Sunday, March 17, 2024

It's the little things

It's funny how things just come back to you sometimes. When I was a little kid I had a book, or someone had it, and I could look at it. Ownership isn't really my point here. But the book was this poem, The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast. Even as someone who gets a little antsy ha-ha when a lot of insects are around I'd have to admit the illustrations were gorgeous. 

Now if you'd asked me when this had been written, I'd have said probably the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Couldn't be from before Victoria's time, right? But as it turns out that it was first published in 1802, when George III was still King. Also that the poet, William Roscoe, was an influential abolitionist, which is pretty cool.

Friday, March 15, 2024

Discordant message

While I'm sometimes tempted to use ad blockers on sites like YouTube, I generally accept ads as the cost of doing business. So a lot of times I let them play through, hitting "skip" when they turn out to be long or really annoying.

There's a weird one I've seen lately. It's for Stop & Shop. A voice over says "Uh-oh (couple names I can't remember) are shopping hungry again!" And the man and woman go nuts throwing things into their cart.

The weird part is that it looks like they're supposed to be high with the munchies. Like, I'm pretty sure that's the intended effect. But it doesn't quite come off because they're so skinny and cadaverous that it genuinely looks like they haven't had solid food in weeks. The ad creators landed on something more disturbing. Maybe someone was feeling prankish.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

A return

A while ago RIPTA changed their bus pass system. Instead of getting a new pass made out of thin cardboard every month, you can get a plastic card that you keep permanently, reloading it with money every month.

In practice, the plastic is so cheap that it will eventually break. Once that happens the card can't be read by the sensors, so you have to get a new one. Which happened to me this week.

I found out that the store where I'd gotten these bus cards before didn't have any on-hand. What I was happy to learn is that RIPTA again has a customer service office in their downtown depot, and that the nice lady I used to buy bus passes from is back. So I bought a new card from her and transferred the funds from the old card.

Nice to see her. Also good to know that some more sanity is returning post-COVID.

Monday, March 11, 2024

狐仙

I was talking to a gentleman today―second time I saw him this particular day―about Chinese mythology. He did more of the talking, because while I've read a little about it, I couldn't bring much to mind. So I decided to give myself a little refresher.

The figure of Huxian is quite interesting. A trickster figure who can make you wealthy but will also steer you onto the wrong path. The idea of foxes being untrustworthy apparently crosses over between wildly divergent cultures. There's a practical reason for this among farming communities, of course. But it also feeds a human need for deceit, I think. In this case projected onto other creatures.

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Wind you can hear



The Russian artist Marianna Vladimirovna Veryovkina had a fascination with Germany, a country which gave the world German Expressionism during her lifetime. She in fact Germanized her name to Marianne von Werefkin, which is the name she's been known by since then. As a member of the Russian nobility she pretty much had to indulge her curiosity about foreign lands, as the Russian Revolution made her homeland a dangerous prospect.

The title of the above painting has been translated as "Storm Winds." The winds are palpable, causing trees to lay almost on their side. This is nature at its most forbidding. It does exude a kind of fascination, though, in the sliver moon. Still, you can't blame the small human figures for gravitating to the light and warmth of the tavern or cafe.


Thursday, March 7, 2024

Primary primer

I got a mailer recently from the Board of Canvassers. A reminder that we in Rhode Island have a Presidential primary on April 2, and where to vote. I appreciate this. Still, what to do?

Obviously Joe Biden is going to win the primary. He'll get the nomination, unless the Democrats convince him to step aside. And in truth, nobody in the party with a snowflake's chance of replacing him is that much better. In the general, Trump may be a better, but there's still going to be a historic lack of good options.

I'll probably vote for a hopeless dark horse candidate. Someone who I can at least support and look at myself in the mirror.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Do I hear another bid?

Am now reading Sotheby's: Bidding for Class, by Robert Lacey. It's about Sotheby's, as you might have guessed. Lacey's first chapter is an extended vignette on the auction of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's estate soon after she died, and provides some justification for the adage that truth is stranger than fiction.

After that Lacey backtracks to deep background, the auction house's founding in London during the eighteenth century and the history that followed. They've always been in competition with Christies, but both sides have had to remain dignified in public. During the early years Christies specialized in art and Sotheby's in books, but it was inevitable that the two would start to step on each other's toes.

Another interesting detail is that Peter Cecil Wilson, one of their top auctioneers of the twentieth century, served in British Intelligence with none other than Ian Fleming. He often claimed to be the basis for James Bond. Weird if true, but who knows?