In honor of mom's birthday

I was reading Stephan Leacock's Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich last night and began the chapter on the two churches in "The City," one Episcopalian & the other Presbyterian, when I got a bee in my bonnet to look up images of "our" church, the First Presbyterian in Menominee. I stumbled upon this wonderful collection of postcards, "Letters for George: Archive: Menominee Postcards." There's also a part 2. And another, apparently different, part 2, so I'm a little confused. I love the mini-histories the author has included beneath each postcard. Clicking through the images (I like that one of the first is of my favorite of the stained glass windows in the sanctuary), I also stumbled upon an article about Marshall Burns Lloyd, of the Lloyd factory & theater in town.

To give  you an idea of the flavor of this estimable novel, I offer two snippets:

"The church of St. Asaph, more properly call St. Asaph's in the Fields, stands among the elm trees of Plutoria Avenue opposite the university, its tall spire pointing to the blue sky. Its rector is fond of saying that it seems to him to point, as it were, a warning against the sins of a commercial age. More particularly does he say this in his Lenten services at noonday, when the businessmen sit in front of him in rows, their bald heads uncovered and their faces stamped with contrition as they think of mergers that they should have made, and real estate that they failed to buy for lack of faith. . .

St. Asaph's is episcopal. As a consequence it has in it and about it all those things which go to make up the episcopal church--brass tablets let into its walls, blackbirds singing in its elm trees, parishioners who dine at eight o'clock, and a rector who wears a little crucifix and dances the tango."

"On the other hand, there stands upon the same street, not a hundred yards away, the rival church of St. Osoph--presbyterian down to its very foundations in bed-rock, thirty feet below the level of the avenue. It has a short, squat tower--and a low roof, and its narrow windows are glazed with frosted glass. It has dark spruce trees instead of elms, crows instead of blackbirds, and a gloomy minister with a shovel hat who lectures on philosophy on week-days at the university. He loves to think that his congregation are made of the lowly and the meek in spirit, and to reflect that, lowly and meek as they are, there are men among them that could buy out half the congregation of St. Asaph's.

St. Osoph's is only presbyterian in a special sense. It is, in fact, too presbyterian to be any longer connected with any other body whatsoever. It seceded some forty years ago from the original body to which it belonged, and later on, with three other churches, it seceded from the group of seceding congregations. Still later it fell into a difference with the three other churches on the question of eternal punishment, the word "eternal" not appearing to the elders of St. Osoph's to designate a sufficiently long period. The dispute ended in a secession which left the church of St. Osoph practically isolated in a world of sin whose approaching fate it neither denied nor deplored."

You can read the rest of this wonderful work on the link above, or by downloading it from Gutenberg.org.

Summer solstice

I thought you might be interested in this magical picture of Stonehenge this summer solstice. I remember on the Slavic Trip back in 1975, traveling through Scandanavia, where most of the cars and trucks that we met had some kind of wreath on their front grilles. Apparently it's some kind of tradition.

Both sides now

I so loved this interview with Joni Mitchell* that I want to save them here so I can come back to them. Such wisdom and insight from this amazing woman as she approaches 70 years of age.

part 1



part 2



part 3



*  Even though through most of it Jian Ghomeshi kept trying to pigeon hole her as she kept repeating she didn't want to be pigeon holed.

Blue velvet

I can't remember when I've heard something this beautiful on television. Part of the Tony Bennett: Duets II they're playing during pledges on PBS.

And blue velvet couldn't be a more appropriate description of Ms. Lang' voice. Get a load of those harmonies toward the end. Perfection.

Diva series: the ultimate

A little Carmen Miranda to brighten your day:

My favorite line? "Some people say I dress too gay/But every day I feel so gay/And when I’m gay I dress that way/Something wrong with that?" To which she replies "No." If you're in a hurry, La Miranda begins to sing about 1.5 minutes in. And get a load of those bananas about 4 minutes in.

The Grove

There were moments in this video that moved me to tears. I hope you'll have the time to watch it. Apparently you have to click on the link following "watch" at the bottom of the video to see the whole thing.

Watch The National AIDS Memorial Grove on PBS. See more from The Grove.

Born free?

I saw this on Ravelry in a group called "I knit so I do not kill people." I had to share it (click on the image for a larger version - easier to read).

I sometimes wonder if, in dreaming of having my playing career rejuvenate, I'm really not more like this: