More Friday Family Blogging

Joseph is caped and ready for action! I wonder what nefarious plots he's on the verge of breaking up. Luckily he can call on the aid of his invisible sidekick (whose powers somehow don't work on his shoes).

Friday Family Blogging

I'm not sure why Sara was making this face, but somehow she makes it work. I'm trying to think how long ago I took this picture, which is pre-digital.

Friday Philosophy

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) of Geneva had a solid understanding of the Social Contract, that is the nature of the relationship between rulers and the ruled. This statement reflects on the creation of what amounts to a truly democratic aristocracy:

"Hereditary aristocracy is the worst of all
governments; but elective aristocracy is
the best, and is an aristocracy properly so
called. Assemblies are more easily held, and
the credit of the State is better sustained.
It is the best and most natural arrangement
that the wisest should govern the many, as
long as they govern for its profit, and
not for their own."

Great Mary Gauthier Tune

Mary Gauthier is one of the best of the current crop of singer-songwriters out there, and this is one of her best songs. I'm a little surprised to see she made it to the Opry-- not that she didn't deserve it, but this isn't exactly the type of song I would've associated with that institution. Good for them for recognizing such quality.

European Trip 45

The old train station in Prague is a pretty cool place, and stands as an interesting counterpart to the ultra-sleek main Berlin station featured here awhile back. This one was a little run down, but marked with lots of Art Nouveau touches. I don't think the statue above is all that old however.

That's Wes and Molly admiring the interior design along with Ben, in the main lobby of the station.

The passageway to the train platforms was below the lobby. The blurs in this shot are no doubt commuters racing to catch their ride.

Another view of the cafe/lobby area, with passengers scurrying below. For some reason I couldn't get my camera to function right with the light in the terminal (stubbornness on my part not to turn on the flash), so the next three shots actually were taken by Ben.

This is a good example of the decorative effects I mentioned above-- Art Nouveau seems based on a lot of curves, and many practitioners seem to have found that manifested in the female form. Alphonse Mucha was certainly one, and his work is all over the train station (though I can't say for certain that he had a hand in these reliefs).

The figures in the stained glass of this big window also follow the same style, and perhaps most striking (to me) were...
... the faces that adorned the arches over the windows outside of the station. Each one is different, highly stylized, and if not designed by Mucha, then very much showing his influence.

Soup Diary 100520

A couple days ago my friend Bill and I drove over to Yellowstone Park to take some pictures. He invested in a new DSLR about the same time I did, and we're still both learning how to use the darn things effectively, and the Park offered an opportunity to experiment on landscapes. I'll be posting some of the results in a few days. After spending about nine hours driving and shooting, we landed in West Yellowstone around 7:00 and very hungry. I convinced him to try a place called the Outpost, whose sign promising hearty soups caught my attention. I was not disappointed, although I briefly thought I might be. I ordered the vegetable barley, while Bill went with the chicken dumpling. His arrived first and looked really good, but the vegetable barley turned out to be excellent as well. Chock full of carrots, corn, onions, peppers and lots of barley in a very rich, tangy broth-- it was really good. I might mention that the hot turkey sandwich with homemade mashed potatoes and gravy was just as excellent, meaning that the Outpost has now become a must-stop whenever I next head over to Yellowstone.

Thought for Thursday

Here's something from the 13th century Italian theologian and philosopher, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274):

"How is it they live in such harmony the
billions of stars - when most men can barely
go a minute without declaring war in their
minds about someone they know."

Classic Pavement

I gather that Pavement has regrouped for a reunion tour this summer. I doubt they'll come close enough to where I can catch them, but there's some consolation courtesy of YouTube:

European Trip 44

Today's photos come from teh last day of our trip (or at least, the last day spent mostly off an airplane). I figured I ought to sneak in one of me (taken by Ben), as we were waiting for some in our group to change their last few dollars for Czech crowns.

I think I mentioned the several big bookstores we checked out yesterday. Here's a shot in one of them of a statue of what looks like Albert Einstein heading for the checkout.

Here you see some of the craft stalls set up in all the big squares to take advantage of the tourists in town for Easter week. We did a fair amount of our souvenir shopping in these "shops."

In this shot, I just like the odd juxtaposition of the store signs in Czech, and the big poster advertising O'Reilly's "Biggest" Irish Pub. It was pretty clear that Prague caters to its out-of-town visitors in many ways.

I just liked the way this shot turned out. Once again the setting is Wenceslas Square (and despite all the pictures, I promise we didn't really spend all our time there).

Prague really isn't a place to view wildlife, and I suppose when you come right down to it, pigeons are as urban as any other two-legged inhabitants of the city.

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom

The famous American author F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) probably did not mean this as a reflection on history per se, but it works to explain why so many are willing to ignore it:

"It is sadder to find the past again and
find it inadequate to the present than it
is to have it elude you and remain forever
a harmonious conception of memory."

Weird Old Video

Joe Penner was a radio sensation circa 1935. His famous catch phrase, which swept the nation, was "Wanna buy a duck?" Apparently, the duck connection was pretty deep, as is evident from this clip. I think you can see in Penner some roots of the comic stylings of Jerry Lewis (the goofy overgrown kid), and Peewee Herman too. This is the only substantial video of him I could find on Youtube (I can't really say why his name popped into my head), and it's kind of funny, if you give it a chance:

European Trip 43

Our second evening in Prague was partly spent by Ben and I waiting to meet up with some other members of our group in Wenceslas Square. While waiting, I started playing with the black and white settings on my camera, and here are a few of the results, starting with one of Ben in the foreground and the National Museum in the background.

Doesn't the Grand Hotel Europa sound like a cool place to stay? And it's got a train-car diner right out front-- convenient for a quick breakfast before hitting the town or late-night snack on your way back to bed (sadly, this is not where we stayed).

This is the opposite side of the street from the Grand Hotel Europa. There were a couple of big book stores along this street that were fun to browse in, even though everything was in the native language.

On the left, you see part of the base of the statue of King Wenceslas, where we were waiting to hook up with the rest of our party. This is the view looking north, so directly behind me was the National Museum seen in the first shot above.

Here's a different angle on the statue. I kind of which I hadn't tried to be so creative with the angle, because the night sky made for a striking picture without the disorienting slant.

This storefront was directly across the street to the west of the statue. It caught my attention because of the apparent business meeting occurring through the window on the second floor. The participants were quite animated (probably unaware they could be seen from outside, and when the meeting was over, there were handshakes and high fives all around, and then a couple minutes later several of these guys came out the front door in a very good mood. I have no idea what it was all about, but it kind of played out like a silent little play, and as a result was kind of memorable.

This Week's Top Five

Here's the list from this past Sunday's season finale of Dr. John's Record Shelf. Next week, we go into summer replacement mode with Dr. John's Idiosyncratic History of Rock and Roll. But rest assured that the Top Five will return next fall with the rest of the Record Shelf for our 11th season, heard exclusively on KDWG, 90.9 FM.

Tuesday's Quote

I can't vouch for the validity of this statement-- though there seems to be something to it-- by the great surrealist artist Salvador Dali (1904-1989), but I found it entertaining nonetheless:

"In order to acquire a growing and lasting
respect in society, it is a good thing, if you
possess great talent, to give, early in your
youth, a very hard kick to the right shin of
the society that you love.
After that, be a snob."

New Logo

Because someone is sure to wonder, if not ask, the new logo this week is a shot of the lights of Dillon looking west towards the Pioneer Mountains at sunset. I've started wandering around at night with my camera again, so similar pictures are likely to turn up here in the next few weeks.

Battle of the Bands Champ

One last time, at least for awhile, here's a representative song by the group that won the title of best American rock and roll band from 1954 to 1974 on Dr. John's Record Shelf: Creedence Clearwater Revival. In the end, their victory was pretty decisive. I believe that through the first four rounds, they were unanimous victors each time out. Not too shabby.

European Trip 42

Today I've got a few more of those "hip shot" photos I took while wandering around Prague. The poster of the Duke caught my attention above, though no one else seemed terribly interested.

My friend Bill insisted that the only place in the world where one can get a doner (gyro) was Berlin-- so naturally I needed to snap the above proof of the contrary. They even call it the same thing in the Czech Republic.

Maybe this girl bought her puppet from teh storekeeper I featured yesterday. She wasn't quite so adept at making it walk.

The beggars in Prague are really dramatic about their profession. We saw a number of men prostrate and motionless like this guy at various tourist-oriented spots around the city.

Evidently, marionettes are a big thing in Prague, almost as ubiquitous as the theatrical masks all over Venice.

I just like the way this one turned out, with the weird angles created by the umbrellas. Tomorrow: a few more hip shots, including maybe a couple shot at night.

We Have a Champion!

After nearly nine months of hard fought competition, yesterday we crowned Creedence Clearwater Revival as the champion in our Battle of the Bands on Dr. John's Record Shelf. By a two to one margin (based on listener votes), they held off the Crickets to take the crown as best American rock and roll band for the period of 1954 to 1974. In a consolation match, the Velvet Underground also clinched third place in the tourney by besting the Doors.

We had such a good time with this as a regular feature of the program, that we're going to do another one next year-- with the goal of determining the best non-American band from teh same era. As you can imagine, there's a pretty obvious favorite, but we'll wait to see how the competition plays out. As the brackets are drawn up, I'll list them here, probably sometime in the late summer. If you want to suggest possible contenders, feel free to do so in the comments section.

A Thought for Monday

On the surface this comment from Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) might appear a bit morbid, but think about it a bit and you might come to a different conclusion:

"Death is not an event in life: we do not
live to experience death. If we take eternity
to mean not infinite temporal duration but
timelessness, then eternal life belongs to
those who live in the present."

Cool Long Ryders Song

I saw these guys play live at Spring Fest at the University of Buffalo around the time this song came out. They were third or fourth on the bill (those Spring Fests were all day affairs), and blew away everyone else on the stage that day (Level 42 might've been the headliners). Good stuff from the so-called Paisley Underground: