York City, to fill a gap they perceived in the music available to the American public—music from the then-Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc, and other parts of the world.More 
Contact Info:
Monitor Records
156 Fifth Avenue
New York
N.Y. 10010

Friday, September 26, 2014

Dealing with Success--Not Mine, Of Course

I need to write about dealing with success.  Not mine, of course.  I haven't had any.  But even though I don't think I'm a viciously jealous person, I get stomach cramps every time I find out someone I know has met with unmitigated success.  My stomach moans, "Not another one!"  I know that "misery loves company," but I'm not really miserable.  I would, however, like to think that absolutely wonderful people can be unsuccessful in most of their ventures, as I have been.  That would feel like good company.  This other doesn't.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

New York Vegetarianism

Shortly before I left San Francisco, I saw an article on San Francisco's being named the "healthiest in website's analysis."  This was based on the nutrition in recipes that people in our area looked up.  (That's not to say that we made any of the dishes!)  California cities--San Diego and Los Angeles as well as San Francisco, were ranked as the top three, with New York and Portland, Oregon making up the other in the top five.  Kathryn Roethel reported that "San Franciscans aren't big on meat of any kind" and we were "dead last for beef."

But it was during this San Franciscan's short stay in New York City that The Big Apple was named by PETA as the most Vegan-Friendly City in the Nation, 2014.

http://www.amny.com/news/vegan-nyc-the-big-apple-is-the-most-friendly-to-non-meat-eaters-1.9340104

(Apples are vegan!)

The Big Apple is "where the meat-free meat to eat."

There's a vegetarian public school, too, that got this headline last October (in the Daily News):

Queens school that went vegetarian shows student gains, draws plaudit

Attendance, test scores and energy are all improved since P.S. 244 stopped serving meat in its cafeteria, officials at the Flushing school say.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/vegging-better-school-article-1.1486681

I doubt that this is a very scientific study, but I'm still impressed that they made this decision at a school that wasn't founded to be vegetarian.  It decided to cut out meat for health reasons rather than because of concern for the environment or  for the animals forced to live in torturous conditions.  
We ate at one vegan restaurant during our stay--Sacred Chow in Greenwich Village, 227 Sullivan Street, not far from Washington Park.  I thought the dishes were delicious!







Saturday, September 6, 2014

Dead Poet's Society--and Cliches about Teachers

I love Robin Williams but was not impressed by the film Dead Poet's Society or the teacher Keating, who has been chosen by Parade (!) readers as the most memorable teacher on film.  I was trying to find out who wrote the screenplay and came across other dissenters among those who reviewed the film at the time that it came out in 1989.  Here are some direct quotes:

 Pauline Kael was unconvinced by the film, and its 'middlebrow highmindedness', but praised Williams. "Robin Williams' performance is more graceful than anything he's done before [-] he's totally, concentratedly there - [he] reads his lines stunningly, and when he mimics various actors reciting Shakespeare there's no undue clowning in it; he's a gifted teacher demonstrating his skills."[7]
Roger Ebert's review was mixed, two out of four stars. He criticized Williams for spoiling an otherwise creditable dramatic performance by occasionally veering into his onstage comedian's persona {this is different from Pauline Kael's take}, and lamented that for a movie set in the 1950s there was no mention of the Beat Generation writers. Additionally, Ebert described the film as an often poorly constructed "collection of pious platitudes [...] The movie pays lip service to qualities and values that, on the evidence of the screenplay itself, it is cheerfully willing to abandon."[8]


Friday, September 5, 2014

Anything but What I Absolutely HAVE to Do

I see again that I'm doing a lot but avoiding what I absolutely have to do, which is to pack away everything on top of furniture so that when (it made me nervous today when he said if) the floorman needs to move the furniture, there aren't any little meddlesome things.  


Wednesday, September 3, 2014

The Detours in an Hour & Water by the Spoonful

I guess I could call this "Interruptions," but that has such a negative connotation.  What comes in--unplanned--is sometimes more important than what's on the agenda.  So here's an example of an hour--both online and not.  (The not is on the telephone!)

Last night Bill and Tom let me go with them--spur of the moment--to see Water by the Spoonful in Mountain View.

http://www.theatreworks.org/shows/1415-season/waterbythespoonful

The play deals with an online "family" as well as a family that's blood related and coming face to face.  Before the end, the online family members have come face to face, and at least one of the members has met three people in the blood-related family.

So...This is what happens when I'm online, e-mailing, that old-fashioned mode of communication that's been replaced by texting and Facebook communication.

While writing to Javier, I heard a message from Mary B., so I returned her call, and then a message came in from my sister Suzy asking when I'd next see David, so I wrote to Javier about that too.  Would he feel up to taking him out this weekend?  I wanted to write a reassuring (in the sense that I empathized with her) e-message to Sara, My Best Friend in Fifth Grade, who will be arriving at the New York airport the day after I (enshallah) arrive.  But while I was writing to her, I received a phone call from David's new social worker, who had followed up on a concern I expressed at the Garfield quarterly review meeting.  I then shared what she said with Suzy and Jonathan and sent a message to the social worker to thank her and to review what she had said as well as what David has said that sounded strange and possibly indicated the onset of dementia.  But I hadn't yet finished my message to Sara.  Then the electrician whose name and number I got from my plumber called to say that he was very busy, but if my tenant texted him, he'd text back if he had the chance to come by to look into the blowing of fuse that occurs when the microwave is turned on.  I then went onto Facebook to see how my niece's daughter was doing after suffering a concussion when she was thrown down hard during a soccer game at school and was unresponsive after the fall.  (An ambulance was called, and she spent 24 hours in the hospital, but now she's going back to school for half days.)

Weaving in and out--that's life!

I last saw real people at the Y this morning.  I'll soon see real people at Americuts, West Portal, and at the AT&T and dry cleaners.  Tomorrow there will be a real social outing!  The detours will be back on the main road.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

My Household Pets: Bacteria

I felt bad about not having a household pet--because I feel unworthy.  Then I started reading about bacteria and realized I had lots of pets.  Trillions!

OK, So We Have Germs. But They're Our Unique Germs

Student Writing--and Responsiveness--from Summer 1994

Here's something I came across this morning that adds a happier significance to 1994, the year that my sister Missy died.  I'm retiring 20 years after getting a full-time job.  I'm also retiring 20 years after moving from non-credit to credit.  This beginning class was in non-credit, and just in case you can't read it, I'm using short sentences in the present and in the past, and I'm referring to the song "Do You Speak English?"  by Uwe Kind.  (I just looked up this book and see that it has a completely different cover from the one I knew and loved and promises "SingLing and LingoRap."  Huh?  I never before knew that the author had escaped from East Germany in 1960 and taught German with new words to old melodies before he did this with English.  But let me not get sidetracked.  (Actually life is all deviation from intention.) 


I've quoted the students, who wanted to write verse after singing it.    So I've written up the words that someone named Eduard wrote:

I have right me wall.
She speak language all.
I look Tina (prize)
Teacher very nice.

Someone named Yau Tai Lai wrote, "Appreciate you be a giveing me a lot of very English."  

Monday, September 1, 2014

Why I'll Never Come To Good even after Finding My True Calling: Retirement

It's pretty clear why, just like the person in Dorothy Parker's poem, "It's doubtful that I'll come to good."  I do what interests me, and one thing leads to another.

Just back from the Y (and before I even bathed!), I looked up questions that came up in my brief conversation with Norm at the Y.  I gave him a clarification on the Argentine ant I'd mentioned to him on Saturday.  (It was in a column by Chip Johnson, who said the Argentine ant, losing because of the drought the green it requires, has started a home invasion, including into pocketbooks.)  He had looked up the article and found the sensational photo:
  • The Argentine ant is an invasive species in California that has become more of a pest during the severe drought and has formed a super colony from Oregon to Mexico. Photo: April Nobile, AntWeb.org
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/johnson/article/Meet-the-bad-ant-that-s-overwhelming-California-5719954.php

 That evoked him to quote some adage like "Observe the ant and be wise."  He said he thought Ogden Nash had said that.  So I mentioned Isabel, "The Adventures of Isabel," which he hadn't heard of.  I remember that someone I dated (when I really shouldn't have) had given that to Jonathan "in spite of the racist illustrations."  So, I had my research calling out to me.

I just looked up Little Black Sambo and found this like for a very long article on the history of Sambo's

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/30/pancakes-and-pickaninnies-the-saga-of-sambo-s-the-racist-restaurant-chain-america-once-loved.html

And Ogden Nash on ants:

The ant has made herself illustrious
By constant industry industrious.
So what? Would you be calm and placid
If you were full of formic acid? 

What Norm quoted turned out to be from the Bible!

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; Consider her ways, and be wise:

As for The Adventures of Isabel by Ogden Nash, did the illustrator Walter Lorraine mean to imply that the cure turned the doctor from black to white?  Of course in 1936, it was unusual that a white child would have a black doctor, so maybe he's just in shadow until "she took those pills from the pill concoctor" and "calmly cured the doctor." 






I don't think this is the kind of community-provided bench the SF Chronicle was talking about today in its article https://www.sfchronic...