Fun Shoes...and Ultrarunning

The bride had bought some sandals back in the early part of the summer, and just loved them.  In what may be one of the last warm days we'll have here in southern PA this fall, she wore them again the other day and exclaimed, "These shoes are really fun!"

Now, I can say that I have never made such a comment about of any of my footwear, but I get the idea.

So I asked her, "So when you die, I should bury you in these shoes?  Since they're so fun and all."

She pondered a moment and said seriously, "I'll have to think about that.  Since I'd be wearing them forever, they'd have to go with just about everything."

I just shook my head.  My oldest, most beat-up trail shoes would just work fine for my eternity.

Ghost Gourds and Trail Work

Image credit Gary

Ysetertday was a good day.  A very good day.

I painted these small homegrown birdhouse gourds for a loved one to use as Halloween decorations for a "Haunted Hospital" function at her vet's office.  Coffee cup included for scale, besides the fact that coffee is everything.

The bulk of the day was spent doing some trail work along the Tuscarora Trail north of here.  This was with a crew of 3 long distance hikers who were at Shippensburg University for a hikers' annual gathering with the group ALDHA (Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association). 

The gathering being over, these guys remained to donate a day of trail work. We weedwhacked and cleared blowdown trees from 2.5 miles of the trail, which has been kinda neglected for a couple of years as there is no volunteer overseer for that stretch.

Sunny blue skies, common purpose, stunning autumn foliage along a Pennsylvania ridgetop....doesn't get much better than that!

Which brings me to the topic of nicknames.  The ALDHA hikers I worked with--whose work was greatly appreciated--were trail named Canada Goose, Cool Breeze, and Spirit Hawk.

As we sat around at a picnic table at a convenience store on the way home, enjoying a cold soda, the hikers addressed each other using trail names.  Like "Hey, Canada Goose, how long will it take you to drive back to Quebec?"

Though we had just shared blood, sweat and tears along the trail (literally!), I just could not bring myself to use trail names in conversation; it just seemed too strange.  Of course, as I have previously blogged, I have a strong aversion to nicknames.  You may want to go read that post, here.

Cats in Art: Caprichos Plate 60: Experiments (de Goya y Lucientes)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I am using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi. 

Image credit francisodegoya website, Caprichos Plate 60: Experiments, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, aquatint and etching; size and holder not specified.

I covered a famous image by Francisco de Goya Lucientes for Cats in Art last week, here, which was a traditional oil painting of the time.  For this week I tried scrolling through one of the sites that purport to contain his complete works, looking, of course, for cats.  Part of the way through I came across this unusual pen and ink drawing, or etching, that is part of a larger series of such etchings that de Goya y Lucientes called Los Caprichos.

This strange etching could not be any more different from last week's oil painting.  You have a naked woman who seems to be enjoying herself as she apparently inflicts pain upon some unfortunate guy, a huge demonic goat, a skull, and a couple small animals in the front...one of which is a demonic-looking kitty right there in the front left foreground.  

The cat--despite its small size--looks like it's the hired muscle keeping guard over the proceedings behind.

Seems that there's a story about the Los Caprichos series of etchings:

Los Caprichos are a set of 80 prints in aquatint and etching created by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya in 1797 and 1798, and published as an album in 1799. The prints were an artistic experiment: a medium for Goya's condemnation of the universal follies and foolishness in the Spanish society in which he lived. 

The criticisms are far-ranging and acidic; he speaks against the predominance of superstition, the ignorance and inabilities of the various members of the ruling class, pedagogical short-comings, marital mistakes and the decline of rationality. Some of the prints have anticlerical themes. Goya described the series as depicting "the innumerable foibles and follies to be found in any civilized society, and from the common prejudices and deceitful practices which custom, ignorance or self-interest have made usual".

The work was an enlightened, tour-de-force critique of 18th-century Spain, and humanity in general. The informal style, as well as the depiction of contemporary society found in Caprichos, makes them (and Goya himself) a precursor to the modernist movement almost a century later. The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters in particular has attained an iconic status. 

[Gary's Note: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters will be right here in this very space next Sunday...betcha can't wait!]

The other thing that's cool about de Goya y Lucientes' works as I scrolled through them was his imaginative titles, such as The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.  The paintings I typically feature here in Cats and Art, and in the art world in general, have always, to me, had very measured and conservative titles.

Next week I'll include a list of some more of his zinger titles, along with links to the works so you can see the subject matter.  Here's just one example (unfortunately, sans kitties): Here Comes the Bogey-Man.  I just gotta like the bizarre way this guy thought.

Cemetery Sighting

There's a word for people who, well, love cemeteries: taphophilia.  

While that's not exactly me, I do find burial places interesting, even fascinating, and explore them whenever I can.  I always see something novel or puzzling, and come away wondering all those W words: who, what, when, where, and most importantly, why.

This is my latest find:

Image credit Gary, from cemetery beside the Butcher Shoppe on Stouffer Avenue, Chambersburg, PA (may be called Stoufferstown Cemetery)

Bronze military flag holders are probably familiar to most folks, especially those of WWII vets and the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) ones honoring the graves of Union vets of the Civil War.

But this is the first I've ever seen of Spanish-American War vets. Note the "CUBA" at the top.  I need to return to take some more photos: the day I snapped this was blindingly bright and sunny, and I had an impatient little one in tow.  Plus, although this grave is literally right beside the street, it's tucked into in a blind fenced corner with limited access.  Thus I cannot even tell you who is buried here--I just focused on the bronze Spanish-American War veterans' marker.

If you want to read a bit more to catch the flavor of this interest, I encountered an couple of blogs you might want to check outs:

A Strange Case of Taphophilia
The Strange Hobby of Graving

As an aside, from the second link above I note how aficionados of this "hobby" seemingly refer to themselves as "gravers."  I get it--when I was in my teens and 20s I was an avid caver and it always drove me absolutely nuts when people would use the word "spelunker."

People who cave (yes, that's a real verb) never use the word spelunker.  NEVER.  Guess a similar process holds true for taphophiles.

What a Vile Human Being: Ms. Fiorina Endorses Torture

Evidently Carly is just fine with torture.  Link is here.

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has endorsed waterboarding, the controversial interrogation method that has been called torture, as an important tactic that was used only “when there was no other way to get information that was necessary”.

In an interview with Yahoo News, Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO who surged in recent polls of Republican primary voters, said: “I believe that all of the evidence is very clear – that waterboarding was used in a very small handful of cases [and] was supervised by medical personnel in every one of those cases.”

The 2014 Senate report that called waterboarding – in which water is poured over a cloth on a prisoner’s face in order to simulate the feeling of drowning – tantamount to torture and said it produced little useful intelligence. Fiorina called the report “disingenuous” and “a shame” that “undermined the morale of a whole lot of people who dedicated their lives to keeping the country safe”.

Naureen Shah of Amnesty International told Yahoo of Fiorina’s comments: “This is completely rewriting the history of what happened.”

Yet...everything can still be a bit nuanced.  I'm sticking to the title of this piece, "What a Vile Human Being," although a dear friend and I had a large difference of opinion over this one last night at dinner.

He, a former military officer, recalled that during his SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) training, he  and his fellow recruits were briefly waterboarded to demo the technique and familiarize them to it.  His opinion: while unpleasant, it surely wasn't torture.

Plus the fact that he was in the Pentagon fourteen years ago when American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into it.  I can see how that experience might make someone hold the opinions he does.

Bumper Crop of Walnuts

This year, the single Black Walnut tree I have in my old remnant of a farmer's woodlot has gone off the charts in its seed production.

[image credit Gary]

I've gathered a half wheelbarrow with the prospects for another.  Plus Mister Tristan (the 7 year old human being, not the blog), has gathered about a half 5-gal bucket's worth.  I hired him at 10 cents per walnut, but he kinda lost focus and motivation after about 50 or so.

He'll be here again in a couple days to renew the effort.  Oh, and the local squirrels benefit from the pile I will leave them.  They in turn will carry many of the walnuts back into my yard, following their instincts to bury them in the grass, flower beds, and any planters I don't bring in for the winter.  Any walnuts they don't recover for food later will eventually sprout, yielding a robust crop of walnut seedlings next spring.

The walnuts have to be gathered up, otherwise the lawnmower whacks them and sprays juicy green and black pieces all over (they stain, big time!).  Plus walking barefoot on walnuts is not too much fun.

Note that I have a similar acorn "problem" elsewhere on the estate with my treasured White Oak--this year its acorn production is also off the charts.  It's like trying to walk on marbles.

Cats in Art: Portrait of Don Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuniga (de Goya Lucientes)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I am using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.  

Image credit Metropolitan Museum of Art, Portrait of Don Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuniga, Francisco Goya Y Lucientes, 1788, oil on canvas, 50" x 40", held by Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Zuffi's comments:

The cat in the left--a female, judging by the three colored coat--has eyes that glitter with yearning.  The tabby on the right is more muted, while the black one in the background is almost invisible, except for the two yellow "lamps" focused on its prey.  It is difficult to arrive at a definitive interpretation of Goya;s famous painting, which is thick with symbolic and even Christological hints.  What is certain is that in the artist's incisive work, dense with meaning, the cat always has negative connotations, linked to evil and the demonic.

I personally think Zuffi has dropped the ball on this one.  While I almost always find his analysis to be spot on, in this case, it's like he has just phoned it in, saying, "The cat is evil, as usual."  And I find the magpie's trust to be fascinating--I mean, there are three kitties right over there, and the bird seems totally unconcerned.  Maybe the takeaway is that trust can be found in some strange, unexpected places.

I also found the museum's website to contain some interesting information.  First off, their quick analysis:

The sitter is the son of the Count and Countess of Altamira. Outfitted in a splendid red costume, he is shown playing with a pet magpie (which holds the painter's calling card in its beak), a cage full of finches, and three wide-eyed cats. In Christian art birds frequently symbolize the soul, and in Baroque art caged birds are symbolic of innocence. Goya may have intended this portrait as an illustration of the frail boundaries that separate the child's world from the forces of evil or as a commentary on the fleeting nature of innocence and youth.

But what I really found interesting was the fact that this image is currently not on display. Not on display? WTF???

They must have plenty of art in their vaults to have the luxury of keeping this one under wraps.  One can only hope that they trot it out real soon.

The Latest Shooting

The bride and I have been aways this week, and I was totally unable to work my iPad to do some posts from the road.  Thus Mister Tristan (the blog, not the 7 year old human being) has been dark for the better part of a week.

I found some commentary on the campus shooting in Oregon that I will share, as these snippets capture pretty well my thoughts:

From Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo:

I'm embarrassed to say I get more numb to these shooting tragedies and I think it is because at this point we know with a moral certainty that absolutely nothing will be done to keep guns out of the hands of the rageful, narcissistic, delusional or psychopathic individuals who commit these atrocities. 

As a society, we've made our choice. 

I send my prayers and best wishes to the victims and their loved ones.

From Shakespeare's Sister:

I am already dreading the inevitable "this is not the time for politics" silencing of anyone who quite understandably argues in the wake of another school shooting for stricter gun laws. I am already dreading the inevitable othering of the shooter, trying to cast him as crazy and existing in some kind of vacuum outside the rest of the culture. I am already dreading politicians offering their prayers, instead of any meaningful legislation to prevent more school shootings, which have become so routine they hardly have the capacity to shock any of us anymore, even if we are angered and saddened beyond words.

From Digby's Hullabaloo:

It’s hurricane season and all along the east coast residents are girding themselves for major weather. Every once in a while a major storm makes landfall and property is destroyed and lives are lost. One hopes that doesn’t happen this year. But natural disasters are a fact of life people just learn to live with. Tornadoes, earthquakes and tsunamis, major floods and fires are considered to be acts of God and while we try to mitigate the damage everyone knows that we cannot stop them.  It’s just the way it is.

In America, gun violence is just another natural disaster. Like an earthquake for which you can never really be prepared, most people have come to see a mass killing like that which happened in Oregon yesterday as being unpreventable. We might as well try to stop the sun from coming up in the morning. All we can do is try to comfort the survivors and help people cope with the aftermath. On any given day we could personally be the victims of gun violence or turn on our TVs and computers and witness some kind of mass shooting, horrifying domestic dispute that ends in carnage, accidents or criminal activity. And that’s normal.

To the rest of the world, this is simply insane. Elsewhere they treat gun violence like a public health threat and limit the public’s exposure to it through strict gun regulation. Different cultures have slightly different approaches but there is no other developed country in the world that treats gun violence as if it were a simple fact of life they must live with.