great american eating ceremony

The usual cast of characters gather around the groaning board. Thanks!

. . .and they ate! And ate! And were grateful and somewhat rueful at the quantities they individually consumed.

no mo

I don't feel too good about having Missouri plates on my truck today.
Missouri is tainted, the U.S. is tainted.
Cops are tainted, white people are tainted, humanity is tainted.
I'm guilty. We're all guilty.
But some are more guilty than others.
Yeah, I'm talkin' about you, skinhead cops.

making room

Hannah's Room Redux

Back in the day, Hannah's room had two bunks, one for her and one for sleepovers. When the sleepovers became more than just chatter sessions, the two bunks became a double bed. Around the time her fiance moved into this room, I bought a new double bed. Four years and one year ago now, the full-sized bed became too small. Hannah's family of four now has to squeeze into her childhood room—and the apartment. Good luck getting into the bathroom. . .

in memorium

People people pay tribute to Thaddeus Novak, son of one of their own.

 

The amazing Thaddeus Novak died after a long wait for a lung transplant that ultimately failed. You can read about this brilliant polymath here. Thad spent many an hour at the People offices as a child, and the celebration of his life became an impromptu celebration of our lives with him as well. I'm saying this poorly, but I know what I mean.

Dick Burgheim, my boss at People; David Hiltbrand, the man who took my job.

 

it was in the truck

Yes, we did some shopping. Now for the mopping. Then the flopping.

lovely bones

Nothing like some nice bone marrow on a cold day. 

Despite all the fotofooling in the world, I couldn't get my foot out of the picture.

Something is happening. There's the paleo diet, bone broth and now the lumbersexual. Word from Gear Junkie is that Brooklyn is swarming (Ed?) with bearded, plaid-flannel-shirt-clad hipsters. Word from The Daily Beast is that the the lumbersexual is the latest iteration of the metrosexual and that styles are inspired by the homosexual, as per usual. In my opinion, however, the whole craze was foretold by Monty Python in I'm a Lumberjack (and I'm ok).
  Should you wish to make your very own bone broth, here's a recipe. I'd add ginger.
  And if you want to prepare marrow bones, ask me. But I doubt you will.
  I await comments. Like: "Eeew."

lives in ruins

Yes. I had to walk two blocks to attend.

An ex-LIFE editor read from her book, and there were a lot of ex-LIFE and ex-editors there. I am sorry to say, we could all barely recognize one another, and there was a lot of catch-up and humor, some of it quite dark, touching as it did on disease, death and divorce. Which made the book title—Lives in Ruins—appropriate. The subject matter, however, is quite different. The subtitle is: Archaeologists and the Seductive Lure of Human Rubble. I have not yet read it, but Marilyn Johnson calls herself a comic writer, so as well as truth it likely contains humor. My takeaway was that Indiana Jones is a hero to the archeological community, which makes use of his image any old way.

synchronicity

Babes at work

So Hannah texts me a picture of the chaos surrounding my grandbabies at her house.
Incredibly, there was a very similar scene going forward at my house with two friends.

here come da judge

Judge Tang swears in Adam Gasner as a judge pro tem of the San Francisco Superior Court. Yes, that's our little Adam no longer.

calendar girl

 Summer 2015 in Post-Its

Some people live in the past; I live in the future. And as time slips and slides, this becomes more difficult. I was already having problems envisioning my holiday schedule, and then my tenants started hitting me up with theirs. For next summer. I was driven to color coding the Block Island houses and the weeks in stickies. They cover the Thanksgiving board, so I'll have to sew up the schedule by then.

war, huh, what is it good for!

"Mouth Full of War"

Bill Dugan as a young soldier, 1969

Now a sculptor, printmaker and painter, Dugan was in the corpse corps back in the Vietnam War.  When he got his degree in art at Washington University, he made prints using roadkill. He spent a career counseling veterans. He still depicts death (urns, skeletons), but has branched out into hearts, typewriters, animals and, lately, pizza. He will ride in the parade in West Plains, Mo., today. He embodies our own conflicts about conflict:"I am tired of war and honored to have served."

jiggety jig

My body is in Manhattan

I haven't been so happy to get off Block Island since the time 20 years or so ago when I ate boiled eggs on the deck floor of the Manitou in high seas and laughed my ass off with Barrett. It's definitely weather related, but it's also because I'm going home.
   However, no sooner did I get here (above) than Block Island followed me. Episode 4 of Showtime's The Affair (see premier here) is set on Block island, and whether my previous guests were flagged by that or by the popularity of Block Island this past summer (booming business), they started writing in early, trying to get the weeks of their choice. So now I am doing the juggle with the knowledge that, inevitably, someone is going to be unhappy. I am already overbooked for 2015.

But my mind is on vacation

the phantom newsstand

Yeah, there are pieces missing in this puzzle—like that magazine I did that cover for in 1989 (top right—remember stage directions?). Taylor Swift wasn't born yet. Arnie was an actor not a player. I do believe Premier, Manhattan Inc, YM and Ladies Home Journal have gone down the tubes, too. Correct me if I'm wrong. Magazines used to be big, fat and vigorous, and so were newsstand sales. Stacks of newspapers (including New York Newsday), bursting with ads, teetered beneath.
    But then even I don't read magazines or print newspapers any more.
    I'm not sure about the candy—are they all still manufactured?
    Here's an interesting piece called "The Bad News About the News  from the Brookings institute. Read all about it (online) and weep.

apres le deluge, le deluge

departure

You know it's time to leave when the lawn mower is in the living room.

marooned

The view from Claudia's Surf City today

Not absolutely positive will be making the 8:15 ayem boat off tomorrow given the marine forecast.

... STORM WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 5 PM EST THIS AFTERNOON ...
TODAY...  N WINDS 30 TO 35 KT WITH GUSTS UP TO 50 KT. SEAS 15 TO 20 FT. RAIN. VSBY 1 TO 3 NM.
TONIGHT...  NW WINDS 25 TO 30 KT WITH GUSTS UP TO 45 KT. SEAS 11 TO 16 FT. A CHANCE OF SHOWERS. MON...  NW WINDS 20 TO 25 KT...DIMINISHING TO 15 TO 20 KT IN THE AFTERNOON. GUSTS UP TO 30 KT. SEAS 6 TO 9 FT.