It's Still the Jolly Silly Season....

The few days between Christmas and New Year are always something of a silly season. Nobody's sure exactly what they're supposed to be doing: predicting ? (I'm not getting into that can of worms); celebrating; trying to lose weight; preparing resolutions; drinking up what's left of the Christmas booze; grumbling about TV repeats; trawling end of year sales events; stocking up for extreme weather incidents; or just lollygagging around waiting, but for what, nobody's certain.

No astrology today, by the way.

I lollygagged through some of my husband's Flickr/Lost Gallery old photograph collections. A favourite of these is a collection he calls "Talking Pictures". He has written captions or brief storylines for each -
He says:

"How often have you looked at a picture and thought about what was being said or what was happening as the picture was taken. Sometimes the less you really know about a photograph, the more it speaks.

This then is a collection of photographs that spoke. Sometimes it is just a passing impression and other times it is an event with details and nuance".

Here are a few I especially enjoyed. None is serious - if you knew my husband (avid Monty Python fan) you'd expect no less.

It had been two days and five nights of continuous driving. Grandpa Baub and the Krinkley family finally arrived at the memorial to Randolph the Rude-Nosed Reindeer. They posed on the remote hilltop in Bono Wildlife Preserve and UFO Landing Field while one of the hitchhikers captured the event with a box camera. It was a solemn moment.......Then young Bristol dropped the skunk.

Hi Ma! Who's the dude?
Mom forgot to tell junior about her plans for the day.

Hermione gathered everyone in the drawing room. Bela gasped when she saw the box camera.
The photographer fainted.
“Just as I suspected,” Hermione thought.

They followed us home Ma. Can we keep 'em?

After ninety-six minutes Cynthia decided to turn on the television. Now, she thought, next is the prom dress. What color?
The world turned.

Even though Leona kept flags in her hair, the Marines still wouldn’t take her.

The Martin Springs Basket Ball Champs and the water boy.
They all suspected Faye wasn't one of the guys. There was only one shower so no one ever mentioned it. It was her car too.
This is the '26 basketball team picture and the '26 class picture.

Hello, Microsoft Help Line. May I please to be helping you, this fine morning or afternoon as your case may to be?

The boys didn’t quite grasp the concept of having their photograph taken. Besides, Aunt Marge had tripped and rolled down the hill. Now they knew the answer. It was neither bloomers nor pantaloons. It was plus-fours!

The girls were happily singing their chanting song over and over. Michael, thoroughly sick of it, rowed the boat ashore and stomped off to the nearest pub where he ordered a pint, a half dozen pickled eggs and three prunes. Or maybe it was three pints, half dozen…oh never mind.

The girls of the “Mickey-Girls” club had been celebrating their 45th consecutive dateless weekend. The meeting was held in a hired row boat from the Hammer, Tackle and Boat Rental of Piedmont Beach, Montana.

Startled and puzzled by Michael’s abrupt behavior, the girls voted they would never hire him to row their boat again.

Velda suggested they all go into the pub and get out of the sun. Charlotte and Heidi objected to that because there appeared to be some crawling things in the sand around the boat. Myra said Cleo ate one of them. Cleo denied it but you know she would.

Juno was just glad they didn’t have to swim ashore. Her secret would be safe for another chapter meeting at least.

All credit for photos and captions goes to my husband, "anyjazz": Lost Gallery and Flickr.....many more Talking Pictures there, and many more old photographs in numerous categories - see Lost Gallery Index Page.

WINTER

Can't kid myself it's Fall any longer - it's December and Winter is upon us! No snow yet in this part of Oklahoma, but some very cold days and freezing nights. I decided to trawl once more through my husband's collection of "found photographs" at Lost Gallery to find some pics of winters long past. People were not quite as keen to be amateur photographers when it was cold outside, snow on the ground, but I found a few examples.


Snow for the young, or young at heart, has always meant - snowballs. Throw 'em, eat e'm, or just stand in the cold for a class photograph waiting for a chance to do either.

I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.
~ Dylan Thomas. From a Child's Christmas in Wales.

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? ~J.B. Priestley

Geting around in the snow ~ by plane, automobile or with help from a trusty four-legged friend ~~

These 'messengers' will not be hindered from accomplishing at their best speed the distance which they have to go, either by snow, or rain, or heat, or by the darkness of night. ~ Herodatus

A snowflake is one of God's most fragile creations, but look what they can do when they stick together!
~Author Unknown

There's one good thing about snow, it makes your lawn look as nice as your neighbor's. ~ Clyde Moore

Winter fashion ~~~

There's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.
~Alfred Wainwright

His fashion?

A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.
~Carl Reiner

Time for the weather report. It's cold out folks. Bonecrushing cold. The kind of cold which will wrench the spirit out of a young man, or forge it into steel.
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Lost and Found, 1992

Cat: "Snow? Not interested."

(There's an archived post along these lines with some summery photographs - see here .)

Family Astrology ~ Family Portraits

As seen in Friday's post on the Vernet family of artists, astrology via the natal chart, as well as heredity via DNA, can be seen to have connection.
ISAR, International Society for Astrological research some time ago began a project to investigate this:

"We are convinced that astrological heredity research is a
promising field. Some results have already been found, and
a great deal of good quality research material, i.e. family
birth data, is simply waiting to be exploited to reveal its
secrets. "

There's a pdf file on some preliminary work HERE.

Michel Gauquelin wrote about family astrology in his books Planetary Heredity and Cosmic Influences on Human Behavior.

From introduction to Planetary Heredity:

"Over one hundred years ago, Gregor Mendel discovered the fundamental laws of genetic heredity. His work was too revolutionary for the authorities of that time to accept. But, today, Nobel prizes are numerous in the science of genetics. Michael Gauquelin may have made a discovery of the same nature. Through extremely hard work (gathering the birth data of more than 100,000 deliveries) he has demonstrated that we were born under similar cosmic conditions as prevailed at the birth of our parents. Thus, he is the founder of a new genetic science. Mendel, an obscure monk working with plants, discovered patterns of human heredity. Gauquelin graphs a relationship between human heredity & the stars.... "

From a review of Cosmic Influences on Human Behavior

Chapter 14. Cosmic Genetics shows that statistically children have more chances to have the Moon, Venus, Saturn, Mars or Jupiter on angles if their parents had them. It is an argument which sustain astrological heredity which is more complex and can be observed easily manifesting in other ways like: planets in the same signs, the same planetary aspects etc.

Speaking of families - and just because I can, I'm borrowing some vintage photographs of families, identities and astrology unknown, from my husband's collection at Lost Gallery and Flickr

If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.
Thich Nhat Hanh quotes (Vietnamese Monk, Activist and Writer. born 1926)

The family is one of nature's masterpieces.
George Santayana

Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life! ~Albert Einstein

The Only child?

In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.
Alex Haley

Proud Relatives of Sons "called to arms"?

A family is a unit composed not only of children but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold. ~Ogden Nash

"The occasional animal" (+ my husband's caption)

Oh. I was just looking for my um...ball. Yeah, that's it. Pork chop? No. No, I haven't seen any pork chop.

Too Darn Hot ~ Summers Now - and Then

Time for another mild whingeing session about the weather here in S.W. Oklahoma. There's still no let up in triple digit heat, no sign of rain, nor does the weather forecast offer any hope of improvement.




I consulted astrology blog The Weather Alternative, but again, unless something major blows into the Gulf of Mexico and drums up the father of all storms from which we might get at least the dregs: a downpour or two, it seems we're stuck with the intense heat, and the drought, until September - maybe even later than that for precipitation.


A local newspaper reports that the last ten months are the driest since at least 1921, when records begin for this state. The last two months are likely to rank as the hottest June/July period in the state's recorded history. Since the first day of June this year we've seen only 2 days with temperatures less than 100 (97 and 98 degrees in fact) - and no rain. It doesn't cool down much beyond mid-80s all night long. The cold tap/faucet brings forth lukewarm water, denying me a necessary first-thing cold water wake-up splash. So I tend to wander around like (as my Mum would have said) a clock half-struck.



While such heat isn't unknown here on the fringe of the great south-western desert, for it to continue unbroken for as long, with no rain at all is not normal.

Is this a sign of permanent climate change? We can't really be certain until several summers of a similar pattern have passed. Summer of 2011 could be a flash in the pan, or it could, just as easily, be the tip of....can't say an iceberg.....the tip of the lowest flame in the fireplace.

The BBC has a video and article touching on the problem, with details that I find quite shocking. "In Steinbeck's footsteps: America's middle-class underclass" by Paul Mason. A 15 minute video and transcript are available at the link.


On a brighter note - an old "found" photograph from my husband's vast collection at Lost Gallery. The feeling from this one is just - well - happy! One summer day, somewhere in the USA, sometime in the early 1900s a group of young women were enjoying the summer weather.



A couple more caught my eye - these from beaches, somewhere...sometime, maybe around the 1920s or 30s:





Rivers - a good alternative. How's that for a poseur?




When beaches or rivers were out of the question there was always The Picnic: