tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56611542012-01-28T20:33:27.835-05:00DesignerBlogWelcome to Southern New Hampshire where Fritz and I make maple syrup and opera. These are the thoughts of a theatrical designer, amateur historian, single parent gay father, husband to the man of my dreams. A blog for the Arts and Gay IssuesWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.comBlogger11751100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-41298548703548122592012-01-28T11:57:00.005-05:002012-01-28T17:11:08.426-05:00I looked by chance to see if there were any woodpeckers at the suet block late yesterday afternoon and saw a wild turkey on the driveway. It had been a while since we'd had turkeys around the house, so I watched it for a short while. It suddenly spread its wings and made a quick flight up into the trees where I saw several others. This was a first for me -- I have seen these birds spread theirWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-44203126133598408762012-01-25T12:51:00.002-05:002012-01-25T23:16:11.863-05:00At Last a Glimmer of Common Sense!The following is partly edited from Bill Moyers' site:
Candidates Declare Super PAC Free Zone
January 24, 2012 by Michael Winship
As mentioned here a few days ago, campaign representatives for rival U.S. Senate candidates Elizabeth Warren and incumbent Scott Brown in Massachusetts were planning to meet to figure out a way to ban outside group advertising in their hotly contested election. TheWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-33762574991228834742012-01-22T13:43:00.006-05:002012-01-22T14:20:03.745-05:00"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures until it becomes a source of terror to all citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear" -- Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States
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In the wake of the South Carolina Primary and anWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-37172427871881935642012-01-19T22:31:00.002-05:002012-01-19T22:35:33.563-05:00The vote on repealing same-sex marriage in New Hampshire was supposed to have been taken back on January the 11th, but was postponed at the last minute until the 18th (last Wednesday). Surprise, surprise the Republican House leadership put it off again on the morning of the 18th. Political, cultural, and gay affairs blogger Joe Jervis posted this summary of the situation:
"Republican House Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-26959268770634281972012-01-17T22:24:00.002-05:002012-01-18T09:12:12.703-05:00
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" . . . . we were founded as a nation of openness to peopleWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-51953915046079686452012-01-08T21:43:00.004-05:002012-01-09T09:35:46.475-05:00
We had the Republican pre-Primary debate last night here in New Hampshire. I'm a Democrat and have been driven even further into the Democratic camp by the lack of quality in the Republican candidates. I'm a gay man and certainly a large part of it is the homophobia of the Republicans and their huge retinue of Evangelical and Catholic support groups. Bottom line is that I'm sick and tired of Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-56729355393788965452012-01-02T16:17:00.003-05:002012-01-03T16:49:27.120-05:00 Does anyone remember a plaque on the base of the Statue of Liberty welcoming anyone in the world who was seeking a better life, no matter who they were, what their religion ? Virtually all the Republican candidates claim to uphold the country's glorious past but efforts are under way to disenfranchise large numbers of US citizens of different races and lower economic status by placing Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-49405253966321253752011-12-28T13:27:00.006-05:002011-12-31T20:17:21.729-05:00Wishing everyone who comes here a very Happy New Year and much happiness, health and love in 2012.
A Republican Panic Button:
Cartoon from Mark Huffaker's Scuff Productions blog
I took it as somewhat encouraging that a number of Republican Representatives bolted and voted for the payroll tax cuts, knowing that the American people are beginning to catch on about where the obstacles are coming Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-59650662726764844722011-12-24T10:22:00.001-05:002011-12-25T07:49:16.352-05:00Vatican Porn, "Holiday" scorn, and Opera Boston forlornGood morning and a very Happy Christmas to all of my wonderful readers and blog friends. I say this every year, but it always remains true: you have enriched my life, given joy, widened my perspective; and many of you have become dear and valued friends which is the greatest gift of all!
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It's pretty well known that for much of the medieval period and for all of the Renaissance the Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-30148267301608436502011-12-21T22:40:00.001-05:002011-12-21T22:42:27.416-05:00Here's a video that makes me so happy to live among the people of New Hampshire. We're gearing up for a second, and more serious legislative challenge to same sex marriage, beginning in the new year. A seemingly comfortable majority of New Hampshire citizens are against the repeal attempt, but nothing can be predicted with certainty given the bizarre and poisonous rhetoric of the day. In case Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-80497365906660028122011-12-16T23:44:00.004-05:002011-12-17T11:54:01.037-05:00 You are looking at the ruins of a French Bergere. I have owned the pieces of this chair for so many years that I can no longer remember how I came to own it. I only know that I have always wanted to see it restored and have it my living room. It is in French Second Empire style, and whenever I researched chairs of its style I could never find any that had the kind of openwork carvings on the Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-41931084538079218062011-12-13T10:03:00.001-05:002011-12-13T10:07:46.031-05:00Joe Jervis's Joe.My.God blog always has interesting things besides current LGBT politics and assorted local NYC phenomena. Here's a recent entry on:
A planet has been discovered in a distant solar system that exists in the same kind of sweet spot (astronomers call it the "goldilocks zone") for temperature in relation to its sun as the earth has with our sun. It's been given the name Kepler-22bWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-36573485699487862842011-12-10T21:58:00.000-05:002011-12-10T21:58:52.958-05:00I have never liked cheap disposable stuff. Fritz and I recycle everything we possibly can from both the house and the Center. We're big paper recyclers because of the amount of junk mail we receive, increased enormously by the glut of holiday shopping catalogs. One example is the West Elm catalogs that have come every year before Christmas, one a week, sometimes two a week, beginning in late Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-27831186995510025092011-12-06T08:45:00.002-05:002011-12-06T08:50:06.853-05:00From Abraham Piper's site, 22 Words:
You may know Syd Hoff as the author of classic children’s books such as Danny and the Dinosaur and Sammy the Seal. Or you may know his cartoons from The New Yorker.
In addition to these more famous works, he is also the author of a little collection of political cartoons called the The Ruling Clawss published in 1935 under the pen name he used for his more Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-14723678982801773472011-12-02T23:16:00.003-05:002011-12-02T23:27:03.132-05:00As we approach Christmas, groups all over the spectrum from top professional orchestra/choral ensembles to local church choirs are scheduling performances of Handel's Messiah. Here's one that didn't work out quite as planned: Handel Disaster
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A weird story from the Daily Mail's International Business times:
'Alien Skull' Discovered in Peru: From Indiana Jones to Real-life FindBy: Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-21565111396001008892011-11-29T18:11:00.004-05:002011-11-29T18:26:04.910-05:00I've gathered some quotes that say a lot about our current situation even though they span more than two centuries.
"The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy."
~ George Washington, Founding Father of the United States of America
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the Republican party and they’re sure trying to do so, itWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-59437524711443502892011-11-25T08:25:00.004-05:002011-11-25T18:14:39.047-05:00
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Available from Zazzle.com not, unfortunately, as an inexpensive Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-10776914445062828752011-11-23T20:35:00.000-05:002011-11-23T20:35:01.545-05:00
I have to admit that I've been uncharacteristically pessimistic in my outlook lately. I don't like what's going on in this country, particularly the big rise in hate directed at so many different groups and the totally unacceptable reality of Republican candidates knuckling under to hate groups by signing oaths to strip GLBT people of rights, partner benefits, personal health benefits, job Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-36003903281455721952011-11-21T23:08:00.002-05:002011-11-22T08:14:57.189-05:00
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I kicked this up as far as I could, but any extra effort required to study it is worth the effort in my opinion. I had known that for the last several years, the Danes and Swedes, et al. kept coming up #1 on surveys of the happiest people on the planet; this chart lays it all out and includes information on how various demographic groups are doing in each country, as well the rate ofWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-67469323697510410802011-11-17T20:52:00.004-05:002011-11-18T08:38:09.225-05:00The story of the lesbian couple who were denied a wedding cake by a mid-western baker has been reported in many places. This version is from the Huffington Post:
Iowa Baker Denies Wedding Cake To Lesbian Couple
First Posted: 11/14/11 12:48 PM ET Updated: 11/15/11 08:40 AM ET
#news_entries #ad_sharebox_260x60 img { padding: 0px; Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-43335912324167861262011-11-13T11:08:00.001-05:002011-11-14T12:18:37.503-05:00The Washington Post's On Faith forum featured a guest column today by Jesuit priest James Martin S.J. on the striking parallels between the Catholic Church pedophile priest scandal and the current Penn State University pedophile debacle.
As someone who was raised Catholic and sent to strict Catholic schools, I have always been ambivalent about the Jesuits. I know that their education is longer Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-6526809089289628812011-11-09T19:01:00.001-05:002011-11-09T21:44:45.230-05:00
The info in this graphic has been put out in a wide variety of forms but it needs to be repeated often. For all their self-proclaimed superiority as advocates of smaller government and fiscal responsibility, our debt crisis can be laid directly at the feet of Republican presidents.
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Blog pal Jess Bunshaft (splenda in the grass) reported on Facebook tonight that Channel 11 in New YorkWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-53281393796802785472011-11-06T23:11:00.003-05:002011-11-07T06:50:21.852-05:00I certainly hope so!
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I haven't done a meme in ages but this one caught my attention:
1. Name a TV show series in which you've seen every episode at least twice: None; I like TV but am not obsessed with it.
2. Name a show you can’t miss: Big Bang Theory
3. Name an actor that would make you more inclined to watch a show: Tim Bagly, Tyne Daly, Clark Gregg, Malcolm Gets, W.H. Macy, Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-54744189014755185322011-11-03T08:41:00.003-04:002011-11-04T08:39:15.804-04:00The quickie marriage of Britney Spears certainly got its share of derision but I think it's being matched or exceeded by the ridicule that's being heaped on Kim Kardashian. Compared to Britney's 55 hours or whatever it was, Kim's 72 days almost qualifies her as an old married lady. I suspect that part of the jeering is due to the obscene orgy of spending that ran the wedding well into Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-3910491948643149282011-10-29T14:20:00.001-04:002011-10-29T14:39:47.467-04:00One of Fritz's nephews has come into residence at the old house, built in 1792, that's down the hill near the Center. He divides his time between New Hampshire and western Massachusetts where his current lady has a farm. He returned from one of his trips yesterday with these two framed paintings. They're done in either acrylics or oils -- I suspect the former but they do have something of the Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-24212933091704282742011-10-26T22:13:00.005-04:002011-10-27T06:24:27.202-04:00I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this courageous young woman doesn't find herself the object of a fatwa and wind up dead somewhere.
Called to prayer: Ani Zonneveld reads Quran, gay wedding vowsby Jeremy Hooper
LOS ANGELES — Like other aspiring religious reformers before her, Ani Zonneveld takes positions that make her unpopular with America's Islamic leaders.
Not only does she lead Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-65844029953172839492011-10-23T09:44:00.002-04:002011-10-23T10:19:11.965-04:00In the wake of the horrific slaughter of so many animals in Ohio, including a large number of magnificent endangered Bengal Tigers, I wanted to feature some images of a side of animals that isn't always known. The first picture below and the commentary that accompanies it, was featured on a friend's Facebook page and gave me the idea, particularly as the subject is herself a bereaved tiger who Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-31104104378139507752011-10-18T23:26:00.003-04:002011-10-19T08:11:29.110-04:00The porn film I did without even knowing it.One day back in the late 1970s, I got a letter on Amero Brothers, Filmmakers letterhead asking if I would be interested in painting a backdrop for their current project, a film to be titled White Tie and Tails. At one point in time I must have known the contact that put the Ameros on to me, but that info vanished from my mind decades ago.
The letter said simply that they needed a drop of an Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-27491108001060619002011-10-13T18:27:00.002-04:002011-10-13T23:28:07.047-04:00A new art project finished!When the house was built, beginning in the spring of 2007, ledge in the hillside was blown out twice to allow the first floor to be set into the earth about five feet deep three quarters of the way around. Behind the house a swale of pebbles was created going down below the level of the slab to drain any water that came off the hillside and divert it under the slab to prevent ground water Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-27130764589554738262011-10-03T23:18:00.000-04:002011-10-03T23:18:47.991-04:00I think three weeks is the longest hiatus this blog has had other than one vacation when I was without any connection to the internet at all. After returning from our Alaska/Salem, Oregon/Las Vegas trip, I plunged directly into the final preparations and production week for the most recent premiere our opera company has given.
Rocket's Red Blare is a political satire in the guise of a Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-89739678391986280332011-09-11T00:36:00.002-04:002011-09-14T08:41:15.761-04:00We flew to Oregon on Monday via three Alaska Airline flights from Petersburg to Juneau, then to Seattle and Portland. The most spectacular sights were the great chain of volcanoes in the Northwest, which the pilot out of Seattle obligingly arranged to be on our side of the plane. The most arresting sight, of course, was Mt. St. Helens, the immediate surrounding area of which has still not Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-16918667111407720762011-09-06T20:25:00.001-04:002011-09-06T20:28:57.366-04:00
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On Monday the 29th we put into port at the village on Baranoff Warm Springs Bay. The community is tiny. A waterfall Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-39867337959678115872011-09-01T02:03:00.002-04:002011-09-06T22:44:03.520-04:00We gathered at 2pm Sunday afternoon at Sitka’s Totem Pole Square (which actually has no totem pole as it’s currently out to be repaired and restored by native Tinglit artists) for a tour to the Raptor Center, The Historical Park, the Museum and Saint Michael’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral. The Cathedral, is actually a close replica of the original that dated to 1849 but was destroyed in 1966 by aWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-57537791634512584542011-08-27T18:19:00.004-04:002011-09-06T22:45:23.654-04:00The US from 36,000 feetFor some reason, Delta Airlines takes you from Manchester, NH to Seattle via Atlanta. On the second plane of the day, I had a window seat unexpectedly as there was an equipment change on our flight; instead of 3 and 3 seating with Fritz and me in aisle and middle seats, we found ourselves on a big -- REALLY big -- trans-Atlantic plane with 2, 3 and 2 seating. We had a lot more room, with aisle Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-52652445804657430172011-08-20T22:04:00.001-04:002011-08-20T22:10:51.251-04:00Oh, the time has gotten away from me. I'd meant to post earlier in the week but things are super-busy right now. Once again Fritz and I are hosting a Body Electric School weekend program, this one devoted to Tantra for men. Tantra is a relatively new offering for Body Electric, although elements of it are integrated into the basic BE philosophy and practice. So far things are going very well Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-10042620489693713102011-08-16T10:04:00.000-04:002011-08-16T10:04:25.265-04:00With thanks to the Silent Songster at Secret Songs of Silence, here's Dany Morin, a successful French Canadian chiropractor and Member of Parliament from Quebec. At age 25, Dany (that's the spelling) has obviously achieved a great deal. He's gay, and the National Newswatch site (a Canadian news aggregator site) reported that, "In an interview with a local radio station last week, NDP MP Dany Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-76249546551061699402011-08-13T22:00:00.001-04:002011-08-13T22:05:52.465-04:00 Our cat has always liked sitting on the window sill of the laundry/freezer/cat room, but she's never spent lengthy amounts of time there. The ground level of the swale is less than a foot below the sill as the house is placed into the hillside on three sides. So, we were both surprised several days ago when she began to spend much of the day and night up on the sill looking out.
Usually, Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-2557429953596104352011-08-09T22:01:00.001-04:002011-08-09T23:13:05.122-04:00Some serene beauty and some very real ugliness
I first saw the original of this strikingly austere and geometric view of Japan's Mount Fuji in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia in the summer of 2002. It dates from 1818-1819 and is rendered in ink and other color media on paper in the form of a scroll, not a hanging scroll but a horizontal handscroll which is in the collection of The British Museum. It's title is "The Summit Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-44222381363087249922011-08-03T11:05:00.006-04:002011-08-05T17:02:50.378-04:00Although I definitely consider myself spiritual, I am not a religious person. Twelve years of strict Catholic education destroyed any desire to be part of organized religion. But as a student of the great architecture of the world, temples, mosques and cathedrals have always been of prime interest to me because of their importance to the communities that built them, as well as the care and Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-51505733822499839882011-07-31T07:23:00.001-04:002011-07-31T08:37:15.578-04:00Ochre, Red, Black, Blue and White are this post's colorsI don't like hats and I never have. It all goes back to New York City when I was a kid.
My parents put me in a kindergarten that operated on the ground floor of a brownstone townhouse that required all its little charges (male variety) to arrive, leave, and go out to recess in the garden/yard behind the building wearing a little Eaton Cap (roughly like the casquette, below left). I always felt Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-15609965839697885122011-07-27T20:46:00.002-04:002011-07-27T22:24:53.525-04:00
A superb summer picture: Sunflowers in Touraine by good Facebook and Blogger Buddy (another american living in france WCS), Walt Streeter.
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As the dangerous, self-aggrandizing and insensitive buffoons in Washington DC continue to stall and avoid any substantive work to rescue the country from financial disaster, the chart below which should be required reading for all members of theWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-32199806364159967592011-07-24T23:23:00.005-04:002011-07-25T08:14:37.989-04:00Today having been the first day of same-sex marriage in New York State, I thought it would be good to celebrate with these two handsome men coming from just having gotten married in Manhattan. As in other states that have marriage equality, many of the couples had already been together for decades, nicely destroying the contention of some opposition groups that gay marriages are frivolous and Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-34020915769592472492011-07-21T10:19:00.000-04:002011-07-21T10:19:38.708-04:00I'm staying with architecture for this post, and will for the next one as well. I came across a file full of treehouses and picked these four as the most interesting, at least the ones that most resonated with me.
The geodesic dome and I go way back to Expo '67 in Montreal. Buckminster Fuller had popularized it and it was one of the great highlights of the Expo along with Habitat, a jumble of Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-67375178265629267002011-07-13T23:40:00.001-04:002011-07-13T23:44:05.071-04:00Architecture by Michal Vesely -- that's the name of a Facebook page that I stumbled on courtesy of another Facebooker. Vesely may be an architect himself (the description of him is a little vague), but he is a first-rate architectural photographer of others' work. There are slightly over 100 pictures in his photo album and these are just a smattering of things that caught my eye:
A fluid use Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-81159168432526788582011-07-05T21:27:00.008-04:002011-07-07T10:07:38.817-04:00We are experiencing a very heavy year for ticks here in southern New Hampshire. These tiny insects
arachnids, many even smaller in scale than the female deer tick in the photograph below, can carry Lyme Disease that can be successfully treated, but that can also be debilitating for many years. Now there's also a kind of super tick that can carry several very problematic diseases. It has begun Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-36803017765786166972011-07-04T07:34:00.000-04:002011-07-04T07:34:45.633-04:00Happy 4th of July!A very happy 4th of July to everybody, with a little something in the patriotic spirit thanks to blogger and Facebooker Mark Anthony Lennon from Southport near Liverpool, UK. who posted the picture for all his mates in the US.Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-28800055892207445542011-06-28T10:18:00.000-04:002011-06-28T10:18:44.300-04:00"Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions." --Thomas Jefferson
The Empire State Building as soon as the bill establishing same-sex marriage was passed by the NY State Senate late last Friday night.
"You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, fuck it; I don't care what you think. I'm trying to do the right thing." --New York Republican Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-51318439004994363942011-06-24T22:48:00.000-04:002011-06-24T22:48:39.582-04:00The Old Order Is Passing AwayThe Senate in Albany has just passed the bill establishing same-sex marriage in New York State on a 33 to 29 vote. With Governor Andrew Cuomo's signature a slam dunk, my home state becomes the largest in the US to adopt the principle of marriage equality.
Here is another sign that the tide is turning:
Omaha Clergy Proclamation: Being Gay Not A SinMinister Organizes Effort To Welcome Gays To Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-45314584479461444002011-06-14T10:05:00.001-04:002011-06-14T10:09:24.183-04:00
Father John Unni delivering his message of inclusion among his congregants
For one priest, the choice is clear On inclusian of gays, lesbians he cites Jesus' example
By Mark Arsenault, Globe Staff / June 14, 2011
Four years ago, a methodical search for a new place of worship led a group of gay Roman Catholics to the Rev. John Unni, the youthful priest at St. Cecilia’s Church. The Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-80428924098678975862011-06-09T23:22:00.003-04:002011-06-11T13:49:19.467-04:00Fritz has begun the 25th class since his Conference & Retreat Center became allied with Lesley University as a remote site for its Master of Education in Creative Arts and Learning degree program. With each class the first assignment is to make a set of wind chimes.
This year's stand-out was made by a woman who asked if she could have a chunk of our maple firewood, which she turned on a lathe Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-62819621616523721912011-05-29T11:11:00.001-04:002011-05-29T11:12:11.461-04:00With spring in high gear and the opera production finished and the scenery put into storage, it's been all about the property and the house and getting the gardens going. It's work I love. Getting the hoses laid out for watering all the various areas we've planted is the current big job. I have well over 200 feet to deploy with probably another 200 permanently laid in the ground, feeder hoses Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-83464316572764677372011-05-23T08:58:00.004-04:002011-05-23T09:08:11.807-04:00
Fourteen years ago today, Fritz and I met at a friend's house in Cambridge, MA. I was struck by a face of immense kindness, clear French blue eyes, a lively sense of humor, vitality, intelligence -- there was an instant connection. Three days later, each of us contacted the host on how to get in contact with the other, and we were off and running. It has never faltered, but has deepened Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-31077144589370587772011-05-19T23:24:00.002-04:002011-05-20T09:18:34.585-04:00I was going to lead off with something else, but This came to me from my daughter in Salem, Oregon and I just can't stop looking at it. My granddaughter Sasha Julia, now just over 20 months old, looking radiant, with her hair done exactly the way I used to do her mother's hair at that age and looking just as delightfully happy as her mother used to.
We're going out to visit later in the summer,Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-72553724406806487502011-05-05T21:55:00.001-04:002011-05-05T21:56:45.167-04:00It's been a week since I last posted, and a very busy one. Load-in for for the opera's props and scenery into the Boston Conservatory of Music Theater is Saturday at noon; then there's a full run-through, probably two if all goes well, between 2 and 5pm. I will pull all the props from various places, but mostly from my old stock at MIT, tomorrow afternoon. Everything is built, and all the set Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-67826411911194066252011-04-28T08:28:00.002-04:002011-04-28T08:32:24.387-04:00Nothing recently that I can think of shows more spectacularly the incredible shift away from pictorially realistic stage productions than these giant constructions for the Bregenz festival on Lake Constance in Austria.
Bregenz presents opera on a stage secured just off shore. From everything I have heard, the generally calm surface of the lake provides a terrific sounding board for voices, Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-58556221027442648352011-04-21T20:45:00.003-04:002011-04-21T21:55:13.840-04:00
Today I scored my 300,000th hit on DesignerBlog. Thank you all who made this possible, to my regular connenters, to my lurkers, to everyone who googles or otherwise searches for pictures of Italian ballet dancer Roberto Bolle -- and yes, they are here back in the archives! It's been fun and very enriching to have you all here and I hope you'll continue to stop by regularly.
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Joel Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-85015211025116950032011-04-18T22:06:00.005-04:002011-04-19T18:00:25.565-04:00I didn't mean for more than a full week to go by without posting, but it's getting very busy as we're in the last month before the opening of the opera whose libretto we wrote, and which I'm designing. The premiere is May 14 at the Boston Conservatory of Music's newly rebuilt theater. As always, our company produces relatively modestly but this particular project is being treated as somewhat Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-67216933568470120582011-04-09T11:30:00.004-04:002011-04-09T11:43:45.728-04:00
This is the weekend we've been waiting for -- the first of the many thousands of daffodils that surround Fritz's center have opened, and up here at the house, crocus are pushing up through the carpet of leaves. The fall crop of lettuce, bok choi and spinach in the cold frame are flourishing and providing plenty of salads.
The Symposium at Greenfield on French opera wound up on Wednesday. Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-54272712332377184702011-04-05T22:23:00.002-04:002011-04-05T22:27:44.543-04:00Starr, very properly curled up on the throw that seems to have been made for her. She's still alert, lively and great fun but she is getting to be an old lady cat -- 15 this year.
Fog this morning began a cold, clammy day. I set a fire going in the living room wood stove after lunch. I had to do a lot of writing on the computer and physical inactivity made me cool down. There's something Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-41309785636328389952011-03-31T22:10:00.013-04:002011-04-01T08:23:46.179-04:00Friday Morning Update:
In the words of the immortal Yogi Berra, "I'm having a deja view (sic) all over again.
On April 1, 1997 we had a particularly vicious ice storm in Boston. Power in the Roslindale neighborhood where I lived was out for four days. In the western suburb of Wellesley where lightning took out the electric substation, there was no power for a week. Roads were blocked by Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-32990688372092049612011-03-28T23:35:00.000-04:002011-03-28T23:35:38.080-04:00
The new GT Tower East in Seoul, Korea. The vogue in architecture for lengthy, unsupported projections (as in Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art on the waterfront, below), have been melting, literally, into buildings with highly irregular "skins" that seem to defy interior structural support. Transparency remains the watchword of the day in the totally glass skin. This East tower will Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-62360606011897198752011-03-23T20:45:00.002-04:002011-03-23T21:09:51.710-04:00One of the earliest signs of Spring is the Witch Hazel's spidery blossoms. We found this bush in flower when coming down from the garden after gathering spinach out of the cold frame. We did a huge planting in the fall and are looking forward to seeing a big change in the look of the property this spring. There will be another major planting some time in May most probably, after which Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-25437568194919329002011-03-19T15:15:00.001-04:002011-03-19T17:50:03.483-04:00Spring isn't usually considered harvest time but there are some things here that we do make or dig up as winter ends. Above, the take a couple of days ago of turnips (the little ones) and parsnips from the garden. Fritz left them in the ground to winter over as several of the root vegetables taste better, radically sweeter in the case of the parsnips, if left to freeze in the ground. We had Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-59633172321523023062011-03-15T14:34:00.004-04:002011-03-15T16:45:00.820-04:00Some interesting designs in this line of trompe l'oeil cycling helmets:
There were many others, one of which was a watermelon with a slice taken out of it. The whole set of ten or so helmets seems to me a meditation on how fragile the head is, how vulnerable, and how easily the skull can be shattered.
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Embarrassments of All Kinds
There's been a fair amount of coverage of the "Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-47278420669175963162011-03-12T23:55:00.003-05:002011-03-13T11:18:18.300-04:0012 on 12I've never done one of these, and was reminded of that this week when two friends posted theirs. I'll probably do one once we're into the theater with the opera and in tech and dress rehearsal -- you'll get a very different view of my life then than from the photo set below.
When I get up in the morning, I visit the bathroom, then feed the cat and put the kettle on for tea. From the kitchen, Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-17592721372155157922011-03-08T18:19:00.004-05:002011-03-08T18:51:32.965-05:00A New Kind of Pride
I think that gay pride celebrations should include public readings of names of all the artists, writers, architects, philosophers, musicians, entertainers of all kinds, kings, queens, presidents, jurists, scientists, legislators, Biblical figures (David and Jonathan: "Your love to me was more wonderful than the love of women," for example), explorers, mathematicians, Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-4807591842283906112011-03-05T18:35:00.002-05:002011-03-06T11:51:23.388-05:00I came across the work of this artist on the Turkish site, Nucleus. The artist Jennifer Maestre crafts sculpture from hundreds of pieces of a very common object. Excerpts from a statement she made for an interview are interspersed with pictures of her remarkable work.
PENCIL ART Sculptures of Jennifer Maestre
My sculptures were originally inspired by the form and function of the sea Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-9787006251740753832011-03-01T15:17:00.004-05:002011-03-04T21:34:55.650-05:00The New York Philharmonic, under the music directorship of Alan Gilbert who is programming rather adventurously these days to open the orchestra to different audiences, has announced four semi-staged performances of Stephen Sondheim's Company at Avery Fisher Hall. The casting is quite interesting.
Bobby, a thirty-something New Yorker who is emotionally blocked, shuns commitment and lives Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-29811592140459025222011-02-25T22:27:00.001-05:002011-02-25T22:29:12.276-05:00A new face has appeared on the property. We're used to the big gray squirrels, the ones Fritz hates and calls tree rats, but the other day I looked out and this little guy was bounding around looking like he was having the time of his life. He's less than half the bulk of one of the big grays and while no more athletic, he seems to have a great deal more energy. Red squirrels somehow pass the Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-75722998298972005062011-02-19T11:57:00.003-05:002011-02-19T21:48:04.802-05:00 Douglas Worthen
Our day in the Representatives' Hall at the State House to lend our testimony to the effort to fend off repeal of Marriage Equality here in New Hampshire was fascinating but tiring. We ended it with a real treat -- a friend of ours who is a highly accomplished flautist was giving a recital at St. Anselm's College in Manchester at 6pm. It lasted just an hour in a handsome Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-80444046051706823592011-02-16T22:00:00.001-05:002011-02-16T22:04:25.652-05:00
This is the advertising piece for an opera for which Fritz and I have written the libretto from our own original story. I've designed sets and lights for Intermezzo productions for the past seven years. The chance to write the story and text for an opera came up largely by chance almost a year ago and went very well once we were confirmed in the assignment and under way.
Barbara Kilduff is anWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-80578194414389610042011-02-14T07:21:00.000-05:002011-02-14T07:21:27.569-05:00A very happy Valentine's Day to everyone . . . . . . . . and I do mean Everyone!Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-20849138036555303782011-02-08T23:05:00.007-05:002011-02-09T08:20:41.578-05:00One of the great political fixtures here in New England, and in particular here in New Hampshire, is Town Meeting. Sandown's Old Meeting House is typical, although Town Meeting might be held in one of the local churches, at town hall if it had a chamber big enough, or at a local school. A lot of the feistiness and independence of the classic New Englander can be traced back to the Town Meeting Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-14914936778538221702011-02-02T22:18:00.001-05:002011-02-06T08:13:14.317-05:00We've been clobbered by two or three snow storms a week for a while, the roughest one being two that combined into one yesterday and today. This unbelievable scene -- you can't call it a roll-over but I don't know what you can call it -- happened about fifteen miles south-west of us on Route 93, the main road north from Boston through New Hampshire.
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I've been doing a lot of indoor workWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-59068729597805384152011-01-25T22:47:00.003-05:002011-01-26T07:26:30.590-05:00The last couple of weeks have been taken up with the winter production of Intermezzo, The New England Chamber Opera Series, for whom I have designed sets and lights for the last seven years. We are a lean, enterprising and adventurous company, one that deals only in modern or absolutely contemporary material, in English, with productions conceived and directed in the firm belief that opera is Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-11969440347519649492011-01-13T23:11:00.000-05:002011-01-13T23:11:11.905-05:00From The Village Voice:Ellen Stewart, La MaMa Founder, Has Died at Age 91 By Michael Feingold, Thu., Jan. 13 2011 @ 12:23PM Ellen Stewart at La MaMa in 1991 (photo by Jonathan Slaff)Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-90607660344463264992011-01-06T09:23:00.001-05:002011-01-06T09:27:57.471-05:00There has been a flurry of comment over a speech by Supreme Court ultra-conservative Antonin Scalia to the effect that the 14th Amendment to the constitution offers no rights to protection against discrimination to gays and Lesbians (the kind of statement one would expect from Scalia) but that there is also no protection for women, which is a surprise.
Scalia said that the U.S.Constitution Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-70125783139134366532010-12-31T15:09:00.002-05:002010-12-31T15:14:52.348-05:00
Best wishes for a happiness, health, love and friendship. and a great deal of fun in 2011!
For Fritz and me the new year brings the a new enterprise in our careers. Some of you know this, but last April in the midst of a dinner conversation with the head of the Boston-based chamber opera I've been designing for the last seven years, the subject of a newly commissioned opera came up Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-69433276610154033222010-12-24T23:05:00.002-05:002010-12-27T20:02:23.475-05:00It's late Christmas Eve and I wanted to wish you all a very Happy Christmas. We have our ritual every year. Fritz makes an exceptionally good cheddar cheese soup with a strong dark beer as its base. We have a bowl of that along with a slice of home-made bread and then go to a candle-lit Quaker Meeting.
We come home to a little more soup and then each of us opens one present from the other.
Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-43780177846258383242010-12-18T20:07:00.000-05:002010-12-18T20:07:33.523-05:00
It is very tempting to go hog-wild celebrating today's vote in the Senate to repeal DADT, the bill now to be sent to the president for his signature. It IS a signal victory and a cause for rejoicing, but although it will become the law of the land sometime this week, it won't be enforceable because of the built-in "certification process" for quite some time. A raft of people have to sign off Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-26277129390338747382010-12-14T22:46:00.001-05:002010-12-14T23:01:58.356-05:00Thursday of this week -- the 16th -- marks the 50th anniversary of what was at that point in time the worst air disaster to strike a heavily settled city in the U.S. I was 15 and a junior in high school; I've remembered the event vividly for all these years and was surprised and impressed that the New York Times is featuring articles all this week on various aspects of the disaster.
This was Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-23005718660519051292010-12-05T09:41:00.000-05:002010-12-05T09:41:05.895-05:00I'm trying to work through an injury to my left knee that I suffered on the hillside above the house, breaking soil and removing huge amounts of rock from a garden patch to be planted next spring. It will feature low bush blueberries, black huckleberries and a small varriety of flowering bushes and ground covers. The grade on that part of the hillside is steep and part of what I was doing was Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-8406428402290460702010-12-02T09:31:00.001-05:002010-12-02T09:32:45.678-05:00 I don't usually put whole articles or reviews out here on DesignerBlog but this one from the New York Times about a special vocal concert in New York City struck me as one in which many of you would be interested.
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Best wishes for a very Happy Thanksgiving to all my blog buddies, male and female, young and old, domestic and overseas. Whoever you are and wherever you are, you have enriched my life by sharing yours with me and for that I am -- and will always be -- very thankful indeed!Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-74056590516822420372010-11-14T23:06:00.000-05:002010-11-14T23:06:12.231-05:00The Northwest Trip: Part 3 Multnomah Falls on the Oregon side of the Columbia River is, at 620 feet, higher than Niagara Falls, although obviously nowhere near as wide. It drops into a pond at the bottom of a gorge it's carved out over the millennia, and then spills out of that down into a little stream that takes its water to the great Columbia.
A salmon wheel, more exactly a machine to catch (or scoop up) salmon from Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-60625210757052023282010-10-31T10:32:00.001-04:002010-11-09T21:17:25.670-05:00The Northwest Trip: Part DeuxWhen we joined the Columbia River I expected a change in topography but if anything the terrain grew even more barren. Fritz put his finger on it when he said that with such a vast amount of water running through it, you would expect SOME degree of vegetation. Part of the barrenness, I think, is due to the fact that the Columbia isn't actually a river any more except in the westernmost part of Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-88280492889118901982010-10-27T23:07:00.001-04:002010-10-28T09:01:37.949-04:00The Northwest Trip: Part 1This fall's trip to the Northwest is going to be one of a long series. My elder daughter, son-in-law and fifteen month old granddaughter are going to be settled in Salem, Oregon for a long time. He's moving toward tenure at Willamette University and she has established herself in the fiber community as a dyer of yarn, skilled knitter and, as of this winter, she'll be a spinner of wool. They'veWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-34180749851911336182010-10-13T15:13:00.001-04:002010-10-15T07:26:52.981-04:00Michael at Spo Reflections posted this Halloween meme. I answered it on his blog and then posted the whole thing herewith my responses. If anyone feels like answering any or all of it in the comments, I'd be delighted to get your take on the questions.
#1 What was the scariest movie you have ever seen?
Wizard of Oz. I was 4 years old when my parents took me and the whole thing frightened meWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-72334183586510039532010-09-28T13:36:00.001-04:002010-09-29T01:53:45.610-04:00We left the boat yesterday morning after breakfast. We were tied up to a floating dock in the harbor of Astoria, Oregon just a couple of miles inland from the legendarily treacherous "Columbia Bar" where the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean crash into each other in an infamous ships' graveyard.
There were 29 passengers on the cruise, including two affinity groups -- a family that had Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-4632876002148519692010-09-25T15:09:00.000-04:002010-09-25T15:09:17.582-04:00Brief hello from the town of St. Helens, OR. We're nearing the end of an eight day riverboat cruise on the Snake and Columbia Rivers, to be followed by four days in Salem with my daughter, son-in-law and now fourteen month old granddaughter. Then two days in Portland and we fly home. We've done a lot of on-shore activities and a thrilling jet boat ride through Hell's Canyon on the Snake. Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-62641609361299055862010-09-17T17:54:00.002-04:002010-09-29T01:51:43.887-04:00Appearances to the contrary, I have not abandoned this blog, but the fact is that the last couple of weeks have been so filled with chores and activities that I've had trouble coming up with sufficient time to sit and put together something coherent or, I would hope, interesting. Well the goad came yesterday morning when I did some on-line research after seeing a Good Morning America item on the Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-73516913787677320692010-08-31T22:27:00.001-04:002010-09-01T14:21:39.897-04:00This is thanks to Mike Mennonno (Mennonno Sapiens), who catches up at intervals with the South End Knitters who cover exposed ironwork rings and knobs on old stone gates and fences with fanciful knitted covers, a delightful form of People's Public Art.
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Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-46735564095001318232010-08-23T09:11:00.000-04:002010-08-23T09:11:42.413-04:00A Little More NatureToday's Tumescent Tomato. It's very odd, but our garden is popping out tomatoes with these appendages this summer. I've never grown any that did this before. Possibly there are male tomatoes?
One of our wild turkeys, one that Fritz refers to as "the rogue" because it is always alone and never with the flock; our last sight of them was in December when we were decorating the inside/outside Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-88164302449666800132010-08-20T21:00:00.003-04:002010-08-21T07:10:30.083-04:00For Love of NatureI went outside the other afternoon after the heat of the day had broken to do a little watering. I happened to look down on the deck outside our bedroom and saw this feather lying there. It's a wild turkey tail feather and it was less than two feet from the wall of our bedroom. Whenever we've seen turkeys on the property, they've always been some distance from the house, but the one who Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-59248371475193806602010-08-17T23:01:00.006-04:002010-08-18T17:05:22.798-04:00Boston's Women of Opera and Music, Part TwoIn 1975, The Associate Artists Opera, for which I had been the resident set designer for four years, began to experience financial difficulties and merged with two other smaller companies to form the Boston lyric Opera. There wasn't much activity for a while when I received a call from British conductor John Balme who was now running the fledgling company, asking me to return to be his designer Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-83274023706256809012010-08-11T18:52:00.004-04:002010-08-11T19:00:20.770-04:00I'm three days late for this -- I'd blame the oral surgery early in the week, but the truth is that I just lost count. DesignerBlog debuted on August 8, 2003 and has been a constant pleasure to write. The main personal benefit for me has been the large number of great people with whom I have had the opportunity to share ideas, humor, caring, and in many happy cases, personal meeting that has Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-61660514286366918952010-08-04T09:11:00.012-04:002010-08-18T22:45:30.328-04:00The weekend at Cooperstown was an extra kick this year because of the opportunity to spend time with friends in addition to all my usual activities.
Friday afternoon, I made what turned out to be a very minor detour from my normal route to meet fellow blogger Sean Breen for lunch at his place. It became obvious very quickly that we had a lot in common as fellow artists whose houses are set up Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-42205683891135999292010-07-29T22:42:00.009-04:002010-07-29T23:12:48.700-04:00Garden Bounty & Annual Opera PilgrimageThe horrid weather conditions that inhibited the garden last year are nowhere to be seen this year -- strong sun, clear skies and high heat have been the norm. Starting with these big, beautiful red cabbages, here's a look at some of what we're harvesting almost daily:Pole beans, which were part of dinner tonightTwo winter squashes under their own foliage's protective canopyThe tomatoes have Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5661154.post-17945593780399705222010-07-24T10:23:00.006-04:002010-07-24T15:06:24.853-04:00Floral interlude between the two sections of Boston's Ladies of Opera and the Arts:The friend who made up the garden plan for us told us that the third year after planting would be the first really spectacular one. This is year two and it seems pretty good to us.The north side, the edge closest to our big front windows. Not everything is in flower all at once; she planned it so that we'd have Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.com6