Weblog 250
November 28, 2010~ 12:00 am
The holiday of golden bird, roasted to succulent perfection is gone....... and it was delicious! Thanksgiving, one of the more 'toned down' holidays.. more of a kick back, eat and talk (unless you're the COOK, of course, and I am never that) is a pleasant island of coziness before the more manic mood of Christmas to come. Here's what greeted me as I stepped into daughter Holly's house on Thursday....
Bill and Kay! (Kay was so anxious to model her Indian headdress and vest she'd made in kindergarten, she was about bursting at the seams when I saw them last week.) It was well-worth the wait. Cute as buttons, those two. Here's another look at Kay (because I can never get enough of 'em.)
There's a thunderbird on her chest, and what looks to be a 5-year-old's bunny drawing. (Kay must have been longing for some of that Easter chocolate as well as poultry delights.) Holly and Gary outdid themselves in providing a tasty and juicy feast. Bill was quizzing me on a book he loaned me the week before, "Behind Enemy Lines". Alas, I hadn't even cracked it yet but he persisted, sidling up conspiratorially and asking, "What chapter are you on?" LOL!!! Oh Lord, the boy's war mania persists. Actually, I did start it last night, and it's pretty good!
Saturday evening Wayne and I stopped at the Family Video store to rent a film. (My '2 films a month' from Netflix were both used up) and we ended up getting 'Winter's Bone'......a striking film, and one which will remain with me for some time to come. The bleak poverty belt of the Ozark mountain people and their hardscrabble lives is searing. This story revolves around a 17 year old girl (the most STUNNING new face just packed with talent I've seen in some time)
trying her best to keep her small family together-- which consists of an emotionally crippled and non-functional mother, a 12 year old brother and a 6 year old sister. (The absent father is a crack-cocaine 'cooker' who's disappeared by skipping bond after being arrested; because of his disappearance, a bondsman comes to claim their property.)
I remember hearing the author of the book upon which this movie is based, being interviewed on public radio--- and just as the moonshining trade was part and parcel of mountain people at one time (and keeping one step ahead of the 'revenuers') today's very real, very scary reality is that those same mountain folk now cook methamphetamine to keep their heads above water and it's a very, very dangerous way to make a living.
Imagine the stark image of mountain shacks set way, way up in the hills and covered in mist, set there in a world apart.
There's only themselves..... and blood family to keep themselves alive. Home...blood.... loyalty, and a fierce, ingrown distrust of the 'outside' is the glue that keeps things going. The main character's father is suspected by his kin of giving information to the authorities to save his own hide so his people have turned on him- and by extension, his little family group. If the daughter can prove her father is 'dead'- the bondsman will not collect, and her ferocity in protecting her siblings and her addled mother is a wonder to behold.
This film has a rare quality of intimacy that creeps right into the viewer. All of its grit and its harsh realities become one's own, and the viewer is drawn right into a mountain setting-- feeling the wind whistle through cabin logs, the pangs of hunger a dull ache in the gut, and a wild desperation gnawing constantly. If you like films that dismiss all but the leanness of life in its extremes, you'll love this movie. It's stark and it's fierce. The acting and casting impeccable.
To leapfrog from misery to beauty here......lol......I wanted to share two photos sent to me by my boss, who snapped some images of her dwindling garden and its wonders. There something sooooooooo evocative in the look of these purple berries (or beauty berries) and they are!
Goodness, they're gorgeous! And how about this?
I don't know if this is a view down inside a pine bough-- or if it's the last vestiges of a flowering 'something or other', I just know I LOVE IT! I love that moody blue, that turquoisy... silence. (It's hard to describe, but it catches me in the 'Oh My!' place we all have.)
Some beauties are apparent and soft (like the grandkids, like the sharing of a bountiful meal, like flowers flaring their last hurrah) and some-- like the courage of that mountain girl in 'Winter's Bone' and in the breath-grabbing reality of worn, Ozark faces-- we are surrounded by it. It just takes eyes. And heart. Especially that.
November 29, 2010~ 5:30 pm
I've fallen in love with another artist.... my GOODNESS, he's a genius! Since I was a little girl, I've treasured blown glass figures. I used to have a black and white dalmation, a chick, a cat, and others... but my favorite was a tiny, red glass horse. (The pieces were only about an inch or so high and I was forever fretting about them getting broken....some did, and some were glued back together again with airplane glue.... but once that happened, their essential wholeness, their smooth 'all-of-a-pieceness' was gone forever.)
That's the charm of blown glass. It's its sleekness and its wholeness.
I have no idea what became of them over the years.
(I do know that my mother, who hasn't a sentimental bone in her body, may have thrown them out. LOL!!! "Dust collectors!" she would have announced, and out they'd go into the trash- just like all the school papers and memoriabilia I was dumb enough to leave behind when I got married: after six months, without a word.......everything was pitched. I wasn't fast enough) so I suppose the same fate may have befallen that small, wonderful collection.
That being said, look at THIS!
It's a SIREN from mythology done in Murano glass! Just one of MANY works you'll be treated to (too marvelous and intricate and IMPOSSIBLY detailed to even describe) by clicking here on the site of
Lucio Bubacco
You'll find groupings from biblical stories, mythology, carnival, orchestra.... on and on. (Prepare to spend at least a half-hour studying these stunning works of precision, grace--- and art at its finest.) What a talent!!! And I covet every one of them. Bravo, Mr. Bubacco! You are surely a treasure yourself!
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
The holiday of golden bird, roasted to succulent perfection is gone....... and it was delicious! Thanksgiving, one of the more 'toned down' holidays.. more of a kick back, eat and talk (unless you're the COOK, of course, and I am never that) is a pleasant island of coziness before the more manic mood of Christmas to come. Here's what greeted me as I stepped into daughter Holly's house on Thursday....
Bill and Kay! (Kay was so anxious to model her Indian headdress and vest she'd made in kindergarten, she was about bursting at the seams when I saw them last week.) It was well-worth the wait. Cute as buttons, those two. Here's another look at Kay (because I can never get enough of 'em.)
There's a thunderbird on her chest, and what looks to be a 5-year-old's bunny drawing. (Kay must have been longing for some of that Easter chocolate as well as poultry delights.) Holly and Gary outdid themselves in providing a tasty and juicy feast. Bill was quizzing me on a book he loaned me the week before, "Behind Enemy Lines". Alas, I hadn't even cracked it yet but he persisted, sidling up conspiratorially and asking, "What chapter are you on?" LOL!!! Oh Lord, the boy's war mania persists. Actually, I did start it last night, and it's pretty good!
Saturday evening Wayne and I stopped at the Family Video store to rent a film. (My '2 films a month' from Netflix were both used up) and we ended up getting 'Winter's Bone'......a striking film, and one which will remain with me for some time to come. The bleak poverty belt of the Ozark mountain people and their hardscrabble lives is searing. This story revolves around a 17 year old girl (the most STUNNING new face just packed with talent I've seen in some time)
trying her best to keep her small family together-- which consists of an emotionally crippled and non-functional mother, a 12 year old brother and a 6 year old sister. (The absent father is a crack-cocaine 'cooker' who's disappeared by skipping bond after being arrested; because of his disappearance, a bondsman comes to claim their property.)
I remember hearing the author of the book upon which this movie is based, being interviewed on public radio--- and just as the moonshining trade was part and parcel of mountain people at one time (and keeping one step ahead of the 'revenuers') today's very real, very scary reality is that those same mountain folk now cook methamphetamine to keep their heads above water and it's a very, very dangerous way to make a living.
Imagine the stark image of mountain shacks set way, way up in the hills and covered in mist, set there in a world apart.
There's only themselves..... and blood family to keep themselves alive. Home...blood.... loyalty, and a fierce, ingrown distrust of the 'outside' is the glue that keeps things going. The main character's father is suspected by his kin of giving information to the authorities to save his own hide so his people have turned on him- and by extension, his little family group. If the daughter can prove her father is 'dead'- the bondsman will not collect, and her ferocity in protecting her siblings and her addled mother is a wonder to behold.
This film has a rare quality of intimacy that creeps right into the viewer. All of its grit and its harsh realities become one's own, and the viewer is drawn right into a mountain setting-- feeling the wind whistle through cabin logs, the pangs of hunger a dull ache in the gut, and a wild desperation gnawing constantly. If you like films that dismiss all but the leanness of life in its extremes, you'll love this movie. It's stark and it's fierce. The acting and casting impeccable.
To leapfrog from misery to beauty here......lol......I wanted to share two photos sent to me by my boss, who snapped some images of her dwindling garden and its wonders. There something sooooooooo evocative in the look of these purple berries (or beauty berries) and they are!
Goodness, they're gorgeous! And how about this?
I don't know if this is a view down inside a pine bough-- or if it's the last vestiges of a flowering 'something or other', I just know I LOVE IT! I love that moody blue, that turquoisy... silence. (It's hard to describe, but it catches me in the 'Oh My!' place we all have.)
Some beauties are apparent and soft (like the grandkids, like the sharing of a bountiful meal, like flowers flaring their last hurrah) and some-- like the courage of that mountain girl in 'Winter's Bone' and in the breath-grabbing reality of worn, Ozark faces-- we are surrounded by it. It just takes eyes. And heart. Especially that.
November 29, 2010~ 5:30 pm
I've fallen in love with another artist.... my GOODNESS, he's a genius! Since I was a little girl, I've treasured blown glass figures. I used to have a black and white dalmation, a chick, a cat, and others... but my favorite was a tiny, red glass horse. (The pieces were only about an inch or so high and I was forever fretting about them getting broken....some did, and some were glued back together again with airplane glue.... but once that happened, their essential wholeness, their smooth 'all-of-a-pieceness' was gone forever.)
That's the charm of blown glass. It's its sleekness and its wholeness.
I have no idea what became of them over the years.
(I do know that my mother, who hasn't a sentimental bone in her body, may have thrown them out. LOL!!! "Dust collectors!" she would have announced, and out they'd go into the trash- just like all the school papers and memoriabilia I was dumb enough to leave behind when I got married: after six months, without a word.......everything was pitched. I wasn't fast enough) so I suppose the same fate may have befallen that small, wonderful collection.
That being said, look at THIS!
It's a SIREN from mythology done in Murano glass! Just one of MANY works you'll be treated to (too marvelous and intricate and IMPOSSIBLY detailed to even describe) by clicking here on the site of
You'll find groupings from biblical stories, mythology, carnival, orchestra.... on and on. (Prepare to spend at least a half-hour studying these stunning works of precision, grace--- and art at its finest.) What a talent!!! And I covet every one of them. Bravo, Mr. Bubacco! You are surely a treasure yourself!
(Return To Weekly Archives)
...
. or pay a visit to my Audio site to hear things
I've written- 
Some are just 'jotters', thoughts as they fly- going
nowhere but where they are. If you stop and read a few~ or post a
few~ thanks for
the perusal. Last of all, if you've a hankering for rants and raging,
try making a stop at my other blog- 
