Sunday Observations 1.6

So I woke up to a perfect storm of hockey this morning. After a 113 day lockout and a 16 hour negotiating secession came this from The New York Times, "Breaking News: NHL and Players Union Reach Tentative Agreement to End Lockout." As I was reading the headline it was snowing slightly in the Village, a documentary on the Philadelphia Flyers was on HBO, and today just happens to be Flyers owner Ed Snyder's 80^th birthday. No details on when the season will start or how long it will last but this is critical information as my brother owes me a trip to a Flyers game which was last year's birthday present and I have every intention of collecting it.

I really don't watch a lot of TV other than sports and the usual Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, Alex Wagner MSNBC lineup but suddenly I find myself swamped with things I want to see. I had been watching Revolution from the start but I never got back to it after a storm named Sandy took out our cable. I always thought Falling Skies looked good so when it showed up free on Amazon Prime I started watching that and burned through season one in a week. Now Bo is coming back in season three of Lost Girl and I haven't seen any of season two yet. But Lost Girl just appeared free on Netflix so I'm torn between watching the second seasons of Falling Skies and Lost Girl. Netflix also has all the seasons of Nikita for free so if I can't make up my mind I can always watch that. Than again soon I can just watch hockey.

While I'm on entertainment, I mentioned before I was reading Salman Rushdie's "Joseph Anton" which is actually a memoir of Rushdie's after he wrote "The Satanic Verses." If you like memoirs or history it really is very good but it's a hard book to start. Joseph Anton is the name Rushdie came up with at the request of his guards from the Special Branch of the British Metropolitan Police. What you have is Rushdie writing a biography of Anton who is actually Rushdie and sometimes reads like Anton writing a memoir of Rushdie who is at the same time Anton. Once you get past all that it's an easy read and sometimes reads more like a spy novel than anything else. Just take my word for it.

Happy Birthday Mr. Snyder, somewhere Reggie Dunlop is smiling.

You can look that one up.

update - I'm not sure if this is an update to this post or yesterday's on Penn State and the way stories twist around each other. No NHL schedule has been announced yet but it will either be a 48 or a 50 game season. If it is a 48 game season the Flyers will open with an early afternoon game against the hated Penguins on January 19^th in Philadelphia. Early afternoon because that night the new Terry Pagula financed Penn State ice hockey team plays Vermont at the Wells Fargo Center.

Observations on Art 1.5

These videos always fascinate me, I'd love to do something like it but I know I would never have the patience to finish the year. Years ago Court and I toyed with the idea of my sending her little snippets of video and her editing it into a longer film but neither one of us ever pulled the trigger. Maybe one day.


Just A Second 2012 from Kent Frost on Vimeo

Posted January 4, 2012.
Filmed with the following cameras:
Canon EOS 550D (Rebel T2i)
GoPro HD Hero 2
Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket
Edited using Sony Vegas 10.0 Pro
Music: "Souls" by djSaint (Harold Alexis Remix)

Observations from the Window 1.5

This is the first of two small updates on the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State. I won't get into the scandal itself again, personally I hope he rots in prison, just click on one of the tags if you somehow don't know it. I just find these stories interesting as hell because of how things change over time and how some stories always seem wind and twist their way into others. This post falls into the latter category.

All the background you need for this part is to remember what the scandal did to Joe Paterno and the Penn State football program. Paterno's firing, the NCAA $60 million fine, banned from bowl games, and the loss of scholarships. With the end of the Paterno reign a savior was summoned from Boston, Bill O'Brien. Amid all the turmoil and scandal O'Brien and the team had an awesome season that any other year would have landed them in a New Year's Day bowl game or better.

The problem is O'Brien did such a good job with the mess he was handed that his stock as a coach will probably never be higher. Multiple NFL teams, including the Eagles, wanted to talk to him and rumor has it the Penn State administration was so sure he was going to leave that they started a list of coaching candidates to talk to about replacing him. Enter a second savior in Penn State graduate Terry Pagula who had already donated over $100 million to start Penn State's division 1 ice hockey program. Out of nowhere the story went in a completely different direction Thursday night.

From a Buffalo News report; "Pegula donated a $1.3 million gift to be added to O’Brien’s salary in the coming year that will bump his total compensation to $3.6 million and place him behind only Ohio State’s Urban Meyer and Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz as the third-highest-paid coach in the Big Ten." Bill O'Brien announced he would not be leaving Penn State, had never really planned on leaving, and was indeed happy in Happy Valley. You can think what you will about O'brien's comments but they are probably casting his statue as I post this.

Still, I do have a small problem with Terry Pagula.

How could I possibly have a problem with a fellow Penn State alum, a man who gave birth to the Penn State ice hockey program, built a state of the art ice arena, and kept O'Brien in Happy Valley? Pagula also happens to be the owner of the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League.

I'm not even going to get into that.

Observations from the Window 1.3.1

The first new post of year four is going to be something a little different for me. I'm going to respond to a few suggestions, comments, and reminders from the past few days.

A friend of mine reminded me that if this is the start of the fourth year of this blog it's also the start of my fourth year in the Village. I hadn't even thought of that but it's very true. It's also a little hard to admit but I think I feel more at home here now than I do in the mountains and that is something I didn't think I would ever say. I still think of my dad's as home though, that is until I plant myself in that apartment in Paris.

Lately I've been told that sometimes I'm a bit too harsh in my comments, something that I think was intended as much for me personally as for my writing. To be honest for the most part I've always been that way but as I got older I also realized that anything else was totally a waste of your time and mine. I don't see my ever changing that opinion.

Someone recently mentioned that I don't write about personal things very often. My answer to that was that if there was a story to be had it was in here somewhere. There isn't much of a personal nature I haven't written about that I intend to write about, it's all in here somewhere but it might take some digging to find it. Something you are not going to find in here are bad personal relationship stories because, as Ash says, you aren't ready for them, can't handle them, just don't want to know. Also I don't plan on ever writing about my relationship with Anne Hathaway.

Finally earlier today I had a suggestion from somebody who has been reading this since I started. He left a very kind comment but than suggested I "skip the effing sports section." I would seriously consider this but I'm not quite sure what if anything Swedes know about sports so I'll just have to shrug it off as a well meaning but totally off suggestion.

Sarcasm, than again maybe it isn't.

Observations from the Window 1.3

From the archive. The first post in this blog, tune included, from three years ago today. I didn't say quite as much when I started so I could probably write more introducing it than I wrote at the time but I'll try hard not to which means I better stop now ....

Here I Am
Why am I doing this? Honestly I have no clue.

In the past weeks I left a place and a job I love dearly. Penn State University (btw Capital One Bowl final. PSU 19 - LSU 17). A good friend of mine moved to the west coast. And the day after new years I moved in with another good friend in the Village. Soon Ill be starting a job in a gallery there.

Years ago I kept a journal. It always seemed to help me clear my head in the 'dark days'. Recently I had a conversation with a doctor friend who thought it might be a good idea to do it again. To help me adjust to all the recent changes in my life.

Well here I am. Time will tell .....

tuneage

Happy 2013

I just wanted to take a minute and wish everyone a Happy New Year. In many ways it was one of the more interesting New Years Eves I can remember, both personally and in the news. I hope you all had an entertaining one too.

No sports or politics today because both the NHL and the Republican Party have me totally irritated. I'm not going to get into the hockey because they are meeting now and there still might be some news today. I will say I think any freshmen intro to government class could do a better job of running the country than the wingnuts are. But anyway I said no politics today.

I made a fleeting attempt at writing this at breakfast this morning when somebody reminded me that this is the start of the fourth year of my little project. When I started writing this blog I didn't know if it would last three weeks let alone three years. It has changed dramatically over the years and at times I go off on wild tangents but I do still enjoy it. I have no idea where it will go this year other than to say I really do want to write more about art, it just seems like something else is always happening that needs my undivided attention and I just have to write about it. Sarcasm.

I hope you enjoy it somewhat, learn a little something, and sometimes even think about what the hell I ramble on about.

Thanks for reading and, again, have a Happy New Year.

Sunday Observations 12.29

It's officially cold this morning. When I go get my paper if it's below freezing and breezy, windchill is 16°, it's officially cold. That makes me wonder about our New Years Eve plans because ice skating at Bryant Park or going to Times Square were both options but who wants to freeze in the new year? Than again my brother is in State College and the Village is rather balmy compared to the mountains.

When it comes to the tunes I listen to I can be a bit strange because I can jump from Ellie Goulding to Linkin Park in one playlist. Thing is my iTunes holds almost anything including sadly country and Tom Jones but there is no opera. Last night I was listening to a playlist that may have been stranger than any of mine. Like some of mine it was all over the music rainbow but yes it included opera, opera shuffling to dance shuffling to indie which is my whole point of writing this. I heard a cover of Neil Young's "Into the Black" that was awesome so I asked who it was and was told it was a band fro Oregon called the Chromatics. We ended up listening to there entire newest album, Kill For Love, and it's really quite good, worth a listen, or maybe it was just the wine. (video)

I was reading an old article from the Guardian about career tips for art school graduates when I came across this one, it's a rule I follow at all times. "It's crucial to remember that everything you do online can be seen by everyone. So no political rants, no passive-aggressive behavior, keep it light, fun, happy and professional at all times." I'm very good at their first tip, multitasking.

So you thought this was a non-political post? Wrong because here we are looking into the national financial abyss without a parachute and the House is just coming back tonight. Well maybe not an abyss, as with the whole mess the 'fiscal cliff' is totally self inflicted drama. It would take months for all the spending cuts and taxes to take effect and in the end it's just not going to happen, take my word for it. But there are a couple things to notice.

The first is that if nothing happens tax rates will go up and than will be cut again for most people. But as the new year begins, if nothing happens, the Bush tax cuts cease to exist. When they take effect again they will be forever known as the Obama tax cuts.

The other thing to do is sit back and enjoy the beauty of a second term president. I may have mentioned before that a second term president is a totally different beast because he/she is never going to run in an election again. When President Obama made his fiscal cliff statement on Friday he threw down the gauntlet, actually he put a noose around the tea party's neck and dared them to jump. Come up with something he can support or allow a yes or no vote on his tax rates before we hit the curb. That leaves them very few options none of which are good for Republicans because either we play Thelma and Louise or they raise tax rates on the wealthy. Republicans get the blame for the first but no credit for the second. It's a beautiful thing.

Finally, Saturday morning at 12:25 AM Eastern Time the first same sex couple was married in the state of Maine. Next up the sate of Maryland on New Years Day. Congrats.

12/31 update - I wanted to add this yesterday and never got around to it. This week a bill legalizing gay marriage will be introduced in the Illinois State Senate. It is a rare thing for a sitting president to voice their opinion on state matters but on Saturday President Obama privately urged lawmakers in his home state to pass the bill. Also Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked major state CEOs to sign a letter which calls passing the marriage equality bill an economic imperative for the state. Among the signers so far are Google, Groupon, Morningstar founder Joe Mansueto, and PrivateBancorp Chairman Norman Bobins. This letter follows the release on Saturday of another letter signed by 250 state religious leaders supporting the bill which would make Illinois the tenth state to legalize same sex marriage.

Observations from the Road 12.27

I never did get back to my emotional response to guns but I still plan on doing it at some point. That doesn't mean it will ever happen, my head is full of posts I plan on getting back to but never do. This is more like a mid-week post Christmas edition of Sunday Observations which is going to seem more like an economics lesson.

I hope you had a good Christmas because it seems Congress has a very special New Years celebration planned this year.

And so I give you this fiscal cliff thing, something I'm totally tired of hearing about. Here is the fiscal cliff in a nutshell; Congress can't seem to do anything, with over 200 votes Congress passes a draconian law that automatically does its job for it, Congress figures it will have to do something before its own law takes effect. Now, and this is the surprising part, Congress can't force itself to do anything to stop what Congress itself has created. Is it any wonder said Congress has an approval rating slightly lower than the Communist Party's? I didn't know the Communist party still existed.

Meanwhile the government will once again hit the debt ceiling on New Years Eve, something else to add to the cliff. I agree with former President Bill Clinton on this one. President Obama should just raise the debt limit by executive order and let the republicans take him to court if they want to. As Clinton said why should Congress be allowed to vote on expenditures they already passed? It's like you went out and bought a Christmas present on credit and than when the bill came decided not to pay it. What makes this even crazier is that the government currently pays 1% interest on new loans so borrowing now to pay for projects is probably the best investment they can make. The Treasury department says they can put off the ceiling for a few months by using accounting methods, I think I'll try that when it's income tax time.

A quick note on White House petitions. Some people have been complaining that 'joke' petitions are taking away from serious politics in this country. It is beyond me how that is possible given the state of Congress but that's what they say. Anyway there are some serious petitions to look at. One would have the President "Legally recognize Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group." It was started by a member of the hacker group Anonymous after the WBC announced it was going to protest at the funerals of the Newtown shooting victims. As of now it has 263,000 signatures so will get an official response which should be interesting. You can read it here.

Also there was a good but sad article about the complete disconnect between those who fight our wars and the rest of the country in Christmas day's edition of The New York Times. The article, "With a Parent Off Again at War, a Holiday of Pride and Isolation," included this line; "No one really cares,” Tyisha Smith, a 19-year-old senior, said of the outside world."

I'm sure Congress will get to Afghanistan after it gets past its Thelma and Louise moment.

Finally, and once again, where have you gone NHL?

12/28 update - I just read a Reuters article about the Westboro petition and it said 475,000 people has signed it. I was thinking 200,000 more signatures can't be possible in one day so I checked it out. Seems there are three petitions; the main one has 287,000, another to investigate Westboro's tax exempt status has 69,500 signatures, and a third to revoke its tax exempt status and label it a hate group has 63,000 signatures.

Katie's 12 Days Of Christmas

So what could be so good I saved it till Christmas night? It's a bit of country music, yes I said country. I first saw this video maybe ten years ago when music TV still played music. It was on one country channel or the other and Sean and I left it on all day so we wouldn't miss this anytime it played and laugh as we sarcastically pointed some part of it out to our own family. I think every family has small part of this Christmas in them and can relate, I like to think they do anyway. Than again maybe it's best if they not.

Merry Christmas everybody, I hope it was a good one.

Robert Earl Keene's Merry Christmas from the Family

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Merry Christmas

Palace of St. Nicholas
In the Moon
Christmas Morning

My Dear Susie Clemens:

I have received and read all the letters which you and your little sister have written me by the hand of your mother and your nurses; I have also read those which you little people have written me with your own hands, for although you did not use any characters that are in grown peoples' alphabet, you used the characters that all children in all lands on earth and in the twinkling stars use; and as all my subjects in the moon are children and use no character but that, you will easily understand that I can read your and your baby sister's jagged and fantastic marks without any trouble at all. But I had trouble with those letters which you dictated through your mother and the nurses, for I am a foreigner and cannot read English writing well. You will find that I made no mistakes about the things which you and the baby ordered in your own letters, I went down your chimney at midnight when you were asleep and delivered them all myself--and kissed both of you, too, because you are good children, well trained, nice mannered, and about the most obedient little people I ever saw. But in the letter which you dictated there were some words which I could not make out for certain, and one or two small orders which I could not fill because we ran out of stock. Our last lot of kitchen furniture for dolls has just gone to a very poor little child in the North Star away up, in the cold country above the Big Dipper. Your mama can show you that star and you will say: "Little Snow Flake," (for that is the child's name) "I'm glad you got that furniture, for you need it more than I." That is, you must write that, with your own hand, and Snow Flake will write you an answer. If you only spoke it she wouldn't hear you. Make your letter light and thin, for the distance is great and the postage very heavy.

There was a word or two in your mama's letter which I couldn't be certain of. I took it to be "a trunk full of doll's clothes." Is that it? I will call at your kitchen door about nine o'clock this morning to inquire. But I must not see anybody and I must not speak to anybody but you. When the kitchen doorbell rings, George must be blindfolded and sent to open the door. Then he must go back to the dining room or the china closet and take the cook with him. You must tell George he must walk on tiptoe and not speak--otherwise he will die someday. Then you must go up to the nursery and stand on a chair or the nurse's bed and put your car to the speaking tube that leads down to the kitchen and when I whistle through it you must speak in the tube and say, "Welcome, Santa Claus!" Then I will ask whether it was a trunk you ordered or not. If you say it was, I shall ask you what color you want the trunk to be. Your mama will help you to name a nice color and then you must tell me every single thing in detail which you want the trunk to contain. Then when I say "Good-by and a merry Christmas to my little Susie Clemens," you must say "Good-by, good old Santa Claus, I thank you very much and please tell that little Snow Flake I will look at her star tonight and she must look down here, I will be right in the west bay window; and every fine night I will look at her star and say, 'I know somebody up there and like her, too.'" Then you must go down into the library and make George close all the doors that open into the main hall, and everybody must keep still for a little while. I will go to the moon and get those things and in a few minutes I will come down the chimney that belongs to the fireplace that is in the hall, if it is a trunk you want, because I couldn't get such a thing as a trunk down the nursery chimney, you know.

People may talk if they want, until they hear my footsteps in the hall. Then you tell them to keep quiet a little while till I go back up the chimney. Maybe you will not hear my footsteps at all, so you may go now and then and peep through the dining-room doors, and by and by you will see that thing which you want, right under the piano in the drawing room-for I shall put it there. If I should leave any snow in the hall, you must tell George to sweep it into the fireplace, for I haven't time to do such things. George must not use a broom, but a rag, else he will die someday. You must watch George and not let him run into danger. If my boot should leave a stain on the marble, George must not holystone it away. Leave it there always in memory of my visit; and whenever you look at it or show it to anybody you must let it remind you to be a good little girl. Whenever you are naughty and somebody points to that mark which your good old Santa Claus's boot made on the marble, what will you say, little sweetheart?

Good-by for a few minutes, till I come down to the world and ring the kitchen doorbell.

Your loving Santa Claus
Whom people sometimes call "The Man in the Moon"

(Mark Twain to his daughter, 1875)

Katie's 12 Days Of Christmas

Oh Tannenpalm


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Katie's 12 Days Of Christmas

A public service message from Lewis Black ....

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Katie's 12 Days Of Christmas

One of the most intriguing Christmas stories you will ever here is about the World War I 'Christmas Truce' of 1914. I know I'm showing more weirdness but yet I'm not. If you study art history you can't help but like history and it's something my grandfather first told me about years ago. It was only five months into the war and nobody yet understood industrialized or total war so a few leaders suggested a Christmas truce, the generals refused. On Christmas Eve some German soldiers began decorating their trenches with candles and trees and, generals be damned, the truce was born. The two sides sang carols together, exchanged gifts, and one group even played soccer in the no mans land between the trenches. The truce, mostly between German and British troops in Belgium, was never recognized by higher ups and the first official histories of the war ignored it completely. It never happened as far as they were concerned.

"O ye who read this truthful rime From Flanders, kneel and say:
God speed the time when every day
Shall be as Christmas Day."

From "A Carol from Flanders" by Frederick Niven

Snoopy vs. The Red Baron


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Katie's 12 Days Of Christmas

One for my mom ....

"The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart ....
White as the gleam of a receding sail,
White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,
White as the whitest lily on a stream,
These tender memories are; a fairy tale
Of some enchanted land we know not where,
But lovely as a landscape in a dream."

"Holidays" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Trans-Siberian Orchestra, "Christmas Canon"

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(Sorry, You might have to watch this on YouTube. Atlantic Records, in its infinite wisdom, allows you to have an embed code but doesn't always allow it to work.)